Lephys

"Sludge McGurble: Swamp Druid... at your service." Would be pretty neat if you could sort of have an affinity for a specific biome/ecosystem within the entirety of nature.

Ahh, my apologies... I did not mean "right and wrong" as in morality. I meant more like "Correct and incorrect." As in, "this choice actually advances you toward some goal, and this one does not. But don't worry, they're both totally viable."

I just want to note that there's a huge difference between representing NPCs views of a good-vs-evil morality scale in the game, and the game itself representing your morality on such a scale, globally. I would definitely love to see more precise representations of your image, like McManusaur said, but I'm hardly against people in the game world expressing their views of characters or actions being "good" or "evil." The game doesn't need to override the nuance and variety of people's views/reactions to the things they encounter.

That's a fine point. Really it is. But it still doesn't eliminate another point: That anything other than "counter that ability" is not a viable choice against death spells. If you face a Warrior and a Mage, you have 2 threats, and multiple ways to deal with both at once. Maybe you engage both at once. Maybe your party is heavily armored, so you're more worried about the Mage. Maybe your party is more weakly-armored, so you worry more about the Warrior. You're not forced to address one in the same way every time, regardless of the circumstances. If that Mage has an insta-death spell, how's the "We'll worry about him later" tactic gonna work? How is anything BUT "make everyone invisible" or "kill him immediately" or "silence him," etc. a viable choice? I'm not saying that's the end of the world. I'm merely saying that it's always a more limited set of viable choices than you'd have if dealing with any other ability on the planet. Every other ability in the game has a variable effect that's dependent upon circumstances. An insta-death ability does not have this. You stop it from being used, or you stop it from landing. You have far more options than that against any other ability, ever. So, when you have 10 abilities in the game, and you add an insta-death one. Sure, you just added an 11th ability, so obviously there's a greater total number of things to deal with. However, that's true of ANY 11th ability, as compared to only 10. A more apt comparison would be to replace a current ability, of the 10, with an insta-death spell. Then tell me you didn't just lose something. "Well, I could've reacted to that firestorm in 17 different ways. But, now that it's insta-death, I pretty much have to either stop it from being used or stop it from successfully affecting anyone at all." If they wanna put them in the game, then awesome. It's not the end of the world. But that has nothing to do with the fact that an insta-death ability always reduces the number of factors involved in viable tactical combat decision-making as compared to any other, non-binary-effect ability. If you still like them, awesome. You're not dumb for that. If you want them in the game, awesome. But if you're going to tell me that's false, then you might as well tell me that 2 + 2 is 5. Personally, I'd rather always have a greater range of tactics to use in a given dilemma, than a lesser range. I don't want to get to the point in the game at which we face 3 insta-death-wielding necromancers and 5 other melee combatants and face an encounter 17-times more difficult than any other in the game, purely because I didn't spend all my party's points on the highest Save-vs-Death values I could get and I lack the ability to prevent 3 necromancers from firing off a single spell before I kill them without the rest of the enemy group slaughtering me for ignoring them completely. *shrug*. Call me crazy.

I always thought "blinders" were mainly just instruments used to block peripheral vision. Basically, so the horse could only see where it was going, and wouldn't worry about looking around or being spooked by its periphery. Were blinders used to, in essence, "blind" the horse's entire field of vision? 'Cause, those spiderweb eye covers seem like they'd be difficult to see through, period.

I'm pretty sure. I haven't seen any statement about intentionally not having loot drop, and Josh Sawyer specifically mentioned loot drops. The only real decisive design sentiment they've expressed is that they don't want constant crazy-valuable loot drops left and right. Basically, they don't want to make Diablo: Eternity. I think it's more that killing 5 bandits isn't always going to be worth the same thing. Sometimes you might find some really nice sword, or sometimes you might find 2 shillings and some rusted old equipment. Josh made mention of being able to actually see the specific equipment on a foe, visually represented on the in-game model. So, you're probably not going to be playing a guessing game. To put it simply, in regard to deciding whether or not combat is going to be worth the loot, keep an eye out for goblins wearing gold crowns and swinging jewel-encrusted swords, and steer clear of impoverished-looking foes. 8P I'm well aware things could still be done wrong and suck, but I hardly believe everything automatically sucks, just because you don't necessarily always get XP and/or quality loot, just for the sheer act of stopping hearts. It's easy to look at this as one big currency exchange. Kill some bandits to rescue a captive? Okay, that costs you in combat-resources currency, and is tough in that way, if you want to try that. Hmmm, what if you just sneak past them and rescue the person? Well, the bandits don't just cease to exist. If you didn't kill them, then they're going to continue doing what it is captive-taking bandits do. Maybe they try again, or they get really mad and attack the nearby settlement, etc. If you killed them, that wouldn't have happened. Just because the immediate pros and cons seem to favor non-combat doesn't mean the two options can't still be balanced in a way. Again, it CAN be done wrong, but it can also be done right. It's simply an incentive to actually consider all options before choosing one, even if that one is still combat.

