Iucounu

Depends on what you mean by emotions. Just feelings like grief or joy, or also pain, hunger, the need to breath, or generally, a drive to do anything at all? If it's the latter, I agree with you. I don't think such a being would be capable of shaping a concious will, so at least rational behaviour would be impossible If that were the case, there would be no good or bad at all. There always has to be a starting point. Good and bad, right and wrong, only exist in relation to a certain ethic, be it philosophical or religious. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" for example would be the starting point of an ethic, that you just define as good, for no reason.

Ah, kay. However, I would value both Korgan and Keldorn above Amoen or Haer'Dalis. Korgan => very high natural hitpoints and saving throws that can't be dispelled, berserk rage protects against all kind of things, + buffing is no use when you're ambushed Keldorn => insta Dispell Magic and True Sight. Playing with Keldorn was just cheap. But I get your meaning. I don't find mage buffing so bad however, but priest buffing was often tedious due to short duration.. and, ehrm, I'm getting off topic here.

Which is the reason why 6 magic users were not the most effective way to get things done (not at all). And even in TOB were magic reached it's peak, fightertypes were essential as they were better and more consistent damage-dealers, even if you cut out the magic resistance every little critter had at that time.

If I had to think of a combatsystem (not action combatsystem) that I consider fun from my current viewpoint I couldn't name a single one. It just seems to be all the same after a while... But if I had to, I would definately name BG II. Despite the whole dispelling, protectionbuffing puzzles, or perhaps because of that. You can say what you want, but I can't remember a single game that offered so much complexity as BG II did (DA is no comparison at all). Yes the magic was powerful, but hell, thats's the very thing that made the game so interesting combatwise. Ask the freaks who are playing modded versions BG II to this day. And it's not like all the other classes sucked: Fighters rightly equipped were always a good addition, Druids kicked ass, at least at mid-level, Clerics had there uses (even very powerful with the right combos), thieves kicked ass, bounty hunters were perhaps the second most powerful class. Seriously, BG II offered 10 times more tactical diversity than DA.

Erm yes, I guess counterbalancing is the way to go. Even though you didn't get any XP from it. I think in IWD II you even got XP from your pit fiends killings, but it wasn't as terribly overpowered there as in BG II.

I love the monk concept. Somehow similiar to some sort of deathknight class that I always wanted to play.. a warrior who becomes more powerful when he's near death. But your monk concept is just far better thought through, and more easily to implement. I think I definitely going to play a monk in a dark fullplate mail, with a sword.. even if he is weaker in most situations.

Don't forget Daer'Ragh. That was the real easteregg of BG 1 (even though it wasn't terribly spectacular). Of course, the talking to charmed enemies was far more fun. You could even charm potential companions and get personal information from them that way. But I don't consider this as an easter egg.

In the IE games, it wasn't really a question between summon and non summon spells. It was rather so that it always made sense to summon some creatures for aid before a big fight (within a fight, they weren't necessarily a better choice than damagespells or crowdcontrol). But you could only summon a certain amount of creatures, and after that you had plenty of opportunity to cast other spells. Of course it would be legit to have enough spells that are equally useful as summons for preparation, so that you can do without summons without weakening your party, and use other strategies. This however I imagine is not so easy to achieve. Especially when you have mass-buff spells, that also affect your summons, thus making them even more useful. Very powerful weapon.

When it comes to lightweighted armor, it can make sense to have uncovered bodyparts, but even then a piece of rag provides more protection than nothing, and doesn't limit your agility much. And heavy armor, that has uncovered areas, clearly puts you at a disadvantage, e.g this.. You don't gain significant weightloss, and the uncovered area can be your death.

I agree on most points. But I don't see e.g level-scaling as somthing you're either against or pro, depending on your affinity to roleplaying. The whole thing is also about having reasonable power ratios in a game, that make sense, and how accurate power is represented and interwoven with the role you're playing in a game. And this is something both metagamers and roleplayers should be interested in.

