Lephys

I didn't say you did. It wasn't a strawman. It was a question. You said this: And, either you're just arbitrarily pointing out the irrelevant fact that Josh can't "get rid of it totally," or you were suggesting that was somehow his goal. Thus, I asked if you could provide some proof that that was his goal. It was a simple yes-or-no question. Again, I'm not going to accuse you of strawmannery, and instead will just assume you feel like arbitrarily stating facts that I didn't argue, but not in argument to me. Because I literally just said this: ... Which you even quoted. So, thank you for that bit of trivia, I guess. No it doesn't. All it requires is that you move a Cleric to melee range, click an ability button, then select a target. The rest is up to RNG in the computer. Unless you've got a mod installed that requires extreme exertion on your part, like... a hand-crank that keeps your CPU going while you play? Or a realllllllly big mouse button. ... of it being one of the most effective things you could possibly do to a giant dragon. I don't have to. I'm sure someone's already posted a video clip, online, of their battle, in which they landed Harm on the first attempt. Boom. Click... click... click. Done. How can you potentially kill something in 2 turns, then say "that was really hard"? If that's hard, then what's easy? If Harm works, you don't need any heal spells, because 1 turn later, there's no dragon around to damage you. Then you can just rest up and get all your heal spells back. Oh man. I didn't even think of that! Imagine if you had 6 Clerics! All armed to the teeth with Harm! Well, you'd probably want one Warrior or something, for the best chance to actually deliver the killing blow. Requiring a certain build and certain feats/stats is not difficulty. Was it hard to allocate points when you leveled up, to support a "more likely to Harm a dragon to near-death" build? That's not difficulty. It's easy to do. Putting those factors in place isn't any harder than putting any OTHER sets of factors in place. The only difference is that, when you choose to put those factors in place, you can deal one point less than a dragon's entire health in damage in a single attack, as opposed to not even having that option. "You keep saying that word... I do not think it means what you think it means."

Which admittedly bypassed an entire dynamic. 8P "Hey, is that a WIZARD?! Maybe we should be careful?!" "Nah, dude... he's only Level 2, so he can't possibly be any more powerful than any other Level 2 Wizard." "Oh, okay, we're safe then... what about that fledgeling Fighter over there who doesn't even know which end of the sword to hold?" "WHAT?! Wait, hang on... OH CRAP, LOOK AT THE SIZE OF HIS ARMS! That guy's WAY scarier than any other Level 1 Fighter I've seen, instead of being completely identical in threatening-ness to all others, like a Wizard!"

I appreciate the info. I didn't have specifics. Even so... ... which is luck-based. A die-roll determines whether or not you deal [Target's HP -1] damage to a foe or not. Which means, the tougher the opponent is, the more effective the spell. Which means, the more HP something has, the greater the reason you have to try to use it. If the goal of the fight is to kill a big scary dragon, and ANY of your attacks could possibly miss it (except maybe stuff like Magic Missile... although it might could resist those? I don't know enough specific D&D trivia off the top of my head to know for sure... anywho), would you rather possibly hit it for 20 or 50 while also possibly missing (or it resisting/saving, etc.), or would you rather possibly hit it for all-its-health-minus-1 damage? It'd be one thing if all your other, lesser attacks were guaranteed, but that one was chance. But, that isn't the case.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. We're talking about the exact same thing. All your arguing about is whether or not it's technically part of the system, or the encounter. If the system says "this spell works differently against Foe X," then they make an encounter that includes foe X, would that not result in that ability not making that particular encounter easy? An encounter is simply a scenario, populated by entities that behave according to the system. So, if you really want to get technical, it would be the system's fault, and not the encounter's, because the encounter is governed by the system. BUT, I don't really care how technical we get. The important point is still the same, regardless what word we use to blame some part of the game that's at fault: The game is at fault. It is, indeed, which is why I'm glad it's one I did not make. Guess what encounter design is a part of? That's right, a game. The game is at fault? Why? Because of (insert more specific part of the game, here). If I tell you I'm injured, are you going to LOL at me and tell me "Not exactly! Just your LEG is injured! Man, you thought your ENTIRE SELF had sustained an injury? LOLOLOL!!!"? The frightening thing is... probably. Right. Well mostly. I mean, it is mitigation. It's complete, nullifying mitigation, though. I wasn't arguing against that fact. I merely presented an alternative that allows for more dynamic, non-binary mitigation, and asking if that would still achieve the same desired affect (of preventing what is to be intended as a difficult fight from being turned into a not-at-all-difficult fight). Because all that does is move around the threshold between something and nothing. The problem isn't that the spell instantly kills, but that it instantly kills something that you don't want to be instantly killable. I don't understand the difference between violating the already-established rule system, and simply having established a slightly different rule system in the first place. They didn't discover it on some tablets lost to time, dug up in the Garden of Eden. They discussed things, just like we're doing here, then decided on what to go with, because of reasons. See, that's a pretty cool idea, actually. Because, you still CAN get away with Deathing some big baddie in a big fight, but it's still not just a matter of chance. There's no chance that your spell will just bypass that trap, right? Thus, you've set the threshold in place, and only player effort (to survive that long, etc.) can allow you to actually reach that threshold. I'm not saying that's THE end-all-be-all perfect method of doing things. I'm just saying that it objectively seems to work a lot better than just "this spell no longer EVER does ANYTHING against this foe" or "there's a really tiny chance that this'll work, so that's supposed to make things 'harder,' even though it could very well still happen on your first try."

