Lephys

I understand that thought process, too. I mean, it's just plain efficient. BUT, once you've got a modifier, it's really not that hard to have any number of things affect it. In the end, the result remains "your base Whatever is X, and your Whatever modifier is + Y." So that idea stays very simple. Plus, two stats affecting the same modifier would be hardly any different, mechanically, than just one doing so. The only thing that would really affect would be your choices at character creation. After that, all the other stuff that already affects those modifiers would come into play. Doesn't really matter, after character creation, if 73 things produced your stat-based Accuracy bonus, or just one stat. Your bonus is what it is, and you go from there.

If you have terrible Resolve, you'll be awful at completing puzzles and riddles a second time. 6_u In all seriousness, though, I wonder if splitting effects has been considered. Wasteland2 did that (maybe a little TOO much?). What I mean is, what if each point of Dex gave you +1 accuracy (purely for example), AND each point of Perception gave you +1 Accuracy? The first response that comes to mind is "DEAR GOD! IMAGINE IF YOU MAXED THEM BOTH! YOU'D BE TOO OP!" But, if you max them both, then how many points can you possibly spend on much else? I mean, if you went to 18 in both, you'd have pretty nasty crit chances, generally. But then, if you wanted 18 Might, you'd have to take pretty strong penalties to Con, Int, and Res. But, you could have things like Resolve modifying deflection, AND Perception modifying deflection. Of course, the rest of the system would be tweaked so that it's not just suddenly double-the-benefits time. But, if you wanted THE absolute maximum Accuracy, you'd have to be Perceptive AND Dexterous. If you wanted the maximum Deflection, you'd have to be very Resolved AND Perceptive. *shrug*. You wouldn't have to split every single factor up. Just some that seem too weighted when stuck onto one single attribute or another. Another thing (really just a "this could be neat, but isn't necessarily neat or useful" idea) -- what about modifier thresholds for increased effects? What I mean is, the stats now give penalties (- modifiers) below 10, and bonuses (+ modifiers) above. Well, what if 11 in... Might, for example, gives you +3% damage. Then 12 does, too. But 13 gives you +4% damage? etc. And, on the negative side, taking 4 in Perception would give you like -10 Accuracy, total, instead of just -6. Basically, the farther from average you went (positive OR negative), the more potent your bonus/detriment would be.

DuskDweller78, that survey went straight to the devs, most likely for the purposes of any kind of in-game reference to the Obsidian Order of Eternity (if there will be one), and/or the credits. Not to fret, though. If you'll just post your desired title here, I shall notify the mighty Drago- ... er, moderator, so that your forum title may be bestowed. All it does here is show up below your forum name, anywhere that your forum name can be viewed (profile, posts, etc.). If you answered the survey, you should get any in-game recognition without posting anything here, just to clarify.

Nipsen, every single "you can't prove that!" you're tossing at Sensuki must inherently apply to the significance of your own claims/concerns, as well. Heck, Intelligence could secretly increase the damage of enemies all around you, for all we know (some Obsidian employee could slap in a little bit of equation somewhere and snicker about it all day long, even if it's not advertised). However, how you can feel like all your sentiments expressed in this thread are some how more justified or warranted than Sensuki's hard-work-based evidence of the system... I cannot fathom that. It's not about whose opinion is better, or even what we can know for a fact, or only be 99.9% sure of. It's about reciprocity. If Sensuki posting the freaking math from source code, and explaining everything with hard examples and references, is insufficient for his points to be valid, then how valid are your points? That, and, at this point, are you even wondering anything, or have you simply decided that: A) You already know everything, or B) No one can actually know anything for certain about this system ??? Because both of those lead to "all posting in here is pointless." If you'd take a breather, I think you'd realize that no one in here WANTS anyone else to not-enjoy the game. But, if you have concerns, you say "I don't know this will happen, but I'm concerned about this." Then, we all, as forumites, collaborate on that concern with our collective knowledge, and hopefully we all come out with a better understanding of it. If someone presents something that you're STILL concerned with, then you further present your concern. What is the point of antagonizing someone who's gone about as far out of their way as possible to present as much concrete evidence and fact as they can in answer to your questions/concerns? What is that accomplishing? No one's telling you to just shut up and love the game. Just... golden rule, man. Put yourself in Sensuki's shoes. Take a breath. And discuss things.

