Ineth

What does it mean to dehumanise an Amauna?

Not sure what games you're alluding to, but in BG2 I found the two-handed weapon style (with a sword or halberd) to be the most powerful combo for front-line fighters, all things considered. Closely followed by dual-wielding 1h weapons which was also very powerful. Imo it was the sword-and-shield combo that was almost always inferior to the other two for front-line fighters (although in some situations, like when fighting Mind Flayers, it could make sense to temporarily switch to it).

Sounds like Paladins may be taking that role in this game.

Definitely custom portraits for your own characters and I think (but am not positive) that we have UI support for switching companion portraits. Not 100% sure on that. Let's keep in mind that the Infinity Engine games did not have UI support for changing NPC portraits, but you could still do it by placing BMP files with the right names in the override folder. I'm sure that modders will discover (and teach the rest of us about) ways to make such changes in this game as well, even if the devs don't officially add support for it. So, nothing to worry about.

Actually I'd say it's very different. Certainly not an identical form that is merely scaled down to a smaller size. For one thing, the male armor in those drawings has almost no narrowing at the waist, whereas in the female version the part of the armor around the hips is almost twice as wide as the waist. For what it's worth, I'm totally fine with differentiating the gender of armored characters in the way(s) shown in that picture -- slightly different chest-piece curvature1 is not necessary to achieve that, although it can help and I wouldn't have a problem with it. In fact I don't even think that gender-specific armor needs to be as pronounced as in those pictures - a more subtle variation would probably work just as well. The same goes for scale, chain, or any other form of armor. ----- 1 Because lets face it, that's all it would be. The "b00b plate" or "b00b scale" labels that are being incessantly repeated by the detractors of gender-specific armor are pure hyperbole. No one in this thread asked for armor that actually shows the shape of female breasts.

No, each armour type has distinct advantages and disadvantages in this game; plate mail isn't necessarily best for every character. At least that's what I got from Sawyer's past explanations on the PoE armor system. The devs never said that plate armor will use identical 3D models for both genders; in fact from reading between the lines I'm pretty sure they won't, so they'll still be distinguishable.

And that's all I'm asking for, to have that visual distinguishability of character class, race, and gender in PoE as well. How do you know? Human brains are good at picking up subtle visual cues for the purposes of recognizing larger concepts, even when you don't actively focus on (or even consciously notice) them. In any case, I can't speak for others from my "side" of the debate, but I for one am not arguing for "boob shaped armor" per se; if Obsidian chooses other visual cues (like shoulder/waist/hip/leg forms and sizes) to differentiate between male and female character models, and that turns out to be just as effective in the isometric perspective, then great!

A note about realism in isometric games For those still taking issue with the "unrealistic" nature of sightly exaggerated gender-specific armor curvature (or slightly exaggerated axe and sword sizes for that matter), I ask you to consider what kind of realism a cRPG should ultimately strive for. PoE uses a fixed isometric top-down camera, for (correct me if I'm wrong) the following reasons: It makes it feasible for players to control 6 party members in tactical RTwP combat. It allows the game's creators to deploy beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds. Note that the following is not among the reasons: Because the purpose of the game is to provide a realistic simulation of how a bird flying 200 feet above the ground would experience the events of the game world (NOT!!!!!!!) On the contrary, as an RPG the game should aim to tell its story from the point of view (in the figurative sense) of the player character. This creates a dilemma of course, because the conceptual point-of-view and the visual point-of-view do not align. In order to compensate, the game designers use some abstraction when it comes to the visual appearance of things. For example: In reality, when someone stands 6 feet in front of you, you will be able to tell whether it's a man or a woman, and whether the weapon they're wielding is an estoc or a broadsword. This is the experience the game is supposed to imitate (not the experience of the bird above). So, the designers make sure that the character & weapon models are designed in such a way that they convey as much as possible of this information in the isometric view, without distorting their shapes so much as to look ridiculous (which of course in practice involves careful trade-offs). TL;DR: When you're demanding pedantic realism of the superficial visual appearance, you're demanding that part of the realism of the player experience be sacrificed (as well as making it needlessly difficult to identify characters). And some of us object to that.

