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White March Part 2 officially announced, coming January

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JerekKruger

JerekKruger

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Why not make the (perceived) negative effects purely story based? Take too long and rest too often and you'll start getting different dialogues from companions and important NPCs and, eventually, a different ending. Split it into three broad categories: (i) for players who complete the game very quickly you have an ending with very little change to the Watcher's state of mind, (ii) for most normal play throughs where the the Watcher has some changes but nothing major yet, and (iii) an ending for players who take absolutely ages over the game and sees a lot of changes to the Watcher's state of mind.

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Doppelschwert

Doppelschwert

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Also, you probably remember the spirit meter from MotB. It's unfortunate that they tied it to the passage of time (standing idle, walking, exploring, taking time to admire the scenery..) instead of tying it to resting. They could've transformed a mere annoyance into strategy.

 

I completely agree about MotB. If that was tied into resting or mobs killed or anything other than just real time, it coulda been interesting. As is, it was just extremely annoying. I can't speak for others, but while I love strategic thinking, constantly being pushed by a clock 100% of the time is just turrible.

 

If I'd implement a madness mechanic based on that, I'd probably change some basic assumptions:

 - make resting unlimited

 - when you make an area transition corresponding to travelling on the world map, you rest automatically during the journey

 

Then, whenever you rest, you get your ressources back as usual, but also a madness penalty from nightmares. For every encounter afterwards, the madness decreases, so both your ressources and your madness penalty go down over time. You could then add interesting per rest abilities that either temporary reduce madness or increase madness for some powerful effect.

 

Of course, the penalties from madness would need to be severe enough to actually impact strategic planning. In PoE, you can win the fights without using your main character, so unlimited resting for the other classes would be too powerful. One would need to argue about some dark aura affecting the companions or something, and as you can see, such a system would be a major new system on top of what we have now.

 

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Valorian

Valorian

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Yeah, I really doubt Obs, or any team really, would be willing to go through with the whole, 'companions as a resource' thing. Especially if it's taken to it's logical conclusion, where eventually the Watcher would have just Eder hanging around and his stats would have degraded to the point of uselesness, turning the game into some sort of weird Eder Solo Run. Games reaching an unwinable state has fallen out of favor (rightfully so, truthfully).

 

Though it does seem a really innovative approach to the system, and in PoE's case, would've even tied right into the story for extra immersion goodness. I certainly wouldn't want it as a default mode or anything, but it'd be a nice take as part of an 'expert' package or something.

 

I completely agree about MotB. If that was tied into resting or mobs killed or anything other than just real time, it coulda been interesting. As is, it was just extremely annoying. I can't speak for others, but while I love strategic thinking, constantly being pushed by a clock 100% of the time is just turrible.

 

I meant to say that the stat penalty (something like minor fatigue that lasts for x encounters) could be an alternative to abandonment. Otherwise, poor watcher... abandoned, drained and deranged. 

 

Of course, they could go a bit gamey and apply the curse of being unable to recharge per rest resources to everyone in the party, after a set number of resting sessions, making abandonment and stat debuffs unnecessary.

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Valorian

Valorian

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Of course, they could go a bit gamey and apply the curse of being unable to recharge per rest resources to everyone in the party, after a set number of resting sessions, making abandonment and stat debuffs unnecessary.

 

Which makes no difference for “per-encounter” classes.

 

 

There are per rest items that can completely turn the tide of battle, in my experience, especially when you decide to RP a loner. :mellow: 

 

It would clearly affect resting-focused classes more, but I see it as a bonus for people who like a challenge. They could even enhance per rest and nerf per encounter abilities with such a mode. Although... work.

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Doppelschwert

Doppelschwert

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I don't think there is a way to implement the watchers curse affecting gameplay without being able to work around it or going against the underlying design philosophies.

 

If penalties grow over real time, optional content becomes kind of discouraged, which would make them pay off less in terms of production ressources - but most content is optional and there to be explored.

 

If penalties grow per rests, you discourage classes with per rest abilities and encourage per encounter classes instead.

 

If penalties only concern the watcher, then you will disregard him. On the other hand, if penalties apply to the party, that doesn't make much sense story wise.

 

 

If there were no per rest ressources, then my suggestion above could work. Otherwise, you need to argue that the curse affects everyone travelling with the watcher as a passive status effect like fatigue to make it work again. I don't see a better solution. :shrugz:

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Doppelschwert

Doppelschwert

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Penalties wouldn't grow or stack. They'd be inflicted when you rest* and last for x combat encounters.

 

*This would start happening only after a set amount of "free" resting.

 

I meant more or less the same, just that they gradually reduce over every combat encounter instead of staying full for x encounters and then dissappearing.

 

But I think you should then treat area transitions on the world map as full rests as well, resetting the penalties, otherwise people start to save weak encounters at the beginning to cancel the penalties of resting in the later parts of the game.

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Wolfenbarg

Wolfenbarg

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I do agree that there should be some kind of noticable effect. If you solo PoE or play with a custom party, the madness associated with being a watcher isn't present in the game at all. There are no dreams, stat effects, and the abilities you get aren't very game changing or have any downsides themselves. If that's part of the story, it should feel like part of the story from a gameplay perspective regardless of whether or not you take their companions.

 

It should be like Mask. You have some lite effects no matter what, but the more you use watcher abilities (which should be more unique/powerful), the worse your nightmares get... Provided that's still part of the story in the next game and they don't go a different direction with watchers.

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Valorian

Valorian

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But I think you should then treat area transitions on the world map as full rests as well, resetting the penalties, otherwise people start to save weak encounters at the beginning to cancel the penalties of resting in the later parts of the game.

 

 

 

Reasonable point. Even though planning to leave certain combat encounters for later falls under strategy, it would be annoying and ghhhamey.

I'd like world map transition to reset* the penalty, but not to auto-heal or auto-rest the party. I remember this being a problem in NWN2 when I wanted to play with limited resting and use potions to heal my character, but some area transitions would say: "No! Now you rest."

 

*This could lead to a debuff loop however, so world map transition should inflict a penalty only for the next combat encounter (if you had no penalty when transitioning). And since everyone around here clearly loves detailed design plans (LOL sure), I'll repeat that this would start happening only after the player exhausts all his free rests.

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AndreaColombo

AndreaColombo

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Dat art, man.

 

Also: Soulbound sabre confirmed?

 

Regardless, art in PoE is spectacular, imho. Great graphic design.

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"Time is not your enemy. Forever is."

— Fall-From-Grace, Planescape: Torment

"It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question, and he'll look for his own answers."

— Kvothe, The Wise Man's Fears

My Deadfire mods: Brilliant Mod | Faster Deadfire | Deadfire Unnerfed | Helwalker Rekke | Permanent Per-Rest Bonuses | PoE Items for Deadfire | No Recyled Icons | Soul Charged Nautilus

 

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Sedrefilos

Sedrefilos

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I meant somthing like this but it has to build up to unique moment.

 

Have you played Grimrock 2? Their mimic's are splendid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wdf6EyfFBk

 

Ah, Grimrocks... such great games. The thing about mimics is that when there is always a chance a chest to be a mimic, you always approach carefully and after the first time you never get surprised. It's a bit old tbh. But; what if there was only one mimic in the entire game? A boss mimic, when you run to get that huge decorated chest with your imaginary treasures and it comes alive as a big, tough boss mimic? :p  That'll be cool. Just one mimic in the entire game :p

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