Randomthom

Quickspell list a lá NWN2. I played back through the NWN2 & MOTB recently & can't explain how much I love the quickspell list. I REALLY missed it when I started up BG2 again.

I'd personally say that the games that have you constantly reporting back to one person makes the world feel so much smaller. It smacks of laziness from the writers/developers. BG2 fels so big, in part, thanks to the fact that you could pick up quests from all sorts of people. The Guard captain in the bridge district for the murder investigation, the dying guy when you first leave the walls of Athkatla then Xan. MMOs are partly responsible for the concept of the convenient 'quest hub'. Useful when you're trying to guide players in an open-world setting but they do nothing to add to the lived-in feel that an RPG should be trying to create.

I'd like to see more discerning NPCs. What I mean by this is that I don't expect there to be a romance option available to my PC if I am an ugly brute with no social skills (unless there is an NPC who likes the strong silent type!) Please please please don't have an everybody-is-bisexual system. By-all-means have a gay/lesbian character, maybe have a bisexual character but please let them have preferences! It might be quite fun to have a married NPC who an evil* & highly charismatic PC could tempt into cheating. *Yes, I know the game doesn't have alignment, doesn't mean the term can't apply. I'd suggest it should be possible for me to create a PC who has no romance options due to race/sex/charisma/intelligence. Some might admire physical strength or one's ability to drink them under the table. Another might have issues with religion and reject any advances made by a Cleric or Paladin. Another might be very wary of arcane spellcasters (Valygar would have suited this in BG2). I'd rather there be some characters created who can't find love among the NPCs for X, Y & Z reasons than for every NPC to be a lovebot (Serenity/Firefly reference ) who will open their legs for anyone. An NPC should have a list of preferences (e.g. min INT, min CHA, non-Dwarf, non-female). Just like a real person has something of a checklist, these characters should too. Just because someone is the centre of important events, it doesn't instantly make them desirable.

A reaction I suspect... do not provide the zealot with more posts to sacrifice upon his altar of circular arguments & deliberately misconstrued quotes.

I liked IWD because it had more click-for-description flavour texts than the others, it felt more like you were playing a good ol' table-top D&D session & the GM just gave you a description (a good one, not one that says "it's a 5-foot wide corridor...") I thought that BG2 had some awesome soundscapes, particularly in Athkatla. They really gave a feeling that you were in a large bustling city. I haven't played enough of PS:T to really comment on it's atmosphere but I have played some pen'n'paper in Sigil and it's a great setting though sometimes it feels a little too weird and I long for the good ol' prime material plane. If the quality of the artwork measures up to these (and from the small bit that we've seen so far it will surpass them) then the stage is set for great atmosphere. What we need is for everything else to compliment that, great non-clichéd characters with interesting back-stories (something IWD lacked absolutely) being my primary hope. At it's heart, great atmosphere is about creating and then maintaining the illusion of being in & part of a living breathing world. Everything can contribute and anything can break the illusion if done wrong. There is no perfect measure because what makes atmosphere for one player breaks it for another. A good example would be the descriptive flavour text I mentioned. I like it, it reminds me of good times sat around a table with a lot of books, paper & dice. I imagine that many players would see it as a crutch to describe something that the artwork has failed to represent adequately itself and big floating letters in the sky might break the illusion. What is really wonderful about PE is that I have absolute faith in the developers to create something great because a) There's no pressure from an overbearing publisher saying "You MUST include X" or "How can we include microtransactions here?" b) They love these games, they wouldn't have started the kickstarter otherwise c) They have their own IP to work with,a chance to start something great perhaps? d) Everything I've seen from the updates so far suggests that it's everything I've been hoping for from a CRPG and was worried I'd never see the like of again.

