Lephys

Yes, I've played all the Fallout games (even Tactics). And no! Wow! What are sneak attack criticals and sniping?! *gasp*

^ I agree with everything, except "obviously head-shots would be the no-brainer." Example: in Fallout NV, deathclaws were pretty scary until you had super-badass stuff. I won't say "the best," as I can't prove there's not a better one, but a REALLY good approach to use against them was to take out a leg (which generally took several shots). Because, the problem with them was that it was really tough to do enough damage to them to stop them before they speedily leapt upon you and mangled the ever-living crap out of your corpse. Thus, crippling their ability to move quickly and leap was much more advantageous than just the immediate damage boost from head shots. Conclusion: "What does more damage?" is not the only pertinent question to ask when devising battle tactics. Excellent points about wounds in relation to called shots, and healing, etc., though.

*puts his ear up to the screen*... ... Ehh, I dunno. I can't really tell. Also, it did make sense, for what that's worth.

I'm a fan of all the various approaches. I just wanted to supplement the list with all the ones we could possibly come up with. . But, yeah, for what it's worth, I wouldn't JUST want to see "boost your defenses" builds being the sole thing that allows you to simply not-worry about dropping magical bombs on your own peeps. Side-note: They seem to have renamed Psyche to Willpower, but I'm not certain of this. I can't recall exactly where, but within the last month or two, I remember seeing an update post (or a Josh post?) which listed the four defenses as Deflection, Fortitude, Reflexes, and Willpower. *les shruggles*

My apologies. I had no idea. I had assumed you were simply responding to the previous post, which was mine. Sorry about that.

Not really. It's magic that behaves within the confines of physics. In other words, you're starting with magic, which can certainly do all kinds of crazy stuff, and saying "I'm just going to convert magical energy into a ball of fire, which I will hurl at this location, and I'll detonate it, burning and exploding outward, striking everything in that area -- the ground, plants, debris, squirrels, mean people, nice people, orangutans, breakfast cereals, etc.". THEN, wanting to use that magical energy in specifically that manner, but somehow go against how that would behave. It's like using a chainsaw to perform surgery. If you wanted precision, why wouldn't you just use magic in a more precise form? Magic missile. Magic missile produces a bunch of individual missiles that target who you wish. It doesn't produce one, 50-foot-wide missile that destroys a city, but somehow only destroys the bad people's houses and ground and bodies. It's just... contradictory.

I'm about to answer your question, politely, despite the fact that you probably don't even care what my response is: What you were discussing is the issue of the amount of effort associated with tackling a combat scenario increasing with the difficulty settings while the amount of effort associated with utilizing a non-combat method of approach to the same situation would go unaffected by the difficulty, in theory. Thus, either there's an implied issue of imbalance there, or you just think maybe non-combat approaches should increase in toughness with difficulty for no reason at all. If there's an issue, then the issue is the imbalance, correct? To which people said (paraphrased) "What if the main/toughest combat encounters aren't optional, and you can't just circumvent them with still-the-same-easiness sneakery or speakery?" Thus, this eventually led to Indira and Hiro to specifically debate amongst themselves. And Hiro called her out on her use of the word "any," even though it applies. Thus, I pointed that out. That's what it has to do with what we were discussing. The metaphor makes perfect sense, despite the fact that you don't get it. Since you haven't asked for an explanation of how it makes sense, I won't trouble you with an explanation. I'm glad reading my post was a unique experience, at least. Better than having bland posts, I suppose.

Who said anything about scouring the world map repeatedly? If we're gonna go with worst-case scenarios, then how about you ask me why I want all the quest staggering to be strictly time-based, and have 1 new side quest become available every 17 hours of play? Because that would be as good a question. Also, let me ask you this, because it might allow you to better understand my point: Why do things at the end of the game happen at the end of the game, and things at the beginning happen at the beginning? Why isn't the Last Battle for the entire world occurring when your character is introduced to the story? And, is the only alternative that you constantly have to search everywhere just to find out how the story's progressing? And that it arbitrarily/randomly progresses every time you do the tiniest thing? Besides, you don't have to scour anything. Unless you're suggesting that there shouldn't be any reason to ever visit a huge city more than once, one would think the city guard would typically know about local news. So, you walk in the gate, because you're visiting the city for ANY other reason at all, and you ask the guard what news he has. And he tells you there's a search for some missing lad, and/or someone stole the duke's jewels, etc. Then, you have the option of pursuing these leads, or not. Naturally, there'd be SOME quests that people don't just conveniently tell you about. But, I highly doubt you're suggesting that there be absolutely nothing in the world to discover on your own that requires a little exploration or digging. It's not about being drip-fed, and it has nothing to do with quest logs being hard to use. Why don't you find all the loot in the game at once? Does that mean you're being arbitrarily drip-fed staggered loot? Why do you level up? Are we being drip-fed progression?

