"But it was made for us."

[teknoman2]

Though i'm not at all against what Mr Carlo is hankering for, a system that is less tied to MMO/4th edition concepts, I do feel that we will be able to make gimped builds. In fact I believe it was Mr Sawyer himself who pointed out one: That of the Raistlin archetype, extremely physically deficient but of vast arcane power. With spell damage for some unknown reason being accrued from physical might, if one opts to try and make such a build then though of considerable skill and able to cover a vast area, the Wizard's spell damage will be truly pitiful. Thus this seems to be a gimped build, it seems a little unfair to my mind as one has allready accepted the lack of physical potency, but all rule systems have their shortcomings.

they call it might and not strength for a reason. that reason is that might is not necessarily a body trait. 

besides as Josh explained, the bonuses received by the attributes are not the only thing that determines things like aoe and damage. also these bonuses are not that big. with maxed out might you get about 15-20% more damage than normal if i remember what he said in an older topic. so you can cast a fireball and hit for 100 damage in a large area with high intelect and low might, or for 120 in a small area with high might and low intelect. so neither is more powerful overall, but depending on the situation, each choice may be a blessing or a  curse. eg: if you have a large aoe and fight in a place with civilians around or against a single powerful enemy, it becomes a hindrance or you just wish you had that extra damage. however if you have the extra damage and are getting zerg rushed by trash mobs, you'd wish to have the aoe to wipe them out in a single attack.

[anameforobsidian]

The extra area from stats only hurts mobs.  The original casting area hurts both.  That could make for some really neat line dancing.

[Nonek]

I was referring to the following Mr Teknoman, archetype limitations which are present in almost every game system. It's not a criticism just an observation that we cannot make a Raistlin archetype, one who is physically weak and spiritually strong, to have strong spells one must be physically able:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMrUo9K9_-s&list=UUormzAJ-LQ2frWbBLcqxIfg

 

Edit: Of course in AD&D one could not influence the spells damage through attributes at all, instead the amount of spells one could learn was affected, which fit with the Vancian mechanism of defining a Wizard's potency. Also only one attribute needed to be prioritised, intelligence and that made for an opportunity to spend points far more flagrantly, as in real terms the fragile Mage would have more than say the Paladin. In that case the trade off of being weak, clumsy and fragile became not so much of a hindrance, especially in the later levels when Mages became massively op.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Nonek

[anameforobsidian]

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.  Raistlin & Caramon were a horribly designed characters made to justify the author(s) minmaxing in the D&D system.  Of course you're not going to be able to make quite the same character when you switch to a different system.

[Nonek]

As I said it isn't a criticism, just pointing out that one can make a gimped character if one chooses to, I don't believe there's a system i've played where one couldn't.

 

Edit: Personally I think the Twin's were one of the only interesting sets of characters in Dragonlance, the books on them were I thought the high point of that setting, after that it was generally flushed down the toilet. Though I must admit I did stop paying attention after the sixth or so cataclysm.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Nonek

[ManifestedISO]

 

Raistlin & Caramon were a horribly designed characters 

 

whoa, easy on the unwarranted slander. Besides, everyone knows Tanis was the worst.

[PrimeJunta]

Entitlement - a commonly misunderstood internet concept, right up there with ad hominem.

"Genteel butthurt" then, if you prefer.

[W.MacKinnon]

Tanis Half-elven wasn't the worst. It's more a case of the writers obviously cared more about certain characters in their narrative and it showed. By that Tanis was a much stronger character in Tanis half-elven the Shadow years then he ever was in Weis and Hickman's books. Heck they(Weis & Hickman) killed him off with an ogre one shoting him in the back of the head with a club - when he should have been quite high level. (Lets' not even start on how a damn ranger and an elf to boot should have good senses.)

 

Yeah, I was following the books quite faithfully up till that point, I believe Cameron threw himself down a stairwell when his children died. Left me quite disillusioned with the whole series and stopped picking them up.

[teknoman2]

in accordance with the video, attributes are an abstraction, because to make them more specific would require about 100 of them... so i was just pointing out the reason they called it might.

also the way the system is made, prevents you from making a totally gimped character, by making the changes from attributes small and providing a benefit for each (that may not be useful in every situation) so long as you stay within the role of the class... if you make a wizard that cant cast spells and fights with a 2h sword, he will obviously be gimped

[Valorian]

 

also the way the system is made, prevents you from making a totally gimped character, by making the changes from attributes small and providing a benefit for each 

 

Merging spell and weapon damage or accuracy into one attribute is not needed to accomplish that.

 

Anyway, regarding character builds, I'm curious if we'll be able to choose Abilities (not talking about Talents) from time to time. I'm not expecting to be able to do so at every level up, but being given a choice between 2 abilities every few levels would be nice.

