Lephys

... *continues the fist shake, slowly turning it towards Sophos* What does my extra big green "K" badge mark me out as, then? Hmmmmm? As for the processing errors... if I had to bet, I'd say it's just traffic stuff. I couldn't even log in (much less get any error) for a good solid several minutes. Then, once I got in, everything went fine, so I'd just figure it's us breaking in the site. 8P

I'm with Sensuki on this. I'd be interested in knowing the time factor here. Do they just have plenty of time to do extra stuff and lack the money? Will they just use the extra money to hire larger teams of artists and such to get the additional stuff done? Or are we talking "Delay the game, but it'll have more stuff in it when it comes out"?

Curse you, workplace Youtube blocker!!!! *fist shake* Must... watch... trailer! Until then... Backer portal: ENGAGED! Thanks for the stupendously awesome update! 8D!!!

Heck, if they estimate the game's release date as December, 2014, then it later turns out that they're ahead of schedule and are going to be able to release the game in July, I'd MUCH rather they just wait until December to release the game, on principle. That reality coincides with their estimations is far more important than our reaction to reality. That's precisely why everyone's so upset. Not because their reception of the update is delayed, but because the accuracy of the team's foresight wasn't up to par. So, likewise, even if they're suddenly able to travel back in time now and give us the big update on October 29th, we wouldn't be as happy as if they had just said "you won't get any updates until the game releases" from the get-go, then held out a bunch of information on us until the game's release. So help me if they tell us there's going to be an update tomorrow, then the power goes out at Obsidian HQ tomorrow morning... My rage would be uncontrollable.

No no, I get it. And, I mean, it works. I'm not trying to say it's stupid. I just... especially with the round-based ones, I don't see the need to limit something to 1 round, time-wise, when you can only perform one attack in a round, anyway. It seems like, if I can imbue you with perfect accuracy for 10 seconds, then I can probably ALSO imbue you with perfect accuracy for only one attack. Why does it matter (in theoretical function of the spell AND in game mechanics/reasoning) that I time the spell to exactly the round before you need to make the attack? What if you don't attack for the next 3 rounds? If you attack the 4th round, you could still get a +20 to your attack roll, then the spell would be used up. I just don't see any reason for not-doing stuff like that, than "we just didn't want to do it that way." Maybe there is one, though. Does that make any sense? I dunno about anyone else, but, I personally would rather have "your next attack, within some reasonable amount of time (like... an hour or something?) gets +20 to it" instead of "OMG, you get +20 to your attack roll IF you manage to do it in time! 10 seconds on the clock... GO!" I mean, why not make it an instant spell/prepared action, and have the person cast it the moment someone's attacking? At least then it's never "Oh no, you tripped and fell, and by the time you stood back up, the spell was no longer there in waiting to actually produce an effect when you attacked!" Basically, the longer-duration stuff isn't so bad. But then, like you said, it even has "charge" counters (like the 80HP threshold). But the shorter stuff is pretty bad. Especially in a cRPG, where 30 minutes passes abstractly-yet-constantly. In NWN2, for example, I'd cast stuff that lasted 4 hours, and have it wear off after I progressed about 300 feet through a swamp. I realize that's specific to the passage of time in a given game's design, but... still. Anywho... back to crafting... I think it definitely makes a lot more sense for things to diminish with use, rather than with time (unless it's a lonnnnng amount of time). Physical effects, that is. Even abstracted ones.

