New Infinity Engine style game in the works...

[Kaelik]

At some point, you get a stronghold where you can dump tons of gold into upgrades. Some grant the privilege of increasing the amount of XP benched characters get.

To be fair, the situation is complicated by the fact that you can hire a theoretically unlimited number of new heroes from the adventurer guild.

As long as I can pick the 6 best party members and never ever fucking switch out for any reason, I don't give a shit.

[Ghremdal]

Lago, on MotB did you find all of the Mask Fragments? I got pissed off at the good ending as well, but that one is at least digestable. Not easily, but it is.

[K]

The only real weakness of NWN2's companion system is that they're too passive to evil. Your companions will only leave you if you're blatantly doing the whole Killfuck Soulshitter thing and you have to go pretty damn far. Which in a way is unavoidable because the cast is a lot more pared down compared to NWN: OC and you won't even notice it on a good/neutral/reasonable evil playthrough. But I'm sure it grated on K's playthrough.

I didn't really sweat it.

I mean, DnD games are about grabbing power with both hands and then using it to kill dicks. This means that I didn't feel particularly evil just because the power being offered was from eating the souls of evil fuckers that I was already murdering and the "evil option" was to go tell the dick gods to go fuck themselves.

I can't even tell you about the number of demons I've released in various DnD games. I never did it because it was the "evil" option, but because they offered power that I needed to kill even bigger dicks.

Sometimes I even murdered those demons after I got the power because DnD games reward killing things for power (XP).

[ishy]

There are a few reasons why I don't think absolute XP/level parity across all potential companions is always a good thing.

In a class-based game, how you learn to use the classes (specifically, their abilities) often develops over the course of playing them. When characters who aren't in the party auto-gain XP and you level them in big jumps, the characters can often gain numerous abilities simultaneously. This can make it harder to "get" the significance of the individual abilities. It can also demand that the player make a series of choices in immediate succession without realizing how each of the individual choices may interact.

If all characters are perfectly XP-locked to each other, when it's time to level up one character, it's time to level up all of the characters. IMO, this can be bad for pacing and it's asking the player to make strategic decisions for all of their party members at once.

There is a strategic element to whom you take and whom you leave behind. I don't believe that unused party members should sit stagnant; I just think that there are pacing and learning advantages to staggering them somewhat. If a player uses the stronghold system to manage characters when they aren't in the party, they can have full XP parity if the player wants them to. If you choose to not use the stronghold at all, the folks at the stronghold will trail in XP somewhat, but not a margin of many levels.

I like that the solution fixes none of the problems mentioned earlier. Is the developer on crack?

[Avoraciopoctules]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64238- ... -game-art/

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hello! I have spent much of my time for the last few weeks devoted to making the game’s stronghold system, which was one of our Kickstarter project’s biggest stretch goals, into one of the best systems in the game. Josh has created an amazing and detailed stronghold design, with lots of upgrades and activities and random events that really make owning a stronghold fun and exciting. I want to spend this update explaining what we have made in the game, but first, let’s talk about the stronghold itself.

First, a caveat: I am going to describe the stronghold as it is currently designed. This design is mostly programmed already too, but as with all development, it might change as we finish the art and audio, fix any bugs, and tune the game play. So please view this as a snapshot of the stronghold development as it exists today.

You will be offered the stronghold early in the game, before you finish Act 1. But the stronghold itself is old and dilapidated, and you will want to upgrade it as soon as you can. These upgrades will, in turn, open up new activities and events that can happen, which will make the stronghold a dynamic and fun place to own.

So let’s go through the many reasons why you will want to have a stronghold.

Bonuses
There are five bonuses you will receive for getting and upgrading your stronghold.

Resting bonuses. Some of the upgrades to your stronghold will grant temporary bonuses to your attributes or non-combat skills when you rest there. As examples, you can build Training Grounds to improve your Strength or a Library to improve your Lore skill. Some of these upgrades are expensive, but you’re worth it.
Adventures for idle companions. You will eventually have more companions than will fit in your party, so you will have leave some of them behind. While they are idling away at the stronghold, they can take part in their own adventures, earning additional experience for themselves and extra money, items and reputation bonuses for you!
Ingredients. Many of the stronghold upgrades will generate ingredients used by non-combat skills. For example, Botanical Gardens create Survival ingredients over time, and a Curio Shop produces ingredients for use by both Lore and Mechanics.
Special offers. Sometimes visitors to your stronghold will have rare items for sale, or perhaps they will offer you items in return for something else. Pay attention to these visitors. Some of these items may be nearly impossible to find any other way!
Wealth. Don’t forget that by owning a stronghold, you also own all of the surrounding lands and impose a tax on all of the inhabitants. It will feel nice for a change to have someone recognize your high standing and give you the money that you so richly deserve.

These bonuses all sound great, right? Well, they are great, but they are just the passive benefits from owning and upgrading a stronghold. There are a lot of activities you can do too, once you take possession of your stronghold.

Activities
First and foremost, when you get your stronghold, you are going to want to upgrade it. Upgrades are improvements to various parts of the castle, usually to add to the security or prestige of the place. Security affects how much taxes you collect as well as helps reduce the number of “bad” random events, while prestige increases the number of “good” random events as well as increasing tax collections, too. Upgrades can also serve as prerequisites for other upgrades. For example, you cannot build your Training Grounds (and get your Strength bonus after resting at the stronghold) until you have repaired the inner bailey of the stronghold.

