Lephys

I think it depends on the size/resolution of your monitor, and/or how many times it's folded (if you're talking about the cloth/physical map).

If he was... *Exclamation Point accompanied by sound effect!* You caught an AGX-17! 8D!

Pillars of Eternity: WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN! 'Cause... you know... you witness a thing and stuff... 8P

You forgot "slashing letters into the clothing of antagonistic forces, for dramatic effect, just before making your exit."

This may be crazy, but... what if many shopkeepers (or all, to abstractly make it simpler, even though some probably wouldn't) had, I dunno... lines of credit with local banking establishments? Or something of that nature. So, if they've only got, say, 200gp on them (arbitrary example numbers), then the further you go above 200gp with the value of whatever you're trying to sell to them, the less they'll give you for it (because they've got to borrow that much more money to make the immediate purchase, even if they're confident they can sell the item to make a profit, because they THEN have to pay back their borrowed money with interest.)? The specifics aren't really that important, because, in the game, it would just translate into "The more valuable that thing is when I don't have enough money, the less I'm going to give you for it." Mechanically/functionally, it's kind of a compromise between "The merchant has no more money with which to pay you!" and "The merchant has INFINITE MONEY! 8D!". If you really need the money, you can sell that 700gp gemstone you found for 400gp. OR, you can go find some merchant who has more money on-hand, and get more for it (at the cost of more effort/wait on your part). But, you don't have that super hard cap of "I'm just out of money 'cause you sold me like 2 things." Because, the problem with the hard cap seems to be "how do you adhere to verisimilitude and still provide the player with a means to reasonably sell things when he values money over found goods?" *shrug*. Just a thought. I'm honestly a fan of the hard cap. I just think a softer cap might be easier to make work without it either being completely unbelievable/problematic (the merchants all have like 3000gp, or restock all their money every single day, or vice-versa and you can hardly ever sell anything), thus defeating the point of the existence of the cap in the first place.

... Technically, it will. All the things you can do to a person that would feasibly be represented as interactive options in-game minus romance is quantifiably less than all those same interaction options plus romance. That being said, yes people are over-reacting. It's not the end of the world. It's just something that would've been nice, had they had the time and resources to integrate it into the story and everything. I agree that an abritrary "Meh... you can totally do people if you really want to. There's some extra, optional content just for that, and a whole progression, etc." is almost not even worth putting into any game, ever. Doing it right takes time and effort and resources, and it's better to not have it in at all than to have it half-assedly tossed into the game.

Yessss. No new strechgoals. Now the original plans for the game can reach completion without EVER having been altered or tweaked in the slightest. If only they had just ended the Kickstarter when they hit their goal, instead of accepting money for the following three weeks, we wouldn't be dealing with all these current stretchgoals and all the delay they've brought. Really, if they'd only set their funding goal at, say, $50,000, we'd've had the game in Q4 of 2012. Who the hell do the developers think they are? Deciding to put more as opposed to less stuff in their game, for obviously no reason at all. u_u...

For what it's worth... I've seen "godlikes" (plural with an 's') tossed around, AND just-plain "godlike." I'm not sure which is the official spelling, but, I've gotta say, that "S" on the end REALLY makes the word awkward. There are just certain words (usually descriptors used to describe people/members of a group) that sound/look REALLY wrong when you tack an "S" onto them: -Forsakens. -Relentlesses. -Vigilants. -etc. Seems to me that "godlike" is one of them. Since it's kind of a fabricated noun, it just sounds really weird to be pluralized like that. I realize this isn't the end of the world or anything, but, if it IS currently "godlikes" that's the official thing, then changing it wouldn't exactly be a monumental effort or anything. From a lore standpoint, I think it definitely benefits from the absence of the s. *shrug* Just me two cents. I could be crazy.

Let's hope their god "blessed" them with some extra Sword-to-the-Face Resistance, then, eh?