Indeed. It sucks when you get attacked in the middle of the night while your camping/sleeping, and you, as the Wizard, then have to tell everyone "Okay, guys, I'm gonna hafta sleep/wait 'til tomorrow afternoon to really be of any use now, because I had to use my 2 main spells in that fight just now, u_u...". And I get that it's balanced in isolation: The Wizard takes all that prep time and everything, but later on gets to do some pretty potent stuff. But, if you were to get attacked every 4 hours for a bit, you'd be about as useful as a quarterstaff while your Warrior and Ranger are putting swords and arrows through goblin after goblin after goblin after goblin after goblin. So, yeah, it's nice that you get the ability to take out 20 goblins at once with a big fireball, but that does you no good if you can't ever prepare it when you need it. And it's not like the other classes can't keep dishing out damage. Like the Warrior can only take out 10 goblins per day or something. *shrug* It's just a bit strange is all. No no, I get it. I didn't mean that "all other things staying the same, bigger spells should take longer and longer to prep." But, it would make more sense. And, I get that it's prep time before you're able to prep your spells, but preparation is preparation, as far as function goes. But... *shrug*. It doesn't take 8 hours to clear your mind before working simple addition, AND 8 hours to prep your mind before working quantum physics. So, you'd just think there'd be a relationship between the complexity of the spells and the amount of time required to ultimately prepare them. I mean, if 8 hours is acceptable, why not start with 2 hours or something? "You only have 2 Magic Missiles and a Shield spell... it takes you 2 hours to mentally become capable of memorizing these spells." Then, work your way up to 8? I can't think of one other thing in the universe that you can't simply spend less time prepping for and just do less of. Just seems like that could've been better thought-out, ya know? The system balances itself, already. You're a Wizard, so you get to make giant fireballs, so the downside is that you have to spend a long time in preparation before you can do this, so it's not always readily available. But then, as a Level 1 Wizard, you're only capable of lighting a candle... SO WE'RE STILL going to balance that with a crazy amount of time before you can even do THAT! *shrug*... it's just caster's angst I've got going on here, methinks.

Just remember, Team Eternity... If you go ahead and decide the update's NOT going to be ready, then circumstances surprisingly allow it to be ready by tomorrow, do NOT change your mind and actually present it. Stick to your initial estimate, because if you don't, you'll have lied. And not-lying is far more important than whether or not people get a pleasant update.

I actually like that idea. I mean, depending on the rest of the design that we don't know about, it COULD be out-of-place/convoluted. But, just as an idea, I think it's a good one. It could act sort of like armor/equipment does (and how equipment works in Mass Effect 3): affecting your action speed. Certain things might be instant, and/or just not really be slowed down (such as blocking, or maintaining a rigorous stance or something). All they would do would be to decrease your Breath (we'll call it that, instead of "stamina," so as to differentiate it from existing Stamina). It would almost be like mana/stamina (in a system in which stamina acts like the non-magic-person's mana, like in Dragon Age), only, instead of running into "you're out of stamina, so you can't perform this ability that requires 20 Stamina for fuel," you'd have "You're out of stamina, so this ability is going to take 10 seconds to perform instead of 2." Etc. And it could work equally on spells. That COULD even potentially be what's affected by sleeplessness. Anywho... it'd have to be fit into the P:E design. I'm liking it as a potential dynamic that could be used, rather than a "Yes, let's just plug this straight into whatever we've got already, because it would DEFINITELY work! 8D!" Okay, last little tidbit... I could even see some kind of combo capability, allowing you to chain together a few abilities in quick succession to avoid the out-of-breath/fatigue penalty on the subsequent abilities (up to a cap, obviously... like 2 or 3... might even depend on which ones you're using, etc.), at the cost of a greater Breath reduction resulting from the abilities. i.e., using Power Strike, then Blade Flurry, then Action Roll (made up example abilities) could all be used at 100% Breath (full short-term stamina) as a combo action. So, if they each reduce Breath by 10%, then normally, using Power Strike would take you to 90% Breath (thus, 90% action speed), meaning that Blade Flurry would be executed more slowly. Blade Flurry would then cause Action Roll to execute at 80% speed. But, when you perform them in a chained combo, they'd all execute at 100% speed, but your Breath after the combo would be 60%, instead of 80%. So, anything you did after that would be even slower. *shrug*... Okay, I'm done now. I promise. (Osvir's brainstorming is contagious.)