I wonder this as well. I'd have to assume you'll have regions of relative "safety" (more rest zones than spots) with smaller areas of... "unrest," (I couldn't resist), and other regions of relative danger (or otherwise-preventing-extended-rest factors) in which the majority of the area will not allow resting, and only small spots will allow it. I highly doubt it'll be just little dots throughout the entirety of the traversable map. I am anticipating more official info on this, in general, though.

A) I'm a person advocating romance options, and I'm not talking about any specific existing-game things that is comprised of "the stuff that's been done wrong." B) If someone builds a shed out of wood, and they engineer it incorrectly, and it collapses in a light rain storm, do you jump to the conclusion that wood is not a useful material in building a shed? When something's done wrong, it's very rarely done 100% wrong. I can cook a delicious recipe, then put 2 tablespoons of ghost-pepper sauce into it, and make the whole thing spicy beyond consuming for most people. Yet, 98% of the recipe was completely unproblematic. While I recognize that collecting data from existing attempts is valuable, I hardly believe it provides conclusive evidence, in any capacity, as to the possibility of something being done properly. This one's on me, and I apologize. I shouldn't have used "=" signs to say what I was trying to. What I meant was, that whole "all romance is personal affection, but not all personal affection = romance" thing. In other words, romance is a form of personal affection, rather than being an entirely separate entity. You are very correct that, in mathematical expression, the sign I used is commutative. Again, my mistake. Yup. As I said, I'm certain it would take me quite a while. I'm confident, however, that I possess the capability to do so, with the right amount of time and resources. People write books of the same nature, all the time. The only difference is divergent possibility. Actually, that wasn't a specified criteria, so I could make a purely linear game that just so happened to have interesting and varied inter-character relationships. . But, I'm mainly being silly with that, for what it's worth. I know you meant it to be understood that the game wasn't simply a book you play through. I humbly acknowledge this. I have no interest in dictating what you should and should not decide. I simply enjoy analysis of the objective bases (basises?) of such decisions. In this one, there is no conclusive answer, either way, so far be it from me to say that it's definitely possible. It would be just as silly to tell you you cannot believe it's not possible as it would be for you to tell me that I cannot believe it IS possible. Thanks for co-opping the topic with me, though. For realsies. I understand your perspective better than I did before all this. Just because I still believe it's possible doesn't mean that development of understanding is meaningless. I await with you, to see what does come of all this in Obsidian's game.

Really, I just think sufficient reactivity in response to circumstance will suffice. You know... "Hey, we found a whole chest full of rubies in those ruins, and you spent them all on a gold statue of yourself! I have a dying grandmother! I am now irked!" I think it could easily just be a part of the companion influence/reactivity system, in general. There doesn't exactly need to be some system of companion demands at each and every turn and corner. "Wait, I KNOW we're all being hunted by psycho people right now, as part of the main story, so we share a common interest in continued living, already, but if I'm going to follow you for the next 24 hours, let's talk payment." Or "Wait, if we're going to go rescue this child, let's talk payment." An over-arching understanding of general treatment and equal sharing/benefit throughout your travels should suffice, I would think. Then, just have that be affected by various choices, if you stray from the middle. Give everyone cool free stuff all the time, going out of your way to do so? Well, they react accordingly (still variety amongst reactions of individual companions). Never give anyone anything, and/or stupidly blow communal party resources on giant gold statues of yourself? People react accordingly. Basically? I say just factor "I expect to get something specific out of this" into the companion-PC relationship, in general.

