Lephys

It's clear now that, when some of us play... we play for keeps. Really, though, it's likely they can incorporate a reasonable amount of building-type upgrades with the stronghold without making things overly complex. Unless the narrative doesn't last longer than a couple of months, total, there's probably time to construct lots of improvements, such as gate reinforcements, forge improvements, barracks upgrades, digging out an old well, etc. There are plenty of things that could both functionally and narratively enhance the gameplay that don't take forever-and-a-day to do.

^ I just don't understand the idea that something's an ability and is active-use being your criteria for what's problematic, is all. Shield bash. Does your Warrior just constantly shield bash, passively, as a function of holding a shield? Trip. Is he just automatically going to try to trip everyone he comes in contact with? What if they're super awesome at swordplay, and taking the time to attempt to trip them gets you gutted? I understand the improper implementation of them, or their arbitrary supernatural-ness. But, why would Warriors be devoid of active-use techniques to use when and on-whom the player chooses? I don't think their being active/activated automatically makes them just like magic. In short, I fully understand your concerns and complaints, but I feel like you're attributing the faults and potential problems of improper implementation to any and all implementation of anything that isn't passive.

Excellent point! I wonder about that, too! I mean, if you have 30 Power, and then you've got a sword that deals 5-10 damage, do you deal 35-40 damage, as opposed to some other person with only 10 Power, with the same sword, doing only 15-20? Or does your Power modify your weapon's damage? Maybe stats, like Power (or whatever it shall be named) ARE on a d100 scale, but represent a percentage multiplier, so that 30 Power equals 130% of 5-10 damage? I mean, I know logic and mathematics prove that numbers on a scale of 1-100 can only be added to produce other effects on a scale of 1-100, and that multiplication and other operations are quantum warpings of the math. But... you know... people like me don't know that. And I need people like you inform me just how incapable of comprehending it I am, while failing to actually explain, because of that very incapacity. Numbers are pretty... 8P You mean Defender? The one that trades attack rate for the ability to engage +2 targets via the melee engagement system? Is it going to boost their Deflection value AND decrease their attack Accuracy AND decrease their attack rate AND grant them an additional 2 engagement targets? That seems a bit excessive... o_o Also, Josh didn't mention an ability. He just mentioned a Fighter starting with more Deflection than other people. I figured he was referring to a passive difference, like the one you said was flavor because it was only a measly 2-3 points of advantage. Of course, maybe he wasn't... I'm just curious for the details of the official system. You said you knew them, so I got a bit excited. But it turns out there are a few stray ones. Which is nothing to worry about. You were just trying to help, on account of my feeble-mindedness. We'll find it all out, in due time, ^_^

So you don't actually know, then... Seemed like an awful lot of words to say "I don't really know for sure." Your complimentary belittlement is always appreciated, though. Helps keep me grounded, ^_^ Not that I possess reasoning skills, as you well know, but it just seems like maybe there could be a non 1:1 translation between attack/defense values and points on the 1-100 to-hit scale. Exhibit A: It seems as though, either the Fighter's gonna get a crap-ton more points of starting difference than has been hinted at thus far, OR points actually don't translate 1:1. I mean, just because you're up against a Fighter, and you're not higher level than he is, you'll probably "wind up missing a lot more than 5% of the time"? Doesn't sound like a 3% shift to me. Of course, it could be. It simply seems as though it might not be as you've assumed, is all. Yours in Inferiority, - Lephys

Yeah, I mean... an RPG character portrait reaches for a definite goal, and that is to portray the visage of the character one would see if face-to-face with them. It's kind of a detailed zoom-in of their tiny model-self in the bird's-eye gameplay area. So, excellent style or not, a Picasso portrait would be achieving that goal nowhere near as well as an accurately-rendered, "realistic" portrait. I mean, you can play with things like lighting and color and stroke type (painterly versus smooth with crisp edges, etc.), but you've gotta maintain things like proportion and general shapes and sizes, or you start venturing into caricature territory. There's nothing wrong with caricatures, but if you say "Which is a better portrait: this caricature, or this portrait?", the answer you're going to get is the portrait. You can make an extremely lovely anchor that weighs 5 lbs, but it's not going to do its job, no matter how lovely it is, half as well as even a hideous anchor that weighs 50 lbs. Again, not that the BG2 portraits in question are somehow at 0% effectiveness, and the BG1 ones are at 100%. But, I'd have to agree that they seem to be a bit more effective in portraying an actual character's visage that seems to be engaging others, as in the context of the dialogue interface.

