yaminsoul

Question 1) Um, does it matter to whom, for what? For people who like identifying with their characters, its a nice bonus, but if none of your choices make any difference and you have no alternate paths to explore (much like FF 13 for most of the game), i think alot of people will be sad. But again, it could still be a strong game based on other attributes. I still think making your own character is less important for the immersion feel that a good story, but that's me. 2) Both? But more the latter. I think its still "role-playing" with a pre-gen character who you then can make decisions that matter versus if nothing do makes any difference, even if you create the character, I think its not really roleplaying in the table top sense...(though a railroad plot GM might disagree).

So after debating a similar issues on another topic, I thought I would bring this here. I am curious what people think, even though I know we wont have "fixed morality" in this game like previous IE titles.

I think we have strayed a bit too far from original topic so I will move the discussion into a new thread "moral choices and consequences."

No, I am fine with arguing and I understand what points you are making. I just found it amusing that you seemed to be stating the exact unhappiness I was saying would be a inevitableconsequence of trying too much for a logical reward system. Someone asking for too much of this, well be careful what you wish for. Now, I actually think there is a very interesting and risky (very, very risky) innovation for an RPG: To actually have in game consequences for acts, both good and evil that involve not getting rewards of ANY type, even if it involved time and effort. You want to good, and call yourself a paladin or whatever, and have good companions? Well maybe if X dirt farmer wants help, say against a group of ogres or cruel local official...and if you do it, you wont get rewards, of ANY significant type. And I mean that: No real xp, no money, no gear, no even reputation boost. AS best you might get an appreciative reception from your party. As best. Would you as the player still do it? Would you do it twice...10 times? What if being "Good" was hard, and meant sacrifice...like it usually does in real life. What if there was a game which challenged the equation: time+effort+some skill= in game payoff? Would people play? Anyway, this is all theory-craft, as I very much doubt PE will do this, nor do I think it really should, as it would probably turn off alot of people. I am just trying to make people aware of the conventions.

And yes, as I said "but alot of people I think would get mad if they did not get SOME significant rewards for time invested other than warm fuzzies." Cause in point above What I wanted to point is NOT that not giving material or useful rewards for time invested is an enjoyable thing for most players of RPG's. Instead, what I was noting "is kinda the logical outcome of a 'logical' reward system," which was the original point of this thread. I wanted to indicate that when you go for logic in rewards (or pretty much anything else in RPG video games ) you really should be prepared to accept the good with the bad, like possibly not getting rewarded in a substational way for completing certain tasks. Now this is totally against RPG standard conventions, and if they did this more than once, as eschaton noted, I think most people would get very, very mad, I just wanted to point out the reward for quest is a convention, not neccisarily logical in all instances. Oh and Lephys we are going to have lots of fun on this forum together

Its interesting, because what you are saying above has long been a staple of table top roleplaying. IE differing type of skill checks (though hitting things is usally an entirely different mechanic), some which are unique to the character, some for whole party and some in between. It has never, however, really been implented in an IE game 2 reasons I think. 1) After Icewind Dale 2 "You" were always a single protagonist, not a group of character, so I suspect the developers wanted to emphasis your skills more than the parties, and not make you check all of theirs all the time. 2) "WE HAVE TO CODE WHAT?!!!" or the progammers did not want to scripts all the shuttering amounts of triggers this would require. IF Project eternity has this, great, but we shall see.

