Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Hormalakh]

any word on when the next update is coming?

 

[Hormalakh]

Sensuki, I disagree with you regarding the scouting having to be off and finding hidden objects. I like the fact that you have to actually actively search for hidden objects. You used a simulationist reasoning as to why (though I disagree with your argument even in that regard - you can be standing around and daydreaming instead of constantly actively searching and being 100% on-point all the time).

Scouting, because of the fact that it "slows" you acts as a deterrant to using it all the time. If you want to find "secret areas" you should be actively looking for it. This goes way back to games like wolfenstein 3d- if you wanted to find the secret walls, you needed to hit spacebar.

agreee about level up sound, and tab opening every tooltip.

this is all i've listened to so far, will give more feedback, if i get around to it.

 

[Duraframe300]

He always came in late to the project (NWN2)
or the publisher wanted something different (DS3)
or it was a genre they weren't experienced with (Alpha Protocol)
or the timeline / money wasn't enough to get it done.. (Icewind Dale 2)
or the engine wasn't very good (Fallout New Vegas)
or it was a type of game with Grognard expectations or rulesets that he had to grudgingly work around. (Everything else including PoE)

NWN2: Sawyer never said that. In fact him *correcting* the project came from other sources like Annie Mitsoda.
DSIII: Literary the only thing Sawyer said about it that its polished and fun. Was also not him.
Alpha Protcol: Wasn't him either. You're thinking of Feargus (who as well was extremly self-critical). Sawyer's comment on it was that they fucked up the shooting without naming any names. (And nobody at Obsidian is really happy in how it turned out)
Icewind Dale II: General as fuck. Who exactly is thrown under the bus there
Fallout New Vegas: He didn't as well. In fact he used a similiar argument to DEFEND Obsidians programmers. (Edit: The argument being that they are inexperienced with the engine. Which they were except Jorge Salgado) And hey newsflash Bethesdaembyo IS SHIT.

Stop your bullshit.

And hey above all that he's self-critical of all his projects. The only thing you can critizize him about that is that he doesn't really use *I* but *we*.

All I'm hearing is that all these things were said but not by him directly? Like what's your point? Obsidian as a whole plays the blame game so don't blame Josh?
The Creation Kit is pretty polished as far as engines go. It has just as many limitations as the piece of crap Electron engine that has strange Ghost in the Wires bugs with their script compilation routines and OnHeartbeat Events. These things worked in the Aurora toolset just fine.

Those things weren't said. Not as such and not by blaming others.

If you ask Obsidian about their relationship with publishers you hear a lot of positive stuff rather than than any blame and often you hear self-critic.

Rather Obsidian fans, including me, usually bring this stuff up in a negative light. But, that *Obsidian blames everyone else* company you seem to know just doesn't exist.


Also just to check: You are really calling Bethesda Gamebryo a polished engine? I don't just mean the end user accessibility, I mean overall stability/technical competence. (And no I'm not bringing up Electron as a positive here. It sucks. Or any comparison between the two at all.)

Because thats the important thing in F:NV's example.

(To clarify, while there were still lots of bugs Obsidian could be critizized for the problems Sawyer defended his programmers on were things inherently problematic over all of Bethesda Gamebryo's games like the ps3 problems)

 

[Grunker]

if you wanted to find the secret walls, you needed to hit spacebar..

Which resulted in the superfun gameplay we all remember and love: SPACESPACESPACESPACESPACE - MPHMPHMPHMPHMPH

 

[coffeetable]

made a decompilation thread

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68573-decompiling-the-beta/

it takes about two minutes to do, so if you're curious it's definitely worth a poke around

 

[Shadenuat]

You realize I pretty much detest Sawyer's views on pen & paper RPGs, right?

What views exactly? You don't like 4th edition?

What did Sawyer say about pnp? I don't remember much. I think he only talked about how it sucks that every party has to drag a cleric around.

 

[Infinitron]

You realize I pretty much detest Sawyer's views on pen & paper RPGs, right?

What views exactly? You don't like 4th edition?

What did Sawyer say about pnp? I don't remember much. I think he only talked about how it sucks that every party has to drag a cleric around.

Sawyer has called GURPS "durps".

Nuff said.

 

[Sensuki]

Sensuki, I disagree with you regarding the scouting having to be off and finding hidden objects.

