"But it was made for us."

[Lephys]

For starters:

 

Boil it down: do you really invoke the Infinity Engine games then announce no hit points, death, potions, class-builds and so on?

 

Not for me you don't.

 

That's why I feel a bit cheated.

That's not "I'm worried they might do this." That's "They're doing this."

 

I'm not judging Monte Carlo as a person. I'm simply pointing out that deciding you're being cheated based on "concerns" isn't really helping anything at all, and encouraging the simple pointing out of concerns rather than such conclusion jumping.

 

Again, if you hate my advice, don't take it. Or encourage him not to take it.

[Stun]

Feeling a bit cheated does not = Jumping to conclusions, lephys. He is voicing concerns about specific information that we have been given since the kickstarter pitch. Concerns that the final product will not feel very IEish. Concerns that can be easily adressed if one of the devs were to come on here and clarify to him that There will be hit points, there will be potions, and death and ways to class build that will rival even the IE games.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

Feeling cheated = deciding you've been wronged.

 

Feeling like you might be cheated = just being concerned about potentially being wronged.

 

If I don't call you a cheater, I can't feel you've cheated me.

[Stun]

Feeling cheated = deciding you've been wronged.

Feeling you've been wronged... a bit.

 

And when you publically express feelings (as opposed to reaching conclusions), you are, naturally, hoping to have those feelings addressed.

[Ffordesoon]

Feeling a bit cheated does not = Jumping to conclusions, lephys. He is voicing concerns about specific information that we have been given since the kickstarter pitch. Concerns that the final product will not feel very IEish. Concerns that can be easily adressed if one of the devs were to come on here and clarify to him that There will be hit points, there will be potions, and death and ways to class build that will rival even the IE games.

1) I think Josh and the others have done a pretty darn okay job of that, given what is presumably an extremely busy schedule.

 

2) These are easy things to promise. They are not easy things to deliver on. When a dev writes anything, people will take it as a commitment, no matter how hedged the wording. They will also always have more questions that aren't answered. I've seen it happen time and again on the Wasteland 2 boards. If the devs are being overly cagey, it's because underpromising and overdelivering is always better than overpromising and underdelivering.

 

3) Josh confirmed that potions and healing are in the game in another thread, and that characters can permanently die in all modes.

 

4) Stamina and Health are also presumably represented numerically in some fashion, given that the game is made of math. I don't see why they couldn't show those numerical representations in the game. I don't see what confirming that there are indeed hit points will accomplish, exactly. But then, I don't see how anyone could possibly get the idea that there aren't hit points in the game just because there are two measurements of health instead of one. That is, unless there is some sort of extremely rigorous definition of "hit points" Monte Carlo is adhering to, in which case I confess I am truly baffled.

 

5) I like Monte Carlo. He writes well and seems affable. Just saying.

[Gromnir]

 

 

 

This is what I genuinely don't understand about the current meta as we see it in this game. I probably never will, I just think balance in a single-player game is almost insanely overrated. If you want to be a twinky content tourist then good luck to you - you payed for it. Instead you get designers sneering about 'degenerative' game play.

 

* shrugs *

 

am thinking balance has more value than you suggest... but as we ain't read the entire thread beyond this point, is possible everything we says here will be redundant.  

 

raise your hand if you played through bg2 as a bard. is no doubt some die-hards that did so. we played  bg2 bard for one reason: 'cause we heard the stronghhold for bard were interesting. the sad thing is, the bard stronghold were probable the best in the game, and it did most to support the critical story o' bg2. after we finished stronghold, we stopped our playthrough as a bard. why would we play a bard? can't do thief stuff as good as a thief, or fight as good as a fighter, and we gots a paltry spell list that makes us kinda a waste as a spell caster. in 3.0 d&d, if your DM has skill checks frequent, then a bard makes a good face-man for a party, but a 2e bard has zero sex appeal. is not simply that it is under-powered compared to other classes, but it gots nothing to makes up for being under-powered-- nothing kewl about a 2e bard. so, bioware spends all kinda effort on a class that nobody played, and made best stronghold quest that virtual nobody saw. 

