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  1. Now, now, hear me out. When I see my character's portrait fill up with red, that says health to me. Having played the IE games as well as the backer beta, I can say without a doubt that anyone coming from those games is going to be disoriented. "Endurance? WTF is that?" Well, they'll have to learn, as far as combat is concerned, it's really your health. When it reaches zero, you're out of it. That secondary bar? That's your actual health. Do you see the potential for confusion? In RPGs, health is the resource that keeps you in the fight. There is simply no reason to change this for the sake of having a two-tiered system. Any secondary system should be just that, secondary. In the current build, what's called "health" is really a secondary "wounds" system (I want to call it "endurance" because it depends on resting), while what is called "endurance" is, for all intents and purposes, your health. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a deal breaker. I had never picked up D&D before Baldur's Gate 2, and I had to learn about this "THAC0" thing; without really understanding it, I just had to know that lower armor numbers were better. Fine. Some game systems are quirky. But while BG and friends had to be true to Dungeons and Dragons--replete with oddities--Obsidian gets to do whatever they want. There is no reason this can't be both intuitive and tactical. I'm not asking for complexity to be removed, so take your "you're not hardcore" flames elsewhere. I'm asking them to refactor some terminology. It doesn't make sense that healing spells affect endurance, but to restore your health, you rest, an activity associated with restoring fatigue. How can priest spells make you feel peppy but are powerless against rended limbs? There's magical sleep for that. I get that gameplay trumps simulation--when the gameplay makes sense. Switch the strings "Health" and "Endurance" in all UI text and suddenly the systems click. Mostly. The remaining issue is of character "death". Not the falling-down "knocked out" when your portrait turns red, but the "true death" as Vampire Bill would say. "Endurance" doesn't quite fit this. So, what to do? Let the portrait represent "Health". Your actual health. When it runs out, you're maimed or dead depending on whether you have "Death" enabled. Increase health accordingly, so that it's no easier to die now than it was before this change. Restore health using the same spells/abilities/potions we already have for Endurance, or by resting. And--this last bit is optional--let resting restore a limited amount of health. I liked how in the IE games, if your character was hurt badly, they'd need to visit a temple, quaff a potion or get some clerical attention--unless you want to rest a few times. This part is debatable; the terminology change is the key point. Let the secondary, little green bar next to your portrait represent "Endurance" or "Fatigue". It depletes over time as you travel and exert yourself (use abilities etc), not when you take damage. It is a limit on the "adventuring day", basically a more granular stamina system. When the green bar depletes, your characters become tired and start accumulating penalties. Restore fatigue by resting. With these changes: Health works as it always has in RPGs throughout the ages, and portraits reflect health like they did in the IE games. Everything makes intuitive sense. Endurance (Fatigue) determines when you (should) rest. It's a natural delimiter on the adventuring day, only loosely tied to how much you've fought.
