Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Hormalakh]

The issue with your reasoning Bratislav is that different weapons cause different amounts of damage. So a lighter armor might make sense when fighting a mace-wielder whereas it probably wouldn't make much sense with a sword handler. The mace is always going to do a narrow range of damage, so putting on a heavy or light armor doesn't make much difference. So if you can increase your attack speed, you can increase your DPS while taking the same amount of damage in either case.

 

[Hormalakh]

If there's really no penalty to dexterity caused by heavy armor, and by extension no penalty to dodging hits, then that means that heavier armor can only improve your ability to dodge.

After all, dodging isn't something that can be "slowed down" by wearing heavy armor. Either you dodge or you don't dodge.

Unless, that is, they do something cool, like making dodging a "real time" event, that can only happen a set number of times per interval, depending on your armor's heaviness.

So if you're up against a lightly armored opponent, he may actually hit you too quickly for you to dodge all of his blows.


Not that we're aware of.

All I can say is "I don't know." Once again too little information to call it but at the same time several mechanics are finally starting to play against each other. And I think that's Josh's intent: he wants players to argue with each other on what is the "best" strategy and for there to be varying answers.

 

[suejak]

It ain't WOW without aggro Taunt mechanics are really what make WOW combat so straight-forward. The tank has the magical ability to convince a monster to fight him.

Here, the front-line fighters will have to block off monsters and impede their progress toward the back-lines. Like in IE games. I guess. All speculation.

 

[hiver]

After all, dodging isn't something that can be "slowed down" by wearing heavy armor. Either you dodge or you don't dodge.

Come again?

 

[Infinitron]

Now that I think about it, this is actually exciting news. A more realistic implementation of speed differences is something I'm not sure I've ever seen in a proper CRPG.

It always gets abstracted away as "initiative rolls" or something similarly weaksauce.

 

[Hormalakh]

Reconsidering what you've said Infinitron and knowing what we know now about dodges and glances, I think it would be interesting for there to be a slight change in dodges (lighter armor causes 1 point increase in absolute distance between hit and dodge or 1 decrease for higher armor) because while glancing blows are what occur most often, complete dodges bring in another factor to be considered.

So if you have glass thieves (low HP) fighting at the front, it might still be advantageous for them to wear light armor against sword-wielders because of the increased chance to dodge (completely negating any damage whatsoever).

 

[Roguey]

Will non-combat skills be restricted by class? I like to play warriors and characters good with diplomacy/speech/persuade skills. Few games let players do both at once and I was wondering if PE would be different.

They won't be class-restricted, but some classes will have more of an advantage with certain skills.

http://4ms.me/10cE6wd

So basically, some equivalent of D&D 3E's concept of class and cross-class skills. This is what I was expecting.

He doesn't want to copy 3E's way of handling crossclass skills. He's cited Pathfinder as an example of how he wants it to work; in that system a class skill gets a one-time +3 bonus the first time you sink a point into it. No half-points or skill ceilings that end up with some crossclass skills simply not worth putting points in.

 

[Infinitron]

Reconsidering what you've said Infinitron and knowing what we know now about dodges and glances, I think it would be interesting for there to be a slight change in dodges (lighter armor causes 1 point increase in absolute distance between hit and dodge or 1 decrease for higher armor) because while glancing blows are what occur most often, complete dodges bring in another factor to be considered.

So if you have glass thieves (low HP) fighting at the front, it might still be advantageous for them to wear light armor against sword-wielders because of the increased chance to dodge (completely negating any damage whatsoever).

Either increased chance to dodge, or increased SPEED of dodging, allowing more dodges to occur.

He doesn't want to copy 3E's way of handling crossclass skills. He's cited Pathfinder as an example of how he wants it to work; in that system a class skill gets a one-time +3 bonus the first time you sink a point into it. No half-points or skill ceilings that end up with some crossclass skills simply not worth putting points in.

That's why I said "equivalent". Not literally the same mechanic.

 

[Hormalakh]

Either increased chance to dodge, or increased SPEED of dodging, allowing more dodges to occur.

Interesting. Although I think "dodging speed" would ultimately be based on the enemy's attack speed wouldn't it? If the enemy attacks and can bypass the armor class, they hit (you don't dodge) or glance or miss (you dodge). How could dodge speed increase in this instance unless the enemy's attack speed also increased?

 

[tuluse]

Either increased chance to dodge, or increased SPEED of dodging, allowing more dodges to occur.

Interesting. Although I think "dodging speed" would ultimately be based on the enemy's attack speed wouldn't it? If the enemy attacks and can bypass the armor class, they hit (you don't dodge) or glance or miss (you dodge). How could dodge speed increase in this instance unless the enemy's attack speed also increased?

Having a max dodge speed higher than your enemies attacks speed won't help, but imagine if your max dodge speed is lower.

 

[Infinitron]

Either increased chance to dodge, or increased SPEED of dodging, allowing more dodges to occur.

Interesting. Although I think "dodging speed" would ultimately be based on the enemy's attack speed wouldn't it? If the enemy attacks and can bypass the armor class, they hit (you don't dodge) or glance or miss (you dodge). How could dodge speed increase in this instance unless the enemy's attack speed also increased?

Having a max dodge speed higher than your enemies attacks speed won't help, but imagine if your max dodge speed is lower.

Exactly. What I'm saying is, taking the whole "speed of actions" thing to its ultimate conclusion, there's no reason to treat dodging differently from any other action. Let it also be an action that takes time and is subject to speed penalties, like attacking or casting a spell, not just a binary check that takes place behind the scenes with a cosmetic animation attached to it.

