Fearabbit

Well, I actually enjoy reading these discussions. Yes, Valorian is a troll, but the dissections of various gameplay mechanics that people like Lephys post in response to Valorian's ramblings are usually awesome. Valorian is a one trick pony. And at this point, pretty much everyone has seen that. As to what he gains from this, I'm as puzzled as Ffordesoon is. If it's just a reaction he wants, that's possibly the biggest self-deconstruction for the sake of being noticed that I have ever seen. It would be easier to just be constructive and get positive feedback. If it's a feeling of superiority, well, the feeling's mutual.

Why must everyone always talk in extremes... Level scaling can mean that an enemy always has the same level as you. It can also mean that an enemy always has level 14 if your character is level 10 or lower, and is level 15 if your character is level 11 or higher. Now don't tell me that these two are the same. One is full-on level scaling, the other is basically no level scaling. Everything in between is also some version of level scaling. So we have a huge spectrum of options, and of all these, one extreme is the only valid choice for you? Even if the one right next to it barely changes anything? I mean it's fine if you have that opinion, I won't judge you for that. But you can't possibly expect anyone to care about your opinion if it is so narrow-minded. It's not irony if I want level scaling that I barely notice; it just means that I don't live in a world where everything is either-or, where everything's always extreme.

I think your poll is a bit biased. Most polls are, though. Couple of thoughts I had when I considered which factor is most important to me: 1) "Graphics": Good graphics have a bad rep among many gamers. When someone says he thinks good graphics are important, people assume he is shallow. However, there's a different side to good graphics, and that is: a clean interface, character expressions, interesting art design, intuitive menus... graphics are the most important way to transport information in a game. So when I think of "bad graphics", I think of a game that is very bad at giving me this information. My inventory and character screens are confusing, I don't know how far away the enemy is, I don't know how difficult the enemy will be, I can't tell whether it is currently day or night and I have to open a separate menu to look at the time even though I'm out in the field. Also, think of all the emotions like awe and fear that can be transported by a visually detailed world (the main reason I like Morrowind so much is its ridiculously high fantasy game world, and graphics are the key to get something like that across). This "information design" is completely missing from your poll and the closest thing on the list is actually "graphics", because games mostly use graphics to do that. In conclusion: I don't care if you give me a game with retro graphics or one with the newest graphical advances, they can both have their charm. So "graphics" aren't very important to me. But art design, ease of use, all the things mentioned above are extremely important to me, to the point where I won't play a game if it falls short in this regard. (Mass Effect 1 is a good example of a game with good graphics, but horrible information design. I couldn't stand it.) 2) Choices & Consequences: I don't see this as a must at all, but if it's implemented, it better be implemented very well, because then it's important as hell. If you don't have choices & consequences as good as those in the Witcher series, don't even bother. I don't want the consequences to be "depending on your choices, one to four of your party members will betray you or die". I don't want consequences where I feel like the game is punishing me. (By that I mostly mean that the whole game acts as if I made a bad decision. I don't mind tragic consequences, but they have to be as rewarding as the others and not be all "you screwed up, load again or play a worse game from now on") However, "good consequences" also doesn't mean that the game needs to have 12 different endings to account for all the possibilities. Quite the opposite. Games that simply offer you different paths to getting to the same goal are those that offer the most role-playing, and this is what I want. Anyone here played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis? Yeah, that's a role-playing game of sorts; you can choose to be an action hero, a charismatic team player or a clever stealth type. These paths are completely different, even though they sometimes use the same locations you have to do vastly different things, and it's awesome. But once you reach the last chapter, they all come together again. In conclusion: Linear RPGs can be just as rewarding as the ones that have choices & consequences. But the latter have to be very good - don't punish me for role-playing and make every consequence interesting in some way, not just "because of your choice, this character is now dead". For role-playing purposes, my preferred "consequences" are the ones that don't actually change the ending, but the ones that change the way you get there. (The Walking Dead and Fate of Atlantis are very good games where choices "don't matter", except they do, very much so, by shaping your experience.) 3) Character Development: What is this supposed to mean? Should my main character have some sort of development? Should I be able to develop my character the way I want (i.e. choices and consequences on a more personal basis)? Or should characters in general show some sort of development? If the latter is the case, I'd keep it simple and say "the game needs to have awesome characters - villains, heroes, side characters all have to be excellent", and then file that under "Plot". The first option strikes me as something you'd expect to see in an Eastern RPG. The second option is what I think a Western RPG should have, and it's what I think is most important for a good RPG. 4) Plot: It's certainly a good idea to have a plot. Mass Effect 2 for example didn't have a very thick plot (90% of the game is nothing but the assembly of a new team), and that was bad. But how important is the actual plot, and its originality? Many people said Dark Messiah of Might & Magic had the most generic plot a fantasy game could possibly have, and I didn't mind that one bit. The plot allowed for many personal choices that helped me develop my character (aha!), it was fast-paced and epic, it had interesting characters... so what if all the elements have been there before? It was a fun plot, it was completely sufficient. So I am a bit torn here. If you had explicitly asked about "Plot and Characters", it would be easier - characters are the main drive for a plot, and they are one of the most important aspects in a good RPG. If you ask me if the plot in general is important, I start to think about general things like "does it have twists" or "is it funny, sad, epic etc.", and I have no preference here. Nearly every type of plot can make a good game. How I chose and what I would add: I chose "Character Development" because I interpreted it as "I can develop my character in any way and the game is responsive to that". I think in a game about role-playing, this is the most important factor you can have. I hate it when I can't play my "snarky rogue with a heart of gold" because my party members start to hate me for what I say. I said this before, but it's like improv: It's all about saying "yes" to things. Too many RPGs say "no" to the choices I make, and they say "no, you can't be well-liked by your party members if you say things like that", when it would be much cooler if the tone of the game adjusted itself accordingly. What I would add to the list: - Cool equipment. A well-developed character needs a well-defined look, and I want LOTS of options. I'm picky. - Badass moments. Not just for me, but for the characters in general. Remember Duncan in Dragon Age Origins during the battle at Ostagar? Yeah, moments like these. Not just fighting, though. Show how the bard completely rocks at a battle of wits. Give that mage a scene where she makes all the books in a library levitate and twirl around while her familiar senses the tome they search, then have her summon a golem and casually tell it to clean up the mess.