I don't understand. Why would I suddenly start playing devil's advocate when perfectly-acceptable Elves were presented that didn't just look like humans with pointy ears? So confused... trolls in P:E have a homeworld? They're extra-terrestrial? And trolls are supposed to be pretty? o_O I'm miles away from comprehending what you're trying to say, methinks. I just went with what? What did I "just go with"? ??? ??????? I am SO confused! When did I claim to know it was a troll before being told, and when was that a BAD thing? If they showed a screenshot of a PC wielding a sword and shield and wearing plate, would you know it was a Wizard? Would it be any less of a Wizard because it didn't intuitively look blatantly like it was a Wizard? If they showed you a creature made of bark and grass and vines, would you know with certainty what it was? Would it be a dryad? Maybe an earth elemental? Maybe it's some completely made up creature that's an avatar of some nature deity, and not any traditional creature from other RPGs' beastiaries. Exactly what point are you trying to make here? They designed a troll, and it doesn't completely miss the entirety of existing troll lore. The end. Like it, or don't like it. Evaluate it all you want. Nothing's going to change the fact that what trolls are and what they aren't is made extremely vague by the huge variance in all their precedented designs/lores. That's the point I've made, and I can't tell if you're intending to argue against it or not.

Maybe your imagination is flat, and isn't art. o_o

*shrug*... Maybe you're a Wizard? *ba domp... TSSsssss*

I don't know about you, but a wolf on the edge of my camp is not a "whatever" situation I'm not sure if you misunderstood, but... that's exactly what I was saying. That it isn't a "whatever" situation. Which is why the bandits wouldn't just shrug it off and let your wolf scout, and thus it wouldn't be a feasible tactic. I was just trying to point out that what we're tossing about here already has plenty of things in place to govern it, before any of the "Oh, so you just want Rangers to circumvent all stealth/scouting difficulties then?" comments showed up, . That's all.

And that makes sense, in a way. But, at the same time, something like Armor lasts a set amount of time, no matter what. Doesn't matter if you get hit with a nuke, or a spitball. The armor spell just keeps on armoring. Whereas, in P:E's design, for example, the Wizard's Arcane Veil is a potent shield that actually reacts to incoming force. It's obviously using some form of energy to maintain its ability to block incoming energy from fatally reaching your Wizard and transferring into your Wizards vitals. But, hit it with enough, in a focused enough fashion (say, a bullet from a gun), and it punctures. How does this all tie into crafting and weapon enhancements? Well, the comparison remains: You sharpen a sword, it doesn't just start losing sharpness over time. It loses sharpness upon use. The sharpness gets worn. So, I'm not saying no magical enchantments on equipment should ever be time-based. But, why couldn't it be charge-based, and "burn" when it's used, instead of just constantly? Why do we go from "3 minutes of flame damage on this sword" to a crafting enchantment that's "eternal flame damage on this sword." Does the sword just constantly emit flames, 24/7? So, you can't even scabbard it, 'cause it'll just melt your scabbard? You can't set it down, 'cause it'll set fire to the tavern? That's all I'm getting at there. It makes sense that that's possible. But, more importantly, it works better for the game. Almost all the biggest complaints about buffs and temporary effects are from the upkeep, as caused by the duration. You want to spend that spell, then get your bang for your buck. It's sheer frustration to cast "Flame Sword" on your Warrior's blade, then have him miss 9 out of 10 swings for the duration of that spell. Annnywho, I'm slipping again, into rambling. I've basically just wondered why games don't tend to use charge-based, diminishing-upon-use limitations more often. Not why they don't just replace ALL duration-based limitations with charge-based ones. I don't think I've misunderstood. I actually like that setup, a lot. No, what I was trying to say is that that functionally is durability. If you don't maintain your sword, you'll lose your keen edge (basically suffer a penalty). I personally like durability (though I do look for ways to make it as interesting as possible), but since they've already dropped it from the design, I'm just trying to put more consideration into systems that don't mimic durability, but perhaps still provide some of the perks of durability representation.

