The Bad Things about the Classics and a little more

[TomSuperpatriot]

First thanks and good luck Obsidian. Played the crap out of every inspiration game mentioned and I have my fingers crossed you can capture any of that magic again, even bought Alpha Protocol after bad reviews because I love what you guys are trying to do, New Vegas was ten times better than FO3 btw.

 

Please excuse the late night tired ramblings of an overgrown boy Soldier stuck in Afghanistan but my connection sucks and am tired so I haven't read through every topic so I'm sure a lot of this has been discussed but I am super excited and want to throw my 2 cents in.

 

Bad things about the classics:

 

-Often abused rest mechanic. Lots of different ways to go about it, depends on how you are building the game. Personally suggest borrowing a few ideas from D&D 4th Edition, especially the basic concept of at-will attacks for mages.

 

-Battles after conversations that prevent pre-buffing which would then require re-loading and pre-buffing like crazy to win. Suggestions, take a good hard look at how buffing works, it can be fun, especially when doing something like figuring out to cast protection from a certain school of magic when Kangaxx the Lich Skull keeps casting imprisonment on you or Mindflayers try to stun you over and over. If buffing is going to be a big part of a character's abilities then think about how to more immersively make them useful. Also things like contingency spells or spell sequencers with a little more robustness would be good.

 

-Over abundance of money, or lack of good purchasing options, however you want to fix it, some good thoughts on it out there.

 

-BAD romances (BG 2 has probably been the only game to do romances well since Witcher 2 that I've played). Make a few good ones, if there isn't one that suits every single person's tastes than too bad, it could be a very useful and emotional plot tool if done right.

 

-Over chaotic battles, especially magically. Too many spells had the same casting animations/effects and it often got pretty confusing about what spells were actually cast and what to do about it. Tactical pausing allowing you to utilize your mage's knowledge to identify spell effects being cast or already cast would be nice. Possible cool feature would be to have casting effects appear more generic unless you have the perquisite skill or feat/ability.

 

-Don't tell me I'm losing a fight for plot purposes when I'm clearly not. Yes after multiple play-thrus I was experienced and crushing Irenicus and Malak in the early fights against them, only to be told I wasn't really because the plot dictated it.

 

-Auto-reviving companions. Yes healing could be a chore casting heal spells over and over but actually having to drag someone's body to be rezzed in BG 1 was kind of awesome, similarly awesome if a trusted companion was obliterated by a critical hit (yes it would probly result in a reload but that is up to the player's tastes IMHO).

 

-Terrible lack of application for magic outside of combat, especially when there was such great role-playing source material to draw from. Also a terrible lack of combat abilities/spells on non-combat situations. Burning/blasting a door open or something.

 

-Trade-offs between combat abilities and non-combat abilities. Always hated having to put my points into Big Guns or Doctor/Lockpick/Whatever. Personally suggest limiting the players choices, maybe 1 point per level for combat abilities and one point per level for non-combat abilities, some may call that too limiting but I'd consider it a gentle nudge in a better direction.

 

-Not really a fault of the games of the time given the technology but implementing physics and material systems could greatly improve the game. Destructible terrain is just awesome even if the actual in game practical implications are limited.

 

-Back-stabbing/thieves. A really great character class and game mechanic that is very crippled by the RTS pause style of BG/NWN. Flanking was arbitrary, ranged sneak attacks all but non-existent (I think?). I am encouraged by the talk I've heard about not having to fit another game's mechanics into a different computer style and hope that this will be reflected in the combat system.

 

-Omniscient guards/crime reporting/dumb behavior. Lots of games have struggled with this. The faction/regional reputation system is a good first step on this but please put some effort in this, with good logic for reporting crimes and intelligent fight/flight behavior for civilians when appropriate.

