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

[LivingOne]

Infinitron and everyone else

Hey Everyone,



I'm working all day today (yup it's Sunday, and I have no life). Feel free to ask some questions about Pillars of Eternity, or being a programmer/producer at Obsidian, and I'll do my best to answer them. Some things I can't answer - sorry in advance!



Today, I'm working on a few odds and ends - bug fixing and miscellaneous features. Right now I'm looking into an occasional bug that causes party members to get stuck-in-place permanently after they get knocked down. That's no fun, so I'm going to fix it.



Anyone get a chance to play South Park: The Stick of Truth yet? I'm looking forward to doing a complete play through hopefully soon.



-Adam

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65617-adam-at-work/
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65617-adam-at-work/

 

[Arkeus]

Your meta knowledge of BG2 classes is pretty bad. Single class bard and even single class thief is equal to a mage. Especially when you reach epic level skills....

non-trapper single class thief or bards in BG2 are certainly not the equals of mages, especially if you discount the silly epic abilities as those are only available in ToB.

 

[LivingOne]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65617-adam-at-work/#entry1427604

Hiro Protagonist II, on 09 Mar 2014 - 11:24 PM, said:

With three different versions of PoE (Windows, Linux and Mac), how do you allocate resources to do all three versions? Do you do say do a part of the game with the Windows version and then do the Mac and Linux versions straight after. Do you have three people or teams working on different versions of just one team working on a version at a time. Also, I'm guessing the same people are doing the three different versions? What are some of the challenges to do 3 different versions of the same game for you.

On larger projects, you might have teams dedicated to each platform. Our team is small, so you are correct that the same people work on the three different versions (although we will have dedicated testers for each platform). We are very lucky, because Unity supports the three platforms out of the box. There are minor things that we need to do to get it all to work out, but all three are developed concurrently.



Most of the challenges arise when things don't work the same - it takes programmer time to figure out the issue on the individual platform, and more time to program a solution.

How many different solutions would you say there are on average for each Quest?



"Today, I'm working on a few odds and ends - bug fixing and miscellaneous features. Right now I'm looking into an occasional bug that causes party members to get stuck-in-place permanently after they get knocked down. That's no fun, so I'm going to fix it." That does indeed sound annoying, and were I an your shoes I would also want to fix this, which makes me feel there is a connection between you and me. We think alike you and me not wanting to have our characters stuck and all *brofist*

Many? Definitely more than one and greater than two. There are multi-part quests with a subset of objectives that can be solved in multiple ways.

KaineParker, on 09 Mar 2014 - 11:27 PM, said:

In your opinion, what is the coolest class in Pillars or Eternity?

How many people do you have to fend off in order to get to the coffee maker in the morning?

How does the Paladin's smite-ish ability "Flames of Devotion" work?

The Cipher. Chanter might be the next one in line, but I haven't put too much time in playing one yet.



The coffee maker isn't typically crowded. Most of the hardcore coffee drinkers have their own supply and brew machines in their own offices. I try to only drink two cups a day.



See Thoros of Myr.

Elerond, on 09 Mar 2014 - 11:28 PM, said:

Can you tell what milestone/s you are currently working in PoE and how your roadmap for PoE currently looks, at least in very general level?

We are still in production, and hope to be at Alpha soon.

Living One, on 09 Mar 2014 - 11:30 PM, said:

I know the initial idea was to have a companion per class(hence the now scrapped additional stretch goals to cover the last ones) but that's not happening anymore(they're eight currently,right?).Could you tell us wich classes aren't covered,so we can create a character while avoiding class redundancy with the other party members?Or at least do you guys plan to reveal it pre-release?Or is it subject to the 'no-spoiler' policy?

Yup, you are right that there are 8 companions. I'm not sure if we are going to release the class makeup before shipping because of the spoiler thing. You can always hire the missing pieces at the adventurer's hall if you need the full suite of classes.

Greensleeve, on 09 Mar 2014 - 11:33 PM, said:

Quick, let's flood Adam with questions so he doesn't get to do any bug fixing! Wait a minute...



Anyway, question for Adam: how many weapon types (roughly) will there be in the game with actually useful magical equivalents? The IE games became sort of boring to play through as fight-y types because there wasn't that much choice in weapon types if you wanted to play with some efficiency and optimality and I'd hope that PE overcomes this. Given New Vegas, I have high hopes.