I wouldn't. I only care about a gender difference in visual appearance, which (cumulatively with other distinguishing factors!) helps to add personality to characters and makes them easier to tell apart. The fact that gender is only one of multiple distinguishing factors, is not a good argument for removing it. Every bit counts in an isometric game like this, especially for players who have mediocre eye-sight or colour blindness. Not to mention that gender is one of the most natural and unobtrusive of the possible visual cues, unlike say "different unit circle colors" (how distracting!).

What makes you think that one precludes the other?

One consequence of having an unlimited party stash, is that small parties (or solo players) are no longer at a disadvantage when it comes to looting, compared to a full party of six. Which makes sense, I guess, since Obsidian said they want the game to be more flexible with regard to party size than the IE games were (whose developers apparently took a full 6 char party for granted when designing many game mechanics).

In BG2 it definitely makes sense, especially when playing with tactical mods. For example, when facing a Lich or mage you'll want to equip gear that maximizes your front-line fighter's magic resistance and death saving throw, whereas upon entering a golem or mind-flayer lair you'll want to switch to gear that maximizes their AC. And when fighting melee trash mobs, gear that maximizes damage output. Or take fighter/thief (or fighter/mage) multiclass characters - for some fights they'll want to wear light armor (or robes) so they can backstab (or cast spells); for other encounters it makes more sense to let them wear heavy armor so they can tank.

Followed by a "press this key to automatically vacuum up all non-magical items from the floor into the party stash" mod.

Maybe the metals from which armor is made in the world of PoE are lighter than the ones from which armor was made in the real-world middle ages? Remember that this is a fantasy setting, not historical re-enactment. And in a world where there was no culture of women wearing T-shirts, the few women who would do so nonetheless would of course be wearing men's T-shirts (because that's all there would be and all that tailors would be accustomed to making)... Historically, whenever a piece of clothing or gear was commonly worn by both men and women, then gender-specific designs for that item emerged and became the norm over time - across pretty much all cultures and time periods, and all items from shoes to trousers to hats. Partly to accommodate the different body shapes, partly for fashion. Is it so difficult to imagine that in a world where there's a culture of both men and women commonly fighting in chainmail armor (which was not the case in the real middle ages), visually distinguishable designs would emerge for that as well? In the small isometric version, it likely will look less pronounced.

Welcome to the forums, fellow eye tyrant! And I agree, this game seems to be shaping up nicely...

No way, man! Maybe for amateur-gramming. These are pros. u_u Okay, seriously though, I think the programming there is feature programming. Finishing the narrative might involve further dialogue implementation and content tweaks/additions, but it doesn't seem like it's really feature additions. I guess one is "programming", the other "scripting"...

Nice. Now, in addition to that, imagine those background effects using positional audio, i.e. the closer you get to the water-mill the louder you hear the corresponding sound from that direction... I imagine it will feel pretty awesome. Although I must say I also like the more melodic and "epic" background scores from games like BG2 and IWD1/2, so I hope we will get at least some of that kind of music as well. (Maybe in the main menu screen? Or during battles?) In BG2, even the "slow & gentle" background tracks managed to feel sort of epic and inspiring, for example listen to Viconia's Theme...

Damn, now I want to replay IWD2.

Well... Provided that the availability of the combined "softening up the target's willpower + balefire" action is limited (i.e. requires spending multiple once-per-day spells or similar), and pulling it off requires investing... a non-negligible amount of long- to mid-term strategic resources (i.e. character build, equipment, and spell-memorization choices) at the expense of other goals that could have been achieved, as well as... a considerable amount of in-combat tactical resources (i.e. rounds wasted for casting the corresponding spells etc.) at the expense of other goals that could have been achieved (like actually defending yourself against the enemy's imminent attacks!!!!) ...so that trying this tactic against too powerful enemies will likely get you killed before you manage to pull it off, and on top of that most actual bosses are out-right immune to it, so that its usefulness becomes very situational (i.e. with some luck you'll be able to use it to win one medium-difficulty battle each day, at the expense of making all other battles slightly more difficult due to the aforementioned binding of strategic resources)... ...then yes, it just might be a "perfectly reasonable" combat option...