(In the voice of Inigo Montoya) You keep saying that word... I do not think it means what you think it means. Also... on trolling accusations: "Your honor... unless the prosecution can produce a bridge under which my client resides, this case should be dismissed." If knowingly posting sheer speculation as "fact" isn't trolling, then what is? Hey guys, it's obvious that this game is actually vaporware, and Obsidian just took all our money. Little known fact. There. Guess that wasn't trolling, since I'm just sharing my opinions, which happen to be extremely controversial, uncalled for, and arbitrarily labeled as facts. That being said, no, it's really not cool to insult the OP, because that accomplishes nothing. But, the fact that insulting a poster is wrong doesn't make what the OP's doing, right.

Misses are sometimes frustrating. Attrition is always boring. Take your pick. Okay, I'm sorry... I had to go ahead and address this sentiment, as it permeated the first couple pages. I skipped ahead a bit for this, so if I'm saying something someone else already said, then consider me seconding it: If attrition is always boring, then we should try to get rid of attrition, not grazes. Misses are just as much promotions of attrition. What makes the difference? How often they occur. So, the same must be true of grazes. If grazes are happening too often, then maybe they just need to be adjusted, no? Sheesh. I'd hate to see the knee-jerk reaction if party deaths occurred to often. "WE'D BETTER BE INVINCIBLE, SO WE DON'T HAVE TO DIE SO MUCH! 8D!" Really, though... my first instinct would be to simply adjust the base Attack Resolution scale. Instead of 1-5(miss),6-50(graze),51-95(hit),96-100(crit), maybe it could be 1-5,6-30,31-95,96-100. Just an example. Seems easy enough to try out. Make an educated guess (which the devs can do with oodles of combat data), test it out, and see what happens. If it's way better, tweak it, and voila. If not, and it's troublesome, on to suggestion 2: Separate Graze from Attack Resolution. Basically, you'd have a default 1-5(miss), 6-95(hit), 96-100 (crit). Then, separately, Graze would be a chance-to-occur thing, based on other combat factors (armor, weapon type, damage type, range, etc.). Trying to hit that guy with no armor, with your sword? No chance to graze. Trying to hit that orc from 200 feet away with your bow? There's a good chance you'll graze him. Etc. With this, you could even (if you wanted to) have critical hits that resulted in grazes. Critical multipliers could be pretty variable, since other factors than just accuracy versus defense would determine a graze. So, you could have a x3 Critical Damage multiplier, for example, but have your weapon be ineffective against your target's armor, resulting in a graze (reduced to 1.5x damage). While, a regular hit would've been .5x damage. In a way, really, it seems like both grazes and critical hits should be divorced from Attack Resolution, but I understand how, in a different way, they work just fine within Attack Resolution. So, first, I'd just try adjusting the scale, as that seems like a perfectly feasible fix in the event of an abundance of grazes. Either way, though, it'd be nice for tactical factors like positioning, and weapon/damage-type versus armor to come into play and modify your graze/crit chances. Using a mace against that heavy plate armor? You have an increased chance to crit. Using a dagger, instead? You have an increased chance to graze. Dunno how tricky that would be to add in on top of the existing shifting-scale Attack Resolution mechanics, though, which is the only reason I suggest the possibility of divorcing them entirely from that (all graze/crit chances would be derived purely from external modifiers, rather than from the Attack Resolution scale with modifiers on top from a plethora of sources.) Just me thoughts.

I think you mean MINUS one, right?