Fair enough. Strike the word "sole" and the words "in life," and the question stands. I shouldn't have posed the question in an exaggerated manner, as it caused confusion. If you would be so kind, please provide a quote from him in which he clearly states that the main priority of his design process is to ensure that no degenerate gameplay exists, ever. Because, he's obviously fine with the fact that the ability to save anywhere allows save-scumming, but still opts for a save-anywhere system. I fear you have mistaken the definition of "intended." I distinctly declared the condition of the developers not wanting the dragon to be killed in one hit (not counting the application of the Harm spell as a "hit" -- I guess I should just say "damaging hit" to be most precise), it isn't functioning as intended. You can't intend for your game to have a big bad boss fight that's intended to be difficult (aka requiring of much effort on the player's part) to overcome, AND simultaneously intend for the player to be able to easily dispatch of that foe because of a mere dice roll (which doesn't = difficulty, because if the dice roll is good, you still simply clicked a single ability button and selected a target). You said it yourself; if they didn't want the player to be able to Harm the dragon, they shouldn't have allowed it. That's the whole point. The fact that they allowed it just means that they did it wrong, not that they wanted you to kill the dragon in 1 hit. Also, the analogy makes perfect sense. It doesn't have anything to do with video games, you're quite correct. It has to do with intention, and how you can't intend 2 binary opposites at the same time. Which, in turn, has to do with video game design, for video game designers have intentions. Really, if you weren't being so stubborn and jumping at the merest opportunity to have a go at me before you even apply a few ounces of thought to the things I'm saying, you could make these connections instead of assuming they don't exist, and we'd both be saved the time of my having to explain every single thing I say. Nope. That's the thing about chance. If you do 100 damage with your sword, but the dragon has 99 armor, then sword-attacking it is rendered a nonviable option. But, a spell like Harm is governed by chance. Thus, the low chance renders it a probably nonviable option, but still possibly an INCREDIBLY viable option. One player could, on his first try, take the Dragon down to 1HP. That's WAY more effective than anything else you can do. Harm isn't "hard" to pull off. It's completely beyond the scope of your effort to pull off. No decision you actively make influences its likelihood to be more effective as opposed to not-at-all effective. Besides, you don't just get ONE use of Harm, right? You can prep multiples of it, correct? And what are you going to do if you try to fight the dragon that way, but fail? Die. And unless you're playing on Iron Man mode, what are you going to do next? Reload and retry. That's not even save-scumming. That's simply continuing because of a Game Over situation. Guess what happens when you reload? You get more usages of Harm to try against the dragon again! 8D No, it's not wrong of the player to use Harm in that manner. It's the game's fault for making it a statistically good idea. It's turning tactical combat into gambling, even against a foe that's supposed to require the most effort from the player, not the most luck. Anywho, that's starting to get off on a tangent about design, itself. The important point you were missing was that, IF, in your design, something's supposed to be a tough fight, and you put something in the game that allows it to be a ridiculously easy fight, then you've counteracted your own design, and you can't blame the player for not going out of his way to ensure it remains a tough fight (by, say... refraining from using Harm.)

It is a splendid word. It must've been created by the Spectaculati.

Could you perhaps provide a quote in which Josh states that it is his sole goal in life to specifically eliminate ALL possibility of "degenerate gameplay" from a game? I'm not saying he's never said that, but I've never read it, if he did. Seems to me his stance is more like "When possible, it should be avoided." Kind of like human injuries. Obviously, any given person is eventually going to stub their toe, or get cut by something, etc. You can't just remove the possibility for injury from the world. But it's clearly prudent to not design a living room with furnishings made out of swords, because that would just lead to a bunch of unnecessary injury. I'm afraid it does. Exactly. The developers intend for that dragon to not be easily slain, but then they also intend for the spell "Harm" to be able to make anything easily killable. If that's not a contradiction, I'd very much like to know how. That's like not wanting anyone to enter your home, but leaving your front door open with a big neon sign that says "Enter my home, please!" That would be a stupid thing to do in the context of the goal being not having people enter your home. Just as Harming the dragon to 1HP is bad in the context of the dragon being meant to be difficult to kill. You're right that it's not the player's fault, and that's exactly the point. The devs didn't want that, but allowed it in their design where they could've easily prevented it.

