Lephys

Some just seem to act as though there shouldn't even ever be a reason TO reload in the first place. As if, ideally, no misfortune would ever occur, for any reason. Like "Oh, that person got hit... can't believe the devs would punish me by making me deal with less-than-full HP for the rest of the battle! RELOAD!". Or "Oh no, I got poisoned? Why should I have to deal with that status effect? AT LEAST I CAN RELOAD, even though I shouldn't have to. Negative things are BAD!" I don't see what makes any negative affects/results being in the game a good/okay thing if something like maiming is bad. SOMEthing has to happen when you hit 0HP. The realistic basis would be death. But, it's a game, so maybe that's too extreme, especially considering the amount of time and effort that went into writing all that character's reactivity and content for the entire narrative. So, cool, we abstractly assume that, so long as anyone was still alive to kill the remainder of the hostile entities, they gave basic enough medical attention to the "downed" people to at least stabilize them. Maiming. But wait, maiming is bad, too? Then what should happen when you hit 0HP? Nothing? That's what I don't get, Kore. What you said makes perfect sense. It's one thing to simply desire to reload and do better at that combat, almost as if it's a puzzle. Or for whatever reason, really. But, to act as though the very idea of some kind of negative factor to deal with for allowing a character to hit 0HP (something that's actively preventable) is astonishing or unacceptable... that boggles my mind.

