Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

Also, there is the problem that if you don't have high dex or high const or high wis and you don't even see that action option (because your stat is too low) then you can play the whole game without realizing that you are missing most of the content.

Yeah, sure, 'good' players would notice, but good players are in the strict minority, and even then it's good to see "hey, next time i might want to get more dex because i want to see if i can interrupt that person from being backstabbed".

 

WWHAT TFUC IS WRONG WITH THAT

 

Ok, but you should never leave out options in the first place just because you're not skilled enough to succeed. When you spot a thief trying to grab your gold, you should have the option to try and grab their hand, even if your dexterity isn't high enough and you fail. Pretty sure that's the way it worked in Torment.

 

Thats a good thing, a game not shoving your face under its skirt and showing you all the goodies is a good game, thats a characteristic of one.

 

This suggestion is pretty laughable seeing as "larping" is defined as "roleplaying" while ignoring the game's mechanics. If anything, the gamists here are as far from Bethesda's LARPers as you can come.

 

Not always i think. Most egregiously, in options that were things you could have had no access to, for instance items or knowledge... or mental stats, which is one of the main things that makes the game replayable.

 

My post wasn't mean to be taken seriously, if that wasn't clear. I don't consider you a LARPer, Grunker.

Although...

Fixed.

 

Its an Intimidate check. You accuse the guy of going against the Hivemind's Directives and he might fall for it. Its not there to reason or persuade the enemy.

Fix'd.

 

Of course, but that's why I said "When you spot a thief trying to grab your gold"; if your perception or whatever isn't high enough to spot it, then it should be left out. If a player is so stupid that he thinks he'll notice all the actions around him with low perception then fuck him, like you said.

 

The fact that Codexers ITT do not seem to be reading each other's posts is, I think, and argument for skill check indicators. There are too many [Wisdom] failures in the last couple of pages.

 

[Lore] dongs

 

But if you think about it, you wouldn't need to even care wether the players wants to manipulate the followers. In DA2, wether you are friends or rival of someone's was supposed to be defined by your opinion on the game's main plot points. If someone really wanted to become friends with every character by brute force... well I suppose that's likely to be possible, but he'd just be spoiling the fun for for himself.

 

Having mechanics that actively encourage this = the exact thing we're trying to avoid.

 

Oh, in that case I guess it was all sort of fix'd by how, mechanically speaking, each companion gains abilities depending on wether they hate or love you. But I do agree that making approval mechanically impossible is a legit solution -- I believe Conquistador does that, though I haven't gotten much far into the game.

 

It's not impossible in E:C. Firstly, you can build a party with similar traits. Secondly, Not all decisions are X gets a plus, Y gets a minus. There are quire a few that are just positive. Thirdly, since each character has 3 traits, you can piss them off occasionally and still maintain high morale.

 

Transparency is spurious and even harmful in simulationist games (because they should do good enough job simulating their conworld for the player to think i the context of his conworld, not abstract mechanics), but may be inevitable in gamist games (because the mechanics is usually WTF in those).

Precisely.


It's how you make your quest design open ended. Implementing quests as self-contained entities with pre-specified goals that can be shown in the journal (even if it's only in idiot mode) is antithetical to good open ended quest design.

 

You would be wrong. Especially in regard to Mask of the Betrayer where maxing influence would result in bonuses.

Most dialogues happened at the beginning of a mission, you could just reload and start over if you wanted to. You could also make manual saves that would default to the last checkpoint if you wanted to game something midway or at the end of one.

 

Bloodlines influence system only served to block endings if you were a complete undiplomatic dick.
edit: ok, there were quite a few bonus from being a prince lapdog i only saw in my 8th playthrough

 

J.E. Sawyer

 

handwaving bullshit, because armies adopted firearms not only because of rate of fire, but massed volleys on a parallel plane.

 

Wasn't that due to the fact that you can shove cheap arquebus to a lowlife farmer and train him for several months. And no need to train all your life and have huge arm strength to handle a bow or other weapon. And then that lowlife footslogger could fell a knight.