Update #70: New Year Project Update

[Bloody Hypocrite]

I must say, I'm not a fan of the might attribute as it stands. I understand that folks at OE are excited to develope their own system, but unless every action is soul dependant , then it feels a bit like over simplification.  I don't think most folks had a problem wrapping their heads around the base attributes, rather the hundreds of skills and abilities that proceeded to get more and more convoluted over time.

[Carole]

I definitely love the atworks! Can't wait to see the other gods   I think the character sheet looks good, I like when there is a lot of information about the character but, well, I'm quite a noob so I'll leave the big conversation to the specialists in this forum! Good conversation, I've learned a lot already!

[Greensleeve]

 

 

Int increases the durations of all spells with a duration and the size of AoE spells (such as Fireball).

 

For a Fighter it increases the duration of their abilities (such as the one that regenerates stamina), AoE-wise I am not sure, it might work with their defensive mode or something (and I'm pretty sure they have an AoE stun).

 

 

It doesn't really tells us a great deal though. I can understand cleric spells like Bless would increase in duration (extra rounds) if you had a higher INT and aoe spells would increase in size, but spells like Flame Arrow and Magic Missile, duration and aoe is meaningless. Unless duration also has an affect on casting time? So how does a higher INT help with spells like Magic Missile and Flame Arrow? Or Breach type spells. 

 

If I was playing a Wizard that didn't specialise in aoe spells, then INT seems meaningless as Might is a lot better for damage. eg. the village idiot called Grog who can't string two sentences together can do a whole lot of damage with Magic Missile and Flame Arrow if I pump up stats like Might, Dexterity, Perception and maybe Resolve.

 

With a Fighter after a battle, regeneration is instant. During fights, I believe the duration on regen would be so insignificant, you wouldn't even notice the difference if you had a high or low INT.

 

 

You presume that there's going to be very many of those types of spells. I'm not sure that's very wise. 

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

 

You presume that there's going to be very many of those types of spells. I'm not sure that's very wise. 

 

 

You know something we don't?

[Sensuki]

Wizards have a lot of spells. If you think about D&D there are a **** tonne of spells with AoEs and durations. In PE most active abilities are now duration based rather than single use.

 

4E has a lot of one-swing/one-shot Daily Powers, in PE most examples we have seen are duration based. Some classes won't have as much AoE stuff as others, some won't have as many duration based stuff.

 

Paladins, Priests and Chanters all have auras, all of which are boosted by Intellect. Wizards, Druids (and Chanters) have AoE spells, Ciphers probably have a few as well. The Barbarian has an AoE passive. Fighters have some higher level AoE stuff.

 

We don't know much about the Ranger class though.

 

There will be some classes that it will be less useful on but it will still have an application.

 

Dexterity is the best attribute atm as most abilities are offensive and every offensive attack/spell/ability uses accuracy to determine efficacy.

 

Might and Constitution depend on the amount gained. Since CON is now a flat percentile bonus, maxing it may not be that great particularly on classes that have low HP gain. Might might not be as great on classes that don't spend all their time casting damage based spells.

 

Going percentile based definitely makes for some interesting min-maxing.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Sensuki

[MarauderESP]

sniff.....that kind of ui....i missed it...sniff!! 

 

 

[AndreaColombo]

Int increases the durations of all spells with a duration and the size of AoE spells (such as Fireball).For a Fighter it increases the duration of their abilities (such as the one that regenerates stamina), AoE-wise I am not sure, it might work with their defensive mode or something (and I'm pretty sure they have an AoE stun).

I thought I'd chime in on this to ask something to Josh: Is the increase in AoE deriving from INT permanent, or more like a range within which the character may choose a value each time they cast an AoE spell or use an AoE ability?

 

To clarify: If it is permanent, it is a lot less flexible and might become suboptimal past certain levels and/or in certain circumstances. E.g. I may cast a fireball that hurts my party because of its huge AoE derived from my high INT score. Maybe in certain circumstances I need a smaller fireball to take out fewer enemies that are concentrated in a limited area.

 

If, on the other hand, INT makes it possible to increase the AoE arbitrarily within a given range, it would gain a lot of flexibility and go a long way toward marking high-INT casters as true masters of their discipline. E.g. Vanilla fireball has an AoE of, say, 30. My high INT score enables me to choose whether to cast it like that, or at 35, or at 40. (again, just an example to clarify what I mean).

Edited January 16, 2014 by AndreaColombo

[rjshae]

I must say, I'm not a fan of the might attribute as it stands. I understand that folks at OE are excited to develope their own system, but unless every action is soul dependant , then it feels a bit like over simplification.  I don't think most folks had a problem wrapping their heads around the base attributes, rather the hundreds of skills and abilities that proceeded to get more and more convoluted over time.

