Update #24: Less than 30 Hours to go! Life and Death, and Audio CD Soundtrack!

[dlux]

"The combat in Darklands was far less forgiving than Dungeons and Dragons. "

 

No, it isn't. Combat in ANY system is more or less forgiving based on the DM/developer.

I play Modern Warfare on super duper hard - man, that is not forgiving at all either. lol

 

So I guess that would be a great system for PE also.

 

lol

[NerdBoner]

 

 

 

 

rur rogh! Does I smell new goals a comin'?

[Huinehtar]

Great!

 

But, what is this stronghold/castle at the end of the path???

[lemonrev]

second thread since signing up this afternoon.

 

Ok this is my own thoughts about this.

 

I have played lots of xp based games including syrim and mirrowind and even a small amount of icewindale, I for one hate games that just chat far too much you want a game that talks of dialog have it in speach so we can hear it and just sit back instead of trying to read the damm'ed thing on screen or even better just make this an adventure style game.

 

The newest game i have also been playing around with is path of exile, really good game, now it even gives you xp but you can only spend it on attributs and whatnot, now i say take xp completely away scrap it.....

 

You get a quest to go kill X you kill X you get X item for killing that monster your char now has a better weapon and can do more damage has the char' earned his keep yes. I say for story quests make it so that if you get any XP do it on the basis of say when you have completed X quests in the main story you get the ability to say do the char stat thing and make the char however the hell you wish to make them mage / viking or whatnot...

 

Also if you go off to grind for more loot / xp you dont get it / NONE.... so your then not given any reward for going off killilng other monsters no matter how many times you go after them. Also this would cut down on the amount of X crap being delt with in game.

 

As for the health and staminor approch i have seen some games try and do this but have at least allowed the hero to gain say 1 bit of stamior back so they can run / walk back to camp and rest.

 

I think it would make the game even more frustrating to a lot of people including my self to just kill off whoever gets killed so you kill a party member you cant get any more missions based on if you keept them alive.... But if you want a game thats going to last and have a little bit more trouble for the char to say go out and explore then go right ahead just dont kill them off completely.

 

Another thing i wanted to say is that If you allow stat building then you get char's like my self who like to be tanks in games like these and build up stats to show that if you get hit that staminor will regenerate quickly enough to surfice killing the health part of this game redundant at a certain point because the char has the ablilty to just keep his / her stats above what the monsters can deal and re gen it back and then go back to fighting, I would hate it yes for me personally because i hate running from an enemy but if i can run from something that i have say hurt and know when i return it hasnt recoved that last health and gotten back to his / her / type mob back to full health then i know i can kill it and it would give me a worthy thing to try and attack and run. Even though i hate playing the pansy in games like this that would be the outcome of doing something like this.

 

I know this game wants to try something new and something drastic for the player but you either have to keep the player alive or make it so they can survive long enough to think if they died completely then they would go back and try another course of action.

 

Btw saved games / loading them. I have seen systems where if you do that in certain games they keep whatever was last done in game so if you killed off an npc just to see what would happen and you loaded up your game it would still have the npc dead. I think that would also stop people from trying to cheat there way though the game.

[Inertia]

I think it'd be helpful for some of you to read this.

http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2012/03/kickstarter-and-fanvestor-oriented-game.html

[Meshugger]

Great!

 

But, what is this stronghold/castle at the end of the path???

 

It's an allegory for beard technology or alternatively for getting a cat as a pet.

[Estelindis]

My first/canon playthrough of any Black Isle / Bioware / Obsidian D&D game has always been with a cleric (apart from PS:T, where that wasn't an option). I love healing. I tend to get very immersed in my characters from a role-playing point of view and thus think about what it means for them to have a healing role in their world. I've also run several D&D campaigns which, naturally, included PC and NPC healers. Essentially, I've had a lot of time to think about what healing means for the world in which it exists. My conclusions have often been troubling.

 

From the point of view of game balance, healing services at temples have to be expensive in order to maintain the usefulness of having a cleric in the party. But this means that most ordinary people would never be able to afford temple services! Losing a limb would be a temporary setback for an adventurer who can afford a Regeneration spell, but for a peasant or craftsperson it could mean the end of their ability to earn what little they can.*

 

As for resurrection, it totally trivialises the drama of the danger of death. Why rush and fight hard to save the NPC who is being threatened with being killed when you can just Raise them later?**

 

Frankly, both of these issues create a huge class divide. Disease, injury, and death (due to any cause apart from old age) just become matters of money. If you're going to have a world like that, you need to make the tone of your campaign very dark to match. If you don't want to do that... Well, you have an inevitable consistency problem. The matter of how to create and maintain a sense of drama is also very problematic when these sources of danger are taken away by sums of money often less than what the player character will pay for an enchanted sword.

 

Accordingly, I find the idea of changing combat healing in the direction of damage prevention or mitigation to be very interesting. I think it's vital to make sure that any particular combat mechanic doesn't have terrible implications for the way in which one can write one's fantasy world. I'm really looking forward to playing this style of healer (though I'm not sure if, strictly speaking, "healer" will be the right word for it anymore).

