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

[Space Satan]

s1nus asked: I can't help but wonder, since it's not likely that character models in PE will have separately animated heads (i.e. looking at player char), and since you seem to like frog helmets so much (they indeed look awesome)... Can we hope for kickass looking dudes/dudettes like Dragoon from Tactics Ogre appear in the game?

Characters do have animated heads and necks, but not animated faces. We will have some more outlandish helmets and some might even look like frog helms, but they wouldn’t be bolted to the armor.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Sensuki, do you know if classes will affect character's appearance? It's not a big deal but it would make differentiating between your chars easier, especially considering that every class can wear every armor & use every weapon.

 

[Sensuki]

No I don't believe so. Race, character styling (on creation) and gear will.

That is actually an interesting point because that was something that made the IE char models stand out from one another, whereas it is absent from PE at the moment. I think this does lead to the PE models looking more samey than the IE ones.

It would also be nice if some codexers filled out that questionnaire. If you want your voice to be heard regarding PE design you unfortunately have to post elsewhere. I would like a good attribute system for the game rather than another mediocre one, so if you don't NEED 6 attributes or NEED an attribute governing inventory or whatever, letting Josh know might help alter his fixation for it.

I've seen him react to pretty minor stuff. One guy on the Obsidian forums QQ'ed about Paladin's not having a Smite ability - so a smite ability was added.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

From what I read about char customization (on wiki) you could change skin color, hair, clothing color and similar stuff but put on a helmet and a similar armor type (say some sort of light leather armor) and you can barely differentiate between your barbarian and rogue if they're the same race (obviously if barb is aumaua and rogue is orlan it's a different matter). Maybe having weight and height system(different races wold have different limits obviously) like TOEE did (IIRC, it's been years since I played it)?

As I said it's not a big deal but it makes for a more smoother gameplay if you can easily differentiate between your chars.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah this was brought up when Josh's GDC presentation slides were made available and he thought that the reason why PE characters were harder to differentiate is because any character can use any gear, whereas the IE games had gear limitations, so it was easier to tell.

But yeah I do think that something could be done to add a bit of differentiation ... but they're in production now so I'm not sure if that's possible or not. It's a shame we never saw characters until right at the end of the prototype, and even then it wasn't close up.

 

[Sensuki]

Some Quotes. Josh must be bored on the holidays.

Arcane Veil is an instant-use 1/encounter wizard ability that bumps up the wizard's Deflection by a huge amount for about 10 seconds. It's typically used in two circumstances: 1) the fight is starting and arrows/quarrels/spell missiles are flying 2) melee marauders are on you and you need to hold your ground or desperately try to disengage.

Guns do ignore the Deflection bonus provided by AV, but their primary usefulness comes from their good armor penetration and their potential for big damage. Follow-up shots take a long time, so in some battles, that weapon set is only useful for the initial volley and then characters have to rely on their other set(s) for whatever they need. The other problem with all guns is that they have small but significant Accuracy penalties.

Yes. All paladins are extremely devoted to one cause or organization. Some of these organizations are religious, like the Fellows of St. Waidwen Martyr (Eothasian). Others are political, like the Brotherhood of the Five Suns (Vailian Republics). Some are just extremely devoted to a rigid way of living/working/existing, like the Goldpact Knights (essentially mercenary paladins). Paladins gain their powers from their extraordinary devotion, regardless of what their particular cause may be. Priests tend to be more philosophical, introspective, and nuanced in how they think about/approach things. Paladins don't generally heavily emphasize self-sacrifice for its own sake, but much more than priests, paladins believe that "the cause" is more important than they are -- though they often disagree with how to best help their causes.

On Crossbows

They're pretty much an intermediate between the two, yeah. Regular crossbows are slower to reload/fire than hunting bows or war bows but they do more damage and have better penetration. Arbalests are slower than regular crossbows but faster than guns and have a commensurate increase in damage and penetration over a crossbow. The main difference between the two is that standard crossbows can be cocked by hand and arbalests need to be planted and cranked.

This is not entirely historically accurate, but it gives them a good intermediate position.

On special ammo types

We're trying to avoid going nuts with special ammo types but we haven't designed them yet.

On Wizard + Ranged Paladin combo

Can wizards and whatnot make use of a paladin's passive buffs? If so, arming one with a firearm and putting him/her in the rear with the squishies might have some benefit.

This can be extremely beneficial/a good idea depending on party composition, the paladin's auras, and the circumstances of the battle (enemies + environment).

Modding area maps

No, no tilesets in the typical sense of the term. Our artists have asset libraries they can recombine in a variety of ways, but they are not grid-based tilesets and they exist entirely in Maya.

The 3D levels are not used to directly generate the collision geometry. That (and the walk mesh) are created separately.

On Save scumming / firearms

Might this encourage some players to reload immediately after a failed gunshot at the start of a combat? The same can be said about powerful soul abilities but considering the failure rate and possible rare ammo usage...

It could, but gunshots aren't that powerful. In general, single attacks from any source are not so gnarly that your entire combat success would hinge on them.

