How do obviously bad ideas like endurance system in poe end up in the final game?

[Sacred82]

Extraordinarily stupid defence system. Every attack targetted some defence to get hit including magic. This made magic simply coloured non-magic attacks in a game where non-magic attacks also do status effects.

muh magic, it needs to be teh uberz.

the only thing we have to complain about is the absence of magic-world interaction. The fact that magic attack spells function like non-magic attack abilities are not the problem.

 

[Sacred82]

Not ueber. Just different in flavour. Or else, why call it magic?

if all magic does is blowing shit up and killing people, why have magic at all?

What I'm missing in PoE is magic doing something for your journey that weapons can't. But when it comes down to fighting, I don't need magic to be that much better than weapons. It actually still is, as far as AoE damage is concerned.

 

[SkiNNyBane]

Many good points have been raised against POE1's schizophrenic attrition system. The OP doesn't have any, this is just "uh i hate x lul why r people so stupid?!?!"

I love the posters that lack self awareness. Let me talk shit about the very thing I am doing minus ANY points.

 

[Sacred82]

This is the "I never played D&D or other games that simulate magic well" defence.

dude what

You're complaining that offensive magic isn't much different from offensive weapon based abilities.

And yes, D&D based CRPG's (we're still talking vidya right) tend to do more in that regard.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

This is the "I never played D&D or other games that simulate magic well" defence.

He is arguing for D&D-like magic utility.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

The monk has five wounds, so he fights much better now! Especially with only one leg and no arms!

 

[SkiNNyBane]

The monk has five wounds, so he fights much better now! Especially with only one leg and no arms!

LOL

 

[Sacred82]

Not D&D based cRPgs. D&D the game. Where if you use magic for damage you are most probably stupid. I think that is what you are though.

so you're scarred by having been laughted at by your pockmarked D&D group for years when playing a wizard. And in your mom's basement to boot.

Well son, your power fantasies notwithstanding, maybe make an argument for why offensive magic in CRPG's should be so much more powerful than other things.

 

[Sacred82]

If I wanted my comeback I would have asked it from your mom.

You have to try harder son. Even for a limp-wristed faggot like you, that was weak.

And actually, I don't play wizards, I generally GM.

And you're cooking up houserules or using systems where offensive magic is the big guns? Or do you just want to see that shit even more often in CRPG's?

 

[Zanzoken]

I think the Endurance / Health system in PoE is good for what it is. You have to think about the design goal -- which appears to have been circumvention of rest spamming and instituting the threat of permadeath without actually making it a serious possibility. You can argue that is popamole -- and I agree -- but Sawyer was designing for a casual audience and I do not believe he was trying to come up with a system of intense attrition.

The insane number of trash mobs throughout the entire game may be a counterpoint to that, but I guess if you are being charitable you could argue that they were giving players who really loved the combat the ability to get their fill, while providing incentives to other players to use stealth. Honestly though I am more inclined to believe that Obsidian just sucks ass at encounter design and/or took the lazy route when designing content.

 

[Zanzoken]

I think an alternative and possibly better approach would be to place time constraints on quests. For instance if you only have 24 hours to finish a quest and you have to travel 14 hours to get there, then you know you're only going to have time for 1 rest so you better use it wisely. You could also implement the quest reward system in degrees -- for instance 24 hours gives best outcome, 36 hours is second-best, and beyond 48 hours is failure. And on top of that you could implement the rest system in degrees as well -- 2 hours to recover some HP, 4 hours to recover minor injury, 8 hours to fully heal.

This has the added benefit of being more realistic. It also creates partial party scenarios where if one or two party members get the shit beat out of them and can't continue, but the rest of your team is good, you might consider pressing on shorthanded and having to adapt your tactics for that. And it also could create an additional layer of time management -- say you have two quests kicking off simultaneously and you will only have time to pick one. This creates genuine replayability and C&C that you usually won't find with this type of game.

 

[Brancaleone]

The monk has five wounds, so he fights much better now! Especially with only one leg and no arms!

