Search the Community

Everyone would agree that rebuffing is the tedious most process one could experience in an rpg. Instead beginning the encounter with a pause and buff selection, why not preselect several buffs (really a few) during the rest that will be active until you rest again? Maybe sacrificing the spell slots or at some other penalty, but rebuffing should be eliminated! Only if it's a short strong lifesaving buff like arcane weil, but not common blessing and other tedious stuff.

I'm suggesting the developers implement a 'deadzone' where the formation orientation wheel doesn't show up until you've held right click and moved it outside this threshold. As-well as a slight delay when clicking so it doesn't accidentally show up unintended. Currently there's almost no delay (if any) and it makes it an uncomfortable experience when clicking just to move. In practice these mechanics pretty much work the same as what everyone's used to in IE games but a much better look and feel. Please see this video for a working example and description of how I think it should be in Pillars of Eternity. (ignore that it's an RTS, it's the mechanics that are important) Bonus: The 'cancel' command should double as a 'hold position' command (or a new hotkey altogether in the controls menu) so you can tell your guys to stand still even with enemies nearby, keeping formation with a tap of the button. I assume the ability to queue movement is coming? Ideally we should be able to shift-queue movement *and* orientation along with actions/abilities (Cancel command too). It's imperative to your tactics when playing the game real-time. Scenario 1: Telling a Wizard in an open area to move wide on an enemies flank and cast a ranged spell while assaulting the front with your fighters. Scenario 2: Casting an ability, and retreating to cast another ability automatically. Scenario 3: Making enemies chase summons around while you shoot them from range. This is possible in Baldur's Gate so i'd hope we'll be able to do it in PoE. Thanks for your consideration.

Please discuss your thoughts, ideas, complaints, suggestions etc. on Pillars of Eternity here.

Companions are, and have been integral parts of party based ©RPGs for as long as I can remember. It's already been discussed to great length that, for any companion to stand out, they need an enticing back story and have some sort of meaningful relation to the story yet to unfold. The above problem is usually handled fairly well, with specific honors going to Mass Effect 2 (Garrus, Tali), Planescape: Torment (Morte, Dak'Kon) and Baldur's gate II (Several characters) However, more often than not, and not to knock those examples specifically, characters in RPG's are only really interesting from a Story & Dialogue perspective. Bioware games in my opinion are the biggest offenders of these all encompassing class systems, with Mass Effect, Baldur's gate, and Dragon age all suffering from samish companions during combat and gameplay. As an example, the Dragon Age: Origins characters all share the same skillsets, depending on their predetermined class (Rogue, Mage, Warrior) Leliana and Zevran, while both rogues, each have a different specialization initially with the former being a Bard that specialises in ranged combat and the latter being an assasin that specialises in dual wielding. They can however, given enough time to advance in level, take over each other's specialisations. Essentially everyone in their respective class has the same options of advancement. This isn't inherently problematic from a gameplay perspective, but they can all pretty much be molded into what you want them to be while you're able to carry the most desired characters into battle based on their personalities, rather than their skillsets. (ideally you'd balance both) In the aforementioned game there are two exceptions to take note of: Your Dog and Shale (a golem) both defy the class systems and have a skilltree of their own. As a Result no other companion can provide what they each provide, and vice versa. This makes them unique tactical party options. it also makes them more interesting. Games to this very day are still struggling with this very problem. If we look back, However, Planescape: Torment already did differentiate between companions & their mechanics in a big way. In planescape, the first companion you meet (and get forced to party up with) is a floating skull with, I believe one or two equipment slots, very similar to the Dog from Dragon Age in that respect. This skull, Morte, has a bunch of Unique-to-morte damage reductions as well as a taunt skill called Litanny of curses. If someone in the planes were to curse excessively, Morte would take notes (how?) and improve his taunt ability. Morte improves his attack if you manage to equip different sets of Teeth on him, and Morte can further improve his statistics through story elements and Dialogue choices, as well as the good ol` experience based levelling system. Morte is a Fighter by class, but unlike any other fighter. The next Fighter you meet is Dak'Kon. This guy is a Githzerai, a race who live in Limbo and place great emphasis on holistic knowledge and *knowing*. Anyway, this guy is actually a Fighter/Mage, but the way he operates is, he learns spells through advancing through dialogue choices involving the circles of zerthimon, if you manage to help him come to terms with the teachings of zerthimon you can further increase his stats, evolve his character bound weapon, and increase his arcane knowledge, as well as providing you, the Nameless One, with the ability to learn spells unique to this Gith, provided you're playing a mage. (and you should be) He, again, is nothing like the other companions. What both of the above have in common though, is that their advancement and unique traits are meshed into the game's story and dialogue mechanics as well as combat. They also aren't balanced perfectly in comparison to the other companions, and those two facts create a more immersive and interesting gaming experience. For the same reason Brothers: a tale of two sons was so well received. Making them diverse not only in dialogue and story, but also mechanics adds an extra layer of depth to characters, and increases player immersion and attachment to said characters. I'd like very much for this to be a bigger concern in Pillars of Eternity, as it is in my opinion, even more so than the expert writing, what sets planescape apart as a masterpiece even to this date.

Okay, so I couldn't find reference to this anywhere else. Do we know how starting attributes will be determined? Will it be a virtual 3d6 roll? Or a standardized point allocation system? Or something else? The reason I ask is because the problem I have with a simulated dice roll, is that I imagine most people will be clicking re-roll until they get suitably large amount of points to allocate to attributes. Is it worth admitting this and just say "everyone gets this many points for attributes"? Thoughts? Preferences?

