Lephys

I very much agree. However, I don't really think the goal should be to evoke an emotional response from you, the player. I think it's just another connection between characters that happens in this virtual fantasy world. It's just a part of the story, in my eyes. "Oh, these two peeps were really close, and so this is what happened as a result of that, throughout this narrative." I mean, to be honest, the choices of being able to have my character just run amok slaughtering everyone don't really evoke an emotional response from me, because I know I'm puppeteering a virtual person in a virtual world. I like for verisimilitude to exist in the world, for the narrative's sake, but I'm not like "*GASP*, I just looted that chest that was in that person's house, even though they can't afford to eat! WHY WOULD I DO THAT?!". If I decide to play that guy, I've decided up front that I'm controlling a guy who doesn't careabout that. I dunno... it's just a strange environment. Having an interface to control a virtual world. You want similarities to exist, but you can't ever really shake the knowledge that it's a simulation. It's just like imagination in your head. It's a reality, but you know it isn't reality. I won't say it's impossible, but I don't know that I'm very worried at all about an RPG ever evoking a romantic emotional response from me towards a virtual character. I can like the idea of characters aplenty, but I'm never gonna be like "Man... I feel like I'm in love with that voice-acted script with a model and animations!"

Whoa, now! If a bobcat is using retractable claws, I demand that my character have the option of becoming Wolverine after slaying one and equipping its weapon, u_u...

Neither is shouting at a deaf man.

I get the "Who cares if they reload?" point, but, simultaneously, I try to think "Who cares if we put an Invulnerability button or an infinite gold button directly onto the interface? Some people will click it, others won't!", and I just get nowhere with that. I dunno... I just think more thought should be put into the question "why should you get XP here, and do you need to?" than into the question "why NOT put XP here?". I mean, how valuable is specifically getting XP from the process of disarming traps, versus the incentive (whether you ignore it or not, it exists where it once did not) to utilize any and all discoveries of traps (even trap trippings) in order to gain more XP?

Yes! Because: A) They don't already have those. B) Why give your Fighter the ability to engage 3 people at once when you could have him just go "KNOCKDOWN! KNOCKDOWN, KNOCKDOWN! Oh, you're getting back up? KNOCKDOWN! Oh, there are 3 more people headed this way trying to get to my Mage? Fighter lieutenants, COMMENCE KNOCKDOWN DEATH BLOSSOM!" /sarcasm How many knockdowns per encounter do you think we should give each Fighter, to be able to passively handle this whole "I can't really stop you from jogging past me" situation in place of some form of engagement mechanic? I worded that poorly. I should've said "how obvious of a fix would it be if the AI were actually good?" Anything in existence would be better without worse AI. That's kind of a given. What I'm saying is, maybe making design evaluations around bad AI isn't as good of an idea as working on the AI before evaluating the splendor of some other mechanic's removal. No... no it doesn't. Not the concept. Engagement is a part of tactical decisions. It's a condition. It's no different, conceptually, from "Oh, you're jogging around in front of that dragon like a moron? Well then, when he breathes fire, you're going to get annihilated by that. Want to not get hit by fire? Don't jog around in front of the Dragon." All engagement does is say "Want to not have bad things happen to you? Then don't try to jog directly past a melee combatant who's on you like white on rice." Or an aura? what if a Paladin had a Slow aura? Or any creature, really? What, that inherently goes against tactical choices? "Oh no, under certain circumstances, you suffer something negative! But under others, you don't! TACTICS = OUT THE WINDOW!" Obviously not. Engagement is a circumstantial condition. We're talking about a sword that's currently all blade and no hilt, and while I'm saying "maybe we could not sharpen the bottom part, and maybe put a hilt on it," you're saying "Pssh... a sword's just a horrible idea. You're GOING to cut your hand, no matter what. It's completely impractical." That's true, of the problematic state of the sword, but not true of the very idea of a bladed weapon.

Excellent post! I'll add on, if that's okay: Maybe this should just be optional (probably, even), because it kind of depends on how wide someone's given combat log is (based on other UI options, etc.), but... I think, instead of having a whole line for a combat roll, then a whole line for the result, there should just be (optionally) a column specifically for rolls. Maybe to the left of player names? That way, if there wasn't a roll (such as for "such and such Death"), there wouldn't be a big weird gap between "Character Name" and the rest of the entry, OR a weird super-short line compared to the other lines (if you just continued the entry in place of the game, instead of always allotting that column to a roll). You could even just have "X - Y = Z," and have (I guess also optionally, because I see no reason to make it mandatory) tooltips to point out the exact math. And you'd have "Attack" or whatever roll type there. I mean, we just list the damage like normal. We don't have "did X(1.15) + Y(.85) - Z(1.30) damage!". We just have the end result. It seems like, in most cases, that's the only thing necessary to really make major decisions. And you can still always mouse-over if you need to see the exact math. The difference with rolls being that you want to see what your roll was, and what it was up against (the main value for each entity, you and the foe). But, if your roll keeps being under 50, you can mouse-over and see that you've got a -30 to your rolls right now or something. OR, maybe we just show that one modifier for the attack roll? Since it's always going to be 1-100, but you never know at a glance if you just happened to roll a 50, or if something's dropping you down to 50. *shrug*

