Can I even handle a game like PE any longer? Well, I sure hope so!

[J.E. Sawyer]

Your party members can be rendered useless after one "unlucky" fight, forcing you to go back to a rest spot. Awesome! Cant wait to see what happens to the squishy classes. Whats the point of that? Ill guess the response will be "tactics". Etc, etc...

 

This can happen in a 2nd Ed. fight just as (or much more) easily.

 

I don't actually know if you backed PoE, but assuming you did, I've always been surprised; you haven't liked what I've said about the game from during the KS campaign on.  That's perfectly fine, but I don't know why you would have backed it since you disliked so much of it.

[Nonek]

My own bugbear is somewhat the diametric opposite of Ms Lightfoot's, I am rarely challenged in modern games either from a narrative or gameplay perspective. The worst offender for this in my opinion was the original Dungeon Siege, whose automated combat fairly much played itself, while I enjoyed a few buttered pikelets and a refreshing cup of Earl Grey, and whose plot I truly cannot see how Mr Neal Halford of Betrayal at Krondor fame came to write. Challenge me with plot points that are an unexpected and intriguing surprise, or delight me with mechanics in which I can truly invest myself and I am fairly much hooked.

 

For instance the forshadowing and backstory that Deionarra hinted at in Torment, the unexpected black ops mission I ran for Alan Parker in AP,  the experiments found in Irenicus' dungeon in BG2, or the first real mage battle you experience in Athkatla etcetera.

[Lephys]

It's good to make sure games aren't unnecessarily complex, but, yeah... it's definitely not a good idea to tailor games to things like limited playtime.

 

I must clarify... what I mean is, it's not a good idea to take a game like PoE and trim it just so it's easier to handle it in our daily lives today.

 

If you give me the Cliff's Notes for a 1,000 page fantasy novel, I'll be much more able to read them in a limited amount of time, and get the whole story without much effort. However, then I'm not really even reading a novel anymore. Not just because of length, either.

[Labadal]

It's good to make sure games aren't unnecessarily complex, but, yeah... it's definitely not a good idea to tailor games to things like limited playtime.

 

I must clarify... what I mean is, it's not a good idea to take a game like PoE and trim it just so it's easier to handle it in our daily lives today.

 

If you give me the Cliff's Notes for a 1,000 page fantasy novel, I'll be much more able to read them in a limited amount of time, and get the whole story without much effort. However, then I'm not really even reading a novel anymore. Not just because of length, either.

 

That is true. It wouldn't be the game I wanted anymore. Playing Shadowrun Returns, I knew that the game wasn't very long and how the save systems worked, and no loot on enemy corpses. When I played the game and beat it, I knew what I had paid for and got what I expected. I was simply happy with that.

 

Take a game like Divinity: Original Sin. I'm expecting a 30-40 hour game. Getting only a 10 hour game would disappoint me, especially if the reason was to please one part of the fan base that don't have the time for big games.

 

Edit: I personally think the size is the biggest issue for people with restricted time for gaming. There are complex 10 hour games out there.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Labadal

[J.E. Sawyer]

It's pretty unlikely that a single character will be rendered useless fresh out of the day's first fight, but the reason why things like health (vs. stamina), maiming, and per-rest abilities exist aren't for tactical reasons (well, a little bit) but for strategic reasons.  Adversity causes a player to consider alternate tactics and strategies.  Without adversity, there is no reason to do anything differently from one fight to the next.  If the composition of enemies changes or if the battlefield changes, those can promote tactical shifts.  If the capabilities of the party members change, that can promote both strategic and tactical shifts.

 

If one party member uses all of his or her per-rest abilities in a big fight, the player may have to rely on per-encounter abilities, standard attacks, and items for that character.  If one party member suffers a lot of health damage, the player may shift that character's position in the party and change how he or she uses that character.  In the example Gfted1 quoted, that character was not useless, but was vulnerable.  I did position him differently, I stuck to using ranged spells, and I moved him or ran defensive interception when enemies were swarming.  Even a maimed character is not useless, but they are much less effective.

