What do you wish not to see in PE

[Tamerlane]

Nice work. Totally nicking that, if you don't mind.

 

And more on-topic, since I mentioned it in the permadeath thread: a "Raise Dead" spell. Aside from Torment, where death was very specifically a minor impediment to the player, Raise Dead is a terrible thing that removes all weight from death. And unless you're remaking Torment (side note: please remake Torment some time), death damn well better have weight.

[Rink]

Something like -

 

Normal response might be:

"Why yes, I'll donate some money for your excellent charity!"

"No thanks, I gave at the office"

"If you come around here, I'm going to your orphanage and kick the children! And then you in the face!"

 

Int response might be

"[lie]Why yes, I'll donate some money for your excellent charity if you come back tomorrow..." (then you can contact the police to be there tomorrow)

"I am exposing your scam to the police, I suggest you get running."

"You can't fool me, I'm going to expect 10% of your profits from now on unless you want me exposing your scheme to the authorities"

 

Also a possibility but that makes dialogue scripting a lot more complicated and takes control away from player. I personally think it is enough if there are some lines added if a skill is above/or below a certain skilllimit and this line should not be marked at all and imho also does not always have to lead to positive effects. An intelligent remark can be seen as arrogant for example. I personally don't need completely new lines in every dialogue just because I have different skills.

[AlphaShard]

Just made it tonight. I bought Torment from gog and extrapolated the animation frames with NearInfinity

 

Are those all the characters you can get in your party? I've never played that game.

[Sick]

Just made it tonight. I bought Torment from gog and extrapolated the animation frames with NearInfinity

 

Are those all the characters you can get in your party? I've never played that game.

Yes, they're all.

Even Morte (the floating skull) is a proper companion, instead the Lim Lim (the little green bug) it's only a pet who does nothing.

Also, two of them are very well hidden in the game.

[Foefaller]

-

- Weapons or armor that break or gets worse over time

[intelect 8 / 15]- Shown skilllimits for dialogue-options (I really would like to say that, but sorry, I am unable to )

 

Would it still be okay to show that a choice is a skill limit choice but only if you meet the threshold.

 

Something like [intellect] - I'm smart, so I can say this

 

But if you're not smart you just don't get the choice?

KILL IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! KILL IT WITH FIRE, DROP THE REMAINS IN TANK OF ACID, THEN PUT THE ACID IN A ROCKET AND SEND IT TO THE SUN!!!!!!!!!!

 

So you don't want intelligent dialogue at all, or you don't want intelligent dialogue to be denoted as intelligent (the latter being which people were favoring)?

 

I'm thinking it's the latter he's against, and I would be quite happy if I didn't see it as well.

 

Though, I would be okay with options showing up as a [intelligent] or [Persuasion] or whatever prefix, so long as I had no idea if whatever skill or attribute listed would be high enough to work or not untill I used it (and sometimes, not even then, ala the interrogation of the Centurion in Camp McCarran, where you didn't know if you pick the right options, or had the skill to succed, untill near the very end of the conversation)

[DocDoomII]

Just made it tonight. I bought Torment from gog and extrapolated the animation frames with NearInfinity

 

Are those all the characters you can get in your party? I've never played that game.

 

Yes, they're all.

Even Morte (the floating skull) is a proper companion, instead the Lim Lim (the little green bug) it's only a pet who does nothing.

Also, two of them are very well hidden in the game.

 

As Sick said.

I added the Lim Lim today because I had forgotten of him yesterday

 

To be back on topic, one thing I wouldn't like to have is separated interiors. It'd be nice for once to enter inside a house just by walking in and not by crossing an exit for another, smaller, map.

Edited October 6, 2012 by DocDoomII

[kenup]

- Assumptions about the PC's character from NPCs/the game itself. KotOR 2 I'm looking at you!

- Forced guilt. Same as above.

- Giving us a dual choice between saint and total jerk, only to be schooled by our character's mentor or whatever because we didn't take the middle ground.

 

I thought I should post these, since they were really annoying in Obsidian games KotOR 2.

[kabaliero]

- no uninavitable recruitment into Secret Elite Epic Ninja Commando Whom Nobody Gives A Crap About Order.

