Lephys

That's because the music's played by FUNGUS! 6_u Technically, it's our public opinion, now that it's posted.

Touche on that detail, . The point was more that math apparently doesn't work in the world of PoE. Because, for the stats to not matter, A) The differences between 2 and 18 in a given stat would not have to produce any noticeable effect, and B) There would have to be no situations in which your stat score opened up dialogue/scripted-interaction options that would've been otherwise unavailable. He's been going on about "the stats don't matter" ever since the first major stat-details update, so I'm curious to know how he defines the word "matter." I mean, if he just doesn't like them, that's one thing. It's not like the only two possible states of the system are "perfect" and "pointless." But... yeah. 8P

True enough. But the, there's the drawback to fully-free pickpocketing, which is that whatever skill governs pickpocketing just becomes the "arbitrarily get free items all the time/insta-fail the game if you try it on the wrong person" skill. Or, to put it another way, with the emergent gameplay comes a boatload of "just run around stealing from whomever." Especially if you throw dice rolls in with it, 'cause you get stuck between "be really careful who you try to steal from or you'll have to reload on account of the town being hostile to you now" and "just steal from everyone and reload until you're successful because you're going to unluckily have to reload sometimes anyway." Anywho... I dunno, simply put, a game's all about what goals are present, and what limitations are in place, resulting in your capabilities to achieve those goals (whether it be all of them, or some of them, solution variance, etc.). So, I think I'd rather have something like "You can only pickpocket when it's significant" than "you always have a chance to get free stuff from any given wandering person, even though the game design's kind of tarnished by your having all that free stuff, and also sometimes, as a side effect, you get emergent gameplay in situations where it already would've been an applicable skill." IF the limited "only when we let you" approach covers a good deal of situations. There're pros to both approaches, though.

Well, in the jail cell example, the importance is more on there being an alternative to getting out of your cell, rather than getting the item which happens to be one way to get out of your cell. Maybe if you have good enough Perception, you can find something that will work as a lockpick, and do that instead. Or maybe you can provoke the guard, then snap his neck or something. In which case I guess you'd have the key (the pickpocketable item). But... my point is that I don't believe they're simply replicating the "procure spiffy items from people," just in scripted interaction form instead. It's possible some of the pickpocketing situations will allow you to get something spiffy (that you're after for the sake of having that thing, rather than as a means to an end), but it seems like the majority of them will focus on the utility of pickpocketing in order to alter a scenario/achieve a specific goal (like getting out of the jail cell). Of course, I'd love to see the consequences of your decisions/actions go beyond just "did you get this thing or not?". Maybe, for example, you can use pickpocketing in a situation to, say, procure some important document. But, that person's PROBABLY going to notice it's missing within a short time. So, maybe you have the document -- as opposed to not-having it if you didn't pickpocket it, and having to handle the situation without possession of the document -- but now people are chasing your party, whereas they wouldn't have been if you hadn't stolen the document.

Unless you stop them ASAP because the game auto-paused the moment the petrification took effect. 8P Not saying it's easy, but there's a lot of room between guaranteed death-avoidance and guaranteed death when something happens.

No, but there is petrification. It's just not "you didn't save so you're dead" petrification.

I wonder if Aumauan cavalry ride War Otters... *ponder* I think there's a fresh-water/salt-water disconnect there... but still. 8P

Almost as weird as un-backing the project so that you have nothing invested, but still consistently expressing how unhappy you are with the project, over and over and over in a completely nonconstructive, "too bad it sucks" manner. Hmmm...

He's right. When you essentially roll a d100 for attack resolution, having -15 from crap Perception, or +15 from awesome Perception, makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. 8D! Also, it doesn't matter what buttons you push on your keyboard while playing, or if you even push any at all. You can just sit at your PC with your arms folded the whole time, and the game will beat itself!

Well, I don't think it's going to be a scripted interaction for the sole purpose of pickpocketing. "You see before you a man with things in his pockets. What will you do?: 1) Attempt to take all the things. 2) Go away and not do anything." I think it'll be more just an option in a given situation, where applicable. Like... if you wake up in a jail cell. Maybe one of the options is to try and pickpocket the keys off the guard to open the door. You know, not so much "that guy could have things in his pockets that I could procure, just because," and more "it would be particularly useful to be able to take a specific item off that man's person without his knowing, in this situation."

