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

[Cadmus]

And there is no INGAME reward for the act of combat in itself.

loot is no ingame reward?

You see, this is what I don't like at all. I think that's pretty close the level scaling.

level scaling in itself is not a bad thing, it's the concrete implementations that suck. like the hp bloat of enemies at higher levels, replacing entire kinds of enemies with something else so all of a sudden your world has no wolves in it because the player got powerful, or oblivion's bandits in glass armor.. plus the fact that you're most certainly better off using a system without levels if you implement level scaling of everything.

I'd say it's always bad, whatever.

 

[Zetor]

I just finished a BG1+BG2+TOB run (with ascension and SCS) a few weeks ago, and I seem to recall using more spells than that even in TOB (cloud spells in particular, and even low-level summons to create meatwalls for fire giants etc). I did play with Spell Revisions, though.

Of course the most difficult TOB bossfights (e.g. imp abazigal and the final ascension fight) devolved into time stop / improved alacrity / horrid wilting spam as well as dumping all HLAs on the enemies as fast as possible, but there was still room for using lower-level nuke spells, low-end summons, confusion/chaos (this was invaluable during the battle royale at amkethran), blah blah.

In general, ad&d is pretty bad when it comes to variety of tactics and spell use at high levels. It's also why DQK and POD are the Gold Box games with the least interesting combat.

 

[Grunker]

You see, this is what I don't like at all. I think that's pretty close the level scaling.

I agree. I don't think the control-argument is good either. But there's no reason a developer can't "level-scale" in this way by controlling combat XP just as he could with Quest XP. That's the whole point. The systems are not qualitatively different on this point. Both systems can be designed poorly and well in this way. However Combat XP incentivize players to solve their problems via combat, while Quest XP leaves the decision up to the player. That is the single, most important qualitative importance and IMO the only reason worthy of debate. On all other points mentioned in the XP debate, both Combat XP and Quest XP can be used for the same purposes. On those points it is merely a question of scale.

The one part where I accept the Combat XP argument is if you want to play the IE-games like I did when I was a child. Just go amok and kill everyone like you were playing Grand Theft Auto or something. I don't believe that's a niche that Sawyer and Obsidian has any real reason to cater to however. Yet you can still do this in PoE, you just don't get rewarded with progression rewards for doing it.

(plus, in lategame IE, the vast majority of your XP comes from Quest XP or path-critical kills anyway)

 

[SuicideBunny]

I'd say it's always bad, whatever.

even if it's just bosses which are level scaled to keep the challenge, and they aren't scaled in a retarded manner (as in hp bloat and dmg increase) but rather more abilities and different behavior/tactics required?

 

[Raapys]

In general, ad&d is pretty bad when it comes to variety of tactics and spell use at high levels. It's also why DQK and POD are the Gold Box games with the least interesting combat.

The question isn't so much whether ad&d is good/bad when it comes to variety at high levels though, it's whether any other system does it better. Now, it's true that there are some games/systems where the best spells are the first ones you get. Gothic/Risen usually did it like this. But I'd argue that's actually much worse, since it gives no sense of progression at all.

As for D&D, the problem comes from the fact that most spells are duplicated throughout the spell tree with better versions of themselves. I.e. you get better and better summons, better and better AoE spells, etc. So the only low level spells that remain useful are the ones without a significantly better version of itself higher up in the tree.

 

[Shadenuat]

He used bad examples, these certainly are the same shit:

+Deflection spells were first example I used, not covered by Infinitron.
And I don't think they are bad examples, I bet my ass Summon Blights would be same shit scaled to your level, for example; at least in beta it is so.

I found it kinda funny that Josh used "As in Vanilla BG, druids also have 3 copies of x summon spell". Is that what we should aim our expectations then? Vanilla BG1? I thought we were going for "bg world, pst story, iwd combat"

I just played BG2 with SCS

No Spell Revisions?
I am playing it now (I'm close to final fight), and I can say if I open Edwin's spellbook no spell is truly useless, but most importantly, almost all spells are completely unique in their own right.

