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Sacred_Path

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Everything posted by Sacred_Path

  1. Sacred_Path
    I said: These mechanics will make healers and healing potions almost completely redundant as strategical elements. In other words, you probably wont even need a healer (a priest, whatever) or healing potions because the health system will be almost completely and solely tactical based with a self-regenerating health (stamina) bar. Understand now? IOW: you will lose health, and that health can't be regained by resting at will and it doesn't regenerate. That means you'll wish for healers, rather than them being redundant. Items/ spells that could refresh health will be rare and valuable, adding possibly more strategic choices in how you will outfit/ make up your party.
  2. Sacred_Path
    am I missing something, or why doesn't your armor's damage threshold figure in somewhere?
  3. Sacred_Path
    I don't even
  4. Sacred_Path
    Are you lamenting the fact that there will be two health bars, or the fact that there will be no healers (there won't, priests are relegated to the role of paladin) ? How exactly is healing redundant when you will lose health along with stamina, health can only be recouped by resting, and resting is limited?
  5. Sacred_Path
    This. If it's just some further division of traffic on the boards, it wouldn't serve any purpose.
  6. Sacred_Path
    I think this poll will have to be redone once there is more information on specific classes. DnD Barbs and Clerics are somewhat boring (albeit powerful) classes and we'll have to see what they bring to the table in P:E. Personally I'm more curious about how the ranger will do, considering they're so underpowered in many games but maybe Obs have some really interesting ideas.
  7. Sacred_Path
    Behold the powers of reading k0mprehenshun.
  8. Sacred_Path
    Yes, exactly (trying to prove you're not retarded?). Please elaborate on your position of "I've never played a game like that, therefore it cannot/ should not be done".
  9. Sacred_Path
    Well, "understanding the system" in BG2's case meant abusing the balance holes and bad AI though. Using chain contingencies/ ridiculous backstab modifiers and overpowered traps and the AI's total lack of counter measures against stealth/ nigh-invulnerabilities due to D&D's cheesy armor/ HP workings. I hope that P:E will kick you in the balls with enemies roaming maps/ sneaking up on you/ non-trivial damage/ good use of spells. But then I'm entirely ok with higher difficulties being more party-centric than lower difficulties.
  10. Sacred_Path
    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.
  11. Sacred_Path
    Meh. Then why even have formations in the game? Why a gazillion character classes? Why a babillion races? This makes me a sad panda. q_q
  12. Sacred_Path
    Wait... this and the "PC death" topic and the Darklands reference melted together in my head and... why couldn't the game go on with the PC dead in the way of a) main quest is botched and it's becoming entirely a sandbox game b) main quest can be completed but would consist mostly of fighting and scripted encounters It all made sense before I wrote it down, I swear.
  13. Sacred_Path
    Hmm. So recruiting is "tapered out over the course of the game" (I overheard that last time), but Josh also said "if you want a party of 5 priests you can do that". So we'll have to see how that turns out. Oh and... PLZ don't make us run around with 1, 2 or 3 characters till mid-game, or wait until the end so we can add that friggin 6th party member. Everyone who likes deep combat will be grateful.
  14. Sacred_Path
    FFS sake people, plz stop stating a simpleton's speculation like "the game won't be designed around the AH" with nothing to go on. We can be pretty sure that they will try to implement this feature as well as possible because they know it's a big deal to players. Source plz? I doubt that they wouldn't have implemented a way to create your own party. Quite a few of the names that have been coming up as inspiration for P:E had player created parties. Especially the bit about "deep, tactical combat" would suffer immensly if you only had always the same few companions available.
  15. Sacred_Path
    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.
  16. Sacred_Path
    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.
  17. Sacred_Path
    So you think all ©RPGs that came before and told the story around a party rather than an individual had it wrong? Because "our natural perspective" wasn't considered? Just a question, have you ever been part of a group with a common goal where your individual condition and reasons were secondary? Have you played games/ read books/ seen movies where the focus isn't on a single character? I have. There's nothing inherently inferior about this approach. OTOH, using a single character's often very limited range of motivations (U killed my G0ri0n!) can make for a very lackluster game.
  18. Sacred_Path
    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
  19. Sacred_Path
    except in those cases where you control more than one character. But this is becoming somewhat retarded.