We had a similar thread, but it seems to have sort of died off. So, instead of necro-ing a thread, I figured I'd just whip up a new one. This is for all those little ideas you get for things that could apply to P:E. Basically, not really super-in-depth discussion about how to design systems, or do things from the ground up, or whether or not to put in crafting, etc. Just various "I just happened to think of this" things. For instance, what I just thought of, whilst playing a game in which I ran into an "Investigate this area, and look for any clues to what happened/this person's whereabouts" situation, was this: How about having Perception (or perception-related skills/stats, abilites, etc.) affect your detection of clues in such a situation? The common thing I've seen is a big, blatant blood splotch on the terrain every 15 feet. And yet, people are all "Hmm... it's a mystery the details of what happened here. Who knows where this person might've been dragged off to?". So, what if your perceptive capabilities (your character's/party's, whatever) determined whether or not you find blood and/or other clues very close together, or very far apart? What I mean is, maybe you see blood, so you know to look generally in this direction. But then, there's not anything so blatant for another... I dunno.... 50ft? So, with good Perception, your character might notice broken branches/little bits of clothing, etc. You know... tracking-type clues. so, you'd say "Yep, they were here" about every 10 feet, because of your exceptional perception checks. But if you had crappy perception, you wouldn't be able to find any clues until the next big blatant one. Which, being decently far off, would have you actually searching around more before finding the exact trail something/someone took. This could work for blood, or really anything that would leave clues behind. And, obviously, some situations aren't going to be much of a mystery, and some situations are going to have easier-to-find clues than others. But, if there's any kind of Survival/Tracking-type skill at all in the game, or anything that could even partially cover that, I think it would be pretty great. Especially if there are going to be "Hey, I wonder what happened to this guy who went out into the woods" scenarios. Something a little more nuanced, instead of just "obviously there's a huge blood splotch on the ground every 10 feet... You can literally see like the next two, on the screen, within your sight range. No player would EVER not-know which way to go at ANY point in this entire 'search'." Please share your own miscellaneous ideas, as you think of them, and feel free to weigh in on individual ones. Although, if the discussion of a given idea gets pretty extensive, it'll probably be best to make a separate thread just for that idea/topic.

Hello, I am a big fan of not being a fan of floaty combat, magnetic weapons etc. Things like this may not bother everyone, but i know alot of people really hate it. It should really be a thing of the past by now. That is why i obviously think combat should be made impactful, and with this type of game i feel it should be easy to achieve. Impactful, what do you mean? A few examples; - Shield block: When a strike is blocked you can see the weapon hitting the shield, and the shield bearer receiving the impact. - Parry: both weapons hitting simultaneously, sparks flying - Humanios vs humanoid actions: If a rogue-character dealt the finishing blow on an opponent it could result in for instance a backstab animation (% chance of happening?). - X vs humanoid actions: Animation of a humanoid getting pinned (stunned) by a dog etc. - Spells resisted: Perhaps some sort of mental sphere pulsating for an instant. Many of these things was done successfully (to an extent) in DO:A (2009) Small things often have a very large effect! Also we need a voidwalker-ish thief/wizard class that can blink-backstab.

BASIC IDEA: - the longer you use a weapon the more accustomed you get to it. After a while you start getting familiarity bonuses, since the weapon has become an extension of yourself. Small bonuses to hit/defense? IMPLEMENTATION: - track familiarity value for each weapon? Seems simpler than tracking it on a per-character basis. Basicly, an arry with the characters ID and familiarity would be attached to each weapon. So if your PC used sword #158 for a while and then gave it to Forton, the sword would have two entries, for PC and Forton. Something like: ID000 150 <--- PC ID004 21 <---- some other party member The value to track to determine familiarity - number of sucesfull attacks? If it's kills it seems abusable (switch weapon when enemy is near death to get a kill) Since magical weapon would appear later in the game, this gives mundane weapons more utility, is somewhat realistic...and if you happen to get a magical weapon early.. SCORE! ADDEDNDUM: - weapon upgrades? - weapon customization? If you get to forge your own weapon (or better yet have a weapon forged for you) the abiltiy to customize it. Apperance wise, because of zoom there would be no need for a different model, but the icon and weapon description could differ. You can make a weapon unique in apperance. Also, maybe even sligtly different bonuses? If for example, you put parrying hooks on a sword you get a parry bonus. A bigger pommel foor more crushing damage/better balance? Etc... MUNDANE WEAPONS Should be viable for the entire game. A masterwork sword of high quality steel (or some other metal) may not be magical, but it would still be extreemly deadly. QUEST TIE-IN: Quests to make your own weapon or upgrade your existing one? Familiarity treshold necessary?

