Additional suggestions for Book 2

[moramber]

I would appreciate an option to have a more natural and automatic creation and development of the character.

Creating a new character recently in Book 1 i got somewhat unnerved by the endless variety of combinations of tribes faiths and abilities.
Then I thought it's somewhat dumb unnatural to gene manipulate your character until it fits your wishes somewhat. Usually you cannot decide where to be born from what offspring.
I decided to take just the next coming Attribute combination and role the dice for Origin, Axiom and Class too. (1 through 5 and rerole on 6. )

The upgrades to the next level are also pretty strange.
I can try to see them as a autodidactic training to improve my skills and Attributes.
But then you're surrounded by enemies, kill one and suddenly get the occasion to boost one of your character's skills, even if you have never used it before, just because your experience points rose to a certain amount.

According to my previous posting on special challenge games on book 1, I decided to "learn to walk as I go": learn skills and improve attributes only by reading books, taking lessons, or using special stuff like amulets.
Also i wanted the upgrade to the next level to mirror somewhat my activities since the one before.
I tried to calculate the distribution of skill and attribute points from the caused damage/experience made with different weapons, by quests, keys etc. which becomes a pain in the *** immediately if you have to do it by hand.


I would like to have the option to let my character develop and improve by what he is dooing and going through.
Using a weapon unskilled should eventually lead to the basic skill without penalty, the same wearing/using armor. Misses, Hits and done damage should increase your skill level with the used weapon. Carrying weight should increase your strength or damage your health when encumbered. Objects that were unknown to you, when you found them should be identified when you see them in a shop.
Experimenting with Alchemy should improve your ability to tell potions from poisons. Drinking and feeling the effects you note the recipe in a cookbook ... get sick or die. Dealing with injuries, toxines and diseases your body should become more succesful in healing itself...

This may sound a lot and complicated. But I think it shouldn't be to difficult to produce an algorithm to determine skill and attribute upgrades from the damage, experience, health and mana points statistics.

What do you think?

[Slushduck]

Hi moramber,

First off let me say that I am totally impressed that you actually "tried to calculate the distribution of skill and attribute points from the caused damage/experience made with different weapons, by quests, keys etc" -that is simply amazing! ..or crazy

Personally I couldn't agree with you more. I love the idea of a stat free rpg, however I've never seen it implemented well in a video game context -where players sit around for an hour or so repeating actions to boost the skill.
aka:
"Throw Dagger"
"Get Dagger"
"Throw Dagger"
"Get Dagger"
etc..

Secondly, however much I want Book 2 to be the best game ever, I think the original goal of the Eschalon series was to be a tribute the "pen and paper" days of gaming so I'm not sure its appropriate.

Maybe something will happen with the "Sci-Fi" game Basilisk hinted at during one of the interviews.

[CrazyBernie]

Then I thought it's somewhat dumb unnatural to gene manipulate your character until it fits your wishes somewhat. Usually you cannot decide where to be born from what offspring.

Personally, I think it's somewhat dumb and unnatural to throw fireballs and bolts of energy from my hand... but it seems to happen all too often in your average RPG...

But then you're surrounded by enemies, kill one and suddenly get the occasion to boost one of your character's skills, even if you have never used it before, just because your experience points rose to a certain amount.

Consider the following:

You play the role of a person who has lost all memory of who he was. As you venture across the land in search of answers, memories begin to surface, and suddenly you have regained skills that you once possessed!


Serously though, part of playing any game is understanding it is just a game, and there needs to be a suspension of disbelief around many aspects. You sometimes need to use your own imagination to fill in the blanks. Obviously a real person could not go days and weeks without sleep, but in Eschalon you can if you so choose. Venturing across an entire country would normally take days, weeks, even months, yet in Eschalon you can do it in a few minutes. If anyone tried to make a game that filled in all of those blanks and was that close to real life, I can't see too many people taking the time to play it.

In some games, the gaining of skillpoints by religiously using the skill works out (say, Morrowind/Oblivion). Eschalon isn't that sort of game. Eschalon is an old school cRPG for people who are -- to borrow a term from my survey-- stat whores. YOU control where every point goes into every skill, and YOU control the progress of your character. YOU build him the way YOU want him to be, and that's enough with the all capital YOU's. O.o

While BW listens to and greatly appreciates our feedback (I'm going out on a big limb here... ), he's not going to make any drastic changes to the core gameplay. I know I'd like to see a lot of Fallout-esque features ilke tag skills, or more class based character skills ala Baldur's Gate... but it's probably not going to happen as it would steer Eschalon away from the old-schoolness that it gets its roots from.

There are pre-made templates for people who don't want to take the time to roll out and pick all the stats/skills, but I don't think he'd implement any sort of automatic "skill-up" features. Certainly not in Book II with the current timetable, and I doubt even in Book III that such a thing would exist. As Slushduck mentioned, that's not to say he wouldn't implement it in other potential IP...

In the end, it's up to you decide if you want to play that sort of game... and then your wallet will do the talking. ^_^

[Claw]

What do you think?

I think your use of text formatting is annoying.

I think it's somewhat dumb to tell a dev he should change core mechanics of his game.

I think you may want to play a different game. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion comes to mind.

I also think it's funny that you rolled a die to choose your char's Axiom. I guess you don't believe in free will.

Secondly, however much I want Book 2 to be the best game ever, I think the original goal of the Eschalon series was to be a tribute the "pen and paper" days of gaming so I'm not sure its appropriate.

So... Eschalon is a tribute to last Sunday, and being "the best game ever" wouldn't be appropriate for such a tribute?

[moramber]

Hello and thank you for your responses.

Sorry, I need to do that

annoying

text formatting . It's some kind of addicti n.

I enjoyed the insight you've given me. This is all somewhat new to me.

Maybe it's just a perfectionist Idea for people who have trouble making decisions, if there are any.

I'd like to stress that i suggested this as

an option

and would not call it

change core mechanics

or

drastic changes

. At some point it felt like the game needed to be protected from my probably evil influence.

But since we already have

the option

to make our game character require food, it would be just consistent to also add the need for

sleep

.


But for now my only wish is that the basilikers will make sure to avoid those map edge traps, where you end up stuck between some trees or rocks when entering. Just yesterday.... made me mad....

[ampoliros]

Experimenting with Alchemy <snip> note the recipe

I agree, if you take the time to sit and experiment with recipes (wasting reagents in the process) you should be rewarded with the successful recipe in your recipe book.

[IJBall]

Experimenting with Alchemy <snip> note the recipe

I agree, if you take the time to sit and experiment with recipes (wasting reagents in the process) you should be rewarded with the successful recipe in your recipe book.

In fact, that's how I discovered pretty much all the potion recipes in Book I!

But, yeah - it would be a cool feature if stumbling across a recipe would add it to the recipe book. Maybe to assess a 'small' penalty to this 'trial & error' process - maybe you should have to repeat the recipe three times before it would be added to your recipe book or something...

[Oshkell]

You play the role of a person who has lost all memory of who he was. As you venture across the land in search of answers, memories begin to surface, and suddenly you have regained skills that you once possessed!

Dude - you took the words right out of my mouth. Good job.

[CrazyBernie]

You play the role of a person who has lost all memory of who he was. As you venture across the land in search of answers, memories begin to surface, and suddenly you have regained skills that you once possessed!

Dude - you took the words right out of my mouth. Good job.

So you're saying that almost a year ago you were at a loss for words and had no idea why?? Well damn, even I'm impressed with myself.