jamoecw

there are few companies i will preorder from, obsidian is one of them. hopefully i can throw money at them before i deploy and end up incognito for about a year.

it would seem that more rpg games nowadays will throw a themed timed quest at you (come quick, we're about to die) and not actually have the game reflect this in any way. you can walk away and return when you've gotten 10 levels and 50k gp of gear and walk through the quest doing better or the same as if you rushed to do the quest. it is great to ride in and save everyone in the nick of time, but if the game just uses that as a narrative then the writing is lazy and disconnected. balancing things to ensure a challenge when this happens makes things worse, as you will be expected to take your time doing themed timed quests (not actual timed quests) instead of getting into the story and reacting appropriately. theming should match the mechanics, and the whole game shouldn't be just jumping from one timed quest to another, nor should there be no urgency to any quest in the game.

after thinking about it, the best way to do the 'timed' aspect of chapter 2 of BG2 (getting money to rescue imoen) should be to simply have the game track how much money you have gained vs. how much you need. if you get say double the amount needed before running off to save her then you have to deal with some consequences, triple the amount and things get pretty bad, so on and so forth.

don't sell them short, you get the manual and the game. wouldn't want it said that we were exaggerating the situation. i never played wastelands 1, so my expectations were based on fallout 1, 2, and tactics. i'd say the game was worth the $20 buck it was listed for. if they get around to balancing things to closer reflect the fallout games (the early ones, not 3+) it might be worth more.

That is true but then why are they part of the regular retail version? Digital Deluxe I understand, but regular? And then going back and actually removing the wallpapers from my crappy KS version after they were initially part of it? And that wasn't really the issue, I was prepared to pay for the digital deluxe upgrade and I did....only to find I don't actually have the digital deluxe....that I'm still missing chunks of content. Arguing technicalities is not the way to keep my loyalty. After they said GOG would fix the issue I pledged $50 more but now I'm losing my patience. so inxile told you they forked their problem off on GOG.com and you gave them more money? i understand that inxile probably paid the extra to upgrade your copy to the standard retail version, but it doesn't always work this way. they may have just told GOG.com that under contract they have to eat the cost. (most of the manufacturer's warranties are like this, but i hope that inxile is better than this)

or maybe a aumauan monk? the most unorthodox according to the poll.

one to wonderland, one to a perpetual action movie, one to a locker in a female orcish locker room, and the last to a glory hole in a giant's male bathroom. you confiscate it from a mad wizard in the first chapter, the big one leads to your new stronghold (the portal the wizard felt was useless).

i think it would be nice if at the beginning of each chapter something happens at your stronghold to kick off the chapter. the end of each chapter could be you doing something at your stronghold (preparing for something, or even just reaching your stronghold). that way you don't have silly stuff happening while you are out that needs a message to reach you (via butt nut, telepathy, highly skilled yet complacent messenger, palantir, etc.). it would make extra chapters via DLC, sequels, and mods far more seamless as well. that isn't to say random stuff shouldn't happen in the middle of the chapter, but i think it should only be rather minor stuff that really doesn't need your attention.

i think being able to control your companions back at the stronghold would be the best solution to any sort of random pressing issues (the huns invade, hulk rampages through our lands, the ferengi show up with a once in a life time offer). though i think any sort of issues like this should be worked into the storyline so you don't have timing conflicts.

that is realistic, but could get hilariously bad: at camp you look at your messages after a long and grueling dungeon crawl taking several months. "there is an army approaching, it looks like a tough fight, you should come home when you can." "the enemy is at the gates, things are worse than predicted. we need you NOW!" "we managed to hold them at the courtyard, but we are unable to reach our stores. we won't survive for much longer, where are you?" "your castle if mine, its people put to the sword. i await your return so that we may do battle, knowing that you were too late, HAHAHAHA." "i'm getting bored, waiting for you, and am running out of things to smash. are you scared?" "i've leveled your castle, and left for you. you must really hate your people, if you ever bother to return don't bother looking for me, i'm off sacking a castle that someone cares about." "merchant can't find trade stall, leaving." *6 now you think to yourself: "damn i left sword thing that i now know where to use it for the quest, and i bet the chest isn't there anymore. well that is 20 xp down the drain" okay, so i don't think it will be that bad.

the problem with this is that they are changing the typical reward structure already. you don't go executing every defenseless monster you see, and the random animals too just in case they give something useful. if they stuck to the typical method where you get exp for killing monsters, and generally the harder to monster to kill the more you got (though maybe you get more for side quests than plot quests or less, you don't know), then it would be fine to not have it displayed anywhere (and then you'd go to the wiki or game faq or whatever to find out what is the optimal path), as long as it is similar exp in the end. but they aren't doing that, they are changing how they are rewarding us, so it might not be intuitive everytime. it also won't fix any bad habits that they purposefully worked on making unnecessary. think of it like someone depositing money into your account, without you being able to know when they do so, nor being able to know how much is in your account. people would do stuff they normally do to earn money, even if they don't like it, in order to earn money, which wouldn't earn them money because no one is telling them it doesn't work like that anymore. if the government managed to change the economy so that no one got paid for doing jobs they hate, and strippers tipped the patrons, but one got to know when they were getting paid, or how much they have been paid, and their bills and such get paid automatically when they have enough money, those that found that they got paid by strippers and not for working will keep quiet thinking they found an exploit in the system, and most people will get kicked out of their homes and starve while working themselves to the bone. it would be horrible, and everyone will want the economy returned back to the way it was, when they were forced to do things they didn't want to do, and lost all their money to strippers.

