Somna
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Posts posted by Somna
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it's still a shame we need to get our dev interaction via a different forum.
I know it's not something we're entitled to, but it was something I greatly enjoyed.
He's said before at some point that he can't post from his forum account from home. So Formspring is the alternative.
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Giving it further thought, durability could actually be useful if it was solely used as a stat for someone's weapon/armor getting attacked in order to break it, and not general wear and tear. You'd have to have a reason WHY to do it -- like being easier to attack -- and it could be used as a counter for high-armor opponents who would otherwise be nearly impossible to damage.
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I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?
I worked on IWD, HoW, TotL, and IWD2. In virtually all of these games, I heard these two complaints over and over and over:
When unique items were in stores:
* I don't want to buy unique items in stores.
When unique items were in dungeons:
* I have nothing to spend my money on.
In all of these games, items you found on adventures were almost always one of the following: a) directly usable (i.e. gear or consumables) b) wealth items or c) quest items. If something wasn't usable, it was usually a wealth item (gold, gem, etc.). A wealth item only existed to give you gold, but for gold to have some sort of value, there needs to be something you want that costs x gold. If high-value items aren't what you spend your gold on, what do you spend your gold on? In PE, you may spend gold on your stronghold, but there's no guarantee of that. And according to a lot of you, you don't use consumables, so if consumables aren't used, they're just wealth items -- not something you would want to spend gold on.
Part of the reason for having a crafting system was to make consumables less common in the world. Only people who want to make/use them would see a relatively large quantity of them. Since crafting ingredients are stored and sorted separately from other items, their presence subtracts nothing from the carrying capabilities of players who ignore the system entirely.
There are recurring trends I'm seeing:
* Don't like crafting.
* Don't like durability.
* Don't like consumables.
Combining those with with the two points at the top, it's hard for me to figure out where the gold is going to go. There is also the possibility that players don't actually want a long-term gold economy in a SP game, that gold in the mid- and late-game is ultimately something to accumulate and that most/all forms of gear upgrading simply happens through quests and exploration. That's not an invalid way to go, but I'd like to hear thoughts on it if you have the time.
The bottom line on money spending for me is to only spend on what I need to progress further in the game. This is PROBABLY really easy for wizards and their grimoires, but become more problematic with other classes that don't have a permanent part of themselves in the same way that wizards do that is permanently improved by dumping money into it. In addition, "what I need" is going to be determined by how the game gives me items.
Now, I think I can reasonably assume that although everyone has varying levels of stinginess, no one likes to feel like they just wasted their money. When you put a unique item on a vendor that happens to be a vastly superior upgrade of something a character is wearing and had to buy or craft, I guarantee the idea of "Why did I waste my time/money getting this instead of saving up for that" will float through the player's head in some degree. That doesn't mean there should never be unique items on a vendor, but it'd be better if a vendor unique item was something non-standard.
So given the fact that this is a game where magic is based on the soul, why does it have to be material goods that enchanting is working on? Personally, given the information that's been provided to us so far, I'd think it make more sense if the main, expensive moneysink regarding permanent items opened or changed the options for the character to use his/her soul to cause the desired effects on the items he/she wields and wears, and any gear used simply being conduits for the effect, or even amplifiers for the effect if they are made a certain way. You can then invoke caps on the customization with the justification that you can only play around with your soul like this so much without experience.
If you were to take the D&D 3.5/Pathfinder weapon/armor crafting chart to base examples on, instead of spending all that money on enhancing the weapon, you're spending the money on enhancing the character, giving the character the ability to emulate a -- let's say Rimefire from the Frostburn splatbook, so half Fire and half Cold damage, with priority on cold when rounding -- effect on a weapon, choosing between a weaker general effect (say 1d4 with any weapon) or a more specialized, stronger effect (say 1d3+3 with halberds only), with the character's class determining which specialized options were available.
Then on the flip side, you can have the equivalent of masterwork equipment created a particular way that resonates with these customized abilities and further amplify it, so someone able to make a weapon become Flaming would get a Flaming Burst effect when wielding a weapon created to amplify that Flaming effect. Since the amplifying weapons wouldn't do anything for anyone who didn't have their soul customized for them, there shouldn't be a reason for the weapon to be any more expensive than the D&D 3.5/Pathfinder Masterwork weapon version compared to a standard weapon, so that the crafting-phobic people don't feel like they're being ripped off if they don't want to craft their equipment. Any unique gear can then be special in that they allow resonance with two or more possible abilities, with some found and others reassembled by crafting and the really nice ones requiring NPC intervention to do things with.