  2. There was a discussion about lore and how, in reality, after the first game or after the strategy guides come out, the lore skill can be meta-gamed away and become a pretty useless skill (degeneracy alert, Josh Sawyer). As such, I've been thinking about a few ways to make the lore skill more interesting to use and a useful skill for players to try to invest points in. There are a few goals with my changes to the lore skill. 1- Maintain the current "game lore" behind the "skill lore." That is that the lore skill would still continue to be a skill that represents a character's accumulated miscellaneous knowledge and trivia. 2- As all skills should continue to be useful throughout the whole game, in regards to combat, this means that a character should become more effective in combat (as they learn the common "weakpoints" of enemies. For the player this means increasing their cyclopedia entries, but mechanically this should also mean improvements in combat. 3- As with all skills, each party member should have an incentive to want to invest in the skill. 4- This skill should be an incentive for players to want to engage in combat (instead of combat XP). That means that as players engage in more combat, the effectiveness of this skill should be more apparent, therefore making combat incentivized as opposed to utilizing XP as this incentive. THE IDEA: As party members fight and kill more and more of an enemy type, their combat effectiveness (e.g. attack damage/crit%/attack speed, etc) increases when fighting that particular type of enemy. The rate of improvement in combat effectiveness is based on an equation that utilizes each party member's lore skill as well as the number of enemies of that particular type that have been killed by the WHOLE party. So for example, let's say that if the party kills in total (all party kills) 25, 100, 300, 900, 1500 goblins, each party member will have an increase in their crit% against goblins of 1%, 2.5%, 5%, 9%, 15% respectively. How does the lore skill come into play? Well as each party member's lore skill level is increased, the number you need to kill is decreased by the equation CEILING(TOTAL ENEMIES/LORE LEVEL). So let's say you have 6 party members with lore skill levels of 1,2,3,5,7,9. Party member 1 (Lore skill 1) needs to have PARTY KILLS totals of 25(1%), 100(2.5%), 300(5%), 900(9%), 1500(15%) goblins for the respective crit% increases. Party member 2 (Lore skill 2) needs to have PARTY KILLS totals of 13(1%), 50(2.5%), 150(5%), 450(9%), 750(15%) goblins for the respective crit% increases. Party member 3 (Lore skill 3) needs to have PARTY KILLS totals of 9(1%), 34(2.5%), 100(5%), 300(9%), and 500(15%) goblins for the respective crit% increases. ... and so on ... Party member 6 (Lore skill 9) needs to have PARTY KILLS totals of 3(1%), 12(2.5%), 34(5%), 100(9%), and 167(15%) goblins for the respective crit% increases. So let's say that the party has killed 170 goblins in the game with the same party members as previously mentioned. Assume all players have base crit% of 5%. Their new crit% with the lore skills would be: 1: 7.5% crit chance 2: 10% crit chance 3: 10% crit chance 4: 10% crit chance 5: 14% crit chance 6: 20% crit chance -------------------------------- Different monsters can have different PARTY KILL TOTAL requirements. Other equations can be used as well as other combat effectiveness attributes (as mentioned above) to fine-tune the best range, rate of increase, and value for skill. This is a good way of incentivizing players to enter combat (as opposed to combat XP), each party member to invest in lore, will continue to give back value to the player over the whole game, and can fit within the current game lore. What do the rest of you think?
  3. I'm having a bit of trouble with the asynchronous nature of combat. This is not a problem for standard attacks, but certainly makes spells and abilities unwieldy. Even with a cleric and wizard standing idle naked in reserve, they often do not have enough time to appropriately respond or apply spells both offensively and defensively. Add the necessity of armor with their own standard attacks, and it's almost as if they are acting independently of the battle conditions. The shifting melee contributes to a high degree of misses, since spells need to be cast at the edge of their periphery to avoid friendly fire. Action and equipment delays regularly necessitate a healing spell to be cast at the first sign of damage or risk it being cast on a corpse. Having each actor on their own unique time-sequence with the added potential for each to be altered by interruption and movement, the exact nature of the problem is difficult to discern. The experience is reminiscent of solving multivariable calculus. If I were to guess, I would wager that the problem is with the standardized cool-down and use speed of spells/abilities. I think that they too will need some variation--likely based on spell level and attribute scores rather than weapon type. To reiterate, I'm not sure. I'm just wondering if this is a problem for others, and what their thoughts might be.
  4. Typed Pillars of Eternity into Google News for the heck of it and found this great preview. These guys liked the beta, and they voice a lot of the same concerns we have. On the lack of combat XP (argue about it here, not in this thread): This debate already has a thread so I'm not going to touch the quote, just wanted to share their view. On pause-and-play vs. turn-based battles: This point deserves some serious debate--arguably more so than the XP thread. Granted, selection circles no longer overlap, but that hardly dilutes the argument. For my part, I agree that turn-based combat would solve the issue. I'd be fine with a well-implemented system, so don't count me among the "purist" backers; fun trumps purity any day. However, realtime-with-pause can work. The missing ingredient is AI scripts. Imagine playing an IE game without any basic scripts whatsoever, and clearing out a mob of baddies. Suddenly the micromanagement involved becomes more akin to the PoE beta. Realtime-witth-pause worked in the IE games because you could delegate no-brainer behavior, such as having your ranged character keep their distance or having a barbarian auto-engage their nearest enemy. Going up against a bunch of goblins requried a lot fewer clicks than tactically taking down a dragon. That's how it should be. Without any sort of scripting, I think I'll be spending more time in pause mode than out of it, and will miss the balanced flow of IE-era battles.
