NPC character builds: Blank slates please

[Odd Hermit]

In Icewind Dale, you created a party of your own, meaning you got up to six characters to tinker with different builds as you saw fit. Sure, some players were happy with fairly standard single class characters and not power-gamey options, but others such as myself enjoyed cheesing it up - part of the fun for me was seeing how strong I could build a character/party within the rules of the game.

 

Then there's Baldur's Gate II, where we got ... less than ideal classes /attributes combinations in many of the available party members in game. The major pro however is that they came with their own personalities.

 

But why not combine the two to some degree? When I pick up an NPC character into my party I mainly want the personality, but may not like the class. Of course, some NPCs may fit only certain classes, but I'd be fine with basic limitations as long as I got freedom to mess with all the details.

 

I eventually modded my Baldur's Gate II to give me more freedom with the NPCs, and I had more fun without the limitations of the pre-determined classes the game started them as. It was like the best of both worlds. I didn't get stuck dragging along one of the messy multi-class thief characters finally, along with other more enjoyable and better build characters.

 

 

[Sensuki]

I don't mind the NPC stats being set (they will be). One of the problems with previous systems is attribute design was incredibly skewed. In PE this should be less of an issue (hopefully). Characters with low Dexterity probably won't be that great, but other than that it should be fine.

[Helz]

I like the idea. Even if a certain NPC has "good" stats, he's not necessarily built the way you'd want him to be to complement your party.  The characters may be preconfigured, but that doesn't mean you couldn't be given the option to change around their feats and things when they first join your group. 

[Gromnir]

a joinable npc that were a blank slate would be kinda pointless. give'em gender and and portrait art, but leave rest up to player? how you gonna write dialogue for such characters? no class or abilities or skills or whatever? to write a compelling character for whom all such stuff is incidental is creating a near insurmountable task for the poe writers. as a main character such stuff is a pain in the arse and is explaining why the bhaalspawn and the shard-bearer and the courier is not particularly compelling characters. ask writers to do such multiple times in the same game is being ridiculous unreasonable. 

 

iwd approach were actual a bg method. the capacity to create a party of characters were a feature of bg. iwd developers simple used bg functionality. if the poe party npcs get as much development as did the bg party npcs, then we highly recommend having an option for us to create our own party as were available in bg, but such an outcome strikes us as unlikely.  poe ain't being presented as a streamlined, quick-development, dungeon crawl such as were the icewind dale games. and am hoping the joinables gots a bit more depth than the original bg fare.

 

maybe odd doesn't care 'bout the writing and dialogues related to the party npcs. is fair. some o' the worst writing the black isle/obsidian folks has done in the past has been related to party npcs. has all joinables be player created has value. 'course some o' the best writing black isle/obsidian has done has also been the result o' developing party npcs. we get that particularly on a first play-through, depending on what class and role odd chooses for his main character, the party npcs may be less than ideal. even so, try and consider how you would write dialogue and story for multiple characters wherein you could not specify skills or attributes or a class. is gonna end up... bad.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 14, 2014 by Gromnir

[Mor]

@Odd Hermit, yes you can build your own NPC in the 'Adventurers hall' to tinker with various mechanics\builds, playing min\maxing or testing if indeed all builds in PoE are viable.

[Gromnir]

@Odd Hermit, yes you can build your own NPC in the 'Adventurers hall' to tinker with various mechanics\builds, playing min\maxing or testing if indeed all builds in PoE are viable.

 

"But why not combine the two to some degree? When I pick up an NPC character into my party I mainly want the personality, but may not like the class. Of course, some NPCs may fit only certain classes, but I'd be fine with basic limitations as long as I got freedom to mess with all the details."

 

so, actually, no. odd were asking for the writing and the personality of bg2 with the bg/iwd build-your-own customization. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps on the positive end o' the scale for odd, even if obsidian doesn't have built-in customization for canon party members, am suspecting that very quick after release players will learn how to manual mess with character levels and experience points. functional roll-back canon party members to level 1 and then rebuild them to suit taste will be easy... even if doing so messes with story aspects. 