And if durability is staying in, I'd fully expect to see an option to sunder equipment on enemies, with possibly an option to sunder the enemy's weapon. Maybe with a damaged weapon or armor, it stops him/her from using a really nasty effect that would cause problems to the party?
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The "foundational" paladins in this part of the world were the legendary elite guards of Darcozzi Palace in the Grand Empire of Vailia
i'm not that huge of a fan of the fact that your class is tied to a specific single order, and that you will probably get associated with it even if you don't like it.
I think the same for monks...
Paladins and monks are not tied to the foundation orders.
Have you guys been thinking of a negative type Paladin like the Blackguard from D&D?
Project Eternity Paladin has nothing to do with D&D Paladins. The closest analogue for your comparison in Project Eternity is Priest. Otherwise a literal interpretation of your question is asking if they'd put in a Paladin that uses incessant whining to power his/her abilities instead of motivation.
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I could see auras that caused or resisted fear on a Project Eternity Paladin.
Disease is latching way too much on D&D defined Paladins.
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Effective in what way?
Both are front-line melee warriors, and can be built in different ways.
A paladin that sacrifices his boosting-powers for offense/defense should match a fighter IMHO. Altough it's not a simple balance, since so many factors some in.
But aren't you simply playing a fighter then? If you don't use the abilities that make the paladin what he is, then you just want a fighter that is called "paladin".
Nope.
Because both are fighters essentially, but fight differently.
Would a offensive paladin build be similar to a fighter? Yes. Is that bad? No.
I detest the "One True Build" approach. If one build is so superior, then why give a choice to begin with?
I don't think assuming Paladin is a different flavored Fighter here is a good idea. The Project Eternity Paladin's similarity to the Marshal is so much that assuming it's "a fighter essentially" is as misleading as assuming a Rogue is "a fighter essentially." Considering that Paladin will start with that "Zealous Barrage" ability from the beginning, a portion of their combat contribution is always going to come from the bonus to attack and attack speed they grant to allies around them, unless you choose not to use it for some bizarre reason. Given the teamwork theme of the Paladin and the abilities that have been explained so far, an offensive Paladin sounds like it is only concerned with hitting its target to enable bonuses for allies attacking the target. Which you could attribute to any other class that needs a weapon hit to connect.
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Another possibility is that all priests start off as priests of the pantheon as a whole. As you gain experience, you may have the option to specialize in a specific deity based on the actions you take while you progress through the game. That does leave the possibility that your actions don't really agree with any of the deities, but if they did agree with a deity, you would gain an option on a level up to become a specialty priest of that specific deity, which would grant additional bonuses contingent on your continued decisions that are in line with that deity's philosophy.
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Wait wait clerics can turn into kittens now?I just want to point out just how much room there is between "no consequences" and "you are now a kitten."
He means in terms of how effective they could be.
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As blasphemous as it is, they could always have a favor meter for Priests.
On the low end of the meter? Your deity granted abilities aren't as effective.
At the pinnacle of the meter? Get a boost to your ability effectiveness.
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It's easy to assume everyone uses keyboard shortcuts.
People who don't are not a minority though. There are plenty of people who use a computer 16 hours a day who don't even understand CTRL - Z.
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The proposed question seems flawed to me.
Being able to pick up a weapon and swing it around does not necessarily qualify you to "use" the weapon for a build. D&D had weapon proficiency to differentiate between characters who are improvising with the weapon and character that were actually trained in the weapon and could use it to qualify towards feat chains.
So the initial statement about wizards being able to "use" a sword makes at least one assumption that isn't necessarily true.
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See, there's the confusion. Both Wench (at least I think?) and I are arguing that in this case, the gaps actually make things worse, whereas you seem to think we prefer the gaps. The gaps give the feeling that there is crap blocking the view, whereas a full-edge UI, although it may display a slightly smaller viewable area, gives an unobstructed view of what it does show.
I understand how all that works, and I understand why you'd want that over one with gaps that has stuff displayed behind the non-gaps, that could potentially be the edge of the area, that could potentially require clicking or other direct interaction for transitioning.
