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

[Volourn]

But, it isn't new or innovative. Other games have done this.

[TCJ]

Well, it's gotten rather confusing reading all this, but IF there is a regenerating bar (even if it isn't health) I'm not a big fan of that. The system itself sounds fine aside from regenerating, but I think upping stamina should be left to spells/abilites instead of auto regen. That is, if it does regenerate!

 

As for XP, I'd like XP for kills (I don't kill everything in sight) but I can live with the proposed system, too.

[Elerond]

Well, it's gotten rather confusing reading all this, but IF there is a regenerating bar (even if it isn't health) I'm not a big fan of that. The system itself sounds fine aside from regenerating, but I think upping stamina should be left to spells/abilites instead of auto regen. That is, if it does regenerate!

 

As for XP, I'd like XP for kills (I don't kill everything in sight) but I can live with the proposed system, too.

 

In BG and BG2 your health regenerated in and out of the combat. Regeneration speed depends how much your character has constitution, with max 25 you regenerate to full health in minute.

[TCJ]

Well, it's gotten rather confusing reading all this, but IF there is a regenerating bar (even if it isn't health) I'm not a big fan of that. The system itself sounds fine aside from regenerating, but I think upping stamina should be left to spells/abilites instead of auto regen. That is, if it does regenerate!

 

As for XP, I'd like XP for kills (I don't kill everything in sight) but I can live with the proposed system, too.

 

In BG and BG2 your health regenerated in and out of the combat. Regeneration speed depends how much your character has constitution, with max 25 you regenerate to full health in minute.

 

Only one character (by default) had enough constitution to regenerate and that was Kagain. I think you could boost up CON some more, but I'm not sure it's possible to to get to 25 without the benefit of spells. In any case, it was the exception, not the rule, that a character could gain health back without the aid of spells, potions, or items.

Edited October 16, 2012 by TCJ

[wickermoon]

^The irony is strong in you, padawan.

it drives me nuts that people say use this from that game or i want it like this ...not my cup of tea...

 

What is wrong with doing things new?!!!... New system etc ...Innovation and progress not borrowing....

It drives me mad some comments on this thread ...Deus Ex mechanics, Icwind ****ing Dale etc...

Might as well just repeat them all ...

Obsidian is doing something new in old format to make relevant ...

they should be allowed and celebrated ...!!!! not encouraged to do copy and paste ....

 

Well, they lured with promises of old and copy, to be honest. But that shouldn't be read as you're wrong. I think Obsidian should try to innovate and improve on mechanics. But please, be reminded that they still promised a game in the style of yore, so to speak. It's not only the graphics we're talking about. They, themselves, are referencing "Icewind ****ing Dale", so it's only natural people are focussing much of their time on trying to get their most beloved features from that game into this one, as they, when they read the kickstarter, were told that this here game would be in the likes of the old ones.

 

I, for one, would love to have a game which is still quite similar to BG1/2, but still distinctive enough to not be an exact clone. And I'm also pretty sure that Obsidian is not going to get influenced by the ideas around here, if they don't think it would make sense. They're not going to be bullied into a game they don't want to create.

[firstarioch]

^The irony is strong in you, padawan.

it drives me nuts that people say use this from that game or i want it like this ...not my cup of tea...

 

What is wrong with doing things new?!!!... New system etc ...Innovation and progress not borrowing....

It drives me mad some comments on this thread ...Deus Ex mechanics, Icwind ****ing Dale etc...

Might as well just repeat them all ...

Obsidian is doing something new in old format to make relevant ...

they should be allowed and celebrated ...!!!! not encouraged to do copy and paste ....

 

Well, they lured with promises of old and copy, to be honest. But that shouldn't be read as you're wrong. I think Obsidian should try to innovate and improve on mechanics. But please, be reminded that they still promised a game in the style of yore, so to speak. It's not only the graphics we're talking about. They, themselves, are referencing "Icewind ****ing Dale", so it's only natural people are focussing much of their time on trying to get their most beloved features from that game into this one, as they, when they read the kickstarter, were told that this here game would be in the likes of the old ones.

 

I, for one, would love to have a game which is still quite similar to BG1/2, but still distinctive enough to not be an exact clone. And I'm also pretty sure that Obsidian is not going to get influenced by the ideas around here, if they don't think it would make sense. They're not going to be bullied into a game they don't want to create.

Uphf.....lol

I was worried that I might be the only one wanting something new .....

