Xelos

Hiding numerical information I think is a great start to something more interesting than a bunch of question marks everywhere. Information in real life is rarely presented as numbers. Information should be fuzzy meaning give the player approximate descriptions of numerical information. Such a mechanic would require descriptions of various scales of in-game "attributes" such as: character attributes, character skills, health, damage, accuracy, penetration, defenses, armor ratings, action speed, area of effect, duration, experience. These scales and descriptions need to meaningfully describe differences in the levels. I did a quick inventory and created some scales that I think would be a good starting point to something more fine-tuned if such an information system is desirable. This may be a bug but I think Gold should be counted and represented as a number even with challenge active since it is a quantity. - Time Format: Anywhere time is displayed (e.g. action speed, duration) format values from seconds to text. if = 0 = "instantaneous" if < 1 = "less than a second" if >= 1 and < 2 = "a moment" if >= 2 and < 3 = "few moments" if >= 3 and < 9 = "few seconds" if >= 9 and < 19 = "about quarter of a minute" if >= 19 and < 45 = "about half a minute" if >= 45 and < 60 = "about a minute" if >= 60 and < 180 = "few minutes" if >= 180 and < 900 = "about quarter of an hour" if >= 900 and < 1800 = "about half an hour" if >= 1800 and < 3600 = "about an hour" ... - For Recovery Time: Same as above but because it is percentage based format as, if > 0 and <= 5 = "negligible" if > 5 and <= 15 = "short" if > 15 and <= 30 = "medium" if > 30 and <= 50 = "long" if > 50 = "very long" - Percentage format: For abilities and effects that have minor effects giving latent abilities such as Uncanny Luck change percent to display as "Latent". - For "Versus Damage Type: Tell if the armor is stronger or weaker than the base. For example "Mail Armor" has base armor rating 7 and 5 vs. Crush and Freezing. It could say instead, "Weaker vs Crush, Weaker vs. Freeze". - Instead of health ?/? format the numbers into a description scale already used: unconscious/dead(0), near death(1:25%), bloodied(26:50%), hurt(51:99), unhurt (100). - Damage: For damage use a relative value based on the damage of the attack divided by the character's hitpoints. 0% : 1% Negligible 2% : 4% Minor 5% : 14% Light 15% : 24% Medium 25% : 50% Heavy 50% : 74% Severe 75%+ Lethal A character casting a delayed fireball that does AOE damage 65-95, assume the character's health is 100. This spell would display as Severe to Lethal. How to decide which one to display could be random or maybe depend on some already available aspects such as reputations. A "Stoic" character would display an estimate simulating over-confidence; for example, displaying severe instead of lethal in the fireball example. A "Rationale" character would display the more likely estimate. In the fireball example a Rationale character would use the Lethal description instead of the Severe as the attack is more likely to be greater than 75% total health. - Armor Rating: Something to the effect as these below armor rating ranges. None (0) Negligible (1:2) Light (3:5) Medium (6:10) Heavy (9:12) [terminate here and make it more fuzzy at higher armor ratings] Super Heavy (13:16) Ultra Heavy (17+) - Penetration: Low(1:2), Medium(3:5), High(6:10), Very High(9:12)... - Defenses: Low, Medium, High, Very High - Range: melee, melee reach, close, medium, long, very long - Area: single, small, medium, large - Skills: Should be based on the actual checks that can happen. Many skills do not need to be loaded up too much to pass the check and is a bit deceiving knowing what values represent. A descriptive system could greatly improve the player's understanding of the skill system. Count Type Skill Min Max 2 Active Arcana 4 10 0:3=Negligible,4:6=Skilled,7:9=Highly Skilled,10=Master 16 Active Athletics 1 7 x 0=Nonathletic, 1=Trained,2:3=Athlete,4:5=Skilled Athlete,7=Peak Athlete 6 Passive Bluff 3 12 x 0:2=Bad Liar, 3+=Skilled Liar 2 Passive Diplomacy 4 10 x 0:3=Bad Diplomat, 4+=Skilled Diplomat 4 Passive History 1 7 x 0=None,1:3=Studied, 4:6=Well Studied, 7+=Historian 20 Passive Insight 2 8 x 5 Passive Intimidate 3 10 x 9 Passive Metaphysics 3 6 x 9 Passive Religion 2 12 x 9 Active Sleight of Hand 3 10 x 1 Active Stealth 4 4 x 7 Passive Streetwise 2 12 x 8 Passive Survival 1 6 x - Ability: Same as skills but using Low, Average, High descriptions for simplicity. 0:4=Very Low, 5:9=Low, 10:12 Average, 13:15=High, 16:18 Very High, 19+=Extreme

Are status effects supposed to pause when a character is stored (not actively in party). For example if I rest a character then store them for a few days they still have the effect, likewise duration counters pause as well.

