Eschalon: Book II - Updated Feature List
 

Thomas Riegsecker from Basilisk let us know he has posted an updated feature list for Eschalon: Book II as a sort of interim development update. The list of improvements is quite long, so here's just the gameplay section:
More information.

Sounds really good, especially the object interactivity, implementation of gender selection and the optional toggle on the food requirements, which I hate. On the other hand, I like the repair skill and the realistic deterioration over time thing, but making it optional for those who don't is very user friendly.

Looking forward to this one.

I am afraid these options will make it unbalanced for example the people who do not turn on the food thing, will have no use of the skill foraging and can therefor build a better character with other skills compared to the players who turn it on, same goes for repair! Or would it award extra skill points or other bonuses to turn on food/repair stuffs ??

I think a lot of people are looking forward with expectation for this title. The first was great and it appears the sequel will be even better!!

GG, isn't the essence of RP'ing that you can create and develop a character of your choice? To me, these options simply add greater depth of choice without annoying the people who hate worrying about things like food. With Indie games you need not only a broad appeal, but you have to ensure you don't isolate sections of your core market!!

I think its really up to you how you want to challenge yourself. So what if someone else takes the easy route with taking food out….its really their loss(or gain) depending on the point of view. It has no relevance on who has the better character.

Having a difficulty level slider adjuster in the game menu is generally acceptable but then to also have further adjustable (enable/disable) difficulty elements within the game kind of negates the overall settings intention - its a good point that GG mentions.

Well, at this point for all we know, they may be tied to the difficulty slider. Easy setting might disable them. Or even if they're separate toggles, it's possible the food/repair skills are not major enough to unbalance the character. I'm seeing them as rather secondary 'skills'—in fact more atmosphere/approach than nuts & bolts character. But who knows?

I think it's hard to tell how things will mesh and affect the actual gameplay at this point or whether these choices weaken the game or not. :)

I fail to see a problem here…If you find it too easy with the options disabled….re enable them…if you find it too hard with them or just don't like them disable them….

No big deal, just "feeling the cloth"

For example, which would make for an easier or harder game play experience?

1.With all the various individual elements disabled to make playing easier but with the difficulty slider setting on *hard* or…

2.With all the various individual elements enabled to make playing harder but with the difficulty slider setting on *easy*

Once there is offered *too many* adjustable difficulty parameters that effect game-play the game becomes no more than a kindergarten sandbox. Does it matter? - to some, maybe.

Otherwise, Eschalon: Book 2 looks to have many good improvement over its predecessor, a sign of good developer devotion. :)

Space Rangers 2 had tons of ways to make the game harder or easier and it worked out great. It wasn't just the normal hard/easy slider, there were different elements to the game that could be adjusted. Like I wanted a really lucky character and for the equipment to hardly ever break down, but then I would max out the dominators difficultly and make my scientists dumb as rocks. These kinds of options made for an even better game.

Reminds me of building a custom race in MOO2, skav. You had so many points , positive and negative, to distribute—charismatic, creative, democratic all gave huge perks but you only had ten points, so had to start picking negative traits—high-gravity planet, low population growth, etc, to balance out.

@ Wulf. Those are perfectly valid points and questions, of course. A lot more depends on balance, really, than we usually consider. Must make game design even more of a challenge. :)

Thanks for the flashback :) It's been so long since I replayed MOO2 I had forgotten about that. Ahhh, the memories of taking a hell of a long time figuring out what positive and negative traits would make for a great game. Same for MOM, the one thing I remember most about that game is figuring out what kind of mage I wanted this time. Do I want 10 spells in one catagory to give me the best catalog of spells? or do I want to take perks like summoner which made it easier to maintain and research summoned creatures. Though MOM didn't have any negatives, it still was great fun in both of them to try and figure out what kind of game I wanted this time around.

I don't think Eschalon is approaching that kind of customization yet, but giving the options to disable or enable certain parts of the game is always a good thing. Like for me sometimes I really want a game that like the old Realms of Arkania games, where weapons wore out and you had to put on different clothing or you would get sick. Other times I just want a game like Sacred or Diablo where I go around fighting monsters and customizing my character.

It's nice to see this feature in Eschalon without having to mod it into the game.