Lephys

I can't help but point out that once you've slain 1,000 goblins, successfully, a bonus to goblin-killing seems like a rather trivial bonus. BUT, that's pretty much just a funny thing to think of, and I get what you're going for, and I agree completely. This is even evident in lots of other types of games, in which there's side content, but it doesn't necessarily provide you any benefit (just gives you money or a achievement or something). I think it's much nicer when the decision to perform optional tasks/feats actually affects the factors of your playthrough, with benefits unique to the choice made.

I didn't say anything to the contrary. This factor and the one I pointed out are not mutually exclusive. I'm saddened to say that "us going around in circles" means "my repeating myself while you blatantly ignore the things I've brought to light as though they have no effect on what you've already said, so you'll just stick to it." What's worse, though, is that you're not even really even ackowledging my points in a "here's why they're wrong" method. You're just brushing them aside. So, I mean, to each his own, I suppose. I had hoped you might understand my reasoning for pointing out the factors I did, and factor that into your own conclusion on the matter. But, that's ultimately your decision, I suppose, and it's not the end of the world. It doesn't make you unintelligent or anything. Just frustrating from my perspective, See, it's things like this that boggle me. What is gained by pretending my point was somehow subjective? If you have 5 gallons of lemonade, and 20 containers, and you want to put as much lemonade in every single container as possible, then it's impossible to not put less lemonade in each of the 20 containers than you could put in each of only 8 containers. That is an absolute fact. That's just reality. That isnot my opinion. I was only pointing out that I got the feeling from most people's posts, here, that they are merely referring to that very truth when they compare the 20-or-so BGII characters and their level of depth (lemonade) to the 7 PS:T characters and THEIR level of depth (lemonade). If PS:T had had 20 characters, they would have definitely had less depth, individually, and if BGII had had only 8 characters, they would've had greater individual depth. It's not about whether or not either of the game's characters could've had the Eexact same amount of depth, as the two projects obviously had different budgets and completely different sets of factor values to deal with. It's simply about evaluating, as best we can, the effects of the level of individual depth a character has in a given CRPG project. ... What the carp does that even mean? I don't have anything invested? And the fortune to have never experienced a similar game spoiled by the companions? I could make the exact inverse to your story of experience, and say "BGII had too many characters, and not enough depth for each one, and they were so lacking it spoiled my game." And yet, on the other hand, I've had bad experiences at restaurants before, and I don't go deciding that people who prepare me food are all bad. I have no reason to think that, if I actually pay attention to reason, and the fact that the factors that existed in my bad experiences have no reason to exist in a completely separate experience at a completely different restaurant, just because they happen to serve a similar style of food. And it's not that I don't feel the need to come to theconclusion. I recognize the reasonable fact that coming to a conclusion with our insufficient information is utterly pointless. It's a guess, disguised as a conclusion. Who am I to tell you you CAN'T do it? I would never do that. You can do as you please, and it's not going to hurt anyone. I simply thought I'd point out there's no real reason for any conclusion at all, at this point, much less one that causes you concern over the project. And if Obsidian sacrifices their own creative prowess just to make sure the game "succeeds", that doesn't hurt anyone I suppose. Also, not an analogy, . It was simply an example pointing out that nothing prevents people from being irrational. Under what circumstances do you not decide that people's desires are the most important thing? Or, as in the case of the example, if they want two things that conflict, then which do you choose? Do you prevent them from hugging fire so they can be burn-free, or do you let them hug fire and fail to keep them burn-free? You act as though making sure people are pleased is a simple affair. If you're "forced" to the adventurer's hall by the simple fact that there's not a race/class/build companion combination in existence that you are satisfied with, then that's irrational. Even if they put enough "real" companions in for you to be happy, unless they literally put every possible companion combination into the game, SOMEone isn't going to be happy with it, and is going to be "forced" to use the Adventurer's Hall to get what they want. And if they DO put in every single combination, the characters will be essentially the same thing as Adventurer's Hall characters, with minimal depth, and will upset plenty of other people. By your reasoning, if you and/or a subset of the backers feel that they aren't accommodated, something is wrong. So, having a smaller number of in-depth companions for those who who are accommodated by such, and the Adventurer's Hall to cover all the combos that aren't covered by the "real" companions apparently isn't acceptable, and yet diluting the "real" companions down to 20 or 30 is not only going to fail to accommodate everyone, but is going to simply trade the contentment of one group for the contentment of another. So, unless you're saying "obviously the happiness of me and my like-minded people is more important than both the happiness of the opposing groups of thinkers AND Obsidian's own contentment with their very own creative vision," I really don't detect a valid point in all of this, beyond just a juggling of subjective perspectives. That being the case, while I've enjoyed this lovely little back-and-forth (I really have, and you've provided a lot of elaboration on opposing perspectives that were of value to my own evaluation), you're not really providing any overall, coherent line of reasoning here to combat my own, leaving me with only two options: Continue repeating myself, or call it a day. And so, I believe I've said all I know to say on the matter, between you and me.