 

In contrast to the IE games, PoE is much more forgiving when it comes to raw luck and the long-term effects of individual combats.  But yes, the expenditures and losses of one combat do roll over into subsequent combats if you don't rest.  Even so, personal resource management is also much more forgiving in PoE than it was in the IE games due to the high number of per-encounter abilities and the function of our stamina mechanics.

[Jarmo]

I'll clarify (or maybe further muddy up) my previous post about game length.

I don't dislike long games as such, and it's not like I have any trouble wasting 100+ hours in Total War, Skyrim or New Vegas.

 

It's more to do with what kind of drudgery the going is and how informed I am of the length of time spent.

Like, if you're playing and FPS and there's a group of enemies to deal with. And they just keep on coming,

like if you spend 25 minutes in the same fight just shooting the mooks and have no idea if it's going to last for another hour.

That's when the game starts to annoy and even if the total playing time is only 5 hours I'll be burned out before it's over.

[Yonjuro]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

 

a. For the record, I'm in favor of a larger scope.

 

I think, for me it is mostly:

 

b. I like difficult levels but, in some cases, adding difficulty can just make things tedious. This happens when the game play graph looks like a straight line, that is, when an objective involves a very long series of non-optional sub-objectives. If the only choice a player can make is press on or backtrack umpteen levels to recover, then difficulty level becomes positively correlated with boredom. 

[Gfted1]

@Gfted1:

 

Why have a 6-person party if you need them all to be at 100% fighting capacity just to advance through the game?

 

I understand your concern. Based on that one vague statement, it could be really bad. But, it also could be designed perfectly fine.

 

Also, if you simply don't like venturing forth while protecting someone who's become fragile, that's totally fine too. That doesn't really make it a design problem, though. Nothing's "forcing" you to trek back to a rest spot just 'cause 5 of your people are at 90% health, and one's at 30%. That's kind of one of the main points of combat: take precautions against your characters taking oodles of damage.

 

If you prefer to go fix that (30% health situation) instead of progressing onward, then the game isn't to blame for your preference. Doesn't make your preference wrong. It just isn't the game's fault.

 

IF you play this game, and, try as you might, you just cannot get through anywhere without everyone always dropping to low health, and you keep having to go back to rest spots every 5 minutes just to make it through a given area, then yeah, I'm going to call that a design problem. Especially if you adjust the difficulty and that still doesn't remedy it. And, again, I understand the concern for that possibility. But... it baffles you that people think dealing with a wounded party member can be fun? Isn't that the same type of bafflement you just criticized PIP-Clownboy for?

Shockingly, you miss the point and create some silly example that cant possibly exist. If, somehow, only one party member takes damage during battles then yes, you can venture on. Meanwhile in reality, every party member is going to take damage every single battle and no, I don't think its a case of simply being "unlucky" that will quickly put the whole of your party in the above mentioned state. As always, a tl;dr response is appreciated.

 

 

I don't actually know if you backed PoE, but assuming you did, I've always been surprised; you haven't liked what I've said about the game from during the KS campaign on.  That's perfectly fine, but I don't know why you would have backed it since you disliked so much of it.

My backing of PE can be confirmed by observing the two badges under my avatar. I bought into PE while still excited about Obsidian creating a game (mostly) like the IE games of yore but before these special touches were announced. However, like PIP-Clownboy, I am excited about the stronghold. Also, I look forward to the story. I just hope I don't wind up shelving the game a few hours in because of the mechanics. And regardless of whether or not I like the final product, I do hope it is a success for Obsidian.

[Pshaw]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

For me it mostly isn't an issue, I will play and enjoy PoE thoroughly (I assume) even if I can't do it all in a handful of really long gaming sessions like I would have back in my school days. Still...

 

A: The scope of the game should be fairly large for a game like this. Anything less than 40 hours (assuming a pretty complete play through) I feel won't be a properly fleshed out world for an RPG. So long as the game has a beginning and an ending the length can be as long as it wants to be. It's only completely open games like MMOs, and sandbox type games like say Don't Starve, Starbound, Minecraft, DayZ that I feel like I can't fit into my schedule simply because I feel that an hour invested into those games gets you little to nothing accomplished in the grand scheme of an endless game.