The idea of stats specifically as measures of your character's unique potential are already abstract. In D&D, how does your Gnome come to have 20 Strength, just because you put the points in, while a probably-4-times-the-size Half Orc could have a strength of only 14? It's not about perfectly simulating. Or, rather, it's about simulating the inherent differences in people. Some small people can do some amazing stuff that you wouldn't think them capable of doing. Just like Constitution. Some people can simply withstand more punishment than other people. So, yes, working out a lot would improve your immediate strength, but the general strength of your character is always going to be at whatever it is, mainly. Doesn't mean it can't change on a rare occasion, but, really, it wouldn't just be because you're working out. Because... your character isn't created at birth, then develops their strength over the course of their growth cycle and as a consequence of their activities. So, if you have a Level 1 Warrior with 15 Strength, that's a measure of his strength even after he's done all the stuff he needed to to become at least a young adult (typically) and to warrant the class title "Warrior." If he JUST picked up a sword and got off a couch for the first time, then yeah, regular muscle-requiring activities would condition him much better. However, shy of eating 73 grams of protein a day and specifically working out for 5 hours a day, for a couple months, you're not really going to measurable increase Strength, even. Again, doesn't mean "You can NEVER alter stat scores, or the universe explodes!" But, I think it's best left to the abstract idea of them as inherent potential. And, again, IF you aren't using them in that manner, in your specific game design, then you can increase them all day long. But, frequently increasing attributes that are meant to measure (as designated by your particular game's design) the inherent potential of a given character in a given category... that's just a self-defeating design. "My Wizard had a Constitution of only 5 when we started the game, but, after a few weeks of adventuring, he had a Constitution of 17, because he killed lots of enemies and completed lots of quests! 8D!" Neither method is better than the other, in isolation. However, they are better or worse in specific contexts. It all depends on the goal of the attribute system. You don't design attributes that conflict with the very goal of your attribute system.

Engagement does seem like one of the weakest things in the intuitiveness of combat. It's tricky, though... *ponders* I'm wondering if the easiest thing might be to somehow focus on the characters/creatures who are linked via engagement. A mouse-over resulting in some form of highlighting (or otherwise intuitive marking) of all parties currently engaging the moused-over target would work well, while pausing. But, it wouldn't be very useful when you weren't mousing over everyone. That, and... by the nature of engagement (radius based), it would seem like there should be a way to issue move commands to characters for the purposes of moving them around the target without breaking the engagement radius. Or, rather, that's something that is going neglected if you just have to manually keep them inside a circle that you can't see. Another thing, on that note: I don't recall if it currently does or not, but IF anything grants a size adjustment to engagement circles (I know at one time, something was supposed to affect the Fighter's engagement radius, to give a bonus), that's kind of a double-edged sword. Sure, you can lock that guy into engagement 15 feet out, instead of 5 feet out. However, that target can now run up to 15 feet away from you without provoking a potentially devastating attack of opportunity, while anyone with a smaller circle would've stricken that target the second he stepped back a foot. *shrug* There's room for improvements to this mechanic, but I couldn't say exactly what should be done, off the top of my head. It definitely could benefit from being more intuitive (knowing when you will/won't engage a foe, and when you've entered/broken engagement, etc.).

You beat me to it, Tamerlane. PoE removed the whole "everyone's dance steps are synched up" orcestration from combat, and somehow it's too turn-based, as compared to the original IE games? I don't follow.

The craziest thing is how a standing character can accidentally shoot a crouching ally directly in front of him. 8P

You mean creating animations from scratch... Negative. Just because something's not in the current beta build doesn't mean it hasn't even been worked on yet. Hey, everything but those ~5 quests is not in the beta. Guess they've got an awful lot of stuff to make "from scratch." *chuckle*

To be fair, there's a functional difference between Might, and a talent that grants +2% damage that can be taken when you level up. What Might gives you is not what makes it a stat. How it functions is what makes it a stat. In the context of PoE, Might points are only chosen at character creation. You are a person who is X Mighty, as opposed to some other character who is differently Mighty. And, I really don't think it'd be fine to have a Talent you can take 20 times. But it is fine that a talent could increase your damage, just like it's fine that a weapon's base damage value can do so, or an active ability can do so, or a buff can do so, etc. Yes, you can mechanically use stats as "improve as you go" factors for your characters in a given game, but when the stats are specifically representative of the inherent measure of your character, as distinct from other characters in the game world, it becomes a bit at-odds with the game's design. But, that's conditional. That doesn't mean "frequently increaseable stats = TEH SUCK!" or anything. In that point, you are correct. But you're (maybe unintentionally?) sort of inferring that such a design choice is never a bad idea.