Ehh, I think this is the turning point in between "no limit" and "limit." The whole point, as it were. There need to be sufficient consequences in place, so that efficient use of your health and other such resources provides distinctive benefits from just running around swinging at things willy-nilly. However, ultimately, this is a game. What are you going to do if you can't replenish your health and you die? Reload and try again. I'm not talking about meta-gaming. I'm talking about hard failure. If your party is dead, you literally cannot "continue" from that point. So you have to rewind and continue from a previous point, OR you have to just quit the game and never play it again. So, ultimately, I don't think the goal is to impose such a hard limit that you can run into a dead end, because, ultimately, there is no dead end, unless you happen to be voluntarily playing in Iron Man Mode. So, yeah. It's a fine line to walk, but one thing I think that's important to keep in mind is that there's a cost either way. Just because you LIKE resting everywhere doesn't mean it costs the gameplay something. And just because you like having extreme limits doesn't mean that doesn't also cost the gameplay something. "All things in moderation," right? And what is moderation? It's finding the best point between two extremes. It's not always right in the middle, but simply picking one endpoint or the other is always going to be an extreme. You can't move toward one thing without moving away from the other, and both are necessary in some capacity. While I'm still a big fan of contemplating and analyzing the crap out of this in an effort to find the best possible solution, I think limiting resting to only certain areas (and simply implementing that in a non-extreme way) is the best solution. You never CAN'T rest, but you can't just rest with such unimpeded convenience that you literally negate the threat of any state of being between "dead" and "100% tip-top shape" toward your continued progress. You simply have to put forth a little bit of extra effort (travel back to a rest place, maybe head to town and come back). And really, that just balances against the effort you could've put into making more efficient use of your health and abilities in combat. And if that sounds harsh, keep in mind that the game should be properly balanced so that the combat encounters (and the spans between rest spots) shouldn't require extreme levels of party-management efficiency just to not run out of health. Even accounting for luck (or lack thereof) should still result in a range of tension between rest spots, as in "Oh, hey, I still had 40% health on everyone this time!" or "Oh, that was close, I was down to like 10% health with the party, and Steve was dead." So, assuming the game is well-balanced in that respect, you shouldn't be able to have a tough time of things getting between rest spots without just being ultra lazy. And the game shouldn't support a complete lack of effort. That's what cheats are for. A game is inherently a challenge, to some extent, and you can't have a challenge without effort being mandatory. I have no interest in forcing some crazy high amount of challenge, but I do wish to avoid preserving challenge, in the appropriate amount (as set by your difficulty choice).

We've been through this in another thread. I'm not going to tell you to love XP-less combat or anything, but please at least consider the fact that combat isn't devoid of benefit. A) There will be times when you cannot achieve the same results via another means (i.e. diplomacy, stealth, etc.). In fact, there might be times when a direct approach is literally suicide (you can't take out 74 palace guards or something), but a Stealth approach actually gets you access to a non-suicide combat approach (you sneakily make your way into some back courtyard, then STILL have to fight your way past some guards, because they're guarding the perimeter so tightly, etc.). I don't know how many, so I'm not going to tell you that "most of the time, combat will offer unique results." But, equally as silly is assuming that "most of the time," there won't be a point to combat, because an alternative will offer literally the same results with a better cost-benefit ratio. B) Combat can often get you things that other approaches cannot. If you kill the bandit leader (who is a 5-year veteran pilferer), you get his I-get-the-best-of-all-our-spoils gear/personal belongings. If you come to some sort of diplomatic agreement and go your separate ways, you don't. That's as simple an example as I can think of. I beseech you: Please just consider all the facets of this whole XP thing, rather than looking at one and flooding your perspective with it. I really don't think it's going to be as crazy/terrible as you seem to think. Just for what it's worth... Anywho, regarding the OP, I'd say that the problem isn't so much the focus on action, but the lack of variety in that action. I say we have some pause-and-rotate 3D scenes involving strategic slo-mo and a background of arbitrary sparks, all supporting an extremely epic match of word tennis between two characters. Or, better yet, figure out some awesome means of dialogue reactivity interspersed throughout some bouts of combat. In-your-face lockpicking action! 8D