Yeah, it could be as simple as some trees being more easily climbable. Just like if you were to go into a forest right now, you might find SOME trees with lower limbs than others, that would be a lot easier to climb (without some kind of climbing spurs/axes/equipment; I'm just talking hands-and-feet agility/strength climbing here... simple stuff). Instead of, you know, every tree in existence having various climb checks or something. Could also possibly be used for scouting. Climb check gets you up into the tree, thus grants a greater sight range. It would really only be good for scouting/hiding/ambushes, and not so much for cover. Even though a tree MIGHT provide difficulty in hitting you, with lots of limbs in the way and such, you're also a lot less capable of moving/dodging when up in a tree, especially holding yourself stable WHILE firing a bow. I would think that once people spotted you and decided to target you, the tree would lose most of its usefulness. *shrug* Annnnywho, . As for faction clothing, YES!. But, even sort of along the lines of "diguises" (appearing to be a specific someone else) could be simply identity concealment. Maybe even if you're spotted by some people while being sneaky in some situation, when you bump into them later, in a non-sneaky setting, they're just all "Hey, you should be careful... there's sneaky folk afoot! o_O," having no clue that it was you. *shrug* Again, that's kind of something that may not be super feasible to implement, depending on how everything else works/is designed. It could, though, be as simple as clothing/equipment that conceals you. Maybe even magically/supernaturally. That could even be a use for a potion. A sort of doppleganger potion, a la Harry Potter and various other fictions. You've got to get something from the target you wish to take the form of, so you have to subdue them in close range and "activate" the potion. Then, you drink it, and *poof*, everyone thinks you're another person for the next 30 minutes. Might even make for a fun "did you do your homework?" sequence, where you had the opportunity to learn a lot of various details about the target beforehand, and you must then walk the walk, so to speak, or you'll still arouse suspicion ("Heyyy... Herbert the Guard is ALLERGIC to cats! He wouldn't be petting one like that! IMPOSTOR!").

^ She's simply lulling you into a false sense of security. "Looook, I'm totally a fragile, feminine posing flower, and not at all a threatening Fighter... yesssss, that's it... become distracted by my puzzlingly askance facial proportions... ANNNNND you're dead. *dusts off hands*"

No crouching? Why doesn't crouching get any love? Also, I think prone and/or crouch (or maybe not crouch, if it's really that bad? hehe) could easily be contextual actions. In other words, you can't just click "prone" and then move around, and click "stand" and move around some more, manually. But, when in toggled Sneak mode, and/or Hide mode, and near appropriate cover (shrubs, low wall, tall grass, a ditch, etc.), your characters would have the opportunity to move in prone/crouch. Maybe you could have people prone-hide in tall grass as a set up for an ambush? In a related note, I think climb is under-used in CRPGs, and an archer should be able to (at least in certain areas/circumstances) climb a tree and go equally as undetected as the person in the grass. Maybe... Ideas ideas... 8P Back to crouch, it would be pretty cool if, say, an archer would, in the midst of combat, contextually kneel when you place him near a big stump or a low stone wall or something, and fire from there, with some kind of environmental bonus. Cover, pretty much. But, I wouldn't want it to be a super-active "take cover" system, like in military-style tactics-RPGs. Just... a very fluid, passive, contextual bonus with accompanying "here's why you're getting a bonus" visuals. And it would just be simple things, like kneeling when you happen to be placed beside something you could fire a bow over. Heck... murder holes might even be used, in towers and keeps and such. Just a simplistic tactical factor. No levels entirely designed for everyone to just take cover and have one big fire fight. The real-time combat, especially with magic and swords and such, simply isn't set up for that. The main thing I'd want cover to affect would be visibility/stealth.