^ I didn't think of that, either. Defenses. Want to hurl a big mind-splosion spell? Well, if you get everyone out of the way except your high-Willpowered character, you're probably good-to-go (even though he/she still can get hit). But, yeah, I was really just thinking of like... regular tactics, like getting the enemy into position for an effective archer barrage or something. But then, instead of arrows, it's a fireball. *shrug*. Sure, different considerations. But, still. The point being that it seems like we should have SOME modicum of ability to intentionally plan an AoE attack (under some, not all, circumstances) and execute it with the use of intentional positioning and positional influence. Like I said, in other games, you pretty much just have to use the AI's target-following behavior to try and finnagle them into any kind of ideal placement for something. If we actually had the tools to at least make it possible (again, not in all situations) to sort of push some enemies into a group, or into a more desirable location, etc. And/or maneuver our characters around them. Maybe the tanky, shield-bearing Warrior can slowly "push" an opponent around the battlefield by focusing on defense and shield-bashing, etc. Or, maybe just a passive mode that intentionally prevents the enemy from doing much besides backing away, etc (but sacrifices overall offensive capabilities for the focus on posturing). Then you've got your short-term, single target abilities: stuns, Pinning Shot, trips, etc. Heck, maybe even some form of grapples, throws, etc. Then you've got things like the Rogue's Reversal. Prepared actions/counter-attacks that allow you to reposition around the target. So, for example, IF you wanted to launch a fireball at 5 enemies, and IF you were facing susceptible opponents, and IF you used all those abilities at the same time in a clever fashion, you could get all your allies out of the way, while forcing all the enemies into a tight enough group to be affected by the fireball. That's the best-case-scenario example. The point being that you can do it, as opposed to be unable to do much of anything other than kite them around and hope you time a fireball really well and hope you clip a few of them without hitting your peeps. Oh, two enemies together? Maybe my Rogue can get out of the way and lure/leave that third one close enough to make it a 3-target fireball instead of 2. Etc. Little situations here and there in which you can utilize such things for AoE planning would be really nice. Oh! Speaking of Friendly Fire, is that going to be possible from ranged weapons? I mean, if you're trying to attack Orc A, and your ally is standing directly between you and Orc A, and is fighting Orc A in melee combat, is there any kind of chance to hit your ally?, with maybe a much lesser/non-existent chance if you move around to the side or behind the Orc? Just curious.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of quite that level of vision simulation. It makes perfect sense in a first-or-close-third-person game, but in those games, you can't see things behind you because the camera is basically fixed to your character's perspective. I'm fine with distance/obscurity (darkness, fog, etc.), but I don't think facing should make things vanish. I mean, sure, it's abstracted that you can see in 360-degrees, but, it's representative of both: A) The fact that you don't just suddenly think there's NOT a Rogue behind you simply because you turned around, and B) The fact that you can turn your head at any point to check behind you, for the most part. Obstacles/line of sight? Sure. View facing? Nah. Not in a top-down, isometric game. Or... not one that isn't specifically designed around that, at least. If it was a horror game or something? Sure. But then, like I said, it's way more effective to just use 1st-person view at that point.

*shrug*. Sometimes they're nice. But... you've achieved whatever you've achieved, regardless of whether or not it was coded into a system as a triggered popup message.

It would obviously be prudent to carry a secondary, backup-gauche, just in case.

Man... I ask a question, and that gives you the impression that I don't want further explanation from you? I'm curious to know how I might go about giving you the impression that I do want further explanation from you. [not-trolling] I'd very much like to know how your concern is not over the potentiality for any given tough combat encounter in the game to be poorly designed by wrongly favoring the relatively easier, less-resource-intensive tasks of sneakery and word-weaving. And, if not, what your concern actually is. You know, so that we can discuss it. [/not-trolling] I've used tags this time, in an effort to avoid giving you the wrong impression. Now, obviously, there's no forum rule that requires you to answer me and partake in this discussion. So, if you just don't want to talk about it, then I'll understand. Well, I won't understand, but I'll respect your wishes.

Thing is... if you're not worried about it being an issue any time there's a tough encounter, then what is even the problem? How does that even work? You don't know specifically what the situations will be, so you can't really say "I think like, HERE, in the beginning of the game, it'll be a problem, but then, all the rest of the encounters will be fine." So then, you either think that "any" potential encounter in the game could possibly be horribly imbalanced, with combatants doing all the work and getting the same or lesser rewards than the non-combatants (sneakers and speakers), right? I don't see how it can be anything other than "any" or "none." If it's not "any," then are you suggesting "I totally trust Obsidian to intelligently use the XP system in designing like... 90% of the tough encounters in the game, but I'm quite confident that, for about 10% of them, they'll just forget how to do their jobs and give non-combat people the easy ability to jedi-mind-trick their way past one-or-more of the hardest fights in the game that really shouldn't be skippable, even according to story and lore and such."? If you could just explain how "any" is horribly inaccurate, and what it is exactly that you're concerned about, that would be awesome. Methinks you don't understand that "any" doesn't just mean "all." If I'm in a store, with $10, and each individual item in the store costs $10, then I have the ability to buy "any" item in the store. Doesn't mean $10 lets me clean the store out.