What does that mean? The player is given specific abilities to deal with situations. Then, the developer designs a level and realizes a player ability may trivialize whatever silly challenge they came up with. So, they weasel out that player ability by bypassing it in code or putting in some invisible trigger to shut it off. Example: The player is given a levitate spell, you hover a few feet off the ground and damage breaks the spell. Later, a level is designed with pits of fire. In testing levitate makes it a cake-walk. Now you could have fire fall from the sky in a patten that will break levitate; in which case the player has to figure that out. Or, the developer can weasel out the use of that ability all together by putting an invisible fire damage layer at the levitate height. The former doesn't bother me, the latter annoys me to no end. I've run across this twice in NWN2 now. I'm outside Ammon Jerro's haven and I need to get some water from a geyser. I read the lead in and it states that you need to be careful of the acid. What do I do? Why I have the gith cast Energy Immunity: Acid of course. What happens? I step in, 60 damage from "Acid (Magical)". I smell a weasel! Please don't do this sort of thing in PE. It's not challenging, it just gives me one more reason to think that non-DPS spells simply aren't worth keeping memorized. I mean, if it isn't going to work when I stop and think, "oh yea, I have a tool for that." Nope, sorry... that tool doesn't work as it makes it too easy. Really? Then why bother giving me tools at all? And, expecting me to waste slots on them if they're just going to get dodged by the code every time I realize one of them might be useful?

Since the Degenerate Gameplay thread is starting to... degenerate, I thought I'd raise one substantial point that came up in it. For those who missed the fun, background. It's been established that P:E will only have quest XP, rather than combat XP (à la Infinity Engine) or XP for doing things (à la KOTOR1/2). One substantive objection has been raised about this: "Assuming that combat consumes resources and stealth/non-combat doesn't, won't this create a systemic incentive for avoiding combat?" The answer to that objection is "Yes, it does," of course. And that would be bad, not to mention contrary to Josh Sawyer's explicitly stated design goal of crafting a system that does not systematically favor any approach over others. Which is why I think the problem should be addressed. For example, you could have minor loot drops that would roughly compensate for typical resources used to win that combat. Or you could impose resource costs on stealth and other non-combat activities. Here's a sketch for a stealth system with resource costs, as an example of how it could be done. 1 Moving while stealthed uses stamina. It regenerates when standing still. 2 Any character can enter stealth mode. 3 Any stealthed character has a chance of being spotted. 4 Heavy armor makes you easier to spot and increases the stamina cost. 5 Being a rogue or adding points to your sneak skill will make you harder to spot and will reduce the stamina cost of stealth. 6 Consumables exist to temporarily boost your sneak skill. These are used up when consumed. 7 Magic exists to temporarily boost your stealth. These take up your spell-caster's spell-casting capability. 8 Sneak buffs are incompatible with combat buffs. Use one, lose the other. Consequence: a party who decides to sneak through an enemy-infested area will have to do it pretty carefully. They'll trade off combat spells for stealth spells (7), have to acquire and use sneak buffs (6), forego combat buffs [8], and have to use light rather than heavy armor (4). Since they're avoiding combat, the cost of failure is very high -- if they're spotted (3), they'll very likely be in a tactically poor position, low on stamina (1), lightly armored (4), and un-buffed for combat [8]. If implemented this way, would stealth still sound like the systemically favored way to solve problems? If so, why? Would this kind of system be fun to play? Why or why not? Any other ideas? Discuss.

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?

There's a fair bit of discussion here about game balance and various subsystems, such as armor, weapons, dual-wielding etc. Josh Sawyer in particular has discussed the utility of skills a fair bit. Magic has been discussed a bit too. One thing that hasn't been done well in any cRPG I've played, though, is situational utility of combat skills (and equipment). I think it would be a great way to add variety to the gameplay and encourage creativity in character and party builds. By situational utility I mean making different types of combat skills be more or less effective in different situations, or against different opponents. I think this sort of thing would be relatively easy to model in a game system, and it would be pretty easy to have them contribute to the verisimilitude of the game as well. A few examples off the top of my head. Large weapons with lots of reach would work better against large creatures and beasts but be significantly hampered in confined spaces. Heavy armor gives a great deal of protection against damage but would take time to equip and would fatigue you more quickly, which means you would only be able to use it if you had time to prepare for combat, and you'd have to find a way to conserve or restore your stamina during combat if it dragged on. A character would need to be physically very strong and fit to be able to manage this, but would not need to be acrobatically nimble. On the other hand, dual-wielding two light weapons gives an advantage to feinting and parrying. This means it's more effective against human(oid)s, but less effective against beasts and suchlike. Dual-wielding requires higher dexterity, which means trading off something else, resulting in a particular type of fighter. His blows are light but precise, and his skills are honed for one-on-one duels with humans. Piercing weapons would be useless against unliving enemies, but perhaps more effective at getting through magical protection; firearms could be a more powerful version of the same, but with slow reload rates. You'd have a better chance against a battlemage with a gun and a rapier than with a longsword or a sling, but you'd be advised to bludgeon a skeleton or a golem into submission rather than trying to ineffectively poke holes into it. If the game system had these types of complexities, and a variety of combat challenges to match them, it would make party and character-building very interesting. One party could be a collection of specialists, with the one with the right skills taking point in each encounter and the others moving to support her; another could go for a set of well-rounded characters able to perform at their best in most situations, and would use that tactically to their advantage. Both would be viable strategies for victory, but would require very different tactics. Additionally, no build would be objectively better in all circumstances. Our nimble dual-wielding Scaramouche might be able to best heavily-armored Sir George of Joustalot in a duel, with a skilful stab in a vulnerable spot -- but Sir George would run a raging magic giant wild boar right through with his lance where Scaramouche's best bet for survival would be to climb a tree. N.b.: I'm not arguing for any of these mechanics specifically; rather, I would like to see a system of mechanics balanced out to function differently in different circumstances. I don't really care about the details. Thoughts?