Agh, I misread that. That's my bad. I thought AD&D did it, but now I'm not so sure. Anywho, that being the case, I feel it's awfully arbitrary. It seems like a forced way of balancing the spells, so that Mages couldn't re-use their spells more than once every 9 hours, tops, instead of designing the system with any number of other methods of balance. Put a minimum on the prep frequency. So, "You must sleep/rest/trance for 8 hours before you can possibly even re-prepare even a single spell" would instead be "You cannot prepare your spells again within 8 hours of any prior spell preparation." That makes more sense. Why does it take 8 hours to clear your mind, but only an hour to prepare 44 spells?! Apparently, even in a world filled with magic, clearing your mind (something that is realistically possible and is done in any number of vocations/tasks/disciplines) is still the hardest, most time-consuming thing in existence? In other words, it seems awfully silly to specify mandatory, time-consuming actions that must be taken just to provide the game function of replenishing your spell ammo (that's limited for reasons), instead of simply specifying conditions under which you can do so. Like I said, minimum prep delay (your brain can only handle the complex preparation of spells so often without mental fatigue setting in and the spells slipping from your mind immediately), maybe a "you can't be stupidly tired" condition. So, if you've been up for 24 hours, and you need to prep spells, you're going to need to sleep. Etc. Things of that nature. Especially in a PnP environment, that always seemed like such a heavy-handed method of regulating that. *shrug* I understand the game's need to prevent you from simply being able to replenish all your spells in the blink of an eye, 50 times per day (because, if the rules were designed to support that, then they simply wouldn't include the per-day limitations in the first place). But, still... It especially made no sense in a DnD setting when you were Level 1 and had like 3 spells. "It takes me 8 hours to prep Magic missile, but then it also takes me 8 hours, later on, to prep 44 Summon Apocalypse spells." Anywho... in P:E, it seems as though the replenishment of spells (in the lore) will be attributed to the sort of "recharging" of your grimoire. If that's so, and it works similarly to a battery, then you'd think the amount of time spent recharging it would be directly proportionate to the amount of spell uses you get back. So that would already support variable resting, and some kind of 8-hour mandate would be kind of pointless.

Yeah... I recall Josh saying that stamina regen will be slower (and variable) in combat, then effectively instantaneous (really, really fast) outside of combat/encounters. And I would have to wager that's with a pretty liberal delay, to make sure you're not still "in-combat," so you can't just run 30 feet away and hide behind a tree for 2 seconds of ultra-fast stamina regen, then "re-enter" combat because that foe caught up to you and found you behind the tree.

^ Yeah, a lot of times the spell combos, especially, become THE way to go. "Oh, that guy has 700 HP, and it'll take you 10 minutes to fight him? Not if your Mage freezes him, then shatters him! 8D!". It just kinda slaps all the other stuff in the face. Or, you run into the situation where they paranoidly want to prevent that, so they make 90% of the creatures in the game immune to shattering. So, it then becomes just a fun thing you can do to tiny goblins, at which point it's pretty much easier to just fight them in a normal fashion and preserve your spells, etc. And I get the "me... and some followers" thing, as well. I don't understand why so many games feel compelled to go the whole "okay, a small breeze could kill you, but you can summon entire planets to collide into this planet to facilitate the apocalypse" route with mages. Like... you can't just use magic as the means of getting stuff done without having it get 1,000 times more stuff done. 8P

Heh. Yeah. It seems one of the main common themes is that they at least resemble humanoids (even if they're big, ugly humanoids), and that they live out in the "wilderness," away from "civilization." The whole "they're not holy" thing probably spawned most of the "creatures that hide out in the wilderness and take people and probably do terrible things like eat them" stuff. *shrug*. Just seems like, in all of the stuff surrounding the prior usage of the word "troll," there's an awful lot of leeway in their specific design for people to call foul. Call "I don't like that" all day long, but not foul. They're not breaking any kind of universal troll-design rule.

I would bet money that such a thing will occur. I think "godlike" is just the "Common Tongue," generic label for them. Kind of like "outsider" for someone just blatantly not from around there. The most basic thing you'd refer to them as would be "outsider," but then you might have any number of specific titles/labels for them, depending on their particular traits, place of origin, culture, your culture, etc. "Godlike" just serves to denote their distinction from the rest of the populous who possess no obvious god-associated traits whatsoever. Then, even amongst a single culture, there'll probably be various specific names for even various godlike with their different traits/associations. It's sort of like the class "Fighter." I don't think everyone's going to run around saying "you there! Fighter! I need you to do some fighting, Fighter!". It's a word that can be used, but they'll probably use more specific words, depending on the specifics of that particular Fighter and their affiliation with him/culture: They might call him soldier, or warrior, or something specific to their own language, etc. Don't get me wrong... I see how "godlike" seems a bit unspecific/real-life Englishy in the midst of so many other very specific words that are still employed in the game's common glossary. But, I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt, until I have reason to do otherwise. It seems to serve its classification purpose just fine, and, like I said, I'm betting we'll see a lot more specific terms and titles (and cultural lore) surrounding the godlike themselves.