However, even after re-reading Wench's post, all I'm getting is "See, the problem is, you'd have to effectively make the actual viewable area end along the edge of the UI panes, rather than extending behind them, which is even WORSE, because it wastes even MORE space. In conclusion, this type of UI works in 3D games with adjustable camera angles, but doesn't work in a 2D game like PE."
That's why I'm confused. Not because I don't comprehend the benefits of cutting the viewable area off at the edge of the UI, but because Wench seems to be claiming that that IS the problem: that doing that is bad and HAVING to do that is worse. I am befuddled.
The point Wench is making is that blindly applying a "minimalist UI is the best option" brush without giving other factors much thought is foolish.
IMO, in order for a minimalist UI to work here, auto-hiding the windows instead of making the windows transparent becomes a requirement rather than an option. (I know having to move the dialogue box WILL annoy me.) And I'm pretty sure auto-hiding will carry its own bag of annoyances for some people.
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What I think armor should have is a "customized fit" option, giving a result similar to what TRX850 mentioned. Armor that is not customized is what you have as standard armor. Armor that is customized should shave off penalties (if any) that standard armor may have and also either not count towards your weight limit or have effective weight reduction. Skill points or feats really shouldn't be necessary, although martial classes could get benefits that get around penalties standard armor will have.
I agree, but that mostly makes sense for full plate mail. That's why I proposed those to be fitted.
For chain mail it might make some difference, but not much. And for robes and such, the point is moot.
An interesting one would be reinforced leather armor: that should be very stiff and bulky, so a custom fit would improve your agility. And the same goes for exotic variants like splint mail.
That's why I said "shave off" and not "completely remove" there -- meaning reduce it by an amount dependent on what kind of armor it is (but it's not totally gone).
But something customized to you specifically should always *feel* more comfortable than something that's not, which should translate to effective weight reduction for you.
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What I think armor should have is a "customized fit" option, giving a result similar to what TRX850 mentioned. Armor that is not customized is what you have as standard armor. Armor that is customized should shave off penalties (if any) that standard armor may have and also either not count towards your weight limit or have effective weight reduction. Skill points or feats really shouldn't be necessary, although martial classes could get benefits that get around penalties standard armor will have.
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I'm not going to say where I sit on this debate because I'm not 100% sure I'm decided and it will somewhat invalidate the attempted neutrality of my post!
Sadly that's going to leave both sides thinking you're pro-opposition. Although...
Sorry to label them but it makes things easier for explaining, if you don't like the label then please don't attach too much importance to it...
...such disclaimers/requests aren't going to protect you from calling one set 'roleplayers' (which I think we all consider ourselves as here), and the other 'meta-gamers'.
At least he's not calling them "roll players."
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Giving it some thought, it feels like people are making things more complicated than it needs to.
What is the main point (that has been totally lost) of resting in games? To show that your characters are human enough to need sleep. Why do you need sleep? Because you get tired. Why does that matter? Because it's difficult to function "normally" when you're tired. And as further down the rabbit hole as you need.
I didn't think we were ignoring the mechanics almost always attached to resting:
1) Healing/Recovery
2) Replenishment of spells/abilities
And I get what you're saying, but I don't think we're making it more complicated than it needs to be. If one purpose of resting is to show that your characters are human enough to become weary/fatigued from remaining awake for too long, then the other end of that spectrum is to show that they're human enough to be incapable of sleeping for 8 hours every 3 minutes.
I'm not sure you got what I'm saying. They don't need to be attached to resting so directly in the first place. For example, if priests can only regain their powers at dawn each day provided they are conscious, not fatigued, and not in the middle of spellcasting, there you have a mechanic that is intended to be daily and not tied to resting as directly.
SOMEthing needs to make finite the ability to gain the benefits of resting. Just like something has to allow you to die/lose at combat (reloading and trying the combat over again isn't any fun, but the player isn't OWED the ability to never have any consequences to not stepping up your game to the challenge at hand... especially with varying difficulty settings and proper game balancing).
I think the passage of time during rest actually occurring for the rest of the world is a good start (because only certain things would be time-sensitive, anyway. I'm not talking "everything's a damned water chip quest" here or anything). A limited number of rests outside of civilization would be nice, too. You could simply represent however much food/water/bandages everyone can carry, and have those things simply restock whenever you make it back to town (the point being not that they cost oodles of money, but that they are not infinitely small/heavy). But, again, that would just be one factor, if it were used.