Hello, I'd like to talk a bit about the flow of combat or more specifically combat speed. I believe this is intricately tied to the mechanics, so it's probably better discussed now than later. I think that extremes are unfeasible: If combat is too fast, I foresee two outcomes. Either it will become very twitchy (fast reactions and command giving; think competitive strategies) or it will require pausing the game very often. While this is basically the essence of real-time with pause I believe it can detract from game play as well as aesthetics if it's TOO often. As a practical example of a game in which combat was not cohesive with the rest of gameplay (perhaps due to my expectations) I would give DA2 in which I often got that "adrenaline-y" feeling while killing stuff, then just running forward to the next encounter, like I was doing in Torchlight. Or if you want to try and recreate the "too much pausing" feeling, play an IE game at higher FPS (AI updates/s). On the other hand if it's too slow, combat can seem stretched and frustrating (unintentionally so). I don't really have any game with this at the top of my head, but let's say IWD2 at the lower levels. You know, when you have little to no special attacks/spells and just have to whack some orcs over the head (or rather whack the air around them) for what seems to be an eternity. I personally didn't find it too engaging to just set it on attack and wait until something dies... What are the tools to balance this? The first would be time units. In IE games we have so-called personal rounds, which are to my understanding closed time intervals in which the character can act between movements. These define the maximum possible actions of a character over a certain period of time. Time is neatly stored in small packets, the length of which can then be manipulated to achieve the desired effect. There were conflicts when the rules would require more than physically possible to show, but I think with a new ruleset that can be avoided. Something more specific would be attack rolls (rules?). 10 attacks per round with a 5% chance to connect with each would be just annoying to me. Conversely making every attack connect is much simpler, but may have other drawbacks (lessened "realism", the loss of a layer of gameplay,...) Hand in hand with this I would put damage done and enemy HP. Perhaps it's a matter of personal taste, but it throws off my suspension of disbelief, when the PC is a high dmg/low hp thing and the enemies low dmg/high hp punching bags. I believe the same rules should apply to everything within a world, not have them separate for the player. However, yes, it's pretty obvious that these can be easily manipulated for different combat speeds. Not so direct - combat actions available to the player. There is probably no one on this board that would say that too many options is a bad thing (me included). Yet I also believe this is a non-trivial question. The more optimal players will use everything at their disposal. The more direct players will not. This can prove to be a divide in player experiences (resulting in complaining and "you're not playing it right" retorts) and while I don't think that the game has to be "accessible" (as it is often presented), I believe it should offer some uniformity (at least in the broad sense). Now games have always had a few ways of handling this, the foremost being (companion) AI. Besides difficulty, AI can also influence the flow of combat for the player, how often pausing is needed and how often some repetitive orders need to be issued. I consider AI to be a cover for the people that want to be less involved, or just be there to lessen the load of the more involved ones, providing a closer experience. Even better programmable AI - I thoroughly enjoyed the "Tactics" in the DA line. However there is in my opinion a big issue with companions doing stuff automatically in a game such as PE (or IE engine) and that is the usage of finite resources (assuming you can't rest every 10 feet). In these games the player cannot just look at each encounter individually, but must take in consideration a whole series of them and perhaps even have some extra resources "just in case". This simply cannot be done effectively artificially. I believe the number of classes we have can be exploited to some extent here, transferring some micromanagement around or at least limiting it. Some classes can be perhaps intentionally more involved for advanced players, however I suspect that wouldn't be met with much enthusiasm (dividing players). Action duration. A balanced and diverse approach would work well here I guess, with some things taking longer than others to accomplish. I can't really say what would be ideal as this would require specific times and information. I see this as a big and important part though, affecting a lot of strategic aspects. The only thing I would add is that I would like to see consistency throughout the adventure - not 5 times faster swinging at high levels. That's about it from me, post your thoughts .

I've been thinking about this question and I have read some previous discussions/arguments erupting due to what I believe are disagreements in what a class should be defined as. The discussion on "Monks" and especially Forton has made me continue to think about this, and I wanted to see what Obsidian has to say on the matter: What defines a class? What makes one character in your world a different class than another character? From the definitions provided, they seem to be descriptions for a career path or a mental state that a character would be. But I can't be sure how exactly you are distinguishing between your classes. Are they distinguished by the skills they can have? By their combat styles? Philosophies or personalities of these characters? Any information on this would be really beneficial to us, the players. The reason I bring this up is because sometimes the distinction between classes are very vague, and often, different criteria distinguishes between classes (as opposed to a singular criteria effective across all classes). It's easy to distinguish between a fighter and a wizard, but the same criteria cannot be used to distinguish between a fighter, a monk, and a barbarian. The same thing occurs with a rogue and a ranger. Monks, especially, are the product of a philosophy fit into a combat style within a specific culture. No other class really is described this way. As I said in another thread, I hope the devs can articulate these distinctions to us and utilize one definition for the word "class" and define their classes by distinguishing between them through that singular lens so that a lot of these arguments between what a paladin or a monk mean can be better understood by us the players. D&D, because it is a game that has evolved through each new edition has had its definitions diluted, corrupted and sometimes made backward-incompatible, has made convoluted descriptions that are difficult to understand. When starting a completely new IP and gameworld, we do not have to work with these adulterated definitions. We should be clear about what we mean.

