Thinking about starting with Eschalon - Few Questions

[Necromis]

You know I actually have a Book II wish list item that I would love to see happen after Book III is finished. BW has said that the story is not as complete as he wanted due to running into engine issues that were delaying the release. I would love to see him go back to Book II and make the changes that fill out and add the things that he had wanted within the story and fix the plot holes that people have found with the play throughs and release it as a 2.0 patch. I think that would make everyone happy, and also trigger some even greater numbers of purchases. I do kinda agree on the dungeons not being thought out as how they would be created for some one living in them and building them. That is great information for BW for his designing in Book III. He can tweak things along those lines, too.

[Kordanor]

The first claim isn't exactly true - Kreador can tell you about successfully playing a 'jack of all trades' character.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Constitution" - do you mean the ENDurance attribute? If so, you can definitely play characters with relatively low END (provided they are spell-casters, or missile-weapon wielders!).

The 'trainer' issue is a perennial one that we've hashed over many times on these forums. I guess you have a point on this issue, as they do seem to be controversial. I like having them (it gives you more options), but I probably wouldn't object horribly if they were dropped either. (I would object, however, if 'quest-triggered' trainers were eliminated entirely...)

Yes, sorry, with Constitution I meant Endurance.
I don't claim that it's impossible to play with low Endurance. But you are simply gimped if you decide to put points in constitution later on.

Imho a good skill system must be retroactive and transparent. The system of Eschalon is neither. Well, at least it's just "not intuitive" instead of "counter-intuitive" as the System in Oblivion is, which is actively working against the player and therefore the worst skill system I have seen in a game so far.

Playing as a jack of all trades character is probably possible, but that depends on the definition of a jack of all trades character. For example:
I played a character which was able to cast, melee, lockpick, disarm traps, repair, identify stuff, forage...well, one could argue that I was able to do everything. But it wasn't really a jack of all trades character as I "cheated" a bit by informing myself beforehand about trainers. I didn't put a single point in repairing, magic, bows...and so on.
And still, it was quite difficult for me to defet Taurax Legionnaires. My fights were like this:
Wait until the night
Cast Predator (which removed the negative dark effect for you and not for the enemy)
Use Power stance, and use the Bow Skill -> you can't miss with it anyways
Pull them out of the crowed alone, if someone adds -> certain death
Wait until he is very nearby, then cast stoneskin, switch to Sword and Shield, switch to normal combat stance
Hit enemy until stoneskin wears out, go into inventory, unequip shield, recast stoneskin, equip shield
Hit enemy again until he dies

I am pretty sure that I would not have been able to pull this off, if I had a lower plate armor or swords skill - or a lot less hitpoints.

I don't think that trainers need to be removed. But as I said I think the system should be transparent. This means: In the very beginning of the game you should have a clear vision about how the skill system works, what each skill does.
The first thing I naturally do is to check if Endurance is retroactive (yes, really!), meaning I put every point into Endurance right at character creation so that I get the "correct" amount of hitpoints each level. What is the point to raise Endurance at level 10 if one point of Endurance is worth far less then? Putting 20 Points in Endurance 10 levels before means you get 20 additional Hitpoints just by this decision.
The trainer situation is very unclear. You don't have trainers in the first city. You don't know that they raise your skill till 8 for just money. You don't know for which skills you can find trainers in the game. You don't know that the skill "Lore" is obsolete because you can identify every item yourself by items/magic even as a melee based character.
You don't know that you can get books which grant you 3 or 2 skill points which must not be learnt before you maxed the skill on the trainer.

So if I was asked to change the system I would do the following:
-Make Hitpoint and Mana Gain retroactive
-Books add 3 Skillpoints (instead of 2) or the base knowledge.
-Add an Maximum amount of skillpoints which can be gained by trainers. Communicate this by the NPCs text like "Be aware that the knowledge you can gain by trainers is very limited, so choose wiseley whom you want to train you!".

These are three very little changes which would change the whole "spirit" of the skill system massively without actually changing the system itself at all.

I personally think Eschalon has a great engine (better than Spiderweb's offerings). The one part of Eschalon that maybe hasn't be fully explored yet is the kind of story-telling and scenario-building that can be done once the community is free to go beyond the Eschalon game series' gamestory. I'm very curious if one (or a group of us) can come up with something with Eschalon's game engine that can possibly surpass Eschalon's gamestory.

