Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Fairfax]

I'd just get rid of the mechanic entirely. Automatic self-healing as soon as the encounter is over. That way you can just make every single encounter as difficult as you want, because the player will always be in top form.

With resting, the whole area must be balanced with the amount of supplies in mind. That is one of the main reasons for trash mobs in these games, as they make the player spend just a bit of the resources, one encounter at a time. The player is supposed to adjust to the average difficulty in the area and keep in mind that some of it must be saved for the boss.

At least that is the idea, but in the end it doesnt work because the player can just wipe the trash mobs spending everything, suffer 4 loading screens and fight the boss with no limitations whatsoever. Many here think autohealing is popamole-y, but resource management is an overrated mechanic in RPGs. With the party suffering no penalties and lacking no resources in every encounter, the designer can use fewer, more meaningful encounters that are as brutal as possible/needed. In this case, and assuming a good combat system is in place, all that stands in the way are the player's tactics and strategy.

 

[Sensuki]

It's not overrated. It's fine - the design of both can be good or bad.

 

[ArchAngel]

I'd just get rid of the mechanic entirely. Automatic self-healing as soon as the encounter is over. That way you can just make every single encounter as difficult as you want, because the player will always be in top form.

With resting, the whole area must be balanced with the amount of supplies in mind. That is one of the main reasons for trash mobs in these games, as they make the player spend just a bit of the resources, one encounter at a time. The player is supposed to adjust to the average difficulty in the area and keep in mind that some of it must be saved for the boss.

At least that is the idea, but in the end it doesnt work because the player can just wipe the trash mobs spending everything, suffer 4 loading screens and fight the boss with no limitations whatsoever. Many here think autohealing is popamole-y, but resource management is an overrated mechanic in RPGs. With the party suffering no penalties and lacking no resources in every encounter, the designer can use fewer, more meaningful encounters that are as brutal as possible/needed. In this case, and assuming a good combat system is in place, all that stands in the way are the player's tactics and strategy.

And get DAO system? No thank you. I would rather Obsidian fix the power of encounter abilities and make better encounters. As for 4 loading screens, I don't think many people are willing to suffer those. Just because you are, it does not mean everyone else is. And those that are, they play the game like DAO, while the rest of us can play it like D&D. If you implement DAO system, we cannot play it like D&D.
Also random encounters while traveling need to come back. Some of those in Bg1 could murder your low resource party going back to rest and were pretty good incentive to not do that. Usually that meant even more loading screens due to needing to load last save first, so having that in PoE would be a even better incentive to just continue until all your camping supplies are spent .

 

[Fairfax]

I'd just get rid of the mechanic entirely. Automatic self-healing as soon as the encounter is over. That way you can just make every single encounter as difficult as you want, because the player will always be in top form.

With resting, the whole area must be balanced with the amount of supplies in mind. That is one of the main reasons for trash mobs in these games, as they make the player spend just a bit of the resources, one encounter at a time. The player is supposed to adjust to the average difficulty in the area and keep in mind that some of it must be saved for the boss.

At least that is the idea, but in the end it doesnt work because the player can just wipe the trash mobs spending everything, suffer 4 loading screens and fight the boss with no limitations whatsoever. Many here think autohealing is popamole-y, but resource management is an overrated mechanic in RPGs. With the party suffering no penalties and lacking no resources in every encounter, the designer can use fewer, more meaningful encounters that are as brutal as possible/needed. In this case, and assuming a good combat system is in place, all that stands in the way are the player's tactics and strategy.

And get DAO system? No thank you. I would rather Obsidian fix the power of encounter abilities and make better encounters. As for 4 loading screens, I don't think many people are willing to suffer those. Just because you are, it does not mean everyone else is. And those that are, they play the game like DAO, while the rest of us can play it like D&D. If you implement DAO system, we cannot play it like D&D.
Also random encounters while traveling need to come back. Some of those in Bg1 could murder your low resource party going back to rest and were pretty good incentive to not do that. Usually that meant even more loading screens due to needing to load last save first, so having that in PoE would be a even better incentive to just continue until all your camping supplies are spent .