Edited June 14, 2014 by Gromnir

[Kjaamor]

Personally, one of the things I always liked about RPGs of east and west from that generation, was that your optimum party based upon personality was rarely optimal in combat. Always liked having to make sacrifices or adjust tactics because I chose to take around such parties.

 

Someone else here once requested that companions have a special "feel" to them in the way they work in combat, a la Torment, making them distinct from the PC's class(es). I'm more inclined to head towards that end of the spectrum than the OPs.

[Mor]

 

@Odd Hermit, yes you can build your own NPC in the 'Adventurers hall' to tinker with various mechanics\builds, playing min\maxing or testing if indeed all builds in PoE are viable.

 

"But why not combine the two to some degree? When I pick up an NPC character into my party I mainly want the personality, but may not like the class. Of course, some NPCs may fit only certain classes, but I'd be fine with basic limitations as long as I got freedom to mess with all the details."

 

That would probably be available through modding or a save editor, that is tinkering with existing companion or create new ones. Edited June 14, 2014 by Mor

[JDizzle420]

Personally, one of the things I always liked about RPGs of east and west from that generation, was that your optimum party based upon personality was rarely optimal in combat. Always liked having to make sacrifices or adjust tactics because I chose to take around such parties.

 

Someone else here once requested that companions have a special "feel" to them in the way they work in combat, a la Torment, making them distinct from the PC's class(es). I'm more inclined to head towards that end of the spectrum than the OPs.

I couldn't agree more. It really made for some difficult and interesting decisions. Do I choose NPC A who has a personality and story that I really like, or do I choose NPC B who absolutely rapes face in combat?

 

The inclusion of the "Adventurer's Hall" really makes for a perfect balance IMO. You can choose a few NPCs for personality and then create a few NPCs to fill the gaps in combat roles. They've already stated that they assume this is how most people will play. Just replay the game a few times and you'll get to see all of the companions.

 

I'm sure that someone will make a save game editor shortly after release. Perhaps OP should just wait for that.

[Gromnir]

 

 

@Odd Hermit, yes you can build your own NPC in the 'Adventurers hall' to tinker with various mechanics\builds, playing min\maxing or testing if indeed all builds in PoE are viable.

 

"But why not combine the two to some degree? When I pick up an NPC character into my party I mainly want the personality, but may not like the class. Of course, some NPCs may fit only certain classes, but I'd be fine with basic limitations as long as I got freedom to mess with all the details."

 

That would probably be available through modding or a save editor, that is tinkering with existing companion or create new ones.

 

if we add, "simon says," to our posts, it might be possible to get mor to do handstands and cartwheels n' such... seeing as how he is already parroting us in multiple threads. how very odd.

 

regardless, we does very much sympathize with odd. Gromnir has almost always been disappointed with the healer party npcs offered in ie games... or even obsidian's nwn2 offerings as they is more recent fantasy fare from the developer in question. we like playing the priest character, so we woulda' done so anyway, but one reason for us choosing priest for our party lead in ie games or nwn games is 'cause we genuine disliked the provided options. woulda' played as a priest in ps:t if that had been possible.

 

we recognize that healing will work a bit different in poe, but chances are we will once again play as a priest, 'cause history says obsidian priests will disappoint us. however, on our first play-through of poe, we will use only the stock/canon party npcs regardless o' how much we agree with odd that frequently the builds o' provided party npcs strike us as, well, odd.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

aside: 

 

"I didn't get stuck dragging along one of the messy multi-class thief characters..."

