Lephys

It's good to make sure games aren't unnecessarily complex, but, yeah... it's definitely not a good idea to tailor games to things like limited playtime. I must clarify... what I mean is, it's not a good idea to take a game like PoE and trim it just so it's easier to handle it in our daily lives today. If you give me the Cliff's Notes for a 1,000 page fantasy novel, I'll be much more able to read them in a limited amount of time, and get the whole story without much effort. However, then I'm not really even reading a novel anymore. Not just because of length, either.

I'd agree that it's probably MOSTLY C, statistically. Unless a game's just like... 100+ hours long (Skyrim, if you want to "do everything," or even close to everything, for example), it's not really so grand in scope as to cause any problems with "handling" the game. And the difficulty usually isn't the issue. Especially if it's scalable with options and such. I've gotten into a trend, recently, of feeling up to bigger relative challenges in games now. So, I tend to start with "Hard," then bump it down if I need to. With a handful of games, it's just-plain punishing to play on harder difficulties. It's like... training for Major League Gaming, basically. Which is cool if that's what you're after. But, as long as it's not that type of hard (hard to PLAY the game, as opposed to just hard to overcome obstacles and produce the outcomes I want, puzzle things out, etc.), then it doesn't really adversely affect me. Even if I have to play something for an hour-and-a-half every few days, I'm usually only discouraged from tackling it if it's just-plain-negative in one of those respects (I stopped playing Skyrim after about 80 hours, just because you're allowed to basically burn up all the dynamic/progressive content, then you're left just completionizing at that point). But, for example, with Fallout:NV, I actually haven't finished it yet, but it wasn't because I lost interest. It was completely unrelated factors, like real-life, and a bunch of other brand new games, and my distraction by shiny new games. 8P That's just me, though. @Gfted1: Why have a 6-person party if you need them all to be at 100% fighting capacity just to advance through the game? I understand your concern. Based on that one vague statement, it could be really bad. But, it also could be designed perfectly fine. Also, if you simply don't like venturing forth while protecting someone who's become fragile, that's totally fine too. That doesn't really make it a design problem, though. Nothing's "forcing" you to trek back to a rest spot just 'cause 5 of your people are at 90% health, and one's at 30%. That's kind of one of the main points of combat: take precautions against your characters taking oodles of damage. If you prefer to go fix that (30% health situation) instead of progressing onward, then the game isn't to blame for your preference. Doesn't make your preference wrong. It just isn't the game's fault. IF you play this game, and, try as you might, you just cannot get through anywhere without everyone always dropping to low health, and you keep having to go back to rest spots every 5 minutes just to make it through a given area, then yeah, I'm going to call that a design problem. Especially if you adjust the difficulty and that still doesn't remedy it. And, again, I understand the concern for that possibility. But... it baffles you that people think dealing with a wounded party member can be fun? Isn't that the same type of bafflement you just criticized PIP-Clownboy for?

Yeah, I like the ones that cover really specific situations. Like in Shadowrun (PnP), one of the flaws is akin to shyness, and it only applies whenever you're the center of attention (you get a -1 to Charisma skill checks or something). Which, I get that that's a lot harder to implement in a cRPG than it is in a PnP game (in which it's just "make it up! 8D!", heh). But, yeah, things LIKE that. It's not a... I don't know what the word would be. Global? Constant? It's not a constant effect, like "the value of this skill/stat changes to this number, therefore affecting any and all uses of that skill/stat." Those rather unique character quirks are my favorite. As for trade-offs; I don't know that it's absolutely necessary, but I think a pretty good rule is to make sure the pros and cons are always related in some way. Like... if you get +3 damage with all weapons, maybe you attack more slowly. That's pretty basic, but it makes sense. It's basically impossible for that to be a non-trade-off, because no player can say "Ha-HAH! I get free damage, at the cost of attack speed! I'm not even going to USE attack speed! MUAHAHAHAHA!" Or vice versa, . The only way that COULD be silly is if the game allowed a pacifist run. In which case, you're choosing that pairing, and you're choosing whether or not you want to even attempt a pacifist run. So, you're not going to accidentally screw yourself over, there. So, yeah, in evaluating basically how to pair such things (whether it's the allowances in selecting them individually, or they're just paired from the get-go in a single trait/perk package), PrimeJunta's point above is a good one. If there's a maces skill (or... proficiency, even), and a swords skill, and you have no reason to ever miss one or the other as long as you have ONE of them (let's say maces and swords are the only two melee weapon types in the game), then you're not really trading anything. There are a lot of games that sort of inadvertently do that. At which point, you might as well just have "pick a bonus," and have a choice between a bonus to swords skill or a bonus to maces skill, much like the original Fallout's skill system's allowance for 3 marked skills that got boosted progression. Of course, even with that, you still have to make sure there's some kind of tradeoff, or its pointless.