You know what I always kind off half wished that they will lure us with promises of old and than do something New and forget the promises .... And that New will be so good that everyone will forget deception and immerse themselves into new experiemce ....

I just love New ....innovation ...modern ..etc ....

I just love innovation and I'm not scared of new ....so should be Obsidian ....but ofcourse you are right about all this and I agree with you ....

I just don't want these pardon for expression idiots writing about deus ex mechanics , etc ...to copy and paste .....it drives me nuts ....

[Shadeling]

The main question should be, is this fun? Going back and forth to rest/heal, does it feel FUN or does it feel like punishment/work? Lets not forget the mega dungeon, no healing potions and only being able to do the timesink healing all the way through...meh

 

I think this is an excellent point. To me is seems like a lot of this games mechanics are being based solely on how to prevent people from doing this or that. We dont like "rest scumming": put in a system that forces you to rest in only certain locations, We dont like "ability / spell casting scumming": put in cooldowns, We dont like players "level scumming": put in quest based experience, We dont like players "topping off before battles scumming", see "rest scumming" and "ability scumming". So much energy is being funneled into forcing the players to play only one way. Im not even particulalry opposed to new mechanics, just mechanics that sound like their only purpose is to harsh my buzz. I just dont want everything to be a hassle, I want to have fun.

 

Greetings,

I do second that wholeheartedly. I for one am most oriented towards escapism than pseudo-hardcore-realism (no ill wil intended) through a computer. I am very enthusiaistic about the project a s a whole, but it's true these particular points regarding the healing and so on have me cringing a bit...

On a Side note, I am simply ecstatic that we passed the 3.5 M !! Really. Awesome

 

I so agree with all of the above. Incredibly excited about this game. The 'hardcore' aspect to healing, health/stamina mechanics is a wee bit worrisome. I just hope it doesn't enter the realm of punishment in order to feel as though one has accomplished something significant.

[Gfted1]

You know what I always kind off half wished that they will lure us with promises of old and than do something New and forget the promises .... And that New will be so good that everyone will forget deception and immerse themselves into new experiemce ....

 

 

Thats known as the "bait and switch".

[firstarioch]

You know what I always kind off half wished that they will lure us with promises of old and than do something New and forget the promises .... And that New will be so good that everyone will forget deception and immerse themselves into new experiemce ....

 

 

Thats known as the "bait and switch".

Lol....

You are right ...but hey sometimes little deception is neccesarry ....to get new message across ..lol...

I don't mind ...if the end result is good ....

[Lady Evenstar]

You know what I always kind off half wished that they will lure us with promises of old and than do something New and forget the promises .... And that New will be so good that everyone will forget deception and immerse themselves into new experiemce ....

 

 

Thats known as the "bait and switch".

 

And something Obsidian might get away with ... once. I hope they'll think long and hard about whether it's in their best interest to produce a game that a subset of IE fans will love, but that will have a significantly narrower appeal than those games did. I hate to see Obsidian poised to shoot themselves in the foot once again.

[Estelindis]

This "it" is the presentation of an unavoidable dilemma as I read your writing: either you get that dark themed class division (where money matters), or else you "run into inconsistencies." The first appears as a setting (chosen) the other as a worldbuilding flaw. I was trying to point out that this dualism was not necessarily the case.

Thank you for explaining! I didn't understand you properly before. I think I agree with you that the state could play a role in making the situation less grimdark... I tend to think, however, that many states would not be so idealistic and that it would lead to a "points of light" situation (as I seem to recall WotC describing Forgotten Realms 4.0; I stuck to the previous iteration since it meant our campaign area would not be underwater).

 

In actual fact, though, I don't seem to recall much consideration being given to this subject in Infinity Engine games. Maybe my memory is just poor, but the healing made available by clerics and druids seemed to be very much oriented around the player characters rather than cohesively integrated into the world of the game.

[Sammael]

I go to a (real) vacation and take a vacation from the boards and it all goes boom. I'm not too surprised.

 

Re: Stamina/Health - this is a pretty standard, run of the mill Wounds/Vitality system. It's supposed to add that grim'n'gritty feel to the game; in PnP all it does is induce bookkeeping nightmares. Since the computer will do the bookkeeping for us in Eternity, I think it will work just fine.