 

[Hormalakh]

No what I mean to say is that I don't believe there is such a thing as a "dodge speed" at all in Project Eternity (can you provide me a souce for it?). Dodging is ultimately another word for the enemy missing a blow completely.

Since dodges are (at the moment) not at all determined by armor but rather "other attributes" (I don't know what these are), I think a slight influence on dodges due to armor might be interesting/fun.

Exactly. What I'm saying is, taking the whole "speed of actions" thing to its ultimate conclusion, there's no reason to treat dodging differently from any other action. Let it also be an action that takes time and is subject to speed penalties, like attacking or casting a spell, not just a binary check that takes place behind the scenes with a cosmetic animation attached to it.

So then we wouldn't have counterattacks? Yours is an interesting idea, but there's still so little we know about how he's implementing this.

 

[Infinitron]

No what I mean to say is that I don't believe there is such a thing as a "dodge speed" at all in Project Eternity (can you provide me a souce for it?).

I didn't say there was. This is an idea of mine. I've asked Josh to take a look at it and tell us what he thinks.

Dodging is ultimately another word for the enemy missing a blow completely.

It doesn't have to be that simple. For example, I think NWN1 actually had a hard cap on the amount of attacks you could dodge per round, and with too many dodges you actually didn't have time to attack in the same round.

That's kind of a cruder implementation of the same idea (though the cap was not affected by armor or stats in any way, it was a purely technical thing)

 

[Hormalakh]

I understand now. Very interesting idea. We'll see what/if he says.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I wonder why he is so insistent on there not being a movement penalty. It seems like a good way to make it less of a straightforward numbers calculation - heavy armor would be more useful in defending a position, but make it a bit harder to go on the offensive or send someone back to take the heat off of a mage.

It would be kind of annoying during exploration to always have to wait for your full-plate fighter to do the snowsuit waddle and catch up, but you could always have the penalty just kick in in combat.

 

[Infinitron]

I wonder why he is so insistent on there not being a movement penalty.

It's probably too prone to abuse (kiting)

 

[Hormalakh]

It doesn't really provide much of a challenge either. If you tank just stands in one spot and takes all the incoming blows, he doesn't have to move much. Your more agile players probably don't aggro the enemy anyway and so the movement penalty is really not much of a limitation.

E: Unless of course, if you are fighting ranged enemies/mages. Then I guess you'd just have your faster members lock them down. Computer AI isn't really good at kiting you anyway.

 

[tuluse]

Different move speeds would be fucking annoying when not in combat. Could you imagine walking through the Nashkel Mines with the characters moving at 3 different speeds?

 

[Hormalakh]

Yeah it always sucked when I wore boots of speed in BG: I usually gave them to the guys who needed it in combat, but then when I was moving my characters across the map, the wizard and rogues would inevitably get there first (and have to face enemies alone), so it was fairly annoying to get that to work out right.

 

[sea]

Different move speeds would be fucking annoying when not in combat. Could you imagine walking through the Nashkel Mines with the characters moving at 3 different speeds?

You could have the limitation apply only in combat. I mean, duh.

I think that differential walking speeds are only really important to games where movement is a huge concern (I don't think it is in a real-time-with-pause title). However, what could be more relevant to a game of this sort is to have differential attack speed based on armor equipped. This could extend to item use - if you are going round-based, have drinking a potion take longer when in heavy armor vs. light armor.

 

[Infinitron]

However, what could be more relevant to a game of this sort is to have differential attack speed based on armor equipped. This could extend to item use - if you are going round-based, have drinking a potion take longer when in heavy armor vs. light armor.

Read the thread, sea. That's what's in.

 

[tuluse]

if you are going round-based, have drinking a potion take longer when in heavy armor vs. light armor.

Why do you need rounds to make things take different amounts of time?

 

[sea]

Why do you need rounds to make things take different amounts of time?

You don't, you can probably balance it more precisely though, and it's easier to explain rule-wise.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

It doesn't really provide much of a challenge either. If you tank just stands in one spot and takes all the incoming blows, he doesn't have to move much. Your more agile players probably don't aggro the enemy anyway and so the movement penalty is really not much of a limitation.

E: Unless of course, if you are fighting ranged enemies/mages. Then I guess you'd just have your faster members lock them down. Computer AI isn't really good at kiting you anyway.

But even just needing to lock down archers and mages provides a reason to choose between fast and slow melee people when building a party. In IE games (and DND generally) light armor melee characters were just classes that couldn't wear armor. Even if you have an armor check penalty, the classes with Dex high enough for it to matter generally wouldn't be wearing heavy armor anyway.

I don't think it needs to add a huge amount of challenge on its own (I was imagining it used in conjunction with the slower attack speed), it just needs to provide enough of a disadvantage to be worth taking into account. And that would really depend on the AI and encounter design making positioning important.

Different move speeds would be fucking annoying when not in combat. Could you imagine walking through the Nashkel Mines with the characters moving at 3 different speeds?

Definitely. Which is why I actually suggested having the penalty only kick in in combat. Or you could have moving in formation automatically lock everyone to the speed of the slowest member.

 

[Hormalakh]

Harg Harfardarssen but like I said, computer AI generally sucks at kiting you well enough for this to be a major concern. The player's ability to outmaneuver the computer (and utilize movement effectively) outweighs the computer's to do so. It's not a fair fight.