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Answermancer

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Posts posted by Answermancer

  1. Yeah I don't like scaling costs either. However, they could make the bonuses bigger like someone suggested (+4 or more) and then lower the total number of points available slightly (or not, if it's balanced).

     

    If you had less points to spend but a race gave you +6 Might or something then the races would feel a little more differentiated in that regard.

  2. At it's most basic it's just a subtractive rather than multiplicative form of armor. In other words, if your target has 5 DT then all your attacks will do 5 less damage to that target.

     

    This means that DT has a bigger impact on small, fast attacks than on big, slow attacks. I believe a number of weapons have penetration which causes them to ignore DT, and specific types of weapons have penetration against specific types of armor (blunt weapons against plate armor and the like).

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  3. When you hold Tab, it highlights interactible objects and shows labels over the heads of NPCs and stuff.

     

    It would be nice if clicking on those labels allowed you to interact with the person/thing, sort of how in Diablo games when labels are showing for items on the ground you can click on them to pick them up instead of hunting for the specific item's model on the ground.

     

    Also, in general I wish it was easier to click on people to talk to, it seems like I have to click on their feet where their selection circle is, but it's counterintuitive that clicking on their bodies does not work.

  4. Any chance we can get a little more detail about how the feedback on our items will work?

     

    If a designer will actually be able to respond with direct feedback and suggestions for our item I can be more general in my ideas and provide several possible ways it could work depending on balance concerns and what is actually possible for an item's power, for instance. And I won't have to worry too much about coming up with something that makes no sense in the lore since we can just fix that in feedback with suggestions of something that would make more sense.

     

    It would be more collaborative, and personally I'd prefer it, but if that sort of thing is not realistic (which I totally understand since I'm sure the team is going to be very busy all the time until you're done) I'll feel like I really need to find out as much info about the lore as I can ahead of time, so it'd be good to know.

  5. My answers in white.

     

    Q1: The current hypothesis is that PE must have SIX (6) attributes because the IE games (and D&D) had six attributes. Does nostalgia require that this be so ? Would you be upset if it was 5 or 7 ?

     

    I don't really care about the number, I'd be fine with 5 or 7. I'd also be fine with 3-4 or with no attributes at all and just the derived stats instead.

     

    Q2: Do you think that defenses should be weighed against other prominent combat stats such as Accuracy and Damage ? (as in, should you have to choose between putting points into damage or accuracy instead of into deflection or willpower)

     

    No, I think the current system as described (each defense based on two attributes, which is also how 4E does it I think) is far superior to splitting them up more and giving them equal weight. I think defenses are ultimately rather boring and passive choices (since each one is totally passive and affects at best 1/4 of attacks that I sustain), so I'd rather be choosing more interesting and "active" benefits for my characters and have their defenses end up in an interesting configuration that I didn't have to micromanage on their own.

     

    Q3: Should Health and Stamina be spread across two attributes or would you prefer that they be married in advancement under one attribute ?

     

    When I first read about the current system this was my intuition (that they should be merged) but now I'm not so sure and I think having them split might be more interesting. While they are also a "passive" stat, they have a separation of tactical vs. strategic consideration, and they are directly affected every time you are attacked.

     

    By keeping them split, it's possible for me to make a character with massive stamina but low health (say a 2:1 stamina to health ratio). Such a character would be able to stay in combat forever, but would potentially have lowish health afterward and would have to be more careful in subsequent fights (since each point of stamina lost would still reduce health by 1/4 of a point).

     

    Ultimately I don't know how interesting that is, so I wouldn't really be upset if they were unified, but I can see now why it might be worth keeping them split. I trust their judgment one way or the other.

     

    Q4: What do you think about Deflection be attribute independent ?

     

    I like it. Like others have said it's the most commonly targeted defense and as such the one in most need of balance, but like the other defenses it's still pretty passive and not a very interesting choice in my opinion, both good reasons to keep it out of the attribute system.

     

    Q5: Should Action Speed be influenced by attributes?