No, you got me wrong - I meant that when you're standing still no matter whether scouting is off, it should automatically search

 

[Immortal]

Also just to check: You are really calling Bethesda Gamebryo a polished engine? I don't just mean the end user accessibility, I mean overall stability/technical competence. (And no I'm not bringing up Electron as a positive here. It sucks. Or any comparison between the two at all.)

Because thats the important thing in F:NV's example.

I think my argument is.. I can't think of a more complex and robust engine that provides that functionality for end users.. As far as engines go it's fairly buggy and prone to CTD's and resource loading issues that are embarrassing but it's a game engine that is open to the user base and many people using it are pushing it beyond what it was ever supposed to do without the source code to actually improve it for those new bench tests or functionality.

The Script Extenders and FNV's are hacks made by extremely talented reverse engineers.. The engine wasn't meant for that.

Does it hold a candle to Unreal or Source or many others? no.. but those engines don't have to cater to users.. They don't need to supply game mechanics or asset loading or animation or anything at all that they don't want to. It's your job to implement that stuff and it will be as good or as bad as you make it.

To release a fully loaded engine that renders and builds assets right into a game and is user friendly for anyone is a hard thing to do right off the bat.. I challenge you to compare Bethesda Gamebryo to any other engine that can provide average users the ability to do that and you will come up with a short list and I argue it's one of the best you'll find.

 

[J_C]

Sensuki, I disagree with you regarding the scouting having to be off and finding hidden objects.

No, you got me wrong - I meant that when you're standing still no matter whether scouting is off, it should automatically search

Kinda offtopic, but what kind of microphone are you using during your recordings?

 

[Duraframe300]

Also just to check: You are really calling Bethesda Gamebryo a polished engine? I don't just mean the end user accessibility, I mean overall stability/technical competence. (And no I'm not bringing up Electron as a positive here. It sucks. Or any comparison between the two at all.)

Because thats the important thing in F:NV's example.

I think my argument is.. I can't think of a more complex and robust engine that provides that functionality for end users.. As far as engines go it's fairly buggy and prone to CTD's and resource loading issues that are embarrassing but it's a game engine that is open to the user base and many people using it are pushing it beyond what it was ever supposed to do without the source code to actually improve it for those new bench tests or functionality.

The Script Extenders and FNV's are hacks made by extremely talented reverse engineers.. The engine wasn't meant for that.

Does it hold a candle to Unreal or Source or many others? no.. but those engines don't have to cater to users.. They don't need to supply game mechanics or asset loading or animation or anything at all that they don't want to. It's your job to implement that stuff and it will be as good or as bad as you make it.

To release a fully loaded engine that renders and builds assets right into a game and is user friendly for anyone is a hard thing to do right off the bat.. I challenge you to compare Bethesda Gamebryo to any other engine that can provide average users the ability to do that and you will come up with a short list and I argue it's one of the best you'll find.

Oh, ok then. In that I fully agree.

 

[Liston]

made a decompilation thread

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68573-decompiling-the-beta/

it takes about two minutes to do, so if you're curious it's definitely worth a poke around

Ilspy fucks up on a quite a few places, I haven't been able to recompile its C# output.

But you can make changes with ildasm and ilasm, using ilspy output as reference. I've played around yesterday and changed per character inventory slots to 16 and amount of xp gained.

 

[Sensuki]

Sensuki, I disagree with you regarding the scouting having to be off and finding hidden objects.

No, you got me wrong - I meant that when you're standing still no matter whether scouting is off, it should automatically search

Kinda offtopic, but what kind of microphone are you using during your recordings?

Does it sound any good?

I just use this lolz, been uing it since 2005

 

[Sensuki]

But you can make changes with ildasm and ilasm, using ilspy output as reference. I've played around yesterday and changed per character inventory slots to 16 and amount of xp gained.

Cool that should make it very easy for me to mod in my attribute system.

 

[Liston]

But you can make changes with ildasm and ilasm, using ilspy output as reference. I've played around yesterday and changed per character inventory slots to 16 and amount of xp gained.

Cool that should make it very easy for me to mod in my attribute system.

As far as I've looked it doesn't require big changes but it could be time consuming because it would be a bitch to debug.

 

[Grunker]

You realize I pretty much detest Sawyer's views on pen & paper RPGs, right?

What views exactly?