Could you provide a quote in which someone is specifying the problem being with system design, in particular, as opposed to encounter design? Because, all I said (and all I believe Josh said) is that the fault lies with the game's design, which encompasses both systems AND encounters. Basically, it's the game's fault, if that foe was easily killable when it wasn't supposed to be. Do you agree? Because you seem to, what with no actual response suggesting otherwise (your only qualm was the distinction between "system" and "encounter" design being at fault). So, I just wanted to make sure, instead of assuming such. Also, just out of curiosity (mini-tangent), in regard to making the foe completely immune to Finger of Death, would it not be more prudent to simply implement a mitigation of Death Magic for that foe? Maybe you have to hit him 8 times with it to kill him or something? Thus, it wouldn't be rendered completely useless, but it would take some doing to actually use it to kill him. This would accomplish the same thing (preventing a designed-to-be-tough-to-kill foe from being one-shotted), while still offering the player the opportunity to utilize his death magic that the game told him was a totally valuable choice, if he REALLY puts the effort in. (Or maybe you'd have to channel it at the tough foe for like 13 seconds... *shrug*). Just curious, one player to another.

I think a static Health bonus from the stat would be pretty great. And I don't even know that you need to differentiate between classes for per-level gains, really. There are already plenty of differences in the classes and what abilities/passive-ratings they have for things like defenses. I would think an unarmored Fighter with minimum CON shouldn't be able to absorb significantly more axes-to-the-face than an unarmored Wizard with minimum CON, really. The main difference there would be Deflection. The fighter can better handle himself in melee combat, and thus is less likely to be hit, so he would probably last longer. But, if they're just standing there, definitely taking hits (For example... I know you can't just turn off your Deflection), they should probably take about the same amount, both. That's the main problem I had with D&D rules. I don't mind sucking worse at a lot of things than a Fighter does (as a Wizard), but I DO mind the game telling me "You can have 20 CON, but you're still going to have like HALF the hitpoints of a Fighter with even 18 CON of the same level." That doesn't really make much sense. I know it's abstract, but why such a big difference? Does he have that much more blood in his system? 3 extra hearts and lungs, maybe? So, yeah, I mean, you already get an effective difference between classes, what with their various base defense ratings and such, and their class "feats" and abilities and such. So, I definitely wouldn't want to see percentage increases for health/stamina, from CON. Also, all that being said, I don't think BASE HP differences would be problematic at all. Fighter starts with 50, Wizard starts with 40? I'm cool with that. But, there's no reason for the Wizard to gain only 2 per level, and the Fighter gain 4 or 5 per level. He's already gaining plenty of "you can't hit me" and/or "my hitpoints become more effective" abilities and such as he goes, while the Wizard isn't, really (aside from, maybe, temporary shield spells and such?). Just my opinion on that, really.

Well, we could all just sit around saying things like "I have no idea how this is going to happen. I hope they tell us soon." But then, I don't think the forums would be as fun if all the posts were like that.

Looks like degenerate gameplay to me. Obviously not having a go at Josh. Because the IE games did have faults which Obsidian are trying to correct. If you're going to quote people, it helps to have some links to back you up or at the very least, quote them with what they say. My bad. I've got the specifics wrong regarding the terms used. He still uses the word "gameplay", but... well, this is what I was referring to: Yes, that is the intended meaning. I've also explained the intended meaning previously. I don't think I've ever used "degenerate" as a description of players, but of gameplay. I don't believe players are ever at "fault" for using whatever tools designers provide for them, including features like save/reload or rest spamming. It's the designers' responsibility to design systems and individual sub-systems that work well together and promote enjoyable gameplay. BTW, in my own tabletop gaming scenarios, I've heard plenty of players (and DMs) deride other players for "abusing" clear rule loopholes. I don't think this is helpful for anyone and, unless you're in a tournament environment, I don't know why any DM/GM wouldn't simply talk to the players about adjusting the rules for the long-term health of the game. With PE, the rules we give to you are ours to write. If a player "abuses" any rule we put in, we are the people to blame, not the players. I.e, we, the designers, create degenerate gameplay opportunities. Players simply recognize the opportunity and take advantage of it to win the game, which is usually one of their major goals. But because those opportunities often become the de facto tactic or strategy for overcoming an obstacle, what could have been a dynamic element of gameplay becomes static -- generally undesirable. Read the quote from decado to which he's responding, with the first words "out of his mouth" in response being "Yes, that is the intended meaning." Basically, word-emphasis aside, the point still stands. For example, in that one-line quote you provided regarding using stuff "to great degenerate gameplay lengths in old Infinity Engine games to kill powerful enemies on the first round of combat," the problem isn't that the player actually used what they could to accomplish this. It's a problem with the game's design, simply because of the game's stated goals. The game is supposedly presenting the player with some immensely powerful, challenging foe, but then giving the player everything he needs to simply kill it in one hit, which contradicts the design. It's like Acrobatics in the Elder Scrolls games. The intent/goal of the game's design is to have your skills progress through focused-but-purposeful use. And yet, you can just jump off of small cliffs for 10 hours straight, and BOOM! You're a master of acrobatics. That's not what the game wants you to be able to do, but then it provides the necessary tools, right there. All you have to do is jump around a lot. Think of it like a murder mystery novel. A person might easily just flip through to the last page and learn who the killer is/the mystery's secret. But, if page 1 of the book just said "(Insert killer's name here) totally killed this guy," wouldn't you say that the book was designed in a way that conflicts with its own goal (to present the reader with an engrossing mystery)? Regardless of whether or not you LOVE to read murder mystery books in which the very first sentence of the book just tells you exactly what happened, they are no longer, by definition, "mysteries" if they do that. Something can only be "degenerate" by design, in relation to the specific context of its own design goals. Nothing's degenerate just because. You're not a degenerate for liking to kill everything in sight and get XP for it. But, it's not in the interest of the game's design goals to make the death of all things an XP-worthy achievement. MOST deaths, sure. But not every single one in the whole game. Thus the distinction of objectives.

