Lephys

Since "none" is within the realm of "as much as you want," I'll take that offer! 8D

... Said Mojang to Bethesda.

*Tries to dodge, but rolls a -99 on Initiative.* Cursed slownessssssssss!!! ^_^

The 100 damage was arbitrary. I'd rather use actual numbers, for examples, instead of using good old unknown variables and algebraic expressions. 100 is whatever number of damage actually allows you to be on-par with stuff of a given level, in a given scenario (whatever level/scenario/stuff you want to imagine up to your heart's content.) I mean, if you go up against the last boss with a flimsy copper sword from the beginning of the game, and woven straw armor, you're probably not quite going to be where you should in the numbers. And if quality equipment means anything at all, while it's not going to determine 100% of your effectiveness, it's going to contribute a good bit. So, lacking it would put your numbers somewhere below whatever 100 represents. But, there HAS to be a number there, because the whole system is based on numbers. So, my example was simply looking at whatever that number happens to be and making design/balancing decisions around it, in hypothetical "I'm sitting here designing P:E" land. And yes, you're right that my concerns/points aren't necessarily applicable. I'm glad you got a little something out of what I was saying, though. Like you said, just exploring possibilities here. Sometimes I do it more than anyone really sees a need for, and I don't expect my every word to be some crazy, dramatic revelation or anything of how the system should absolutely be, heh. No worries on that. Ehh... if the weapon steers itself, why does it need your input/aiming at all? Magic missile... You can cast it in the opposite direction, and it will make its way to the target. PLUS, it's not a physical thing. It's pure magical energy. You're basically just commanding it, and it's acting. So, that type of control does seem a bit weird in just slightly/sorta/kinda helping a sword find its mark. And it depends. If you know HOW to correct mid-swing, then the sword allowing you to swing it faster and harder will make you better. Otherwise, it will just make your attacks more frequent (however accurate they are), and give them more force when they strike. If you take a primitive rifle, and give it a larger powder charge with each bullet and a clip, it doesn't make it any more accurate. It just allows it to fire faster and hit harder. Also, yes, the kid with the enchanted lighter/balanced sword would be "better," just as a person WITH a sword would be "better" than a person without a sword. But, giving someone who doesn't have a sword a sword doesn't increase their ability with a sword. You have 2 factors: Your ability, and the tool's hindrance (weight, cutting edge, balance, etc.). Sharpening a sword makes the SWORD cut better with the same swing. It doesn't make you swing the sword any more skillfully, while simultaneously making your however-skillful swings more effective. So, you can do one of 2 things with magic: You can actually increase the character's ability at USING the tool, or you can increase the effectiveness of the tool. If you make a 15-lb greatsword suddenly weigh 7lbs but be just as strong, you're not making the swordsman any better at fighting with a greatsword. You're making him less hindered by the sword's weight, allowing him to use more of his ability that he already had. If he sucks with a greatsword, he's gonna get tired more slowly, but he's not going to suddenly start wielding the sword with more expertise. He can swing the sword faster, sure. But he could already swing a 7-lb something faster than a 15-lb something. If you reduce its weight to 0-lbs, he's not going to simply keep swinging the sword even faster. He can only swing any object so quickly. And if you allow his muscles to magically swing more swiftly/forcefully with the same effort, he's STILL not going to be any better at actually comboing those things together and reacting to stuff (like correcting mid-swing) without his mind being enhanced, which is exactly what I'm talking about when I say his "skill" with the tool isn't being increased. Also, regardless of whether or not the magic makes his muscles tougher and quicker, or makes the sword lighter and better balanced, you can't really get a stacking benefit there, beyond a certain point. If you can swing a 7-lb sword as if it's weightless because of your strength, then going and reforging the sword to make it lighter isn't going to make you swing it as if it weighs -3 lbs, nor is getting familiar with it going to help at all. That's my point, as well. That only leaves "This enchantment actually makes you more skillfull/knowledgable at wielding a sword," which we discussed with the legendary-type stuff and souls bestowing skill and whatnot. It's exactly how you said: "It depends on how you look at a +to hit." It does, and there are 2 different ways to look at it, side-by-side. I think such effects from enchantments on weapons shouldn't stack with the effects of non-magical weapon modifications and/or familiarity, UNLESS the weapon bestows actual skill, in which case it should be a rare, legendary weapon, most likely. That sums up my view, and I hope it makes sense why my view is my view. No argument there.

