Sacred_Path

Do you realize your rhetoric becomes more and more muddled? All of a sudden IE games are "tactical combat games", RPG doesn't even figure in there anymore. Of course, if you're under the impression that these games are isometric shooters with a level progression mechanic, it's becoming more obvious what your problem is. See, people who function normally mentally can enjoy one thing (like kill XP) but also enjoy another, especially if it's an obvious improvement (as in this case). Also, normal people feel bad when they spam up a perfectly productive thread like this with random snubs. I know I do now

I reiterate, you assume that kill XP is so fundamental for a CRPG that you cannot for the life of you imagine any other approach. Since you're not a full retard, I think it's a form of pouting. But there's no need to pout Little Helm, I'm sure you'll find another (probably flawed) mechanic in P:E that you'll come to love and defend just like that anachronism (kill XP).

So your entire problem is, someone said that this game will take cues from Baldur's Gate, and you interpreted that to mean that there will be kill XP. And helmets will protect you from critical hits. And you will be able to spam that rest button. And now that you've realized this might not be the case and that noone ever promised you the latter, your disappointment makes you unable to see the advantages of any new systems.

This. Also, for obvious reasons, no resting (however it is handled) in areas where enemies are lurking around.

Both of those are easily solved by, for example, making it so that there are multiple items which could be made from the parts. Just to give some examples: Perhaps the Pommel Jewel of the Equalizer, in addition to its obvious use in reforging the sword, could instead be used to make a powerful amulet. Or the Wave Blade could be mounted onto an axe handle instead of being reunited with the Wave Shaft. Maybe that Ankheg shell, in addition to being made into plate mail, could be broken up into smaller pieces and used to make scale mail for a lighter alternative, or even turned into a weapon of some sort. The possibilities can be even better if this sort of idea is incorporated from the very start. I'd rather the (re)forging wasn't trivial in the first place. In that case items that have so many different powers that they're useful to all parties would be ok IMO. Reforging Narsil wasn't trivial. I could do with outrageous sums charged for a repair, so you really have to weigh it against other things you could spend your cash on.

I liked Divine Divinity's gender based classes at first glance until I realized it doesn't really matter what skills they start with. But I think I'm when I say that it's better for the game to react to whatever class you have and what gender you are than restricting class abilities based on gender.

This got me thinking on quests in general, and I must say I hope there won't be an inflation of quests, but more tiered and interbranching quests (so wandering off from quest location to quest location wouldn't be much of an issue). I think I've read/ watched JES reminiscing about Pools of Radiance lately, and that kind of tiered city council quests would be v. appealing to me. Of course inflation of quests is an attempt at offering choice and simulating the fact that a myriad things are going on in the world at the same time, but a few quest givers with multiple quests and more relations between them would be my preference.

It's begging the quesion why clearing out all bandits is "too high". Are you considering designing the game for people with extremely low attention span, who can't possibly concentrate on killing more than 3 bandits before they feel compelled to wander off in the other direction? Or do you think it necessary to hand out the XP for those 3 bandits (~90 XP of 2000 you need for the next level) ASAP as a tactical component (because the same player will the wander off to kill 3 boars, 3 troglodytes, 3 hellhounds etc. so they can level up before taking on the actual windmill)? Of your examples, "reaching the windmill" would sound just about right, common sense and flavour-wise. Mechanics wise, it's impossible to say without knowing all specifics of this quest. Is there an entire bandit encampment blocking the road, with three waves of bandits and a witch-doctor and bandit champion at the end? Is there a way to avoid the road, but it's heavily trapped? Etc.

Maybe I should have elaborated that you can take some XP at different stages of one quest and leave it at that, or accept to continue the quest (although in that case the quest objective might change, unbeknown to you beforehand). That's a compromise between quest XP and task XP.

I've just been playing Eschalon, and it takes care of this not very elegantly but thoroughly enough. You regularly get popups asking not only "do you want to go off on this quest" (which keeps you from carrying useless trash, often) but also "do you insist on continuing this quest in this way". That's entirely a binary approach of course, not very complex but at least it ensures that your choices are recognized by the game instead of the usual 4th wall breaking ("Gee, I just turned this quest on its head and went against everything I said before. Unfortunately noone seems to realize that and nothing's really changed" [except that your quest giver is now dead]).

But, since that's only true for the main quest, why give XP on side quests? Saving the kitty isn't part of the main quest. It's not an objective in any way to save as many kittens as you can. You could of course say that implicitly, the main quest requires you to do some optional questing to gain enough XP. In that case, you could still argue for some quests to give XP, and some not.

