Doppelschwert

Then everything depends on your assumption that there are areas where there is nothing to do but to beat random mooks. Given your assumption, that perspective is perfectly understandable and fine. I'm just not that pessimistic about whether there will be something worthwhile to find. I'm sure that if you encounter some crazy wizard for example, there will be a dialogue and then it's either a fight or some diplomatic reasoning, for which you will be awarded with exp in both cases. Just wait till 18th of august, when the demo will be available. Then we'll see.

I don't see what that has to do with hardcore. What is your definition of hardcore? The way you put it, it sounds like someone who will just play everything that is thrown on the market, regardless of personal taste. I'm not trying to be hostile, I just don't know how to word it differently. I'm honestly curious for what you mean. Besides, W3 has an official release date of february 2015. Not going to be contender this year.

That's not necessarily true. If you go to great lengths to propose all kind of work arounds to justify giving kill exp, then you surely could imagine that you can attain special items in conversation for being peaceful, which you don't get by killing them. Or information or better reputation or whatever, which in turn may pay off at some other point in time. This game is more complex then the choice between exp and gear, calling the devs lazy and taking the easy way out is a cheap argument. I have no idea what obsidian is doing in this fashion.. If you have insight in how loot is working let me know. However what has been described so far.. it makes me believe that when you stealth past an enemy.. you are completing the quest the same way another person is minus the combat. Based on Joshes SomethingAwful posts.. it doesn't appear that the conditions for how a quest was done play into the final reward Xp or Item wise.. I could be wrong but it didn't feel this was taken into account at all. Which means my original argument stands... If you skip enemies you miss out on items.. That is just the reality of how this game will work so far as I can tell. I have no idea though.. other then my interpretation of developer posts. EDIT #4 I would never call a game developer lazy by the way. Suggesting they took an easy way out is relative. Game Developers work their ass off regardless. Well, the way I see it the game is constructed in a way that complements the exp mechanic, although I can only argue by what my impression from joshs quote is (just as you do). The first thing should be that important encounters consisting of plot relevant enemies which actually do have nice magic items are mandatory. Josh actually did say at some point that most of the combat actually is not evadable, and I'm sure this means over 75%. I would be surprised if the important battles are evadable. Keeping this in mind, a lot of filler combat is probably that optional part, like patrolling guards or something. I can live with the not having their items if they are mundane anyway. So yes, maybe you miss their loot, but if its loot that you can buy at any trash vendor, then who cares. Apart from that, combat is supposed to cost you ressources. It's really your choice here - lose some health and abilities for that extra loot or be better prepared for the more important battle at the end by sneaking your way through. Also, you have to increase your sneak skill in order to sneak your whole party away from combat, which then results in less skill ranks in the other skills and lost opportunities there. If you can go the diplomatic route, then maybe you can persuade your enemies to help you. Maybe they tell you a password that makes the next part of the quest easier or whatever you would not have gotten if you just killed them. It's not hard to imagine a scenario like that. But I'm not really sure what you are arguing for at this point. At first, you wanted experience for killing enemies. Then you argue that with quest exp, killing the enemies is still better because of loot, which implies that combat has enough motivation on its own. Now I'm arguing that it's not a simple a question between loot and exp but rather a multifacetted with different costs/outcomes and roleyplaying possibilities... What has killing exp to do with this? Sorry, reread your post. I think there is a lot of stuff that is a reward for itself without granting exp. Like crafting, upgrading your stronghold, finding loot, etc. If you feel like you want to increase your exp gradually, a interesting question to ask would probably be where does this start, where does this end? What makes fighting monsters different from upgrading your stronghold that it should have exp, besides from being a tradition? Why should you not rather get experience for discovering interesting places, or beating skill checks?

That's not necessarily true. If you go to great lengths to propose all kind of work arounds to justify giving kill exp, then you surely could imagine that you can attain special items in conversation for being peaceful, which you don't get by killing them. Or information or better reputation or whatever, which in turn may pay off at some other point in time. This game is more complex then the choice between exp and gear, calling the devs lazy and taking the easy way out is a cheap argument.

Just don't do it the way Divinity Original Sin does it: 'I'll take my leave.' in every conversation. It's so ridiculous when a battle begins afterwards. I'm still wondering whats so hard about having an alternative ending for a follow up battle.

I'd guess you most probably get exp for unlocking the next level of the mega dungeon, as well as for solving puzzles on the individual floors. Where do you see a problem stun?

Friday, December 5th, 2014

Maybe you should listen that part again. Actually he says you DO lose it so there are consequences (that was a point he was making through the video about actions having consequences) My bad, sry. I even thought I should probably listen to it another time before commenting -.- Somehow sounded to me like he said 'throwing your weapon actually means you don't lose your weapon though'. Maybe because the structure of his sentence implies that what happens is contrary to what you would expect and I'd naturally expect the weapon to be gone, idk. But that's a good thing then.

It's true, but sometimes defeating enemies may be posed as a task, to the distinction somehow becomes blurred. This is still a combat heavy game, you won't be able to avoid most encounters like in Torment. IMHO, the best argument for doing it this way is that you should want to fight because its fun, not because of some ulterior motive. Put differently, to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women should be its own reward. Besides, as infinitron already said, there is no way to change this now anyway.

The news in china seem to cover a lot more stuff than the ones in germany, they mostly cover politics here.

