Lephys

I would like to point out that, juts because someone's on a team to develop RPGs doesn't mean they're automatically a pro at playing them. And I think that's fine. That, and difficulty discrepancies are something commonly found/tweaked during the beta testing period. But, the game isn't really obligated to offer Effortlessness Mode. Even on Easy, it's still supposed to be challenging. Just less so. Besides, it's a completely new IP and ruleset. I'm sure we're all going to get a little face-rolled before we settle in to a comfort zone with the game and its mechanics. I think that's just called "learning."

You give me too much credit, . I am but the messenger.

This is absolutely true, but, I really don't think that in romance, or anything, really, it's the developer's responsibility to please everyone. I mean, hell... pick a genre for your game, and you just alienated a huge portion of the gaming populous. That's just how things are. You make a pizza place, you sell to people who like pizza. Maybe you sell dessert pizzas, and maybe you don't. That's up to you. You're making what you're making, and people are either going to like it and use it, or they aren't. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as enough people like it so that you don't go out of business. Also, I just want to point out that, just because your Kaidan gets 'sploded 2/3's of the way through the game doesn't mean you didn't romance him. You had the opportunity to develop a relationship with him up to that point, and then you made a call. That's how it should work (in that regard -- not in the "all I can do is turn him down or pounce on him" regard). As you quite nicely pointed out, just because one person's idea of romance is to reach the gates of Boinkville doesn't mean that gets to define romance in games. Yes, it takes work and resources to give it some variety, but you don't have to just make it into a buffet. Again, you don't have to please every single person, ever. And, honestly, I think not actively displeasing another huge group of people to the point of facepalming is kind of on up there with not displeasing those people who wanted to just be able to have a Burger King romance (they want it THEIR way, ). And finally, on to the binary love-o-meter options. Those are silly. I realize in a game like ME, with full voice-acting, it's really tough to write a bunch of different "arcs," so to speak, for a given character's relationship options, but not so much in a game without all that. This is still where these games fail, I say. Honestly, to hell with anyone who just wants to have a completely isolated "Oh good, that regular gameplay and plot was getting in the way of my romance-building minigame time." Not that there's anything wrong with just liking that type of gameplay, but there's something wrong with objectively designing a game with that in mind. It shouldn't be "important stuff, important stuff, important stuff, IM chat with your love interest for a few hours before going to bed, back to important stuff, etc." I will say that the mass effect stuff, for the most part, at least did pretty well with having you get to know your crew really well. But, THEN, it still awkwardly leapt to "We know each other pretty well now... WE DOIN' THIS OR WHAT?!" An RPG is first and foremost about your character's part in the world and the narrative, not just arbitrarily about what all random, sandboxy stuff you can do in complete isolation from anything else in the game world. Especially those with already established non-sandbox gameplay. So, if you're going to work in romance, it needs to feel like it's just a part of what's already going on. Look at factions. You want them to like you, right? You choose them, in a fashion, and you try to get on their good side, etc. But, I've never seen a "hey, just give me random gift items out of your inventory, and we'll eventually let you join us and share all our awesome stuff with you and be your best friend! 8D" Usually it's your decisions in relation to the plot that affect faction rep. "Hey, I know these people want their magical idol back, but if you screw them over and bring it to us, instead, we would owe you one." Etc. You're not just arbitrarily running a minigame that has nothing to do with anything but your direct relationship with that faction. You're both tied to the over-arching story, and the state of the world, etc. And, along those lines, you really shouldn't have identical tracks with all the romanceables. Maybe one character is extremely reserved (think Boone, in FO:NV), and the most you're going to get from them is half of what you'll get out of someone else. That's where Bioware started going really, really bad. They put more emphasis on "Let's offer a buffet," and tried to balance romance. WTF? Seriously. "Oh, let's arbitrarily force in every type of person imaginable." As if budget limitations, etc. leading to 73 different flavors of romance somehow equals discrimination. Romance is just another part of the story. Any given character already has a personality that's been written for them, a way of thinking and doing things, a set of beliefs, etc. That's what all their actions and reactions are based on, in the game. I know it's all coded, but it's organized to simulate decisions being made by a person with particular beliefs, feelings, history, psychology, etc. So, romance shouldn't be any different. Depending on someone's role in the plot at any given point, it might even be that, your choice to become really close with one of your party members leads to one of those "I care about you so much, I'm going to leave in the middle of the night to go try to take care of something myself because I think I'm keeping you safe" situations, for example. Things like that. It's not just "Okay, we're nearing the final boss... do we do it, or don't we?" It's not just "do we chat intimately in our free time, or don't we?" It shouldn't be a separate, "we're shooting t-shirts into the crowd at a sports game for people who like free stuff" thing that's just welded onto the rest of the game. It should be treated no differently than any other character/world/story design is. I have yet to see any developer even attempt such an approach.