 

- no NPCs (guards, peasants, or children) randomly insulting the passing by PC for no reason, and without consequence; or at least -->

 

-> no killing restrains (this one is probably better than the previous point)

 

- no hot tiefling girls without goddam romance option

 

- no overbeading world-heroes with "1-shot-all-party-members" spell; let's keep this real, and give us a chance

 

- no unavoidable Mentor \ Obi Wan figures

 

- no forced friendships, when a new party member, after a couple of random fights, starts acting like they've been hangin' out with you their whole life

 

- no parent-slaughtering orcs

 

- going back to 2nd: no offensive banter, like "ew, you smell", or "your clothes are absolutely dreadful" well you know what! Gimme an option to WASH myself or BUY smthing DECENT TO WEAR ffs, just don't play those little commoner comments on me, thx

 

 

edit: - oh, and no boobplates, too

Edited October 6, 2012 by kabaliero

[Sick]

- no hot tiefling girls without goddam romance option

 

Are you talking about Neeshka or Annah? Because Annah has various romance options (in the PS:T way though)

[DocDoomII]

- no hot tiefling girls without goddam romance option

 

Are you talking about Neeshka or Annah? Because Annah has various romance options (in the PS:T way though)

He did say hot, so I'll go with Annah.

[kabaliero]

- no hot tiefling girls without goddam romance option

 

Are you talking about Neeshka or Annah? Because Annah has various romance options (in the PS:T way though)

He did say hot, so I'll go with Annah.

 

Annah had a romance option. So it kinda narrows it down.

[DocDoomII]

I know, but maybe since the 'deed' ended up being only a *not gonna spoiler*, he may think otherwise?

[harhar!]

Things that should not be included:

 

- Easy kill-and-fetch MMORPGlike quests, especially if they are poorly "hidden"/not wrapped into a nice storyline

- Questmarker, Minimap, big yellow "!" over NPC heads, bad unimmersive tutorials

- No diary (that means I want one), or a lazy one (like just copying the dialogue (see Gothic 3 or Risen for example), good example for a good diary: Gothic 1/2, PS:T

- Mainquests where I don't get any clue on what do do (like in PS:T the portal to Ravel, how the **** was I supposed to know where the ****ing recipe is, that I need to open the portal, I ended up searching every last bit of the friggin Godsmen place. It's okay to have hard sidequests though.

- Pointing in the direction where I need to go and explicitly telling me what do to all the time. Find a balance, assume that I'm smart but don't want to search every alley and chest in the game just so I can advance.

- No voice-acting (that means I want voice-acting), don't be lazy plz

- "Chosen one", prophecy, "epic",...

- Anything that breaks immersion and is not ABSOLUTELY necessary like bad modern day references

- Too much randomness in wrong places. For example loot/chestloot, it's okay if a monster drops sometimes 1 fangs and sometimes 2 but I don't want to see soupcans in giant chests in big dungeons, weaponstacks in a pharmacy and other unlogical stuff. Again, don't be lazy.

- Unimportant unkillable guys. It's okay to make imporant guys immortal or just let the game end when they die (PS:T) but don't do that with random NPCs, this point is pretty major actually. Icing on the cake would be a criminal/absolution system (see Gothic 2) in which I have to pay a fine in cities when I attack someone without reason. I mean I should have the opportunity to make everything fine again and to not have to be hasseled by aggro guards for the rest of the game.

- Assuming that I'm stupid (twice, just for good measure)

- Levelscaling/Itemscaling, it's just bad

- Catering to casuals (pretty obvious ain't it?)

Edited October 6, 2012 by harhar!

[Sick]

I said in that way, because Annah's romance option, initially, is not very clear and can be easily missed/ruined (even if from the point where you meet

Fall from Grace

, it become much more obvious).

 

Sorry fot the reiterated OT

[Blackblade]

1) Level scaling - ruins RPGs in my opinion

2) Guns - looks like I won't get my wish on this one but I hate guns in fantasy settings. Save them for more modern settings.

3) Few skills/customization options - I want to make the character I want, not some cookie cutter character. From what I've read so far I think this will not be a problem.

4) Boss battles where my carefully laid positions are overriden, My thief becomes unhidden and my mage is standing face to face with a big bad demon when he was originally way in the back. Do not force move my characters just so the boss can talk to me.