That's a pretty cool system, given what you were working with. Here's something else I just noticed: cRPGs basically evolved from PnP rulesets, right? Well, in PnP, the whole process is basically just mathematically simulated. Why? Because we don't have an interface, or something other than dice rolls and numbers to represent what's going on. So, you can't really offer the player "unique gameplay," because it's the same gameplay as the rest of the game. It's the same reason you couldn't give PnP players epic, real-time combat, but a video game can. And, in that same way, imagine if you were playing a game like P:E, and combat was just a bunch of turn-based dialogue prompts, asking you what you want to do. It would probably be a bit less exciting than real-time (or even graphical turn-based) combat, right? That's kind of the thing I'm getting at, with most crafting systems. Even though there is a lot you can do with the structure and complexity of the math itself, we tend to not go much beyond the behind-the-scenes math when it comes to the entire crafting system. In a game, I mean. *GASP*... I just got an idea. Okay, this is related, but it's not really INCREDIBLY related to what we were just immediately talking about. But, just to crafting, and P:E. What if the crafting system were built around scripted events? I know, I know, I just talked about dialogue options being lame, heh. But, I just mean, what if, to represent the actual crafting process, you sort of have "Oh no, this happened" or something, and you have an illustrated representation for whatever it is you're trying to make, along with choices of what to attempt to do about the current circumstances? So, the crafting system wouldn't be nothing BUT a scripted event, but the crafting process could make use of them. *shrug* That was just a rogue thought. Sorry. Anywho, back to what I was saying, I'm not as concerned with the accurate simulation of all aspects of crafting as I am with the accurate representation (abstracted though it may be in the actual controls/gameplay) of the dynamics of the crafting process. What makes one smith in town produce better swords than the other smith, if they're using the same supplies and facilities? That sort of thing. Again, I'll look to combat: You have plenty of things already determined for you. But you still get to decide how to use the tools you have, and how to react to what's going on. Sometimes you BARELY win a combat, when, if you play it again, you might win it with ease. Same tools... same player skills, etc. You get to actually influence the active process of combat, rather than it JUST being some math and dice rolls, then either victory or defeat. Crafting just so often feels like blackjack. You just have some values, roll some dice, and see what happens immediately afterwards. Did you get closer to 21 than the dealer? YOU WIN! Did you not, or you went over 21? YOU LOSE! Worse is when you can't "lose" (with crafting), and there's absolutely no fluctuation in the possible outcome. You have 5 ingots? You have 20 skill? You clicked a button? *POOF*... SWORD! Soooooo bland. So bland. It's absolutely no different from looking at a merchant's wares, having 50gp, having NO skill, and clicking a button. So, basically, points spent in a skill = free/discounted goods. The only dynamic is the list of goods you can acquire or not acquire via the crafting "system." That's the simplest I think we can get it. And a lot of games still do that. Now, I'm not saying P:E's going to do that, but... I just feel like we can do better than that, in this day and age. And I encourage thought on the possibilities of how we can do better, and what would make it better. And I think that, at the very least, you've got to make the system itself deeper... more substantial. There's got to be more to it than needing resources, having resources, and clicking a button. Something engaging. Something that lets you actually influence the process, for better or worse. All that being said, I actually hate systems in which you can "fail" at making something, and your materials are just gone. I can see you failing to make a functional enough sword (there ends up being a big crack in it, or it breaks irreparably in the forging process, etc., due to lack of skill, and/or flukes, and/or what-have-you). But, you'd probably just lose a little bit of material, as you could melt the remaining lump of metal back down just as well as you could melt ore, I would think. Re-process the metal, even if you didn't do it yourself (if you just forge the processed metal). Anywho... I don't think it has to do with time. I don't think it needs to take a minute per item crafted just to make it interesting. Again, I'm not after simulating things like "it takes this long to shape metal." Just as combat doesn't take time merely because real combat takes time. Combat takes time, because it takes time to control and play through combat. Some combats are very short, but can still be as intense or engaging as prolonged ones. I think a crafting system would do well to focus on the uniqueness specific to THIS ONE crafting attempt, just as combat does. Did you kill those 5 orcs with only 3 spells? Did someone die? Did everyone lose a little HP? Did you use up arrows? Did someone alert other orcs in the area? How you perform determines the outcome of that particular iteration of combat, even if it's just another victory. And I think a system that lets you make dynamic choices and take action in each specific iteration of crafting (even if it's still a really short duration) to make a SPECIFIC iron sword, instead of some universal recipe of iron sword, would be awesome. That's where crafting can be different from simply buying things at a merchant. That blacksmith he gets his stuff from get orders for like 20 swords a day. So, he just does the exact same thing every day. But you... you're only concerned with this one sword you're making, for the moment. You don't have a day's workload to get through. You're shaping the metal like clay, like a sculptor. Maybe you shape the blade differently, or reheat and hammer the metal differently, or start with a different-shaped mold, etc. Maybe you hammer more softly, but more often. *shrug*. I dunno... all that's abstracted. But, it could still be represented. Maybe you make an iron sword with a better edge that's lighter than the ones sold by that merchant. OR, maybe you make one that's slightly inferior (ever-so-slightly). But, you wouldn't be making it if you wouldn't benefit from an iron sword, right? If you already had that, or better, then why would you spend time and resources trying to make a good iron sword? So, you still get an iron sword that's better than what you had (some copper sword or something... I'm using very vague, cliche examples here, I know). AND it cost you less than that one from the merchant would have. All you had to buy was materials, and you put your own labor in. The only problem I know of with a system like that is the whole "I don't want to make 7,000 iron swords!" thing, which is commonly seen in MMO systems. But, that doesn't have to be the case. Earlier on, with common things, the variance would be a lot slighter. A) because there's only so good of a sword you can make from iron, and B) because you're only going to be so skilled until later on in the game, as you progress over time. So, later, you not only have a greater margin for exceptional forgings, but also a higher skill that supports this. As well as just plain greater capabilities for making fancy-shmancy things that often aren't simply sold left and right in stalls throughout the market square. So, if you choose crafting, you're already spending points on the skill, and you're acquiring the materials, and putting in the time and effort (admittedly little, but it's time and effort, nonetheless). And the more you invest in the skill and materials, the better the chances that what you'll make will be not only better than but also UNIQUE as compared to Generic Iron Sword at the shop. All those bandits are running around with run-of-the-mill iron swords, and your Fighter's got his own custom-made iron sword that's 7% sharper (extra bleed chance, or extra damage against no-armor?), or is better balanced so as to boost his attack/action speed with it, etc. A steel sword (I realize steel and iron are not different materials, so to speak, btw...) would be better, still, but you've got YOUR OWN iron sword, and not the same one everyone else is using. *shrug*. I just think you could have fun dynamics in crafting, without it being super tedious and time-consuming, and get some fun dynamic results out of it. And it would intuitively feel a lot more like CRAFTING, and not "free item acquisition because I put points in a skill." In combat, you don't just go "Damn... a troll. I absolutely cannot kill that troll right now, with 27 Swordsmanship skill. But if I put 5 points in it next level up, and get the Troll Death recipe, and 10 damage worth of sword, I should be able to craft its death at that point with the single click of a button and some behind-the-scenes math." So why shouldn't we take a pointer from combat for crafting? Sorry for the length. Got carried away here. That's just my take on crafting, in general. In how I feel it should be approached, and why. There are ways to do it I haven't even thought of, but I just made some examples of fundamental ways in which I think it can be much better.

