Lephys

Reasonable arguments! GET your reasonable argum- Eep! It's the authorities! *flees the marketplace* I now want to make a Cipher who specializes in arbitration, and who's so successful he earns the nickname "The Voice of Reason." Just so you know what you've sparked in the mind of the Lephys, u_u...

Exactly, and I think that's a bigger problem than "do vendors have realistic amounts of gold in this game designed around the player obviously selling everything he finds, conveniently, for plenty of cash monies" ever was. Why does found-loot need to be a constant, reliable source of revenue in the first place? I mean, the stronghold management is optional, and it's going to supply money, right? Why not looting pawning?

Ohhhh! No, not assumptions. Misunderstandings. My apologies, as I did not see the "& lore" part at the end there. Thus, I thought the conflict was focusing on Intelligence and Perception, while somehow still having enough skill points for Stealth and Mechanics. Please, carry on. *bows out*

Ours, too. Sometimes, he'd even let us assume something was magical, but it turned out it wasn't. Or technically it "was," but only in the sense that someone had placed a dummy enchantment on it that made it seem magical (i.e. "Oooooh, it's glowing a bit! OBVIOUSLY it's magical!"). But, yeah, it's always just assumed in these games that you NEED to know the value of things, so that you know whether or not to pick them up (because of your usually-limited inventory), so that you can maximize your profits when you go sell them to merchants who will always buy them, so that you can get money and buy things, because how else would you get money? I mean, it works in a game like Diablo, built around looting. Not everyone's cup of tea, but, for what it is, it works. But, in games like PoE, I don't get why all that's just assumed from the get-go. Then, a single factor like "Hey, in spite of all that, let's maybe limit merchants' gold, for realism!" gets toyed with? *shrug*

So in other words - you agree that I was right, but insist I'm still wrong, because bleh. Well played! Also, separating attributes from affecting game-stats in mass /may have limited the build options/, perhaps, possibly, against all evidence -- but really not because stuff and I'm stupid! Well played again! Not at all. I left my words there, too, for your convenience, so you won't even have to "go back" anywhere to re-read them. I agree that something was affected, but that it was not the thing you claim was affected (which wasn't affected by anything, other than "is someone trying to leave the Engagement Zone?"). And no. I never called you stupid. I merely observed the happenstancical incorrectness of what you thought to be true. Also, I have no idea what "separating attributes from affecting game-stats in mas" means, as it is a big ambiguous blob of claim. Also also, I'm not even arguing as to the possibility of changes to the game build affecting character-build options. It definitely affects them, both positively and negatively. And as Namutree pointed out (and you didn't even bother to comment on, what with being so busy abritrarily pretending I just typed some nonsense and tried to "outplay" you and attacking that instead with over-the-top sarcasm), there are a greater quantity of options for Fighter builds now than there were before whtever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-"The-Great-Change"-that-supposedly-shattered-the-world-of-PoE's-code. If you'd actually pinpoint what it is you have problems with in the mechanics of the game, that might produce more constructive text for discussion. Instead, you're talking about general groups of bad things that happened, and acting like people who say otherwise are suggesting there's not a single, individual little thing about the current/"new" game build that isn't perfection.

Does one of the attributes now affect number of skill points? If so, I completely missed that. Or else, I'm possibly missing something else here... o_o

Which is why it's usually a terrible idea to make searching for traps not just a passive thing. In a PnP campaign, active-search is fantastic, because the DM can make ANY particular place a significant place to reward your searching, and provide negative consequences for over-searching, etc. But, in a cRPG, all we ever get is "inconvenience yourself by covering every square foot of every area with the search function, or miss out on things that were designed specifically to be found with the search function," and that's it. I want to see active searching actually springing traps, instead of just finding them. I think active searching should be more like rummaging. I mean, what do you do, switch your vision mode like Superman, to see inside containers and zoom and whatnot? Why is there a toggle between "blindly trudge forward into trip wires and loose tiles and other little details that denote terrible things" and "actually pay attention in this dark, scary dungeon that no one's entered in years"?

