Kjaamor

Choosing a working group is a tactical decision with consequences. When party members become less specialised (and indeed, when they become extremely specialised) the tactical decision has less impact (or is no decision at all). Removing or severely watering down roles removes an enjoyable piece of gameplay that was a staple of many of the IE games. Is everything all right, Lephys? That post sounded rather hysterical.

[grognard]My feelings, specifically, are that classes should be able to play a variety of roles, but not all roles. So a rogue could be a debuffer or a dps, but not a healer, for example. Equally, while a paladin could be a healer, he will never be as good a healer as a cleric. That's not a commentary on what I think the PE system will be, just my general tactical rpg preference. At a risk of stating the obvious, the fact that we are playing a combat-based rpg. *shrugs* I've stated before that I love rpgs most when my favoured companions in terms of personality don't necessarily match up with my favourite companions tactically. Obviously you feel differently about this. Realistically, I concede that you're probably far from alone. - Class sytems have been the bread and butter of tactical rpgs. Obviously it's not a logical extension that class sytems make a game good or bad, but in terms of existing examples and systems it has been shown to work well. Off the top of my head, the only party-based rpg that I can think of that does the opposite remotely well is [standard disclaimer for referring to jrpgs again]FFVII, and I would argue that for all its merits the combat was done much better in other FFs that had a class system. If anyone can point me in the direction of party-based rpgs that do this well I would genuinely appreciate it (as much because I need new rpgs in my life). Throwing a classless system in might create a wonderful new style that makes trpgs better. To me, however, it seems like you're fixing a system that is known to work with a system that has a very bad track record of working. The distinction I do make, and I understand that PE is heading in this direction, is that combat classes and non-combat classes being linked is a bad thing.[/grognard] Edit: Forgot to close grognard tags.

While a variety of styles of play for the player is obviously a good thing, I get rather uncomfortable when players suggest that Rogues should be able to tank, or Clerics dps. It stems in part from me being a massive Grognard, but it also comes down to 'if everyone is special then no-one is'. In other news, classes being able to perform a variety of roles is something that matters far less when the player controls the whole party, than it does when they command a single character.

Conceptually absolutely awesome. Exactly the sort of thing I've wanted from an RPG for years. ...now to just keep fingers crossed that the dice-rolling behind the scenes makes it enjoyable, too.

Indeed. It seems like the majority of people prefer 3.5, and I find it utterly believable that more than a few of the Obsidian folks feel the same way. I don't suppose that P:E's character development will be anything like 2.0 either, I was just pointing out my lonely preference. Yeah, it's a fair cop. Two separate issues. I don't know, to put the matter very simply I'd sooner have a brick wall than be offered the opportunity to walk in 11 different directions of wilderness rather than stay on the road. It's very much a personal preference, but I feel that 3.5 offers many more choices but even fewer meaningful ones. Ultimately meaningless choices don't really add to the experience. Again, though, I'm very much in the minority with this.

I really admire it when RPGs go in different cultural/period directions, because it can give an excellent spin on the setting and really bring something new to the table. I applaud PE, as I applauded Arcanum, for bringing in a less-used time period and setting, and I hope that will add to its staying power. Unfortunately, when you're dealing with fantasy content people (as groups) need something they can relate to in order to follow the story. Oddly, fantasy needs familiarity more than most genres. The second and third ports of call for that familiarity are cultural location and time period. The first, inevitably, is the moral compass of the protagonist. Very few fantasy games feature protagonists who don't subscribe to modern western cultural values - even when the player character is able to make decisions. If you were to thrust a modern western player through the cultural narrative of a viking marauder most players would find it desperately difficult to relate to and it adds to the stack of things that can alienate. Most western fantasy rpgs (c or pnp) still don't tend to deviate greatly from the works of J.R.R. Granted, horizons broaden to include new settings (steampunk and post-apocalyptic being two obvious examples) but even with that the bulk still sit in some form of Middle Earth. A lot of it boils down to lack of originality, but it mostly comes from people wanting to be told more about what they already know. Realistically, any rpg wanting to explore a less well-travelled culture is best off doing so by juxtapositioning it next to a familar style. When you're doing that, you can realistically explore any culture you know, or any culture you want to create, and people won't tend to kick up a fuss. As to the polls, I have no preference to specifics. Anything new that will still sell copies is fine by me. Expedition: Conquistador basically sells itself completely upon the setting, because by the time you finish the first island you've experienced everything the game has to offer - at least when I last played it. The setting is lovely, though. Final Fantasy X has one of the most wonderful settings of any game, and in general it has a knack of doing the things it does right so right that it remains one of my favourite games of all time despite having a combat system that I would chew through my own wrists to get away from.

Call me simple, but I've always felt that in High Fantasy RPGs, the obvious solution is to just to make bows less accurate than melee weapons - especially if getting hit interrupts actions/spells.