Going with what Trashman is saying, and throwing in the lockpicking example Agris just brought up: Would you play a game in which nothing even told you the results of your lockpicking attempt? You don't even know how many lockpicks you have in your inventory, or whether or not you unlocked the door, or a lockpick broke...? You just play, and everything is obfuscated, MUAHAHAH! Wouldn't that be a bit overboard? So, I mean... there's definitely a "not enough information" point somewhere on the scale. I mean, what good is tactical combat if your decision is between attacking Creature A with God-only-knows how many HP left (is it 10, or 1000?), or attacking Creature B with God-only-knows how many HP left? Doesn't matter if you use numbers or not. But, why should your character be incapable of detecting slumping/slowing/extreme bloodflow out of a wound/etc. in the enemy you're slicing up? Or, if you're fighting a human, how do you not know that putting that sword all the way through his shoulder and out his back damaged him quite a bit? You yourself being human... could you not at the very least imagine the effects of the same thing happening to you, and estimate from there?

It's only useless when you miss the point of it. I don't comprehend what makes my examples so confusing... You see, if we take your pigeon example, and make the argument "the amount of weight a pigeon is carrying is problematic," instead of "pigeons on roofs are problematic," it makes perfect sense. And if you were trying to illustrate this with further example, would you use a pigeon carrying 7 ounces of weight, versus a pigeon carrying 8.3 ounces of weight, and explain the subtle intricacies of the now-mandatory specific data that comes from both sets of circumstances? Or would you simply compare the effects of a pigeon carrying nothing to a pigeon carrying a blatantly heavy load? Yeah... so, when I make an example about the time/effort difference between classes in a system that has a varied leveling scheme, I'm not going to say "What if the Warrior levels up in about an hour of play, and the Wizard levels up in about an hour, 3 minutes and 22 seconds of play?". Because the point is in the relationship. What my whole argument is based on is simply that progression is already staggered by the sheer existence of the leveling system, and that further staggering is a bit redundant. It's not about which version of D&D had what, or whether or not P:E is going to use it, or the number of pounds a pigeon can carry on a roof... It was a very simple comment. I feel that the "your class must gain another 1500XP to level up than this other class" system is not a very good design choice, as its cons outweigh its pros. Regardless of the extent of the cons, they are still proportionally greater than the pros. Yes, I did. Why? Because it was noticeable. Both in the PnP versions that had staggered level-up schemes AND in the games in which these schemes were used... My main character was a Wizard, and Imoen (in BG) was Level 3 by the time I hit level 2. Not to mention I barely gained any capabilities at level 2, but that's beside the point (since that's a completely different design choice -- even with an extra 2,000XP of delay before I level, I could still gain plenty of stuff at the next level, or nothing at all... which is kind of the point in my "this is redundant" argument). Or, allow me to correct myself: I didn't notice it "adversely." I simply noticed it, and the fact that it was completely unnecessary. As I said, they already gave me jack-crap as a Level 2 Wizard as compared to a Level 2 Warrior or Rogue, so why delay the already-delayed things I gain? My argument isn't that this ruined the game because it's so bad. Merely that it's pointless. Every time I greet a friend, I could stab him in the leg with a small needle. That's not going to do any lasting damage. It's too small of a wound for him to bleed to death or need medical attention. But, what GOOD is it doing anyone? None. So, why not NOT do it? And I have no idea what you mean by "isn't even on a regular basis anymore." The whole POINT is that it's on a regular basis: Your Level 2 is 1500 instead of 1000, then your level 3 is 4500 instead of 3000, then your level 5 is 7500 instead of 5000. See? Relationship... point... is this not making sense? If you stagger the XP requirement for leveling for different classes, you create an unnecessary gap in progression, itself, ON TOP OF pacing the progression already based on what is gained at which level. Fair enough. Here's another sensible example: Your party is comprised entirely of the same class -- 6 Fighters. Now what? Do they level at different times? They sure don't. Now, if they were to, say, gain slightly varying amounts of XP for various dynamic circumstantial bonuses... then they'd still level at different times, but it wouldn't be arbitrarily dictated by their class. If you can point out one way in which basing the stagger on sheer class choice is beneficial in a way that another scheme cannot be (to justify the pretty arbitrary "you have to wait longer to gain any amount of new anything," regardless of how great or small that added duration consistently is), then I'll give credit where credit is do. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying that I cannot think of an example, and at the moment, I can't think of anything that would be useful OTHER THAN such an example, in counter to my argument. I'm not. I've already told you... it's not about balancing! I'm saying the ONLY thing that leveling scheme actually accomplishes is redundant balancing. Yeah, that's not the reason for implementing it, which makes it even worse that it affects it. Why would you not care about arbitrary redundancy? So, you're both saying I'm wrong about this particular method being rendered pointless by the greater pro-to-con ratio of alternative methods, AND acknowledging here that this particular method is unnecessary thanks to the the other known solutions you've listed in another post? I don't understand the purpose of your argument. It would be one thing if it was mere intellectual analysis, for whatever it was worth. But, you're actively fighting my simple observations and points, then acting as though you're not actually arguing counter to my simple observations and points. It's quite confusing. o_O