1. He has some legitimate criticism of older P&P systems. He uses this criticism to infer that "they all get it wrong" and "I don't know why people are OK with their games having problems, they paid for them, they should work without problems." Even if we agree that Sawyer is right and is a good games designer, he is basically Niels Bohr calling Einstein stupid here. The things he is doing, what he is criticizing and the lessons he's learned are possible because of the games he's calling bad. Also, though some of the games he dislikes straight up have not held up to today (like AD&D, which was stupid to begin with), some games actually function fine and work very well despite their problems (like WoD). This point also concerns his dislike for the need of houserules. This particular dislike is pretty hilarious considering that his own game will probably be the subject of a lot of mods. House rules aren't just for fixing games (also: "fixing" is subjective here) - they're for modding! Customization to suit the specific needs of different playgroups. That said, I currently only have three house rules for my GURPS campaign, so it's the perfect system for Sawyer

2. According to Sawyer, 3.5e, GURPS and other very complex games are bad because they are not balanced(tm). Sawyer often compares these games to 4E or other systems that he likes, claiming those systems to be surperior because they lack the faults of the first systems. What he completely fails to take into account is that the systems he most often criticizes for balance issues are very complex and sustain several things that the other systems do not: mechanical and functional diversity of builds, complexity almost ad infinitum (at least in theory), very high levels of simulationism if you're into that kind of thing, incredible player modularity and universalism. These things make for systems that simply cannot be developed with the kind of mathematical or usability tightness that Sawyer wants with the price tag they come with and the teams that can profitably construct them. Sawyer calling these systems bad is effectively him saying "I don't want systems that enable a/b/c playstyle until we live in a magical world where such systems can be developed as mechanically balanced/usable as something more ultralinear like 4E." That's... an incredibly odd opinion, and I can only laugh at Sawyer when he exlaims it. It's like me saying I don't want drive a car until it can fly, make coffee and dance the Tango. Like, recently I saw a quote where he protested that his friend couldn't play a diplomatic fighter in 3.5E because he had cheesed a Noble who was much better at it. This demonstrates two things: 1) Sawyer does not actually talk with his friends about what we in Danish call "forventningsafstemning" (rough English translation: "management of expectations"). Otherwise, they would have agreed on things like power level and role assignment before starting. 2) Sawyer does not understand or accept "the excuse" of real world impact on high level complexity game design. With these very complex and therefore very open-ended and unbalanced systems, you need adult players who can make adult decisions and are very well informed of the systems they're using.

3. Sawyer has a very narrow experience of P&P yet speaks very broadly about the subject anyway. Like, he criticizes "skill classes" because they're bad in combat. This is completely legitimate criticism but fails to ackknowledge games where fights are short, scenic or the very point is player diversity. That third part refers to games where "realism" is front and center and there's a point in one player literally seeking cover during a hectic fight (the "diplomatic VIP" panicking for safety, getting blown out cover, etc.) while the other player tries to keep him safe (the "bodyguard"). Bad examples but you get the point. Like, for instance, in my Witcher game, you actually have players built for as much as 175 point with others being built for less than 100 (the functional equivalent of about 5 levels of difference in D&D-terms). Yet this is no issue because player power holds little relevance for play in that game. It is a story about certain characters, and the players don't play for the mechanics, but for that story and their respective influence on its outcomes and direction. (EDIT NOTE: actually, in some games, player inequality is facilitated for fun. Like playing a small state in a multiplayer Europa Universalis game or something like that)

4. In some of the game types in #3, systems exist solely as facilitators and "neutral arbiters" to determine outcome based on player action. They're not there to be "fun/tactical things to interact with" in all situations. Sawyer can't fathom this, because he is so focused on systems as facilitators of fun, not just background simulation or "~*feels*~ of realism." Example: say you're playing a realistic middle ages campaign telling the story of a farmer and a knight meeting during a war under incredible circumstances who must make their way around the ravaged countryside. Normally I think I wouldn't use a system for this game, but let's say we did for some reason for the sake of argument. Here, the system would obviously differantiate between these characters to an incredible degree. Player equality and balance has no meaning here, the system solely exists to provide a neutral "physics engine" or whatever you want to call it. Something that is completely unbiased (unlike GM or players) when determining the outcome of the characters' attempts to avoid the mob or sneak through the enemy war camp.

Point #2 also stands for his criticism of cRPGs in some cases, btw.

tl;dr: Sawyer is the Excidium of RPG designers. He has some correct and well thought-out criticism, but he infers from that criticism that some hypothetical standard of perfection is the only desirable standard and that everything that has actually been produced is shit. That's an over the top comparison, but you get the idea.

