Lephys

Yeah, I'm just curious here... if the simple inclusion of damage types makes things "more complicated than what they need to be," then how simple can you get before things fail to be complicated enough? Where's the "need to be" mark, and how have you determined it? Because if it's simply a matter of "damage types require more effort, and therefore are too complicated," then that reasoning would basically lead you to "Let's just compare the DPS between my party and the enemy group, and if mine's higher than theirs, give me a 'Kill All' button." There's gotta be a minimum of complexity to prevent that, and a reason for determining that minimum.

Yeah, they're basically trading "How much can I carry without moving like a snail" for "How much can I access out of what I pick up, until I make it to the next safe camp area or a town?" The more crap you pick up, the more you have to manage. But they don't want to discourage picking up "too much" stuff simply by allowing it and making it ludicrously annoying. The encumbrance penalties, while they make sense from a "that would really happen" standpoint, are kind of like the ability to resurrect yourself after waiting an hour after your whole party has died. Pretty much everyone would just take the alternative of reloading the game and trying again over the 1-hour wait, just as people typically just take the most valuable stuff they can while still moving at full speed, then come back for the rest. Of course, I think they're probably gonna work on that whole need-to-loot-everything bit anyway, because looting infinite things isn't exactly boosting the fun of the game. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to loot everything that's available, but the game should be designed well enough, at the very least, that 7,358 things aren't available. Going through all that to sell back at town is no fun at all. You just want the money value of those things, at that point, and sorting through that much stuff is just a chore of getting that money. It's very similar to the "junk" category of items in many RPGs. The items are never useful for anything other than monetary value, and they typically don't even contribute any weight to inventory, so you end up having to pick through your inventory to sell all the junk (or you get the super convenient "sell junk" button), when all of that is STILL a pointless extra step versus just having looted straight-up currency in the first place. There might be different, better ways to handle such things, but between the choices of encumbrance/junk or nothing, the "nothing" option is better.

What if you took some of the typical random encounters and merged them with the repopulation of previously cleared caves and camps and such? You're trekking back along, on the world map or what-have-you, and now you notice the light of a fire and some smoke coming from that bandit fort in the forest. Do you go check it out? Maybe you find some people, and instead of just some flat-out respawned enemies. Maybe there's something going on with them, that you can resolve in various manners (someone's after them, or someone drove them out of their village 10 miles northwest and they can't go back until it's taken care of, etc.). Basically, there'd be more to it than just "more potential XP and loot" like in some respawn systems, so it'd provide a good reason for the location to "repopulate" so to speak, as well as a good way to implement some of the slightly less-random encounters.

I love the layer of tactical planning that moving patrols support. And I want them to warn people when they see you, just as long as they're not a friggin' hivemind (unless they're insect people, or some kind of cult magically linked together as a hivemind...). I'm even all for base-wide alarms (if they're actual alarms or horns or something. Individuals saying "INTRUDERS!" shouldn't immediately be heard by everyone else within 1,000 miles.), but that should just put everyone into a state of alert, making them aware that there are intruders somewhere inside the perimeter. They should NOT go into a state of "I automatically am hunting you down exactly where you stand because I heard Steve yell the word 'intruders.'" I think this was touched upon in the Commandos-comparison/Stealth thread. It's good stuff, though. We definitely need to see more natural ranges of reaction and reaction times from people doing the alerting and people being alerted.