Events in reality are staggered. "Randomly," even. It's not as if just because you set foot into town, those thugs have just stolen something, that kid has just gone missing, goblins have just started attacking some farmer's fields and stealing all his sheep, someone just so happens to need something fetched/delivered for them (that's really important, apparently), some thugs in town just so happen to be trying to take the tavern from its owner, etc., ALL at the same time. The odds of that are preposterous. There are going to be multiple situations to deal with, sure. Things that, without your interaction, will remain as they are (conflicts, mysteries, dilemmas, etc.). But, there are plenty of reasons for plenty of "THIS JUST HAPPENED TODAY" things to be staggered. It's not staggering just for the sake of it. It's staggering because it makes friggin' sense. The fact that it doesn't present the player with 7,000 quests at the same time is just a bonus.

Our main character in PoE apparently bears witness to some jarring, supernatural event. Maybe he/she needs to cope with it? *shrug*

I'm actually behind that, conceptually. *shrug*, Maybe anyone who's stunned or otherwise incapacitated/occupied (basically, someone who couldn't easily go "Oh, I see... Mr. Wizard guy's gonna be hurling a fireball" for whatever reason) doesn't get the bonus. That way, it's still abstract, but at least it's not just a magical blanket of constant friendly-fire mitigation. I dunno, that at least makes a lot more sense than "you just somehow will your exploding fireball to not-harm people standing in its midst, just because."

^ Didn't you actually get 200XP for listening to him all the way through? While mildly humorous, that was also a horrible XP system foul, heh. They could've just given you a silly item or something. Or a funny status effect.

No need to drop everything and scramble to design a game just to shamelessly copy the old IE games... Oh wait! Apparently, incorporating anything that isn't purely novel is now "shamelessly copying." Better ditch hitpoints, 2D environment graphics, mouse-input controls, GUIs... Actually, you know what? Better just scrap the world map, since we'd just be copying all the other games that have world maps. u_u

You're right. I think it was that thought that THEN led me to the "only your 'Presence' circle gets adjusted by factors" idea that came after, in the same post. My bad. It's redundant to have darkness/acoustics affect both the detector's circles AND the detectee's "presence" circle. You are correct again, sort of. It would make that many actual areas, but I was using "circles" to refer to the number of general representations for each person. Well... while it's possible to actually just have the investigating/alarmed states be a time-sensitive distinction (you're always only investigated until you've been inside the single circle for longer than X seconds), that wouldn't work as well as having the distinct area in which you're automatically fully detected (for walking within 5 feet of a person, for example). But, yeah. I realize my description didn't clearly match my meaning, but, for what it's worth, that's what I meant. True, but you still wouldn't need to see the enemy's "if this touches/overlaps any of that player's character's detection circles, you get investigated at the very least!" circle. What does this add that the current system doesn't? Independent factors. You can have situations in which a single foe can't hear very well, but can see very well. Thus, you'd have to stay in darkness and/or blend into surroundings (or just break line of sight), but could get very close to this sentry as long as you weren't seen and weren't extremely loud (running around a stone courtyard in plate boots). The faster you move, the more noise you would make, etc. Whereas, if the sentry could hear super well but couldn't see very well, you can walk around in broad daylight, so long as you stay very quiet. This is all affected by which sentry you encounter in which environment. If you encounter the good-vision sentry in broad daylight, well... you're going to have a tough time of things. If you encounter the good-hearing sentry in an echo-y courtyard or corridor, well... the same. So, that's what it provides. Currently, the system can adjust the circles accordingly, but there's only one representative circle, so nothing can see you when it couldn't hear you, or vice versa. There's no distinct method of sneakery by which one will have an advantage over any other method in any particular situation. Also, for what it's worth, I don't know enough about this, but I believe they said that the process of creating the 2D environments from the 3D ones actually stores a bunch of 3D information (such as height differences of terrain, lighting values, etc.). But, again, I'm not sure what all it stores, specifically, or how useful that is in designing a more complex stealth system. Obviously, Josh knows, and he says it's not exactly so easy that it's a no-brainer or anything, so it's clearly significant enough in its trickiness that they don't want to add complexity to the system unless they discover the current one to be too simple in practice.