The only game that I've had experience with crafting is Arcanum. I haven't played many of the new RPGs (lack of money, and honestly, these forums don't really have glowing reviews about them in any case) and so I'm not really sure how crafting has been implemented in newer games. I guess FO:NV is the only game that I wish to play and that crafting is involved in it. I haven't really read much from the devs about crafting and enchantment. Are there any mechanics specifics that someone out there can provide? I also am interested in opening up the discussion towards crafting mechanics that you guys have enjoyed in the past and that you'd like to see implemented in this game. What are some crafting elements that you've enjoyed and some that you don't think should make it into the game. From what I understand with Fallout:NV, it seems a lot of the crafting is directed at ammo creation and a few weapons, "potions". One of the crafting mechanics that I really enjoyed was Arcanum's crafting mechanic of both having to upgrade your technical skill in a field and also having to find schematics to help create new items. The fact that there were 8 fields of study made it impossible to become an expert in all the fields, and would only come in multiple replays of the game. I would like that to be done in PE as well. From what I understand with Fallout:NV you only have survival skills, explosive skills, and science skills that much matter. I'd like it to be a little more involved than that. Baldur's Gate 2 also had a nice "Cromwell's smithy" mechanic where if you found certain otherwise useless items, cromwell the blacksmith could make some legendary items for you. I never really used any of them (most of the epic items you had to kill bosses for: e.g. Holy Avenger), but that was a good mechanic too, although very much less involved. I'm not even sure you could call it crafting. Anyway, what things have you guys enjoyed in previous crafting mechanics? What would you like changed? Any interesting ideas that you think the PE team might want to explore?

Personally I am afraid PE would to repeat a Dragon age 2 situation, where two-handed weapons were the fastest in the game. Even faster than dual daggers. I don't want to see another DA2 and Devil May Cry-like 2-handed weapons that weight like feather and able to slash 8367 times per second. I know 2-H swords were not a massive things and were actually rather lightweight and flexible weapons, but if we have MASSIVE weapons, like clubs, sledgehammers, mauls or such, then I think it'll be reasonable for them to act like one. Especially with that fantasy addiction for weapons with the blades the size of the character! One example of fictional overly-massive cleaver I am not annoyed with: In this animation - I can feel the inertion and weight of this cleaver even when handled by insanely strong Pyramid Head. I suppose PE may have a race that is stronger than humans and thus can handle massive weapons easier, but still, please, take weight in consideration! Reason for my fear is this: http://youtu.be/M0chqZWxTQ4