I'm confused now. Should bosses be easy, or should they be literally impossible? Obviously those are our only 2 options, but I just don't know which to favor... SO indecisive, o_o.

"Are those people following you around dependents? No? Wait, you don't have a house? You have a STRONGHOLD?! ... I'm gonna need to see a permit, and I hope you kept all your receipts." New class: Auditor! It's like a Chanter, but with unintelligible lines of tax code and jargon instead of song-like words and phrases. 8P

If you wanna boil that down, stuff can have any number of purposes without the game even telling the player, up front, what all those purposes are. I think the standards on the nature of quests have been kinda... ehh, simplified and arbitrarily restricted? "A quest is something that you agree to do while knowing what it's all about before hand, and what kind of reward there is, with MAYBE a handful of varying factors along the way." The world shouldn't be made out of quests. Quests should be made out of the world. Like you said... Want to figure out what's going on with those linked, chanting mages in that ritual? Now you're on a quest to find that out. You'll even get some type of reward for it, really. But no one ASKED you to do it. The game didn't TELL you to go do that. Want to help them summon the demon and take control of it? Go for it, connect FOUR! Want to kill them all because you don't like what they're trying to do? Go for it. Want to find out exactly what it is they're doing before you decide? Maybe you don't have enough skill/reputation/knowledge, or you simply don't say the right things, and they refuse to explain anything to you. You still have to decide what to do about it. Maybe if you leave them be, you come back to find them all gone, and they show up later on in some situation or another, with their demon. Maybe they've disguised their demon as a monarch, and no one knows. Maybe they've got some other goals in mind. The possibilities are endless. The whole point is, the quests are all there, depending on your perspective and goals. They simply aren't in a convenient cafeteria line, with labels out in front on the glass. It's up to you to discover them. Games are starting to lack discovery, like it's annoying or something. "Just tell me who gives me the best armor if I kill them, and that's who I'm gonna kill. I shouldn't have to look this up online! JEESH!"

Crap... And here I thought I'd already spent all the money I was going to spend on games this month. No worries their campaing will end in next month, so it will not cause any problems in this month Too late... backed. . I stopped myself from going TOO overboard with it, though. as of earlier today, they were already at about $850,000 out of the $900,000 goal. Which is AMAZETASTIC!. That's what... in a matter of about 6 or 8 hours? I think people seeing the actual in-game footage of Wasteland 2 (having backed it a while ago) is bolstering faith in Kickstarter games, especially by the same company that showed that footage. 8P

...Real boomerangs, as in the weapon type, did not come back, they either clobbered a critter on the head or they missed and ended up on the ground. Unless it's some ultimate magic indestructible arrow enchanted with "the Unstoppable Force" it can't possibly return to the shooter. Also how is the shooter supposed to catch it? It's got the Unstoppable Force, meaning nothing can stop it once loosed. Since it's the ultimate magic indestructible arrow it will kill the shooter then fly through the world/ground and end up in space or the ether or what-have-you if P:E takes place on a planet. If it's some flat world existing in its own tiny self-contained bubble universe it would cause some kind of metaphysical paradox and pierce the universe or come out the other side and make that location a permanent death trap. Technically, all he said was "boomerang arrow," not "arrow that returns to you," so, by your own clarification, all he quite possibly meant was "an arrow that is launched from a bow, but behaves as a real life boomerang that doesn't return to the shooter." Also, I would think nothing else could stop the boomerang with Unstoppable Force magic working on it, so it could still stop itself. Or, if the magic's driving its force, you could simply dispel it and it would stop. Also, I don't think it would have to automatically be indestructible just because its force it's attempting to exert is infinite. The atmosphere doesn't stop meteoroids, but they still often burn up whilst the force with which they're traveling has them trying to penetrate the atmosphere.