Sawyer has never stated being against "degenerate gameplay." He's against "degenerate design." A very different thing. He's even specifically corrected that on several occasions, on these forums. I agree with your sentiments 100% in the above post (Stun). But, I think you're falsely attributing those ideas all with Josh Sawyer's mind, to be honest. There's a big difference between trying to prevent players from taking "degenerate" actions with perfectly sensible design (save-scumming -- the design is save-anywhere, but players could USE that to do "bad" things), and designing a game that encourages players to do nonsensical things via the design itself (aka, these peaceful manatees are just floating about, but IF one were to fight manatees, one would gain fighting experience, therefore, TOTALLY have some never-not-useful XP if you kill them, ^_^).

I understand. That's part of my "I think everything needs 2 effects" thinking. Relative to other stats, it really doesn't seem to be as significant in as many different situations, etc. I'm not trying to deny that. I'm only attempting to emphasize the idea that I don't think it's as dumpable as you think. In other words, the value of Resolve on your character, by itself (not in comparison to other stats) isn't really so insignificant just because, for example, you've got a ranged build. Look at it this way: If your tanks can lock down your foes, then cannot your foes' tanks lock down YOUR tanks? If you have 1 tank and 1 ranged person, and you come up against an identical shadow-clone party, what's to stop the enemy tank from preventing YOUR tank from getting to the enemy ranged guy to keep him from constantly targeting YOUR ranged guy, who has dumped Resolve, and therefore gets interrupted by almost every single hit? That's all I'm trying to say. Obviously, if you specifically utilize tactics to minimize the amount of hits your ranged guy is going to take, then he'll take fewer hits than if you just weren't caring. But, I don't think there's anything that guarantees you the ability to simply keep that guy from completely getting hit. And, with Resolve, it doesn't even matter how much damage is being done. It only matters how often you're getting hit. That's what I'm saying. So, you could even be completely "out of harm's way" and still have non-lethal attacks constantly pelting you. Add another foe who gets to attack that character, and you're getting hit TWICE as frequently, with each hit very likely producing an interrupt delay on whatever action you're taking, including relocating to get out of range again, etc. I'm simply emphasizing that, because I think a lot of people are thinking Resolve is somehow definitely mostly pointless unless you just specifically plan on getting hit a lot (like a frontline Monk or something). It's definitely less useful if you're on the backlines and don't plan on wading into the fray, BUT, it could very well still be SORELY missed if you just dump it. It's like CON in D&D. If you're a Wizard, you don't plan to soak up damage or anything, but then, if you take 4 CON, you're going to have like 2 HP at level 1, and suffer a penalty on every level-up. So, while some other Wizard, at level 7 or so, might be able to actually take a few hits, you have to spend THAT much more effort ENSURING that your Wizard doesn't even take ONE hit, lest he die instantly. As for the 2 effects per stat thing, I realize it's quite tricky. But, I'd recommend looking at Wasteland 2's setup. I can't comment on whether or not it's perfect or anything, but it has a pretty good general idea; the effects overlap. I think there are 3 or 4 different stats that affect your number of Action Points, for example. Thus, if you pump all 4 of those (for whatever reason -- they do other things, too, often more potently than affecting action points), you have the MOST action points. If you pump only 2, you have fewer, but still many. If you only pump one, you have the fewest action points (aside from pumping 0). But, the odds of you dumping 4, or even 3, given stats is pretty slim. Again, especially since they have different uses. But, that works pretty well. You can't just take one and dump the other 3 unless you just don't care about having many action points, but there's not just one thing to pump to max out your action points. Ehh... I'm just not so sure. I've gotta think about that a bit. I mean, you've only got so many points to allocate. So, say all the stats are 0-10 (I know 0's weird... it's an example, and I need symmetry for it), and they all start at 5, and you get 5 points to allocate. If you put them all in INT, then you have awesome crit damage (the highest you can get, minus all other factors that aren't mutually exclusive with your core stats -- gear, buffs, etc.)... when you crit. You still only have 5 DEX, and 5 MIG, so your base damage isn't very high (which is what your critical damage is derived from) and your chance to crit isn't very high. If someone were to put 3 points into MIG and 2 points into DEX, for example (so, 8 MIG, 7 DEX, all other stats 5), they'd most likely be critting far more often than your 10-INT character, and dealing more base damage, and thus higher crit damage (than average, though not as much as your 10-INT character) more often. That's just one example. The point is, by having such a specific aspect (crit damage), it changes how effective you are based on how you play and the circumstances in which you find yourself. So, I really don't think it's over-powered at all. I mean, obviously, if you just want to be an uber-damager, pumping MIG, DEX, and INT (if it affected crit damage) would be the ideal build. But, that's where stat-allocation balancing comes in. Who's to say that, to do that, you won't need to drop CON, RES, and PER down to like 1 or 2? And, if you do that, then you have to put up with: A) Hardly ever interrupting enemies' actions, ever, with your attacks. B) Suffering in the armor penetration department (so armor much more effectively diminishes your awesome damage) C) Getting interrupted, yourself, way more often than other characters. D) Falling unconscious and/or dying in far fewer hits than anyone else. So, when you take 2 hits and have to kind of run away to regen a little stamina, someone else, who, granted, deals less damage than you per-strike, is still standing there, with their higher CON, dealing more damage. AND when the whole enemy force is armored (or a lot of them, at least), you're damage-dealing bonus is lessened in comparison to someone with higher PER. Etc. PLUS, this is the situation I was suggesting gets eliminated by the 2-effects-per-stat thing: If INT affects AoE range, and you're barely ever going to use any AoE's, you still get the perfectly-useful effect of having your crits do more damage. Thus, the check for "should I take some INT?" isn't just "am I going to be using many AoEs?". Much like the Resolve situation. If Resolve did 2 things, then, even if you weren't particularly concerned with not-being-interrupted (because you were going to take every effort you could in not-getting-hit), Resolve would still do SOMEthing else for you (maybe it affects knockdown? Or effect duration? *shrug*). Anywho, my point is simply in the relationships throughout the system. Obviously the tricky part is pegging the exact values/pairings needed to get the system to work in harmony.