What about the utility to allow for tactical positioning, Josh? Knockback, for example, would be a simple-yet-effective thing, here. Especially as something that so often just gets passively added to attacks and such, and/or doesn't really seem to offer much tactically other than "I just stole a few hits from you, because you have to run back to me/someone, MUAHAHAHA!" That, and stuff like the Rogue's Reversal (if it's still called that), and stuns and such, and knock-downs. I realize "keep the enemy here for the upcoming AoE, but get clear, yourself!" will probably not be its own subcategory of abilities, designed as such. But, most games with friendly-fire issues don't really offer you any way of ever planning for enemy positioning while getting your friendlies out of harm's way, much less with any kind of frequency. Will there be a decent number of tools that allow various characters of various classes/builds to kind of maneuver a bit in the midst of combat, enough to allow for some AoE setups here and there? EDIT: Well, heck... even just a single Fighter's Defender mode (engage 3 foes instead of one, I think it was?) would allow you to simply occupy three targets while other party members cleared the immediate area and a Wizard/"caster" began an AoE in the back lines. 8P

I still say any is too many. In this particular game. It's a matter of there already being "permanent" effects from reaching 0 Health (being maimed), and of a chance that a chance-based occurrence will just stick you with a horrid wound right out the door... Imagine if you reach a story segment where the previous rest point is inaccessible (cave collapse, etc.), and the very first enemy that's not even a threat to you, combat wise (some easily little minion) scores a lucky critical that gives your character a bleeding wound until you rest again. Now, you've got about 5 or 6 encounters to push through to get somewhere where you can rest again, and you have to do it all whilst ticking away Health? *shrug* I suppose it does depend on the specific effect. I mean, Fallout did stuff pretty well (arm wound, penalty to DEX (AGI in Fallout, I think), head wound -- penalty to Perception/INT, etc.). So, yeah, I dunno. The fact that it's chance means that you don't wanna make it too extreme, because it can already be SUPER horrible or easily shrug-off-able, just depending on when you happen to befall such a thing (because of chance).

I agree quite muchly. For example, I'd honestly love to see a situation in which you agree with someone on some heated subject, even though that approach/decision ends up being a pretty terrible one. Then, having that companion find out you were actually thinking of some risks, etc, and say "OMG! You knew this might've ended badly, but you just didn't want to start a confrontation?! You should've told me the truth! My ego would've healed!" You usually don't see that kind of thing. It's usually just "oh, well, this all went to shyte, but I'm still super glad you sided with me, even in the midst of these horrible, horrible consequences! 8D!" It's as if companions are just comparing dating profile answers or something, and all they care about is the compatibility percentage at the end. "Whoa whoa whoa... you think we should probably actually find thiscreature's weakness BEFORE we confront it? Well, when we get there, I'm going to realize that's an excellent idea, but I'm STILL going to hate you because our opinions, in fore-sight, didn't align. u_u"

I just want to re-iterate how in-support of this approach I am(and I'm sure many others who are talking about complexifying it a bit, are). I think we just can't help but analyze and juggle ideas around, if only ultimately for our own benefit. I don't think there's a huge "make it more complex or GTFO!" mob or anything, . Just for what that's worth. ... YES! This sounds friggin' amazing! So, apparently enemies lying flat on the ground are... "prone" to greater punishment from Rogues? (The only purpose of that question was to make the joke. Sorry about that. I actually feed on a specific type of energy generated whenever faces and palms make contact.)

As long as the game doesn't force you to choose between constantly harming your friends and being useless, that really isn't even such a bad thing. I understand why people like to toggle off friendly fire and not deal with it, but, when you're able to tactically utilize your AoE's to avoid friendlies, for the most part, and the handful of situations you have to worry about are weigh-ins between ensuring the safety of your allies and maximizing damage/effect potential to your enemies, the friendly fire fits just where it should. A lot of "RPGs" nowadays say "Okay, here are your single-target abilities... annd now you're getting quite high in levels, so we'll give you all the BEST abilities, which are, of course, all/mostly AoE! More targets = more damage!", so that you've constantly got to choose between hobbling your combat effectiveness, or not-killing all your friends. That, and you usually don't have a very good way of tactically maneuvering your allies out of the fray, even in situations where that should be pretty easy. I give it two thumbs up, mainly because I trust in the tactical awesomeness of combat in this game. @DCParry: To be fair, it's really no less restrictive than simply not-having an option for immortality, for the people who don't want to have to deal with hitpoints when they play. As I hinted at above, the game isn't inherently forcing anyone to strike their own allies with a spell. It's simply something that could happen. As long as the game doesn't all-but-require it to happen (basically, if you don't blast away at friends and foes alike with those spells and abilities, you're going to lose fights, even on Easy), then all's well.