Yeah, I get what you're saying. I just... well, I'm going to try not to stray TOO far here, heh, but, I question the integrity of the game, overall, if you can do more than a tiny few things like that and literally end up with nothing (not even a reputation change). I mean, I understand that the "logical reward system" you're talking about is that of the relationship between the game and the player. You know, "well, you did something, so you should get something." And that, alongside that, we have the relationship between the party and NPCs/world, that, in order to maintain world-like-ness, needs to not be quite so logically absolute in your effort-to-reward ratio. I just think the trick is in moderating the two of these. If you JUST stick with the world, and, throughout the game, you frequently do things that earn you nothing... well, the fact remains that it's an intentionally and specifically designed video game, and that a player is playing this, and that the player is putting in time at his computer and is NOT experiencing anything from within the confines of the game world. And, I didn't clarify before, but, I should've said that in the typical mold of gradual-progression that most RPGs use, if you spend all your time and effort on 10 different quests, and you fail to achieve anything with them, then you're literally at a detriment according to the game's own design. If those 10 quests don't matter, really, then you've failed to ACTUALLY upset the logical reward system. If they do matter, then you either get some progression-aiding rewards from them (even if it's simply actual experience -- skill advancement and character knowledge and the like -- or access to further quests, etc.) and keep up with the curve, or you get nothing from any of them and fall far behind it. That's all I meant. To some degree, the freedom of offering no-reward quest outcomes is subject to the design of the game, and the game-player relationship. Basically, if the things you could've potentially gotten as a reward are necessary in some capacity, then you've got to give them out, in some capacity. Otherwise, you're kind of making one of the outcomes the "right" one, and one or more the "wrong" one. I'm all for "What, I thought I was gonna get 3,000 gold pieces here, this whole time! Turns out all I get is a pat on the back, and the support of local farmers?!" Maybe that's just reputation, or maybe the support of local farmers provides an otherwise-unavailable opportunity in some other quest/situation (like being able to procure additional foodstuffs in some kind of siege, etc.). So, you got something for your efforts. You just don't always get something immediately useful, or useful in the particular way you would like.

Dunno... looks like that one's Spidey Sense is going off, though.

Yup. I think that's probably a big part of the "clutter" feeling. Why would so much be happening all at once? And/or why would you hear about it all at once? If you took care of everything that was going on in a city, all in the first day, then what would happen in the weeks to come? Staggered access to quests fits the much more naturally-occurring development of to-be-dealt-with situations.

Complexity in whatever numbers, 8D! Hear hear! *raises flagon*

True, true. I just figured maybe there was some "Actually... the way the scales were designed, it would even be pretty difficult to bypass them with even an UPWARD swing, even if you could effectively land such a blow in the heat of combat" tidbit someone had to toss in, heh. I am ignorant and seek knowledge. Of course, once you get something like that, you've got that "It's pretty unlikely that anyone's going to try and swing UPWARD at me" thing going on. So, if you're the one person who focuses on perfecting upward-directed maneuvers for that very reason, you'd probably have the element of surprise. Still less feasible than regular combat techniques, I'm sure, no matter how much you focus on it. I've just got an unhealthy interest in "that's just crazy enough to work, and no one will expect it" maneuvers. 8P