 

---

 

* I tried to imagine how different people would deal with the healing framework of the D&D ruleset in-character. In the home city of my longest-running campaign, the two main religious factions took different approaches based on their ideologies. The temple of Waukeen always charged for temple services but grew wealthy as a result, trained more clerics, and was always able to offer a full range of services quickly and professionally to those who could pay. The temple of Tyr provided its services free of charge, but on the condition that no-one was entitled to be healed more than once per tenday (unless there was a very severe emergency case). If, by the end of the day, priests still had spells available that had not been used, then anyone could benefit outside that once-per-tenday system. The temple of Tyr depended on donations and often found it difficult to get by, but was beloved among the poorest of the city. Sometimes poor folk maintained their loyalty to Tyr if they became more prosperous, but just as often people who moved up in the world would take their custom right away to the more efficient, reliable temple of Waukeen as soon as they could afford it.

 

** In my campaign, I dealt with this by introducing a villain who employed soul-binding to trap and use the souls of the slain for power. It motivated the player characters considerably.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Estelindis

[Estelindis]

Double post. Whoops! I guess I'll fill it with something interesting.

 

If we have this damage mitigation system, I think it would be paramount to make the numbers just as clear as in any other case. I don't want an ability that shields a character "from a great amount of damage." I want an ability that shields a character "from X damage to their stamina." I don't want a buff that "slows damage to the protected character by a moderate amount." I want a buff that "slows damage to the protected character by half," or what-have-you.

 

In other words, I want to feel a sense of reward from levelling up and improving my mitigation abilities in just the same way that I'd feel rewarded by levelling up to heal for 3d8+5 instead of an initial 1d8+1.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Estelindis

[Wombat]

Varieties in religions are nice. Religions depict views to life and death and worldviews eloquently in different cultures, which I think, fit both the reputation system and Planescape style writing. While some views have similarity to our modern way of thinking, some others may not. While such views shouldn't be presented as escapism, I think less modern conscious approaches depending on cultures may turn out to be good for a change, or, even more in-depth exploration to human nature from different viewpoints. I hope soul system won't be too restrictive, though.

 

Again, thanks for the update.

[cyberarmy]

Great!

 

But, what is this stronghold/castle at the end of the path???

 

It's an allegory for beard technology or alternatively for getting a cat as a pet.

 

You are day dreaming, such technology dont exist.

So its a cat

[Cassius]

Really glad to hear we have a goal based XP system. Means people can play the game as they like without ending up 2 levels down at the end of the game.

 

Liking the sound of the stamina system, will be interesting to see how it plays out with people having to manage their health resource aswell as stamina

[anek]

This thread is an existential struggle between gaming libertarians and Utopianistic-gaming Maoists.

 

Haha, while of course rhetorical hyperbole, there may actually be some truth to that...

 

Too bad the other participants in that discussion seem to have not understood the comparison at all, and just interpreted "Maoist" as a generic insult. Guess it shows how little basic knowledge people have about political philosophy nowadays...

[AW8]

I like the idea of limited healing in the world, even though magic is common. Makes grave wounds and diseases more of a threat.

I also dig the interest/fear of necromancy and the theories on souls, death and life.

 

Double post. Whoops! I guess I'll fill it with something interesting.

 

If we have this damage mitigation system, I think it would be paramount to make the numbers just as clear as in any other case. I don't want an ability that shields a character "from a great amount of damage." I want an ability that shields a character "from X damage to their stamina."

Soul Tear - Your Thu'um cuts through flesh and shatters soul, commanding the will of the fallen.

 

My Thu'um does waaaat? Oh, Skyrim...

Edited October 16, 2012 by AW8

[Gatt9]

Really glad to hear we have a goal based XP system. Means people can play the game as they like without ending up 2 levels down at the end of the game.

 

Liking the sound of the stamina system, will be interesting to see how it plays out with people having to manage their health resource aswell as stamina

 

Actually, it doesn't. It means you have to play it in the linear order predestined by the Developers, with no hope of ever doing anything outside of that order. Now, the only way to do a level 10 quest, is to do the level 5 quests, you have no other option.

 

It reduces choice, introduces pure linearity, reduces any reward for entering into combat, and much no sense at all.

[cyberarmy]

I like how some of the posters have more "valid and solid" information about the game than us and giving their unbiassed options about games content.

[tox1c5lug]

If you want to vote on your preferred XP system, here is a nice poll. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61543-are-you-for-or-against-gaining-experience-points-only-for-completing-objectives/

[ImRhoven]

Nice update! Loving the health/death mechanics and the xp design! Love that the nagging feeling in the back of my head "I could be more powerful if I wasn't such a sissy roleplayer and just butchered everyone in here instead of tiptoeing around" wont be an issue.

[ImRhoven]

Really glad to hear we have a goal based XP system. Means people can play the game as they like without ending up 2 levels down at the end of the game.