Well, things are capped by physics. You can't craft a +1,000 sword out of steel, because steel is only so strong and sharp and light. You can't swing a sword infinitely fast (regardless of soul powers, or just regular human abilities). So, yeah, things are naturally capped. It's only when you toss in the no-rules magic that things aren't capped. If you don't cap magic, obviously, it causes problems with the rest of the world. "Oh, even a 5-year-old who can channel magic can destroy the whole planet. But no one ever does, and also mages get taken down by swords sometimes, even though they're infinitely powerful and have no limitations." Clearly, ludicrous. So, my point wasn't that we would ask "why is this enchantment's capability capped at SOME point?", but rather, "Why is this enchantment's ability capped SO LOW?", if that makes sense. In other words, you can't gain +20 fire damage from familiarity, so magic can obviously increase that oodles. But then, oh, it can't make the sword more easily swingable beyond a quantified +2 or +3? A haste spell can make you move twice as fast, but that can't be put into a permanent enchantment in a sword that makes you swing twice as fast/accurately? You just start running into head-scratching things, a bit. It's not entirely nonsensical or anything. It just starts rebelling against the order of things in your world. True, but also sort of part of my point. It doesn't really have to "make sense," because it's magic. But then, it kinda does, or it just seems like "the only reason this works this way in this living, ficticious world is because the mechanic happened to need it to, JUST so we could have plus-to-hit enchantments in this game." Why would you need huge familiarity bonuses? And, regarding your not-seeing why I would even want to forbid those enchantments, it's the same thing as anything that can come from multiple sources. Take... weapon damage. Maybe it comes from elemental enchantments, AND from applied oils, AND from Strength, AND from buffs, AND from feats/abilities... Well, now, you've got to make sure that someone who gets ALL those things isn't slaying bosses in 1 hit. But, at the same time, you've got to make sure that getting only SOME of those things is actually worth it. If you're needing to do 100 damage to be effective, and your weapon is at 70, and oils add a max of 2 damage, and enchantments add a max of 5, and STR bonus adds a max of 3, and buffs add a max of 2... well, you're ending up with like 80 damage. So, it's not even worth the effort and time to just get one or two things. It's either everything, or nothing. If that makes any sense... So, yeah, I think it would possibly be best to limit to-hit bonuses to PHYSICAL, non-magical factors (skills/feats, familiarity improvement, weapon customizations, etc.), so that you don't have to balance a whole 'nother factor that requires arbitrarily forced rules to be made up to explain its extra capping in one respect. *shrug*. I just think it's a feasible line of thought for the design, is all. Not "OMG IF WE DON'T DO THIS, THE GAME'S BROKEN!" I think it would make balancing easier and less convoluted, when it comes to attack ratings, without really hurting anything. Like you said, magic can have any rules you want. So why would "well, it's just really hard to make swords make you better at swinging them effectively with magic, so that's gonna stop at +2" be fine, but "We actually don't have any magic that can make you any BETTER at all-around swordsmanship. We can make you swing faster, or swing harder, but we can't actually change your chance to hit well via magic" would be problematic or unacceptable in any way? It's not. A) I said "seems a little bit like cheating," not "that's undoubtedly cheating, u_u," and B) I didn't argue against setting your sword on fire (which can easily be achieved via flammable sticky gel, without magic) or deflecting magic (if fictional magic exists, then a fictional material could exist that nullifies it) or hitting intangible creatures (oodles of things in the real world are intangible without being magic, and can only be affected by other intangible things, like electricity, which also aren't magic). NOR did I argue against making a sword lighter or better balanced through magic, if you'll look again. I simply stated that that would constitute the exact same effect as both familiarity AND physical, non-magical customization of the weapon. In other words, reforging it to make it lighter or enchanting it to make it lighter are generating the exact same effect, as you can only make it SO light before it starts actually HINDERING your ability to swing it well, or at least doesn't increase it any further. So, if you get a +3 to hit from a magical enchantment, that should be 3 that you CAN'T get from either familiarity or reforging/customizing the weapon non-magically. I mean, you can't reforge a weapon to make it 1 lb down from 5 (stronger, lighter material or whatever, with arbitrary numbers) and perfectly balanced to boot, THEN enchant it to make it -3 lbs and even-better-than-perfectly balanced. Basically, as long as magic is generating effects within the realm of physics, it can't do what physics won't allow. So, to clarify, magical-style weapon improvement? Yes. Magical-style CHARACTER weapon-skill improvement? No. If you give a master swordsman a club, he's going to be less-than-optimally effective with it. If you give him a crappy sword, he's going to be better. If you give him his own personal, awesome-quality sword that he's ultra familiar with, he's going to be as good as his weapon skill allows. Nothing should make him better than that. It should only remove penalties, which is basically what imabalance, weight, unfamiliarity, etc. are. One more clarification as to the difference (because I feel like a "what's the difference if it's adding to the attack rating?" coming): If you let an enchanted sword be magically better-balanced/lighter, and you give it to a master swordsman (in place of his mediocre blade), he's going to perform better with it. HOWEVER, if you give that same enchanted sword to a kid swinging a stick around, he's not going to perform ANY better with that sword than he is with his stick, because he sucks with a sword, no matter how awesomely balanced and easy-to-swing the sword is. The weapon's properties have changed, and the person's remain static, as is evident by different people and different situations with the same blade. This I actually agree with. I'm not against a weapon EVER improving a skill, but I don't think it should be part of a standard enchantment system (like +1 fire damage, +3, +5, +8, etc.). So, the rarity that such a thing should have and the rarity that legendary items have (at least in comparison with standard enchanted items) coincide quite well. And, see? I didn't even think of that until you said something about it. As far as I knew, I WAS against all forms of character skill improvement via magic equipment that I could think of thus far. Thanks for that. Behold, the power of discussion, ^_^