I'm not sure I'd call the mere observation of a possibility that happens to not come to fruition, "fooling." 8S

Well, also, there's a reason I specifically used the Lore skill as an example. You don't really get better at Loreing. It's assumed that Lore is more of a measure of your knowledge of the area's Lore. Presumably, at 100 (or whatever) Lore, you'd know every single thing there is to know related to lore. While at 5, you'd know 5%. It's not super concrete, sure, because it can stand for ANY 5% of knowledge, but... anywho. So, 6 people with a 2 in Lore could possibly handle a Lore 12 task. Now, it doesn't work with everything. At least, not the same way. 6 people with a 2 in Athletics couldn't jump an Athletics 12 gap. You can't really collaborate like that. BUT, maybe 6 people with a 2 in Athletics (assuming Athletics governed climbing checks) could possibly reach an Athletics 5 climby-spot, for example. Maybe no one person can scale a 12-foot cliff face, but all of them together can help boost each other/stabilize each other to be able to reach the top? Of course, getting to the exact specifics, any more than 2 or 3 would probably just be useless in that collaboration, and you'd probably just use a rope or something at that point instead (and a different skill, like Mechanics). But, it's just an example of how collaboration could work with pretty much any skill, to varying degrees. You can't just design something like this in one simple way, then blanket it over everything in the game. "Oh, if all your skill numbers add up to a number, you win!" would obviously be a horrid design. However, actually adjusting for how many people would be effective in collaboration, and what kind of bonus they'd give one another, etc, you can simulate some collaboration plenty well enough for a game that decides character A and character B both know the exact same things pertaining to Lore simply because they both possess a rating of 5 in the Lore skill.

Agreed. But, on the other hand, the very concept of improvement should not be the enemy of a "spiritual successor." Not all changes need be fixes for broken things. Again, though, I'm just putting that out there in tandem. This is not a "and therefore, the opposite of the rest of your post is true and good, u_u" implication. To put it simply, I don't think the sheer idea of maybe doing it differently from the IE games is bad. Just, if you can't find a good way to do it differently, definitely do it the same.

I think it's bad to use percentages to modify integers that then decide other percentages. I mean, dealing 10% more damage is fine. That's immediately comprehendable. But, my weapon has an Interrupt of X, and that versus a Concentration of Y = my % chance on an Interrupt roll to actually interrupt, and my X getting modified by Z%? When you see, at character creation, a "+24% Interrupt", it's hard to know how that's actually affecting your interrupt chance. What if it was just a hard chance? And Concentration just reduced it? So, when you get +6% (it would probably have to be reduced back to 2 or 3 or something) to Interrupt for a point-above-average in Perception, your base Interrupt chance, assuming no other contribution for simplicity's sake, would be 6% (so... a 95 or higher on the attack resolution scale). Weapons could just have a flat, additive "+5%" or "+8%" (etc.) Interrupt modifier. So, if you had a base of 10, and your weapon gave you 10, you'd have a 20% chance to interrupt. Then, if the enemy's Concentration is 7, then 20-7=13. So, you're left with a 13% chance to Interrupt that foe. That seems pretty intuitive. Or something similar, at least. Of course, I guess that's contrary to the whole attack resolution math. *shrug*

Alas, enemies are designed to automatically handle all behavior and "decision-making." That doesn't really translate over to your party members, lest the game "play itself" for you. You've got to change it up a good bit to provide a lot of player options to sort of build their own AI scripts, under a different set of restrictions/limitations so that the party doesn't just win combats for the player.

Definitely. Nothing is so fantastic that it should just flood the game. All things in moderation, Yeah. And, again with that, I wouldn't want every single person in the game to react to what you're wearing. But, it'd be nice if it affected things here and there in significant ways. Along the lines of the reputation system PoE is supposed to have, it'd be kind of nice if there were some sort of Rumors system. Rumors could be discoverable if you talk to the right people in the right way/provided coin to the right hands, etc. Not necessarily all of them, and not even all of them would matter. But, maybe if you find out that such-and-such a group is notorious for their yellow cloaks or something, you could wear yellow cloaks, and people would kind of assume (as people do) that you're affiliated with that group. So, maybe when you go talk to Steve the NPC (who's afraid of the yellow-cloaked group), he might start at the sight of you and say "Please! We're going to pay!", instead of "who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my establishment?". Just a simplistic example.

