Sacred_Path

This might be the game you've been waiting for:

lol hipster **** actually you're right about BG. When it came out a lot of people who'd never played RPGs were swooning over it so I got it but it was mostly meh. Icewind Dale, partly due to being constrained "geographically" is very atmospherically dense. The only thing I can find seriously wrong with it to this day (not mentioning AD&D, like you said) is the completely linear world map. Seriously, unlocking two areas at the same time wouldn't have been so bad/ hard.

Thinking about a heavily scripted PC, maybe the idea is not as bad as I thought; under one condition: When the player takes over, he must be able to make a significant difference. Let's say that the PC can be set to pick all locks he comes across (this would only be useful in a dungeon); you can either let that happen, or you can take over and pick the lock yourself, be it in the form of a minigame or something like choosing the right tools (the PC would have to make sub-optimal choices to make this viable).

lol. But picking one of your points (not that the others are better argued): I'd be really curious to see what statement from OE can be obstrued to mean that in-depth skill resolution goes against their "intent".

Not to bug anyone but the topic is lockpicking, not combat. Scripting the PC for automatic skill resolution would make for the most anti-climactic game ever (and yes I'm aware NWN2 characters would i.e. disarm traps when they encountered them; I think that proves my point)

Yee-haw! The only thing I said that comes near to that is that more reactive NPCs are good (gasp). As for less player control = better, you probably won't find anyone who agrees with that.

I think I contracted derpes just from reading your last posts For NPCs and monsters, yes. For the player character, not so much.

Sawyer himself said in a topic in the forum here they don't plan on implementing conversational skills. I think he also said that instead attributes will have an effect on dialogue.

I for one would have liked to see conversational skills because they're not as artificial as people make them out to be. 1) Just because you're intelligent and charismatic (which in many systems can only mean good looking) you're not necessarily a grand rhetorist 2) You can be very diplomatic but have no idea how to threaten someone convincingly but mostly 3) When I raise my conversational skills I do so purposefully (= I try to become i.e. more threatening). When I raise my strength, I probably do so with combat/ carrying capacity in mind, not threatening. That is at best an afterthought. Chances are that most of our fighters in P:E will have a high strength, so there's always someone around to unlock that [threaten] option.

Also, this would give those that hate on minigames a way to minimize those (I ain't even trolling ). Of course there's a lot of prejudice because such things have rarely been done right. A terrible minigame is still a terrible minigame, no matter if you can bypass it. Also having to take a specialized locksmith with you everytime would be an offense. The thing is I don't think that we're doomed to only seeing terrible examples of this; I'm trusting these guys that they can come up with something that people would warm to. Heck, I even think that my hackneyed example of an improved lockpicking interface would add some fun.

I'm getting a distinctly "fun" vibe from P:E. Dunno how well that aligns with the "mature themes" thingy

LOL, no legitimate counter? Me: "I think lockpicking should be more challenging than it was in IE. Maybe there could be a puzzle element." You: "You want an ARPG! This game is not for you. Leave now and never come back" Good job not quoting the rest of my post, which you can't refute, obviously. Also, I repeat for the n-th time, the goal was never to make the player less dependant on character skill. You just like to put forth strawmen it seems. Look, I try to come up with ideas for things that 1) I would like to see in the game and 2) that objectively improve the game. More in-depth skill resolution fits both. It adds more "gamey" aspects, that is, things that challenge the player in different ways (= allow you to become gradually better at them). If you're not as interested in the gamey aspects of P:E (because you're in i.e. for the story) then this might not matter much to you; you might even prefer the game playing itself to some extent (automatic skill resolution at the click of a button). That's cool, I just don't have the same preferences. I would even say that my own immersion is enhanced by more detailed skill resolution. In IE games, you never even saw a representation of the lock on the screen; you just got a text message. That made for a very "meta" feel. Anything that makes the player feel that he's moving through a complex world is preferrable to that. Another example, we might have an idea of what the Alchemy skill does because we read the description; still, clicking on a button and then having a potion identified is completely meta. I've described in this thread my idea of how I'd rather see that skill being played out.

You breezed through BG2 or IWD2 hardly knowing what you're doing? And it took no skill whatsoever, other than reading? Interesting what more needs to be said?

I'd definitely welcome limited gold on merchants (that isn't reset daily). If that forces you to sell powerful magic items for far less than they're worth, all the better.

You're dodging. Try to back up your position that no skill is needed whatsoever to perform well in IE combat. I see. So you could take a backseat while your character analyzes the battlefield and orders everyone around, leaving you to wonder why you didn't think of that. That would surely be better than playing. ô.ô

There's one word for this: autism Easy: if combat in an IE game doesn't have anything to do with player skill, a veteran of ~200 hours in the IE games should do just as well as a complete noob. Now you just have to explain why that is what you want/ how the genre profits from it. I'm all ears. O_O

There is so much hyperbole in this post I don't even. The fact that it's a composite word should probably tells us that one is a sub genre of the other. Also I challenge the claim that ARPG's are "more reliant on the player". While I have to manage my own movement in combat in a TES game, I have to manage the movements of 6 characters in an IE game. What the ARPG demands in twitch skills the IE games demand in tactics. Dialogue in a 'true' RPG (i.e. Arcanum) tends to take more thought than in an ARPG. Yes, usually. Doesn't it make you wonder?