[Karkarov]

You guys mistake is your kept reading Dragonlance books past the original series.

[Amentep]

Pop Dragon's Dogma into your console yet? Damn, that game is the most dull single player experience ever. It's like if they made an MMO and decided to make it singleplayer without changing anything - so all the quests are still lackluster fetch or slay quests. Really that's the best example of a MMO clone singleplayer rpg I can think of.

Personally I quite liked Dragon's Dogma, but most of that was because I enjoyed the combat; most of the quests and character interaction is perfunctory at best (which isn't that dissimilar to Sacred 2 which I'm playing now which is a giant open world full of fetch quests).

 

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

Is that really "infinity engine" or "D&D rules" though? seems to me what is most memorable to you about the IE experience wasn't the engine (RtWP, Isometric, pre-rendered backgrounds) and the stuff from the D&D license (the classes and class roles, the lore (potions, spells), THAC0, etc).

 

I may be wrong, but that's how it seems to me.

 

* shakes head *

 

Do people really not see why beating a RPG with a gimped build is fun?

 

Maybe I'm last of a lost tribe, like a Japanese soldier on a lonely Pacific atoll circa 1980, refusing to accept it's all over. That people want to do One Awesome Playthrough with their Super Hero good-at-everything character.

I'd argue that what people don't want is to try to beat an RPG with an "non-viable" build. I don't think the IE series had non-viable builds. They did have some non-viable playstyles (a rogue was a poor fighter in general who could do certain kinds of good damage in battle and who removed traps, opened locks and scouted; but the idea of actually trying to stealth the game with a rogue was non-viable, unlike its P&P equivalent. In PoE, quest RPG makes the idea of stealthing a game somewhat more viable, for example).

Edited May 5, 2014 by Amentep

[teknoman2]

 

 

also the way the system is made, prevents you from making a totally gimped character, by making the changes from attributes small and providing a benefit for each 

 

Merging spell and weapon damage or accuracy into one attribute is not needed to accomplish that.

 

Anyway, regarding character builds, I'm curious if we'll be able to choose Abilities (not talking about Talents) from time to time. I'm not expecting to be able to do so at every level up, but being given a choice between 2 abilities every few levels would be nice.

 

if you have a separate attribute for everything, you would need

strength for physical damage

power for magical damage

dexterity for physical accuracy

clarity for magic accuracy

tactics for fighter aoe engagement

intelligence for spell aoe

perception for landing criticals with physical attacks

wisdom to do the same with magic attacks

defense for resisting physical damage

resistance for magical damage

resolve to not get interrupted by physical attacks

will to not be interrupted by magical attacks

might to be intimidating as a warrior

presence to be intimidating as a wizard

charisma to be persuasive

charm to flirt

and many more

that's not a game anymore but a spreadsheet.

the point of having abstract attributes with a class system, is that each attribute represents a different character quality within the role of the class. a fighter is for going toe to toe with the enemy, a wizard's job is to cast spells. so a mighty fighter has the strength to cleave enemies in 2 with a swing, while a mighty wizard has the power to burn anything to a crisp and a mighty ranger can pull the string to the limit, shooting extremelly fast arrows.

[Valorian]

 

 

 

also the way the system is made, prevents you from making a totally gimped character, by making the changes from attributes small and providing a benefit for each 

 

Merging spell and weapon damage or accuracy into one attribute is not needed to accomplish that.

 

Anyway, regarding character builds, I'm curious if we'll be able to choose Abilities (not talking about Talents) from time to time. I'm not expecting to be able to do so at every level up, but being given a choice between 2 abilities every few levels would be nice.

 

if you have a separate attribute for everything, you would need

strength for physical damage

power for magical damage

dexterity for physical accuracy

clarity for magic accuracy

tactics for fighter aoe engagement

intelligence for spell aoe

perception for landing criticals with physical attacks

wisdom to do the same with magic attacks

defense for resisting physical damage

resistance for magical damage

resolve to not get interrupted by physical attacks

will to not be interrupted by magical attacks

might to be intimidating as a warrior

presence to be intimidating as a wizard

charisma to be persuasive

charm to flirt

and many more

that's not a game anymore but a spreadsheet.

the point of having abstract attributes with a class system, is that each attribute represents a different character quality within the role of the class. a fighter is for going toe to toe with the enemy, a wizard's job is to cast spells. so a mighty fighter has the strength to cleave enemies in 2 with a swing, while a mighty wizard has the power to burn anything to a crisp and a mighty ranger can pull the string to the limit, shooting extremelly fast arrows.

 

 

It is not required to create additional attributes to separate spell damage from weapon damage and spell accuracy from weapon accuracy. Amazing, isn't it?

[PrimeJunta]

True, but it is quite tricky to do that without creating dump stats for spellcaster/non-spellcaster classes. There was a lot of discussion about it when JES first floated the attribute system and nobody could come up with a satisfactory solution for that. Perhaps we didn't have the benefit of your wisdom.

