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

[l3loodAngel]

I've just explained to you what balance means.

You don't understand what balance means. That's the whole point.

 

[Infinitron]

I've just explained to you what balance means.

You don't understand what balance means. That's the whole point.

OK.

Good thing that J.E. Sawyer isn't following the evil and popamole definition of balance that exists in your head, then. Now you can go back to liking this game!

 

[l3loodAngel]

I've just explained to you what balance means.

You don't understand what balance means. That's the whole point.

OK.

Good thing that J.E. Sawyer isn't following the evil and popamole definition of balance that exists in your head, then. Now you can go back to liking this game!

Yes. Sawyer single-handedly did both things: coined the new meaning for word balance AND designed the game around it. Glad I supported it.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Never saw the problem with a kensai, it was powerful, yes but the fact that it existed on a single player game and that you got to choose whether to use it or no kinda invalidates any complain you might have about how powerful it was.
To tell the truth with its abysmal AC it didnt make the game any easier at first, and when AC stopped being an issue it really was just another heavy hitter and you could say that some of the joinable npcs were almost as good.
Anyway, this is what sawyer hates , class imbalance, so even if each class can do its job independently they all need eachother to succeed, because you need the numbers they bring to the table (damage, attacks, etc).

Yeah, if anything berserker-mage is at the very least as powerful with TOB expansion and the addition of gauntlets of extraordinary specialization which eventually make berserker-mage comparable in melee (assuming they both dualed at level 9) in addition to him having better survivability(ability to wear armor) and rage ability that can be very useful on certain occasions. Of course pure kensai if you stay with it does become a melee killing machine but at the end he's still just a fighter.

Now kensai-thief is a different story, given that UAI eventually eliminates kensai's biggest weakness it can be considered to be sort of cheesy, not that I still don't love that combination regardless (kensai-thief specialized in staves is probably my favourite BG2 character).

 

[Sensuki]

I wonder if they'll include a randomly generate ability scores button. At this rate I'd prefer to click that and play.

 

[Grunker]

Yes. Sawyer single-handedly did both things: coined the new meaning for word balance AND designed the game around it. Glad I supported it.

You bleedin' retard, whatever definition Sawyer uses seems to be the only relevant thing when discussing what it means for system he is creating, don't you think?

Whatever definition you and I can dream up has zero relevance.

 

[Infinitron]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/

silkvalley asked: In the new update there are several abilities that inflict certain conditions on the target, after a successful attack. In the case of Blinding Strike, is the target automatically blinded if the rogue hits or is there a separate defense check to determine the duration of the blinded status? I find it tactically interesting when people/creatures aren't equally vulnerable to status effects (e.g. if Deflection fails and damage is dealt, then there's a Fort./Will/Ref. check against the effect).

Yes, there will be separate checks. I believe the way that Tim and I discussed implementing it, if the main attack at least scores a graze, the second attack will occur separately (and often against a separate defense). Some attacks simply have two separate components that succeed or fail independently of each other, but Blinding Strike and its ilk will be “2-stage”.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Yes. Sawyer single-handedly did both things: coined the new meaning for word balance AND designed the game around it. Glad I supported it.

You bleedin' retard, whatever definition Sawyer uses seems to be the only relevant thing when discussing what it means for system he is creating, don't you think?

Whatever definition you and I can dream up has zero relevance.

You are a fucking moron. But that can be seen from your posts. Balance means balance and NOT what YOU or Sawyer come up with. Unless you are aiming for Palin level language massacre.

 

[Rake]

Yes. Sawyer single-handedly did both things: coined the new meaning for word balance AND designed the game around it. Glad I supported it.

You bleedin' retard, whatever definition Sawyer uses seems to be the only relevant thing when discussing what it means for system he is creating, don't you think?

Whatever definition you and I can dream up has zero relevance.

You are a fucking moron. But that can be seen from your posts. Balance means balance and NOT what YOU or Sawyer come up with. Unless you are aiming for Palin level language massacre.

But what the word means is irrelevant. What Sawyer means is what conserns me.So balance's "true meaning" is useless in this case.
Unless you are not having an issue with PoE design , but with Sawyer's vocabulary. In that case go on

 

[Infinitron]

Maybe we should start using the terms "Starcraft Balance" and "Warcraft 2 Balance".

 

[Infinitron]

Vote on what classes you want to see in the next update here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65027-which-class-do-you-want-to-see-covered-in-the-next-update/

 

[Grunker]

Yes. Sawyer single-handedly did both things: coined the new meaning for word balance AND designed the game around it. Glad I supported it.

You bleedin' retard, whatever definition Sawyer uses seems to be the only relevant thing when discussing what it means for system he is creating, don't you think?

Whatever definition you and I can dream up has zero relevance.

You are a fucking moron. But that can be seen from your posts. Balance means balance and NOT what YOU or Sawyer come up with. Unless you are aiming for Palin level language massacre.

