Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[rusty_shackleford]

Sawyer looked at KotC, and decided that would be too punishing

And he's right.
There's a fine line companies like Obsidian need to walk to please both grognards and normies.

 

[Desiderius]

Sawyer looked at KotC, and decided that would be too punishing

And he's right.
There's a fine line companies like Obsidian need to walk to please both grognards and normies.

He says in the “Sawyer recognizes he was wrong” thread.

You know who appealed to both Grognards and normies? Shakespeare. He didn’t dumb shit down and go all austere and minimalist. Quite the opposite.

Sawyer doesn't think this kind of gameplay experience is worth preserving though for reasons already gone over.

And Sawyer’s wrong.

It’s the whole point of the thread.

 

[Roguey]

And Sawyer’s wrong.

It’s the whole point of the thread.

If one looks to Divinity: Original Sin, the most successful new crpgs by far, on how to do things, the key is to technically allow it but make durations so short that one shouldn't even bother (which isn't so different from PoE really) http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=512405 https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOr..._to_efficiently_buff_pre_combat_in_dos_2_and/

 

[Shadenuat]

i watched a player repeatedly die in the same spot performing the same series of actions over and over again

Players have been conditioned that if they retry they will win, regardless of their actions.

And if you can re-load 15 times and win that would just reinforce their belief that it is all RNG.
Which is why if player uses wrong tactic, they shouldn't be able to win even after 99 tries.
Preferably their deaths should also be as swift, cruel and horrible as possible.

Dark Souls was very good at this.

 

[Daidre]

Players have been conditioned that if they retry they will win, regardless of their actions.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (Albert Einstein).

But I'd also attributed it to stupidity.

 

[Desiderius]

Players have been conditioned that if they retry they will win, regardless of their actions.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (Albert Einstein).

But I'd also attributed it to stupidity.

People learn what they want to learn. Even the stupid ones, they're just slower to get there. If the payoff is right they'll get there, some faster than others.

 

[Roguey]

It's one of two or three pointlessly annoying things in what is otherwise a great game, D:OS. Main reason I made it halfway through instead of all the way on both I and II. That and the other obvious kludge: taking turns regardless of initiative.

If you don't like a mechanic, fix it or leave it out, don't gimp it to oblivion because you're too much of a Helicopter Dev to let a player fail. If it's a great game players will take the time and effort to figure shit out. If they're not, it's because your game sucks, not the players.

My experience with D:OS is that buffs were really good to use, as long as they were cast during combat.

 

[Desiderius]

You're reading a teacher who's heard a lifetime of excuses from bad teachers. They sound just like Sawyer via Roguey.

It’s the TfA disease.

 

[Daidre]

Spawning random enemies that worth some decent xp usually works for me. Adding hidden checks that party is more likely to be ambushed when it is wounded and out of spells could be a nice twist on top of it.

I'd rather tie the ambush part to skills (nature) + stealth.

Skills like nature + stealth are for visible modifiers.

 

[Atchodas]

Fully voiced dialogue would be nice.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

After thinking about this very important shit really hard I've come to the conclusion that the only way to go is to ignore the problem. Have unrestricted resting. If players want to rest-spam, let them rest-spam. If players don't want to rest-spam, more power to them. Any attempt to solve it will do nothing at best, or make the game actively worse at worst.

IF punishing rest spam is too harsh, you could still reward players who don't rest spam.
For example give more XP the quicker you finish a dungeon or more treasure.

Knights of the Chalice let you only rest in specific spots, and it worked fine.

But with one exception you could rest as often as you wanted at those campfires, defeating the purpose of limiting resting in the first place.

 

[Prime Junta]

IF punishing rest spam is too harsh, you could still reward players who don't rest spam.
For example give more XP the quicker you finish a dungeon or more treasure.

I like this idea.

 

[biggestboss]

https://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=9602

Implementation in Frayed Knights 1:

TLDR: A system like Fate Points from Arcanum, except you lose them all if you ever manually reload a save. This both accommodates save scummers and rewards those that don't do it.

