Hormalakh

I see the Tony Evans posting is back. sniff...poor Tony.

The only point I disagree with is the last one. You should be able to either click the chest and click "pick lock," or hit L and click the chest. That, while being slightly redundant, allows you to either click only once (on the chest) or click twice (once on the chest, the second time on the "pick lock" skill). I want to USE my keyboard, not just the mouse. This is a computer game after all, I don't need to be limited by only two buttons on my mouse.

A great game is that which makes issuing commands to your protagonist as if you were the protagonist yourself by utilizing an intuitive control interface. You are thinking about what you want your character to do, not what mouse buttons/keyboard keys to push to make that happen.

Please explain why you think so. If we have quickslot locations, why would it be evil to utilize those during combat? The point of utilizing hotkeys is to allow you to immediately tell the game what you wish for your player to do. Mouse clicks just make this take longer. If battles can pause during game, and you're allowed to drink as many potions as you want, then it shouldn't matter. But if your problem is that you shouldn't be able to drink as many potions as you want when the game is paused, then the mechanic should be in place for that; hotkeys shouldn't make a difference.

Some more thoughts when considering keyboard inputs: Keyboards are important. Please use them. Keyboards should work as redundant inputs for mouse-clicks. For example, instead of clicking on a party member, you should be able to hit a key that does the same thing. Make combat controls that are used frequently (or with cooldowns) utilize a single hotkey to activate. Look at SC/2, AOE, WCIII, etc for inspiration. Make class specific commands also use one (or maximum two) keys. Do not make players have to go through several clicks to utilize a command. The more a certain action is meant to be used, the faster I should be able to activate that action. Thus, this should have as little clicks or keys as possible. Attack move? Hit A. Pickpocket? P. Pick locks? L. The mouse clicks should also be similar. The GUI should have these skills on the main screen so that I do not traverse several screens to utilize them. Menu screens should be hot-keyable. F10 for main menu. F#s should be used. Flipping through “pages” should have a consistent key to do this. Page up,down, etc. Tab button giving a quick-look health, mana, stamina look. BG2 did this I believe. Space for autopuase is fine. When in different screens, you should be able to use the same hotkeys to do a different action. If in dialogue, allow us to use keys to choose dialogue options instead of having to click.

I wanted to resurrect this thread and ask if the moderators can move this thread to the engine and technology forum? I have a few thoughts about this and I don't want to make another thread in that forum. User controls When I look at other Real-Time Strategy games like Age of Empires, Starcraft, Warcraft, and other similar titles, I notice that they spend a good amount of time working on the user interface, and utilize both the mouse and the keyboard as input controls. However RPGs rarely do this and I think that this is a shame. In a lot of the cRPGs that I've played in the past, the mouse always seems to be the main player input used to make player choices and even then, players sometimes have to traverse several mouse clicks before arriving at the skill they wish to use. You have to click on the party member, click through a series of options, click on a part of the map, to finally perform a certain action. Keyboards however, are usually given little thought, and implementing thoughtful keyboard function seems like a last-minute rush before the end of the development cycle. Even then, the keyboard functions are minimally or poorly designed, forcing players to only use the mouse as the sole input controller. I wanted to bring this to Obsidian's attention before the UI is completely created, so that a thoughtful and intuitive keyboard layout can also be considered that works well with the UI in the game. I had made a similar thread about "hotkeys" being customizable but I think that the issue won't necessarily be solved with just redefining hotkeys. The whole user interface in RPGs has to be completely rethought. Please use RTS games as an inspiration for an innovative, intuitive approach towards utilizing party mechanics in-game. I have several initial thoughts about this that I have noted below. The final interface should obviously take mechanics into account, and so these initial thoughts will change as more of the gaming mechanics are introduced to us, the backers and players.

Party inventory is an awesome idea. Just have half of the inventory screen as a character's paperdoll with a few quickslots available. The other vertical half should be a "party inventory," As your party increases in size, the number of squares for the inventory increases. Say each character adds 80 or so squares to the party inventory. Then you can have backpacks and cases in that party inventory as well. I guess the only issue with this is that finding certain items becomes a chore, because a lot of times I used certain party members to carry certain items (one member always carried scrolls, one always carried potions, one always carried weapons, etc). The other issue is how to implement weight restrictions. If there is a party inventory, then whose strength is used to calculate the amount of weight you can carry? Do you just add them all up? A lot of times, you'd have the really strong one carry as much armor as he could, but you'd run out of space before reaching the weight limit. If you make a party inventory now that weight limit can be shared among different members and seems a little "broken."