What your example ignores is the fact that the depth/capacity of each companion slot (much like the number of colors used on each painting in the analogy) is a variable thing, not fixed. If you make one character who's funny AND angelic, and another who's funny AND grim, why would that be in any way inherently lacking as compared to 3 characters who are only angelic, only funny, and only grim, respectively? This is one of the main aspects of my point. Think of it backwards: If you start with 12 paintings, and shrink that number to 6. Well, then you're going to have 12 paintings' worth of care and effort put into 6 paintings. What you're suggesting, almost, is that painting 12 paintings instead of 6 increases the number of colors that can be used. But it doesn't. Again, obviously you can only put so many different things into one character, but its a curve, and it's based on a lot more variables than design intent and number of characters. Think of it in your analogy as adding in another factor: time spent on each painting. Painting with care and quality obviously takes time. So, if you're going to spend a day painting, and you're going to paint 6 paintings, that gives you 4 hours per painting (with the same amount of colors to choose from). If you take that exact same scenario, and decide to paint 12 paintings, instead, then you get only 2 hours per painting. As I said, going from 2 paintings to 3 paintings is obviously a huge increase in variety. Going from 8 to 9 (the exact same numerical increase) is much less so. The more paintings you've already got, the less chance there is that you'll actually produce something unique in the next one. While I cannot speak for everyone in the entire thread, and honestly do not feel the need to look back through the whole thing right now to verify that no one's actually said, I personally do not believe that the BGII characters were "devoid" of depth, and don't think anyone else has said this, either. What I can say is that they bore less depth, individually, than they could've had had there been fewer of them with all other design factors remaining the same. And people are pointing out PS:T companions as an example of the depth-difference, then expressing their subjective desire for that level of difference. A conclusion there is no need to come to. If you ask me "when will it rain next?", I can simply tell you "I do not know," as I do not have enough information. I don't NEED to conclude a specific time when the next rain will come, or conclude an unbased probability of when it will or will not rain. I'm taking into account the factors you're presenting, along with any others I could think of (and have presented here). Your worries seem to be based on only a portion of the presented factors, much less the entirety of factors at play. I'm not even countering "this is probably too few characters" with "this is probably plenty of characters." I'm merely saying that "this is probably too few characters" is a bit baseless at this point in time. I don't really comprehend this allegation. If PS:T had never been created, the relationships and effects of party-based-RPG companion development factors would remain unchanged. Obviously, if they don't please enough people, the game will fail, financially. However, since the Kickstarter funding was given in support of their vision of an IE spiritual successor, they'd be remiss not to adhere to their own design intentions simply to please people who supposedly already put their faith in Obsidian. In other words, if I say "If you give me $20, I'll give you an object." And you do it, and I give you a pencil, but you wanted an ice cream cone, and you get mad, is there really anything saying that I should've given you an ice cream cone as opposed to a pencil? The difference is that changing your own creative vision at the whims of others is detrimental to creativity in the first place. Anyway, that's all a bit beside the point. If everyone who gave them money on Kickstarter suddenly wants them to make a racing game instead of an RPG, that doesn't make such a decision make any more sense. Obviously, those people would be upset if they don't change it to a racing game, and maybe Obsidian's business would suffer. But, that in no way implies that they should've made people happy instead of sticking to their vision. People's subjective desires aren't always based on sense, or, at least not on complete sense. I can literally want to huge a fire, while simultaneously not wanting to suffer burns, even though that's ridiculous. The point: They know ALL about their creative vision, and we only know parts of it. If those parts weren't good enough, then we shouldn't have funded the game based on what we deemed "insufficient" data. Having 8 companions as opposed to ANY other number in no way contradicts their overall vision for the game. As you said, it is a very minor factor, by itself. Combine that with the fact that the Adventurer's Hall already addresses the exact same problem that you're trying to address with the "more characters, less depth" suggestion. You can combine any number of the 8, high-depth companions with any number of the Adventurer's Hall quite-literally-design-them-however-you-want characters. The people who greatly value per-character depth get exactly what they want, and many others who would prefer more characters, on whom some of the individual character depth is wasted, get at least partially accommodated, and possibly fully accommodated. I highly doubt there are enough remaining people to warrant calling the decision not to increase the number of companions a "risk." The fact that you, yourself, as one who doesn't really prefer the PS:T low-numbers-high-depth style of companion set, don't actually find any probability that P:E's design will be an issue and that you'll still most likely enjoy and contribute to the success of the game is supportive of this.