Every upgrade costs money and takes time to build, but as long as you have the prerequisites completed, you can have as many upgrades building simultaneously as you can afford. And you don’t have to wait at the stronghold while they are built, either. You can continue adventuring, and you will be notified when they are built.

You can begin collecting taxes from your populace as soon as you gain the stronghold. The amount of taxes you collect increases with your prestige (because people know of you and like you), but the amount also increases with higher security, since some taxes are lost to banditry. You will want to keep both of those values high.

You can also employ hirelings to stay at your stronghold. These people will provide bonuses to your prestige and security, but they cost money to employ. Some will leave your castle if you stop paying them, but others will wait around to get paid again (but not provide any bonuses until they are).

If you have cleared the dungeon and built a prison under your stronghold, then when you are fighting some of the named NPC’s in the game, you will be given an option to take them prisoner instead of killing them. Prisoners are kept in a cell in your prison, where you can visit them and talk to them, and occasionally use them as leverage later in the game. But you will need to keep your security level high, or you might suffer from a prison break!
Finally, several upgrades will produce ingredients used by non-combat skills. This feature, along with upgrades that can improve your skills, makes your stronghold a great place to craft and store items. You can stop by your castle occasionally and make food, potions, scrolls, armors and weapons, and any that you don’t need immediately can be stored in chests and other containers in a variety of places around the stronghold. You know, in case of an emergency.

Which brings us to random stronghold events.

Random Events
As you play the game after getting the stronghold, whether or not you are physically there, you will be told if a random event happens at the stronghold. Sometimes, you will need to deal with the event immediately, but usually you are given some time to decide what to do.

The most common event at your stronghold is having a visitor arrive. There are all kinds of visitors, but they all share one thing. They can adjust your prestige and/or security just by being at your stronghold. Some visitors are wonderful and give good bonuses, and you will want them to stay as long as possible. Some of these visitors can even be employed as hirelings and will stay on as long as you pay them. Others are not so great, and you will want to offer them one of your companions to act as an escort to their next location, or perhaps simply pay them to leave. Some visitors will offer rare items for sale, and some might even offer a very rare item in exchange for one of the prisoners in your dungeon. As you can see, visitors require some decision making on your part.

As mentioned above, your idle companions can take part in adventures as those events arise. You will be informed of what adventures are available, how long they will last, and what the rewards will be (in general terms). If you send a companion on an adventure, he or she is unavailable until they complete it and return with the rewards. You can recall any companions early, but then they earn nothing. Why would you ever want to recall them then? Because your stronghold can get attacked!

Attacks are the most potentially dangerous of all stronghold events. Occasionally troublemakers (of various sorts) will decide to attack your castle. You will be warned ahead of time of any such attack, so you can return to the stronghold and take part in it directly, if you want. Otherwise, the attack is simulated and you are told the results. A well-defended stronghold can repel any but the most concerted attacks, but there is always a chance of damage which can destroy upgrades, kill hirelings, and cost money. The threat of attacks is the most important reason to keep your security level as high as you can afford.

I hope you have enjoyed this sneak peek into the world of Project Eternity and the role your stronghold will play in the game. No matter how you play the game, your stronghold is certain to provide many benefits and also be a lot fun too!

[Avoraciopoctules]

If you're comparing it to D&D, this is a similar progression except for two differences: 1) we maintain differences between classes (given equal level) as an integer rather than as a proportion and 2) because we use a 100 point base scale instead of a 20 point base scale, we have finer control over per-level advancement.

E.g. in Pathfinder, a fighter starts with +2 Fort, +0 Ref, +0 Will. They progress like this (Fort/Ref/Will)

5th +4 +1 +1
10th +7 +3 +3
15th +9 +5 +5
20th +12 +6 +6

A rogue starts with +0 Fort, +2 Ref, +0 Will. They progress like this (Fort/Ref/Will)

5th +1 +4 +1
10th +3 +7 +3
15th +5 +9 +5
20th +6 +12 +6

It's a regular progression: they start with an advantage in one (for some classes in D&D, two), and advance at regular intervals. Of course, at high levels this falls apart because the proportional gulf between good and bad saves becomes so wide that characters have to overcompensate or inure themselves to specific effects to avoid being sucker punched. At 1st level, the difference between the good and bad saves is (effectively) 10%. At 10th level, it's 20%. At 20th level, it's 30%.

To make matters worse, typically the obvious "good" stats for a given class reinforce the better saves and neglect the worse saves. Fighters often have a high Con, which means they are likely to have an even higher total Fort than normal. They might have a decent Dex which can bolster their Reflex, but it's rare that they have a high Wis (and consequently, Will save). Because save DCs are often balanced around the "hard" targets, it means that the weakest saves of a class combined with the weakest (or least important) ability scores for that class make them really, really vulnerable. This is why Pathfinder has a special Bravery feature for fighters at higher levels -- otherwise they'd run or freeze in terror more than half the time a comparable caster chucked a Will-based fear effect their way.

In PE, fighters start with the following defenses: 25 Deflect, 15 Fortitude, 10 Reflexes, 10 Psyche. Rogues start with the following defenses: 15 Deflect, 10 Fortitude, 30 Reflexes, 5 Psyche. Every level, every character gains +3 to all defenses. At 6th level, the fighter would have 40 Deflect, 30 Fortitude, 25 Reflexes, 25 Psyche. The rogue would have 30 Deflect, 25 Fortitude, 45 Reflexes, 20 Psyche. The fighter's worst defenses are still Reflexes and Psyche, but they're only "just as" bad (by the same margin) as they were at 1st level. The same applies to the rogue's Psyche and Fortitude. And while the rogue did "catch up" to where the fighter's Deflection was, the fighter maintains the same 10 point advantage over the rogue that he or she did at 1st level.