^ Yeah, I know the only actual combo in Skyrim was "this does a little more damage and you get a slightly different kamehameha-type animation from your hands" when you used two of the same spell (AFTER choosing a friggin' perk just for that.) It was pretty crap. That's what I meant by "toying" with the idea. They might've grazed the edge of it. I just remembered them basically suggesting (before it released) that there'd be actual new effects and possibilities with dual-wielding magic. But, it turns out, you just got twice the casting ability. Go figure... Fable II and III, I believe (didn't play the original much at all), had the dual-casting thing, but it was still very, very basic. What I will give to Fable is that you basically didn't really have specific spells, you had certain elements/magic types (Like fire, lightning, wind, etc.). I know the controls and targeting were different (console 3rd-person stick-movement and aiming), but, still... If you simply cast a spell with fire equipped, it was an AOE spell. No-direction meant, essentially, all direction. You got a radius emanating from your character. Even while holding down the cast (which would slowly charge up the spell to one of... 5 different tiers of power?), you could press a direction to target, and the spell would become a projectile/single-target spell. Once you let go of the cast button, you'd cast, based upon whether you were targeting a specific enemy in a specific direction, or not. I can't remember which game had exactly what specifics, but I know in 3 you could put a different element (they were gloves) on each hand, and cast them together. But, again, this was "toying" with the idea. They literally just combined the spells and spell effects. In fact, some of them didn't even really change. One was Ice Storm, and its AOE was an AOE storm of ice shards around you. But then, if you single-targeted it, you fired a projectile... which, upon striking something, created an AOE ice storm. *facepalm* So, yeah, about the only thing I can commend them for is that the sense of progression with your spells was pretty cool (even though the variety was terribly lacking, and the progression pacing was way off.) You could tell a very clear difference toward the end of the game when you could charge your spell to the 5th tier (and basically annihilate the crap out of stuff) in about 10 seconds, as opposed to the approximately 60 seconds it would take when you started. Again, it was just the exact same spell, but more potent, BUT, at least this provided you with A) a sense of progression with the same abilities (rather than just acquiring new, more potent abilities that made the old ones obsolete) and B) versatility in the usage of the spell. You might not want to spend 10 seconds charging it to max if you just need to get a few enemies off of you with some lightning real quick so that you can reposition and cast again from a safer spot. I think just the feeling of manipulating the cast is better, in some ways, than just a set of pre-defined, static spells. They tend to make playing a caster feel more like operating a rocket-launcher. "When I set up and aim, and push this button, this fires an extremely deadly rocket." Being able to create 3 rockets, or make them move more quickly, or changing the effect of their detonation, etc... that feels like an actual ability, rather than a device or weapon you happen to be wielding. Also, I never got to play Order of Ecclesia. I wanted to. I think that was on DS? I played Aria of Sorrow, which was awesome, but didn't have any cool glyph-combo systems in it. That sounds pretty amazing, really.

Well, yeah, you don't need to find out everything about him. However, if he's traveling about with you the the entire time, and you're dealing with some kind of global dilemma, and saving each other's necks and such, I'd just expect him to act like more than a lifeless golem. Your character gets all these choices throughout the entire game, and you, the player, consider these and sometimes change your mind before actually picking one, yet here are your companions, alongside you (literally) while this is all going on, and they're all perfectly content to never show the effects of anything upon them, or let any self-doubt slip out, or reveal the tiniest sprinkle of the reasons they are how they are. I don't know what the specific amount should be for this kind of thing in the companions. I just know that if it's not more than none, they tend to lose a layer of liveliness.

Not a bad idea,

Maybe if there was a function to shift-mousecursor (or ctrl-mousecursor) so that it targeted smoothly and didn't "snap" to each object? You could still TAB to the next nearest enemy for an exact target. Also, I'd like some indication that where I'm about to cast is currently out of spell range, implying my character has to move closer to the enemy before casting. Maybe the AoE marker could change colour or blink, or something to inform me that my strategically placed party members may want to reconsider tactics in case my mage has to break rank and stand in harms way to cast that fireball. Yesssss! For the range indicator, you could just have the thin, high-contrast circle around your character, the radius of which would be your cast range. I think some indication from the marker itself would be a good idea, in the event that the circle indicator is in a bad spot or you just happen to miss it. The circle would show you how far not to go when the targeting cursor is already within it, and the marker itself would immediately tell you that you need to find the circle indicator in order to see how far outside of range you already are.