@PrimeJunta: I'll try to keep this brief. I actually get all that. What you're not getting is that when I talk about "the specifics" of that trait, I'm talking about the fact that that trait deals with all those "general defining characteristics" you're going on about. All of that, the entire thing, is completely irrelevant to the point of my example. I'm not arguing against what you're saying, which is why I've agreed with it about a hundred times now. Yes, in isolation, that's not the best shining example of a good perk design. I'm going to try to clarify this one more time, as well. After this, if you don't get me, then one of us is obviously failing to comprehend the other, and agreement on which of us it is is clearly a futile goal now. Someone referenced a perk or something in some game that wasn't really a bad idea for a perk/trait, but was poorly executed in that game. Thus, I made my point. "If only the game had actually been designed better, that perk would've been fine, because, as long as the game supports it, a perk is not a non-trade-off." THEN, I said: Do you comprehend that a game with 100 different swords and only 3 maces inherently makes maces a lesser choice than swords? And therefore, even IF a trait that trades them against each other WERE a good design on its own, it would STILL be a terrible idea in the context of that game. Please just answer me this: Can you comprehend that? And can you see that exact quote above, and think "Ahh, yes, that point is actually there."? Because, if you can, then my example did its job. Its job not being advocating pitting swords versus maces in any way, shape, or fashion, or arguing that that somehow is a perfectly sound basis for a trait in cRPGs. In essence, in NO way contradicting anything in any of your counter-arguments. So, again, I quite literally have absolutely no idea how or why there's anything we're even disagreeing about. The only thing I can possibly fathom is that you somehow think I'm, to put it very simply, defending the quality of a swords-vs-maces trait. Which I'm not. Hence my "unnecessary" repetition of that. You claim I've just been repeating "my point," which you supposedly already understand, but I'm not. I'm basically repeating "I'm not even arguing against you," to which you're responding "Yeah, I get that, but you obviously don't understand it when I tell you that (insert stuff supposedly contradicting my agreement with you)." Ideally, we reach a mutual understanding here. But, if not, it's not the end of the world. And I'm sorry for apparently being incapable of making my points more clearly, so as to avoid pages of needless argument where there isn't even a disagreement (except over whether or not there's an argument).

Yeah... two weeks of last-minute shopping and travel arrangements. 8P

I agree ferociously. It's a common practice, nowadays, for people to sort of get the idea that it can only be one or the other. Most games are made up of at least SOME ratio of good ideas to bad ideas. But, it seems like it's easier now to just say "remember how that game wasn't very good? We should totally never do anything that game did," even if that game had the most incredibly-designed UI ever, or really good writing, etc. So, good things sort of get labeled bad things, by association. I just recently picked up Harvest Moon: Back To Nature on the Playstation Network (on my PS3), because I friggin' LOVE the old Harvest moon games. However, I could easily make a huge list of complaints about it (even while playing and enjoying it), and a pretty good off-the-top-of-my-head list of ways in which to easily improve it. Of course, at the time, a lot of those games were struggling just to have what they had, 'cause of technology and whatnot. But, now, like you said, we'd be remiss not to look at ways to improve on those designs, whether its by removing certain things, re-working certain things, or adding new things.