 

Josh, for us who cannot stand anything related to 4th edition, please include a toggle somewhere to replace paladins barking orders to heal with the standard "Vita! Mortis! Careo!" In my little world, people don't get better from being yelled at, but I will gleefully accept the "IT'S MAGIC!!1!11!" explanation.

 

Re: XP awards - the designers have every right to set the tone and feel of the game by eliminating combat XP. Furthermore, eliminating combat XP will make balancing much easier (without resorting to the hideous auto-scaling crap), because they won't have to worry whether the player is level 5 or level 15 because he spent three weeks next to a rat hole killing ratsies. Yes, 3.x scaling XP is not bad, but it's not a perfect solution because when rats stop giving you XP, you'll just move on to the orc spawning spot.

[rjshae]

My initial sense on this XP issue is that in the end the rewards are the same and you'll end up at the same class level; it's primarily a difference between whether you receive immediate gratification for your actions or a delayed reward. If Obsidian wants to cater to gamers who like continually slaying random monsters, they can always implement things like achievements (100 XP for slaying 500 bloodbugs => gain 'Royal bloodbug slayer' title) and bounties. In that case, the net difference will be that you'll be actively seeking particular creature types (or group types) rather than just killing everything that moves.

 

Shrug.

 

Any issues with their approach should come out during play testing, at which point they can modify the XP reward system accordingly. I'm sure that most of us won't be disappointed.

[Gatt9]

^The irony is strong in you, padawan.

it drives me nuts that people say use this from that game or i want it like this ...not my cup of tea...

 

What is wrong with doing things new?!!!... New system etc ...Innovation and progress not borrowing....

It drives me mad some comments on this thread ...Deus Ex mechanics, Icwind ****ing Dale etc...

Might as well just repeat them all ...

Obsidian is doing something new in old format to make relevant ...

they should be allowed and celebrated ...!!!! not encouraged to do copy and paste ....

 

The problem is simple.

 

This is "Design out a playstyle I don't want people to play", which is a really terrible reason for a design decision. If someone chooses to take the playing field you give them, and degenerate it, so long as they aren't affecting anyone else's game, why introduce highly questionable design to obstruct it?

 

For a better example, many people over the years play D&D as a "Munchkin", so the reasoning behind this design means that D&D should no longer allow any character to have 18's in their attributes, and no character should be allowed to have more than 1 magic item.

 

It's a playstyle choice, some people choose to exploit the system, that's their choice. Rather than punish everyone else who plays by the rules with a highly linear system that removes all reward from one of the primary activities in an RPG, let them exploit if that's what they want. Designing everything around how a subset of Players might exploit a single player game is a very bad reason to do anything.

 

This isn't a choice being made because they feel they have an idea to improve the game and the genre, it's an choice being made because someone somewhere might exploit the implementation in a CRPG.

[Gatt9]

Re: XP awards - the designers have every right to set the tone and feel of the game by eliminating combat XP. Furthermore, eliminating combat XP will make balancing much easier (without resorting to the hideous auto-scaling crap), because they won't have to worry whether the player is level 5 or level 15 because he spent three weeks next to a rat hole killing ratsies. Yes, 3.x scaling XP is not bad, but it's not a perfect solution because when rats stop giving you XP, you'll just move on to the orc spawning spot.

 

1. It doesn't make balancing easier. It's just as easy to add the xp of everything on the main path, and main path + sidequests, to get a reliable range of what level the vast majority of players will be at in a system that includes xp/kill.

 

2. They don't need to worry about whether or not the player spent three weeks killing rats. That's the Player's problem. Their job isn't to guard against some subset of Players who'll exploit the game at the expense of the Players who play it as intended. If someone chose to do that, let them, and don't worry about it. Someone somewhere might also choose to use save/reload, should we take out the load button because someone might abuse it?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Obsidian is running out of time to let me know whether we can use any party member as party spokesperson. I will increase my pledge significantly for this feature.

[Chunkyman]

Obsidian is running out of time to let me know whether we can use any party member as party spokesperson. I will increase my pledge significantly for this feature.

 

I imagine someone will mod that in.

[Volourn]

"the designers have every right to set the tone and feel of the game by eliminating combat XP"

 

What a silly argument. They also have the 'right' to give a mil xp per encounter. they also have the right to makeyou do what NWN2 does and 0hp = unconcious not death. They have the right to do a lot of things. Who is debating otherwise? Posters have the right to state their opinions as well. Your garbage adds nothing to the discussion.