 

B: So long as the difficulty is more based on skill/tactics and not RNG I'm fine with things being difficult. If it takes me 4-5 times to down a tricky boss or section I'm alright with that. Just like I'm ok turning down the difficulty if for some reason I can't push through on normal. It's just intensely frustrating to be totally at the whim of RNG in a game. Damage ranges will always be a part of that, as will hit/miss streaks, but getting 1 shot for instance is just a coin toss of success/failure.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

 

My only real constraint is time. I won't be able to invest the long single sessions I had as an adolescent with the IE games. My professional and personal lives are just too demanding--and I don't even have kids yet! This limitaiton is a minor one, and ultimately inconsequential. Time can be made eventually, and changing it in order to have a more casual appeal would be an insult to the game and deviate from what has brought us all together. We want a modernized evolution of a past golden age for cRPGs. That's what you should deliver--lifestyles be damned.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Mr. Magniloquent

[Karkarov]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

That is a little tough to answer.  I don't think scope is a concern.  I don't mind if a game is really long or has a huge world, in fact I consider those a plus cause they save me money from buying more games ,  That said you do have to reign it in and keep focus on the things the matter and avoid meaningless busy work quests or factions that are sort of boring and trite.  I think New Vegas did at least one thing right, and that was the scope of the game.  The world was large enough, but not too big, and there was plenty going on but everything did feel like it thematically fit.

 

Difficulty... well I want to be clear on that.  Demon's Souls was my game of the year when it came out.  I have a let's play of Dark Souls which I did blind, solo, and offline using no tips...  So obviously I am not averse to challenge.  I don't mind a game being "hard", what I mind is it being "cheap".  Let's take X-Com Enemy Unknown as an example.  There was one fight I remember where my sniper took a hit from an enemy at extreme range with less than a 20% chance to hit, then despite only taking one damage (they were full on health) panicked and one shot killed one of my own men.  Then later in the same fight a assault unit of mine went on to miss on a 99% chance to hit .... twice.  That isn't "challenge" it is just ridiculous RNG BS.  Like I said earlier.... it would be good if you could avoid BG2 mind flayers, a cheap enemy that either killed you in seconds or you killed in seconds because you pre cast 2-3 buffs making you immune to everything they do.

 

Essentially fights should be tough, but not punishing (at least on normal difficulty).  I should also be able to win any given fight regardless of class make up or gear as long as I am a reasonable level for it and don't use poor tactics.  When you put players in a situation where only specific tactics or classes, or specific buffs/immunities are required to have any chance of winning you have designed the type of encounter I won't appreciate very much.  BG2 had A LOT of those encounters.

[Robsidious]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

 

I think the issues are as diverse as the players themselves, in other words, all of the above. This is why I am so incredibly happy that Obsidian is focussing on providing extensive options for tailoring the gameplay to our personal preferences, beyond mere difficulty levels. Imo this is absolutely the best thing you can do and I hope Eternity becomes a leading example for other RPGs in this regard.

 

To me, the 'problem' this thread raises is an inevitable product of the engagement between people's lives and a complex game. I'd say this is actually part of the beauty and attraction of RPGs; that they can be challenging to engage with over a prolonged period of time speaks to their depth and richness. Of course the reasons WHY they are challenging to engage with is the key, and it is here that people's preferences muddy the waters. A long desired convenience for some may be unwanted by others; fixing a certain issue for one person may be breaking a feature for someone else. And RPGs have so many, many features.

 

Regarding the RPG 'renaissance', while I hardly hold the 'classics' up as examples of perfect game design, I do fear that some things I liked will be changed or removed because others don't like them, or because they are deemed 'busy work' or excessive to gameplay. Some of this evolution is par for the course and I surely appreciate that you can't please everybody. So I simply hope that these upcoming games will conform to my personal preferences as much as possible ;-) That said, I do feel there is a case to be made for the integrity of RPGs.

