Yonjuro

I think it's intended to be cosmetic only. At the moment, it wanders around it will trigger any traps in the area - if it dies, you can un-equip and re-equip and it's back to its old self again. So, it's actually quite useful. I'm reasonably sure that behavior is a bug.

These are good ideas. In the latter case, it could be a reason to build a low damage high action speed fighter to hold enemies by generating more interrupts (assuming that attributes were reworked to support the idea). This is the kind of thing that can make more builds viable (and also different from each other).

Sure - another analogy is what happened with beer in the U.S. in the late 80's. Before that, the large breweries got really good at producing millions of bottles of the same bland crap (45% rice or corn 55% malted barley, no hops to speak of - not even legal to call it beer in, say, Germany) and convincing people to buy it by advertising the the hell out of it. The only way to thrive in the brewing industry was to save costs (by making a crappier product) and use the money to buy mass media advertising. You couldn't get good beer in the U.S. unless you made it yourself (or lived near a big city where a store was importing beer from places where people cared about it). Some of those home brewers decided to open breweries and now you can get just about any style of good beer in the U.S. made by people who care about making beer (for profit) instead of companies that care about making a profit (by means of beer). This only really worked because radio advertising was still local at the time. That loophole was closed soon after when a few companies bought up all of the local radio stations after a change in the law that allowed them to do that. With the internet, advertising (and information consumption of all kinds) has gotten hyper local and communication is two way, allowing things like kickstarter to happen. I imagine that a lot of people would like to see a return to the "good" old days by means of consolidation of the internet in exactly the same way as it happened with radio in the U.S. I don't see that happening because it's harder to legislate that without it being obvious and the people who want that to happen will probably die off before they can orchestrate a fraud on that large of a scale. Anyway, this has drifted off into even more of a tangent than I started with, so, to bring it home, I agree with the OP and expect good things from the game companies populated by people who care about games, but I also expect that large publishers will continue to exist and continue to produce bland crap that they sell to large numbers of people, just like the large breweries; Budweiser (the U.S. version, not the original Czech pilsner) is still the most popular beer in the world but, now there are choices so we don't ever need to drink it.

I suppose if you send him the message he will tell you it's back ordered but he would be happy to take your money and deliver it as soon as he gets it "back in stock" eBay seems to have mostly been taken over by arbitragers. Is it even possible to get a good deal there anymore?

An engagement UI is an already improvement over no engagement UI (though my opinion is apparently not shared by everyone). A possible tweak that comes to mind is the 'clove hitch' animation (a term I just made up; named after the knot) the idea is to take an arrow-like animation similar to what you have now (possibly minus the arrow head?) which wraps around the opponents circle and then is rendered as a non-animated chain link between the circles. It might convey the same information and be less jarring (for those who find the current setup jarring). This would be on mouse over.

Adding a small amount of randomness should improve pathing because it will make it less likely that two characters will get to the same place at the same time. There will be individual exceptions, e.g. a character that was further away that started moving earlier than one that was closer, but on balance, it should make pathing easier to get right.

No, I was giving an example of locks and traps that weren't necessary to complete a quest in the backer beta. I was responding to a post which was a response to an earlier post that lock opening XP provides an incentive to backtrack and open doors that you don't need to open (and to find/disarm all of the traps, even those that aren't in your way). The post in question indicated that the poster may have misunderstood what was being argued.

That's metaknowledge. You're not going to know where trap are until you set them off or search for them. Unless you are saying that you will search until you find the traps, purposely not disarm them, and then take a completely different path. Which is weird. I don't mean that you can deliberately skip them, I mean that you may not find them at all. Using the same example: In the cult quest, suppose you enter the dungeon and there's a door in front of you - you go through it (if you can). The exit door to that room is open. You go through it. You disarm a bunch of traps and fight some guards. The big event happens and then you need to revisit lord whatshisname and finish the quest. You can go out a new door that becomes available from the inside or retrace your steps to get out. If you did it that way on your first play through, there are traps in the dungeon that you will never find (until your next play through when you do it a different way) because you never went anywhere near them, but that didn't take metaknowledge (which, unless you read this post, you didn't have on your first play though).

When I'm already past it, e.g. by having taken an alternative route. Does that mean the chests shouldn't have items either? Or should they teleport in your inventory because you decided to skip the dungeon. wat I don't want XP tied to unlocking chests but your logic is crap because you still miss out on rewards if you skip the chest so what does it matter.. Why is it okay to miss out on items / currency but not okay to skip an xp reward? You don't need the XP reward to beat the game any more then you need gold or items.. you will hit level cap before the game ends. You misunderstood the post. In the backer beta, there are locks on doors too (similar to the IE games). Here's an example to clarify the original point: the cult quest in the back beta has a room with four doors. There are three of them that you can use to get in (and one to leave in order to continue to quest). You can pick the locks on any of the three doors (or use a key, if you have it) but if you're already inside there is no point in picking the locks on the other two. Same idea for traps - depending on how you entered the dungeon, you can bypass a bunch of traps by going in via a door near the entrance and then there is no need to disarm a bunch of traps that aren't in your way.