So I've been reading the different arguments for and against Vancian magic (sp?) and cool-down based, stamina based, and other metrics based magics. I wanted to propose another possible mechanism. I will lay out the problems as I see them, and then lay out my solution. Finally, I will try to address how this solution answers the problems as laid out. If you are not interested in reading the whole thing, look for the yellow text. The Aspects of Vancian magic (and its problems as outcomes): 1- The one-time use of memorized magic severely limits the magic-user to only using a limited number of spells per rest. This is done so as to make magic-use challenging and tactical. This is not a problem. 2- Because no player has complete knowledge of the challenges he will face in a dungeon/battle it proves difficult for the magic-user to know whether they should become involved (magically) in that particular battle. If they do, they might use up spells that may be necessary for a future battle (possibly just around the corner). Players will save even rudimentary first-level spells "for the right moment" and completely neglect one aspect of their combat choices completely. 3- However, the party is in need of a combat-ready member, and thus magic-users are relegated either to "stone-throwing duty" or heavy-magic users in parties who are "rest-spammers." This breaks the magic mechanics and side-steps the limitations put there in the first place. The Problems with "metrics-based" (cool-down/stamina/mana) magic: 1- Magic becomes more of an option for a magic user. As the risks of using magic decreases, magic-users are more likely to make this an option in combat. This is also not a problem, and is what the developers (probably) want. 2- However, the magic-user is no longer limited to a per-rest restraint, but more of a per-battle restraint. That is to say that with the end of each battle, the party can effectively wait long enough to "cool-down" the magic user so as to get into battle again. 2- This waiting time removes the player from immersion if he/she chooses to wait until the magic-user's cool-down is complete. 3- Further, because spells are (mostly) limited to a per-battle restraint, the management of spells over a series of battles no longer plays a role. Thus if two smaller battles of low-challenge monsters arrives (two camps of 8-10 goblins 2 minutes apart), the magic-user will always be ready to unleash those spells that are cool-down sensitive. Lower-tier spells are no longer an issue over multiple battles. 4- These problems are similar to all self-recharging mechanics (stamina, mana). Ultimately, the same players who rest-spammed, will now effectively wait-spam until their magic-users are fully recharged (to the best of their abilities). This will remove those same players from immersion. There are likely other problems that I have not considered, so please let me know. I have tried to summarize the general gist of most reactions to these systems. ----------------------------------------------------------- This solution to this problem actually comes from an intelligent application of the Vancian system in Baldur's Gate II (an IE game) to create a challenge in both resource-management as well as effective magic-usage. In the game, Baldur's Gate II:Throne of Bhaal, during the final arena with the boss (Melissan), the player is not allowed to rest (you are in another plane of existance, you cannot rest at all), and thus magic becomes a very limited resource. However, you need to use magic (and strong magic at that!) to weaken the boss before you can even fight her, by fighting monsters that are unleashed from "spirit pools". As you defeat each group of monsters and unlock each pool, two of the three pools "restore" your party as if you are resting. Thus they act as "rest-areas" without you actually resting for 8 hours and they restore your magic during that time. However, the spirit pools are one-time use only. Thus these pools become a very limited and precious resource and there is no opportunity to spam rest or spam wait. If you do not use magic, these spirit pools are useless (forcing the player to use magic). So it seems simple enough, instead of letting "resting" restore your magic use (or stamina or mana, etc), utilize specific "spirit pools" found all throughout the P:E to restore the magic. It actually also makes more sense, from a lore perspective - I get into that at the end of this post. The "pools" act like the D&D spell "Wish" where you can restore your parties magic completely. The pools are on a cool-down (every 8 hours) and several pools can be found in a dungeon (they are spread all throughout the P:E world). Perhaps, some merchants have taken the waters of these pools and sell them to adventurers. These "potions of restoration" act like the D&D cleric's level 6 spell "wonderous recall." They allow some (random) of your soul-powered spells to return to you, so as to allow magic-users to cast these spells again. Perhaps some spirit pools allow partial rejuvination, and some only allow certain schools of magic to be restored (Spirit Pool of Divination - only allows divination spells to be restored). This allows for much more interesting combinations of restoration and more interesting puzzles and challenges in dungeons. Again you can have partial restoration through potions (Potion from the spirit pool of divination). I will now go through the problems as stated before and show how this mechanic solves these problems. 1- Vancian magic: Players will save even rudimentary first-level spells "for the right moment" and completely neglect one aspect of their combat choices completely. The player now no longer has a reason to save his or her spells. As long as the player can manage his/her resources until the next pool, s/he can utilize their spells to the most tactically advantageous way possible. If they don't use it, they lose it as they reach the next pool (all spells are restored, regardless if used or not.) 2- Removes the player from immersion The player is now even more immersed in the game, as they try to figure out (through a skill perhaps?) what kind of spirit pool they have uncovered, whether it would be best to save this pool for later use, etc and they are kept on their toes as their try to fight past monsters to get to the next "spirit pool." This continues to keep the player thinking about resource management. 3- Vancian magic-users are relegated either to "stone-throwing duty" or heavy-magic users in parties who are "rest-spammers." Magic-users can now take their proper role as magic-users. If they do not do so, they will miss their chance to use magic in between spirit pools. 1- Cooldowns: The party can effectively wait long enough to "cool-down" the magic user so as to get into battle again. The restoration of magic is no longer dependent on wait-times and cool-downs. The concern of "dumbing down the game" is removed as players are forced to once again manage resources and spells as before in the Vancian system. 3- Cooldown: The management of spells over a series of battles no longer plays a role Resource management continues to be a factor between spirit pools. Players are forced to consider that they might not find a pool for long periods of time or that there might be another pool a short distance away. Sneaking and information gather through rogues become more important. They become effective as scouts looking out for enemies as well as trying to find the next spirit pool. Even then, perhaps the next spirit pool might only restore certain spells. For those who do not manage their spells effectively, they will be forced to carry potions of spiritual restoration and hope that the spell they want is restored. Players are punished for lax play, and rewarded for strategic play over several battles. 4- Cooldown: Lower-tier spells are no longer an issue over multiple battles Once again, lower-tier spells are an issue for multiple battles. Players cannot spam level 3 flaming arrows and wait for them to cool-down between fights. Perhaps a few level one spells can continue to be on cool-down (or maybe potions would have to restore them), but these tweaks can be made over time and with enough play-testing a proper balance can be found. LORE It never made much sense (in D&D) that magic spells were memorized each morning and forgotten after being used. It also didn't make much sense that by resting you would restore these spells. I would imagine that the magic-user was not resting but rather spending his 8 hours in camp memorizing new spells. Not quite the restful break for the magician. In P:E, magic-use and its derivatives (apart from chanters?) are linked to channeling the spirits in some way. Thus as each person in this world channels their spirit in this world, they are likely to weaken this link in some way. However, spread all throughout the world are "pools" or portals in which the links to the spirits and people is much stronger and this link can be strengthened at these pools. However, the pools can only be used every so-often as the energies emanating from these pools gets used up. Over time, the energies in these pools recharge and allow people to "refresh" their links with their souls. Some merchants have tried to make a profit from this, as many pools found inside the cities are protected or bought (and can be found only in the hands of the very wealthy). These merchants have asked adventurers going out on their journeys to gather the waters of these pools and to return them to the merchants. The price paid for these waters is good, but purchasing these waters is quite expensive (merchants need to make a profit afterall). What do you guys think? Please forgive any spelling or grammatical mistakes.

I am currently doing my own playthrough of Icewind Dale 2 and I am noticing a few game mechanics (mostly UI) that I really think hold up and are superior to NWN2 (played Storm of Zethir recently). These mechanics actually make the playthrough much more relaxed and gives it a more tabletop feel IMO. RTS feel to the map controls. Scrolling on window edges and ability to scroll to places where you party is not. Party is not always "centered" on the map. (Camera follows you everywhere in NWN2) Minimap. You can double click on any point on the minimap and then click to have your party move there. Fixed view. Not only is developing for a fixed view less time consuming, I honestly dont find the moveable camera that useful in a party based game. When playing NWN2, I generally like to keep the camera at a tactical view and I hate when it changes orientations during transitions. What kinds of mechanics do you think are superior to perhaps modern iterations and would like to see again in PE?