*Sighs* It amused me, just because BGI Imoen portrait was fairly pretty, and then the second one made it look like she'd swallowed a wasp. The whole anime thing was just the style of the cartoonist who did the comic, rather than my personal preference. It was just an attempt at injecting some comedy, rather than making a particular point... ...but if there is one, it's that the BGII portrait styles seemed less forgiving to the females than other IE portraits... ...which is not necessarily a bad thing, since females should be more than just eye-candy... ...which makes the above cartoon a bit offensive, since we should be rescuing Imoen regardless of what she looks like... ...but it was just a joke and probably shouldn't be taken too seriously. I knew I should've brought my anime/jrpg disclaimer.

I would argue that having class limitations does far less to leave an adventuring party the same than their removal does. The hard limits in the Baldurs' Gate games, for example, do not prevent a wide variety of parties and roles from functioning. Equally, the restrictionless building of games like TES, and FF's VII and X, mean that all characters inevitably become almost exactly the same in the end. Also, if you're building trade-offs, then you are simply changing colour of your arbitrary archetype from being a class thing to a skill/anti-skill thing. One of the reasons why I actually think 2.0 is quite underrated as a mechanic, especially for cRPGs.

I did like most of the BGII Portraits, but... ...er...

I used to hoard gemstones in the IE games for no other reason than I liked to imagine just having a huge vault of gems. And don't even get me started on the contents of my car boot in Fallout 2. I certainly hope precious stones, rings and the like will make it in, and while some sort of collection or wealth representation system would be nice, I don't mind roleplaying their inclusion by just keeping them in the stronghold.

Well aside from anything else, it does prevent having to reload every time anyone other than your tank accidentally reveals a bunch of mobs with bows. While I don't disagree with certain things being more useful at certain levels than others, the fact remains that in BGI the bows were absurdly overpowered to the point where the game was unbalanced. This is noticeable if you roll an archer. If you use a party of them, it's hilarious. I would be astonished, mind, if bows were similarly overpowered in P:E.

Agreed, and I think you back this up with good points. Hopefully, despite the frequent suggestions towards the generic, the final game will contain enough specificity to make those snowflakes. We shall see, but I do find that quite troubling. At a risk of grognarding, I find most of the weapon mechanics to be worrying. Obviously adaptive tactics should be at the core of any rpg worth its salt, but the good IE games made damage-switching useful but not mandatory and I, personally, didn't always have other options. I'm getting an image of a PE where your whole party has a blunt weapon, a slashing weapon and a piercing weapon, and a leather armour, a chain armour and a plate armour. The further you go down that line, the more combat becomes dull workmanship. I know it's a different type of game, but I'm instantly remembered of the painful combat from FFX. 3 enemies, one is weak to quick attacks, one is weak to magic attacks, one is weak to strong attacks, and you fight that fight repetitively over the entire course of the game. On the other hand, I'm currently playing BGII again, and my front-line fighters have multiple damage types, because of their slots and weight allowance (although all have a mainstay), but the mid and back-liners are basically stuck with whatever type they're proficient with. I've tried to get a mix of damage types to hold my own in some encounters, but enemies with large resistances in certain areas will take time and need extra tactics. Anyway, that was a tangent and it remains to be seen how the game will turn out in that regard. Elsewhere... Mages Can't Use Swords, Clerics Can't Use Blades, Fighters are Incapable of Striking Up Meaningful Conversation... It's a lonely spot I'm in, but I love this. I'm not saying that it has any logical real world bearing, but I think it makes for an excellent gameplay mechanic, and it also helps to in character definition. Characters and classes are both defined not only by their strengths but also by their weaknesses. It helps to encourage classes toward their natural roles, which for a single class character is exactly what should occur. Another lonely spot I sit in, is my love for D&D 2.0 multi-classing. You choose to multi (or dual) class, and you essentially get a mixture of the strengths and weaknesses of the classes you choose, and will grow powerful enough (arguably bar triple-classing) in both but not as powerful as a single classed character in either. All multi-classes are viable, some more useful than single classes, some less. I never got on with the 3.5 system that for all the world seemed to be a case of 'Most powerful is single class; then single class with one level of fighter; then enough levels of whatever to unlock your prestige class' and any other mixture was a waste of time. Dice Rolling Stats Yeah, they should probably go. I find it sort of fun, but it's definitely lowest common denominator fun. Rollaholic? Absolutely and categorically. It's probably my favourite part. I have rolled hundreds if not thousands of rpg characters, many of them in games I have never played. Only earlier today I rolled four different D&D 4.0E characters. I don't know anyone who plays the game and don't own it myself. Rolling for Personality, Culture, History and Separating Combat from those I like the idea in theory, it's one thing Arcanum presents as a good idea. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen it particularly well-implemented and, before people start pointing out obvious logic, while that doesn't mean it can't work well in the future the track record would suggest that definition based upon in-game choices tends to be more immersive. The most obvious immediate example of this I can give, is that I got a far greater sense of the world knowing who I was in Fallout 2, than I did in Arcanum or NWN2. Obviously it's not set in stone, and if PE can pull it off then I'd be really excited, but I think it's better to not do it at all than mention it once and then forget it. Ymmv. On a related subject, though, one thing that frustrates me in D&D is the way personality becomes tied to class by the names of the statistics. Any moderately capable wizard is intelligent (maybe...), any moderately capable sorceror is the life and soul of the party (not sure...), and cleric worth his salt is at least moderately wise (I'm out...). I know it ultimately just comes down to names, but it's a real pet hate of mine. Fiction is full of brainless wizards, smart swordsmen and charming, er, monks (bad example). I'd love it if PE would use rather different names for those relevant stats - maybe Arcane Power/Divine Power/Diabolical Power or something. Even just Magic/Religion. I don't mind my fighter having no magical power, I just object to him defaulting as an idiotic, sightless bar-steward just because I put points where the game told me rather than RPing.