There are 11 races? How did I miss this?! *fails at lore*

You know what they say... no news is good news!... Unless the lack of news happens to be caused by a nuclear apocalypse that has wiped out all news-delivery channels.

I'd find that point to be immensely more potent if we weren't talking about an entire genre of games based on fictional worlds. Translate your point back to the original example/debate, and instead of "Yes, but it never rains bricks," you get "Yes, but both swords AND maces are never both necessary, ever." And you know what? As long as it never rains bricks, in reality, then we'll never have any use for iron umbrellas. That doesn't change the fact that, were bricks to ever be raining down upon your head, you would no longer deem an iron umbrella to be pointless. Thus, even if you never have to be in the situation to desire an iron umbrella, because it's never going to rain bricks, you can still comprehend the relationship between the value of an iron umbrella and the existence of brick-based precipitation. Thus, the one thing you still don't seem to get is that the point of even that silly example has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it ever rains bricks. If you understood that, there'd be no reason for a "but." "Jeez," indeed.

Agreed. To anyone thinking that's crazy, really stop and think for a moment. Imagine playing any RPG ever, but simply not being told how much XP you get for things, but still GETTING that XP (and appropriate amounts of it, etc.) and being told when you level. What would that really affect? Don't get me wrong. I get wanting to know. You're not crazy just 'cause you'd like to know that stuff. But, it wouldn't really make your gameplay experience any different. As Neo referenced a D&D example, in D&D, you don't get notified of how much XP something was worth when you kill it. But, you know that, if it was tough and troublesome, it was probably a lot more than if it was a bunny. You're not going to run around killing bunnies all day long, and go "OH NO! I have no way of knowing which tasks will grant me lots of experience, and which ones won't!" If you go into a town, and do a bunch of stuff that results in the completely fixing of all the town's problems in one fell swoop, that probably got you a lot of experience. You're not going to think that picking some weeds for some guy is going to get you a whole level's worth, while spending 5 hours uncovering an elaborate, traitorous plot to overthrow the current king is going to give you 10XP. Again, optional is probably best, 'cause there's not any particular reason such concealment should be FORCED on anyone. But, it is a perfectly feasible option, and pretty interesting, really. D&D's the only thing I can think of that doesn't tell you XP values on-the-fly, so I'd be interested in playing a game that allows me to hide them like that, if only to see how it compares.

