Sacred_Path

This is what will happen on a higher difficulty level. Which makes me wonder why they need level scaling at all; if someone plays on easy, let him be higher in level if he grinds for it and let him kick all bosses' asses (or still get pwned - they might not be very good at the game anyway). On expert difficulty, hard fights should become very hard anyway, even if you did all side quests you could.

I've stated in another thread that I'd like them to get rid of the Fog of War. Display all the map, but objects of interest (like monsters and items) should only be displayed once they get into your line of sight. Different characters could have bigger or smaller areas where they can perceive things, but generally bigger than in IE games. This could make those moments before you close into pitched melee more exciting, and give you more options (i.e. in BG2 you usually put down traps close to you, then started to pull enemies into them).

I wouldn't have a problem with that, as long as it's not the same 6 skills on every playthrough because the others are just flavor skills (my idea was that if you have flavor skills, make them cheap).

I don't expect that there's the danger of becoming overpowered by doing a hundred fetch quests because you found them all so compelling and interesting. Not taking a jab here (I actually think fetch quests won't be frequent). Still I'd be in favor of limiting quests in such ways that you can't reap the benefits of every single one in one playthrough.

I'm in favor of calling side quests you only do to get XP grinding. I was talking about how it would be good if, instead of having bosses scale, the possible XP players could get before they reach the boss-bottleneck would be limited. This doesn't necessarily have to happen by limiting the number of quests in the game, but possibly by tying them tightly to factions so you only get to see a portion of them on any playthrough.

Except that a boss that's scaled to a low level might not be a challenge at all, rite? It's more about consistency IMO. Like saying "I can breeze through low level enemies here but I'll need to level up to stand up to that boss". Making a boss monster gradually more powerful by adding more resistances and more status effect attacks seems a bit contrived to me. Like reaching a boss at level 7 and he's a complete pushover, but get there at level 12 and he'll kick your ass. I hope that grinding and XP farming will be limited, so that you'll probably never be much higher in level than the mandatory bosses you face. Unless you really do every side quest, at least. IMO there should be ways to reward players if they didn't grind much (like a score at the end of the game where your ingame time factors in heavily [like in Might& Magic games]).

If combat and non-combat skills drew on the same pool of skill points, that would make for exponentially greater variety of how those skill points could be spent (wisely). If you have to decide between making your three tanks expert swordsmen or expert climbers, swimmers and trackers, or something inbetween, you can have widely different results on different playthroughs (that is of course implying that those non-combat skills are worth it). Now this won't be the case in PE, you can raise your combat skills and raise your non-combat skills without any trade-off. So I'm asking how they will avoid having all parties looking like this: - 1 alchemist expert (brewing healing potions and preparing flaming oil) - 1 character who opens locks and disarms traps - 1 dedicated scout with sneaking and tracking - 1 character with medical skills - 2 characters with crafting skills The obvious answer would be "there will be many skills and they will all be useful, stupid!". Which is what I meant by skill point scarcity.

Nothing spells terrible devastation and intestine-flinging like Riverdance.

that sounds a bit weird... i.e. we'll punish the player if he wanders off to explore because he could hit monsters much higher in level. OTOH, if he just wants to breeze through the game, let all mandatory combat be scaled to a low level. That's just one interpretation of course

I think a lot of problems with excess gold and items come from the fact that most games allow players to harvest the entire world. It usually goes like this: Kill monsters, get gold. Kill bandit leader, get item. Go into a dungeon and pick some locks to get more gold and items. Do a side quest, get paid. Gather up excess items and sell for massive profit. They tried to do it differently in Lionheart (and failed, but that's not the point). You had one character and you could pick 3 'tag' skills, like in Fallout. This meant you had to choose your ways of getting money. You could build an entirely combat-oriented character, but monsters only yielded low amounts of gold. You could tag lockpicking and pilfer chests. Or you could tag 'perception' which let you find buried treasures and hidden items. Or you could tag 'diplomacy' which increased your bartering skills. Like I said they failed (lockpicking skill could be entirely gained from items and potions, for example). I expect P:E to do much better. I expect that fighting, sneaking past, or talking your way out of an encounter will yield different profits at different times. I hope that rather than there being a million different side quests, most side quests pertain to two or three factions, where the solutions are mutually exclusive. I entirely hope that it's possible to fight your way down a dungeon, but if you lack characters with the required skills you won't get to loot the armory, so you only got what killing those enemies netted you. I hope that higher difficulties will require you to make frequent use of money sinks (like donating at temples to get temporary blessings). sorry if a bit OT

bosses shouldn't be subject to level scaling, period. Wizardry 8 did this very well where on your first playthrough, you inevitably got pwned by a level 5 or 6 giant ****roach. This taught you early on that you can't save those level ups infinitely. That was important because players would soon notice that it's preferrable to stay on level 1 or 2 two train up your skills, because on level 3 monsters started to have ranged attacks and on >3 they started to paralyze you. That said I hope there won't be level scaling in PE at all. It takes away the open-world feeling completely. I'd rather the XP was scaled to your level (ECL).