Lephys has basically just described the say summons work in 4E D&D. If the summoner wants the summoned creature to attack, they must spend their own standard (attack) action to make it happen. Otherwise it will act on it's own, usually by attacking the nearest creature. There are also usually additional consequences for not directly controlling it's actions e.g. Summoner is slowed. I haven't decided if I'm a fan of this or not, it seems overly punitive but the summons are powerful and of course still maintain a separate health pool. It made some sense though that the summoned creature was angry at being yoinked from it's existence to serve and would lash out at the summoner given the chance. I loved the link between casting Gate and Protection from Evil in BG2. Even better, I loved that a wild magic surge in Watcher's Keep could potentially summon any creature from the game. I once managed to summon Tolgerias in there, things got messy

I too hold BG2 up as the pinnacle of CRPGs and agree about the quest log being one of it's weaker points, I'd like to see a more modernised approach to that in PE. Regarding the vast number of quests in BG2, I love that, I think that's a huge part of what gives it the replayability for which it is rightly lauded. There are so many optional quests that you feel like you can ignore some and not be hamstringing yourself XP-wise for later in the game. I've never tried to play BG2 doing the bare minimum but I imagine that it will be very hard in certain areas (Kuo-Toa/Mind Flayer/Beholder dungeons in the underdark for example) but should still be doable. Several other RPGs have been guilty of offering side/optional quests that aren't really very optional if you want to be strong enough to beat the game later on. KOTOR was somewhat guilty of this. For PE, I'd like to see a good variety of truly optional quests where I can do all of them, none of them or, more likely, something in between.

I love that they are making it an option but I don't see why every option should be as viable as every other. Think about it this way, if you were an archer and someone offered you full field plate for the coming battle, could you wear it? Yes. Would you wear it? Probably not because of the reduced visibility and movement that you'll require to do your job as an archer. It sounds to me like the armoured monk will be generally viable though we haven't seen how the combat mechanics play out precisely yet so it's still anyone's guess out here really! Armour, in this case, should be the trade-off between how offensive/defensive your monk is. More armour = less damage taken = less damage dealt. Sounds like a fair tradeoff. Personally I'm interested in the viability of a Fighter archer (not using full plate!)

I love seeing dragons but I'd like to see a bit more intelligence from them (if they're being written as intelligent). Have them try to run (& fly) away if they are engaged in a combat they think they might lose. Maybe they could then reappear if you try to rest outdoors, catch you with your greaves down Truly though, as others have pointed out, dragon fatigue has set in for many of us but there are also many (more?) who would love to see them. Perhaps keep them to encounters like Firkraag, optional. I'd be disappointed if there isn't one in the multi-level dungeon in some capacity. Draco-liches are cool too

I think it's rather silly for us to be talking about balance & writing off design decisions for a game that isn't due out until next year. We don't know much about anything so all of this is somewhat knee-jerk.

D&D is <<<THAT WAY<<<

There's a number of alternatives to actual limitations on resting that would make good sense. Reduced quest rewards* if you take "too long". To prevent the obvious problem of multiple quests, the timer could perhaps start when you enter X area that is related to the quest perhaps. *I'd suggest that the reduction is to XP rather than gold (or both), presumably it was a more challenging experience if you had to go through a few fights while low on spells/daily abilities. Perhaps this should be an option on one of the extra difficulty settings though. Possibility of non-combat encounters e.g. thieves when resting. Wake up & 10% of your gold is gone... I still think that the fatigue concept as mentioned previously is a very elegant solution. Resting away from proper beds works but applies small stacking penalties with each rest (representing a poor night's sleep). There could be feats to reduce this (druids/barbarians/rangers would get this for free). The neat thing about this solution is that it doesn't stop anyone from doing a lot of resting in a dungeon but it does discourage it. Could be disabled for easy mode & those who like to just blow sh*t up

Well, Austria is right in the middle of Europe, exactly where several medieval battles and the 30 year war raged only a couple of centuries ago, all the equipment had to go somewhere and (fortunately!) a lot of it found its way to the big Austrian museums in Vienna. Austria may be a tiny country but we're very good at accumulating cool stuff. (I'm a military rifle collector myself). Hah, this reminded me of Eddie Izzard (Multi-lingual cross-dressing British comedian) when he was doing a stand-up in the USA. "I'm from Europe, where the history comes from".

