Lephys

Seconded. However, they should either come to love/respect you or leave your party (through whatever means... maybe you fight, maybe they join the antagonist, etc.). I hate it when they stick by your side forever and ever, but hate everything you do, ya know? It's like you're BF-effed at that point. Is it truly cannibalism if the living are no longer your "own kind"? Also, now I'm just picturing someone figuring out how to STOP the "continuum" of undeath at the fampyr phase, but failing to reverse it (to actually "live" forever), and coming to terms with it, remaining all civilized and starting a club, etc. Dolphin brains could be like the fampyr version of caviar. I mean, they're both already related to aquatic animals.

I can't get to it while at work (which is where I am for the next 5+ hours). I'd recommend questions to ask, but I tend to only think of things that other people have already thought of, 8P. I'll just stick to this thread, and androidishly analyzing everything everyone else asks that comes up in here, haha.

Reddit AMA IS BLOCKED (in my workplace). *saddy face*

I think the main thing for me, when it comes to companions, is that they feel like a real person. I mean, one could say that about almost any NPC in the world, or even the world design, itself (that it feel like a real world, etc.), but, more so for companions, since you spend so much time with them (potentially). They really just need to feel like they've got multiple things going on that form the whole of who they are, such that, in one situation, they might be laughing and joking about stuff and saying "Hah, let's steal things!", and in another similar situation, some specifics might have them struggling with a decision, or deciding something else entirely, or entering a completely different mood. I just want them to feel like they're dealing with stuff, too, instead of just being really elaborate robots of a specific model, designed to simply be "The witty thief guy with questionable morals." I think why the companions are who they are and how they are is more important than simply who they are. And that "why" should show itself throughout the game, and be something worth wanting to know. It doesn't even need to be some super-elaborate, perfect backstory or personality style or anything. They simply need to feel like they haven't figured out everything in the world already, or that they haven't decided everything ahead of time. The best way to tie them into the themes is to have them interact with the themes as a person would. That they're a member of a given race, or grew up a certain way, or in a certain rank/position/class, etc., is an excellent framework, but all of that hardly matters if they don't feel like they're struggling with the same stuff everyone else is struggling with -- humanity, flaws, hopes, etc.

Well, they have, but it usually goes like this: "Why?! WHY?! BECAUSE *VAPORIZE*! LOLZ!"

*bows* No amount of punning on my part could ever come close to the ocean of humor comprising the entirety of that update. AND it was informative! That's a pretty cool take on undead. I mean, they're still familiar-ish undead. But, they're PoE's own undead. Kudos on that, ^_^ Also, maybe occasionally pick someone at random in the office (maybe even someone who actually IS doing a horrible job, because you don't have time for actual evaluation!) sometime and just tell them how awesome what they're doing is. You know, just so a prophecy of hope will be born, about the lowly designer who will one day not have all his ideas stolen, and will finally destroy that ring you forged specifically for the purpose of perpetuating your very essence, thousands of years ago, in an evil volcano.

The problem literally remains the same. One stat = both physical and non-physical potency. "+X% damage" just moved from INT to Might. So, I'm extremely curious to know why you think it's more reasonable for mental potency to dictate raw physical strength than for physical strength to dictate raw mental/intangible potency. Maybe so. That's, of course, completely irrelevant to the function of Might versus the representation of characters' properties/aspects.

I'm sure from a lore standpoint, the usage of "spirit" instead of "shape" holds the most significance. However, from a mechanical standpoint, I think the main difference is that, when spirit-shifting to Cat "form," the druid doesn't actually take on the form of a cat (as in many other games), but instead becomes a very cat-like humanoid Druid. So, functionally, you don't turn into animals, but instead take on aspects of them in your physical form.