that's a good system except it encourages min-maxing a lot, so I would make it so picking a detrimental perk unlocks less points than picking the opposite positive perk costs points not if it is done right let me use fallout as an example if you take the smart, you get +1 to your intelligence and 1 point bonus to all int based skills, but you may not have less than 8 int so 2 stat points at character creation go to int even if you dont want to if you take dumb, your max int is locked at 4 with all the resulting consequences in the game (not even implants can get it higher and the fact that the initial int is 4 and not 5, does not mean you get the lost point to use on something else... it is lost and that applies to all perks that cap a stat) if you take military training, you get 10 point bonus at all weapon skills, but your str, per and end cant be less than 6 if you take unfit for combat, str and end are capped at 4 and you start with 20% less hp than normal given that the penalties are worse than the opposing perks, the point stands. the efficiency to penalties needs to be worse, as the player will avoid using things that are penalized, and try to use things that are boosted. as a result any penalty that directly inverts a strength (+1 to str vs. -1 to strength for example) will in fact favor the bonus. last page i broke it down to a mathematical formula to take into account different variables (such as how often the penalty comes into play when you try to avoid using it vs. how often a strength will come into play if you try to use it at every opportunity).

i think primejunta stepped into the flaw with the perk/penalty system, that simply self balancing won't help. in fact it the core issue with them being balanced. regardless of separate or combined you have to have penalties that are always penalties, and perks simply have to be 'not OP' in order to have the system be balanced. if you do that, then the amount you pick don't matter, nor if they are separate or combined. example: good natured - 15 pts. - gain 5 pts to 4 non combat skills. thus you lose 15 pts. you would be spending on some skill you would be normally spending points on (like that one combat skill), in order to get 20 points spread across 4 skills, a net gain, but not a cheap one. now it would only be a non choice if you wanted to build up all 4 skills, rather than just have a good baseline incase you needed them. having a good baseline would be nice, but is it worth 15 points? maybe, if you wanted to keep your non combat options open, especially if you decided to specialize in a non combat skill, and thus it would only be a 10 point penalty to boost 3 skills by 5, the same net gain (5 points). like lephys said though simply gaining points in all situations don't make the best perks, so it isn't that great of a perk. swordsman - + - gain a 1 point boost to your swordsmanship thaco, you need to pick a penalty. finesse - - - you have trouble smashing non living opponents, you just aren't wired that way, they gain 10 DR against any attacks you make, be they magical or otherwise. now as long as their are plenty of non living opponents the penalty hurts, and the swordsman skill is not that great, so a minor overall buff, for a significant situational penalty. the penalty isn't tied to something you can just not use (or avoid, hopefully). overall situational bonuses and penalties should be weighted by how common they are, penalties by the smallest number you can encounter (in the mace vs. sword example maces could be avoided entirely), and bonuses by how much you can encounter at most (in the sword vs. mace example was for all fights against non sword immune enemies). in this way you can come up with a mathematical method to achieve how effect a bonus or penalty is based on the content of the game, giving the proper amount of points it is due (bonuses and penalties need to be looked at individually so no bonus is gained by combining them). thus as lephys said, there is a way to balance swords and no maces. 1000 total fights 400 avoidable 500 sword immune enemies 0 enemies immune to something other than sword 0 required mace useage thus the sword bonus is applied to 500 fights, or half the enemies, given that it isn't normal for a weapon to be ineffective, the sword bonus (and skill for that matter) is worth half the points it gives. there is 0 required mace usage across 600 mandatory fights (in other words a non penalty). so as both sides should balance: ((1000-500)/1000)*(x/((1000-0)/1000)=(x/((600-0)/600)*(0/(600-0)) or 1/2*x=0 thus the value of this trade off is not equal and needs a change, either by making the bonus equal zero (to match the penalty) or make the penalty equal half of x (x being what ever the point value the boost gives). given that all benefits can be boiled down to some numerical value for balance purposes, one can decouple them from each other and allow the player to mix and match the benefits and penalties to their hearts content without limit (thus one could pick no maces, which has a value zero, and then pick a 'real' penalty in order to afford the bonus to swords), though you would have to be careful that some perks or penalties don't change the numbers in the formula (unless these numbers were calculated during the selection process and thus changed as one picked them). something that simply changed that people called you 'lord poofy pants' or something like that and no other effect, would have a value of zero and wouldn't cost you anything (unless you were limited by the amount of perks you could pick, then it wouldn't be a zero cost exactly). thus the order of simplicity of how to do perks is: none 'flavor' perks that have no real effects unbalanced perks (non choices) mathematically balanced ones with no extra restrictions (like pairing them up, or limiting how many you can pick) that need extra balancing balanced perks and penalties paired up that didn't use a formula to balance them, but instead hours and hours of repetitive playtesting mathematically balanced ones with extra restrictions that needed extra balancing balanced perks and penalties with no extra restrictions that didn't use a formula to balance them the question is really where the 'sweet' spot is for the devs and payer base (devs have to do the work, and payers have to like it, otherwise it is wasted work).

i'll start companion, then do adventurer's hall, then i'll probably mix and match. though the first playthrough will be a putting the game through its paces sort of thing, the second one will be to see what kind of range it has (replayability, non typical stuff, etc.), after that i'll play with a theme or something like that, personalizing the experience.

i like dwarves, and i like monks, i generally don't play a dwarven monk, as they tend to be unviable. so i am going to put the diversity to the test, as not only is that combination weak usually, but agile combatants that win by smarts will put the tactical aspect of the combat system through its paces as well.