Of course, Attributes, gear, Talents, Abilities, etc. also can all feed into your defenses, but those are much easier to switch around than your class and level. I.e., if you find yourself particularly vulnerable to a particular type of attack (meaning, what defense it targets), the cause is likely easier to remedy in PE than it would be in D&D (because class is such a large component of that value as levels rise).

[Avoraciopoctules]

In D&D, +3 is still +3 even when other bonuses from other sources enter the mix that makes up the aggregate. Even if it comprises a smaller proportion of the total, it's still valuable. All other things being equal, a class' starting defense bonuses will always shift their overall balance. A 5th level barbarian may find a number of ways (items, spells, etc.) to get his or her Deflection on par with a 5th level fighter's, but given access to the same methods, the fighter would still maintain his or her class advantage.

In PE, for any standard attack, every 5 points of defense translates to a 5% shift to miss, graze, hit, and crit (sometimes negating the possibility entirely). In D&D terms, a 15 point defense advantage is similar to +3/-3. Shifting the odds always helps.

Your player house is located within the boundaries of the stronghold, but it is its own building with its own upgrades/benefits.

I think physically splitting the house and the stronghold increases the likelihood that the player will choose to not visit one or the other (most likely, the house) over the course of the game.

Stronghold tax income is more for balancing maintenance costs (i.e., paying hirelings and repairing damaged upgrades) than a major source of income. Your major source of income will almost certainly be finding money and loot in the world.

[Avoraciopoctules]

http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/medi ... el-ext.jpg

I really like the art they're producing for the CYOA-esque segments

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hello and welcome to today's class update! We'll be discussing some newcomers to the Dyrwood's "magic" scene, the enigmatic and deadly soul-manipulators known as ciphers. Read on to learn how ciphers went from being an animancer's theoretical possibility, to the feared foes of Dyrwoodan settlers, to an integral part of Defiance Bay's secret police, Dunryd Row.

Cipher Mechanics

Contemporary ciphers are fighting casters, like the Glanfathan "mind hunters" who invented the discipline. When engaged in physical combat, they use an Ability called Soul Whip to contact and drain the psyches of their targets. Recognizable by the purple flames that engulf a cipher's weapons, Soul Whip generates a Focus resource that ciphers can use to power their abilities. Though ciphers begin combat with a modest amount of Focus, their more advanced techniques demand large expenditures of Focus. Additionally, repeated uses of even minor powers will quickly drain a cipher's Focus, requiring them to dive into physical combat to generate more.

Cipher powers are not limited to mental manipulation. They have abilities that allow them to use a target's soul energy to "leak" and burst into flame, to generate a physical shockwave of that knocks down everyone behind the target, or even to bend back toward the cipher, creating a field of protective energy around him or her.

With the exception of Soul Whip, all cipher powers require Focus and a nearby target other than themselves, one with a "housed" soul. In practical terms, this means that ciphers must always target a nearby ally or an enemy with their powers. It is impossible for them to target themselves, a distant target, or open ground.

Here is a sampling of some of the cipher's abilities:

Soul Whip (Modal) - At close range, the cipher's weapons generate fields of parasitic energy that lash out at a target's soul. The Soul Whip mode reduces the amount of damage caused, but each successful hit briefly lowers the target's Psyche defense and generates Focus for the cipher (attacks Psyche).
Mind Wave - The cipher violently intrudes into an enemy's mind, Stunning the target (attacks Psyche) and generating a cone of concussive force behind him or her that can knock down anyone in its path (attacks Fortitude).
Soul Shock - The cipher causes an ally's soul to "crack" and violently release energy into the physical world. The resulting explosion of electrical (Shock) energy damages everyone nearby except the target (attacks Reflexes).
Psychovampiric Shield - The cipher drains Intellect from enemies and uses it to temporarily increase his or her Deflection. The increase in the cipher's Deflection is dependent on how much Intellect he or she successfully drains from victims (attacks Psyche).
Mind Blades - The cipher uses the souls of nearby enemies to generate attacks against the subjects themselves. Each target is attacked once by a slashing "mind blade" which then moves on to the next nearest enemy up to a maximum of five targets (attacks Deflection).
Recall Agony - The cipher causes the target to re-experience the pain of a wound moments after the target originally suffered it. The damage is a percentage of the original value, but it ignores the armor of the target (attacks Psyche).
Ectopsychic Echo - The cipher and an ally generate a bolt of psychic energy that periodically rebounds between them, causing Crush damage to anyone caught in the area (attacks Reflexes).

Cipher Lore

Many classes have abilities that allow the user to channel the power of their own soul or ambient soul fragments to produce incredible effects. Paladins ignite their souls to produce auras, wizards draw soul fragments into grimoires to shape and cast spells, and monks use personal suffering to focus energy through their bodies. While these classes often develop abilities that allow them to affect the minds and souls of others, the power is always generated by the user.



Feared for their mental powers and extreme hostility, the vithrack were once eagerly pursued by animancers for research purposes.