[Lord Balgeron]

A diary, that cannot be opened.

[CrazedWeevil]

Things I don't want to see in PE:

• Inconsistent or poor save game mechanics, specifically autosaves & quicksaves - I hate it when the game doesn't to have any logic behind its autosaving (Dragon Age is a good example) and seems to only do it when it feels like it. This is very frustrating with games that like to crash a bit. It would be nice if the game would autosave on map transition and or key points and had multiple slots to help with save corruption as well
  

• Illogical encounter placement - this doesn't happen quite as much as it used to, but it's still there in a lot of party based RPGs. Basically it's when you go to a dungeon and everyone seems to have been standing there waiting for you to arrive and kill them. It is as if that is their only purpose in life. I would be nice for there to be some hint that the bad guys have a life outside of being murdered by <charname's> party. Or as a friend of mine put it back in the mists of time 'how did those guys get to work in the morning?! The place is loaded with traps, there isn't anything to eat or drink, not even a bucket to answer the call of nature with!'
  

• Major combat after a cutscene without autosaving after the dialogue finishes - nearly every bloody RPG does this and it's really bloody annoying . If you insist on having the main villain, or anyone for that matter, delivering a thundering great speech before we go toe-to-toe can you please put an autosave point when the combat starts so that if I have a party wipe I don't have to go and listen to the whole bloody speech again...please!
  

• One rule for them, one rule for me - it would be nice if the game enemy AI used the same combat mechanics as me, the same ruleset and didn't have to cheat to compete. Baldur's Gate had some major problems here, especially with mages casting uninterruptible spells where as my mages could be interrupted by someone coughing in their general direction. Thankfully BG / IWD can be modded to fix a lot of that but it really shouldn't have been like that in the first place IMO.
  

• Non-survivable Instant death spells / abilities or 'Press X to not die' mechanics - I've mentioned this before in another thread, but I really dislike 'Power Word Kill' type spells that you cannot defend yourself against. It would be nice if there was a counter to every possible attack that you can rely on if you if you have prepared for it.
  

• Going into combat blind - it would be nice if there was a way to prepare yourself when facing an enemy without having to rely on save & reloading. The only game I can think of that did something like this is The Witcher (though I'm sure others have as well) with all the books you could get on the many different creatures. It gave you a good idea what things would work and what abilities you would likely have to counter. I thought this was a really good idea if it could be made to work on non-creature encounters in a sensible manner like say having an intelligence gathering skill to find things out about potential enemies and then also providing some sort of passive boost so they remain useful on replays.
  

[AlphaShard]

- no NPCs (guards, peasants, or children) randomly insulting the passing by PC for no reason, and without consequence; or at least -->

 

- going back to 2nd: no offensive banter, like "ew, you smell", or "your clothes are absolutely dreadful" well you know what! Gimme an option to WASH myself or BUY smthing DECENT TO WEAR ffs, just don't play those little commoner comments on me, thx

 

+1

[aran665]

As someone who read about Planescape:Torment and thought "Sounds Terrible", and then ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT, I'm prepared to have my preconceptions on things challenged.

 

I think it's dangerous to just blindly list GAME WILL BE BAD IF IT HAS MORE THAN OR LESS THAN 3 BADGERS.

 

Which is basically what everyone is doing. If your not prepared to get out of your box - your not gonna find any new to like.

 

Also - anyone who didn't like Minsc and Boo has no soul.

 

I have to say I agree with this.

 

In the spirit of the thread, I don't want to see design by committee or democracy. I'm backing to have Obsidian design the game. Based on my thorough enjoyment of their previous titles, I will defer to their expertise in the creation of the game. I don't want them to fall into the trap of trying to please everyone, because as the adage goes, they'll end up pleasing no one.

 

i whole heartedly agree with this statement... also things i don't really want to see are cartoony graphics or gigantic weapons in the style of warhammer or 90's jrpg's. The cartoony graphics have their place, just not in this setting. Also i like goofy humor but keep the pop culture references to a minimum please.

 

i also do not want to see the standard chosen one scenario... though i still love how fallout 2 had you as the chosen one but the rest of the world was like "who the hell do you think you are". so that is not outside the realm of something i'd like to see but thats not the point of this thread.