 

 

"because they won't have to worry whether the player is level 5 or level 15 because he spent three weeks next to a rat hole killing ratsies. Yes, 3.x scaling XP is not bad, but it's not a perfect solution because when rats stop giving you XP, you'll just move on to the orc spawning spot."

 

What a weaka rgument. A game shouldn't have an x spawn point that replenishes after awhile unless it is a Gauntlet wannabe. That is not Obsidian's intention here since they plkan to place encounters and items anyways so that just won't work.

 

Giving xpm for killing enemies surely didn't hurt the classics like FO, BG2, or the GB games. But, not giving xp for killing enemies was a weakness of both ME2 and BL. 8shrug*

[MaximKat]

"the designers have every right to set the tone and feel of the game by eliminating combat XP"

 

What a silly argument. They also have the 'right' to give a mil xp per encounter. they also have the right to makeyou do what NWN2 does and 0hp = unconcious not death. They have the right to do a lot of things. Who is debating otherwise?

People how say stuff like "Why should we be policing how Player's play the game? What right does anyone have to declare that "You're doing it wrong and we're going to stop you!"?"

[Olauron Mor-Galad]

Furthermore, eliminating combat XP will make balancing much easier (without resorting to the hideous auto-scaling crap), because they won't have to worry whether the player is level 5 or level 15 because he spent three weeks next to a rat hole killing ratsies. Yes, 3.x scaling XP is not bad, but it's not a perfect solution because when rats stop giving you XP, you'll just move on to the orc spawning spot.

I would say it can make balancing easier. Not necessarily though. It is absolutely possible to automatically assign an objective (hidden from the player) to every stack of non-quest enemies. This will allow those who desire to grind as much as with the exp-per-kill system, just get experience not per one enemy but per group of enemies. This however allows pretty easy not rewarding for the same quest twice or thrice (speech + mass kill; stealth + mass kill; etc.).

 

Being able to grind or to raise your level through exploration (and killing enemies) is a matter of implementation not a matter of system (objective-based or exp-per-kill) itself.

 

Edit: I would even say that it is really easy to implement an option for a player to toggle on or off regarding experience for dealing with random groups of enemies in case of an objective-based system. Not easy in case of exp-per-kill system.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Olauron Mor-Galad

[Sammael]

The grind thing is just a general example, I do not expect Eternity to have WoW-style respawn points (even if IE games did have them - q.v. Undersigil in Torment, random encounters in BG games, and so on).

 

Players will undoubtedly find the way to exploit the system, and that's their right. On the other hand, if Josh and others want to make a game that does not encourage you to slaughter every living being on the map for XP that's their right as well. This is a question of style and perception; they want to make a game where killing things should not always necessarily be the primary way of resolving problems and making progress in the game. Where did I see that before? Oh yeah, Torment. And I know a lot of people in this thread who hate the proposed goal-based XP hated Torment. Oh well, you can't win them all.

[Keyser]

Grats to all for this huge Kickstarter success. Sadly I couldn't watch the stream at the end because of work, but it must have been quite the celebration.

 

My thoughts on the discussions here, for what they're worth:

 

Health and Stamina: The system itself doesn't matter to me. Using any system at all, fights can be made to be challenging, which I'd like them to be. People could rest spam before and this system addresses that. The thing about designers putting in restrictions in their mechanics is rarely to stop players from having fun playing the way they want to. It is because they understand human psychology. If there is a tedious and unfun, but optimal way of playing a game, people will either tend towards that way or feel like they're punishing themselves and making their character weaker every time they deviate from it. "Forcing" players into a more engaging playstyle isn't patronizing, it is a designers job. People who truly enjoy unfun stuff should still be able to do it, but it shouldn't be encouraged through rewards for the above reasons. It can be made viable, but never encouraged.

Anyways, as long as I will spend evenings working out tactics to beat a difficult encounter, the numbers that the PC is crunching in the background don't matter to me in the slightest. And if anyone here seriously believes that this game will have health or stamina regenerating in combat to the point where it's impossible to die, then what are you even doing here backing the project?

 

Quest XP vs. Kill XP: I'll just lay my own bias on the table up front: I like Baldur's Gate 2. It is the best RPG and indeed best game ever made for any platform and surpassed by none. Its mechanics are, to me, perfect for their purpose, namely allowing for, and being conductive to, a fun RPG experience in the style of PnP roleplaying games. Making an IE game should mean to take your inspiration in large part from Baldur's Gate 2. I'm not stubborn and will require the devs to make everything like BG2 without any change, I can accept reasonable and well-founded changes and I accept the health stamina thing because it sounds sensible to me. But there have to be good reasons for you to say that you can "improve" on BG2 mechanics.

