Lephys

^ 1) Because things from mods are impossible to implement into a game during development. It isn't simple circumstance of the game already being complete that makes them a "mod"ification in the first place. 2) Doesn't matter how intentional it was, or how many versions it took. An example is an example. 3) Duke Nukem Forever took 10 years of development, and it sucked. Doesn't mean it takes 10 years just to get to the level of quality Duke Nukem Forever got to. Obviously other games that have come out in under 2 years and have been 7,000 times better than it prove that. Again, the point wasn't the specifics behind the development of that mod, or even anything having to do with the fact it was a mod. The point was merely that the results of that mod possess what Crazypea thought was a good start for romance implementation. Way to flood the village when the fire's in the church tower. "Hmm, I saw a house that was made out of concrete and shaped like a dome. I think that design would make a good hurricane-proof house." "ZOMG! Do you know how many renovations to that house they did BEFORE it was shaped like that and made from concrete? Not to mention that they just think it looks nice, and it isn't intended to withstand fierce weather. Plus, it's just a MOD! They didn't even originally build that house in that shape, or out of concrete! PLUS, they meticulously hand-crafted that house for 17 years before they finally finished it! What does all of this mean? That obviously, the resulting design of that house is in no way a good idea for hurricane-proof housing, u_u" That's what you sound like, arbitrarily bashing Crazypea's example.

WHAT are you suggesting we do to guns?! *gasp* Haha. I joke. Oh the irony of inadvertent censoring. You actually weren't saying anything bad, but now it appears as though you were. ^_^ Delightful. On-topic, though, that's a pretty cool mechanic. There's a lot of things like that I see in games, and they typically don't do as much with them as they could have. It's always like "Hey, we've added a whole new layer to our reactivity!". But, really, it's like adding an aisle to a retail store, and stocking it full of the exact same item. Still. They provide splendid idea foundation slabs,

I think they're going further than that. Instead of saying "Is this character going to be dealing damage, or are they going to be not-dealing damage?", the question is now "HOW will this character deal damage, as opposed to this OTHER character? More frequently? Mostly with criticals (focusing on opponents with the greatest difference between their own defense and the character's accuracy)? Mostly against multiple targets (lower damage, but more instances of its application per-attack)? Etc. That's the thing. Having high Power doesn't make you good. It makes you have high power. Having low Accuracy doesn't make you bad. It makes you have low Accuracy. I'd say your class answers the "what does your character do?", and your stats would determine how you viably do it.

Don't be hattin'!

^ See? Look how reasonable that was. I don't think that hurt anyone... Did it, Flintlock? Why can't everyone be that reasonable? "Hey, I typically LOATHE ROMANCES in games, 'cause all the ones I've played have sucked. But, I suppose IF they do it way better than those games, it could maybe be cool." "I really like romances, but they could obviously be done better than in a LOT of games." I mean, I think we can all agree you shouldn't HAVE to romance someone in the game. And they shouldn't be arbitrary, or any number of other things that constitute objectively bad decisions regarding the implementation of the romance. What does anyone's opinion of romances in general have to do with anything, other than to constructively analyze what's objectively good and bad about previous/existing implementations of romances, in an effort to determine how best to do one now, or whether it's even feasible? If you just plain hate the idea of lovey-dovey feelings, in general, why insist that it's nowhere in the game? "I hate Rangers... THEREFORE I DON'T WANT RANGERS TO EVEN BE A CLASS OPTION IN THE GAME, EVEN THOUGH I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING AT ALL WITH RANGERS!" That's about how silly that would be. Clearly, IF they can do it really well, and it doesn't cost all their development resources, and they don't have to sacrifice any children or kittens, etc., they should put it in the game. It's conditional, so even if your stance is "I don't think they'll do it well!", or, heck, even "There's no WAY they'll do it well!", then that statement still stands. That's what "if" does. That's why it's used in programming. If they'll never do it well, then you have nothing to worry about. Using those conditions, it'll never be in the game if it isn't done well. So, how's about either attempting to discuss the good and bad of romance implementation, or simply refraining from discussion? What does all this "Nuh uh! They're gonna do it crappily!", "Nuh uh! It's statistically probable that they'll do it well!" stuff accomplish? Absolutely nothing. Might as well just take some bets and call it a day, then see what happens when the game comes out.

