["Semi-random loot lists" confirmed]

I'd actually rather every enemy didn't drop their gear. I want my party's victories to be rewarding, but I don't want them to be over-burdened with loot. I'd rather it be more of a pleasant surprise when a piece of enemy armor survives combat in usable condition (and have it vend for more) than feel a need to tote mountains of stuff back to town.

[Delayed Consequences & Ripple Effects]

This is one thing that I'm 100% sure we don't have to explicitly ask Obsidian for. Choices and consequences is what they do.

 

I'm pretty confident with Obsidian too... But it would be nice if we have more of a "delayed" consequence to prevent players save-scumming to get the best possible outcome on the first play-through.

It'd be better for all events to have consequences, delayed or no. All should be valid, just for different reasons and to different people.

 

First play-through be bleeped. All playthroughs should be roughly equivalent in this regard. Gotchas are cheap.

 

Gotchas are cheap and lead to folks feeling a need to consult walkthroughs.

[Reactivity to PC's actions: News ala Arcanum/Fallout 3 style]

I've not played Arcanum, but I read and liked the news sheets in Oblivion. I also loved the radio stations in FO3.

[Alternatives to Vancian or Cooldowns? Other suggestions?]

Where does this "my mage has to do something every battle" come from?

 

Besides, how badly do you use your mages if yours didn't? You can buy as many wands as you like. Then there's magical slings and darts.

 

Do you really want a game where your mage casts a spell every round? Boring and repetitive.

 

Edit: Scrolls, anyone?

I get why people would want it in games where you essentially only control one character like Kotor and dragon age. Even though you can switch between them, its really clunky and you are always only controlling one of them. But in an isometric game, I don't get it either. We are controlling the whole party. It's not like its 6 players each controlling one character and the poor mage player has to sit in the corner.

 

Even in party-based games many folks identify with their PC in a way that they don't identify with companions and like that character to contribute. That said, my concern is less how powerful mages are than class balance, which can be achieved in a variety of ways.

[This is the kind of cRPG combat that I like]

For me the poll misses the point because what is enjoyable in a single-protagonist game is so different from what works well in a game with full party control. It doesn't matter whether my favorite games are single-protagonist action RPGs or party-based tactical RPGs. I can enjoy both, and this game will feature party-based goodness.

[stick to your guns, devs]

 

“I’d much rather have the players be my boss and hear their thoughts for what would be fun than people who might be more distant from the process and the genre and frankly, any long-term attachment to the title.” - Chris Avellone

 

And not just that one way quoted above, they've said it multiple times. Like I said, I'm not going to bring my opinion into this. It's just a fact that they set up that 'you are our boss' mentality. They did. Obsidian did. Not some self entitled fans on the forum. Obsidian. If I were to put in one little bit of my opinion on the subject it would be, "I think that's awful brave of Obsidian." I guess we'll see how that pans out.

 

I've wondered if Kickstarter will end up teaching a renewed appreciation of publishers ...

[Stretch Goal - hire Justin Sweet to make portraits.]

What I like about Sweet's portraits is that they suggest character without saying too much. The player can interpret the character represented by the portrait as they choose.

 

One thing I dislike about the IWD portraits is that far too many feature weapons that may not be used/usable by the character I intend to play. Perhaps PE won't restrict weaponry by class, but I'd still rather portraits focused on the person rather than their gear. A few portraits with conspicuous weapons are fine, but IWD portraits featured far too many swords and daggers in my opinion.

 

As for who should do the portraits, I'd recommend looking in-house first.

[The (un)usefullness of mages]

Becoming slightly useless in a fight when out of spells is part of the trade-off for being very powerful when fully prepared, everything works as intended

 

It will be interesting to know how magic even works in Eternity, who knows, their might not even be a situation when a character is out of spells.

 

There was a long discussion with one of the devs - characters will run out of spells during fights if the idea doesn't radically change before they start programming it.

 

So basically, mages are going to be nerfed like usual, sucks for us who play mage characters...like usual. Also, they said we can play solo, so I would like them to explain how a mage could go through a game solo without being forced to learn something unmagey things. Someone explained mages as glass cannons, they are super powerful, but they are weak physically, that was the trade off. I do agree to a point, but they dont need to be so weak that one hit kills mages (I have had that happen in a few games...I was like, what the hell just happened?!?!?!). They did say mages would wear armour, which I suppose is good, but I an not a fan of them being forced to use swords or other wepons, that is another class all together.

 

So long as they deliver on the super powerful part as well as the physically weak bit. If mages are physically weak and more prone to run out of resources than other classes, their spells should hit much harder than attacks by classes not burdened with similar restrictions.

[Player skill vs Character skill]

At 1 Int the PC should be too dumb to take the high int character's advice. ;-)

 

This may also be a good place to post that I'd strongly prefer that the game limit dump stats. You shouldn't be able to make a stat lower than the game is willing to punish, and I don't see it as worthwhile to spend a lot of development time on characters who should find it difficult to remember which end of their weapon to hold.

[A dog companion?]

I think this is an idea that's ready for a rest. Dogmeat was great. Every RPG needing to feature a canine companion ... not so great.

[Overreaction theater!]

I prefer that success hinge on basic preparation and the ability to adjust tactics/consumables mid-encounter. One of the things I dislike in MMOs is the expectation that a responsible player will have looked up strats for the fights before entering a dungeon--and set pieces that require specific preparation (as opposed to ordinary prudence) encourage looking things up or chronic reloading rather than inventive gameplay.

[Overreaction theater!]

I suppose different players consider different things to represent the essence of the old games. For me it's character building, party tactics, and the opportunity/need frequently to pause and think about my next move.