But, but... I WANT TO BE A ROLEPLAYER!!!! MEEEEEEEEH No seriously, calling things like gauging for power metagaming implies that they're not a part of the actual game. But what I think many people wish for are game mechanics that are more than just a means to an end, like the end to provide challenge. I for one prefer it if they are a more or less accurate model of the game's reality. For example, you could see the term spell-level as just an abstraction for the player, to give the gameplay more structure. Or you could make it so that the concept of spell-level is something the player character is aware of, and is relevant within the game and the lore. Like in the Forgotten Realms, where it's said that Crassus was the only one that could cast level 14 spells, which gave him the status of a god. I fail to see what this has to do with being a role-player or not being a role-player. It's not necessarily about power-gaming or min-maxing after all. You can emphasize such things and still role-play a character.

I know what you mean, I don't care that much if the passed time is displayed accurately in the game, or only vaguely indicated, as long as the difference between weeks and months and months and years becomes clear. I'm still unsure how great the level difference through scaling of a boss could be, without feeling weird to me. But then again, this could depend on my current mindset, and if I play some good games and get used to level-scaling, I might get more permissive on that matter. Or perhaps not. No idea. In IWD, I didn't even notice that they applied level-scaling, so it will probably not be that bad. P:E however, is probably going to be a lot more dynamic than IWD (not very hard to achieve), so I hope Obsidian don't get dumb ideas because of that.

I think it's a lot of work to make this convincing, especially when a game is supposed to last for several in-game-years. I guess that's why it's not very popular among game-designers to make games with such a long time-span. It also has some additional side-effects too. For example, you would think the relationship to party members changes if you travel with them for several years, instead of only a few months. The character of banters would change; especially the "get-to-know-each-other" phase would need to speed up. Quests like the Trademeet quest in BG II, could become problematic. If you simply drop them and do nothing for years, than there should be consequences (e.g. Trademeet is destroyed) that can also mean additional work for developers. All in all, however, I have no doubt that you can make a good game out of that. Thank you too for your accurate posts. Our discussion clarified some things for me, and made me think about my position. I'm still not sure if I'd like level-scaling in certain situations, but I guess in the end, it's also about your mindset and what you're used to.

If the game takes several years in-game-time to complete, and the potential time difference between story-branches is long enough, I'm ok with scaling bosses (to a reasonable extent of course). If the bosses are rather young, like Sarevok, the time-frame can be shorter. However, I doubt that the in-game-time will be particularly long. Obsidian never really bothered about that in their games, so why should they with P:E? Yeah. But on the other hand, the less your power changes, the less you need your enemies scaled. If it happens to a reasonable extent (especially the cave thing) I guess I'm ok with that. If in the game it's mentioned that bandits are getting better organized all over the place, that might help too. As long as it doesn't appear artificial, I have nothing to say against it. For me, this goes more into the direction of encounter-scaling anyway. Assuming that travelling between areas takes the most time, time that you can't avoid, it really doesn't matter much (as long as there are not too many fights that you can avoid, which is, well, also a point). In the IE games however, it greatly depended on how often you rested. The problem is rather that I've never seen a game where I liked level-scaling. No need to apologize. High-quality posts. If my english were a bit better, I'd probably get a lot more enjoyment out of it.

That would really be a good mechanic. Fighting one-on-one is much more exciting than always everyone-on-one. It's also tactically more versatile. But I wonder if working only with numerical penalties isn't too abstract. P:E is'nt going to be a PnP-game, nor is it derived from such a system, so we don't need to keep things that easy. In NWN, you could only parry as many attacks as you had attacks yourself (even though it never worked). So if you have 4 attacks per round, you could hold yourself against two other fighers with 2 attacks per round. In a defensive mode, you could perhaps raise your number of parries while lowering your number of attacks, chance to counter-attack etc.. I don't know how such a system would work out, but I think it goes into the right direction. Away from only numerical bonuses and penalties. Also, keep in mind that a warrior with a greataxe will probably try to keep enemies armed with a daggers at distance, rather than trying to parry their attacks. Taking such things into account, allows for a greater range of fighting styles.