I don't have any first-hand experience with JA2, so forgive me if this is the same thing, but... what if they were like the old id Software shooter portraits (Doom... Wolfenstein 3D)? Just subtely animated in general, but then, displaying pain and damage-taking animations whenever that character, well... took damage. Also, their face would get bloodied/bruised, etc. to the point of barely looking like your character could even see out of one not-quite-swollen-shut eye when you were below about 15% health-or-so. Ahhh, that would be awesome. (Again, sorry if that's no different from JA2.)

... I see what you did there...

Well, I'll have the shakes for the next week, since I didn't get my mechanic details fix, BUT... Thanks for the update! . It's good to know you guys (or... you guy?) are working so hard on the backer site, and I'm TOTALLY about to back the smack out of Numenera... 8D! Keep up the good work! Oh, crap... no morality. I meant, keep up the work that the faction of Me highly applauds, whilst other factions and/or deities may or may not like it very much! ^_^

I could play, if I'm needed. However, I am a complete newblet, and, as such, don't even have the game downloaded, or any registration (much less skill), haha. Looks like you've got 5 for now. But, just let me know. My time zone is CST (Central time: -6), for what it's worth, and Saturday or Sunday evenings are almost the only time I'm ever free (past about 7 pm, usually). Maybe, if the Obsidian team is too good, you can put me on their team to handicap them.

That would work, but it seems to be more trouble for what amounts to the exact same benefit as just having ammo be recovered automatically via the per-encounter/per-day system (just like spells and abilities), and setting the prices for quivers and/or new arrow types accordingly. *shrug*

You just won at forums. 8D

I KNEW I forgot to check something at home on my unrestricted internets.

Crap... And here I thought I'd already spent all the money I was going to spend on games this month.