Nope. A lock is either locked or unlocked. if you're comparing it to single enemy ability, then that would mean the dungeon has a whole bunch of abilities to use against you at one time. But, the chest's only ability is "be locked." There is nothing dynamic about opening a chest. You don't face a whole dungeon at once. You just face one chest. Just like you only face one combat encounter at a time. However many enemies there are in it, you can't just leisurely decide to only kill HALF the enemies, then just keep going. So, a combat encounter, at its smallest, involves one enemy. Therefore, chest figuratively = enemy. Chest's lockedness figuratively = enemy's ability. Also, the similarity between picking a lock and killing with an insta-death spell is exactly what I was pointing out is bad. In that comparison, who is the locked chest? Your character. Who is the lockpicker? The enemy using the ability. Your life or death, instead of being a range of states of being and status ailments and levels of control and available resources, is reduced to the simplicity of a lockpick check. Which you still have yet to address. Yet you stress how specifically the two are related. Strange... How is this not the exact same thing I'm stating? When you're unlocking a chest, you don't CARE that it's binary, because the chest is incapable of doing anything. But when you're facing an enemy, you DO care whether or not your death is binary, because lots of things are going on, and you want them all to matter. Stun... why do you want combat abilities to turn combat into lockpicking? Why? I need to know. Mightily. Okay... you're clearly just messing with me now. Hah-hah! Very funny. Lock? 2 states of being: locked, or unlocked. Living entity? OODLES of states of being: Living, wounded, majorly wounded, minorly wounded, silenced, poisoned, slowed, healing, parrying, blocking, countering, aggressive, precision-focused, on-fire, stunned, rooted, blind, the list goes on... Completely different things, conceptually. The only way they could be the same, conceptually, is if your enemy was always inanimate. ... You... are... quite... literally... making... my... point. Open your eyes, for one second. I beg of you. Earlier, you just said (and I quote): And now, you just said each lock equals one conflict, just like each opponent = one conflict. Which is it? Is a lock an ability within a conflict, or a whole living ENEMY within a conflict? Haha. Okay, the fact that you're contradicting yourself aside, let's get back to that whole "you're actually making my very own point" thing. A conflict... get this... can be made up of lesser conflicts. Just like a war is made out of battles, a battle is made out of opponents. So, you have a conflict against each and every opponent present in a battle. The entire conflict is simply a compound conflict. Here's where you're wrong, though, with your "if one roll doesn't resolve the conflict, then that's no different from Slay Orc failing to kill the orc." What does Slay Orc do? What are the only 2 possible outcomes of Slay Orc? That it A) successfully strikes the Orc, and ends that one conflict of the Orc being a living thing trying to murder your face, OR B) it fails to strike the Orc, and literally nothing happens at all. I already addressed this. Nothing but one of those 2 things can ever happen. Either the conflict is resolved, or nothing happens ("the conflict is simply not resolved" is not accurate, as there can be an effect between "nothing" and "the orc dies" without the conflict being resolved, which you seem to fail to comprehend). Let's, for the 700th time, look at a standard attack. Oh, what's this? You roll to hit! *gasp*. There's a dice roll, just like with Slay Orc! Ohhh, but he fails to dodge. So you hit him. OH NO! HE LOST HITPOINTS! But wait. He's not dead! You've affected the conflict without resolving it completely, but also it doesn't remain the same. You've altered applicable factors that now further contribute to all attempts made at the resolution of the conflict! *gasp* WHAT DEMONRY?! The simple fact that a standard attack (ANY attack that isn't an insta-death effect) has at least 3 potential outcomes, rather than just 2 quite literally means that insta-death effects restrict tactical variety. The only way they could restrict it more is to have only ONE outcome (to never miss, and always simply succeed). Riddle me this, Stun-man... how does that not make sense? Tell me how that is false. Unless one of those is an ability to negate all other tools at his disposal. Tell me which is more complex: -You come upon a big tough baddie, and you look at your tool belt, and you say "Hmm, I really don't want to deal with all that HP and armor and figure out how best to maneuver around him, and when to make people work together and take him down. I'll just use "Deathify," 8D! or -You come upon a big tough baddie, and you look at your tool belt, and you don't have a Deathify. Neither does the big baddie, but he can still kill you quite easily, because of the particular circumstances. So, you still have to fear death. Possibly even 1-hit death. But, you've got to deal with combat factors that affect the effectiveness of your tactical choices, rather than reducing everything involved with felling this particular baddie to a SINGLE dice roll (even if you have to make it several times, it's the same check each time, repeated.) The day the 1st one is more complex, you will be correct in all this nonsense. Oh, well, in that case, why don't we have Mass Death spells? Let's have a "Your Whole Party Dies" spell. I mean, it'd be limited, and it's not like you could use it in conjunction with any other ability, so it wouldn't be silly. I mean, you couldn't like, instantly kill the entire enemy group AND stun them or something. Jeez. All you can do is kill them. It's a very tactical decision. "Crap... do I absolutely kill, or should I, perhaps, just maim them?" Just like how, when confronted with an enemy using that type of spell, you have so many tactical options vailable, such as "Don't get hit by that spell!," or "Don't get hit by that spell!," or, my favorite, "Make sure that spell doesn't hit anyone!" So, why don't we have group-insta-death spells, hmm? Wouldn't that add yet another layer of tactics to the equation? ...Thereby taking the "insta" right out of the "death." I'm talking about "insta-death" abilities, the effects of which are death, under any and all circumstances. Not once have I made any specific reference to IE games abilities, nor have I ever claimed to be a master of the old IE games. So, I'd say that my lack of knowledge of abilities in the IE games that don't instantly-and-absolutely kill you has absolutely no bearing on my knowing what I'm talking about regarding abilities that do so. Have fun trying to win, though, and I'll continue to pursue logical evaluation. Come get me when you're on the same page. Until then, I'll let you spout out whatever you'd like. If you can't figure out what I'm saying in these multiple pages of our back-and-forth, then there's nothing anyone can do about that but you. I've done all I can. u_u