I wouldn't say totally. For what it's worth, left-clicking uses the thing you're holding (in this case, a stack o' stuff) in interaction with the container/location upon which you're clicking (places the whole item in whatever slot/spot), so it kind of makes sense that a different kind of clicking would still generate an interaction between the "held" item and the inventory slot. Minecraft (and some other games that involve a lot of inventory item interaction... typically because of crafting, etc. -- I think some MMOs do it?) use this same function, wherein right-clicking while holding a stack typically places 1 of the item into that spot at a time, instead of the whole stack. Anywho, I'm not trying to say "You should've just known how to split items! OBVIOUSLY right-click is the item-splitting button!" or anything. But, to be fair, there's not really anything inherently intuitive (or more intuitive) about pressing some other random button on the keyboard while you click. It makes sense to think that pressing ALT or CTRL or SHIFT while clicking would modify my regular click action, as those keys are modifier keys, but nothing but sheer precedent tells me that they will specifically split a stack that I am clicking on. I'm sure the very first game that did that got a lot of "WTF"s for it. "How was I supposed to know that?!" Well, really, ideally, you'd know from a full manual/tutorial/in-game-help-screen, etc. OR, I guess there could be a little "split" button on every item icon. That would be the most visually intuitive. But, there may be a better solution than that... Annnnnnywho. /ramble

False. It just makes it so you can't retreat your injured character from the front-line for free. You can still stun the foe and flee, or use Escape or a similar ability and flee, etc. I don't understand why people think the actual design goal of engagement is "As long as someone with a melee weapon is relatively close, YOU CAN NEVER DO ANYTHING! MUAHAHAHA!" Like melee combatants are supposed to be black holes. No. The problem Josh specifically cited (as Indira quoted above) was the avoidance of melee folk "with impunity." Now, I will say that Sensuki's level of objectivity and research/data presentation is exquisite, and, if engagement were to be abandoned, I would definitely consult with Sensuki's thoughts on the matter. However, I simply still don't believe that the very idea of engagement is somehow inherently bad or wrong, or that there's no way to fix the current system to bring it more in line with its goal, and less in line with the not-its-goal things it's currently accomplishing. Also, I very much agree that it's odd that Team Obsidian have not acknowledged any problems with the current implementation of engagement, compared to what it should be doing (and not-doing). I'm sorry but "look how great playing this exact build of the game is without a flawed implementation of engagement" in no way means "see, it should just be gone from the final game." A) That's great that a lack of engagement works fantastically with the currently pretty-dumb AI, but I'd rather have a game with good AI. If the AI actually handled engagement like a person would, and took advantage of opportunities to disengage and switch targets and such, would the removal of engagement still be so splendid? B) "You can just stop people with active abilities" isn't a very good argument, because that's kind of the point of the "problem" initially referenced by Josh. SINCE people could simply jog past your melee folk with impunity, the only means you had of stopping them, or otherwise hindering them in any fashion, was the use of active abilities. "Crap... my melee guy is useless in preventing that orc from rushing my mage. Better burn a Web or something so that I can specifically deal with that one guy before he gets to me." Basically, with a non-melee character, you can simply direct your attention to some incoming combatant and deal with them rather easily. A spell here. Some arrows there. But, with a melee person, you have to play Benny Hill if you want to try and handle them. So, the whole purpose of engagement is simply to give melee folk an advantage when it comes to handling foes on the battlefield. Not to prevent any and all movement or significant decision-making because the AI's bad and you can disengagement-attack-exploit people to death, etc. So, I dunno. I can look at the current system and say "that's not right," and simultaneously support the conceptual goal of engagement. I can also recognize the merits of the "here's what I would do instead of engagement" arguments, without deciding "yes, that's the obvious thing to do," or "No, that would be the worst thing in the universe and if we don't just keep and fix the mechanic, we're all dead." That's just my 2 cents. If it's useful, great. If not, then drat.

