Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Amentep

Global Moderators
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    6281

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    14

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Amentep

  1. Amentep
    With a fedora hat on and whip at his side. Indiana Urquhart?
  2. Amentep
    The thief's shoes gain sneak xp The diplomat's hat gets diplomacy xp. or something.
  3. Amentep
    Weapons proficiencies say you're good with any long sword; weapon familiarity says that experience with a particular longsword has made you better at using that particular sword. You know its balance, its heft. It has become a third arm for your character. If it were implemented I'd think that not using the weapon should eventually end the "familiarity" status - if you give the weapon to Forton and then after many encounters you pick it up, it shouldn't feel familiar as it did. I recently had to get a loaner car while mine was in the shop (I've been driving mine for a very long time) and I was totally messed up when it came to where anything in the new car was. And then I drove it for awhile and when I got my car back I kept trying to grab the windshield wipers in the wrong place and stuff. Because I'd begun to be accustomed to the other car. The thing I like about this idea is that it gives a way to keep magical loot special without necessarily having the player level-up to get some benefit from their actions. So it could be cool.
  4. Amentep
    You know the debate about co-op has drifted into the Twilight Zone, when someone arguing against the idea admits to liking it because he got to hang out with friends while playing the game. Just in case you haven't yet worked it out Sherlock, this is precisely why people are hoping for it to eventually be in PE. Not entirely sure why you feel the need to be insulting; I'm pretty sure that I made my point rather clear but since you seem to misunderstand: I enjoyed hanging out with my friends. I would have enjoyed hanging out with my friends whether we played BG2 or not; in fact enjoying hanging out with my friends was not enhanced at all by playing BG2. There wasn't fun for me in waiting for everyone to buy from a vender, wade through long dialogue sequences and other sundry things that made playing BG2 in multiplayer tedious when playing it in single player wasn't. Ergo, to my mind the multiplayer aspect of BG2 was poor; had it been good I'd have enjoyed the experience of playing the game as well as hanging out with my friends. By your logic, as long as you enjoy hanging out with your friends any game has excellent multiplayer.
  5. Amentep
    Except the game has no way of knowing what your intentions are; if you say "I won't do this [lie]" and then do this, what is the fundamental difference between that and telling the truth from the perspective of the game? What is the difference between saying "I will do this!" and then not doing it and lying? (Note I do not think that "bluff" and "lie" are synonymous, and I'm not convinced that you'd need a bluff check for something that is within the realm of normal believability.)
  6. Amentep
    The problem - as I see it - is that this breaks down when you go to "sneaking past" people multiple times and also the problem of getting double XP (sneak past then return and kill for more xp). The former and latter can be fixed situationally; you could give each "entity" an XP pool that can only be taken once, for example. But it seems that Obsidian wants to fix it at the upper level of their design. Whether it'll work or not will remain to be seen. I'm pretty certain their intent is not to alter balance so that fighting is undesirable (or unviable).
  7. Amentep
    Josh answered a question from someone about not liking IE combat and he basically said that if you didn't like that combat you probably wouldn't like PE (as I recall). So I think there's still a lot of combat focus. But at this point I think we're stuck with wait and see in terms of finding more details to determine whether the system is going to work or not for combat focus.
  8. Amentep
    Razsius, I do want to say that I appreciate your posts on the topic; even if we don't agree on them. Isn't that true of the kill XP system for any path that doesn't include killing? One thing you can't do in the IE games is have stealth be anything but combat support (ie it can't be its own end to solving quests) because unless you kill it you don't get XP. But you need XP to be more stealthy so unless you kill you can't stealth later in the game. And thus the conundrum - how to not invalidate different playstyles. And yet if the quest is "Kill the village", your objectives could be "Kill the militia", "Kill the town elder", "kill all adults", "kill all children". The game no longer cares how you do it (so you could poison the town well or turn the militia commander against the town elder, etc). But for the person who goes in fighting - under your scenario they'd still get Objective XP for everything but "kill all children". (Note this could be where the quest objectives could be better defined than "kill"; what if you take the child to an orphanage several miles away - technically the town is still cleared if the objectives are fixed as such). To be fair, someone who wanted to play the IE games as a diplomat or as a stealth character (some thing that was more viable in Fallout, for example, prior to BG1 coming out) kill XP did eliminate their preferred playstyle. But if objective XP does end up making fighting a less desirable path like you fear than I'd say its failed its goal - which is to make fighting, stealth and diplomacy all viable - in a general sense (but not in a specific sense that this is always the case, only that at the top level that it is).
  9. Amentep
    To be fair, I'm not complaining about this system anymore than I'd be complaining about a standard XP system. But given that I've seen threads against kill XP crop up in conversations about other RPGs in development, I'm pretty sure you're wrong.