I think the argument really boils down to something more like 'the IE games weren't broken so why is Obsidian trying to fix them by doing something significantly different?' True enough, but I was specifically referring to the "who's to say which kills/combats will grant XP and which ones won't?/ What if I HAVE to best something in combat merely to make any progress whatsoever in the game, but it doesn't get labeled as an objective?" argument. It's more an aspect of "the" argument, I suppose. It's completely separate from the system, though. What if, by halfway through the game, enemies have 7,000 HP on average, and do 150 damage, but all the player's characters only deal a maximum of 30 damage and only have 100 HP? Well, that would be dumb, but it doesn't mean we should stop using hitpoints or damage values to determine conflict resolution. The human ability to design something improperly does not comment directly on the validity of the system being used. There are plenty of valid points and concerns on the "I'm kind of unhappy with this system change" side of this whole debate, but "our choice to combat/kill things is never ever going to result in XP" is not one of them, and declaring such is not somehow automatically saying "So you can't possibly have any valid concerns and the only true way of living is to love and cherish PoE's chosen XP system! 8D!" I just ask people who are against it to stop wasting time with something that's not even true, and to actually productively discuss how to use the objective-XP system to ensure that combat and kills don't get the short end of the stick. Pretending the only two possibilities are that they get NO stick, or an infinitely long stick is just plain silly.

It sure is. And then "that doesn't mean they're actually happy with whatever design the game gets" is what I said. Thus supplementing what you said, and in no way arguing against it. Woohoo! Text teamwork! 8D

Also, for what it's worth, I'm fairly certain the only times you'll ever kill something and not get an XP reward for the effort you put into that combat will be when it isn't mandatory. Think about it... they've said that you'll HAVE to fight a lot in the game, that combat will be unavoidable much of the time. "Much of the time" being in relation to progressing through the "critical path" of the game. And you need XP to progress and keep up with the difficulties of necessary combat encounters, which, if you don't overcome, hinder your progress through "the game." Thus, how nonsensical would it be to design a game that requires you to combat harder and harder stuff throughout the game, but never gives you the ability to progress your own capabilities as a direct result of overcoming that mandatory combat? That argument basically just leads to "I think Obsidian are idiots, and have no idea why I even backed this game, or why I ever thought they'd intelligently design anything, whatsoever." Because, that has nothing to do with what system they're using, but with your feelings on their competence.

