Couple of suggestions

[ArcaneBoozery]

Hi everyone, and I am really excited about Project Eternity! The RPGs that this game will try to emulate and that the dev team has worked on are some of my all time favorites and truly great titles (such as Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1 & 2, etc). Having played all those back when they came out and also more recently, I do, however, have a couple of suggestions which I think are important, although I think this will be a great game regardless.

 

The first suggestion has to do with the combat spellcasting. Given the early state of the game, the developers might not have delved too deeply into combat details yet, but I think it's good to bring this issue up early. Overall, I loved the combat system in Baldur's Gate, but if there is one peeve I had with it, it was the the way casting time interacted with spell interruption. As I am sure many here remember, spells in BG had a casting time, from the minimum of 1 for low level spells such as Magic Missile, to the maximum of 9 or 10 for highest level spells such as Time Stop. This determined how long the caster would be stuck in the casting animation before actually casting. Spell interruption was the mechanism in BG whereby, if during casting, the caster suffered any kind of damage (from an enemy hit, or spell cast, or damage over time), the spell cast would be interrupted and the remembered spell lost.

 

 

Taken separately, those two mechanisms make a lot of sense and work just fine, but when they combined, I feel like it led to broken mechanics. What do I mean? Well, if your party was facing a powerful enemy wizard for example, your own mage could effectively dominate that foe by only using his very low level spells. Provided they used some mid level or higher spell to remove the enemy's spell defense first, your mage could then cast Magic Missile or a similar low level spell the moment you see the enemy wizard cast something. Due to casting time, your low level spell would be cast much quicker than the high level spell the enemy wizard would typically cast, hit him while he was still casting, and interrupt him. Since in AD&D, low level spells were memorized in large numbers, this could be repeated over and over, effectively stopping the enemy wizard from casting any of his own spells while also doing damage to him. My problem with this is twofold, first, the AI was not ready for this mechanic, so it could be exploited by the player, and essentilly remove the challenge from facing certain high level foes, and second, it just seemed cheap and unrealistic. Wizards, according to lore, study for long periods of time, hoping to learn the secrets of the universe and powerful spells to boot, so it seems wrong that such powerful incantations can be simply countered by a level 1 spell that any mage school flunky would probably posess. Maybe some people wont see this as a big deal, but for me, personally, it kinda ruined the feeling of strategy and proper spellcasting somewhat in Baldur's Gate. So because of that, I really hope whatever spell casting system Project Eternity ends up adopting will not have this kind of issue.

 

The second suggestion has to do with adding anti-cliche aspects to the game. I've beaten Planescape: Torment several times and it's also one of my all time favorites, and that game is amazing when it comes to reversing cliches in the RPG genre. However, I feel like it took it a bit too far, settling for anti-cliche elements for the sake of being anti-cliche, as opposed to for the sake of enhancing gameplay. For example, things like not being able to wear armor or wield swords did not really add anything to the gameplay or enjoyment in my opinion, but made outfitting/building up your character less fun. I am not saying the Nameless One should've been strutting around in shiny polished steel, given his background, but dull, heavily worn armor would not have changed the atmosphere for the worse, once again in my humble opinion. So given that, I hope for Project Eternity, anti-cliche aspects will be implemented in areas where they add to the quality of the game, and not just to be hip. The reason I thought of this was actually because I read one of the recent updates where the developers mentioned that guns will penetrate mages' armor spells, and thus most mages might want to choose to wear traditional armor. Of course, I don't know the rationale behind this design decision, but it seems like this might be one of those anti-cliche moments, where in this game, mages will sport full plate perhaps instead of the traditional cliche robes, and be vulnerable to firearms. But to me, the question is, will this actually enhance gameplay or hurt it? Personally, I think playing a mage character who dresses differently from a warrior is much cooler, as is being able to face your foes purely on the strength of your arcane knowledge, rather than physical barriers. Other people might disagree of course, but I hope the devs will make decisions based on coolness/fun rather than being hip/original for its own sake.

 

Anyway, thanks for reading my ramblings, and good luck with what sounds like it could be a really awesome game!

[rjshae]

The effectiveness of quick-firing, low-level spells at disrupting high level casting just seems like sensible tactics, rather than a flaw with the system. It just means the AI needs to be improved. For example, the enemy caster could counter this tactic with a quick mirror image spell or a blink spell, followed by a higher level spell that takes longer to prepare.