  5. Hello all, Only played a little bit of the new build, but from what I've seen it's vastly improved. Gives me a good deal of hope that they've made this much progress in 2 weeks. Combat and combat feedback have been improved... but something really has to be done about that log. Show less (especially regen), smaller font, better color coding, I dunno. But something really has to be done. It's far too chaotic at the moment to be useful. That's all. It's not really a bug, just an improvement that needs to be made.
  6. I've noticed some people asking about how much damage increase a point of Accuracy is worth. I've also noticed some people making incorrect arguments based on incorrect information. So I figured "Hey, I'm an engineer. I'll do some maths." So I did. Here's the maths. It's a plot of your average dps (relative to the base damage) versus your accuracy. Calculated using the rules given in the wiki for combat rolls as of today. . This can be used (among other things) to tell when (if anywhere - hint, it's nowhere) DEX gives you more damage than MIG. Summary below: Accuracy/Deflection within 5 points: Marginal gain/loss for 1 Accuracy: 1.5% dps (relative to base dmg) Accuracy/Deflection within 5-45 points: Marginal gain/loss for 1 Accuracy: 1% dps (relative to base dmg) Accuracy/Deflection outside 45 points: Marginal gain/loss for 1 Accuracy: 0.5% dps (relative to base dmg) There are the numbers. All other things being equal, the Accuracy bonus from DEX always gives you less dps increase than the damage bonus from MIG. When fighting enemies with Deflection much higher or lower than your Accuracy, each 2 points of Accuracy is equivalent to 1 point of MIG (where dps is concerned, that is. dps isn't everything of course). Please take this math into account when making arguments about stats, power, the value of inherent Accuracy bonuses (boni?), the value of DEX relative to MIG, etc. I'm done mathing for tonight. Peace. PS - Source file for doing your own maths: New Excel: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29325716/Pillars%20of%20Eternity%20DPS%20calc.xlsx Old Excel: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29325716/Pillars%20of%20Eternity%20DPS%20calc.xls EDIT: A quick note about why DEX, while giving less damage than MIG, isn't unilaterally inferior to it. DEX affects Reflex save instead of Fort save. This lets you dodge AoE attacks. Also, the % increases in dps I've calculated also apply to spell/ability duration increases/decreases on graze/crit, which aren't affected by MIG at all as far as I know. So for scripted interactions that take DEX, characters who want to dodge AoE attacks, and characters who are more interested in getting long duration abilities/spells by critting with them, DEX is better. There may also be one-off abilities/passives that give bonuses from DEX as well - I'd imagine the rogue will have some.
  7. Old thread. In the red corner, we have people who want to stick with the tradition of Infinity Engine games. Over in the blue corner, the wide eyed idealists who want fair XP distribution for all players regardless of playstyle. And apparently there's a few people who lept in and started painting another corner yellow advocating for learn-by-doing. Still have plenty of corners in this ring, it's not a triangle. So give your feedback. But I want a nice clean discussion, no low blows or personal attacks.