With respect to the well said opinions of others, for me the answer is certainly yes, but it leads to a slightly different type of game, though the difference for me is not nearly as grand as Rem seems to feel it is for him, As MC mentioned, there is a huge difference from whether the character STARTS premade or user-generated to whether the game allows real, viable choice in character growth or not. The first is a more a fine difference to me, the second very important, and I would be very sad for linear, forced character growth a la ff 13. I still think the game can be "fun," but I see this as major weak point in certain games. Now, as the original topic had more to do with starting premade or user generated, I will focus on that. I think its important to note that most recent games fall somewhere between the two poles for character gen. Some games, like Skyrim, offer many, many options for custom characterization of the main character, whereas Witcher often almost none. Both I consider to be excellent games, but just trying to tell a different story. Da:O, Balder's Gate, NVM 1 and 2 and the bioware games are somewhere in between. In almost none of the games can you create a "blank slate" or are forced to play exactly what the story tells you. FF games are different, and slide heavily towards the fixed character end, but to me they are from a different tradition of RPG's than infinity games. Now, if we are going to look at this somewhat objectively, lets discuss what you gain and lose as you go towards either pole, starting with premade character. What do you gain? Well, in addition to saving developers and programmers valuable time and code (a not inconsiderable boon for them), more important it is much, much easier to a create a FOCUSED STORY. I think few who play Witcher 1 and 2 can deny that Gerald and is his tale are extremely captivating, and the writers and designers are able to lay out beautiful twists, moral challenges, and an evolutionary path. I strongly feel they are aided in this precisely because they can know, loosely, beforehand what archtype you will playing, even if certain major decision are left up to the players. It is no coincidence that to me, two of the best written games in recent memory, Planescape torment and Witcher 2 have pretty much set protagonists. You are following there story, which can twist and fork, but its still there story, and you are meant to enjoy the ride as well as help them along their way. On the other hand, despite sinking more than a 100 hours into Skyrim, I never felt much character growth in story sense for my hero, nor did he seem to change much except mechanically. Now the next question What do you lose? I think here we go back to what Rem said is crucial for his enjoyment: The ability to mimetically connect to the avatar you generated. Or for you non-English majors reading: to BECOME at least in an imaginative sense, the character you are playing. The more freedom one is given in character design the easier it is, I believe, for many people to forge that vital connection to their character, to feel as if they have generate something unique and made it there own, to create an alter-self and than progress said alter on their journey, there ware. Without this ability, a huge part of immersive experience can be lost for certain players, and weakened for many. Now I believe, in the tradition of more recent IE like games, Project Eternity will fall somewhat in the middle, though leaning the to the user-gen side: A wide variety of possible starting characters with different traits, images, possible personalities, ect, but still slightly less open ended generation that Skyrim, with its nameless execution-ie protagonist. and I am fine with that.

I too heartly second having NPC-NPC conversations, rivalries, love affairs, ect ect that don't resolve around the main character. I would also, if it is possible, would if NPC's aren't with the main party (ala DA:0) style, they actually go do something, perhaps even something productive.

But if we are going for realism in rewards, you might just have to swallow the idea that some quest give less "reward" of ANY type than others, even if its later in the game. After all, it really might just be that certain people or situation can't offer what others can, in a major way. This of course could lead to the a nice ACTUAL moral question: Do you "waste" your time helping the farmer, or do you seak out better rewards. Its even better if the XP is minimal, so really the major reward you get is moral satisifaction and perhaps kudos from certain party members (and perhaps dislike from others). If the developers want to go the way, I would be all for it, but alot of people I think would get mad if they did not get SOME significant rewards for time invested other than warm fuzzies. However it is kinda the logical outcome of a 'logical' reward system

Re Nemir: Cautious movement scripting would be excellent as a feature you could turn on and off (becuase you know some people are going to want to just play "I told them to move there, move their d**m it.) but I would just like better pathering which incorperates hazards or potential hazards and priotizes safety over spead, if I check that button. Re Leyphs: Eh, now we are getting to close the "realize versus gameplay" debates, but what I meant was that if your trying to bluff/convince someone the party members chimming in who are bad at diplomacy is not going to help and also does not make sense in social situation context. IF they want to implement a synergy/party composite system for many checks I would be fine with that but again all I really wanted was the party speaker idea. Everything else is gravy As to the scripting, it is also triggers, as they have to program triggers for every party member and every potential created allies to check these stats for every potential skill checks. Not sure how much coding that it is.