Dragon Age: Origins wasn't lacking because it was supposed to be a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. Nor did it suffer simply because it attempted to make mechanical changes. Its deficiency was mainly in its execution, not in its goal. If someone fires a gun at a target, and misses, that neither means that the target is unhittable, nor that the usage of a gun is a flawed method for striking the target. I can't tell you that you should probably like what you know about P:E, but I can tell you that there's probably no reason to worry about P:E being much at all like DA:O.

Serious as satellite radio.

... *points to avatar* ^_^

Yeah, he's kinda like Forum Santa.

What?! Lord of the Rings WAS just a big fetch quest! When he got to Mt. Doom, it had a big question mark above its head, and it was all like "Thanks, *money-clinking noise*, here's 5,000 gold and 10,000 XP." After that, Frodo was uber.

I'm not really sure what I'm misunderstanding. Micamo literally said: "... the differences between races are just too small to bother representing mechanically." I disagreed with that, specifically, and elaborated. I'm not dictating what everyone's arguing. I'm merely providing explanation for why I think the representation of mechanical differences between distinctive races in a fantasy RPG setting is not folly. My point is only this, for whatever it is worth: IF you do make races physically different, then they've got to bear some physical differences. This is precisely why I referenced the Orlans. I wasn't arguing with anyone about whether or not we should put a feline-based race into P:E. I was only pointing out that such a race is already IN P:E. Can Orlans simply LOOK different from Humans? Sure. But then, things get pretty bland if they aren't actually different in any manner other than aesthetics. Besides, aesthetics is a secondary factor. Why does this example person look different from this other example person? Because it has 5 eyes, and the other only has 2. Okay... shouldn't 5 eyes produce SOME amount of difference in eyesight capabilities than just the 2? Granted, you don't have to give something 5 eyes. BUT, on the other hand, if everything has 2 eyes and is shaped like a human, with slightly different proportions and skin tones/coloration, then what do we have besides various ethnicities of the same race? Obviously there's not enough difference between someone who lives at the equator, and someone who lives in the arctic, to necessarily warrant some kind of +2 to Agility. However, in a game like P:E, we're talking about completely different species. It's really no different from comparing a tiger to a horse. Do you want a tiger and a horse to just be referenced as different in dialogue and narrative elements, but function identically in combat? No. If you design two things that are that different, you give them differences. If a tiger is faster than a horse, and your mechanics model movement speed, then it's literally nonsensical not to model a difference in movement speed between a tiger's and a horse's. The main difference is that, with an animal, you're not going to find a tiger or a horse that just grows up in a certain line of work so that it never runs around a lot. You're not going to have exceptionally slow tigers and horses, and exceptionally fast tigers and horses. Yet, with people, you do. Hence the differing stat rolls in PnP rulesets and such. *shrug*, to put it a simpler way, if you just want races to look and be reacted to differently, then there's no reason to declare them races rather than ethnicities/factions. ... "beyond"... I have yet to in any way dispute the usefulness/importance of non-mechanical/non-physiological differences. Difference is difference. Just because it shows up in various places -- mechanics and lore -- doesn't mean it's two separate differences.