Huh, I'm surprised that josh says that you actually don't lose your weapon if you throw it at the attacker. I'd prefer it to be more consequent. However, I also just recognized that there is an animal slot in the inventory. Maybe there is some kind of optional familiar after all.

I don't get why people are comparing PoE and DOS all the time, as they are clearly designed differently in every aspect and all this stuff is highly subjective. The grafics of DOS are cartoonish and sometimes highly exaggerated compared to the graphic style of PoE and to me this looks hardly as good as the realistic approach here, but this is highly subjective. The cirlces are useful in a real time game while DOS does highlighting on a turn basis anyway, so the intention is completely different.

1. On 18.8.14. 2. No ones knows at the moment, as this is not finalized. There is going to be an update with answers to questions surrounding the beta sometime next month.

Yeah, you're right. I was thinking about classes that can keep up at melee and take some punishment, so I should've written close-combat classes. Sometimes, the language barrier gets me as well, sorry. I knew that the attribute checks where non-randomized, so given that there are no skills in Torment, thats true, but I always thought the skill checks in NWN2 were. Maybe I got that impression while playing NWN1 some weeks ago, as they are randomized there. You learn something new everyday I guess.

As far as I can remember, you can very well loose both companions during the prologue if you make bad choices. If additionally you don't play a combat class but a wizard or something with limited spells, I think the enemy count is fine as it is. It's no surprise that it seems easy if the game is balanced around the worst case scenario and you are playing the best case scenario. Also, I feel like the wolves are strong enough when they murder your companion half way at the beginning.

Josh said that there is no randomness in conversations, just thresholds. With this in mind, the game is basically blocking any automatic failures, while in NWN2 you had at least a % chance to pass a check all the time. You're right in that you still could give them as an option, but then you have to consider that in NWN2/Torment a success meant some benefit to the player while PoE is designed such that the context dictates whether an action is beneficial or not, regardless of availability, so in my mind that evens out.

Seems to be somehow in the middle. I think that your mindset would be good for someone who actually wants to make romance mods. Instead of the multiple choice kind of dating game, you just choose one character for the romance, and mod it so that this character will be romanced, the player agency only affecting the way how you go about it. The writing can then be more appropriatly integrated into the overall story, given that its clear which character will be romanced and that it can't be aborted. If someone decides to romance a specific character, he chooses so beforehand, activates the corresponding mod, and thats it. Maximum amount of ressources go into the game, and you can choose your romance based on your interpretation of a character. And its not mandatory. There's still the issue with quality, but apart from that, everyone should be happy. ^^

Josh recently said somewhere on the forum that they wanted to slow the combat down a bit. Given that this seems to be the version from E3, am I correct to assume that this slowing down is not already incorporated into the build we see in these videos?

The best thing is that this stuff at the beginning is supposed to go into your biography. I can clearly imagine the epilogue: 'Although the hero went out to find love, none did he find in the drywood. After his adventure ended, he was never to be seen in the realm, although rumors have it that you can still hear the sound of him crying his self to sleep while going through the streets on a full moon.' I think you're midustanding this because in IGN interview they said they coud be some platonic romances and I'm ok with that. I don't wish for any sex scene just a bond bewtween characters either it's friendship or love. Really? Must have missed that part, as I can only remember josh saying that there are no romances because they would cost to too much ressources to be made properly.

Only if that arc happens to be: looking for love in allll the wrong places. Since, you know, there are no romances in PoE. But that's my point, what if Obsidian just said that so when we do find out there is Romance its a completely unexpected surprise ? Yeah, especially the part in the IGN video where after seeing this screen josh is asked by the reporter if there are any romances and he responds that there aren't is meant to indicate a completely unexpected surprise. As I've stated earlier in the romance thread, I take this also as clear confirmation of space ship battles and a cameo of Vin Diesel.

This is awesome stuff! I think its ironic that at 6:07: 'So you must have some other plan in mind for coming this way.' 1: -'I hope to meet someone and fall in love.' I know how that one is gonna end

If you don't want to do a romance as a dev, what would prevent you from making the mandatory romance as cheap (and therefore bad) as possible in order to allocate more money to other sections? If I don't want to have romance and its optional, thats the first thing in my mind that I'd expect from a dev. How do you want to solve this? You can't have standards for this mandatory romance because they are highly subjective in the first place. Your scenario does not induce the quest for quality you imply at all.

You never cease to amaze me obsidian.

Only if this is part of the main quest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qM7xR8VOkM

Another interesting question, before I answer do you think any company would make an RPG where the protagonists are all old people? I doubt it, it may sound like ageism but considering the market for games is people who are less than 50 years old most companies wouldn't make a game where they feel there potential market wouldn't identify with the characters So in your example it would be best to not only skip the Romance but also to skip the whole game idea. Its well meaning but I can't see too many people buying in to the idea, but I may be wrong Why would you not be able to identify with old people, just because you are not old? It's probably way easier than to identify with an orc or an elf or some other fantasy race, because its real. Maybe you don't want to identify with someone old, but I don't see why that should be a general thing. Apart from that, I'd play a game like this and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Playing a badass sage with magical powers is probably in my top 10 of means for escapism. I don't claim it isn't a niche, but surely there should be some audience for this. You could even easily construct such a game by extending the gameplay of magicka into a more complex, serious rpg. So I'd still be interested in the answer to my original question - given the game would exist, should there be romance in it?