It would only work in certain situations, too. I mean, if you send a wolf to scout around in a bandit camp, they're not just going to go "Oh, a wolf... it's not people, so whatever..." and ignore it. They're going to wonder why the hell a wolf is in there, etc, and try to drive it out. But, maybe a stray cat, or something smaller could get in. Or, a falcon or something could fly about and scout at least the exterior of a bandit-controlled structure, probably without much notice. But then, unless you're the only Ranger in the world with an animal companion connection, there must be others who know of this connection. And if there are people in the world who study things, there are people who study this. There are certainly people in given situations who'd recognize your animal's behavior and/or detect its connection (sort of like magical detection in other games, since magic is soul-based, and the animal connection is soul-based, as well.) *shrug* Anywho, I'm just pointing out that it won't just be "Oh, have an animal, 'cause you're a Ranger? SCOUT EVERYTHING AND SNEAK EVERYWHERE FOR FREE! 8D!"

Makes me think of Shadow, the dog, in Dead To Rights: Retribution. I mean, different game. Action/shooter. But, the very first mission/level in the game has you controlling Shadow to protect a wounded, limping Jack. (I think his name was jack). Also, Shadow is able to do a lot of the sneaking, because he can hear/smell/sense foes (and clue scents and such). Anywho... that all was a bit strange and overly intelligent for a dog (in the way that you directly control it to very humanly investigate things) in an action/shooter game, to be honest. But, that type of thing makes a lot more sense in an RPG.

Exactly. The same COULD be said of something like Elves. So, if they showed me elves with bark-horns growing out of their head, and green skin, I wouldn't have any reason to say "Hey! Those don't look like Elves!" Now, if they had 73-foot-tall creatures made out of lightning and tar, with 17 tentacles and 3 eyes, each glowing a different color, and they ate planets... and they called these "elves"... I'd say "those don't look like elves." Why? Because those are in no way similar to anything that has ever been called an elf. So, it's fine to have that creature, but strange to call it an elf, when you could've just called it whatever you want, since you've made up its design anyway. That would be like me drawing a portrait of a person who looks absolutely nothing like someone named Steve, and titling that drawing "A portrait of Steve." However, the trolls they've shown don't look literally nothing like any concept of trolls, ever. So, everyone's "hey, those don't look like trolls" complaints are really just "those don't look how I want trolls to look." Which, again, is fine. But it's not the same thing as "trolls SHOULDN'T look like that." People are calling them out on the association of the depicted creatures with the name "trolls," suggesting an objective problem, but really the problem is just subjective preference. The design does fall inside the broad spectrum of troll lore attributes/designs, but people just prefer other, more frequently precedented depictions.

I didn't accuse you of arguing about artistic vision. I'm saying that the person who made that was simply trying to make an existing map from an existing game in a different style (with 3D terrain instead of 2D terrain). So, he's not saying "Hey, look, I just sat down and said "Hmm, what would be a really good world-map section to come up with, in a believable world?", then drawing that, and worrying about all the little details that make it believable. For example, the only thing in that bridge shot that's weird to me is how, to the east of the bridge, there seems to be a rather abrupt cliff, with no clear route/road to navigate it. Other than that, it's exactly as I said (that you seem to have ignored?): what if no one CARES about crossing the river to the north because no one LIVES up there? There's a nice stone road to the west, so maybe there's a nice settlement/city/keep over there, and there's a bridge that connects to that eastern landmass below the northern river. So, what if there's a settlement over there, protected on the north by the river? And the only way they care about going at the place where that bridge is built is west, to NiceStoneRoadVille. That seems like a perfectly possible thing, so unless you have information I don't about the specifics of that map/environment, I don't understand why you're saying that it just in no way makes any sense for a river/canyon to exist over which a bridge is not constructed.