Edit: Also, not had the chance to play The Stick of Truth, being busy with my final term in college and all (pesky dissertation). But I am strongly considering getting it when I can.

I'm not exactly sure what you are asking? We have a ton of weapon types. Josh did the weapons in New Vegas, so it's in good hands.

coffeetable, on 09 Mar 2014 - 11:39 PM, said:

What's your approach to designing the software architecture for games like PE?



Subquestion: what were the most significant learning experiences that lead to your current approach?

I don't know how to answer without writing too much.



The architecture is defined by the engine, Unity. Play to it's strengths and don't try to do things it can't do. Never try to force a square peg into a round hole.

Hiro Protagonist II, on 09 Mar 2014 - 11:42 PM, said:

Also, more on the programming side of things. What is your favourite programming language and which ones do you dislike? Why? What was the learning curve like with using Unity with the programmers at Obsidian? What have been some of the fun features you've done with Unity? What are some of the interesting things (bugs) that's happened with PoE that's been funny but totally unintentional.

I like C#/C++, and don't have a strong dislike. Steve and myself already had experience using C#, so the transition was smooth. Tim is a very smart guy, and got up to speed very quickly. Any programmer should be versatile to be able to pick up a language and be productive with it in a short amount of time.



Onyx uses a component system that is similar to Unity's, so the transition to Unity's way of doing things was pretty easy to get a handle on.



As for features, I think every feature is fun to implement. Unity makes programming fun (or more fun!).



Scaling issues are always funny. When we were hammering out the weapon scale system, sometimes NPCs would have really, really small weapons (palm of your hand sized), and sometimes they would have 10m long weapons. I always laugh at stuff like that.

 

[Dreaad]

Your meta knowledge of BG2 classes is pretty bad. Single class bard and even single class thief is equal to a mage. Especially when you reach epic level skills....

non-trapper single class thief or bards in BG2 are certainly not the equals of mages, especially if you discount the silly epic abilities as those are only available in ToB.

You do realize a bard can cast any spell a wizard can with a scroll right? So basically its just a higher level version of a mage, who gets access to better armor and if you make a blade you can defensive spin your way to the highest armor class in the game. Also why would you pick a non trapper thief?

 

[Arkeus]

You do realize a bard can cast any spell a wizard can with a scroll right? So basically its just a higher level version of a mage, who gets access to better armor and if you make a blade you can defensive spin your way to the highest armor class in the game. Also why would you pick a non trapper thief?

Scrolls in BG2 were rare as fuck, especially higher-level ones. you could go to the end-game without finding pierce-magic, for example.

You would make a non-trapper thief if you don't know the game already, or if you don't want your strategies to resolve around trapping. The discussion was about "dead end classes", and a class like thief whose real power comes from trapping is as unintuitive as it gets, as well as being not that enjoyable for the vast majority of players and forcing a reroll.

 

[Dreaad]

You would make a non-trapper thief if you don't know the game already, or if you don't want your strategies to resolve around trapping. The discussion was about "dead end classes", and a class like thief whose real power comes from trapping is as unintuitive as it gets, as well as being not that enjoyable for the vast majority of players and forcing a reroll.

Scrolls weren't rare ffs. You could buy any scroll you wanted and considering you end the game with something like 300,000 gold extra it really isn't a problem. Considering also that a bard gets spells on his own up to level 5 and grows levels faster than a mage his skull traps and cone of colds hurt more than the average mage. Even if you take a thief kit without traps as a single class, it was far from an unplayable class. The higher levels meant your health was usually on par with a fighter given equal con values. You could just sit back with a bow and do plenty of damage, with nice trick arrows like poison or dispelling to help out. In clutch situations you drink a haste + invis potion and backstab someone for 60+ dmg. Sure all of that takes more effort gameplay wise then selecting spells and letting rip, but in the long run it was more satisfying and more powerful anyway.

Anyway, I'm done derailing with IE meta crap.

I'm liking the multi solutions to quests thing.

 

[Roguey]

"Yet.. ;project after projects he elad son are canceled. LMAO"

The circumstances were out of his control each and every time and had nothing to do with the state of the project. Better management wouldn't have resulted in their non-cancellation.

Most of the hardcore coffee drinkers have their own supply and brew machines in their own offices.

There comes a time when it's better to just take caffeine pills instead of filling up on liquid.

