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

[Scruffy]

I wonder how much stuff from Black Hound we will see in PoE (compared to Van Buren/New Vegas).

like a level 8 cap? that would make me a very happy camper

 

[Roguey]

The twelfth level cap is non-negotiable.

But as posted on a previous page, you're won't hit it on a "normal non-completionist playthrough."

I hope Josh doesn't even bother with PoE2 since trying to balance a 14-16+ level RPG would be a Sisyphean waste of his talents. He can playtest and give feedback like he did in Mask of the Betrayer.

 

[Infinitron]

I hope Josh doesn't even bother with PoE2 since trying to balance a 14-16+ level RPG would be a Sisyphean waste of his talents.

What? Why?

Somebody needs to show the world how to balance high level, no? It's much harder to do. I'm really looking forward to reading about it in a few years.

 

[Rake]

I hope Josh doesn't even bother with PoE2 since trying to balance a 14-16+ level RPG would be a Sisyphean waste of his talents.

What? Why?

Somebody needs to show the world how to balance high level, no? It's much harder to do. I'm really looking forward to reading about it in a few years.

But what if he fails? Roguey's world would crumble.

 

[Zetor]

Not strictly related, but DMing for level 14+ ad&d parties was always a huge pita, since at that point they can do basically anything. Then you get a module like Dragon Mountain that has a horde of 1/2 HD kobolds absolutely brutalize the high-level party through the abuse of every cheesy trick known to man.

 

[Excidium]

Well, a tabletop RPG is another story. The only thing high-level PCs can do in a CRPG like PE is fight higher-level monsters in higher-level areas, I don't see it being such trouble to balance in a game where players are never expected to evolve beyond wandering muderhobos.

 

[Dorateen]

I would prefer if Pillars of Eternity was something more reactionary.

 

[Roguey]

What? Why?

Somebody needs to show the world how to balance high level, no? It's much harder to do. I'm really looking forward to reading about it in a few years.

Too many options. Plus if it's true to D&D, you're going to stop getting new spell levels at level 17 anyway.

The solution to balancing high level combat is to keep the highest level as low as possible.

 

[Athelas]

There's already been an expansion confirmed.

 

[Rake]

And a sequel if it sales well.

 

[Delterius]

Too many options.

And that's just terrible.

 

[Roguey]

There's already been an expansion confirmed.

I know, I'm expecting it'll raise the cap by 2-4 levels at most and probably have the best combat if Josh is still involved, as well as some of the most unusual content, considering Obsidian's track record of saving experimental and/or less-mass-marketable stuff for expansion packs and DLC.

 

[Xeon]

Josh just posted a video, The audio is a little off at some parts.

 

[Abelian]

I hope Josh doesn't even bother with PoE2 since trying to balance a 14-16+ level RPG would be a Sisyphean waste of his talents.

What? Why?

Somebody needs to show the world how to balance high level, no? It's much harder to do. I'm really looking forward to reading about it in a few years.

In the video above, around the 11 min mark, Josh mentioned that he wanted to build a system that is flexible enough to scale well if they make sequels.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Josh himself said, P:E is very conservative for a new IP in one of the KS pitches.
He is being conservative lore wise for sure.
He is not implementing, cool fun stuff in a single player cRPG like the various kits, dual/multi classing, spells like Time Stop, Contingency, Sequencers.
He is designing P:E like a single player MOBA/MMO.

So he is being radical by not following DnD conventions, where it suits him. Yet he is porting established and conservative MOBA/MMO mechanics to single player cRPG.

 

[Lhynn]

High level in PnP is not that hard to balance, you just stop pulling punches, and by that i mean, you stop looking at their sheet to see if theyve got a shot at that story you want to direct, they are big boys by then, its their job to determine if theyve got what it takes.

 

[Abelian]

My biggest complaint against high-level gameplay is that players need to fight super-enemies at every turn in order to feel challenged. From the TV Tropes BG page:

The Amnish guards in Baldur's Gate II are amazingly even more powerful than the Baldur's Gate guards in Baldur's Gate, so much so that if the power discrepancy were "real" instead of merely game mechanics (to compensate for higher-level player characters), the Amnish could simply march their supermen up to Baldur's Gate and conquer the area within days. And then there's the Tethyrian and Calishite legions and mercenaries in Throne of Bhaal, whose rank-and-file footmen carry +2 magical weapons.

 

[Lhynn]

Thats not a problem with high level gameplay, just devs/DMs being retarded.

 

[Jedi Exile]

It seems that Josh wants to be a YouTube star or something Still, I like his videos, he talks about interesting stuff.