 

Liking the sound of the stamina system, will be interesting to see how it plays out with people having to manage their health resource aswell as stamina

 

Actually, it doesn't. It means you have to play it in the linear order predestined by the Developers, with no hope of ever doing anything outside of that order. Now, the only way to do a level 10 quest, is to do the level 5 quests, you have no other option.

 

It reduces choice, introduces pure linearity, reduces any reward for entering into combat, and much no sense at all.

 

If it's anything like the BG games, there won't be something like level 10 and level 5 quests. You can go everywhere at every time, there'll be a heap of quests of comparable difficulty and some harder ones. You can do all those quests in any order you want. (except the main story quest, which obviously has an order of completion.)

[Polyhedron]

Frankly, both of these issues create a huge class divide. Disease, injury, and death (due to any cause apart from old age) just become matters of money. If you're going to have a world like that, you need to make the tone of your campaign very dark to match. If you don't want to do that... Well, you have an inevitable consistency problem. The matter of how to create and maintain a sense of drama is also very problematic when these sources of danger are taken away by sums of money often less than what the player character will pay for an enchanted sword.

 

You seem to operate under the assumption, though, that it's a culture/society of "each man for himself". If you pardon the intrusion of Real Life, there are many systems of health care around the world where the common society (taxation) evens out the burden of the cost. I didn't see you mentioning having taken this into consideration, rather just having your temples supported by their customers. (Add air quotes when talking about real life patients;)

 

Me, coming from a country with efficient public health care, COULD get preferred treatment at private clinics (I'm reasonably wealthy), but the difference in quality between those and public hospitals is negligible due to the investments of state.

[sesobebo]

Really glad to hear we have a goal based XP system. Means people can play the game as they like without ending up 2 levels down at the end of the game.

 

Liking the sound of the stamina system, will be interesting to see how it plays out with people having to manage their health resource aswell as stamina

 

Actually, it doesn't. It means you have to play it in the linear order predestined by the Developers, with no hope of ever doing anything outside of that order. Now, the only way to do a level 10 quest, is to do the level 5 quests, you have no other option.

 

It reduces choice, introduces pure linearity, reduces any reward for entering into combat, and much no sense at all.

 

does not compute.

[Bloody Hypocrite]

I'm also not following your logic Gatt9. You will still get xp from exploration. I think some folks are jumping to the wrong conclusion when they hear objective/goal based xp. These won't be only tied to the main story, but rather every thing you do in the game. Every encounter out in the world will have an xp reward tied to it.

[Estelindis]

You seem to operate under the assumption, though, that it's a culture/society of "each man for himself". If you pardon the intrusion of Real Life, there are many systems of health care around the world where the common society (taxation) evens out the burden of the cost. I didn't see you mentioning having taken this into consideration, rather just having your temples supported by their customers. (Add air quotes when talking about real life patients;)

 

Me, coming from a country with efficient public health care, COULD get preferred treatment at private clinics (I'm reasonably wealthy), but the difference in quality between those and public hospitals is negligible due to the investments of state.

What's this "it" that you think I'm assuming is a culture of everyone for themselves? The campaign setting is whatever one feels it's appropriate to be. The DM decides that, s/he doesn't assume anything...

 

I come from a country with public health care, but in my opinion these modern kinds of systems usually feel quite anachronistic in a medieval/renaissance-esque D&D setting. Whether or not its appropriate to have a system of state-supported free healthcare will depend on a range of political, cultural, economic and religious issues. It might make more sense in a forest-realm where many resources are shared, druids and rangers are common, and part of the law of the land is an obligation to provide care to all in need. In terms of the example from my Forgotten Realms campaign, there were actually a bunch of reasons why the leader of the city wasn't in a position to run a healthcare system that was wholly state-funded: his power-base was precarious, the Waukeener had a huge share in the city's commercial lifeblood, the Tyrrans had just liberated the city from a Banite theocracy and people were overly-sensitive to the possibility of them setting up their own theocracy in its place (the leader being a Tyrran himself), etc.

 

For me, it's important to work within the confines of the campaign I've set up, not impose social mores of the real world. It's a game for my friends to enjoy, not a platform for one ideology or another.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Estelindis

[rjshae]

I'm also not following your logic Gatt9. You will still get xp from exploration. I think some folks are jumping to the wrong conclusion when they hear objective/goal based xp. These won't be only tied to the main story, but rather every thing you do in the game. Every encounter out in the world will have an xp reward tied to it.

Personally I'm interested to see how this approach will work out. Pretty much every other RPG-style game out there rewards slaughter for its own sake. How well will it function now that the reward system has significantly changed?

[Methuseleh]

Might require deepfeel or thoughtful play, oh no!

 

Srsly folks, Obsidian has MASSIVE experience with game design and how to have fun with a crpg. If you have concerns or doubts, fund to a level where you can participate in the beta and provide as much feedback as you want based upon actual gameplay.

[Methuseleh]

Deepfeel? Hate autocorrect. Sorry!