+1 And in fact, this "multi-dimensionality" is at the core of what I liked about combat in the BG and IWD series. There are so many different axes, along which you can try to optimize your character's power and durability. Some of them overlap, others are completely orthogonal. No character will master all of them. And the same goes for enemies - you have to use the right tools for each encounter, in order to win. Unlike Jarrakul I don't see this "complexity" as an unfortunate side-effect. While it can be a little overwhelming at first for new players, I think it ultimately makes those cRPG's more tactical, fun, memorable, and of course vastly increases their replayability. Not only that, but Fiirkraag is also infamous for having unusually bad saves/resistances/immunities for a dragon (and for a "boss" type enemy in general). So even if you don't abuse the blue-circle mechanic, he is still susceptible to effects (such as the mentioned vorpal effect) that he really shouldn't be. That's not a general failure of those gameplay elements though. Encounters can be balanced in a way that takes things like death effects into account. Good summary. Keep fighting the good fight... I've sorta given up, except for the occasional low-effort post from the sidelines...

Why do you think the mega dungeon will be boring? They promised it will have a story and lots of interesting lore associated with it. So I'm pretty sure it won't be just a bunch of run-of-the-mill dungeon levels with some orcs placed in them for good measure for you to clear out without a real purpose. As for romances, Josh already answered that in the interview and elsewhere: They require lots of content (i.e. they would eat up a significant part of the budget, for something that only a minority of players will probably benefit from) and are difficult to do "right" (i.e. in a tasteful and non-cheesy way).

As for the Save-or-Die spells discussion, it seems to be going in circles. Let's just say that for some of us, those spells turned out to be fun in practice in games such as BG / BG2 / IWD / IWD2, so arguing on an abstract level about what theoretical "problems" they allegedly cause, is not likely to convince us. They did not break those games for us. (We had plenty of fun.) They did not incite us to save-scum. (I personally had no qualms about shameless reloading in the IE games, especially when a party member died and I didn't have the means to resurrect them -- but I can't remember ever reloading in order to make a death spell against an enemy succeed. Canceling and re-doing an entire battle with all its dozens or hundreds of die rolls, painstakingly retracing all my previous steps, just to try and get a different outcome for a single spell in the middle of the battle? Doesn't sound smart or fun to me.) Their usefulness, as we experienced it, was situational. (In some combat situations they were very useful, for example when fighting against multiple mid-level enemies, and you've already cast Greater Malison1 on them anyways, and you want to take out one of the farther-away ones like an archer or mageling while your warriors are busy fending off the nearer ones. In other situations - e.g. fights against a single big bad high-level boss, or against low-level trash mobs - they did not tend to be tactically useful at all). And that's that, from my side. ------------------ 1) an Area-of-Effect spell that slightly lowers the saving throws of all enemies in the target area.

For the record, BG2 did have some metamagic effects reminiscent of those available as feats in D&D3 - although in a somewhat hidden place: In the Wild Surge table1! Most of the possible wild surges were unrelated to the spell being cast, but there were some metamagic effects in there, including: the spell is cast twice the spell becomes an Area-of-Effect spell the spell is cast at double level (relevant for spells that scale with the caster's level) the saving throw that enemies are allowed to make against the spell is increased The best one I ever got was one time when I had my wild-mage cast "Simulacrum"2 in preparation for a difficult boss fight, and got the "Area effect" wild surge, so every party member got a simulacrum... Even the warrior, rogue, and priest ones... And even the other mage who had already cast Simulacrum just before that, got a second one... And yeah, it put me above the normal summoning limit3... Let's just say, the boss didn't have much of a chance against such an army... Wild Mages rock! But I digress. The point is, metamagic modifiers were not unknown to the Infinity Engine world. ----------------------------- footnotes for those who haven't played BG2 or don't remember it well: 1) The Wild Surge table was a list of 100 things - some good some bad some purely cosmetic - that could randomly happen each time a "Wild Mage" character cast a spell, or in certain rare circumstances, even with a regular mage. 2) Simulacrum is a powerful spell in BG2 that creates a temporary duplicate of the caster, with only 60% of their hit-points and level, but otherwise identical and able to cast spells and attack with weapons just like the caster. Only mages can cast the spell, and each mage can normally only have 1 simulacrum at a time. 3) The party can normally only have up to 5 "summoned" allies in total at any one time. Casting additional summoning or simulacrum spells after that, does not work.