 

-Lack of variety for fighters. Something I like about DnD 4 was the attempt to give more tactical options to fighters other than basic attack. But please no bland WoW/Dragon Age cooldown abilities. Grappling? Buying for time fighting stance to hold that wave of goblins off your mage? Formations that matter and actually stop enemies from running straight to your archer/mage would be nice too obviously.

 

-Lack of area of effect templates, yah it made launching that fireball more difficult when you missed or clipped your fighters with it but I personally prefer having that information to make better tactical decisions.

 

Recent RPG Annoyances

 

-Branching quests for the sake of branching, less of a problem in BG/Fallout/Planescape but a big issue I have with a lot of the modern RPGs. Often the different options all obviously lead to the exact same place and break immersion. Often branches seem tacked on just to have everything covered. Write quests that you feel in your heart are good, if you can find good options include them and if not ok, I'd rather play through one well written quest with one path than a mediocre written quest with 8 paths.

 

-Drown with choices. Similar to above. I don't mind being a LITTLE limited by class/race/whatever in terms of quests/dialog/whatever, it helps replay. But it is worth pointing out that I probably

played through Fallout 1&2 and BG 1&2 and KOTORs several times making almost identical decisions because the game was GOOD.

 

-Too much micro-grinding and tedious crafting. Crafting can be cool but I think can speak for a lot of your target demographic that we are all adults now (I played sick for days when I got Fallout 2 in high school) and we don't have 4 hours a day to spend grinding to make items.

 

-Instant free for all fast travel. IMHO Morrowind had one of the best traveling systems ever created. As you gained experience, both in terms of your personal knowledge of the game and access to items/magic, you gained more fast travel options. If I was in the mage's guild I could teleport to other guilds, if I knew the routes of the flying jelly-fish monsters I could plan trips accordingly. If I became badass I could mark/recall. The developers carefully gave you more and more fast transport options as you as a player were getting more sick of having to walk. It felt like a well earned reward, instead of instantly being able to fast travel everywhere which to me is just a lazy way of solving the issue.

 

-Enemy level scaling. See Oblivion. Lazy game design that robs me of my sense of accomplishment and shatters immersion.

 

-Fake uniqueness. When I see two NPCs with the same name standing next to each other, neither of whom has anything to say other than flavor/background one liners it kills my suspension of disbelief. I'd much prefer "Guard" or "Townsperson", yes it can make the one named NPC who has something to say more obvious but is that so bad? Focus the player in on the dialog you have created, don't make me waste my limited gaming time searching for the right guy to talk to.

 

Great things

 

-Carefully planned progression in terms of acquiring items. Finding my first set of plate mail in BG was a great feeling. Finding my first Combat Armor in the bottom of the Glow in Fallout was great, not to mention finally getting my own power armor. The game showed me those things, showed me I wanted them and then made me earn them and it was great when I did. Compare this with finding a randomly generated mini-gun at level 5 in Fallout 3.

 

-BG had a really great main quest line that was at once both broad to fit all possible player class/race choices, and very personal. To me this was a really key element of the game's greatness, similar with KOTORs. In the end the main quest was intensely personal. It sounds like PE is going more that route and I say good.

 

-Obviously some great and memorable characters.

 

-Tons of great side quests, especially BG2 had some truly epic adventuring going on outside of the main plot line.

 

-Let me "abuse" some mechanics for awesome effects. Biggest example I can think of this is double-crossing both the mob boss (Gizmo?) and sherrif in Junktown of Fallout 1. Let them both kill each other off and come out with all the loot/reward, what a great feeling when I finally pulled that off.

 

-Awesome dialog. Planescape had just fantastic dialog choices almost all of the time. A lot of it probably didn't change to much about the game but it was great having a dialog choice that really just FELT like what you wanted to say. I can also specifically telling a drug dealing gang banger in Fallout 2 to shut-up and leave me alone or I would "Get angry on your face" and almost dying laughing. Dialog that complemented those power-trip fantasy feelings we all love in RPGs.

