Not only is Josh Sawyer a left-wing hack, he's a FLIP FLOPPER! BURN!
The Codex is like a woman: the only way to please her is to do everything right the first time, before she asks, and then pretend you are meekly obeying her wishes.
All these strawman attacks on the sceptic bunch are very telling. The only one who consistently attempts to reply to people's concerns is Roguey and Hormeomroafokfosdflahk.
Not all 'concerns' are worth responding to, because responding simply muddies the waters. My thoughts on the no-miss design change I made quite clear, and I responded to people with different opinions that actually had an opinion. I think, for instance, that the miss/glancing/hit sliding scale Sawyer proposed is potentially good, and it's a question I had at the very beginning (i.e. why a flat 50% damage on miss? why not a sliding scale with a lower minimum?). Meanwhile, I was obviously unhappy with the original proposition, and thought it had no real benefit.
Of course, something I thought was inevitable from the very start was that sooner or later, P:E discussion will turn into the same discussion that NMA/DAC/etc had during Van Buren / FO3; what constitutes the feel, or magic, or style, or 'core principles' of a 'Fallout game' / 'IE game' / 'IE combat'? Some FO fans felt FO is not FO if it's not turn-based; so would P:E no longer have been true to its spirit if it had become turn-based? Does P:E have to be D&D inspired and, as Lancehead just said, keep as much to P&P as possible, or was that a situational thing due to BG's creation story that is not necessarily beneficial now?
My thoughts are that (1) you can't really create a definitive list of hard, substantial rules about what constitutes an IE game, or a P:E that stays 'true to IE' - it's about as useful as the Codex trying to define an RPG; (2) but there can be general stylistic principles. In my mind that includes party-based combat that allows full control of all characters and sufficient tactical variation and complexity to encourage/require micromanaging of party members and their abilities; some use of terrain, geometry and space; the presence of active and passive magical abilities; combat activity largely hinging on tactical planning and use of resources rather than twitch; and as Sawyer said, a roughly similar feel in the overall pacing of the combat. Which means that to me, something like miss/glance/hit, health/stamina, or, say, partially destructible environments, or DA:O style spell synergies, would be judged to fit within the spirit of the IE games (whether they are 'good' is another matter); if you get rid of missing altogether, or if you were to go for a full Diablo-style mana system, then I would start having problems.
I just think if people are going cry foul and say Sawyer/Obsidian is betraying its backers or whatever then there should be a reasonably consistent and rationalised basis upon which to make that judgment, though that basis would be different for everyone - otherwise anything that changes anything from the IE games will be up for grabs, and we're no different from saying "no romance = no buy" or "guns in my game = no buy".
it's called "iteration" in game design. your definition is not exactly accurate, but it's close enough.
over the original. Now why couldn't he do it that way from the beginning instead of axing game elements left and right ?