I understand that, and I never said "your ideas regarding naming are STUPID!". I merely emphasized the fact that there are mechanical discrepancies in the official prototype that no amount of naming is going to affect at all. Especially if the mechanical changes made involve re-allocating all the effects produced/represented by the given stats, then definitely renaming becomes an important item. Even if everything were to stay the same, stat names are a valid thing to consider. That's simply not true. You're telling me if you go out and find the weakest adult person in the world, and the strongest adult person in the world, then have each of them throw a 5lb ball as far as they can, there would be an insignificant difference between the measured distances of their throws? I get that part of it is how much or little you build your muscles (working out, etc.). But that doesn't change the fact that one person who works out 3 hours a day and eats a particular diet, and another person who does the same can produce wildly differing muscle masses. If they both worked out none, they'd both still be the same difference apart in terms of physical ability. There's no sense comparing some huge guy who works out all the time to some small guy who never lifts a finger, and then trying to say we can't measure strength. It's an abstraction. Your intelligence changes, too. If you spend all your time studying things and puzzling stuff out, you get practiced at it, and you do it better. Just look at gamers versus non-gamers, and reaction times, etc. The fact that you can train something to improve it does not negate the inherent differences in its original capacity. In the real world, we don't try to measure these things that stats represent, because we don't NEED to. But you can't tell a game "ehh, he's pretty clever," or "that guy's just really strong, even if he doesn't look it." You've gotta give it a number. I don't think "Meh, there are a lot of factors that can affect this; it's pretty complex" is a good reason to just give up on abstracting it for a game. "Better just pretend everyone in the game world's literally the exact same strength." Yeah, because that's so much better than actually representing some level of difference. Also, movies and TV are an extreme, and I never claimed that moderately strong people just go around lopping arms off, and shearing straight through armor, just because they're beefy. JUST because certain things aren't as affected by strength does NOT mean that strength affects nothing. Also keep in mind that all targets in the game will not be armor-clad humanoids. So, "strength doesn't really matter... because armor!" doesn't really work, and "the clever warrior will always do more damage, because he can just slice main arteries and stuff!" doesn't really work, either, because... where the hell is the jugular/artery on a giant spider, or an extra-planar being? I don't think people just magically know that. You can also look up videos of someone lifting a very heavy object off of someone with their bare hands. Then, you can look up videos of smaller people lifting heavy objects off of people by cleverly using some nearby board or pole as a lever. Did those women just build up so much raw strength that simply striking concrete shatters it? No. Thus, they overcame their shortcoming by making sure they trained to be able to apply their strength as effectively as possible. Let me present an example: If I toss a rock, and hit you in the shoulder, you're probably just going to go "Ow." If I toss a rock and hit you in the eye, that's going to do some damage, right? Just a little, though. But, because the eye's so sensitive, it's going to probably cause you some damage. Does that mean how hard I throw the rock doesn't matter anymore? If I fire the rock out of a slingshot at your eye, it's not going to do THAT much more damage than if I fire it out of a slingshot at your chest? What's the difference between my toss, and a slingshot? That's right... the sheer force of the rock. Once again... nobody said "obviously every inch taller you are, you get 1 more STR." People are strong for various reasons. But, why is the chimp so powerful? Because it's physically strong. That's quite literally my point. Other animals the same size as chimps AREN'T that strong. Even other very similar animals. If Strength didn't matter, then the chimp would be just as effective as anything else that assaulted you with its arms. So, what you're saying is... if you trained a chimp to swing that two-handed sword, it would STILL be outdone by a tall, feeble old man who can barely lift the sword up enough to gently guide its ride on gravity back to the ground? Orrr... would, say, a strong, tall person actually be able to do better with that sword than the tall feeble old man could? You're simply pointing out a separate factor, but then somehow claiming that it negates strength. ALSO, there are plenty of things for strength to affect, in a cRPG, than just swinging a damned sword. For the love of all that is holy, can we actually acknowledge that? I'VE already said, probably several times in this thread alone, that swordplay is LESS influenced by strength. This is precisely why I'm not saying "Hey, instead of Intellect giving you + damage, I think STRENGTH should just give you + damage." I'm saying that strength should affect things, "things" being intelligently decided rather than arbitrarily so. You seem to be completely ignoring everything I just said about attack resolution, which already represents whether or not you slide your sword between the dragon's scales, or your blade just glances off the