 

we will note that there were only one multi-class thief character available in bg2: jan jansen. we will also observe that he were, along with keldorn, an almost guaranteed fixture in all our party configurations. is no way in hell we were gonna waste a party spot on a full thief such as yoshimo. nalia had a mere four levels o' thief and her thief skills were distributed poorly for our needs, so if she were in our party it were strictly as a mage. haer'dalis (sp?) were a freaking bard; nuff said. jan gave us a useful thief And he provided an effective secondary mage.   until we got imoen back, jan were essential to us. *shrug* shows just how different folks is with party builds. heck, in our iwd parties we typical had a gnome thief/illusionist, so jan were kinda ideal for us.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

^He could have meant dual-class thieves as well. If so, BG2 only has one pure thief, and that character dies in a scripted event.

[IndiraLightfoot]

On a related note: Am I the only one that deplored those auto-level-up NPCs in NWN2? It didn't make sense, even if it could be argued that it was practical? If your buddy has glugged pint after pint at some inn for three weeks, expect him to be lagging behind a bit.

Edited June 15, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

On a related note: Am I the only one that deplored those auto-level-up NPCs in NWN2?

No.

Edited June 15, 2014 by KaineParker

[Gromnir]

On a related note: Am I the only one that deplored those auto-level-up NPCs in NWN2? It didn't make sense, even if it could be argued that it was practical? If your buddy has glugged pint after pint at some inn for three weeks, expect him to be lagging behind a bit.

much like weightless gold and not needing to eat, sleep or empty bowels, we prefer and much appreciate auto-leveling of party npcs. as the aforementioned aspects we note, the practicality o' such a feature far outweighs the tedium o' the alternative. 

 

assume a nwn2 without auto-level and leave npc A at base for a long quest. 'pon completion o' quest, you and other party npcs has gained 'least two or three levels. levels in nwn2 were the most obvious measure o' npc power. therefore, npc A is now two-to-three levels weaker... relative speaking. with each level opportunity lost, npc A gets weaker and weaker. while we may be interested in exploring npc A's background and "character," doing so will only occur if we voluntarily reduce the efficacy o' our party. like it or not, most people don't play games a dozen times. create replay ability bloat through such stuff as non-leveling party npcs strikes us as a bit fraudulent. 

 

furthermore, no doubt one might see how from a developer pov, this could be less than ideal. seeing as how much effort goes into writing such joinable npcs, the developer is no doubt recognizing that the leveling treadmill lightfoot prefers will likely result in some number o' joinable npcs being functional useless late in the game. have some large battle late in the game wherein you need use six or more different companions becomes impossible if only three ever got level'd. you can imagine other such scenarios, yes?

 

we see very little value in functional gimping party npcs. perhaps writers can throw lightfoot and others a bone by adding dialogue and options that reveal that party members not active in main character's group is also gaining xp through other missions. maybe you has some penalty rate for party npcs such that they gain xp slower when not with main character... but never so slow as they fall more than X levels behind. etc. is options we can envision to have auto-leveling "make sense"  to lightfoot and others, but remove auto-level strikes us as a poor throwback to a more barbaric and less enlightened crpg time. 

 

 

"^He could have meant dual-class thieves as well. If so, BG2 only has one pure thief, and that character dies in a scripted event."

 

yoshimo death, since you bring up, actual further highlights the ultimate usefulness o' the one multi-class thief in the game. for the first 1/2 to 2/3 of game, depending on how much of world map you clear before going to spellhold, your multi and dual-class thief options is nalia and jan. nalia, as a thief, sucks-- to be opening locks, detecting traps, dispelling illusions, etc. she requires a constant flow o' potions to be useful. so, back to jan. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 15, 2014 by Gromnir

[Mor]

if we add, "simon says," to our posts, it might be possible to get mor to do handstands and cartwheels n' such... seeing as how he is already parroting us in multiple threads. how very odd.

what?!?!?! dude take your head out of your ass! no one follows you across multiple threads, or cares about some silly guy with an internet persona, who seem to let his ego get in his way, come off as intentionally obnoxious.