I don't want to know how long the original post was. Ah, now I understand what you mean. Basically, I think you're right. However, I wouldn't put getting stronger by questing/fighting on a level with turning difficulty down. In the former case, at least you did something to earn your greater power. Ehrm, yes. That is interwoven with the question, how you can become super-strong within a few weeks/months, in a universe where becoming powerful usually requires years of training, education and training from youth on. I tend to block out those questions, as it would break immersion for me if I thought too much about it. Basically, I don't think I'd mind level-scaling at all if it would be somehow explained through the inner logic of the game's world, rather than just being a tool for game-designers to adjust difficulty. This however, is not that easy to achieve. Of course you could make it so that everybody can raise his power considerably within just a few days, just as your PCs. But that would lead to other problems. For example, there is a 40 year old boss, who is level 7 if you confront him fast, and level 10 if you come a few days later because of other quests. If this guy can become so much stronger within a few days, what has he done the last 25 years? You could argue that a world where only PCs progress is also logical flawed. But I can't help it, the latter scenario feels even weirder to me, as it affects the whole world. If only your PCs progress that fast, you can at least assume that they are a special case, because of the density of their adventure, or whatever. There might be cases, where this storydriven scaling makes sense. For example there is a bunch of noobs that receive special training and are half decent fighters if you come a few days later. Although I'd rather see such progress dependent on the time you need to get to them, rather than your level. I'm not against subtle encounter-scaling. Even though I'd like to avoid it, if possible. But if I have to choose between encounter- and level-scaling, I take encounter-scaling.

It needs to make sense for opponents in a setting to be this strong, and then on the other hand to be twice as strong, which is not necessarily easy to design, if it's supposed to be good. I think some gamers have permanently running a power-ranking in their heads, and keep much attention to power ratios and how they make sense in a world. So usually, the less information you have about your enemy, and about the world, the more you can scale not recurring enemy types (to the point where it's totally redundant who you your enemies are, and level-scaling isn't really any different from encounter scaling anymore). But since Obsidian is going to scale only core content.. Furthermore, if the game is good, and you really like it, you play it more than once. If there is some boss XY, I receive an impression of him, his rank in his organization, his abilities, his accomplishments, his power-level in his organization, his power-level in the world, his power-level compared to mine. And now I play the game a second time and the guy is either twice as strong, or much weaker. Nothing fits together anymore. For some players, this might not be an issue, as they focus on other aspects of the game or are flexible enough to sort of reinvent everything. For other players hoever, it might ruin a good part of the fun. But usually, if something like that occurs, it's a sign that the developers weren't paying much attention to distincitve and coherent power-ratios from the start, and the game lacks a very appealing aspect.. at least for me. In this case, I don't think I'd like some would-be-hero to do none of the available sidequests at all and right go for some big baddy (unless he's a very experienced player, I don't want to scare off speedrunners). I prefer the philosophy here that you're not entitled to win a game, and the game mustn't adapt to how you play, but you have to adapt to the challenges of the game. This might make the game less dynamic to play, but it mustn't make it totally linear either. If the developers had no clear concept of the opponents they want to throw at the player, than it really doesn't matter much. But take a D&D creature catalogue, and make the creatures stronger or weaker. Wouldn't this be kind of a mutant change? Even if you had been completely ignorant to D&D before, the creatures might have been designed with a certain lore and idea in mind, and now that you've changed their power and their challenge-rating for parties of a specific level, perhaps not everything fits as well together as it originally would have. Like I said, I want to have constants in a game. For example, there might be some elite unit that totally kicks my ass. Now I have the ambition to make my PC just as strong as this elite unit, I plan ahead, give my PC this feat, these stats, this skill, this equipment etc.. and in the end, I'm still weaker than the elite unit, as it has been scaled. Or the elite unit isn't subjected to level-scaling, but since almost everything else is, being as strong as the elite unit isn't really much of an accomplishment, and the elite unit isn't an elite unit anymore. When there is level-scaling, there is also fake-progression. DA is perhaps the perfect example for that. In a way, DA was more realistic than the IE games. While in Icewind Dale, you started with a group of total nobs who became half-gods within just a few months, in Dragon Age your PC is a killing-machine from the start, that is only honing his skills during the course of the game, and not experiences dramatic boosts in power. And yet there is even more HP- and damage-inflation in DA than in IWD. How is that possible? It's possible, because the stat-inflation in DA is mostly meaningless. You gain HP -> the standard Darkspawn unit does more damage. You do more damage -> the standard Darkspawn unit has more HP. The system becomes intransparent, the abilities, stats, skills and spells you gain are no longer absolute representations of power that enable you to determine your power-status and power-progress in the world, because there is no way to tell how the game will scale your enemies in response. Likewise, it's hard to gauge the power of your enemies. Are they stronger because they are really stronger, or were they just subjected to level-scaling? In the end it's also about role-playing. The power you wield ultimately decides about your status in the world, and your status usually decides a great deal what role you're playing, as well as it decides the role of your enemies. I'm aware that you probably don't advocate such a form of level-scaling. But some points may still be valid if you play a game several times.

