Lephys

What does "dw" mean?

Does this mean we might be dealing with the pundead here?!

^ Does it degrade with hits? Or is the number of hits simply the duration of the effect?

Exactly. It's all about correlation. I even despise the usage of "leading to" there, as it's arbitrary (I know you didn't mean anything by it, Yellow Rabbit... I'm just referencing the usage is all). It's like saying "a stick being on the ground was a factor that led to this kid beating this other kid with a stick." Well, sure. I mean, so is human muscle function. The only thing that led to a stick beating was that kid's brain processing "I feel like hitting that kid," and seeing a stick. The stick's pretty circumstantial at that point. I mean, Hmmm... a kid's been building up feelings of wanting to kill other people for a while now, and he chooses to play games in which virtual shooting of people takes place? No way! I bet that game possessed him and made him want to play it! No... if he already wants to kill people, and sees a portrayed way to do it, then yeah, he might pick that to copy. That's hardly any different, in concept, from someone cosplaying a character at a convention. "Oh, how will I dress for this convention? I liked Altair's outfit, so I'm going to go to the convention like Altair! 8D" There are like 80-bajillion gamers a year playing violent games and raising money for charities, being active in their communities, and generally doing positive things with their lives, and yet a handful of people who happen to play violent video games go on a killing spree, and somehow it's the video games that are the suspected link? What about all the people who do that and don't play video games? Man... it's a good thing no one prior to 1970 ever went on a shooting spree, so that we can know for sure it's video games causing it. Anywho... there's nothing wrong with wanting something like a language filter. This isn't a binary issue between caution and blatantly, forcibly exposing your children to stuff all day long. But, the relevant point here is, this game is not 100% censorable, so not restricting play to after hours is going to be a risk that they'll see something they didn't need to, no matter what you do. So, I'd mitigate that, sure. But, if you're going to play it where they could see, I'd be more worried about making sure they know how to handle exposure to such things than trying to make sure the exposure never occurs. Better to keep a fire extinguisher than to try to make 100% certain a fire will never start. As someone who was exposed to things in games and such at the age of 4-or-so, I can assure you that children are at least capable of more than parents often give them credit for. Now, being forced to live in horrible, horrible living situations, or personally going through crazy things... that's something else entirely. But, mere exposure via media is not going to ruin a human being who's got a proper well of guidance from which to draw.

And you should get a bonus to Survival (specifically direction-finding in the wilderness), because you'll always know which way you should be heading.

And witchcraft might that be? 6_u Jokes aside, I'm actually very objective when it comes to romance. Really, it's no different from combat or anything else. I'm more interested in how its inclusion/design relates to the story and goings-on of things, than "ooooh! Swordfight!". If a situation didn't call for an elaborate swordfight, then I'd much rather see some other stuff than that. With romance, I'd be concerned with how it alters the state of characters and the choices they make, and hardly-at-all concerned with "I just want to witness some romance," like the game is a cake, and romance is somehow just icing you can smear on top of it in any amount, wherever you'd like. Anywho, I don't want to derail this thread, but I just wanted to say, I'm a silly person, but in all seriousness (for the record), you'd be surprised the romances I'd appreciate and the ones I wouldn't, methinks. Red Boots DLC would be so redundant. You can already wear boots (can't you? Man my memory sucks), and you can already choose the colors of your attire from character creation. For this reason, it should be Textureless Boots DLC. u_u

I laughed to the point of mild pain when I read this, 8D

Do not feel bad. Most people that speak English as their first language do not understand many words in english. That, and you have crazy idiots like that Lephys guy, always jumping in with confusing homonym-based jokes, like "I don't understand mini words in English, either. They're far too small." Gyah... who does that guy think he is?!

