eschaton

While people make good points, it should be kept in mind that while you're adventuring, there's not much to spend your money on. There's always the question in RPGs of where all the gold/loot is being stored. But surely, when there are mercenaries in the field, there isn't a payday bimonthly when they get their wage. I guess what I'm saying is there's a few ways to show party member's cut of the loot which are better than what TOEE tried. 1. A fee upon joining the party. This money just vanishes, never to be seen again. Don't worry about where your party member is hiding it. 2. Somewhere, there's a notional account of the wages of the party members being tracked. But the money is due upon the end of the mission, or end of the contract. Thus if you keep a party member for hire with you, you may never see the distribution of the loot, as it happens outside of the confines of the game. If your party member leaves early, or if you dismiss them, however, they'll expect to be paid in full, and might be a little...testy...if you shortchange them. 3. At various times, a party member "takes liberties" which draw down the notational account. So for example, when you get to a tavern, he informs you he's going to get a whore, and you lose x gold. 4. There might be certain loot which NPC's claim in lieu or in addition to wages. Again, you could refuse, but you'd damage your reputation with the party member if you did so.

I agree up to a point. However, I think pure personality traits cut back on roleplaying. If you want to play a hot-tempered character, you should pick hot-tempered dialogue options. This gives you the option at some point in the game to "wise up" if you're having a bad time of it. Now some traits I would not have an issue with picking this way. For example, your character could naturally have a smooth, resonant voice which makes people more likely to listen no matter what you say. Or you could have a high, raspy voice, or a stutter, which sets you back.

Unless it actually furthers the story, it's basically ego-stroking. It's deeply problematic if you actually have a traditional adventurer role, because the game gives you a "home," and then you rarely check back in again. While I thought Dragon Age II was largely a pile of ****, I thought it did the rationale around the stronghold well, as there were long periods between the chapters where you presumably had a boring life and just stayed around the house. Without a similar narrative structure (episodic) the whole thing kind of falls flat.

I'd be fine with something like The Witcher 2, where there's content you can only reach through a second gameplay due to a branching path. For the love of FSM though, no requirement you must play though with the same character again to find some things. That's so 8-bit. It would be funny if it was the exact same game, only with the grass purple or something though.

If they did that once, and only once, in a game, I'd LOL though. Particularly if you were telegraphed before even starting the quest that the "rewarder" was a putz.

I could be wrong, but I think the direction they're going to go is more akin to Arcanum or Fallout, where the questions of "good or evil" won't even enter into it. There won't be focus on shades of grey because the point of the game isn't to subvert the trope, but to sideline it entirely. Instead, you'll play who you wish, and align with whatever faction you wish, all of which will be shown to be roughly as ambiguous as factions in the real world will be.

I really hope that magic in this game is not abstracted as solely a combat skill. Even in the Baldur's Gate series (which didn't implement too much utility to spells out of combat), there were spells with no use in combat (find familiar, identify, friends, know alignment, knock, wish, etc), and ones with use both in and outside combat (charm person, haste, invisibility, wizard's eye, etc). Admittedly spells like this got less frequent in higher levels, but there's all sorts of ways a wizard could use magic outside of combat.

I don't see how what you want is possible to have while still having a class-based system. Skills could be balanced, but if everyone got equal combat feats and magic, but mages got "mage combat" and conversely, warriors got "warrior magic," there wouldn't be any real rationale in terms of why the classes were specialized to begin with. While this might have happened in PnP, I don't think an all-mage party really worked in any Infinity Engine games. You always needed to have at least half a thief, and things were much easier with a cleric. Admittedly straight-ahead fighters lacked utility in late game, but they were still fun.