I realize exactly what I'm saying when I post. I try to make my words and ideas clear, but forgive me for not trying to conform to other people's posting boundaries. I didn't realize a free and open analysis of the topic at hand was somehow off-limits or taboo. How can something even be a good option (much less the best) if you're not even going to compare and contrast it with other potential options, variations, and ideas? What I'm offering are suggestions and analysis for the conceptual approach towards a given design -- in this case, buffs/combat preparation. You show me PoE's current work-in-progress system, and I'll gladly make sure everything I come up with directly pertains to what is and isn't already in place. Until then, the last time I checked, we're discussing design concepts, and not a tangible system that we're just all collectively tweaking. If you feel that my suggestions have no value that pertains to even conceptual approach, then you have every right to feel that way. Feeling that way, of course, in no way requires responses that arbitrarily assume my suggestions and postulations are seeking to do anything beyond what they're seeking to do. Discussion is like a buffet: If you don't like my cookies, simply pass them by and spare your plate their presence. There's no reason to waste time pretending my placing some cookies on the buffet table is somehow threatening your casserole's existence. I think Pong was a great game, but if I were to make a game like it now, I'd probably not limit myself to whatever Pong did. IE buffs have some great stuff in them, but I simply think a lot more can be done with buffing than simply stacking augmentative effects and immunities. If you don't agree, then you don't agree. Josh has already announced that there won't be ANY pre-combat buffing, so I don't think I'm the one bringing fundamental alterations to the table. If you want to just keep everything like the IE games had it, with buffing, AND you want to play and enjoy PoE for that very aspect of design... expect conflict.

As long as it's a blatantly optional thing (such as "I'm clearly, voluntarily, spending fewer stat points at creation than I could have") and not simply the player first having to figure out which build options end up being relative handicaps and which ones are pretty much better in every way, then selecting the handicapping ones... I'm all for it. The sheer ability to make a character worse than the status quo, for your own reasons, voluntarily and clearly? Great. The only qualms I have are with the argument that horrible character builds should exist in the game (which can't be known to be horrible until you try them and/or read a bunch of post-release wikis about the game, etc., to see how all the build options play out), and that THEY should serve that purpose, instead of a much-more-straightforward character creation option to cap point gains or something (which is not only more sensible, but also probably easier).

Might be just you. Wolves don't have a distinct mane, or a "fat" muzzle/head like that, or a long, lion-like tail like that. Etc. *Shrug*

Agreed. I don't know how to put it, other than that the concept art conveys a semblance of it being some kind of spiritual/"magical" form (the fur of the mane, and at the forearms/elbows kind of looks like both fur AND shadow, simultanously, and the whole form of the creature appears slightly "unnatural" in a good way), while the current model (I get that it's not finished) just sort of conveys "this is just a biological creature in the wild." Of course, I'm sure part of that is just the goofy "I'm a character model in default orientation" pose it's in, versus the very natural pose in the character art. 8P Dunno if that's helpful feedback to the dev team. But, just in case.

Can't watch the video just yet, but I'm excited to! All of the art concepts are simply exquisite! That blacksmith's shop... SUCH ATMOSPHERE! 8D And those portraits are fantastic! Is that the kind of subtle portrait variance we'll see with actually-selectable-at-character-creation portrait options in the game? Because, if so, that would be sooo splendid. In a lot of games, you just kinda get (for example) a couple of, say, Earth Godlike portraits, even though you get about 1,000 different options for your resulting Earth Godlike look. Or, the same with any race, really. Which, I get that portraits require time and effort, and to make so many just to provide variance is often a lower priority. But, still, IF we could get that kind of variety in our options at character creation, that would be fantastic. Just to represent the general variations we can have in our particular race. Also, speaking of types of Godlike... are there just going to be different types (Death, Earth, etc.) and that's it? Or are they still going to be a sub-type of the various races? What I mean is... are there going to be Orlan Death Godlike, and Aumaua Death Godlike? Just curious. And lastly, DAT CAT FORM! I like that it's not the often-seen 90% human, 10% cat, but it's also not just the opposite ("I just turned into a large cat instead of a person"). I'm excited to see all the various spirit forms, 8D. Also, I hope that you can pick different ones at character creation. I mean, even if you start with, say, 3, and only 1 is variable or something (so that all Level 1 Druids have 2 of the same, etc.). That seems like a very good variable of focus for character building. Kind of like schools of magic for a Wizard (D&D's setup, for example). KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! Oh, wait, sorry. There's no morality in PoE. KEEP UP THE WORK THAT CAUSES THE BACKER FACTION TO FAVOR YOU!