 

we don't need a character to be best to play it. our typical nwn 2 characters were clerics with a handful o' rogue levels. we likes playing priests, but they got sucktacular skill points, so we invariably add a bunch o' rogue levels to a human character with 14 intelligence to gets good diplomacy or intimidate or whatever. is nowhere that we would see Gromnir's rogue/priest of hoar character as some kinda power-build. nevertheless, we were very effective and we felt as if we were enjoying more o' the game by having relatively good number o' skills. however, if we had to play a divine spellcaster o' some sort that gots ability to sneak at the cost o' a serious penalty to spellcasting, there is no way we would make that trade-off.  sneak is a sucky skill that is inferior to invisibility in virtual every d&d crpg. trade spell casting for a crap ability we would never use? why? is bad balance.

 

for icewind dale, we almost invariably had a gnome thief/illusionist in our party. a dedicated thief seemed like a waste as we only genuine needed to max a few o' the thief skills. bad thief balance meant that Gromnir never bothered leveling a vanilla thief in iwd. there were loads o' interesting spells in iwd that weren't in bg, so regardless o' power, we were far more interested in getting more spellcasting in our party as 'posed to more thiefy skills.

 

is all kinda balance stuff that were important and shaped how we played ie games and d&d games made by obsidian/black isle. knowing what we does about planescape, would we have played a character with low wisdom and charisma in ps:t? given the bizarre xp table, was there a good reason to play a bg2 druid? am pretty sure we never chose law domain for any nwn2 priest... 'cause law domain spells sucked. 

 

*shrug*

 

these is games, and so some folks will play to win. sure playing to win actually hurts player as these games is already made to be beatable by everybody. even so, make unbalanced content and you is guaranteeing that the folks who play to win will never see the weak content. the thing is, even if you ain't a dyed-in-wool powergamer, you is likely to consider balance issues. if choice A is clear weaker than B, C & D, and choice A not got benefit o' style or coolness, then chances are even the non-powergamer will not be making A a first choice. 

 

 

that guy gets picked last in every pick-up game o' basketball and football and baseball. wasted human material. if he is equivalent o' a joinable npc in a crpg, he also gets picked last. is nothing sinister 'bout it. it just is. 

 

balance is important.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited May 6, 2014 by Gromnir

[Sarex]

balance is important.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

But not at the cost of the other classes, or the overall fun game.

[Gromnir]

 

balance is important.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

But not at the cost of the other classes, or the overall fun game.

 

depending on your pov, balance is always at the cost of other classes. if class A becomes stronger, then class B is necessarily Relative weaker. if class B is nerfed, class A is Relative more powerful.  if you change some fundamental aspect o' combat to benefit Class A, then chances are all classes will be affected in some way. this stuff ain't insular. balance is a comparative analysis, so it can't be kept insular.

 

as for fun, we complete agree. sacrifice fun on the altar o' balance is stupid. the thing is, Gromnir don't have any idea how to be defining fun. your fun is likely different than ours.  

 

hmmm... maybe an illustration. imagine a game o' computer chess. your computer opponent is stuck with a standard array o' pieces: 1 king, 1 queen, 2 bishops, etc. you, on the other hand, gets to choose your pieces.  some joker chooses all queens-- every single piece is a queen. he then complains that game were too easy. another guy chooses all pawns. all-pawns complains that the game is too difficult. was letting these guys choose making the game more fun? what if you had never played chess before and weren't shown rules ahead o' time? you chose all pawns 'cause you think the pieces looked kewl.  with only experience to guide you, how many times would you need to play to find a genuine challenging/fun distribution o' pieces? will a first time player o' poe genuine be able to distinguish pawn characters/builds from queens?  

 

perhaps a more obvious example. the first time we played fallout we were unaware that it were stupid to choose energy weapons at start, and we didn't realize that gifted were a no-lose choice.  it were very easy to make a pawn character for fallout.  if we had chosen energy weapons, first aid and barter, and put most o' our points into agility (a reasonable sounding build) after a dozen hours o' frustrating gameplay, am doubting we would thinks fallout were fun.

