Malekith

If there is one thing I hate about Arcanum, it's critical misses. Shouldnt they be trying to improve on the old formulas, rather than try to copy them exactly, flaws and all? Yes they should, but critical misses aren't a flaw

Well, quite frankly, I'm not sure why everyone wants a game capturing the mechanics of the IE games. They weren't very good and it's not on that promise that I backed this game. The magic and IE-feel they want to bring back, as far as I'm concerned and what I'm hoping, is that of the characters, the setting, the plot, the monsters, and the writing. But what do I know, I might be in great minority here. With this i agree. Even if combat turns out **** if the things you mentioned are great i'll be happy.But,for me at least IE had good mechanics.They are my favorite games of all time combat-wise.And even though i'm an Obsidian fan, i didn't like any of their game systems so far,including New Vegas.I believe that is not because they are bad designers but because the design direction of the whole industry is not the same with the old games.I hoped that since this game is kickstarted and is cattering to IE nostalgia,the direction would be more IE like. I couldn't care less if they won't use D&D.But it seems like the type of things in game design that I really enjoy -- chaotic systems, breakable systems, and a sense of humor in mechanical design (think Fallout 1) are being phased out. From a designers' perspective maybe these things aren't great, but I always like being surprised when playing games, whether its because something fails that I was sure would work, or vice versa. Most of my favorite moments in old RPGs happened when some utterly improbable gambit worked, and it seems like modern designers are determined to make such a thing impossible.And i'm not the only one .The underline text is a quote from another person who sums my feelings exactly.The IE games had that.IF that is a good thing or not is a matter of taste.But in a IE inpired game they shouldn't go for the complete opposite direction with League of Legends mechanics

Oh, i agree it's a matter of preference.And i don't have a great love for AD&D either.But I liked the way IE games played. I was fine with their implementations.So with this game i hoped for something similar.Also the randomness and "spikes" made the encounters diffirent from each other and even the same battle would not be the same two times in a row.With Sawyers approach the fights would be a lot more homogenised and repeatetive in the long run. Also read my very first post and give your thoughts

The bottom line for me is that even if all the changes they propose work in the end, still the game will play nothing like AD&D and the IE games.I would be ok with some changes,but so far it feels like they changed every single aspect of the game.All aspects of IE combat were problematic? And yet so many people donated having played the games so it can't be so bad.They promised an IE like experience.From that alone,they sould aim for a system between 3,5 and AD&D and not 3,5 and 4 edition,even if the more chaotic and random elements of AD&D don't agree with Josh design philosophy.Bacause the IE experience would be different without that randomness.Not worse or better,that is a matter of preference,but different. To clarify, i trust Josh and Tim, and most of the changes i liked indiviually, but all of them together are making me feel lied to and the game will play nothing like IE games.Also it comes like Josh didn't liked the IE mechanics at all,or at least disagrees in principle with them.Nothing wrong with that,but in a IE succesor maybe he sould make the game more like them even if he don't like it.After all the game is not for him but for us,and many of us prefer the random nature of AD&D from the streamlind 4E.I'm talking about design directions and not about particullar editions,AD&D was pretty horrible in some aspects

That has lead in bosses that have 11000 hp and you clip at their health for 5 minutes,following the exact same tactic the whole time.that's not tactics,its tedious.Compare the dragon battles in BG2 and Dragon Age2.Firgraag had 180hp,the other dragons similar or even fewer.The encounters with each would last from 10 seconts(party wipe)to 2 minutes and were more memorable and chalenging than any modern game dragon fight.Dragon age dragon battle: you clip dragons health for 2 minutes(you just spam attacks ,on PC i just clicked on the dragon like it was Diablo or something),dragon flies on a rock,some dracochickens attack you.You kill them,dragon come again.You clip at his point for another 2 minutes(drinking a healing potion when nessesery)he flies away.Repeat the above 3 time and you won