I don't want to suffer 4 loading screens, specially extremely long ones like in PoE, hence "suffer". Anyway, that's my point, the only punishment is having to backtrack a bit and stare at these screens, there is no real punishment in the game itself.

"play like d&d" sounds good in theory, but what D&D? Also, it's a completely different medium, and I like D&D as much as the next guy, but resting of all things is not what makes me enjoy playing it.

 

[ArchAngel]

Even with changes in rules all D&D versions kept resource management and need to ration them between rests. That is the core of D&D experience. DAO killed that with full heal and cooldowns.
PoE and IE can give you that experience because both have negatives if you try to rest spam (PoE loading screens, IE being attacked while resting/random encounters while traveling). They are not much for some people but enough for many. Unlike NWN2 which had zero consequence for resting so everyone again did it after each encounter (well except need to recast buffs which did make me not rest all the time or made me just use couple of long lasting ones but I still did rest way too often; SoZ did kind of fix this but not as good as they could and should mostly due to buffs not lasting between overland map and specific areas)

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post453098577

 

[Merlkir]

I don't quite understand the Torchbearer drawing, but it looks cool. Reminds me I have to check that game out. (though it being by the authors of Burning Wheel is a bit of a colored flag)
Josh is a funny guy. Cool guy.

 

[Roguey]

"I hate wizards, Sensuki's playstyle, and fun."-- Josh Sawyer

TBH even I don't think he has a strong, well-considered rationale for a lot of what's in Eternity.

 

[Sensuki]

That is probably true as well (about my play style ), apparently even my fast, precise mouse movement triggers some people

 

[Fairfax]

Even with changes in rules all D&D versions kept resource management and need to ration them between rests. That is the core of D&D experience. DAO killed that with full heal and cooldowns.
PoE and IE can give you that experience because both have negatives if you try to rest spam (PoE loading screens, IE being attacked while resting/random encounters while traveling). They are not much for some people but enough for many. Unlike NWN2 which had zero consequence for resting so everyone again did it after each encounter (well except need to recast buffs which did make me not rest all the time or made me just use couple of long lasting ones but I still did rest way too often; SoZ did kind of fix this but not as good as they could and should mostly due to buffs not lasting between overland map and specific areas)

The random attacks are a good addition, gives resting a risk/reward situation, but it's something that works much better in PnP because the encounters are almost always handcrafted and can be adjusted on the fly as well. Still, it's something very controversial because a lot of people feel very strongly about it, and it's extremely hard to balance.
Too hard and resting becomes a bigger threat than many encounters, leading less skilled players to get increasingly frustrated and abandon the game. Too easy and it's just another trash mob getting in your way, much like the PoE Stronghold attacks, so it's just an annoyance that's worse than staring at a loading screen. I don't even think there's a sweet spot. How big should a challenge be just for the occasional attack while you're travelling? Everyone will have a different view on what's enough just for travelling. It's also a risk to the exploration aspect of the game for a lot of playstyles, so I'd say the benefit of having it might not be worth it.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post453098577

Well, there it is, he says it right there. "It'd feel different", "D&D thing is gone". Why keep rest for the sake of keeping it? As I said, it'll never be like D&D.
The thing is, D&D has three inherent elements that CRPG's dont:
- rules, scenarios, items, resources, etc can be changed on the fly;
- everything has room for role-playing;
- there's a group playing with you, and creating a story as a group effort is the whole purpose.

Resting also serves as a break in PnP sessions and can be turned into something interesting on its own due to the elements I mentioned. Resting in a CRPG will never be as interesting.
They can't lose sight of the mechanic's purpose. In the end, it's all about making the game challenging. Resource management is just one of many ways to do it.

From the player's perspective, resource management is one of the most boring ways to make the game challenging, unless the entire game's design is heavily dependent on that aspect. Good examples where the whole game relies on resource management would be survival games (obviously) and 4X/strategy games. In Civilization, you're supposed to make the best of what you have available around you and lead your civilization to the top. Resource management is key because it speaks to the skills of a leader.