 

If Might was a purely physical attribute then I think the damage component would be fine as it stands. For me (and perhaps others) the issue comes when Might is applied to magic damage. However, the designers can implement the soul system so that it relies on the potency of the physical expression for its deadliness. That would mean that an intense physical component, perhaps accompanied by a loud verbal expression, is required for any damage-causing spell or power. It would limit the types of spells you can cast while paralyzed.

 

It seems very anime-like...

Edited January 16, 2014 by rjshae

[forgottenlor]

I'm really fond of the current attribute system, especially in comparison with the D&D system. For those who still have criticisms of the system, my questions would be the following. Do all stats have to be equally important, when all are potentially useful for any character? That is to say we have had example of a wizard with no resolve or a character with no perception (i.e. as dump stats). Some stats in the D&D CRPGS (I.e. Intellegence and Charisma) were an utter waste on some characters, but I don't believe resolve or perception will be this way. They can be useful if you build a character around them (or even if they are just average), so is it terrible to be able to build a decent character without them? Do we want every character to have say 12 or 14 in every stat? Is that interesting? Or is it perhaps better to be able to have low or average levels in some stats for some characters so that they can work in certain ways? I'd rather have a party with one character with low resolve and maybe 2 with high perception than having all of my character with all 12s and 14s. But hey, if a player can't decide on which stat is best and puts them all at the same level, that will work too. Isn't that the goal? Not that all stats are equal for all strategies, but that none is worthless on any particular character.

Edited January 16, 2014 by forgottenlor

[Reever]

Great update!! Everything looks mighty fine

 

I also dig the attributes more so than before, but I think some of the points people made in this thread are legit. As well as Josh's counterarguments, though :D So having a (constructive) debate can only be good, so we can have an as-good-as-possible combat system at the end! =)

 

And then, this:

 

 

Am I the only one who can't cope with words like "Elardh Dwr", "Frermas mes Canc Suolias" or the name of the banshees? I wish I could, but whether my head nor my tongue knows how to handle these. Will there be something like a pronounciation guide in the collectors edition of the game?

 

:D
 

 

Also, as others have asked, will there be a guide to the language in the manual or some other document for our curiosity and edification?

 

 

That sounds really great (yet again!). That way the world will feel even more alive. Alternatively, I would have proposed that Josh make video where he pronounces all the most important words (that can still be done, though)
 

[ShadySands]

 

What classes are Aloth, Sagani and the Devil of Caroc?

Mook, Underboss, BBEG 

 

 

I believe Aloth is an elf wizard and Sagani is a dwarf ranger. Dunno about the third as this is the first time I've seen them mentioned

[Valorian]

All right, here's my mighty suggestion. 

 

-- Might affects all damage dealt with mundane, physical means. 

So.. no luck with Might for wizard-y characters?   Wrong!

-- Might also affects resistance to spells for spellcasting classes, decreasing damage and duration of hostile spells cast on them by a percentage.

 

How is this possible!? 

They're spellcasters themselves, they know how magic works. Might helps them resist unwanted magical effects.

 

Naturally, damage with spells would have to be transferred to another attribute, probably Intellect.

 

PS. I'd switch Dex and Per for spells too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PIP-Clownboy]

All right, here's my mighty suggestion. 

 

-- Might affects all damage dealt with mundane, physical means. 

So.. no luck with Might for wizard-y characters?   Wrong!

-- Might also affects resistance to spells for spellcasting classes, decreasing damage and duration of hostile spells cast on them by a percentage.

 

How is this possible!? 

They're spellcasters themselves, they know how magic works. Might helps them resist unwanted magical effects.

 

Naturally, damage with spells would have to be transferred to another attribute, probably Intellect.

 

PS. I'd switch Dex and Per for spells too.

 

Problem with that is every Wizard would pump INT if it gets dmg on top of duration/aoe. 

 

With PE being designed around short-term buffs/effects that duration bonus seems like it will be very strong. 

 

Yeah, a mighy wizard will have higher damage but if INT wiz's haste lasts longer he could potentially be responsible for more total dmg by the end of the encounter. 

[PrimeJunta]

@Valorian that's actually a pretty good idea. I'd transfer the damage bonus to Resolve though, as it's currently otherwise a purely passive attribute; it would also fit there naturally since there is a certain logic to willpower affecting magical damage.

 

The only downside is a small amount of added complexity to code and to understand. But it would definitely make the attributes more relatable.

