Lephys

Maybe... it just seems like without a specific way to further delay/ignore the effects of being inside a circle, you'll never be able to close to melee range without: A) possessing the ability to move really, ludicrously fast (which, again, the faster you move, the more detectable you are, so *shrug*) B) balancing the average size of all enemy detection circles to an unusually small size, or C) having such a long time delay that sneaking through circles is way too easy. I mean, let's say you have the time delay. Ehhh, 2 seconds? *shrug*. Okay, if 2 seconds is EVER enough time to close from the distance between yourself and the foe at the point where your circles touch all the way to melee range, then, again, you're either moving REALLY fast, or that guy's circle (AND your own) are ultra small. After 2 seconds, he's going to begin investigating, at which point being inside his circle will be insta-detection. Plus, that's 2 seconds you get to run around inside someone's circle before they even investigate, meaning that, in a situation in which you're simply trying to avoid detection while getting through an area, it's going to be that much easier to simply jog through people's circles (especially with your speed that allows you to close to melee range on targets before they detect you). And if you increase the size of the circles to compensate for this, then you either deny the ability to close to melee range on any targets anymore, or you adjust something else (move speed, etc.) to keep this in check, thus negating the increase in circle size (because this remains proportionate to all other stealth-related factors). So, *Shrug*. With facings, it would be easy. You're behind them, and quiet? If you can get to them before they turn around, you can kill them. Now, you just balance the circle size against the frequency with which sentries in the game turn around, etc. But, since we're not using facings, I'm thinking the best bet would be some sort of specific ability/talent that temporarily boosts your move speed while keeping your circle small, and/or shrinks your "presence" circle, and/or makes you immune to detection, etc. If you try to do it passively, every factor seems to affect every other factor to such a great degree that you either end up making sneaking way too easy, or you make backstabbing ludicrously rare (only the sentries with horrible Perception and extremely small circles relative to the average size would be able to be reached before detection occurred.) That's my robot analysis. 8P Not saying it can't be done. But, it seems to be the trickier approach. Not simply to have time delays in the game, but, to rely on them to allow for melee-range stealth backstabs.

The key word there being "count." Not that you care. Horse... water... Nothing does. But, the sheer fact that it's entirely, 1,000% unobstructedly possible makes me think that it isn't definitely not going to be tied to a quest. Oh, and the fact that they haven't said it won't. Thus, my initial question to you. You don't seem to comprehend the difference between absolution and potential. Whether or not you believe reason is not really any of my concern. You're the one who has to live with the arbitrary certainty that the game's going to suck, for no other reason than that you're too stubborn to even listen to reason. *tips hat*

... Dear lord...! The only incentive in the entire game is XP! I... I get it now! Why didn't I see this before?! MAN I'm an idiot. Guys... gold and loot are useless! And obviously the game can't use combat as a challenge, like, ever. You know, "Oh, you want to get to these forgotten ruins full o' loot and objectives and stuff? You're going to have to fight your way there, then!" I mean, at that point, what's the point in combat? Getting to a treasure-laden ruin? Pffff... That's preposterous. u_u What's it filled with... XP? That treasure chest right next to you? Well, it's not filled with XP, so... there's not really point in opening it. Hey, even if the game DID have guaranteed XP for every single kill, what if you run into a branching path, and you choose a way to go, and you don't run into any enemies on that particular path, and it dead ends in a room full of free loot. Well, obviously you have to reload the game and go a different way, right? Duh... If there's no point in fighting anything if you don't get XP, then there's no point in doing anything unless you fight something. Because clearly, the slaying of things provides us with absolutely nothing else. Boom. Discussion: VANQUISHED! Awww, but it didn't give us any XP! T_T