And that's exactly why I want to keep familiarity bonuses low and to-hit magical enchantments also low (and rare). So that (in D&D terms) you won't ever get higher than +5, no matter how many perks, feats and enchantments you gather. There is quite simply a cap. I don't disagree. I just thought that, from a design standpoint, it might be prudent to separate the two, rather than making sure you always account for the both of them (familiarity + enchantment) never being too powerful. My only other concern is, WHY, if you can enchant a sword to hit better, can it only hit SO much better? I mean, how does that even work? The sword magically corrects your swings, but only a little bit? Does that mean it knows where to strike at all times, and it just intentionally only slightly helps you get there, instead of just striking true every time, because it's a bastard sword (pun intended)? Or, maybe the enchantment enhances your muscular competency/control/dexterity? But, again, if so, why is it capped off so low? And wouldn't that overlap with familiarity? The delay for familiarity bonuses is simply due to the human limitation of not being able to immediately compensate for all the weapon's physical properties, despite knowing how and where to strike. So, you'd think they'd overlap. *shrug* So, those are my only concerns. It just seems really arbitrary to cap each thing off so low. Plus, it just seems a little bit like cheating for some magic to simply make you better with a sword. Even magical Haste doesn't make you hit better. It just lets you hit with the same effectiveness more swiftly/frequently. I think, possibly, it might work better to let all the attack bonuses stem solely from your own (character's own) skills/talents and efforts, and let enchantments affect the sword, itself. With what I described, you've already got the opportunity, with any weapon, to develop an attack bonus over time/uses OR pay to customize the weapon to your character's hand, so to speak, to skip the time delay. I don't see it being completely necessary to also have magical enchantments improve the weapon's usability. Where do we draw the line, then (and, more importantly, WHY do we draw the line if we didn't already draw it for magical enchantments)? Why not alchemical oils applied to the sword that make it perform better, temporarily? Plus buffs? Plus enchanted helmets and rings and cloaks and boots? "Boots of Swordsmanship." Basically, I'm not a fan of magic making a person actually DECIDE better. Barriers and stoneskin-type spells stop damage FOR you. They don't make you better at stopping damage. Haste makes you move faster, but not be better at reaction and tactics. I like it when permanent magical enchantments make the weapon perform better, not the weapon user. Maybe it's lighter with the same strength/durability, so it's easier to swing, or it does some elemental damage, or it cuts better when you do hit, or it returns like a boomerang when you throw it, etc. None of that should just make you super accurate and capable with the weapon, I don't think (but that's purely my opinion, I suppose.) Anywho. Those are just my thoughts on the matter. Seems prudent to keep the attack bonuses in the same boat (just like familiarity overlapping with physical weapon customizations). What do you think of enchantments being an alternative to customizations? i.e. You can only ever get a +5 with a given weapon, either by becoming VERY familiar with it, or customizing it, OR enchanting it to "be" lighter or adapt to your movements/grip, etc? So that, you can either enchant it all the way to +5 (if you've got the money, or a party member capable of enchanting it that high), OR customize it to +5, OR use it until you get familiar enough with it for +5 to attack, or any combination of the above. Meh? Just thoughts, like I said. Maybe we shouldn't do that, and could just stick with the individual limits to familiarity AND enchantment. *shrug*. It's not like it's a terrible problem or anything. I just like to explore possibilities. So, you're right and you're wrong. I agree that the idea of a magic sword that isn't worth getting excited about is stupid. Magic swords should be rare and awesome. But a +1 isn't worth getting excited about. It's worth going "oh, that's neat" and that's about it. That's just the way the mechanics work, and there's nothing the game can do to change that (except using different core mechanics, I suppose, but that's outside the scope of this argument and not really the point anyway). The way you make magic swords good is by making them... good. Either you give them bonuses beyond +1 to hit and damage (like the aforementioned ability to hurt creatures that would be otherwise immune), or you increase the bonuses (so that a +1 magic sword flat-out doesn't exist; it's not magic until it's +2 or +3). I'm afraid you're mistaken on this one point, Jarrakul. It's true that games don't often MAKE more than a +2 or +3 matter very much, but that's not math's fault, and that's not "just the way the mechanics work." That's the design's fault. The fact is that +1 CAN be quite an improvement, if you do your math right (have weapon damage be the base for your total damage, as augmented by your character's skills and progression, for example. If your character does 5 X the base weapon damage, then a weapon damage of 5 would give you 25 damage, whilst a "+1" weapon would give you 30. That's +20%, that is).

That actually makes perfect sense (although, looking back, it seems a bit weird, in a way, that evasion and armor's force dispersal are both lumped into the same defense type... maybe we should split that between active -- parrying and dodging -- and passive -- static armor deflection?). Your heavy-armor tank is only going to be effective against physical melee attacks (Maybe unless it's against 3 stone golems with giant mace-like hands that deal loads of crushing damage? Guess we're still waiting on all the details for armor and such), so it's already not the ultimate defense in the universe or anything. For example, you probably wouldn't want to block a doorway against 3 enemy mages with a heavy-armor tank, because that deflection really isn't going to help you much against thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening... 8P Also, what if there were 2 stages of engagement? Partial, and full. So, for example, a Fighter in normal (non-Defender) mode can only offensively engage and "block" 1 enemy. BUT, maybe he can hold his own against 2 more enemies (as in they don't get any "flanking" bonuses to attacks against an already-engaged target), but they can disengage at any time without provoking an attack? But the original enemy could not. The fighter would be in full engagement with the original target, and in partial engagement with the other 2 attackers. Maybe Defender mode allows him to fully engage 3 targets (instead of 1) at the cost of his offensive capabilities (already a penalty in the current system)? Just a thought.