  8. Ok... here's the thing.... I really, really do not like the interrupt mechanic as currently implemented. Not as something that can happen from any attack. Interrupting spells in the process of casting - fine. Interrupting attacks, but using a spell or ability - fine. But this whole "any attack can interrupt any action" mechanic? Nuh-uh. Nope. Bad mechanic. And here's why, from a game design standpoint. Interrupt, as currently implemented adds RNG to battle, but in a really unpredictable way that is hard to anticipate. Good, rewarding mechanics are all about giving the player various tools to make intelligent decisions with. Making an intelligent decision about interrupt is extremely, extremely difficult. As I've gone into more detail about here: (http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67761-dps-vs-accuracy-deflection-heres-the-maths-enjoy/?p=1493755), actually figuring out how interrupt affects your effectiveness in combat is highly nontrivial. Interrupt (and by extension the current version of RES/PER) is extremely difficult for a player to place a value on, which means that any build choices regarding interrupt aren't because the player knows what they're trading off, but more based on a qualitative "feel" for which they like better. And don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking qualitative feels. Despite what my math-focused posts may lead you to believe, I am not a powergamer or a min/maxer. I like doing the math and knowing what my choices are, but I rarely derive any enjoyment from simply choosing the most optimal thing. I like to RP in CRPGs, and my choices about stats and abilities and weapons and armor are often affected by that. So don't misinterpret me here - I'm a fan of qualitative choices. And many players are. But that's no excuse for bad design. Even if a player wants to make a choice based on what they qualitatively prefer or find more fun, that doesn't mean they shouldn't also have the tools to know what the implications of their decisions are. So to summarize - I think interrupt (as currently implemented with anything able to interrupt anything) is a bad mechanic. I think the game would be better without it. What do you think? And to round off my argument with the final nail in my web of logic and reasoning... Boo interrupt. PS - Remember that it's still early enough to potentially make large changes to the mechanics. And while I don't think interrupt ruins the game or anything, I think it would be undeniably better without it (at least without the current implementation.) If people agree with me, maybe OE will see it and think about improving it. If not, then OE doesn't need to change anything because the majority of their testers don't care.
  9. As I understand they've said they just want combat to be for the fun of it. Taking away experience rewards from enemies just seems like it will leave the combat a bit unrewarding. I feel like I will skip even trying to get in fights because there's not much benefit and mostly detriment. You risk your characters getting hurt/knocked out/killed for what, beating enemies juts for the fun of it? There's always a balance of risk vs. reward in these kinds of games and it seems that balance has been upset. Sure some enemies may drop items, but that'll be the only reward of combat? I think it's a mistake for them not to give any exp. Perhaps cutting the exp gains from enemies down so that you don't gain a ton, but none? That means the only point of the game is to just grind through quests as fast as you can with no reason to kill enemies and skip all unnecessary stuff. It pigeon holes players into playing one specific way. What if players don't want to do many quests? The only way to play if you want to get anywhere is by questing now. There's no just going out and adventuring around killing things as a form of progression. Let's face it, players want to be rewarded and they want to get that reward via the fastest means possible. That means is going to be skipping unnecessary combat and leaves combat in general feeling like a chore that you must do along the path to grinding out these quests. I haven't played the beta myself so this is just as I understand it from what I've heard and read. Just wanted to get my thoughts out about this.
  10. In Project Eternity Update #12: Reddit Q&A with Tim Cain, Tim mentioned that there would be an option that would auto-pause when a character had a new ability or action they can do, basically when the characters next 'turn' starts. Currently we have a lot of pause options but there isn't really one equivalent to this one, which I think would be the most useful one there is. I am just throwing it out there because I don't want it to be missed as I find it extremely important. For reference at about 5:25 seconds : http://youtu.be/1Uyzap5FcgI?t=5m25s
  11. As it stands right now in the bb 257 I find combat too cluttered/chaotic to be playable. Being able to rotate the camera view would be extremely helpful but so would making clicking or moving the cursor over a character/enemy's health bar select/give info on the object/character. The health bars seem to find a way to be seen unlike the actual character, and if you could highlight the selected character then combat would be considerably less chaotic.
  12. I´d like to be able to put the Combat log, quest log, character information, inventory and such and drag it over to my second monitor. (like playing the game in window mode and placing the info tabs on the other monitor) This might not be possible with the current engine? ,but maybe on a stand alone application? This might not be possible but I'd sure love to see more advanced options like this. What crazy dream features would you guys have liked to see in the game? PS: This game will look awesome on a 4K monitor
  13. When using skills, draw an arrow from caster to target. Like in this image from Dota 2. It can be improved upon from Dota - if cast target is so far away you need to move, make the target cursor or arrow yellow. If moving will provoke a disengagement attack or will move you into engagement range of an enemy when casting, make arrow or cursor red.