It's not a "no XP for body-counts" philosophy. It's a "the basis for your being rewarded is something other than simply a body-count" philosophy. Basically, the XP system shouldn't encourage you to intentionally run around getting detected and sounding all alarms, everywhere, and wait around for 20 reinforcements to show up, just 'cause if you do it any other way, you get less XP. Here's the best example I can think of, actually: An enemy caster who summons things. If the objective is "end this evil dude's reign of terror upon the land," then killing him gets you XP. Intentionally prolonging the fight just so he can summon 15 minions instead of only 5 before he dies isn't going to give you BONUS fighting XP, nor should it. Why should you get 900 XP just because you did something that NO ONE would ever even remotely do without the enticement of bonus XP, when you only get 500XP if you kill him and his first set of minions? Why not chain him up, take him back to your dungeon, and just force him to slavingly summon minion after minion, all day every day, while you just stand there cutting them all down. Or, maybe even the same one. Maybe he's a necromancer, and it's just a skeleton. He just keeps reanimating the same skeleton, over and over again, and you keep getting XP for it. He can be your secret XP cow. Because that's preposterous. If you kill him quickly and skillfully, you get X amount of XP. If you don't fight effectively and prolong the crap out of it, and make it harder on yourself, you still only get X amount of XP. It's not that you're not getting combat XP. It's that you're not getting XP simply for every single instance of a kill. You're getting an amount of XP that represents however many kills you made, no matter what. Why does it need to be some specific amount for each kill? If that's the case, then every single use of your sword should net you XP, because something doesn't have to die to warrant XP. If you sword-duel someone for 15 minutes, injure them a lot, then finally knock the sword from their hand and choose to let them live, and they NEVER ever die, did you not just gain fighting experience? In a per-kill XP system, you'd get no XP for that fight. In an objective-XP system, if "win the fight" is an objective (which there's no reason it couldn't be), then you get XP for that fight, instead of only for deaths. If you come upon some random, even moderately-capable person on a road between two cities, and you have NO idea who he is, and he has no relevance to anything at all, you COULD talk to him, and MAYBE he'd have some immediate relevance to something, or offer you a quest, etc. But, in a per-kill XP system, it doesn't care who he is or if he's relevant to any goals or quests, or even if he's actively making your life difficult; if you kill him, and he's even capable of fighting you (as opposed to as squirrel, or an unarmed peasant), then, even if you just walk up behind him and backstab him, or every single member of your party casts a spell/uses an ability on him simultaneously and kills him before he can even draw his sword, you know you're going to get XP. And, as has been mentioned, you need XP, no matter what. So, what reason is there to NOT-kill him? Killing him gives you XP. And you didn't even have a tough fight. HE was tough, even though he didn't even get to fight you, so you get XP for that. Isn't that silly? With objectives, it wouldn't become an objective to kill him until there was some relevance, and/or he was actually threatening you and warranting a tougher fight, because "did he die?" wouldn't be the only basis for rewarding XP. It's not that killing him or fighting him wouldn't ever grant you XP. It's that the conditions under which killing/fighting him grants you XP are more specific than simply "he died."

Yeah, I know it's tricky. I just meant that, ideally, it seems like just having 2 factors affected instead of 1 makes the stat more likely to be significant, even if one aspect is more minor than the other. Ganrich's active and reactive example fits well with that. Yeah, it still matters what the factors are, and it's not exactly easy to just whip a bunch of pairs of factors out of thin air or anything. As for the Rogue example, I guess what I'm trying to say is, none of the stats allow you to simply not-get-hit (which is exactly why I think Josh has expressed specific concern over stats governing Deflection, which is the most prominent "avoid getting hit" defensive value). So, no matter what build you create, you can only mitigate the getting-hit frequency SO much. There's not like a "well, I'm high damage, so I just don't get hit" build. Thus, if you make a high damage Rogue who dumps Resolve and CON, you're going to have to actively do what you can, in your combat tactical decisions, to make the best use of your high-damage-supporting build whilst also not getting hit nearly as much as other builds, because you can't afford to get hit as much as they can. Also, @Ganrich: I forgot that I was going to say this... attacks of opportunity are in, sort of... in function, anyway. They occur whenever someone leaves melee engagement range without first breaking engagement. So, simply put, if two melee fighters are duking it out, and one just turns around and runs (or really just-plain-runs off in ANY direction), the other fighter gets a free attack when the flee-er leaves some defined radius. Similarly, if anyone simply tries to run past a melee combatant, (or, I think, any melee-capable combatant? Not sure), they basically enter melee engagement, then leave it without breaking it, thus incurring a free attack. So, yeah, functionally the same thing. The specific rules are just a little bit different.

I don't think it means no one cares about how the game is designed. It clearly means they don't care about making sure their cares are known. That's not the same thing. With this project, for example, those 73,000 other backers could not make a peep until the game actually releases, then all go "HEY! WHERE'D ITEM DEGRADATION GO?!" Thus, they'd actually care about whether or not it's in the game. However, they wouldn't have anyone to blame but themselves for not voicing there opinion. That's very true, and I think that's what you're getting at with "they don't care." But, that doesn't change the fact that it's pointless to assume they're happy with a loud minority, just because they don't say anything one way or another about it. That's kind of like saying "If I stole a classic car that's always parked in the shed behind your house, and you didn't bother to lock it, and you don't really ever go check on it, then you must like the fact that I stole it." Which, obviously isn't true. It just means it's your fault I was able to steal it so easily, and that you didn't know about it sooner 'cause you didn't check on that car very often at all.

