Lephys

Yeah. I'm with ya there. I especially hate how you run into "Sara wants you to go and pick up her delivery from Steve's shop," and it's a quest. Sure, it's irksome that it's just a fetch-errand, but... wait, what if it isn't? What's irksome is that, the actual, involved QUEST doesn't start 'til you get to Steve's Shop, and he's missing, and there's blood on the floor or something. NOW something's up. Yet, in many games, it's all "congratulations! You made it to Steve's shop! 100XP for the first segment of that quest!" No! You didn't do anything yet! The errand simply LED you to an interesting situation that now constitutes a quest. It may seem like silly semantics or something, but I think the structure of such things should really just be divided into two separate things: Thus-far mundane happenings/context/leads, and actual quests. Ehh, kind of like how Arcanum does it. When someone tells you something, you just jot it down in your journal, even if you don't know what you're supposed to do yet. "Sara would like someone to check on her undelivered package." It doesn't say "QUEST: Find Sara's undelivered package!". There's no unsolved mystery yet. Maybe she can't leave the house, and she just thought she needed to go pick it up, instead of waiting on it being delivered the next day. It's not a missing package. It simply wasn't delivered yet. *shrug*. But, I digress a bit.

What kind of businesses are the only kind in the P:E world? ... ... ... ... ... ... "Soul" proprietorships.

And if they are as smart as cows? Leatehr armor is fine but dragon scale is not? Because dragons are more inteligent (maybe, maybe not)? Kinda odd to say "If you're inteligence score is greater than 5, it's ok to skin you. Otherwise it's not" I think you might have that backwards. I thought he was saying that, while cows (being of low Intelligence) don't react to your wearing leather, smarter things (like sapient dragons, being of high Intelligence) would, you would think, react to the fact that you're wearing their kin's hide on your body. Maybe it was just a typo on your part? Maybe you meant to say "Less than 5"? *shrug*

It might've died after that last post of mine, but we'll never know, 'cause you hit it with a defibrillator, ironically in the form of a "Why is this thread still getting posts?" post. 8P Hehe. I'm truly not trying to be an arse, but if the thread is so boring, why not stop reading it, much less posting your lack of interest? It'll die when no one wants to discuss it anymore (or it hits the post limit, which I guess, technically, your post does work toward, so touche...)

I had a similar thought, and posted a question in the update thread. The things I already thought of, as far as the sheer difference regarding the Monk's effectiveness goes, are as follows: A heavily-armored Monk could "wade into" a larger group of enemies at once, while still accumulating Wounds at the same rate (lessened damage from the armor + more sources of incoming damage = cancellation). Whereas, the lightly/un-armored Monk could not stand against a group of 6 enemies while he dispatches one at a time. He'd need help from the rest of the party, and/or to use different tactics to thin the group or separate his targets. Plus, there's this that's been mentioned in here, I think; once you fill your Wounds to maximum, you begin taking full damage (if I'm not mistaken), PLUS the damage-over-time from the Wounds, so long as they go un"spent." So, you only get damage mitigation from Wounds so long as you have some empty Wounds available into which the damage can be diverted. Again, the multi-enemy example. If you have 3 Wounds, and you get hit once by 6 enemies, and the first 4 attacks fill your three Wounds, then the last 2 attacks do full damage. Whereas, in that exact same scenario, with armor, it might just take all 6 attacks to fill your same three Wounds (and not go over). Boom. You've filled your Wounds in the exact same amount of time, AND took less damage, total, from the 6 foes, AND will continue to take lessened damage (from the armor) if your Wounds stay filled and you continue to be attacked. As Greensleeve pointed out to me, the Monk will have passive abilities that provide benefits so long as Wounds are maintained. So, whereas an unarmored Monk could focus on filling Wounds as quickly as possibly, then spending them as quickly as possible, you could have a more passively-built Monk who focuses on maintaining Wounds and increased survivability.

Just to be clear, you're not actually "taking" the portion of damage that fills your wound. Think of it like natural, temporary armor. Using purely example numbers, say you take 15 damage. 5 of that goes into 1 Wound (maybe, at a given level, every 5 damage fills 1 Wound. *shrug*). So, you take 10 damage, instead of 15. Then, if you use that Wound immediately, you never take any of that 5 damage that's occupying a Wound "slot." But, if you hold onto it, you take (again, example numbers) 1 damage/sec for the next 5 seconds. Either way, you at least get a 5HP loan, even if you don't get rid of the Wound, which you get to pay back in 5 seconds, instead of immediately (like any other class would... just take the 15 up front). Thus, for anyone who was worried, it's not quite a "Run in and take a bunch of damage, then you'll rock." It's more of a "Run in and take a bunch of attacks, and convert some of the damage to effective offensive capabilities, so that you can last longer whilst running in and taking a bunch of attacks to your person."