  14. Seriously, its hard to keep up with conversation when there are three threads on same subject...
  15. So.. I fully understand the concept of melee engagement, and I like it a lot. What I'm not quite clear on is why it has been implemented NOT with the traditional "attack-of-opportunity" implementation, but instead a "cannot leave without special abilities" implementation. Is there some reason for this? I sort of understand the mechanical reason for it (allowing frontliners to CC enemies) but I'm not clear on the rationale... if you're fighting with someone, nothing's stopping you from running away except the fact that you'll be turning your back on them (hence the traditional "attack-of-opportunity").
  16. hi , after 1,5 hours i have find -with certain spell the mage go close to enemy and hit everything ( like with fireball or acid cloud ) this happened when the party is in a small zone -i not understand why mage/cleric/druid don't cast spell occasionally but instead go in closecombat -the game cursor vanish and appear the classic window cursor -godlike don't have the head slot ( maybe is intentional ) -when ranger use "cripple Shot" enemy are stuck but continue to attack my party member even if they are far
  17. A suggestion for the UI when in combat when there are many enemies and it gets really crowded. It would be helpful to get a UI bar with a roster of enemies so it is easier to aim and allows easier monitoring of specific enemies. Not sure if anyone else feels the need for it, but I feel it would make combat management easier. Thanks, keep it up.
  18. Here is the list of things I know\suspect to effect attack speed: * Monks and probably other classes can gain bonus to their attack speed through abilities. But does all class has the same base attack speed? * Each weapon type has its own attack speed, implements are the fastest, swords faster than great axes etc, right ? * Certain attack styles (and maybe talents?) can increase attack speed, for example attacking with two weapons is faster than with one. * Armor with higher protection rating slow you down. Any ideas?
  19. We have been given a lot of info on how Stealth work outside of combat, but I don't recall any specifics about how would it work during combat(i.e. rouge hide in shadows), I don't suppose its a non-combat skill only so any thoughts? We have the alertness states (creatures will investigate if you move in too close and cry out an alert and attack if they find you) maybe they will play a role during combat as well e.g. alerted/engaged creatures will have an increase detection radius and thus far harder to fool. Or maybe there will be a check for entering stealth during combat, because if now everyone can sneak, then it will be too simple to just pull a Houdini during combat and or troll path finding with the act.
  20. So having nearly completed and explored just about everything in this game, I have yet to encounter any bugs, but some of the gameplay is so insanely frustrating and arbitrarily senseless that I have wanted to punch my laptop. BUTTON MASH QUICK TIME EVENTS These things in your game are an abomination, they don't serve to better the gameplay or increase the challenge, they make the game ANNOYING, FRUSTRATING AND NOT FUN! I nearly stopped playing when I hit the Alien Probe event, and again at Randy's Abortion, it's ridiculous Alien Probe: pretty much can't be beaten with a keyboard, unless you want to damage it. Randy's Abortion: the dilation part is again impossible to beat with a 360 controller without damaging it, and the suction part needs a better indicator. The needle part does not respond correctly to your button presses sometimes, just to screw you over. Goth Dance: obnoxious, has to be done nearly perfectly to get it to work, I've missed like, three or four presses and that caused it to fail, again, better indicators needed. Boss Fight Quicktimes: Kenny's summons are not the worst but really annoying when you have slow reaction time and aren't expecting it, theres no real warning. FINAL BOSS For the love of god make a checkpoint happen right before farting on kenny's balls or at least refill the player's mana. I deleted my save in frustration because after that whole long-winded boss fight I had no mana, used a potion and ended up overloading on it and letting cartman die, causing me to have to replay THE ENTIRE FIGHT. ugh. SAVING Saving needs to happen on-the-spot recording everything that's happened instead