Lephys

First, why are we setting this up as an either/or? Both scenarios should occur. The need to heal should happen both in combat and after combat. Second, No, it's not "just busy work" to have to heal out of combat. Having to heal yourself back up after combat is over represents the consequences of allowing yourself to get hurt in the first place. (ie. due to bad combat tactics, or simply not giving a sh** because you don't have to - because modern regen systems make losing health inconsequential) When translated to a computer game, forcing the player to heal his wounds after combat also prevents players from just mindlessly plowing through encounter after encounter as if the entire dungeon was some sort of race track, and its challenges just speed bumps. I see what you're saying, but it doesn't quite apply. Having your lost health require the use of finite resources to recover represents the consequences of the amount of effort you put into efficiently handling combat. The actual act of healing yourself outside of combat is a pointless waste of time. Example: "Aww man, we're all missing 100 health, and I don't have any healing potions or mana for healing spells!" - Fine "Aww man, we're all missing 100 health. Oh wait, I can use the rest of our potions/mana to heal up! Now I'm going to have to be even more careful, though, because I'll be out of potions and mana."- Fine "Aww man, we're all missing 100 health. Oh, hey, I have some potions, but they each only heal 10 hitpoints per potion, and they have a 30-second cooldown between uses, <8(..."- Complete waste of time That's exactly why they have both Health AND Stamina in P:E. Health will be unrecoverable between rest points (or, at the very least, EXTREMELY RARELY recoverable), so it's got your consequences' back. Stamina will regenerate quickly outside of combat only because its an infinitely renewable resource. The whole purpose of Stamina is to limit the amount of damage you can take in a short duration. I agree with you on the misuse of regenerating health bars, but the existence of regenerating things (mana is a perfect example in a lot of games, as well) doesn't automatically equal bad, no-consequences design. Adhin's point was that the strategy behind healing doesn't come from "Do I have enough healy stuff to recover 100 health?", but rather from "how efficiently/effectively can I utilize my healy stuff to recover enough health to positively effect the outcome of this time-sensitive scenario?". I.e. combat healing. Outside of combat, you either have 100 health worth of healingness, or you don't. If you only have 80, then you're simply going to recover 80 out of 100 missing HP before you move on. Unless something's FORCING you to move on before taking all the time in the world to heal up. Whether it takes you an hour or 3 seconds, you're going to sit there until you heal as much as you can, THEN move on. So, why should it take an hour when it could take 3 seconds? (Especially with the nature of Stamina in P:E, like I said, with Health doin' it's thing all the while.)

Would you have to give it TWO quarts of Rocky Road ice cream to toggle its hostility to neutral?

^ Strangely enough, even though Fallout had electrical doors and P:E probably won't, it still comes down to whether or not doors can be... hacked.

Yup yup. Unless you abstractly make it ALWAYS more difficult to bash a lock than to pick it (i.e. a lock with 50 difficulty could be picked by a skill of 50 in lockpicking, but would require the equivalent of a skill of 80 in lockslaughter (lockbashing, ). Of course, the fact that all classes can pick up lockpicking in P:E, and that Rogues will always have a bonus, pretty much accomplishes the same thing already. *shrug* True, but then you've created a chance that someone with absolutely no skillpoints invested could smash a very difficult lock and come out of it with all (or the vast majority) of the contents of the chest, even though Locky McPickerton over there who's spent 15 levels worth of skillpoints on his lockpicking skill could BARELY pick the same lock and get all the stuff inside. To be fair, you'd have to make specific items in each container break and become useless (or extremely less useful/valuable) when a lock was broken as opposed to picked. Which, then, you might as well just balance what loot the lock is impeding you from, and what loot it isn't (leave anything you would've had obtainable through bashing outside locked things, and only put the stuff you would've only left unbroken when the lock were picked inside locked things.