     

    In theory I think it could be, but I suspect it would be very hard to balance because increased Action Speed is a very powerful bonus.

     

    Unlike something like damage, it increases EVERYTHING about your character in combat. More speed means more damage (per second), it means crits more often (in real time) it means spells that cast more quickly and essentially "more spells per second" and if spells give maximum flexibility like they have said, that means "more whatever you need per second".

     

    So I think it would be a hard to find a sweet spot of "action speed per attribute point" where the increase is neither insignificant (say 0.1% faster per point) or overpowering (even 1% per point might be too much). In theory I think it might be interesting, in practice I worry it might not be worth opening such a can of worms.

     

    Q6: Should inventory size be handled by attributes like it was in the IE games. If so, how do you see this being handled ?

     

    When I first heard about it, it seemed like kind of a micromanagey waste of time, and a reason why Strength seemed underpowered.

     

    I'm still not sold on the idea but having read some more thoughts about it I think it could be interesting since it specifically affects how much you have available "tactically" while everything else goes into your endless stash (which I am a big fan of) and you can only access it when in camp or at a store.

     

    Ultimately I'm ambivalent about this one, I'm not sure it's an interesting choice, but I can see how it could be.

  6. Would you kindly present me a list of how higher difficulties would affect the player. Because I totally missed developers' statement about "your characters will die very easily, their ongoing/DoT effects will be short, they'll rarely if ever crit and might even have trouble hitting (meaning lots of grazes)"

    Plus, it is the opposite of what ou say - on easier difficulties I can afford myself to build characters as I wish. On higher diff. I have to squeeze every drop of effectiveness out of them. Make their damage as high as possible.

    Characters will die easily because you'll have no health or stamina. All the other things I mentioned are specifically the effects of the other stats as described by Josh earlier.

     

    And yeah, you'll be able to build characters however you want on easier difficulties, but the idea that maxing their damage is squeezing out every drop of effectiveness at higher difficulties is only true if it's hard for characters to die which seems like a flawed assumption. Josh thinks games should be challenging and has said the higher difficulties will feel like all the hardest fights in the IWD games, he also wants the game to be balanced so I have no doubt he will balance health and stamina to be valuable.

  7. The moment I see damage governing attribute I will max it without a second thought. So far I am assured I will have max int char just because I see no alternative yet.

    Items? Pfft. I'll most probably stick with one weapon type and will not change it. Crit? I will estimate what will be more profitable - damage or crit and will adjust my build accordingly. But making one attribute to govern all damage is a great way to promote powergaming and is the same as creating 18 str 18 dex 18 con Fighter in Baldur's Gate, or 18 int 18 con 18 dex mage.

    I mean if all you care about is max damage then you can do that, and on normal or lower difficulty it'll probably work fine. If that's what you want then make all your characters with max int, why not. But this will likely be inefficient and ineffective at higher difficulties because your characters will die very easily, their ongoing/DoT effects will be short, they'll rarely if ever crit and might even have trouble hitting (meaning lots of grazes).

     

    Again though, if that's what you want then that's great, but if someone else wants to focus other stats, their characters should also work fine in this system, and play very differently, and that's the whole point of this system.

  8. Body

    Constitution

    Dexterity

    Perception

    Expertise (replacing intellect perhaps)

    Resolve

    ^ this possibly solves the issues from a combat and non-combat perspective. Expertise can still function like intellect in out of combat scenarios and still make sense, and the same with Body replacing strength.

    I've read the whole thread and personally I think I like this most. I really like the functionality of assigned to each stat by Josh in his original explanation, but I think Intellect ends up feeling kind of odd and Strength as well.

     

    As I was reading through I was going to suggest Expertise instead of Intellect, and I think this post by Ganrich works quite well with that name. I think Acumen might work too but IMO it is more ambiguous and unclear. I think Body does a decent job taking the place of strength and makes sense with the derived stats affected.

     

    Also, this addresses the issue of the stats still making a lot of sense in out of combat checks, which was pointed out earlier and a lot of people in the thread have been ignoring, but I think is very important.

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