That's pretty much the gist of it. Also, since we're on the subject of things I don't like about Sawyer, I think this quote that Infinitron linked to recently is straight up retarded:

 

[J_C]

Sensuki, I disagree with you regarding the scouting having to be off and finding hidden objects.

No, you got me wrong - I meant that when you're standing still no matter whether scouting is off, it should automatically search

Kinda offtopic, but what kind of microphone are you using during your recordings?

Does it sound any good?

I just use this lolz, been uing it since 2005

Actually you sound quite good, despite this not being a high end microphone. Could you check the type of this exactly? I'm looking for a decent, but cheap mic, and it seems this would do the trick.

 

[Sensuki]

It's just a Logitech USB Desktop mic you should be able to get one online for I dunno $20 usd ?

(and yes that's the name of it, if you search for that it will come up)

 

[Volourn]

"I just love listening to those (no homo). I hope you get a special place in the end credits. Something like " QA extraordinaire. ""

Why? Sawyer sin't gonna use the suggestions and if he doe, he's just gonna butcher them anyways.

And, the anti Sawyer above: FUCK THAT LOSER.
\
Sawyer, not the post.

Obsdiian games would be 10x better without Sawyer. I liked MOTB, NWN2, FO:NV IN SPITE OF HIM NOT BECAUSE OF HIM.

It'll likely be the same for PE.

 

[polo]

720p processing will take ~10-20 mins probs

1:25 - v278 Improvements
6:00 - Stuff coming in next patch
13:29 - Why combat is too fast
19:31 - Sections outline
20:21 - Areas
23:03 - Character Creation
33:00 - Main HUD
39:43 - Inventory
45:44 - General
58:18 - Combat
1:06:32 - Classes
1:10:43 - HBA Commercial

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

We keep saying "muscle wizard" but is it really? A "mighty fighter" does more damage when he connects, and a "mighty wizard" zaps you more intensely. The class distinction is critical in making it so he's not "mighty" at everything, a king of zapping that you'd be a fool to close range against.

In Sawyer's Universe a Wizard using spells si reduced to a monkey flinging shit. The mightier the monkey, the harder he can sling shit.

Mighty meaning two different things, in two different fields...

But it is the same stat which makes warrior swing sword with more of a punch, and a wizard fling shit spells with more impact

I read it as a class-based system with attributes shoehorned in... which goes quite a way toward explaining why the incremental bonuses are relatively small.

Fair enough, stats give banal +x% increase.

From what I understand of the (initial?) intent and process, that's quite literally how it was conceived and designed -- let players make clear choices between the (overall) type of role a character will fill, and limit the ability of "poor" attribute selection to disrupt their ability to do so.

Yes since due to Josh's contrived vision character creation is not part of gamelay, so remove options and dumb it down

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'm glad he has the vision and the courage to point it out.

Seriously, what role do you play? Where's your voice? Dialog? Those old, crappy games are nothing but RNG-based murder simulators.

When does DAI come out anyway? It's been far too long since I've been able to live out my dreams of being a homosexual manwhore who kills shit in his spare time.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

...text-wall...
tl;dr: Sawyer is the Excidium of RPG designers. He has some correct and well thought-out criticism, but he infers from that criticism that some hypothetical standard of perfection is the only desirable standard and that everything that has actually been produced is shit. That's an over the top comparison, but you get the idea.

After reading your constructive text-wall He seems like a p. shitty close minded designer to me.

 

[SCO]

it was a good video Sensuki but i was butthurt you didn't mention again weapon tooltips in inventory that allow you to compare equipped stuff with stuff in storage you're toying with equiping, like in TOME4, where if you press control instead of showing 'only' the stats for the item tooltip in inventory, it would show off the bonus or malus in color related to the equiped item on the relevant slot like so:
speed: 1.2 (+0.2)
piercing damage: +5
crushing damage: -5

it does make for messy tooltips but since this game will not have many weapon effects apparently...

 

[tuluse]

it was a good video Sensuki but i was butthurt you didn't mention again weapon tooltips in inventory that allow you to compare equipped stuff with stuff in storage you're toying with equiping, like in TOME4, where if you press control instead of showing 'only' the stats for the item tooltip in inventory, it would show off the bonus or malus in color related to the equiped item on the slot like so:
speed: 1.2 (+0.2)
piercing damage damage: +5
crushing damage: -5

I think they have specifically avoided this because of IE ~*feels*~.

I noticed that armor does not show it's true DT as the bonus from being "fine" or "exceptional" isn't added on to the score, but listed below like how IE shows stats.