Sorry. It must have happened while I was reading that last post of yours, which was somehow typed while you had already stopped typing and gone on about your business. Phenomenal feat, that. For what it's worth, I'm sorry that you find fictional, exaggerated powers so irksome, and I hope P:E, in its finality, will suit your preferences enough to be enjoyable. Good day to you, sir. *bow*

An unlimited inventory would do that, but we'll only have an unlimited portion of an inventory. The finite portions (that are accessible during combat/between restings) can still be upgraded, and still provide the same strategic choices for gear selection, as they don't affect the amount of loot or specific loot that is available to even be picked up or not picked up.

I think it's just a silly scenario that has no reason to ever come up except to justify a lie tag. It could just as easily be "I can get us through this forest," no mention of the past. That line still does everything it needs to do. KIS. Keep It Simple. All statements the player makes should serve a purpose. And the statements should be designed to fill that purpose. Is the player trying to get another character's trust? Is the character trying to get a character to do something? What do you see being fulfilled by the lie that isn't equally fulfilled by just leaving it open? Let's look at the scenario. Characters are stuck in the woods. You want to let the player characterize themselves before leading people out. What kind of characterizations are good? Confident? "Let's get out of here!" Experienced? "I know how to get us out." Uncertain? "I don't know, but let us try." Reluctant "Maybe we should wait? What does the group think?" What does the lie about mine collapses serve? To boost morale? "I know how to get us out" does the same thing, true or not. And it doesn't matter if it's true if you never try to call in the lie. The player gets to formulate his own justification behind the statement that may differ from the author's intent. Maybe you're thinking you'd like to call the lie out. To which I have to ask, why? The vast majority of lies should let the player get away with because it makes them feel they are successful at what they want their character to do, lying. And thus you can treat the lies and truth with the same outcome. I understand what you mean. That wasn't the best specific example, as I was just trying to point out the way in which such a lie would be presented, and I failed to present a necessary lie. The idea I'm getting at is, sometimes you need to provide details to further convince people of things. Look at people trying to find a surgeon for a risky surgery. They don't just say "You shouldn't worry, because he's really good at surgery." People often say things like "He's performed over 1,000 successful open-heart surgeries. So you see? You have no need to worry, ^_^" Just like foreigners fearful of an attacking army might be told "These walls have held off a number of armies greater than than the years of your life thus far." The point is, you might need to present such info to bolster someone's confidence and alleviate their extreme doubt or fear, and sometimes YOU might trust the person who's doing something, but the other person knows nothing about them, and doesn't know you, either. So, saying "Trust me (a complete stranger), this other complete stranger is totally awesome at this!" isn't gonna cut it." So, scenario: You're helping some person escape from some dungeon, and they're FREAKING out. They don't know if you're criminals, or what. Maybe if you say "Look, he'll get us past those locks, don't you worry!", the person calms enough to come with you, but dies along the way (because he's still scared into ineffectiveness), or he just doesn't help you nearly as much with the rest of the escape (so, if you care about saving him, you've got to put up with protecting him while he just cowers around in corners, AND the lack of his fighting strength.) So, maybe you say "This guy once singlehandedly broke into the royal palace, stole an ornament from the princess's chamber, then got back out, all in the span of a guard shift change. I've never seen anyone as skilled as him." And now he isn't worried about being trapped in there, so he regains enough composure to ask for a weapon and help you fight your way out. Maybe he lives, and you run into him again down the line (maybe he provides more quest opportunities, or affects other quest circumstances in some way, *shrug*.) The point is, HOWEVER the speech system is handled, I'd assume that ALL options aren't available to ALL people. So, 1) How do you even know that's taking advantage of your focus on deception progression if it doesn't tell you it's a lie? and... 2) How do you even know whether or not your character simply knows that guy is that good and knows that the past event described actually happened? The 1st is really more important. Again, I maybe can't think of the absolute greatest scenario off the top of my head, but if you NEVER have a similar scenario, then what the hell does being a skillful liar accomplish over being a non-skillful liar? No characters will EVER be better at pulling off the believable delivery of a lie than other players? Do salesmen get people to buy things by saying "Oh, it's really good, and you want it, trust me... I mean, it's just... it's SOOO good. It's a wonderful product!" No, they exaggerate the crap out of everything, at the very least (which is pretty much lying... it's deception), and the less reputable ones lie about things ("Sure, that won't break for like... 5 years!"). I just don't see the benefits of making sure nothing is tagged as a lie while negating ANY even remotely similar scenario, as opposed to making sure lie options (that you're deciding to choose in dialogue in lieu of other options) are clearly marked, and being able to have SOME amount of make-stuff-up-that-the-player-probably-doesn't-know-isn't-made-up-to-affect-people scenarios in the game. *shrug* I think that IS keeping it simple. "If it has '(lie)', it's a lie. If it doesn't, it's not a lie." Instead of "Wait... he said he knows how valuable that jewel is... *flips through a bunch of lore and history*... is he lying? If he is, is it possible other people KNOW he's lying? Crap, I wanted to play a character who tells the truth. I could've picked another option for that very reason, had I known this one was a lie!"

