Odd Hermit

In Icewind Dale, you created a party of your own, meaning you got up to six characters to tinker with different builds as you saw fit. Sure, some players were happy with fairly standard single class characters and not power-gamey options, but others such as myself enjoyed cheesing it up - part of the fun for me was seeing how strong I could build a character/party within the rules of the game. Then there's Baldur's Gate II, where we got ... less than ideal classes /attributes combinations in many of the available party members in game. The major pro however is that they came with their own personalities. But why not combine the two to some degree? When I pick up an NPC character into my party I mainly want the personality, but may not like the class. Of course, some NPCs may fit only certain classes, but I'd be fine with basic limitations as long as I got freedom to mess with all the details. I eventually modded my Baldur's Gate II to give me more freedom with the NPCs, and I had more fun without the limitations of the pre-determined classes the game started them as. It was like the best of both worlds. I didn't get stuck dragging along one of the messy multi-class thief characters finally, along with other more enjoyable and better build characters.

In some games farming easy enemies just allowed you to out level content that proved difficult/risky/etc. I personally have no issue with that possibility as it seems a viable tactic and a reasonable approach. I do enjoy combat and power gaming/character building aspect of games like old IE and NWN and challenging boss fights(BGII ToB with mods), but I also like not feeling as though I need to find and kill every small quest and enemy if I want to get as much of the limited total possible XP available. I'm hoping/expecting to see an experience system that adjusts to bring parties up to the level of the content they're doing quickly while still allowing some room to be a bit ahead for those who still want to scour every location for every bit of XP. It's just as bad to limit XP by a static number of enemies as it is to limit it too harshly by quest experience though. I want to feel like I'm doing things for my character's/party's motivations and not for a game-y currency.

All characters will be influenced by my personality, but can't truly put even an idealized version of myself in most games since the characters are coming from and interacting with vastly different environments and of course have power that I've never experienced before. I'll generally adjust based on the nature of the game. Some games it's very hard not to be a simplistic heroic character - you can either be suicidally altruistic or a complete sadist, but I prefer the ability to exercise some utilitarianism and self preservation. Also, in some games your character is automatically the leader of a group, whereas only in extreme circumstances(granted, that's the case in many games) would I lead anything. In Project Eternity those won't be barriers from the sound of it, I'll have a party leader with a much more fitting personality for the part and still be able to have a character I fashion after myself in the party.

Personally I often got annoyed by class specific stuff. But I tended to be somewhat multiclassed so it wouldn't make sense much of the time. It also feels a bit gamey, unless it's something more specific they comment on, like if a deity is shared or there's a political aspect to the class(harper scout and such). "Hey there, I see you're a _insert class here_." kind of lines often just feel fake. "Yeah...I just took one level of that class for a feat/class skill dump man."

Problem is a major part of gameplay is combat, and no matter how good your party is at handling non-combat problems, they're still probably going to face most the same difficult enemies as a combat party. Otherwise the content would have to be very split up, shortening the experience for the majority of players. Due to this, often what you'd get in D&D based CRPGs was a party of combat optimized characters with one character who handles the other stuff. Sometimes that character would just be a wizard with a few thief levels and/or a sorcerer with high charisma, pure rogue/thief and bard characters were a rarity for a good reason. I like the direction they're going personally, a step away from parties of meat shields and nukers with skill duty all squeezed into one or two characters. This is a CRPG not tabletop, so you can't have a wide variety of non-combat options for the majority of problems since they have to actually finish the game and most players probably want a decent amount of combat since the strategic turn based combat was a big part of the charm of old IE games I assume.

I want stylized but not too large, and with as much customization as possible. I like the more earthy wood/stone textures in the mock up but the way the screen space is used isn't efficient. I primarily play casters which usually means I want a long bar of spells available with one click. I made an image of which parts I think should be customizable - http://i.imgur.com/jYuYx9E.jpg Forgot to add vertical as another customization option but that too. I'm assuming it wouldn't be too resource intensive to give us such options while keeping some spare space for scale-able designs, and maybe they could even have multiple texture options and transparency for those who want a more modern/minimalist UI. I personally want my UI to blend in with the game setting though, anything too sleek and modern would just look wrong for project eternity IMO.