Yeah, I was mainly just being silly. Hence the smiley. I don't think it's unreasonable,

With all due respect, just because "specialization" happened to mean "mastery" in D&D does not mean that's now what the word means. Besides, whatever stuff's called doesn't change the fact that, mechanically, it makes sense to have some training in a variety of weapons, then actually master one (or more, perhaps) of those weapons. If they called it "penguins" and "biscuits," I'd tell them how silly the names were, but I wouldn't decide their mechanics make no sense. Put simply: I don't think the existence of weapon mastery requires that the mechanical bonus to a group of thematically-similar weapons be shucked from the game.

*shrug* @nipsen: I always just thought "feature locked" meant "We're not adding in mounts, or a new class, or new mechanics and/or features." Polishing animations and/or tweaking existing things, to me, in no way insinuates that features were not locked. But, that's kind of just me assuming, so that may not be what devs mean by the term.

No problem! I apologize for the number of flat tires on the way to the destination,

Then you just enjoy the 30+ purely-cosmetic differences in all the weapons in the game, atop all their subtle base dmg/weapon speed variance. WOOT! Ultra-simple isn't wrong, but it's also not defaultly right. Complexity isn't bad. Too much complexity is bad.

It sounds like the biggest problem in this reference seems to be imbalanced defense values for the enemies. If 10 Perception gives you, say, 20 Accuracy, (whatever the base Accuracy is in the new system, with no penalties from less-than-10 scores and no bonuses from greater-than-10 scores), and all the foes you come across have 20-or-more Deflection, then there's your problem right there. Fixing the stat is just going to be skewed if you make sure the stats account for everything by themselves, when you've also got the fully adjustable base Accuracy and/or creature defense ratings. That being said, I do see the merit in lower numbers warranting higher per-point bonuses. Depending on the finalized typical defense ranges of foes, It may not be crazy to have Perception grant +2 Accuracy per point, and have Might grant closer to 5% damage per point. It really depends on all the other factors, which are also all changeable. I just don't want to end up vying for a 20%-per-point Might bonus because all the weapons in the game happen to be doing below 13 damage, when we could just raise the damage, for example. 8P Also, this may be a dumb question, but I can't remember all of the sudden: Does armor grant a defense (Deflection) bonus?

What is bleedthru, Matt? (Probably a silly question).

Well, if there are, great. If there aren't any throughout the entire game, that would suck. But, I guess all I'm stressing is: 1) Everything should offer you the "same" opportunities (in general -- basically, you shouldn't JUST get some minor passive bonuses and the ability to set traps and be sneaky from 2 of the skills, while people who use the other skills on their PC are having a field day with super-interesting dialogue options and effects). 2) There should be a feasible way to make it so that redundant skill ratings across the party have at least some significance, as well. I think there are plenty of potential situations in which TWO competent people can do something that only ONE competent (even extremely competent) person cannot.

The IE games didn't have engagement, though. How would you represent a Fighter engaging 3 foes at once, etc.? I agree that it may become hard to read on ground circles, beneath all the other goings-on of combat, though.

@Captain Shrek, With that line of thinking, everything shy of "roll for victory or defeat" is a passive mechanism to prolong combat. What DT is is a combat factor. People deal damage, people deal varying amounts of damage depending on factors. It doesn't prolong combat any more than every single point of damage that your characters deal below infinity prolongs combat. Also, I have no idea what you mean by "the chance to NOT graze is 1 in 20." It sounds like you are misunderstanding what grazing is. That, and Graze is just a potential outcome tied to a range within Attack Resolution. If you just always had the exact same chance to graze, it wouldn't contribute much to combat, other than serving as a point halfway between missing and hitting. But you don't. Depending on Accuracy - Opponent'sDefense, you can have a lesser chance to Graze and a greater chance to Hit, a greater chance to Crit, no chance to Miss, a greater chance to Miss, etc. But, again, according to your arbitrary "it just prolongs combat so it's bad" logic, misses prolong combat, and hits (compared to critical hits) prolong combat, so the best combat would be "all you can do is critically hit." Then, beyond that, would be "you hit for more damage, because doing less damage prolongs combat." You need some further criteria than "combat would be faster without that" to determine that something is bad.