It's true enough that removing combat XP and "mob" loot would be problematic. That's precisely why I don't recall ever advocating that. Ever. *shrug* Who said you didn't, much less said it 100 times? o_o

That's the spirit! 8D Just punch every Monk you encounter square in the junk. Then, when they collapse to their knees and ask "... Why...?", you respond, quite perturbedly, "You KNOW why!", and walk away.

"Seems" being the key. I think this whole multi-thread debate revolves around things seeming a certain way to certain people. It actually serves all playstyles, until specific developer decisions direct it to do otherwise, just like a car doesn't kill anyone because it's a car. It only kills people when it happens to be driven into people. Cars can exist around people without killing people, and Objective-based XP can exist around playstyles without killing any playstyles. It doesn't matter who hates combat, and who loves combat, and how much someone likes XP, and how often you want XP, and what difficulty you want to play the game on, and which flavor of cake is better. Opinion is irrelevant to the discussion of the "problem." Opinion on BOTH sides of the debate. It's pointless. The system is either inherently problematic as far as logical design constraints go, or it is not. And it simply is not.

Inspired by update #41: Phantom Breach: The Cipher psychokinetically "kicks" in a door, drawing the immediate attention of all hostiles in the room. It could be used on a different door than the one through which you plan on entering the room, thereby causing all enemy backs (or at least most of them) to be toward you for an ambush, ^_^

As far as visual/input blocking goes, you could always (if it is necessary) have some kind of click-and-hold submenu pop up for the target of interaction. i.e. "Use --- Chest Goblin A Goblin B Sagani (unconscious) Pouch" The door could always just be the default target (since you're more than likely going to need to open/close a door in a hurry than you are to loot various containers/dead things in a hurry), so a simple click would interact with the door. The click-and-hold (or just something to differentiate between simple and easy door interaction) submenu would only provide all other very-close-by things as options. This could also be used in corpse-pile-up situations, etc. But, I think someone already commented on that several months back, about how stacked lootables would already be handled. So, really, the door hogging the foreground and input default would be the only issue left, I would think.

Haha. Sorry about that. I tend to say that a lot in the sense of "if we, the gamers, ultimately have this at our disposal in the game." For some reason using "I" in examples just doesn't feel right, sense we're discussing things as they will impact the game for hopefully a good majority, 8P. If I accidentally use it while talking about about design decisions, I apologize. We are not trying to suggest we are Obsidian, *polishes crown on expensive animal-fur robe*. And to the great and powerful Josh Sawyer, thank you, as always, for taking your time to provide us with informative, clarifying tidbits. Some of us *coughMyselfcough* are like design detail vampires. On a compltely unrelated note, if you ever catch someone in the offices at night, crouched on your desk, feeding on an external hard drive filled with P:E goodness... that, uhh, wasn't me... o_o