Oh, so you can't do any of those to someone who ISN'T casting an insta-death spell? Also, in a way (the key words being "in a way"), they actually DO have only one counter: don't get hit by them. Guess what? You can get hit by a stun, and still not die (or you could die because of the stun). That's, count 'em, TWICE the possibilities of getting hit with an insta-death spell! You can get hit by a weapon swing, and ALSO possibly not die. So, let's look at all of combat's potentiality. Stuff trying to hit you? You could prevent it from hitting you, or cause it to hit you to lesser effect, or counter it when it hits you (for a greater offensive output at the cost of taking the hit), or get hit by it and then heal a bit, or take the hit so as to prevent another character from getting hit, etc. Okay, stuff's trying to hit you with insta-death? You have 2 options: Don't get hit, or die. You can't get hit, react, and have any possibility of doing anything other than dying. You can't work that into your tactics. "Okay, instead of preventing the hit, I'm going to take it, but then I'll make sure I do something effective, then get out of there so I don't get hit again. Then I can use supportive abilities from a safer distance. It'll be tricky, but it should be a lot more effective, overall." Nope. That's off the table. Getting hit = off the table. With pretty much anything that isn't insta-death, getting hit ISN'T off the table. Your Warrior get rooted? Switch to a ranged weapon. HUZZAH! Tactics and reactivity! Your Warrior get hit by an insta-death spell? Switch to DEAD MODE! Your Monk get slowed? Maybe you can switch to a defensive stance while your Wizard starts working up a counterspell. Your Monk get insta-killed? Maybe your Monk can... well... not do anything. You know what? None of this even yet addresses the whole Stamina/Health system. If Health is 4 times your Stamina (or so) to get you from one safety rest/camp point to the next, then insta-death spells are not only taking you out of immediate combat, but also taking out your entire reserve of health for the inter-camp-point span. So, I don't really foresee people rezzing everyone left and right, mid combat. Just something else to consider, methinks. I'm quite literally arguing for the exact opposite of that. You're simply taking examples out of context. I haven't supplied any examples of "THIS IS HOW COMBAT SHOULD BE!". I've simply observed perfectly feasible combat scenarios and factors, in order to illustrate the absolute, unchangeable relationship between insta-death effects and combat as a whole, and entire-range-of-damage-and-things-that-don't-necessarily-result-in-death effects and combat as a whole. I don't understand how you think I want some kind of easymode, or am against death. I'm against the method of death. I'm not demanding that it not be easy to die. I simply want it to be a complex possibility, is all. In other words, if it's going to be so tough for me to tactically kill my enemies, it should be that tough for them to kill me, if I'm controlling my party well enough. All insta-death does is make it SIGNIFICANTLY EASIER for death to occur, no matter what you're doing, because it literally just takes a bunch of combat factors and shatters them against the wall.

