Lephys

That's the other edge of the sword of those luck-based extreme effects: Sometimes, a fight becomes really easy when you still wanted it to be challenging. The player really shouldn't have to restrain himself just to avoid being at the mercy of luck like that. But, yeah, that's also a testament to the things that could be tweaked in suckerpunches. If being surprised by stuff and/or needing very specific hard counters is the only thing that makes the fight "hard," then was the fight really that hard to begin with? Is it any harder than trying to bake muffins before looking up the recipe? And, once you have the recipe, you just follow it, and you get perfect muffins. That's the thing about combat difficulty. If the solutions to problems aren't emergent, then how is it not just a fancy action puzzle?

I realize that you dislike that particular example, and that's fine. I'm not trying to judge or condemn your personal preferences here. However, I just feel as though you're calling out a pattern where there is none, or extending a conclusion past its actual application. "Futher information about Sarevok wasn't done very well and/or I felt it ruined things in a way, therefore any information that's ever kept a mystery about something, then revealed in a different 'episode' is inherently terrible and wrong." Does that make sense? I ask you this, honestly: Can you think of anything that was ever revealed later on in a story (in a different part of a multi-part story -- book series, game series, etc.) that was acceptable or not problematic? Anything at all? Or, another question would be, if opening an "unclosed thread" is bad, what makes leading you to believe something for 90% of a game, then revealing a bunch of undisclosed information in that last 10% that blows your mind, completely okay, but completely wrong if simply done within a continuation of the story? For example, why is it bad to find out you're adopted after the end of the first game, but totally fine to suddenly find out you're adopted before the end of the first game? What if your being adopted doesn't have much to do with the original story? I realize my text doesn't always come across with the tone I want it to, so I just want to re-iterate that I'm genuinely curious.

I have to disagree here. If there's no change in mechanics, then there's absolutely no reason not to just use the fastest speed all the time. I mean, isn't that why you pointed out an actual condition for when it would be nice to move faster? I.e. once you've "completed" a map, but just need to get around it, maybe explore a couple of crannies you missed? If there's no condition, then the only possible reason for moving more SLOWly is just "this makes me RP happy."

PM? Feh, I say. We're using feathered quills and ink and hand-made parchment for this bad boy, and illegibly signing all our names at the bottom.

I agree on the more in-depth implementations. But, I honestly don't think simple directionality and amplitude would be that advanced. I will say, though, that your idea of just a simple wind strength and range bonus is even easier to put in, and still a nice touch. I don't think having simply directionality is that crazy (you can definitely go a lot crazier/more precise with it, say, in a turn-based game. ). But, I'm also not saying "this is obviously so simple that it has to easily go into PoE in like 10 minutes." Just, conceptually, it would be nice, and the fact that the game is real-time doesn't really hinder the concept of an environmental factor applied to the battlefield.

I think if you've already finalized/confirmed your pledge in the pledge management page, the editing of said pledge (to tack on extra add-ons and such) is still "greyed out," so to speak. They're planning on allowing us to edit already-confirmed pledges in the near future, but we can't do so yet. That being said, you're correct that the option is there if you're a new backer (if you can still do new orders right now? Not really sure off the top of my head) or if you've yet to confirm a previous pledge. Maybe Endrosz didn't see that option before confirming? Or, it might not've been there initially (can't remember... they changed/fixed some add-on options in the first few days of the portal launch).

I'm quite sure her name is Carte Blanchett. And yes, she will act as the hostess for the Lost Backer inn. This must now come to pass.

Agreed. Sure, it's a little unorthodox, the amount of changes and polishing they're doing in what they're labeling "beta," but, they seem to have planned out their time pretty well, and are intentionally doing all this work in this late phase, rather than scrambling about to get things in at the last minute. But, it is still intended to be an actual beta phase, and they seem to plan on having the game out well before the end of the year.

Also, don't know how I missed this one, but I seem to be having difficulty drawing my weapon.

Understandable.

I'll take that as a "no." Good day.