Are you proposing that the level of each opponent should be displayed on the screen like in Arcanum or WoW? If so, I can't say I'm fond of that concept. Also, of course I don't know what type of enemies Obsidian will scale, but a wolf remains a wolf, and an Umber Hulk remains an Umber Hulk. There might be stronger and weaker exemplars, but it would feel weird if in one area, all the wolves you encounter are all of a sudden twice as tough as in the previous area, and all Umber Hulks you fight are much stronger than in a previous playthrough. Furthermore, I'm also of the opionion that Sarevok should remain Sarevok and Malavon should remain Malavon, regardless what your level is. When it comes to faceless warriors, level-scaling might be at least bearable for me (well ok, it's not THAT bad actually), but it would still feel weird if the warriors of some organization are extremely tough in one playthrough, and a bunch of pansies in another. Especially when there is another organization that is supposed to rival them, but their members are a bad joke compared to them, or the other way around, depending on what you do first. BTW, if the combat is made halfway intelligent, Level 10 X does not neccessarily pose the same challenge to a party as Level 10 Y, which also makes gauging power harder and again, might be irritating for me. It also depends on how dynamic the game is, and how fast you gain in power. When you level rather slow and/or the game is made so that you must still be on your guard against weaker foes, it can still be possible to do without any adjustments. For example, you have three branches that you can choose of in any order that all have more or less equally strong opponents: | | | The first branch might be very challenging, the second one less so, and in the third branch things would run pretty smoothly. But for me, the latter can be satisfactory as well, especially when you cut through the same opponents that were giving you trouble in the previous branches. Furthermore, in branch 1 and 2, there might be encounters that you can only avoid, sneak past, whatever, whereas in branch 3 you're finally stong enough to take on everything that you encounter, even though it's tough, but that way you still get some really challenging fights in between without any scaling. And if the first branch is too tough for you, there might still be ways. Just sneaking past most of your foes, using a lot of magical items with limited usage, even organizing aid or whatever intelligent ways the game offers you to make it through. To a certain extent, it can be the player who decides how difficult the game is going to be. Of course, it could also be like this: |/ | |/ | | But I don't think the game is going to look like this (at least not the core content). Branch 2 (the short one) would probably just be a sidequest, and thus, according to Obsidian, not subjected to level-scaling anyway. However, if you first do branch 1 and branch 2 after that, you can still make branch 2 interesting. Perhaps some event that you can trigger during branch 1 leads to a party of super tough bounty hunters ambushing you in branch 2. This brings me to encounter-scaling. What problem does level-scaling solve, that encounter-scaling could not? And what are the advantages? Perhaps it's just a matter of taste in some cases, but for me it's clear what I prefer.

If the difference through level-scaling ends up to be so low, you can just do without it imho, not much of a change. And personally, it really irritates me when opponents adapt to my level, even when it's just a bit. For me, monsters, opponents, especially bosses must be constants in a game. They are the measure of my PC's power. If they aren't, I can't convincingly estimate my power-status within the world, and I can't compare how my PC did compared to PCs from other playthroughs, as everything is distorted through this artificial adaption. If it's really necessary to adjust difficulty, I'd take encounter scaling over level scaling any day, for said reasons. Besides, I think there's nothing wrong with some easy fights as long as there are still challenging fights in between. Perhaps there are even lots of encounters where the only option is to flee, or to avoid them from the start, if you're weak, and if you're powerful, you just go for them -> no level- or encounter-scaling needed (I guess that's the reason Gothic worked so well). Furthermore that adds some unpredictability to games, which I really like. Nothing like the artificial levels of DA or Oblivion (worst case), where everything was adjusted to your level to the point where you didn't even notice any progress in power.