I do like the potential for prone/crouching (at least in functionality), as it's silly when, in a game, there's 4 feet of cover, and the game simply says "well, that doesn't fully cover you, so you can't actually sneak here; you'll just be seen." And while you always bring a smorgasbord of ideas to the table, Osvir, and I think it's fantastic that you're able to like SUPER-brain-storm like that, I fear that quite so much detail in merely the ability to basically make yourself lower profile while moving might be a bit heavy-handed. Especially if we get all manner of various stealth-system tidbits in P:E. I do, also, hope for stealth-supporting weapons, like blackjacks and such, for things like "takedowns." Maybe targets have different amounts of non-lethal "HP," and/or non-lethal damage bypasses armor and such, so a "backstab" with something like a blackjack could result in instant unconsciousness. I guess in the scheme of the P:E Health/Stamina system, such attacks could simply deal oodles of Stamina damage, but very little Health damage. And maybe you could simply toggle the attack mode. Not that non-lethal takedowns are the only thing you'd do in stealth. You'd obviously make silent, efficient kills, as well. But, non-lethal stuff is typically more prevalent in sneakery than in flat-out direct confrontation. You're usually trying to get somewhere, past some sentries and such, but you don't really have anything directly against the sentries. They're just doing their job. So you try to avoid them, but if you can't, you render them a non-issue, temporarily.

Past "a" guard, yes. Past any given guard ever? No. That's all I'm getting at. If you take a random guard, at some random location in the game (in a scenario in which sneaking is actually beneficial), then a master of Stealth should always have an easier time of things than a Novice. Throw in the range of base difficulties for sneaking past guards, and the trickiest scenarios are going to be impossible for the Novice, and still-tricky for the Master, while the base simplest ones are going to be tricky for the Novice, and easy-as-pie for the Master. It's not that being a Master of Stealth should make sneaking flat-out easy, just that it should make things relatively easier, across the board, than a lack of Stealth skill. When the player's skill at distracting guards and timing things completely overrides the Sneak skill value, you've obviously gone too far, for example. I'm not at all trying to criticize it as anything more than a draft. And I'm not trying to bash it. My only intention is constructive. I just enjoy analyzing systems like this, and I'm wondering how to handle all the factors, is all. Mainly, at this point, I'm wondering if representing, say, your character's hearing range AND the amount of sound he's generating ,simultaneously, absolutely requires multiple rings/ranges, or if there's some cleverer way of doing it. I think simply not-representing that is possibly a very bad idea. Vision and sound are your two biggest tools in providing situational benefits and detriments (variance) to sneaking, which is the easiest way to make the Skill value not just an "I win" binary switch threshold value.

Well, take my little Silken Voice draft, for example. Even though I was intending to only list purely beneficial and purely detrimental things, separately, Silken Voice could already work as both. Perhaps you, at some point in the game, have the option of riling someone up to get them to leave a door unguarded, or to go do something for you, etc, and you have difficulty doing so because of your voice's natural calming effect. Traits are tricky, because, as you pointed out so well, you want to make sure they remain distinct from talents (feats). But, I think as long as they represent some quality of your character's being that remains unchanged for the entire game (even if it's just a modifier, sometimes, in the abstraction of the mechanics), they work quite well. I like ones that can affect more than just a single factor (or can at least affect a single factor that affects several different things in different situations). And I like it when they affect things that go otherwise unaffected throughout the game. For example, how Keen Aim (above) affects your weapon range zones, rather than just saying "You start with +10 skill with ranged weapons" or "You're 10% more accurate with ranged weapons). Also, it only affects aiming ranged weapons, so you don't simply gain Perception points or Dexterity points for all things. Ranged weapons are a second nature to you, so you do something better with them, not because you're inherently more dexterous and sharp-eyed than other people are, but because you simply have an affinity that they do not. I like traits to be like that, instead of just extra little tweaks to already-allocatable number values on the character creation page. Not that traits that alter stats are completely out of the question, but I don't think relying on that (as a lot of games do -- just sort of shifting stats around) is the best idea. I think that's rather limiting, and doesn't produce as quality of a trait system. Traits should definitely bring something unique to the character and the playthrough, even if it's minor, or similar to other modifications/alterations. The other tricky thing is that, ideally, they apply to all class choices.

Well, there's no shame in that, now is there?