 

-Imagination brought on by scale. To me the pulled back isometric view lets my imagination fill in all the details. Don't let me zoom in to see my sword's 2000 pixel high resness. Let me see that new sword I found looks different, but from afar. My imagination makes that sword look more awesome than any artist can, especially if it has some great inventory flavor text.

 

-Great satisfying animations in combat. Peppering someone with bullets in Fallout 1/2 was so great. Even the critical hit gib/camera shake of BG was cool. I'd suggest adding things like severing limbs and some physics to make combat even more satisfying.

 

-Great ending to BG2:ToB, with cool write-ups for each character in your party about where they went afterwards, closed it up nicely. Same thing for Fallout 2.

 

Good luck, I'll be Kickstarting once I get on a more secure net!

[Tocath]

+1 to all points. Spot on.

[Monte Carlo]

Apart from romances I'm pretty much in agreement with all of this.

[Tale]

Ahh, conversations and buffing. Another opportunity for me to promote my stupid idea.

 

Conversations need to stop taking people hostage. The bad guy talks, the player can act. So while he's giving his longwinded speech, you're buffing up. Maybe it could check after every "page" or so and see if the talker wants to react. See if he decides to cut his speech short and start fighting. Maybe the bad guy does his buffing here too, encouraging people to shoot first, talk later. Resulting in hilarity when you kill people whose only crime was stoneskin.

 

Second best option is time stands still. So your buffs can't run out just because the guy talked your ear off. But people might not be happy on that.

 

 

I think we're undoubtedly going to get romances, so I better stop fighting that battle. Having bad romances sounds interesting enough in its own right. And it seems consistent with that Sawyer post from a few years ago.

[Shadenuat]

Tactical pausing allowing you to utilize your mage's knowledge to identify spell effects being cast or already cast would be nice.

I believe that was in NWN. Character without Spellcraft would read from bar "...casts unknown spell", while someone with it read spell's name.

 

I'd much prefer "Guard" or "Townsperson", yes it can make the one named NPC who has something to say more obvious but is that so bad?

I agree. Throwing dozen of guards into fantasy name generator is just overdoing it.

[smithereen]

This thread is a good excuse to whine and prosylatize! There should be,

 

1. Some sense of urgency. Please, God, no resting after every battle, and especially don't let me rest after every battle excect when I arbitrarily can't.

 

1.a See also: Fast Travel

 

2. Some consequence for gameplay failure other than tedium. Maybe no "permadeth" mode, but how about some anti-save-scumming features and some plot and/or mechanics consequences for letting me and my buddies get beat up all the time.

 

3. If you could somehow make me feel like magic isn't just for hurting and healing people, that would be great.

 

4. Environment physics would be awesome.

 

5. Please, God, keep friendly fire in.

 

6. If my companions complain about being injured by friendly fire or otherwise treated reckelessly, I will name my firstborn son Obsidian

 

7. Please include as much companion dialogue as humanly possible. If this means less voiceacting, so be it.

 

7.a. This does not imply I wan't everyone and their dogs to be romancable. I just want my druid to be upset when I randomly massacre small animals, etc.

 

8. Not every choice has to be a good one.

 

9. There should be many bad endings.

 

9.a. Some should trigger about halfway through the game.

 

And yes, I want my cake; I intend to eat it, too.

[IrishLuigi]

-Fake uniqueness. When I see two NPCs with the same name standing next to each other, neither of whom has anything to say other than flavor/background one liners it kills my suspension of disbelief. I'd much prefer "Guard" or "Townsperson", yes it can make the one named NPC who has something to say more obvious but is that so bad? Focus the player in on the dialog you have created, don't make me waste my limited gaming time searching for the right guy to talk to.

I agree that town guards shouldn't be named, but only giving names to quest givers/important NPCs? It's like the quest compass, making it easier for people to do stuff and lessening the immersion. Edited September 18, 2012 by IrishLuigi

[Jarmo]

- The whole thief backstab multiplier system is a bit silly. I can see why it was introduced, without it thieves wouldn't have much to say in combat, but still.