There's a difference between ignoring something, and reading and considering something that fails to change the fact of the matter. I especially like the "just because you saved against a Bodak's Death gaze does not mean you suddenly won the entire encounter against the Bodak and his minions" line, since you're literally reinforcing my point while failing to realize what my point was.. Assuming parameter size for conflicts? You were comparing the potential effects of an insta-death spell, in combat, to unlocking a locked object! The point wasn't that combat always has a set parameter size. The point was that a locked object always has a set parameter size. When are you ever going to be like "CRAP! SEVEN LOCKS?! I must tactically take down all of these locks, as opposed to only tackling ONE lock!"? Never. Exactly. Therefore, in order to represent the potential for combat to have a parameter size greater than one binary parameter (unless you're going to argue that, some ludicrously high percentage of the time, combat SHOULD involve the same parameter size as a locked object), I had to make an example involving multiple locked objects and a broader challenge than simply "unlock the inanimate object that's never going to do anything beyond sitting there, staring at you, and remaining locked." Recap? Sure thing! I said "Insta-death abilities are binary. One roll determines whether you're unharmed, or you're INFINITELY HARMED." Then you went all "OMG, plenty of things in cRPGs are binary! Like lockpicking!" So then I said "Uhh, there's more to combat than there is to lockpicking. You'd have to look at a whole area filled with pickable locks and other forms of skill checks or capability factors." Then YOU responded with "LOLZ! Why are you even worrying about MULTIPLE locks when we could just be talking about one lock? Oh, also, just because one roll occurs DOES NOT mean that a conflict ends there!" Contradiction, much? "Don't make me an example that assumes there will be multiple parameters involved in a task, oh, but keep in mind that there won't always just be one parameter involved in a task." I... I literally don't know what to say to you. You make discussion so difficult. My point stands fine. If you'd stop staring into your own point like it's the sun, maybe you'd see mine for what it is. Each and every fight shouldn't have a set number of steps, correct? You would agree? Since you proposed it would be ridiculous for me to argue otherwise, I'll have to assume you would agree. Okay. I'm going to supply you with two specific examples here, since I can't give you an example with absolutely no specific parameters. Yes, the parameters could be different from these, and they could also be these. You get to a fight that just so happens to only require one hit. You have one character, and there's one enemy. As long as you don't refrain from any offensive tactic whatsoever, you slay the thing in one step. It's a rat. You swing, dice roll determines what happens, you kill it. How many times you miss is irrelevant in this context, because that's true of ANYthing. In other words, whether or not you use a sword, or an insta-death spell has no bearing on the potential for you to miss. Okay, you killed it with one sword hit (regardless of how many misses). Okay, now you get to an enemy that's tougher. It's an orc. Ooooh, this guy has more hitpoints and armor, etc. It just so happens that, based on your sword power and his armor and HP, that it's going to take you 8 sword hits (regardless of however many misses) to fell him. Now, rewind, and let's do the same thing again with an insta-death spell. The rat? Takes 1 hit, because insta-death always kills when it hits. The orc? Takes 1 hit, because insta-death never doesn't kill. Now... in which scenario (with insta-deat, or without insta-death) did we see the greatest RANGE of combat parameter/step sizes? That's correct... the one without insta-death. Why is that? Because factors such as armor, HP, and ability effectiveness were not steamrolled by the design of an ability that ignores such things all together. Now, please. PLEASE, tell me that's incorrect. Tell me that, there's JUST as much involved in conflict resolution with insta-death spells as there is with conflict resolution without them. The effect of an insta-death ability is binary. I'm not saying it ends combat. And I'm not saying it takes away movement capabilities and ability ranges and line-of-site, etc. But those things are all still there when using any OTHER ability in the entire game, in any other combat scenario. So, whatever insta-death still has from those things, all non-insta-death abilities still have on top of all the other factors they bring to the table.. Recap? Effect of a weapon swing (meaning the effect of it actually connecting)? Not binary. It doesn't switch the enemy's status to dead. It takes into account many factors, and produces an aptly-adjusted affect. Maybe combat's over after it hits, or maybe it isn't. Oh, the possibilities... Effect of casting an insta-death spell? Death. But what if the circumstances are dif- NOPE, DEATH! But, I had really high NOPE! DEATH! Yeah, man. I must be going crazy. Insta-death obviously has absolutely no effect on the potential size of the parameter list for a given combat encounter. What was I thinking?! Thanks for enlightening me, Stun. You're the best! 8D I'm just trying to use as many of your own words as possible, here, since it would seem mine are no good. You don't see the difference, because you can't "half-unlock" a locked chest. Then, logically, according to you, it must be fact that an insta-death spell can, in fact, half-kill someone. Clearly. I mean, if it could ONLY either kill them, or not kill them, then it would be binary. And it surely isn't binary. Heavens no... p_u Hmm... Well, let's see, off the top of my head, there's "You haven't even convinced me to even consider releasing the prisoner," then some amount of "Okay, I'm actually considering releasing the prisoner because of your excellently-chosen words, but you still fail to actually fully convince me to release the prisoner," followed by, at some point there, "you've not only gotten me to consider more options than merely 'kill the prisoner,' but you've eventually led me to the decision that releasing the prisoner would be a good idea." So... you tell me if there's a better way to do it.