True, true. I didn't really focus enough on the fact that the stats are abstract representations of the sum of our abilities (like reflexes and coordination). I guess my point only covers a certain range of that (as stats stand now, without splitting their effects on weaponry and combat abilities). As in, maybe a Warrior with 7 Dex and 20 STR could still present a challenge to someone with 12 STR and 14 DEX, but at some point you're just going to suck... unless you're 70-feet tall like a giant ancient guardian or dragon or something. They can have slow reflexes, because you have to run 20-feet to get out from under their smashy, smashy fists/tails/appendages. But yeah... 3 DEX Warrior with 20 STR? He's gonna have some pretty major issues, I suppose. But, yes, I would like to see some aspects (like combat skills and weapon effectiveness/damage) split between multiple stats. I think that way you run a lot less risk of hitting that minimum with so many things (i.e. your 5 DEX means you literally can't hit anything because your entire ability to hit is founded in your DEX score, and also maybe your weapon damage suffers.) Also, you give those other "useless" stats (INT for a warrior, STR for a Mage, etc.) a purpose, and create more variation in viable builds.

^ Ideally, yes. Heh. They probably don't have the time and resources for all that, though, as it would require twice the (aesthetic) design work. But, if resources were no object... Then definitely.

Indeed. Ahhh, Chrono Trigger, 8D. Too tailored to turn-based RPG combat, though... you're right. The funny thing with DA2 is that, as horribly as it was done in that game, almost the exact same concept was used in Mass Effect 2 and 3. And, especially in 3, it actually worked very well. You might have Garrus use Concussive Shot on an enemy against whom it isn't really very effective (won't hurt them too badly, and won't knock them down because of a shield or armor, etc.) in order to detonate a Warp field or an electric field from Overload. The combo might be extremely effective in that particular situation, damaging and knocking down a cluster of 5 or 6 nearby enemies or draining their shields, whereas simply using each ability as individually effectively as possible would only help you against 2 foes. Personally, I like the whole Mass Effect series, but I think that worked really well for squad/party-based combat. I mentioned in another thread that playing 2 on Insanity difficulty was... well, insane. Even though 2 wasn't bad, the combos in combat was done the best in 3, methinks. And in 3, Insanity difficulty was a lot... not really easier, but, I felt like I actually had versatility in my options for adapting to different enemies and scenarios. I just think it worked really, really well. Not that it's the only sad thing about DA2 (by any means), but it's sad that it wasn't done better in that game. Yeah. It gets toyed with an awful lot, like in Fable and Skyrim. I've sadly never played a game in which it was actually done very well, but I've always loved the idea (I'm a Mage at heart). I might have to check out Magicka. We'll call it "research." I love taking a big syringe and injecting game mechanics (especially ones that are done almost the exact same way for about 10 years) with 500CCs of dynamics.

^ Perhaps you even have the option of letting them go (affecting reputation in an interesting way) or stopping them and "robbing" them of all their stuff (or confiscating all their stolen stuff, however you want to look at it), or killing them anyway. Perhaps you get minor reputation effects with any of them, or perhaps just the non-killing-them choices (because, if there're no survivors, who tells the tale?), but all three would affect your party's assessment of you. And one could possibly lead to a nice little loot surprise, or even some new/ongoing story element (missing artifact or valuable, or a stone tablet that ends up helping you decipher some writing in a ruin, which grants you access to the depths of that ruin, etc.).

You're right... better make it 6, minimum. u_u . But, for reallies, cross-class ability combos would be nice. I mean, if that were worked in pretty well throughout the combat system. I'm talking synchronized ability usages (from 2 or more characters at once) that create different/more potent effects. Not "You put a shield on me whilst I charged the crazy dragon and absorbed a bunch of damage." Also, magic dual-wielding, as a means to access a different style of combat-casting, and not as a means to simply double your delightment with the right mint.

