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

[Lhynn]

Its true, save/load trivializes everything tho, thats why i like checkpoints and save&exit mechanics.

Probably, but then attempt should be made to improve the save system instead opting for an inferior design.

It has been solved, diablo 1/2 did it alright. youd just have to adapt it to a real rpg, which i dont think would take that much effort.
Of course this creates another problem in real rpgs, which is repetition, but there are ways to randomize stuff that could solve that particular problem i guess.

 

[set]

RE style - finite limited save counts!!

Spoiler

if idiots want to savescum let them, game designers should not be nazis and really care if players are savescumming or not

 

[Infinitron]

With friendly fire, couldn't a stat that boosts AoE be shit? Dumping could be the way to go to avoid frying your party with a fireball. Unless it lets you choose how target between default and improved by intellect: 10m effect by default, +50% AoE from intellect, can target 10-15m. Or the stat could push it either way, so 5-15m, for fighting in tighter spaces.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/?p=1409060

We are looking into either allowing you to scale the effect size or have the "bonus" area be a foe-only AoE. E.g., if you cast fireball and it normally has a radius of 4m, but it's grown to 6.5m because of your Int, the area added between 4m and 6.5m only affects enemies. We probably won't get to it for a while, but we've been thinking about it.

 

[Lhynn]

The possibility of save scumming has an impact on game mechanics set, sadly it cant be ignored.
It makes fights harder and cheesier than they have a right to be, it cheapens challenges that in a table would only come from a sadistic good DM.

 

[thesheeep]

There just is no really good solution to it as long as you can save & reload at any time.

There's plenty of ways to get around that though. Make it a threshold of your skill versus the perception of the mark and any of his buddies nearby; get a bonus if the mark (and any of his buddies) have their backs turned towards you. Have them turn towards you if they can hear you and don't trust you. And so on.

This is a good solution, but as sea said, the devs just don't want to bother. Their loss.

That is not a solution. So you get close to the target, try to pickpocket - and fail. Reload.
It just makes the road until you have to reload longer and more tedious. I agree that this might make some players not even bother to reload if they notice that it is just too hard for their character.
It would be an improvement, I guess.
But as long as it is based on chance, fail (with a serious consequence) -> reload -> try again will also be there. There is just no great way to prevent it. Another improvement would be to make the failure consequences less serious, but even that only goes so far and would possibly end up feeling highly unrealistic.

So the only way to really circumvent this is to make it not based on chance at all. While that solves the reload on fail problem, it ends up feeling like playing in Excel. I don't like RPG systems that are completely without randomness.

 

[thesheeep]

The possibility of save scumming has an impact on game mechanics set, sadly it cant be ignored.
It makes fights harder and cheesier than they have a right to be, it cheapens challenges that in a table would only come from a sadistic good DM.

I think if a game designer develops mechanics with save games in mind as a part of the gameplay, nothing good will come of it.

 

[Hormalakh]

i dont think they should "adjust" the AOE like they are planning on doing. if you get a larger AOE, you get a larger AOE. either completely get rid of FF or just make it work like it should without having to figure out whether your other characters are in the zone or not.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

So Josh goes about it again.

People getting their jollies turning in quests and killing the quest givers? oh noes the degenerate gameplay!! how horrible. Remove Kill exp.

Stealth was shitty in IE yes, So Sawyer makes it a hulla -hoop dodging mini game.

 

[Lhynn]

Sawyer is going to make the worst best game evah, or the best worst game evah.

 

[Delterius]

The best part about being able to kill npcs is totally the exp guize. Fuck freedom.

 

[Lhynn]

The best part is doing whatever the devs dont want you to do, simple as that. Thats why most new games suck really, they are trying to tell us what we want to do.

 

[AN4RCHID]

With friendly fire, couldn't a stat that boosts AoE be shit? Dumping could be the way to go to avoid frying your party with a fireball. Unless it lets you choose how target between default and improved by intellect: 10m effect by default, +50% AoE from intellect, can target 10-15m. Or the stat could push it either way, so 5-15m, for fighting in tighter spaces.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/?p=1409060

We are looking into either allowing you to scale the effect size or have the "bonus" area be a foe-only AoE. E.g., if you cast fireball and it normally has a radius of 4m, but it's grown to 6.5m because of your Int, the area added between 4m and 6.5m only affects enemies. We probably won't get to it for a while, but we've been thinking about it.

That's pretty goofy. It's a very minor, natural drawback to what is a huge advantage.

I bet Sawyer is the kind of person who throws his dinner away if the broccoli touches the mashed potatoes.

 

[Rivmusique]

All the other attributes are pure blessings, int would be a mixed one without that. Not balanced .