Haha. I'm with you, yaminsoul. I really am. And I'm really not trying to just nitpick away at all your words, even though I know it sometimes seems that way. I just tend to... well, overly specify, in an effort to avoid ambiguity. So, sometimes I kinda think "Oh, hey, that person said something I like a lot! But that makes me think of a bunch of stuff between the cracks that wasn't actually typed into a post! Better do that now, just in case! 8D" Heh. So... please, bear with that, and I'll try my best not to suggest that I'm pointing out things that you're opposed to, when I'm simply pointing out things I hope get pointed out, for the sake of the discussion as a whole. Regarding the topic, I just think it kind of needs to be juggled, despite the fact that you are very correct in that the rewards don't need to be seen strictly from a gamey perspective. I.e. "Player spends 30 minutes... player gets 30-minute reward." I simply wanted to make sure that the "at the end of the day, this is still a game, and you're playing it to get something out of it, in a more generalized sense" notion was considered alongside the "let's not rip up the lore by just making sure you always get the gold you need on a very neat little schedule of gameplay time" notion. 8P To put it another way, I just think a slight twist of the perspective works wonders. Better to re-evaluate the meaning of "reward" than to worry about exactly when to give a reward and how much. . Both serve the same end, though. Like climbing a ladder or climbing a rope. I am glad that you were already considering both. And yes, we are going to have a perpetu-party. That's a party that never ends. Ever...

Much obliged, Josh. I wasn't aware of the at-will "tier" of spell-tossability. I'm sure I missed it somewhere, Also good to know with certainty that, at no point/under no circumstances is there mana. Josh Sawyer... Replacing Project:Eternity uncertainties with certainties since 2012.

I definitely think Body Size could easily work as something like a trait (think Fallout) or background (Arcanum). And I think the balance between the effects of stats and individual skills is pretty important, too, Sabotin. I definitely don't think that being a level 20 Warrior with 13 Strength needs to mean you only do 50 damage, whereas having 20 Strength would've had you doing 100. I think your prowess at combat should be more important in that equation. Seems like stats are best left to affecting a wider range of things to a lesser degree. Like... Strength might affect your ability to intimidate, to break objects/doors, to grapple, to perform athletic actions (to an extent), etc, whereas Swordsmanship or Melee Combat would MUCH more greatly affect your capabilities in combat, but fails to affect any of the other things. I think your stat/attribute values should probably shape the kind of person your character is, throughout the entirety of gameplay, rather than forming the very spine of your specific character's build as it relates to combat effectiveness. All the better with multi-faceted stats. You could have lower-Strength Warriors who simply fight in a different manner, rather than sucking at damage output, and lower-Intelligence Wizards who don't get as many spells per day, but have ridiculously fast cast times, etc. To put it simply, perhaps a high value in a given stat shouldn't make you good at a class, but rather, good at a specific aspect of that class. Not to mention better/more generally capable at various things that are completely unrelated to class build (dialogue functions, inter-character interactions, exploration, crafting, etc.)

I vote for New Game Awesome mode. You know, you start a new game, and the game's so fantastic that, even though nothing's actually different about the game mode, itself, from your previous playthrough, there's plenty of variety and wonderment to be had in your entirely new and different playthrough. 8P

Well, I dunno about "romance options," but it seems to me that romance options (the ones without quotes that aren't alleged, suspect things) are perfectly fine. If anything, it seems to me that you're equivocating "romance options" with actual romance options, as if crappily done ones that "override" things (aka "The devs just put in a romance potentiality and not a non-romance relationship potentiality... simple lopsided omission, really) are all there is, just because no one's ever done it correctly, without omitting all non-romance aspects of relationships for that character. And, for what it's worth, I wasn't equivocating. Romance is a form of personal affection. That is in no way a claim that all personal affection = romance. Romance DOES = personal affection. Personal affection does not necessarily = romance. Yeah, I could write a game with varied, interesting, and deep interpersonal relationships of various types. But, while we're waiting on that (which could take a while, since I'd need to do a GREAT deal of studying to learn the coding on all that, THEN raise enough money to actually have the time and resources to code all that, from scratch), it could, perchance, be prudent to suggest that this already-in-development game, in whose forums we are currently discussing, make such an attempt. I don't think that's crazy. Really, I'm not even asking them to attempt it. I'm merely saying "Hey, if you're gonna do romance options, lets make sure they aren't 'romance options,' and that they are literally what the name suggests."

I'm really not trying to be sarcastic here (genuine curiosity), but wouldn't that mean that, in regular scale/lamellar, any upward blow would slide easily in and murderfy?