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

[coffeetable]

As a result the current design feels very tacked on and uninspired, even if I do like it's direction in relation to the system design. I can't help but think that if he had designed them the 'normal' way in conjunction with the rest of the systems that he would have something more robust and concrete than what we have now.

im glad you're talking so much about your issues with it b/c it reassures me that it is really is a good system

 

[coffeetable]

frankly your criticisms are uninspired, and could do with being more robust and concrete than what you're posting now

 

[Hormalakh]

Sensuki your disdain of what people want to call the specific attributes belies your misunderstanding of what most players expect from them. As someone else mentioned in your post, for a lot of people outside of the minmax crowd, attributes are how they describe and define their characters in an rpg. So for them those words matter because they have to be descriptively important to the players. Whether you and I like it or not, players want that.

As for mechanics, even fewer players have an accurate understanding of how the mechanics really work outside of tidbits found dispersed all over the internet. To ask them to come up with a mechanically sound attribute system is absurd. Josh, even with all the information at his fingertips is, as you put it, struggling. So why expect the uninformed layman to do a better job?

 

[DraQ]

Wrong

r00fles!

Fixed.

Frankly, I do consider myself a 'Narrativist'. But I suppose not in the way of a given obnoxious storyfag.

I definitely enjoy good stories - I'd describe myself as simulationist with some narrativist slant - but I also recognize crippling limitations of computer games when it comes to focusing on story.

I don't need computer game to just be told a pre-designed linear or discretely branching story and that's all computers can do with stories.
Glorified CYOA simply doesn't really make use of the strengths of the medium, no matter how good CYOA it is.

If my character has 547 points in Power and that lets him deal 43,129 HP damage out of the boss monster's 1,233,001 then I can't really care.

In a world with indestructable artifacts as weapons and where magic might enhance one's body to the point of casually breaking real world weightlifting records while taking a trek through the woods... well, you'd think that something bizarre would happen if that guy hit people with a sledgehammer.

Actually I'm not sure. He would certainly be able to wield a sledgehammer (or average fantasy 2h hammer that would be hard to *lift* even when made out of styrofoam) as practical weapon and that would be fucking scary. He would also do impressive things with environment and improvised weapons. He might be able to hold off an angry bear and force defensive fighters into corners to finish them off or out of his way to get at squishies.
He might be able to do all sorts of far more impressive - and relatable - shit than just dealing 43,129 DPS because stronk.

And even if the new system doesn't support superhuman strenght, which is entirely possible, it would be strange that someone severely enfeebled by a Necromancer would suffer no penalty to his damage rolls beyond encumberance. Especially if the person in question is a martial artist who likely won't suffer anything at all. Sure, more rules can likely take care of these issues but there are bound to be more, and bloating the game is a real danger.

Actually, since I'm proposing all around weapon performance degradation as you go below upper threshold and start nearing usability threshold, damage suffering wouldn't be out of question. The difference is that the influence of STR would be based on weapon's individual upper/lower reqs, and thus it would be a penalty from well defined ceiling, different for different weapons, rather than generic unbounded bonus, and yes, this would apply to natural weapons as well.

So what I mean to say is that even if I agree with those arguments which are pro INT damage (some of them came from me, after all), my focus lies somewhere else other than realism. I'm looking for contrasts, I'm looking for a good story in this combat system.

I think we agree that swashbuckler/smart fighter archetype has potential here.

I'd like if there are trade offs involved between trading STR for INT, or those two for other attributes. I don't really care if the logic behind the system isn't entirely reasonable, as long as the narrative being told is good. In this case, I'm satisfied that, for melee fighters, INT seems to reflect technical prowess (Damage) and STR, physical superiority (carrying shit around; more HPs). But I certainly wouldn't cry at all if INT and STR served different purposes, the first meaning more skill points and the latter giving melee damage.

I think INT primarily reflects ability to take advantage of the situation on micro scale - not covered by either system or player control - while STR is effectively a merger of old STR, and that half of endurance/constitution that basically corresponds to beefiness.
The latter in particular feels rather natural.