In the field of animancy, which focuses on the study of souls, researchers wondered for centuries if they could develop a discipline or technology that would allow people to connect with the soul of another living thing -- not just reach or strike out toward it. Wizards and priests had developed abilities to overwhelm or inspire the mind, but not to connect with it. Animancers theorized that it could be possible for one soul to reach out and connect to another, but they had no proof. Animancers studied folk legends about figures called Watchers who reportedly were able to see lost souls and perceive an individual's ancestral lives, but claimants to that title were typically charlatans at best or mentally unstable and violent at worst. A few intrepid animancers attempted to communicate with the reclusive spider-like race known as the vithrack. The creatures, obviously of advanced intelligence and extraordinary capabilities, seemed to possess the ability to connect to an individual's soul -- albeit with horrifying consequences. The dangerous nature and rarity of the vithrack combined with their inhuman physiology have still proven to be insurmountable obstacles in understanding how their powers work. Still, the animancers had a few other leads to follow.

Over a century ago, during the Broken Stone War, soldiers in the Dyrwood reported wild tales of having their minds invaded, of seeing comrades lose control of themselves, of orlan and elven Glanfathan warriors wielding knives engulfed in purple flames that "cut away" the souls of their victims. The war was a new experience for everyone involved, so many Dyrwoodans dismissed many of the more outlandish tales over time. But over the decades that followed, more settlers reported similar violent encounters with Glanfathan guerilla fighters. In the War of Black Trees, Dyrwoodan animancers confirmed many of these experiences across a wide number of soldiers and settlers. However, with Dyrwoodan settlers in a state of war with the population of Eir Glanfath, the researchers couldn't find many Glanfathans who were willing to talk about it.

After the Dyrwoodan revolution for independence, the Dyrwood officially stopped the Aedyr Empire's practice of exploring and plundering Eir Glanfath's sacred ruins -- the practice that had ignited the earlier wars between Dyrwoodan settlers and Glanfathans. In the years that followed, the tribal princes of Eir Glanfath allowed Dyrwoodan animancers to speak with some of their brîshalgwin ("mind hunters"), the elite warriors that had terrorized Aedyrans and Dyrwoodans in past wars. From the brîshalgwin, the animancers learned that Glanfathans had developed mental abilities that allowed them to perceive and contact what animancers categorized as "housed" souls, i.e., souls held within a physical vessel. They initially developed these talents in an attempt to communicate with souls held in the Engwithan ruins they were sworn to protect. When the tribal princes outlawed this practice as disrespectful and dangerous, their councilors advised the princes to turn the efforts of the brîshalgwin towards protecting the ruins and developing new methods of warfare.



Standing stones of adra like these were carelessly knocked down by early Dyrwoodan colonists, starting a conflict with the local Glanfathans that erupted into what became known as the Broken Stone War.

Excited by these revelations, animancers in Defiance Bay began working with the brîshalgwin, whom the animancers had previously described as "ciphers" due to their mysterious nature. Given Dyrwoodans' general discomfort with the Glanfathan language, the cipher name stuck and continues to be used in everyday conversation. For decades now, the ciphers and animancers have worked together, each generating new ideas and expanding their collective understanding of soul manipulation. Today, Dyrwoodans and foreign visitors from Aedyr, the Vailian Republics -- even distant Rauatai -- have learned and expanded the ciphers' growing field of techniques. Recently, encouraged by the potential the ciphers have shown and dismissive of the superstitious concerns of locals, Lady Webb, a prominent noble and advisor to the duc, petitioned the Dyrwood's erls to create a spy service in Defiance Bay consisting primarily of ciphers. The erls approved, creating what would become known as Dunryd Row, a respected, if somewhat feared and mistrusted, organization that operates out of an old, vine-covered house in the city's Brackenbury District.

Though ciphers' powers are still being explored, unlocked, and debated across the civilized world, most people recognize that their abilities hold great potential -- for good or ill -- in the cultures that develop them.

[K]

I think if could go my whole life without saying " psychovampiric," I'll be happy.

[Avoraciopoctules]

http://gamebanshee.com/news/112390-proj ... nd-up.html

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/111978- ... nd-up.html

The main issue I have with the attribute system in P:E (I admit we don't know much about it) is that it limits a player's ability to "role-play" a certain type of character (i.e the dumb brute). Any plans on expanding RP opportunities outside of LARPing

It doesn't at all -- conceptually or the specific example you gave. You can very easily make a dumb brute fighter character in PE and role-play him or her as such. You can also make a brilliant weakling fighter character and role-play him or her as such. The difference between doing this in PE and, for example, D&D, is that in PE this is a fully viable character concept who emphasizes different elements in combat.

I have to say I think it's an odd complaint considering that to even arguably have ability score-based role-playing opportunities against type with A/D&D, you are required to build a character that is bad at his or her class. It's better in later editions of D&D because they put more effort into providing some universal values for ability scores, but there are still fundamentally horrible builds. A decent number of feats allow for viable Int-based fighters (for example), but a Cha-based fighter is flat-out bad at being a fighter.

You can find ways to work around it, but they're almost all splat book-based prestige classes and feats that try to put a band-aid over the fundamental problem, which is an imbalance of class-specific and universal benefits provided by the ability score array.

Thank for your response. I’m actually not concerned about the combat implications of your attribute system (no dump stats? Great!), but rather what the proposed implementation implies for PE as an RPG: attributes are nothing more than modifiers for combat. It takes away what little cRPGs COULD have in terms of mechanically interesting chars to RP, e.g. low int chars in Arcanum had worthwhile dumb convo options (yes, it was gimmicky, but it has potential). Do P:E's stats also help "define" our chars?

Yes, of course they do. All attributes are used in both scripted interactions and standard conversations to unlock options -- as in PS:T, but with a heavier emphasis on equal use of the attributes.