I immediately imagined an ambush in which one combatant drops a device just behind their front lines, and fluidly begins focusing arcane energy into it almost before it even touches ground. It seems to... unfurl, like a flower, and creates a thickness in the air only visible to those with an affinity for arcane weavings. The disruption expands out about 5 strides, then ends, forming an almost bubble. As a Wizard, you're unsure of the exact nature of that artifact, so you make to stop the one using it. He's standing above it, looking toward you but at nothing. His hands are moving subtley, as if softly strumming a lute upon a table. You conduct the very air around you into a radiant bolt, releasing it straight at the channeler. The bolt is ripped apart as it crosses the threshold of the bubble. Your bowman notices and quickly looses an arrow at the fellow. His eyes snap back to the physical plain as blood slides down his cuirass. Once more the air dances itself into a brilliant, jagged spear of light and leaps gracefully toward the shocked man clutching the arrow shaft in his shoulder. This time, the bolt appears to begin dissolving once it enters the artifact's domain, but holds together well enough to leave the man sizzling and broken against the trunk of a nearby tree. I don't know why I had such a specific mental video clip, heh. But, in either case, I could see "field generators," for lack of a better word, that had 2 states: activated (arcane magic, or perhaps even other specific forms of power or energy, is disrupted within the field), and channeler-maintained (a given type of magic or energy is completely negated within the field.) If a channeler maintained/boosted it, the radius would probably shrink a bit, maybe... You could even have ones that only work on physical kinetic energy, stopping arrows and weapons, etc, and allowing only magic through (or allowing only magic to not be slowed and weakened.) *shrug*

Wait, DOORS are going to be in the game?! Ahhh, crap. Time to start a thread about how terrible of a design decision that is, u_u... . Hehe. Juuuuust kidding. See, now I KNOW I want to work in game design, because the idea of meeting with a team to break down all the facets of doors is strangely enjoyable. Thanks for the great info, guys! ^_^. Every time I encounter a door in P:E, I'll reflect upon all the hard work and dedication you put in. Especially when I play as a Dwarf, and equip armor that I get from another party member, while another party member interacts with a door. 8P

^ Either the cast time should drop (representing that the same amount of magical work isn't as tricky), or the fireball should improve (representing the same, but by showing that you can do even MORE in the same amount of time.) Ideally, there'd be some kind of cast options. The cast time for the initial fireball spell should decrease, but you should be able to cast more devastating/complex versions of it, if you so choose, with higher (than the reduced) cast times. I'm crossing my fingers SO hard for a spell customization/improvement system (rather than just new, better spells and scaling-in-numbers current spells.)

^ Well said. I apologize if I come across as somewhat robotic at times, but I was merely trying to illustrate the fact that, while things should still be situationally better/worse, we cannot, for example, make dual-dagger folk always suck in open combat, like you're very right they would. We have to pad things a little, simply because it's a game. In reality, there is no reason for the sneaky, dagger-wielding guy to even ATTEMPT to go out into open combat all the time. And there's definitely no reason for him to insist that he keep his fighting style. But, in the game, there's a reason to maintain a certain... "character,". It's aesthetics, it's mechanics, it's enjoyment in molding little aspects of the story, it's a puzzle... all these things you don't have at all in real life. Or, not in the same way, at least. So, you just have to hit that happy combination of "Yay, I get to keep this character fighting like this!" and "Crap... in that case, this is gonna be a little tough." It's really hard to touch on it without using numbers. If, in reality, you'd be 60% less effective, I think the game could easily halve that to 30%. That's a pretty good bit. But, unless you have a party full of all the same class, that number probably won't cause your unconditional annihilation. (Example numbers, yay!)

Literal humor. Por-traits. "Poor traits." I hope we don't have a "poor trait" system. Fun with syllables. ^_^