I think it's best kept simple, though. Again, while I'm not opposed at all to more suggestions/tweaks, I'm pretty fond of the "you can only rest in specific spots while out in a dungeon/cave/dangerous region, etc." approach. You can ALWAYS backtrack to a rest spot, or push on to the next one. The odds of you always running out of Health at a point dead centered between two rest areas is pretty slim. And, as long as they're decently close together, that just prevents you from resting after every single rat you step on (because resting that often is just plain silly and negates the limits on your abilities-per-day AND your health, for all practical purposes). And the time-passing thing could be made to have minor adverse affects once you pass too much time in a given area, even if your current endeavor isn't time-sensitive. OR, you could simply have some amount of gameplay time before you could rest again (like... 5 minutes? *shrug*). That way, you can always wait that amount of time if you so choose (again, if the player wants to inconvenience himself all day long, just to heal back to full every time he gets down to 90% health, then let him).
I don't really see any blatant problems with that, other than "I want to always have full health, always, and never want to have to worry about possibly getting really low on health because I don't give a crap about putting effort into combating anything to any standard of effectiveness."
Going to create an example to try to illustrate what I mean in the latter half of my post.
Let's say the party is at a point in the campaign where an antagonist in popular standing with the city populace is arrested due to the party's actions and is standing trial in 5 days. The party's goal at that point is to locate and provide enough evidence to sway even the most diehard fan of the person that he's guilty of his/her crime. This provides several mini-situations on top of the overall situation where time is important.
More time spent resting is less time available accomplishing your goal of proving the person guilty.
More time spent resting is less time spent investigating the leads necessary to get to the evidence needed.
More time spent resting is less time preventing opposing parties from locating and removing or destroying the evidence the party needs for the trial.
And if you say screw it and let the guy go free? You find the city becomes more hostile to you very quickly -- merchants charge you double of what you would normally pay if they will even sell to you in the first place, the guard uses as many excuses as possible to detain you, and you find out that the party has a bounty on their heads. Then you find out that the antagonist is actually involved in a coup to overthrow the current ruler of the city, who is backing the party's presence in the city in the first place. So if your party doesn't stop that from taking place in, oh, 2 days, they lose their funding on top of whatever standing they have left in the city and will either be evicted from the city or dead.
This is more what I mean about the world going on with its own agenda.
Then, if this kind of situation is in the game, feats or perks that cut down on sleep time could become really valuable. If your thief takes a perk that drops his necessary rest time down to 5 hours instead of 8, for example, having him wake up early can give you the option to let him scout the area in more detail while the other party members are still guarding/snoozing. And if everyone takes such perks, the party's total required rest time goes down, so you can squeeze more in-game hours out there for whatever the current situation is.
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Giving it some thought, it feels like people are making things more complicated than it needs to.
What is the main point (that has been totally lost) of resting in games? To show that your characters are human enough to need sleep. Why do you need sleep? Because you get tired. Why does that matter? Because it's difficult to function "normally" when you're tired. And as further down the rabbit hole as you need.
As long as the game world carries on with its own agenda while you are busy snoozing away, it really doesn't matter. Best example I can think of is in Star Control 2, where the NPCs have their own time table and it was up to you to get done with things before another NPC group finished theirs. Not everything can copy that example to that degree, of course, but time limits can be a major contributor to difficulty settings as well. For example, not completing specific goals doesn't have to mean game over, but can makes things much more difficult for you, and higher difficulty settings have a much shorter time limit allowed, creating a kind of compound effect on difficulty that isn't just "throw more things at you in the same fight."
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Rest limitation should only be in the bonus dungeon or a similar, optional place.
If you've ever played Pools of Darkness and ventured into that bonus dungeon at the end of the game? The one with an army of beholders in the center of the dungeon if you walked in that room too many times? Yeah, there was rest limits there.
Yeah you are chesing a MAIN-EVIL in some dungeoun and in the middle of running and looting dead corpses ... you thoud (**** that im gona sleep hire)
You lay down near a zombie smelly cospses .. in the middle of last mision chaseing main-evil ... realy parodical hahaha
Imagine this ...