In a role-playing game, I don't think it's all that important or interesting. It's alright to spend a lot of time staring at menus in a strategy game, but too much of it in an RPG will just get in the way of things and turn a lot of people off. There's only so much time people are willing/able to spend playing a game, and in a genre that already has low completion rates in the first place, I'd say it's extremely important to make sure the players are spending as much time as possible on things they're more likely to enjoy. This is why, contrary to common Codex knowledge, I support PoE's inventory/stash system 100%. (The limited stash on Expert mode, that is).
Fallout 4 is one of example of how overwhelming and boring it can be to the average player. I've been reading about how having to spend so much time on menus is turning people off, and it's a very good reason to be frustrated.

I'd just get rid of rest and focus on increasing the challenge in the encounters themselves, rather than managing the resources before they take place. I'd rather have the player die because he used the wrong formation, positioning and decisions during the fight than simply because he didn't want to backtrack and suffer 4 loading screens.

 

[Sensuki]

Resting in a CRPG will never be as interesting.

Mmm, I disagree. Resting is cool in Expeditions: Conquistador and the way they handle it could be further expanded to be more a part of strategical gameplay. I think they're somewhat changing direction with Vikings but we'll see how that goes.

DA:O's "resting" (at camp) was also alright because they used it as a time for party interaction (which really was basically trying to mimic what KotOR did with the Ebon Hawk).

A rest in D&D can either be "ok you rest for 8 hours" because all you needed to do was regain your per-rest spells and health and heal injuries etc or it can be more involving where you have dialogue and do things.

The same can apply to computer game resting as well, in either a scripted or systemic sense.

 

[Ninjerk]

"I hate wizards, Sensuki's playstyle, and fun."-- Josh Sawyer

TBH even I don't think he has a strong, well-considered rationale for a lot of what's in Eternity.

 

[Sensuki]

That's not the exact quote, it's just Roguey trying to read between the lines.

 

[Ninjerk]

That's not the exact quote, it's just Roguey trying to read between the lines.

That's not what I'm reacting to

 

[Sensuki]

Now I get it

I agree with Roguey too.

TBH even I don't think he has a strong, well-considered rationale for a lot of what's in Eternity.

Most of the things done in Pillars just seem to be bandaid solutions to specific complaints certain people have made about the Infinity Engine games, besides addressing those complaints I don't think there's been too much consideration as to what the effect of changing something is. He seems to ark up a bit when people on SA and badgame complain, like he specifically just looked up the post history of Ratios and Tendency to read his complaints.

A few people on badgame said "there are too many trash mobs in these late game areas" and Josh goes and tells the designers to remove all unnecessary encounters in those areas and improve the ones remaining.

 

[ArchAngel]

Even with changes in rules all D&D versions kept resource management and need to ration them between rests. That is the core of D&D experience. DAO killed that with full heal and cooldowns.
PoE and IE can give you that experience because both have negatives if you try to rest spam (PoE loading screens, IE being attacked while resting/random encounters while traveling). They are not much for some people but enough for many. Unlike NWN2 which had zero consequence for resting so everyone again did it after each encounter (well except need to recast buffs which did make me not rest all the time or made me just use couple of long lasting ones but I still did rest way too often; SoZ did kind of fix this but not as good as they could and should mostly due to buffs not lasting between overland map and specific areas)

The random attacks are a good addition, gives resting a risk/reward situation, but it's something that works much better in PnP because the encounters are almost always handcrafted and can be adjusted on the fly as well. Still, it's something very controversial because a lot of people feel very strongly about it, and it's extremely hard to balance.
Too hard and resting becomes a bigger threat than many encounters, leading less skilled players to get increasingly frustrated and abandon the game. Too easy and it's just another trash mob getting in your way, much like the PoE Stronghold attacks, so it's just an annoyance that's worse than staring at a loading screen. I don't even think there's a sweet spot. How big should a challenge be just for the occasional attack while you're travelling? Everyone will have a different view on what's enough just for travelling. It's also a risk to the exploration aspect of the game for a lot of playstyles, so I'd say the benefit of having it might not be worth it.