Ahh. Well, splendid, then. I will say, however, that I still think some kind of prepped-spell/ability (anything with "cast time") mechanic would be great. If it takes you 4 seconds to cast a Fireball, then you'd still have to spend those 4-seconds, in combat, standing around casting Fireball. You could just release it later than that, if you wanted. And there could be some sort of indicator if a caster was holding a spell. I suppose it'd only be fair for enemy casters to do the same, but I'm not sure how tricky that'd be for the AI. Seems tricky, but I know almost nothing about AI coding. On that note, another possibility (either in conjunction with that OR by itself) is to allow everyone to prepare 1 ability out-of-combat, so that it is instant-cast when combat starts. It would have to be chosen, though. So, you couldn't just prep an ambiguous spell, if you were a Wizard, start combat, then immediately get to cast the spell of your choosing. If you prepped a shield, then that'd be the only instant-cast spell at your disposal. If you prepped Fireball, then THAT would be it. Of course, that would have to be taken into account when tuning cast times and general combat capabilities, etc. But, I think it'd be a nice compromise between the "you absolutely can't do anything outside of combat" setup, and the "just cast 97 spells before you enter combat" setup. I also think you should be able to start combat with an ability, but that's a different story, I suppose.

I guess it's helpful in that you can take the time to see what's being cast and on whom, then adjust your tactics accordingly before unpausing? Instead of having to go "Issuing some orders, yeah... totally issuing WAIT! PHILLIP WAS PETRIFIED?! AWW CRAP! *PAUSE*". Hehe. *shrug*

So, when someone comments on someone whose OOoE title is "Punsmith of the Obsidian Order" starting a pun pandemic, that justifies some kind of affront to you? *scratches head*

Kk, so fun. U know what i meant tho. Not usually, they don't. But not never, either. He didn't specify the number of people that should be present sitting on tables, so we can't really rule it out as unreasonable, as some quantity of people sitting on tables could be acceptable.

I've gotta leave them some kind of challenge, right? Otherwise, what's the fun? Oooh, ooh! I'll just print out all the source code, and give them hard copies. 8D!

^ 'Tis a good point. In regular, full-party play, always switching to the most supremely effective equipment for a given encounter won't be as important (although, it'll still be more important the higher in difficulty setting you go). But, for a solo run, this would probably be something you'd want to do. That, and how much you're able to get out of crafting/enchantment could make or break such a run. 8P

The expansiveness of beard options simply must be packaged along with monocles, 6_u...

Ehhh... I don't know that I'd go with "perfect." 8P

I believe he's referencing a specific bit of Torment. Not the systems of the entire game. Hence him citing "the Dusties and the pickpockets early on in Planescape Torment," rather than "it'll be like stealing was in Planescape Torment."

I intend to take the release build, travel back in time to the dawn of the Kickstarter campaign, hand Obsidian that build, say "You're welcome," tip my hat, and disappear again in my DeLorean. Then play the twice-as-good version the day it comes out.

You beat me to it. Not that 7,000 wasn't an exaggeration, but it's not like you're really going to be looking for a person in a crowd very often. If someone's important, you'll know where to find them, or at least contact them. Also, you live in a city of over four million, but is it a 17th-century city? Anywho, my point was mainly regarding the infeasibility of whatever anyone's ideal state would be, within the current production timeline. Or rather, that what can practically be implemented before release is typically short of ideal, in game development in general.

I found myself depressing many a button when last I played it. 8P

But guys! If they fix the bugs, how will all the beetles repopulate?! o_O

Basically, all we know is that pickpocketing will likely be possible in very specific situations, rather than whenever you'd like to freely click on a skill button, then on an unsuspecting NPC. I don't think we know much more about pickpocketing specifically. However, I don't think it'll be limited to just actual dialogues (you won't need to be necessarily talking to anyone, or engaged in a conversation). There are scripted interactions that are just that: interactions that utilize the "dialogue" interface, so that you choose options. Kind of like your DM describing your surroundings, in a PnP session, then asking your party "what do you do?", but with a limited set of options instead of whatever-you-can-possibly-think-of-that-isn't-against-the-rules. So, I'm guessing, where applicable, you'll have pickpocketing opportunities (if you have sufficient Stealth skill/what-have-you.) Maybe someone more knowledgeable than myself can provide links to more specific info, though.

What is so hard about acknowledging sensible points? Ideally, the game would have 7,000 NPCs in every location in the city, all behaving exactly like real people would. Clearly, that's not a priority, though. Doesn't mean it's a dumb ideal. It just means that there's very little time, and other things are really more important. We already get a dev response in here saying "Hey, we'll work on that emptiness a bit before release," and more people post "Hey, it'd really be cool if you could do even MORE, thanks!" Lord Wafflebum comments on it, and somehow he: A) is being unreasonable, and B) warrants personal insults about how horrible it would be to be his wife? He has a point, devoid of liking or disliking it. You don't have to be 100% wrong or lose at anything for him to have a sensible point. Maybe contemplate that a little?