I should've known better than to think you'd not answer like an arse. I think I can retain my manners in spite of this, though, with some effort. Would you be so kind as to show me where (even on that gamepedia page) anyone definitively confirms that, just because your actual chance to hit for a given attack will be on a scale of 1-100, your actual Attack/Defense values will directly correspond to that scale and those chance-to-hit rolls, 1:1? In other words, even "logic/mathematics" allows for the possibility that, say, 1 point of difference between your character's Attack value and the opponent's Defense value translates into a 5-point shift on the Miss-Graze-Hit-Crit scale.

My brain... is so terrible... upon reading "fire resistance," it spontaneously imagined some nation/kingdom/city in which a populous of sapient fire elemental people were being oppressed, then rose up against their overlords. o_o I need help...

We have several sort of brainstorming threads in here now, for various things (wondrous items, creatures, factions, etc.), and I just thought it might be fun/interesting to brainstorm some traits. Since we don't know exactly what all mechanics will exist to be affected by traits, or exactly how they will work and be affected by things, the general idea of how a trait will work is what I'm going for. An idea that can be adapted to mechanics, even if it has to be less vague until we know more specifics. They can be more like backgrounds (as in Arcanum), or simply character qualities (like in Fallout). I personally love the Shadowrun PnP style of having both positive and negative traits (Edges and Flaws), separately, that one must balance out in a given character. So, here are a couple from my mind (Keep in mind that I'm separating them into positive/negative effects, a la Shadowrun; If you have 5 points worth of positive traits, you have to balance that with -5 points of negative ones, in that system, just for example. Many of these could be paired into a single trait, like in Fallout): Clumsy (detriment): You tend to fall more often than stumble. You generate more noise than the average person, while sneaking, and you suffer a penalty to disarm and knockdown checks. Your attack rolls below 5 result in the fumbling of your weapon, costing you one attack's worth of delay in order to retrieve it. Keen Aim (benefit): You are particularly steady-handed and sharp-eyed when it comes to combat. Your base range with all ranged weaponry is 15% greater than other people's. Arachnophobia (detriment): Arachnids instill a terror into your very marrow. Whenever you are within 30ft of an arachnid, your panic results in penalties to both attack and defense (does not stack with multiple arachnids). Whenever an arachnid enters your melee engagement radius, you will automatically target that arachnid, and cannot offensively target anything else until that arachnid is either dead or once again outside of melee engagement (you can still move/flee and target allies/yourself with abilities). NOTE: Obviously, this one would only be possible if arachnid enemies were at least fairly common throughout the game. Silken Voice (benefit): The very sound of your voice is soothing. Those who converse with you tend to be calmer from the start, and slower to anger or agitation whenever emotions are sparked.

Regarding treasure-like weapons and equipment, maybe leaving them at your stronghold allows them to be used in times of need by the people defending it (your hirelings/out-of-party companions, etc.). You know... the "man the battlestations" bell sounds, and everyone runs to the armory. They sure are glad you put those +2 swords in the armory, instead of selling them. The invaders were dispatched with much more ease. Of course, if it's as simple as that, you run into that whole "OMG, do I dare sell ANYthing instead of placing it in my armory?" dilemma. And you end up with 1,000 things in your armory, at the end of the game, when really they started providing little-to-no added benefit past 100 or so, simply because this information was unknown to you, and you erred on the side of caution.

For the sake of clarification, my reference to "ally-in-a-bottle" was in reference to single-use consumable types. I get what you're saying, though. I just wanted to make sure it was clear we were using that phrase in two different ways. 8P I also like Tsuga's non-combat utility idea for summons. Maybe you can summon something that can (CLICHE EXAMPLE ALERT!) take the form of an attractive female and lure off a guard, for the purposes of access gain, or even for ambushing (so, sort of potentially combat-related). Or, you can summon things that can provide you with senses/ranges you didn't otherwise have. Or things that can read glyphs/languages you can't. Or summons that can deliver messages long distances, like carrier pigeons. The possibilities are bountiful.