=/ dodgy troll is dodgy. It's you who's extolling the virtues of IE over possible elements of P:E so you'd better explain why, I reiterate, chugging potions in IE was just fine by you but you cannot possibly tolerate it in P:E. On the contrary... My point was that constructing any play style around chugging potions is horrible. Especially if it involves chugging a potion, going invisible and then walking past enemies expecting the same xp as those who engage in combat. Cat tells me to tell you he thinks you have huge comprehension issues. So you actually thought combat in IE games was horrible. Well, that's new. I assume the only thing you liked about combat then was that it gave xp?

=/ dodgy troll is dodgy. It's you who's extolling the virtues of IE over possible elements of P:E so you'd better explain why, I reiterate, chugging potions in IE was just fine by you but you cannot possibly tolerate it in P:E. Potions (or any other means of buffing) are ok IMO if it adds to the gameplay, if it's just another ressource you have to manage just like spells or per-day abilities. Which was probably the idea of the post this argument sprang from. So you didn't play IE games with casters, ever? Well that explains so much (certainly certain problems you may have grasping the idea of limited-use abilities). And you really are worried that the goodness of the old days, with endless potion chugging while whittling away at Orc chieftans with your longsword +1 with a 10% hit chance to gain those 50 kill XP won't come back? Truly devastating q_q

OMIGAD. I wonder what you thought about combat in the IE games, where combat was designed around chugging health potions (well, stitching needles or smth in PS:T's case). According to your logic, that wasn't fighting, it's drinking. What about the fact that at higher levels, IE (=DnD) combat tended to become a game of your tanks playing merry-go-round while success came from your casters pulling off the right (AoE) spells at the right time? Then that wasn't fighting or drinking, it's casting.

It wasn't "dumbed down", but it certainly didn't require much thought. You're kidding yourself (or you simply haven't followed the updates) if you think P:E will be lacking in complexity compared to Durrr & Durrr 2nd ed. And yes this is OT

I don't think you could dumb down BG2. #controversyrightthere

This. Doesn't need to copy the D&D mechanic, but something along the lines of penalizing shooting into melee. Along with a greater distance at which they're effective, it would make those early ranged weapons exactly what they were; the weapons of choice when enemies were a good way away from you.

To make archery compelling, distance must be non-trivial IMO. See Darklands, where 1) everyone moved slow as hell across the battlefield and 2) melee was p. dangerous. In another favorite game of mine (tactics wise), Wizardry 8, ranged fire that isn't magic never seems to live up to melee. Probably because you don't move around a lot, backing into a corner is often the best option. Called shots also enhance the whole experience. I hope that combat will be initiated at greater distance than in the IE games, so you really have the option to do good damage before melee, set up traps etc. And encountering a bunch of archers/ riflemen at a great distance should always give you pause and make you try to approach them more stealthily. I'm also all for crafting arrows, as well as other basic items. Much less contentious than crafting epic items. I don't need to be able to retrieve ammunition (no dissection of corpses to remove lodged bullets), but enchanting (wizards) or imbuing (priests) basic arrows would be a nice touch.

Pretty much this. If you want what other people are carrying, you'll have to kill them, most of the time. It's natural and not contrived. Deciding between combat and sneak buffs would be neat, though I'd rather they achieve that by limiting your spell slots (as they seem to do, see 'resting'). I'd like it to be a bit more ingrained though, not entirely situational; like, you can't have a party that's great at stealth and combat. Maybe by forcing you to choose between spells that enhance stealth and combat utility spells.

That's one possibility, though doesn't align exactly to what I said. I think I react to rewarding strategies as much as the next guy; however, if one "strategy" has me killing respawning boars for two days on end and the other has me playing through the game in a way that was probably intended more, creating a challenging and fun experience, I think I'll have no problem going for the latter. This is in keeping with what I wrote above: I think the major concern should be to create a game that is eminently playable in at least one way. Take another degenerate strategy, endless save-reloading; it was easy enough to avoid. Simply don't reload. IMO enabling this option is all the devs are obliged to do, well maybe also balancing the game in such a way that this is not only theoretically possible. As long as it's a viable alternative for an experienced player, this eliminates the entire problem of possible save-scumming. Rest spamming was worse because, like I said, there was just no intuitive way to avoid it. Even on an Ironman run, the pros were so massive and the cons so minor that I ended up doing it, as there was just no alternative that jumped out at you. What I'd want to see (if devs are aware that there are such loopholes in the game) is that they put up signs, in the manual or ingame, that say (-not literally-) "see, we know you'll want to spam that rest button and it sort of sucks and takes the challenge out of the game, but here we've given you this other way to play the game, if you want to avoid degeneracy this is what we intended you to do". Not bloody likely to happen of course.

