SEV DEMO IS OUT!

[Fyron]

Although since that got removed, I must be in the minority.

Actually, you are in a vast majority... Everyone that misses the racial characteristics should email Aaron about it (se5 at malfador dot com). The more that raise an issue, the more likely something will be done.

[StarShadow]

Imperator Fyron said:
Although since that got removed, I must be in the minority.

Actually, you are in a vast majority... Everyone that misses the racial characteristics should email Aaron about it (se5 at malfador dot com). The more that raise an issue, the more likely something will be done.

If the majority of people liked it then why the phong did it get removed?? Sounds like the 'vocal minority' got to screw the rest of us again.

[Captain Kwok]

It's certainly a sore spot. But the infrastructure in the interface is more or less there to add it back in - albeit not for the release, but perhaps a significant patch down the road.

[Graeme Dice]

Imperator Fyron said:
Actually, you are in a vast majority...

And you know this, how? Frankly, I'd much rather have the current system than the horribly unbalanced and gamey mess that was present in SE4.

[Fyron]

I know this because I have talked to a lot of people about it. We could run a poll if you like.

There was nothing wrong with the system in SE4, other than some not balanced costs in the stock game. Once you balanced the costs, the characteristic system worked really well. Much, much better than the crappy trait cost setup in the stock SE5 game, which is more unbalanced than even the stock SE4 setup was.

[Kamog]

Adjustable racial characteristics would be nice! More flexibility and choices are preferable to the limited selections available in the present setup.

[StarShadow]

Kamog said:
Adjustable racial characteristics would be nice! More flexibility and choices are preferable to the limited selections available in the present setup.

I agree. It was the race/trait setup in SEIV that made it so easy to like(for me), I love RPG's and having an RPG element in SEIV made it much easier to get into.

[arthurtuxedo]

Personally, I think people are mostly bemoaning the lack of the sliders simply because they were used to them. The current system may be just as unbalanced and crappy, but it is at least fundamentally sound. Sliders are a flawed idea from the get-go. +/- one percent to anything doesn't (or at least shouldn't) make much difference. Even +/- five percent is really peanuts. All the sliders did was make it very difficult to properly balance and encourage min-max powergaming. The current system may be just as unbalanced, but we are almost definitely going to see more balanced mods as a result of the new approach.

[Captain Kwok]

But we are also going to see lists that scroll on forever with dozens of the same sort of traits at different levels...

A good compromised would have been like a 5-point scale for most aptitudes, and then a separated page for selecting unique racial traits for technology or special skills.

[Fyron]

arthurtuxedo said:
All the sliders did was make it very difficult to properly balance...

Huh? It is pretty easy to balance them out... many existing mods do so. PvK Balance mod for a stock tech tree, Adamant, CB, etc., etc.

but we are almost definitely going to see more balanced mods as a result of the new approach.

We have a bunch of well balanced mods for SE4 already. The lack of "sliders" will contribute zilch to "more balanced mods" in the racial setup department.

"Sliders" are great because they are compact. You don't need 8 separate entries to get a good range (eg: -20 to +20 in increments of 5) to accomplish this. MOO2 managed to have a race design screen that put a bunch of options in little space; SE5 fails at this miserably.