Agreed, but can't believe that you mentioned IWD and ToB above the first BG. In that (vanilla, non-tutu), level one archers are far, FAR better than level 5 swordsmen. BG1 with a group containing five dedicated bow users (with crushing+slashing melee options) = a breeze.

So far, I feel as happy with the portrait stuff that has been shown so far as I am with any of the other IE games. Everything seems very much in hand. Though to be honest, as long as they include the ability to use custom portraits, everything will be fine.

Quite aside from any mechanical difficulties and time constraints regarding porting, there is something deliciously ironic about a game being kickstarted on the basis that it plays like games from 1998 and people talking about slowing release so it can be run on next gen hardware in 2013. One of the many things I was looking forward to for P:E was not having to worry about the state of my graphics card.

To be fair, although I don't know if this is related to the Final Fantasy example, in mmo's there is a difference between Beta testing and server stress testing. I remember playing the SW:TOR stress test, and complaining about the level of bugs and poor design, and then got the 'The whole point of Beta-testing is to iron out the bugs and refine the gameplay' spiel on the forums. Which isn't to say that you don't have idiots complaining about such in the actual beta, but the difference should be noted. As for P:E, I'm not sure I would want to be part of the Beta personally. I'd rather just wait for the first release.

All sounds very nice, and the description of the stronghold sounds very encouraging (although there's always a need to temper excitement for such things). UI needs a bit of tidying up, but that's in hand. Only concerns are that the innkeeper seems to be using a hundred words when three would do, and the party responses could be rather more involved. On another note, it's nice to see all these new-designed monsters, but I do hope that the fact that you're designing new things doesn't mean everything else is being left behind. Skuldr and Wichts are nice to see, but I hope that they'll be existing alongside Skeletons and Goblins and the like rather than in stead of them. Obviously both setting and licensing demand some variaton from the IE games, but it's nice to have a foundation of staples to build upon.

Also true. Levelling up is but one way in which you can make things easier for yourself. Good gear and good party balance are two obvious others. Again, the goal for that final dungeon should be that it is easier with an optimal party than a sub-optimal party. However tactics should remain the most significant factor to at least the level where an optimal party running scripted should fail and a sub-optimal party (but not obtusely sub-optimal) should be able to do it in skilled hands.

Well, levels have to play some part in it or else they fail to justify their own existance. Realistically, if you go into the last dungeon having done as many quests as possible you would expect to have an easier time than if you just speed run through. If the cap or hard level scaling means it makes no difference, then you're not really utilising the mechanic. ...are you, Dragon Age? *Ahem* Anyway, while skill - or perhaps more accurately 'tactics' - should be the dominant factor in determining success, there will still be a level of discrepancy based upon your level. How noticible this is comes down to how well they manage whatever form of level scaling they use in P:E. A level cap remains a possibility, of course, but the general theme of the gameplay described so far suggests to me that opportunities for grinding are going to be quite limited in P:E, which lessons the scope of level disparity for the endgame. Consequently, the hard cap wouldn't appear to be as necessary as in other rpgs.

I thought it had been confirmed that combat in and of itself wasn't going to give exp? I'd rather assumed that if they were doing that, they would also be staying away from repeatable quests, and to my mind, that doesn't seem to leave any other avenues to escape the fact that there will be limited exp in the game. So the "cap", as it were, is really defined not by an arbitrary stop-gap, but by the fact that when you have done all the quests in the most exp-rewarding way possible there is no more exp left to get. In terms of either form of cap, it isn't something that really concerns me. I grind as much as the next person, but I haven't played many rpgs where there wasn't some form of ceiling. The only one that bothered me was the one in the original Baldur's Gate, because it came in so low, so soon, in a game whose natural cap was only level 10 (well, technically level 30, I suppose) anyway. What I would say though, is that the limited exp really should necessitate not punishing the player for playing evil-type playthroughs, which so many of the old BI games did. Of course there's another thread for that.

More importantly, that's a lovely t-shirt.

Could this be point be clarified with some reference to IE games? Bearing in mind that the whole RTwP and a system essentially based around a board game with dice was pretty much the dominant factor in this game getting kickstarted. Honestly, if Obsidian were to refer to the likes of SMB, Bleed and Hotline Miami as being gameplay inspirations then that would send alarm bells ringing for me.