On this topic, I'd like to opt for (though it be a minor issue, really) more organic "goodbye" lines. The typical ones always end up being borderline dickish. "Why, would you like any more free healing and equipment? I've got plenty left over!" (Main character): "PEACE OUT, BEECHES!" Hehe. Okay, they aren't THAT bad, but it seems like, even when all the other dialogue options are specifically tailored to exactly what was said last, the same "I'm out of here" line persists throughout, as if it were only designed with player interface functionality in mind. It quite often seems to not fit the actual dialogue in anyway, and comes across as rather rude, because it's essentially an "I no longer wish to speak with you, for even a second more" option. Or, to the player, "Dialogue, CEASE!"

And yet, what good is it to interpret words with no interest in meaning? What good are his words if they weren't spoken by the mind of Josh Sawyer, in relation to this game's development? If he makes a blatant typo, do you just shrug and insist that we must send his words to a forensics lab, or do you say "Hmm... you know, it's pretty likely that's a typo" and actually factor in the probability of his meaning, based on all the other stuff we know about this game, including direct quotes from himself. Not to mention all the other games he's made? You act like we have no choice but to sit around analyzing a single sentence all day, and that supposing his meaning is somehow pointless. We can ask him his meaning (ask for clarification), and/or attempt to discern it ourselves. Anything else is pretty pointless, to be honest. Viable means "adequately effective in some, unspecified manner." I don't understand what "viable" has to do with the ability to break a given character concept. He was addressing ALL character concepts, and the ability to meet them, if you so choose, via effort and guided intent. Not "Whatever you do with points, all things will still be possible!" Obviously, if you want to make a character who's super accurate, and you put 1 point into accuracy, then that point allocation is no longer viable in conjunction with your specified intent of your character role. This is absolutely no different from the DnD system. If you put a lot of points into Intelligence, then your character's viability was dependent more upon the benefits provided by Intelligence. You were viable in a given way, rather than a different way. But you weren't instantly viable for all roles, no matter what. The ONLY difference is, if you didn't put points into Intelligence, as a Wizard, you lost your viability, as you couldn't keep up with anything else in terms of spell level (which was pretty much the entire backbone of your whole class functionality framework). Whereas, now, if you don't put points into Intelligence (or whatever stat will be most comparable to that), you will simply SHIFT your viability to some other aspect of Wizardry, rather than focusing on the benefits provided by Intelligence. Would someone PLEASE tell me where the problem lies? Could you like... show me a diagram? Maybe circle it in red? That would be lovely.

All this means is that Intelligence and Strength won't fill the same main role for two different classes, respectively, while filling the exact same secondary (in this case, roleplaying) role for both classes. This relates to other arguments people have with the typical stat system. "If my Warrior can break down this door with his high Strength, why can't my Wizard break down the door with his magical potency? Surely if he can make a fireball, he can break a door, regardless of his physical Strength." So, in some games, you DO get to do such things. But then, the only difference is that the Wizard has to be highly intelligent to be powerful, and the Warrior has to be quite strong to be powerful (and effective with his melee weapon). That, and you're making 2 different skill checks, depending on class, instead of one. So, what's so different about having "Potency" be a stat? The stat's abstracted anyway. A monk can have the same amount of "strength" (think broad meaning) as a burly Warrior, even if he's super lithe and his strength comes from his inner energy, rather than purely from muscle fibers. This is no different, functionally, from the Wizard and his "mental" power. Although, in a way, it's a bit silly that a Wizard needs to be a genius just to be magical. ESPECIALLY in lore like P:E's, where the manifestation of your powers comes from your soul, rather than from some minimum amount of extreme study and intention. Besides, if Intelligence is linked to magic potency/capability, then are there no unintelligent Wizards in the world? Or no super-intelligent people who can't perform magic, even if they try? There are weak people who can be Warriors. And strong people who can't fight worth a crap. So, yeah. A) We don't know exactly how stats will or will not interact with the non-combat (roleplaying) aspects of people (Strength, Intellect, Charisma, etc.), because we don't even have a list of stats yet, much less details on their workings. And B) Who's to say there isn't a secondary layer to the character creation, like traits, that is much more fleshed out than typical games' systems so that it can cover all the roleplaying aspects of your character? You could have physique traits, intelligence-related traits, etc. Either tethered to detriments for self-balance (like Fallout's system, where you're better in some way, and worse in another, all-at-once), OR you could have a list of both benefits and detriments that you had to balance yourself, much like Shadowrun's PnP system of Edges and Flaws. You're super burly? Maybe you take Bad Eyesight to balance that out. Or maybe you have awesome eyesight, but you're not very potent at affecting people (persuasion, reaction, etc.). Maybe you're quite lithe, granting you bonuses to movement and/or stealth, etc. But, this leaves you frail/small, so you have extra chances of being knocked back/down, or being stunned, if you DO get hit. The possibilities are... well, finite, but REALLY, REALLY numerous. Let's think outside the box that may or may not even exist.