Please show me where I said "I want to have sucky classes." As I mentioned, in BG1, bards blew chunks, and really the kits in BG2 only helped somewhat. If bards in this game end up like this, I'll be disappointed. What I said instead is I thought that classes which start off weak, but build to be powerful (mages, and especially monks, in the Baldur's Gate series) are as valid a gameplay option as classes which start out strong, but don't see the same dynamic progression (fighters, or even moreso, barbarians). People willing to put in the investment which results in the early game being hard get the reward of the late game being easier. In a way it's no different than choosing to play a party-based game solo. Early on, you have an awful time, but as you gain levels rapidly, the later portions of the game become much easier. Not at all. We know they come from different pools, but we don't know that every class gets the same amount of combat versus non-combat skills. It could work out something like this for each level. Fighters : 4 combat points, 1 skill point, 1 soul point Rogues: 2 combat points, 3 skill points, 1 soul point Wizards. 1 combat point, 2 skill points, 3 soul points People sometimes survive shots to the head. I don't have an issue with this. I have an issue with how people continue attacking despite having been shot in the head. Virtually anyone who survived such an attack would either be unconscious, slumped over bleeding on the floor, or otherwise in shock. I'd argue that instead of hit points, a sensible system would be to judge hits based upon their severity and where they happened. Perhaps have something called a "glancing blow" which reduces stamina, and blood supply, but won't actually kill you unless you don't get medical attention at the end of combat. Have every direct hit to a limb cause you to be crippled. Virtually every deep wound in the torso, head, or neck would result in death or unconsciousness in a few rounds. The resulting combat would be far more realistic. For example, you'd be unable to take on groups larger than your party without major crowd-control methods, ambush, or strategy, because in real life, an advantage in numbers erases almost any skill level. You'd concentrate more on dodging, deflecting blows, and when you get the opening, quickly dispatch most of your enemies with one or two stabs. The only downside I can see of such a system is in the real world, even the most skilled fighter will get killed if he's in combat every day, just due to sheer odds. People who play RPGs generally hate systems which make them save-reload frequently. So it would only make sense within a game system which also dialed combat way back - say a few dozen combat encounters over the course of an entire game, punctuated by long stretches of non-combat interaction. All you need in which game system exactly? Even as powerful as casters got by the end of the Baldur's Gate Trilogy, I would still want someone who at least dual-classed from a thief for lockpicking and trap disarming. Maybe you mean Dragon Age? People used to call it Dragon Mage after all. Honestly, I thought that game went way too far in balancing, as I said. For example, since only rogues could pick locks, the game "balanced" things by ensuring there were no important locked doors or chests anywhere. Thus all picking locks did was get you some randomly-generated vendor trash.

One other thing I'd also like to see is the NPCs interact with each other more. I don't mean just, for example, two incompatible NPCs getting into fights. Or maybe hints of a romance going on within the group. Say, for example, you have one competent, but fairly weak-willed follower, who is young and doesn't know much of the ways of the world. If you take on an older, honorable grizzled veteran, he'll look up to said character, and begin modeling his behavior on him. But if you have a tail-chasing, self-centered rogue as a follower, the same character may take a much darker turn. I think this helps in terms of immersion, because it means the NPCs are not static personalities only affected by the actions of the player. They're reacting to one another, and changing all the while.

There was something called "Oil of Fiery Burning" in BGI/BGII which essentially did the same thing as a fireball, which anyone could throw. True, it was ridiculously expensive for what it did, but I always saved up the few I found for situations like the chessboard in Durlag's Tower, where having a lot of fire clearing out the mooks right away helped tremendously. Sort of similar to how if you didn't have a priest/druid, you could always chug healing potions. Or how by BGII, you needed fire/acid to kill trolls, but spells, arrows, or magic weapons worked equally well. Again, to me, this is what good strategy looks like. I found a weakness in my party members, and supplemented with a item. That's why what's being discussed makes me a bit nervous, because it seems like it will result in a lot less utility for augmenting items over the course of the game, which was part of why I found tactical playing so fascinating. Anyway, to those arguing in favor of heavy balance, can you give me some examples of well-balanced RPGs, and ones which were not well balanced? I'd argue that for all its splendor, Planescape:Torment was actually fairly badly balanced. I didn't enjoy playing as a mage very much, but there was so much content in the game which could only be accessed by being a mage.