Meh, I think that particular type of style (I wanna be a crafty, agile, master of daggers instead of a plated-out knight with a longsword and super-proper form and tactics, etc.) is kind of the heart of WHY we make video games. You are not wrong, Tsuga, as far as verisimilitude, but I don't think that level of it does anyone any good. Why? Because you'd either have to forcibly make the story take place in mostly small alleys (when the player picked a Rogue), OR just tag-team out party members when specific ones were ineffective, OR everyone would be the exact same thing. Or, at least, you'd have like 3 fighters and 2 archers and a Wizard or something. Especially when you throw in soul powers and supernatural abilities. You don't really know how effective someone could be with 2 daggers, if he had different powers than someone who favored the sword had. The real world is about "How do we do this the absolute best, most efficient way, with the given factors?" Video games are about "How interesting could we make this situation if we weren't limited by all the real-life factors?" This isn't about "Do we worry about verisimilitude, or DON'T we?". I think it's extremely important, within reason. So long as it doesn't start stepping all over the imaginative freedom that's essentially at the heart of a fictional, fantasy video game world, it should always be opted for. Just because a dual-dagger guy is pretty viable in our fictional world doesn't mean we can't still maintain as much verisimilitude as possible. He probably will fight very differently than a longsword-wielding fellow. He probably won't take on 5 people at once, because he lacks the reach and weapon-stopping power required, etc. "Viable" simply means you won't be definitely obliterated. Doesn't say anything about how you have to make it work. I would imagine dual-daggers would be frustrating to stick to for someone who didn't love the fighting style.

Actually if enemies do not give XP AND do not drop loot would solve everything concerning “degenerate” game play, whatever that means. Then of course you wouldn’t have the urge to kill any foe just for fun. But that, – mostly the latter -, would be terrible in itself. Too far away from classical RPGs and BG style games. *siiiiiiiigh*... The urge to kill something for fun isn't degenerate. How many times do I have to say this? I WANT people to kill things for fun. I also want them to get stuff for killing things (sometimes.) That's the nature of a game. I don't even care if you gain XP for fun. If that's what's fun to you, then awesome. Demanding that the game allow you more ways in which to gain XP, because you like gaining XP? THAT'S degenerate. If I could somehow get through dialogue by casting a fireball on the person instead of talking to them, that would be a degenerate design. It's not because I like fireballs, or because I don't like dialogue. It's because it makes no frigging sense. The game's having me do something that doesn't make any sense. It's already established that you must speak words to people, and they must speak words back, for dialogue to work. But, OH! It just turns out you can cast fireball at them, because fireball's fun, and the game skips to the end of dialogue. You've just put in the most non-sensical "skip dialogue" option in the universe. Does that make any sense? The game ALLOWING you to cast fireball in the stead of participating in an entire bout of dialogue is degenerate. It doesn't even matter if you take advantage of it or not. That's why I don't even prefer to point out degenerate behavior, but, rather, degenerate design. But, if you want to talk about degenerate behavior, it's behavior that's only CONDITIONALLY degenerate. But, you know, everyone loves to hop into a discussion out of nowhere and say "Oh, I guess you hate that I like to use a trackball instead of a mouse... I guess I'm a "degenerate!". I like swiss cheese instead of cheddar? Is that degenerate too? I can't be-LIEVE you people and your "degenerate behavior" that I keep fabricating my own meaning for and shoving down your throats! You should be ashamed of yourselves! Forcing me to claim that you're claiming that my preferences and the way I enjoy a game are wrong!" *shrug* All I can do is try. You can lead a horse to water... 8\