I've been wondering about this myself. The advantage of using the D&D system would be familiarity and ease of use/understanding. The advantage of going with a new system would be the ability to create attributes designed specifically to take advantage of P:E's unique mechanics (especially the soul mechanic). That advantage of using the old system, familiarity, isn't really an advantage. The people to whom it applies (those very familiar with old D&D games) will not have any problems adapting to a new system. They had no problems with the Fallout system or the Arcanum system or the Dragon Age system, they'll be fine with the P:E system. For newcomers or people who only played one or two games with D&D rules before, it will be just as or even more difficult to adapt to it. When you first play a D&D game, the problem isn't the complexity of the system, it's that you have no idea how the system will be implemented. How important is strength for an archer? Can I play a fighter with intelligence and wisdom or is that just a waste of points? Questions like these. And if you've played D&D games before, you may have the wrong idea because you still remember those particular implementations and don't realize that the system in each game is a little bit different. Maybe you've played Planescape Tormet and only remember "the only attribute that counts is Intelligence", so you put all your points into that one. Maybe you've played KotOR and remember that having high constitution allows you to use implants, which are kind of like enchanted items, so you give your mage high constitution.

The monk sounds great, even though it's not a class I'm very interested in for my main character. But my monk party members will be very interesting to play. That said, I agree with those who say that it does sound like a barbarian somewhat. The typical barbarian enters a berserk mode when he's low on health, which means that he can deal more damage, charge faster and/or hit multiple enemies at once when he's very wounded. This is basically what the monk does here, with the twist that, if done right, he "regains" his health by entering berserk mode. I really like the culture concepts so far. Would be even better if there were more different skin tones, it seems like the two cultures on the right should have darker complexions. But this is only a small complaint and maybe the small nuances in the concept art will be stronger in the game anyway. I think we would say the same thing about any class they explain to us. Without comparison to other classes, it always seems like the special abilities of this particular class will make it overpowered. But the other classes have special abilities too.