I'm glad of that. Really. And, to be clear, it is not at all my intention to berate you. I just hate to see people dread something that they think is all but hopeless, for a pretty good duration, only to ultimately be surprised by quality and enjoyment that they didn't even really think was a possibility at all. It may be weird of me, but I try to present those potentialities and provide some amount of encouragement to hold them in consideration (where you might not have, before, for very valid, human reasons), just so that you don't spend the time period between now and getting your hands on the game thinking "crap, I probably blew $125 on something I can not, at all, be excited about." Because, I know that feeling sucks. Ideally, we can all have some amount of hope for something beyond a worst-case scenario, rather than a "I'm just probably going to not-enjoy this much" mindset the whole time. I just try to share the hope, haha.

Do you? Not as much as if you'd answered the question. But, yeah, a little. Let me ask you this: Is there any possibility of an actual continued discussion here? Or are you just going to mock/berate everything I say? I just presented a completely honest critique of how it is you've come across in this discussion, in case you didn't realize how it was being received and it was unintentional. To which you just respond that I'm lying, and a spiteful person who doesn't actually care about presenting constructive feedback so that we can work out communication. Or, better yet, here's another honest question: If you were me, right now, what would you do? What would be the right thing to say, to which actual-you wouldn't respond with derision?

Feel better now?

Frenzy-kun, I believe I get what you're saying, and forgive me if I'm not quite hitting the bulls eye with it. It's pretty reasonable. I just feel like you're unintentionally rolling with criteria that don't quite narrow the boundary down to what it is you actually hate. I'm not intimately familiar with the situation you described (Solar talking about Sarevok and and the main character), but, I'll just present a hypothetical example: If he's just talking about it, and it's just someone's perspective/information that your character/you as the player weren't exposed to in the original campaign, then there's really nothing wrong with that. If you expect limitations to what it is your exposed to, out of everything possible that's going on in the world, then you have to allow for unknowns, even regarding past stuff that you've been through. Now, if it's "Ha-HAH! We told you the big baddie was gone and dealt with, but now he's been resurrected through means we've just whipped out of our arses!" or something, then yeah, that's bad form. Basically, we might be on the same page, but I'm not seeing the specifics from you that suggest that. There are definitely wrong ways to do it, and plenty of them, but simply continuing something, or having separate content that happens to take place at the same time as some "past" event from the original campaign... that's not really wrong or suggestive that the original campaign was "incomplete." It's just those unknowns I mentioned above. Put simply, it takes more specifics than that to make it a faulty/bad approach. More than sheerly continuting, or tying in somehow to the existing story/lore, is all. And, again, I'm not trying to say you definitely don't agree with that. It just seems like you might not, so I'm trying to clarify, in the event that's the case.

I agree with your sentiment. However, in all fairness, it's perfectly reasonable to assume there'll be more than you can carry, in a lot of overall areas that you'll adventure through, but only by a little bit instead of a crap-ton, and not because you can simply loot random pebbles and melted candles that you find lying around. Or, to put it another way, you don't have to be able to loot 1,000 things, much less 1,000 junky things, for inventory management to become an issue. And, valuables are valuables. Just because it's handled poorly in a lot of games doesn't make it inherently silly that your party would say "Hmm... I dunno... we should REALLY make use of this really good-quality armor that this guy was wearing." In fact, with loot a lot more reasonable in quantity/quality/frequency, you'd think it'd be even MORE reasonable for your party to make the most of what they find. In Diablo world, where you're going to find 3 weapons and a gemstone on every 3rd enemy you slay out of 1,000, who really cares if you missed a couple valuable things? In a world where you only find 5 gold-filigreed swords throughout the entire campaign, how silly would it be to just shrug that off because you happen to be at capacity (which is also a lot more reasonable, instead of being able to carry 5 suits of armor and 3 bastard swords around per-character)? So, *shrug*. I think that sentiment, as it applies to PoE, is really kind of conditional. IF there's stupid amounts of loot and junk everywhere, and the game viably sets things up for you to want to take everything and sell it for 1 copper, then yeah, that's dumb. But, I think if loot's handled a lot more reasonably, then it's a lot more reasonable for there to be some abstraction of "we're gonna acquire that valuable item, but we just aren't going to have it at our disposal right now." Granted, I do hope it's at least simply explained in the game, instead of just "use your imagination, but you can take all this stuff and access it later."

