Ask me anything unless it's really dumb.
Recent Responses
-
-
-
In terms of outfits, the closest we will have to Landsknecht clothing are probably the Vailian outfits, but Vailian colors and patterns are much different from historical Landsknecht garb.
-
It's really the group melee damage element that shifted from the paladin to the barbarian. The paladin is still very warlord/marshal-like.
-
We haven't designed out the full spectrum of how weapons or characters advance, but I think it's safe to say that late game weapons will not be *radically* more powerful than early game weapons. Daggers are very effective weapons at low levels as long as the targets aren't in heavy armor. At higher levels, as long as daggers are still used against DT-appropriate targets by a wielder with high Accuracy, they can be extremely powerful.
Because Crits are scored at a fixed margin (again, barring modifiers like the rogue's Dirty Fighting) above the standard Hit result, if an attacker's Accuracy significantly outclasses a target's defense, the attacker can do serious damage even with a modest weapon. -
Polina wasn't pulling from traditional onryō depictions, but we did talk about contemporary things inspired by onryō like the girl from Ringu/The Ring.
-
In the current design, party Stash size (withdrawals only available at rest locations) is unlimited. Worn Equipment is slot-based and is the same for all characters (barring abilities or talents that do things like increase available weapon sets). The one area we haven't decided on in terms of capacity is the shared Pack, which is gear that is not actively worn but available for access outside of combat. However it is defined, it will always be displayed as a unified UI for the player so they aren't flipping between characters for what is, practically-speaking, a shared inventory.
-
In a game where one player controls all party members, I don't think it adds anything to the game to split gear up across 6 screens. There's no mental challenge to the process of organizing items across the screens. It's just busywork.
-
We switched our initial concepts of the paladin and barbarian a bit. Barbarians are really great against groups of enemies because their passive Carnage ability gives them automatic, lower-damage attacks against enemies near their primary target. They also have abilities that give them short-duration bonuses when they down an enemy, so it's better for them to pound mobs into the dust than to try to stand their ground against a single, powerful foe.
Barbarians focus on damage to groups (essentially melee AoE), monks convert incoming damage into status effects, and fighters are defenders/line-holders (kind of like 4E earthstrength wardens). None of those classes have the single-target damage potential of rogues or rangers, but they're all better at dealing with groups and they can all take hits better and for longer. -
We have discussed the possibility of short-range teleportation (i.e., within a hundred feet at most) but there is no long-range teleportation. People have a lot of different beliefs about the afterlife, but other than being able to observe souls passing through portals that appear to leave the physical world, no one is certain where souls go after they die -- or if the gods exist there.
-
Justin is at Turtle Rock right now. I loved working with him and I was really disappointed when the last project we were on was cancelled. He brings a lot of beautiful elements to fantasy illustration, both in his personal and professional work. I'd love to work with him again someday.
-
They haven't changed a lot from when we initially talked about them during the Kickstarter campaign. Combat-wise, they're very good at moving around and through enemies and they have the greatest single-hit damage potential of any class. Out of combat, they can easily fall into traditional roles but can move to other skills without difficulty (which is pretty much the case with all of the classes).
Their Escape ability has been modified to allow them to break Melee Engagement (instead of forcing a target to "lose" them) and Reversal was replaced with an active ability that gives them increased damage that is inversely proportional to the current health of the target (i.e., more damage to targets that are closer to 0 Stamina). As they advance, they gain access to passive abilities that increase their Crit range, make Sneak Attacks easier, and generally turn them into increasingly "spikey" damage combatants while also making them more difficult to engage.
If you try to one-on-one them with hard-hitters, they will tend to get their asses kicked unless their damage spikes fortuitously, but pairing them with pretty much any melee ally should work well as long as you get them away when attention turns to them.
Out of combat, they have inherent class bonuses to Stealth and Mechanics skills, so playing them "the traditional way" with scouting, lock-picking, and trap-finding is a natural fit. Classes like rangers also receive Stealth bonuses and even non-Stealth characters don't receive inherent penalties, so rogues don't need to be solo operators if you want to sneak around. However, they are the only class to have built in bonuses to both Stealth and Mechanics, so that level of proficiency (assuming the rogue focuses on it) can't be duplicated with a character of another class. -
-
I think karma, like A/D&D's alignment system, often has too many morally/ethically relativistic problems to be satisfying to a lot of players. Even though reputation systems can annoy some players in how they are triggered (i.e., how groups learn what you have done), they are implicitly relativistic. I think that's a big part of why they generally seem more "fair" and less judgmental from a design standpoint.
-
"Aedyr" literally means "many deer", but colloquially means "people of the deer". "Dyrwood" is Hylspeak for "deer wood". Prior to arriving in their current home, the Aedyrans (humans and elves) migrated south over many centuries. They were known as deer hunters and (later) farmers during that time. The current Aedyr Empire itself has very few deer, so when colonists landed in the new world and found abundant deer in the nearby forests, they considered it a good sign and named it the Dyrwood.
-
Yes, but I'm not focusing on it at the moment.
-
It was intentional. We expanded the base ammo list quite a bit, but I wanted every type to be used by at least two weapons if possible. The lever-action rifle/revolver pairings made that easy. Most lever-action rifles and revolvers use rimmed cartridges, so it was easy to progress from .357 Magnum to .44 Magnum to .45-70 Gov't. We did the same thing with the rimless/rebated rim handgun cartridges and SMGs (9mm, 10mm, 12.7mm).
-
I don't know what currency system(s) we will use, but I've given it some thought. I think currency systems can help cultures/the world feel more believable.
-
Unfortunately, I don't have any idea and Travis Stout (who wrote Bert's dialogue) doesn't either.
-
I could only be seen as a feature if you want to work against the main purpose of implementing disengagement attacks. If we have dodge animations, they would only play while the character is not occupied with other actions.
-
Two-weapon fighting sacrifices both raw per-hit damage output (two-handed weapons excel at it) and the Deflection bonus provided by a shield, which is significant. Because PE's armor system uses a Damage Threshold (straight subtraction) system, low damage hits against a heavily armored target can be very inefficient. High Deflection is most important for characters who fight a number of melee opponents. Against a small number of targets in light or no armor, two-weapon fighting is extremely efficient.
-
Joshua E. Sawyer’s Bio
Santa Ana, CA
twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/
I was raised in Fort Atkinson, WI, went to college in Appleton, WI, and have worked as a video game designer in Southern California for the past twelve years.
I'll answer questions in English or Deutsch but try français español o italiano.