@LKD: I, personally, only think of "fetch quests" as a label for those quests that are nothing more than "this person wants you to get them this thing, and they'll pay you for it." I know they're not always that simple, but they're often not much more complex at all, and are functionally the same thing. In terms of the game's design as it affects the player's experience, these things become a bit silly when all they do is provide you with an immediate, minor reward. This is why I tried to be as specific as possible (ME?! Overly specific? Never... ). I'm not discounting quests involving the procurement of items. I was only trying to point out that this whole "fetch quests" stigma has been, in my experience, applied quite liberally, in just such a manner. "Oh my crap, this person actually needs something? Fetch quest... LAME!" I was only trying to evaluate examples of these types of quests in an effort to come up with a valuable approach to follow when designing them. One of my major beliefs, in this regard, is that, quite often, the problem is simply that they don't feel connected enough with the game world, and they seem to be directly connected to the player. Almost like a treasure chest in disguise. I think interaction with NPCs should, whenever possible, offer a greater dynamic than the simple accessing of a treasure chest. In other words, 2 main points: 1) I think quests aren't actually bad or simplistic just because they involve item acquisition/delivery. 2) Any type of quest like this should be more than just looting via dialogue. It's often easy to tell when a quest has been designed to support its reward, rather than the other way around.

How do you know spells will all last 10 seconds, and why is Obsidian using Roman numerals to convey spell duration?! o_O I joke, and your info is solid. *nods*

@anubite: I don't think you're being nitpicky. It's the little things that make the world go 'round. And the big things are usually just structures for how the little things Voltron together. 8P Also, I wasn't trying to suggest you were actually attempting to point some big finger at Obsidian. On the contrary... I was just trying to point out that that wasn't really the intention of the thread title. The trope is MUCH more prevalent, to my knowledge, in console JRPGs than in ANY Obsidian game, ever. I mean, in those games, you've got things like "I sure hope that unlocked chest of gold in the attic of my big blue house at the end of the street doesn't get bothered today..." when you approach someone and press the "interact" button.

The name definitely fits. When that update including Defender Mode used the term, I immediately knew what kind of abilities it was referring to. I was just a little confused about what some were referring to in this thread, as people started mentioning cooldowns, something modal abilities usually don't have (although they could...). I think the strong benefit of these abilities Josh is referring to is the allowance for much more passive characters. You can, if you so choose, set your Fighter to Defender mode, and any number of other toggles, and leave him be. Boom. He's your Foe-Wrangler, for all of time. Or, you can toggle him very little and still be effective. Lots of enemies? Defender mode, ENGAGE! (pun totally intended). A handful of tougher enemies? Maybe you see this, turn off Defender, and turn on something that sacrifices engagement/defensive capabilities to boost specific offensive capabilities (critical strikes, accuracy, armor-rending, etc.). But, on the other hand, even passive-friendly modal toggling allows for extremely active modal toggling. You could have him engage a few foes at once over here in a battle, with Defender, until 2 of those targets are slain (by collective party shenanigans), then toggle defender off to take out the remaining foe with greater offensive efficiency. THEN move him to some big target and toggle something else. Then, of course, you'll have (I'm sure) a nice buffet of active, non-modal abilities at your disposal, and the option of focusing much more on those throughout progression, or much less on those (and more on modals). But, my main point is that, even if your character is knee-deep in modal abilities, that doesn't restrict him to playing the role of Passive Pete.

CRPGs are, essentially, just PnP-style rulesets with all the back-and-forth between players and DM/GM replaced by a coded interface and the computer acting as the DM. I don't think you have anything to worry about. Obsidian's basically just writing their own rules, but that doesn't mean they're writing a completely different kind of rules. They're still very PnPish. Could you simply take the game code and play a PnP game with it? PRobably not. But, you could get pretty close, I'm sure. The main difference is the interface. PnP rules are tweaked to support the infinite possibility of imagination, while CRPG rules are tweaked to minimize the limitations of finitely coded content/options/scenarios.

^^ Also, much like metamagic feats/applications, you could have the physical-combat-enhancing aspect of spells normally "require the spell to take up a spell slot one/two levels higher than its actual spell level," or however the same idea would apply to the unknown specifics of the P:E spell system. Then, for people who wanted to specialize in spell-physical-combat hybridization like that, you could even have something akin to a magic school specialization, and offset the penalties for hybrid combat at the cost of now-existent penalties for regular spell usage. I very much like the idea of having the option to use melee/ranged combat as a means of spell delivery, at the very least. How effective the actual physical attack is is still up in the air. I've made the comparison before, though, when someone talked about how melee Mages go against the inherently ranged concept of magic use: a gun can be anything from a sniper rifle to a sawed-off shotgun, and it's still a gun. You can even pistol-whip/rifle-butt people with guns. Obviously the literally-melee aspect of gun-combat is where that analogy no longer serves us, heh. But, there are touch spells and close-range spells in D&D's ruleset for a reason. I don't think a caster's ability to stand up to a strong wind and merge spell and blade automatically means he's usurping some other class's role (like a Fighter's, for example). And, for the record, yes, DA:O's Arcane Warrior is a great example of how NOT to do it... "Your Strength and Intelligence just gained Wondertwin powers! We just literally broke our own stat system design so you could feel good about being uberly powerful! 8D!" Also, Josh makes an excellent point. (He totally got that post in while I was being true to my avatar. )