I have played the IE games a lot and not always in the intended way. I have honestly never felt in a position where I was too weak or unbeatably strong. What issues is this new system meant to solve? If there was a problem in BG2 with people grinding I could see the need, but there simply wasn't, because monsters didn't respawn. Why implement this whole new system for something that BG2 already had the solution for 12 years ago? Kill-XP couldn't be abused because there was no way to grind, and if there was (travelling back and forth to get random encounters) those would be so hugely inefficient compared to continuing with the storyline that the designers successfully made it a non-issue. On the other hand: Kill-XP does have advantages. Small incremental rewards are just hugely more efficient at motivating players to go on, they give the feeling of continued progress. Let's be honest, we roleplayers like to see the numbers go up.

As for the problem of metagaming multiple paths: As has been said many times in the thread, for the AIs that are aligned to some quest, just set one little flag in there that checks if another way of solving the quest has already been taken. If so, they give nothing except loot (which, by the way, would still exist in the quest-XP system and therefore would still give an incentive to kill everyone anyways, so I don't really understand that point unless you want to do away with loot for killing as well and go to a "quest-loot only" system). Maybe you get a tag like "Slaughterer" for the unnecessary violence that will get you respected in some parts, frowned upon in others. If you kill the lawful quest givers, that's even easier to punish. Give the tag "Murderer" and have most shops closed to the player.

I think there is no reason that I can see to do away with kill-XP in a well-designed game, and there are some reasons to keep it.

 

That's my view of this stuff, I am always open to be convinced though.

[Wombat]

I would say it can make balancing easier. Not necessarily though. It is absolutely possible to automatically assign an objective (hidden from the player) to every stack of non-quest enemies. This will allow those who desire to grind as much as with the exp-per-kill system, just get experience not per one enemy but per group of enemies. This however allows pretty easy not rewarding for the same quest twice or thrice (speech + mass kill; stealth + mass kill; etc.).

 

Being able to grind or to raise your level through exploration (and killing enemies) is a matter of implementation not a matter of system (objective-based or exp-per-kill) itself.

 

Edit: I would even say that it is really easy to implement an option for a player to toggle on or off regarding experience for dealing with random groups of enemies in case of an objective-based system. Not easy in case of exp-per-kill system.

Due to the scope of the game, I wonder if it is worth the time to implement options for "dungeon crawler" style players and balance them. However, since many of them don't seem to care for the balance, maybe just give them an option of giving EXP for killing. The same goes with equipments which can break the game-balance. I don't want to see them in my play-through. Maybe, there should be munchkin mode to secure the game but, again, I wonder if it is worth the time. I know Torchlight, Borderlands and Diablo are popular but I'd like PE to keep a solid design scope.

 

Players will undoubtedly find the way to exploit the system, and that's their right. On the other hand, if Josh and others want to make a game that does not encourage you to slaughter every living being on the map for XP that's their right as well. This is a question of style and perception; they want to make a game where killing things should not always necessarily be the primary way of resolving problems and making progress in the game.

Talking of "right," other players than those who are fond of dungeon-crawler play-style have the right to play the game with the balance which is intended by the designers, too. Here, different from Torment, they have Sawyer in their team. I think his records are good enough to leave him at the helm of game-balancing. After all, we are talking of a game whose system design is going to be done by Sawyer & Cain.

[Sammael]

Completely useless fact: Josh was on the Torment team, but not as a designer... he was the webmaster and designed the kick-ass Torment website.

[Waywocket]

Talking of "right," other players than those who are fond of dungeon-crawler play-style have the right to play the game with the balance which is intended by the designers, too. Here, different from Torment, they have Sawyer in their team. I think his records are good enough to leave him at the helm of game-balancing. After all, we are talking of a game whose system design is going to be done by Sawyer & Cain.

 

I don't know why you think only dungeon crawlers would like to get XP for defeating monsters. For me it's the complete opposite; I tend to go for non-combat options where possible since I don't really enjoy enormous amounts of combat, so if it doesn't give XP I'll inevitably spend the whole game avoiding it wherever possible as it's just a waste of time.