Yeah I really like this. I hope they use crafting as an actual solution to several puzzles, e.g. crafting keys instad of picking locks, etc. The whole reason I started this thread was because I felt like crafting and enchantment are not ideas implemented as an interesting mechanic in a game, but rather they are either crutches for solving other problems or just "something cool for those interested." In MMOs, the problem is to allow multiple players to have similar items. In SP games, this problem doesn't exist and so crafting feels out of place and feels like an afterthought. I want crafting to be a thoughtful mechanic with actual utility. We did make it a stretch goal afterall. I don't want my stretch goals to be last-minute thoughtless mechanics. The crafting skill(s) should be as thoughtful as the pickpocket, lockpicking, and dialogue skills.

Yeah, I agree. Make dialogue a information-gathering, reputation building, haggling experience. You can determine your rewards from your talks. There can be surprises here and there, but as a general rule, yeah. I agree.

I really hope there's a chainmail bikini in-game, but is gender restricted to men only. That would be a nice "cliche" for you horn-dogs.

Yeah honestly, the discussions here flow so fast that it really becomes a full time job just to keep things organized and readable. The moderators already have a full time job moderating over the boards. It's a weird dilemma - too much information and ideas flowing at once. I wonder how many of these threads the devs actually get a chance to read? You'd probably need 2-3 people reading the boards full time just to keep up with the discussions and not all of the posts (like this one here) really add much to the discussions of mechanics and gameplay. It's a tough job and I'm glad Osvir's doing it

I think that perhaps it's time we start thinking about dialogue differently. Dialogue in RPG games should perhaps have a different role than combat and other puzzles. Its role should to be to gather information allowing you future options in game, as well as to make puzzles easier or more difficult (only by giving you hints, not actually solving the puzzle for you). Dialog itself shouldn't be a puzzle with a "correct" or "right" answer. It should be more "do you want to find out about information A or information B?" Then after the conversation is over, that should be it. You still have to do a combat or a puzzle, but perhaps the details of that combat change. The difficulty of the combat might change slightly, but otherwise the dialogue itself isn't a "win" or "lose." It's only an information gathering and reputation building mechanic. Your actions should otherwise determine whether you "win" or "lose." As an example, you are speaking to a king who treats his kingdom poorly. The king asks for your help in defending his castle from the rebels. You speak with the king to figure out what the facts are in making your decision. Then once you have decided, there are two scenarios. If you accept to help, then you have to fight off the rebels. If you decline, you have to fight the castle guards. Perhaps by saving the castle, the king tells you of a certain treasure that you can find. However if you save the rebels, they tell you about another item that you might be interested in. What about the non-deadly approach? Well if your character is a dialogue expert, perhaps he can act as mediator between the two. Yay, you saved the kingdom from a bloody conflict. Now however, an army of goblins attack the castle, and it is your job to defend the castle from them. You still have combat, and the actions are still there, but it's towards different groups. Dialogue shouldn't determine the outcome. Your actions should. The dialogue in and of itself isn't really a "challenge." The information you can gain from these dialogues doesn't become the actual "decision" made but rather aids in helping you decide. You also can't always get all the information from one person. They might tire of speaking with you, might be busy with something else, might have to go somewhere else, might get angry at you, whatever. The point is, you get one opportunity to speak with them, and certain flags are triggered by your dialogue options. You can't get all the flags triggered, but you get the ones triggered that you wish to roleplay. Maybe the next time you replay the game, you pick a different dialogue option that fits your character.

It's a shame we can't edit posts after a while. It would have been nice to get this pinned. So much easier to navigate.

Starcraft 1 is the only starcraft I played, but watching some of those players in tournaments is so exciting in and of itself, because of the beauty in which they control their units. I've always liked those starcraft custom maps where it was sort of a puzzle and you had to use your units casting to figure out a way to pass that level. I feel that cavalier-oblique/isometric style cRPGs have a lot that they can learn from SC and its successors.