In the interest of understanding, I'd really like to know why you agree with those choices. Also, for what it's worth, I don't hate that DLC segment or anything. Overall, I enjoy the 400 Days bit. I also realize that it's mostly setting up circumstances and seeds for future interactions and situations in Season 2. I think you misunderstand me, possibly. I'm not trying to say that something is bad just because it's linear. Or that literally every different choice you make should effect some significant difference in an outcome. But, in situations like that, unless you've written the character, himself, to just be a certain way (if you've written some super hardened badass character, then you probably can't have him cry about people not being polite, and missing tea time, etc.), it's a bit bad form to offer SO many choices that feasibly SHOULD affect SOME-thing, but don't really do so. I don't mind linearity, but, don't pretend something isn't linear, then just make it entirely linear. Russell's segment is really the worst one I can think of. The rest of them are basically just linear happenings, with a few little active decisions/branches here and there. But, Russell's... your character already knows this Nate guy is friggin' insane. And you can clearly choose to tell him that/feel that way, etc., and want nothing to do with him. And it even lets you aim a loaded gun at him and "shoot him," only to just pull a "PSYCH!" on you. And, ohhhh noooo, he doesn't like you. That's the "significant" result. Also, you can draw a gun on him there (and actually pull the trigger), just 'cause you think he's crazy while you're BOTH under fire, but, when he flat out tells you he's going to murder this little old couple that already claims he planned all this and has visited/attacked them before, all you can do is either join him or walk away after slapping him on the wrist and telling him "You'd better behave yourself, or else I'm going to like you even LESS than 0!" If you want something to be linear, you write it a different way. Like with Shel's story. There's no option, at the end, to pretend to go to the trailer and just blow Roman's head off. That's understandable. The writers of that character are allowing me to control her, but she's still that character. I don't get to make her do whatever I want. And yet, you can decide to vote not to kill the blindfolded guy that they caught stealing stuff. And that wasn't even in the presence of crazy people you hate. But Russell, who's obviously against what Nate's doing with every fiber of his being (and just personally hates the guy), isn't even upset enough to attack him, or try and stop him, from killing a little old couple? It's not any particular choice of that arc. It's just that literally everything you do in that arc only affects 2 possible things in the end: 1) Whether or not Nate dislikes Russell. 2) Whether or not Russell stays with Nate. That's it. And it's one of the arcs with the most stuff going on in it, in the present of it. That was why I used it as an example. The thing about linearity in a story is, you're free to create it however you want. It's not like you're just telling a real story, so you can't change things or something. You're not forced into a specific situation, then made to arbitrarily write heavy-handed choices just so that that situation plays out how you wanted it to. You can just write the situation differently.

Feel free to prove something's not doable, simply because it "isn't out there." With that kind of thinking, we'd still all be cavemen. "SHOW ME AN EXAMPLE OF USEFUL TECHNOLOGY, AND THEN I'LL CREATE SOME!" Haha... GROUPIST! Okay, seriously though. That's the very definition of a stereotype. Makryu, amongst others, specifically pointed out that existing romances in existing games are not the pinnacle of design quality, and that the goal should be to do better than that, not copy a bunch of bad examples. If some people are worshipping Bioware romances and demanding those in all future games, then yeah, tell those people they're silly people. But, there's no point in just ignoring the rest, and pretending they're all saying the same thing the irrationals are saying. There are irrational people on both sides of the argument. It's very rare for one whole side of an argument to be irrational. Personally, I understand that there are more reasons than "that's STUPID" to not implement romances into a game, and I grasp why PoE is not aiming for them. However, the "a bunch of people have done this crappily, and therefore it's obvious that it's impossible and we should never do it, and it's stupid to advocate attempts to not-do it crappily" argument doesn't really fly. It's just plain irrational. That doesn't mean "Haha! The right thing to do is like romance, and the wrong thing to do is dislike it!". Nobody wins here, except reason. And reason isn't a person.

Then there's Skyrim. 20ish hours to "beat the game." 7,000,000 hours to do everything.

Yeah. The whole soul-basis thing is one of the main reasons it's not exactly a huge issue. If you just took D&D and smashed them together, it'd be more of an issue, because there'd be pretty much no reason for it. Like I said, the thoughts that bother me most about it have to do with non-combat situations. Or, better yet, to use a combat example, your Wizard can effectively "run out of juice" (be out of per-day and per-encounter spells), but can still freely attack with brute force. And the Wizard isn't really imbuing his physical attacks with soul energy (but IS still imbuing his wand/Blast attacks with soul magic, as well as his simpler at-will spells). Whereas, the Fighter apparently is performing seeming-physical feats as a direct product of his soul energies. So, again, the distinction is there, but it's mainly a class distinction. That, plus the apparent fact that not everyone in the world of PoE bears soul powers (or they do, and they aren't significant enough to warrant being called "powers" or grant any actual abilities, etc.). Thus, if you have a World's Strongest Man non-soul-powered guy who's simply very, very muscly, in a circus or something, then the game has no way of distinguishing his capability from that of a Wizard with 20 Might. Basically, the distinction remains in the game/lore, but is lacking in the stat system and player character creation. Yes, it's abstract, and there are souls to consider, etc., but we haven't exactly nullified the need/utility of a distinction, is all.