I think this illustrates at least one of the main disconnects here: The criticism to these factors that are creating these "suckerpunches" seems to be taken as though it's "I want all the complexity gone from that fight." I don't think the people who take issue with this criticism realize the subtlety of the problem factors that cause a suckerpunch. It's not really a "burn it down and start from scratch" problem. It's something some rather minor tweaks can fix, without at all jeopardizing the complexity and problem-solving nature of combat. If I'm mistaken, then I apologize. But, I just notice that those in here who aren't really convinced that suckerpunches aren't just some made up "problem" are commonly presenting examples like Sarex's, above -- namely of a LOT more of the substance of the example encounter than just what's actually being called problematic by others -- and sort of saying "I don't understand why'd want that encounter to be devoid of all that." In other words, the non-suckerpunch version of that particular combat would not result in the absence of complex choices and problem resolution, but would simply tweak the nature of the choices and problems you're dealing with. It's like pulling some debris from a swimming pool. The debris is taking up space in the pool, true, but not much of it at all. And, when removed, there's not just a gaping hole there. The water flows in to fill that gap. This isn't just "take a fight like Kangaxx and rip stuff out of it, and leave everything else as-is." That would result in a loss of complexity. But, no, it's about tweaking the system to still attain that same level of complexity and challenge, but simply having it be achieved in a different, slightly less swayingly-extreme manner.

^ Exhibit A. Oh well. I tried.

I actually didn't even realize I did that until you pointed it out, haha. It was unintentional, but now I wish it had been intentional,

Noted. As did I. But, to be fair, that's a WHOLE different animal. That's pure action-choice, with absolutely no spacial placement, whatsoever. I mean, just because grid/positional turn-based combat isn't JRPG combat doesn't automatically excuse it for being boring/slow/clunky sometimes. But, it's not really fair to carry over a grudge from JRPG-type combat into, say, XCOM-type combat. I guess I'm just an optimistic person, but, I've also seen some pretty awesome little things done with turn-based systems, even if the whole system was still lacking. I see a lot of potential in what could be combined, and how a turn-based combat system could be ramped up. I think innovation on that front has been slow-going for a while now, and the genre's ripe for an overhaul. Just as an example of how it can be a lot more action-y/exciting, in Valkyria Chronicles, each character has sort of a movement resource (a bar of... sort of "movement fuel"), as separate from their non-movement actions. You can use up that WHOLE bar in a turn, then still attack or do something else, or you can move none at all and attack, or you can move some, attack, then move some more, etc. (and sometimes attack multiple times). But, the movement isn't really grid-based. It's just free-form. Very smooth. Just like an action game, only you can only move so far in a given turn. Meanwhile, anyone in the equivalent of "overwatch" (I don't even think you have to actually toggle anything for that... it's kind of fantasy-WWII-based, so it's a warzone, and I think anyone who's turn it isn't is automatically in overwatch, which is interesting) will fire on anyone else moving within their vision/range field (a cone). If 5 different enemies each take a turn, and each one moves through their cone, they'll ALL get fired upon. They don't just get a single off-turn action. They spend the entirety of their off-turn time simply firing upon whomever enters their crosshairs. So, basically, when it's your turn, you get a LOT more dynamics in the control of your character and choices you make. It's not just "move like 5 squares maybe, and shoot something." You even had people who could lay down sandbags, which could then be used as cover (simply move your person near them, rather than having to put someone in a specific grid-block by the cover, since there was no grid.) It was pretty cool, really. I think they might've even had flanking bonuses and such, especially on tanks. And I think there were altitude bonuses (snipers could climb towers or hills, etc.). There were even terrain bonuses and modifiers, and each soldier you could get had semi-randomized traits. Some were more accurate/had higher defense/could move farther in a given terrain type. They even had simple personality traits that were factors in how synergous multiple soldiers worked in proximity to one another. Which, granted, that all fits a lot more with a more "strategy" style combat system like a war-based game like that. But, I'm just saying, they really went above and beyond the typical "You move around, where you stop changes things, and everything happens very rigidly and you can't affect much outside your own turn." When I think of what all can be done with the turn-based system's skeletal framework, and what all we'll have in "combat" (crises) with T:ToN (including mid-combat dialogue, environment interactions/puzzle-solving, skill checks, etc.), I think it's a lot more representative of almost a PnP turn-based experience -- which is awesome -- instead of JUST combat broken into turns, ya know? *Shrug*. Like I said, I really hope we'll all be surprised by what they come up with, advocates and non-advocates alike.