The word "balance" is used for a lot of things. Like that miniboss's strength versus his guards', for example. Which, I honestly find nothing wrong with. If, however, you could fight them completely separately, and the two guards (super tough) have jack crap on them, and the comparatively ultra easy miniboss guy has jewel-encrusted magical equipment of awesomeness +infinity, then, yeah, that is somewhat of an imbalance. Or could be, rather. See, that's more of something that's important/significant throughout a game's entire design, in general, so it's really hard to say "THAT ONE ENCOUNTER IS IMBALANCED IN TERMS OF DIFFICULTY VERSUS LOOT!". It really depends on the intent of the design, there. Maybe that miniboss had his stupid/gullible guards convinced he was some horrible creature to be feared, but he was super stingy and went all "THE PRECIOUS!" on all the best relics/equipment they had found. It's nice to have that surprise, as Kjaamor said. The only thing I could be definite of, in terms of what should and should not be, is that if every single thing in the game that ever presented you with quality loot (to put it simply) was ridiculously feeble/easy, and everything in the game that was tough provided you with nothing, that would be a clear imbalance. That would be similar to having all the quest/story-related threats in the game world being ridiculously feeble, and all the powerful (actually threatening) creatures be good and protectors of the world. That's inherently problematic. Again, though, you could always have some ruler who uses his charisma or the power of control over others to get everything done, such that when you actually face him down, he's a pansy. Even though "he" is threatening the realm. So, yeah, there are objectively inherent truths (or at least significant effects) when it comes to "balance" (used generally for design aspects of games), but it's really hard to judge every individual thing as balanced or unbalanced, without considering the context of the rest of the game's design. One thing that IS pretty unavoidable is approaches. Not just plain "choices," (as you should have some choices that achieve things easier/better, and some choices that make things tougher/slower/worse, in any given situation) but approaches (things such as class choice in relation to combat viability throughout the game -- as you cannot change your class at any point throughout the game, etc.). Some people say "there's no reason to balance things like this in a singleplayer game," but that isn't true. It's true that you CAN just allow some classes to be way worse at combat, in general, than others. But, especially in a party-based game, it's very prudent to make sure that any class is bringing something to the table for the whole party, in terms of overall ability to overcome combat encounters (especially in a game in which most of the combat won't be optional). So, with things like that, yeah. There's really no downside to a design approach like "Let's make all the classes and their various builds viable for progressing through the game." Also, with a game, even a singleplayer one, you want approach choices like class to offer the player roughly the same "quantity" of gameplay experience, throughout. For example, you wouldn't want the story to be 30 hours long if you picked a Druid, but 5 hours long if you picked a Rogue, clearly. Also, you don't want the Rogue to have 2 ability options in combat (total, ever), while a Druid gets 70. Not that they have to be the same, but those would be blatant "imbalances." So, yeah... long story short, balance is more of an idea. It's really just the objective side of design. It's really just kind of governance. It's almost logistics. Like putting up a traffic light to control an intersection, etc. "We want cars to go in both these directions, but how do we make sure they don't run into each other?" Etc. It's not about making everything the same. It's about making sure the variance doesn't cause blatant, objective issues. Reigning it in a bit.