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MMORPGs have great deal in common with CRPGs. Far more than CRPGs have with P&P RPGs. MMORPGs are really just CRPGs that take place within a shared environment among thousands of hundreds of players. They interact with the player in the same manner; using video, sound, and some sort of controller for the player to give input to the system; and also largely have the same lack of creative authorial control over the game that a PnP RPGs provide.

._.

oh world of warcraft, what have you done

What is incorrect about the two statements you have bolded, other than a shameful grammar error?

oh world of warcraft, what have you done

They are not irrelevant, you just want to believe they are because they are inconvenient to your opinion.

How about that:
You will either show how they are relevant instead of just repeating your red herring, or GTFO.

That authorial creative control is a the key thing that makes an P&P RPG a P&P RPG and not just another board game. It is the reason that most players play it.

Yes. As much as it might surprise you, I fully realize that.
What I also realize is that it has fuck all to do with actual basis of GNS - that the medium incorporates both game, narrative and broader context of said narrative, which happens to be shared property of both PnP and cRPGs, as well as majority of computer games in general.

You can't have a gamist novel or narrativist party of Chess, but both computer game and PnP can be one *and* the other, in varying proportions in addition to being simulationist as well. Other media incorporate at most two of the three.

The Narrativists agenda isn't interest in story. It is interest in using the making shit up and playing make believe that goes on in order to explore themes and ideas using their character.

Those are some of the elements based on which one can judge the aesthetic appeal of narrative in (relative) isolation from subtleties of setting or quality as a game. Those are present in both c- and PnP RPGs.
At best you might argue that they differ from each other like roaming around national park freely differs from guided tour (which I agree with) and that you vastly prefer the former (which I also agree with), but if you're in for sightseeing you'll take either rather than some alternative activity (like fucking shopping).

The Simulationist agenda isn't interest in making a consistent and realistic, according to the expectations of the genre, and utilizing setting and game mechanics.

No, simulationist agenda is interest in doing so using whatever means the medium provides.
In PnP the main component is coauthored make-believe, with mechanics being auxiliary to that, so while simulation oriented system helps, the main meat of simulationist mode of playing is what happens between players and GM as well as in their heads.
Since cRPG, as any computer game, is necessarily a formal system - even the fluff is fed using such system and is non-negotiable and non-reinterpretable (at least as far as it actual in-game events are concerned - TES) - it has to realize simulationism agenda using mechanics ( + said fluff).

Because consistency is important when multiple people are playing a game of making shit up and playing make believe and it is less important when playing a CRPG, where the rules and interactions are much less flexible and more rigidly defined, and you usually only have one player involved.

And now you're just being retarded.
Consistency is just as important in PnP, cRPG and non-interactive media (like film or novel).

Spoiler

And it's the fucking king.

What differs is that in PnP players (and GM) need to have compatible ideas about what they are trying to do - as befits a co-authored medium - while in cRPGs player simply needs to take care picking their games, but that's simply the difference between talking about different modes of play VS talking about different games - both games (on computer) and modes of play (PnP) can be classified according to their position in GNS spectrum, and so can be their players.

Consistency, in PnP context, is how players can reduce the differences in expectations between each other and between them and the game master.

Fixed.

System mechanics is one of the ways to help achieve consistency. If everyone knows the rules for making an attack then they all have the same expectations for what the possible immediate consequences are for making an attack. Since CRPGs exist mostly of rigidly defined rules there is usually little difference between what a player expects the possible consequences of a choice to be and what a game designer expects those possible consequences to be. There are still places that consistency can wind up being an issue in CRPGs; mostly in cases of interactions with NPCs and plot development; but the issues are much much reduced in CRPGs. As long as the game mechanics are clearly explained, consistency in a CRPG is much less important.

You've just argued that in PnP context simulationism is mostly achieved through 'soft' interactions, with rules forming only an auxiliary part, now you're trying to have it both ways by denying the importance of fluff to the other medium.

Sure fluff in cRPG may be crystallized but it's still there and needs to be consistent (and by fluff in cRPG I mean broadly defined content, so everything that isn't just mechanics or structure), more so, since in cRPG you can't just convince GM that whatever you're trying to do makes sense in the context, rules in cRPG need to be comprehensive and consistent with the fluff, because they aren't in just tacked on for sake of mechanical conflict/task resolution, but they express all the ways player can actually interact with the game.