Hard to imagine how someone can do a lot more damage with a dagger than a lot stronger guy with a battleaxe, just by virtue of hitting from behind.

 

- Don't always reward with money. "Thanks for helping the orphanage, now the children wont starve, here's 5000 GP"

 

- Make altruism costly. Usually there's about 3 poor people in the world, needing a total of 50 GP, out of your million.

And if you say you don't need a reward, then don't "well here's your reward anyway, and some extra XP as well."

[Jarmo]

-Battles after conversations that prevent pre-buffing which would then require re-loading and pre-buffing like crazy to win.

 

And forced conversations to begin with. It's always such a drag to approach some opponent and just know he'll explode into speech, walk next to you, buff up and then attack! And when you'll finally start winning, he'll have another monologue and escape during the cutscene.

 

One of the things Oblivion and Skyrim did right. Very, very satisfying to sneak up to a vampire lord you are hunting, and then put a longbow arrow through his head without him ever noticing you were there. Fallout 3 and NV as well. Just decide when you're done listening and then pull that shotgun.

[Cantousent]

I think Tale's idea isn't bad and, in fact, it could work out in dialogue very well. The interlocutors can either break conversation or address concerns over buffing. In fact, if dialogue is more dynamic, some party members can buff while the party spokesman keeps talking. If the other guys start to buff, there could be options for the party to buff up at the same time while the spokesman asks something like "why do I get the feeling you're getting ready for a fight?" In some conversations, buffing could be a path to intimidation. [The mage throws stoneskin on the entire party.] The Spokesman says, "We'd like to handle this peaceably, but we *are* prepared to defend ourselves."

 

Romances should be entirely avoidable without intrusion on the gameplay. I don't mind them per se. I disagree that BG did them best. The best romances was between TNO and Annah in PS:T. I think romances work best by implication. If folks really want overt romances, then I think the devs should put in lots of ways for those romances to screw (sorry about the pun) the PC. Hell hath no fury like an NPC scorned! Hell, if they're going to stick romances in our faces, give them real consequences. lol

[Astanas]

-Tooltips for abilites and skills. Having nothing but an array of cryptic icons to go from can be very bewildering. That was one of the things that made it difficult for me to get into BG2.

[Kilroy_Was_Here]

-Tooltips for abilites and skills. Having nothing but an array of cryptic icons to go from can be very bewildering. That was one of the things that made it difficult for me to get into BG2.

 

And the tooltips should be CORRECT! Some games it seems do the balancing last and update the effect of an ability but never go back and document what change they made, leaving the poor ignorant player holding the mislabeled bag.

[draft1983]

I think the point of doing more damage with a backstab is the fact you are catchign someone un-aware, extra tiem to hit that vital artery?? -well for a stealthed backstab anyway.

[Troller]

 

-Imagination brought on by scale. To me the pulled back isometric view lets my imagination fill in all the details. Don't let me zoom in to see my sword's 2000 pixel high resness. Let me see that new sword I found looks different, but from afar. My imagination makes that sword look more awesome than any artist can, especially if it has some great inventory flavor text.

But how are we supposed to take upskirt shots of our female companion or NPC

[descalabro]

I agree with all points on this topic. Especially what concerns physics in the gameplay. PLEASE do remember this is 2012 and there is technology to provide a beautiful isometric game a lot more physical interaction with the scenario than before.

[fan]

Great thoughts!

 

I especially find your request for a detail limit interesting. Considering the budget constraint, I too would greatly prefer a pencil sketch and a short description for each weapon to super-detailed models.

 

I also would prefer quick, fluid and varied (combat) animations with "blocky" character models to more detailed characters performing only a couple of animations day in and day out.