I just don't get the point of this discussion. What's your problem, exactly? That Skuldrs have an ability that makes stealth more difficult? Or that this ability is grounded in fantasy and magic instead of the theory of evolution? More importantly: Enemies that also have special abilities to make stealth more difficult: Animals with keen senses, like wolves Bandits that use traps around their camps Guards with torches And there are many more possibilities - especially if we take into account that the easiest difficulty for stealth would be a blind and deaf enemy, we get a wide range of stealth difficulties. So why is the Skuldr a problem? How is it any different? How is his magical soul vision more lame than the excellent nose of a wolf? (Remember, this is a fantasy world.) To me this whole discussion only proves how insubstantial the fears of overpowered stealth were in the first place. If anyone seriously thought that there wouldn't be differences in difficulty for sneaking past different types of enemies, then it's no wonder they also thought stealth was overpowered.

Then you're not talking about an rpg anymore. Taking a step back to see what it looks like in reality and then deriving a system from that isn't exactly unheard of. He's also absolutely right in regards to archery. It would be stupid if archers always hit the target, but only do glancing damage. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do that, though. My guess is that bows have a very small "glance" range. I also agree that it should be quite common to miss because your opponent evaded your blow. As long as evading burns stamina (but not damage), that seems like something you could easily add to the current system without creating too many "damage spikes".

Well, my favorite thing was just the general idea of magic vs. technology, as well as the manual that went into great details explaining how magic interferes with technology (stylized as 19th century scientific papers - brilliant). As for things I liked about it that would be good in any RPG: My favorite would be the importance of race, not only for your main character but for NPCs too. But it's a tricky one. I love Arcanum for all that it was *trying* to do. To a certain extent I could have chosen any of the poll options, but none of them was perfect. Sure, I liked all the exploration and all the side content. I didn't like it so much that even though I lived in that world all my life, I had no clue where certain towns were and no way of finding out other than wildly roaming the land (no roads and/or signs apparently). The map travel method was a cool way of making you feel like the world was a lot bigger, but the map was ugly and there were too many random encounters that quickly stopped being a challenge. Dialogue was brilliant and funny when the exchange was part of a quest, but generic dialogue often felt awkward because NPCs would go from one extreme reaction to another ("Why are you talking to me, you damn ogre?" - "Please, Sir, can't we lay our differences aside?" - "Of course, I apologize. What is it that I can do for you, kind Sir?"). Finding techological schematics was awesome, but by hiding the coolest looking weapons and gadgets in this system, the game ruined its own Steampunk aspect. And so on and so forth.

Razsius, I really like your story ideas so far. The one about an archeological expedition down the Endless Paths was great and this idea is pretty cool as well - making defeat something you can live with because it still serves your soul in its next life. I generally really like that, but I agree with moridin84, that would work a lot better in a small indie game. You know, one of those games that heavily rely on one creative feature, like Braid or Fez. Here it would be the reincarnation of your soul in a different character, seeing the world through these new eyes, and maybe failing again. P:E, on the other hand, should focus on having a good and satisfying story, instead of having two. Not to mention that implementing all the changes you suggested for the second playthrough would be a scripting nightmare. Other than that, getting to feel like there's a lot going on that you have no clue about would be an awesome change of pace. I would also appreciate it if the motivations of my main enemy weren't spoonfed to me. Just imagine a story where part of your journey is finding out what kind of enemy you're fighting against - maybe even with the possibility of collecting completely wrong information.

This still hasn't been adressed, by the way. I'll try to repeat it with better structure: If each action (killing, disarming, unlocking, ...) is rewarded XP, someone who does all of them gets 100% XP and 100% loot, while losing X% of his resources (potions etc.). In that case avoiding things is not preferable, because then you only get Y% XP and Z% loot, and the resources you kept can't make up for the XP loss (and most likely can't make up for the loss on loot either). If only the objectives are rewarded XP, someone who is very thorough STILL gets 100% XP and 100% loot while losing X% of his resources. It is still a very good way of getting through the dungeon. Someone who avoids things will get 100% XP and gets the same Z% loot as before, no resources used. This is much better for them than the scenario before! Now the questions are: What would have been better, keeping X% of your resources or getting Z% more loot? This can be evaluated by [Cost of used Resources] vs. [Gold Value of Missed Loot]. Is going from Combat XP to Quest XP making the experience worse for anybody? Does a group of players receive a disadvantage that wasn't there before? My answers are: 1. This is highly dependent on the situation, but I'd think that ideally an enemy should always give you more loot than you used resources on him (if your party is at the right level for the dungeon), so fighting him is at least a tiny bit better than avoiding him. Saying that stealth is always better than combat in a Quest XP system implies that keeping your resources is always better than getting the loot, and I just don't see that. 2. The player who does everything takes the same time to get the same amount of XP and the same amount of loot while using the same amount of resources and having the same amount of fun. I can't see any disadvantage that was created by the new system. (Edited for clarification)

I don't think this adds much to the game, honestly. Either it annoys you because you needed that loot, or you don't care. But if it's implemented, I guess I can live with it. But tell me, what positive effect do you think it has?