[Valorian]

Could be spell damage to intellect, spell duration and aoe to resolve.

I'd say concentration is less useful for classes that are meant to stay back and cast spells from a distance so giving this bonus to the attribute wouldn't disrupt balance hopefully.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I believe Aloth is an elf wizard and Sagani is a dwarf ranger. Dunno about the third as this is the first time I've seen them mentioned

Edair (now Edér, I believe?) was a Fighter during the Kickstarter too, so, while it's likely that they maintained their class, I wouldn't say it's a given either.

[ShadySands]

Actually, I think they made him a rogue

[ZornWO]

On the discussion regarding the arches, I like that the ancient Engwithans had different construction technology than ancient Earth cultures had.  It's good when fantasy worlds don't follow Earth's tech tree so slavishly.

 

You know how the ancient Incas had remarkable stoneworking techniques?  Their massive stones fit together like a puzzle and stuck together through earthquakes despite not using any mortar at all, and it took archaeologists decades to figure out how they did it.  You just know that if we hadn't discovered the Incan ruins, and some fantasy authors had written of such a thing, people would have complained it was silly - but it really existed, it was really workable. 

 

There are other examples too.  The ancient Chinese had a mortar that outlasted bricks.  Bricks would erode over the centuries, while the mortar would mysteriously last, and again, for decades it baffled archaeologists until they worked out that the Chinese had been using rice derivatives, giving the mortar a stickiness that let it last.  There was a similar thing with ancient Roman concrete, which lasts better under saltwater than modern concrete, and was similarly mysterious until just recently.  You can just picture how, if the ancient Romans hadn't had that, and if a dev had imagined a ruined city with a concrete harbor still partly intact, people would have complained. 

 

The first thing I thought of when I looked at the ancient Engwithan ruins (after thinking how great a job they did with the stone texture), was that there was no collapsed roof.  The arches still standing despite missing the capstones also stood out, and the highly varied widths of the arches is another thing.  But, I think of it not as a problem, but an archaeological puzzle.  Maybe there was no roof and it was just a platform, or maybe the people in the Twin Elms have cleared the site for some function, turning it into a ceremonial site or something.  Or, perhaps the roof, like the capstones, were precious or semiprecious material, now stolen.  The site is so clear of fallen stones, despite there obviously having been more stone than still stands, that some sort of robbery or site clearing seems likely.  But maybe not; perhaps the capstones were made of something that's turned to dust.  It's not like they needed to be strong anyway once the Engwithans devised this great mortar material that lets the capstone-free archways continue to stand.  There are other oddities in the site and possible explanations...

 

Anyway, the point is that Earth ruins can be highly unintuitive at first, so fantasy ruins should at least sometimes be even more so.  Some wonder can be good.  Wow, this was way longer than I intended for something that ultimately doesn't matter, and ofc now my hand disorder's killing me.

 

tl;dr - the ruinz are cool don't chanj them, devs!

[Nars]

Love the art. :D

[Metabot]

On the discussion regarding the arches, I like that the ancient Engwithans had different construction technology than ancient Earth cultures had.  It's good when fantasy worlds don't follow Earth's tech tree so slavishly.

 

You know how the ancient Incas had remarkable stoneworking techniques?  Their massive stones fit together like a puzzle and stuck together through earthquakes despite not using any mortar at all, and it took archaeologists decades to figure out how they did it.  You just know that if we hadn't discovered the Incan ruins, and some fantasy authors had written of such a thing, people would have complained it was silly - but it really existed, it was really workable. 

 

There are other examples too.  The ancient Chinese had a mortar that outlasted bricks.  Bricks would erode over the centuries, while the mortar would mysteriously last, and again, for decades it baffled archaeologists until they worked out that the Chinese had been using rice derivatives, giving the mortar a stickiness that let it last.  There was a similar thing with ancient Roman concrete, which lasts better under saltwater than modern concrete, and was similarly mysterious until just recently.  You can just picture how, if the ancient Romans hadn't had that, and if a dev had imagined a ruined city with a concrete harbor still partly intact, people would have complained. 

 

The first thing I thought of when I looked at the ancient Engwithan ruins (after thinking how great a job they did with the stone texture), was that there was no collapsed roof.  The arches still standing despite missing the capstones also stood out, and the highly varied widths of the arches is another thing.  But, I think of it not as a problem, but an archaeological puzzle.  Maybe there was no roof and it was just a platform, or maybe the people in the Twin Elms have cleared the site for some function, turning it into a ceremonial site or something.  Or, perhaps the roof, like the capstones, were precious or semiprecious material, now stolen.  The site is so clear of fallen stones, despite there obviously having been more stone than still stands, that some sort of robbery or site clearing seems likely.  But maybe not; perhaps the capstones were made of something that's turned to dust.  It's not like they needed to be strong anyway once the Engwithans devised this great mortar material that lets the capstone-free archways continue to stand.  There are other oddities in the site and possible explanations...

