Borna

Just out of curiosity, did the Baldurs Gate series use any kind of level scaling? If memory serves me right, that system worked just fine, I don´t see why the need to change it. For example,I remember how good it felt when I FINALY beat those lyches in Athakla. It was a sure sign my party grew. I missed that in the last two Elder Scrolls. I had almost no sense of how more powerful my character is becoming, apart from getting better equipment. Even that was mostly dissapointing, since most opponents constantly had only slightly worse type of armour and weaponry than myself, and I could craft items 10 to the nth times more powerful than those I found. The adventuring felt totaly lacking of adequate rewards. I love the feeling of stumbling upon an enemy (or a group of), getting my as$ kicked, shouting "ooooh, just you wait, you enemy, you..." at the monitor, and then returning to that area after a few levels and administering some serious arse whooping to the aforementioned foe. Even if the BG and ID series did use some sort of level scaling, imo it was superbly used, as it allowed the player to have that all important feeling of acomplishment and achievement and balancing the game at the same time.

I´m all for this idea! I´ve been practicing WMA (western martial arts) for a few years now and it would be beyond awseome to see my P: E character in a stance apropriate for the weapon he is using. The thing is, historicaly acurate European medieval marshall arts have gained a lot of popularity over the past years, and we now now for certain how to properly use a hand and a half sword, how to fight with bucklers and "short" swords (for the lack of a better word), we now know for a fact that greatswords are NOT slow, we know how to fight with a halbred, a partisan, a scythe etc,... It is a real shame that modern games and movies continue to ignore these facts and persist on decades old missconceptions and myths. So, technicaly, I don´t think it would be that big of a problem to incorporate this in the game. It would take a few more animations per charater. I love the idea of learning new fighting techniques throught the game. That way, on your first playthrough, you wont even know what fighting styles you will be using by the end!

Of course that wearing different armor should grant different benefits, just not in the protection department. We all know this is a fantasy game, but it has to have its own internal logic to adherre to. If leather was a material just as hard as metal, what would that mean for the people living in that world? What of the animals? The architecture? The truth is, if you want protection, you go for plate. And thats it. If you want to be an agile dual rapier wielder, than leather or chain will certanily be better suited for your fighting style. I really don´t see the issue here. Or if you want to play a bad as$ barbarian, he could have a cultural bias against wearing armor beacuse "real men don´t hide behind metal skin!" and he could have more hp than the fighter class and more stamina and what not. But it simply would make any sense to make armor just an esthetic choice, and for me, it would kill a good portion of fun in this game. I think it would be aweseome if full plate armor would be a rare thing in P: E! Maybe if it was reserved only for the most elite of slodiers, nobility and the most hardy of adventurers. It really should be expensive and hard to come by. That way it will be extremly rewarding once you finaly obtain it. Of course, this should be the case with all high level equipment.

Boy, a lot has been said here and you will excuse me if I didn´t read all the 27 pages of discussion! First of all, I voted "against", but mostly beacuse I see no reason to change the reward mechanics from games such as BG, ID, PT, Fallout 1&2, etc. I think they worked perfectly fine, and they´ve been implemented in what many people, including myself, consider to be some of the best games ever made. The possibility to gain experience for every kill never made me play a murdering psychopath, and I´ve never felt like I´m missing on something or that my character is somehow less powerfull just beacuse I didn´t murder that quiet village of fishermen, even though I predominantly play with combat based characters. I noticed that a lot of you people are worried that excessive metagaming would occur. I say; so what? Again, did any of you think any less of Baldurs Gate 2 just beacuse you had the possibility to kill of an entire city to get that extra exp? Besides, some metagaming will occur with all but the most casual of players, and honestly, imo that is a part of makes RPGs so enjoyable. Now, having said that, I hope nobody here seriously thinks that this reward system is the only way to go. These are Planescape Torment and Baldurs Gate devs were talking about here people! If anyone in the industry today is capable of creating a new fun and rewarding RPG system, that will make you want to play this game over and over and OVER again, it´s these guys. The last thing that should happen here is to let the devs feel forced to implement a system they dont want, just beacuse of popular demand. The simple truth is that we have no idea what exactly kind of a system they are capable of coming up with. But then again, it would be foolish from the devs to ignore this forum, simply beacuse I think a lot of great ides have been tossed around here, and I hope they will take into consideration what is being said here (and I think they are already doing that). I see no problem in giving no exp for a goblin, but a considerable amount of exp for an ancient demon trapped in some distant corner of the map. I think the main issue here is how to reward players who take their time and explore every inch of the game world. Will only loot be enough? Consider this; if you are not given any exp for killing a creature for the sake of "not encouraging murderous behavior", then why should you find any loot on them as well? Loot = money = better equipment = more powerfull characters. Your fallen enemies not leaving behind any loot seems a pretty blasphemeus idea for an RPG. If anything, rewarding people with money for killing other people seems more twisted than simply acknowleging they´ve learned something from the process. Again, players that wan´t to kill everything that moves beacuse it gives them sick pleasure will do that regardless of the rewards. In the end, after all I´ve read in here, the hybrid system seems to make the most sense. Different types of enemies give different amaounts of exp, ranging from no exp (I see no problem with most creatures in the game world falling under this category) to large amounts of exp. Killing a pack of koblods at lvl 1 will be a daunting task, but at lvl 15 you wont even notice stepping on them, so no exp for you!

Why wizards shouldn't wear armor? Well that's easy; plate armor is very, very heavy. And no, wearing a suit of full plate armor is not the same as wearing shoes. So, why not make wearing armor a strength based thing? I mean, it will not present any kind of a problem to someone who is trained in the art of war and is used to wearing plate or some other kind of heavy armor. I think it makes no sense to make a mage forbidden from wearing armor, but a guy who spends his life not lifting anything heavier than a book, and puts a 50 lbs suit of armor on, will pretty much be unable to perform even the basic physical actions, let alone go on a full scale adventure. So I'm either for making it skill dependent or attribute dependent. Also, as was mentioned above, it should be an expensive skill, since heavy armor should be reserved only for elite soldiers, and imo should actually be relatively rare. If its skill dependent, the mechanics are quite clear I think. If its attribute dependent (say strength), and just for the sake of argument lets use ID or BG character creation; make plate armor usable only to characters with strength 18 or even 19, so that even fighters will have to earn that kind of elite protection. That way there is nothing actually preventing a wizard to wear armor, but only if he is willing to put a lot valuable attribute points towards strength (or whatever).