I think any literature professor will vehemently disagree with this. Which is why they aren't authors. This is a fallacy. Just because objective factors don't overrule subjective factors does not somehow mean that the only thing that exists is subjectivity. Everything is relative. If a character is at odds with the rest of a literary work, for example, then it isn't a good character. It's like a stop sign. If a stop sign isn't noticeable, then it doesn't matter how much you like the color, or design of the sign. If you like camouflage, camouflage is still a terrible pattern to put on a stop sign. The same goes for characters. There are definitely set rules that make characters good or terrible, but it also depends on the individual reader. Otherwise, how could the individual reader rate two similar characters in two similar stories, as anything other than "I like them both exactly equally"? There would be no such thing as a good sci-fi male protagonist, versus a bad one. At some point, the things you like align with objectivity. Or, to be clearer, the things you dislike about the character start to be because of objective reasons, and not because you simply don't prefer that type of character. Like with the stop sign. I can love camouflage, but dislike the inability to see the stop sign and know when and where to stop my vehicle. Even if I don't like red, I like that red contrasts a lot more with surroundings of stop signs, and is therefore more visible and prevents me from crashing into other vehicles simply because I didn't notice a sign.

There's actually a thread about that from back in mid-December. Hope that helps.

Agreed. It's as if the focus in a lot of games recently has shifted from building your characters so that they're useful in the active application/usage of tactics, to how to build your characters in such a way so as to just passively take care of business.

Because making a wizard good at one makes him automatically good at the other. It's not that a muscle wizard is stupid, it's the fact that if I want a wizard who kills things with magic he has to be a muscle wizard. I'm not saying that I don't want to be all FACE THE POWER OF MY MAGIC MISSILE HOAK HOGAN! SKRONK!, just that I find it stupid that if I want to do damage via magic that's my only option. I believe I misunderstood you. My apologies. I didn't realize you were making the same point I was (that you shouldn't have to be awesome at both, or awesome at neither). Sorry about that. For what it's worth, though, that part from me you quoted was mainly directed at the sentiment that has been pretty prevalent in any discussion of this matter (the current functioning of Might), in general. Not specifically at you. The whole Might issue is completely separate from the fact that other things affect your resulting damage numbers. The problem isn't that Might somehow single-handedly maximizes your damage. The point is simply that its role is played out in both magical AND physical attacks, even though the game presents a sort of dichotomy between those (hence the question over whether or not we'd be able to make a Wizard who's also pretty good with melee weapons and wears armor, etc.). It's KIND of two different things. Weaving a fireball does damage through absolutely no means of physical power. The same with a magic missile. And yet, one stat boosts the raw damage of both. So, however your damage is boosted by Might in regard to its maximum potential with the aid of other stats, it's going to be the SAME for all your Wizards' and Priests' physical attacks as it is for your magical ones. The only difference being that you won't really get physical class attack abilities as a Wizard, but you will as a Fighter. Which, don't get me wrong, makes plenty of sense (it's kind of the point of their class roles), but, that's the only thing distinguishing between physical and magical potency -- class. For the most part. It's just kind of weird. If you're Mighty, you can either throw a rock at pinata so hard the pinata explodes into a shower of candy, OR you can blast the crap out of that pinata with a magic bolt, without so much as flexing a muscle. That's... just... strange. Sure, other stats apply to both: Dexterity, for example. But, whether I'm "telekinetically"/intangibly propelling a fireball or magic bolt, or aiming a bow or throwing knife doesn't really matter. I have to see my target, and properly aim the propulsion of that entity so that it doesn't miss (didn't really understand this about a lot of D&D spells -- they pretty much always hit, and it was just down to resistances and saves to stop their effects). I don't really foresee anyone being upset about not being able to make a Wizard who wins at magic-darts all the time with 5 bullseyes in a row, but can't hit the broad side of a barn with physical darts. Sure, there'd be an understandable discrepancy between the two (unless the gesture for hurling magical darts was identical to throwing a physical dart -- your muscle memory/technical skill would be lacking with the physical darts). But, that's more of a skill thing. You can have 8,000,000 Dexterity, and still be far worse with a sword than some veteran soldier (with less Dexterity) if you've just picked up a sword for the first time in your life. Again, I understand the abstraction from a sheer gameplay/mechanical design/balancing standpoint. But, it's not as if there's no reason to have a distinction. I'm also okay with their decision. I just still see a lot of people who don't seem to comprehend why anyone's suggesting there's even an issue in the first place. I don't think some people comprehend why some of us would want a distinction.

