Dream

That's fine, but what I was referring to was sacred's desire to have a clear indicator of what is to come in case people are playing Ironman on thier first play through. That seems silly to me since part of the fun of a game with varying enemy types is encountering the unknown and then discovering how it's going to slaughter you, and if a player wants to Ironman off the bat then they acknowledge that risk. I mean if he was referring to only having that function active during Ironman then whatever, but it's my understanding that Ironman players prefer to go big without any aids that are not present in the game proper.

So they didn't want a healer archetype and to facilitate this they came up with a world where there's no healing, and now the reason to have no healer archetype is that there is no healing in this world? Oh, good.

Just roleplay that your parents were celebrities and decided to name you something retarded.

I liked Crysis' Nanosuit mechanics, lets see if we can figure out a way to work that into an isometric game. Oh, and lets try and put in Tribes' jetpacks and skiing in as well, 'cause those were fun in that game.

Read his post again. As "crutches" he describes"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)." So its not Hormalakh's opinion, it's the dev's. And yes the devs have the right to tell you which way to play the game is wrong. Having said that, i'm not sure that elliminating ways to play the game "wrong" is for the best. In Fallouts i loved that you could finish the game in 10 minutes.It was not how the devs wanted the game to be played,but it was viable. Same with IE games.I'm not sure that strict control on how the game is played will make the game more fun, but until i see how it plays i retain an open mind about it. Except who's to say the devs didn't intend that, or are you telling me that after 2 plus decades of save anywhere video game developers still don't realize that people do, in fact, save anywhere? One could even argue that quick save/load was added specifically to facilitate "save scumming" since the general trend of players was to save a **** load. The Fallout manual even says something along the lines of "save before doing anything." He's defining crutches as thinks he assumes the developers didn't intend, hence my original statement.

These are video games first and PnP D&D simulations a very distant second (and P:E wont even be that; it's a straight up video game). The things you describe aren't "crutches" they're just the way video games are played. If you feel that the way another person plays a game is "wrong" then that's your opinion, but don't call it a crutch. Hell, I'm sure there's someone out there that feels save and exit is a crutch and all games should be played in one sitting (go big or go home), but it doesn't mean that's the way it is.

So why does disliking the particular brand of humor that Minsc embodies equate to being too cool for jokes? I do like funny characters, but I just don't like Minsc. 'Cause everyone, except hipsters who are too cool for it, likes Minsc.

Maybe it shouldn't be balanced 'around' it, but it should of course be balanced for it as well. I'm not only talking about wether or not you know the type of monster that await you (though I could do that; remember that different difficulty levels will produce different monsters), but also give the player an indication of the threat that those monster pose to your current party setup and levels. This is not knowledge you could have beforehand, even if you've played the game before. So should every new monster you encounter anywhere in the world have a blurb about it that appears and outlines its capabilities for those who decided to Ironman the first playthrough?

After reading this thread I kind of want them to add a Minsc character even more now. It'd be a double dose of comedy because first we'd get the character, and then we'd get the forum whine fest from all the people who apparently are too cool for jokes.

To what, force people to go make a sandwich and watch some TV when they need to rest in game? Great design there.

Personally I don't see an issue with metagaming in a single player game. What does it matter how other people play a game when it has no effect on you? Besides, it's impossible to design a game with no metagaming. However, if you did want to design a game without metagaming (or with it limited at least) then simply using the old system and preventing players from metagaming is the absolute worst decision you could make. In your example of game F vs game G take two players. Player A does not like to metagame and so both games play out the same for him (he chooses not to reload in game F). Player B, on the other hand, dislikes losing to RNG in games and so ends up happy with game F but is pissed off with game G. You're of the opinion that a single player game that leaves half the players annoyed and angry is better why exactly? See, if you actually want to minimize metagaming and not piss off a portion your players then what you need to do is design a system that does not rely on whatever behavior caused players to metagame in the first place. In this instance the solution would be to make lockpicking a straight skill threshold as opposed to a roll of a pair of (weighted) dice. It is my opinion, and the reverse is yours. However, since we don't know how the majority of players feel about this then the safe option would be to go with what the IE games did since that's what this game was advertised as being a spiritual successor of (otherwise you end up with a game like dragon age which, after all the "improvements," ended up being a spiritual successor in name only).

In that case, the shift in difficulty should be done subtly and you should be given some hints as to the relative strength of the next floor's monsters though. Trial and error isn't good in an Ironman game. The game shouldn't be balanced around Ironman though, anyone who does Ironman on the first playthrough acknowledges the risks; that's the point.

I never stopped arguing it, you just haven't given a single counterpoint outside of "it doesn't work because I think that it doesn't work, as evidenced by me saying it doesn't work." The rest mechanics in the IE games weren't broken; they revolved around resting at an inn (guaranteed) or outside (chance to be ambushed). The "no rest areas" were dungeons which I would hardly call ham-fisted since resting in dungeons would be a terrible ****ing idea considering they're crawling with bad guys. This necessitated one to prepare before entering a dungeon and manage the resources that were available to them (spells, health, etc.), or be forced to leave halfway through. Adding another resource to this system for the sole purpose of having to manage it is the definition of adding complexity for no reason.

