Hormalakh

TY. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62972-buffing-your-party/

Buffing your party: what's awesome about it? What's not? Go! I'll start. I don't really like having to spend 10 minutes buffing my party. It takes away from the action. There's gotta be other ways ot making buffs "tactical."

Or Fuldir's Gate: Shadows of Bahmn. Such tripe

I'm trying to keep away from using specific examples in this thread guys, because ultimately "buffing" was only an example used to discuss high-level design. Please try to stay o/t.

Apparently the Priest class is more the "paladin" of old, and the paladin is more "Warlord." Just thought you guys should know. Stamina healing can be done by several different classes now. Priests, Paladins, Barbarians, etc.

Or that building your single player game around the top .1 percent of players, is probably not a good idea. Having a mode for that kind of group is all well and good, but making it difficult, or impossible, for majority of players to be able to get passed specific segments without brute forcing, or out right cheating is not. ... What I'm trying to say is that the Developer shouldn't build the game around what he considers the most twinked out party there is, but around the fact that every player will have a different approach to the combat. It won't always be easier going one way or an other, but it should always be possible. There should be no sun laser I have to make to get passed any single part. Actually I'm sort of saying the opposite. I'm saying build your game around the 0.1% but give the 99.9% of other players an opportunity either in the manual or in the game to learn the basic concepts of the game. For those who don't read the manual, then seriously, that's their fault. This game is meant to be for people who want to read: it has dialogue that you need to read! If the game is built around a twinked out party with a specific sequence to be followed, give those players who don't realize that (and you will see this in game-testing) some sort of resource to realize it. Give them the first steps toward the path you think would work. Obviously, some players will find their own way. Others will build upon the beginning steps and learn. I'm afraid that a lot of what I'm saying here can be misconstrued as "let's dumb down the game for 'poorer' players" but that's not my intent at all. My intent is to have games made for experts, but to give the non-experts resources manual/in-game to become experts. Josh Sawyer wrote on the SA forums a while back, But what to do? I mean Sawyer says its not beneficial to him or the player. But what if his design of the game around that player, breaks it for all his other players? I've been thinking about this from last night and how not utilizing the manual really should be grounds for "don't give a poo poo." At the end of the day, it didn't really affect me: I was able to figure out most of the rest of the stuff myself (minus a few things). But playing PnP did make BG2 a richer experience (there are actually things called Drow and people play this stuff in RL!? I wonder if all that stuff Haer D'alis was saying could actually make sense? What's this "Planescape?" OMG) I think that players who do have a half-decent manual have a lot going for them, and those who don't use it, are ultimately losing out not because the developers did anything wrong. If they don't RTM, then that's their fault. Devs shouldn't design for them. But if certain concepts and topics don't make sense to a majority of your players (those that actually RTM) then there is something wrong with the way you wrote it. You figure out what doesn't make sense by play-testing and noticing where people are tripping up. Either we let the newer players in on a few secrets, and still watch them struggle, or we leave them out there alone and rage-quitting. I'm not saying make the game easy or simple; just keep in mind not everyone is an expert. Well-written manuals are only one step towards informing your players. Yep, basically. People fall into mindsets from the previous games they've played. Ultimately, I see a good video game like a good book. It should challenge my mind and engage me. I'm not looking for a trashy romance novel, I'm looking for the next classical masterpiece. @Wirdjos I've been there man. It happens

@coffeetable The game design philosophy of Josh Sawyer, yes.

This is why I'm glad I'm not a developer, let alone one as highly regarded as Obsidian. They've got a bunch of hurdles to cross and gamers demand the best.

I mean "degenerate playing" as described by devs when I say "crutches." These are "degenerate" game-play not because we the players are degenerate people. It's because we utilize them as tactics to get us through the difficult portions of the game. It wasn't meant to be an insult. @Zenning: I watched that episode too and while it informed my observation here, I feel that not everything applies to RPGs. But yes that video and another one : http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3D8FpigqfcvlM were pretty influential. Yet both of these games are fairly "simple" in their mechanics and concepts. There isn't much to "teach". RPGs have a bunch of stuff they need to "teach."