This statement is causing me great concern. Ruining a player's experience, and inherently bad? How did we get to this being on the cards? When I say "inherently bad for some players" (notice the "some"), I'm talking about the problem that has been argued about the whole time in the other thread, degenerate gameplay. You don't want to kill all enemies, but you feel compelled to do so because it gives you all the benefits while not killing them doesn't. If that goes on for too long it ruins some people's experience. I think that this was the reason I ultimately stopped playing NWN, if memory serves me correctly. And this is "inherent" because XP is directly tied to these actions, so you have to do all of them to get the most out of the system. You can argue "but they don't have to", but that's not true; some people have to. They feel compelled to do so, and they don't like it. Quest/Objective XP might not be the perfect system, but a certain amount of people who had exactly that problem will like this system a lot better. So that's a win. But will certain people lose out on something? Not inherently. There is technically no gameplay style that doesn't have its benefits. You might argue "but now avoiding combat is better than actually fighting!". Even if that were the case (and that largely depends on level design, loot and all kinds of unknown factors that we shouldn't speculate about), we'd be talking about a whole different level: In the Combat XP system, fighting is better than sneaking because it gives you 100% of XP and loot vs. maybe 50% of XP and 50% of loot. In the Quest XP system, the worst scenario is that a combat-player loses a couple more healing potions or has to rest more often or needs to restock on ammunition, while 100% of XP and loot are still guaranteed. (While sneaking most likely will still give you LESS loot no matter how weird Gifted's and Helm's interpretation of "loot is not systemic" is.) So this is what I meant when I said: You are not actively (and inherently) ruining anyone's experience by switching from Combat XP to Quest XP. You're not making any experience worse. Some people get a vastly improved experience, others get exactly the same experience as before. And to make sure that all paths through a quest are both equally valid and equally challenging, we've come here to discuss how to make stealth more difficult and less "reload until you succeed"-ish. I think we've come up with great things and I truly believe that with such a system implemented in the game, nobody would ever choose stealth over combat if they don't actually enjoy sneaking. @Others and the current ongoing discussion: I won't respond to that discussion unless I hear anyone dissecting the various scenarios that have come up to prove that sneaking is NOT always the best solution. Just to name two, they were: You are in a bandit camp, undetected. The bandits are torturing a merchant, and he will die soon unless you draw attention to yourself. However you only came here to get a certain MacGuffin for your current quest, which you can get if you sneak past the bandits. (The merchant, if rescued, gives you discounts and other goodies.) You are in a dungeon, and there are enemies in the hall you need to go through. They will hear you and see you if you get too close. There is no alternate route.

The problem is that you're creating an unnecessary imbalance between different playstyles this way. Someone who does not kill any enemies, does not unlock any traps, but still manages to finish the quest misses out on both loot and XP. In my opinion, it is not important in that scenario if he was "taking the easy way" by avoiding all this. What's important that he's crippling himself by doing this. In the future he will have less XP and less loot. And while to a certain, logical extent this is fair (you don't loot the dungeon -> you don't get loot), it's unfair for things where the reward system was abstract and arbitrary to begin with, i.e. XP. There will always be an imbalance, but you can reduce it without ruining anyone's experience. It's basically a win-win situation if it's done right, while the "XP for every little thing you do" system is inherently bad for some players. By the way, I think XP in P:E will be awarded for completing objectives, so you will actually get XP while you're in the dungeon and not only when you come back to the quest giver. And I hope that the game acknowledges your motivations for killing the quest giver if you find out he's the bad guy, rewarding you for that as a secret optional objective as well. Ahh, but look at us, here we're discussing XP again. This really shouldn't be the focus of this thread.

All other points have been answered dozens of times already, so I'll just answer this and then be gone: The question isn't what I expected, because MY expectations (so far) have all been fulfilled. YOU are the one whose expectations won't be fulfilled by P:E. What did I expect? A game exactly like the one we're looking at here. A modern IE game. The game Josh Sawyer wants to make because HE misses IE games as well. What did you expect? Something completely different, it seems. You are the one who wants to change things in P:E, I want them to stay as they are. Clearly, whatever you expected was too specific. The devs had something else in mind and now you're disappointed.