1. I understand what you mean regarding a fireball. Still, in terms of the effects that most game systems allow for mages, they certainly visually look more powerful than mundane attacks. I'd be happier with a system that instead of "balancing" the damage of a spellcaster and a non-spellcaster, made higher-level spells more costly (in terms of casting time, ingredients, stamina/mana drain, etc) to ensure that casting itself was a much more strategic concern. 2./3. My point was that no one is really hurt by small imbalances in single-player games. If you're a powergamer, you'll look for imbalances to exploit, and enjoy doing so. If you're a roleplayer, you'll play whatever you enjoy, even if it sets you back slightly. Regardless, my original argument was having "strong out the box" characters versus "builds to greatness" both offer different play experiences, and both are equally enjoyable. I'm not calling for bards to be like 2nd Edition D&D bards or anything.

Oh, an MMO. I haven't played one of those since back when I was in high school and beta-tested Meridian 59 and Ultima Online. I just have zero interest in them because they don't seem to have narratives worth crap. Only thing worse is a Bethesda game, which also lacks other people. I don't think I was arguing that any class should always be the better choice. Remember, we're talking about a party-based system here, not single players duking it out in an arena. What I mean is that different classes should feel different. I liked how in BG2 the Monk was a frustrating character at the beginning, who needed to be hidden behind heavy-hitters, but slowly became a powerhouse. It was in some ways the most rewarding character to play, although I think Swashbucklers fit my own play style more.

This is a bit of an aside, but I'm hoping P:E doesn't have random loot. IMHO game immersion was broken in some more recent RPGs because the deaders dropped random things which were scaled to the level of the PC. This is especially weird when you have spiders and the like having magic scrolls, for example (I don't want to even think where it was keeping it). Monsters should have no loot except for whatever body parts are saleable (how often will the PC seriously cut open intestines in hopes of finding lodged gold amongst the poo?) For humanoids, I'd prefer if all gear is droppable, but some can get ruined as a result of an attack. For example, if your roast a wizard, his grimoire might be unreadable. IMHO gameplay is better when magic items are dialed way back. I liked how in BG1, for example, it took you until halfway through the game for your party to all have +1 weapons, and you didn't advance too much beyond that. I liked that nothing beat Varscona, although I do have to say I was a bit peeved at how many bastard swords the game threw at you. Studies have shown that people are actually more happy (IRL) with choice up to a certain point. Past this, they get increasingly unhappy, as they focus on the downside of each choice rather than the upside. I think the same can be said broadly for loot. Options are good, but constraint to some degree is needed for real happiness - otherwise we'll have constant inflation of expectations.

I'd like RPGs to break out "like" and "respect" and tie them to different things. Most games go wrong because they equate the two. As I see it, liking should be mostly tied to dialogue options, which leads to further knowledge of the character. Ultimately, it may lead to romance, but it's mostly just a roleplay issue. In contrast, respect is important in combat as well, as it can boost or sap morale. Respect is built by your party seeing you take on tough challenges, and by you making decisions your NPCs do not find weak or immoral. Doing it this way, it's possible to have party members who personally hate your guts, but trust you to the grave as a leader. Or have someone in your party fighting to get into your pants, but who really doesn't respect your authority and is constantly backtalking to you.

As I said, I actually don't like playing mages at all. I just like not being able to walk right through them when they are opponents. Regardless, the real world is not perfectly balanced. There are world-changing technologies, such as armor-piercing arrows rendering full plate ineffective. Or firearms ultimately eliminating metal armor entirely. What is the trinity?