 

To answer the question more directly, I personally tend to disengage from games for a variety of reasons, indeed for a variety of reasons in each instance. I have never felt like an RPG was too large in scope or too difficult. I suppose you could say it is mostly a matter of scope in the sense that when I abandon a playthrough I simply haven't experienced all of the content yet ;-) Difficulty is not a concern due to the availability of walkthroughs if needed/wanted, and I enjoy dying in combat (or rather what that means, assuming combat is engaging). I may get overwhelmed, frustrated or stuck for awhile, yet if I find myself abandoning a game I'm enjoying it's usually because stuff has come up in my life and not a direct result of the game itself. In fact, I can't imagine an RPG I'd want to play that doesn't stymie my progress in some way, at some point. I was only half kidding when I said that I enjoy the challenge of 'completing the damn thing'. An epic RPG is epic and I wouldn't want it any other way.

[Silent Winter]

Late 30's here (birthday at the end of the month so won't put an exact number on it )

I've enjoyed gaming since the BBC Micro/zx-Spectrum days (and PONG before that but I didn't have that at home).

RPGs have always been my favourite.

Even though I have a lot less free time these days, like most of you, I don't think I'll have any problems enjoying PE.  I only played BG for the first time about 3-4 years ago so other than my wonderful son ("Daddy no play this one.  Turn it off." when he's at home), I'll be fine.

 

As to Josh's questions:
a) I have no problem with scope - though I like it to build up (don't get on so well when the 'starting area' is city-sized with too many things going on - I persevere though).

I've replayed BG1+2 a few times and I have less entusiasm now to play through to the end of TOB, but I think that's mostly since it's very linear with little variety for different classes compared with SOA.

If it takes me a few extra weeks to finish PE because I'm busy, then so be it.

b) No - that's what difficulty sliders are for - if it's too hard on 'Normal' then there's 'Easy' mode.  As above for 'fair' difficulty rather than 'your whole party was wiped out because the opposing mage rolled a 100 on his 'kill'em'all' spell).  (And as far as difficulty of figuring out quests goes - I'd rather run around and try things and eventually 'get it' (I'm looking at you 'A Link to the Past' and your cleverly hidden grapplehook target) than have a big pointer saying 'questers this way').

c) This is the one - if you could just include a Time-Compressor with the boxed version then I'll get that and enjoy it all in one sitting

Edited January 11, 2014 by Silent Winter

[PrimeJunta]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

 

If I had to boil down all my frustrations with IE games and their relatives to two, I'd say "lack of transparency" and "lazy design masquerading as challenge."

 

By "lack of transparency" I mean things like the way Athkatla dumps all the mid-game quests on you at once, with no indication – direct or implicit – of how hard they are. My first-ever quest in my first-ever attempt at BG2 was the Firkraag one, and that did not go well. I just kept feeling I was doing it wrong, when actually I was doing the wrong quest.

 

By "lazy design masquerading as challenge" I mean things like hitpoint bloat, filler combat, and puzzles based on finding that one doodad/person/pixel by trial and error. One of my pet peeves is the hidden door – i.e., an area transition that your character would easily see but you can't because it's partly occluded by something, so you keep wandering around the map like an idiot not being able to progress. This was surprisingly common in isometric games with a fixed camera!

[Wombat]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

c) Something else

I'd chime in asking the team to make the game more life-friendly.  The issue for me seems to be nuisances around old skool CRPGs, which mainly involves inventory management, mindless grinding, pixel-hunting and remembering things when reloading saves after a long period.  I managed to finish BG2, which had stayed on my HD nearly for two years, by simply being persistent.  In fact, most of the games I play are save-anywhere style, which allows me to continue the game little by little like I bookmark books with massive volumes.  At the same time, I'd like the game to be challenging due to its own tactical difficulty.  Based on the info so far, inventory management seems to be eased and I cannot remember too much about grinding in Obsidian games.  Basically, I'd like PoE to let me easily find time to play it while not sacrificing the difficulty.  After his playing Arcanum, I guess Avellone understands what I'm talking about here*.