Agreed. And I'd very much like to see the act of sheathing/drawing weapons, as well as the current state of your weapons, actually affect things as significant actions/gestures at times, rather than simply being a "you automatically draw your weapons whenever you're definitely going to fight something, and sheathe them/keep them sheathed whenever you're definitely not going to fight anything, and the two different states are just for visual consistency." Especially with the scripted interactions being so prevalent. I'd love to have the option of drawing weapons and sheathing them actually be choices to be made in situations. Maybe even dropping your weapons. If you end up having to fight, then your characters are inconvenienced by having to pick up their weapons before engaging foes. Or, maybe you move around before the situation escalates to combat, so your weapons remain 20 feet away where you dropped them, etc. THAT being said, I also hope the whole guards-regarding-you-as-hostile-if-you-have-your-weapons-out thing is less binary than "If you've got your weapons unsheathed, the guards instantly attack you, and/or do so after 5 seconds or something." I think you should be able to explain yourself, and, at times (depending on circumstances and the guards themselves) have the guards/authorities agree that there is reason to have your weapons drawn, and/or to trust you to use them wisely (this could even be heavily influenced by reputation). I've always hated it when you DO have manual sheathing options in the game, but you have to fight against certain primitive aggro mechanics. For example, maybe you get ambushed, so, the dialogue interface goes away and you "enter combat," but you unsheathe your weapons, and the code tells the guards that you drew your weapons .3 seconds before a threat was actually registered (before the ambusher/assassin was actually regarded as a hostile combatant to justify the weapon drawing), and now the guards hate you WHILE you're self-defending against a random combatant.

Of course, in regard to number of endings, it kinda depends on what you mean, too. I mean, if you can end the game with 1,000 factors in place, PLUS the 1,001st being your pet pig is still alive, versus ending the game with all those 1,000 factors exactly the same, but your pet pig dead, that could be considered 2 different endings. Which, I think, further supports the importance of the significance of choice-consequence representation in the ending, even if there's only "one" actual ending. Ehh, in other words, someone talking about significantly representing choices throughout the game in affecting the circumstances under which even a single ending takes place could seem to be referring to the quantity of endings, when really they're just talking about being able to affect a lot of different particulars in the ending(s).

Me too. Of course, given that I've played similar types of games before, having a point of reference (an "average" completion time, etc.) is helpful, because I can accurately apply the difference between my time and those average times of previously played games to the likely playtime of this game.

BRILLIANT! A lot of games have "mark this junk," or "mark this as a favorite," but it's generally a lot more work to either mark all the things you don't want as junk (just so you can conveniently sell them all, and only them, when you get to a merchant), than it is to simply mark the things you definitely don't want to sell. At the very least, you simply mark fewer things, then still click a "Sell all" button to accomplish the same thing as the "mark as junk" feature situation. *Gives it seven thumbs up*

As far as MMOs go, Warhammer: Online definitely had some of the most practical armor/equipment designs. And that's in a genre of games in which the design of equipment has the most incentive to merely convey "epicness" and make the character feel special while ignoring any and all practicality of design. 8P

No worries. It was perfectly understandable. Wasn't meaning to correct you or anything. I just realized we happened to be talking about 2 different things. I wouldn't say it's necessarily derailing, btw. It's quite a valid analysis of what makes a good good character.

Ahh. In that case, maybe they should "relocate" all the melee combat in the game to other, more fleshed-out aspects of combat. It wouldn't be like they were cutting melee combat. Everyone would just have bows or ranged magic, but just think how non-lacking the combat system would be. 8D

Granted. However, I'd temper that consideration with the fact that using reality as a basis for abstracted mechanics and simulating reality are not the same thing. The throwing of reality out the window is not required to escape simulationism. That being said, I do feel that "metal armor would always be a Faraday cage" is a bit overboard in opposing something such as "why would shock damage be boosted against metal armor?!", for the reasons that Josh pointed out. IF the game was intending to simulate everything down to the detail, then yes, it would check your armor's Faraday-Cage-ness before deciding about shock damage. However, since it's abstract, it's simply ignoring the possibility that your metal armor is maintaining that state, since that's not going to be the case most of the time anyway.

A level cap is necessarily, most of all, because an un-level cap could fall off your character's head. Okay okay, seriously... I have a feeling that, while your level is going to play a big part in things, the vast majority of difficulty in the game is going to come from the player's dynamic use of the resources at hand to tackle a given obstacle. Kinda like FTL gameplay. Even if you go 2 sectors without finding a store, you can use what you DO have in other ways to compensate for what you've yet to procure (be it weapons, or new ship systems, etc.). Not always, but heavily so. Not the absolute best example, I know, because there's quite a bit of luck involved in FTL, depending on which ship you use, etc. But, yeah, I think only the combats pushing the absolute ceiling of your current capabilities are going to change so much from a sheer level gain. For instance, a given encounter might be unbeatable by your party at level 10, but beatable at level 11. But, it's probably not going to go from "unbeatable" to "piece of cake! 8D!". Or, it might be beatable, but pretty tough (lots of clever, precision micromanagement and specific effort on your part) at level 10, then not-so-bad at level 11. Long story short, I think the main deciding factor is going to be how you handle your tools, more so than what level your tools are (which will still be a factor, as sometimes you don't even have certain tools -- spells and abilities and talents -- without that certain level).