Without the Adventurer's Hall, how else will the Adventurer's Rooms be adjoined? 6_u

This. Thirded. To clarify, yes one can argue the semantics, and people can mean it different ways (so it's really best to just state clearly what you mean when you comment on something in a game needing to be "realistic."), but a video game has its own imagined reality. It's not actual, real-life reality. But, in the story, the character could say to some other character who is dreaming about something impossible in that imagined world, "Wake up, man! This isn't a dream! It's reality!". That word doesn't suddenly apply to the actual, real world. It is understood that the context is that of the imagined game/book's own reality, fake or not. It's kine of like a pretend alternate dimension. Annnnnywho, the biggest problem with the tossing around of the word "realism" is pretty much the ambiguity with which it is used. That, coupled with the "You can't use that word 'cause it's a fantasy world," etc. misconceptions (I get that "verisimilitude" is specifically designed for that purpose, but MAN that's a mouthful for a concept we can all comprehend with a sprinkle of context and specificity). Also, the biggest problematic argument I've seen regarding realism isn't that some amount of realism (or verisimilitudinositousness) is better than zero realism. It's that more inherently = better. But, even then, you've got the mix-up between "realism" and "simulation." Realism can be represented in the world and story without the mechanics necessarily simulating the player's interaction with said realism. So, "Omg, people should die from their sword wounds 'cause of infection and stuff!" might be a valid point, depending on the contextual design of a game world, but that doesn't mean that making the player have to manually play Operation every time someone gets hit and roll a d20 for every stitch to close up a wound = better game. Whether something should be a mechanic or not is completely dependent upon the context of the game's design concept. As has been pointed out in the recent Merchant Gold thread, for example, simply limiting merchants' gold supplies in a game in which you can still always just go to another merchant and finish selling everything doesn't accomplish much, beyond the subjective "Yay! It wasn't immersive enough for me, personally, when I could sell everything I ever pick up, ever, to that one merchant, conveniently! I needed the slightly-more-realistic-but-still-not-at-all-realistic-in-many-other-ways inconvenience of still being able to sell even randomly procured pebbles to any merchant, so long as he has not run out of gold." But, more realism no more makes a game inherently better than more mystery makes a mystery novel better. Obviously, some amount of mystery is in order, but infinite mystery would simply result in the genre being renamed "Contemplative Inquiry Novels," since that's all you'd do the whole time you read them, never finding out anything at all.

Your "Game Over" screen should've included Smokey the Bear.

^ The book, game episode, or television season? If it's the book, and you're bored, check out Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive series (currently 2 books).

Yeah, the value of a range bonus is negligible, because you're not going to be far enough from most things in most situations for it to even matter. I've mentioned it before in previous discussions of attributes, but I think if range functioned as a modifier to attack resolution, instead of just a "you can't attack until you step here," it would have more of an impact. In other words, if you could attack with your bow from... well, basically wherever on the same battle screen, feasibly (think... 70 feet, for example), but you'd have a -15 to your rolls on Target A because of the distance, then +Range could actually just modify the distance at which that drops off. Even then, though... *shrug*. Doesn't seem on par with some other stuff. If you had a range modifier that boosted the range of a ton of very short-ranged abilities, that might be pretty useful. I dunno. And I get the "unique stat effects" idea. That makes sense. But, to do that, you've still basically got to break things up into their aspects. I mean, with offense/damage output, you've got action speed, Damage, and Accuracy right now (which... I know Accuracy isn't currently on a stat). So, if you want to max damage output, you've got 3 things to pump, and you can't really max all three (without suffering horribly in other things, which is kind of the idea... it's not worth your while to just dump 3 stats so you can have the utmost DPS). But, with defense, it's a bit less interesting, as you simply just have different defense types. It'd be a little like if you split Piercing Damage, Crushing Damage, and Slashing damage between three stats. Well, that's great that they're unique aspects, but, no one really wants all three as badly as they want other things. So, with the defenses, you've just got one stat for each defense type. You're not really getting anything different, per se, you're just getting defense against a different thing. It's the same exact defense, using the same exact attack resolution system, even. So, I dunno. It just feels a bit like half-uniqueness with those. I'm trying to think of other aspects of defense that could be included. Maybe DT? But, that has what... 9 different types? It's probably not 9. I can't remember... As for your bulleted points, though, that's exactly what I meant to cover by "I'm not saying the math is perfect, but numbers are easily tuned." I'm more concerned with whether or not +Deflection works on two attributes, than whether or not +2, specifically, works on both. That's the easy to figure out part. I very much agree with the numbers-balancing, i.e. if you can get +30 Will, you should be able to get +30 Deflection or Fortitude or Reflexes.