You need to press buttons to navigate around traps. You need to press buttons and use your own timing to stay in the shadows, if the stealth system requires it. You need to press buttons and use your own foresight to navigate a battlefield with your squishy mage. Your point: there is none. You're wise and humble. Whenever you want to degrade a certain activity on part of the player you talk about "pressing buttons". I wonder why that is. Button phobia much? Performing well in combat and other activities demands player skill. Lockpicking in most cases does not. The reasons for this discrepancy hasn't been properly explained by anyone yet. Remember that "branching dialogue" hasn't been a standard for ages, so I wouldn't call it, as the young folks say, "massive decline".

I'd just expect it to be common knowledge that small guys in red bathrobes hiding behind big guys in iron suits mean trouble, and that trouble multiplies when they start shouting orders. I'd just get the hell out of there. But hey, there's realism and there's gameplay. As for positional control over the enemy flock, evading AoE's sounds like the domain of the rogue. So rogues could make the perfect "shepherds"

You obviously don't understand that a character's movement depends on the player's skill; often, as you just noted, entirely so! Have you played the IE games? Do you just let your characters stand around leisurely, or do you move them around tactically? Ever retreated into a doorway? Run away when you figured that 2 more hits would take you down? Have you played whack-a-mole in a first person RPG? Then you should get my point. reading comprehension over 9000 What if "sick" or "injured" was replaced by "tired"? So your character's performance shouldn't suffer if you play with your eyes closed/ snoring? Once again I challenge you to explain where the fundamentil difference is in playing badly (making all the wrong decisions) and aiming/ lockpicking badly. You can say what you want about Skyrim, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, but at least they still require a player to operate the basic mechanisms! Hey, I haven't even looked at it like that before. Thanks, I guess.

(emphasis mine) So what RPGs have you played where you don't need to press a button for your character to walk to a certain location? Also, props for mostly missing the subject. I said: By stupid decisions I obviously didn't mean "forgetting to let your character breathe" (unless you're underwater. In that case running out of oxygen is a dumb thing to do), but making bad decisions in combat, breaking&entering in broad daylight, casting Firebolt at the king, etc. All of which has negative consequences that you say you can live with, despite the fact that you claim a player's skills/ condition shouldn't have an influence on the character. Trolling much? Obviously the point isn't the technology, it's outrageous because, even in the near or far future, noone will be interested in playing a game, or rather loading up a game, where the character makes all decisions by himself. good luck waiting for "less player control!" to become a trend in CRPG design.

Or you can rely on - gold, do jobs for gold, kill people who have gold, break into mansions and steal gold. I think that's the best alternative.

If by "other things" you mean "things other than puzzles", I can't agree. It's a bold thing to say that people don't want puzzles (at least for a game like P:E), and that it's better not to have them. Like I said, the term puzzle is fishy. Let's say "obstacle that takes some mental effort" (maybe look at my suggestion of an improved version of Wizardry 8's lockpicking) o rly Speaking about BaK, the problem was IMO that while it was a nice diversion on the first playthrough, it became only a nuisance on subsequent playthrough because it had no variety. Also IIRC character skill didn't matter at all for the puzzle chests.

Hmm. And you see nothing problematic there? As in, arbitrary and contradictory? No. Or rather, only partially. For the umpteenth time, noone argues for a lockpicking mechanic that leaves out character skill. The problem is that 1) you're making an outrageous claim ("it's unfortunate that the player has so much influence on a character's performance. It should all happen automatically, we just can't do that yet"), you're 2) not trying to explain why that would be a good thing (don't try, it's impossible), you're 3) contradicting yourself (when my character carries out my wishes automatically, how does that make him independant of me?). I have to remind of the aptly named "combat puzzle". I wasn't trying to be negative, simply stating that if you want to make lockpicking interesting it's hard to do if you set out saying to yourself "it shouldn't be twitchy and it shouldn't be a puzzle".

"not twitch based" and "not like a puzzle" doesn't leave many compelling options, m i rite? You either have to react quickly, or you have to think. Of course the term puzzle is fishy. Wizardry 8's system would fit that description (not your other points tho). There's a pop up window where you manipulate tumblers, more or less efficiently based on your skill. You can also cast a knock spell (manipulating more or fewer tumblers based on spell power). There's no challenge at all though, and therefore it begs the question why it's in the game at all. Now I guess this could be improved upon if i.e. there were actual consequences for tumblers coming loose again while you're still fiddling with others, like the trap blowing up in your face. The amount of times you have to try to move one tumbler gives you an indication of how big a challenge the lock is, if you should go on and risk the first tumbler coming loose again. Also the additional option of casting a knock spell would meet another of your points (party based). Maybe the higher the power level of the spell, the more likely it is to move more tumblers; if the spell level is too low vs. lock level, moved tumblers may come loose again. Of course as we know there probably won't be a knock spell in P:E and also no spell power level (that you actively choose).