Admit it, you're just fishing for Monty Python references.

 

[Teut Busnet]

The monk has five wounds, so he fights much better now! Especially with only one leg and no arms!

Maybe Sawyer is a big 'Rocky' fan. That guy didn't even start his fights until he took two, three dozen punches to the face.

Like the 'no dump stats' idea, the Monk mechanic is also interesting but makes not enough sense in practice.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

How do any horrible ideas make it into RPGs?

2001 - Some Sierra exec to Tim Caine: You know what would be really great Tim, yeaahhh, if you put in 2 kinds of combat into Arcanum. Also, yeaah, I am gonna need you to come in on Saturday...

2000 - Todd Howard to the one intern actually working on Morrowind's gameplay: you know sparky, I think we should do a stat based combat system in a 1st person game.

2003 - Chris Avellone to Feargus: This villain thing in RPGs is overrated and overdone, my good man, lets just do away with it. Instead, we will have an emo-granny who will nag you the whole game like a wife, mother-in-law, and arch-villain all rolled into one efficient post modernist package.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

No time to fix it.

By the time they identify it's an issue, said issue is too core to how the game works to fix it in time to meet deadlines.

 

[KateMicucci]

- DOS 2 and the armor split system.

The split armor system isn't a problem. Full physical, full magic or split physical/magic parties are all viable options.

The problem is trying to make a single character who does split damage instead of just one or the other.

Since damage for most skills scales simply off of str/fin/int, taking a character who splits 50/50 makes you worse at both. You can certainly make a viable warrior/wizard hybrid, and it's even necessary to hybridize if you want optimal builds, but only if you take skills for their utility rather than their damage, eg a warrior dipping into Aero for teleport, nether swap, and evasive aura, or a wizard taking a point of scoundrel for Adrenaline and the jump skill.

But you can't get viability out of what should be simple things like a warrior who hits things with hammers and also throws fireballs, or a dagger user who also throws fireballs, or an archer who also throws fireballs.

I blame the stat system, which doesn't do anything except add +5% bonuses to damage. Might as well scrap the whole thing, because that would largely be an improvement over its current implementation.

 

[Melan]

Two basic reasons, both of which are easy to find at workplaces that do project-based work (i.e. most of them).

• Groupthink: Some guy thinks his idea is great, and convinces three others that it's the bee's knees. Most team members are neutral on the matter, so five people don't speak up. One guy does, but he is a shitlord and a contrarian, and nobody wants to side with him and lose status. There are two more guys who know it will be trouble, but the first doesn't speak up because he has his own pet feature he doesn't want to jeopardise by instigating a conflict, and the second doesn't speak up because he has sized up the opposition, modelled three discussion scenarios in his head, and knows he wouldn't win (and he has a headache today anyway). The four original guys get their idea implemented.
• Inertia: It is in the project because it has always been in the project. Someone some time ago put it in an initial design doc without too much thought, someone implemented it, and it has been carried forward in every subsequent iteration. By now, it is deeply integrated in how the project works, like a badly designed support column in the middle of a massive cathedral. It is increasingly recognised as a design flaw, but eh, it is not fatal, simply inconvenient. Also, it interacts with too many other sub-systems by now to just pull out. You could get away with it, or it could spell monumental trouble. Time is running out and it is safer to ship than disable or redesign. And anyway, you have to work on five other, incomplete features.

Basically, but with gamers

 

[luj1]

Groupthink

Inertia

And, 3) muh accessibility.

 

[Thac0]

Nice 2 years there.

Now that Pillars of Eternity 2 failed so hard the series got cancelled this thread is hardly relevant.

 

[Desiderius]

From recent memory:

- POE and endurance/health system with 2 camping charges is just annoying. There is nothing redeeming about it.

You can still buy camping gear in stores, so all it does is force you through unforgivable tedium. Even if that wasn't the case, you don't actually know which encounters await you along the new area, and thus can't possible know which spells/endurance to save for tougher fights or when you will find another camp.

- DOS 2 and the armor split system. The itemization system of having to rob NPCs blind every level.