The proponents of GNS, and GNS as used when as part of the game design process tend to disagree with that.

Maybe they're just dumb - should I also seek a monitor not restricted to three colours as demanded by RGB theory?

Or maybe they try to focus on particular targets rather than trying to please everyone? You need to put your product *somewhere* on the spectrum.

Immersionist agenda and the casual players who use it primarily as an activity to bond an socialize with friends.

There is no such thing as immersionist agenda, because different people will require different focus on different factors to achieve immersion.

One person ( ) may easily immerse in well written text adventure, but fail to do so in FO3 because inane writing and inconsistencies will pull them out.
Another one ( ) may fail to immerse in text adventure because it has no relatively contemporary 3D graphics, but easily immerse in FO3 because it does.

As for casual players, they are the who should all be put to the (obviously* ) and merely use games as accessory.

*

You require a study, done on an obscure topic of RPG theory, to prove you wrong? lol no.

I require *something* to prove me wrong.

Saying that I am won't do it no matter how much handwaving and red-herring swinging accompanies it.

Big Model is GNS.

Big Model is *not* GNS.

Big Model is what you get if you append additional layer of hierarchy to GNS.
Since that layer is pretty much entirely rooted in both social aspects and minutiae of gameplay, the resulting system is narrowed in applicability, it can't do everything GNS can and in particular can't be extrapolated to cRPGs or any sort of SP experience.

Which is why we're discussing GNS, and not the Big Model.

A clarification first. I did not say that Bartle's classifications are CRPG player motivations. I said that they parrallel CRPG player activity groups and that this parrallel is helpful in determining CRPG activity groups that players enjoy and provides motivation for them to play them.

And I've shown that they parallel them poorly. Meanwhile GNS in its (original/intended/whatever) PnP context just happens to parallel GNS extrapolated to cRPG context and beyond almost exactly.

Hell, you can use it to explore beyond media or activities that are covered by all three aspects of the spectrum, provided you remember that one or more aspect may be nulled and provided that additional aspects (like social) can be worked into one (or more) of GNS categories.

I will repeat what they are. Combat, Exploration, Progression, and Story. I never really gave definitions for them though and that is my bad. I will do that briefly.

What is combat? Is it just combat or any sort of conflict activity? If the actual combat is resolved through repetitive, mechanical execution of the same action can it be still classified as combat despite likely having different psychological and physiological substrate?

What is exploration? Is it only the exploration of the environment, or also backstory? What about finding and exploring impact of all the variables altering the flow of story or exploring mechanics, for example by raking through space of possible builds?

Is story progression still progression or already story?

Etc.

These classifications are very useful as they point to concrete areas of the game that systems and content can be developed for in order to provide the experiences that players are looking for. These classifications, with some variation, are used by actual CRPG developers so they must not find them too much of a useless mess. This is opposed to GNS, which is as far as I know never been used by a CRPG developer to help guide their game development.

cRPG development rarely seems particularly guided to begin with and you can certainly use GNS to predict what game might be of interest to whom.

I also want to clarify that I'm not claiming that this is all inclusive either. But it covers most things people enjoy in CRPGs.

It covers what, but not why, how and where, hence often surprising results and poor predictive power.

tl;dr
darkpatriot doesn't understand that discriminatory power of a system stems from what makes categories different rather than what they have in common, also can't see the wood for trees.

comprehension failure. correct tl;dr of that is ALL complexity is a bad thing. It is actually a cost that is incurred by adding interesting and entertaining choices to a game.

Perspective failure. If you see something just as necessary evil you blind yourself to what inherent potential it might have.
It's like if you consider eating a necessary evil and waste of time you probably won't be a very good chef.

If you have to work with complexity and it won't go away, you might as well figure out how to make what you can't get rid of interesting.

That is a fine design process for designing a simulation... but it is a bad one for designing a game. Realism is a tool, not the purpose.

If you want to craft worlds it's the purpose. Game is then a tool for driving the player's motivation and letting them interact with it.

 

[coffeetable]

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[DraQ]

 

[Murk]

I believe his point was that you were doing just that.