I've seen a number of threads on what type of magic system people would prefer and most of them seem to be following the standard tropes. However, a few years ago I ran into a Mana Based homebrew for D&D 3.5 that did some really interesting and inovative things and that I think could work really well for this kind of game. For those of you who don't want to follow the link; the basic premise of this system was that, rather than gaining a huge pool of mana so you could pay for increasingly more costly spells as you leveled, your mana pool would be kept relatively tiny and the cost of spells would actually decrease. This was accomplished by setting there pool equal to your primary casting stat + your level + your con-mod* and providing a level based chart for spell costs. While this means that your pool would increase a bit over the course of play, you'd have to be really trying in order to break 60 points by level 20; which is nothing compared to the 232 points the official mod gave to wizards. The first outcome of this is that you get a really smooth and easily controlled power curve. Since a character's resources aren't going to change to much you can make sure that they're always able to cast a similar number of level appropriate spells, so at level 1 they're not going to fire two magic missiles and then switch over to a crossbow and at level 20 they're still not going to be able to spam Dragon Slay. Yes this does mean that eventually the cost of lower level spells goes down to zero, but this isn't actually a problem. The thing is, when you're fighting Cthulhu, nobody cares if you can cast an infinite number of fireballs; it just isn't relevant. One of the other interesting things this does is let you put a reasonable limit on the number of different spells a single character has access to at any given time. If you rely on the limited casting of a Vancian Magic system then you have to eventually give the player many spell slots; which they might, reasonably, choose to fill with many different spells. This seems detrimental to play for three different reasons. It encourages the bars of abilities found in games like WoW. These take up a good amount of space on the screen and break immersion (especially if you're controlling them via mouse). Having a large number of spells that have to be fit into premade slots of fixed level actually hampers experimentation and tactical play. The reason for this is simply one of numbers and effort. When given a relatively large number of choices it becomes significantly easier to repeat a small number of good selections as many times as necessary. Ironically, they're still likely to have a spell for almost any given situation on-hand or, failing that, enough generic spells to bludgeon most monsters into submission based on sheer weight of magic. Having discreet chunks of spell power makes gradual recovery harder since you have to come up with a scheme that's more complex or cumbersome than "the number slowly ticks up". While it can be done, this tends to encourage all-or-nothing recovery and, since no one want's to play while their favorite character has been rendered all but useless, this tends to encourage the five minute work day. With this system your power isn't determined so heavily by the variety of spells you have (in fact, there could be some advantages to purposely limiting your selection) . When combined with Grimoire this opens some interesting possibilities. One way of doing it would be to tie your spells to a Grimoire; under this system you could have trade offs between the number of spells it holds (capping at maybe 5 for one-handed spell books and 7 for two-handed ones) and other attributes like mana cost, strength and casting speed. Alternatively, if you wanted to take a page from demon souls, you could have the number of spells available be determined by a secondary stat; which would help discourage S.A.D. and allow Grimoires to effect spells on a more fundamental level (rather than just making spells faster or stronger the Book of Ra might convert all spells into fire spells while the Book of the Shattered Prism might multiply all projectile spells). And, of course, there's nothing to say you can't do both. After all, there will be more than one casting class. The last thing this sort of mana system does is bring mages more into line with mundane classes. Normally Mages get a completely unique mechanic (like vancian magic) or a completely new stat (like mana) while mundane characters either get to use their abilities for free or use stamina. The problem with this is it leave the mages playing a slightly different game. This can make balancing the two types of classes hard (just look at D&D 3.5) and, on a more interesting note, this makes it hard for mundanes to gain magical abilities and for mages to gain non-magical abilities. What tends to happen is either the character is free to use abuse the ability as much as they want , because the resource it draws on isn't used for anything else) or they can't use it a relevant number of times, because they haven't invested or couldn't invest in it. With this sort of system, there's no reason "mana" couldn't be some form of stamina that gets used by all of the classes. In fact, that would go along way towards explaining how some of the more impressive physical feats are performed and just what HP is. Right, I guess that's all I have to say for now; so, does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Hey kid, we have different stories about it. What do you think about building storyline mechanics with respect to different difficulty options? I mean that gameplay would vary not only in difficulty, but in storyline or amount of quests that player receive. It may look like developer have to build handful unique stories and will demand double of money and HR. My idea is to build one complete main plot and set of side stories/quests, and until certain difficulty modes (suppose those 3 special most difficult goals) player wont get all side quests (developers may even randomize offered set) and may be restricted to go through some predefined shortcuts of main story. Another possibility (along with hiding some secondary quests) will just end main plot and propose to continue (or even restart) on full difficulty to see extension of story. P.S.: I know that this may require additional funds, however perhaps not as many compared to the interest shown by players. Many games struggle to attend audience more than once. Such feature may add motivation, and different gaming experience. Instead of single pass, players will become interested to go through the game again. And of course, adding more arbitrariness of gameplay will reduce significance of pass-through "manuals" which will inevitably rise over the internet with time.