That's the thing, though, about "the realism" argument. The purpose of "realism" is to serve as a foundation upon which to build interesting game mechanics. It is not to simulate for simulation's sake. So, the realism argument, I dare say, isn't done right very often. Because "do this one thing because it's a realistic individual thing" doesn't make much sense. But, in the game, a good use of realism is to simulate some aspect of economical relationship between, essentially, what the player can do to affect things, and how merchants will change accordingly. There are a ton of things wrong with the typical setup. For one thing, why do you pick up a sword, and know EXACTLY what its base value is? "Oh, I shouldn't take that dwarven relic I've never seen in my life, because, according to my weird selective omniscience, it's only worth 50 gold but weighs 20lbs. u_u..." Whether inadvertently or not, most games now -- inventory/looting systems and merchant systems -- are built around "loot = sell things for gold." Like, that's just one big aspect of the game. A convoluted money-looting system. Why? purely because it's realistic for swords and tattered rags to drop, and it's technically realistic that, if someone DID want to buy some tattered rags and old swords, they'd give you approximately X gold for them. Stuff like that. But, if you built the game around "Hey, if you wanna take the time to figure out what's valuable and what isn't, and figure out when people will actually buy what from you, and at decent prices or crappy prices, then go you!", then it'd be "realistic." You could still loot everything in the universe, and go back to town and run around all day trying to sell it to people and/or figure out its exact value (what you're actually going to get for it in munnies at a given time). But, nothing would be forcing you to do that, or even really encouraging you to do that. You could even represent an appraisal-type skill. Plenty of games have done it. Just so that you don't horde everything purely because you don't know what might be valuable and what might not without meta-knowledge. But, as for merchants and gold fluctuations, etc, you could do a lot of more general things. Such as... give them infinite gold, but they'll never pay more than a certain amount for any given thing. A relatively simple thing to do, though, would be to to have the consequences of your actions/situation outcomes actually affect merchants in an area. *shrug*. All of it comes with pros and cons, though. But, to "do it right," you have to look at all the factors, and all the things you CAN do, and build a coherent, actually-fun-and-supportive-of-the-gameplay system out of those options. Sure, some things will be simulated, but others will be very much unrealistic. Because a full-on trade simulator, while kind of neat in its own way, isn't really fun or supportive of a fantasy RPG game. It's always going to have aspects that accomplish nothing beyond hindering the playing of the game, purely because the overall goal of the game is not "simulate the world exactly."

A) Lighten up, will ya? B) It doesn't "matter," per se. It's just interesting, is all. Because... ... your brain doesn't directly receive vibrations, does it? I'm pretty sure it just receives whatever signals your ear sends, based on the vibrations. So maybe it gets a compile error or something. Annnnywho, I was mainly being silly in bringing it up.

You'd think, at the very least, stats could still modify other Accuracy modifiers. Take Perception. Maybe when it's dark, or someone used "Throw Sand In Face" or something (i.e. "Blinded" you, even if you're not completely blind), instead of receiving a -20 to Accuracy, you'd only receive a -7 because you have ridiculously good Perception. OR, maybe normally, a person wouldn't have very good Accuracy with a bow at 100 feet, but, because of your awesome Perception, you maintain your accuracy at longer distances. These options don't let you "pump Accuracy" with your stats, but they still let you affect it (the ranged-weapon thing, most notably, since "I want to be a sniper" seems like a pretty valid archetype for an archer character, as opposed to someone else who might have much less Perception, and rely on closer-range skirmishy ranged attacks with short bows/crossbows/firearms, etc.).

I would imagine for the same reason that we can create nuclear reactions to generate enormous explosions, but have yet to discover a way to use nuclear bombs to mend wounds or fix a broken arm. Magic is not just some all-purpose energy by definition. A given author of a given world could define it that way, but then, he has to have reasons for it to be that way, too. I hardly see people explaining in detail how and why magical energy can be used to undo wounds and fix bones, other than "So you can have fun undoing damage in combat and tossing HPs at people! 8D!", which I don't see as any more reasonable of an explanation than having it gone "because tactical combat." Just for what it's worth. In the most objectively-treated approaches I've seen, healing magic is quite limited. In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, for example, people can heal wounds, but it still uses the wounded person's own biology to do so. So, if someone was cut in half, for example, a channeler (magic user) could probably heal them, but they'd probably then die from the exertion on their body from stitching their two halves back together in a matter of seconds. Not only that, but it takes a ton out of the caster, too.

Methinks you mean "Godlikespeed."