I´m glad you are understanding, (That was easy - I thought you would try to deny that this was a logical consequence of your argument.) Yes, I think everybody here understands your argument. I hope it is safe to assume that you understand that the idea of spending your entire life contemplating a single frame of video and having your heirs execute your optimal action (and repeat) is ridiculous. When you say: <ridiculous nonsense> therefore games need a timer. That isn't an argument for games needing a timer (or, rather, it isn't an argument that will convince anybody).

Oh, right, I misunderstood the previous post. Yes, it was in the original. I think it needs more than that.

I don't know if it is in the original, but in the EE you are treated to a FMV of his death's aftermath, which also sort of hints at ToB. It wasn't in the original (and it sounds like a good addition to the game).

I agree with you on a graceful segue. It probably doesn't need a grand ending, but it does need a little bit more than the one line in your combat log that you got as the ending to BG1 "Sarevok has fallen. The battle is won." Or, at least I think that's what it said. I blinked, so I'm not really sure about the ending. A cutscene like BG2 or even a text window describing the aftermath with a voiceover would probably be fine.

Here's what it's like to be us talking to waterd: If you want to play 'optimally' (under the very strange definition of optimal made up by waterd), the only way to do it is to pause after one frame of video and spend the rest of your life deciding what to do next and to designate an heir who will take the best action noted by the previous player, pause in the next frame of video and repeat - each player must also eat healthy foods to optimize his/her lifespan in order to have more thinking time about their single frame of video otherwise there is a chance they could have come up with a better solution had they lived longer. The reason why you must play this way is that there is a non-zero probability that you will figure out a better way to play if you spend your entire life contemplating the one frame of video. If you decline to play this way you putting up a strawman and talking about irrelevant things like human lifespan, playing for enjoyment rather than absolute optimality, the only thing that matters. Of course, it goes without saying that TB games have the same limitation. If you don't contemplate your turn for your entire life, you may not take the optimal action but at least you get spend your life contemplating a turn instead of a frame of video which does seem like it would be a little bit more fun (but fun is irrelevant to the discussion so stop talking about irrelevant things !). Of course, in the real world, reasonable people might figure out the rules, understand the strategies to win, and beat the game having fun in the process (but, wait! That wouldn't be fun because there is a non-zero probability that they could have found a better solution (then again, there you go with that 'fun' strawman again - stop it !!1!!!11oneone!!)).

I was thinking of 5 barbarians except swap Resolve for Might so they don't get interrupted. The 6th would be a rogue to deal out the damage while the barbarians interrupted all of the incoming damage.

I agree that if you are near the outside of the archer's range then pulling back is viable. In this specific example (which I see I didn't describe in enough detail), the positioning of the characters are such that pulling back from the archer will be always be the wrong thing to do. This fight starts after a dialog where your front line characters are too close to the archers to make that a viable tactic. Or, rather, if you are using this tactic you will have positioned them that way on purpose to make it easy to engage the archers. It shouldn't be hard to believe if you think about it. There are symmetries when you have enemies that are the same creature, the same level and equipped the same way. The IE games had a lot of these - four front line goblins with two goblin archers etc.. If you have two melee characters outflank the front line to attack the archers one archer is as good as another in terms of probability of success if the formation is also symmetrical. Note that if the formation isn't symmetrical, e.g. one archer is closer, the probabilities are clearly different but that makes the decisions easier.

If by 'result' you mean win vs. lose then yes, but the point is that there are a lot of equivalent game states (in terms of success probability. When you recognize this, you will find that these games don't have as many relevant differences in game state as you seem to think that they do. In the real world, yes. In BG1, a game with rules about how attackers behave, no. Pulling a character back from the archer will get them killed faster. This is not a general statement about how the world works; this is a statement about how the the infinity game engine and character AI works in BG1 - the rules of the game. An optimal solution will not include charging an archer and deciding halfway that you should draw the character back - ever. Sending a second character into melee could be a good option (or sending in a healer or, once your melee character has reached the archer, using a healing potion), you may wish to pause after the hit to give an order to the second character, but once you've made the decision to attack the archer the cost of changing it is always higher (and stopping to quaff a potion before reaching the archer is always strictly a worse decision than doing it after reaching the archer). Again, this not true in general; it is true in the infinity game engine and rules it plays by for BG1; in particular, how ranged vs. melee attacks work.