In PnP there is no load game feature so computer games can err on the side of making them harder (as BG1 and IWD1 often did which was good).
Less skilled players can learn to become more skilled players or they can play on lower difficulty or they can GTFO and not ruin good games. They got other choices like Fo4 or Sims.

And random encounters are cool because they can break the mold of wilderness exploration in PoE that was all about scouting ahead and always being the one to surprise the enemy. Bg1 or Fallout type of random encounters could do wonders to make combat less boring.

 

[Infinitron]

A few people on badgame said "there are too many trash mobs in these late game areas" and Josh goes and tells the designers to remove all unnecessary encounters in those areas and improve the ones remaining.

They said that because he reached out to them first: http://badgame.net/index.php?topic=19797.msg9109873#msg9109873

what are the things you would like to see addressed/changed

He's also been easier to reach on Tumblr in the last week or so.

Seems to me that as TWM Part 2 nears the end of its development and the inevitable sequel looms closer, Josh might just have decided to invest more time into looking into this stuff.

 

[Sensuki]

what are the things you would like to see addressed/changed

That only really proves my point. If you want to see a change in the game, if you're a normie from badgame or SA you have the highest influence.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, you can post there too.

As for the matter of why so many game developers seem to consider their own official forums toxic hellholes to be avoided, well, that's a larger issue.

 

[Sensuki]

I'm a loudmouth groggy Codexer with very different preferences to the Obsidian devs, it's also very likely that they dislike me a lot. The only way my POV is getting listened to is if other people in the good books agree with it. Fortunately that sometimes happens.

Not really that invested in what happens for the sequel but it will nonetheless be interesting to see where it goes.

 

[Fairfax]

Well, you can post there too.

As for the matter of why so many game developers seem to consider their own official forums toxic hellholes to be avoided, well, that's a larger issue.

Actually you have to pay to post there, so using that forum alone for talking about feedback is absurd and absolutely a dick move to the people who post on the Obsidian forums.

 

[Roguey]

Most of the things done in Pillars just seem to be bandaid solutions to specific complaints certain people have made about the Infinity Engine games, besides addressing those complaints I don't think there's been too much consideration as to what the effect of changing something is.

He also lived up to his complaint in The Evolution of RPG Mechanics: From Die Rolls to Hit Volumes about how "We ignore established mechanics from other genres... We don't look and see how they did it." There he was making a game with real time tactical combat, and yet his only point of reference were the IE games, Darklands, and tabletop RPGs, and not any other RTTs.

 

[Sensuki]

I know! Very hypocritical to some of the quotes you've had in your sig.

I love isometric RT / RTwP combat and there are quite a few games out to draw reference from. I don't really think there's anyone at Obsidian that likes them that much though.

Same issue with the visual design for spell effects. I warned them very early about the use of flashy effects and brought up how RTS games generally handle such things in a reasonable way (and so did the IE games by and large), and to this day, a lot of people still complain about the combat clarity.

 

[LizardWizard]

Tim Cain didn't have "little to do" with the game in the end. He IS a programmer first and foremost and thats what he did including the actual implementation of most of the system related stuff. He and Sawyer both worked very closly together and it was his full time job. He also had indirect influence on level design through his husband.

Not that there are some things Tim said they didn't do (for whatever reason), but thats absolutly no comparison to either MCA or Ziets. He was there from beginning to end.

Most of Tim's design impact was scrapped by Sawyer. See: Goons crying en masse about the original crafting system which was all but axed and dumbed down to retardo status and Sawyer making the decision to half-ass and funnel resources away from the Stronghold because, 'people hate stronghold mechanics almost as much as romance' according to Josh. Hard to blame Tim there when he's mainly a programmer that has only worked there for a few years.

Meanwhile the creative director/co-founder of the company gets a pass when he was paint by numbers writing, rubber stamping the shit narrative and then off and quit.

 

[Infinitron]

Goons crying en masse about the original crafting system

Well I guess Sensuki is a goon now. The outcry over Crafting/Durability was chiefly on the Obsidian forums. There was plenty of it here, too.