I like playing on the hardest difficulty, if it's a game type (i.e. gameplay) that I'm familiar with. UNTIL it's just plain stupidly "difficult." Like... DA 2. The first boss in DA2 was ludicrous on Nightmare (or whatever the hardest setting was). I expended all the potions I could afford, and used the utmost strategy, and could only get him down like 1/4 of his health before everyone died and I was out of healing. When the difficulty just beefs up the attrition-level of everything, I don't like it one bit.

^ Why plagiarism? I feel like I'm missing out on a joke here. 8|

What it really comes down to is what he means by "character concept". I would think that a concept is something like a combination of class and combat role. So, let's suppose a character that is a fighter archer. My take on Josh's statement is that there is no way to assign attributes to that character such that he will be non-viable. And that strikes me as wrong. It should be possible to assign attributes such that the character won't be good at the thing he wants to do. *facepalm*. Hahaha. Yes. All this time, Josh Sawyer has just been PRETENDING to not be insane, to lull you into a false sense of security. Okay, hang on. You're absolutely right. We know one of two things: A) You're misinterpreting his meaning, and, with that being so, he "should"ve chosen better words. B) He wants you to be able to just put 1 point into Power, and 5,000 points into Wittiness, and you'll still be the hardest-hitting whatever-class-you-are in the entire game. All the attributes actually all do the exact same thing, no matter what. They quite literally serve no purpose. Hmmm... you're correct. A is just plain ridiculous. There's a 99.9% chance it's B. Thanks for setting me straight.

He doesn't reinvent the wheel. He just takes a wheel that's been all shot up and shouldn't technically be able to live from its injuries, and turns it into RoboWheel.

After having read the majority of this entire thread, I can conclude one thing with absolute certainty: Romances are simultaneously a definitively horrible idea AND a definitively splendid idea. The entire game should be made out of romance, all while being devoid of romance. Problem solved. *dusts off hands*...

Ive been curious about this class as well. Im afraid it will play like a mage with different named spells but I hope they can bring something unique to the class. If a publisher were in charge, I would share that fear. They'd roll with that whole "We want to make a legitimately unique class, as long as it's mostly the same thing as a Mage. I mean, we wouldn't want to alienate the demographic who loves Mages and hates anything that isn't a Mage. u_u" Also... It's totally the opposite of Downdate Day, Which makes it Positive-Altitude-Date Day! A twenty-four-hour period causing us to say "Yay!" That was the update song, and now I shall perform the update dance...wearing my update pants. *rolls Perform Check*