I got the impression it was more like 'internal-strength' that you get from something like Tai-Chi (NB: it refers to the use of the stabilizing muscles for movement (as opposed to vice-versa - I mean you still use the motivational muscles but just for quick burst of movement)- these muscles are smaller but stronger (pound for pound) than the motivational muscles - so you can look slighter of build but hit like a brick). First off, I friggin' love The Last Airbender (but yeah, the live-action film was a bit lacking, and arbitrarily different -- "LET'S PRONOUNCE HIS NAME 'AHHNG!' 8D!"). But, yeah, I get that it's kinda like Tai-Chi. But, see, even THAT'S somewhat intangible energy. Bear in mind, I'm not claiming expert knowledge of the idea of Chi here or anything. I'm not making it a point that this is specifically how chi functions. I'm just saying that, when you boil it down, there's a difference between muscle strength and chi. Even in D&D rules, a Monk didn't just get a Strength rating of 50. Why? Because what fueled the power of his attacks wasn't directly caused by physical strength. Plus, in most things (including The Last Airbender), SOME people can't use that energy. There were people who could bend, and people who couldn't, no matter how disciplined they were. Which further illustrates the idea that, while contributing to the access of intangible "magic" bending energies, physical strength and physical ability do not directly = bending energy. That's kind of the point. If "Might" is an abstract, numerical value representing one's potency in all things, then you suddenly cannot be strong without being also ludicrously magically capable/potent. A good example is those huge Earth benders Toph fought against in the tournament. How would you rate them, with just Might? Toph, though admittedly quite strong and disciplined for her size, could not physically lift a large rock that one of those Conan-type guys could have. But, when you throw bending ("magic") in, she's 10-times more powerful than they are. Another perfect example of "How do we rate this with Might?" is a Wizard in PoE without his grimoire (he's been captured, let's say, and all his things were taken, and he's in a cell). What does his magical potency count for now, without his grimoire to act as a conduit/focus? If he has 20 Might, and no grimoire, does that automatically mean he's one of the physically burliest people on the planet? Can he pick up a rock in the cell and simply beat the door lock/hinge until it's destroyed, and escape? OR, is he actually quite feeble when it comes to not-magic, and therefore has no hope of doing anything like that? The two are not the same thing, as dictated by the system itself. Again I'll say, however, that, if this is the case and there's just no distinction between them, and we never have anything even remotely resembling the locked-up-grimoireless-Wizard scenario in which it would actually be useful to check physical might rather than magical might (for example), then so be it. The game isn't ruined. I for one just feel that, ideally, we could have situations such as that one (situations in which it's significant whether or not you are magically potent, or physically potent, or both) in a game like PoE. I mean, character distinction? That's kind of the heart of an RPG like this. But, yeah, they have their reasons for abstracting it, and it'll be fine, even though it's still a bit weird. The gist of my point is just that there's an actual reason to have them separate, beyond "it's pleasant to my preferences." It doesn't mean there's no reason to merge them, or that anyone's wrong if they're okay with them being merged. I'm okay with them being merged, but would prefer them to be separate, because of the types of situations I'd prefer to have in the game that take advantage of the distinction/separation. But, I'd also prefer the game to have made 15 million in Kickstarter funding, and to be even grander than it already is. But, I'm hardly going to argue that it's somehow wrong of the game to only have a budget of 4.x million and be the size and scope that it is. And lastly, @Silent Winter, I just want to say that I'm not so much arguing against you, directly (because I realize you were already suggesting a distinction between chi-like energy and just-plain-physical-strength), as much as I'm just emphasizing my point with the help of your words on the matter, as they brought up very useful analysis on the subject. (I didn't want you to read this and feel the need to clarify with "Well, I wasn't really saying that stuff wasn't, true," etc., 'cause I know you weren't, )

Sounds like a relationship to me. And... as to the "let the butthurt flow" (Emperor Palpatine meme pick)... no, they already said no romances. So butthurt's out of the question.

