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

I read this thread and all i can think of is Saywer riding Tim Cain around the Obsidian offices like a Pony wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and expounding on the virtues of well balanced game design.

 

I don't get why cooldowns are so objectionable and make it WOW like, at least the way they described them. The cooldowns were more between combat encounters, which makes sense because in most IE games you try to find a way to rest to get back your spells after every battle which can lead to a lot of tedious backtracking between battles. The cooldown system would cut down on the tedium of the game. I probably spent hours in every IE game just finding places to rest/resting just so I could get spells back. Done properly, it won't the game easier, just less tedious than IE games.

 

Best way for Obsidian to implement resting in a IE-like game is the using the mechanics of SoZ, which they already know how it works. Since, you know, they made the game.

 

What you're saying that a peasant PC shouldn't be able to kill a knight with pitchfork because of player's skill or metagame knowledge. I agree.

What I actually meant though is that player's actions should be required for any sort of success in melee combat. If PC knight meets enemy NPC knight, equal stats and gear, and player doesn't use his skills properly - he should lose the fight. Moreover, PC should get his ass handed to him by NPCs under his level/stats/gear if he fails to act properly. Melee combat should require constant activity from player to work. That's what I mean when I talk about a game that plays itself - you can basically select a target and go make a coffee, your job is done because all you actually need to do is to gain and distribute properly stats and acquire sufficent gear. That's passive and utterly boring. I want to be actively involved in the fight that's going on, not to stand and watch random dice rolls. Gaining stats and building a character is like preparing a meal, I do it because I want to eat it later, I don't want the game to eat it itself with me watching.

Tldr: RPG needs player's success to be dependant both on his combat activity and preparation, and failing in either should result in a general failure.

 

SoZ didn't fix anything, though the actual areas themselves were so small that you could clear them out in their entirety before ever needing to rest. The final dungeon was an exception, but there was nothing stopping you from just going outside and resting instead of using an alarm stone.

 

SoZ fixed resting anywhere in the dungeon.

 

As I said, that's pointless. You can literally just take a few seconds to walk outside if you absolutely have to. With longer dungeons that could be minutes. Josh has observed people backtracking to safe rest spots if that's what it takes. Having every or nearly ever combat area lock the entrance on you would be contrived.

 

It's not pointless to me. Resting in the dungeon was incredibly stupid. At least, I can rationalize leaving and resting outside. It would work even better with time limit and resource-eating mechanics.

Edit: And risk of random attacks while resting outside!

 

Chaos Chronicles handles this better in my opinion.

 

Is that out yet?

Also I wish games came with manuals; then we could have 300 spells again, like in Baldur's Gate 1. One of my favorite late childhood memories is reading the (thick as hell) BG 1 TotSC manual. Elminster even commented on some spells. I loved that. I loved how rustic it all was, and how each spell did something neat. Why can't being a wizard be fun anymore? I hate just blowing things up... I want lots of different spells, hundreds of them, multiple hundreds. I want the freedom to pick whichever I like, even if they might be sub-par. I want entertaining spells that enable different approaches to every situation.

I miss video games.

 

Nope. I think October 2013 was the last mentioned dat.

 

I still have the BGTotSC manual laying on the loo, it's always a nice read.

 

One doesn't need a manual to have a lot of spells since you can and should present all information in the game itself. There were also 104 spells in BG1 (plus 17 with the expansion), not 300. They needed a sequel to push 300. Anyway, the actual number doesn't mean anything. Neverwinter Nights 2 has over 400.

 

Best would be to have dungeons that is not static. If a player rest in it or if a player leaves, then something should happen. Monsters should repopulate it, evil wizard at the end should take his treasure horde and leave and things like that.
As it is you can clear out 90% in the Goblin kings cave, leave and then come back 2 months later with the King and his retinue still waiting for you in the throne room.

Solutions:
- Make dungeons react to player invasion and absence.
- Make ambushes while resting a real danger (have most in the party sleeping)
- Put in some kind of timelimits.

 

I don't know, bros, it's hard to get excited over P:E. Despite a great deal of design points that I like - quite a few which are, in my mind, the most effective way to do this kind of game - it's still the disillusionment over the changes in design and end product of the last Obsidian game I was interested in that drove me onto the Kodex. I'm not sure if there's any deeper pit than here when P:E inevitably turns to shit after constant dumbing down and retreating from the original aims.


Doing the basics well is the most important thing.

 

Good point about NWN 2, the spellcasting in it was terribly unexciting.

 

This was proposed during the original discussion and Josh says doing it is the equivalent of designing each area 1.5 times. Not going to happen because people prefer more content.

Not much of a problem if you're resting after every fight or just backtracking to safe areas to rest.

Hardly anyone likes time limits in RPGs and it'd be contrived to have one attached to every single combat area.

 

The time-limits was not something for all dungeons, just when it makes sense.

- Have the residents of the dungeon die of old age after some time.

 

Yeah, no. You couldn't rest outside in SoZ i am pretty sure, so quite often you needed to run back to a city with half your party dead and praying that you didn't get noticed by rampaging monsters around. That was cool.

 

You could totally rest outside, I did it all the freaking time. Never got interrupted once. The camp routine/improved camp routine feats were kinda pointless except as more locations to tell Volo and the group trance feat was definitely pointless since it didn't even do that.

 

I was interrupted several times and sometimes ended in TPK. I say it was a great improvement over OC and MotB.

 

All this door discussion makes me want to bash something. Anyway, it is reassuring that MCA is excited with the world and lore, it seems that more exotic locales are being put in the game. And he seems to be pretty busy right now to follow the huge inflow of projects coming to Kickstarter. Glad that he mentioned Shadowgate which I also backed, hope that game turns out ok.