I think micromanaging becomes fun when your party members can be more effective by utilizing class-based skills in combat. I really don't like hack and slash, and I see a lot of that. But I'd really like to see fighters/rogues/barbarians/etc being able to have abilities in combat that run on cooldowns. It's sort of Action-rpg, but with an actual tactical reason for doing a certain thing. Stuns shouldn't work on everyone, rage shouldn't work everytime, etc. Oh and micromanaging doesn't become fun if having to utilize these combat skills is too unwieldy. If the skills are 4 or 5 clicks away (several menu options before you can stun) then the become less useful and less used during combat. Similar with spells. These things are usually poorly implemented in the UI and actually performing certain actions that are combat related are difficult to do. Hotkeys help, so does a innovative UI.

Yeah....just wanted to say thanks. I really would wish people would search first for a topic thread that might fit before starting another one.

I guess it would be easier to do so in this game, since there is a fatigue stat as well. Just hit your opponents until their fatigue drops to zero and they're rendered unconscious. See Arcanum for a modern Western RPG that does this effectively. Of course, I believe that the end-bosses and epic-level creatures might need to be killed, e.g. a quest asking you to kill the dragon terrorizing the village.

All I wanted was the ability to change a number that said "age". These other ideas are good too, I guess....

I dont really like age being tied to stats just because it's another complexity that doesn't bring much fun into the game. For players who want to truly be in control of their characters it only serves as a frustration.

What if by tanning it, it loses some of its special properties? And adding rivets to it changes it structurally and is no longer as strong as it would otherwise be? Then it makes sense for that hide to stay a hide and to wear it until it rots. Then I'll think of another armor to wear. What if there's something more efficient than tannin in the world of PE? If adding rivets would weaken it structurally, I'd assume that it wouldn't be a good protection in the first place, would it? I'm definitely not an expert on leatherworking though, so I could be wrong about that And are you willing to suffer a massive charisma penalty (and possibly being barred from entering taverns) due to wearing rotting armour? I guess stealth should be disabled too, since your enemies would smell you well before they'd see you the point was to give a reason as to why you wouldn't want to necessarily go up the tier.

Then don't implement age. Either do it right or don't do it at all.

Good thing this isn't the middle ages, and is the early renaissance period. I would also hope that most people wouldn't just speak about history without any evidence to back it up - and thus create myths and untruths. As per this, http://apps.business...eexpectancy.htm the average life expectancy in the 1400's differed. If you age 21 in the 1400's, you were expected to live another 48.11 years. Life expectancy is a difficult concept to understand, mainly because infant mortality was so high, thus bringing the average age expectancy down. But ultimately, once you pass that very difficult early period, you can live fairly long. So....you're all wrong. In the late middle ages, people were expected to live until they were around 69 years old. Plenty of time for adventuring. As for lack of fighting skill, not everyone was a military solider and thus when they start adventuring, they could have been a baker, a blacksmith, a dock worker, or a range of other things that gave them no combat, magic, or any other sort of adventuring experience. The whole point of RPGs is so I can make my own backstory. Don't make me one for me: I'm creative enough thank you very much. The final point is this: this isn't real-life and it's not history. It's a game. And a fantasy game too. I'm supposed to be a hero. Can I live longer than the average age expectancy? Sure I can - I'm the hero. Can I start adventuring later in life? Sure I can, I'm the hero. Can I not know anything earlier in life and learn combat later? Sure I can. I'm the freaking hero. I'm going to be doing some exceptional stuff here: being a little older isn't the most exceptional thing about me.

Because what other explanation could there be for obesity, than being cursed with more than one soul? It's clearly not a lifestyle choice. Well I was basing this observation on Rasmudd's excellent post and the article linked. http://www.femininebeauty.info/f/stunkard.obesity.stigma.pdf If there is a stigmatization in the PE universe amongst some people, perhaps they would have a reasoning for it. From what I understand, sin in the PE universe might be based around the idea of souls and gods. So, what better reasoning for the uneducated and uninitiated than to blame these metaphysical realities? It's similar to how humans here do the same with floods, hurricanes, etc. It's always God punishing the unbelievers until it happens to you.

Wonder if people in the PE universe think fat people have multiple souls in them and that's why they're stigmatized...

Shame on you. Go eat a tub of ice cream and cry. Edit: sometimes I find things on the internet that I never knew existed. And they make me happy. http://cryingwhileeating.com/