Inarius

I've never been a fan of throwing consumables in general, it just feels like a waste to me when most of the time i can simply cast a spell that has a similar affect and doesn't cost me any gold to use. This sorta strays into potions territory as well I guess, but even there i tended only to hold onto some healing potions and the more unique potions that didn't have a corresponding spell.

theres room for both in different types of games, some work well with 100+ levels some don't. For something like PoE my ideal would be 20-30, 12 seems a bit too few for my personal tastes. I can understand people who like to keep it low powered, but for me I like to be able to feel like my character is fairly significant towards the end of my game journey.

I actually really dislike the idea and don't really see why its necessary. It wont stop people from metagaming if they want to, because the xp values are going to be in the game files for people to post on the internet anyway. Making it a toggle isn't as simple of an idea either because its going to add a lot of QA time to make sure that the exp is actually hidden(or not) for every reward in the game, and lets face it QA tends to be Obsidians weak point. I think its just a lot of fussing for no real effect, people who want to metagame will find a way there's no reason to hold everyone's hands to try and stop a few from fretting over their choices.

To me the ideal solution would just be to only allow you to equip so many potions on your belt and those are all you can use during combat. If you can fit 3 potions on your belt that's it, if its 5 that's it. It would set a maximum power limit and make harder fights easier design without having to balance for hoards of potions. I think it would also facilitate using potions instead of hoarding them for later because you know later you're only going to be able to use so many potions in a fight anyway. Maybe you'll hold onto potions so you don't dip below the maximum you can equip but thats much more acceptable than having so many potions hoarded you decide to just vendor em off. As far as the path of exile style potions go I think they're amazing for that style of game (ie action rpg), but for more traditonal RGGs I dont know. The problem for me comes from the refilling mechanic. The more you kill the more your potions refill, but what if you want to avoid a few fights using stealth or dialogue and youre potions are all empty or half full? I suppose having potions refill off of a timer would be an acceptable alternative but its basically an inverse cooldown timer that way.

Honestly that would drastically reduce my desire to use potions, and as it is i rarely use them. If they're going to expire well id just sell them off the moment I get to town now and use the gold towards something that wont expire on me down the road. I do seem to remember someone mentioning that potions are going to have their own equipment slot, and that you can only use potions from there during combat. To me that's a really reasonable restriction. You're not going to have the time rummage through your backpacks during a fight to find the potions you want. It also would probably make me use potions with a bit more frequency since I wouldn't be able to use more than a few each fight anyway.

A good 40 yard dash is around 5 seconds, so its safe to say a 30 yard dash will be around 4 seconds. It makes a lot of arrows in 4 seconds, I know some masters archers may manage that with 30 pounds bows. But in 4 seconds I think that most good archers with a strong bow would manage only one good shot. It think it's safer to say that a ranged weapon work as good at range as a melee weapon work in close quarters. Id agree about 1 good shot in 4 seconds, i cant remember where but i seem to remember reading about 2-4 seconds per shot using a bow was common. Also you do have to consider something like a longbow had a minimum 90 pound draw, but at the same time these are people who trained often to use the things so they were conditioned quite well to their use so an arrow every 2-4 seconds using one of those isn't too far out there. That being said I'm not for making weapons compare to their real life counterparts too closely. I like that greatswords are swing weapons not primarily thrusting ones for instance and my only real issue with bows in baldurs gate 2 was how immunities cropped up in droves towards the late game. There were only so many +3 and +4 arrows in the game so if you had more than 1 archer in your group you tended to run out of those very very quickly. It wouldn't be as much of a problem if simply being able to deal damage to an opponent with immunites wasn't tied to the +x bonus of the arrow. Personally I would've preferred if the bow bonus was damage and to hit and different arrows gave no bonus damage but instead bonus effects like stunning, poisoning, elemental damage types (ie fire, ice, etc) or bleeding effects.

I like this as an idea for how to handle wands, it makes them useful in that they enhance and even alter what a spellcaster can do on his own. I would say my biggest problem with relying on scrolls and wands to cover for a mages limited spell casting ability in the IE games was it tended to be a waste of money. You were almost always better off in the long run saving up to buy better weapons and armor for your melee fighters than you were buying scrolls and wands for your mages because it was a matter of limited resources. There was only so much money in those games that you had to spread around to cover the costs of maintaining 6 characters. In Neverwinter Nights on the other hand you only really had to concern yourself with maintaining your protagonist, your single companion didn't do much their own and could survive off of loot drops exclusively. This freed you up as a caster to buy more scrolls, potions and wands to use. Though amusingly enough it wasn't as necessary due to the ease of resting in the game.

I voted relatively steep for both options mostly because of production constraints. My ideal game would be relatively smooth for both options, but I don't think its exactly feasible when you're making a game with budget constraints and trying to cram as much content into it as you can. Those tame areas ultimately become a drain on resources when you consider the amount of time that has to go into someplace people are just going to walk through to get to the adventuring parts of the game. Ironically the one game I can think of that has done this is an MMO called Tera. The capital city has an entire zone empty around it that's free of mobs with a few outlying manors, npcs, and guard patrols. Quite a few main town hubs also have a buffer zone on at least one side. It's interesting but after the first few times going through those areas I found myself just skipping them and using the transit system to get where i wanted to go.

The problem with archery is pretty much tied to HP increases. At low levels 40-60 arrows will carry you through a dungeon simply because everyones hit points ar so low and all it takes is 1-2 arrows from you or your opponents to down a single target. At higher levels though a single target can easily survive 4 to 6 arrows and keep going. That means you need massive amounts of arrows just to make it through a single dungeon, or a way to replenish arrows as you go. Resorting to melee when you run out of arrows has also always been a bad idea in most of the infinity engine games since being decent at melee in the mid to higher levels requires a fairly signifigant investment in your training options. Going melee when you ran out of arrows tended to be an actual liability due to needing more healing than the regular frontline fighters. I tended to just let my archer unit sit around doing nothing when they ran out of arrows in order to go easier on my healer(s).

Does anyone happen to know if shipping to Hawaii and Alaska was ever mentioned? It's not international, but it usually does cost more/not qualify for free shipping and I haven't been able to find anything on the subject so I don't know if i need to add additional funds for my pledge.