@Zimcub: You are being outright irrational at this point, so further "discussion" is a bit moot. Believe it or don't, but your correctness is not the topic of this thread, so I'll not be continuing on the matter.

The "wow, I can't believe unwanted things occur when I don't do something like make sure to keep my characters away from 'death' -- Thank God for reloading!" mindset still blows my mind. If reloading is a convenient, yet roundabout way to avoid pointless limitations, then should we just go ahead and have infinite HP? Invulnerable party guarantees you never have to inconveniently try things again! 8D! I take it having to deal with death and death-like penalties is just another way in which the game is telling us we're playing it wrong.

Nemir... if you're going to reload because a companion died, then how is allowing them to simply be "maimed" instead of "gone forever" any different from a reload, skipping the reload? You wanna talk about the oldies? Baldur's Gate. Someone dies, they're dead. People stop attacking them in combat, why? Because they're dead. Then, you make your way to a temple, and pay the priest like 500 gold... BOOM, resurrection. They weren't dead and gone forever. So, with maiming (which is an option), instead of having to go pay money somewhere to get someone to come back to life, your price is that you pay their capability until you get them healed up again. Same thing, really, just mildly different logistics. Again, if you want perma-death without any kind of resurrection, ever, then that A) wasn't in most of the "oldies" like this, and B) is actually apparently an option in P:E. And if you don't want that, then you pick maiming. Or you pick perma-death, then re-load every time someone dies. *Shrug*. Either way, you circumvent the actual consequences of playing through the rest of the game without that person, or you don't. I'm not sure why it matters why accomplishing this should be trickier rather than easier.

You should label all the offices, cubicles, and meeting rooms with column-row identifiers, for funsies. I can see that happening when things get hectic. "And can you go tell G7 that he needs to put the new cover sheets on his DPS reports?!" "Sir, his name is Henr-" "YOU DARE QUESTION THE SPREADSHEET?!"

Psh... all we have to do is get 2-3 dollars from a million people. We'll spread donation links on Facebook, and I bet that many people would click the links before they even read what the money was for.