I do think that good "tutorials" are ****ing hard to make. "Puzzle" tutorials and many other mechicanically simple games are much easier to write tutorials for. But how do you do one for a game as complex as an RPG? How do you explain things to people without them falling asleep halfway through your explanation and at the same time not pissing off the expert players? @Nerdboner Most people, I'm sure would have figured it out. Some don't or some utilize crutches as I mentioned. @Valsuelm As for the manual, I will have to agree. I did read the BG2 manual, but honestly, somethings cannot be detailed in a written work: people can and do misintrepret written works all the time. As it stands though, most manuals do not convey game concepts well in any case. In BG2's case, it never explained the XdY concept very well to me. I was young at the time and I wasn't sure if 1d8 was better or 2d4. I thought for a long time that 1d8 meant 1-8 and 2d4 meant 2-4.

Well, if you can't effectively verbalize what exactly you agree with, how can you expect people to put stock in what you are saying? I can verbalize what I agree with, but I don't feel like answering your long posts right now, honestly. Maybe later I'll sit and look at what you said. I just wrote a long post in a new thread and that honestly took a lot out of me. I need to get off the forums for a while. That's the main reason

I don't have an issue, I was trying to clarify the points that I believe Josh was making. I was also responding to AwesomeOcelot. You should read more about what Josh thinks about attributes. I can't be bothered to look for them now. Check out Something Awesome forums too. He further expands on it. I think he makes valid points. @AOcelot I don't think it relates to all skills. It could relate to all skills, but usually it doesn't. In Fallout 1, having small guns skills doesn't mean you don't need strength or agility or anything else. Usually this occurs with Charisma, because charisma and speech are somehow connected. Usually charisma have two uses: dialogue and how many party members you can have. Otherwise, it's a worthless stat to have. Sure you can play a "role-playing character" with high charisma, but usually most people consider those "gimmicky characters." Or you have classes forced to have high charisma (paladins) which also need strength endurance and everything else. They are fighting an uphill battle where every stat matters, while a wizard can do with a dump Charisma.

There is one way I see the charisma and speech skill working and it utilizes both attributes and skills. This kind of goes along the lines of what you're saying rjshae, so... There was an idea a while back about "rude Charisma" and "non-rude Charisma" dialogue. Basically, the skill check might allow you to "by-pass" a dialogue puzzle, but the outcome is also dependent on your Charisma. An example would be that you convince the sheriff to let you out of prison and this is done with a speech skill check. But then, because your charisma is low, the sheriff thinks you're a lousy guy and lets you go because you convinced him (like a lawyer would). but that doesn't mean that the sheriff would be nice with you going forward. Instead imagine a character with high charisma and a high speech skill. This player is also able to pass the skill check, but because you played it like you and the sheriff are buddies, the sheriff doesn't hate you (you act all buddy-buddy with the cop). There are other skill-checks you could use, like the lockpick when the sheriff isn't there, bend the bars, etc. But this speech skill method still makes Charisma an important attribute to have, while still utilizing skill checks.

I didn't like Minsc before it was cool.