This is true. I hadn't really thought of that, so thanks. However, my question still stands, it would seem, as the un-armored Monk (or less-armored) ALSO gets the very same passive benefits while he has Wounds. But, that does give me a more specific potentiality. That would be a good form of specialization; beefing up the passive abilities in lieu of the active ones (e.g. you put points into Turning Wheel [passive fire damage to melee attacks while you have Wounds] to increase the damage from +2 to +5 INSTEAD OF putting points into... I dunno... Spiffy Strike, which uses 1 Wound to deal 20 damage, so it stays at 20 instead of going up to 25). I don't know that we spend points like that on active abilities to improve them, rather than their simply increasing in effectiveness as the character progresses (or both, maybe?). But, anywho, that's getting off-subject slightly. If Josh, perhaps, gets the chance (I know they're all quite busy at the moment, making a game and all, heh), I'd just be curious to know, generally, how decisions such as Heavy Armor or un-armored will translate into character progression throughout the game with a Monk.

I'm not seeing how phrases such as "it shouldn't be hard" are inherently making him un-humble. He's simply stating that, as far as he knows, he's not suggesting things that are understood throughout the industry to be ludicrously tricky or time-consuming. Simply for what it's worth. Until he says something like "even YOU guys should be able to do it, LOLZ!", there is absolutely no reason to assume a more specific meaning than "to my knowledge, this shouldn't be very difficult to do, which I'm telling you in the event that you didn't already know that." And regardless of how much non-technical stuff you'd vote for, the entire game is built out of "technical stuff," The art team can create their painterly quality all day long, and the "technical stuff" has to make sure it maintains integrity throughout things like lighting and other dynamic factors. Not to mention that I'm sure the dev team is more than capable of deciding what is and isn't detrimental to the integrity of their art team's work, regarding game engine techniques. It's not as if Frenetic Pony is urging thousands of backers to sign a petition to be sent directly to Obsidian that demands that all the resources from the art team be redirected to the technical team. So, again... no need to assume things and get upset over sheer speculation. I encourage you not to be so concerned about harmless suggestions, for what they're worth.

I was a bit confused about the balance of the armor thing at first. But, it makes more sense now, I think. It's not so much that your Monk becomes a WORSE Monk when he's in heavy armor. It's just that a factor changes. For example, if you send him in to fight a group of 5 Goblins, unarmored, maybe he accrues Wounds very quickly, but is receiving so much incoming damage that he almost-immediately fills his Wounds "bucket" and begins taking full damage. Basically, it's great that he's able to use his abilities so quickly, but he might not be capable of living through the onslaught to use them, because of so much incoming damage. So with Mr. Unarmored Monk, you might have to only have him take on like 2 or 3 Goblins at a time, max, and/or move him around a lot/micromanage him just to keep him alive and effective. BUT, if you give him heavy armor, he can stand up to the group of 5 more easily now, even though his Wounds don't accumulate as quickly. Etc. Basically, IF you run into a situation where you need to fight off larger groups, or more individually-powerful foes, the armor is actually more beneficial than the Wounds speed. Or if that's just the style you'd like to play (you want your Monk to dash around the frontlines, skirmishing with multiple enemies at a time, rather than taking them on 1-or-2 at a time, etc.). If I'm not mistaken. My question is this: Just how integral is their Wounds pool on their overall effectiveness? I mean, equipment aside (purely Monk character capabilities), do they have the ability to specialize more in non-Wounds abilities/skills if they're going to wear armor? Do they HAVE non-Wounds abilities? That's my only other concern: If they basically have to take damage to build up "mana" for their abilities, then they always go into combat less effective, whereas other classes are the reverse (Wizard goes into combat, tosses 7 spells out, and now is out of spells). I understand it can be balanced, but, I was just curious if everything hinged upon Wounds with them, or not, and what kind of specialization we'll be able to do with that mechanic. I mean, if you WANTED to make a heavy-armor Monk, could you specialize a Monk in a simply-different manner for the simple fact that you want to play a heavy-armor Monk (since we can), or will you always be a quantifiable 30% worse than an un-armored Monk? (Example number). I guess what I mean is... if you reach level 15, are all your choices going to consist of abilities that rock, but require more and more Wounds? Because, it seems like, if you get up to high-level Monk abilities that are the core of the Monk's effectiveness progression, and you need 7 Wounds to use them instead of 2 or 3, and your armor slows the accumulation of Wounds across the board, then you're simply going to become less-effective as you go. You know, "Oh great... now I need to take 700 damage before I can use an effective ability instead of the 200 I had to take before, yet I still take damage at the same rate because of this armor I'm supposed to be able to feasibly use in some way." So, yeah... TL;DR --- Will all of a Monk's effectiveness be dependent upon the accumulation of more and more Wounds as they progress? Or will parts of their potential effectiveness (specialization potential) not involve the speedy accumulation of Wounds and/or the accumulation of greater and greater amounts of Wounds?