Whoa whoa whoa... army?! I'm a lover, not a fighter. 6_u

I don't think there are any such restrictions.

Well, your opinion is crystal clear, at least.

Locked down like a vault-dweller.

Sorry, no, it wasn't lost. I was sort of piggy-backing on what you said, to add to it while also agreeing with you.

False. If a rock is lying on the ground, it has the potential to be picked up and thrown by anything that can pick up and throw it, as well as the potential to be used in countless other ways. Before anyone ever took a rock and shaped it into a tool, it already had the potential for that to occur. Cavemen didn't go "Welp, obviously no one's made any tools with these rocks yet. They're all just really heavy, and irregularly shaped, and hard to stack. Obviously, rocks are bad, and shouldn't be used." Luckily, someone contemplated the potential of the rocks, and figured out ways for them to be crazy useful. *Edited for concision* I get it, Stun. Until I can prove to you that the earth is spherical, it's CLEARLY flat.

To be fair, it's a little hard to tell that represents "You get an in-game pet!" when everything else has clear descriptions, and that's placed completely differently and lacks a textual description in the "what you get with your tier" graphic. It must be a legendary pig-monster, since it's the only item on the graphic that needs a legend.

Clearly. Also, PieSnatcher... you said the forbidden "P" word (*COUGHpotentialCOUGH*). There's no such thing. You can't use something poorly, AND be able to use it well. If someone uses something poorly, it's because it can only be used poorly. Obviously. You can't just have like... one glass of wine, and enjoy your evening. Clearly, if you use wine, you end up black-out drunk, with a headache, in Malasia, and you've signed over everything you owned to some guy on a napkin. And your kidneys are gone. Alcohol = all that. Romance is the same way, obviously. The second you try to put romance into your game's design, you BECOME Bioware's writing team. *nods* o_o. It's crazy.

A) It's a simile, as is your arbitrary, baseless "no, THIS" counter-comparison. B)... Oh, there isn't a B. Hmmm...

Romance is like one crayon amid your whole box -- you don't HAVE to use every single crayon in the box on every single piece of artwork, but there's no reason to completely exclude certain crayons just because the other kids suck at color theory.

Visceral visuals are always nice.

I don't understand why everyone's so excited about nostalgia. Is stalgia really so terrible? 6_u

*Shrug*. I just feel like it's keeping things in their respective contexts, is all. It's almost like character dialogue, versus a UI description. It's pretty lame when you talk to some NPC, and they say "Be careful! His poison will deal 30% of your Health per tick!". Which is why it doesn't happen. Yet, you don't just want people in the world to never ever comment on things that involve numbers and mechanics. Just... sometimes you kinda want to stay in-world but have something described, and sometimes you want to look at the numbers. *shrug* Doesn't mean you always want to do both at once, is all. I agree that games tend to not do this very well, but it's nice when it's done well; when the lore-descriptions are sort of buffers, and it's always easy to go straight to the technical stuff when you so choose. I think really, the only flaw in previous renditions of this approach has been the disconnect between the two information sets.