This is a semi valid claim , i disagree though. No, there is only one optimal play unless you mean there are a lot of plays with the exact same result, which seems really only possible if the game is really really really shallow. So assuming the game has any kind of challenge at all, I will go ahead and claim there is only one optimal action. Not the same result - the same probability of success. For example, staying with BG1, southwest of Nashkel you meet a party of 3 enemies, 1 strong melee character and 2 strong archers. A strategy that will get one or more of your party members killed is to have your melee characters engage the melee enemy because then the archers will cut them to pieces (archery being especially powerful in BG1). A better strategy is to have a melee character engage each archer in melee with the better protected character also drawing the enemy melee character. Then your ranged characters cut down the melee character followed by the two archers. Call your party melee characters PM1 and PM2 and the enemy archers EA1 and EA2. If PM1 attacks EA1 and PM2 attacks EA2 the probability of success will be the same as if it was reversed (PM1 attacks EA2; PM2 attacks EA1) as long as the same PMx draws the melee character. Since we've gone through the trouble of looking at an example, also note that, once the enemy melee character begins moving to attack your melee character, there is no need to pause the game until your melee character has engaged the enemy archer in melee (a few seconds later).You would gain exactly zero actionable information about these three enemies (because even if your melee character gets hit by the archer, it is still optimal to continue and engage the archer in melee) and if you had stealth scouted the area in advance, you would also know that there are no other enemies that will attack you. So, yes, in this example, there is zero chance that pausing at that time will help you. There isn't really anything special about this example. It isn't hard to find other examples with symmetries that make the probabilities equal or committed enemies that make pausing unnecessary for several seconds at a time.

You're free to believe that, but it isn't true. These games aren't uniformly random, they have patterns. These patterns aren't even apparent at the 1/3 second time scale. You don't need to pause three times per second to respond optimally to changes in the game state. It may even be harder to figure out by mentally piecing together 1/3 second snippets of game. It´s optimal to minimize the risk by grinding easy enemies. I disagree the word optimal do not have meaning without that function I already redefined optimal for what i mean. Optimal is whatever action that maximize tthe chances of completing the objective. That is optimal play. Yes, as I said, I was using your made up definition of optimal in my post. The point is that there isn't one optimal (maximizing probability of success) solution to BG - there are lots of optimal solutions (using your definition of optimal). The point that seems to have gotten lost is you seem to be fixated on the least interesting optimal solutions and blaming the game designers for that. You're free to do so, but it doesn't seem productive.

It is relevant for two reasons: First, because with a RTwP game, one can play optimally (that is minimize the expected loss or, if you like, maximize the chance of success) without pausing after every 0.3 seconds of game play. You are free to continue playing any game any way you (don't) like, but it isn't rational to choose a style of play that you don't like and blame the game designer for not forcing you to do otherwise when there are other ways to play optimally. (On the other hand, if you prefer sequential decision making for whatever reason (or even for no reason) then there's good news: there are two kickstarted TB games coming out soon. Enjoy them.) Second: Because the rules allowed me to do so, and I find when i search for the optimal play, to be the optimal play, and so if i want to play the game, i have no other option than to do what´s optimal. If you were going to play BG2 with the same character, you could hit the ToB level cap on that same map and then when you imported your character into BG2 you would start at the level cap. Doing so, would take you ... hmm ... about 3-6 months depending on how long you grind up diseased gibberlings each week. One could argue it is optimal to play that way - it is certainly low risk. Whether it's optimal to minimize risk by grinding easy enemies depends on your loss function. The word optimal by itself doesn't have a meaning without a cost function and a loss function. You can play a game in a risk averse manner or in a benefit seeking manner and you would play very differently but both play styles can be optimal as you've defined it (equal probability of success). So, of course you have options. If you look at some of the most heated arguments on the board, they tend to revolve around design decisions that remove options. In other words decisions that more fully specify the cost function of the game.