 

Off the top of my head, possible improvements to this direction would be:  things are well-placed rest areas, non-luck-heavy gameplay, resource management factors which don't require too much mindless back-tracking or going back to more than several hours old saves (I hope the game system won't require too much for "wrong" character builds for respecing), well-written and well-sorted-out quest logs (like patient GMs to remind his/her players of their last sessions), no pixel-hunting-heavy gameplay like the notorious mask fragment in Mask of the Betrayer (Some people needed to go back to the map when they missed the special quest item to get a satisfactory narrative end.  A similar thing happened to Bronze Sphere in PST).  Generally speaking, please don't let little mistakes haunt way-too-long in such long (narrative-focused) games, which would be similar to the reason why game-stopping bugs are hated in this genre (c.f. New Vegas on PS3).

 

BTW, one of the main obstacles for me to keep playing some story-focused games is used-up themes or the lack of interesting themes, which will not be much of concern when comes to Obsidian games.

 

*In one of his blog entries, Avellone wrote what could easily weaken their strong points if not implemented carefully and I needed to show my concerns.  Dead Money was misses and hits while not so many people complained of Alpha Protocol's timed dialogues.  Personally, I didn't have problem, either, probably because I didn't need time to choose dialogues.  Probably I'm just stating the obvious but well-calculated restrictions for short term pressure seems to work fine.  I can safely regard PnP sessions are well-calculated environment but, for CRPGs, the designers probably need to do plan carefully.

[IndiraLightfoot]

There so many great posts here that my head is reeling!

 

 

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

 

I begin by replying in short order to Josh's questions:

a) Not at all, as long as PE isn't Shadowrun Returns-short-changed

b) Difficulty done right is something I feed on (like Karkarov's post mentioned), but done wrong it's pure annoyance

c) A number of something elses, in fact. See below (with the help of my fellow forumites)

 

It's good to make sure games aren't unnecessarily complex, but, yeah... it's definitely not a good idea to tailor games to things like limited playtime.
 

^This is a good starting point. Design the game just like you wanted it to be. 

 

It's more to do with what kind of drudgery the going is and how informed I am of the length of time spent.

Like, if you're playing and FPS and there's a group of enemies to deal with. And they just keep on coming,

like if you spend 25 minutes in the same fight just shooting the mooks and have no idea if it's going to last for another hour.

That's when the game starts to annoy and even if the total playing time is only 5 hours I'll be burned out before it's over.

 

I have a high tolerance for that kind of games, but it seems Obsidian aims for an RPG that has varied tactical encounters with plenty of ways of resolving them on the fore front, so I have high hopes in that regard.

 

 

I think, for me it is mostly:

 

b. I like difficult levels but, in some cases, adding difficulty can just make things tedious. This happens when the game play graph looks like a straight line, that is, when an objective involves a very long series of non-optional sub-objectives. If the only choice a player can make is press on or backtrack umpteen levels to recover, then difficulty level becomes positively correlated with boredom. 

 

A very important point, and this happened time and time again in the classic IE games as well, not to mention NWN 2 OC, when those pesky orcs appeared, as well the bugbears, etc.

 

 I will play and enjoy PoE thoroughly (I assume) even if I can't do it all in a handful of really long gaming sessions like I would have back in my school days. Still...

So long as the difficulty is more based on skill/tactics and not RNG I'm fine with things being difficult. If it takes me 4-5 times to down a tricky boss or section I'm alright with that. Just like I'm ok turning down the difficulty if for some reason I can't push through on normal. It's just intensely frustrating to be totally at the whim of RNG in a game. Damage ranges will always be a part of that, as will hit/miss streaks, but getting 1 shot for instance is just a coin toss of success/failure.
 

 

Me too. In fact, I feel set my difficulty so this scenario will happen every now and then. I like to get wiped out and then have another shot at it. You won't see me picking the ironman mode with just one save.

 

My only real constraint is time. I won't be able to invest the long single sessions I had as an adolescent with the IE games. My professional and personal lives are just too demanding--and I don't even have kids yet! This limitaiton is a minor one, and ultimately inconsequential. Time can be made eventually, and changing it in order to have a more casual appeal would be an insult to the game and deviate from what has brought us all together. We want a modernized evolution of a past golden age for cRPGs. That's what you should deliver--lifestyles be damned.