You're very skilled at arbitrarily repeating things. I was asking if you could possibly explain why this is true. Or rather, to be more specific (because I know how much you love semantics and technicalities of wording), how does the fact that every single death in the entire game will not immediately produce an XP award upon its happening somehow mean that "Take down this $10,000 backer's really tough party" cannot possibly be an objective? Or that killing any given creature, even, cannot be an objective? Or, to use an example that's already been used about 800 times, and people like yourself just keep ignoring it... If your objective is simply "handle the evil, backer-designed party problem," and killing them handles the problem (who knows what it is... they're probably raping and pillaging, *shrug*, it's a simple example), then why would killing them not directly produce an XP reward? Thus, in a system in which you "don't get XP for kills," you actually just received XP for kills, an occurrence which, according to you, is impossible, as an objective-XP system apparently CANNOT affiliate killing or combat of any kind with an objective. Is it really that hard to comprehend? A per-kill XP system is simply an objective-XP system in which killing living NPCs is always labeled as an objective. There's no toggle in Unity for "Use Kill XP system" or "Use Objective XP system." So, all this contempt for an objective-XP system and how it's somehow inherently not going to ever represent combat or deaths with XP rewards is pure folly. But, *shrug*, no one's here to tell you what to do. I mean, if you reallllly want to go on arbitrarily feeling like you've wasted your pledge money, and that the game's just going to be a catastrophe, then that's totally your prerogative. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

^ Agreed, for the most part. My apologies. I thought you were simply commenting on the very idea of a system that lets one "design a spell."

I was thinking about that, and just distractionary tactics in general. Throwing small pieces of metal, or rocks, etc. But, instead of it being overly simplified, as in many games, in which all sentries ever just fall for it and are completely baffled as to what it could have been, you could have a mix of dumb sentries who remain oblivious, and smart sentries that rather quickly realize that there's nothing over there, and/or intentionally have some other guard watch in other directions before they even go off to investigate the thrown-object noise, in case it was, indeed, a distraction. Also, Nonek, I think that's a new Rogue-specific euphemism. "What, the two sneaky folk? Oh, they're upstairs, rubbing circles, IF ya know what I mean *elbow nudge, elbow nudge*"

Not necessarily, as you'd still be operating within the confines of the defined "design-a-spell" system. Of course, it would be tricky and complex to design in a super interesting fashion. But, it's not as if it would be "just write down whatever you want to exist, in the entire world, and the game is going to create that spell for you! 8D!" It's very much like character builds; you only get to choose from a limited set of options, already, but the specific way in which you allocate points and choose aspects/components can lead to a variety of different results. Firstly, that would probably be a much easier way in which to achieve the desired result, I agree. But, for what it's worth, I think by "set durations," people meant as in, between the range of the minimum and the maximum, as already designated by the spell's properties. That does get really annoying in games, when you cast an also-harmful-to-friendlies Erupting Earth AoE spell or something, and it lasts for the next 2 minutes, straight, just 'cause you're really powerful. But, like you said, the real issue is its continuance when you no longer want it (as it's always going to start at the same time), so, being able to end a spell would be a much more efficient option.

Here's really the entire core of the dispute right here. Without addressing this, there's no point in saying anything else, really. *snap*, You too, Hiro. Pay attention. Or don't. It's really up to the both of you, I suppose. A) Please explain to me how an objective XP system (which is PoE's current design) "eliminates all combat XP outright," if you don't mind. Because, the whole point is that it doesn't, but you seem to think otherwise. B)Guess what making all non-hostile NPCs worth 0XP is the functional equivalent of? That's right. Not-marking those NPCs as combat objectives. *dusts off hands* If you can't tell anyone here how an objective is simply incapable of providing a reward for a successful combat victory, or even the death of a specific individual, then everything else you're saying is a complete waste of e-breath.

I'd actually like to see temporary (maybe until the end of a given encounter?) effects, but have them be conditional rather than just "if you get a critical hit, bad things can happen." Like... maybe using a blunt weapon against an unarmored opponent allows for a chance to break a bone or something (resulting in slow/disarm/stun?). I dunno. I just think that, if anything, it should be a tactical consideration, rather than just a passive chance. With the above (albeit terribly simple and crappy) example, at least you could say "Hmm, if my unarmored guy gets hit by THAT particular blunt-weapon-wielding guy, he runs the further risk of being further effected." Then, you have to weigh the benefits of getting that particular character near that guy, versus the detriments of possibly suffering an additional effect that you otherwise wouldn't even have to worry about. Rather than "I hope no one gets hit, and no random additional effects proc on lucky hits!" There's not really much you can do about that, because you're already trying to get hit as little as possible. That's an inherent aspect of surviving combat. Thus, the addition doesn't really affect the "how" of your approach to combat. It just makes you cross your fingers.

We'll probably see both, to be honest (for more than just specifically climbing and such). But, I am quite excited about what the scripted interactions will allow.