  10. Amentep
    I couldn't disagree more. Creating a mode where only one save file is possible, and triggered only on exit and loss isn't very complicated. If anything, the existance of Ironman mode will force the developers to more critically ponder the balance and mechanics of their system. Furthermore, I believe it will lead to better scenario, quest, and encounter design--as GOTCHA moments will be passe. "Just reload" or "reload until you discover narrowly defined strategy X" will not be acceptable conclusions. Its funny you should say that, because I find Dark Souls/Demon Souls to be essentially made of GOTCHA moments where you die and reload until you discover narrowly defined strategy X and yet is considered to be one of the best "hardcore" RPG games in recent memory. I have no interest in an Ironman Mode generally speaking. I don't mind harder difficulties even though I rarely move above/below the default difficulty but a mode which will delete my save? No thanks. But that means its inclusion is ultimately irrelevant to me.
  11. Amentep
    I'd argue that it only made sense in PST because the setting is such that belief alters the planes; ergo the distinction of intent is important. In a game like Baldur's Gate where the setting isn't supposed to respond to the character's beliefs (and thus their truth or lies), there is no reason to (IMO) make a distinction between intent and action. EDIT: To further clarify, lets take Wimpy (from Popeye); his classic statement "I'll pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger today." When he says it he either means it or he doesn't. If he doesn't pay he either lied or something unknown happened to prevent payment. IMO its harder to have a system that makes a distinction between intent (lie, tell truth but something happened, lie but did it anyhow) than action (money paid back on Tuesday, money not paid back on Tuesday).
  12. Amentep
    I thought the first Ice Age movie was kind of cute in an animated kid's movie kind of way. Wasn't the best kids movie I've seen, but there have been worse kid series IMO.
  13. Amentep
    Yes “it is not junk because of the economy” and it’s only “junk because of the economy”. But objectively a useful sword is not a junk, so calling it a junk will just make the issue more difficult to understand, I don’t even know by now whether we essentially disagree anywhere at all or not at this point. Oh I don't think we entirely disagreed; I think we're really looking at different desired solutions to the same problem. You're looking at realistic inventory options (dropping backpacks in a fight (with I presume encumbrance penalties or extra attack opportunity if the player is surprised and unable to drop the pack quickly), pack animals, etc) I think, and I'm saying the fix needs to come looking at the in-game economy first (but I'm not against other things being added to that). The deep stash could "represent" in the abstracted way games do things a backpack that each of your party member has dropped in a fight (thus making it inaccessible lest you open yourself up to attacks on your back). I guess.
  14. Amentep
    How, then, would you handle a character putting a sword to an NPC's throat and saying "I'll slit your throat! I SWEAR IT!"? Is there no difference between various characters' abilities to say/gesture that convincingly? Should a bluff check only occur at the moment when you don't, in fact, slit that person's throat? The problem with the "There shouldn't be 2 identical options, one marked (lie)" thing is the skill/stat check. If you are knowingly saying something untruthful, you have the same emotional/behavioral cues present when you first lie about it as you do when you lie about it in the future. So if that "Oh, of course I did as you asked!" warrants some kind of believability check, then so should the initial "Yeah, I'll totally do this thing you're asking me to do! In fact, I LOVE coconut!" should, too, if you're lying. Now, if there's not going to be any check-representation to see if you get away with the lie, then there's no reason to have duplicate lines with "(lie)" indicators. However, that doesn't change the necessity in other scenarios/for other reasons. 1) Since the game won't allow you to literally grabbing a persons throat and putting a knife to it, that action has to be part of the text for the bluff. [put sword to throat] I'll cut your neck like a ripe mellon. Or something. 2) So if that "Oh, of course I did as you asked!" warrants some kind of believability check, then so should the initial "Yeah, I'll totally do this thing you're asking me to do! In fact, I LOVE coconut!" should, too, if you're lying. - contextually, however, the game can't assume what you mean to do - even when you tell it that; for example if there is a "Yeah I'll totally do this thing [lie]" option there's nothing in the game to prevent you from then "doing that thing". Why, then, should the game work under the assumption that you lied because you initially said you were lying? What reactivity can the game have to the concept of your lying in the conversation at that point? You've added an unnecessary level of dialogue complication when the truth about whether you lie or not is within your actions not in what you say (later, if confronted with something you agree to do that you haven't, the player should have the ability to bluff their way out of it). I think you're walking down a bad path when you start trying to have your game understand the players motivations rather than their actions.
  15. Amentep
    Frankly I found Dark Souls tedious; my experience was "walk a little way, do a whole lot of grinding so that the enemies of the next area are less likely to one shot kill you, then walk a little way and repeat). Consequently I've never finished it. Later I tried Demon Souls which didn't have the continuous world design and liked it a little better but ultimately I got tired of trying to fight monsters over and over to try and increase my level so I could advance another 5 feet. Both well made games but neither to my taste.
  16. Amentep
    It is junk; its only "not" junk because the economy of the game dictates that the player's sole source of income is what they can loot. Which is the reason why players early on carry everything that isn't nailed down. In reality if you have to add 3 lbs of weight for each longsword you've found and carry it on your person for several days and 100s of miles you're going to quickly decide carrying the sword is a waste of time (even if you swap the sword out, you'd be leaving your own behind). Ergo its junk.