 

Others had already underlined this, but not this good! Hat's off to you!

 

 

I think the issues are as diverse as the players themselves, in other words, all of the above. This is why I am so incredibly happy that Obsidian is focussing on providing extensive options for tailoring the gameplay to our personal preferences, beyond mere difficulty levels. Imo this is absolutely the best thing you can do and I hope Eternity becomes a leading example for other RPGs in this regard.

 

To me, the 'problem' this thread raises is an inevitable product of the engagement between people's lives and a complex game. I'd say this is actually part of the beauty and attraction of RPGs; that they can be challenging to engage with over a prolonged period of time speaks to their depth and richness.

 

I enjoy dying in combat (or rather what that means, assuming combat is engaging). I may get overwhelmed, frustrated or stuck for awhile, yet if I find myself abandoning a game I'm enjoying it's usually because stuff has come up in my life and not a direct result of the game itself. In fact, I can't imagine an RPG I'd want to play that doesn't stymie my progress in some way, at some point. I was only half kidding when I said that I enjoy the challenge of 'completing the damn thing'. An epic RPG is epic and I wouldn't want it any other way.

 

I share this faith in Obsidian managing to make a game that we can tailor to our CRPG preferences. However, it shouldn't be too many options, with like monster level sliders and what not. And like I said, I love challenging encounters, and indeed, an epic RPG is epic, so please Obsidian, keep it that way, no matter what.

 

 

 

I'd chime in asking the team to make the game more life-friendly.  The issue for me seems to be nuisances around old skool CRPGs, which mainly involves inventory management, mindless grinding, pixel-hunting and remembering things when reloading saves after a long period. 

 

Off the top of my head, possible improvements to this direction would be:  things are well-placed rest areas, non-luck-heavy gameplay, resource management factors which don't require too much mindless back-tracking or going back to more than several hours old saves (I hope the game system won't require too much for "wrong" character builds for respecing), well-written and well-sorted-out quest logs (like patient GMs to remind his/her players of their last sessions), no pixel-hunting-heavy gameplay.

 

 

I like this brave stance of yours. So many ask for "old school RPG" with rose-tinted glasses on. Hopefully, the Obsids know the shortcomings of the classics only to make PE an epic CRPG worthy of 2014, without dumbing the game down or making it too easy or a crowd pleaser in every sense of the word.

Edited January 11, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Labadal]

Wombat is not wrong, and I think we will see more games like that, including games from Obsidian. I just want to know about these things before the game releases.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

no pixel-hunting-heavy gameplay like the notorious mask fragment in Mask of the Betrayer (Some people needed to go back to the map when they missed the special quest item to get a satisfactory narrative end.  A similar thing happened to Bronze Sphere in PST).  Generally speaking, please don't let little mistakes haunt way-too-long in such long (narrative-focused) games, which would be similar to the reason why game-stopping bugs are hated in this genre (c.f. New Vegas on PS3).

 

 

As a huge fan of MotB, I think you have identified perhaps my biggest gripe with that NWN2 expansion right there (I actually thought the spirit meter was fitting somehow, but perhaps it was with you for too long). One of few new games that have really impressed me in the last year or two is Dishonored. My avatar certainly hints at me digging it.

 

However, Dishonored too had a similar annoyance, but this time it was what PrimeJunta called "lack of transparency". If you did a no-kills playthrough, you had no idea if you had haphazardly killed someone directly or indirectly. And some acts were like two hours of game play. It wasn't fun when you saw you had some inexplicable death on your consciousness at the end of it. I would so much appreciated if I at least could check if my hands are clean while playing the game. Things like this is so unnecessary and so easy to rectify. And it doesn't have to be in your face like in FNV, where if you somehow short circuit a quest by killing some NPC, you get a pop-up saying something like "quest failed" on the screen. It's well enough with some info screen that I can get to via some short key.