That's true (I missed that picture before). And yet, it's still better than a simple recipe list, in which "Gladius" and "Masterwork Gladius" are merely two different products you can make with two different recipes. Again, ultimately, all the craftable items are coded into the game somewhere, do you're fundamentally dealing with a huge recipe list. But the system itself doesn't have to be presented to the player as a mere shopping list. Dynamicize the way in which materials and resources can be obtained and/or used, and you've a system that's better still. Besides, I don't see a lack of value in discussing potentials for crafting system improvements merely because P:E doesn't end up using them. Essentially, the farther you can get from a shopping list with resources as currency, the better (to a degree). So, it's not about going a certain distance, but about not settling for the most basic implementation known to mankind, that we've seen in games for about 20 years now. Plus, look at it. You've got things like your crafting skill affecting material loss, so that you've got more than just a number goal to reach to be ABLE to craft the item, but also the choice of boosting your crafting further to be able to make more items out of fewer materials. And the techniques could add all kinds of options to the crafting of even basic equipment. You could have different techniques that are exclusive to material types, and all manner of methods by which you obtain these techniques (not to mention the schematics, themselves). Plus, it looks like the specific techniques you attempt to apply will further affect the difficulty of that specific crafting attempt, as well as (one would think) factors such as material loss chance, etc. It might even be possible to salvage things you find to gain metals/materials (since, in that screenshot, it appears material stocks will be measured via weight/mass and not quantity of items like ore chunks and/or ingots.) That's apparently just a screenshot from Age of Decadence, but, still... if P:E were to use a very similar system, it would still be a good ways beyond the level of oversimplicity that I'd like nothing to do with.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind the game telling you, after your character has knowledge of such things, that your standard sword attack will deal "high" damage against some kobold (for example). In the same way that striking the kobold, then observing the fact that he is clearly "near death" provides the same information. If you do that against one kobold, then run into another seconds later, you shouldn't just have absolutely no clue as to how effective your sword and strength and skill should be in a slash against that kobold, as you now comprehend the relative level of resiliency of a kobold (empirically, from observing the effects of your own attack.) Granted, it could be a significantly different/larger kobold, or a kobold wearing different armor, etc. Anywho, the point is, I'm cool with the game providing you with information so you don't have to just remember "Hmm... about how well did my sword work against that kobold I fought an hour ago? 'Cause there's another kobold here now," but it still doesn't have to tell you anything you don't already know, and it certainly doesn't need to tell you exact numbers. If there was any factor in place that you were uncertain of, the info would either be absent ("damage: ???") or would be marked as your character's best guess.

Without preparation, yes. Without a spellbook? I dunno about that. It's possible the at-will (infini-cast) spells will not require a book, I suppose, or something along those lines... But, I'm pretty sure the Wizard's entire spell system, for the most part, is based around the use of equipped grimoires (almost so that they are the magical, functional equivalent of an equipped weapon). If spells were lasers, the grimoire would be the lens that focuses the Wizard's light to produce them.

Don't read too much into this. I have never been on a game where we didn't have a tough choice deciding what goes into the game and what gets excluded. You could send the choice back to the kitchen, and stress the fact that you specifically ordered your choices medium-rare.

Splendidly informative update, ^_^! Before now, I just assumed that when you had difficult choices, you rolled percentile and looked at a table of various options for the 0-100 range. Or, you know, if you really wanted to cut a feature, maybe the team sends the person with the highest Charisma to choose "*Sad puppy face* [Charisma]" in their dialogue options, and then you'd let them keep working on it. Seriously, though... I know all the logistical and administrative production aspects don't usually get a lot of attention, because they don't directly generate tangible things (environment art, quest programming) that show in the end result. But, I like to think of you as the special forces of the game development military: No one really sees what you do, but everyone sees the results of your having done it and done it well. And, I have to say, we very, very much appreciate it. It's very nice to have a bit of a rundown on all that behind-the-scenes work and effort, and we'll remember that every time we jog our little party around in a 3x3 area in the game and talk to people and complete quests.