 

The OP asked about being able to tinker with different builds, for the specific purpose of min/maxing, a topic that has been discussed MANY times before, thus I provided him with the two keyword summary "Adventurers hall" and "modding", directly address that.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Mor

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 

assume a nwn2 without auto-level and leave npc A at base for a long quest. 'pon completion o' quest, you and other party npcs has gained 'least two or three levels. levels in nwn2 were the most obvious measure o' npc power. therefore, npc A is now two-to-three levels weaker... relative speaking. with each level opportunity lost, npc A gets weaker and weaker. while we may be interested in exploring npc A's background and "character," doing so will only occur if we voluntarily reduce the efficacy o' our party. like it or not, most people don't play games a dozen times. create replay ability bloat through such stuff as non-leveling party npcs strikes us as a bit fraudulent. 

 

furthermore, no doubt one might see how from a developer pov, this could be less than ideal. seeing as how much effort goes into writing such joinable npcs, the developer is no doubt recognizing that the leveling treadmill lightfoot prefers will likely result in some number o' joinable npcs being functional useless late in the game. have some large battle late in the game wherein you need use six or more different companions becomes impossible if only three ever got level'd. you can imagine other such scenarios, yes?

 

we see very little value in functional gimping party npcs. perhaps writers can throw lightfoot and others a bone by adding dialogue and options that reveal that party members not active in main character's group is also gaining xp through other missions. maybe you has some penalty rate for party npcs such that they gain xp slower when not with main character... but never so slow as they fall more than X levels behind. etc. is options we can envision to have auto-leveling "make sense"  to lightfoot and others, but remove auto-level strikes us as a poor throwback to a more barbaric and less enlightened crpg time. 

 

 

You are right about asking for the exclusion of auto-levelling being pretty crude and old-school. Still, I'd much prefer it anyways (I don't see it as gimped, but as part of the way the game plays out, and that could often be considered somehow logical within the event flow of the game, almost roleplaying in itself). However, often it would make sense that set-aside NPCs have been doing other stuff while being away, some companions like Ammon Jerro are very active in their pursuits, but others would just hang around somewhere passively. That said, I'd love it if it at least the companion couldn't be auto-levelled higher than one or two levels behind your pc, just for the sake of keeping it real (and costly when shuffling companions). 

 

As for encouraging replays, I'm all for it. If this kind of non-auto-level feature makes a few play the game again, that's just icing on the cake in my book.

[PrimeJunta]

On a related note: Am I the only one that deplored those auto-level-up NPCs in NWN2? It didn't make sense, even if it could be argued that it was practical? If your buddy has glugged pint after pint at some inn for three weeks, expect him to be lagging behind a bit.

I understand why they did it (i.e., to avoid punishing players who like to switch party composition), but I thought it was a lazy way of doing it. P:E's solution sounds much better. If I know they're getting stuff done while I'm out pursuing the main quest, leveling up makes sense.

[Odd Hermit]

a joinable npc that were a blank slate would be kinda pointless. give'em gender and and portrait art, but leave rest up to player? how you gonna write dialogue for such characters? no class or abilities or skills or whatever? to write a compelling character for whom all such stuff is incidental is creating a near insurmountable task for the poe writers. as a main character such stuff is a pain in the arse and is explaining why the bhaalspawn and the shard-bearer and the courier is not particularly compelling characters. ask writers to do such multiple times in the same game is being ridiculous unreasonable. 

 

iwd approach were actual a bg method. the capacity to create a party of characters were a feature of bg. iwd developers simple used bg functionality. if the poe party npcs get as much development as did the bg party npcs, then we highly recommend having an option for us to create our own party as were available in bg, but such an outcome strikes us as unlikely.  poe ain't being presented as a streamlined, quick-development, dungeon crawl such as were the icewind dale games. and am hoping the joinables gots a bit more depth than the original bg fare.