I have been reading a lot of Josh Sawyer’s thoughts on high-level game design and while I agree with a lot of the things he says, I wanted to express my thoughts as a gamer about an observation that he’s made about gamers and would like feedback from other gamers regarding their own experiences. This was sparked by Josh’s comments about conversation [tags] and a post which I found on another forum (see the spoiler). So, quite obviously, I’m not a game developer, but I can draw from my own experiences playing these games and maybe help Josh and other developers see our perspective on these games. This is big wall of text, so I've put my examples (usually D&D) and anecdotes in spoiler tags and kept the important bits. In my experience, I think that most players are not “great at games,” not because they aren’t observant or paying attention, but that the games they play makes assumptions about them that are incorrect. There are let’s say, three kinds of players. I’ve been in each category: Those that learned the D&D rules through PnP sessions and by playing with different DMs. These players see interesting tactics from fellow players/DMs and model them with constant feedback. These players got the most enjoyment from the PC game because they have a deeper understanding of game mechanics and tactics taught to them through the PnP game. The computer player who learns by playing in a non-DMed PC single-player game and either reads strategy books or utilizes other people’s knowledge of D&D concepts as a source of feedback. The computer player who learns by playing in the PC game without any feedback except from the game. They often are the ones to utilize “game crutches” or general gaming knowledge to get them past difficult scenarios. I define game crutches as those methods that are not intended by the developers to be used as legitimate tactics when playing the game (save scumming, rest spamming, re-spec). Unless they have first experienced the game in a teaching setting (done in a P&P setting with the DM, for example) – that teaches them the concepts like buffing, the utility of certain spells, etc – many continue to rely on game crutches until they no longer work. Games, especially tactically-oriented ones, need to teach their players the initial mechanical concepts and ideas behind the game both in the manual and/or to re-emphasize those concepts while they play the game without making assumptions about their knowledge. Now, there is no reason to beat your players over the head with these “tutorials.” In fact they shouldn’t even seem like tutorials. This idea of a “conceptual tutorial” should be done early and as new concepts are introduced, throughout the game. An example, let players know (somehow) early in the game that conversation tags don’t exist and that they will not always know immediately all dialogue options. Let them know some of them are hidden. “Meta-game” this information in-game. This doesn’t mean make your tutorials easy or obvious. Convey the concepts intuitively. Nor do you have to expound on every iterative concept and its corollary. Finally challenge players with these concepts. Once initial concepts have been set in place, build upon those concepts. So, this is my own experiences and thoughts on the matter. As an individual these are obviously anecdotal and count only for an n=1, but I believe many players fall into the same hurdles, and developers rarely realize this. This isn't because they aren't gamers: it's because they are gamers with lots of experience in their field that it occurs. Once you start making assumptions, you find it difficult to realize why people aren't getting it. In fact, I've noticed myself doing the same thing with other forum members when talking about tactics. I just don't get how they don't "see" the tactics involved.

I was talking about the speech skill, specifically, and the charisma attribute, specifically. I do not think Sawyer was talking about skills "in priniciple." Also remember that role-playing only for role-playing's sake is not the approach that many players take in computer games. And I don't think that they're wrong.

The point is that as a skill, speech basically makes Charisma unimportant. Yes, there are ways of making it important, but Charisma and other MAIN ATTRIBUTES lose significance as certain skills encroach on the territory of these attributes. This is why we have min/max characters.

Your dedication to Project Eternity is both humbling and inspiring, Prosper.

Fallout. It wasn't a tradition. But it should be one. The people who know the game best should name the game. All we know right now is that there are souls, eternity, D&D style mechanics, RPG in the game. We know practically next to nothing about this game. Maybe something that hasn't been mentioned plays a bigger role than we think in this game. Why aren't there any names that take "soul" into account - we already know that, it's a big deal. Probably bigger than Eternity. @Dawn_: I get the feeling that a lot of people are making "joke" names because they really don't think that they could come up with a good name, probably for some of the reasons that I've mentioned. Or maybe they're trying to troll - who knows.

oic - I was thinking along the lines of Fallout humor.

I honestly would rather the people in-house who have completed the game come up with a name that makes sense. I don't think specific names should be suggested, but rather what sorts of ideas the name should imply. Kind of what you (and some other people) are doing, Osvir, with your last few posts.

^^It doesn't take away from the fact that the artist did an amazing job in making players completely write him off as being "boring." That's what I find so beautiful about it.

@Sophos Yuck. Two maybe three, but eight? That's just ridiculous. @Osvir Even five is too high. We can have more "types" in different parts of the P:E world, but in a place like Eir Glanfath there shouldn't be 5 types of the same animal...