  17. Amentep
    I don’t know, but even if so. What would be the difference between objectives and quests? If objectives are just sub-quests then essentially nothing. An objective would be the things you do to complete the quest. Therefore "get past orc band" could be an objective of a larger quest and the player rewarded for satisfying (killing/sneaking/persuading) the objective.
  18. Amentep
    I thought they said that objectives were what made up quests, not quests themselves. Am I misremembering?
  19. Amentep
    SSI's Phantasie in 1985*. Loved being able to get monster party members. *I'm guessing Atari's Adventure or SwordQuest: Earthworld don't count, really being puzzle games.
  20. Amentep
    it is junk when you look at what it could sale for vs the weight vs how long you have to carry it to sell it vs the quality of your sword and whether you have any use for it. Mind you in a game you don't feel the weight of the junk you're carrying, but that's why encumbrance systems exist, so that people don't carry everything that's nailed down because they either might someday need it or because they can get a shiny copper piece for it. In reality, though, people aren't going to carry 7 swords and 5 full suits of armor for 700 miles to sell. But the problem (IMO) isn't the inventory or the encumbrance system in games that encourage such action, its the economy.
  21. Amentep
    I found BG2 with multi-player tedious as everyone had to wait for people to get done with vendors and forced dialogue and all that every time you hit a town. I understand people enjoyed it, heck I actually enjoyed it myself - but that was because I was playing with friends and got to hang out with same, not because I thought the actual implementation of multi-player in BG2 worked well.
  22. Amentep
    In reality (even if your reality was a fantasy world) looting bodies would take a significant amount of time; most armor would probably be damaged, a lot of the weapons would be too. If you found a lot of significant weapons, how do you carry the swords back to town? You might have a few pack animals (if they weren't killed in the fight) so you might loot a few things to sell, but carrying 30 pounds of weapons over several miles sounds like more trouble than it'd be worth. Frankly you're more likely to pry the large jewels from the chieftain's sword handle than to bother with the sword itself, because it weighs so much vs the amount you could get back. Lets say you do take the time and carry back 10 swords to the nearest town though. Who would you sell the 10 swords to? The blacksmith? Does he have a market for 10 swords? Does he have the money to pay for 10 swords? The local guard? Do they have the money? Do they have the need? In other words you might be able to loot 10 good swords from a defeated group but there's a very possible chance that you wouldn't be able to do anything with them unless you plan to travel from town to town. The problem is that ultimately this is all an abstraction. The reality of this situation is you'd probably take what you immediately needed (to repair or replenish your own supplies) and what was the easiest to carry and sell for the most profit. And leave the rest because carrying 30 pounds of swords 10 miles is going to be a pain in the ass with the real possibility that you can't do squat with them once you arrive. But the game version of the situation is that a lot of players want to min-max what they can get out of every encounter. Which is why we have people doing quests peacefully and then psycho-killing everyone for xp or in this case taking month long trips back and forth between dungeons they've cleaned out because it affords them a lot of spending money and there's no time penalty in most games.
  23. Amentep
    The problem with this scenario - IMO - is that the player actually shouldn't have a choice in this; either the statement that the character is a Cleric with the appropriate background is true or its not. Adding the "lie" tag serves no purpose. Where it might be purposeful is when the dialogue is for future events ("Yes I promise to go on a pilgrimage to Dustham's Proclaimer chapel if you let me into you vault today" essentially Wimpy's "I'll gladly repay you Tuesday if you buy me a hamburger today") The problem with this is if you stated a [lie] dialogue but then actually do it (or conversely state a truthful dialogue and forget to do it) then the lie tag is meaningless. And why its meaningless is because lying is partially your intent and partially your veracity. But a game can't really understand your intent. It can understand your veracity (Player promised to pilgrimage to Dustham; 17 weeks passed, state is now "lie" => player now in poor standing with Clergy unless they make amends or explain why pilgrimage has been delayed). So to my mind the game should be designed - in situations where bluffing or similar come into play - to test the veracity of what the player says rather than their intent.
  24. Amentep
    I wonder why.... I'm crazy? They're already doing it? You can't leave me hanging like that...!
  25. Amentep
    I think that's well and fine, I like more shop choices. I'd argue that there should be some realistic limits to what you can sell back; how much money is on hand at each shop and so on. if a small town blacksmith only sells 3-4 swords a year, why is she going to buy the 57 you got off the orc horde? Where is she getting the money for them? Why would the hatter buy a wand? What would he do with it once he had it? Where would the fletcher store the 10,0000 arrows you looted from the elven warband if she bought them? If the leathersmith buys 50 wolf pelts today, why would he buy another 50 from you a week later? Mind you I still think having to have armor fitted before you can swap it to another character is a fine idea but I seem to recall many thinking it too much; but it forces a lot of choices on the player if there's a limit to the value of armour they can sell back and will cost them to refit it. The player has to think about the inventory (and maybe, just maybe, not be encouraged to carry everything under the sun "just in case").
×
×
  • Create New...