It's not a strawman, because A) It wasn't even aimed at anyone's argument, so it cannot misrepresent an argument when it's not representing an argument in the first place, and B) it was just an example as to why I feel that the "different XP amounts for leveling different classes" is objectively problematic. It's not even about balancing, even though it would probably serve that end as a side-effect. What I'm saying is, when, in a game, does a player ever think it's fun to forego any tangible progression for an even longer period of time, just to receive a larger dose of progression all at once when it DOES occur? Or, to put it better, when is the introduction of a change/upgrade/new thing to which to react on a regular basis a BAD thing, for gameplay in general? Also, as I said, if you've already got a hierarchy for abilities (you don't gain level 20 abilities until you reach level 20, so that's already a longer wait than level 2 abilities, for example), how is delaying level-ups for certain classes not redundant? "This ability is structured into levels already, so that you don't get it until you've progressed a certain amount... but now, we're going to make you have to progress even MORE because of how powerful this ability is (because we've designed it that way), instead of adjusting the ability's power and/or simply placing it at a higher tier/level." You could go even further by adjusting how much XP gain they get, using the exact same principle. "Since your level 2 stuff is so awesome compared to other people's, it's going to take twice as much XP to get to level 2... AND you're only going to get .8 XP for every 1 XP other classes get." And so on, and so forth. Don't get me wrong... it achieves a goal. I'm just wondering how it wouldn't be more efficient to achieve the exact same goal in a different manner, one that doesn't sacrifice progression rate for progression potency. And yet, a Wizard can utilize Illusion magic in order to accomplish things with equal amounts of Stealth, thereby making him a better master of Illusion, and, in-turn, Stealth. There isn't really an end result that's exclusive to one class or the other (in terms of something such as "attacking from the shadows.") Now, if you're talking about the method by which you do something (even if it's the same end result as someone else could do) contributing more to one's progression, then I'm all for that. It was just unclear to me, if that's what was being spoken of. Of course, it would need to be something that dynamically altered the options for handling the scenario, but was exclusive to that class's potency. Example: There are magical detectors in place, so to magically illusion your way down the stealthy path, you'd have to somehow eliminate the detectors, etc. But, the awesomely stealthy Rogue could simply utilize non-magical stealth mastery to much more efficiently/effectively slip past undetected. Boom. Rogue bonus for Roguery. Or rather, a bonus, in general, for being a Rogue happening to provide a benefit, in this instance, that being not-a-Rogue could not provide. In other words, I still think determining XP gains based on what is accomplished is the best way of handling it. I'm not very enthusiastic about any kind of "The Fighter skillfully slew all these enemies head-on, so he gets bonus XP for behaving Fighterly, and the Rogue skillfully backstabbed all his opponents without being seen, so he gets bonus XP for behaving Roguishly" system, if there is no change in factors based on the method used: all the enemies are dead now, either way, and everything else remains the same. I'm not suggesting that I'm arguing directly against anyone there. I'm simply stating my thoughts on the subject.

Do I acknowledge your command to ignore you, thereby doing the OPPOSITE of ignoring you? Or do I pay attention to you, thereby obviously not ignoring you? AHHHH!!! *rips out hair*

"Hi, I'm Dale... But my friends call me Icewind."

Nemir... with all due respect to your argument, they haven't removed permadeath. They've given the option to deal with it in two different ways. It's hardly any different from offering various difficulty levels. You're playing on hard, and someone else gets to set the game to easy? They've REMOVED CHALLENGE?! No. They've simply offered people the chance to play against a less ruthless amount of difficulty. What are you going to do if you play with permadeath on and 50% of your companions die? Is it okay for someone to ever replay that game in such a manner that those companions DON'T die? Whether it's reloading, or replaying the entire game? If so, then why not let people take the option of not having to replay the entire game just to make up for a tiny mistake? And the people who want to roll with companions being fully dead because of a combat mistake can do so. I also agree with Tamerlane that, ideally, their deaths would impact the story more, instead of JUST impacting the player's toolset. But, that is an awful lot of content to make just for an un-ideal scenario (even with their deaths affecting the story in a unique way, the game already dictates that, ideally, the goal is to prevent them from dying.) So, *shrug*.