I have to agree with the OP here, "large" cities in games aren't large enough when made in their entirety. If they were large enough they'd be full of a whole lot of nothing that would be rather unnecessary. The game I can think of that has best managed to recreate a whole city is GTA IV but even that comes with some caveats; It still wasn't bigger than a large town really. Very few buildings could be entered. That was the entire game world, the devs didn't have to design any other areas. Most of the city's population was procedurally generated by quasi-random scripts, suitable for GTA but not so much for a true RPG. The game I can think of that had the worst city recreation is probably Dragon Age 2 but maybe that's more to do with other game elements. Once again, I find myself saying that I think Baldur's Gate 2 got it spot on. The city was big but only because you were consciously aware that you were only visiting small parts of it. Imagine if you hadn't had the map that showed you how the districts were spread out, if it was just a lazy dialogue when you clicked on the area transition that gave you option; 1. Go to Docks district 2. Go to Government district 3. Go to... I think the city would have felt a lot smaller had this been the case, this was saved essentially by good artwork being integrated into the travel interface & ambient sound effects (excellent soundscapes in BG2 made such a huge difference to the atmosphere of an area). What this approach does is give you the FEEL of being in a large city without having to make the whole thing, boring quiet back-streets & all. When people talk about 'gameplay', 'drama', 'realism' etc. they're essentially talking about perceptions & feelings. Logically Athkatla in BG2 was actually only 7 areas & a few small ambush areas, each only maybe 200-300m across I'd be perfectly happy if any cities in the game were represented thus.

Realism & fantasy don't really fit well together. Example: When you try to rest & your rest is interrupted your party are still wearing their armour. Understandable perhaps with the cloth & chain shirts, perhaps even the toughened leather which could be donned very quickly but above those you'd expect people to be removing them to sleep and wouldn't have time to put them on in a hurry. I'd prefer that armour had simple properties such as; Full Plate Armour Slashing resistance - 50% Piercing - 10% Bludgeoning - 25% Slows spell casting by 2* *Entirely arbitrary number that I plucked from my... head. Magical armour could have improved or additional properties. When I play a CRPG I'm not looking for much realism (a little bit is fine). From the developer's point of view, realism is to be avoided if possible because of the criticism it opens you up to if/when you fall short. There are numerous websites by WW2 officionados detailing how the lapels on X character's jacket in HBO's Band of Brothers had a logo on that didn't appear until 1947 or such & such things. Besides, when I see a bad guy in full plate armour, I'm not worrying about what weapons to use... I have all the weapons I need, they're spells called dominate, hold person, charm person etc... Full-plate-wearing warriors have low will saves!

I thought that SoZ handled the map thing brilliantly. It actually made playing a ranger feel less like playing a gimped fighter for a start! As for the random vs script/fixed, I'm a fan of a mixture. I'd like to see the random occasionally throw up more serious challenges though (random dragon encounter maybe? ) as opposed to simply trivial nuisance fights. There also needs to be an incentive to make me want to engage in them otherwise they simply feel like something that is wasting my time & party resources. I'd also like to see a true mixture of script/fixed & random. By this I mean that when I reach a fixed encounter in the game, some elements of it are randomised. The big bad guy I'm here to beat will remain the same but he could have a pool of allies which could vary each playthrough. Perhaps the allies could also be influenced by other things e.g. no Lizardmen because you managed to negotiate a truce with the Lizardmen tribe. This kind of thing could possibly be an option you turn on or be part of one of the other difficulty modes.

Very interesting reading through this & seeing the big variance in people's preferences. Kjaamor is spot on by saying that making a good variety of characters to cover all party roles is the best way to approach this. Maybe have an amicable albeit idealistic monk and a cruel, gruff & uncompromising barbarian. Both fill the same role of a front-line combatant but give different personalities. I just hope they don't do a NWN2: MotB on us. If you choose Evil (killing Okku) & you're not a melee character then you're basically screwed for half the game. It just had far too small a companion selection. Something NWN2 OC wasn't so guilty of (though the OC lacked any evil companions except Bishop who was so horribly disney-evil) and Jerro who was only available late in the story (and was also disappointingly weak considering all the trouble he had put you through up to that point). Again, this is where we have to say tat BG2 had by far the best "supporting cast" of companions. Ones I personally didn't like were Jaheira, Anomen, Minsc (Boo is cool though) and Cernd (though I dislike Cernd based on the fact that he's a druid and Druids suck). Characters I loved in there were Aerie, Haer'dalis, Keldorn& Viconia (not all together in the same party mind you!) Mazzy was kinda cool too though borderline useless. The lesson to learn, make lots & make them varied. Something for everyone... yes, even make some druids if you have to!