Oh, definitely! Sorry, I was a little vague. I literally meant that they shouldn't focus on the player's limitations. I think the player's limitations should be included, but the core of the puzzle should revolve around what you can or cannot do with your characters, etc. Imagine dialogue as a puzzle, sort of. "I have this problem, but all I can do is talk to this guy, and all I can say is what my character can say, based on stats/skills/lore knowledge, etc.". Feels really good to figure out how to produce a certain outcome from dialogue, yet it essentially focuses on the knowledge and capabilities of your characters, rather than just quizzing the player for information. I think that's a good approach.

Some people will reload if they don't have enough health left at the end of a combat encounter, and they know they need to get through about 8+ more. Where do we draw the line, purely because someone wouldn't put up with such a consequence? Yeah, if 3 of your party members are maimed, and you're out of camping supplies, it's pretty reasonable to just reload. Your chances of any sort of progress are very slim. If just one person is maimed (let's say your Wizard), and you're close to the end of something, or a safe spot, or you suspect you might find some camping supplies, you might push on and just handle your Wizard like a glass egg, ESPECIALLY if that last fight was a doozy. You'd have to weigh re-doing a whole combat encounter (and being able to come out better) versus possibly moving on and being okay. He can still probably fire off some tactically useful ranged spells here and there. You just can't really have him wade into the danger zone.

I think they mentioned in the recent update that some of the mainly-text-based stuff (that I would assume is less work than a whole item or inn?) is still submittable, for a bit longer.

I think there's been enough repeating on this topic. The forum has a search function. And yes, if an example falls in the forest and Stun isn't around to hear it, it still makes a sound.

It's definitely good to point everything out, just in case, but, at the same time, I really don't think anything at this point is supposed to be "final." Not any of these little details, anyway. This is sort of the "stuff's going to need tweaking" phase. Not the "okay, everything should be good! WHAT?! FLAWS?!" phase. That comes later.

@Stun, If your "case and point" for the entirety of romance-advocating minds is going to be picking apart one single post from Bruce, I'm not sure how to take you seriously anymore. Also, your idea of shooting down the logic of something is mind-boggling. Most of my points regarding this have been "not necessarily"s, and yet somehow you've shot them all down with basically "Feh, I wouldn't bet on it" mentality. That's what I fail to comprehend. You're free to decide what you will, but I don't know that to be shooting anything down. I'm also questioning your comprehension of the brainstorming/formulative process, as you seem to want everything to be proven, or it's just a no-go.

It's possible quests will be more extensive than you're imagining. I have a feeling they won't be "Go and talk to Pete." Then, when you talk to Pete, you've "finished" a quest. From what we saw in the last demo they showed (the previous one, from a few weeks back), it looked like thew hole Prologue was essentially one quest, in the form of a chain, sort of. *shrug*. Guess we'll know when we know.

Sixthed. I kinda like it when the two are present, but kept separated. Sort of a lore-consistent basic description of the ability -- in the OP example, it would be more like "The Paladin has gained a level of focus in his fervor that causes his Flames of Devotion to burn much more brightly." THEN, there's a strictly addressed-to-the-player mechanics breakdown. You know, "Increases the damage modifier from Flames of Devotion by X%," etc. All the little mechanical details. The reason being is that, if there's absolutely NO lore-esque description, it just feels like that's missing. So there's usually at least a partial one, but when you mix them, it feels a little weird. Like if you're telling a story, and you say "And then, the mighty Wizard summoned a magnificent demon, whose attack power was precisely seven hundred twenty three, and in doing so, he used up one of his spells-per-day, u_u..." Any effect of the sort of in-lore description is pretty shattered once you toss pure game mechanic terms in there. It's not a huge deal or anything. It's a very tiny deal. But, it's still nice, for what it's worth. Like how weapon description pages work. You have a technical listing of their damage type and range and all that, in mechanical/numerical terms. Then, you have a separate description. It might say "This was blessed by such-and-such, and seeks out the flesh of ogres." Then, the mechanical spec-list will say "+3 damage versus ogres." They're kept separate.

Totally forgot about that character! He's basically an Aumaua ninja, haha. Never thought of that.