I think you slightly misunderstand what it is I'd prefer to avoid. I want to avoid a level of simplicity that makes a crafting system merely an alternative procurement system. I mean... how silly would it be to have a Looting skill, for instance? "Oh, your Looting is 50? Well, NOW when you kill a Troll and 3 Orcs, you'll get a Crescent Axe of Flame +2, 8D!" Pretty silly, right? Or a Buying skill? "Oh, you have 50 Buying? Well, NOW, you know the recipe for a Bastard Sword; just get 500gp, and click a button to turn it into a Bastard Sword! 8D!" There's no point in having a crafting system that's just "you spent items instead of currency, and the forge was the vendor." Not to me, at least. Not with today's level of technology and coding know-how. I think we can actually have a system that allows for significant decision-making and exploration. Everything else in an RPG has gotten some form of dynamics now, over the years. And with crafting, we just settle for a tiered hierarchy of collections and trades, and call it a day. It's a bit silly. Everything is designed to make it as effortless and unobtrusive as possible supposedly because crafting's just lame and not worth anyone's time, but then, it's lame and not worth anyone's time because of the minimum-effort design, for one thing. No one complains that combat takes up more than 1.2-seconds of button-clicking of their time. Why? Because it's fun. Why? Because the design makes it fun and engaging. Combat isn't just-plain inherently fun. Trust me... I've played some games in which it's treated almost as crudely as crafting typically is, and it's just as boring and sigh-worthy. And no, I'm not saying crafting should be equally as time-requiring as combat throughout the entire game. But, it also doesn't need to be as miniscule in scope as possible.

*shrug*. Some people don't want their characters to die-die. Forever-sies. So, instead of reloading the game every time someone dies, to achieve their "no one's wiped from the face of the earth just because I'm not skilled enough at this game" playthrough, they can simply go on with their virtual lives and simply deal with a "death" penalty, so that combat still encourages them to make sure no one dies. Just not "OR ELSE!" If you're actually going to continue playing after someone has died, never to use them ever again (because you screwed up 30 minutes into the game), foregoing an entire playthrough's worth of companion reactivity and content... I'd call that relatively hardcore, if I were going to assess death options and rate them as hard-or-soft-core.

I think that's an oversimplification of the "quest-only XP" system. Yes, you will only gain XP for accomplishing things and handling situations. Specifically, for completing things labeled as "objectives" by the game code. However, whether through stated sub-objectives, or simply hidden handlings of different methods of accomplishing a different objective, you could receive a different amount of XP depending on exactly what you accomplished and how you accomplished it. I seriously doubt even the majority of quests objectives are going to be as simple as "get to dee choppah!", where "if character (any) exists at location (choppah), then + 100 EXPERIENCE! 8D!" is how it's handled. And any outcome of that scenario in which the choppah is destroyed or something just = 0 XP. Also, I'm not following why one of the main ideas is to grant varying amounts of XP for things depending on class: A Rogue is going to get a slight, permanent bonus to the Stealth skill, but the Stealth skill does not belong to the Rogue. You could feasibly have a Wizard with 100 Stealth, and a Rogue with only 70. Why, then, would the Rogue receive more XP for sneaky objective accomplishment than the Wizard? I think the best way to handle that is to have certain methods of accomplishing said objective (or accomplishing some objective/handling the situation) to require a given amount of skill in something, and for points spent in that skill to therefore allow for the gain of the adjusted XP reward for the results of the application of that amount of skill. In other words, it might be impossible to sneak through a given area with only 20 Stealth. It might be EASY to do so with 90. But, somewhere in there, it's possible, but really tough, then easier, an easier, all the way up to 90. You still have to manually have your characters sneak through, though. It's not a hard-coded thing. Therefore, if something is gained by not-alerting those you're sneaking past, then that should be it's own sub-objective, at the very least. And maybe you won't always know what those sub-objectives are (maybe you don't know something is gained by being sneaky until you do so and discover some documents that the enemies burn once the alarm is sounded, etc.). It's probably best to stick to XP based upon the results of your actions, and allow variances in skills and skillsets and such to make the achievement of those particular results easier or tougher, possible or impossible. Also, I'm really not a fan of the "This class levels at 2,000, this one levels at 4,000" setup, because you can already adjust what is gained and what isn't at each level. There's no point in making one person play for 5 hours and another (just because he picked a different class) play for only 1, just to allow them to gain SOME amount of anything new, when you could just spread the potency of that 5-hour class's level-up out across 5 different one-hour level-ups. (Just for what it's worth... Not counter-arguing against anyone in particular on that system.)