Also whole argument kinda stinks. With PoE they're going for levels 10-12, no more than 5-6 spell levels, not ballz to the wallz wail of banshee demiliches. And at those levels even vanilla BG2 does okay.

 

[Cadmus]

You see, this is what I don't like at all. I think that's pretty close the level scaling.

I agree. I don't think the control-argument is good either. But there's no reason a developer can't "level-scale" in this way by controlling combat XP just as he could with Quest XP. That's the whole point. The systems are not qualitatively different on this point. Both systems can be designed poorly and well in this way. However Combat XP incentivize players to solve their problems via combat, while Quest XP leaves the decision up to the player. That is the single, most important qualitative importance and IMO the only reason worthy of debate. On all other points mentioned in the XP debate, both Combat XP and Quest XP can be used for the same purposes. On those points it is merely a question of scale.

The one part where I accept the Combat XP argument is if you want to play the IE-games like I did when I was a child. Just go amok and kill everyone like you were playing Grand Theft Auto or something. I don't believe that's a niche that Sawyer and Obsidian has any real reason to cater to however. Yet you can still do this in PoE, you just don't get rewarded with progression rewards for doing it.

(plus, in lategame IE, the vast majority of your XP comes from Quest XP or path-critical kills anyway)

Well sure both the combat XP and quest XP can be appropriately manually scaled, but the bigger the game gets, the more opportunities to fuck with it with farming, accessing different areas and fighting the mobs he is good at fighting, the player gets and then can come back and overcome some challenges. Combat XP is much harder to scale when the game is big.

I'd say it's always bad, whatever.

even if it's just bosses which are level scaled to keep the challenge, and they aren't scaled in a retarded manner (as in hp bloat and dmg increase) but rather more abilities and different behavior/tactics required?

Yeah, I'd say even then. It really depends on the specific scenario of course, but if I feel I've killed everything everywhere and worked to make my char OP, I'm expecting and I want to bathe in glory, 1 hitting what's supposed to be a hard boss...for a little while at least. That's my reward, you know? Ideally, the boss should have something different about him, something that makes the battle fun and engaging and hard without scaling while still allowing you to retain your overleveled advantage. Even more ideally, after a while, the game should kick in some super hard enemies to make you happy you farmed that much and present a next level of challenge. I don't know how to do this, but that's my dream.

Basically, you should be able to become overpowered for a while, enjoy it and then go back to some challenge as the game progresses.The problem would be for the person hadnt farmed as much. Maybe he can fuck off and miss out on some content while still being able to finish the game.

 

[Grunker]

Combat XP is much harder to scale when the game is big.

Agreed, but unless your belief is that "good game design" is intentionally letting yourself lose control of what you're designing this point is moot. Good reward design is ackknowledging and rewarding players differently based on their levels of success and the amount of challenges they overcome. This can be done within both Combat and Quest XP models, but the latter is free from one of the issues the first one suffers from.

 

[Athelas]

I thought we were going for "bg world, pst story, iwd combat"

That was rather obvious marketing speak. The pitch also mentioned 'the memorable companions of Baldur's Gate', despite the lead designer of this game going on record about he despised said companions.

 

[Shadenuat]

I thought we were going for "bg world, pst story, iwd combat"

That was rather obvious marketing speak. The pitch also mentioned 'the memorable companions of Baldur's Gate', despite the lead designer of this game going on record about he despised said companions.

I missed on that one, whom did he hate in particular?

 

[Athelas]

I can't recall the quote, but I think it was all of them, lol.

 

[Infinitron]

I thought we were going for "bg world, pst story, iwd combat"

That was rather obvious marketing speak. The pitch also mentioned 'the memorable companions of Baldur's Gate', despite the lead designer of this game going on record about he despised said companions.

