JFSOCC

Sacum Sev, God of the night sky and second chances. The tortured, the weaver and the thread. Sacum Sev was said to be a weaver of fine tapestries and rugs back in the timeless period when the world had no night sky. He resented his life as a weaver, knowing he was made for greater things, and carelessly and casually cursed his luck to anyone and everyone who would listen, and many who would not. Every day, as the threads passed his hands, he would say he should have been born a fisherman, because then at least he'd have the wind in his hair, born a lord, so he wouldn't have to work, born a warrior, so he wouldn't have to pay for protection, born an animal, so he wouldn't have to deal socially, born anything but a weaver. But a weaver he was, and a fine one at that. With scorn he'd add little jokes and mockeries in the tapestries he made for the kings, subtle and hidden unless you knew how and where to look. With cynicism he'd add colours to the rugs he made which he knew were slightly different, better, in his opinion, that what the customer asked for. His tapestries were well known, and his skill was sought after enough that he didn't raise an eyebrow when a filthy rich looking, in his opinion tastelessly dressed man entered his atelier, and requested something special. "Anything you can think of" he promised the customer "But I can do better" he added for himself. "But it will cost you" "How about a different life?" the customer offered. "You say you can do better? Prove it, but if you fail, I will cut your hands off" The exact exchange is lost to time, but the following is known. Sacum Sev could set his own price all materials were supplied to him paid for by his customer he had one year and one day to complete his work if the customer was unsatisfied, he would, indeed, lose his hands. Suitably motivated, Sacum Sev set to work, he picked the finest materials available to him, and let his best pupils join on the tapestry meant to tell the story the strange lordling had offered him, but better. This involved countless jokes at his expense, slight alterations and subtle changes in meaning. He even managed to add something that looked precisely opposite in different light, under different angles. Pleased with himself, after one year and one day, the customer returned. It took all but three seconds for this man to see all the jokes at his expense, all the subtle shifts, and the cynicism. "You are right!" he said "This is a work of art, but I am not satisfied" For three weeks the customer proceeded to point out all the flaws in the tapestry, not once commenting negatively on the jokes and meaning changes, but not ignoring them either, suggesting improvements on some. After three weeks, he demanded Sacum Sev extend his arms. Overcome with fear of losing his livelihood, as well as his life, Sacum Sev pleaded for his life. "Please, Please give me another chance, a second task! I will not fail" "I want you to create something truly magnificent" the customer said, revealing himself to be a God (though which god is still widely disputed, even amongst the followers of Sacum Sev. Usually it is glossed over) On the spot he slew Sacum Sev by severing his hands, took his soul, and set his soul to task: Create the most magnificent tapestry the universe has ever known. You have all the resources you need, your mind will form the shapes, your soul will feed them. It was thus that the sky and the stars were created, Sacum Sev's masterwork, containing himself. Sacum Sev got his wish, he had a different life, and yet it wasn't what he expected it. Sacum Sev's main temple is built where he was supposedly slain. He is worshipped by lovers of the clear night sky, weavers, and petitioned (regularly) by those desperate for a change in their life. Although it is said he only helps those skilled at what they resent. People who have been given a second chance against all odds thank him, and temples are filled with donations from those who believe their second chances are a gift from him. The Temples are only open at night. Every year, on the celebration of Sacum Sev's death (or the celebration of the completion of the night sky, there is some fierce debate amongst theologians which it is which is celebrated) A giant tapestry is crafted and burnt as offering. It takes a year to craft the tapestry, which can never be perfect, because that would require a year and a day of work. if the night is clear and the stars are visible, it is considered to be a good omen for the year to come. A rainy day is considered a terrible omen. And much is done in order to improve the odds of good omens. (this includes building temples in dry areas, or above cloud cover) Temples to Sacum Sev are found throughout much of the world, but are relatively new in Aedyr's colonies. They are filled with tapestries and rugs, usually of fine make. Priests of Sacum Sev wear fine clothes of excellent make, filled with self-depreciation jokes. Crafting your own robes is part of becoming a priest. Priests of Sacum Sev practice either weaving, astrology and astronomy, or oversee rehabilitation projects for criminals, as part of their duty to provide second chances to those who are willing to work hard on them. Due to the lavish amount of tapestries and rugs, frequent fires have given the priests of Sacum Sev some expertise in fire prevention as well.

May I counter that argument with thhe following: Just because you cannot stop save scumming, doesn't mean you can't discourage it. Save scumming is not the issue, it's the symptom of the real issue: game balance. If the only way to succeed is to save and reload often, something is wrong with the balance of your game. If the optimal way to defeat an encounter is too play it again and again until you have the correct solution, something is wrong as well. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to reload, even often. I'm saying you shouldn't have to, at least not often. I'm perfectly OK with failing, and then reloading, but it shouldn't be the go-to solution for dealing with tough obstacles. One way to deal with this is delaying notification of failure, or altering the outcome and progression following a failed encounter to represent your failure in a different narrative outcome. I'll give you an example. Fred wants to be the leader of an organisation, as a journeyman he's worked his way up the ladder to a position of power. The leader is old and gives all his lieutenants a task, and whomever succeeds can succeed him. Fred fails the task. rather than just end the story for him, instead, he now has to find a different path. He can coerce and manipulate, maybe even kill the competition. He can try to prove his worth a different way, by doing something even more impressive. He can discredit the person who succeeded. Or, he can accept his fate and forever be #2 in his organisation. His failure didn't end his story, and thus, there was no reason for Fred to reload and try again.