The correct way to discuss something is to not assume to much about the other guy and try to grasp what he is saiyng insted of tryign to read between (non-existing) lines. And that is what you are doing. So yes, I find your entire tirede pointless. Reductio Ad Absurdum is bad debating and it is what you were doign by your own admission. So you try to show the folly of my reasoning by stretching it to the extreems (and thus figthing not what I said, but the overblown version of it) - O.K., I get it. It is an relatively effective method otherwise no one would use it...but it still silly and missing the point entirely. Because apparently you never got my point. Well, I'm sorry. If you're backing an entire system of power moderation (as illustrated by your "I think even out at level 20, a level 1 enemy should be quite formidable."), I'm going to evaluate that system. What else am I supposed to do? "I think we should use a ruler to measure everything." "Well... erm, what if you have something that's, say, 40 feet long, and you might need to measure it?" "I shall use LATIN to call you a moron for DARING to suggest that a ruler only works in certain situations! u_u" I asked a simple question. If you don't want to answer it, then don't. Telling me it was obviously stupid, rather than asking for clarification, accomplishes nothing but you being an arse. I'll just summarize what's going on here, and be done with it, since you don't care about doing anything but fencing with my words all day: You don't want gods or superheroes as characters in P:E. That's fine. You want normal, vulnerable people, in a fantasy setting. That's all fine and dandy. No one said it wasn't. I started pointing out things (like magic) that might just be outside the bounds of what you want, no matter what. Then you went all "Nope, LOTR has people who are perfectly normal." Then, people said "with all due respect, the people in LOTR NEVER get severely wounded (except when the story NEEDS them to, like Boromir), even after fighting hundreds upon hundreds of foes, not always just in a choke point where they're coming 1-by-1, and not always in a formation with lots of other peeps covering their backs and flanks, AND with archers alllll over the place, whom I think would attempt to aim for commanders/important folk if given the chance, not to mention all the orcs and uruk-hai are supposed to possess beastly strength, so..... MAYbe LOTR isn't as good of an example as you thought. That's all." And suddenly you NEED to shred up that argument. You're just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. The purpose of pointing that out was to get closer to "Okay, what would be good boundaries for you, then?". The only thing I was trying to point out was "Well, this kind of stuff was in LOTR, too... is that still within your limits?" And you had to go pretending like it didn't exist, like no one even had a point at all. I don't know why you did it, but that's what you did. And yes, if you start being a disrespectful arse like that, I'm not going to tip-toe around your flowerbed anymore. If you punch me, I'm going to punch back. Now we're even. Only, when you say "Why did you punch me?! I'll punch you for that!", it goes nowhere. So, this is where it goes. P:E's gonna have magic in it, and soul powers, and if that displeases you, then I'm truly sorry. I am. But, either discuss the possibility of ways in which it could FEASIBLY please you better, or just stop typing. One or the other. No one's attacking your preferences, and even if they were, THAT would be pointless. So, let's just go on about our business, shall we?

That only works with lies that are based on action. If they're strictly misinformation, then the game either has to arbitrarily provide ALL information to the player (even about things the characters may not even know about), OR prevent characters from lying by simply falsifying information. If all lies were "I'm totally not going to kill you ever," then yes, I would agree. Until you kill that person, you're telling the truth. If you're intending to lie, you'll simply kill them. But it doesn't work for "I once led a team of miners out of a collapsed mine. I think I can get us through this forest." The game either has to say "Pssst! Your character never actually did that!", OR you have to play through every single detail of the character's past, beforehand, so that you know anything that wasn't in there is a lie, OR it could simply say "This line is your character lying" with some simple, efficient form of indicator (I'm still vying for font changes, especially after seeing that Bloodlines screenshot that used color-coding AND fonts.) The game gains nothing by having the character know he's lying, and having the player guess, or trying to make sure you always relay all the necessary info to the player, beforehand, so he can perform solve the mini-mystery of what his character knows. It would be similar to not-knowing what our characters' abilities do, in combat, but being able to read about those abilities in the manual and in-game books (Mastering the Sword, The Fund-Ele-mentals of Magic, etc.). Then, saying "Well, the player should know what those abilities do, but we shouldn't hold the player's hand and TELL them in combat what an ability's range is, or how long it takes to cast/use..." Granted, I'm only talking about choosable dialogue options, here. I don't think everything said should be marked with "Lie." But, if you have the power to pick it, then you should know what you're picking. Otherwise, we might as well have a little roulette wheel that we spin, then our character says something at random.