 

[Durante]

No, simulationist agenda is interest in doing so using whatever means the medium provides.
In PnP the main component is coauthored make-believe, with mechanics being auxiliary to that, so while simulation oriented system helps, the main meat of simulationist mode of playing is what happens between players and GM as well as in their heads.
Since cRPG, as any computer game, is necessarily a formal system - even the fluff is fed using such system and is non-negotiable and non-reinterpretable (at least as far as it actual in-game events are concerned - TES) - it has to realize simulationism agenda using mechanics ( + said fluff).

Well, as a part-time simulationist I approve of this message. I also enjoyed reading the rest of the wall of text.

 

[Roguey]

Is that a joke ? I've actually never seen anyone use light daggers ever.

The inclusion of an attribute that added speed to a character would even be beneficial in that sense, as it would allow people to speed things up rather than slow things down.

I don't remember saying such a thing but the truth is

Avoid allowing a base value to be modified by more than three inputs. That is, if you have a base damage value for something, you should ideally allow it to be affected by no more than three things. The fewer inputs you allow to modify a value, the more significant the effects of those inputs are. Additionally, the range is generally more constrained and predictable for a player. In turn, this makes tuning content easier.

E.g. how long you can hold your breath underwater. It's affected by your Constitution score, your Swim skill, and your Breathing Bonuses (a catch-all of non-stacking bonuses specifically for holding breath). As long as you know the max Constitution score, max Swim skill, and the highest Breathing Bonus, you know exactly how long a character can hold his or her breath underwater at any given point in the game. Because you only have three inputs to worry about, it's easy to track everything that goes into this system. Player attempts to min-max the system are limited to those three categories, which means that non-min-maxers can still be "competitive".

Now let's say you decide to expand this system. You allow all Breathing Bonuses to stack. A player can have a Breathing Bonus from up to three different perks and Breathing Bonuses on any/all equipment he or she can wear, up to eight "slots" worth. Even if the values used on these perks and pieces of equipment were relatively minor, the spectrum of minimum and maximum have increased dramatically. It becomes more difficult to predict where a character will be on this scale at any given point in the game, and the min-maxer has an extreme advantage over the casual player, making content tuning difficult.

Base value: Attack/cast speed.
Input one: The speed of the weapon you're using or the spell you're casting
Input two: Armor
Input three: Haste spells/abilities that don't stack?

No room for an attribute modifier.

 

[DraQ]

I believe his point was that you were doing just that.

Since when is discussion spamming?

 

[Murk]

I believe his point was that you were doing just that.

Since when is discussion spamming?

Generally it isn't; but some people's predilection for verbosity is at times a bit much. But then, I've been here a while -- I already know to expect walls of text.

Tho I would say something about being careful of how the larger emoticons break the formatting of the posts. Simple sentences turn into sprawls of text.

 

[aleph]

Base value: Attack/cast speed.
Input one: The speed of the weapon you're using or the spell you're casting
Input two: Armor
Input three: Haste spells/abilities that don't stack?

No room for an attribute modifier.

You can probably unify input 2 and 3, or just scratch influence of armor on attack speed and then have space for attribute modifiers.


Also, I think the GNS discussion broke Draq, quite a shame actually

 

[Roguey]

You can probably unify input 2 and 3, or just scratch influence of armor on attack speed and then have space for attribute modifiers.

Armor slowing down combat actions is the only thing being used as a disincentive for putting everyone in full plate.

 

[aleph]

You can probably unify input 2 and 3, or just scratch influence of armor on attack speed and then have space for attribute modifiers.

Armor slowing down combat actions is the only thing being used as a disincentive for putting everyone in full plate.

So, let me phrase it like this, there is no room for an attribute modifier on attack/casting speed because armor has to influence it because Sawyer could not come up with a better way to keep everyone from wearing full plate?

 

[Roguey]

So, let me phrase it like this, there is no room for an attribute modifier on attack/casting speed because armor has to influence it because Sawyer could not come up with a better way to keep everyone from wearing full plate?

If there were better ways, he'd think of 'em.

D&D is of no help here. And Darklands encourages you to put everyone in the heaviest armor.

 

[aleph]

If there were better ways, he'd think of 'em.
D&D is of no help here.