Conveniently restrained to using only a small portion of his total power (and rarely, at that) by some potent principles and/or the Forces of Benevolence themselves. "Don't worry, I'll only let it get to the point that it SEEMS all hope is lost. Then, I'll jump in with just enough power to ignite a tiny pile of hope leaves again. I'm sure all you guys can do the rest... you know... with your completely-average-Joe-levels of power, and not my unbelievably ludicrous capabilities. *whistle, skip whistle...* ^_^"

Then why don't you use your time efficiently (and save yourself the trouble of having to type out all this stuff in argument to what I'm not even saying) by actually reading my posts, then followup clarifications? You are mistaken. All I said was that we only know what we actually know, and that, regarding unknown things, speculation is all fine and dandy and leads to productive discussion, while assumption is arbitrary and leads to a dead end. I didn't say anything about anyone in particular in this thread, because I didn't even bring it up. If I had been talking about a particular post, I would've cited it. It's the mindset I was getting at. Why is it important that some people in other threads have done it? Because this is a forum, and we're all humans, and we're all capable of taking things too far, even inadvertently, and I've seen a lot of people (yes, even in this thread) that start venturing dangerously close to that mindset, of focusing SO hard on the most negative sheer possibilities they can that they start disliking the game based on what it could possibly be, rather than on what it will actually be. And while that isn't quite a dead end, it's the path to it, and I encourage people to keep that in mind, and to focus on exploring the possibilities they would like to see rather than all-but-assuming the ones they wouldn't are going to ruin the game. I don't see how encouragement to remain objective and unassumptive (I know, probably not an actual word) to maintain the quality of discussion is irrelevant to a discussion. Do you wait until someone burns himself on a stove that you knew was hot to warn him about it, or do you tell him beforehand, "Hey, just so you know, you're awfully close to that stove, and it's actually quite hot"? Maybe he knew. Maybe he didn't. Encouraging information doesn't label people as idiots. It's not a hostile gesture or accusation. No, you pushed me because you misunderstood my words, and instead of saying "I don't know what you're trying to say here" or asking for clarification, you just decided "assume that whatever it seems to ME that he's saying -- even though I'm aware that I'm unclear as to the actual meaning of his argument -- is precisely what he's intending, because he's voluntarily being an ambiguous, misleading shady politician." If you misunderstand, so be it. But I don't appreciate being told that I'm intentionally misleading you for the sake of deception and trickery. That's not a very nice accusation. Never, ever said I expected that. I only said that, since they haven't commented on the specifics, we don't know that quests will be like Candlekeep quests. So there's no need to point out a "flaw" in a quest system that is dependent upon the game being filled with Candlekeep-like quests. True story. And no, for the record, I'm not alleging that you said some specific thing. I'm merely clarifying what I've ACTUALLY stated as compared to what you're alleging I'm arguing, above. If you require further clarification from me, please ask. I've never claimed that I'm the perfect communicator, and you're dumb if you don't get my exact meaning instantly. But, if you're not going to ask and help me be more clear about whatever it is that isn't clear (regarding my thoughts and posts), then I'll save us both the perpetuation of your misunderstandings. Your choice.

Crest! Crest! Crest! *waits for everyone to join in the chanting.*

Just so you know, beta access most likely isn't going to be "here's just an early-yet-complete build of our game. Play away! 8D!" It'll probably just be specific system-testing scenarios, such as encounters and combat with various weapons/equipment at your disposal, or dummy dialogues and miniquests to make sure dialogues and quests are working properly. More functionality than actual "yay, I'm experiencing the P:E story with the P:E characters and all the abilities and such! This is AWESOME!" More science lab with a clipboard. Less party with glowsticks.