I absolutely agree here. The engine itself is great (well, make it more user friendly by adding additional screen ratios and maybe resolutions). The game looks neat and also the music and sounds are good. When playing Eschalon I often thought like "wow, it would have been so easy to fill up the whole world with a proper editor" and felt reminded at times where I created and modified tons of maps for Jagged Alliance Deadly Games. Of course this wouldn't translate 1 to 1 as you didn't need to write anything there (and I suck at writing dialogues), but I am pretty sure that with little effort (in comparison) fans could create great worlds on their own which might even surpass the original one.
And on a sidenote: I hope everyone of you has played Nehrim. The best example for what fans can do.

Edit: And about the hunger and repair settings: It's nice to be able to disable these settings. But imho players which choose to play with these settings think like "Yes, I want to be affected by this" and therefore should effected by this. There is no point in removing this influence later on.

[Necromis]

I have to say by your post that everything is actually working the way it should, Kordanor, and I will tell you why.

First as a jack of all trades, and yes with all those skills you mention you are pretty close to being one, you have to use strategy to beat higher level encounters. If it didn't require that while your character has his skill points spread out it would be a walk in the park (really easy) for those players that do specialize and concentrate in one area of combat/skill.

Secondly, there should be some penalty or consequence for waiting to put points into a certain stat such as endurance or perception. Otherwise every character created would be exactly the same. I mean the mage classes alone would be unstoppable if you had stats work the way you wanted. Example, if I play a mage under your guidelines I don't pump my perception up to start to be sure that I get the max mana through out my game play. Instead I pump up endurance to start because I know the low level spells don't cost that much mana but if I get attacked I don't wanna have to worry about dying from lack of health. fast foward to level 15 and I have maxed out both my perception and my endurance and I am a walking tank with heavy artilery spells and almost unlimited mana, and the health of a warrior tank. You just made having a warrior pointless.

I know this is game and not reality. However, life, and games, should have consequences to actions. Thus if you choose to be a mage you should suffer from low hit points as you are concentrating on raising your mental stats. Just as if you decided to be a warrior you should suffer from low mana as you let your mental stats go in favor of your physical ones.

Last on books and trainers, it is expected that when you play Book II you would have played Book I and learned about the trainers and books in the game. They are just one aspect of the game and are not required to actually complete it with a high powered and quality character.

[IJBall]

You know I actually have a Book II wish list item that I would love to see happen after Book III is finished. BW has said that the story is not as complete as he wanted due to running into engine issues that were delaying the release. I would love to see him go back to Book II and make the changes that fill out and add the things that he had wanted within the story and fix the plot holes that people have found with the play-throughs and release it as a 2.0 patch. I think that would make everyone happy, and also trigger some even greater numbers of purchases. I do kinda agree on the dungeons not being thought out as how they would be created for some one living in them and building them. That is great information for BW for his designing in Book III. He can tweak things along those lines, too.

First thing - if you've got a post-v1.05 Book II wishlist, please post it up as a thread! I, for one, would probably love to take a look at it, and comment on it!

Second, I'm still hopeful for an eventual Yoma Springs Cavern (or whatever it's called) expansion to Book II, so maybe that's when BW can take a look at things like your wishlist (and his own Book II wishlist!), and implement some of these kinds of changes.

All that said, though, I doubt we're going to be seeing any of this before Book III is released. I dunno what BW's own planned scheduling is, but if I had to guess, he's probably thinking of doing, in order:

1) Release Book III.
2) Release the 'Platinum Edition' of Book I. (This may, or may not happen, I'd guess, though I'm still hopeful it will!...)
3) Release Yoma Springs Cavern expansion for Book II.
4) Release new non-Eschalon game in the works.

So I'm guessing it's unlikely we'll see a Book II expansion/v2.0 before Book III is released. But I guess we'll see...

[Kordanor]

I must disagree here.

First as a jack of all trades, and yes with all those skills you mention you are pretty close to being one, you have to use strategy to beat higher level encounters. If it didn't require that while your character has his skill points spread out it would be a walk in the park (really easy) for those players that do specialize and concentrate in one area of combat/skill.