Boom... Instant utility gain to Pickpocket. 8D

I'm... not entirely sure P:E will be 100% devoid of anything resembling "threat, cooldown, etc." I'm not sure what you're suggesting, either, with this whole IE/DA:O comparison. IE games were round-based, and P:E is real-time (wasn't DA:O real-time?), not to mention a variety of other changes and improvements in P:E as compared to the IE games of old. Besides... I don't know of many details, thus far, on how the AI will handle target acquisition and such. Why this "clearly if it's not copying DA:O, then there must be absolutely no reasonable means by which foes acquire targets, u_u" conclusion? Why the arbitrary dichotomy? And, for what it's worth, Sawyer wasn't sidestepping. He was answering the question, using specifically MMO threat/engagement design as an example of the direction they aren't even facing with their mechanics. That doesn't mean "Obviously you meant you want us to design an MMO system, and we aren't doing that." Lastly... DEAR LORD, THAT HORSE HAS A PTERODACTYL HEAD!!!!!

See, I'm actually quite cool with that idea. I just would prefer that such things were somehow visually represented. Just like Combat. You don't pick various abilities and things in Combat, then just let a bunch of numbers roll in the background while you pretend something's happening on the screen. "Well, that enemy's either going to die, or he isn't, depending on the effectiveness of your attacks and abilities." You don't just use a Fighter's Kit on an enemy in combat. I just think things are OVERLY simplified, as they are. I'd like them to be treated in the same manner combat is treated (Actually let you pick different Thieves' Tools to use on different locks/mechanisms, and have the various tools that are available, and the effectiveness of those tools, be up to your character's skill/purchased items). This does not mean I want a lock to fight back and take up to 5 minutes to bypass. And the better your character's skills, the more/better indicators you have for what works with what, or the more effective things become (i.e. one tube of acid can be used to melt through 3 mechanism pins instead of 1, etc.). I think people would be surprised if a system was actually very well thought-out for this. They'd be expecting Bethesda lockpicking, then they'd get something that's actually kind of tactical and fun, like micro-combat or something. A good example of how this can be done is the Hacking in Shadowrun. It's like bizarro combat, and it's WAY more interesting than just "Did you roll a 27? You need a 27. You did? *click* YOU WON!" Again, though... I realize ShadowRun has the virtual reality Matrix that easily allows for mimicking combat, itself. I'm not asking for that literal design in P:E. Just the same interactive treatment of things like lockpicking and/or crafting. And yes, I like to explore the possibilities. Sue me.

I'd like it if they were a bit harder than granite, but not quite the hardness of diamond. u_u

Arbitrary example numbers, people... Arbitrary example numbers. +5 is only too-low or too-high if I know the context of the system. If, your rolls go from 0-100, it's not so bad. If they're 0-20, it's pretty huge. And since I can't claim intimately detailed knowledge of all the factors surrounding attack-modifier mechanics, my numbers don't mean anything, except within the context of the example. I know it's not intended, and I understand your concerns, but, telling me my numbers should be adjusted is a waste of time, as I'm not going to argue with you, except to clarify the fact that they're intended to be adjusted, and emphasize the point of their role within the example, in case it was missed. No one did. My point was regarding the overall system balancing decisions. IF you decide that familiarity can give someone a +5 attack bonus, and that magic/enchantments can also give a +5 attack bonus, then you've got to balance for the possibility of a +10 to attack bonus. IF a +10 is overboard for all your mechanics and such in your game design, then you've got to arbitrarily limit the effects of things or put in mechanic exceptions at that point. In other words, a +5 might be fine, by itself, so you decide to give a magic sword that. But, then, you can't just say "6 would be too much, but 5 is good for this top-of-the-line magical enchantment on this sword," and assume no one's ever going to get any more attack bonus than that. Hopefully that's clearer and makes sense.