 

maybe odd doesn't care 'bout the writing and dialogues related to the party npcs. is fair. some o' the worst writing the black isle/obsidian folks has done in the past has been related to party npcs. has all joinables be player created has value. 'course some o' the best writing black isle/obsidian has done has also been the result o' developing party npcs. we get that particularly on a first play-through, depending on what class and role odd chooses for his main character, the party npcs may be less than ideal. even so, try and consider how you would write dialogue and story for multiple characters wherein you could not specify skills or attributes or a class. is gonna end up... bad.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Class could still be set, for characters whose personality/dialogue would be linked to it. That still leaves all kinds of things to tweak to your liking. For example in BGII, we had multiple thief/mage characters who I could've built much better from scratch even if I still had to work within the thief/mage classes.

[Shadenuat]

Obsidian is known to support their companion personalities with interesting character concepts and various mechanical tweaks (kotor 2, motb), and while sometimes it did make me p. mad, I still had control over their leveling.

Plus, Sawyer is all mad about his new cool system where all classes will be useful, where you will be able to play party of 6 rogues, and everyone can wear any items. If that's the case then players would probably be able to fit companions for multiple roles.

And munchkins could just go with Hall of Heroes.

From all the leaks it also seems like stats actually don't matter that much, like there won't be a difference in stats as big as  for STR 10 to STR 18/00.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Shadenuat

[Lephys]

P:E's solution sounds much better. If I know they're getting stuff done while I'm out pursuing the main quest, leveling up makes sense.

I'm just hoping (and decently confident) that it'll be actual use you're making of them on these little stronghold/character-centric "missions"/tasks you set them on, and not Assassin's Creed-style missions, a la "A bunch of made up text, blah blah blah, this apprentice assassin will be gone for this amount of time, and they'll get this much XP and gold after the time's up, and nothing else functionally affects anything, except for the further unlocking of even higher XP/time/money missions that you can then send them on."

 

The little ship minigame was mildly better, in AC4, as at least it was active. But, your ships didn't even improve in that one. And it was friggin' turn-based, even though there were absolutely no choices to make whatsoever. The ships had different attacks, but arbitrarily/randomly chose when to use which one. All you got to choose was your target, and when to drop fire barrels (manually).

 

*shrug*. Annnnnywho. As far as "here's what's going on with your cohorts in the meantime" content goes, I'm very much hoping for something substantial for the party NPCs who don't come with you on your immediate adventures. I also hope that that content can serve to spur/progress at least SOME of their personal backstory/arc, without you having to slap them into your party and run about with them before they ever talk about anything in their own lives or encounter anything pertinent to their histories, etc.

[Gromnir]

"Class could still be set, for characters whose personality/dialogue would be linked to it. That still leaves all kinds of things to tweak to your liking. For example in BGII, we had multiple thief/mage characters who I could've built much better from scratch even if I still had to work within the thief/mage classes."

 

we will note that obsidian suggests that class will only be a small part o' character development. if a priest can fill many roles, then you is very much limiting the writers if all they can do is write within general scope of "priest." will be far more customization options than bg2. a healing priest might be written quite different than a high damage combat priest. as such, bg2 might not be a particularly valuable example.

 

then again, you might be correct. regardless o' what josh claims, poe class might be as defining as it were in bg2.  if class is the end-all, then we agree that roll-back should be implemented. 

 

"As for encouraging replays, I'm all for it. If this kind of non-auto-level feature makes a few play the game again, that's just icing on the cake in my book."

 

am gonna extreme disagree with this. if the/a reason we wish to replay is 'cause lack of auto-level made otherwise intriguing companions a handicap to our party, then we see the replay value as extreme cheap and more a source o' frustration than anything else. replay to explore differing quest paths? sure. replay to take a differing approach with joinable npcs? yes, definitely. replay 'cause lack o' auto-level made the paladin too weak to include in the party past the first quarter o' the game? is cheap, particularly when there is many options to overcome lightfoot complaint 'bout it not making sense. other posters in this thread seem to suggest that poe developers has such a plan for having joinable npcs active while out of the party. so much the better. regardless, would seem to be many options for making auto-level reasonable. so if "making sense" is the concern, we not see a reason to abandon.