One of the reasons we don't have a dialogue/speech skill is so a character's attributes can be used as dialogue prerequisites with greater frequency.

...


Separate from the actual mechanics of the PE attribute system, will you make sure that the advantages of the system are communicated in the final game and dressed up in enough "fluff" justification? IE don't make the messaging mistakes of D&D 4th ed.

Yes. It's always been hard for me to determine what in A/D&D is intentional obfuscation vs. unintentional oversight. I am a firm believer that players should be able to easily deduce the intended, practical effects of a design through simple observation.

Talking about attributes, what in your opinion is obfuscated and/or incoherent about D&D's dexterity or strength, for instance, compared to an attribute that increases your damage from all sources (both magical and physical) and improves healing?


Strength in A/D&D is consistently treated differently than other ability scores. Even in 3E/3.5, it's given double weighting when calculating racial bonuses. E.g., half-orcs gain +2 Str for -2 Int and -2 Cha because the latter two are both easy dumps.

This same weighting is not consistent when you look at ability score bonuses provided by a) leveling b) spells (e.g. bull's strength isn't 3rd or 4th level) c) items. So, is Strength twice as powerful as other stats or equal value to other stats?

And why does Str affect physical damage but (with rare exceptions) no other stats have any direct effect on magical damage? Even Int has avenues to affect WEAPON damage (e.g. the swashbuckler). So A/D&D's abilities come off as quasi-simulationist, but not consistently, and the internal rules don't paint a clear picture if even they consider the ability scores to be balanced or imbalanced with each other.

Do you think that the point of using different mechanics for physical and magical combat in the older editions was to make magic 'feel special' or something like that? even if the implementation wasn't perfect I always liked the distinction

Which is why my heart sort of slumped when I saw bonus damage came from one stat only in the current P:E attribute design

I'd say it's almost impossible to ascertain intent from the first edition of AD&D since it was one of the first of its kind. The ones that followed have largely just carried on what the original did.

...

How do you respond to this: "A few playtesters built a party that couldn't survive BG2 13 years ago? Everything was wrong with that game. People more or less universally detest 4th Edition? Well, I don't care about people's opinions when they're wrong."

That's a lot of different stuff to respond to. The main thing I would say is that PE's Attribute system isn't based off of 4E. A lot of stuff in PE is not based off of 4E because I don't think it would work well for the game. As an example, PE fighters are WAY lower-maintenance than 4E fighters (though a little higher than they are in 3E and certainly more than they are in 2nd Ed.). PE wizards are much closer to 3.5 sorcerer/wizards than they are to 4E wizards (though their power curve doesn't match 3.5's).

I *generally* like the mechanics of 4E (e.g. the unified defense system), but I think the classes lost a lot of their unique feel between 3E/3.5 and 4E and it still has a lot of flaws that are shared by other RPGs and editions of A/D&D.

I played 4E for about 2.5 years and I'm still playing 3.5 (and DMing a Pathfinder game). None of the rules in any edition of A/D&D are perfect and I'm not using a specific edition as a "goal". I want to use A/D&D-like mechanics when I can because I believe that's the sort of experience that our backers are going to enjoy.

No blend of rules is going to make everyone happy, but I do try to keep this idea in mind: a player saying, "I want to make this type of character and play through the game with it." I know that's not important to all players, but I do think it's important to many of them -- and it is important to me.

"I think the classes lost a lot of their unique feel between 3E/3.5 and 4E". So I take it you've changed your mind? http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/362774131134983616

"I also don't think the classes feel that similar -- outside of each class possessing the same number of abilities/powers/etc. Even at low levels, my warden and my bard felt very different from each other and very different from the other PCs."

The classes definitely *play* differently from each other, but in terms of the number of powers and how they are acquired, they are almost identical. A 4E wizard has (barring rituals) about as many powers/abilities as any other class.

Tactically, the feel very different. When you look at them on paper, they advance in a very similar fashion.

And a 4E wizard (and fighter) certainly do not feel like they did in any previous editions of A/D&D, regardless of how differently they play from each other within the context of 4E.

...

What's more important: a system being intuitive, or a system being balanced?

Ideally, both, but I prioritize balance between a player's options -- whatever they may be.

Intuition varies a lot from person to person, especially when it comes to RPG mechanics. If you've played enough RPGs, you find commonality between systems, but also a huge amount of divergence. Pendragon is not like D&D, GURPS is not like FUDGE, and Burning Wheel is not like Cyberpunk. Someone coming to one of these systems from another may find the rules unintuitive simply based off of their past RPG experiences rather than from any sense of verisimilitude.

If a mechanic sacrifices intuitiveness for balance, even if the player makes a choice from the basis of an incorrect assumption, their "wrong" choice may very well wind up being a viable one. If a mechanic sacrifices balance for intuitiveness, it may point the player toward the viable solutions, but it's implicit in the sacrifice that we're knowingly including sub-par (or worse, trash) options in the game's content.

I don't think the player gains much from the inclusion of options that are designed to be bad. It means the designer is including things that take resources to make and display in the game, but really aren't ever made to be taken.

In the long run (and most RPGs have a fairly long run), the internal logic of the game's rules become the lens through which the player looks at choices. You can fit your playstyle to rules as you learn them. And on subsequent playthroughs, if the player's options are well-balanced, you can genuinely play with a completely different character. If the options are intuitive but not balanced, your long-term potential for different playthroughs is diminished because only a subset of options are viable -- or rather, many options inherently come with a difficulty penalty that you may or may not want to experience.