I don't really know enough about modding POE2 to have a different approach. I even tested the duration up to in-game of a year 365 days in seconds and it works. To be honest I do not see why status effects should freeze other than a programming simplicity. If I rest a character then store that character and play with another bringing that character out later they will still have the status effect from the rest as if time has not moved for them.

I was looking into creating a semi-realistic injury mod by making the durations last much longer through rests forcing the player to swap out characters and have a larger line-up of characters. The one issue that I ran into was that status effects do not continue to count down if the character is not in the player's party. If you set the duration of a particular injury to 86400 (one day in seconds) it counts down during resting but only if that character is in the party. If a character has a status effect in the waiting bin for unused characters (not in the party) then it does not count down. Is it possible to change this? As a side question, what is the point of BedRestDays Min and Max? I do not see any values other than 0 in statuseffects.gamedatabundle.

Ok cool, wasn't sure if it was just me for some ignorant reason.

I beat game on expert-hard mode but came back to play white march and noticed death ring doesn't work on my main character who is a wizard. Anyone else having similar problem?

My experience with the game was playing first time expert-hard mode to completion but reopened an old save and started playing through whitemarch. As a side-note the AI addition for player characters was great. I'd prefer if we could connect the meals we can buy with the rest command. Normally before I go on a big adventure I rest at the inn (assuming I'm getting a good meal there) but eventually I'll have to rest again mid-adventure and that is when food should be usable or important but to be honest it is annoying having to manually do this. A suggested solution is to allow each character to buy up to the number of rests in meals. So my thought would be to have an additional inventory slot for food where it is auto-consumed upon hitting rest button to get a bonus and lasts say until next rest. Also add an auto-buy function so when we slot the meal put a check-box or something to auto-buy at next store if available.

I would love to see facing become more important in both combat and stealth. It could theoretically end the place of engagement if mobs got an attack speed and damage bonus for attacking the back of another character. Even better you could build it with varying strength into certain classes and monsters, which would help differentiate tactics some more. However, I don't think non-melee attacks really need a penalty. The system already carves up characters not spec'd for frontline combat if they find themselves in unexpected melees, and the combat is relatively fast and brutal already for a rtwp. Bonuses on top of the existing ones would basically lead to ranged characters getting chunked in 5 or 6 seconds after engaging. Why should facing matter, seems like unnecessary micromanagement. We have "engagement" number that takes the place of facing. My fighter can engage 4 enemies at one time with hold the line and defender. Why should he need to face a particular way.

I'm still working on completing a hard-expert mode game. Has been much fun to be honest. A real challenge because those AOE cutouts make combat way too easy. You have to make hard choices and rely less on your spell-caster AOEs and instead a solid group of melee. Having two makes it extremely hard, you get maybe a solid opener but if you don't kill them in the opener you'll be in trouble.

In other words it's pretty good if you don't nit-pick it? There's just too many moving parts in these RPGs to have everything worked out. There's inevitably going to be some logic conflict somewhere, just depends on how game-breaking it is. I haven't noticed too many things yet, most of the conflicts seem to correlate with the stronghold (perhaps it was rushed?).

Depends on what your motivation is for doing it. eg, if "worth your time" means "lots of views on YouTube" - I'd have no idea. The release-rush interest period is over and so I'd guess it'd be the kind of video that would slowly get views over time, but likely nothing extraordinary in that regard, unless you framed the videos in some unusual presentation way (not just straight recording/uploading). I was thinking presenting as video with some editing for keeping the story smooth. Most shorter quests could be a full episode while the character quests would likely span a number. Maybe only release one part and if interest grows do additional "episodes". I know myself a few people who got turned off by the combat being too hard and maybe I could help fill that gap.

I was considering recording a full play-through of the game and putting it up and cutting out the combat scenes for people who may be interested in the story-line. I was going to limit myself to in-game characters only as to maximize dialogue, do you think it would be worth the time? There's quite a good story-line and it is a shame for the people who are simply not good at games to be deprived of quality fantasy writing.

Did you play it on expert mode?

BG, NWN, and DA:O are new games, not old ones! The oldest is what, 1998? Anyway, NWN is a really mixed bag to compare, because of add-on modules, some of which were really great. If you ignore that angle and just consider the original game itself, my preference order from best to worst would be: BG2 > POE > NWN POE and BG2 are spot on each other respecting the times they were made. From a fantasy perspective BG2 world feels more "magical" in my opinion, but all in all POE is definitely worth the money.

We don't want a game where you are kiting around an enemy. I think disengagement is fine for the most part just pull your fighter off and knockdown the enemy. Or daze or paralyze them. There are so many options. I personally think that "prepping" is too important. They need better mechanics for pre-battle casting spells such as protection spells and such.