One of the reasons I am a "jack of all trades" is because the system makes me that, basically for free due to the trainers and books.
-Repair 8/10 for free
-All weapons 8/10 for free
-Magick and Divination 8/10 for free
-Cartography 8/10 for free (and more points are almost pointless)
-Alchemy 8/10 for free (and more points are pointless)
-Everyone can use 2 cheap lore rings for lower identification and cast Lore 5 for higher identification, making the lore skill pointless

So far there aren't any penalities at all for being a jack of all trades. The penalities only set in if you aren't aware of this system.
I wasnt aware of the trainers at first. That is why I wasted 10 Points in swords. I also wasnt fully aware of trap disarming and lockpicking and would have saved about 20 Points in there.
So it's plain and simple: There is no concentration of points, because the game gives you lots of skills for free. The "art" of this skill system is, to know what you do NOT get for free, so you can focus on that. But you can't actually know that until further in the game.
E.g.: If I started over and wanted to play a fighter I would put everything in Heavy Armor, because you cant train it. The 11 of the points I put in swords were simply wasted because I could have bought them.

Secondly, there should be some penalty or consequence for waiting to put points into a certain stat such as endurance or perception.

First:
That is very inconsistent as the game is currently rewarding to NOT put any points into your skills until you are aware about which trainers are in the game or not. It's also rewarding to NOT use the skill books until you reached skill 8, which you can't know in the beginning.
Second:
The Game is currently rewarding to NOT do your level ups right away. If you can save up all your stat points until level 5 for example, you would actually gain all the Health/Mana Points for these levels.

Otherwise every character created would be exactly the same. I mean the mage classes alone would be unstoppable if you had stats work the way you wanted. Example, if I play a mage under your guidelines I don't pump my perception up to start to be sure that I get the max mana through out my game play. Instead I pump up endurance to start because I know the low level spells don't cost that much mana but if I get attacked I don't wanna have to worry about dying from lack of health. fast foward to level 15 and I have maxed out both my perception and my endurance and I am a walking tank with heavy artilery spells and almost unlimited mana, and the health of a warrior tank. You just made having a warrior pointless.

As a "warrior" I needed to increase STR+END and also took advantage of Dex and Speed. If you are "finished" with perception and putting points in endurance already breaks the balance this skill system has additional issues I didn't even see yet as I didn't play a mage. But in general every player should decide on his own how to "balance" his character. And independent on END or PERC you should not be punished to put points into other attributes during level up. It should affect your character, yes. But it should not gimp him in the long term.

I know this is game and not reality. However, life, and games, should have consequences to actions. Thus if you choose to be a mage you should suffer from low hit points as you are concentrating on raising your mental stats. Just as if you decided to be a warrior you should suffer from low mana as you let your mental stats go in favor of your physical ones.

I totally agree on that.

Last on books and trainers, it is expected that when you play Book II you would have played Book I and learned about the trainers and books in the game. They are just one aspect of the game and are not required to actually complete it with a high powered and quality character.

Both of these arguments are invalid imho.
1. A game should never "expect" that you played the first part already. Eschon 2 even states on steam: No experience with Eschalon: Book I is needed to enjoy Book II.
2. Even if you don't need to use a feature in the game to enjoy it, this isn't an excuse for it to be "broken". A good game is a good game because of it's attention to detail and that even the small and maybe irrelevant elements of the game are cool.

[Necromis]

ah, but those skills are not free, as it costs you gold to buy them. Also the choice to use, or not use the trainers is just that. You don't have to buy elemental because they sell it you can spend your own points, or elect not to have that skill. And yes there are penalties. Imagine if you put a few points here, a few points there, and have just those 8 points spread around to other places. Skill level 8 is really not all that big a deal when it comes to any damage skill, such as elemental, divination, melee, or ranged skills. So the penalty is that you have to use strategy to kill higher level encounters. Where a person who has a skill of say 35 is able to just hack or shoot, or cast their way thru an encounter.

You are also misunderstanding something I said. I said Stats, not skills. Endurance and Perception specifically. You are penalized for not putting points in those from the start. Skills is subjective. Depending on how you want to build your character.

Knowing, or not knowing about trainers and books is not a flaw. Lots of games have hidden features within them that make the first play thru more difficult than later ones. Think of shooter games, you don't know where that rocket launcher is going to be until you stumble on it, but having it is necessary to kill that big boss monster. Just like life, you never know where you will find a teacher or some other knowledge. And spending points in sword to start is not a waste it is a choice that your character made and should be looked at it like that. If you only look at the game from min-maxing then you will always be disappointed.

[Vroqren]

I don't think Shina was telling you the whole story Kordanor. He tells you that the *One* needs only two of the four Crux stones to leave Eschalon. But Julian underneath Eastwillow tells you that the *One* is going to cleanse the land by bringing the "Four Stars" together.

How do you notice things like this, lol - I just remembered that Julian existed, and then remembered that he did mention the one, and 4 stars, but I never would have made that connection...

Brownie points for you!