scales altogether. Besides... the player already controls the character, so the intelligent player can say "Hmm, that didn't do any damage, like 7 times in a row... I'd better try something else." So, yes, in a PnP game, that would at least be applicable, because the DM would prevent you from doing something clever if your character was dumb as a brick. However, combat decisions are already overruled in a cRPG. Double-besides, what that would already be represented by, in the current system, is an increased chance to critically hit. Since, against a dragon, a regular sword hit could be a clean hit but still produce no damage, because of the dragon's armor, essentially. Not because you can't land a clean blow on the dragon. Thus, sliding your sword between its scales would be, in essence, a critical hit. Or an armor penetrating hit or something. The problem isn't that Intellect doesn't affect the things you say it does. The problem is that you're thinking of the things it affects, then trying to just decide how to do that mechanically as if none of the other mechanics/systems in the game already exist. I'm just trying to actually take into cosideration those existing mechanics/systems, and apply all the stats in the best manner. I agree, which is why I'm thankful that PoE is in no way required to provide you with regular stat boosts so that you can become as powerful as an earthquake. See, I think it'd be best to simply have the stat description state "grants damage bonuses for many melee weapons," then have different weapons have different bonuses. A two-handed war maul? Your whole strength modifier applies. A katana? Maybe your Strength modifier X .2 or something. AND, as I've proposed, you could have greater chances/ability to disarm people or knock them back/down with your attacks, etc. It could even affect something within the engagement system. *shrug*. There's even someone else's proposal that the lass talents sort of branch, with a bunch of them being mostly strength based (maybe with minimum strength requirements?), and others being based on Intellect. That way, if you're smart, you don't just do more sheer damage all the time, but you instead take a lot more feat-type abilities that represent the application of your Intellect to your damage (such as... "Go For The Eyes! -- You've cleverly studied your enemy. For the next 10 seconds, all your strikes will ignore 50% of the enemy's armor."). I mean, really, "damage" in the system is just a representation of how much potential damage you're producing. If a sword "does 10 damage," it's really "produces 10 damage." If you strike something with no armor, using that sword, the result is 10 damage. If you strike something with plate armor, using that sword, the result is probably like 1 damage or something. Or it might even be none. That's what the system is for, though. The armor value/damage threshold is designed to represent the real-world effect of armor in the equation of "how much damage did this action actually cause to my person?" That's pretty much all it is. Add up all the factors, and you get the resulting damage. "Damage" isn't meaningful as anything but a rating of the potential of something. Much like strength. You can swing as hard as you'd like, but that isn't necessarily going to produce the result you want. Doesn't mean you're not still hitting harder. And being intelligent doesn't make everything you do better. It just gives you more options than a less intelligent person. Thus, more class talents (or whatever) for you to choose from. See, I don't even think that -- that it's unfair to be able to do that. I don't think you should be able to do it with Strength, either. For me, this isn't about build-versus-build viability. This is a separate issue. You can have a system with 2 stats and nothing but viable builds, and that doesn't mean it's the best system just because all available builds are okay. I want a robust stat system. I want you to miss out on something when you dump a stat (which is the point), and I want the various stats to produce various, robust effects to create all the pieces of the pie that is a character. I simply think it's an oversimplification to say "Well, Intellect would allow you to ultimately fight more cleverly... so... INT = damage." Even in D&D, Strength doesn't just give you damage. It gives you a damage modifier... on certain weapons. Then, it lets you do all the other spiffy stuff strength lets you do (lots of non-combat stuff, etc.). It effects things. "I want to grapple and throw this orc." "Okay, roll a Strength check. Oh, you're very strong, instead of feeble? Then, regardless of how smart you are and how cleverly you fight, in this particular example, your strength affects your ability to throw a mass the size and shape of an orc body. Want to punch that body in its orcish plate armor? That's probably not going to end well. But, if you want to THROW that orc, then, assuming you possess the skills necessary to actually grab the orc and be able to throw him without dying first or having him prevent you from doing so, it's basically going to come down to a Strength check. I just want to re-iterate that, while someone with, say, 1 Intellect might just flail around, there's a pretty low minimum for comprehending "the neck is a good place to put a sword blade." It's not like the genius fighter knows basic human weaknesses, and the moderately-intelligent fighter is running around striking people with the flat of his blade. Granted, all the other stuff has to play it's part in the results, including Intellect. But, that ALSO means Strength should play its part. No more, no less.