Well... they need to remain challenging, but I think I still get what you mean, regardless of what that COULD mean. However, that really only becomes a problem when the factors involved with the difficulty of your challenges are overly simple. If you're just going with increasing numbers on damage and hitpoints and armor, then yeah, things don't feel very different at all unless you dramatically boost these numbers, in which case things will become a bit too easy. As you said, going from human bandits to dragons is one factor that addresses this. But, that's exactly my point. Even if takes you the same amount of time to take down a dragon at level 20 as it did to take down a group of bandits at level 10 (conflicts presented to you remain challenging to your current level/capabilities), you're now accomplishing so much more in the same amount of time/effort. Another good example is that, if you're 3 levels above that group of 5 bandits you fought earlier, but now 10 bandits come at you, you can feel the difference in your power by the ease with which you can dispatch each individual bandit, but it's still challenging to take on a certain number of them. Obviously each of these types of factors would need to be considered throughout the power progression of the game, or you'd end up with 150 bandits in one battle at level 30, heh. But, I don't think combat needs to become easier, in its entirety, as you go along just to allow you to feel more powerful. It's a diminishing return, it is. If you can kill a bandit without taking any damage, every single time, then they don't even serve a purpose as a combat challenge anymore. You're not testing your skill, and you're not even showing it off anymore. My ability to kick a sloth is not a testament to my prowess. It's a testament only to the difference in ability between myself and that sloth. My ability to kick a dragon, on the other hand, would be amazing, because a dragon's formidability is already so far up there. In other words, milestones. I don't like the idea of using the same starting milestone to prove that you're powerful and have progressed (I know you weren't specifically arguing for this, JFSOCC, but it's come up in many other threads recently, and it's pertinent). It works, obviously, but I think presenting greater milestones as standards of comparison is a much more effective method. You're still going to have a range of challenge (some overall "content levels" are going to be a level or two below you, some right on your level, and some a level or two above, at any given character/party level). No one's arguing that. And you're going to face easier foes and tougher foes, in various scenarios. But, just rolling with the general idea that keeping a steady progression in the challenge presented by combat encounters is bad because you'll never get to feel your power and progression leads to problems like "Oh no, we can't have a larger group of bandits attack, because that's making up too much for the fact that bandits are now lower-level than me!" I mean, at what point would it be okay to up the challenge? Should it trail behind you by 5 levels for the whole rest of the game, because you've earned it? It just doesn't make much sense. There's got to be more to it than that, is all. It's got holes.

I agree very much with that. I just think that only one or the other (sense that they're grounded in the world, their susceptibility to the changes in the world in which they're grounded) leaves them with something missing. Their beliefs regarding helping people shouldn't change every time a leave blows past, but nor should their desire to help all people never ever be shaken by something (specifically due to the complexity of their reason for believing thusly.) If they're never conflicted about anything, ever, they don't bring as much to the table. Again, they might be conflicted, then still arrive at the same decision on a matter. But, just saying "Nope, this is what I do, no matter what happens, ever" is pretty silly. Take a zombie apocalypse story. Someone might have never killed anyone in their life. Maybe they're a pacifist. Maybe their wife turns undead, and goes after their daughter. If that character just sits there and says "Well, I don't believe in killing, and that's that, u_u" and never even flinches, there's something highly wrong with them. They are an android, not a person. They might be very, very conflicted by the seeming logic in killing their zombie wife clashing with their stalwart belief that that's still killing and it should never, ever be done, and they might still, ultimately not-kill her, and just try their best to get their daughter to safety. Either way, it's going to affect them.

Awwww... you are totally discriminating against sexist male chauvanists. Also, there's a joke somewhere in there about armor on female avatars hopefully being off... haha. Ohhh terrible out-of-context meanings. 8P In all seriousness, I love seeing female avatar/equipment designs supporting more believable badassery. Doesn't mean prettiness/feminine-grace is off the table or anything. Look at the new Tomb Raider. New Lara doesn't need a bikini or a ****tail dress to get the job done.

The only time I hate this is when it's done in such a way that a mage is essentially a Magikarp for about 10 levels, then abruptly evolves into a Gyarados. Or, you know, for those first 10 levels, he's Jubilee from Xmen. The rest of the party's all "Don't worry, we'll take care of combat for a while! You just run around in figure eights so as to not get hit and instantly die! You can light our celebratory cigars after we win the fight! And hang in there! You'll be quite powerful one day!" I mean, if a Level 1 fighter can single-handedly take down 5 Goblins, I think the Mage should be able to as well (though with spells, rather than with melee combat and fortitude.)

Okay, I'll meet you on your level of "discussion": Obviously Josh's system is awesome and will clearly be enjoyable and will grant combat-goers plenty of XP.