Regarding the "skills on multiple characters are redundant/useless" gripe... Would it be out-of-the-question to simply include aggregate skill checks for things? Scripted interactions and dialogues, alike? I understand not just taking the highest score in your party for dialogue stuff, because you don't want your PC to just be moot ("Oh, my companion NPC here is awesome at this, so they'll just handle everything as if I wasn't even here.") BUT, that doesn't mean you couldn't have aggregate checks. Basically, instead of "Mechanics - 5" or something, you'd have "Mechanics - 17 (group)" or something. An example for mechanics would be a complex machine that requires multiple people to operate it at the same time, more complexly than just "Hey, push this button when I tell you." Or, traps that require multiple people to disarm, etc. Or, as another example, if in a scripted event you are trying to find the trail of some kidnappers, or some beast, etc. (something you're tracking), then having multiple people with higher Survival skill could contribute better to the outcome of your search -- maybe you find the trail faster, or you find the exact trail instead of just the general direction, etc.. That, and Hiro said something interesting: That Mechanics and Stealth don't affect dialogue options. And to that I say... why not? Stealth could affect sleight-of-hand options in dialogue, amongst other things. "Is that your daughter over there? *points* (Try to take his wallet - Stealth 4)". And/or, at the very least, they could be treated as skill knowledge checks in dialogue. "Something like that would require access to a specific type of oil. Maybe we can narrow down the suspect list (Mechanics 5)." Etc. Stealth knowledge could pertain to security risks/investigation, etc.

DT is more interesting, I suppose. I really don't think it's that hard to understand. If the enemy DT is 10, and you do 7 damage per attack, then you're not going to do anything. If you do a little over 10 damage, you're going to consistently deal a little damage. If you do MUCH more than 10 damage, then most of your damage will get through. The only thing I kind of don't like about it (and I say "kind of" because, in a way, it's kind of nice from a simulation-y perspective) is that, if you have the wrong "weapon type" (in this case, something like a dagger that's low-damage, frequent attacks), you're basically nullified, instead of just being crappier. If you do 9 damage against 10DT, you might as well just not even attack. Whereas, if you simply suffered a DR percentage, you'd STILL do some amount of damage, if you needed to. Your options would always be lessened in effectiveness, but not shut off entirely. *shrug* Seems like DT drastically favors high-damage weapons, while DR (%) favors low-damage weapons. Assuming a 10-damage dagger is balanced for its attack speed, going up against 50% DR, it would still be doing 5 damage really frequently. While a big, slow great hammer or something that does 40 damage would only be doing 20 damage, and far less frequently. But, that's why I say weapon-type modifiers would probably be needed. If you didn't want slashing to be effective against plate, for example, then plate could have a base 40% DR, and slashing weapons could suffer an additional 15% DR against plate. You COULD even give the weapon type you wanted to be extra effective, a bonus. But you don't have to, if the DR values and damage values are already designed to complement one another. What I mean is, if Crushing weapons already do the most numerical base damage, then more damage is already getting through against any given DR %. So... just depends on how you want to do that. I do think the most intuitive thing is probably simple DR % on any given armor/target, plus modifiers (defensive talents, weapon modifiers, etc.). It would all contribute to the same "this is the percentage of damage that will be ultimately blocked" percentage... none of that "this percentage of THAT percentage" math... heh. See, DT handles the weapon-type effectiveness right off the bat, but then, it doesn't really allow for anything other than "at some point, this is completely negated." And, yeah, that fast 10-dmg dagger is way more effective, DPS-wise, against an unarmored target than that 40-dmg maul, but then you've gotta balance stuff against either still doing REALLY good damage. Whereas, with DR %, you can just have a maul do like 15 damage, and a dagger do 10 (you don't need to distinguish the weapon type as much via straight base damage numbers), and still have them affect different armors differently. When you marry it all together (damage reduction AND damage AND weapon type-vs-armor-type), you get some just-plain weird side effects.