"The Dark Eye" rule set, used for example in Blackguards and Drakensang, regulates armor use by having armor negatively impacting attack, skill and spell use. The heavier the armor is the worse the mali are.

And Darklands encourages you to put everyone in the heaviest armor.

Which is not really surprising for a game with a rather realistic approach to things

 

[Roguey]

"The Dark Eye" rule set, used for example in Blackguards and Drakensang, regulates armor use by having armor negatively impacting attack, skill and spell use. The heavier the armor is the worse the mali are.

Skill penalties and spell failure aren't happening and damage/accuracy are already accounted for.

 

[aleph]

Skill penalties and spell failure aren't happening ...

ah yes, of course not, otherwise there would be the danger that the rule system might be fun

...and damage/accuracy are already accounted for.

let me guess, the almighty rule of three (bonuses) is at work here again

To be honest, I don't think we are watching a master at work here...

 

[Lord Andre]

Sawyer is sure putting in a lot of effort to make the perfect system. a glorified skyrim clone.

 

[aleph]

If it were up to me, I would fire Sawyer and have someone develop the rule system of "Pillars of Eternity" based on OSRIC, Labyrinth Lords or something similar.

 

[Excidium]

That would be completely mongoloid. OSR systems are ill-fit for video games, let alone something like PE.

 

[Roguey]

ah yes, of course not, otherwise there would be the danger that the rule system might be fun

The false options of trading 100% casting success for more protection and penalties that only affect you out of combat aren't fun.

let me guess, the almighty rule of three (bonuses) is at work here again

To be honest, I don't think we are watching a master at work here...

We are because one of the D&D's biggest balancing flaws is being able to endlessly stack bonuses from different sources. The difference between someone who doesn't bother with that and someone who gets all the bonuses is huge, as Josh said.

 

[aleph]

That would be completely mongoloid. OSR systems are ill-fit for video games, let alone something like PE.

"Based on" not just implementing an OSR system as is. Extend the rules somewhat and fill in the parts the referee would decide with situational scripts. This would probably yield something feels closer to the Infinity games and AD&D than the stuff Sawyer is developing. And wasn't this the point of Project Eternity, to get something like the old IE games back?

The false options of trading 100% casting success for more protection and penalties that only affect you out of combat aren't fun.

So I was not having fun when I played games that offered something like that? Thank you for telling me and the countless others who probably also sought they had fun but actually hadn't.

We are because one of the D&D's biggest balancing flaws is being able to endlessly stack bonuses from different sources. The difference between someone who doesn't bother with that and someone who gets all the bonuses is huge, as Josh said.

Somebody who ignores large parts of the rules builds a worse character, so what? And why should there be no more than 3 bonuses, why not no more than 2 or 4?

 

[Sensuki]

As a result the current design feels very tacked on and uninspired, even if I do like it's direction in relation to the system design. I can't help but think that if he had designed them the 'normal' way in conjunction with the rest of the systems that he would have something more robust and concrete than what we have now.

im glad you're talking so much about your issues with it b/c it reassures me that it is really is a good system

I only have two issues with it - Strength and Perception. Change those and it's a good system, your trolling aside. By that logic you would have thought the Crafting skill was a good one

I believe his point was that you were doing just that.

Coffeetable like Roguey is pretty much nothing but a shitposter, the only thing he has positive input is stuff related to programming and/or project management as that seems to be something he's familiar with in his working environment.

Sensuki your disdain of what people want to call the specific attributes belies your misunderstanding of what most players expect from them.

I don't care what the attributes are called. I care about the balance of the combat stats. I find it hilarious that most peoples #1 criticism are the names.

No room for an attribute modifier.

Yet another reason why the constraints Josh puts on himself limits his ability to create a good attribute system. However Action Speed was not the only suggestion I made. Critical damage is a poor choice, it needs to be something that gives a bonus very often in combat, rather than only on random occurrences. I highly doubt that is an 'uninspired' criticism .

Armor slowing down combat actions is the only thing being used as a disincentive for putting everyone in full plate.

And the same guys with X in a Speed-like attribute will still have the same action speed difference.

 

[Grunker]

Also, I think the GNS discussion broke Draq

draq has always been broken