I have a question for Josh. I'll post some thoughts(not mine) in the matter and i hope he will see this post: " Is having a %miss chance better than the %glancing blow approach, and why? In my opinion, it's definitely better. First, when you always hit, you cause constant damage (per second) no matter how small. Even if you "miss" a lot, you still cause damage and winning a battle becomes about staying alive long enough. Sure, much like anything else this problem can be be circumvented by making staying alive long enough harder, but why create a problem in the first place? Second, most systems have special attacks that cause significantly more damage. In DnD if you want to use Power Attack, you subtract a number from your to-hit chance and add it to damage. Simple, logical (in the design context), and effective. You lower your to-hit chance for some extra damage. In systems where you always hit, it becomes another problem. Who cares if you only do minor damage with glancing attacks if you can do 330 points of damage (mighty blow at lvl 17) that always hit? A full round of special attacks of my party was about 4x4-5x200-300=3,200-6,000 points. Wait 20 seconds and repeat. Third, when you always hit, it creates bloated HP monsters (see above) designed to last long enough against DPS and special attacks, whereas in %miss games, the hit points can remain relatively low, allowing you to finish the fight quickly if you can hit your target, which in turn creates a difference between a great fighter and an ok one. Such difference is absent in Dragon Age 2. Again, compare the battle with the mine dragon in act 3 to the battle with Firkraag in BG2. The proof is right there in the proverbial pudding. Fourth, as you can see from DA2, when you always hit, you need 1 stat, not 2. From the design perspective, a 6 stat character system with 4-5 dump stats is pure ****ing garbage. --- The player is usually much better at coordinating his characters and healing than the AI, so the player can easily keep his character(s) alive. In %miss systems staying alive doesn't mean much by itself, but in %glancing the enemy's health goes down with every second and staying alive for 2 min means a ****load of points of damage. Yes, in poorly designed games (like Morrowind, for example, where you could gulp one potion after another), you can keep yourself alive long enough to overcome the odds, but I hope we can agree that this problem is much worse in "always hit" games. Overall, the %glancing system can work, and I stated so in my earlier post, but it would require a lot of rules and restrictions just to fix the in-built problems it comes with. Why do the extra work when a better and easier to implement system, a system that doesn't cause HP monsters, which in turn causes more design problems, already exist? My point was that the %miss system is better. DA2 vs DA, Oblivion vs MW (with all the flaws) certainly seem to support this point of view. If you disagree, please present some argument showing that %glancing is, in fact, a better system. --- Let's try it again. 1) Any %miss system is designed with certain "how long should it take you to kill your opponents" expectations. The chance to miss plays a very important role as other than determining your combat prowess, it keeps the characters alive without inflating the HP (case in point, the AoD system where an avg character has about 35-40 hit points and can be killed in 3-4 hits) and makes a huge difference for characters who can hit the target more often. 2) A %glancing system is basically a %miss system where the chance aspect is either eliminated or, in case of DA2, kept but the miss value is increased for some idiotic reasons (deferred success? don't cry, little buddy, you didn't miss, you just didn't cause as much damage as you could have! good job!) from 0 to either a set value like in Gothic or % of full damage like in DA2, ranging from 3/4 to 1/10. So, now, you have to add more to the HP just to compensate for that extra damage that's not really damage because you're actually missing. So now the formula for HP is "how long should it take you to kill your opponents, considering that you have X people doing Y damage per second just for the lulz". Hence the bloat. The problem in DA2 is that the glancing damage is very high on casual (3/4) which adds a huge HP chunk, so when you play on Hard and do a lot less glancing damage, the bloat caused by the casual glancing damage remains. So, while it is the casual damage that's the main culprit here, it wouldn't have been an issue if the game was using a traditional %miss system. Roguey said: So no matter what, you will always do at least 5 damage (a glance system). And here's G2's monster tables. Starts out in the dozens, goes up to the low-mid hundreds, a few special ones are 1000, the last one has 2000. Now here's some Dragon Age HP values, which uses the honest-to-goodness miss system: The bear in Lothering: 1369, Broodmother: 2032 (with each tentacle having 698), high dragon: 4085 Kolgrim (the Reaver fellow): 1240, Gaxkang: 2140, Arl Howe: 1220, Ser Cauthrien: 3415, Archdemon: 4180. Regular enemy values are in the low-mid hundreds. Seems more like Bioware being Bioware. Or no? No. First, you have to multiply the Gothic numbers by 4 (a party of 4 hits harder than a party of 1). Second, make adjustment for the defense in Gothic games. Let's say you're trying to hit a regular Orc and your damage is 150 points. His health is 300 points, so theoretically you can kill him in 2 strikes. Right? Wrong. His defense against weapons is 150 points, so you're only doing 5 min points of damage. You'll have to hit that very hard hitting orc 60 ****ing times. Orc elite - 450HP and 160 armor. 150 times until you can hit significantly harder than 160 points. Black troll - 1000 HP, 150 armor. Etc. If you had a 4-men party in Gothic, orcs would have had 1200-1800 HP, trolls/dragons 4000, and that's not counting the insane DR. --- This are parts of a discusion elsewere, mostly about dragon age 2 and mechanics in general. I'm curious about Josh's thoughts in the matter

