Sarex

So?

What are your opinions on game manuals? Should the game be intuitive to play, or should it need a manual to fully understand all the features?

Yeah, pls no junk. Items should be usable. This is interesting, since IE games could be considered to feature all 3 of these to a greater extent, depending on how you chose to play the game (I'll be intentionally over interpreting your choice of words to make my point here). Gear, while usually not feeling over powered, was always required in every situation, for example having to use a sword with fire damage to kill a troll could be considered absurd gear dependency, or having to wear decent armour to have even a remote chance of surviving an encounter (because it's 100% required I'd interpret it to qualifiy as an "absurd" gear requirement). You just couldn't complete the game with at least decent gear. I agree that combat pre-buffing became a bit of an issue in IE games even if I quite liked it. It encouraged rest-spamming just next to an enemy behind fog of war in order to reset all your buffs. I think PE will mitigate this somewhat by using passive buffs, like the Paladin auras that presumably don't require re-casting, but strategic party positioning instead. Regarding the third point, I believe potions and scrolls have to at least match spells and survival skills, which could be considered eclipsing. I believe this would add diversity to play style, rather than forcing users to play certain classes, or down certain skill path choices. But then again, you could go through a whole game without weapons and armor (monks/wizards). As for unique monsters, I think they added flavor to combat and as for the trolls example, you could kill them with any fire/acid damage (spells, potions, arrows, etc.).

I like it when npcs drop armors and swords + gold/gems/jewelry, I don't like the idea of them taking that away from us. If a npc has an armor and sword in its animation it logical that they will drop it on death. I am more in the boat, "If it's not nailed down you can take it and if it is, come back later with a crowbar". Can you explain what you mean about gear dependency? As for pre-combat buffing, that is a combat difficulty issue, on normal difficulty in any IE game you didn't need pre-combat buffing except for some major battles.

Really disappointed in item durability, I always found that to be tedious/pointless. As for the crafting I'm neither for or against it.

That post is for Ffordesoon. Read my post again... Yeah, but the difference between you and me is what makes the character engaging for us. For me a character can have 0 back story and 0 side quests, but have reactivity to the world and events and some banter and it will be infinitely more engaging. So as I said, bad analogy.

Yeah, I was talking about liking them more. So you played all the characters in BG in one play through? I never did that because I would only lose xp on them.

Look at it like this, if they fail miserably because they went in a whole other direction they will lose their customers trust and it will hurt them for years to come. What KS essentially was is, "do you trust obsidian to make a good game that will remind you of BG/IWD/PS:T". Trust has been given and it's up to them not to disappoint.

Swing and a miss, Hall of Adventures let's you make generic companions with no banter talk, no side quest, in other words 0 depth. I was not talking about 0 depth. I don't see the problem in having 15-16 who are half as deep. I'm pretty sure you are being very subjective here, what I was talking about was simple math and I'm pretty sure I said that if a person doesn't like a character it doesn't matter how deep the character is (that was kind of a major point in my post which you skipped entirely). So in depth. I think we can /thread this discussion. Bad analogy. If a person doesn't like a character, they are just going to pick another. What you are saying is that it's ok to force the player in to those 9 characters and they will learn to like them. I think that is a bad way of thinking. As for an rpg needing deep companions to succeed, well there are obvious examples which prove otherwise, So what you are saying, when playing a game you would pick companions you don't like if there betters ones for you to pick. Well they are making to game so we will see how it turns out, and whether it was a good call to make. From pst I only remember the floating scull and the succubus. What is your point? Depth=/=interesting. A lot more things need to click together then a character just having a deep story. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For a character to be fun he doesn't have to have a deep story or a bunch of side quest, it's how he reacts to the world and events that are happening around him, for an example that is what made Minsc such a great character (or at least a memorable one). You are already going to have loads of quest in the game that are going to have depth and story, a character needs to add something different to the mix. I, personally, would rather add more characters with less/no quest, shallower stories, then a hand full that I may or may not like.

I do the same, but as I said I very rarely find a character which I like, so I usually go with the stats.

And then you get to making equipment, especially in ToB, and all that money evaporates.

Yeah I call bull**** on that whole quality>quantity thing. It simply doesn't hold water. It's in the numbers, the more characters you have, the bigger the chance that the player is going to find the one he loves to play with. Those 9 characters can be so in depth that you could write a book about them, if the player doesn't like them all that work is for nothing, on the other hand if you have 15-20 characters the chances of the player finding characters he loves increase dramatically. All that said I don't mind there being 9 characters, because I very rarely pick my characters for their personality.

This, why over complicate things when they will add nothing of value to the game.

There is no such thing as too much loot.

I think you just described intelligence. Knowledge is something you gain, ie. not something you are born with. So if you are going for fixed stats then I don't see it working, But if you are going for attributes with level-up increase, then I don't know it could work, though it would still be dead weight in my opinion

Not really. Just apply common sense. You can "learn" to be a Carpenter by reading about it. However you can only become a good Carpenter by actually doing the job and gaining hands on well ..... experience. To put it in different terms when you are going for a technical job the application asks if you have a degree, but it also probably asks how many years of on the job training you have had. There is a reason they are separate on your job app, there is a reason they should be considered separate in game mechanics. Ok, but how the hell is knowledge going to be an attribute then? Even if you could somehow make it explainable as an attribute, I don't see it working in game(except maybe if you gain attribute points at level up). You are essentially adding dead weight to the system just to make it bigger.

Knowledge is that stuff you get through reading books and watching TV. You get experience if you were there and took part directly or indirectly. Knowledge is also gained through doing something, in most games you gain xp if you read a book. I feel that you guys are unnecessarily complicating the system, just for the sake of it being complex, witch is a very bad way to approach something.

Can you give an example of punishing combat? I have watched the whole video and it clearly says if the rules are consistent, then the game is not punishing. The IE games had consistent rules, and they always gave you the tools to beat any challenge.

But doesn't knowledge=experience?

Are you talking about the BG2 fix pack? Idk, I kind of felt dirty using those options. XD No, it was a built in feature, it was in the game since the release. You just needed to move the game difficulty cursor one step left form its default position (which was named "core rules"). The encounters were just as difficult as with the "core rules" setting, but you had those facilitations i listed above. Hmm, never read what normal did always went with the core rules.

Are you talking about the BG2 fix pack? Idk, I kind of felt dirty using those options. XD

MAN, the feeling when you successfully learn 5 lvl 9 spells in a row, with only one save.

Yeah... That is your opinion, for me IWD2 is the best game in the IE series. While it was linear, it had the best gameplay, the music was awesome, and the atmosphere was beatuifull. I did that too, but mostly because your companion dying would sometimes cause bugs in the dialogue (stopping them altogether), so I didn't want to risk it.

OK, OK, I give, uncle.

What I meant when I said that they had the weakest kit was, simply they had a weak kit. Everything that a paladin could do a cleric could do better. The only good thing the paladin had was lay on hands. The biggest weakness for me was their inability to dual class