Lephys

Yeah, I'm replaying New Vegas right now, and I forgot how much I like how Fallout did skills (in general). There weren't really too many, and they all apply in various ways to various situations. Also, I trust that Josh Sawyer knows a lot more about the problems he's describing (because he's a developer, and has surely more extensively approached the possibility than I have), but I'd really like a simple-for-simpletons-like-me example of exactly how the sheer existence of some aggregate skill checks creates so many problems. I'm not saying "Pssh, SURE it does..."... I just honestly cannot intuitively conclude the kinds of problems that would arise. Because, I think having some "Hey, you need TWO people with high Stealth here" situations would be really good. That's the other thing. You've really got two options (that I can think of): 1) Have "This check requires 30 in this skill... now add up all your party's skill values, and see if it's 30 total" checks. OR 2) Have "This check requires a skill of 7, but it requires X people" checks. Doesn't have to be a lot of them, but, ESPECIALLY in a system with only 5 skills, it would sure bestow a lot more meaning on exactly what your characters' skill ratings were, as they pertain to your situation-handling options and narrative choices, etc.

Wow! That looks like a great thing to play an RPG on! There's a button to READ books, inscriptions, and signs. Or maybe even people, o_o. And there's an EXP button, to spend your experience when you level up. RESTORE, to heal people, obviously. CHR$ probably shows you how much money your character has. Which means that STR$ shows you how much money you've gained through sheer intimidation tactics. u_u

Exactly. You can make a game complex without making it complicated.

You probably get XP. "Select target for Torture skill."... *click* "Torture successful! +100XP!" In all seriousness, though, I too would like to know how that affects things in the game. And/or what happens if you say "I COULD'VE tortured the crap out of you, and no one would've known. But I didn't." Too often, not-doing something never gets you anything or changes anything.

I hate the invisible combat round, because it's an arbitrary mishmash of turn-based representation and real-time representation. You can move around as much as you want in 3 seconds, but all actions suddenly occur on a 3-second metronome tick. Ugh... Sure, PnP D&D's rounds were representative of 3-second intervals, methinks (at least in some version... I'm not familiar with all of them). But, everything was still broken up into turns. Imagine if you decided what you wanted to do -- "I want to cast Fireball here" -- and the DM was like "Okay, everyone just all moved to different places. NOW THE ROUND BEGINS! Congrats. You just cast fireball at an empty spot on the ground." Double-ugh. It's the worst of both worlds. You can't react to things real-time, because you have to react to 3-second intervals of actions, and you can't really take your time like in turn-based, because everyone's jogging around constantly, and everyone goes all at once.

I would agree that, on paper, a lot of games for a while now have been... not necessarily crap, but just, uninspired? Overly simplistic? The market's pretty saturated with what has now become "generic," and the only envelope they're trying to push, it would seem, is technical fidelity. They'll gladly put out a game with a simpler combat system than some old NES game, as long as those three attacks you get are GLORIOUSLY executed with post-processing effects and an engine so new it doesn't even have oil in it. It's an exaggeration to say that all games now care about is graphics, etc. BUT, I will say that they care way too much about graphics. Their care for graphics isn't the problem. It's the neglect of the core of the game. Whatever shortcomings PoE might ultimately have, I do think it's at least a lot more focused on the core of the game than on the sheer aesthetic quality of the gameplay experience. Production quality, if you will. So, yeah, it's nice to see a game start with the ruleset and work its way out, for a change. Instead of saying "No, simplify it down so that we can render it in tear-inducing detail. We don't have time to render 100 spells. Let's do 7, and they'll all be uninteresting and redundant. But PRETTY!"

Obviously, the dialogue option list should appear as follows, ideally: 1. Might I, perchance, gaze upon your merchandise? *soulful stare* 2. You there, merchant! I demand that your goods be presented to me this instant! 3. I... see wares, yes? 4. You're really pretty. Let us conceive offspring whilst I view your inventory. 5. *Kill the merchant and view his wares*

Numerous, numerous apologies, madglee. I somehow missed your post entirely. That's my bad. You should be situated with your title quite soon, now.

That they did, but it's only a contextual/relevance problem. It's not a problem like "I need to get this desk home, but it won't fit in my car," or a memory leak. I mean, the very essence of this Kickstarter campaign was to fix the "problem" of there not being any good isometric RPGs made for a while. In other words, they're "fixing" something that would otherwise conflict with their design goals. I don't think it's so much that it was just flat-out a game-stopping issue in the IE games, as much as it's "with all the stuff we're doing with this game, carrying that aspect straight over would be a bit of a problem." Anywho, that's just what I gather from it. You're absolutely right that the game isn't broken if there's no sticky engagement. But, in the context of the rest of the combat system, it's a bit detrimental if a melee-er's role is simply "chase that guy down and try to kill him before he gets your Mage." At the very least, melee engagement is something that goes highly unrepresented in games like this. Like I said, at the very least, even if it doesn't slow you down any, some form of "if you choose to completely ignore me and run right past my sword arm, prepare to have your knees clotheslined by a blade" should probably be represented, if only because of the scope of representation throughout the rest of combat, and because it makes melee-er roles more interesting than "I sure hope you don't constantly flee from me and attack someone else." *shrug*. Maybe I'm crazy.

How do we interpret "Let's talk about good RPG games" if it's all just subjective opinion?

This particular heart attack will only deal Stamina damage. Not to fret.

I think one update a week is probably fine. I mean, if they hoped to release it this week, but failed to, then obviously it's going to be not-this-week. And they're not going to spontaneously release it without an update. The lack of further update defaultly means "we're still working on it." And I'd hate to see it come down to daily "Okay guys, we're hoping it's today!"/"Hmmm, all right, it's not going to be today, but we're hoping it's tomorrow!" pairs of updates.