There's always tradeoffs, but they don't always have to be balanced. Think back to randomly rolling dice for D&D characters in 2nd edition. Sometimes you just roll ****ty stats, and there's no consolation. Most people keep doing it until they get average (or great) stats, but this is a powergaming thing. A true roleplayer would take those ****ty stats (even if it meant a below-average character) and just play the challenge of being an all-around subpar character. 1. I didn't say that I was absolutely opposed to warriors having "magic." I don't like the recent trend in RPGs though that every class has AOE "spells," or that every class has stun attacks, etc. 2. What I mean is I don't want to see a party which is made up of say all warriors (who picked the right skills) having an equally easy time of it as a mixed party with warriors, rogues, mages, etc. If warriors have "magic" AOE attacks, stun, backstab, can smash open locks, and it results in a game not being appreciably more difficult, I think developers have screwed things up. 3. I was just thinking back to the anger Bioware fans had about the whole Arcane Warrior thing in DA:O. I had no desire to ever play one, so it didn't bother me a bit. If your own favored class is hamstrung, that's one thing, but if another weird class combination is exploitable, I don't see it affecting anyone except those who are tempted to use it (and have to enjoy it, for that matter). 1. A fireball to the face should be....a fireball to the face. It should kill you or horribly burn you to the point you can't attack, provided you're not armored. But then again, I've always disliked the way RPGs have dealt with damage in general. Hit points are stupid (and were originally brought into D&D as Gygax imported rules from a Battleship game). You can see how nonsensical they are from games like Fallout when you can shoot someone in the head and have them not only not die, but keep attacking you. A system of wounds with a high chance of instant death if you hit in a critical body part would be more realistic. 2. I dunno. I knew that in a lot of D&D games I could get away with an intelligence of 3 for my characters. It didn't mean I did it. Hell, when my BG protagonist was even a class where intelligence wasn't needed, I still tended to set my intelligence at 13 or so, just because I don't like playing stupid characters. 3. For the record, I actually don't like playing mages much, unless I dual over from something else which gives me more versatility (my fav in BG2 was Swashbuckler). I liked how I needed to think strategically about how to break through the defense of mages however, as it forced me to think through which counterspells I needed to dispell a mage's protections and make him weak. If I could just run in there with a warrior and zerg Kangaxx I'd feel cheated. This is what I was trying to say. You have some valid points here. I guess in my mind, when I think about a build, what matters the most to me is the build is fun. I guess I've been somewhat let down by more recent games because I don't feel like there's the same diversity in terms of gameplay between the classes anymore. Again, in DA:O, once you took out the visuals there wasn't that much of a difference between playing a ranged weapons character and a mage, which made it kind of boring to play through as a different class.

Thanks for the comments folks. Some elaboration on a few points. 1. When I talk about realism, I understand that it might seem an oxymoron to use regarding magic. That said, it stands to reason that magic-users should be more powerful than fighters. Even if you have the best damned swordsman in the world, he's not going to be able to compete with a fireball, in terms of the real world. I suppose they have an in-game canon method that swordsmen can use "magic" to be better than that. But I still think it's a chump move. 2. I don't think I'm arguing that some classes should be gimped or anything. But I liked the old hierarchy where some classes were clearly made for support, others were frontline tanks to soak up damage, etc. It made every class play differently. Realistically, there's no reason why you can't do the same thing with a "balanced" system (with different customization meaning near "kits"), but I do wonder if it would lead to less consideration of tactics (how character X fits into the party) and more min/maxing. 3. Riffing off the last point, I think concern about the play balance, taken past a certain degree, is a symptom of powergaming. Yes, I don't want to see a situation where a class is all but unplayable in the early game. But I see nothing wrong with having some characters having a harder time of it. It's like if you roleplayed coming up from poverty versus a noble birth. In the case of the former, you might be penniless, but you shouldn't expect some perk in exchange for doing so. Similarly, if one class-combination is nearly game breaking, it shouldn't matter to a true roleplayer - just don't play that class.

As someone who cut my teeth on the 2nd Edition Infinity Engine games, I loved how different the game felt playing with different characters. Mages, for example, were weak as kittens and near useless at the beginning of BG1, but absolutely necessary by the end of BG2. In contrast, fighters were fun out of the box, but didn't scale upward to the same awesomesauce. While in one sense magic is not realistic, you shouldn't expect a powerful fighter to be able to defeat a powerful spellcaster mano-a-mano. Another example is Arcanum, where it was clearly harder to be a gunslinger tech character (need tons of gear, for example), but it felt so rewarding. I feel like since then RPGs have been too concerned with "balancing" all the classes (both later D&D editions and PC games), and it's taken a lot of the fun out of the systems. While mages still do play a lot more "strategically," most non-spellcasters in a lot of systems have special attacks which basically act like magic spells. DA:O was perhaps the worst in this (how does one bowman release a hail of arrows by themselves?). When everything pretty much plays the same, the only thing having a class gives you is a different visual appearance and whatever in-game dialogue and options the story has for your class. Regardless, where do other people fall on this? Do you think it's more important to ensure that no class has unique drawbacks which must be worked around? Or is working through a class's weakness part of the challenge?