of just shunting you back to the last checkpoint and clearing all your progress, again, obnoxious and arbitrary and a poor way to use saves in an RPG STATUS EFFECTS Burn and Bleed might need to be toned down a bit, they're kind of insanely powerful Stun, Sleep, Gross Out and Pissed Off on the contrary are useless at the end of the game because nearly everything is immune to them. Maybe give these statuses alternate effects on immune enemies or take away some immunities, because they become pretty much worthless by the time Nazi Zombies become a thing. BUDDIES Jimmy is just awful, there's almost no reason to use him, he does no damage and only boosts your PP, which you can do with a potion, and if you have the perk you can get the Attack Up his buff would have given you for using said potion. Also the potion doesn't take up a turn. Make Jimmy;'s quest give him the Flute as a weapon that deals AoE damage to everything and inflicts a debuff, that would really help, also giving him some form of healing, give him HP/PP regen buff as his special ability instead of PP boosting, this would make him really good Stan's final ability is awful, just awful, his spin does more damage, to more enemies, please fix. Kenny is kind of bad all around. he's hilarious, but pretty boring and sort of an "everyone does his job better" character. I still feel like he should transform into Mysterion sort of like butters does. ENEMIES Enemies have a large number of issues: 1. They're dumb, and can't prioritize targets and don't really use strategy 2. They don't even use the same mechanics as the players, they can't block, counterattack, or use free items 3. They don't have a very wide range of abilities, except bosses, and the ones they do have are generally solved with a cure potion 4. Strange, sometimes arbitrary values of XP for defeating them, I've gotten 5 XP for killing 4 elves and 20 XP for killing 2 elves, both at level 4. 5. They can't change positions at all, might not be a bad feature to implement in DLC. 6. Late game most enemies are just obnoxiously hard to kill with really high armor, there's not much variance, no squishy super high damage mages or super beefy heal tanks or back rank snipers, just lots of nazi zombies. EQUIPMENT The leveled class-specific gear you get for completing portions of the main storyline is generally completely useless by the time you get it. Also some gear is just flat out broken, like the SWAT Helmet, which can allow you to pretty much win every non-boss fight without ever giving your enemies a turn, just drink a cheapo 2$ speed pot, AoE damage/debuff effect first hit either a spell or a bomb/bouncy weapon weapon Bleed/Burn on it, then go to town with the Katana (also stupid broken) one dude after another. Also the weapon system doesn't make a whole lot of sense, once you get the Katana basically every other melee weapon is a worse choice. You really need to split the balance better: Statistically superior weapons and armor with no strap-on/patch slots Weapons and armor with unique effects and 2-4 strap-on slots but really low/no overall stats Some stuff that fits somewhere in the middle of those two And WHERE ARE MAH SET BONUSES? you guys went to the trouble to include all these armor sets, but no full set bonuses? WHAS UP WIT DAT? PERKS Some perks are basically mandatory like the one that gives you Attack Up every time you use a potion, or the +20% to HP, others are totally useless and serve no purpose at all, like most of the fart perks, might want to do some tweaking. Moar Perks is never a bad idea either. MANA What the heck is up with the mana mechanic? I never seem to have ANY mana at all because it apparently doesn't come back after fights or even regen over time and I can't fill it up because I'd just crap myself, needs some work. I might suggest that instead of mana potions, all potions increase mana very slightly, and mana regens over time in the game, and you can use toilets to lower mana, and you get one turn to use your overloaded mana before crapping yourself except against Jimmy's Brown Note. OVERALL COMBAT BALANCE The basic mechanics need some work, because nerfing/buffing other aspects of combat could make things worse or better, take things as a whle and just try to make combat more interesting, make mechanics flow together better. ~~~~~ Now that I'm done, I just wanted to take the time to say thank you for making such an awesome game, and I hope you can make it even better.