Yeah, or what if Monks usage of Wounds required that they lose Health? Wait... (Namutree beat me to it!) I jest. But, really, I definitely think the Ranger and pet's health can somehow be linked without necessarily being the exact same pool. But, I think the main focus of the Ranger class should be on the synergy of the Ranger's and pet's abilities/actions in combat. If you have that, then you're automatically at an effectiveness loss when one or the other suffers from low Health and must retreat. But, if you both have to retreat at the same time because of low Health, it kind of defeats the purpose of the scale of effectiveness that depends on the availability of both entities. Maybe just some modals would do the trick, in place of shared health? One for the animal, to take 20% (or whatever number is deemed best) of the damage dealt to the Ranger while it's activated, and one for the Ranger that does the opposite. They could even be optional abilities or something.

Yeah, I know how that is. I get oodles of Kickstarter update emails I have to sift through. But, it definitely sounds like something weird happened with your email address in their/Kickstarter's system. I've never stopped getting PoE emails (as Sensuki said, one from Kickstarter about each update, AND one straight from Obsidian about the same update.)

What is the map's function? It can depict expertly detailed giant space ducks in place of rivers, and still serve its function?

I bet a moderator is perfectly capable of deciding whether or not he's perfectly capable of deciding that on his own. If he wanted to tell people about how he'd've already moved it if he felt like it, he could do that, too. In all seriousness, I don't see anything wrong with asking if someone would move a thread you authored to a different sub-forum.

I think we're talking about two different specific things. I very much agree that they weren't thinking "PROFIT!". But, I don't think they weren't at all even considering or desiring an outcome in which this game makes them profit. I don't think they designed the game around profit-generation, but I also don't think they just couldn't even care less about profit. For one thing, they want to make a sequel, and profit could allow them to make a sequel without having to launch another Kickstarter for it. So... I mean, desiring profit doesn't just mean "Yeah, I'm gonna buy gold sofas and pay a bunch of stockholders" or anything. A direct interest in making an excellent game sort of segues into expanding that game/franchise/narrative, and profit is a resource that better allows those plans to come to fruition, without having to rely solely on another Kickstarter (or publisher funding, which is what's being avoided in all this because it oft comes with publisher directives). Also, how dare you be female! That isn't necessarily true. I mean, sure some companies out there are only motivated by money. But, plenty are, at the very least, motivated by some combination of good quality need fulfillment AND money. You're looking at the world in an awfully black-and-white fashion. We seem to be dealing with two different connotations. When I say "dependency," I'm talking about contextual dependency. I don't mean that we, the consumers, require video games for survival, or that a company requires video game sales for money/survival/what-have-you. They could make some other product, or just not have a company, etc. And we don't have to play video games. What I mean is, whether or not video games get made is dependent upon whether or not people want and will buy video games. And whether or not people will buy video games depends on whether or not anyone's willing to make them. We have money and want video games but can't make them (for the most part... not like a big company can... the key word being "can" and not "always does"), and they have video games but need money to not go broke making them. Within the video game industry, gamers and developers are codependent. Not for survival. Just for the existence of a video game industry.

So, it's a problem that those "blue lines" don't look like rivers, but not because they're supposed to look like rivers? They could look like giant space ducks as long as they were detailed instead of sketchy?

So, lemme get this straight... You really can't tell that that green mass is supposed to be a forest, or those blue lines are supposed to be rivers, or the background is supposed to be grass? You're just so lucky that you guessed all three of those correctly without having any idea what they were supposed to be based on your eyes' visual input? Also... have you ever seen an aerial photograph of the earth? I'm just curious. Also also... you're saying that this image is bad because it lacks detail, but that less-detailed image is better?

... What? o_o ... Ummm... the entire business world is founded on codependency. They need people who desire products in order to feasibly make those products without literally wasting their time and resources, and we need products to fulfill our desires for those products because we cannot make them ourselves the same way. We get games, they get money. They use money to make games, and they sell games (because we want them) to make money. Hell, the very definition of Kickstarter is codependency. They were literally dependent upon our individual pledges for the game in order to make the game in the first place. So, hoping they make money via sales is no different from hoping their next Kickstarter gets sufficient funding. It's simply hoping for a fortunate probability.

LOLCANO!

I haven't heard of Adventure Y. Is it a philosophical look into the nature of adventure? 6_u

Dunno... are you sure you allocated everything? I'm sure eventually they will have those "here's what you are missing" errors when you click the (totally clickable) "Done" button but you're missing something. Or, at least, I think that would be a great idea.