Yeah. I apologize for the length of my last post, heh. The only thing (and it's a bit minor) that bothers me about both sound AND sight being handled by the same radius is that you can be super quiet while being extremely visible, or you can be invisible and extremely loud. So, I dunno... I think Josh mentioned that some things will see better, and some things will hear better, and that will be a functional difference, so I'm curious as to how they're handling that. Maybe the best way to do it is simply to have a separate visibility radius and audibility radius for each character/creature? That way, if you have a torch (or glow, as per your example), your VISION circle grows, but you could still be making very little sound, so your noise circle stays the same size. So, you could, even with a torch, sneak past something with terrible eyesight and decent hearing. Or, you could sneak past something that's deaf, but has excellent vision by sticking to the darkness, even if you're being quite noisy. In other words, if each person just has one radius, and their overlap prompts investigation, then how do you let something's hearing be less effective than something's vision? If your circle represents both things, then how do you know whether it's your noise or your visibility that triggered? And how to you represent the difference? Another thing I'm curious about: Will the system work the same way with you detecting [/i] enemies? It'd be really cool if you could HEAR an enemy, but couldn't SEE it, and the system somehow indicated that to you differently than seeing something without hearing it. *shrug*. Also, do you have a "this is how far out I can be seen" ring AND a "this is how far out I can see" ring? Because, that could get particularly confusing, too. If you're super stealthy, but you have awesome eyesight, wouldn't your "this is how far I can see" radius overlap an enemy's "this is how hidden I am" radius at a much greater distance, while your "this is how hidden I am" radius wouldn't be anywhere NEAR their "this is how far I can see" radius? Also, as far as distractions and alterations to the stealth grid, I'm very much in favor of that stuff. But, despite that stuff, a Stealth skill of 100 should allow for sneaking through much tighter spots than a skill of 5, even without relocating guards and altering the grid. Otherwise, the only thing Stealth would boost is your ability to throw rocks and douse torches.

I also like the whole "your attack chance is going to start sucking really badly if you're trying to fire arrows at a target 5-10 feet away, especially if he's engaging you" idea. Which, of course, kinda ties into the whole "this melee combatant is going to rip you a new one" notion. I do think there's a bit more leeway in a game (with tactical combat to boot) for allowing ranged-weapon focus to be a bit more prevalent than in reality, but I think it should still rely on the ability to at least keep SOME distance from the foe. If someone charges your archer, and he can't kill them before they reach him, then he's either going to need to slow their approach, and/or disable them and gain more distance, or just play run away until someone else can engage them or otherwise stop them from nullifying the whole "ranged" aspect of his weaponry. And, there's always the OPTION of simply pulling out a melee weapon. Now, how you do that, out of all those options, is up to you. Maybe you build an archer-character who NEVER switches weapons, and you give him as many kicks/disarms/melee attacks as possible, and you just have him specialize in trying to disarm/temporarily-disable the opponent who tries to engage him at melee range, then he runs away a bit and resumes his arrow barrage. Or maybe you simply keep him out of melee range of everyone at the cost of his lack of contribution to your team's offense, until he can get clear shots away from danger, again. Maybe he's SO useful when he CAN stand still and target people with his bow that it makes up for the time you have to spend keeping him away from danger? I think those are sound choices. But, I really don't want the game to just say "Well, it literally makes no difference that someone's shield-bashing you in the face and chopping into your arm, and cutting your bowstring, because you can just stand there and continue 'ranged' attacking them at point-blank range, with naught but a lesser defensive capability than a melee-capable character." And, you know... a party of only ranged combatants (who never even so much as draw a melee weapon for a few seconds) should be QUITE difficult to pull off (if not just-plain infeasible). It's really hard to accurately peg that without knowing the specifics of how class abilities and soul powers are going to factor into the mix there. But, the more adamant you are about using only ranged attacks with more and more characters, the more you should have to deal with the problems of melee engagement.