 

[Roguey]

greg kasavin is cool

i will always remember his review of icewind dale 2 because he did the entire review holding two swords that were resting on his shoulders + crossed behind him.

I checked out the text review, it wasn't as in-depth as mine. It was also a bit too positive and glossed over the obnoxious content that exists in nearly every chapter. Too bad I have no sword gimmick.

 

[Grunker]

feeling a bit scorned by the idol eh

 

[Sensuki]

Buy a mace Roguey and you will have infinite credibility with your one tr00 love.

 

[Space Satan]

The other problem with all guns is that they have small but significant Accuracy penalties.

wat

 

[sea]

The other problem with all guns is that they have small but significant Accuracy penalties.

wat

Early firearms were not especially accurate, even next to bows and crossbows, because we hadn't developed rifling yet to stabilize the projectile's trajectory. My guess is they are going the flintlock or hand cannon route with their guns, and also want to balance their high damage with lower accuracy. Makes sense to me.

 

[Sensuki]

I've heard mention of Wheellock and Matchlock ... not sure whether it's both or it was once one, but now the other.

 

[imweasel]

Prof. Dr. Dr. Draq, thank you for your brief and succinct post on whatever the fuck you were writing about.

Joined:
Jan 7, 2013
Go back to your fully voiced deRPGs.

FYI, I was trying to tell you to be brief and not write walls of text.

Oh yeah, go back to your fully voiced Bethtard RPGs.

 

[Lhynn]

edit: what got Lhynn butthurt enough to sig-quote the opposite of what I actually said in the thac0 discussion?

you seldom say something stupid, the link to the conversation is there, you ofc edited out the stupid thing and i just quoted it out of context for added stupidity.

 

[Delterius]

fully voiced Bethtard RPGs.

That was targetted at the morrowind junkie. So... huehuehue

 

[Aeschylus]

The other problem with all guns is that they have small but significant Accuracy penalties.

wat

Early firearms were not especially accurate, even next to bows and crossbows, because we hadn't developed rifling yet to stabilize the projectile's trajectory. My guess is they are going the flintlock or hand cannon route with their guns, and also want to balance their high damage with lower accuracy. Makes sense to me.

Proper barrel rifling has been in existence since the 16th century, nearly since the dawn of the proper firearm -- it was just a very expensive process so only the highest quality (i.e. most expensive) pistols would have it.

 

[Wulfstand]

How the fuck does this game have more pages than W2+D:OS+ M&MX, all three of them having playable versions?

 

[Zed]

How the fuck does this game have more pages than W2+D:OS+ M&MX, all three of them having playable versions?

because this is a game designed by the three best non-retired CRPG designers in the biz?

 

[Infinitron]

How the fuck does this game have more pages than W2+D:OS+ M&MX, all three of them having playable versions?

 

[Delterius]

The other problem with all guns is that they have small but significant Accuracy penalties.

wat

Early firearms were not especially accurate, even next to bows and crossbows, because we hadn't developed rifling yet to stabilize the projectile's trajectory. My guess is they are going the flintlock or hand cannon route with their guns, and also want to balance their high damage with lower accuracy. Makes sense to me.

Proper barrel rifling has been in existence since the 16th century, nearly since the dawn of the proper firearm -- it was just a very expensive process so only the highest quality (i.e. most expensive) pistols would have it.

Well, he did say 'handcannone' so maybe we are meant to think in early 15th terms.

How the fuck does this game have more pages than W2+D:OS+ M&MX, all three of them having playable versions?

This thread has more posts precisely because there's no playable version. With Sawyer at the helm no less. So there's a combination of infamy and heavy speculation about every little thing.

 

[DefJam101]

It also receives a meaty Rogueybump every few hours whereas the other threads survive mostly on development updates

 

[coffeetable]

How the fuck does this game have more pages than W2+D:OS+ M&MX, all three of them having playable versions?

'spergs gotta 'sperg.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Man I remember once I argued something about how I could lift a typical longsword with one hand and so buffer dudes could easily use it as a one-handed weapon and some guy kept quoting old timey Italian sword fighting technique books from the 17th century or some shit about how longswords are actually two handed weapons and games/movies misrepresent it as a one handed weapon and I thought "whoaw man am I too nerdy to get poon or what" just for being in that argument... and now I read this shit.

It's because the one handed "longswords" from games are arming swords.

 

[Murk]

That's what the other dudebro said; but then I wasn't really talking about the ones in the games. Still, I'm not a medieval arms expert so... yeah, probably.

 

[Grunker]

edit: what got Lhynn butthurt enough to sig-quote the opposite of what I actually said in the thac0 discussion?

you seldom say something stupid, the link to the conversation is there, you ofc edited out the stupid thing and i just quoted it out of context for added stupidity.

You also failed your comprehension check, evidently. I was mocking FeelTheRads who quite literally stated that complexity for complexity's sake wasn't bad by definition. The whole debate was FeelTheRads saying "complexity is good no matter what" and me saying "no it's not."

Also, I never edit out any substance, though I might have changed the wording.