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

Not for quite some time now. Remember that they only just released a little demo video of a part of a single level. We won't see a gameplay-video like WL2 just showed for months.

 

Fucking hell I hate the waiting game and I don't even have hungry hungry hippos!!!!

 

That's too specific. All melee attacks in Expeditions: Conquistador hit, though it's turn-based. Reliable authorities claim it's quite tactical and challenging.

 

FFXII was essentially RTwP and you basically never missed unless the enemy had insane stats or something special was needed to kill it. Missing in FF games is generally pretty rare.

 

Yeah, pretty much.

Fergie is giving Sawyer a chance to try and make the mechanics himself. Sawyer will of course fail miserably, but that doesn't mean it can't be fixed by some true bros before the game is released.

So, are the fire elementals not immune to fire in PE?

 

http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/418437913374644691

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63091-josh-sawyer-on-miss-and-hit/?view=findpost&p=1301432

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63...-armor-and-a-tileset/?view=findpost&p=1306455

 

Every time I read those quotes I feel like raging.

Sawyer's philosphy on good combat appears to be: "I will give you 3 choices. The first is bad and you lose A and B. The second wins but you lose A. The third wins but you lose B." So in the end, I have to choose whether I want to lose A or B. Choices that matter are good, but they don't leave much room for creating thinking.

My own philosophy would be: First let's make the setting and define the fantasy rules by which this world operates. Than implement those rules into the game as thorough as possible. At this point, the player has a lot of tools (pieces) that he has to combine together in order to produce solutions to challenges that I throw at him.
My job is not to SCRIPT solutions for the player to choose, my job is to SCRIPT the world as organic as possible so that he finds his own solutions.

 

June, I imagine.

 

That's not too bad...

 

Meh, I've never been a fan of the whole 'ultra-balanced' combat stuff. I prefer when it's fun. Sometimes it's fun to win a close and balanced match fairly, true, but many times it's much more fun to find a cheap way of winning the fight easily. It allows for rewarding and creative problem-solving.

If I am to kill a guy, I don't call him out and wait until he can equip a weapon and meet me in a fair fight. I lure him into a trap, take a shot at him from afar, or stab him when he's not expecting it. Balance never enters into it. Like firing off 5 skull traps in BG2, then aggroing a bunch of idiots and having them run straight into them and dying instantly. It's cheap and it's decidedly not balanced, but it's fun. This way you can also add encounters that the player *can't* win while fighting fairly, and so force him to think creatively.

 

As evilavatar says Avalanche Studios is rumored to be doing a Mad Max game.

 

Anyone need more proof about 2013 newfags being retards?

 

Fuck off and die. And take Jaesun with you.

Edit: I mean - can you be more specific ? I need specifics.

 

How did you manage to extract that from those quotes?

Edit: specifically?

 

Specifically ? Well...specifically my mind instantaneously corroborated the info with some other older quotes of Sawyer which led specifically to my conclusion.

But specifically Roguey could fill us in and specifically disprove of my assertion. Specifically.

 

Completely agree. Depends on who you are fighting though. Finding a cheap way to win against that boss who is intended to be a challenge, I don't know. Maybe on a second playthrough when more understanding and Player skill is accounted for (Demon Souls & Dark Souls, Players become better the more they play, "muscle" memory).

It can be super fun to win against that enemy that just feels intimidating and is intimidating, and you're on your knees, the dice rolls in the logs say "You missed" and "Enemy missed", you have a feeling that there's just 1 more hit that you need to get and if the enemy hits you you are dead. Then you get the favorable dice roll, and you win the fight with 1 hp left. Impossible to design, because that can happen against a mob of bandits (early game) just as much as it can happen against a difficult boss (mid to late-game). Depends very much on the situation and on attention from the Player.