Oh wow... you know what's even funnier? I didn't even know there WAS a typo, and was just being silly with homonyms. I must've rolled a 20 on that pun, though, because I inadvertently ended up referencing an actual typo, making my joke, in Pokemon terms, "SUPER EFFECTIVE!" Hahaha. Good times. I hear ya on the cannon party, too. Although, you'd have to pick between combat readiness or storage. You could either stuff loot into their barrels, then roll them around, or keep them loaded so they can actually fire when you're ambushed. And they'd have horrible move speed, 8P

That gives me an idea... An extraordinarily refined, clean-shaven, OCD Dwarven scholar/Cipher with a Canadian accent and an alcohol allergy. C-C-C-C-COMMMBO BREAKER!!!

@Karkarov: That's not at all a bad design for that sort of approach to things. Personally, though, I much prefer the just full co-op approach. Everything in a particular playthrough/session is localized to that session, and you either share in the control of it or don't. In this particular type of game (at least for the main, official campaign), that's the only approach that appeals to me or really seems worth at least a bit of effort (and it probably requires the least amount of work, too). Now... like I said, with player-made content and such, you could easily run into something that would make much better use of your approach. My only qualm with it in the official campaign is that, it's sort of all about the playthrough. So, allowing players to accumulate things like loot and money separately (tying it to the player, and not the playthrough/instance) doesn't seem like it could ever NOT cause problems. Unless the players just always resumed that same session. Taking anything of persistence (character, loot, money, reputation, etc.) from one playthrough into another would be sort of contrary to the purpose/intent of a playthrough of such a game. That's the only reason I'd prefer to just keep the multiplayer to simply "a second player gets to ride shotgun." Or, more than two, Maybe up to 6, total? Then, that's one player for each member of the party. And they could all either make their own characters (Adventurer's Hall), or just control companions in combat. And you could just let "player 1" decide everything (people can confer on such things without the need for in-game functionality that allows them all to directly choose), BUT, you could also do something like have a little vote for what should be said/chosen, etc. I think Dungeon Siege 3 did that with their co-op? Annnnywho...

True that. I remember that one building/room, in Ranger Station Charlie or whatever (I think?) in which there's a friggin' body lying on top of a grenade. If you move the body, it explodes. It's almost IMPOSSIBLE to notice, because you can't really see it until you at least move the body a little bit. Such a clever trap... . I'm almost not even mad about my inability to notice it. I give the devs a "touche," there. I definitely believe in a "one or the other" approach, though. What I mean is, if your character has a trap-detecting skill, then make them completely undetectable to the player's eye, and only detectable to the character's. Then, when the character DOES detect a trap, make it BLATANTLY OBVIOUS where that trap is to the player. One or the other. Also, I get the use of the "find it with your own eyes" approach in FO3 and FO:NV, since they're first-person (OR optional 3rd-person, I suppose) games. I was mainly just talking about top-down IE-style games in my analysis above. I mean, you COULD use "just find 'em with your eyes" in PoE, for example, but then I'd say there's no point in your character being able to point them out to you. It's redundant at that point. It's just a skill of convenience, then, and not necessity or definite benefit.