 

its also been mentioned a million times but level scaling... or at least not on a one for one basis... god i still can't play dead island partially for that reason and partially cause i think its a crap game with fun concept.

 

I love the chainmail bikini's in the right setting (not gonna lie), but if this is truly going to be a mature game, then this is not the setting... i know you guys can make the girls attractive without them spilling out of their armor.

 

i'd also not like quests to lead my by the hand with my magical compass of objective finding... if it was that easy why didn't the quest giver do it.

 

also... fetch quests, i don't mind them to limited extent. but i tried playing risen until i got to the conclusion that the whole game was a giant fetch quest ala "here player go get my boots of wandering, i left them in the cave of many monsters" or "you have to find the 27 pieces of armor of invincibility and then when you're done trek all the way back to me for a piece of candy"... seriously those kinds of quests make me wanna stab the quest giver... or put that quest in the game so i can stab the quest giver.

[Parallax]

I don't think this has been mentioned, but please please PLEASE stop all the action in the game when characters are talking.

 

Nothing is more annoying than when you're trying to get a piece of quest critical information off someone and you have to end the conversation because of a random-event attack. Yes, it does somewhat break immersion, I'll admit, but I think it is justifiable, given the level of annoyance it can cause.

[SirMonkeyMonk]

• Humans being the average race (Humans as the base for every race)
  
• Humans being the most versatile race
  
• Classes which can fullfill all combat roles (at once)
  
• Always being forced to take your enemies seriously
  
• Companions who accept all your choices
  
• Being able to bribe all your companions into liking (loving) you
  

[DRevan]

• Going into combat blind - it would be nice if there was a way to prepare yourself when facing an enemy without having to rely on save & reloading. The only game I can think of that did something like this is The Witcher (though I'm sure others have as well) with all the books you could get on the many different creatures. It gave you a good idea what things would work and what abilities you would likely have to counter. I thought this was a really good idea if it could be made to work on non-creature encounters in a sensible manner like say having an intelligence gathering skill to find things out about potential enemies and then also providing some sort of passive boost so they remain useful on replays.
  

 

In BG2 you can always send your rogue to scout the area ahead of the team to prepare yourself accordingly.

That's what I do.

[AlphaShard]

• Going into combat blind - it would be nice if there was a way to prepare yourself when facing an enemy without having to rely on save & reloading. The only game I can think of that did something like this is The Witcher (though I'm sure others have as well) with all the books you could get on the many different creatures. It gave you a good idea what things would work and what abilities you would likely have to counter. I thought this was a really good idea if it could be made to work on non-creature encounters in a sensible manner like say having an intelligence gathering skill to find things out about potential enemies and then also providing some sort of passive boost so they remain useful on replays.
  

 

In BG2 you can always send your rogue to scout the area ahead of the team to prepare yourself accordingly.

That's what I do.

 

I used Wizard Eye and Clairvoyance.

Edited October 9, 2012 by AlphaShard

[CrazedWeevil]

• Going into combat blind - it would be nice if there was a way to prepare yourself when facing an enemy without having to rely on save & reloading. The only game I can think of that did something like this is The Witcher (though I'm sure others have as well) with all the books you could get on the many different creatures. It gave you a good idea what things would work and what abilities you would likely have to counter. I thought this was a really good idea if it could be made to work on non-creature encounters in a sensible manner like say having an intelligence gathering skill to find things out about potential enemies and then also providing some sort of passive boost so they remain useful on replays.
  

 

In BG2 you can always send your rogue to scout the area ahead of the team to prepare yourself accordingly.

That's what I do.

 

I used Wizard Eye and Clairvoyance.

 

Both valid points, but they are very dependant on the level design allowing you to scout first. Wasn't always possible unfortunately in BG2 due to map transitions and the like...

[Moirnelithe]

- Needy NPCs or companions that I'm forced to take seriously, or worse, that I have to cater to in order to keep my party viable in combat

- Male gamer centered game. Women love to play RPGs too, give us some love

- 'Evil' dialogue choices that are just stupid and lack any sense of self-preservation or logic. Also please keep in mind that rude and abrasive isn't evil, it's just annoying. So please add some manipulative, intelligent dialogue that doesn't default to 'I'll just murder you because I can'.