That's actually how you get mail in Guild Wars 2, Good question, though. I yearn to hear how they're going to handle this. I think the rider thing would actually be pretty cool. It would then make sense that, if your trusted strongholdians knew where you were going whenever you left the place, that they could send a rider with a message out to meet you somewhere. In towns, it might just be "the" tavern (or some particular tavern). If you go to a forest, or cave, or Od Nua, it might be that he just camps outside the entrance to the area until you return. Even if there's some magical means or something, I sincerely hope it's not "you're in the middle of some dank dungeon, in the midst of some really important main-narrative segment, and BOOM! You get a call, and must deal with some situation back at the stronghold!" I'd rather it be more "when you're less busy, you'll get word of stuff." I mean, it's a stronghold. If someone's attacking it, they should have things under control for at least a day or two. If you're across the world, and someone smashes all the stronghold walls down in a matter of hours and is slaughtering everyone as you speak, I don't think there's anything you're going to be able to do, anyway, unless you teleport back immediately.

I didn't know explaining observed misunderstandings and/or clarifying potential ones was passive/aggressive.

A valid point. The mega-dungeon is a very good example of something that's not so intuitively broken down into objectives. However, I trust they have a plan, or they wouldn't have put it into the game. Honestly, what it comes down to here is that I don't trust them to spend oodles of time and effort implementing game aspects that I look at and admire, and that we all agree are really well-planned, then turn around and ignore the crap out of other stuff in the game, such as just tossing in a 15-level mega-dungeon for no other reason than to have a big optional dungeon crawl, completely unsupported in any way by their plans for the XP system. Obviously I'm not saying they'll just do this with everything, ever, but, if, for example, there's not any way to simply talk and/or stealth your way through the levels(floors) of the mega-dungeon (as I suspect their probably won't be... not the entire floors), then they could very well make clearing certain groups of enemies be objectives. There could even be lore reasons for it, like pathways/passages that are sealed by the force of wandering souls/spirits, etc., until you kill them. Not to mention that you still can also get very useful loot from dead things, and/or tombs/containers guarded by tough things, etc. There could even be lore reasons for the obtainment of certain loot to be an objective. In other words, they're not exactly devoid of options, there. This is just a tiny paragraph of me thinking about it, and they've got a whole team of people who've already designed this mega-dungeon (and the rest of the world/game) from the ground up. Again, it's definitely a less-easy task to figure out how to handle such things in the proposed XP system, but I trust that they can handle it. I hardly think you're crazy for having concerns about such things, and you know well that I'm a fan of analysis (so I'm hardly criticizing that), but, I just want to emphasize that there's no definitive design proposed thus far for ignoring the role of combat in XP gain. That's all. Again, you have a point. And yet, if it's that simple, then shouldn't a Wizard get experience for casting spells (regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with besting someone in combat?)? Shouldn't a Rogue get experience for manipulating people and pilfering things? Shouldn't a Ranger get experience for training his animal and surviving in the wilderness? A Priest, for praying to their deity and performing pious works? A Fighter fights, sure. But, in PoE, everyone fights. "Fighter" just describes how you do what you do, rather than specifically what you do and do not do. A Fighter can obviously do plenty of other stuff (sneak, talk, manipulate, observe, calculate, study, craft, etc.). He can't NOT-ever-fight, though. The whole "you kind of are required to partake in a good bit of combat to get through this game" aspect of the design takes care of that. One more way to look at it: In previous games, with per-kill XP, there wasn't much else you got XP for, per-action. You didn't just get XP for lying to people, for example. "Hey, there's a huge boar attacking the guards on the east gate!" "REALLY?!" "Haha, no, but I got you! +50XP!". Nope, you got XP for accomplishing things. Oh, you lied and it was useful? XP. Whereas, killing almost anything got you XP, regardless of whether or not it was useful. Sure, you often got XP for disarming traps, but, could you just set your own trap, then "disarm" your very own handiwork, and keep gaining XP for that same trap? No. And if you could, then that was horrible design, because that doesn't even make sense. So, in lieu of a "you gain experience with every action -- more sword-swinging = more swordsmanship skill, etc.)" system, I think a little abstraction is understandable. Again, even in per-kill, the system doesn't care HOW you kill stuff. It just cares that it died. Ingeniously set a bomb trap, then lure 10 enemies into it, detonating it and killing them all? You just go the same amount of XP as if you had single-handedly killed them all with a rock tied to a stick and your own physical ability. Is that not awarding two different approaches -- the use of your mind and cunning, AND the use of your physical skill -- to accomplish the same task (the death of hostile things)? It sure seems like it. And don't get me wrong... I hope to see situations in which combat is the better choice (and possibly even requires more cunning to get through, regardless of sheer party strength), AND offers more XP. I don't think the general idea that it won't ALWAYS be the most frequent way to get XP/MORE xp means that it will never offer more XP than some other approach. The idea IS balance. And, again, could they screw it up? Of course. But, it won't be because the system forced them to. That's all I'm trying to say.