Did not the Spartans sometimes go into battle unarmored, and were not they quite successful? Obviously everyone's not going to do that, but some people fight unarmored already. The odds of those same people caring about things that produce differing aesthetics for them and simultaneously provide no practical/functional benefit to averting wounds in battle are not that slim, really. Also, you keep talking about going into battle, like cRPGs' typical combat scenario is 15,000 vs 15,000 in some kind of formal-ranks city siege, where you always want armor because 1,000's of arrows will be raining upon you at any moment, and random people will stab you with swords and pikes in the midst of a flood of soldiers, rather than small-scale, party-based engagements. There are plenty more reasons to worry less about armor and focus more on agility and various other means (similar to martial arts, etc.) when you and 5 other people are fighting up to 10-or-so other creatures. Not to mention the entire suspension of disbelief that already goes into an RPG world, simply because of the structure of an RPG (You start out with rudimentary competence, and by the end of the game you've slain about 7,000 individuals of gradually increasing threat/skill/difficulty, mastering every combat skill you have as you go along.) A real group of 6 people wouldn't fight their way through an entire world-wide conflict, magic or no. There are plenty of factors at play, and there are reasons to wear oodles of armor, and reasons to not wear so much. Obviously the dev team has to pick one set of values for the factors involved, as they can't pick all of them, and they can't pick none. To put it simply, does there need to be impractical (but completely do-able) stuff in the game world? No. Does the game world need to be completely devoid of any such things? No. People are a bit crazy at times. If you prevent the game world from reflecting that, then it feels like a world full of half-empty, shallow "people." If they so chose to come up with a clever means of incorporating enchanted chainmail bikinis/loincloths (for example), I'd take no issue with that. Oodles of tribes in reality pierce 50% of their body surface with various bones and such, and stretch out their earlobes, etc. Is that in any way practical? No. But they have some reason for doing so, and that's their own. The British, in the American Revolutionary War, war bright red coats. Is that intelligent and practical? Nope. And yet an entire nation's army did so. Again, people are crazy sometimes. 8P. Wartime is no exception.

It's okay. All maidens can't be teachers. (Nice sketch, ^_^)

That would be pretty... wikid...

The problem stems from the fact that that temporary ability with limited castings possess its own hit points AND acts as a target that you don't really have to care about, not to mention the offensive capabilities it possesses. Summons are generally unique in having all those properties, as most other abilities don't attack AND shield you AND beef up your HP AND use further abilities or produce status effects upon attacking, maybe lead foes into a clump or wherever you want them so that you can Horrid Wilting 10 of them at once, etc. It's just something to be considered, is all. For what it's worth, I think an interesting idea would be to treat summons like a controllable spell. Imagine if you launched a fireball, but then you could control its movement to an extent, and it could strike 4 foes before burning out. Almost like a channeled spell, you know? Except you're not channeling to keep the fireball in existence. You're channeling to control it to make it do more than just a launched fireball would do. I don't think summons should actually BE fireballs, but I think it might be cool if they acted more like the caster's current "weapon" at the time, and providing a unique-but-temporary set of skills/capabilities for the duration of the summon (which probably wouldn't be very long, in this case). Obviously, this could simply be ONE type of summon among others. Maybe you have lesser summons, multiple of which can be maintained at one time, and they act on their own (while perhaps accepting minor commands?) as basically reinforcements to your fight, temporarily. Then, you have greater summons, which are significantly more powerful, but cannot be maintained alongside any other summons (summoning one will instantly dismiss your lesser summons), and/or they must be directly controlled by the caster, or they'll just stand there and stare blankly around. Basically, they're stronger, but you can't just summon them, let them run amok alongside you while you run amok casting other spells and smiting things like normal, with basically your very own same-level tank you just brought into the world for a minute. You might could relinquish control to reposition your caster or cast other spells, then re-assume control of the greater summoned thing, so long as it remains in existence. *shrug*