I assume we're all talking about passive-effect activated abilities, here? The OP referenced DA:O, but then it sounds like some people are just talking about "active abilities," as in abilities that you must manually activate, even if those are simply spells/attacks. I really like the concept of -- I'll just call them "modal abilities," as I think that's what they were called in one of the P:E updates. Like the P:E Fighter's "Defender" ability. I think in its case, the cost is a constant, passive tradeoff (decreased offensive output for increased engage-a-bility, if I'm not mistaken?). And in DA:O's case, it was a reduction in mana/stamina regeneration (both total and rate of regen). I have to say that while I prefer the DA:O style to the "This just costs mana/stamina-over-time" method, I further prefer the P:E Fighter Defender mode method to the DA:O method. Especially since the pseudo-Vancian (ability "ammo" per day/encounter) system sort of replaces a mana/stamina (stamina that functions like mana, not to be confused with P:E's health-resembling stamina) system. But, it's nice to be able to shift your capabilities to a degree like that. One thing I will say is that, to take some additional value from DA:O's design, with these types of abilities in a control-a-whole-party game, it's QUITE nice to be able to specify behaviors for activating/deactivating these. Especially with things like Berzerk (the "you deal more damage, but also take more damage" type of ability, whatever it may be called). If you were just controlling the one person, I'd say it's fine to leave it to the player to make sure he doesn't accidentally leave Berzerk on. But, in the case of an entire party, it's VERY nice to at least be able to specify when to turn it off. Oh, and if I'm on the wrong page here, I apologize. It sounds to me like we're talking about toggled, constantly-effective-when-turned-on abilities.

No worries in the least. I'm an advocate of tangents, . 'Twas a quality tangent. I merely wanted to make certain the two of you hadn't taken my little post seriously. It was basically a sarcastic way of saying "It's really nice to see some light-armor designs/styles." ^_^

Seconded. Not only that, with MMOs, but they also sometimes boost the meaning of "plain" to unimaginable heights (if they don't just start you with "epic" from the get-go). "Level 1 Warrior? Oh, you're wearing an aluminum foil frock, made out of a single texture! 8D!" I dunno... maybe it's just because all my MMO experience is as a Mage? So it kinda goes "Lvl 1 -- potato sack; Level 10 -- Peasant-who-can-at-least-afford-to-eat clothing; Level 20 -- Vow-of-poverty Monk robe; Level 30 -- Silk scraps stitched together all willy-nilly, with some sort of wrestling championship belt; Level 40 -- INTERDIMENSIONAL SPACE SORCERER!!!" The weapons go the same way: "Lvl 1 -- twig; Lvl 10 -- nicely whittled, less-bent twig; Lvl 20 -- muddly walking stick; Lvl 30 -- clean walking stick with a chunk of dirty quartz super-glued to the end; Lvl 40 -- LEGENDARY STAFF OF PHASE TRANSDUCTANCE!" Of course, those games also now act like the first half of the level range is just a tutorial, heh. But, yeah, it's nice to know (from screenies and whatnot) that Obsidian knows that simple does not mean bland.

Are we getting the P:E we believed during the Kickstarter? Who knows. Are we getting the P:E we were led to believe during the Kickstarter? Absolutely.

1) It's actually partially subjective, and partially objective. 2) Since the subjective desires of the players are part of the aim of a game's design, even the subjective aspect is relevant to the objectivity of the design. Just for what it's worth... 8P