No. You were discussing how Sawyer meant to balance PoE. As such, what Sawyer means by "balance" is what you're discussing. You were not discussing the definition of balance according to the general public.

 

[Hormalakh]

i still haven't heard a good argument as to why "balance" and making choices have decent consequences is a bad thing. "because it's fun" is not an argument, fyi for the mooks.

 

[aleph]

i still haven't heard a good argument as to why "balance" and making choices have decent consequences is a bad thing. "because it's fun" is not an argument, fyi for the mooks.

You are right, "because of fun" is not an argument. The idea that games should have anything to do with fun is absurd, as you rightly have pointed out.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Yet it is true that the whole 'because of fun' argument is retarded. That's what Beth says all the time - hey guys we removed stats because they are not fun, we added dragons because they are fun, hell yeah

 

[Rake]

But what is fun?

 

[Merlkir]

But what is fun?

Baby, don't hurt me.

 

[Avellion]

The more balanced a game is, the better. But at the same time, the game should not be overly shy with its balance.

Shy balancing only results in each skill and class being just as bland as the other skills and classes, which results in really dull gameplay. If players find ways to cheese the game, let them, reward their creativity and build making skills. Likewise, let there be weaker and lesser choices, those are usually more fun anyway.

 

[Abelian]

I know it's been said before, but single player games do not need character balance to the extent of multiplayer ones.

Character classes serve different functions and there's no way to balance them out when their roles in the party do not intersect to a great extent. For example, a magic user can be "balanced" by giving him a open door spell, but that just reduces the need for a thief. Clerics are intended to provide buffs and healing, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they have the fewest monster kills in the party.

When you control a single character, it need to be more of a jack-of-all-trades so that game content isn't locked out. In a party-based game, I find specialization and party synergy more important.

 

[Lhynn]

snip

Itd be fair to say that sawyer is only making the roof higher, doesnt feel like hes making the ceiling any lower. That means that there will be not bad characters, but that there can be pretty good ones.
That is my hopeful understanding of this whole thing, and why i have given it a rest.

I believe hes taking balance too far, and i believe it is to please a group of retards that feel balance is important to make a game enjoyable, but fuck it he deserves the benefit of the doubt because i did enjoy fallout nv and everything he says is sensible, if somewhat stupid and arbitrary sometimes.

 

[Nihiliste]

As long as the classes feel sufficiently different from each other I'm happy. Only thing I've heard so far that generally bugs me is that their "Paladin" build seems to have very little to do with any Paladin archetype that I'm aware of. If you want to make a Warlord/Marshall type class, name it something like that, don't call it a Paladin.

I'm sure there is other similar stuff that will annoy me but I haven't been stalking closely enough to know

 

[aleph]

But how can they get IE games feeling right when they don't name their "warlord" paladin and their "defender" fighter?

 

[Witiko]

It means no useless options, no way to make a fighter that sucks at everything.

That's all it means. It doesn't mean you can't fail. It doesn't mean every ability and every skill is an awesome button.

If that sounds like it's not a big deal, that's because it isn't. The IE games could easily have embraced such a philosophy without changing too much. If you read Dan Simpson's FAQ when you created your characters, you were basically eliminating all useless builds. Did this make the games easy? No, it didn't.

Didn't they, though? I was under the impression that, altough some builds and skills were suboptimal in the IE games, the games were for the most part still so easy (mainly speaking of the BG games on non-core rules here) that it was fairly difficult to create a completely unviable character, unless you wanted to.

Clearly, they can increase the overall difficulty and make much more accurate predictions of the strength of the party at any given point in the game, if they minimize the window between the best and the worst buildable character. At the same time, I'm worried that distributing viability uniformly among all conceivable builds will suck fun out of the character creation and development, since it will render the choices inconsequential to your ability to progress further in the game.

 

[Abelian]

If you want to make a Warlord/Marshall type class, name it something like that, don't call it a Paladin.

Ahem:

The Latin palatinus referred to an official of the Roman Emperor connected to the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill; over time this word came to refer to other high-level officials in the imperial, majestic and royal courts.

I meant that as a joke, I am well aware of the "lawful good holy warrior with high charisma and clerical powers" archetype.

 

[Hormalakh]

You are right, "because of fun" is not an argument. The idea that games should have anything to do with fun is absurd, as you rightly have pointed out.

My point was that to say "something is fun" is not a substantial argument, in that it doesn't bring forth any sort of objective criteria for which the argument can be evaluated. Something being fun, as the Codex has made abundantly clear throughout the whole process of any game ever made, is subjective to the person and as such, an unreliable measure of the validity of the argument. To make a proper argument, one must utilize standards that many, if not most or all people, would accept as valid. Without agreed standards and measures, it is impossible to make any sort of reasoned argument for or against it.

But, obviously it seems I have to spell out everything for the