 

 

"what?!?!?! dude take your head out of your ass! no one follows you across multiple threads, or cares about some silly guy with an internet persona, who seem to let his ego get in his way, come off as intentionally obnoxious."

 

attempt to calm yourself... and please note the irony o' the observation above.

 

and yes, you did simple parrot us here and in other threads. the fact that you parroted what we said in the post you quoted just makes you appear a bit silly. doesn't really matter if you did intentional or accidental, does it? so, beyond maturing a bit, try to find your own voice or at least read the posts you quote. is spam if all you is gonna do is repeat Gromnir. is sad if you is gonna have a little hizzy fit. either way, is bad. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps we will note that our least favorite s'posed replay scheme is the random 1007 table. we understand that there were folks who replayed iwd multiple times to get different and more ideal 1007 drops, but such stuff strikes us as cheap as is the abandoning o' auto-level. even so, we does recognize that some folks actual find such reasons... sufficient.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Gromnir

[Silent Winter]

 

On a related note: Am I the only one that deplored those auto-level-up NPCs in NWN2? It didn't make sense, even if it could be argued that it was practical? If your buddy has glugged pint after pint at some inn for three weeks, expect him to be lagging behind a bit.

I understand why they did it (i.e., to avoid punishing players who like to switch party composition), but I thought it was a lazy way of doing it. P:E's solution sounds much better. If I know they're getting stuff done while I'm out pursuing the main quest, leveling up makes sense.

 

My biggest problem with the joinable-NPCs in NWN2 OC was the lack of choice: "You WILL take the paladin now (even if you're evil)." etc

Given that they were going to force certain NPCs on your party (even late game), there would need to be auto-xp (not auto-levelling, you still did that yourself beyond the first joining levels) to avoid crippling your party in an area where you can't just go away and combat-grind (which would be boring anyway).

 

Thankfully, we won't have such in PoE.

Still, being able to set them to tasks while you're gone is a good idea.  (I hope we can still choose their level-up skills though)

[Randomthom]

I like the OP's conceptual idea. It's probably a bit late in development now (well, it is too late really as features are closed now) but I still like it.

 

I'd probably say that class itself should be fixed/limited (e.g. a Priest NPC might be limited to Priest, Paladin, Chanter). Something that will not make a mockery of their backstory.

 

This could be built in as a toggled mode for advanced players so new players won't get overwhelmed when they pick up a new NPC (or worse, not realise that this new NPC is running around as a level 0 character, waiting for their input).

 

I often thought that cRPGs could do well with a modular personality. Imagine in IWD2 when creating your characters if, after choosing portraits, voices etc. you then could pick various personality traits that might surface later during gameplay. They wouldn't necessarily have to be voiced or even affect anything but it would be a great little addition to the character creation process.

 

e.g.

Pious

Law-abiding

Enjoys cruelty

Hates slavery

[Zwiebelchen]

Considering that there's a legit ironman mode in the game where I can not reload AND characters can end up as perma-dead, a certain kind of auto-leveling is *neccessary* for the game.

Maybe not in the way NWN2 did it, but more like "the out-of-party characters are always 2 levels behind".

Unfortunately, I've never played an RPG game that made out-of-party character mechanics interesting yet. Some games had mini-games attached to out-of-party characters, usually ressource gathering. And in most cases it sucked.

 

 

I may seem as a fanboy, but again, Jagged Alliance II (which is not an RPG, but a TBS) is imho the benchmark of a great out-of-party mechanic. I could (and imho HAD to in higher difficulty levels) split up my mercenaries into seperate teams to fight on multiple fronts at the same time. I had to leave wounded characters behind after some semi-fatal wounds until they would fully recover. I had experts on leadership doing the militia training in liberated towns or technicians repair worn-out equipment.

This system was engaging as hell. Even those characters that weren't on your main strike force felt like being part of an actual team.