Man, I love how fond some of the people on this forum are of twisting anything that's said into a specific argument against their personal stance on some completely irrelevant specific issue. "Instant HP regeneration"? When was I talking about that? When did I even give a HINT that I was talking about that? Health management involves 2 things: losing health, and gaining health. I asked a simple question... Do you think casting a heal spell or drinking a health potion or staying at an inn (whatever means of regaining HP you see fit to choose) should only restore SOME of your HP every time, or do it on a gradual basis? Inventory "management" involves 2 things: Gaining loot, and losing (getting rid of, via whatever means) loot. It doesn't even have any bearing on combat, or any other system, like Health management does. You don't strategically gain and lose loot. Inventory limitations are a simple nod to immersion. They don't provide any strategy, besides "make several boring trips to fetch all the stuff," or "don't get all the stuff." Not picking up the most valuable stuff, only, when your inventory is limited isn't bad strategy as opposed to good. It's sheer laziness. Okay, so... you'd rather always have to tetris everything around between party members (despite the good design of the game always providing you with plenty of inventory space for the amount of loot you find), because always having enough space and NOT having to tetris everything around would be "dumbing down"? What's next... dialogue management? "You have to make your character swallow and breathe at the right time, or you can't finish your dialogue lines!" Health management I get. Everything you do in combat is basically managing your health. It's a limited resource that is spent in combat. But loot? Loot is just a resource, that just sits there. It doesn't move around... it doesn't fight you. You don't strategically use it in a given situation. It is static. It's already limited by its own quantity (in availability). So, yes, is it stupid design to put in 38,000,000,000,000 pieces of loot? Yes, yes it is. But, assuming they're going to employ intelligence in the design of their game (I know, it's mind-boggling that they would do such a thing!), what's the difference between giving you an inventory space of 100, and 90 pieces of loot per area (between times you're able to actually offload/sell loot and clear out your inventory), and giving you an inventory space of infinity and STILL having 90 pieces of loot per area? You're fine with having your character decide how to hold and swing his sword, but you're adamant about controlling how he fits loot into his pack, and how efficiently he gathers the loot? Really?

I don't feel I owe you quotes of all instances of my diction choice throughout all the posts that illustrate quite clearly my intention of stating why it's entirely possible to take care of anything that anyone's brought up thus far with objective-based XP. As much as I type, I don't think it can be said I don't go out of my way to make sure I don't cause unnecessary misunderstanding. So, if you're merely arguing that something's "improbable," why are you arguing AGAINST my points? "See, that's all COULD be done with this system." "No, see, this would happen (super ultra most likely)." Why wouldn't you just say "Yeah, that's true. That being said, we'd just have to take this potential scenario into account."? Better yet, why did you just say "I'm not saying it's impossible," then follow that with "there would just be specific 'holes' in an objective based xp system" which would make the game not fun? "This system = holes. I'm not saying anything definite, though." Right up there is the first time you've EVER suggested you were arguing probability rather than an absolute. Seriously. Why the need for this? I'm gonna be nice, and break it down into the simplest form I know how, since you just quoted me on something, then replied with something that COMPLETELY circumvented anything I just said in the quote... that you voluntarily quoted me on... People are all "You want to fill a glass with water? But what if it spills?". To which I said "Okay, yeah, we should make sure it doesn't spill, but a glass containing water doesn't just spill itself. More specifics are needed for it to spill. You can fill a glass with water without spilling it." And you said "Yeah, but you can't do that, because water can spill out of a glass!". To which I responded, "Yes, this is true. But water won't NECESSARILY spill out of a glass. I think there's nothing wrong with filling a glass with water, as long as we make sure not to spill the glass of water." Then, you quoted that and said "LOLZ! So you think this thing I'm not even arguing as being DEFINITELY problematic isn't definitely problematic? Hahaha! Oh that's right! I'll mock you now, as if you believe in Santa Clause, ^_^. What an enjoyable misuse of a forum! *GUFFAW*" You got me. Objectives = quest givers. In fact, someone at the beginning of the game says "You must beat the final boss!". Then, the entire game goes by with "Beat the final boss" plastered on the screen in your little objectives box. And then, if there's ever a time your party gets captured and has to escape, some guy in town, before that happens, has to come up to you and say "Hey, spoiler alert, but... if you escape after you get captured in the future, I'll grant you some XP! 8D" Because, see, accomplishments and adventures don't grant XP. NPC genies do. Obviously there's no other way, because I tried to point out there was, and what do I know?! u_u. Way to be an arse, man. Voluntarily so. I don't post on these forums to win personal battles. The only reason I show disrespectful people the simple courtesy of responding and clarifying is the fact that OODLES of other people read all this. Not just you and I. So, it doesn't matter that you are more focused on whether or not I used the perfect words or proved all possibilities in existence than you are on actually constructively achieving a useful analysis of objective-based XP. Do you know how I arrive at my conclusions? I look at things from your perspective, THEN I see if my previous understanding still holds true from your perspective. If it does, I point it out. If it doesn't, I say "Oh, man, you're right." Either way, I win. Why? Because I understand more than I did. This isn't friggin' Highlander. There can be more than one. Aggregate understanding. You should really try it sometime. How bout you pretend like logic and reason aren't silly trifles, and spend a little less time trying to suggest how much anything I say that you don't understand is stupid, and I'll be happy to continue discussion with you. I don't think you're stupid. I just think you're letting yourself be childish, and I don't need to waste my time with you refusing to acknowledge valid factors and points, and side-stepping the ones you don't like.