On that note, I'd love to see the improved version have some options to it. Honestly, the Mass Effect (2 and 3) system for upgrading your abilities was a really nice version of this. It was pretty basic ("streamlined," they might've called it), but the general idea was awesome. This also directly supports spells having multiple utilities to them. I just think something like casting 5 magic missiles that can each be individually-targeted at a higher level is much more indicative of the difference in spell mastery/power than my piddly Firebolt doing 30% more damage now, or my Cone of Cold chilling enemies for 5 more seconds now. I'd love to see several aspects to spells. i.e. "Impact force, radius of effect, duration, intensity, range." And I'd like to be able to choose exactly what will increase. Maybe at a certain point, the improvement is that the spell gains a new aspect (such as "projectile quantity"). At the very least, even if we don't get to choose exactly how the spells improve, I'd much rather see them improve across several aspects like that instead of JUST damage and/or cast time and/or range. I've always thought of spells as kind of the Wizard/Mage's weapon, in a way, and it seems kind of unfair that they hardly ever change how they behave at all, whereas a Rogue or a Warrior gets to do all kinds of new, awesome, improved things with the same dagger/axe/swords/mace. "Fireball" and "Lightning bolt" are sort of like an axe and a spear. Either that or there should be 17 different lightning spells and 17 different fire spells that would accomplish the same amount of variety. Otherwise, you end up with some slightly bland "weapons".

^^ Really, Helm? I actually enjoy your sensical contributions in plenty of other threads, but now you're just arbitrarily quoting things to re-voice your complaints with no consideration for what was actually said. I really need to find that quote about the extent to which combat will be necessary in P:E. I think it was from a Q&A or something, or maybe the AMA. Anywho, someone specifically asked them "So, you want everyone to just be able to Deus Ex this thing and always have the option of not-fighting stuff?" The development team responded with, essentially, "No, there's pretty much going to be a lot of combat, as part of the game design. But we don't want to make it 97% combat and 3% opportunity's to achieve things via non-combat." That's paraphrased, just to re-iterate. Even without having said that, what I don't understand is why you (and Valorian) are incapable of saying "If that's the case, then they'll need to make sure combat is still pretty integral throughout the game, because if it's done improperly, the combat-lovers will get gipped." But, instead, you're not saying that, and instead are inferring that you know for a fact that only some piddly portion of the game will require combat. Right up there, you even said "seeing that combat is somewhat pointless and just takes longer." How does combat automatically take longer? How do you know it doesn't take 5 straight-minutes to successfully sneak past all the baddies and retrieve some quest item? You're just allowing your frustration with your perceptions of what COULD go wrong with the proposed system run wild and build up, so that you're just posting things out of sheer frustration. Take a deep breath, and actually consider what people are saying. I promise it will not hurt you.

Yeah, I know it's a little different when you incorporate the strength and sharpness of metal, and I wasn't trying to be snide or anything. I only meant that I wasn't very personally familiar with the specifics of what someone could or could not do with swords specifically because they're very rare nowadays. But, I think the thing that still carries over is that part of the skill of a master swordsman is being quite adept at blocking. It's not necessarily that you literally dodge everything automatically because you're a master swordsman, or that you just kill everyone before they can even swing or attack. It's that you're so good at redirecting your opponent's strikes. Well, your master ability to parry and block is going to be affected by the difference between a 160-lb man who's trying to out-skill you and a 300-lb muscle-mass who's literally trying to crush you flat with a sharp edge. He's not necessarily going to swing slowly (because muscle can move with remarkable speed), he's only going to react slowly. But he doesn't care about reacting. If he swings horizontally at you with all his might, normally you'd read the start of that attack and prepare to block or dodge or redirect it so as to provide an opening immediately afterward (allow his momentum to miss you but delay his recovery to block or attack differently). But, you're going to have more trouble blocking or parrying that swing. That's all I'm getting at. I don't know the exact effects of that in swordplay, but I know it changes factors. If you block wrong, the shock of his weapon blow transferring through your weapon in parrying could actually damage your arm muscle. Basically, he's so much stronger than you are, it'd be like trying to use swordplay against a bear with a sword, or a rock elemental (assuming you could still cut it and it would bleed, but its swings have the strength and added weight of stone). Your technique counts for less in many ways because you're not really dealing with someone with whom you're on-par in several respects. Honestly, I'd be very interested in seeing how this applies in real life. Just how effective someone can be by relying on strength (still practicing the sword and using good attack form, at the very least, but lacking finesse, defense, and parry skill).