One more question Josh, with 6 party members and non-combat skills separated from combat skills, how will you avoid every party looking the same skill-wise (non-combat)? Skill point scarcity? Skill synergies? Or will attributes also factor in somewhere?

Speaking of which, I was never sure wether I was expected to pick up and sell crap equipment (I didn't). I'd prefer finding small amounts of (weightless?) gold on enemies rather than leather vambraces.

I'd agree to making it a matter of gradually increased damaged rather than saying "maces do full damage! Swords do half damage! Daggers do no damage!". I'd also say it should be a real c&c to pick the weapon you want to specialize in. In the old 2E games like Icewind Dale you knew that it was required at some point to put points into mace skill, and you had plenty of those points so it was a no-brainer. Ideally, I think against sort-of indestructible creations like skeletons and golems, if you encounter one the puppet master should never be far. So you can decide if it's better to hunt down that mage and use your shiny daggers on him rather than blunting them on the golem.

Making large weapons impractical in cramped spaces is a nice idea but would probably not be feasible in P:E (real time, isometric), I think it would be far too easy to navigate your characters into disadvantaged positions unintentionally. Heavy armor/ weapons draining stamina was something I'd hoped it would be in P:E (loved that in Wizardry 8 ) but we know now that's not going to happen. While I'm not fond of dual-wielding, I think making it a bit more rational like this would be good. I'm actually very curious about this too; will dual-wielders be dextrous and lightly armored? Will barbarians just become stronger while raging or will they do more damage in general, so a barbarian could be more dextrous (since elves are likely to be barbarians in P:E)? The 'maces against skeletons' cliché is getting quite a bit of stick, but I personally have always liked it. I just hope weapon specialization (if it exists in this form in PE) will be narrow so it will be non-trivial to just pull out the right weapon at the right time. We already know that guns will be slow and good against mages.

So you're not sold on my idea of all tunes being shanties? That makes me a sad panda. q_q How awesome would it be if you stepped onto the shores of Dyrwood and there would be 'Oh Britannia' playing?

I wasn't saying that PE's theme should be exactly like that, I was just using it as an example of how theme music doesn't have to be a sweeping orchestra to be memorable and effective. Now you're making me feel bad about really liking Hero-U's music. Intentional?

If you're into HP style music, Hero-U should be the game for you. Since sea voyages will feature prominently in P:E, each and every piece of music should be a shanty. You can start throwing rotten fruit now

Theoretically possible, though something like that should require a strength check or similar mechanic. It would actually be an example of bad implementation and balancing state-of-mind to just say "axe in off-hand negates shield protection!". It's also another example why dual-wielding is too specific in its uses to justify implementation in an FRPG. Two lightly armored human duelists? Yes. Against heavy armor+ big shield? No. Against animals/ huge monsters that don't have the intelligence or anatomy to call for subtle tactical differences? No. In tight formations in mass combat? No. It's one of the gimmicks, like romances and monks, that won't ruin my game experience but I must question the reasons for implementing them.

that's exactly what I meant. I expect the "lockpick cost" to become gradually lower the closer you are to the required skill level.

I hope they don't use this anti-climactic system. I hope that every level counts; either by giving you more mana but theoretically all spells are unlocked from the beginning, or by unlocking a new spell level on every level up. also level caps are lovely/ necessary, but it can be done more elegantly, say by using ECL like in DnD. At some point, there will be no foes left in the game powerful enough to give you any XP worth mentioning.

What games fabricated is the balance issue. Dual wielding doesn't help when someone in heavy plate armor and a shield simply wades into you. It doesn't do "more damage", or even comparable damage, to a brute cracking your skull with a two-handed hammer. That was part of my 'silly hat' remark.

Yes, I thought there would be balance issues. TYVM for your feedback!

Nah, that's a translation of their German translation. I was p. sure they'd got something wrong, hence the question mark.

I'm mostly concerned about how these languages will be implemented dialogue-wise. The easiest way is certainly to say "this guy speaks in a foreign language. Due to your skills you are able to understand him" and then provide a text in plain run-off-the-mill English. Maybe go so far as to omit a number of words based on your skill level/ experience with the language. What I'd like to see though are languages that differ in some way from the commonly used language (which may be Aedyr), i.e. a language that relies heavily on symbolism and metaphors while alluding often to its native religion; so that in dialogue, you'd really have to think about how to get your point across (also requiring information about said religion). That also means I'd want a smaller, well done number of languages. I'm against languages as skills because that might be hard to do right, and it's also a no-brainer skill; I guess you'd just have to raise it. I'd prefer set events that determine wether you can communicate with someone, even if it might be in a hands-and-feet way (i.e. you recruit a temporary interpreter NPC/ find an old forgotten book in a dungeon that has inscriptions in both Aedyr and language X [= rosetta stone])