My bad. I forgot... the correct way to discuss something with someone is to assume there ISN'T any reason behind what they're saying, and just arbitrarily give their words whatever meaning you wish, in whatever context you wish. I'll do that next time. Of course you push it to the extreme. How the hell else do I point out the folly of the path of reasoning? "So, do you want them to fight like... 25 things?" How does that convey that the NUMBER of enemies I'm suggesting is the brunt of the point? You would've said "Ummm... *scratches head*... I don't get it. Sure. They could fight 25 enemies. Why wouldn't they be able to?" It doesn't have to be exponential. It has to be mathematically sequential. Level 2 shouldn't be exponentially better than level 1. It should be some amount of an improvement (addition) over level 1. Such is the nature of math. So, let me use better words: One must be proportionately more capable, at level 20, of taking down a level 1 foe. Just like someone on the 20th stair of a stairwell should be that much higher than someone on the first stair. I don't understand what you're confused about. If you don't want to use a leveling system, then so be it. But you can't go around making level 1 enemies tough to a level 20 party. And if you're simply going to increase their numbers to no end, then why ever make an enemy higher than level 1? Some people's desire to de-throne gods has just as much bearing on your specific arguments as it does on my specific arguments. i.e. None. Some people want Superman? Some people want a first-person shooter. Does that stop us from discussing this game within the realm of it being an RPG? Methinks not. Well, then we can all just not believe anything we don't see with our own eyes, I suppose, and call it a day. And I actually specifically acknowledged that weapons were different from fists. You're right. Hardly anyone died in any of the Lord of the Rings battles. Maybe like 5 people. Max. What was I thinking? What kind of point could I possibly have been trying to make? Silly me... I didn't say HP was luck. With whom are you arguing? o_o. I guess when something doesn't seem to make any sense at all, you always assume the person's a crazy idiot rather than considering that you might have failed to understand my point? A constructive tactic. One that serves forum discussion well. Yup. And since the fight was designed by the story writer/game designer, I'd say that means you intentionally made sure they could get through it. Which might have... Oooh! It was! That was my point! 8D Well, I just explained that you have 2 options: Pure miss chance (with all hits being quite lethal), or HP. So, if you want to keep talking about how HP is pointless without addressing that dilemma (the pros and cons of both methods), have at it. I'm just here to point such things out, not to make sure you consider things. I meant to say "exclusive to videogames." My mistake. But, yes, it is inherent to the video games that represent health. Either you have a binary alive/dead system, or there's some actual quantity of "health" between "just fine" and "dead." That is represented mathematically. Whether it's actual individual hit points, or a percentage bar. It's all the same thing. Just different sizes, and different units of measure. It's no different from skill points, that represent a skill level. Or character levels that represent an entire set of attributes and ability. You know, kinda like how the soldiers in the army around Aragorn could only kill like 3 things before they dropped like flies, but Aragorn could successfully dodge and take on like 50 things. Ahhh, crap. I forgot... that never happened. Darnit. If only I had functioning senses, or the ability to present valid points.