Let me try to rephrase what you said to see if I understand you: Your point is that the game gives you resources and objectives. Your job is to use those resources in an optimal way to solve the objectives and the game designer's job is to make sure that the optimal solution is also fun. Is that right? Is hard to believe that if they willingly not maximize the use of a resource they have, specially one that is infinite. You keep using the word optimal so I suppose we should define what you mean. What is the cost function in a game and what is the loss function you are trying to optimize with respect to the costs? E.g. one loss function is minimax, the usual game tree optimization loss function. Another is expected loss where you minimize the expected value of the loss function - very common in games with randomness where your moves don't result in a defined game state change but rather a change in the distribution of possible next game states. Of course there are many others but when you talk about optimal play in a TB game I think you mean minimax loss. RTwP games tend more towards minimizing expected loss. I don't find either loss function inherently more fun but it's ok with me if you do. Regarding the cost function: this is complicated. Let's look at Baldur's Gate 1 as an example. To beat the game you need to uncover the identity of the bad guy, Sarevok, and kill him without having your PC die at any point in the game. There isn't a fully specified cost function for every instance of the game so the optimal way to do that varies. The usual way to play is to explore the maps and recruit some of the NPCs etc. Most people find this fun due as much to the characters as to the game play. I'll talk about optimal play for this particular case later. To get a more powerful party, one could roll all six characters. The game would be easier because you can optimize all 6 characters for your preferred play style. One could argue that it makes better use of the resources the game provides you. Another way to play is to solo the game - optimal play in that case usually involves finding things early in the game to kill that your solo character will be good at killing (depending on class) to level up more quickly. A fourth way is to never hit the level up button and beat the game as a level one character; playing that way, optimal play is to kill as few things as possible (it's beatable with 13 kills; possibly with 11). So, BG1: I think you would call it a toy since those four play styles have different optimal solutions (they are different games). Rather than a toy, I would say that it has an under specified cost function. I consider that a good feature since it has more replay value. Some BG1 game instances will be more fun than others and there are pathological cases. For example, if you wanted to, and you had a lot of time, you could hit the level cap on any map with respawning enemies. You're free to blame the developers if you spent several days killing diseased gibberlings on the map just outside of Candlekeep, why on earth would anybody do that when there are more interesting ways to play?

Well, because of this: Well I want to know people that find fun pausing 3 times per second, but ok. You're not having fun that way, remember? My point is that most people who enjoy RTwP games are playing differently than you are and potentially playing very well in terms of optimal problem solving. Obviously feel free to play the game however you want (or find a turn based game you will like better). Certainly some of the pauses will be useful and just as certainly, not all of them will be. You're right in that it is two ways to get the same information; what is the game state? One of the two ways seems to be less enjoyable than the other and we seem to at least agree that pausing every 0.3 seconds is not enjoyable. I think you have a typo in that sentence; you probably meant to say "did give me an advantage"? In any case, I agree there will be times when what looks like an optimal decision will later turn out not to be one and it can make sense to do something new when the circumstances change. (Also, noticing that in real time can be a fun challenge.)

If you interrupt your characters mid-action (especially spell casters who will lose the spell) and change what they're doing, you are not playing optimally (or even sensibly). Many of your characters will be doing the right thing at the end of six seconds (continuing to attack the same enemy is often the optimal choice; when it isn't you made a suboptimal choice the last time). You're just not playing well if you think you need to pause and issue orders every half second. This much shouldn't even be controversial. If you're pausing to take stock, that's different. But if you pause to check the game state and restart without issuing orders, then you could still play optimally (or, at least, as optimally as you were already playing) without that pause - doing so requires getting good at multitasking.

I agree, there is a cap on how often pausing improves performance. The point i make is that in these systems in general (And for what i saw of beta videos of combat), that point is at around 0.3/0.5 seconds of action per pause. I've played the beta - it's a new system that nobody has experience with and it still needs some work, but I'm not pausing anywhere close to that and I don't think the people in the videos you've watched will pause that often once they get used to the new game. Well if we base that in Icewind dale 2 for example, I would say that Yes, pausing that often is useful. IWD2 is a challenging game but it has discrete 6 second rounds and it typically takes more than one round to dispatch an enemy. I promise you that you can play optimally without pausing every half or one third of a second.

How from that you conclude that im stating the difference between RTwP and TB is from a toy to a game, i have no idea. Hmmm. Well, it follows logically from those statements if you mean them literally, but I'm not going to be pedantic about it. I will assume that you are using words figuratively. That would be true if pausing would be a limited resource, since it´s not, you can pause every one tenth of a second (or whatever is physically possible to do) and would not change anything. Fine, pausing is not a limited resource, but pausing more than you need to doesn't lead to a better solution - that's the point. Let's take it to the absolute extreme. Suppose the game runs at 30 frames per second and you had a control to auto-pause every frame - will you come up with a better solution? Clearly not - you won't even be able to piece together what is happening and, even if you could, most actions take several seconds to complete (and the shorter actions, like melee attacks, are predictable) so you aren't getting new information every frame. Well I want to know people that find fun pausing 3 times per second, but ok. It isn't necessary (or useful from a problem solving standpoint) to pause anywhere near that often. If you're good at these games, you react in real time and pause when you need to do more than one thing at a time.