It could be messy, but I was thinking something pretty simple. Instead of "Wind angle is 35 degrees? Apply X modifier. Wind angle is 36 degrees? Apply X + 1 modifier," I was thinking more like 50-or-so-degree arcs for the "wind is blowing this way" directionality. It's abstract rather than precise, sure, but, It could probably fit in with the same functionality as the AoE ability targeting (think cone spells/effects) system. So, the wind direction is randomly generated (or maybe non-randomly generated) for a given area/encounter/time-duration, and any ranged attack made in that direction, within that arc (relative to the character firing) would either get a mild bonus, or a mild detriment. I realize it's still more complicated than not-having it, and I'm not at all demanding it, or suggesting "it's so simple, there's no reason NOT to add it!" But, I just think even a simple abstraction of that would be interesting in tactical combat like this, is all.

True that. Though, I will say that it's kinda nice when they simply notify you when a "strange" IP tries to connect to your account. Then, if that's weird to you, you can contact customer service or something, and voluntarily initiate a problem resolution. Again... heavy-handed the way they do it now, but based on something with room for a reasonable approach. Not that it should happen or anything, but, part of the reason that it does get handled the way it does is because of this swelling general "nothing is ever anyone's fault except the corporation's" mentality. You see it with everything. Someone'll never have any maintenance performed on a car, ever, and the brakes fail or lock up or something, and someone wants to blame it on the manufacturer. "They didn't prevent me from neglecting my vehicle! This should never have happened, regardless of any level of effort on my part!" So, yeah, I think that's part of it. They're honestly worried about being held legally accountable for the results of someone hacking into your account and running amock in their game world. Then, you coming in and going "WHAT THE HELL?! YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN THAT WASN'T ME FROM THE IP ADDRESS!" *shrug*. People are just afraid to tell lawyers to shove it, so they give in to stupid stuff like that. As if the first peoples with simple laws were like "well, this guy burned down a whole village, but technically we didn't write anything about intentionally starting fires that THEN kill a whole village worth of people. We just wrote 'Intentionally killing a bunch of people is punishable by death.' Soooo, I guess we'll just let this guy go? I mean, we'll change the law, so, no worries..."

It was a typo. "Roe-"mancers -- magic-users who control/invoke fish eggs.

No, you're an adult human being. One would think you wouldn't intentionally engage in conversation with someone for several minutes, specifically about something you've said, THEN finally tell them "Oh, hey, I'm not even talking about that, even though I've been talking this whole time and I know that you weren't on the same page I was this whole time." Would you order something at a restaurant, WATCH them make the wrong dish, let them finish making the entire wrong dish, THEN tell them "I think you didn't hear me correctly; I ordered this other dish. LOLZ! LOOK HOW MUCH TIME YOU WASTED!"?

Know what would be simple but pretty great? If there was a simple, variable directional wind (think golf games/minigames) that affected range bonuses/detriments to missile weapons. Between that and height, even basic ranged-weapon attacks get a major tactical boost from positioning.