 

am getting that some folks wanna chance to play powerful or gimped. a balanced game seeming diminishes the possibility o' playing superman but what about the folks who don't know they is playing gimped... get stuck playing as dazzler or skin? where is fun for those folks?

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Lephys]

5) I like Monte Carlo. He writes well and seems affable. Just saying.

I like him too. Which is why when I see people like him being so pre-emptively disappointed by negative aspects of the game that he seems overly sure of, despite the fact that we don't really have any info specifically suggesting things will be so, I just think "Man... I wish I could help that guy not feel like that about this game that we're all hoping we can love and are so excited about, to the point of giving people oodles of our currency up front."

 

So, again, just because I say "I really don't see why such-and-such," that doesn't mean "HAHA! YOU'RE DUMB IF YOU THINK THAT!" I'm simply trying to point out reasons to not feel so bad about a lot of particular things in the game that aren't necessarily going to be anywhere near as horrible as some people are concerned they might be.

 

I just think it might help some people to dial their worries back from the "probably" setting back to the "might, but might not" setting.

 

Telling the devs "I thought of this possibility, and it doesn't make me happy; please make sure that doesn't happen," is constructive. Saying "I have a feeling they're not going to sure that doesn't happen, and they don't care about making sure the game isn't annoying and anti-fun, and there's nothing we can do about it, and the sky is falling" isn't doing anything but trampling our own excitement and anticipation of this game that I think we all owe to ourselves to preserve.

 

I have plenty of concerns, but I also have plenty of the-opposite-of-concerns. I say why focus on how something could suck, when you could ALSO focus on how awesome it could end up being (if we don't know either way, really). *shrug*. Just my advice. Take it or leave it. Feel free to leave it. It's not for me, it's for everyone else.

[Sarex]

am getting that some folks wanna chance to play powerful or gimped. a balanced game seeming diminishes the possibility o' playing superman but what about the folks who don't know they is playing gimped... get stuck playing as dazzler or skin? where is fun for those folks?

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Well as this is a brand new game with a brand new and unique system, we are all getting in to it on equal footing. Also you are aware that you have six characters, even if you picked a "weaker" class you will have the opportunity to explore all the others and as all the non combat skill are shared between classes you can't really go that wrong.

[Gromnir]

 

am getting that some folks wanna chance to play powerful or gimped. a balanced game seeming diminishes the possibility o' playing superman but what about the folks who don't know they is playing gimped... get stuck playing as dazzler or skin? where is fun for those folks?

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Well as this is a brand new game with a brand new and unique system, we are all getting in to it on equal footing. Also you are aware that you have six characters, even if you picked a "weaker" class you will have the opportunity to explore all the others and as all the non combat skill are shared between classes you can't really go that wrong.

 

you can't go all that wrong as long as the developer is consciously aware of balancing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Stun]

we don't need a character to be best to play it.

If this is the case, then your gripe against bg2 Bards doesn't make much sense. They're more fun to play than fighters, and that's something the "balance" issue doesn't address.

 

It's common knowledge that BG2's bards aren't designed for the power gamer. As you say, they're not as good at being thieves as thieves are, not as good at fighting as fighters are (although the Blade kit comes close) and obviously they aren't as good at spell casting as mages.

 

But they're light years away from being the weakest class. (that title can only go to the 'role-playing' classes, like beastmasters and wizard slayers) Bards have enough of all three skillsets to be super powerful on their own. They have that "jack of all trades" quality that multi-class builds possess without having to multi-class. Among many other things, this means that they'll get their HLAs much earlier than any Fighter-Mage-Thief multi-class. And once a Bard Gets UAI, Spike trap and Time trap, all discussion about being 'underpowered' Abruptly ends.

 

 

you can't go all that wrong as long as the developer is consciously aware of balancing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Oh, I wouldn't say that. There are some developers who's awareness of Balance is absolute. Consequently, they release games that are so balanced that you can't power game if you tried. Edited May 6, 2014 by Stun

[Gromnir]

 

If this is the case, then your gripe against bg2 Bards doesn't make much sense. They're more fun to play than fighters, and more versatile than thieves.