I mean its so obviously anti fun. How the fuck did they manage to go through the entire development process before someone inevitably says - "hey guys what the fuck are we doing?" It is an artificial barrier to possible builds and strategies to explore, forcing every fight to basically be get rid of armor and cc to death.

Also is it really not braindead obvious that having to replace items that often makes exploration and finding uniques completely unrewarding?

- Both games suffer from level being too important syndrome, where you are basically forced into a linear exploration path (on hardest difficulty), because encounters will be too easy, too hard or just right, all within 1 level of each other.

There are other examples but I am legit perplexed and annoyed how this passed through the brainstorming phase.

The endurance/health system was one of my favorite things about PoE, as was per rest/per encounter and I was disappointed they were cut in Deadfire.

 

[Ol' Willy]

wrong, there was something redeeming about it, and that is having a character go down without being taken out for good. A pure HP count has always been retarded, fight at 100% performance until you suddenly drop dead.

Two years late, but had anyone heard of localized damage? Like in Fallout, Arcanum, Deus Ex, Kenshi? Instead of one general HP pool each limb has its own. Limb damaged - character is crippled.

 

[Sweeper]

It is a mystery.

Spoiler

 

[Luckmann]

- Both games suffer from level being too important syndrome, where you are basically forced into a linear exploration path (on hardest difficulty), because encounters will be too easy, too hard or just right, all within 1 level of each other.

This honestly strikes me as the more endemic issue, because the issues of the previous games - and I think you're lowballing it on very small issues with there being much bigger ones in each of those games in the context of "obviously bad ideas" - because "level being too important"-syndrome isn't really being discussed much, yet you see it more and more in both PnPs and CRPGs, where "leveling" has to "matter" and has to be "felt", which in turn often reduces levels to numbers bloat that throws the entire curve of the game off, and along with it, any degree of verisimilitude that could possibly exist, since even a group of lower-level goons often pose no threat whatsoever to even a single over-leveled character.

Pitchforks should still hurt, dammit, and a whole mob of peasants should still be a threat to a mid-to-high-level character.

 

[Desiderius]

- Both games suffer from level being too important syndrome, where you are basically forced into a linear exploration path (on hardest difficulty), because encounters will be too easy, too hard or just right, all within 1 level of each other.

This honestly strikes me as the more endemic issue, because the issues of the previous games - and I think you're lowballing it on very small issues with there being much bigger ones in each of those games in the context of "obviously bad ideas" - because "level being too important"-syndrome isn't really being discussed much, yet you see it more and more in both PnPs and CRPGs, where "leveling" has to "matter" and has to be "felt", which in turn often reduces levels to numbers bloat that throws the entire curve of the game off, and along with it, any degree of verisimilitude that could possibly exist, since even a group of lower-level goons often pose no threat whatsoever to even a single over-leveled character.

Pitchforks should still hurt, dammit, and a whole mob of peasants should still be a threat to a mid-to-high-level character.

This was THE issue with D:OS II

 

[Luckmann]

- Both games suffer from level being too important syndrome, where you are basically forced into a linear exploration path (on hardest difficulty), because encounters will be too easy, too hard or just right, all within 1 level of each other.

This honestly strikes me as the more endemic issue, because the issues of the previous games - and I think you're lowballing it on very small issues with there being much bigger ones in each of those games in the context of "obviously bad ideas" - because "level being too important"-syndrome isn't really being discussed much, yet you see it more and more in both PnPs and CRPGs, where "leveling" has to "matter" and has to be "felt", which in turn often reduces levels to numbers bloat that throws the entire curve of the game off, and along with it, any degree of verisimilitude that could possibly exist, since even a group of lower-level goons often pose no threat whatsoever to even a single over-leveled character.

Pitchforks should still hurt, dammit, and a whole mob of peasants should still be a threat to a mid-to-high-level character.

This was THE issue with D:OS II

Well I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but I certainly think it's the bigger issue when it comes to RPGs and gaming as a medium in general.