I'm not sure. It's possible that survey gets the word to the mods to go ahead and grant you your title (seems like there've been a couple people in here, since the backer site went up, who received a title without posting it, first, in this thread, for me to pass on.) You could always give it a day or two, and if it doesn't appear, then post in here. Or, it probably won't hurt to just go ahead and post it, even if it ends up being redundant. Either way, you'll have your title and no harm will be done, I don't think. You could also ask our friendly, neighborhood moderators, though, if you have any doubts/questions/concerns.

Man, you make a simple observation, and it simply MUST mean a bunch of other stuff. @Hassat: I never said balance was everything. Nor have I, in the least, suggested that balance is somehow more important than anything else, or that it somehow just provides a golden ticket to implement what turns out to be a bad design. @pseudonymous: It actually does, just not in the way you're arbitrarily assuming is the only possible way it can matter. In fact, it especially matters in an RPG, because it offers more variety of legitimate choice in conjunction with the guarantee you'll still be able to accomplish things, like beating the game. Thus, if they say "oh, don't worry, you can focus whichever way you want: single-target-only abilities, or AoE-only abilities, or any mix of the two! 8D!", then you pick as many AoE abilities as you can get your hands on, and you pump INT to improve your range, and now you can't NOT-hit the entire battlefield with half your abilities, well, then your choice turned into one between killing your allies along with your enemies, OR simply taking to the sidelines, resulting in the increased probability of your allies' deaths simply because you're not pulling your own weight in combat. That being said, that STILL doesn't mean I'm saying "and therefore this is a good idea." I also think the safety-zone is, all things considered, a bad idea. That doesn't change the fact that there's a reason for Obsidian to even momentarily ponder it, if only long enough to say "No, that would be a bad idea, nevermind." Maybe you find no value in a breakdown like that, but I'm not telling you to. It's pointless to say "well, if it's a bad idea, then obviously a bunch of simple truths are now false." If you, or anyone else here, thinks my observations have no value, then ignore them. I promise it won't hurt my feelings. If my response had been "2 + 2 = 4," would you just ignore that, or would you say "Uhhh... this is a bad idea, and therefore 2 + 2 does NOT equal 4, dude...u_u"? I don't think so. So why argue simple observations?

True, but then it would increase the negative aspect by that much, as well. If a spell does 2X the damage and lasts twice as long now, then it does so whether or not it hits just enemies, or your allies as well. Still, it's a bigger risk when friendlies are in the way, versus a bigger pure-benefit when you catch a group of enemies with no friendlies in the way. *Shrug*. But then you start running into the balance of that spell's capabilities versus combat difficulty, etc. In other words, it still has to be proportionate to all your other methods of handling combat, however powerful it is in comparison to its ability to potentially harm your own party.

Stun, what reason is there to pretend that "you don't get xp every single time an individual soul's flame is extinguished by your hand" automatically means "you don't EVER get XP when ANY soul's flames are extinguished by your hand"? How is that the current system is incapable of doing exactly what you're suggesting should be in the interest of balance, above? Sure, they COULD botch the crap out of it. No one's denying that. But that's due to no fault of the system, itself. If "handle the village's bandit problem" is an objective, then killing the bandits meets that objective, and thus awards you XP, no? So does sneaking out at night and stealing all the bandits' provisions (which takes a lot longer than just killing them, probably), and so does elaborately speaking to every individual bandit to successfully get them all to paranoidly turn on each other. Boom. Balance. Not to mention, if "most" of the game is going to involve unavoidable combat (sure, it's vague figures, but look at all they've said any time pacifist runs are mentioned, and look at their focus on making everything have some combat benefit/viability), then how much sense would it make for them to say "70% of the game is mandatory combat, but, for some reason we're never going to attribute combat to any objectives whatsoever, u_u"? Pretty silly, honestly.