How would you feel about different levels becomming available at different parts of the main quest? So once you free village xyz from enemy lkj during the main story, the magic backlash causes an earthquake that opens a route to level 9. That'd be awful because entering the dungeon, going through a few levels, and then hitting a wall with no clue how to progress would be annoying as hell. A better way to do it would be to just ramp up the difficulty so that the deeper it gets the higher level you'll need to be to do reasonably well (but you can still progress if you're hardcore enough). That way the players naturally thinks "alright, so I should leave and come back once I've done more stuff" as opposed to "the **** did I miss, why wont this door open?!"

You have a strange sense of humor, Dream. (You are joking, right?) Edit: In case you weren't joking, what, specifically, do you think was different in the resting mechanics between the IE games and NWN that made the former 'fine' and the latter 'not fine?' In all honesty I don't remember what NWN's mechanic was. However, if it was the same as the IE games then forgive me for taking you at your word and assuming you wouldn't make **** up since "sit down for six seconds anywhere at any time to recharge all resources" is hardly an accurate description considering how often one would hear "you cannot rest here." Here's a modified statement for you: BG/IWD/PST did it fine, why make up a system that doesn't as evidence of why it needs to be "fixed?" Better?

That's your problem; complexity is not the same thing as depth. It's easy to make a game as complex and convoluted as possible, but it's hard to make it deep. A game that's deep looks simple to begin with, but as the player plays more he discovers more as well. The depth comes from basic features opening up and expanding (first a player finds out he can cast spells, then he learns there are spells that do things other than straight damage, then he learns certain spells work better against certain enemies, then he learns certain spells work well together, etc.). A complex game simply overloads the player with numbers and features and then calls it a day. One is fun and the other isn't. BG/IWD/PST did it fine, why pick a game that didn't as evidence of why it needs to be "fixed?"

You'd be adding complexity to the game for no reason other than to add complexity and "realism" to it. What fun does it add to the game, another resource to manage? You may as well add outhouses and require characters to manage their toxicity levels by taking ****s 'cause it's more "real."

Yea, that sounds real fun. I can't gauge if you are being sarcastic or not. I'm still curious about that... could "camping" cost some sort of resource? Food or some "wood"/light source. In Might & Magic Food is just a "number", you don't get to choose if you want apples or beef, it is just "Food = 12" and that's that. Simplistic and works for immersion (simple and rocking it). It would make resting less abusing. "Can't rest because I don't have enough resources"~ heck, if you don't have enough resources you could rest as well, but it'd up the ambush encounters by +50% or something (with resources you'd rest with 25% chance of random ambush/encounter or something~conceptual thoughts). What do you guys think? Would it cause more problems than it is worth? Considering it's worth nothing, yes.

I was only asking. And, while I will admit that the misuse of RNG systems can require it, the sheer existence of a chance roll doesn't require it. That would be saying that a tavern game of dice REQUIRES you to save-scum. Which is absurd, of course, because the game is quite literally a game of chance. Optional minigames are one thing (although even then pretty much everyone I know, including me, save scummed rather hard on the Witcher dice game), but RNG within a base game mechanic? Yea, people are going to save scum and simply preventing them from doing it is not a solution.

A system that doesn't require it? What system requires it? Any system that relies on RNG. You can say it doesn't require it, but the fact that so many people play that way is evidence to the contrary. Rolling the dice and crossing your fingers is just not fun for a large percentage of people.

People save scum for a reason. If you don't want players to do it then design a system that doesn't require it. If you simply make it impossible without changing the underlying mechanics then you just end up pissing off your players.

Not true. There's also "Redemption" and "Revelations". Requiem Rising: The Revelation of Redemption

We need a companion that's our bro in this game.

How is that different than any other game ever though? My issue with the answer he gave was when he said they did this to avoid "healing battery" characters. Out of all the complaints I've read on this forum since it opened (and there have certainly been a lot); I don't really remember anyone complaining about being forced to have a healer in their group and wanted instead to have 6 DPS characters (granted I didn't read every thread, so my bad if someone did bring it up). If anything this lowers the strategic decision making that goes into the game since before you had to have a balanced party, but now you can just throw any 6 characters together and they'll do fine since everyone regenerates their own stamina. This kind of mentality made sense in GW2 where they wanted to avoid forcing people to play the healer, but in a single player game with multiple characters? I don't really see the issue there.

Depends on the definition of fail. If fail means buggy as **** then that is a very real possibility with Obsidian. Now that's one I hadn't contemplated. Bugs truly can kill a game, but given that they're working with a well established engine, one would hope that they don't find new ways of breaking it. QA on this one needs to be of the highest order. They certainly cleared plenty from the Kickstarter campaign, so I'm not in a mood to accept any excuses for bugs making it to the DVD. New Vegas somehow managed to be buggier than FO3 so established engine might not be as much of a guarantee against bugs as we hope.