 

As for Dishonored, I kept coming back to it several times with replays and all, because each playthrough could be done in so many ways. Also, there were plenty of hidden sections of the game (with the vertical aspect of the maps being even more important than the horizontal). Just like in FNV, I did nice guy-runs as well as killer sprees. While the game was rather linear, and the story was pretty straight forward, I came to appreciate the environment, the soundscapes and the gameplay so much that I kept coming back. I soon have more hours invested in Dishonored than Skyrim. Heck, even the achievements were fun. Now, that's a first! They really were. I hope Obsidian takes a page or two from Arkane Studios book when it comes to making fun encounter resolving achievements.

[Reever]

[...]

c) This is the one - if you could just include a Time-Compressor with the boxed version then I'll get that and enjoy it all in one sitting

 

Yeah, this would be helpful for us all :D

Edited January 11, 2014 by Reever

[Nonek]

On the subject of the Mask fragments and Bronze Sphere I certainly can see why people might be upset at missing out on this content, but I also recognise that this is a great example of choice, consequence and replayability. There are subtle and not so subtle clues lying around that these are both important relics, and their presence makes me search each area carefully, experiment and return to already played places. That said a simple way of making sure that such items are clearly flagged as important is to give them an open quest entry, that does not flag up a vulgar "THIS IS IMPORTANT!" sign, but makes the player aware that there is more to it.

 

I found a bronze sphere in the depths of the Weeping Stones catacombs, it repulses me and yet an old incarnation set Pharod's entire gang into searching for it, and I do feel that there is something...

 

In my tattered haunted dreams I see Akachi and he wears a strange mask, it seems important to him. Perhaps the church of Kelemvor or the spirits in Shadow Mulsantir know more?

 

But obviously with better Obsidian writing.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Nonek

[JFSOCC]

Would you (everyone) say that the issues are a) overall game scope b) game difficulty or c) something else?

C) Pacing: I think people who only have an hour each day to play the game need to feel like they made some progress for every hour of play, so that they don't play for an hour and feel like they haven't gotten anywhere.

 

Ofc, I'm not amongst those who worry about being able to handle P:E, I'm going to make time for it, one way or another.

Edited January 11, 2014 by JFSOCC

[Robsidious]

This is a cool thread, I likes it   

 

I like this brave stance of yours. So many ask for "old school RPG" with rose-tinted glasses on. Hopefully, the Obsids know the shortcomings of the classics only to make PE an epic CRPG worthy of 2014, without dumbing the game down or making it too easy or a crowd pleaser in every sense of the word.

 

 

 

 

This is precisely the issue I was calling to question. Who's to say what is nostalgia-driven and what is someone's authentic preferences? Where is the line between good streamlining and bad streamlining? Some of those 'short-comings' you allude to we can probably all (mostly ;-)  agree upon, yet some will be contested and considered good features by people. To illustrate my point, initially Josh/Obs was planning to have a shared party inventory, then upon further consideration (and hopefully listening to backer feedback), this has been altered so that party members still have their own inventory space, yet with the added convenience of all these inventories appearing on screen at once. This seems an ideal compromise to me, yet I tremble when I think that we almost lost personal inventories,  though again to some others this would not have been a big deal.

 

So, what's to be done...

 

[Metabot]

This is partially confirming my theory that a lot of the people that backed this game are really backing it for younger people. I will have time to play this but not nearly as much as i'd like.

[Nonek]

In regards to my previous post I just wish to clarify that I would be totally against making every playthrough the same and ensuring that everybody recieves the same experience, that makes for dull consequenceless experiences in my opinion. Our actions, explorations and choices should have appropriate repercussions.

 

In terms of playtime, I simply arrange my schedule appropriately, Poe will no doubt be more interesting than the television.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Nonek

[IndiraLightfoot]

Robsidious: Tell me about it! For some a certain feature is treasure, for others it's garbage. We'd better not bring up the UI, coz that alone has caused quite an uproar in this very forum. Obsidian won't be able to please everyone on each and every feature, but I do trust that the overall result will be clever and well-informed. If some of these features aren't what I hoped for, I'm sure I'll happily adapt. I won't curl up and cry my eyes out, that's for certain.

 

Metabot: Interesting theory, almost like paying something wonderful forward to the next generation, semi-subconsciously.