The owner could give you nothing but thanks, but that thanks doesn't end there. They still exist (unless something in the story kills them), and they're still thankful, and they tell others of what you did, perhaps. Or maybe others find out via other means. That's literally the whole basis of a reputation system. You get rewards in the form of reactivity dynamics rather than immediate object/resource acquisition. That whole simply finding an item and maybe tracking down its owner scenario, though, represents the kind of simplicity I'm getting at when it comes to things like "fetch quests." In a lot of games, when you find an item like that, it's almost its own quest (with starter clues and everything) specifically to track down its owner. Even though it should just be "Okay, I have this ring, and obviously it belonged to SOMEone, since it's got a name/emblem on it, and rings don't just exist in nature, but I don't really have any clue as to who." Maybe you can wear it, and go around talking to people, and someone can notice it. Or, maybe you can start asking around. But, there's no reason for the game to forcibly give you an immediate clue, or have the two "options" regarding that quest be "do it or don't do it." Maybe that ring's very valuable. Maybe that ring has magical properties that are useful. NOW you've actually got a significant choice. "DO I keep this and use its daily magical ability? Or do I sell it for 700 gold for some equipment improvements? OR, do I try to figure out who owned this ring, and give it back to them, even though it is unknown what I'll actually get out of that deal?" But, maybe you DO get something really nice out of it, but it's just not an "immediate" reward, and it's not really the same type of reward as the other two. In most games, selling it is the "wrong" choice, since you pretty much "know" you're going to get some kind of reward (generally in the generic form of currency + XP) from the owner if you return it. So, you have the choice between giving up an unknown amount of definitely-existing money and XP reward to take advantage of the ring's properties (usually not worth it at all) or selling it (usually not worth it, since selling it JUST gets you money, and you're still out the XP of "completing the quest"). There's simply no need to artificially force a quest structure onto a simple lost item or needed fetchable thing. And, I'm not saying put in little actually-pointless people-needing-stuff quests just so they're more realistic or something. Only put in ones that actually affect something. That isn't to say you can't have a request to fetch something develop into something much more than a simple fetch quest. It's just silly for a quest to literally be "control your character over to here, get this thing that there's nothing really stopping you from getting since you loot things all the time even when you DON'T have a quest to do so, then give it to this person, and that will get you a reward, and that person and what they do with that thing you gave them will never matter ever again. They literally only existed to pretend like the world actually had people in it who actually need things done, and to give you monetary and XP rewards."

Words have more than one simple meaning. And the key word there is "could." It follows that we could be unable to assign points in a non-viable way. Deducing any "woulds" from that without acquiring clarification from the source (as people obviously know what their thought was when they chose their words, even if their words weren't specific enough to not misrepresent their idea) is useless. I did mean infer. Thank you for that correction. I didn't notice, while typing it, that my brain switched in the wrong word on me. Also, if your definition of "obvious" held true, then blind people would know whether a room was lit. And, if you've read all the other stuff he's said regarding character parameter viability (aka context), which is posted all over this forum, then yes, it would be come quite obvious specifically what he's getting at, and what he isn't getting at. If you want to make a potent, physically-resilient Wizard, you can do so without becoming a Magikarp, like you would in most other RPGs. That's the ONLY reason he's even specifying the intent of the decision: to compare it to the things we're used to. What are we used to? Intentional efforts to build characters a certain way, only to discover that they're not actually very viable throughout the entirety of a playthrough. How will P:E be different? Such types of things won't be inherently nonviable. Boosting Power instead of Accuracy (whatever the stattributes will actually be named) won't inherently make me a better or worse Wizard. It'll just affect how my Wizard... well, wizards. With the same stat, I cna make a more-potent-but-less-accurate Fighter, OR a more-potent-but-less-accurate Wizard. Doesn't mean I make the same character, regardless of class, and it doesn't mean that my character can't do what it is his class does because I picked "the wrong stat."