Yeah.. it could help if you could give an example of a game that had somthing similar with what you propose. Because in my mind it sounds like Wicher 2 or Dark Souls crap and not like IE games

Uhm did you get what I said (/ Malekith said)? I'd be totally fine with you controlling 1, 3 6 or 10 characters at a time (though I'd hoped foolishly going off with 1 character in a 6 character game would get you stomped). The point was though that for the most time, the game will decide how many characters you can have, and it probably won't be many up to mid-game. IMO that's a bad waste of combat depth, character building options and generally player choice. I don't think it will be so bad. You think of it like Torment did it. It will be more like BG2 in that aspect, when you could recruit five companions reasonably soon. You maybe not be able to recruit a certain companion ( Forton for examble) until mid-game,but you will have a full party before that. Or maybe not even that problem as the game it won't be so linear as Torment and it depents on you which areas you visit first, like BG2. As for solo geting you stomped, BG2 could be soloed with almost all classes, but only if you had a deep understanding of the system.I expect something similar here.In a coment in his formspring Josh said that the higher dificalties will be IWD2 kind of difficult.That's not so bad. IWD2 could not be soloed at all except with a fully optimized paladin/cleric build. I have read that some people did it with sorcerer as well but thats it.And its still almost imposible.

Not completly true.For art and interface they are using IWD2 as a starting model.But yes, for narative structure and in essence the type of game they want to make they go the BG2 mixed with P:T elements route. Plus a little BG wildernes but not much. I get the vibe that this is the BG3 black isle would make back in the day with modern technology.Different story but the direction is the same

I hope so. But that is the reason they don't want to allow you a six person party from the start.Josh had ansered ( if someone finds the source post it) in a question that the game will be balanced for 1 person at the start of the game, 3 person party later etc. If you had full party from the start the begining of the game would be very easy even at hardcore

Name one party game that didn't end when the PC bit the bullet and allowed you to continue playing as the NPCs. For the sake of argument let's say Arcanum. Death of your PC was only the end if the NPCs didn't carry items of resurrection But I was talking explicitly about party based games, as in "all player created parties". Because GrinningReaper was so aghast at the thought of "inhabiting" the mind of several characters at once. But P:E is not a "all player created parties" game. The adventurer's hall is an extra, the game won't be desighned around that.You will not even create the whole party from the go but you will be permited to add one party member at spesific story parts, i imagine when you will have meet a dev's companion. In an interview a developer has said that the strech goals were features added extra because people wanted, but non of them were features the game needed or was about. From that i quess that the game won't be desighned around the Hall, and like BG2, if you play with a party wholly created by you indeed you will lose content, the same as if you solo the game in Torment. They have said that the story will be personal about your fate and not the fate of the world.Also the companions will be connected in the story somehow like in Torment.( I don't remember a link,sorry)It stands to reason to follow P:T and BG2 as their main model as these two games are the most beloved of the IE games for most people

I must say again, have you ever played party based games (it seems you haven't, or else you could wrap your mind around the concept)? As for it impacting the depth of the story... I think basing narratives on only one character is often the lazy way out. Your motivations don't need to make much sense or be very convincing, because they're yours. If you're told that your character goes after the Big Evil One on not much more than a whim, that's fine, because it's your whim. You didn't get my point. What I'd like to see is a story that involves all your party members, but they will clearly have minds and agendas of their own (that part has been confirmed, and can be expected nowadays). Quite the opposite of you simply inhabiting your party members' minds. And GrinningReapers point (at least as i understand it) is that there is nothing wrong with a story that involves all your party members. But even in such a story you are still a single character and if you die that's it.Game over.The rest of your party may continiue and even win in the end, but you will not be around to see it so it doesn't seen on screne

double post

I think they said that there would be multiple solutions to quests and ways to avoid combat.When they said that you could not play a pasifist they meant that you could not avoid all combat situations in the game and play a pasifist as an ideology.You could still play a character that is afraid or don't likes combat and avoids it most of the time.And for the bulk of the game you will be able to.At least i think it will be that way.Thats why they go with XP for objectives and not per kill