I really like what someone mentioned in another thread (regarding Speech-type skills, methinks?). It was something along the lines of it being actually fine to have individual skills or capability ratings with things such as Flatter and Intimidate, but that they'd only decide how effectively your character can flatter, for example, and not what kind of effect flattery will evoke in the target. Meaning, someone who doesn't take kindly to flattery would react more potently to a (example numbers) Flattery skill/rating of 100 than they would to one of 15, but that reaction would still be a negative one. Basically, depending on the person, you might actually be better off with a low skill/rating than a high one, if you attempt to Flatter them when they hate it. It's almost like... if someone hates dogs, and you get them a tiny dog figurine, that's not as bad as if you get them an actual dog. Of course, for someone who LOVES dogs, it would be reversed. "Oh, thanks, a dog figurine. That's kinda nice, ^_^"... "ZOMG! A DOG?! SWEEEEEET! *pet pet pet pet pet*"

I like the idea of a pseudo-form, rather than simply "becoming" an animal. Like WotanAnubis said, it immediately doesn't conflict with animal companions as much, AND it pretty much eliminates most of the "But wait, can a bear cast spells with somatic components?" question, heh. I think it'll definitely be a lot easier to make it something you can make use of quite often, even if you're not specializing in some kind of bear-tank role or something. @ Gumbercules: Haha! You beat me to it. I couldn't find an image that would work, quickly enough. 8P

Look... I really, sincerely try my best here. I fail to see how I can go any further out of my way to make my point clearly and provide as little extraneous text that could lead to misunderstanding as possible. Why must everyone pick what they want out of my words, mold it to fit an argument they'd like to make, and then just roll with that, rather than saying "Oh, maybe he's not saying what I intended to argue against, here."? *sigh* The point was that people spend lots of money on comic books even when the price has nothing to do with improved functionality. Which is why that's all I stated. I can't make a comparison to something that's EXACTLY like an enchanted chainmail bikini, but that doesn't mean that I'm saying that enchanted chainmail bikinis would literally have all the properties of comic books that you can possibly think of, and that people would purchase them for the exact same reasons. The point wasn't what the reason WAS for giving value to the comic book (rarity). It was what the reason WASN'T (functionality). I don't know how to make a point such as that any clearer or more precise without an accompanying overly-explanatory paragraph like the above. And yet, still, it wouldn't surprise me if someone pointed out some more problems, picked out of the above clarification, in all the contextual stuff that still isn't in any way a part of my point. -___- Exactly. Therefore, everyone whouldn't simply run around in these instead of regular armor, just because they're functionally equal to regular armor. No idea. I'm not voting for their inclusion in P:E. I simply enjoy analyzing the subject to find an actual valid implementation, in the face of at-a-glance "Those definitely would always be stupid in a game world" allegations. Look at how people shoot themselves in the foot with stuff nowadays, with girls going to nightclubs in winter in miniskirts (with maybe a tiny, still-sacrificing-function-for-style fluffy half-coat on), waiting outside the club in line for upwards of 20 minutes, complaining about the cold but finding it even more annoying to have a warm coat that ruins their outfit. I don't see how anyone could think that, in a believable world, not a soul (pun intended, ) would place more importance on style than function in some things. Obviously no one would ever wear a regular chainmail bikini and be a successful warrior person, UNLESS they fought unarmored anyway (like a crazy Spartan or something), in which case the lack of armor from the bikini would be moot (as opposed to... a hide loincloth and mantle/shirt thingy?). But, that isn't to say no one would ever desire to wear such a thing for impractical reasons. Just, this type of thing is generally met with that whole "OMG, any 'sexy' equipment, whatsoever, is just sexist sexualization!", when really, a world of believable people is going to have people in it who just so happen to want to dress like that. Obviously, games go a bit overboard a lot of the time, but the answer isn't just a clean-sweep approach to all things scant/stylish. "In this world... no one cares how they look, at all. No one, ever. Everyone's 100% practical. In the entire world. Because we don't want to offend anyone in reality with the sheer existence of things in a fictitious world full of characters who are supposed to act like believable people." I just don't buy that, is all. But, I don't really think there've been many people in here making any huge arguments for everyone to have boob plates and bikinis (and/or speedos, dudes, u_u).

I don't recall them ever making such a deadline-promise with the backer site. They've been very forthcoming about the fact that they have very limited resources for it, at the moment, and that they'll have it done as soon as possible. Couple that with the fact that we don't really NEED it yet (since there's an actual, concrete schedule for the production and fulfillment of all the rewards and such, and like Sensuki said, the game's not even due out for another year) and I think they're operating WELL within reason. If you're eagerly awaiting the backer site and wish it were done already, that is understandable. I believe Obsidian even hoped it would be done by now, as they do want to finish it. But, I don't see it still being in-the-works, at this point in time, as any form of problematic.