...

I have a friend who is concerned that all you do is make remarks about how the Infinity Engine games were flawed, and that you don't seem to even like them. Can what describe what you liked about the IE games and how they will inspire PE, to reassure him?

Most of what I dislike in the IE games has to do with specific elements of content or rules, not the games overall. This probably won't be surprising to anyone, but I even think my three favorite RPGs of all time (Fallout, Darklands, Pool of Radiance) have a ton of problems and I would want to significantly revise aspects of their mechanics or interface if I were handling a game made in their respective spirits.

What I like about the IE games (not content-specific):

* Allow for a lot of large, beautiful areas that promote and reward exploration. There's plenty of 3D art that I like, but I love using 2D art when we can because we can make some amazing environments. Laying those areas out and thinking about how the player will move through the environment to uncover rooms, encounters, etc. is a lot of fun as a designer. As a player, it's always fun. The feeling is not the same in first-person or close first-person game, and it's also not quite the same in 3D. We didn't always use this well (e.g. some areas in IWD and HoW were very linear) and I think those areas suffered because of it.

* Responsiveness. I've always felt that the IE was very responsive to player input and AI state changes. Selection, movement, and execution of commands were all very "crisp" in the IE games, probably owing to its roots as Battleground Infinity (an RTS). Other than pathfinding, controlling characters felt good in the IE (IMO, anyway) -- better than it does in a lot of other RPGs.

* Tactical combat. I disliked some of the specific rules or rule implementations, but I always enjoyed the tactical combat in the BG and IWD games. I loved designing it and I loved playing it. In particular, "symmetrical" battles with parties or other class/level characters were a lot of fun. I like the more scripted feeling of those fights even if I didn't like the rock/paper/scissors nature of some of the hard counters. I enjoy turn-based combat a lot, but I had already been introduced to RTwP 6 years before BG, so I also enjoyed/had no problem with BG's fundamental style of RPG combat.

* General party control. You can access and arrange (almost) everything about your characters, shift them around relative to each other, use formations (though I like ToEE's better), advance and equip everyone individually, etc. Even when I didn't always like all of the companions' personalities, I liked that they *had* personalities and would interact with you/each other. And in the IWD games, we liked that we could make all of our own characters.

* The huge variety of characters/parties you could make. Overall, just lots of options that created great variability in strategic and tactical options -- and different role-playing opportunities.

For content-specific things:

* I loved the scope and variety of areas in all of the IE games, but especially BG1 and BG2. As a former BIS guy, I'm always going to prefer the *style* of areas we developed for IWD (and, just before my time, for PST), but the BG games had a ton of huge areas to explore and an enormous amount of content. I still think BG2's early-game content could have been paced better. Even though BG had a lot of dead space, I still loved exploring the Sword Coast.

* The tactical combat in BG2, IWD, and IWD2. My main complaint with BG2 combat is the hard-counter wizard fights. I don't think hard-counters belong in a game where you can easily, unintentionally, build a party that lacks the hard-counter. I also don't think save or die effects belong in a game with save/reload, but that's a larger issue with 2nd and some elements of 3rd Edition A/D&D. Notably, it's mostly absent from 4E and I think that aspect of the game is better for it.

* How PST handled dialogue from the perspective of making it more than literally just saying words to another character. PST's dialogue allowed you to do much more in conversations and helped the player feel like they were *doing* things. Of course, PST's level of player agency in the story and with companions is fantastic.

* The overall volume and varied responses/plotlines of companions in BG2 and PST.

* The music of all of the games. They were all great.

* The style of interfaces. They' were weighty and solid and the sound effects that accompanied them made them feel even weightier. Do I prefer the "across the bottom" UIs of IWD2 and PST to the wrap-arounds of BG and BG2? Yep. There you go.

I think that covers most of it. I worked on four of the IE titles (IWD, HoW, TotL, IWD2). I hope people understand that I didn't come out of that experience thinking that either the engine or games were anything close to flawless. I watched dozens and eventually hundreds of designers and players interact with these games for years. When I'm critical of them, it's because I think they can be even better, not because I don't think they were good in the first place.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I think most people don't know enough about the mechanics to make any accurate predictions but each person sees one part of the elephant and they extrapolate from that.

I think a big part of the claim falls on the assumption that all the class mechanics allow the exact same options for talents and abilities (or effectively the same options, when you come down to brass-tacks and calculate each one out) across the board so that it really does play like a class-less system and that classes are just a hollow title to pacify those masses.

The other part of the claim lies on the fact that we've heard a lot about how classes aren't distinguished like they were in IE games (rogues are skill-buffed characters, mages are OP nuke throwers, fighters are good low-level fighters and meat shields, etc), but we don't really understand much about how they are currently distinguished in game-play and when you take away what distinguished them, but don't replace the descriptions with new ways that they are distinguished, it's hard for posters to understand what's what.

Classes don't currently share any Abilities at all. If you're not a fighter, you're never going to be able to take Defender. If you're not a monk, you're never going to be able to take Transcendent Suffering. Some Talents can be taken by any class (e.g. the weapon style Talents), but many of them are class-specific (e.g. Grimoire Slam).

I disagree with your description of what we've said about the classes. We've repeatedly stated that fighters are extremely durable, reliable, and excel at holding positions, that rogues are the best single-target, single-hit damage dealers of any class (yes, significantly better than fighters), that monks are high-mobility melee status-infliction machines that use Wounds as an expendable resource, that wizards have high flexibility and, in addition to their traditional area-nuking abilities, have a variety of personal and single-target buffs.