True, but it remains a relative thing. If you have 7 billion companions, you're still restricted to a finite 7 billion. Obviously 7 billion probably wouldn't allow any further creative variety than 700 would (not in a practical sense), as other limitations on creative variety would be reached long before you got to 7 billion. In other words, if you're starving, and you only have a dollar-per month, your quantity of funds is restricting your ability to fulfill your nourishment needs. However, if you have 37 million dollars per month, you don't get 37 million dollars worth of ability to nourish yourself. If you eat 37 million dollars worth of the same units of food, you'll severely detriment your well-being. Somewhere around a few hundred dollars a month (specifically for food) is going to be about the extent of your nourishment fulfillment capabilities. Also, since, with companions, there's already the limitation of how much total companion lore and polishing they can possibly produce in a given amount of time with a given amount of resources, every additional companion spreads that thinner and thinner. At some point, the lack of depth/quality in each character counteracts any allowance for additional variety that the increase in quantity can provide. I'm not about to debate exactly what number that is, since I don't have nearly enough specific information to do so, and I don't see too much value in worrying about the exact number. My point is simply that the benefit provided by quantity is a curve. Having 8 characters instead of 2 characters is SO much more valuable than having 20 characters instead of 8 (assuming you're working with the same, finite amount of resources). This is absolutely true. That restriction, however, did not/would not have necessarily affected the variation they could've achieved with their finite resources while still maintaining a certain level of quality/coherency in their overall companion set design. No need to call it an assumption. I believe it's an objective benefit, and I agree completely. I just urge careful consideration on how to achieve this goal, rather than overly simplifying anything to deductions that are actually assumptions, such as "since this game had only 7 companions, and the goal wasn't achieved, and quantity is a factor in the equation, having more companions would most likely achieve teh goal." I only encourage you to consider the fact that, without taking into account all factors, a conclusion isn't very helpful. The reason I encourage this line of thinking is that many throughout this entire thread have somewhat rashly jumped to the conclusion that, since quantity is a factor in variety, and they found variety lacking in certain games, that quantity is necessarily thefactor in fixing the problem. That, and they seem to be overly worried about the fact that there are 8 companions planned (or 9? I'm a little confused about the 8/9 discrepancy now, as I've seen both in this thread from various people and don't know what the official count is, off the top of my head). I like to ease people's worries, If I can do so with objective evaluation. Even if I don't change their subjective minds (that is not my goal). TL;DR version: a low number of companions isn't at all necessarily a cause for alarm, even though it may seem that way, and I encourage everyone to consider all the factors at play here. Yeah, which is precisely why private/commercial artists generally have their clients sign off on a design before they actually go through with the production of it. That way, if you make someone a logo or a website, and they decide "No, this is actually not what I wanted, even though I told you it was a week ago, and now I'm not going to pay you because I'm claiming you didn't fulfill your end of the bargain," they can't just back out or really complain about it. That's kind of what Obsidian did with the Kickstarter. If the Kickstarter didn't guarantee a certain number of companions (AND guarantee that nothing was subject to change in the development process), and we all agreed to fund them, then we agreed to that lack of specific information. We didn't hire them to produce a commission piece, here. The point, anywho, was that, regardless of whether or not it's wrong or causes the game to fail, or makes the game amaze-tastic, they are in creative control of the project. If Team Eternity decides they're going to make all the companions clockwork robots, then they can do that, regardless of how terrible a design choice that would be. In other news, they haven't given me any reason to believe they'd made such terrible design choices, so I trust their ability to evaluate the resources at their disposal and decide how many companions they should produce while still achieving the amount of depth and the appropriate style the game's vision aims for in its companions.

Waiiit a minnnnute... you just updated us by telling us there isn't an update. I CALL PARADOX!