 

says you. 

 

*shrug*

 

we didn't find them fun at all, particularly in a ie game where you control a party and not a single character. bards add nothing distinctive to a party, and what they does add is gimped compared to other alternatives. now 3.0 bards.... well, they is still under-powered, but 'cause o' more varied and useful buffs, coupled with increased skills pool, they is one o' our favorite base classes... you know, before all the prestige class nonsense that Really screws with balance.

 

regardless, trying to tell us that class X is more fun than class Y is unlikely to be your best option.  might as well try and tell us that ny pizza tastes better than chicago style stuffed. go ahead, we dares you.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza.

[Sarex]

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza.

 

Serbian pizza is best pizza.(and I've been to Italy)

Edited May 6, 2014 by Sarex

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza.

 

Serbian pizza is best pizza.(and I've been to Italy)

 

[Stun]

might as well try and tell us that ny pizza tastes better than chicago style stuffed. go ahead, we dares you.[/size]

 

HA! Good Fun!

Well, it is.

 

And it will always be, even if someone comes here and argues that it's not as "balanced" lol

[Sarex]

 

 

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza.

 

Serbian pizza is best pizza.(and I've been to Italy)

 

snip

 

[rjshae]

 

 

 

Links for the item degradation in particular.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64048-update-58-crafting-with-tim-cain/?p=1348405

 

I actually liked the idea of item degradation, but most commentors did not.

 

Go play Divinity: Original Sin. It has it.

Going around the various forums it seems universally hated, so it may not make the final cut... so get in while you can!

 

 

I think it makes more sense for a game with one one or two controlled characters. It may not scale well, becoming tedious with six party members. That being said, I liked the idea of a very simple weapon wear implementation. But a tiny but loud minority managed to shout it down.

 

*Keeps on ignoring the boobarmor convo*

 

4 actually. And as said, pretty much everyone seems to hate it. No-one, at all, is a pro after playing it.

That, or they keep their mouths very very shut while there's critisism all around them...

 

An obvious reducio ad absurdum argument relying on multiple logical fallacies. Or are you 'joking' again?

[Gromnir]

 

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza.

 

Serbian pizza is best pizza.(and I've been to Italy)

 

we has been to italy too... which doesn't mean much. origin o' pasta is china. origin o' beer... egypt... perhaps?  when we were in rome we always had to remind 'em not to put anchovies on our pie. that alone is a fatal condemnation in our eyes.

 

compare ny pizza to chicago stuffed... kinda like compare ny jazz scene to chicago-style blues. is complete different... but chicago is better.

 

 

regardless, particularly in a party based game where you control multiple characters, a 2e bard is dull and sucky.... and tell us it gets less sucky 80 hours into the game ain't helping.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

 

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza.

 

Serbian pizza is best pizza.(and I've been to Italy)

 

snip

 

 

 

[Karkarov]

I can see this thread has retained it's discussion value.

Meanwhile.... I will take a New York Style pizza.  Stuff crust?  Vomit.... VOMIT!!!!

[Gromnir]

I can see this thread has retained it's discussion value.

 

Meanwhile.... I will take a New York Style pizza.  Stuff crust?  Vomit.... VOMIT!!!!

who said anything about stuffed-crust? 

 

http://giordanos.com/

 

we actual choose edwardo's, but they dont have as nice a site.

 

see, this is why Gromnir has problems communicating with you folks.... am surrounded by philistines.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited May 7, 2014 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza, just like Marvel is better than DC.

[Gromnir]

New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza, just like Marvel is better than DC.

we has had had cheese and vegetables on a thin crust... is called a cracker.  waiters and waitresses circle 'round at those parties we is forced to attend... got trays filled with such dainty offerings. is cute.

 

am s'posing that the marvel v. dc thing is just to tweak somebody into a nerd rage. got no particular position on that as we thinks most comics is horrible, with a few notable exceptions. tdkr is one such example. 

 

HA! Good Fun!