Maybe you could have a little glowing, contrasty circle on the selection circle at the location of the direction of that character/creature's facing? Maybe even rjshae's tapered selection circle, with a contrasting (color or brightness or what-have-you) small circle as well? Also, I think having as much of that detailed information (specific facings, pathing, weapon range) as possible (within reason) would be fantastic, especially with the tactical nature of P:E's combat design so far. Maybe all this stuff (except facings, which should always be shown, if you want them to be) could be split up between the TAB function (I think that's what traditionally shows you character paths and round-actions and such?) and the ability-targeting context interface. You know... you select an ability to use, but now you've entered target-selection mode. Well, mouse-overing targets could give you context that would be useful to that ability. Maybe you could see that enemy's immediate path (if he's currently moving) and the 180-degree mark that denotes a backstab, etc. Stuff like that. Only things that you're capable of knowing, but that's hard to keep track of all at once when you're paused (where exactly was that guy running again?), and you pause because it's tough to track it all real-time.

Ahhh. My bad. I misunderstood. I was just thinking dex-based abilities. Interesting. I've played a bit of AD&D, and a bit of 3rd edition, but I never played quite often enough to get super familiar with any ruleset differences (either I barely played AD&D, or it had been a while when we started playing 3rd.) I just remembered having the "Hide" ability as a Wizard. And, you're right, that kinda screwed over the Rogues. They basically just got a higher numerical skill at that point.

I think that if you want to do it without any kind of marker/indicator, that's pretty much a personal challenge. Like rjshae said, your character will know where he's casting the spell, so the player should at least be allowed to know by default. Option toggle is fine by me, but I wouldn't want to have to guess. Also, on the note of those little ground-hugging AOE markers, I sincerely hope they don't make them targeted directly to the cursor, with the cursor defaulting to foreground objects/surfaces, and call it a day. How annoying is it when you want to target that group of enemies near the wall, and you move one pixel over, and the entire 15-foot AOE circle leaps up to the next floor. It should stay on the same floorspace until you've made it clear you want it to hug a different plane. More of a minor complaint, really... Also, spellcasting's great, but it's the spell-reeling-in that's the hard part.

Since there'll be a separation between combat and non-combat skill-point pools (whatever the specifics), why couldn't using combat to complete an objective award combat experience, and using non-combat to complete an objective award non-combat experience? Also, unless the entire game can be completed without combat (which I'm pretty sure is not the case, based on a quote from Sawyer about combat being a pretty integral part of a large chunk of the game), why is it bad for the player to sometimes gain combat skill points without actually having killed things? No one's saying that it's at all likely you're going to go through an entire forest AND cave and retrieve a quest artifact from a chest at the end of the cave without ever having to fight anything... well, except maybe Valorian, who won't answer anything non-vaguely, so it's hard to tell, really. Oooh! Here's a good one! What if you defeat enemies with poison, or traps? If you get combat experience just for killing, then you'd gain physical ability sheerly by causing the demise of the enemies, even though all you did was pull a lever, or cut a rope, or put some poison in some water. Sharp_One actually already mentioned this (the poison example). Hmm... well, again, it's not as if dispatching those enemies (via whatever means) could possibly constitute the completion of an objective. Clearly, if you FOUGHT them and they died, then you wouldn't get any experience. You would instead have to talk to a little boy about his cat so that they'd die. (See, Valorian? I'm learning!) Man... I keep imagining visions of other games, with little lists titled "Quest objectives," under which things such as "Eliminate the troll" or "Retrieve the relic" can be found. But that's just silly. Combat and objectives are absolutely mutually exclusive, and the only people who are going to get to level up in this game are going to be the pacifists. In fact, I think they're probably gonna put in a ticker. For every minute you go without killing something, you'll gain 100 XP. And you should get like 500 XP every time you revive an enemy who happened to have met his demise on his own. Those are the two options, either XP is awarded for the sheer act of killing, no matter what, or it's never, ever awarded when killing is involved. That's just logic, man. There's nothing we can do about it, -___-