This is a perfect example of something I'm noticing quite frequently on forums and the like, and it's really very detrimental to productive discussion, and I don't comprehend it in the least (and, quite frankly, grow a bit weary of it). Could you kindly explain to me why my only two valid options for response are: A) The direct opposite of every single facet/detail of whatever you've said, or B) Nothing at all, because we just either share the exact same complex perspective on "pre-combat preparation" or we don't. ?

Yeah, but, to be fair, it was more "endurance" than raw strength. I mean, Toph was a complete BAMF, even though she was what... 10? And she fought fully-adult Conan The Barbarian dudes who were about 18-times her size and had obviously trained their muscles to a much greater magnitude. Yeah, old Fire-Nation General, Uncle What's-His-Face was super-out-of-shape, and his Firebending capabilities suffered for it. But, he wasn't a wuss. Plus, their bending basically had a rigorous somatic component to it. Thus, being out of shape, or even just really tired, would affect it much like losing your voice would affect a spell that requires a verbal incantation. You have to be capable of performing that incantation to get the spell to work properly. That doesn't mean that the louder your voice is, the more powerful the spell is. Same with Strength versus Bending. That being said, I understand the abstraction of something like Might applying to magic/representing non-physical potency. I just think that, ideally, both things would be distinctly represented. I also realize that other factors are closer to ideal with both of them (physical and non-physical power) represented by a single stat, as opposed to being separated. So, it's not just a matter of "well obviously, separate them."

I thinking making something "really hard to find" is bad, if it amounts to actual pixel-hunting. It should be intuitive, is what's important. On the most basic level, the level of difficulty in discovering something hidden should be directly proportionate to the amount of alertness/care taken by the player, to a reasonable extent. What I mean is, if you just expect to jog through a whole manor, then you shouldn't expect to find everything in it. If you take a few minutes to actually thoroughly search the place (just actually pay attention to details and cues -- maybe subtle scratch marks on a wall where an armoire has been slid out of the way, etc.), you shouldn't have to much difficulty finding things. Then, of course, you've got the especially hidden stuff that cannot present cues to the player in an isometric view (secret tiny switches/hidden compartments within chests/drawers, etc.). Which is where the Perception stat comes in. Either you've got enough Perception (or maybe even Knowledge:Concealment or something?) to find it, or you don't. There's a place for both. Honestly, the active search button that makes a search of the area around you shouldn't be something that's necessary to abuse just to find things. You should never have absolutely no way of knowing where to even look for something that's hidden, and just have to rely on moving 10 feet at a time and clicking on "search," or just entering search mode and walking around very slowly, standing near random objects and walls for seconds at a time. It should make sense. In a big room, sure, you might need to move about a little bit to get a better look at things. But, in a screen-sized room, you should pretty much be able to look around and find anything you're just going to notice. If there's a super-hidden door in a hallway or something, then your character should have to obtain SOME kind of clue to go on. Why would your character say "Hmmm... that bit of wall looks completely inconspicuous! I'd better focus on it REALLLLY hard for no apparent reason, until I discover its secrets!" That's just silly. Now, if you find some journal that tells of a secret passage in a hallway, now you can go to hallways, and search, and now it makes sense that your character would be specifically looking for evidence of a secret passage in a wall or bookshelf, etc. You should really have two tiers: -Stuff you can just notice 'cause you're Perceptive and are taking the 15 seconds required to actually stand still for a bit and search your surroundings, and -Stuff you aren't ever going to find until you know what you're looking for. And, between clues throughout, and visual cues, and scripted interactions, and Perception/Knowledge checks, etc, there's plenty of room to do it well without making it a chore, but also without making Search Mode just some kind of easy button that just turns hidden stuff into "stuff you didn't take the time to actually click 'search' to instantly discover." EDIT: What might actually be kind of neat is if, instead of ONLY ever finding significant items of value (or just not finding them if your Perception/Search is too low), you could actually find things of little/no consequence. Or of little/no consequence until you have more clues/context. Also, being able to glean more information about something might be interesting. But, I guess that'd be more Knowledge/Intellect checks than Perception. One character might deduce some clues from some evidence he finds, while another might not deduce nearly as much. A little light detective action, perhaps.