Some battles I can engage and I'm being careless, because I'm shrugging it off as something easy, then I find myself in a bad situation. And with that said:

Sawyer has said he wants to design something that requires the Player to pay attention. So even if you can win using several different methods, that doesn't mean it will be "easier". See my post with the 3 quotes on Page 612 of this thread for the specifics.

 

The miss mechanic was shit to begin with (as is that thread you linked btw), but it "felt" okay at the time because it was the best way to standardize damage at the time. Critical misses should exist though, i can agree with that much.


Edit: I don't get how people can think mage battles lasted for ages in BG2 when you could simply get an inquisitor with you and spam dispel to turn pretty much every mage fight into something trivial that would last 5 seconds.

I liked how the buff/debuff interaction went in BG2 as a layered stuff, with more powerful buffs requiring more powerful debuffs (a no-brainer) and certain debuffs only working on certain buffs, etc. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing the same layered interaction with different spells for different buff/debuff levels and some variety in what debuff can kill what buff.

Trying to work the fighting system around the way that you have to have a mage (or a debuffer) is a dumb idea imo since mages ARE buff-reliant to stay alive in fights, but giving some debuffs to non-mage classes could rectify that.

 

Theoretically/Presumably thus far, the hit/miss mechanic in P:E looks like something like this:

- Critical Miss
- Graze
- Hit
- Critical Hit

It is still a "no miss mechanic", as originally presented by Sawyer. In short: When you "Miss" an enemy, it would equal a "Critical Miss".

 

Thanx for your answer, that's exactly how I feel.
Mages in BG2 are awesome, and with SCS2 they're beyond that.
Just when you think you've finally beaten them, a Spell Trigger fires and you're screaming for help again. Things *my* mages used to do in my previous walkthroughs...
This alone proves that they work the way mages are meant too, and it's pure brilliance.

Well, we'll always have modded BG2 at least.
I guess the lightning won't strike twice.

 

Regen/Cooldowns have their places in some games. Not all games must be done the same way after all, and actionrpg or even dungeon crawlers like Might&Magic can benefit from those.

However, us retards were responding to "this is like DA:O". Pointing out the differences IS responding to the question, and shiftign the goalpost doesn't change that.

 

People justify Project: Eternity.

Honestly, in my personal opinion (if 1 turn is 10 seconds):
P:E with cooldowns? Sure, heck, why not. Can be done. Casting is instant, 30 second cooldown. "Hey, that's like League of Legends!"
P:E without cooldowns? Sure, heck, why not. Can be done. Channeling the spell takes 3 turns, then it casts instantly. "Hey, that's like Baldur's Gate!"

As for Memorizing spells by resting; some spells might have it, some might not, some spells might be "Once a day" as well, some spells might require ritualistic means (mediums).

This is what I think it'll somewhat look like in the finished product:
- Low-Level spells when Low-Level Wizard, tactical.
- Low-Level spells when Mid-Level Wizard, "Pew pew" (can burn out)
- Low-Level spells when High-Level Wizard, "Pew pew pew pew" (near infinite/rarely burns out in a short fight)

- Mid-Level spells when Low-Level Wizard, very tactical
- Mid-Level spells when Mid-Level Wizard, tactical
- Mid-Level spells when High-Level Wizard, "Pew pew" (can burn out)

- High-Level spells when Low-Level Wizard, very very tactical (if even available. Most likely "Can't use these yet")
- High-Level spells when Mid-Level Wizard, very tactical
- High-Level spells when High-Level Wizard, tactical

- Epic- or Legendary-Level Spells when High-Level Wizard, very very very tactical/once a day/rituals required

"Left" or "Right", what does it matter? What's important (in my opinion) is to have a consistent, intelligent, entertaining, tactical & challenging system.

On cooldowns: So if P:E would have, against all odds, simply the word "Cooldown" anywhere in the game (in a serious "in mechanics" type of way) I think some people would rage-quit the game, run to the Codex and be retarded brofist hunters and possibly say something like: "GASP! The word cooldown is in the game! It must be bad!"*.

* Subject to change.