It simply depends on wether you make one character or the party the protagonist, though. If the story is advanced by the party as a whole, any specific character within it is replaceable. This would go against the BG/ P:T grain but hey, they've done a whole set of tweaks that separates this game from its spiritual antecessors. Why not replace the inferior writing (that is entirely static as it's one big rimjob given to one character) with something more flexible and engaging (where "the quest" is actually at the heart of it, not the well-being of "the protagonist")? :D This would go against the BG/ P:T grain And if you consider that BG2 and P:T are the 2 most beloved RPGs (and arguably the best of all time), this would be a mistake. Those 2 games are the reason Obsidian was able too make 4 million$ they've done a whole set of tweaks that separates this game from its spiritual antecessors mechanically.Because they wouldn't use D&D rules that was kind of a given. But they promised an IE spiritual succesor and for the majority that means the type of story,companions,atmosphere... The "feel" of the game and not the mechanics. As the mechanics are already different, if the feel of the game is different too there would be a ****storm and the kickstarter attempt would be a failure IWD had better combat,better art(from BG series at least,P:T art was also great) but there was a reason why they are the less popular of the IE games

Turn-based combat has clear limits on actions that can be taken in each time interval. And you don't emulate turn-based combat by pausing whenever you want, because there is no pausing and reissuing commands between intervals in turn based combat. First you call this "the most logical compromise", then you talk about "cheater illogic" not mattering because Obsidian promised to make the compromise that is supposed to be the "most logical", lol. Having any command pause at all is a compromise from a real time system. The reasons for having limits on command pausing aren't based on some compromise pact with the developers or some "illogic" having to do with turns. The issue is how the players will need to approach and think about combat, especially with respect to their own competence and skill. It shouldn't be nearly as pronounced as in action games, but it should definitely show up more, especially in the absence of the sort of strict calculations you can put in turn based systems. All your arguements come from the fact that you prefer realtime combat , which by definition is more "actiony". Many people hate more action in combat, and if in the pitch Obsidian have said that the game will be realtime without pause a good portion of the people would not have donated.I know for sure that i would not. FFS there were complains because some people wanted turn-based, or because in the last update the rogue abilities sounded reactionary like from an ARPG and many didn't like it.I'm not so hardcore and to be honest i prefer RTwP from turn-based, but i despise pure realtime.In tactical rpg player's skill shouldn't matter at all.It's your character's skill that matters. Or to put it better, the players skill should be mental and not hand-eye coordination and reflexes.Thats what most people who complain about "twitchy" combat mean.That is the reason that in most turn based systems,while there is a limit in each turn,that limit is never time Also a sidenote.... the bottom line here, really: The IE games didn't have pause limits. And they were fine. Better than any game I've ever played that does. ^ also this

Link? Um. Link's in the OP. Somehow i missed the wheel part in the interview....Ifount it now

Link?

From a post i made elsewere: Sawyer's approach make sense under a sertain light. Maybe all this class "overlap" really means that it is his way to intoduse multiclassing without naming it so.For examble,you start with a mage and over the course of the game you can leave him a traditional mage, or make him an assasin-mage, or mage with armor and two handed sword, or pistols. If that is the case it seems to me he tries to conbine the class system of IE games with the developing freedom of,lets say Arcanum. I think it has potential if they can pull it of.Don't forget, that Sawyer is not alone.Tim Cain is also on board as a senior designer.

Feargus said in the comments that they'll consider adding both approaches. They promished crafting.But they can still define what type(s) of crafting and what items each type does.Even in the kickstarter comments BG2 crafting was requested more than once.I think the more popular option will be the third in the poll,where both types exist,but with different uses.Plus is more easy fot the developers to balance

but you can play without the medic, in any IE game running around without someone to heal you is highly unpractical I can't think of any sillier line of argument that what seems to be going on lately in this thread. We are talking about Project: Eternity, not CoD, not BF, not TF2. None of those games will handle regenerating health the same way this game does. In fact, P:E doesn't even have regenerating health. Wut you SAY?!?!?!?! That's right. Stamina is NOT health. It is simply how much you can take before you fall unconscious. Even The Elder Scrolls games have ways you can play this way, taking a guy out through Stamina, not HP, damage. Your health slowly goes down as you fight in different encounters and does not regenerate until you rest. Think of it as Mass Effect (specifically Mass Effect 1). Stamina is your shield, it regenerates and grows back quickly on it's own but can also go down quickly if you take a few clean hits, or even just one big hit. Health in that game did not regenerate, you had to use a medpack to heal it. So P:E is basically ME1 with more robust shields and no medpack. Trust me, or better yet trust Sawyer, it will work. The "trinity" (tank, healer, dps) is only one way of making a game work and moving away from it is not a bad thing. I honestly think it is one of the simplest and least tactical ways of designing combat in fact. It is so common simply because it is so easy to design and everyone knows how it works almost instinctively. Don't mistake a large number of archtypes which all boil down to 1 of 3 things for depth. ^ This. with one correction.Stamina is not shield. You take damage in both stamina and health simultaneously

You play for the story, you think combat is pointless, and yet you prefer turn based combat? You lost me here...