But why was that an "issue"? The IE games had both: Spells/skills that where an "all or nothing" gamble, and ones that had something closer to a continuous probability distribution. This accommodated different play styles, as well as different combat situations. I don't understand why making everything more continuous, would results in a better game... (I'm not trying to campaign against PoE or Sawyer's design decisions; I'll wait until I've played the game before judging whether its combat is fun. I just don't follow the arguments against save-or-die spells, or against melee misses for that matter, that have been given thus far.) Well, for the sake of balancing, it would probably also have to mean that either the end point is nerfed, or the spell has additional disadvantages, or becomes less accessible (e.g. moved to a higher spell level). Because if a save-or-die spell is already useful and sufficiently powerful for its level as it is, then additionally giving it a spectrum of damage output for lower die rolls with no other changes, might make it over-powered.

Because the "tools" we're talking about also include ways to defend against death spells as well as ways to strengthen those death spells. Like I said it's an extra element of gameplay. It does not exist in a vacuum. A chance roll that can be heavily influenced and even eliminated by tactics, buffs, items, class and race abilities on the part of the target, as well as heavily influenced and almost guaranteed by tactics, debuffs, items, and class abilities on the part of the attacker. Exactly. (Although the "eliminated/guaranteed" mostly applies to the unmodded game; with tactical mods such as SCS, smart enemies will do their best to counteract those efforts.) Despite what Lephys insinuates, death spells are not a cheat code that insta-kills enemies with no effort. You need to put effort into using them tactically wisely (as I explained in this post), and, as I forgot to elaborate in that post, you also need to put effort into influencing the probability of success of those spells when you're dealing with even moderately powerful enemies (like mages, or bosses in general). They're really not so fundamentally different from other Infinity Engine combat mechanics that way. For example, take: Melee Attacks A well-equipped, optimized, mid-to-highlevel warrior build, can kill many types of enemies faster than a mage could kill them with Finger of Death, provided that they roll good to-hit rolls. (And yes, even in the very first round of combat, especially with backstabbing.) Of course the dice rolls themselves are random, but the overall chance of success can be heavily influenced through both long-term strategy as well as combat tactics: on the offensive side, by optimizing your attacks-per-round, THAC0, and damage-per-attack through...race/class/stat choices during character creation weapon proficiency choices on level-up choice of weapon choice of fighting style (e.g. dual-wielding) equipped gear (e.g. "Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise") buffs (e.g. "Bless", "Improved Haste", ...) ...as well as by making effective use of the element of surprise (e.g. backstabbing), or debilitating enemies first (e.g. with spells such as "Web" or "Hold Person"). on the defensive side, by optimizing your AC through...race/class/stat choices during character creation choice of armor equipped gear (e.g. "Bracers of Defense") buffs (e.g. "Barkskin") ...and/or by becoming impossible to hit at all, through... buffs (e.g. "Stoneskin", "Protection from Magical Weapons", "Invisibility") equipped gear (e.g. there is equipment that makes you immune to non-magical weapons, I believe) running away Now for the sake of comparison, let's come back to: Save-or-Die Spells Of course the dice rolls themselves are random, but the overall chance of success can be heavily influenced through both long-term strategy as well as combat tactics: on the offensive side, by optimizing your spell casting speed or temporarily making your spell casting impossible to interrupt, through...equipped gear (e.g. "Robe of Vecna" ) buffs (e.g. "Stoneskin", "Spell Turning", "Protection from Fire", ...) ...as well as by first removing the target's anti-death and anti-magic buffs (e.g. with the "Pierce Magic" spell) ...and lowering their magic resistance (e.g. with the "Lower Resistance" spell) ...and penalizing their saving throws (e.g. with the "Doom" or "Greater Malison" spells). on the defensive side, by optimizing your magic resistance and death-related saving throws and immunities, through...race/class choices during character creation equipped gear (e.g. "Ring of Protection +1", or even items that give flat-out immunity do death effects) buffs (e.g. "Death Ward") ...or by becoming impossible to be targeted by enemy spellcasters (e.g. due to invisibility) ...and trying to interrupt enemy spellcasters as soon as they start casting a save-or-die spell. In summary: Both melee attacks and save-or-die spells are are based on random dice rolls, but each of them is also part of a larger game mechanic that allows the desired outcome (quick death for enemy, and prevention of death for own characters) to be very much controlled through both long-term and short-term player choices. Both melee attacks and save-or-die spells have the potential to kill and enemy in a single round, if you prepare well and get a good die roll. I don't see why that's a problem.