It's not just a semantics problem. If you rename strength to "Potatoes", and it still actually represents strength, then everything's cool, except it's got a goofy name now. If it represents attack speed, then we have a problem, because... where did strength go? People possess physical might/capability. So, either the entire, lush game world completely ignores that altogether (no strength checks or feats of strength, ever, or effects of strength on the situation at all, including "you can carry more stuff"), or it acknowledges it, whatever you name the stat that makes this acknowledgement/measurement. The problem with this is that it ignores the organization of abstracted, math-based rules/mechanics. Guess what already represents your ability to stab someone in the jugular instead of slapping them on the back with it? Attack resolution... which is affected by... Accuracy! Dexterity being the only stat that directly affects that. So, at the very least, if the reality is that Intellect is allowing you to make jugular strikes, and therefore you're doing +5 damage because of your 20 INT, then that doesn't make much sense. I mean, should we add 5 damage to misses, because your INT somehow adds bonus damage to your base damage "multiplier" (in essence, because it's ALWAYS affected by attack resolution, whether it's X 1, or X .5, or X 2, or X 0) regardless of your attack result? See how little sense that makes? "I'm so smart, I know where to hit you to make the best use of my strikes, so even when I graze -- which already means I didn't hit you where/how I intended to -- I still do it WAY more effectively than anyone else. I fail to hit you properly in an EXTREMELY clever fashion! 8D!" It really doesn't make sense. And I don't mean "that's not realistic." I mean, even put into abstraction, it's contradictory. So, again, you'd think if Intellect was going to affect your damage output, it would do it via altering critical chance/critical damage, etc. That way, Feeble-Genius Gary always aims for better optimal spots on his enemy when swinging his pencil. So that, when he DOES hit them (critical -- the optimal strike), he produces a greater effect than even Dumb-But-Burly Bill does when HE criticals (because he doesn't hit you in as good of a spot, even when he's perfectly precise). Of course, I'm not even sure Strength should just grant you no-matter-what improved damage. Because, again, it depends on other things. As plenty have pointed out, if I hit you with the force of a freight train with my katana, on your plate armor, it's not really going to hurt you any worse. It's probably just going to break the katana, honestly. And maybe you'll fall down, from the sheer force, *shrug*. BUT, if I hit you in the unarmored shoulder joint with, say, my hand axe, if I'm super feeble, it might just hurt really badly. Whereas, If I'm Andre the Giant, your arm's most likely severed. Or, If I hit your plate armor with my mace, and I'm Andre the Giant, your armor's probably much more penetrated by that than if Sam the Sheperd Lad Who Just Happens To Have To Fight To Protect His Homeland hits you with the same weapon. We don't have to scientifically measure that and make sure it's realistic values that are implemented into the game. But, even in abstraction, that relationship exists. Sometimes, it matters how much force/power you're using. Not just that, but even in regard to non-combat stuff, I don't want to see Strength's effects be non-existent in this game. Sure, almost everyone has some form of soul "magic," but, magic or no magic, physics still at least applies, right? I mean, if you want to telekinetically move a sack of grain, that's surely easier than telekinetically moving a castle, right? So, who's to say someone who is non-physically quite powerful can just easily create invisible forces, maintain them, and dexterously/carefully move them about in a delicate fashion to accomplish what they want to accomplish? Anywho, that's getting into some other stuff. The whole "why can't the Wizard just blast the door open so the burly man isn't needed to break it with physical strength?" thing. There are a lot of things that don't just need blasting open. Like carrying heavy loads, or delicately lifting things, etc.

I'm sorry it somehow didn't seem like it, but I addressed the latter, ever since you first said it. I didn't say "you're wrong, but (re-iterate initial point)" or "I don't even want to talk about that at all (re-iterate initial point)." Maybe I'm just feeble-minded, but I don't understand why the re-iteration of your point 7 times was totally reasonable, while mine was somehow unreasonable. I mean, clearly I thought you misunderstood my point, and was mistaken, and you thought I misunderstood your point (and still do, maybe?), but were mistaken. I even literally said that I'd gladly discuss "the latter" with you in detail, when it was separate from my point. But you kept trying to pretend like they were inseparably intertwined. The simple fact is, whether you have the worst trait idea in the universe, or the best one, is irrelevant to my initial point, which was a simple conditional statement. "If it rains, you'll want an umbrella." That already covers both a rainy day AND a non-rainy day. There's no need for someone to argue about whether or not it's going to rain, and whether or not you'll need an umbrella, because that's a completely separate issue. Does that make sense? (Not being derisive, just actually wondering if I'm being clear.) If you had simply said "Yeah, I get that, but, of course, on a separate note, let's talk about what kind of stuff might possibly make that work, or just what would be better ideas for more-likely-to-work perks, etc.", I'd've high-fived you and been all "All right! 8D!". You weren't even acknowledging a separation between the two points, and I honestly could only deduce that you didn't understand they were separate, and therefore misunderstood my point (to be something non-separate from yours). I don't like wasting people's time, for what it's worth, and/or arguing just for the sake of argument. But I'm just a human, so, I can't just read your mind. I need help to understand other people's points when their initial words aren't doing it for me, and I need their help to help them understand my point when my words aren't doing it for them.