I don't think you're realizing that the two aren't mutually exclusive, though. What you're making a good point about is when you pit one against the other for priority status. Their desire for profit is secondary, in this case. Doesn't mean that if they somehow make a profit, they'll un-desire it, and send it back or something. "Whoa, whoa! Guys, we fulfilled all the backer rewards and broke even. SET THE PRICE TO FREE NOW FOR ALL POST-FULFILLMENT SALES!"

No worries. If I'm not sure, I tend to take things literally, and just go from there. You're right that it's a pretty good amount of work. See, I don't really have a problem with that. The way I see it, though, is that, with anything, I'd much rather have the "this interaction actually involves significant choices that relate to the narrative in a significant way" version, rather than "this is just for funsies and kind of never matters." For me, it honestly isn't even that big of a deal that a romance, in and of itself, be some incredible, passionate love story that moves me to my very core. I don't think that's its role in the midst of a game that isn't exclusively built around the theme of romance. It's more that, as a character interaction, it's another option to be had. And, like any other character interaction, I don't want it to be plastic and lifeless, and I don't want it to make story happenings feel lackluster in relation to the characters. It's all really just character development. When someone's in trouble, I want to feel like I kind of understand that virtual person, so that I'm not just going "Oh noes, I don't wanna lose my tanky dude!", or, in the case of romance, "Oh noes, that was my favorite plaything at the brothel!". I want to be able to be motivated by my inter-character developments to make further choices in tough situations, etc. It's that simple for me. So, if there's romance-ability, I'd honestly much rather see it be sex-less and such, and actual impactful on the progression of the story based on my character's choices and such, than have it focus so hard on JUST how friggin' epic of a romance it is between those two characters without anything else. I think this is the problem with most video game romances. They just focus way too hard on themselves, and not enough on the rest of the game. It's no different from a stronghold, in a way. If a stronghold just turned into "Stronghold Manager 2K14," and didn't really support the rest of the game, then it would be kind of silly. I haven't gotten all the way through DA:I yet, so I haven't seen a ton of the romance writing and such, but I think the main issue, so far, with that is that the options still kind of feel like they might as well say "(Romance this person)," like it's just a verb you do to people at random points in time, and not a relationship you develop over time. Honestly, I'd be less troubled by the Bioware romance options if they were serially just aptly-placed like... one-night-stand options. You know, just "Hey, the world might be ending. We're both smexy. Wanna have some fun tonight before we all maybe die?" That's about how casual they feel, though, but the result is supposed to be that you're furthering some deep relationship with the character. *shrug* I will say, one of the characters I attempted to just begin to pursue -- while my character's dialogue option was strangely abrupt/jarring -- actually responded pretty realistically with a "I can't believe you even just asked that"-toned laugh, and a "don't be silly," basically.

I don't know how tricky this would prove (or even how many abilities would qualify for this), but, using the two Fighter stances as an example, anything like that (that would make a good mutually-exclusive choice at a given level) could be set up to where you can only choose one or the other at level X, but then you can't choose a second one until level X + Y. So, maybe, whichever stance you pick for your Fighter at, say, Level 1, you can't have both stances until Level 5 or so. *shrug*. Just a thought for abilities and such that kind of seem like part of a set. Having the whole set would grant you a lot of versatility, and could be saved for a later level.

I'm pretty sure Obsidian sends official Update emails to all the backers. AND Kickstarter sends out notifications of updates. I don't mean that in a "so clearly you should've just known, u_u" manner. I only say it because, perhaps your emails are getting blocked, or they got the wrong email address or something, if you aren't getting any sort of notifications. I know they've only had about one official update per month, but I'm pretty sure the last couple specifically announced the availability of the Mac version. I could be wrong on that... it's just what my memory's telling me.

I dunno. I was under the impression that, if you could detect a trap before tripping it, you'd also be able to identify it. That's usually how it works in these games. Just kind of precedent, but not mandatory. "Disarm dart trap. Disarm flame jet trap. Disarm pit trap," etc. I mean, how does your trap-master know to disarm it if he doesn't even know what it is? "Ahhh, this thing that maybe is a ceiling switch or maybe is a floor switch... that maybe shoots darts or maybe mixes chemicals to produce fire... I know exactly how to disarm this particular trap, but I couldn't tell you what it does, or where it's even located! 8D" Hehe. I know, I know, the skill's abstracted. But, like I said, usually that bit isn't. You either know what it is, or you don't.

I don't think people are talking about Planescape: Torment. I think the references to "Torment" in here have been to Torment: Tides of Numenera. It's being developed alongside PoE, and also uses Unity, so it's at least a fair comparison.