That would be one solution I could live with and which I'd use. However, I still think that has its own flaws. If buffs are time dependent, (one lasts 10 rounds, one 5 minutes, etc) the order in which you cast those spells still matters and you'd still have to wait for every single buff to be cast one after another, or otherwise, some would last longer than they would if cast individually. So if the casting time for a spell is 6 seconds, not much is gained in the time regard, thats still tedious. At the same time, the way buffs are normally used, they aren't really tactical decisions imho. They just make you greater at anything they improve, there is no drawback. While fighting against a boss, there is absolutely no decision involved, as it is a no brainer to use them. So most of the time, either buffs are a no brainer, or most likely not necessary at all. Tactical decision? I don't think so. The song of a bard is a much more tactical buff. You can only maintain one at the same time and you have to choose carefully from which you benefit the most at the moment. Combat modes come with advantages but also disadvantages. Buffs can be maintained happily at the same time, so there is no drawback which one to use (given sufficient duration) so they are really just no bainers. I don't want to deny the existence of buffs, whether you like them or not is just a matter of taste in the end, but in the IE games, you're just weak if you not use them at all, which I think is kind of bad game design (and this is independent of the tedious casting process). IE games didn't forced you to use buffs. I'm in the camp of players who didn't used any buffs.Still IE games weren't difficult.The only IE games that were designed with buffs in mind were IWD series, and it had the most combat difficulty,but still you could win the encounters without buffs but with diffirent tactics like ambushes,backstab,traps,hit and run tactics... That is good game design.Sawyer said in a comment that if he read walkthroughs and all of then suggest the same tactic against a particular encounter, he failed in his job. The thing is, in IE games there was no single way to win.Sure, there were easyer ways and more difficult ways but thats not a problem

Above a certain (fairly low) level, potions were not going to get your front-line characters back up to peak condition unless you were dumping gallons of potions down their throats. Whether it was due to loss of hit points or loss of per-rest/daily abilities, parties eventually had to rest in IE games. Pre-3E, clerics (or druids) had to devote a lot of their spell slots to healing. Some of those healing spells were used in combat, but often they were used between combat -- in essence trading the loss of one resource for another, but still accelerating the diminution of party resources. It also practically demanded the presence of a dedicated healer for extended exploration. I'm a bit confused about why this is a problem. It's a arch-type, the Healer. Once you remove that job from that character, all you end up with is a Mage without a spellbook that can use a weapon. You remove the entire identity from the class in order to solve something that really isn't an issue. Again, I'm *really* confused as to why this is a problem. If some group is foolish enough to wander off into the hostile wastes with the intention of getting into alot of fights, and didn't think to bring someone who can heal with them, they deserve to die. Strategically, this is an extremely foolish mistake. Further, all this does is encourage min-maxing behavior (Powergaming), by removing a necessary role from the party roster to replace it with even more offense. Making it a strictly better choice to not take a healer if you don't require them to heal, in favor of taking even more offense. Put simply, this whole line of thought means that the best strategic decision for any party, or even any army, is to never hire healers, just warriors, because there's now no need for healers. This system encourages power gaming, it makes the healer class redundant, makes them a "Mage who is really bad at being a Mage" compare to a real mage. Further, it really doesn't make sense to excise the healer. Who is going to go on a long journey with a certainty of being injured, without taking someone who is trained in treating injuries? Further, exploring this line of thought to it's conclusion means that every class should have the abilities of every other class, so that no class is necessary. In short, every class should have melee combat skills, every class should have magic skills, because we shouldn't have a dependence on classes. Finally, it reduces choice in character creation,. It effectively turns the game into Fighter/Rogue/Mage, removing an entire silo of character archtype. Removing variety is never good, especially when the removal just facilitates powergaming. There is nothing wrong with the healer archetype.But the world of P:E has no magical healing.This is a fact.NO healing spells,no potions,no resurrection.The priest has nothing to do with a mage or a healer.This dual system makes this viable. Imagine if you had the classic hit point system.With absolutelly no means to heal the game would be way more punishing and you would be forced to rest after every battle.The devs don't want this.This dual system is more flexible and i imagine it will be constracted in such a way as to don't force you to rest all the time

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.