The only one I can remember was X-wing vs. TIE Fighter. But, my memory tends to lock stuff away and hide the key, so I don't remember a lot of stuff (especially from when I was young) until someone sparks an "OH YEAHHHHHHHH!" moment, at which point I generally remember in vivid detail, 8P.

Heh... When I was like... I dunno, 7ish? My friend's brother was beta testing the original Fallout. When I saw him playing it, I kind of fell in love with isometric RPGs. That was the first one I saw, I think. I didn't get the play any of the IE games until a little bit after they had come out. I never physically owned them, but my friend had every single one of them, so I played them a good bit at his house when I visited.

Another suggestion is that, perhaps, they could implement some sort of hit-and-run leap-style options, instead of purely ranged combat. Basically, your animal wouldn't just stand there and tank, and could attack from a range, but wouldn't just stand a ways back, hurling... quills? *shrug*. BUT, I don't know how leaps and the like (into melee range) would work with the engagement mechanic. That's the thing with ranged animal options, though... I dunno what they'd attack with. 8P But, yeah, you should really be able to make many different kinds of bear. Maybe a bear that specializes in knocking down, or one that specializes in slashing/bleeding, etc. One that's swifter and more agile, or one that's bigger/tougher and more stationary, etc.

Ohhhh man! Forgot about that game, too! I played the crap out of some X-wing vs. Tie Fighter.

Yeah, pretty sure the type of RAM being discussed became rather nebulous for a little bit there. 8P Also, I think what was being intentionally said about VRAM was that most gaming cards now have 3-4GB. I mean, my laptop has a 3GB card, and it's not even brand new, nor was it the top of the line one. So, it wasn't so much "If you're a living human, you probably have 4GB of VRAM." But more, "If you want a gaming graphics card, it's not exactly hard to find 3-4GB of VRAM." *Shrug*. It could be that this is incorrect, and I completely misunderstood.

Well, at least they're minimizing their carbon footprint, right?

Agreed. I'll accept nothing beyond lance-corporal issues. 6_u

I do cite actual gameplay, where applicable. But, citing design that gameplay doesn't match is a different thing, entirely. I can't cite gameplay when I say "here's what should happen," or there wouldn't even be anything to suggest in the first place, because I'd just be citing what's already happening, and that would be already meeting design goals/ideals. My entire existence is a big WTF for you, for some reason. What else is new?

Meh. I don't much mind. I have a very high good/bad threshold, it seems. Nowadays, if something gets less than 7 out of 10, it's starts being considered bad, while I'll still call it good down to a 5.0. I'm just weird, though. I think a PB&J is good, while many would consider that very low-tier food, with an optimal meal being something much "better" than that, and that being something you settle for. Don't get me wrong... good doesn't mean something can't be disappointing in some ways. But... well, it's kind of like finding a dollar, versus finding 100 dollars. Finding a dollar isn't bad, it's just less-good than finding 100. 8P Anywho, I'm sure I'll enjoy the game, when I finally get to play it. I'll probably have plenty more criticism for it, once I've played through the whole thing, but I'll enjoy it nonetheless.

I mean that I literally have a lesser quantity of empirical experience playing the beta build than many others here. Apologies, as I didn't realize that was unclear. If it'll make you feel any better, Hiro, the next time I want to talk about something that someone else has already pointed out that happens in a specific situation in the beta build, I'll go test that situation myself, before saying "that shouldn't happen."

So is WL2 Oh snap! *still waiting on his physical copy to actually sit down and play WL2, instead of just watching his roommate play it.*

Yes, I can surmise that, and I think you're way too focused on something being specifically a "problem" or not when deciding whether or not there's a reason to implement something or try a new design. Even then, I don't see how, in the context of PoE's combat design goals, everyone simply whiffing past your frontliners to murder the crap out of your "squishies" with absolute ease isn't something you'd want to exist. Yes, I'm in the beta. No, I'm not as experienced with the actual beta as others. I've stated both those things, many times. Which is why I don't go around citing very specific things from the current beta build, and telling everyone how things are. I have no intention of misrepresenting my knowledge of the beta, nor of arguing about things I don't know about. And who cares if it's not close to its ideal form or not? The closer an execution is to its ideal design, the less significant analysis and discussion of that actually is. If it's nowhere near its ideal design, then it obviously needs a lot of emphasis. That's all everything is: design and execution. We can't affect execution, because we aren't the dev team, so the only thing we can truly affect is the design. If there's no solid design, then no amount of flawless execution is going to result in anything even close to ideal. Also, I dare say that a mechanic's "ideal" form IS the form that will result in fun. Now, if it turns out that that mechanic can in no way do that (or, the necessary design cannot be executed), then you scrap it and go without. But I don't understand being defeatist about something just because it currently isn't perfect, and you don't think the current design, even with perfect execution, isn't the best. I'm pretty sure discussion was invented for this very scenario. "Hey, I think we could improve that design. Let's find out if that's true." I sincerely apologize if I'm not a master of concision, but I don't understand why I'm met with so much apparent resentment. I don't claim to be awesome, or better than anyone. I just have a brain, and I use it to the best of my ability in order to contribute to constructive analysis towards honing this game into the best thing it can be. If the best of my ability sucks, then so be it. But it's not like I'm here to tell people I'm better than they are, or am in any way assuming I know more than everyone else. I'm just here to discuss. Even if I'm bad at it, that doesn't mean I must have some other motive. It's not like only masters of discussion are interested in discussion.

... Because it's corrupting the parts of your brain that are telling you you can wait to play the finished product? *shrug*