[casa]

I wouldn't mind some more character detail and the retro style may end when it's getting into "pixelated on purpose". But when it comes to love for detail and animations, I always like to compare NWN1 to NWN2, where the former had blocky characters, but with absolutely lovely animations both in combat and social situations, while NWN2 only had characters walking with a stick up their arse, more polygons or not. Just compare the sitting alone. I also know many players hated the NWN1 "dance of death" combat, but I thought it was absolutely lovely to look at. And dare I say "parry"? Most useless skill ever maybe, but sooo fun to use for immersion.

One thing I Obsidian's later games always lacked were really nice animations, I hope this time we'll see more of them.

[TomSuperpatriot]

One last thing, actual art character portraits. Have tons of them, they are awesome.

[MReed]

-Battles after conversations that prevent pre-buffing which would then require re-loading and pre-buffing like crazy to win. Suggestions, take a good hard look at how buffing works, it can be fun, especially when doing something like figuring out to cast protection from a certain school of magic when Kangaxx the Lich Skull keeps casting imprisonment on you or Mindflayers try to stun you over and over. If buffing is going to be a big part of a character's abilities then think about how to more immersively make them useful. Also things like contingency spells or spell sequencers with a little more robustness would be good.

 

Yes, please: In particular:

 

1) The ability to queue up commands (and create "macros" to cast several spells in a row) to make it at least possible to buff during combat.

2) Along the same lines, most buffs should be ranged (and a big range, at that), so mages can cast buffs on friendly targets during combat without running all over the battlefield. This only applies to buffs that are meant to last "one combat" (or longer) and aren't "caster only".

3) Minor bonuses / benefits for completing "boss fights" (major combats preceeded by dialog / cutscenes) without reloading. On a technical level, this could be implemented by attaching a unique GUID to each playthrough (stored in the save file) and having a "master" save file (common to all saves) that stores timestamps that say "Dialog X for save [GUID] was started at xx:xx:xx." If there is only one entry in the master save file for a particular save GUID, then the combat was done the first time and the "special" rewards are activiated.

 

-Don't tell me I'm losing a fight for plot purposes when I'm clearly not. Yes after multiple play-thrus I was experienced and crushing Irenicus and Malak in the early fights against them, only to be told I wasn't really because the plot dictated it.

 

Absolutely. However, for plot related reasons is is necessary (or, at least, highly desirable) to have the PC lose in combat, and that's fine as well -- just make certain that the combat is unwinable. Infinite spawn of "guards" of increasing power is one way, putting foes in positions where they can damage the party but the party cannot damage them is another. But don't eliminate the option for combat altogether, and don't trigger the "lose cutscene" when the party is clearly winning. FYI: Being blantently obvious about what is happening is a good idea here, as some people are a bit thick when it comes to realizing "There has to be a way to win"...

 

-Auto-reviving companions. Yes healing could be a chore casting heal spells over and over but actually having to drag someone's body to be rezzed in BG 1 was kind of awesome, similarly awesome if a trusted companion was obliterated by a critical hit (yes it would probly result in a reload but that is up to the player's tastes IMHO).

 

Have to disagree here -- any situation where many / most players automatically reloads the game is "not fun" and should be avoided whenever possible. If there were more companions I might feel differently, but as it is, permemently losing a companion due to "bad luck" is simply too high of a penality. I have mixed feelings on the "drag the body back to be raised" vs. "auto-res" and could go either way.

 

-Trade-offs between combat abilities and non-combat abilities. Always hated having to put my points into Big Guns or Doctor/Lockpick/Whatever. Personally suggest limiting the players choices, maybe 1 point per level for combat abilities and one point per level for non-combat abilities, some may call that too limiting but I'd consider it a gentle nudge in a better direction.

 

I agree, but his is fairly typical in games, actually. In fact, the only games that I can think of (off hand) that don't make the player decide between combat effectiveness / non-combat effectiveness are the ones that have no non-combat skills to choose. Of course, this does include all the Infiity engine games, so...

 

-Not really a fault of the games of the time given the technology but implementing physics and material systems could greatly improve the game. Destructible terrain is just awesome even if the actual in game practical implications are limited.