Arnold Shwarzennegger in the midle on setting traps for predator ... feel asleep ... predator comes .. cut his head an make a good trophy ! end of a film ...
That whoud be brilliant !
Having consequences for resting is not the same thing as rest limitations.
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This isn't really about verisimilitude. It's about gamism and making a fun game. There are always aspects of "real life" that you can incorporate into a game to make the game "make sense."
My point about difficulty limiting the rest is that some gamers are not that great at games (this describes me sometimes) and so it's a matter of balacing challenge for hard-core players and allowing other players to enjoy the game at a more "casual" pace. It's a difficult balance to find.
Good players would like to play a difficult game and get enjoyment from that (this also describes me too) especially after playing the game for the story. They want a tactical challenge to, well, challenge them. Others want to just play the game for the story.
Rest limitation should only be in the bonus dungeon or a similar, optional place.
If you've ever played Pools of Darkness and ventured into that bonus dungeon at the end of the game? The one with an army of beholders in the center of the dungeon if you walked in that room too many times? Yeah, there was rest limits there.
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For those of you who played it, what would you consider the storyline of Crusaders of the Dark Savant? (Wizardry 7)
Semi-Linear or Non-Linear or something else?
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I know there's doubt, but I've tried playing Path of Exile, an action RPG under active development. Huge chapters have been added, new gameplay mechanics, etc. And yet, its worked. Its "play before it's done!" model has done well, and that's a game much closer to PE than Kerbal or Minecraft.
Sure, it's not a perfect fit. But I'm not suggesting there be another "pay" scale at all. Just, if it's possible to just let people play a few months before the game is actually done. Maybe it's not. Maybe the entire game really would have to be too close to being "complete" to actually make such a thing work for its intended purpose. But then again, maybe there is some way to make it work.
This is ridiculous. PoE is a Diablo clone. The "alpha" build of Path of Exile was more of a real beta and the current "beta" is a release game that they are labeling as "beta" because the "Oooooooo, I get to play before it 'releases!'" mentality kicks in and attracts people. In other words, you're describing spending time to use it as a marketing gimmick. Project Eternity was funded at more than triple what they were expecting -- it is not in the same kind of situation as a Free-to-Play game. I know I would find it incredibly dishonest if they took this suggestion. You, obviously, wouldn't care about that, but I doubt I am alone in this.
Yes, PoE is another "specific example" for you. But if you're going to bring specific examples to explain what you mean, you should not be complaining about people pointing out counter-points to your example to explain what they mean either.
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So, Kickstarters is a relatively new thing, and of course PE has done that. But another relatively new thing for games is Pre-Release access. Take for example, Kerbal Space Program. You can buy the game, now, and you get access to what is essentially an alpha now. The "campaign" isn't even playable yet, the parts (it's a rocket building simulator) aren't all in place, the game code isn't finished.
And yet a larger portion of its publicity is coming from the fact that you can buy and play the game right away. I don't see why Project Eternity couldn't do something fairly similar. An initial proposal would be something along the lines of:
Move up "early beta access" backers to an alpha build being available too them. Not feature complete, very early, probably not something you might even have fun playing all the time (lots of bugs occur during this phase, things you should be able to do but can't cause they aren't in yet, etc.) Obsidian gets early feedback on how things are going, backers get their early access, and...
At a later stage, say a couple months before the game is done, but is in a fairly playable state, everyone gets access. Keeping in mind that the game ISN'T done, and is advertised heavily as such, why not? It's worked for Minecraft, and Kerbal, and a growing number of games. It means more money for development before the game is done, more publicity, and early access for everyone!
KSP's appeal has nothing to do with the "Pre-Release" state and more to do with the fact that the rocket simulator is just THAT fun, in its sandboxy way.
It's also a totally different kind of game.
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I think PsychoBlonde posted something about Day/Night cycles before.
That being said, I think specialty stores don't need to keep the standard hours, but could open on a different subset.
For example, an apothecary might only be open at night because the majority of his wares drastically lose potency when exposed to sunlight. Another shop might be open afternoons and early evenings because it's connected to an event area that has events going on during afternoon/early evening times.
Entire party getting 1-2 shot on Lyra (Banshee in Heritage)
in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
You could always go pick up Grieving Mother in Dyrwood Village.