I think we are in agreeance. "toughest" wasn't the best choice of words, as it tends to imply passive toughness, when I was meaning to refer to skill. "Trickiest" maybe? What I'm thinking is, it's kind of like a martial artist. If a master martial artist's sword breaks, he'll adapt his attacks to the reach, etc., he now has with the broken sword piece. Maybe he'll use the scabbard more in his attacks, or focus more on disarming you, etc. He's masterfully experienced with, essentially, the physics of melee combat. So, even though he "relies" on his equipment, he's not really ineffective just because something's not exactly how he wanted it. Whereas, a more novice person whose sword breaks might be at a MUCH larger disadvantage, as he's relying on a much narrower set of factor values. A smaller "comfort zone," if you will. A masterful typical RPG warrior knows a lot more ways in which to take you down, no matter what the factors, and a lot more ways to mitigate his disadvantages. It's not that his sword strikes are so fast ant potent now that you just can't dodge them (or that, even if you do, the entire left half of your body will disintegrate from the wind of his strike's miss), or that he can just absorb fireballs and regenerate his own flesh on-the-fly. It's that he knows how to make more certain his hits connect (or are effective in furthering his progress toward defeating you, at least) and how to make more certain yours do not. Throw in soul powers, and you've got him having a much more developed power set than a noob. Not purely a progressively more potent one (although that is a minor growth dynamic). In having faced 100 fireballs, instead of 2, he better understands not only how one would need to dodge/mitigate the effects of a fireball on a given battlefield under a given set of circumstances, but also how to best use his own soul power in order to facilitate that mitigation, whether it be speeding himself up to make it to nearby cover, or misdirecting, then pouring it all into a very high leap directly at the caster (maybe a fireball has a longer recovery-after-cast than other spell types, and/or is harder to re-aim on-the-fly than other spells? The veteran Warrior knows these things), or maybe he can focus his soul energies into a short burst of temperature shielding at the right moment to sort of deflect it with his weapon. Heck, maybe if he chooses, he can spend his energy actually "Catching" the fireball with his weapon, and storing it there for a brief period, delivering all that fiery energy right back to the caster in the form of a melee technique. Whatever he can do, it's all still very limited. Whichever option he chooses, he's that much more fatigued, or missing that many more resources. And he can only do so much, even if he's got a bit more endurance than the noobie Warrior. He doesn't need to be more passively capable of shrugging off fireballs to the face. Only much more capable of handling fireballs directed at his face.

There's one giant fallacy in your post, Valorian: -This thread is literally about an element of the game that has just been mentioned by devs, and we are definitely lacking in details, regardless of our various IQ ratings. In other words, your stats actually don't matter in determining whether or not we've been supplied with details about this barely-announced system.

I can just imagine things being positional/directional, as opposed to the typical "you're just protected, overall, no matter what." Like... a shield against missiles. Maybe you choose a target, then radially choose a direction, and it only produces a shield around them that covers a 100-degree arc or so. OR, you just place an arc-shaped missile shield at a spot, and it's up to you to have your character stay behind it whilst attacking. And, with stuff like flamewall, I'd love to be able to choose the shape/direction of such a thing. Maybe you've doused the foes with small pots of oil, and you only need a lick of flame touch them to ignite them entirely, so you "stretch" out the flamewall, making it significantly longer but very, very thin. Against normal enemies, they could easily charge through it without much (if any) damage, but it threatens those oil-soaked enemies well enough. Or, maybe you need it to be quite thick, to block up an entire corridor while you regroup and/or "heal" (stamina" up, etc. So, you not only cast it as a shorter, thicker bar, but also cast it in-line with your facing, down the length of the corridor, rather than across it. Maybe you can shape it into a circle, or even a plus sign. Going back to tactical shield placements... that would even kind of fit a sort of tactical "build your own spell" system. You could basically save a preset spell that was actually 4 castings of the anti-missile shield, to form a complete sphere, instead of manually having to cast them all the time. Not sure that would work too well with the pseudo-Vancian "spell ammo" system, though. *shrug*

Schedules... They're more like guidelines anyway! Name that reference, and win a prize!

I can't even begin to fathom what it might mean to take something "too literally." Example: Okay, Sawyer said "No matter how you allocate your points." So, we could surmise "Hey, that means if you just put 1 point into each stat, then click 'create', you've STILL got a viable character! 8D!" When, obviously he was assuming people weren't going to imply such a silly thing from those words, even though they could technically mean that. But, people seem to be implying something almost as silly. That, somehow, it just no longer matters what you do with points. "You could put 5 billion points in Agility, and 1 point in Power, and you're still just going to have the same Warrior. The attributes don't even do anything anymore, just because Warriors and Wizards use the same attribute for Power instead of the Warrior using Strength and the Wizard using Intelligence."