People like to ignore the fact that the line of reasoning behind "non-combat things are easier and therefore shouldn't provide as much XP" is the same as the one behind "efficiently dispatching of foes in combat, with, say, a single big AoE spell is easier, and therefore shouldn't provide as much XP as tirelessly beating all the enemies to death using pencils, while wearing no armor and utilizing no intelligent tactics."

Yeah, I mean, I'm not so much worried about how it's done as I am worried about what it provides. I don't need facing-specific cones because that's how real life works, but, at the same time, how will circles prevent sneaky literal back-stabbings, as Jajo asked. It's a good question, really, but more importantly, it illustrates what we want a stealth system to do, regardless of however it accomplishes it (or what other things it doesn't do). I get that, as Junta said, you can use time delays. However, if someone's circle is 7 paces out, and the delay is long enough for you to sneak all the way up to their back and stab them before they even do anything about it, then what's stopping it from simply making it super-easy to sneak through people's circles in the first place, even when you're NOT trying to get up to them and kill them before the "buzzer"? And, I'm not suggesting it's impossible to do that, but, I just think it's a good question to ask. The answer to that question is important. I mean, the BG/IE games' system allowed you to sneak up to and shank folks, but it also didn't have any tactical basis for this. You were just either invisible, or you weren't. Detection circles (as adjusted by relevant stats/factors) are immensely less primitive, but, now they sort of allow you to be detected via pure proximity, no matter how quiet a path you take, or how slowly you're moving, or how away-from-you the target is facing. Will that work the way it is? Sure. But, I will say it would be disappointing if there wasn't something that governs your ability to actually sneak to melee range. Anywho, I'm just saying that it's not just some nebulous matter of "how accurate is it?," but rather, "what factors does it need to represent to allow for more than just stay-out-of-circles gameplay?" I'm sure they're addressing the matter of stealth backstabs, btw, and I'm simply curious to know their plan, when they're ready to reveal it.

That, and it appears that most bonuses/modifiers are dealing in percentages. Thus, that high stat will help you more later on (when you have higher base values from gear, and/or higher base damage values on higher-level abilities, for example). Just for what it's worth.

You're right, it doesn't... except purely from a balancing standpoint. Which is exactly why I said that. I humbly request that you not argue against things nobody said. It accomplishes a goal (making sure one player with high-INT AoE casters doesn't suffer more friendly-fire than another player with low-INT casters), but it also poses the issue of "why is MOST of my fireball damaging my allies, but a portion of it possesses the ability to avoid them entirely?" Both things are true. Neither overrules the other and makes it untrue.

If you knew what I "meant to say," then you'd know that I wasn't using it in that context. Using a hammer to stitch a wound shut is wrong, but I don't go around telling people who use hammers that when they haven't said anything about using them in such a fashion. I'm not really worried about it anymore. I realize you're probably not intentionally being difficult here, but you clearly misunderstood what I was saying and/or are confused about what, specifically, I was responding to and what I wasn't. So, no worries. You don't need to comprehend the exact nature of those few posts. The world will spin on.

I wouldn't say boot out whatever religious system they've already got going on in PoE, necessarily, but I like your idea, simply as an idea for a game's/lore's religious system.

What can I say? I'm a HUGE fanboy... of reason! You should try it sometime.

Hey, now... All Josh said is that they're looking into it as a possibility. It does make sense, as a possibility, from a purely balancing standpoint. If you DIDN'T have high INT, given AoE spell would've only hit a 5-meter-diameter area, for example, but now, just 'cause you have power, it'll hit a 10-meter-diameter area. Thus, purely because of the increase in size, you're more prone to hit friendlies. Thus, the problem being addressed is specifically with INT bonus increasing the threat of your spells to friendlies. Josh doesn't just arbitrarily think something's an awesome idea and carve it into stone. Even the stuff he LIKES a lot, he still tests to make sure it's actually a good idea in practice, and not just functional in theory. Sure, tell him why you think it's a bad idea, but I don't think there's any need to go accusing him of pretending this is somehow a shining beacon of game design salvation.