So... what you're saying is really: "collaborative checks in which 6 idiots with low lore can figure out a complicated task sounds bad"? 'Cause all I mentioned was collaborative checks, in general. You could easily limit the check, based on whatever criteria you wanted, to, say... 2 participants. Thus, if TWO people couldn't add up to 18 (for example) Lore, then you couldn't overcome it. Heck, you could even set a minimum threshold. "You can't apply your Lore skill unless you have at least 5. If you have enough people with 5-or-higher to hit 20, then congrats." That sort of thing. The idea is mainly to have a reason for more than one person to have higher ratings in the same skill. Not to just make sure every point in everyone's skill always matters. Also, in regards to the general discussion of how to regulate high skill checks and their rewards... what if, sometimes having too high of a skill actually hurt you? You know, sort of the "we're in a hostage situation, and they just found out Steve here can hack the security system, so now they've got him doing their bidding." Granted, being good at bluffing would negate such a scenario. But, even so, I'm curious to know if there might be applicable situations. More with performed actions than spoken info, maybe. Like... Athletics. You couldn't really bluff that. "Oh, I'm totally out of shape, even though my abs are more defined than a vocabulary word in a language book." This really applies to more general factors, and not just skills. Such as... equipment. Maybe there could be a check when you approach a certain person. If you're wearing common stuff, you're treated one way. If you're wearing all the best gear, he doesn't trust you. Something like that. Annnnywho, I'm thinking up pretty weak examples right now. Maybe I'll try again later.

Maybe all the PCs work at Jimmy John's sandwich shop? *shrug*

^ Oh yeah. That's kind of what I'm getting at. Even if it's not specifically to simulate the economy, or prevent its breaking, etc, if the game were designed a different way, then you'd just do different stuff, is all. But I mean, there's plenty of stuff you can't do in the game. You can't stop and pull clumps of grass out of the ground and put them into your inventory. Why? Because there's no reason to. That's the thing about loot. "You can pick that stuff up in real life" doesn't justify the capability to have your characters loot everything. There has to be a reason for it in the game. And when the only reason for it is "to use or sell," you can only use up to 6 sets of any one weapon/armor, so unless all the enemies in the realm only drop 6 sets of armor, the only other purpose for it is to sell. And if the only purpose for loot is to sell it, and you can't drop it on the ground out of your infinistash, then it doesn't make much sense to "simulate the economy" by arbitrarily tossing in merchant gold limitations into an otherwise not-at-all-simulated economy. However it's done, the options for using your loot, in whatever capacity, need to match up to the options for looting in the first place. Although... ... it would be pretty hilarious if you stashed some swords in a hollow stump just outside of town, only to come back later and see a child running around in the streets with a longsword, promptly being chased by a parent screaming "Billy! Where did you get that?!". "I found it while playing in the forest! ^_^" Haha.

You know the whole "What if the blue I see is not the blue YOU see, but we just both know to call it 'blue'?" dilemma? What if that happens with sound? What if someone hears something different from what another does? I mean, it's just brain signals in response to vibrations. So, maybe someone thinks it's the greatest music ever, and someone else hates it. o_o...

That's understandable, but if there were gold limits, you wouldn't be carrying around all those things. At some point, at least. Unless it was never communicated that that was how the game economy was going to work, in which case you might just hold out for some merchant to have infini-gold. Personally, I think the game needs to be designed around selling everything just not being necessary or even prudent, really. That, and around more reasons for looting items other than selling them (like outfitting your stronghold with basic weapons/materials, or to melt down for resources to make other things, etc.). But, that's all been discussed oodles of times, so... *shrug*. I will just say, though, that for things to work like that doesn't automatically mean you have to have some super-ridiculously-in-depth economy manager 5,000 minigame, or some convoluted interface. It could still just be as easy as "take the things, then offload them at town, etc.". Just, what's actually occurring, and when and why you make the decisions would be different. It wouldn't be any harder to MAKE those decisions, or to loot the things. As for the infini-looting thing, you can even represent that. Because it's not really realistic to take a band of 6 people back to the site of a fortress and "single"-handedly loot the whole place in multiple trips. Especially when you're lord of a stronghold/faction/what-have-you. You could just send word (a messenger pigeon or whatever) with the location of that place, so that a team could come with wagons and such and commence operation "Take All The Things!".

... I take it you don't refer to your entire estate as "I"? So sorry for the confusion.

I don't believe this list is actually the master list for any in-game stuff. I think this one is purely for forum titles. Nevertheless, I shall pass this correction on to the mighty Roost-Dweller.