 

Anyway, the point is that Earth ruins can be highly unintuitive at first, so fantasy ruins should at least sometimes be even more so.  Some wonder can be good.  Wow, this was way longer than I intended for something that ultimately doesn't matter, and ofc now my hand disorder's killing me.

 

tl;dr - the ruinz are cool don't chanj them, devs!

 

Awesome thank you. I remember when people criticized the plants blowing in the wind because they didn't all move at the same time. It's like have you ever watched plants blowing in the wind, especially light winds? 

 

Anyways thanks for the information about that chinese mortar, that was something I was trying to find last night, because I knew it couldn't be true that all mortar couldn't last for centuries.

 

I think that this was probably some kind of watchtower or castle and that the debris has been cleared in the past.

[Pendarin]

I apologize in advance that I haven't been able to get through all 16 pages of the thread. 

 

I was looking at the character sheet screen shot--looks great, by the way--and this thought occurred to me. Why show the attribute #s at all, or, at least, why are they given such prominence? The attributes themselves are meaningless, aren't they? What actually affects the power of a PC is the effects applied by the modifiers calculated from the attributes. Meaning, I don't really give a poop that my Might is 13, but I do care that my Damage and Healing is 26% better than baseline.

 

There might be something to be said of the "feel" of having attributes because they're so classic to RPG games, table-top or screen. But in such a modern gaming environment, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to render item descriptions, spell or other effect descriptions, and character sheet directly in terms of, for example, the Damage and Healing % improvement the effect causes versus the +# of Might it has. 

 

Let's say I have an item, Bob's Nosepick. Let's say it has -1 Int. And for the sake of argument and simplicity, let's say per 1 Int = 5% "Duration and Area of Effect". The item description, even if you didn't equip it, would not say:
-1 Int

but would instead say (and each player would see a different result here, depending on their other equipment/stats):

70% Duration and Area of Effect (-5%)

(-1 Int)

 

The goal here being that as you're browsing items, effects, and other things, you're seeing the direct translation of that item, effect, or whatever on your character's power, saving you the step of pulling out the calculator to see what's better than what.

[Metabot]

It'll show both it seems like. Also I feel like this, "But in such a modern gaming environment," is silly. What does that have to do with anything? What is more modern or less modern about having attributes?

Edited January 16, 2014 by Metabot

[Tamerlane]

 

On the discussion regarding the arches, I like that the ancient Engwithans had different construction technology than ancient Earth cultures had.  It's good when fantasy worlds don't follow Earth's tech tree so slavishly.

 

You know how the ancient Incas had remarkable stoneworking techniques?  Their massive stones fit together like a puzzle and stuck together through earthquakes despite not using any mortar at all, and it took archaeologists decades to figure out how they did it.  You just know that if we hadn't discovered the Incan ruins, and some fantasy authors had written of such a thing, people would have complained it was silly - but it really existed, it was really workable. 

 

There are other examples too.  The ancient Chinese had a mortar that outlasted bricks.  Bricks would erode over the centuries, while the mortar would mysteriously last, and again, for decades it baffled archaeologists until they worked out that the Chinese had been using rice derivatives, giving the mortar a stickiness that let it last.  There was a similar thing with ancient Roman concrete, which lasts better under saltwater than modern concrete, and was similarly mysterious until just recently.  You can just picture how, if the ancient Romans hadn't had that, and if a dev had imagined a ruined city with a concrete harbor still partly intact, people would have complained. 

 

The first thing I thought of when I looked at the ancient Engwithan ruins (after thinking how great a job they did with the stone texture), was that there was no collapsed roof.  The arches still standing despite missing the capstones also stood out, and the highly varied widths of the arches is another thing.  But, I think of it not as a problem, but an archaeological puzzle.  Maybe there was no roof and it was just a platform, or maybe the people in the Twin Elms have cleared the site for some function, turning it into a ceremonial site or something.  Or, perhaps the roof, like the capstones, were precious or semiprecious material, now stolen.  The site is so clear of fallen stones, despite there obviously having been more stone than still stands, that some sort of robbery or site clearing seems likely.  But maybe not; perhaps the capstones were made of something that's turned to dust.  It's not like they needed to be strong anyway once the Engwithans devised this great mortar material that lets the capstone-free archways continue to stand.  There are other oddities in the site and possible explanations...