First and foremost, this is not a dig or a complaint about the current up-in-the-air spellcasting system that Josh Sawyer has been talking about on the forums and on his formspring account. This is a discussion where we can discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages, and perhaps unforseen problems with it. I've just come fresh from a lavatory session where as you all know, many ideas and realizations come from, and this particular unintentional feature of the system kept bugging me, so I thought I'd bring it to the forums. for some history, here is Josh's recent formspring post concerning spellcasting This sounds pretty good. It's in the same vein as the vancian D&D style system we all know (and love?), but attempting to resolve some of the issues with it on RTWP PC games. One problem I can see though is this (and it's all relative to other game mechanics, so it may not actually be an issue): Let's use Sawyer's example. Party is getting ready for the main encounter to a quest which they have decided to solve through battle. It has been the party's experience that these types of encounters tend to last between 1-2 minutes realtime not including paused time. To get the maximum spell-casting efficiency out of Aloth, the player has him expend all of his 3rd-level spells immediately at the start of the fight so that he has the opportunity to cast all of those again by the time the fight ends. He then (with exceptions where needed) casts all second level spells and first level spells to make maximum use of the lockouts. The issue here is that the optimal method of spellcasting may be casting spells all same level spells together in a sequential order and or spell levels in a sequential order (up or down), which does not make combat that tactical really. However this issue is tied to the time encounters take, the lockout times of spell levels, what spells are available in the grimoire and how many spells of a level a grimoire holds, the developers may be able to fix this problem. What do you guys think?

Does anyone know the frame rate capabilities of the Unity Engine? I wouldn't mind being able to run this game at 120FPS+ Although these days despite technology not really getting any better, the frame rates of games are getting worse due to crappy engines, sloppy coding / design

Nope, this isn't a thread demanding answers about how awesome crafting and enchanting will be, or how will souls augment an epic weapon, but rather I wanted to talk about how much information should we the player get about magic items as we play through it? One of the weaknesses of RPGs with lots of explicit mechanics and lots and lots of explicit detail is that sometimes all of that lore and all of those numbers go so deep and is so precise that it removes any sense of discovery or mystery. It's like when you played in a PnP game as a teenager and finally got your hands on the Dungeon Master's guide and poured over the magic items list, or picked up the Forgotten Realms source book, just because it was so much fun to read ... and then you knew without a doubt that weapons did X amount of damage, and had Y powers and if you found one, you'd give it to your ranger who specialized in whatever that weapon was best at fighting and from then on, a magic item was just a collection of numbers, statistics and dice adjustment. Personally I think it would be refreshing if magic items, even after identification, just had textual descriptions of their history and possibly rumored powers but only through trial and error or long use do full extent of powers get revealed. I played in a long running PnP game where the DM used this mechanic to great affect, It was admittedly a low magic world, where everything could be kept from the player and managed behind the screen, but it really did enhance the game play and sense of wonder that we had. Could this work or is it just too extreme and would it just drive people bonkers?

Something I haven't seen much discussion on is the aspects of Death in Project Eternity. What is your opinion on death mechanisms? Would you prefer a Baldur's Gate style? or a more forgiving style? This is something I'd be interested in hearing about in an update (if Josh and the team have made any decisions on which angle they're going to go for the death system). I'd like to know whether it will be a brutal death system like Baldur's Gate or a more forgiving KotOR-like style. Perhaps they're going to use different systems on different difficulties? For example, on Expert or Heart of Fury mode, the BG style death? I think I'd enjoy the game if it used a KotOR style death system with party-joinable NPC deaths related to the story or as consequences of my choices in the game (but with some degree of avoidability, for instance, not a if you pick this option, Ashley Williams dies a la Mass Effect). if they're going that route that would be fine. However I wouldn't mind a harsh system like Baldur's Gate as well, that would also be fine. Do you think death should be permanent in Project Eternity? Should a Raise Dead or Ressurection spell exist?

The topic of the class system has been on my mind given how update 7 actually significantly changes the traditional structure of the DnD system, and given that this system has more classes than many other RPGs(I think we're now at 7), I think that the topic of classes would be a really interesting one to explore, especially given how it touches issues of the magical system. The way that update 7 changes things is that it abolishes the skill-monkey class while keeping the skills, which is a really cool thing. I just want to bounce ideas around though, and I hope I'm not repeating too much that's been said. Here's some ideas for conceiving of a possible set of classes: * 2 or 3 core magic classes(I've thrown around ideas in another thread on magic) http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60372-vancian-magic-system/page__st__160?do=findComment&comment=1203875 DarkWaterSong did similarly above me. * Brute (in DnD terms: fighter, barbarian.) Heavy armor, heavy weapons, high strength and constitution build. * Monk (in DnD/NWN2 terms: monk, weaponmaster, swashbuckler/duelist, maybe some paladin features.) None to medium armor. None to medium weapons. Build uses dexterity and some vaguely magical stat. Special talents focus on high skill or magical attunement, and perhaps a lot of surprises. Conceptually a martial artist. * Magic Knight (In DnD terms: Eldritch Knight, sort of like a Paladin or Ranger, but less nerfed on magic.) Light armor, but maybe heavy given the backstory. Any weapon. spellcaster/warrior with some of both sets of abilities. May not be needed if multiclassing and magic system set up a certain way * Assassin (In DnD terms: Thug variant fighter, rogue/fighter, etc.) Light-Medium armor. Light to medium weapon. Focus on misdirection, high damage precision, possibly ranged attacks, poison, invisibility, finesse. Build uses very high dexterity. * Bard (in DnD terms: Bard.) Light-medium armor. Light-medium weapons. Support class. Focus on misdirection, buffing, information, ranged support, perhaps some magic. Just some thoughts, but feel free to throw things around or criticize. The point is getting what kind of conceptions people would think would be interesting for a class system. Like the degree of magic for classes. How bizarre or conventional the classes should be. Etc.