I'm not just sure how I feel about a sapient cannon. I mean... will it be able to load itself, without hands, in order to contribute to combat effectiveness? Better to avoid cannon companions, I think.

Woe be to the color-blind adventurer, u_u... "This'll be a CINCH! *charges into battle*" "Wait, Steve! NO! THOSE ARE RED, NOT BLUE!!!"

Undead companion, FTW! Anyone else seen Warm Bodies? Strange companion + romance. Two birds, one stone. YEAH!

My apologies, :\. I mistook your tone. That was my bad. See, I'd opt for just a join-in, without loading a separate character for each player. I mean, later on, it would be great to have multiplayer functionality to allow people to make their individual characters and join in custom game sessions, when people have the tools (whether official tools or just modded stuff) to build their own campaigns and whatnot. But, that's not really useful until there's more content to be had (because 5 people joining in on the official campaign with their own characters kind of screws stuff up) that's designed specifically for a character-for-every-player type scenarios (custom campaigns and such.) So, yeah, hypothetically, if it weren't deemed too much trouble by the dev team to implement basic multiplayer support, I'd honestly just go with the "two people get to co-operatively enjoy the one campaign" type setup, rather than "Okay, let's actually design a campaign that rebalances everything for every additional Player Character that joins the session", etc. I agree that the campaign wouldn't really benefit from that at all (just look at NWN2). And I don't think it's anywhere close to a necessity to put in multiplayer support. But, it wouldn't exactly be ludicrous, or game-ruining, just to implement the basics. I may be weird, but IF it were in, I'd probably co-op a playthrough with my friend, and he'd probably be up for it (1 party, 2 inputs). Again, we'd be cool with doing so, so we wouldn't run into any "OMG, WHO GETS TO MAKE THE DECISIONS?!" issues or anything. Probably "player 1" would get to do that, and he'd just ask me what I think "we" should say, and I'd get to control an extra party member during combat. I understand they're not planning on this (any multiplayer at all), and I'm fine with that. I don't think the game's particularly lacking without it. It would simply be nice, if it existed, for a small group of people. Obviously, weighing that benefit against the cost, it's most certainly not cost effective. So, only if it somehow happened to be really easy to do would I ever suggest doing it.

For what it's worth, I'd clarify that it most likely won't even be simply a "buggy version of the game," per se. They're being quite protective of the game's story, so as to maintain its integrity for the best experience of playing the whole, bug-free complete thing. So, if you are interested in beta access, it will most likely be just test scenarios. Dummy quests and dialogues, merchants, maybe crafting, dummy combat encounters, etc. It seems like their goal is to allow people to test the mechanics and such as much as possible, without just playing the actual game early and spoiling all the story stuff.

I would bet next Tuesday, at the earliest. They didn't even get back from holidays 'til sometime last week, so they've barely had a whole week back at work (if that long). I'd set your sights on this coming Tuesday, if I had to guess.

There should be one store in the game that specializes in blunt weapons. It could be called "Macy's". *dodges rotten vegetables*

My mistake. It was suggested that players will just quicksave, then run down the hallway to see if there are traps, so my response was, sarcastically, that we should just not even put traps in the game. So, I was talking about PoE. When you responded, you commented on BG/BG2 being pretty bad about traps, but then you talked specifically about "taking them out" and its effects, starting with "And really," so I thought you were just commenting on BG/BG2, then jumping back to the hypothetical existence of traps in PoE. Also, I was mostly being silly about the "infinitely" bit. Sorry about that. I get carried away sometimes. I meant no harm. I share your sentiments regarding those tedious, free-XP trap systems.