  20. Sacred_Path
    Because companions will be free (I guess). Anything that further gimps adventurers from the AH isn't a good idea. It already seems that you will miss out on some things if you don't take companions, so you're already at a disadvantage. Uhm, I already told you. What the AH does is add diversity to parties because you can create any party makeup you wish, rather than choosing always the same companions because there will be (max.) 1 of every class. You're talking from the perspective of someone who wants to play with companions and only uses the AH for restocking, but realize that this is not everyone's play style. I'm also repeating my point that it's not going to be easy to restock your party from the AH because they'll start at level 1. Imagine being halfway through the game and losing 3-4 of your characters in a battle that went horribly wrong. It's good that you can restock at the AH, but it's only a slim chance because half of your party will be very weak until they gain more XP. I've said on numerous occasions that I want to be able to play skilfully, that means replacing characters if there's perma-death in the game. I don't want free candy, only a chance to continue if you play the game well.
  21. Sacred_Path
    I still think relying on different difficulty modes and limiting XP is preferrable for all parties involved. One reason is that "level" might not be a good indication of player strength. A "knight" player might achieve a high level because he's genuinely interested in all those small side quests, but still be very weak when it comes to mechanics. Maybe he never bothered to figure out in detail how damage and armor work, or doesn't use formations properly, or has no idea of good spell cominations. Having encounters scale to his high level might just add frustration. OTOH, a skilled player might be very dangerous in combat but having a low level (because objective-based XP ). Downscaling encounters would certainly not be ideal here.
  22. Sacred_Path
    I hope not. I'm planning on making my own party for nearly every playthrough, with a few exceptions (if I definitely want a Barbarian in my party and there's a Barbarian companion I'll probably take him). The whole replayability hinges on the different kinds of party setups you can have. That would be a bad idea. All it would do is elevate the status of companions compared to those you can recruit through the AH. Which would result not in you building interesting parties but always playing with one of every class. The AH characters WILL become more of a problem on the higher difficulties, as they will probably start on level 1. That means it might be a pain/ feat of skill to keep them alive on a higher difficulty late into the game. So there's no danger that you will sacrifice them on suicide missions.
  23. Sacred_Path
    please, keep your meta-gamey LARPing out of my mechanics discussion. Never have the devs said that companions are just Santa's little helpers "along for the ride". You just wish to imagine that because otherwise the whole "chosen one" premise goes to crap. They will have their own agenda, the devs have confirmed that. But I hope that their agenda isn't a petty little personal affair that can be resolved whenever you find the time and then there's nothing left of personality to them. I remember reading that the companions will tie into the story somehow, and that makes it a viable option to give the burden of responsibility for the main quest over to them. The reason why there are interactive companions has more to do with immersion and satisfying players' demands in a single player game. the "nature of companions" (which we know very little about) doesn't dictate that they will all stand around mute while the entire dialogue and narrative rests only on the main character. This could unfortunately be true, but still be bad design. However I don't think it will come to that, because deaths are permanent in P:E and I don't think that you could carry the same party through the entire game on the higher difficulties. So they will have to find some compromise between what the companions offer (which I would expect is mostly dialogue) and what you will experience when you don't have Ai companions in the party.
  24. Sacred_Path
    I've already done that, but it seems to have passed you by. No we don't, you might want to check this thread http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=58186 for a good summary of known information. We can assume that not only the game will be balanced around the option of the AH, but also designed with it in mind. Everything else would mean players creating their own party would miss out on a good chunk of content. That's entirely an ingame explanation, doesn't work on a meta-game level. You could also argue the other way around, you get to create only one character who won't be noticeably different in any way to other characters of the same kind, and you can add 5 more of those characters. Seems like it is a party-based game, rite? The only question is what the devs intended and what options they gave you. If the game is balanced around a party of characters, your point is moot mechanics-wise. Story-wise it's a different matter, and we don't know yet what role the companions will have in the story and how central you are to it. But I'm not arguing about story much (although I still haven't seen someone making a case of why chosen one stories are superior to others).
  25. Sacred_Path
    You are describing Baldur's Gate, but we don't know yet if the game will play out like BG so your point is moot. There have been some threads on this topic (like "should your character be the only conversationalist or can everyone chime in") and I'm obviously preferring the latter. It's more realistic, it's more versatile, and it allows for more choices & consequences. Think Storm of Zehir, only that one character is the focus of the narrative.
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