[Valorian]

It was discussed here:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/page-16

 

I'm sure you posted something too. 

[ravenshrike]

 

 

surprising amount of traction among reasonable people all across the political spectrum despite the fact that its pejorative connotation - and indeed, its use in serious American political discourse at all - is the brainchild of the American Right, and as such should be looked upon with the suspicion reserved for any phrase with an implicit agenda behind it. But that linguistic ship has sailed.

Horse****. The current froufrara over the Hugo awards at Worldcon and the bat**** response from the SJW contingent shows that political correctness is alive and kicking.

Link?

 

Which politically  correct BS 'controversy' do you want? The Jonathan Ross one or the Larry Correia one? Didn't actually know about the Ross one until just now when I googled Hugo awards Worldcon controversy, but still.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/neil-gaiman-fans-jonathan-ross-hugo-awards

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/28/hugo-awards-science-fiction-reading-politics-larry-correia-column/8282843/

 

And this is the post that actually kicked off the Correia controversy.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/01/14/sad-puppies-2-the-illustrated-edition/

[redneckdevil]

I backed this project because i know i will get great stories, excellent characters, and a chance for obsidian to have theirbown ip.

so my only contribution to this thread is that if i get those 3 i wont care 1 iota if females OR males are running around in thongs or all the armor makes everyone look like a massive muscleor male weither female or a puny male. Thisbisnt something i want obsidian wasting time mulling over trying to be political correct or being a male fantasy. I want their vision for this because i trust them that its gonna be an excellent game. So bring on the boob armor and thongs for both male and females and bring out the armor that makes everyone look like a steroid juiced up male!

[Lephys]

I share some of Monte's concerns about how the game will actually play.  It certainly looks amazing, but how will it play?

See, this is 1,000% understandable. However, "Nothing yet suggests, definitively, that it will play like I feel it should" is world's apart from "Since there's an unknown, it obviously won't play like it should."

 

To say "I'm worried about exactly how class builds will work now," for example (Monte) is one thing, and to say "Welp, clearly they've removed class builds" is another thing entirely.

 

If the classes didn't all have point-of-reference foundations from which to expand around, there wouldn't even BE a class system, because you'd just make a character, then decide what you want them to do. Just because a Barbarian performs some tasks more easily than a Fighter doesn't mean they can't both perform a lot of the same tasks.

 

A Hummer and a Prius will both let you travel around on roads. They just do it differently. If you go really far, the Hummer isn't going to fail to work. It's just going to need gas more often. If you need to pull a small Uhaul trailer or camper, the Hummer's going to do it with much more ease.

 

*shrug*. I get people's concerns. What I don't get are people's conclusion-jumps. "There's an unknown, therefore I'm going to assign a negative value to that unknown, instead of just treating it like the unknown that it is. It's definitely bad, since it COULD be bad."

[Ffordesoon]

@Lephys:

 

I get all the jumping to conclusions. I don't do it anymore, but I get it.

 

Ninety percent of anticipation is hoping they (whoever "they" might be) don't f**k the thing you're anticipating up, and when you hear them say something that sounds bad to your ears, it's natural to assume the worst.

 

And, for what it's worth, I'll be very disappointed if the grognards are right and the classes do feel the same. To my mind, they should feel - if you'll forgive the horrid historical connotation of this particular phrase - separate, but equal.

 

If I may flog your car analogy to death, just because I want every car I buy to be roadworthy doesn't mean I want all cars to be the same car, nor does it mean that I expect every car I buy to be great on every type of terrain. I'm not going to expect a Lamborghini to do the job of a Hummer, but - and this is crucial - I'm also not into the idea of a Lamborghini performing like a Dodge Viper. If I buy a Lamborghini, it's because I want something that only a Lamborghini can give me.

 

Discarding this increasingly irritating analogy entirely, when I play a Rogue, I want to feel the lack not only of Wizard-ness, but of Fighter-ness and Monk-ness. If I play a Wizard next, I want to feel the lack of Rogue-ness, but also the lack of Chanter-ness and Priest-ness. I just don't want to regret picking a certain class/build, either - or rather, I don't want to regret taking a certain class/build because of the way the game is designed. I may find I don't like playing a certain class/build, and that's okay. What I don't want is to feel that I disliked the class/build because of a lack of effort on the designers' part, as I did in Dragon Age: Origins when I played a ranged Rogue.

Edited May 5, 2014 by Ffordesoon

[SqueakyCat]

Lephys, I'm not sure I understand your post completely (a little under the weather), but you left out the part of my post where I said, "I'm waiting for the beta before I voice an opinion.".  I never said the game would play poorly.  There's simply some features JES has included that I have no familiarity with, or simply don't recall (like the sticky engagement).    I understand what he's trying to achieve with it, but I was hoping someone would point me to a game that utilized a similar feature so I could give it a go.