 

I doubt that this is worth the effort to implement -- especially given that the direction is very strongly trending towards "pre-rendered 2d backgrounds".

 

-Omniscient guards/crime reporting/dumb behavior. Lots of games have struggled with this. The faction/regional reputation system is a good first step on this but please put some effort in this, with good logic for reporting crimes and intelligent fight/flight behavior for civilians when appropriate.

 

Honestly, I'd prefer to just ignore the "guards & crime" issue altogether.

 

1) Assuming a power curve similar to the one that D&D provides (highly likely), guards should never be higher than 1st - 3rd level, only available in small (2-5) numbers, and so forth. As a consequence, a mid-level (5-7) level party should be able to steamroll the guards to an absurd degree -- so much so that rational guards would simply refuse to attack / try to apprehend the PCs in the first place. Guards (& bandits, for that matter) should not scale to the parties level, ever.

2) I can't see a way to have "realisitc consequences" that doesn't involve suicidal behavior on the part of NPCs (guards / townsfolk) here. Unless the party spends a very large amount of time (several game months) at a single town, murdering and raping the town, I think the most realistic response would be "Lets give him/her what they want and hope that they go away soon".

 

-Lack of area of effect templates, yah it made launching that fireball more difficult when you missed or clipped your fighters with it but I personally prefer having that information to make better tactical decisions.

 

Yes, not including templates for AOE spells is "fake difficulty".

 

-Branching quests for the sake of branching, less of a problem in BG/Fallout/Planescape but a big issue I have with a lot of the modern RPGs. Often the different options all obviously lead to the exact same place and break immersion. Often branches seem tacked on just to have everything covered. Write quests that you feel in your heart are good, if you can find good options include them and if not ok, I'd rather play through one well written quest with one path than a mediocre written quest with 8 paths.

 

Slightly different, but similar: Only offer conversation options if the consequences of that choices are interesting (something that at least some players would play through instead of reloading). If rational players are going to accept a quest (either because it is part of the critical path, or because there is no reward for doing otherwise), then don't beat around the bush -- make the player accept the quest, Yes, this limits "roleplaying opportunities", and better is to offer an alternate quest with roughly equivilent rewards, but finite resources dictates that this situation will come up from time to time.

[Gibbscape_Torment]

For the most part i agree, but i strongly disagree with two of your points. How is being "Drowned" with choice a bad thing? The more dialogue options and story choices, the better. The other was "branching for the sake of branchin". Yeah, that's a really good thing. Branching storylines, no matter where they end up, are always a good thing. Linearity is a bad thing.

 

I disagree with these points so vehemently, that i feel like i have to disagree with your entire post; despite agreeing with most of it.

[Olauron Mor-Galad]

-Trade-offs between combat abilities and non-combat abilities. Always hated having to put my points into Big Guns or Doctor/Lockpick/Whatever. Personally suggest limiting the players choices, maybe 1 point per level for combat abilities and one point per level for non-combat abilities, some may call that too limiting but I'd consider it a gentle nudge in a better direction.

Not very good decision for those who want pure combat character or pure non-combat character. They are forced to alter their vision of the PC or to invest only relevant half of points. Obsidian is going to pay attention to both combat and non-combat activities. While they are more or less balanced there is nothing bad in having to select full combat, full non-combat or something between.

 

For the most part i agree, but i strongly disagree with two of your points. How is being "Drowned" with choice a bad thing? The more dialogue options and story choices, the better. The other was "branching for the sake of branchin". Yeah, that's a really good thing. Branching storylines, no matter where they end up, are always a good thing. Linearity is a bad thing.

 

I disagree with these points so vehemently, that i feel like i have to disagree with your entire post; despite agreeing with most of it.

These options are not bad when they are added to real choices and concequences in dialogues or in the story. They are bad in my opinion when they substitute real c&cs.