That's pretty handy, but he'd still have to find them all, I suppose. Might spoil some of the dialog and whatnot, and/or take a while.

Seems to me the split-Deflection problem has more to do with how it is split, and not with the sheer fact that it is split. Look at Luckmann's suggestion, for example: In that, if you decided "I just want maximum Deflection," and you maxed INT and DEX, then, at the very least, you have also maxed Duration and Action Speed. So, any offensive effects you apply are going to last for-freaking-ever (relatively), and you're going to be able to attack/make actions much more often. Now, I'm not saying the math's perfect. But numbers are easily tuned. Maybe for that exact stat system to work, testing would show that the action speed needs to be increased, or duration decreased, or the Deflection bonuses changed for each of the stats, etc. But, in general, it doesn't make you "Nothing-But-Defense-Guy" simply because you had to pump 2 stats instead of just 1 to get what you wanted. As another example, if you wanted maximum Duration AND AoE (as were paired, way back when, into a single stat, even), you'd pump INT and RES. This wouldn't make you "Only-High-AoE-And-Duration-Guy," since you'd also have good Concentration, Will, and decent Deflection. *shrug*. I don't see any glaring problems with such a general concept. But, I could very well be missing them.

Hmm... I don't see why, though. I'm curious to know why he wishes to avoid it, if that's the case. Also, why don't you think split-Deflection works? Is it a bad idea in general, or do you just mean "it doesn't work the way it's currently split"?

As someone else pointed out somewhere, Peter Molyneux is great at coming up with fantastic ways in which to simulate various things in the form of game mechanics, and even sets of mechanics, but he tends to have trouble actually molding those into cohesive games. I love Black and White 2 to death, but I can NEVER make it past the 4th world. Because it just feels like you're playing around in an awesome, city-building sandbox, for no real reason. And Fable... all the talk about all the individual aspects of Fable... he got SO excited about all that stuff in interviews. The hand-holding in Fable 3. "Imagine being able to actually have contact with your NPCs in the game!" And what purpose did it serve in the game? It allowed you to telekinetically lead people around for the purposes of "escort missions," and it served as a "let's do it in this bed" input for your lovers. The end. Anywho, I think he's a brilliant guy, but he needs to find some team of other brilliant people who focus solely on designing entire, cohesive games, to sort of temper his ideas and creations.

Yeah, I mean, it's not a "one mechanic to rule them all" situation or anything. You can get me started on almost any simulated system, and I'll think of ways they'd be really cool in a game. But, at the end of the day, if that game's tutorial is 73 hours because you simulate boot-lace-tying, and how it effects blister-occurrences on your character's feet, then, at least in some way, fun has been trampled. Wound systems can be very fun. But, at the same time, so can hitpoints (to free up all that wound-simulating time for some other really fun aspect of gameplay). They make sense, in a "Oh, I see, you can only take so many sword slashes before you're dead, and some things hurt you worse than others" kind of way, so that wounds can be represented but do not take the stage. I dunno if there's a global equation or anything, but the more focused you get into a single system of a game, the closer you get toward a sort of Threshold of Convolution. I mean, if it requires an hour of your time to tend all your wounds and keep track of them between battles, and another couple hours of your time to manage your inventory and economy every time you go back to town, and another hour of your time to realistically survey and mine ores for your stronghold to use, and another hour of your time to realistically spend social free time with all your companions, and so on and so forth... pretty soon it takes you about 7 hours just to get ANYTHING done in the game. Only played the game for an hour? Congratulations, you made sure wounds all healed up properly in a short stretch of travel. Or maybe you sold/bought everything you wanted to. Or maybe you checked on stronghold finances/resource routes. Any of those individual things would be really, really awesome. But, they just sort of create the inadvertent side effect of "It takes way too long doing all these things to really 'play the game,' since all of these individual systems sort of Voltron together to make up 'the gameplay, proper.'"