We've also said that if you try to play a class completely against role, you can run into trouble. There's an important distinction between what you can build and how you play. We don't allow characters to take Talents that are effectively dead-ends for their class. You also gain Talents at about 1/3 the rate that you gain Abilities, so they comprise much less of your character's makeup. In 3E/3.5, a fighter is practically made of feats and you can really botch a character even playing in the pool of combat feats.

For comparison, in PE you can buy light magic Talents for your fighter that give the character some neat flexibility, but you can't completely redefine what the fighter fundamentally is. And if you buy a set of Talents, we aren't setting up long Talent chains like the feat chains that exist in 3/3.5 -- e.g. taking Whirwind Attack requires Combat Mobility, Dodge, Spring Attack, Dex 13, Int 13, and a +4 BAB. Our Talents have a flat layout with simple prereqs and are designed to be valuable on their own for any class that is allowed to take them. In 3E/3.5, it's really easy to build a low-efficiency fighter who isn't good at, well, fighting. A PE fighter can diversify a bit, but at his or her heart, he or she will still be great at doing the job that all fighters' Abilities prepare them to do: absorbing damage, hitting reliably, and holding ground.

Similarly, if you want to gish it up with a wizard, there are spells and Talents that can lean you in that direction, but you can't outlast a fighter or hold ground like they can and you can't reliably spike damage in melee round after round like a rogue can. Now, there are things that you, the melee wizard, can do in melee that the fighter and rogue can't. You can surround yourself with a big fiery shield and make illusory duplicates of yourself. Those differences are cool and why you would want to play a gish wizard over a fighter or rogue even though you ultimately can't do their "jobs". But because grimoires are designed for flexibility (because wizards are designed for flexibility), if you get tired of being the glowing Daffy Duck gish hopping all over the place or if you're in a situation where you can't even stand next to the melee big kids, you can switch to an AoE damage grimoire and be a "traditional" wizard. There's no dead end in playing as a gish (even though you will be challenged in other ways) and more importantly, your gish-emphasizing build options don't dramatically impact your ability to do regular wizardly things. You shouldn't reach a point in the game where you go, "Wow, I regret taking these Talents because this character can't do anything well."

In 3E/3.5, class roles are less well-defined and it's easy to build a character that is bad at any job -- whether it's their class' job or otherwise. In 4E, class roles are very well-defined almost to the point of being straight-jacketed. In building PE's classes, I found that trying to draw strictly within the lines of a class' role was limiting in a way that wasn't enjoyable -- and I didn't believe that players would find it enjoyable either. That's why I've tried to use the approach of making classes "role-ready" instead of "role-constrained". PE's characters of any class are always ready to fill their class role regardless of the Talents you've taken because their per-level class Abilities have a much more dominant influence on their overall capabilities. There are always efficiency gains to be made in how you build, but compared to 3E/3.5, the number of viable builds should be much higher.

Play-wise, if you want to put a monk in a tanking position or run a wizard around in melee, the rules aren't structured around building restrictions to discourage you from doing that. In many fights, it will be totally viable even if it's inefficient. In some circumstances or at higher difficulty levels, it will be more difficult to play in this way, but if you find that you need to "fall back" to standard roles, you should be able to do so because your character can't be fundamentally built contrary to his or her class.

...

Abilities are always granted by gaining levels in a class. I.e., they are ALWAYS class-specific and they are gained per-level.

Talents are a more general pool of optional goodies (some of which are still class-restricted) that you gain (currently) every three levels.

Edit: To use a D&D example, Wild Shape would be an Ability, Dodge would be a Talent. Only druids* gain Wild Shape, but any character class can take Dodge.

* I'm sure there's some other class in a splat book that will prove this wrong.

There's nothing final about Ability progression/selection. Right now we're implementing them as a fixed order progression. That may change for one or more classes depending on how it feels. There's nothing that necessitates gaining them in a strict order.

[Lokathor]

Project director J.E. Sawyer sounds like he could be a poster on TGD.

[hogarth]

Project director J.E. Sawyer sounds like he could be a poster on TGD.

I don't know if I agree with him about everything (e.g. I don't have any fond memories of the Icewind Dale UI), but I cannot agree strongly enough that those mage fights in Baldur's Gate 2 were stupid bullshit.

[Whipstitch]

It didn't help that as always there was a bunch chaff to sort through before you got to the bits that made for sneaky powerful counters. For example, I remember pitying all the people who would talk about dumping Jaheira and other druids in favor of a "REAL healer." It's not like they were being stupid, really--how the hell were they supposed to know that the Insect line and Fire Elementals were going to be that good?

[Voss]

Well, to be fair, the actual characters had some influence on that as well. Jaheira made most sane people want to stab out her eyes, and the shapeshifter guy was boring as fuck.

It was also, I think, influenced by BG1, where the good druid stuff simply wasn't available. There wasn't much reason to expect good shit hidden away at high levels. They'd been trained to think that they were missing out on hold person, silence and animate dead, and given flame blade and wild shape (which was a load of ass in 2nd edition, and even worse in the BG implementation) in return.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I think people's main concern maybe is that in D&D the druid and cleric are sort of in between a fighter and mage. Both are competent in melee and not overly potent as spell casters.

I disagree. Druids and clerics are both really powerful spellcasters in 3.X. That they have good melee capability on top of that is icing on the cake.