Sorry. I must've missed that part. My bad. I thought you were speaking in favor of just the relatively increased depth of the Adventurer's Hall characters as opposed to just the Baldur's Gate setup. Yeah. Also, I think the characters could have more significance to the overall narrative and places/events/lore comprising it, so that you have actual reasons to take different people on different quests/segments at different times throughout the story. It could still be optional, but, taking Jack instead of Sally on this particular quest/branch/segment might alter the situation a bit: Who you can talk to, how they'll receive you/react to you, how much of the layout of a ruin/location you know about, etc.

I'm not debating the quality of the implementation. Only stating the literal. "You actually start" in whatever background you chose. And you play from there. It's not "just a cutscene." "It might as well be a big cutscene 'cause it was such an excuse for 'gameplay'" might be accurate, but, again, I'm not even attempting to debate that. So, it's moot. I'm attempting to discuss concrete, objective, tangible design shapes/paths/factors regarding the intro of the game, and how to best incorporate backstory lore and the like. Because, something that shapes the entire rest of the narrative has to be a chokepoint, to some degree. It doesn't have to happen at the exact same point on the ground, but... that supernatural occurrence you witness (we have very vague details, obviously) has to have effects beyond simply your witnessing it. Effects on the world. Your character isn't literally the center of the entire story, or we wouldn't have a coherent world at all. It'd be a terrible story. "No matter what exactly happens or where it happens, the whole narrative is about that." They'd have to write like 50 different full main narratives, with the supernatural event affecting 50 different areas in 50 different ways depending on where/when/how you witnessed it, laying 50 different groundworks for "the" main narrative. There's just only so much you can stray and still have a single, coherent (albeit reactive/dynamic) narrative. Now, with our limited info, I don't claim to be able to tell you extremely specifically just how much freedom there can be in the approach to the supernatural-event-witnessing without compromising the main narrative, but, to some degree, it's going to be a chokepoint. That much is a given. Wherever/however your character begins the game, all starting characters are going to have to converge on that chokepoint, even if it can move about a little bit and/or happen at slightly different times or in slightly different ways.

Just disperse kernels, THEN fire the nuke. The heat from the blast SHOULD pop the popcorn. 8P

... Come again? o_O. I really don't understand what you're saying here. And why do you keep misconstruing classes' capability to be equally viable with a variety of builds? Simple difference? In lots of old RPGs, you simply could not make a Wizard who tanked. He'd be a mutant. Once you got to the end of the game, he'd be like 17-times wussier and less viable than a Warrior who was a tank. Now? You can potentially make a beefy, frontline Wizard. How does this make him not a Wizard anymore and all a Warrior? He's still going to play as a Wizard instead of a Warrior, and you still had to adapt your usage of him and his skill/ability/talent build around your allocation of stat points. You have to do that differently with a Warrior. Are you suggesting that the optimum system is one in which the ONLY significant difference between a Warrior and a Wizard is that the Wizard has few hitpoints and low Strength and armor, and the Warrior has a veritable fountain of hitpoints, high Strength, and high armor? The rest of class-specifics are inconsequential? Because, if you're saying that, then that's crazy. And I don't think you're saying that. In which case, we're back to the game of "where's the imaginary problem?" So, you CANNOT distribute your attributes on your fighter in a way that he wouldn't be the best of tanks anymore. What's better, you can't do the same on a mage either; put all your points into STR and INT and you'll still come out a tank. A) You're definitely reading FAR too deeply into that quote, and taking it wayyyy too literally. Almost any sentence in the English language could be highly misconstrued with enough effort. I'm pretty sure all he meant was that each stat offers the potential to support a certain build aspect, no matter your class. Not "If you just randomly drop points in random things, you're still going to just automatically be the best whatever-role-you-can-think-of, 8D!" B) Maxing out your Wizard's Power and Health don't make him the best tank. It's still up to how you use him, and the plethora of other factors that make up a build (again, there's a LOT more than just stats that comprise a character.) Besides, I already pointed out how the Warrior having Defender when no other class does already makes him unique in the melee-engagement aspect, which factors into the super-ultra-vague role of "tank." That's just one example, and it's so potent, I don't even think I need to waste my time trying to think of a longer list of them. Ehh... again... ... what? o_O Yet another lovely claim devoid of any presented basis. If you could say WHY that's true, we can do more than just subjectively shrug each other off (i.e. actually continue in a constructive manner).