Excellent stuff from both of you, really. I just want to first clarify to you both that it is not my intent to suggest that (@Ganrich) Resolve will be necessary, or that (@Adhin) people won't make pure damage builds. All I mean is, I'm confident that low Resolve is going to be something you're going to have to deal with. Simply having a bunch of beefy damage dealers isn't going to just completely negate any and all need for Resolve. You're going to have to actively ensure that people don't hit that low-Resolve caster or ranged person very often. Which will be quite easy in many situations, and much more difficult in others. "Everyone else just kill everything before it gets to that person" is going to easier said than done, methinks. It's not that you CAN'T do it. It's just that, the job's not done when you pick your build. Pure damage isn't going to passively negate any concern or effects of low non-damage-affecting stats. And, clearly this all depends upon AI quality and a lot of other factors. But, all I'm saying is, based on the general idea they're working with to design the game in the first place, I'm confident that the stats will matter. That being said, the more I think about it (and read others' thoughts as well), the more I'm convinced that "every stat should have a minimum of 2 effects" is a very good rule. The problem being that, it is significantly easier and more feasible to almost completely ignore one lone aspect of a character build (AoE size, concentration, health, base damage, etc.) than it is to ignore two. That's why I say that I understand when people bring up these concerns about this stat or that one. If you've got A B and C covered, you have a lot less need for D (not none at all, but a lot less). Whereas, if you had to choose between A and B, or C and D, there'd be a lot more significance on how you split your points between those parings, and just individual un-paired aspects. This kind of thing has been touched on a lot in this thread (and similar threads), so I'm not claiming novelty. But, I'm just pointing out that the sheer jump from 1 factor to 2 for each stat seems to be of extreme benefit to the system, however you do it. In the interest of the whole "no dump stats" idea. It's not about making all the stats mandatory. It's about making them all potentially useful in different ways, and about making each build fit with a different playstyle, rather than sort of passively overriding the use of largely-ignored stats. edit: See, that's fine that he decides to do that, and he's still going to be an awesome damage dealer, but it's still a tradeoff. He's not going to magically posses the ability to never get hit, so, if he's got 4 Resolve and 4 CON, then every hit that DOES land on him is: A) going to take him THAT much closer to unconsciousness/death than the characters with moderate or high CON, and B) going to be THAT much more likely to interrupt his actions (including movement, thus increasing the risk of getting caught/hit by more foes, which leads back to point A), thus mitigating the effectiveness of his "pure damage." In other words, if, over the course of a 1-on-1 fight with a foe, you would hit him 5 times, and he'd hit YOU 5 times, but because of your horrible Resolve, he interrupts you every single time he hits you, so you only hit him 3 times while he hits you 5, then you're looking at less damage for 5 hits versus more damage on 3 hits. That's all I'm trying to say. Everything has an effect worth consideration. Doesn't mean you have to care much about it. You can ignore it, and just build what you want, but you can't just magically immunize yourself to the effects of your stat allocation decisions. That Rogue who wants to do lots of damage AND has higher Resolve can see that foe that attacks 2 times per second and say "I can still effectively hit that guy," while the Rogue that has low Resolve is actually going to suffer greatly if he tries to take on that particular foe, as opposed to, say, an Ogre who only attacks once every 4 seconds. Of course, likewise, the Rogue with high CON and low Resolve is going to be even LESS worried about the increased damage of the Ogre. The Rogue with low CON and high RES might consider going after that smaller, faster-attacking foe, whom he: A) can take down more quickly, thanks to his high damage versus the thing's lesser health pool, and B) won't have to worry about its fast attack speed being a problem for interruptions (high RES), and C) doesn't have to worry as much about incoming damage, relative to his Health (low CON).

I don't think many specifics have been provided. There was a vague comment about the general idea behind the design. I recall Josh saying that stats/attribute improvements (after character creation) will be rare, but he didn't exactly say they would never be tied to level-ups (it could be 1 every 5 levels or something.) All they've pretty much crossed off the list is the "you'll be able to boost your Intellect from 13 to 18 just from leveling up a few times! 8D!" scenario. Basically, it won't be very frequent, apparently, through any means.

I really can't remember exactly where, but I seem to recall an official quote on this, about how it'll be more realistic than "everything's a hivemind." I think it was some mention of "If you can dispatch someone who detects you before they actually sound some kind of alarm, then the alarm goes unsounded." Then, the range in-between: maybe a bandit calls out to 2 other bandits who are within earshot, and they come to his aid, but the rest of the camp remains unaware as long as you kill them. Or, if it's a creature that detects you, and it howls when it detects you, then the rest of its pack probably know to come running that way. Etc. I don't really have any substantial official evidence to display, though, sadly.