I really don't see why there's not a lot more inter-attribute synergy like in Luckmann's proposal. The only downside I can see is that it becomes harder to intuitively gauge the value of those broken-up bonuses when they're all split between attributes. A downside that is easily remedied by providing an "average, below average, above average, high," etc., indicator next to the values at character creation. As long as you know what Deflection does for you, (a la a "Deflection is the defense rating for almost all physical attacks in the game, including some spell projectiles like fireballs, etc." description), and you know "Ahh, 65 Deflection... that's apparently high, relatively speaking," then you're good to go. That, and you don't have enough points to JUST max out one stat and put none in anything else, so you're almost always going to be focusing on at least two stats. Might as well have synergistic pairings.

^ That, and get fatigued more quickly from carrying around all that weight and holding it upright and balanced.

Mirrored image already does that. Does it? I thought it used Deflection. 'Cause there's that little 1st-level spell that grants you bonus Deflection that vanishes after one hit. Then there's the 2nd level spell (can't remember which one's, specifically, "Mirrored Image" and which one isn't) that grants bonus deflection for a longer period that gets "chipped away" with every hit. I didn't know there was one that just granted a DR shield that got chipped away.

Yeah, it's abstractly just defensive-only stamina. It represents the physical extent to which you can fight, despite not bleeding to death or being mortally wounded, but simply doesn't represent exertion from your own actions. Offensive exertion is independently represented (in PoE's case, by per-rest/encounter limitations for all characters/classes).

Sure, pirates without class, u_u... Yeah... I really almost wish it were a lot more modular. I mean, I realize no one wants to spend 1 proficiency point every other level on a single weapon or anything. But, what if we got to pick 3 weapon focii at creation, then could take talents from there on out to take more if we'd like? Or, maybe the current groupings are simply tied to background, and don't take up a talent slot? Then you build on top of that. *shrug*. If we could have a talent that simply granted 4 basic weapon proficiencies, even, instead of just giving us a specific 4, then just let us pick them, and apply those modifiers. Then, maybe as you specialize further, the number of choices gets smaller. "You're decent with these 5 things. You're good with these 3 things. You're awesome with this one thing." Or something similar to that. I'd like to make a melee-capable (not necessarily TANK) Wizard who uses a rapier, but, to do that, I have to give up other weapons I'd like to use as backups. I can't use a rapier, and alternatively a quarterstaff or something, because that's two completely different groupings.

True story: When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I didn't know what the alternative word for donkey/butt meant. But I heard it like once in the movie Home Alone. So I said it on the playground one day, just because I was quoting that film. Some other kids gasped and got a teacher to take me to the principle's office. They were all "How could you SAY such a thing?!", and I said "I have NO IDEA WHAT THAT WORD MEANS?! Is it bad?! If it's bad, then I just won't say it." And then I didn't, once I knew. But, I ended up saying it and causing a problem because I didn't know what it meant. I realize that there's a certain point in time when a kid isn't old enough to really comprehend some things a certain way. Like, a 4-year-old probably isn't going to take the time to process "this is a reason you shouldn't say this word." They're just gonna think it's funny that they learned a new word, etc. But, yeah, approaching 10-11, if you don't allow your kids to be exposed to the things they're inevitably going to be exposed to, then the second they are exposed to those things, they're going to have no wisdom in how to go about them besides the powers of curiosity, resentment, impulse, and possibly chaotic adolescent hormones sparking a need to "rebel" (although, really, it's more like a need to be independent... the most convenient way to feel that is typically just to go against authority). Not that you should go out of your way to expose them to them 24/7. But... just, that bubble only lasts until they're outside your controlled environment (school, sports, etc.)

"Do-angle or do-not-angle... there is no tri-angle."