If I win the lottery before P:E 2 comes out (or an expansion or something), and it's Kickstarted, and there's a 10K tier, I'm going to max out the limit of 10K pledges, by myself. That'll save on all that plane fuel for a bunch of people having to fly out, and I can design 10+ assets for the game. MUAHAHAHAHAHA! *lightning strike + thunder*

As for actual treasure-type "collectibles," it would be great if, instead of simply being a stylized pile of gold ("this painting is a treasure, and it is therefore worth 10,000 gold! So, we could've just put 10,000 gold here in the chest, but we didn't!", they actually had multiple forms of value. - Maybe one faction's founding member's family made/owned that painting, and they'd VERY much appreciate having it back, and would owe you a huge favor and/or grant you a higher position of standing if you gave it to them. - Maybe some black-market style person or group WILL give you lots of money for it, but it still has a further effect, since they'll be able to sell it to someone else or leverage it against the other faction that wants it, etc., thus producing some gain on their part. - Maybe you can display it in your stronghold (as in JFSOCC's idea), and this helps affect how people react to your stronghold when they visit or hear news of it, and what kind of decisions they make regarding you and your stronghold. They'd still be "collectibles," because they'd just be found/lootable objects that no one even really knew still existed, so there'd be no quest of "Hey, keep an eye out for this painting from a long time ago that no one really knows still exists, or where it's even located, and if you find it, I'll give you something for it!". I think the main problem with this type of important-yet-optional loot/item in other games is that you get such a narrow range of uses for it. Look at Shadowrun Returns. "Oh, you found some super-secret intel that someone would love to get their hands on? Your options are: Sell it to me, the Fence, or don't sell it to me." You might as well have just found some credits lying around, since "Ooooh, it's worth something because explanation" is just fluff at that point. It's functionally no different from regular loot, in terms of its potential end-effect on the game (either you gain money or you don't). In fact, it's even more boring than normal loot, since a piece of equipment can either be used OR sold, but some piece of intel that happens to be valuable to someone can only be sold (in SR:R).

Did they talk about how they're handling this between specific classes? (I'm merely curious if I missed it). All I remember seeing is Josh saying that, for example, a Rogue (and a couple of other classes?) will get a + 2-or-3 permanent bonus to Stealth. But, as far as I know, we don't know how the DCs will be handled, or how point gaints will be paced, etc. Even though 3 isn't much out of 100, like you said, how do we know 3 points won't be valuable? For example, with the attack/defense numbers, any class that gets a +3 to attack will have, say, 10 instead of 7 attack at the beginning. But that number isn't compared to 100 to get your to-hit chance table. It's compared to the enemy's defense. So, if the average enemy defense is 7 for that level/area/what-have-you, then the person with 10 could potentially have significantly shifted hit and crit chances, as compared to the person with only 7 attack (any doesn't-get-a-bonus class), depending on how the math is handled. Maybe each additional point of difference between your attack and the foe's defense offers a diminishing effect, so that even a few points of difference is significant, but gaining a level and getting 7 points ahead doesn't give you a 70% chance to crit and no chance to miss. *shrug* I just don't know that it's worth deciding that a few points doesn't matter, until we know how they're handling the math. And if "we" know that info already, actually, and I just missed it, then please disregard all this, and I would like to know that info as well if you'd be so kind as to point me to it. I do understand the concern for the points being too insignificant, though. I sincerely hope they aren't.

The point isn't the existence of any restrictions. It's the specific restrictions. And knocking some of these class restrictions doesn't make all characters the same. Just because a Wizard can be stealthy doesn't mean you're definitely going to make that Wizard a master of stealth. Why? Because the restriction of such a build choice costing points is still in place. And that's the trade-off. The more points you spend on making that Wizard super sneaky, the fewer you get to spend on making him super-anything-else. The lack of a "that class can't be sneaky" restriction doesn't automatically encourage you to spend your precious, finite points on sneakiness. You're not going to build a party of 6 Master Stealthists simply because they all have the potential to be built stealthily. The problem with the TES style isn't that you can do anything, but rather that you can do everything. That being said, I'm not even advocating every class being able to do anything. But, I think the difference in their core abilities and functionality is plenty, without role/fighting style/stat restrictions and such. A Wizard already doesn't get awesome melee sword attack abilities and Defender mode for extra melee engagement, etc., so he's already different from a Fighter, even if you let them both master the Sword. Nothing encourages a Wizard to forego his spells and rely completely on a sword for all his effectiveness.

What would be hilarious is if he had ultra-high Fire Resistance.

Dev team show and tell! I fully support this idea, ^_^ Even if it's just tiny snippets. "Here's a cool page of sketches of creature concepts." Or "Here's a little snippet of battle music concept." That would be pretty amazing.