 

[Desolate Dancer]

But with one exception you could rest as often as you wanted at those campfires, defeating the purpose of limiting resting in the first place.

How difficult would it be to make such campsites only usable once per game, or the very least, only usable once-per-entry to the area? Same goes for reinforced rooms in dungeons.

 

[Lacrymas]

IF punishing rest spam is too harsh, you could still reward players who don't rest spam.
For example give more XP the quicker you finish a dungeon or more treasure.

I like this idea.

It sounds game-y, though, especially if there's a timer running somewhere. It depends on how they go about doing it, the first thing that comes to my mind is someone could start a fire and parts of the dungeon are progressively engulfed in flames, i.e. you can't loot the things in there.

How difficult would it be to make such campsites only usable once per game, or the very least, only usable once-per-entry to the area? Same goes for reinforced rooms in dungeons.

Swordflight had a very tense moment in a dungeon where you were only allowed to rest once, a ghost protected you from the other wandering undead in the area while you sleep.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

PoE2 actually discourages resting at all because you lose your per-rest buffs which you can stack a stupid amount of

 

[Atchodas]

IF punishing rest spam is too harsh, you could still reward players who don't rest spam.
For example give more XP the quicker you finish a dungeon or more treasure

They should just limit resting on higher difficulties and let it be spammed infinitely on easy, simple solution that pleases everyone.

 

[Atchodas]

PoE2 actually discourages resting at all because you lose your per-rest buffs which you can stack a stupid amount of

PoE2 also "force rest" you on numerous occasions when you least expect it thus removing the buffs

 

[Butter]

Fallout 4 Survival did it best. You get stronger the longer you go without resting.

 

[Desiderius]

IF punishing rest spam is too harsh, you could still reward players who don't rest spam.
For example give more XP the quicker you finish a dungeon or more treasure.

This is in fact what P:K does.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

But with one exception you could rest as often as you wanted at those campfires, defeating the purpose of limiting resting in the first place.

How difficult would it be to make such campsites only usable once per game, or the very least, only usable once-per-entry to the area? Same goes for reinforced rooms in dungeons.

Wouldn't be difficult, as I said, one campfire (in the Undead tower) in KotC was like that.

The NWN2 mod Subtlety of Thay had a rest system similar to what others itt suggested, every once in a while inside a dungeon you would clear a room of monsters and the game would give you a message "This room looks safe for rest", then you could rest there - once.
In the city you had to rest at the inn.

 

[Desolate Dancer]

Swordflight had a very tense moment in a dungeon where you were only allowed to rest once, a ghost protected you from the other wandering undead in the area while you sleep.

I still wouldn't go as far as to make a unique scripted story at every such locations. I'm simply advocating for specific resting locations and an adjustable rest control in the options menu (at least 7 settings between infinite rest and only rest at inns). e.g. a dungeon with 3 levels should have 1 such resting location halfway thru, that you may only use once or more, depending on your setting

 

[Desolate Dancer]

The NWN2 mod Subtlety of Thay had a rest system similar to what others itt suggested, every once in a while inside a dungeon you would clear a room of monsters and the game would give you a message "This room looks safe for rest", then you could rest there - once.
In the city you had to rest at the inn.

Perfect, that's just the same thing I had in mind. I never played with that mod tho.

 

[Desiderius]

Likewise, if you're afraid players won't try new tactics have a fairy godmother/Elminster show up to walk players through the process if they wipe early, including how to use the combat log to see what difference prebuffs make/attacking weak saves and the like.

Or you could start out with different prebuffs on for different battles during the tutorial area then show the player how/when to apply them when needed once they hit the main game.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Queen's Wish kind of solved this issue. You have to complete a dungeon in one run and can't leave or else enemies respawn. You have to clear the dungeon in one go, utilizing resource management and making sure you are prepared and ready to go the first time you try it. I'm fine with a mechanic like that, you don't need to rest and you get rewarded for completing a dungeon in one go.