I think it's a good idea. Laziness is an important reason for pirates to be pirates, so if you offer them an easy way to get a legal game, that's a good thing. Only problem I see is it could be interpreted that piracy is not such a bad thing, and thus lower ethical standards. So you have to make clear that piracy is something bad, yet not in an aggressive, but diplomatic way. BTW, your method does not exclude the use of DRM. I'm aware that you don't like it, but it's still possible to apply your method and have DRM.

I think in PE there should be more "dialogue" with more than just two people involved. Speaking of BG 2, the banter between Korgan, Jan Jansen, Edwin and Tiax in the Asylum was one of my absolute highlights in the game. One of the rare moments were I got the feeling that I was actually travelling with a party.

If there is critique, I at least want to have the opportunity to answer to it.. Of course it will get cracked, but that's not the point. It's just about making life less easy for pirates. Fair point, I can't really say anything to it, other that I don't believe piracy is in any way beneficial for the game industry. Pirates would be pretty dumb to flame about this on forums, as it would identify them as pirates.. No, it could not: "The legitimate owner will never run into a trap. Mistyped serials are catched at the beginning by A[1] and if that algorithm is chosen wisely it will be sufficient for such accidents. There is a theoretical possibility that a game owner mistypes the serial and coincidentally enters something that passes A[1] but fails later at some other A. But if the algorithm A[1] is not selected poorly that will remain a theoretical possibility. With a probability bordering on certainty you can say that no legitimate customer will ever run into such a trap." Perhaps better than a conventional DRM. But it certainly wasn't all that great for CDProject either.

I think when it comes to copy protection, this would be a pretty neat system.

Yeah, I guess since in PE misses will be a rare occurrence, it's not that easy. Overall, to balance such things out and make them fit into a setting both stylishly and metaphysically is rather hard. I guess that's why you get spell descriptions like "squishing the life essence" and such. Anyway, if Obsidian would somehow implement such a build, I'd take it for my first playthrough. That means, if they not also implement some sort of Pain Blicker, that would be even more awesome! And it would probably end up with Kishimoto bringing Obsidian to court..

The idea with the voodoo example was rather, that if you mangae to create a link to an opponent, the fight is more or less already over. The challenging part is to establish the link, and well, even then it could still require sacrifice. A good example would be Hidan from the Naruto Manga (again). In this case, Hidan himself was the voodoo doll, and he created a link by hitting his enemies with his special weapon to gain their blood. He than would stab himself to hurt his opponent through the link. In the end he alwasy got the better of his enemies, as he happened to be immortal.. That would be btw, not even offtopic, as it's one example of how a melee mage of the darker arts could operate. Instead of concentrating on one enemy at a time, he tries to attack as many enemies as possible to gain their blood and linking them with him. Enemis can't kill him, as they'd risk to kill themselves, while he can either attack them further or stabbing himself, harming all enemies he's connected with simultaneously. As for the pebble in the bvrain.. as I already said, I don't really like the idea anymore (more because of style reasons, teddybear in the brain did it for me), but one idea was that powerful opponents can build some kind of barrier around them, that protects them from teleport just like in Star Trek you can't beam someone from his ship if the shields are up. Now here we have the problem again that combat would be reduced to a single dice roll. But I have no doubt you could build in more complex conditions and requirements that add some tactics to it. Alternatively it could be so that you can only defend yourself against the spell by magical means. The consequence would be of course, that as a fighter you can't hold yourself against mages of the highest power levels without abilities or special magical items. Perhaps no something everybody likes. But I think this could be interesting too, especially when you do the spacial reflecting shields, portal thing. I'm all for that (the general idea). This is actually what I meant when I said deathspells (and perhaps powerful magic in general) should have other drawbacks, not just that they depend on chance. Actually, for lesser foes, I don't mind such mechanics. Apart from that, you're right.