I too support point buy with gradual increase, IE. the NVW-Icewind Dale 2. Your characters gets x number of points to divide amoung attributes, then say every few levels gets a point, as well can get a point or two as rewards. So ie closer to fixed but some change. My problem with rolling, as has been mentioned by a few people, is that it encourages the power gamer in me to keep rolling until I get god stats. Now if they want to put that option in, sure I guess, but it might ruin balance issues.

In terms of skill checks, yeah, some I can see logically working with "aid other" idea, i.e. your party can work together do lift stuff, clear boulders, even help each other climbing through ropes and picks. In social situations it becomes harder, because as mentioned before people usually want to talk to one or two people, not 6. But remember the more kind of complex skills checks we add here, the harder it is to script and code. While it might be cool to see this, skills in the IE games were never a huge deal except really the thieves set (hide/search/disarm trap) and once in a while diplomacy set. If oblivion wants to go into this heavily to make these kind of pen and paper syngery work, that would be cool, but I don't think its a huge deal. Re Nemir (thanks for responding to other ideas) by the end of Icewind Dale 2 there I think about 12 spells I cast upon waking up, from 4 different party members, and then about 20 before battles....and that was just in regular game before Heart of Fury In terms of disarming traps/movement yeah that would be nice, but for example there are some hazards you cannot disarm or areas you have not been and have monsters. I would like some scripting that said "don't go there even if it is the shortest route" The merchants thing is just a grip at rpg laziness in designers to prevent merchant ganking and proper item per level/area ratio. I would this done in a more organic, less programed way.

For me I also would like "logical rewards," kinda but I think that sort of realize would very, very hard to implement without sacrificing alot of game play. Because unless your character and friend are ONLY picking richer and richer people, or at least higher level craftsman, to help as the game goes on and you level, the rewards are going to be complelty mismatched to your parties xp. I mean, if were are going to be logical, the village smith is never going to have the same level money or equipment as the master one in the city, but if you encounter said smith with quest late in the game, you might feel kinda of sad if all he can give is 10gp and a hammer. Now some people might love this "realism" but eh, not really for me. Remember it all good if you help the monarch and he gives a billion gold but you have to apply the same logic for the dirt farmer As to another issue that was brought up, yes I would love to see full xp, if not more xp for talking/sneaking your way through a problem, as then you don't get to loot the NPCs, which is where you normally get all the Good stuff in IE games.IF they are only giving xp for quests, thats one way to do it, but that still leaves the item problem for non-violent solutions.