Yeah, that's one of the main reasons I think it would be silly if all the events were "DROP WHAT YOU'RE DOING NOW, OR YOUR STRONGHOLD GETS BLOWED UP!": It's a friggin' stronghold. With... a populous... and guards and stuff. People running it, and an economy. Plus, yeah, it's supposed to be the companion hub, so they kinda chillaxinate there while you're out and about without them. So, I think it's more of a point that you make important decisions regarding happenings at your stronghold. Even things that could simply play out as a messenger getting word to you (via rider, or a falcon or something, or a crystal ball, *shrug*) about something that needs addressing, and your addressing of it via a response. I'm thinking more stuff like "Sir, someone keeps breaking into the food stores" or "we've had problems with local bandits. What do you propose we do? about this?" So that it's not "YOU HAVE 10 MINUTES TO HANDLE THIS!", but rather, "this is going to keep occurring and possible escalate if you don't address it within a day or two, and/or someone's just going to decide to do something about it, which may or may not be what YOU would've done about it, had you addressed it, etc." Of course, some things will require you to travel back there and actively deal with issues yourself, but, I would still think that the odds of them being in need of your attention instantaneously are slim. Again, unless you can teleport. In which case, it shouldn't even be an issue. It'd be like Diablo town portals. "Welp, *dusts off hands*, done handling the stronghold! *teleports back to the 13th level of Od Nua*". That's just my thoughts on all of it. I think always only receiving notice about my stronghold whenever I emerge from an area/dungeon and/or aren't right in the middle of stuff (halfway through fighting a dragon) doesn't really prompt much disbelief from me, is all. Sure, you'd think sometimes that extra 15 minutes you might gain from leaving in the middle of the dragon battle would help. But... the odds are really incredibly slim. Finish fighting a dragon, or escape from the dragon fight halfway through, only to "rush" back to your stronghold (8+ hour trip), only to arrive JUST in time to deal with something. If stuff were that urgent, simply traveling more than a couple hours away from your stronghold would instantly prevent you from dealing with half the issues, just because they happened to pop up while you were a little too far out. Even if you weren't right in the middle of something, and you immediately turned around and sprinted back to your stronghold, it'd be too late. So, I think the stuff THAT urgent is probably best dealt with by factors at your stronghold and decisions you've already made/passive status, etc. A big group of orcs is attacking the stronghold? If you don't have adequate defenses, they breach the walls in minutes and easily enter and slaughter lots of people before they're put down/driven off. Have adequate defenses? It'll take them a couple days to actually breach the walls, IF they don't retreat before then, etc. So, message gets to you, and you either return to help out, personally, before they breach the walls, or you don't. That sort of thing. You'd expect something worthy of the title of "stronghold" to operate with some modicum of autonomy without catastrophe constantly hinging upon the absence of a party of 6 individuals.

It's a pretty cool idea, . I know hardly anything about the technical requirements for that, so I can't really comment on that aspect.

That's... literally the point against which you keep arguing (even if inadvertently). You're like "Wait, objectives? (sorry... "achievements")? SOMETHING'S DEATH CAN NEVER BE ONE OF THOSE!" I don't for the life of me know why it's so complicated, but you don't seem to understand the distinction between a specific achievement -- "this thing died/something died under these circumstances/in this situation" -- and just a successful action. Anything could be an achievement (I'm just going to ignore the fact that "achievement" and "objective" are used to mean contextually the exact same thing in regard to the system's design, here, and only use the word "achievement" because it seems to make you happy), as you so masterfully admitted above, after a mere 2-3 full pages of argument against anyone who said that. Thus, it's all a matter of where you define the specific boundaries of what's an XP-worthy achievement, and what isn't. In the "per-kill XP" system, something ceasing living is always an achievement. They just draw up a big XP table for all the living things in the game, because the rule is "if you end its life, you get XP." "We want to reward you for your achievements, not your body count" means just that; "the system by which we will decide when you are awarded XP will depend upon what we have deemed a worthy achievement and what we haven't, rather than, in previous systems, the death of any single thing in the entire world, regardless of the circumstances or existence of a contribution towards any given goal or end." What they're saying there is simply this: "In previous games, if you saw something and killed it, you got XP, no matter what. In PoE, it's going to be a little more specific than that. SOMEtimes, you might actually kill something and not get XP for it, depending on the circumstances." Nowhere, in any of that, does anything ever declare that living-thing-deaths and/or combat victories are disqualified from being achievements. The word "achievement" doesn't exclude combat or killing in its definition, and they haven't specified beyond that that this is true. Does this mean they can't possibly never represent any death or combat victory in the game with an XP-granting achievement? Of course not. What it means is that we know that we don't know we'll never receive XP for killing or combat victory. The key word there being "never." For the record, there are values between "never" and "always," unless of course there's only one combat encounter/opponent in the entire game. Then it would obviously be binary. So, want to be constructive? How's about discussing something we don't already know isn't necessarily true. We could, for example, discuss and break down examples scenarios, in which one might improperly design an achievement/XP rewards to fail to properly represent combat in a righteous fashion. Then we can all go "Yeah, that would be bad. In that situation, you'd need to make sure that (insert further constructive discussion here)." Or, you can say one more time that we somehow know there won't be any XP, ever, for the death of ANYTHING, or ANY fighting that ever takes place in the entirety of the game. And we can all facepalm so ferociously that our skulls explode. Disclaimer: This is literally my final gift of the benefit of the doubt to you, Stun, that you can actually be reasoned with.