Well, we don't get any durability in any form anymore, so, that nips a lot of material-variance factors in the bud. *saddy face* Just for what it's worth, this isn't a very useful point. Fire is fire, whether it was magically created or some mutant guy was born with chemical glands in his wrists that react when mixed to ignite into jets of flame. Magic is, fundamentally, a fictional method of manipulating regular physics. Even teleportation and inter-dimensional gateways are all within the realm of theoretical possibilities within real-world science. Magic doesn't somehow ruin everything or throw everything out the window. It's just a fictional phenomenon. That being said: Excellent suggestion. ^_^ Also, just to clarify, I was only commenting on the idea of "why should we worry so much about the accuracy of material/physics relationships when MAGIC?!", because I see that particular argument made quite often around here. Of course, I realize that you may have just meant "bronze might be PHYSICALLY inferior to other metals, but maybe it could be superior in certain ways when you add magical affinity into the mix." AKA, I was commenting on those words, just in case, but am not necessarily saying "THAT'S ALL YOU COULD'VE MEANT, AND YOU'RE WRONG!".

Simply not-knowing about the shifted release date is perfectly understandable. Arbitrarily deciding that you should've somehow known, or pretending that you had no way of knowing, on the other hand, is not very understandable. It's honestly a bit weird to me that some of the people who pop in here seem to be perfectly content with having backed at the Kickstarter, then just gone underground for a whole year, only to pop out and be super shocked that everything is not as they last knew it to be. *shrug*

I hope so. At the very least, I'm hoping for some different reactions/options from the presence of a Ranger pet in the party versus the absence of one. Different stuff for different animals (or different animal companion development choices, etc.) would be cool, but just having some modicum of effects from an animal companion in given situations, as compared to none at all, would be pretty great.

I know. I was being silly. According to EA, it's piracy. You just got for free what is supposed to cost money. (Also, it's a bit harder to edit the code on my 360). I actually got him for free, for pre-ordering. It's the principle of the thing. Also, my house analogy still stands true. 8P

That's the thing. Role-playing is not the same thing as character-controlling. In Call of Duty, I'm not playing the role of a soldier. I'm just controlling a soldier. Even with acting, we say "such and such is 'playing the role of' (insert character name here)." Those actors are presented with a goal "you need to say this, and you need to convey anger." Each actor plays that role in different ways, as per their own personal choices/approaches. One might shout the line, while another might say it calmly and quietly, but with a weird tick or word emphasis so as to convey a shattering facade of calm atop an ocean of fury. The casting people pick based on what approach they like the best. I dare say the thing that distinguishes role-playing from character controlling is choice on how you approach your character. I.e., as Tajerio put it simply, choice in character variance, and choice in character decision-making/personality, etc. Sure, in Call of Duty, you decide whether or not to fire your gun, and when. But, everything you do only affects your progress towards a single goal: get past all these hostile guys and/or kill all these hostile guys and/or stop all these hostile guys from killing your allies or some important target. You don't choose which side you're on, or what your motivations are, or even what objective it is you want to complete. You just do what you're supposed to do, and that's it. So, yeah, I'd say choice plays a big part of it. And, leveling mechanics are definitely very prevalent as a means by which to implement character distinction (via progress) and choice results, but I'm not entirely sure that leveling up, specifically, is required for the game to be a role-playing game. It's possible that, in some form, progress is? And, actually... interestingly enough, Call of Duty multiplayer HAS leveling mechanics. And it's not an RPG. Although, I'd say it's a little bit closer than the single-player campaign, since you're at least allowed to decide what kind of soldier your character is, and decide what kind of "mission" (multiplayer mode) you're going to take on.