[TomSuperpatriot]

Gibbscape,

Yes in general I want more choice, like the 10+ dialog options in Planescape at times. What I don't want is, we need an evil response, a neutral response and a good response to every piece of dialog just because that is how we are doing this, oh and by the way all three of those dialog choices all lead to exactly the same thing.

 

I am gathering they are going for a far more nuanced approach than BG/KOTOR had for morality and I'm confident there won't be a lot of that in PE.

 

I think I am also talking about pacing in quests and story. I remember the classics having a steady drip of things to do with a good story and game-design leading you from adventure to adventure. Yes you'd come to a new town and you'd find a bunch of side quests there, but you would probably knock those out and then continue on to the next town with the main quest. Compare to Skyrim where I go from town to town as part of whatever quest and as I do I'm bombarded with quests and options, by the time I finish the quest I'm on I have a dozen more in my journal.

Edited September 19, 2012 by TomSuperpatriot

[Baudolino05]

-Trade-offs between combat abilities and non-combat abilities. Always hated having to put my points into Big Guns or Doctor/Lockpick/Whatever. Personally suggest limiting the players choices, maybe 1 point per level for combat abilities and one point per level for non-combat abilities, some may call that too limiting but I'd consider it a gentle nudge in a better direction.

 

I can't disagree more. And if I want to play a full diplomatic character? A skilled thief that dislikes violence? A fine tactician that never fights in person? The problem is not being forced to choose between combat and non combat ablities. The problem is being forced to fight...

Edited September 19, 2012 by Baudolino05

[TomSuperpatriot]

-Trade-offs between combat abilities and non-combat abilities. Always hated having to put my points into Big Guns or Doctor/Lockpick/Whatever. Personally suggest limiting the players choices, maybe 1 point per level for combat abilities and one point per level for non-combat abilities, some may call that too limiting but I'd consider it a gentle nudge in a better direction.

 

I can't disagree more. And if I want to play a full diplomatic character? A skilled thief that dislikes violence? A fine tactician that never fights in person? The problem is not being forced to choose between combat and non combat ablities. The problem is being forced to fight...

 

I agree, I know some games have tried to do it with varying degrees of success but I think when I wrote that I was thinking more on the lines of BG2 where you pretty much have to fight, a lot. Perhaps in my example you could put your point into 1 combat skill, 1 non-combat or 0 combat and 2 non-combat?

 

Spoiler Alerts for Witcher 2 below:

 

 

 

 

I found it interesting in Witcher 2 at the end I simply had a conversation with Letho the main antagonist, could have fought him but decided I just didn't want to kill him. There were many choices like that in the game and they were all usually well done.

[Baudolino05]

-Trade-offs between combat abilities and non-combat abilities. Always hated having to put my points into Big Guns or Doctor/Lockpick/Whatever. Personally suggest limiting the players choices, maybe 1 point per level for combat abilities and one point per level for non-combat abilities, some may call that too limiting but I'd consider it a gentle nudge in a better direction.

 

I can't disagree more. And if I want to play a full diplomatic character? A skilled thief that dislikes violence? A fine tactician that never fights in person? The problem is not being forced to choose between combat and non combat ablities. The problem is being forced to fight...

 

I agree, I know some games have tried to do it with varying degrees of success but I think when I wrote that I was thinking more on the lines of BG2 where you pretty much have to fight, a lot. Perhaps in my example you could put your point into 1 combat skill, 1 non-combat or 0 combat and 2 non-combat?

 

Spoiler Alerts for Witcher 2 below:

 

 

 

 

I found it interesting in Witcher 2 at the end I simply had a conversation with Letho the main antagonist, could have fought him but decided I just didn't want to kill him. There were many choices like that in the game and they were all usually well done.

 

I hope PE is less combat oriented than BG, but, for a "BG-IWD like game you're probably right: support and combat skills should be separated like in D&D 3.x. Essentially because they aren't equally important...

Edited September 19, 2012 by Baudolino05