I don't care how clichéd it sounds, that's cool!

You could combine crystals. I had a lightsaber combo focussed on maximum deflection because of this. I could literally walk into a room with blasters and wait for everyone to die.

So I finally finished Far Cry 3. what can I say, it's grindy for a free roaming game. I strongly dislike the quick time event boss battles, of which there are a lot, but on the whole I enjoyed myself barring annoying glitches and crashes to desktop, I'd say it would have been worth the 15 bucks I paid for it, were it not for the low framrate, which made everything harder, even on the lowest graphical settings. For a laptop which ran the game on SSD and has a 2gb nvidia video card, that's inexcusable. I would never have paid release price for it, though, and anyone who did has too much money.

Let me preface this by saying that AI, and combat are well outside of my comfort zone when it comes to understanding the mechanics and the balance. I noticed this video on a gaming forum and it's about AI Which made me wonder about combat in P:E. A topic I generally avoid commenting on because it's not exactly my strong suit. I can say I didn't care for combat in any of the IE games I played. (Which don't include either Icewind Dale games) Many encounters seemed to be only solvable with buffs and buff-counters, lucky rolls, and repetition. There was little to no variation (in my admittedly poor memory) Wizards would cast the same spells, in the same order (yay, time stop again!) and become predictable as a result. The video discusses exploit solutions, which reminded me of the rather overpowered cloudkill spell/wand. Now, in the Design a Monster thread, I try to come up with monsters with interesting tactics or enemies which have some tactical purpose in their very design. (good against ranged or melee, good at breaking up units, good at weakening units. etc etc) with the idea that encounters could be crafted by picking from a range of these enemies. That's meant to allow for complex combat puzzles. But I now see the weakness in that design: the challenge becomes predictable, and often has only a very limited set of solutions to deal with the challenge. So I was wondering if you, my fellow forumites, could help a brainstorm session on the subject. And of course, I'm always very interested to hear what the developers have to say about it, no doubt it's a well considered topic. Is it possible to create dynamic AI cheaply? is scripting basic responses easier or more cost effective? Maybe it's a bad idea to have too strong AI, as knowing what to expect from your enemies is part of the skill in dealing with them? What about asymmetrical approaches? How many ways should you be able to "solve" an encounter before it looks like anything would? What is the process by which AI is designed in P:E anyway?

so, steam is downloading a 7.2 GB update to xcom... soon...

Don't pass your silly right and wrong label onto me. In my view, you are wrong as hellll. So who wins now? Come on guys, hit the green like button so I can feel I won an internet discussion. I'd love to but I agree with BruceVC. As an art form, games are fairly young. the same discussions were had over film in the first part of the last century. They were considered to be an entertainment form for the common masses, not on par with drama or literature. And to be fair, many of the films that came out were not very artful. But like with ANY art form, you have both pulp and art. Games are in their adolescence, I think. and beginning to grow up as an art form. You see many games being developed or released with something to say. I think anyone who has played Journey would consider it art, arguably games like spec-ops the line, which is very critical of society, are to be considered art as well. Art reflects society. And sure like in movies, you have your summer blockbusters, your Sharknados and Machetes. In the games industry, I see those coming from the big publishers, like EA and Ubisoft, or Activision-Blizzard. Still with all the crap that comes out of hollywood every year (and mostly, it is crap) you still have beautiful films respected as art. No-one these days would argue that film isn't art. But, and especially with crowdfunding available, games are about to mature as an art form. I believe it soon won't be a discussion any more. That's not to say you'll lose the pulp. You'll still keep your CODs and Battlefields, and that's fine too.

you have to use abstraction somewhere. You'll just have to accept that you can make daggers but not bows because you choose daggers but not bows. You can select bows on level up, or, if you have a ranged character, maybe you should have chosen bows in the first place.

Long haired brunette, green eyes, petite (like a gymnast), olive skin, pretty. Reminds you somewhat of Lidda from DnD. Oh you mean actual character portraits and not personal fetishes? Oh, you do whatever you want then.

yes

yes, though I wouldn't differentiate skill levels between weapons, I'd just let you select more weapons (or armour) to be as good as crafting as anything else you could craft.