I have no intention of getting extremely picky or simulationist about it. They've been officially described as pseudo-feline in nature, by Obsidian. Relevant as that is, it's still a bit beside the point, since the correlation between an Orlan's potential catlike qualities and an Orlan's feline makeup was merely an example to emphasize the fact that for a "part-cat-part-human" race and a just-human race to bear absolutely no significant differences is about as preposterous as being able to make an 8-foot-tall Halfling would be in DnD. With all due respect, you seem to be working backwards here. I bolded and italicized the notable portion. If we're asking "should there be differences amongst completely different species of humanoid creatures?", why would "Well, there's not really a significant difference between a bunch of humans, in reality, who are all part of the same species" be supporting evidence for the answer of "No"? You know what, let's roll with your example. There aren't any other humanoid "races" in reality. Just us humans. And other animals. Why is it, do you think, that we often look to animals for the fabrication of fantasy meta-human races? And are there not significant differences between animals and humans? A bloodhound can smell out a person trapped under like 50 feet of rubble from about a mile away. Can any human in the world do that? Nope. My questions still stand. IF you were to (purely for example) make a bloodhound-based humanoid race, would it not bear some significant characteristics of bloodhounds that humans lack, as well as some significant characteristics of humans that bloodhounds lack (such as bipedal, upright movement)? And, even if you don't use a bloodhound, or a cat, or what-have-you, then what actually makes the races "races" and not simply "different members of the same species"? What makes Elves and Orcs and Orlans not-humans, if not their physiological differences? Better yet, what makes ANY humanoid, sentient creature in a fantasy game not-a-human? "Hi, I'm a living rock-person, but my skin's actually no harder than regular human flesh. I'm made out of rock, but also I'm just made out of regular flesh. My race is called the Paradocs. I'm a Paradoc. u_u" Oooh! Perfect example! Male and female humans. Obviously, Males can't get pregnant, but Females can. Males suffer a critical hit when stricken in the groin, while females do not. However, there are typically no in-game mechanics for impregnation or groin-striking, so these differences, while significant in general, become insignificant as far as mechanics are concerned. Now, if males had wings and females did not, that would probably affect the mechanics in some manner, even amongst a single species. I'm not calling those differences mechanical. I'm calling them differences. IF the mechanics represent those aspects of characters, then they are mechanical. If not, then they aren't. In other words, "I'm going to have one race that has relatively excellent hearing, and one race that has relatively average hearing, in general, but I'm not going to represent hearing in the game's mechanics" doesn't warrant any mechanical difference. Or, to use your reasoning to make my point, there need be no numerical adjustment of any capability that the PC possesses in order for the differing choices of PC weapons/equipment to result in different gameplay experiences, either. Heck, we don't even have to have class differences. "Don't worry... even though the mechanics don't represent any of your differences, the story and NPCs will react to you as if you're a Wizard, instead of a Rogue. You'll function exactly the same, no matter what, 8D!"

The fact that your analogy relies upon the initial decision to paint in 3 different colors instead of 1 is quite literally my point. You're claiming to disagree or find fault with my point, and yet you're not actually providing any evidence that calls it into question. If sentient beings didn't choose how to go about designing things, then everything would be up to chance, and it would be as you say. If there's a 15% chance of your finding a blue rock when you pick up a random rock, then obviously the more rocks you pick up, the more likely you are to have a blue on in your possession. However, allow the rocks to decide what color they want to be, and there's nothing stopping them from all deciding to be some color other than blue. The accuracy of chance is mangled at that point. What I'm saying to you is very, very simple: You think the PS:T characters lacked a certain variety. And yet, the developers specifically designed them the way they are. Therefore, no amount of iterations of that manufacturing process was ever going to produce a character (much less more than one) that wasn't going to bear that gap. I don't know how else to say it... put all the ingredients you want into an oven, and you're never going to get ice cream out of it. If you were going to randomly use a random piece of equipment and random ingredients, then enough iterations could get you ice cream. But, once someone decides "we're using an oven," that oven's only going to produce a specific "theme," if you will, of products (i.e. baked goods). The only factor that's going to affect whether or not the next iteration is going to produce some that isn't a baked good is the piece of equipment being used (which is decided on by a person and is not up to chance). Does quantity affect things, still? Yes. But it's dependent upon the equipment being used. Without even changing the numbers, using a piece of equipment that can heat AND cool could result in both baked goods AND ice cream, for example. So, you still have 8 products, but now their scope is extended. Changing the equipment to something that can cool can result in ice cream. Changing the number of things you make in the oven is NEVER going to result in ice cream. Even though you're not making the exact same thing over and over in the oven. There's variety, but only within the scope of what an oven and given ingredients can produce. And, again, the person making the food decides upon that scope. Firstly, is my argument inexactly untrue? Secondly, I'd say that's a rather unfortunate view you have of any creative process, much less game development. If I'm going to make a painting (yay for more painting analogies!), is it ill-advised of me to pick a given theme for that painting? If I want to convey sadness/lonesomeness in my painting, so it uses a given color scheme, then someone comes along and says "Man, you need more variety in your colors. There really needs to be like... a whole rainbow of colors on there," then what's the better decision: Stick to my theme and accept the inherent restriction of factor values (in this case, color variance scope), or just shrug and put a big happy rainbow all across my "melancholy" painting?

Well... I actually didn't claim you didn't, for what it's worth. I merely re-emphasized the specifics of the point, in case you didn't, as seemed to potentially be the case. Especially with your suggestion that the usage of typical summoning with a non-sub-optimal party is somehow "abuse." That being said, if I am wrong, then I am both sorry and confused.