I would say that our (PE) priests have shifted away from the original concept of them being melee/caster hybrids. They are closer-range casters than wizards, but they aren't particularly strong in melee (paladins take on the role of close-combat support). Their spells are designed to be on par with wizards' in overall power, but they have a different flavor and trend differently. E.g., wizards have some nice personal buffs but virtually no area buffs. Priests have a few personal buffs, but have a lot of huge AoE buffs.

When druids are in their spirit forms, they can be powerful melee opponents, but that is a limited-use ability. They're still primarily casters.

[Avoraciopoctules]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGv_-a8GBhY

PE dev pontificating about class balancing

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hey, it looks like PE uses a system of at-will, encounter, and rested powers for a lot of classes. If you wanted a good D&D4E-like game, this may be it.

I'm reading through the most recent stuff in the discussion thread, and it looks like cheesing the combat state on and off to spam encounter powers isn't going to be easy.

[Avoraciopoctules]

The things we've taken from 4E largely focus on consistency in mechanics and trying to achieve distinct but equivalent value between classes. Like 4E, PE has four target defenses that all work similarly. Whether you're attacking with a sword or a spell or against a target's Deflection or Psyche, the mechanics are consistent. Like 4E, no class is a non-combat class or a designated "skill class". Unlike pretty much every edition of A/D&D, base weapon and armor types are designed to allow you to switch them per character over the course of that character's career. Unlike 4E, classes do not all have the same number of active-use abilities. PE is a single-player game in which the player controls up to 6 characters. Not all characters need to do the same amount of things, though they all should feel like they have interesting options. And as I've written previously, PE's Attributes system is designed to avoid dump stats, something that continues to be an issue for every edition of A/D&D.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Dispositions are another type of reputation. They track the personality(ies) of your behavior and are separate from individual location/faction reputations. Fewer characters will respond to these reputations, but they tend to have a stronger reaction and allow individual characters to express a personal stance that reflects something contrary to their faction. E.g. if you save a village by brutalizing the bandits, torturing their accomplices, and executing their leader after he begs for mercy, you will probably be well-liked by most people in the village (positive village rep) but will also earn a separate reputation for being cruel and merciless (Cruel rep). The high priest at the temple of the mercy god is probably not going to be a fan.

This also applies to more subtle interactions like being sassy/witty (Clever), quiet/unmoved (Stoic), and so on. It's not primarily about how you complete quests (though that's part of it), but tracking the moment-to-moment choices you make in common interactions. It should allow you to feel like replies that were previously throwaway choices for brief NPC reactions have a little more significance.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Based on what was said earlier: if you've got Cruel rep, you will get access to Cruel rep bonuses/penalties. If you've got Benevolent rep, you get access to Benevolent rep bonuses/penalties. If you have both Cruel and Benevolent reps, you get bonuses/penalties from both, but there are no overlaps. Cruel and Benevolent aren't the opposite ends of the same axis, they're entirely different altogether (though I suppose there will be situations where the choices that lead to gaining one or the other are mutually exclusive). If someone reacts to Cruel, he doesn't react to Smart or Benevolent.

Pretty much, though I don't think it's accurate to call them bonuses or penalties, just different types of reactions that may be positive or negative. Magnitude is also important. If you have a few personality reps at moderate levels, you will get reactions based on those moderate levels, spread out, but will not get reactions that require an extreme level.

[Avoraciopoctules]

A little more on the labels used for each personality type: we need to use a label because it's a helpful abstraction for how the behavior can be characterized, but different characters will interpret that reputation in different ways. "Clever" can be interpreted as sarcastic, witty, foppish, or irreverent. "Benevolent" can be interpreted as charitable, kind, soft, or weak. "Aggressive" can be interpreted as hot-headed, bold, or impatient. Each of these interpretations has a value judgment associated with it but they are all reactions to similar types of behavior. One character will look at your "Aggressive" behavior and (negatively) think that you fly off the handle at everything, provoke fights, and cause trouble. Another character will look at the same "Aggressive" behavior and admire you for taking charge, being decisive, not letting people push you around, etc.

To be clear, by default any choice that will impact your reputations (personality or otherwise) will be highlighted as such. You're not going to "whoopsy-daisy" pick a cruel option and not know you're getting Cruel rep by doing so unless you opt to turn those indications off. Naturally, these indications are always off if you're in Expert mode.



E: And to be even clearer, it's not a morality system. You don't pick personalities for your character to "have". You do things in the game that are tagged with certain personality aspects and they contribute to your reputation for being that kind of a person. The choices you have made previously do not limit your ability to make choices in the future. You can be Benevolent for hours and hours and decide that at this particular point in time, Cruelty is required. If you're Cruel or Benevolent or Clever every once in a while, it's unlikely that anyone outside of the people immediately involved in those circumstances will ever respond; you simply don't have a high enough rep in that personality for it to be a big part of your reputation. The system is meant to pay attention to your consistent patterns of behavior and have characters react to it just as they would react to faction reputations.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Are there any major improvements at all to the basic Infinity Engine and/or D&D TTRPG adaptations that can be made?

I bitched earlier in the thread about my dissatisfaction with the interface of Baldur Gate/Icewind Dale/Planescape/etc. games. But short of magical AI I'm unable to think of any real improvements to the engine.

I mean, some of the problems are basic limitations of computer games (like party members needing to be micromanaged for any tactic more complicated than 'I waste it with my crossbow'), some of them are problems with the underlying D&D ruleset (like having a bunch of non-unified abilities that will clog up any UI panel) and some are a mixture of both (like not having any flight effects).