 

Anyway, I really prefer to not get involved in these debates as I'm sure everyone on this forum has more knowledge of game development than I, so I don't really have anything meaningful to contribute.  I much prefer reading the forum.  This is my fourth or fifth post in a week -- waaay over my limit. 

 

With that, I shall retire to the bleak background.   

[Lephys]

Lephys, I'm not sure I understand your post completely (a little under the weather), but you left out the part of my post where I said, "I'm waiting for the beta before I voice an opinion.".  I never said the game would play poorly.  There's simply some features JES has included that I have no familiarity with, or simply don't recall (like the sticky engagement).    I understand what he's trying to achieve with it, but I was hoping someone would point me to a game that utilized a similar feature so I could give it a go.

I apologize, as my point was obviously a bit too ambiguous.

 

I was simply pointing out your sentiment as a shining example of... not so much "what to think," but, sort of the line it doesn't really do any good to cross? If that makes sense?

 

I wasn't trying to say you were suggesting the game will play poorly. I was saying "This is a fantastically problem-free thought that doesn't hurt anything," and was commenting on the fact that other people share your thought, but then don't reserve judgement. Thus, the judgement they produce is rather arbitrary.

 

That's the heart of almost any debate on here regarding these unknown specifics. People kinda get all "this is bad until you can prove otherwise, even though I can't even prove it's bad," rather than just who's choosing to be optimistic and who's choosing to be pessimistic.

 

To use betting as an analogy, there's a difference between betting hard that something's going to end up being a problem, and demanding your money from the bet right now. You can believe as strongly as you wish that your bet is the winning bet, but you can't collect on the money until it actually is the winning bet.

 

Basically, I wish everyone could be more like you, SqueakyCat.

 

That was my point.

 

*shrug*, people just seem to think those of us who are trying to point out there's no reason to jump to any conclusions are trying to pretend there aren't even any unknowns. I don't get it. It serves no purpose.

[Stun]

Lephys, I'm not sure I understand your post completely (a little under the weather), but you left out the part of my post where I said, "I'm waiting for the beta before I voice an opinion.".

Well of course he left that part out. It doesn't fit in his pre-packaged narrative. He also utterly (and deliberately) took all of Monte Carlo's arguments, and mine, warped them into something they're not, and then proceeded to argue against them. Consequently we're sitting here are watching what's happening, and we're like: "WTF!? we never said that!"

 

 

What I don't get are people's conclusion-jumps. "There's an unknown, therefore I'm going to assign a negative value to that unknown, instead of just treating it like the unknown that it is. It's definitely bad, since it COULD be bad."

Well for starters, not everything is unknown. We know for a fact that there will be no multi-classing. We know for a fact that great focus has been spent on balancing the classes so that they're "equal but different". We know for a fact that the devs have decided to assign Roles to the classes. Roles that very much resemble 4e D&D/MMO class roles.

 

Second, Despite the above, we're still not jumping to conclusions. We're voicing concerns. Valid ones.

 

Third, and as usual, you have placed all the blame on the fans, and none on the developers themselves. There's nothing stopping Josh, or Adam, or Tim, or Brandon from coming on here and directly addressing and dispelling these very common concerns (or 'conclusions', as you call them) that are being voiced on this thread, especially since they're very broad, and basic, and non-spoilerish in nature.

 

In short, you're being your usual straw-man-burning, obnoxious, tiresome self. Bravo.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

Well of course he left that part out. He also utterly (and deliberately) took all of Monte Carlo's arguments, and mine, warped them into something they're not, and then proceeded to argue against them.

 

Consequently the rest us are here are watching what's happening, and we're like: "WTF!? we never said that or argued any such thing!"

Aww, crap... I forgot to put that disclaimer at the bottom of my post:

 

"These words are meant to directly represent everything Monte and Stun have ever said in this entire thread, all lumped into one thing, and I'm just directly arguing against them."

 

Luckily, Stun figured it out. *brow sweat wipe*. That was a close one.

 

 

Also, what the hell am I placing "the blame" for?. Unnecessarily deciding to feel bad about mere possibilities? How is that blaming anyone?

 

I'm simply asking why some people aren't simply reserving judgement, and are judging what isn't even certain at all. If you think it's a dumb question, then awesome. Go you. Don't act like the innate logic of the universe dictates that it's preposterous I should wonder such a thing, or encourage people to simply reserve judgement until we actually know something that specifically suggests their worst nightmares will come true.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Lephys

[Stun]

Oh? then by all means, please show us who on this thread you were ranting against. I'd like to know who's jumping to conclusions. I'll even help you shoot them down if they were.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Stun