Short answer for me to the original question: "Should a fighter be able to cast fireball?" No. "Should they be able to use magic?" Yes* *But it depends what you mean by magic. Long Answer As people have tended to use D and D 3.5 in this conversation, I guess I will start there. As many, many people have noted who played the table top version of D and D 3.0-3.5, one of the biggest "flaws" in the game design was how quickly spellcasters of virtually any type became "better" than non-spell caster of any type. This was actually well quantified in the "tier system" http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=bc18425e5fa73d30e4a9a54889edf44e&topic=1002.0 which basically gestures to the idea that GM's and players have to understand that certain classes will just always have more and usually better options then others. Thus a well planned wizards, even from very low level, will just generally be more effective than the equivalent level fighter, and it only gets worse as they go up in levels. Or to put it another way the OOTS druid says to the rogue (With almost complete justification) I have class features that are stronger than your class, Now, that is not say you could not build an effective fighter, who could do lots of damage. You certainly could. But the problem was you were still just hitting things with a stick, just really well. The wizard could summon angels and demons, warp time, enclose you in an impossible to escape magic box, fly above you and laugh, and 40 others things that basically renders your abilities moot or ineffective, and that's just in the core book. Even worse in some ways, spells could be used in non-combat situations to completely end run problems or even entire quests. The bad guy hiding in his lair? I scry on him, go invisible, summon 50 creatures, drop them all him and laugh. There are a terrible journey from x to y filled with sand monster. I teleport us all, (or airwalk or any number of other movement spells). I need to convince the king not to go war. Charm person..,.And thats not evening talking about the ability of the wizards to literally know about any threat coming to them in the next week and perfectly prepare (yeah, go contact other plane) Magic just gave you so many options and so much versatile power that at some point a wizard could literally do any job, often better than the non-spell casting person who specialized in it, and this also applied to many other spell casting casts. It got the point where in some games the Rogues best ability was the one that let them use magic devices.... Now, in the Video Games loosely based on 3.0 -3.5 rule sets they got around this problem somewhat by simply eliminating and/or weakening certain spells, by throwing constant fights at you, by giving abundant magic items, and several other work around. A main example is that there is no fly spells, so the wizards can't just fly about 200 feet and laugh at the melee fighter. There is no contingency spell so you can't just dimension door when hit, and ect ect. and I say kina because even with the nerfs, one and one is the fighter really going to beat the guy who can summon nasty creatures or perfectly hold monster them? Anyho....In 4.0, Wizards of the Coast (the guys who make Dungeons and Dragons) spent most of their design energy it seems to correct this in two ways: 1) Giving every class access to magic, though they called it something else: martial powers, arcane powers, divine powers, primal powers, ect, so that everyone got access to small cool abilities that all functioned in pretty much the same model (once per day, once per combat, as many times you want) but just had different effects, such as defending, doing damage, moving people, healing, ect. 2) SEVERLY limiting what these powers could do, even at the high levels, both on and especially off the battle field. There is not more charming people (or not really), knowing everything in advanced, easily teleport. They kinda gave some of this back in things they called "rituals" which only certain classes usually have access to, but they are much weaker. Now, there is a great deal of debate about whether this was a good or bad idea, but it certainly is more "balanced." In Project Eternity, I think how important access to magic will be really depends on how powerful magic is or can be in the first place. IF 'magic' lets a character class completely dominate many different type of encounters, than yes I think everyone needs access to magic, others certain character choices or even NPC companions might dominate the game. But if magic is much more limited and/or restricted only to certain paths, than no its not monitory at all that everyone gets access. That being said I still highly enjoyed Icewind Dale II, Balder's Gate 1 and II, and NWN 1 and 2, all of which were based on the "flawed 3.0-3.5" system. So I think its still quite possible to make an awesome game with completely "balancing" the classes. But I think doing so in some way would help quite a bit. At least that is my view. Short answer for me to the original question: "Should a fighter be able to cast fireball?" No. "Should they be able to use magic?" Yes* *But it depends what you mean by magic. Long Answer As people have tended to use D and D 3.5 in this conversation, I guess I will start there. As many, many people have noted who played the table top version of D and D 3.0-3.5, one of the biggest "flaws" in the game design was how quickly spellcasters of virtually any type became "better" than non-spell caster of any type. This was actually well quantified in the "tier system" http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=bc18425e5fa73d30e4a9a54889edf44e&topic=1002.0 which basically gestures to the idea that GM's and players have to understand that certain classes will just always have more and usually better options then others. Thus a well planned wizards, even from very low level, will just generally be more effective than the equivalent level fighter, and it only gets worse as they go up in levels. Or to put it another way the OOTS druid says to the rogue (With almost complete justification) I have class features that are stronger than your class, Now, that is not say you could not build an effective fighter, who could do lots of damage. You certainly could. But the problem was you were still just hitting things with a stick, just really well. The wizard could summon angels and demons, warp time, enclose you in an impossible to escape magic box, fly above you and laugh, and 40 others things that basically renders your abilities moot or ineffective, and that's just in the core book. Even worse in some ways, spells could be used in non-combat situations to completely end run problems or even entire quests. The bad guy hiding in his lair? I scry on him, go invisible, summon 50 creatures, drop them all him and laugh. There are a terrible journey from x to y filled with sand monster. I teleport us all, (or airwalk or any number of other movement spells). I need to convince the king not to go war. Charm person..,.And thats not evening talking about the ability of the wizards to literally know about any threat coming to them in the next week and perfectly prepare (yeah, go contact other plane) Magic just gave you so many options and so much versatile power that at some point a wizard could literally do any job, often better than the non-spell casting person who specialized in it, and this also applied to many other spell casting casts. It got the point where in some games the Rogues best ability was the one that let them use magic devices.... Now, in the Video Games loosely based on 3.0 -3.5 rule sets they got around this problem somewhat by simply eliminating and/or weakening certain spells, by throwing constant fights at you, by giving abundant magic items, and several other work around. A main example is that there is no fly spells, so the wizards can't just fly about 200 feet and laugh at the melee fighter. There is no contingency spell so you can't just dimension door when hit, and ect ect. and I say kina because even with the nerfs, one and one is the fighter really going to beat the guy who can summon nasty creatures or perfectly hold monster them? Anyho....In 4.0, Wizards of the Coast (the guys who make Dungeons and Dragons) spent most of their design energy it seems to correct this in two ways: 1) Giving every class access to magic, though they called it something else: martial powers, arcane powers, divine powers, primal powers, ect, so that everyone got access to small cool abilities that all functioned in pretty much the same model (once per day, once per combat, as many times you want) but just had different effects, such as defending, doing damage, moving people, healing, ect. 2) SEVERLY limiting what these powers could do, even at the high levels, both on and especially off the battle field. There is not more charming people (or not really), knowing everything in advanced, easily teleport. They kinda gave some of this back in things they called "rituals" which only certain classes usually have access to, but they are much weaker. Now, there is a great deal of debate about whether this was a good or bad idea, but it certainly is more "balanced." In Project Eternity, I think how important access to magic will be really depends on how powerful magic is or can be in the first place. IF 'magic' lets a character class completely dominate many different type of encounters, than yes I think everyone needs access to magic, others certain character choices or even NPC companions might dominate the game. But if magic is much more limited and/or restricted only to certain paths, than no its not monitory at all that everyone gets access. That being said I still highly enjoyed Icewind Dale II, Balder's Gate 1 and II, and NWN 1 and 2, all of which were based on the "flawed 3.0-3.5" system. So I think its still quite possible to make an awesome game with completely "balancing" the classes. But I think doing so in some way would help quite a bit. At least that is my view.