I hope they create some quests where stealth running is beneficial to play off this stealth system. Like, put you up against a town guard with a corrupt leader. People after a good reputation would want to get rid of the leader and find evidence of his corruption. But his well-meaning, ignorant and loyal guards have been told you're dangerous, attack/arrest on sight. Sneak to the leaders office or take rep hits for slaughtering your way through his men. Not have the only use of the system to get the jump on a group (or skip non-vitals).

 

[Arkeus]

That's pretty goofy. It's a very minor, natural drawback to what is a huge advantage.

I bet Sawyer is the kind of person who throws his dinner away if the broccoli touches the mashed potatoes.

It's probably discussed because it's a Balance issues- you are increasing your AoE/Durations instead of damage/life/penetration/etc. Unless there are regular situations where having more life/etc is BAD, it's going to be hard to argue that AoE/Duration is the primary stat to increase for wizards.

 

[AN4RCHID]

I just don't think there will be regular situations where AoE size is too large, and in those cases... Maybe fireball isn't the spell to use? Both of his proposed solutions sound more annoying/inelegant than just dealing with the AoE. It's not that he's wrong, he's just using duct tape on a paper cut.

 

[Visperas]

In this pickpocketing with a roll case, what if the game saves the roll? So, if you try, fail and reload to try again you'll get the same roll. I think the new xcom did something similar and it kinda prevented savescumming.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Josh was not a fan of the XCOM RNG seeding, iirc.

 

[CappenVarra]

Doesn't the Underrail Alpha have a sensible implementation of systematic pickpocketing that avoids the obvious issues everyone is harping about?

 

[set]

If you honestly care that much about save scumming as a designer you'll just make your game require online authentication to play and you will just prevent save scumming all together. One persistent save done server-side, the end.

Obviously, we don't want this kind of imeplementation.

 

[uaciaut]

Liking the stealth changes but i REALLY hope rogues get more out of it than "just a small bonus" and can actually use it in combat-related situations and such since stealth should be one of their class-defining skills really.

Don't care much about removing pickpocket, simulating something that would satisfy most people seems to be pretty much impossible and it's not a vital thing anyway.

edit: this is what i mean by "pretty much impossible":

You expecting devs to create a legislative system so you can role-play being fined for stealing a worthless item? That's beyond retarded.

 

[FeelTheRads]

You expecting devs to create a legislative system so you can role-play being fined for stealing a worthless item? That's beyond retarded.

No, but how about not every failure to steal results in the whole town going hostile? I mean, what exactly is that an abstraction of or what is the point of it exactly? You know, thieves don't have whole towns shooting them on sight. Not everyone would recognize the thief first of all.
So what then, it's just a way to balance it so you don't go pickpocket everybody. But maybe you'd piss off just the person you tried to steal from? Maybe they don't all go KILL THE THIEF!! Maybe you'll get a thief reputation after many failed attempts. Of course, that would mean players wouldn't be able to reload unless they keep old saves if they don't like being labeled as thieves and that's also bad because it punishes players ( ) so just remove it instead because obviously save scummers make the game bad for everybody else and you better listen to how Sawyer tells you to have fun.

 

[Surf Solar]

Why not make it like in Gothic, were if you stole something that belonged to NPC XY, that NPC will attack you, Not the entire town. If the Player lost the fight, the NPC would Beat him unconscious instead just kill (which would result in quickload) and take stuff from the Player instead.

 

[Lancehead]

You can also start from what Gothic 3 did. It had a system where guards will confront you if you steal certain amount in value of items from a town or a village. Initially you can simply disown any allegations. But if you continue stealing, it'd take more to convince the guards (bribery, persuasion, etc.), and after you pass a threshold value, they'll simply attack you. The system applies even if you steal stealthily because you're the outsider and the thefts started happening after you came to the town or the village.

 

[Infinitron]

Why not make it like in Gothic, were if you stole something that belonged to NPC XY, that NPC will attack you, Not the entire town. If the Player lost the fight, the NPC would Beat him unconscious instead just kill (which would result in quickload) and take stuff from the Player instead.

You can also start from what Gothic 3 did. It had a system where guards will confront you if you steal certain amount in value of items from a town or a village. Initially you can simply disown any allegations. But if you continue stealing, it'd take more to convince the guards (bribery, persuasion, etc.), and after you pass a threshold value, they'll simply attack you. The system applies even if you steal stealthily because you're the outsider and the thefts started happening after you came to the town or the village.

Notice that we're not talking about general stealing here. We're talking specifically about pickpocketing.

I haven't seen any indication that you won't be able to burglarize houses in Pillars of Eternity.

 

[Surf Solar]

That sounds like an excellent suggestion!