I think he just meant that comparing removing knowledge of the lines and bases from baseball is not remotely the same as removing the DC targets and health statuses from enemies in PE. (Whereas you may have just meant that there are obviously reasonable limits to obfuscation and the question is merely where to draw the line). That bit you've got in parentheses is exactly what I meant. My comparison was between knowledge and the effects/necessity of that knowledge, and not between lines in baseball and DCs in RPGs. Honestly, though, there is a bit of similarity, even there, because some of the choices you make are based on the knowledge of specific goals. For example, if you want your character to be really good at picking locks, how can you do that if you have no frame of reference for how much lockpicking skill will be needed to pick the average lock? "Oh, well, I'll just put all 15 skill points this level-up into Lockpicking, just in case!". Oh, look, the locks are STILL too hard to pick. But you don't know that, because all it tells you is "you didn't pick it." You could be 1 point away, or 15 points away. So, you level up again, and just pump all 15 points into lockpicking again. But you really only needed 1. Granted, that's just an example of similarity. I'm not saying you need to show lockpicking DC or all is lost. But, the point is, you can still give a message such as "this lock is beyond you," or "with enough time, you feel like you can probably bypass this lock," or "It's being a bit tricky, but it should be easy enough." Etc. Just like the "Injured, Badly Injured, Near Death" indicators, as opposed to HP. You don't know if something's at 10/100, or 100/1000 HP when it says "near death," but you at LEAST know that it's actually quite injured as compared to being perfectly healthy. You're not just guessing in the dark as to whether or not it would be prudent to fire every ability everyone has at that big foe, or just make more frugal decisions. Again (again, again, again... ), my point is simply that there's a threshold at which point you're detrimenting the very tactical nature of the combat system, itself, and significance of the choices. Less-exact instead of exact feedback is one thing, but 0 feedback instead of any amount of feedback (in any given factor/area) is usually not a good idea. Usually. Sometimes it's fine. Just depends, really. 0 feedback in ALL areas is definitely a bad idea, as, without information, you're not making tactical decisions. You're just guessing. And guessing has nothing to do with tactics. As long as you maintain the basic amount of information/feedback necessary for the player to make meaningful choices (even if that's sometimes the choice to diligently gather MORE information, manually, to make even MORE meaningful decisions, at the cost of the time/resources spent gathering it), everything's fine. I'm not here to argue every single factor and scenario that could possibly cross that threshold, versus all the ones that couldn't. I'm just pointing out the threshold. Nothing more, nothing less. TL;DR -- Obfuscating all the things is a bad idea, and I don't think they'll do that, and I'm just curious as to exactly what will be obfuscated, and how/to-what-degree, in Expert Mode.

Pre-xactly! Ex-cisely! The choice for foods, for example, shouldn't be between 5 apples or 5 rocks. Apples actually provide you with nourishment. Rocks... blatantly do nothing for your nourishment. But, then it also shouldn't be between 50 apples and 3 oranges. Now, maybe it's not EXACTLY the same number of both fruits, but, even 50 apples versus 50 oranges is going to provide you with two different outcomes, despite the exactly identical quantities. Oranges are oranges, and apples are apples. Do you want the flavor and vitamins of the apples? Or the flavor and vitamins of the oranges? Obviously, there are always going to be variances in effectiveness. But, the only idea is to get rid of any apples-vs-rocks type choices, and any BLATANT 50 apples versus 3 oranges type choices. Not to get rid of all choice effectiveness variance whatsoever. That's pretty much the only argument people come back with, is "Oh, so everything should be EXACTLY THE SAME?!". And no, it shouldn't. But there's a lot of other things something can be besides "identical" or "blatantly inferior."

@JFSOCC: It doesn't do me much good to tell me you didn't read my too-much-text. If you just don't say anything about it or call me by name at all, I'll assume you didn't read it. Either way, I don't think anything less of you. I just thought I'd point that out. @Neo: Exactly! CRPGs just simplified it down to an 8-hour chunk. There really isn't any prior basis for saying "If you don't sleep for 8 hours, you can't prepare ANY spells again!". I mean, maybe if you only got 3 hours of sleep, you'd be too tired to maintain the mental state necessary to prepare ALL your spells, for the full duration. But, that was pretty much up to the DM to handle. And, again, it was pretty simple. Like it said... minimum of 15 minutes, but, otherwise, pretty much just fractions. IF all your spells for the day takes an hour, then half of them probably takes 30 minutes...ish. Obviously it would depend on spells. 2 LvL 9 spells probably take more time than 2 LvL 0 spells, for example. Annnnnywho...