Hey all. I find it interesting that the only comments I received were on the dialogue/party system. I am curious if that's because everyone agreed with the other point I made or just everyone is much more passionate about this subject. Love to here what posters think, On to dialogue speaking system, as someone who does and has done a fair bit of paper roleplaying, its interesting tension when there is party speaker with actually people and their characters involved and present. In some groups everyone keeps silent except for the Speaker and NPC(s), in others everyone has their characters interject all the time, either in game or out of game, and in most its somewhere in between. One neat way I think this could be achieved is have an option of “Party Aid” in conversation. What this would do might be to have options for Party members to use their skills on their own inatatives to help the speaker (or main PC, if there going that way.) For example, your rogue could whisper an aside to you “I think he is lying,” your barbarian could start flexible his muscles to make a subtle intimidate check, or the wizard could even caste a truth spell. I think this could work very well, but would require a very high AI intelligence for your party AND the ability to turn it off and on, as some players probably would not like item, and most would not want it all the time. I am not sure on how a more direct “combined skill checks” can work in sem-logical in game way without telepathy (which not ruling out) as how would you work there skills into your conversation without the NPC(s) realizing, getting offended, and/or out and out leaving or attacking you. I mean imagine if you walked into a shop and the in middle of purchases 5 friends kept interrupting with their comments and accusations.....though it might be funny for a little while. Still I would just be happy enough with the party speaker who did not have to be me in all situations.

