Update #29: Fulfillment and the Pros and Cons of Nostalgia and Realism

[PurpleLlama]

One feeling I have about armour in RPGs in general these days is that there is too much of it. I want to hang onto an armour set for a while and enjoy it, maybe enchant it up slowly. I also have a growing aversion to crafting in RPGs which I feel is oft too time consuming, boring and undermines finding good items in dungeons etc. Perhaps the years of not so good RPGs have made me grumpy and impatient, tis a possibility.

[uaciaut]

As someone who picked up the first Fallout games AFTER playing 3 and eventually New Vegas, i was impressed by how well implemented the design of armor mechanics were implented there, this while fantasy cprg's were still operating with a primitive first edition ad&d system that seemed clunky as hell. Then again Fallout as a game didn't have to face the same challenges a class-based RPG would face where you have a mulitude of types of armor that work with certain classes and you want to keep the selection relatively even in terms of effective power (advantages-disadvantages).

 

I think that having 4-5 types of physica damage, with all armor bringing an evasion (and a max dexterity bonus increase to that) and damage mitigation is fine, though perhaps some weapons should not be doing a single type of damage - for example while i can imagine a rapier doing only piercing damage, i can't imagine a 1m+ big chunk of metal yielded into what is a two handed sword doing only slashing damage where slashing damage is something a katana would also do (i.e. a 2h sword should prolly do blunt damage too, maybe piercing).

On the concept of armor and armor-damage interaction which Josh spoke of some time ago - the way i understood it was that something that does piercing damage would have more "armor penetration" as an innate thing while having the potential disadvantage of doing less normal damage to everything else which sounded like a simple, beautiful and great way to implement a weapon-armor interaction

 

What i'd like to ask is:

 

1. If blunt weapons or weapons that do blunt/crushing damage or if blunt/crushing damage as a whole goes through heavy armor/big DT easier (or has more "armor penetration" as i've put it before) are we to expect blunt-damage dealing weapons to have a harder time versus ligh armor - it would make SOME sense because they're heavier weapons that attack slower and you could give something like the "speed factor" stat from BG2/PS:T etc a bigger role in that bigger speed factor weapons do worse/get a roll penalty versus high AC's (for example). Basically are weapons with their respective damage types going to come with their advantage/disadvantage factor as well to complent those of the armor?

2. Are we to expect enchanted weapons to get an innate ammount of "armor penetration" - or to put it differently, i should be expected as a player, controling a party of 6, to mix and match weapons such as all damage types would be available to me (it wouldn't make sense to make everyone use longswords anyway since everyone would fight over the same pieces of loot and it would be horrible management on myaccount). BUT does that mean that if my front line of warriors have all slashing-damage-dealing weapons (or if i just want to solo the game) and i meet up with a heavy armor opponent i have to switch to a blunt weapon which my party is not proeficient with and can't hit for the life of them? I mean meeting clay golems in BG2 when the only blunt-weapon user of my party was my cleric who had horrible Thac0 was fairly frustrating but those encounters were few and far between and added some flavour, i can't imagine meeting that type of situation frequently to be fun however.

Edited January 17, 2013 by uaciaut

[Tsuga C]

 

• Should something like hide armor be supplanted/made obsolete by leather as an "improved version" or does that effectively kill the visual concept of the rough-hewn rawhide-wearing ranger or barbarian?
• If armor types like hide (or scale, or mail) should remain viable on their own, how should that "upgrade" be expressed to the player? Functional descriptors like "fine scale", "superior hide", etc.? Cultural or material descriptors like "Vailian doublet", "iron feather scale"? Olde tyme numerical descriptors like "scale armor +1", "half-plate +2"?
• Is it okay for an upgrade from a visual type of armor to maintain its relative position to other armor types even if "realistically" that upgraded armor is now probably superior in protection to other armor types? E.g. an armored jack or brigandine armor is probably more protective than even nice suit of leather armor... but mechanically, we're presenting it as an upgrade of a padded (doublet) armor type.

 

1.  Keeping the visual look is important to the player as it reinforces the foundational concept from which the character was created.  Small modifications are acceptable, of course, but the upgraded hides (say from ordinary cow hide to ensorcelled gorgon hide offering additional resistance against piercing and slashing plus a bonus against petrification)  should still resemble hides, albeit with different coloration, finish, and fit.

 

2.  The traditional "half-plate +2" works well for me.  Be as flowery, wry, or verbose as you please in your item descriptions, but keep it simple for the item summary above the description.

 

3.  No, I'd say that superior protection changes the relative position of the armor in question because that superior protection comes about via adding structural elements to the base armor.  An upgrade from cow hide to gorgon hide wouldn't violate this rule, but armoring a jack certainly does.  When in doubt, ask yourself if the mechanical, physical composition of the armor has changed.  If not, then it can maintain its position; if so, then it has to be treated differently.

[Frisk]

I'm just wondering about the fulfillment site because, well...a while ago it was said that

 

 

First off, I wanted to announce that we’re developing a fulfillment site, which we’re hoping to have online in the next month or two

 

 

It's been a month or two (or a bit more) since then, and I was kind-of wondering if there would be any news on the fulfillment site soon....and the "special" forum badges, and the other stuff.

 

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting slightly impatient, but if I have to wait a few months more, that's fine...I'm just hoping for some update.

[Falke81]

please help:

where is my forum badge? I am a KS backer.

thanx.

[JFSOCC]

Falke81, go to this thread> http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61817-the-obsidian-order-of-eternity-wants-you-part-6/

and name your title

[Amentep]

Falke81, go to this thread> http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61817-the-obsidian-order-of-eternity-wants-you-part-6/

and name your title

 

The obsidian order is only for people who added a specific amount to their pledge above what their tier required.  I think, he's talking about the "Every backer for this level or more will receive a KICKSTARTER BACKER BADGE on the PROJECT ETERNITY forums" from the level rewards.

 

And AFAIK the official answer is still - its coming along with the fulfillment site.

[Coolraft]

Are there already some news about the fullfilment site they wanted to introduce?

[Apatia]

Are there already some news about the fullfilment site they wanted to introduce?

 

Yes.