Sneak XP? I thought this was an IE game! There was no such thing as Sneak XP in Baldur's Gate! Okay, being serious now. I think the points in the OP are great and would make it really interesting and rewarding to use Stealth. What I dislike about many RPGs is that they implement the feature, but don't do it well, especially when it comes to your Party. Using vision cones and noise radii as in Commandos would of course be an excellent addition. You could make it so that Stealth within the vision cones will NEVER work (unless you're invisible) and noise will make the enemies turn in that direction. That way, sneaking gets the same tactical treatment that combat does. I really don't like the idea that your skill affects your chance of being spotted - instead, make it so that a high skill reduces your noise radius. That's what I'd like, a system that has an actual chance of failure if you use the wrong tactics, but that can be very satisfying otherwise. Implementing this shouldn't be a problem. It's a simple yet effective system. However, I definitely wouldn't want this to affect the level design of dungeons etc. in any way, except maybe for a couple of dungeons or a couple of key locations. What I mean is that I wouldn't want level design as in Dishonored or DE:HR where you can "ghost" the whole level, just because stealth is a feature. Stealth should still mainly be used in towns etc. to gain information and gold, I think, and maybe in certain stealth quests. Dungeons should still largely focus on combat.

Ohhhh, so now you only have problems with some of the D&D rules then? Well now, PE is going to have it's own ruleset. That has nothing to do with combat xp by the way. What are you talking about, some of his dislikes were D&D rules, others weren't. O_o Quest only xp prevents me from killing the poor animal, even if I just want to kill it for "fun" or it's pelt (loot)? Wow, that makes sense. Really, it does (not). [...] EDIT: I almost forgot. How will quest xp loot prevent me from going on a murder rage? Sure, it will be just as pointless as with a combat + quest xp system. But it is not the obligation of the game programmer to prevent you from going on ridiculous murder rages. Not to mention that removing combat xp won't prevent you from doing that anyway. Quest only XP doesn't prevent you from anything. That's the good thing about it! You can totally go on murder rages, kill animals as a druid etc. You're basically just making a strong argument for Quest only XP here: Yes, there ARE still enough reasons to do these things. Maybe you want the money, maybe you just enjoy killing things. The point is, you do not need an additional reason to do this if you already have these other reasons. However, in a Combat XP system, NOT going on murder rages will put you at a disadvantage. And that's where Valerion's Cat was totally right: These things, like grinding etc., they CAN be solved in a Combat XP environment. But there are other reasons why Quest XP has advantages. The discussion had a good start and some excellent posts from both sides. Valerion's Cat's first appearance, for example, just to name one from the side I'm not in favor of. However it has quickly gone out of hands, largely thanks to non-listeners like you (Helm) and UpgrayeDD (though I think he might not have done it on purpose). That is very sad. I came to this discussion board just a few days ago because I was excited about the project. I really didn't expect this ugly bickering and all the endless "this is what an IE game is supposed to be like" arguments that go nowhere. So now I'm a little wiser, and I think for the first time in my life, I will start making use of the "Ignore" button.

I don't want to avoid combat because I love it. You want to avoid combat, because you hate it. There is a difference. Nobody here hates combat. People don't like various aspects of grinding. There's a difference. (Please stop saying that people hate combat.) Also the point remains, "He who loveth combatte shalt not have need of reward in the form of Combatte XP, your argument is invalid. Verily." Also concerning Valorian's Cat, it had a perfectly fine position before where it offered solutions to problems of "degenerate gameplay" while still keeping its focus on a preference for Combat XP. Now, having listened for too long to the venomous parseltongue of the dragon, it accuses people of "hating", it doesn't listen to arguments anymore (and, like its dragon friend, simply sees incomprehensible gibberish in a well-structured post)... I'd say it has changed in a horrible way.

I just want to say that Valorian's Cat had some excellent points, but then it got into a bad neighborhood and completely changed its opinion due to bad influences of dragons and skeletons and it's... it's breaking my heart. Also JOG and Hassat Hunter made some good points.