I'd much rather that your crafting skill determines what and how much you can attempt. For every two points in crafting skill you can pick one from the list: knives, daggers, staves, short swords, long swords, pikes, wands, staffs, hammers, axes, etc etc. light armour, medium armour, heavy armour, shield, etc. Ring, amulet, etc. firearms would be on this list, but might cost more. Which would unlock crafting for that item. Then for every (arbitrary) 4 points in your crafting skill, for each item, you get to unlock one mod. You could also unlock mods through gameplay. they could involve: (some would cost more) bleeding, shock, daze, knockdown, sharpness, penetration, poison, weakness, vampirism, stamina drain, ability drain, +speed on wearer, + defence on wearer, +attribute or skill on wearer etc. etc. Some of these mods would have several levels. Some of those could be unlocked by paying skillpoints into them, some through gameplay, some may unlock if you have other skills. (like poison unlocking if you have a high medicine score, for instance) The materials you use get to determine how many mods an item can have. With better materials being capable of holding more mods. lastly, high skill in crafting allows you to use one more mod than allowed in crafting normally. -- Example time So, let's say I've got a wizard with a penchant for crafting. He's got 8 skillpoints in crafting. He's selected Staffs, wands, rings, and bracers for 4x2=8 skillpoints. He wants to craft a powerful Staff. Since he's got 8 skillpoints he has unlocked two mods for staffs: +defence on wearer and penetration. Shock is a standard unlock for staffs, and because he's got skill levels in acrobatics he's also unlocked +2 defence(reflex) He's picked a rarefied timber for his staff, one capable of holding 3 mods, but his skill level is not high enough to fill them all. He can either pick 2 mods and succeed, or pick the 3 mods, pass a skillcheck which will roll for success. He chooses to take the risk, knowing he's often a preferred target, he picks +defence on wearer twice, and picks +2 defence reflex to boot. The skillcheck passes and his staff is created, using up the rarefied timber. He names the staff and starts using it. Later during the game, he finds the staff doesn't fit his playstyle, so he tries to craft a new weapon better suited for his pleasures. He's got two options 1. get the materials for a new item 2. modify his old favourite. He picks the second option. Since he's grown as a character, he's now got 12 skillpoints in crafting, having added pistols to the list. He can now freely change the three mods on his weapon, without risk of failure. During his levelling he's also learned to enchant, giving access to a different set of modifiers on any weapon. But this is done separately from crafting. He keeps the +defence option, because he still feels a bit weakly, but having unlocked poison eagerly adds it in place of one of the defence boosts, and adds penetration in place of the other. His staff now has a 10% chance to cause poison, and ignores 2 points of armour. after fiddling around, he's not satisfied, instead changes up the last defence bonus to add another poison mod, the staff now has 2x10%chance to cause poison, and ignores the first 2 points of armour. After this, with the limit of three mods the rarefied timber gives him, he's yet unhappy about the power of his weapon, and wishes to enchant it. his enchanting skill is fairly decent, but the weapon he wishes to enchant already has 3 mods on it, which increases the cost of enchanting. He's got enough skill for three enchantments, but can only afford to add one based on the heavy cost. He decides to add duration effect increase, which causes any effect the weapon causes to have increased duration. instead of 5 seconds of poison, poison effects now last 7 seconds. If the staff had different duration effects, those would have been affected as well. -- This is how I imagine crafting could lead to highly personalised items, which could grow with you over time. Limiting the choices for the mods to be unlocked lets the player focus on what would suit his or her playstyle, and allows for some replayability as you can choose differently in different playthroughs. People with high levels in crafting could create very powerful combinations, but would still be limited by the choices they made earlier. No crafter could create all weapons, with all mods, all at maximum levels. Yet all crafters would early on be able to build something which suited them personally. Any crafter making an early mistake can overcome it fairly quickly by levelling up their skill. And I imagine it would be rewarding to have unlocked so many mods for a weapon throughout the game, not just from levelling your crafting skill, but also from levelling other skills and completing content with unlocks as reward. anyway, that's what happens when I go off on a tangent.

Either way I hope there's a toggle in the difficulty settings, because I haven't decided yet if I want to play expert mode, but I do want hidden skill checks for my game.

On the subject of helmets, what about scary looking ones like the samurai demon masks/helmets?

This sounds really cool for those like me who enjoy the role-playing elements of RPG's. I wonder if there is a risk of character stereotyping, especially if the game treats your responses differently than you would. But since you mentioned that outside of expert mode you're informed, I don't think we've got much to worry about. Cool!

Cool video! I always enjoy hearing Chris Avellone speak, maybe he can do an Q&A on these forums some time

Yeah I hate to break it to you Hassat, but you have to be more careful with your soldiers in Xcom. Finish it on normal and you can use it in your argument.

hmm, as long as your system doesn't kill your creative ideas. If everything has to follow a strict process or ruleset, aren't you worried that you would end up settling for mediocrity because you wouldn't spend more time than is allotted on it?

This thread can use some old school electronic

After having seen the programme, I ha some comments on it. It seems the organisation I support [population matters] did as well:

I'd be OK with a delay if it's required, tbh. But we'll see how it goes.

not for us europeans, we have to wait till friday. Goddamn localisation to hell!

I love Robert Rodriguez's films, and I was going to see Machete Kills in cinema today but they've cancelled its run in all but a few venues, and I'm not going to travel for 3 hours to get the 22.45 screening in the middle of nowhere.

I can simply not imagine that the game obsidian creates would not let you fail frequently and in horrible ways. I think there is consensus that nobody wants a game that you cannot lose.