 

Anyway, the point is that Earth ruins can be highly unintuitive at first, so fantasy ruins should at least sometimes be even more so.  Some wonder can be good.  Wow, this was way longer than I intended for something that ultimately doesn't matter, and ofc now my hand disorder's killing me.

 

tl;dr - the ruinz are cool don't chanj them, devs!

 

Awesome thank you. I remember when people criticized the plants blowing in the wind because they didn't all move at the same time. It's like have you ever watched plants blowing in the wind, especially light winds? 

 

Anyways thanks for the information about that chinese mortar, that was something I was trying to find last night, because I knew it couldn't be true that all mortar couldn't last for centuries.

 

I think that this was probably some kind of watchtower or castle and that the debris has been cleared in the past.

 

I don't think it was so much that they didn't go at the same time (though there is something to be said for having nearby plants run their animations close together), it was that they all only had one "blowing" animation that played at regular intervals before they went back to being inert. It looked like an invisible dude was just grabbing and shaking them every 2.8 seconds.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I apologize in advance that I haven't been able to get through all 16 pages of the thread. 

 

I was looking at the character sheet screen shot--looks great, by the way--and this thought occurred to me. Why show the attribute #s at all, or, at least, why are they given such prominence? The attributes themselves are meaningless, aren't they? What actually affects the power of a PC is the effects applied by the modifiers calculated from the attributes. Meaning, I don't really give a poop that my Might is 13, but I do care that my Damage and Healing is 26% better than baseline.

 

There might be something to be said of the "feel" of having attributes because they're so classic to RPG games, table-top or screen. But in such a modern gaming environment, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to render item descriptions, spell or other effect descriptions, and character sheet directly in terms of, for example, the Damage and Healing % improvement the effect causes versus the +# of Might it has. 

 

Let's say I have an item, Bob's Nosepick. Let's say it has -1 Int. And for the sake of argument and simplicity, let's say per 1 Int = 5% "Duration and Area of Effect". The item description, even if you didn't equip it, would not say:

-1 Int

but would instead say (and each player would see a different result here, depending on their other equipment/stats):

70% Duration and Area of Effect (-5%)

(-1 Int)

 

The goal here being that as you're browsing items, effects, and other things, you're seeing the direct translation of that item, effect, or whatever on your character's power, saving you the step of pulling out the calculator to see what's better than what.

 

Something like Diablo 3?

[Lephys]

I can understand cleric spells like Bless would increase in duration (extra rounds) if you had a higher INT and aoe spells would increase in size, but spells like Flame Arrow and Magic Missile, duration and aoe is meaningless. Unless duration also has an affect on casting time? So how does a higher INT help with spells like Magic Missile and Flame Arrow? Or Breach type spells. 

 

If I was playing a Wizard that didn't specialise in aoe spells, then INT seems meaningless as Might is a lot better for damage. eg. the village idiot called Grog who can't string two sentences together can do a whole lot of damage with Magic Missile and Flame Arrow if I pump up stats like Might, Dexterity, Perception. Probably would dump Resolve.

This is true, but I doubt you're going to find a character almost devoid of both AoE ranges AND duration. If you use nothing but single-shot damage, you're probably just forcibly limiting yourself to a tiny subset of your abilities, for no reason other than that you just don't wan to use anything that would be affected by INT. Both ability effects AND damage-over-time are affected by duration. Possibly even "channeled" attacks (such as "cause fiery explosions from the ground in an area for 3 seconds," or "strike rapidly at your target's weak spots for 3 seconds," etc.).

 

I'd like to know as much as anyone else the specifics of all this when the dev team gets ready to talk about it in full detail, but I'm not really seeing a scenario in which INT is just useless because of how you want to play your character. Again, unless you just arbitrarily never use certain abilities available to you.

 

Also, maybe it even affects number-of-targets on multi-target attacks, as that's sort of functionally the same thing as AoE (as opposed to single-target, one-shot attacks/abilities), only target based instead of area based. So, if you had a "strike 3 targets within engagement range" ability as a Fighter, for example, maybe INT would boost that to 4. That's a bit abstract, sure, but... so is "Might makes you equally as magical as you are muscley." *shrug*

 

 

Also, I like Valorian's suggestion, but I'm with Junta on maybe using Resolve instead of INT for magic damage (and, I guess, healing "damage"?). It kind of makes sense for PER to determine magic accuracy, too, instead of DEX, 'cause it's not like you're summoning magical throwing daggers, then just physically throwing them.

 

Dunno, though. There might be even better ways of doing it. I'm naturally going to keep thinking about it to an unnecessary degree.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Lephys