I like the UI style and the placement of the whole thing makes sense to me: I prefer having one bar at the bottom of the screen keeping the top very cinematic instead of having bars on the side. Of course personal preference comes into play, so perhaps some compartmentalization and the ability to move things around would be ideal. The portraits also need more defined borders and the statues on the sides probably take up too much excess space. The location of the individual parts I'd change for more functionality, definitely not enough space to stretch a spell bar. I think a long bar at the top almost the length of the screen is ideal for such. The options, map, inventory, pause being centered I also disagree with as they're the things we're probably using keys for and don't need in a prominent place. Personally I'd go with a layout something like this: http://i.imgur.com/jYuYx9E.jpg Obviously with more neat artistic bordering and such.

I liked the trial, hated the trial by combat part. Lorne was also basically the computer cheating epically, IIRC he had some effect where he literally could not die for a decent period of time + a damage buff or something that wasn't a normal class ability just something they slapped on to make it more difficult - you basically had to kite him for awhile or use defensive buffs and then just endure for awhile while he goes into his cheat mode. I like the AI to play within the rules so the player can adapt to situations based on knowledge of the game rules and not knowledge of specific boss abilities you need to avoid and such.

How have you felt about these in the old IE games, DnD and other turn based CRPGs in general? What are you hoping to see in Project Eternity? Personally, I often found it made encounter difficult a little too random, whether or not you're rested can really change a fight from impossible to incredibly easy. However, a big part of that was spells/day and how much weaker you were in a magic-reliant group if your higher level spells were used up. Pacing the game right could also make it work. Another issue was that time passing had no real effect on anything, you could rest for a week to heal up a party for a small price at a tavern or whatever, without any consequence to quests that you might expect would be more urgent. Then there were of course attacks on you during sleep. I always felt like these should've been reducable through some forms of precautions and/or character skills. Usually though, I'd have a bunch of buffs up before resting just in case, and in areas where attacks during rest were frequent I'd actually rest more often just to make sure I didn't go too long and be too weak to safely handle an attack when trying to rest. I'm hoping there's pretty good longevity in PE especially at mid-high levels, casters having more longevity in particular. I'd like resting success to be more an issue of planning than luck as well, and for some options for your character/party builds(spells/skills/feats or whatever) that can be managed to reduce chance of any issues during rest as you see fit. Perhaps having some characters that require less frequent rest would allow keeping someone on watch at night. Maybe not using a fire could reduce chance of being noticed by some enemies. Etc.

I seem to be in the minority, voted Icewind Dale. The game had such a great atmosphere and that included the UI as well as the environments and even the primitive sprites(the amazing portrait selection helped there). And of course there was the music, Soule is hit and miss with me but IWD was definitely one of his hits(Morrowind was his best IMO though). BG II: SoA and PS:T both had a more...game-y, comical feel in some ways whereas IWD had a darker, harsher tone to it that made it feel like not just a game but a work of art. It wasn't the most verbose of the options and I would take PS:T or BG II: SoA over it for writing and characters certainly as IWD was more of a dungeon crawl and had no scripted party, but "atmospherically" it was a superior overall experience. I expect Eternity to be a healthy mix of them though and considering the superior tech they've got access to I don't think it will fall short of those games in any area, am extremely excited for it already and pledged enough to get the digital concept art. Pretty easy to have some faith in it considering the names involved, and what I've seen/read so far has also been promising.

Morrowind and IWD had some of the most memorable pieces of any game for me so Soule would be great, but really I just want it to be atmospheric and not cheesy, distracting, abrasive high fantasy stuff. Any composer who can pull that off works for me.