 

[Arkeus]

He also totally doesn't read the codex, what with answering the specific current conversation about high level we were having.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

My biggest complaint against high-level gameplay is that players need to fight super-enemies at every turn in order to feel challenged. From the TV Tropes BG page:

The Amnish guards in Baldur's Gate II are amazingly even more powerful than the Baldur's Gate guards in Baldur's Gate, so much so that if the power discrepancy were "real" instead of merely game mechanics (to compensate for higher-level player characters), the Amnish could simply march their supermen up to Baldur's Gate and conquer the area within days. And then there's the Tethyrian and Calishite legions and mercenaries in Throne of Bhaal, whose rank-and-file footmen carry +2 magical weapons.

So your problem is ludonarrative dissonance?

 

[Roguey]

High level in PnP is not that hard to balance, you just stop pulling punches, and by that i mean, you stop looking at their sheet to see if theyve got a shot at that story you want to direct, they are big boys by then, its their job to determine if theyve got what it takes.

That's not how Obsidian makes games.

Saying "it just needs balance" doesn't mean that it's a good idea. Balancing skills, subsystems, systems as a whole takes a long time and a lot of effort.

Take Guns and Energy Weapons in F:NV. For this example, assume I am of average intelligence and average "talent" for someone who has been designing video games for twelve years. These two skills essentially do the same thing with two different types of weapons -- much in the same way that the same skills in Fallout 3, Fallout 2, and Fallout did. All that changed were some of the formulae (for both) and the weapon content each skill accesses.

Despite the narrow focus and similarity of these skills, just balancing the content of what's affected by these two skills took me 2 or 3 patches to get *mostly right*. Even now, there's still a fair amount of contention about that in the community.

Now compare Guns and EWs to Explosives. Now compare them to Explosives, Melee Weapons, and Unarmed. Now compare them to ALL the skills in Fallout -- what the skills affect directly, what they affect indirectly. The more things we allow skills to branch out and touch, the more difficult balancing those skills becomes.

I argue that coming up with ideas is relatively easy. Seeing an idea through to the point of being well-executed is much more difficult and time-consuming. The more edge cases and subsystems you design into a system, the more difficult that execution becomes.

Thats not a problem with high level gameplay, just devs/DMs being retarded.

I've yet to see a developer make a high-level D&D crpg without breaking precious D&D lore whether it's Pools of Darkness, Throne of Bhaal, Hordes of the Underdark, or Mask of the Betrayer.

 

[aleph]

I've yet to see a developer make a high-level D&D crpg without breaking precious D&D lore whether it's Pools of Darkness, Throne of Bhaal, Hordes of the Underdark, or Mask of the Betrayer.

How can those games break D&D lore* when most of it is an inconsistent mess in the first placae?

*actually forgotten realms lore, but nevermind

 

[Lhynn]

snip

Why the fuck are you giving me a quote about sawyers weapon balance? if that was what d&d high level balance was about itd be stupid easy shit. High level balance for D&D is dealing with a fighter that can face the entirety of the kingdoms army with his fists, or with a mage that can dominate any ruler or create valuable materials and simply bring down the economy of an entire world (there are so many ways the only reason i can come up for a wizard not doing this is because they dont give a shit, they just get enough money to buy their research books and forget about the stupidity of it all). There are lots of ways to deal with this issue, none of them consists on tweaking the damage of longswords. Not to mention that the amount of balancing and the scale of it all is tiny when compared to a standard high level D&D campaign.

High lvl D&D campaigns are harder to balance because most of the things the players can do now can change the world.
In the table you solve this in a satisfactory way by giving the players agency and by designing suitable challenges that dont go against the lore of the world. In cRPGs you solve this in a somewhat unsatisfactory fashion by having the players have a punch-out with a god. This is due to the limitations of the medium but also due to laziness or fear of shitting the bed.

Id actually like to see sawyer take on a real challenge like that one, how do you do high level content successfully on cRPGs? and i dont mean just fighting with believable enemies for that level. I mean handling more complex moral dilemmas that come with power beyond of what any mortal should have. Ive found most of my high level stories on the table consist on talking, and talking and more talking, issues that are big or small but with a completely different perspective that comes with being more a god than a man/woman/tranny.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Well there's also the issue that level increases with a non-linear power curve also increase the relative effect of character building knowledge on game difficulty.

At low-levels a build made by someone who really knows the system isn't that much more powerful than a reasonable build with a few bad choices. At 18th level those bad choices add up and that optimized character will stomp encounters that would challenge the reasonable, but non-optimized character. And those encounters would be impossible for someone who unwittingly LARPed their character into charming incompetence, even if all three players have comparable tactical acumen in battle.

Add that to the steeper power curve for some classes compared to others, and you have such a wide disparity of character power that it can make it impossible to balance without making it too easy for the high-knowledge player or too hard for the LARPer. PnP lets the DM adjust this for the player, but the cRPG can't really do that.