  21. After reading the recent update, there's something that's been gnawing on my mind. Most classes seem to have a fairly obvious preference for melee or ranged combat, while others can go either way depending on preference. A Fighter seems to have a melee bias, a Ranger would likely use ranged weapons exclusively, and a Rogue could put either option to good use. So far, so good. This distinction makes sense given the combat roles of each class. The thing I'm not sure about is when it comes to different weapon types in the same range category. A typical example would be a melee Fighter vs a melee Rogue. Assuming they're both interested in dealing damage, an archetypal fighter might choose to go with a big greatsword to cleave his foes in half, while a typical Rogue would be more inclined to grab a dagger in each hand for quick, precise stabs and slices at the enemy's vulnerable spots. Something similar can be imagined for ranged weapons, where you might have a choice between an arquebus (high damage but hard to reload and not accurate at long range) or a longbow (less point-blank damage, but better range and speed). Does Eternity have such a distinction? Is there any reason to pick one weapon type over another, or will there be a "best choice" for every situation? For example, D&D somewhat simulates this situation by giving the Fighter a higher damage modifier when having high strength and using a two-handed weapon, while the dual-wielding Rogue won't miss that modifier since he has lower strength and would rather get extra attacks to apply his sneak attack bonus to. Note that I'm not necessarily talking about damage types (like a club doing crushing damage vs a sword doing cutting damage), but more a general sense of choosing what weapon type your character will specialise in. In some games there is a clear "best choice", where for whatever reason one weapon type is simply more efficient in any given situation. For the sake of this question, I am completely disregarding the fact that many players simply choose their weapon type for flavor reasons. While that's of course a very valid way to pick your preference, it's not really relevant to the mechanics of the game. The way I see it, looking at the various games I've played in the past, there are factors that can influence what is "best" and often multiple of those can play a role at the same time. A few examples include: All classes have a default preferred weapon type, which means they either can't use any other weapon types or they simply get artificial bonuses to one type that make other types less desireable. This is a very simple to understand and straight-forward system, but does tend to restrict player choice. Even if it's just a bonus or penalty to certain types, it still feels restricted and artificial because it's just some arbitrary modifier that isn't based in the rest of the game's mechanics. Some weapon types simply have better options available. Like there are some awesome magical spears in the game while the best mace is kind of lame, so specialising in maces is less desireably than spears. While this makes sense, I feel that it rewards "spoilers" (how else would you know about those spears when you make your character) and penalises players for making choices that they have no way of knowing that they are bad for the endgame. Weapons have different damage types. For example is the game has many enemies that resist piercing damage, this will make spears a very undesireable weapon. On the other hand this tends to be one of the most frustrating options, like when your strongest character specialises in spears and you are in an area with many enemies immune to piercing damage. Suddenly your main source of damage is useless and the game becomes much harder than it would be if you chose to specialise in axes. Mechanical differences like attack speed are in my opinion one of the more interesting options. A light dagger can swing faster than a heavy axe even though it deals less damage, so you have to choose whether a character needs to hit fast or hard. However this can also quickly devolve into a simple DPS race, where an axe does 12 damage every 3 seconds while a dagger does 5 damage every 1 second, so the dagger ends up having a simple statistical advantage and there's no real reason to choose the axe. In some games, all weapons are more or less equal (with minor penalties in one area roughly evening out against minor bonuses in other areas, for example damage vs accuracy) which offers the best options for character customisation (you want a Rogue with a giant mace and a Wizard dual-wielding hatchets? There's no reason not to do it!), but makes some sacrifices in terms of variety since all choices end up feeling very much the same. So after all that text, my question is simply how does Eternity handle the differences between weapon types. Does it encourage a certain weapon type to be used with certain classes or play styles and if so, how?
  22. I'd like that sometimes critical hits mean a "permanent" effect, like a scar, a missing finger or eye, a leg injury and the like. Some of this effects could be heal with powerful magic o healing skils, On the other hand the most severe may be permanent, but it's consequences may halved with the appropiate means.Other ways to make not all severe injuries permanent would be healing them with a mission (to recover a very strange and rare herb that grows in a certain place, or finding a long lost legendary healer,...), or using some items that are limited (meaning that you have to decide using it in one injury or in another). This could also affect to NPC members of the party, and the main character could heal them easier. That could mean that a NPC of the party must retire eventually due to his grave wounds, but since there are more NPC who may substitute him it doesnt mean that the rest game is affected. This would encourage that more NPC are used during the game and make each encounter more intense.