Hah, basically I have the same problem but I look at it from a different perspective: Why is everyone wearing plate armor and heavy chainmail all the time?! It doesn't make any sense and my rapier is useless against that (even though it should be even more useless than it is in most RPGs, as you have mentioned). I mean, daggers don't have any special "if you attack from behind I'm super powerful" functionality. They were used because you didn't need more than that (and because you could conceal them easily). People just... they never wore armor. But I know I'm fighting against windmills here. People want their war gear, their clunky plate armor and their morning stars, even when they're not in a war scenario.

Concerning the "Chosen One": I once read a fantasy book that was just perfect in that regard. It starts with this hapless boy who goes to the big city to sell th crops of his parents' farm, but along the way he meets all these strange people who for some reason insist on dressing him up a certain way and giving him a goat... he thinks nothing of it, but when he gets to the city the mayor declares that he is the Chosen One because it was prophecised that at market day a young boy with a feather in his hat and a goat (I can't remember the details, but it was something like that) would come and rescue them all... by going on something aking to a suicide mission. I can't describe it well but the gist of it was that the town dressed him up to be this prophecised kid and really majorly screwed him over. And he had no chance but to get out there and try and become the hero they wanted him to be. It was excellent. The book was called "The Magic Sword" "Giftwish" by Graham Dunstan Martin. (Edit: Did some checking, and that is it.) It really did an awesome job with that Chosen One trope, and it delivered an amazing fantasy story as well. But on topic: One thing I would not want to ever see again is a certain type of game design, which is: 1) You're an orphan and under the care of a foster father. 2) Your adventure starts as your home village is attacked by strange monsters and many of your friends die. 3) They somehow came because of you so your foster father sends you away. 4) The first part of your journey is very linear, but after you've done your first big quest, the game world opens up and gives you exactly four missions at the same time. You can do them in whatever order you want. 5) After you've done the four big main quests, the final quest starts in a new location. It's amazing how this applies to so many RPGs even though it's so specific. KotOR, NWN and DAO are just a couple of games that come to mind. I hate it because it makes 90% of the gameplay feel like either a tutorial or a side quest, and then suddenly the game is over.

I guess I'm most interested in learning about magic. How it will work, how it is regarded in this world, if there are any special universities devoted to it. What kind of spells there will be. (I'm hoping for a "necromantic" spell that let's you talk to the soul of a dead person like the one in Arcanum. That was just brilliant and gave you some very interesting options for solving quests.) I'm still hoping for a few surprises in that direction, like maybe a sorcerer sub-class of the wizard class that allows you to cast spells without preparing them first. But mostly I'm just interested in what spells there will be and how priests, chanters and wizards will be different from one another. A close second would be hearing about the various factions and how doing quests for them will work out. If there's a Thieves Guild I'd like to know whether doing quests for them will destroy my reputation in the party, stuff like that. Also if they're going to do the TES way of having factions/guilds with their own storylines and ranks you can rise up, or if you'll be doing mostly freelance work for the various factions in order to gain their trust.

I still think that if the main source of income is completing quests, and not selling weapons and armor of your enemies, then we have no problems. The "going back and forth from dungeon to merchant" problem disappears because it's less rewarding, and you also don't get balance issues between patient and impatient players, or "story-driven" players and completionists. Both get roughly the same amount of money while the ones that do sell all the loot possible still have a small advantage. The one problem that remains is a trade-off: Do you want a balanced economy that's more likely to be unforgiving to players who invest their money in useless stuff (like buying 10 extra longswords "just in case") or do you want an unbalanced economy that gives the player a lot of money and keeps him comfortable (the feeling of "gotta earn more money to progress" can be very distressing and frustrating). I'd say make the economy balanced, but give the players some last resort if they run out of money. Something they can't or wouldn't do. Taking a loan, or selling one character level for gold. Edit @Juneau: It's fair/realistic because usually shops don't even buy stuff from some random dude who walks into their store, so you should be happy that they give you any money at all. And really, it wasn't THAT different in the (late) middle ages. You're selling them used ware. But I agree, if they sell the same item you sold them for full price afterwards, that's not logical. They should sell it at a lower price. That's where my whole idea with a "Used" tag for loot items comes from.