I just don't want excessively flashy armor to be all I can find at high levels. I often like the low level gear appearance in games better than the high level. It'd be nice if the items themselves didn't have to determine the appearance though, they could just have basic types (plate, scale, leater, robes, etc) and you get to choose from a selection of models and colors for each. IIRC NWN had a system where you could use different skills to adjust appearance of weapons/armor, in Project Eternity maybe that could be an option, or you could pay a craftsman.

As long as the majority of enemies aren't going to be just another guard with a family to feed, and there aren't special rewards like bonus XP or achievements that incentivize doing it to every enemy like in Human Revolution. It becomes exhausting and boring sitting on a bunch of lethal weapons because you rarely get the opportunity to use them on anyone who deserves to die.

Cleric/Thief backstab #1.

Not sure traits/stats are ever going to have both realism and at the same time not be overwhelmingly and unnecessarily complex for a game. The Elder Scrolls games had you gain skills via practice + trainers, but it was a horrible system that was easily gamed and encouraged you to grind and micromanage every little gain to build an optimal character. It made increasing certain skills either way too easy(alchemy) or way too difficult/time consuming(armor skills). It wasn't the most complex system admittedly though, but I'm not sure how they'd fix such problems. So far gaining via XP is the best system in any RPG I've played.

I dislike pretty much every rest system. If it's spam-able you basically get to blow everything up with casters. If it's not, it usually favored long duration buffs and the like - high defense characters(monks lol), health regen, stuff like that too. I'd rather have everything balanced so that no class is excessively powerful in short duration or long duration encounters.

I'd rather they have significant relations with companions + key characters than try to tack on something to every NPC. I'm fine with background filler NPCs as long as there are also a good number of interesting NPCs. I don't like what happens when RPGs try to spread the love, as they most often stretch it too thin - like the ridiculous "conversations" between NPCs in Oblivion for example. More basic systems like faction / location / race / etc. reputation can cover things like shop prices, hostile vs. neutral vs. friendly, and such.

It depends on how fast things are going to die, and how critical hits is implemented. If a critical hit is going to just feel like pure luck(or bad luck) that happens to randomly swing things in extreme favor of you or an enemy, it can ruin some encounters. If it's part of the number crunching for getting high average damage, or just to give some builds a way of dealing vs. forms of damage prevention/soak, keep you from getting too complacent vs. common enemies, and stuff like that, I think it's fine. Incidents like getting hit for a 20 by a beetle on your level 2 caster with 14 health and no way of preventing such are not so cool though. As for critical miss, I don't think it should exist. Critically missing things like inanimate objects or slow moving enemies with a high level warrior would just seem unrealistic. If there are builds that feature some sort of advanced evading techniques, I could see passibe bonuses for those to simulate something like a critical miss though.

As long as there is some way to discard or hide them. It is annoying having quest junk clutter your journal and/or inventory in any game. I think it makes your choices a bit more meaningful if you're limited by them occasionally. Of course, it's wasted content if they put too much of it in with too specific requirements, so there has to be a balance of sorts.

For example - In Fallout: New Vegas you gained stats for choosing certain methods of completing certain quests. You found items to increase stats as well. Similarly, going back, in KotOR II some companions could give you some significant combat bonuses that affected the way you might build a character. Also, in general, classes tend to have themes, and sometimes the way a class plays in combat is ideal for you while its theme(say, a necromancer or warlock) is not in line with the way you prefer to play(say, a goody two shoes character). I am personally against this, and don't like when my roleplaying choices interfere with my character building - I feel pressured to make choices that conflict with my character's personality for statistic benefits. I am pretty obsessive when it comes to optimizing a character though. I do understand however, that in many cases, it just makes sense. I admit that this is very much a personal issue I have with games and it's sometimes illogical, and it's often my own fault for going too deep into micro-management and ruining my own fun. There's probably some happy middle-ground here. For example, in KotOR playing an offensive force power using light sider was far less effective than dark side - but this was mitigated to degree in KotOR II with a stat that reduced penalties on cross-alignement powers. (I recently replayed the KotOR games with KotOR II being added to steam, that's why I'm using it as an example so much)