  23. I feel that fighters are very often mishandled - classically the most monotonous and boring class, specially in d&d games, where they're very often just part of some dual or multiclass character or dipped into for some bonus or other. Conversely other games try to fix this by giving them abilities that are practically magic - various agro and pulling mechanics, random invulnerabilities, special super attacks etc. Now PE seems to be taking a more grounded approach (or that's the feeling I've gotten up until now), so I guess that won't be happening here. I think one problem with fighters is that they are covering a very wide selection of archetypes, compared to other classes. A wizard is usually the old bookworm guy with the beard and pointy hat, a paladin the goody two-shoes religious zealot, the rogue the shady thief/assassin. But fighters, they can be mercenaries, weapon masters, samurai, knights, duelists, gladiators, generals and peons, pirates, archers,... So a fighter needs to be able to evolve into any of these which I think can result in either a lack of options or lack of direction for the class. This would be some of the traits I would attribute to fighters, also in the interest of keeping the flavor different from other warrior classes: discipline, learning, fulfilled potential, constancy, reliability, focus. A fighter is supposed to be good at fighting. The best in fact. Not the strongest or most resilient/determined/flexible, just simply best at what it does. When I say reliable I don't mean mediocre or boring, I mean that its risks are measured and mostly successful. Its strength would lie in the mastery of a weapon. Now considering the class abilities tidbits we've got before the holidays the thought might have occurred already, but I think having various modes/fighting styles would be a good idea. Something akin to lightsaber forms from KOTOR2 - bonuses and penalties to various stats. At the lowest levels the way a player starts building the character would be determined by gear more than abilities, with them gradually becoming available through the lower levels. Certain modes could exclude others or provide small synergy bonuses, as an incentive for a player to specialize - providing a clearer focus for the class and reducing the power potential (i.e. you can't be the best in every situation). As fluff, this could provide other benefits. It would represent something you learn through drill or a rigid technique that is passed down as a certain way of fighting. It could also offer some visual candy in the form of changed animations, gradually, completely or perhaps just for a specific weapon. The standard +1 to attack passive ability type has gotten a bit boring in my opinion. While you can't really change the function much, I'd like to see a bit more flavor injected. For example learning weapon specialization would instead of adding a static +2 to damage with the chosen weapon make the fighter use the upper half of its damage spectrum more often. The fighter is not hitting any stronger with the selected weapon, just utilizing it better. When using a shield he/she could use it in such a way as to deflect the attackers' weapons to the side, leaving them more open to counterattack. Using armor so that it gets hit more often - less damaging attacks, more glancing blows. So on in this vein. Some active abilities are definitely needed, we want to enjoy the gameplay, not just character building. I would really like these to stay somewhere in the realm of possibility. I think some kind of combat maneuvers would fit. Sort of what like the rogue got, but less movement and more combat oriented. There was something written about a charge ability, that sounds good. There could be some abilities that focus on attacking certain body parts, unbalancing or disarming the opponent, or even using them for cover. Thoughts?
  24. I was wandering and I believe it hasn't mentioned before, but do we have any idea about the enemies' health condition indication? Will it be like we can see their remaining hit point or maybe, like the IE games, a description of it (uninjured, near deth etc)?
  25. I wanted to talk about the difficulty of P:E. I skimmed the first few pages and couldn't find a topic about it, so I decided to create one. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but here we go: I've been replaying DA:O on nightmare and couldn't help but notice how easy it is. When I played it for the first time I found it was more difficult than other games this generation, but that feeling went away when I got used to the mechanics. Now I just wail on the enemies and wait for them to die. That's not good combat. I know Obsidian is trying to capture the IE games, but those weren't *hard* per se, just obnoxiously luck based. I want to use tactics and all tools I have at my disposal. You should be punished for memorizing only damaging spells on your mage etc. The question is: How badly should you be punished? How difficult should the game be? How different should the experience be between normal and hard? How do you define difficulty in RPG's in general? Should anything be designed around luck? I have no idea where to even begin answering those questions, so I'll refrain from having an opinion before I read some of yours.
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