For roleplaying purposes, the game should provide options to be anything from a lecherous lout to celibate, straight or gay, and not restrict you in any manner. However, the responses of the NPCs should be realistic. Modern Bioware romances steadily got worse and worse because the characters acted more like fantasy dolls than people. Essentially every one you could make a pass at you could end up bedding, if you played the "mating game" right. DAII was the worst in terms of this, because it even threw sexual orientation out the window seemingly. So I'd say the ideal is that you can attempt to "seduce" anyone in your party. Assuming you're playing, for example, a straight male, chances are that only one companion would be potentially interested in you (who could depend upon how you create your character, and how you roleplay the early portions). If you're playing a straight female, you'd probably be able to get half the men in the party to sleep with you if you really tried, but most would never actually want to "romance" you, and you might scare away the one who has if you come on too strong (or repulse them if they see you making a pass at someone else).

One thing I always disliked about the D&D system is how mundane magic was treated. Spellcasters like clerics and sorcerers just could learn any old spell of the proper level intrinsically. Mages could pick them up at any store as if you were buying a broadsword (or worse, random loot which a non-caster had). It took any mystery out of the system. What I would suggest instead would be different systems for obtaining spells depending upon the class involved. For example: Wizards: Their knowledge of magic is based upon reading. Therefore, it makes sense for something like the traditional D&D methods (purchasing or otherwise obtaining scrolls) to make sense. However, higher-level spells should be knowledge which wizards hoard. Access to the best spells should be something you get only upon completion of a quest, killing a powerful mage, or finding some really great treasure. Priest: What makes priests different is devotion to their god. They should not, therefore, merely get new all spells upon leveling up. The best spells should be "holy boons" which they get upon completing divine work. This includes mundane things such as donating/making offerings to the temple, but also potentially questing - both directly helping the church along, as well as merely acting in a "godly" manner. This means that if you have two clerics who support different gods, you won't be able to maximize both. Chanter: Their magic is based upon pre-literate traditions - oral history essentially. As a result, it can't really be learned in books, and it presumably can't be learned intrinsically. I would assume the most logical way to advance a chanter's power would be for them to meet with other chanters who instruct new "ways of knowing" as time passes. Cipher: From what we understand, a cipher's abilities are inherent. The traditional system of leveling increasing their power therefore makes a great deal of sense, although one could argue that some degree of ongoing focus would be needed, and if there were a large number of abilities, they shouldn't all just magically appeal upon leveling up. Anyway, thoughts?

New to the forums. Just discovered this game was being made the other day. Joy! Ideas like a "second city" come across as gamey and restricting choice. As does, for that matter, variants, like restricting you from getting into certain sections of the city until you've reached an arbitrary level of plot development. One possibility, however, would be for the game to have a "fame" tracker similar to the Fallout series (although it might not have to be visible to the player). Certain quests would only be open at the beginning - fetch quests, and those who are desperate for absolutely anyone to help them. As time passes, however, you become more well-known among the social and political elite, and they're willing to share the more difficult problems with you (things which you might have heard about earlier). Obviously there are further variants of this, such as either a good/bad reputation tracker (you won't be asked to kill random people if you get a reputation as a hero), or different reputations among different factions. That said, this might end railroading the player a bit too much due to decisions early in the game (players should be able to roleplay sudden changes in their alignment), For the record, I liked the huge number of quests the early portions of BGII. It was a bit frustrating at times that they were so tightly that you'd often get sidetracked due to random encounters traveling between parts of the city, or say by Jahiera leaving the party, but this is probably more realistic than expecting a static world that sits around and waits for you to finish a quest.