 

In general, I think life is easier the fewer lines you draw in the sand. Hold hard to first principles but be sure those are actually what you're holding to and not some secondary notion you've associated with them.

[Overreaction theater!]

And even if we don't like something - well, so be it.

 

And how do we really know we will/won't like something until we've seen its implementation? Guns are a good example for me. I don't like the idea of "guns" in fantasy, but that doesn't mean that I'll enjoy the game less because it features early models. It all comes down to details--which we don't yet know.

[Using Availability of Resources to Differentiate Difficulty Settings]

Clearly not every one wants the same game. Some want the game to be painfully hard. Others would like something more equivalent to the old IE games. Some want healing, money, and magical gear to be super rare, and recovery from injuries to be a protracted and dangerous challenge. Others don't. I wonder how it would work if the relative availability of healing, money, and powerful gear were tied to difficulty level. I hate using improved AI to define difficulty because I don't want to fight idiots, and folks who want a hard game seem not to like the traditional increase/decrease health, increase/decrease damage model. Having more options for healing and having money and magical equipment more plentiful on Normal would make the game less difficult than it would be on settings where resources were tighter. Players on every setting would retain control of how they allocate resources, with those decisions obviously being more difficult the scarcer things are.

 

If such a system were implemented, I'd like Normal to be roughly equivalent to BG I. I'd be fine if an achievement or a printable card were used to recognize the accomplishments of those who overcame greater adversity.

[Identifying found items]

I want identification to be a big thing, loved it in the BG games and when modded it added even more unidentified items to the game. I would also like people to sell items thinking they know what they are but upon further inspection your lore master reveals a little more than the store clerk knew, or perhaps noticing the clerk was just lying to you.

 

No, thank you. What an annoyance!

[Healing]

I don't want to pop back to full health as soon as combat it over, but I don't want "draconian" healing options either. I want spells, potions, etc., usable both in and out of combat on normal difficulty, making injuries roughly as significant/insignificant as they were in the infinity engine games. On the other hand, I've no problem with there being a difficulty level where the game is what I would consider to be an excruciating grind. I don't like AI differences between normal and hard because I don't want to fight idiots, but I wouldn't at all mind if healing, money, magical gear, etc. were less available on harder settings. I also wouldn't mind if, sort of like the score sheets that popped up at the end of Might and Magic games, the game congratulated folks who completed the game on a difficulty where healing and good equipment were rarer.

[Mega dungeon (didn't see anyone make it a poll and Obsidian said it'd be a good idea to do a poll...)]

I'm unsure where "don't care for it at all" meets "not extremely long" but over-long dungeons always make me feel claustrophobic. I would mind a lengthy dungeon less if it were well lit.

[Enough money to "make the game" - Multiplayer, modding, language support "open-ended"]

Generally, these are things that wouldn't benefit me personally (except modding support) and that I'd rather remain internal goals rather than "if we get x dollars" promises to fans. I'm not opposed to them implementing BG-style multiplayer--which would also benefit folks who want to create multiple party members--or language versions, but I'd rather they retain more flexibility in allocating resources. If things go well, and they're able to add these features, great! Let them come as happy surprises to those who want them. Making something a stretch goal means that resources need to be reserved off the top. For that reason I'd prefer such goals to remain pretty general.

[On class inequality]

I don't like dividing the stats the way you suggest, because it forces players to put secondary stats in the opposite pool from their primary stat, so that you could have a smart fighter, but not a charismatic wizard. Perhaps I've misunderstood your suggestion?

[[Merged] Co-Op Multiplayer as some potential future stretchgoal?]

I voted no, since it's a feature I wouldn't use, but wouldn't really object to something comparable to BG or IWD multiplayer. What I don't want is for the single-player campaign to be short-changed. Coop mode is fine, but I don't want them to spend a lot of time on MMO-style class balance to keep groups from sitting the bard on certain bosses. No class should feel useless, but I'd rather different classes offer different strengths rather than every character needing to be equally effective in every situation.

[Low to mid magic world...does ya want it?]

About as high or low as the IE games were. Rare enough that I'm really pleased to get something useful, but not so rare that waiting for an upgrade becomes frustrating.

[Rarity of magic items?]

I'd like a more nuanced poll. Not so rare that every character wouldn't have a magical item, but not abundant either. That said, it really depends on how the game is balanced. In the abstract it doesn't much matter whether I'm upgrading to magical items, or just to higher quality ones.

[Slavery]

I don't object to the game dealing with slavery, but I don't share what seems to be a widespread gamer fascination with it. If it's on the devs' short list of issues to tackle, and they have something new to say about it or how it affects people, sure. Unless it's really a focus of the game (which I would be disappointed to learn), I'd consider different regional systems of slavery to be overkill.

 

The (to me) most interesting slavery-related quest I've done in an RPG was buying wives for the workmen in order to complete the Redoran stronghold in Morrowind. I was pretty uncomfortable with it and not at all prepared for the slaves' positive reaction to the prospect of arranged marriages--although in retrospect I probably should have been. I also unlocked slave bracers when ever I had the opportunity, but my role as abolitionist didn't present me with any provocative choices.

[Why I'm not entirely happy with Update #7.]

When this thief can contribute to straight combat as well as that fighter, party just becomes a group of soldiers with different flavours.

 

I don't see the problem, assuming those "flavor" differences are meaningful. Single-target vs. AOE, ranged vs. melee, faster, weaker attacks vs. stronger attacks that require more preparation time, burst vs. sustained, susceptibility to resistance, absorption of damage, summoning, crowd control, healing, etc.--characters can vary in their contribution to combat in lots of different ways.

[How old is everyone?]

Oh, great! A poll that lumps everyone over 25 together.