I wasn't explicitly answering your post. I just want this to be something we can agree on; that generic, repeatable jobs where useless items become valuable items are not in the interest of balancing the economy of a game. Of course quests where you have to do other things than looting dungeons are quite welcome. Well, it would make more sense if I had written the long version of my post, but nobody would have read through that. The point is that in a civilised society in peacetime, a barter system for very valuable items seems unlikely. Just like you can't go into a store now and tell them "hey I want to sell you this iPad for $400", it's actually unrealistic to assume that you could do that in a medieval blacksmith. (Moneylenders or pawnbrokers are different, but their prices should be *really* bad.) The blacksmith would look at you and say "I sell weapons myself, why should I want to have your weapon?" People who want a valuable sword or armor are mostly noblemen, and they won't buy any old used item, they'll have one custom-made for them. Special items like legendary weapons or so don't really fit into this picture as they'll be greatly sought after, but still a merchant probably wouldn't buy those; the risk of break-ins is too big to warrant spending all their money on one precious item. Actually, I don't know how hoarding has to do with the "Steel Sword (Used)" suffix idea. My idea was that you'd pick the loot item you like the most, and since it's now your weapon, your phallic status symbol, you want it to look nice. That's all. Like I said it's a very small idea, but I imagine that I'd make use of that feature. Especially if the item also looks shinier in my inventory afterwards. Then we have different definitions of the word. To me, a money sink is anything you put money into. You know, there's a money source, and a money sink. Just like a lake that has a river flowing into it and one flowing out of it. If one is smaller than the other, we have a problem. So my definition of money sink also includes shops where you buy weapons and armor, whereas your definition means specifically *artificial* money sinks. I think we can agree that *needing* artificial money sinks in a game is a bad thing, but I wouldn't say that *having* them is bad. But anyway, apart from point 3 my point wasn't really about money sinks, it was more about "don't give the player so much money, goddammit!". A dungeon should give me just enough money to improve my equipment a bit and compensate the lost items (health potions etc.). And in my opinion the way to achieve this is having low-level-but-kinda-valuable weapons and armor be very worthless when you try to sell them, with the argument that for a blacksmith, they're basically just worth the material they're made of.

I was going to make a very long post, but I'll keep it simple. 1. Money-making minigames are the exact opposite of what we need. No job system, no "craft valuable items out of useless junk" etc. You just can't do that without unbalancing your economy. Basically, any system where you tell the player "you can either use money to buy this from a vendor ooooor..." will not work. We need the money sinks, or else we can just get rid of money altogether. 2. Weapons and armor should be expensive to buy, but cheap to sell. And not in the way "this item costs 1000 gold and you can sell it for 500", but in the way of: "This steel rapier costs 100 gold, and this steel mace costs 50 gold. If you want to sell them, however, you'll only get as much as the steel costs, i.e. 10 gold each." (Which is also for a generic system the most realistic way of doing it.) 3. Give items looted from dungeons a suffix like "Steel Sword (Used)". The suffix does nothing, but it's there and it tells the player "the weapon you're using has blood, spiderwebs and dents all over it, don't you have any pride?". The player will want to get rid of it for RP reasons. The only way of doing so is to pay the blacksmith for doing some cosmetic changes to the item. The third point is just a basic idea for easy money sinks that are often forgotten about in RPGs, even though they're actually quite nice. Maybe there are more things like that, but they're not the main issue. Point 1 and 2 are what's really important. If I fight 10 enemies and they all have some sort of weapon that I can sell, plus loot and quest rewards, and they're balanced to provide a challenge, then it's simple math that after that dungeon I'll have a LOT of money. Not to mention that I already found the weapon I'll be using in the next dungeon, so no need to buy one from the blacksmith. That's the basic, simple RPG mistake that needs to be fixed.

If I were to design a riddle where players had to type in their answers, I'd make sure to do two things: 1. Allow more than one possible way of writing it. "Wind", "The Wind", "A Breeze"... whatever comes to mind. 2. Instead of checking if it's the same word as one on my list, I'd simply check how many of the correct letters were used (and also how many letters were used in general). The chance that someone accidentally finds the right solution is still pretty slim but the chance of not accepting the right answer because of typos is greatly reduced. Say your system accepts the answer if it has 50% of the correct letters in it and also isn't 50% too long or too short: If the solution is "Wind" or "Breeze" as above, the system would accept "dniw", "winnt", "briese"... I'd say even a dyslexic wouldn't normally write the word in a way that this system wouldn't understand it. And I'm no programmer. I bet these people know all kinds of crazy algorithms to make sure the computer understands what you try to tell it without accidentally accepting a wrong answer.