Because magic costs resources (when it's feasibly worked into a believable world). The same reason everyone in the world doesn't run around in bullet-proof vests and stealth suits, just because we've developed the technology. Therefore, only those who place personal, overwhelming importance on obtaining a certain look would pay to have the magical enchanted chainmail bikini, just like people pay oodles of money for that mint-condition original #1 issue of a comic book, even though it's not any more functional to them than an old, used print of that comic book that they could get for 1/1000th of the price.

Keep in mind that they had to answer to a publisher at the time... something they do not have to do with P:E. There's no group of shareholders telling them to put in a rocket launcher to increase profit margins. Despite their sometimes-admirable efforts, publishers always find a way to force decisions that are counter-productive to the coherent vision of the game's core design, since they're not making decisions for purely design-quality reasons. It's kind of a conflict of interest. "I want this game to be really good, but I also want to try to get kids who play nothing other than Call of Duty to play it, no matter the cost to the artistry/coherence of the game." It's like... if a blacksmith had a publisher. And they were like "Hey, make the hilt of that sword out of chocolate! People LOVE chocolate!" Well, now the sword doesn't function like it's supposed to. The design is flawed, because the decision to make the hilt from chocolate was not based on the question "Will this hurt the design and functionality of the sword?" Anywho, I can't say that they'll produce a flawless product free of any complaint at all, but I bet money (sort of literally, with the Kickstarter backing) that they're putting the maximum amount of effort and focus together on this to produce the best game they can in the best way possible for the game's sake, and not for other conflicting interests. And while there are always going to be debates between conflicting opinions, I think the dev team is quite capable of processing such debates to extract their objective value and not worry about the easily-overruled subjectivity of everything. I mean, if we got all 75,000 backers to sign a petition to turn this into a racing game, I have no worries they would simply say "*shrug*, I guess that's what everyone wants, even though it makes no sense. Let's do it." Our feedback is supplementary to their own expertise, not superceding.

I never got to play through all of the BG games OR IWD games, but I got to play them a good bit and watch my friend play them a lot, and I've gotta say I'm a HUGE fan of how the IWD games felt.

The official Obsidian radio star will, I'm sure, be glad that his life is spared this day. yes The Obsidian team all has 18+ Charisma. (Seriously, though, it's quite admirable that you guys are so attentive to these boards, even at 10 pages out on a single thread, even with us occasionally rambling about this or that.)

This is false. That's all I have to say.

I'm just talking combat, by itself, as a sub-system. Combat gameplay as it pertains to the outcome of combat. The way in which you, the player, partake in combat. Crafting can easily be treated in that same manner. Logistically and technically. I'm curious, though. Where have you "seen that in motion before"? You mean you've played a game with ACTUAL crafting-combat? This I need to learn about, 8D! Also, I'm a big fan of exploration in crafting. Although, I've gotta say, as creative as some of the stuff was in Dead Rising 2, it still actually stuck pretty closely to the typical "collect-stuff-and-use-a-couple-dozen-recipes" system. You couldn't make your own unique polearm or anything. There was just the oar-machete polearm, or none at all. Things that should've been creatively combinable weren't part of the recipe list, and therefore weren't creatively combinable. I don't want a system that lets you tie a leaf to a sword, or just melt a candelabra to a horn or something, just because they're two objects and they can technically be combinable. But, I think the system should offer plenty of room for creative discovery, rather than "Oooh, I got a new super-specific recipe!" I think recipes should dictate what you can make, and within that should be a plethora of factors for variation and personal touch.

^ Another expression of disbelief at another thread?! Seriously?! I don't mean this in a hostile manner, but if you don't feel like Romance needs to be discussed any more, then why not simply refrain from reading and/or posting in this completely 100% optional thread that someone else decided to make and other people decided to partake in discussion within? *shrug*

I think a very useful lesson to be taken from this thread so far is one regarding story development, regardless of how many full arcs are gone through. It seems a lot better to sort of figure things out from your characters' limited perspectives than it does to have "Stop Evil Lord Blargle from summoning the Evil God" from the get-go. Maybe you don't even figure out he's trying to do that until 80% through the game. In fact, the first time you meet Evil Lord Blargle, you probably don't even know he's evil. Maybe he's not even quite himself yet (like a Batman villain who hasn't yet been "created.") Maybe the true villain is born from the story development, itself. Anywho, the fact that so much can be done, even with only one technical story arc, leads me to believe that the development/structure of the story (as presented to the player) is most important. For what it's worth, though, I do enjoy the multiple-arc stories, 8P