That is true. Those are also two very big ifs. I'd say that NetHack and Diablo are two examples of games where they hold, more or less, although they have their degenerate strategies as well (e.g. pudding farming in NetHack). But that's not why they do it! They do it for the same reason rats push a lever to get a pellet. They don't enjoy pushing the damn lever; they do it for the pellet. It's known as Skinner conditioning, and MMO's are built on it because it's the only way to keep players playing. "Challenge and excitement" have nothing to do with it. Believe me, if there was a button you could press every half-second to gain 1 XP, there would be players out there who would keep hitting it and do nothing else until they hit the level cap or died of carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm not making this up -- this is how people behave. This is how Blizzard made it's billions, for cryin' out loud! You really ought to read JES's posts on the topic, 'cuz you've got it backwards again. A degenerate strategy is not the player's fault -- the player is only doing what players do, i.e., responding rationally to the incentives handed out by the game. It's the designer's fault, for setting things up in such a way that the game rewards the strategies. I think you ought not lump together two kinds of players; those who abuse flaws and glitches intentionally, and those who don't. Let me cite one example which I think is truly degenerate gaming: rest spamming in IE games. It's degenerate firstly because there's no "proper" way to use resting in those games at all. Even as a player with the best intentions, you just didn't what the "balanced" or intended way to rest was. And it was so powerful compared to 1) resting only in inns 2) resting rarely 3) never resting that everyone ended up binging on it. It was secondly degenerate because it was a mind-numbing, repetitive task that took no skill. It was easily discernible that rest spamming unbalanced the games, yet you had no way (except completely arbitrary limitations you made up yourself) to avoid it. That's a big glaring fault in a game's design and needs to be addressed. I think I've read the Sawyer post in question, and I agree it's not about assigning blame, it's just the question of who can do what on their end. I'm not even contesting that there are players that act like rodents or have really bad self-control, but I think those should be the lesser of the devs' concerns. I'm all for fixing bugs and closing obvious loopholes, of course; but I think my point is to focus more on those people who want a good, hard challenge from a game and are willing to stay away from abusing glitches if they can help it. It's obvious that they're catering to this crowd here by i.e. balancing the game for an Ironman mode, so I'm not worrying. It's a bit of a tangent though, I agree.

If you think it's down to semantics, you're wrong. From your source: It may be that the never closing, XP spawning portal is an oversight/ weakness in design, but it can't possibly be called degenerate behavior if what you do as completely conforming to the rules, and just as challenging (or more challenging) than other ways of gaining XP in your game. If players have to turn to a weakness in design to derive some challenge and excitement from your game, the problem obviously isn't this one oversight, IT'S THE ENTIRE REST OF YOUR GAME. If you give the player the choice between sneaking past 3 encounters by pressing a button for every party member (following the order of quests as you received them) or leveling up by engaging in difficult combat (this more often than you intended), the designation of this as "degenerate gaming" is simply inappropriate as it assigns fault to the wrong recipient.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/degenerate 1. to fall below a normal or desirable level in physical, mental, or moral qualities; deteriorate: The morale of the soldiers degenerated, and they were unable to fight. Going with that definition no behavior in gaming can be called degenerate if it challenges your skills, either manually or mentally. Roaming the map looking for anything to kill can't be called degenerate if it pushes your skills as a player every single time because i.e. the combat has a lot of tactical depth to it and the game is very unforgiving. It may be farming, it may go against the devs' intentions (referring to the portal example), but it's not even mindless grinding. This is even more true if you stay entirely within the set rules (by doing combat w/o reliance on abuse of AI or glitches). If the portal in our example enabled you to mindlessly, effortlessly grind your way to the level cap, that's a different matter.

Str could be the "primary fighter stat" too though (let's assume there's no 'finesse'), and still a high Dex, medium Str build might make sense for example (like getting better dodge values, or AoO's, etc.). So while Int or Cha could make a mage's spells more powerful, they might not be required to be able to cast any spells at all as in D&D. It's very early to speculate about P:E's stat system though, true.

That's mostly a question of how class-specific stats are. Would I want a D&D sorceror with low Cha and high Str? Hell no. In a different system that may still be very playable though.