So hey all, new former user, and this is my first post. I have always loved party tactical RPG's in the infinity model and I have played most of the more common ones: Balder's Gate, 1 and 2 (With expansions), Icewind Dale 1 and 2 (just finishing second) Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 with most expansions, and Dragon Age 1, which I kinda consider a spiritual successor (lets not talk about DA 2. I am over it, I swear). I am currently finishing Icewind Dale 2, and I had some suggestions that resonated throughout most of the games, at least I think. Forgive me if some of these ideas were implemented in late stage Neverwinter Nights 2 expansions, its been a while. Also I am aware that many, if not all of the ideas have previously been mentioned (yes, I searched through the forum to find them all). However, they tend to be disjointed and spread over many threads. Therefore, I think there is still some value to centralizing these suggestions. So with that long preamble, here are my top 5 or suggestions for Project Eternity 1) Marco or Function spell casting. I believe it was mentioned that this was a feature in Storm of Zehir (which is one of the ones I have not played yet), and it may have been in some others, but I can't remember. If so, I really, REALLY hope its included in Project Eterniy, if there are many "buff" spells to be used. Basically, what this is a programmable button where you can tell your caster (or anyone really) to perform a series of spells or other abilities in a designated order. The main use of this is for "buffing" or using a series of enhancement spells common cast at the beginning of the day or before a strong fight (yes I realize most people know this, but I don't want to leave new people out of this discussion). In older I.E. you had do this manually and as you got higher and higher level, it takes longer and longer (as one forum user suggested "longer than the fight sometime"). I would love to see in fact more than 1 button or macro, so that you could things like "day buffs, medium encounter buffs, hard encounter buffs, sneaking, ect). It might save alot of time and eliminate a fairly tedious but necessary part of the older games. 2) Party Speaker or Spokesperson. I actually prefer the Icewind Dale over Balder Gate model where you did not have 1 protagonist but instead were "the entire party." I know there are narrative tradeoffs for this, but something I liked. Nevertheless, Obsidian is going with the later direction, and that's cool with me. Still, I would very much like to have the OPTION of a party speaker, someone who could use their diplomacy/bluffing/intimidate/racial advantages for specific conversations that does not have to be the main character. Yes I know this issue has been debated quite a bit, but for me, it just seems to make logical sense that if you have a very good diplomatic character why would you not have them speak for the group? The trade off might be they can only say things you might not like, but hey that would be a interesting wrinkle sometimes.... Now I get how certain conversations, for plot reasons, may have to be scripted only for the main character, but for bargaining with the merchant, please can we have my crazy good bard equivalent party member do it, and not my surly wizard character? Also, can we not have the every enemy auto lock into conversation with the first person they see? My tank's are rarely the best conversationalists..... 3) Auto inventory organizer. We have seen it in many new games, but I really do hope they add here: a button (or buttons) that lets your inventory be sorted by type at least, so you don't have to manual arrange everything. 4) Party moves in group and has some intelligence when doing so. This is a pathing complaint, which I know they are hard at work on, but again just finishing Icewind Dale 2, so going from that. Someone on the forums already suggested a "move at the slowest party member button" or "lock formation button" to prevent fast character from getting to enemies 3 minutes before the rest of your party when you select "move all" and then getting annihilated. I think this is very good idea, but taking it one step further: Can we also have party members NOT wander over discovered traps to get somewhere...It make me cringe when the entire party wanders through the swinging spikes again and nearly dies to get somewhere because its a 1 second shorter route.... Please give them a modicum of sense? Please? 5) Some logical correlation between merchants and game play "Thank you for saving my son's life and going to save the entire world. But I am afraid I still need to charge you full price for the items necessary to do so...which I as a humble craftsman in nowhereville just happen to have all of....oh and if you kill me, all the items I had to sell magically disappear, except for 1 or 2 token ones." Raise you hand if this happened to you while playing IE style games. Raise both hands if its happened more than 10 times, or at least some variation of this. I am not asking for full scale mercantilism or capitalist theory in Project Eternity but some internal logical would be nice. Maybe merchants in the city have generally better items you can't afford early, and keep them in a secure vault or heavy very heavy guards. And maybe if you help them alot you get a very nice discount, or even the town gives you what they can spare for free if you are going to save the world and they know it. It would be a nice change. Anyway, I hope nothing I said here indicates that I am not greatly looking forward to this game and love the IE experience. These are all relatively minor annoyances, but I hope they can be dealt with to make the gaming experience even better.