I missed on that one, whom did he hate in particular?

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/33006-will-bg3-be-at-e3/page-3#entry325501

He certainly found them "memorable" however.

 

[Shadenuat]

Maybe he hated NPCs more than companions, there are no companions in ToSC. So characters like Shandalar or rogue idiot giving you a tour into ancient evil tower of doom.
Or maybe Josh has a very peculiar sense of humor that only he and his gaming group understand, which is often a thing with DMs.
Hullo and welcome to your Elf homes, grognards

 

[Infinitron]

Maybe he hated NPCs more than companions, there are no companions in ToSC. So characters like Shandalar or rogue idiot giving you a tour into ancient evil tower of doom.

I think he meant ToB.

 

[Shadenuat]

Well, ToB had a lot of derpy NPCs compared to BG2 so it's understandable.

 

[Sensuki]

The BGs have a different atmosphere to the Black Isle games. You can hate on the BG companions if you like, but I have to ask, what better example was there that came before?

Josh seems to have a lot of "competitive" dislike of BioWare's stuff almost like he thinks he was competing against them or something ?

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I think he meant ToB.

He also mentioned the NPCs in his views on pre-ToB BG2:

I really disliked most of the CNPCs, I really disliked being forced to go find Imoen, I really disliked the style of dialogue, and I really disliked being flooded with a million quests by every shmoe on the streets of Athkatla. Basically, there wasn't a whole lot I did like about it.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/39...-in-fallouts-special-game-system/#entry526647

 

[Shadenuat]

Find Imoen! Hah! Said designer of fucking Icewind Dale 2.

 

[Infinitron]

what better example was there that came before?

Well, we could start talking about FO2 companions or go back to the early 90s to Betrayal at Krondor or whatever, but I don't see the point.

Josh just doesn't like the Baldur's Gate variety of generic fantasy campiness. Actually, he clearly doesn't much like generic fantasy in general, which is why he injects Darklands-esque "historical realism" type stuff wherever he can. (The Icewind Dale series had a bit of this too.)

 

[Sensuki]

That's what I meant about a different atmosphere. The BG's invoke the 80s/90s silly kind of fantasy a little bit, but not all of the time. I don't have a problem with that as not every game has to be gr1mdark em0 srs bsns+++ etc etc

 

[Grog]

ididntaskforthis.jpg

Nobody wanted the IE-games to be more like Starcraft II. Tactical decision-making and execution are fun, heavy micro isn't. If you disagree then I don't think you'll find the IE-games very fun, and consequently, you shouldn't be developing their spiritual successor.

My point is that microing the execution of your decisions was never a part of the IE-games in any huge capacity, and trying to make them a part of a similar game (NWN2) was a huge failure. The closest you get to this is guess-work AoE spells in the original IE-games, and Sawyer already called bullshit on that.

I have no desire to master micro. I have a desire to make sound decisions. At this speed, I can lower the difficulty and steamroll the game or raise the difficulty and be forced to tedious micro and spam-pausing. Trick-pausing to avoid engagement-attacks sound like some of the most contrived, tedious gameplay I can imagine.

I'm struggling to understand the speed criticisms. Can't you adjust the game speed? Are you saying it is too fast even at half speed? Would more, slower speed slider options help? Or is there some other fundamental problem that is unaffected by the speed settings?

 

[HiddenX]

So a designer who dislikes BG2 class & skill system, the CNPCs and a lot of the quests, a designer who favors classless Spiderweb games, such a designer is THE great hope for next big IE games successor?

 

[Athelas]

If those Bhaalspawn dreams with Imoen aren't grimdark emo business, I don't know what is.

 

[Grunker]

BG2 [...] skill system

wat

 

[Infinitron]

So a designer who dislikes BG2 class & skill system, the CNPCs and a lot of the quests, a designer who favors classless Spiderweb games, such a designer is THE great hope for next big IE games successor?

Just as he was back then!