 

An interesting adaption for something like this could be some pivotal plot-points that would force me (or allow me, let's don't ruin the fun for those that don't want something like that) to form two teams that venture into two different places at the same time. It could also be like a dungeon with two entries and riddles that require the interaction between both groups. It could either be done via "in the meantime..." events tied to certain plotpoints or via directly switching back and forth between both groups.

Do I split up my main strike team and add some of the out-of-partys for each group? Or do I leave my main team untouched and send the rookies as the second group?

 

My favorite idea, however, would be to allow me to take some npcs with me into the stronghold and assign them to different management positions in the stronghold. Of course, that shouldn't automaticly apply to every npc you meet. If you think that npc X is a giant douchebag, you wouldn't want to take him with you, after all. But maybe allow me to like select 3 or 4 companions to keep around in the stronghold outside of the main strike team?

Maybe, for example, you like that priest NPC and trust her, but you don't want her in your group, as you are a priest aswell, you could give her the task to watch over the soldiers in your stronghold. Or you could assign a warrior you like as the head of the guard.

It also gives more meaning to the adventurers hall for those that only like to have the story-companions in their group.

Of course, such a stronghold system should never end up to just be a dialog popping up like "character X lead 5 soldiers into battle against a group of bandits. 2 soldiers died. Character X gained 50 xp.". There should be events that are actually *playable* by the player. Kind of like the stronghold missions in Baldur's Gate II, just that it isn't the main PC's group doing them, but the people you left at your stronghold.

If you assign story-NPCs to tasks, they will auto-select multiple choice answers based on their personality. If you assign adventurers-hall NPCs, you can select their answers. There could also be unique events based on who you selected for a task. For example, only if you assign that story NPC X to task Y, then a unique event occurs that is tied to their background story. All other characters would not get this event.

 

 

I understand that such a feature is an enormous amount of extra work to do. Hence why it should probably not be in the main game in order to not take production ressources away from the main story plot. But it could be an awesome feature for an addon that focuses on stronghold-gameplay!

Edited June 16, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[Gromnir]

aside:

 

is worth noting that the complaint 'bout auto-leveling is that it don't "make sense." the folks sitting back at the ship/stronghold is getting as much xp as the folks out adventuring. this strikes lightfoot and others as wrong. to that end we think it should be observed that the power curve in a crpg is... whacked. in three months worth o' game time, you go from tyro to demi-god. That is what don't make sense. the improvement and power gain resulting from adventuring is complete insane. old d&d, as a matter o' fact, did not reward xp during adventures. from a practical pov, this were done so that dms could focus on the game rather than tracking xp points, but the rationale given to validate the method were that it didn't make sense to improve much during an adventure. it were after an adventure, when player could train and put xp gained to work that one would improve.

 

as a younger man, Gromnir were involved in sports: wrestling, swimming, fencing and football. the swimming and fencing were actual kinda strange as those were rich kid sports and we were poor. "shrug" regardless, we got invited to a kinda specialized swim camp at UF one summer. were two freaking months o' super-intense training. had swimming in morning and afternoons. had some days o' weight training. we had classes and film reviews... were strange to see our self from perspective of underwater. even our training table (meals) were fixed, maybe one hour o' the day were genuine free time. at end of the two months, we had a meet against a nearby club team. 2 months o' practice and 1 meet.

 

similarly, anybody who has played high school football will tell you that two-a-days is miserable. coaches would explain that games were not won on friday nights in the fall. games were won right here, right now, with tony ________ puking his guts out over by the trash can. you learned a great deal in games, but where you became a better football player were in the tedious and repetitious hours o' practice and training. 

 

what am saying is that what don't "make sense" is the xp grind. if you is genuine concerned with being reasonable, then am suspecting that improvement should occur back at the ship or the stronghold engaged during intensive training and practice. yeah, that ain't gonna work for a game where you is adventuring, but it "makes sense." 

 

HA! Good Fun!