To answer the question with pedantry, EVERYONE is from Planet Earth Personally, Bristol, UK.

I don't think anyone is arguing against having "reasonable power ratios" as you put it. I was just pointing out that the argument is essentially about how you derive your enjoyment from CRPGs. Of course some people don't really care either way (presumably because they find enjoyment in other parts of CRPGs regardless of this subject. Me personally, I'm definitely not in favour of a 1:1 scaling (i.e. I'm lvl 17 so the enemy is too) nor am I entirely happy with the idea that the world doesn't exist outside of my personal sphere of influence and thus every bad guy is just standing around waiting for me to find him. Of course this debate is entirely academic as it appears that obsidian have already chosen which way they are going to go with this.

I love checking it on occasion in BG2, there's something fun about realising that one of your weaker group members managed the finishing blow on Firkraag or Bodhi

Spell level uniquely in D&D is something the characters themselves ARE aware of though it's also an abstraction of sorts in-character too, just one the characters themselves might use. Character level, skill points, hit points etc. though are abstractions for us, not for them. As I expected, people are getting hung up on the labels I gave them despite my warning, I should have just called them player A and player B. I'll defend my use of the term meta-gamer though. Meta gaming is, simply put, using knowledge your character doesn't have (but you do) to alter the way they interface with the world around them. Min-maxing is only one kin of meta gaming. Steering clear of X encounter because you're not high level enough is another (unless you have a clear idea of just how powerful your foe is perhaps). Second playthroughs of these games inevitably have meta-gaming. If your party die & you load a savegame and try again, you now go in with more knowledge than you did, if you act on that knowledge, this is metagaming. So is using a guide. Roleplaying is the antithesis of this. 100% roleplaying means putting yourself in your characters shoes, choosing to ignore all information that you have except that which your character is aware of and reacting according to your character's personality, alignment, gods, peer pressure of the group etc. Just to be clear, metagaming isn't wrong in CRPGs (though it should be discouraged in PnP). We all do it to some degree and many derive their enjoyment in these games through it, I do at least partially. I like to have a clear design path for my character You're also right that we're all something of a mix, it's not simply one or the other, more of a sliding scale.

Granted, it might always be 9 but my point is still true, that it means a lot of extra work when writing & coding the dialogue.

I've read a lot of this but page 4 of the posts on this thread... geez! Walloftext crits you for 999999999 damage You die Seriously though, it looks like the main difference in opinion here isn't actually about level scaling at all but rather a point of immersion. One person (the meta-gamer*) sees the game as a series of numbers, "I am level X and you are level Y therefore..." Another person (the roleplayer*) sees the game as the fantasy story "I'm a warrior with a big f****** sword, I'm going to kill you..." * Sorry to label them but it makes things easier for explaining, if you don't like the label then please don't attach too much importance to it... The meta gamer sees the level scaling as an injustice. "If it was hard at level X then it should be easier now I'm level X+n!" The roleplayer sees the level scaling (if he/she sees it at all) as a tool to keep the experience challenging and exciting, as a storytelling device to maintain dramatic tension. Neither is invalid as a way to enjoy the game but because of the two different ways of enjoying the game, you'll probably never agree on level scaling and if it should be in the game or not. I'm not going to say where I sit on this debate because I'm not 100% sure I'm decided and it will somewhat invalidate the attempted neutrality of my post!

It sounds like you have acute tone deafness, essentially the inability to distinguish between pitches in a certain frequency band. It is not uncommon. Unfortunately I'd personally want to say to you simply "deal with it"... I know that sounds harsh but there are also puzzles that use colour, a problem for the colour blind gamers, others that use numbers, a problem for dyslexics etc. With all this in mind there are 2 obvious solutions. Have no puzzles or have puzzles and accept that some people are going to need to apply guesswork/game guides etc. I like puzzles (I prefer riddles) and I know I'm not alone in this. There is a potential third solution and that is to provide an in-game alternative to the puzzle e.g. getting it wrong 3 times results in a guardian being released, killing it allows the player to progress.

Neverwinter Nights 2 allowed for the queueing of multiple actions e.g. spells & special abilities.