We are still in production, and hope to be at Alpha soon.

Next video imminent. I can see why he's crunching on a Sunday.

The architecture is defined by the engine, Unity. Play to it's strengths and don't try to do things it can't do. Never try to force a square peg into a round hole.

One of the things it seemingly can't do: support 3D large open areas. Fortunately not an issue with prerendered backgrounds.

 

[Arkeus]

Scrolls weren't rare ffs. You could buy any scroll you wanted and considering you end the game with something like 300,000 gold extra it really isn't a problem.

No, no, no you couldn't- only very limited amounts of scrolls were available, and those were mostly for level 1-5. Higher level scrolls must be found on random drops from enemies (or rare handplaced chests). It's even worse if you are not playing with ToB installed, as then you don't even have acess to the shop that gives you the level 1-5 scrolls.

 

[Dreaad]

Scrolls weren't rare ffs. You could buy any scroll you wanted and considering you end the game with something like 300,000 gold extra it really isn't a problem.

No, no, no you couldn't- only very limited amounts of scrolls were available, and those were mostly for level 1-5. Higher level scrolls must be found on random drops from enemies (or rare handplaced chests). It's even worse if you are not playing with ToB installed, as then you don't even have acess to the shop that gives you the level 1-5 scrolls.

Yeah... except you are wrong. http://mikesrpgcenter.com/bgate2/magescrolls.html, there was actually enough scrolls to teach several people the spell and then have some left over for casting. Barring maybe level 8 and 9 stuff which you shouldn't really need for more than 1-2 encounters anyway.

 

[Arkeus]

Yeah... except you are wrong. http://mikesrpgcenter.com/bgate2/magescrolls.html, there was actually enough scrolls to teach several people the spell and then have some left over for casting. Barring maybe level 8 and 9 stuff which you shouldn't really need for more than 1-2 encounters anyway.

...actually read what you just linked please.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/113322-pillars-of-eternity-dev-q-a.html

When do you start getting voice actors in, or have you already done so? How is the music going as well?

We have started to prepare for VO sessions, but not have recorded any final VO yet. The music is going well.

...

You probably can't say and I was going to ask if you could do a current play through of the game now, or at least the main quest. I'm guessing this kind of answers my question.

I can say. You can't do a complete play through yet. We are currently focused on the main quest and getting a complete crit-path play through. From character creation - to end game slides. We want to make sure that everything in the middle is in place for our alpha.

...

random question:any beholder-like monster?

The beholder is such a great iconic monster - don't you think?

We do have a few "Aberration" like monsters in Pillars. Production wise, they are the most expensive to make because they have such strange rigs (like tentacles, lots of limbs) and animations. Also they aren't a good candidate that could be reused for another creature or rig.

...

have You come around to program the encounter AI yet? how advanced do You intend to make it? will it differ from creature to creature and/or culture to culture? will PC group vs NPC group encounters feature any special tactics?

edit question: will AI take game difficulty into account?

Yes, we have a system in place for encounter AI. I would say it's "advanced" but not "fancy" - and designers can customize the hell out of it. Advanced is a bit of a loaded term methinks. It can mean different things to different people. Good game AI isn't smart. Good AI is predictable and deterministic.

I'm not sure if the AI has hooks into the difficulty yet. I do know that encounters can change depending on the difficulty.

...

Just to piggyback on the AI question, but will there be any randomization to enemy types or their abilities? There's a mod to BG2 (SCS) that randomizes wizards' spell books from a set of handcrafted spell books each time you install, and so I only ever play on fresh installs.

Also, will there be any classes that have sequencer/contingency type spells? That's a huge thing for me.

I was looking at the art for scripted interactions; are they in an in-world style, i.e., are they how Dyrwoodians (sp?) or whoever illustrate manuscripts?

There will be some randomization on ability selection. We don't have plans for completely randomizing spell books however.

We currently don't have plans for sequencer/contingency spells, sorry.

The art for the scripted interaction scenes fit the world - I don't know for sure if an artist in the world would use a similar style. All of the interface art follows a similar sensibility.

 

[hiver]

Nice.

Im sure a lot of people will cry about sequencers and contingency spells but that kind of cheap trick was only needed in the game like BG, and in that particular system.

Still, the magic system is the part of the game i worry the most, at the moment. When is that update about wizards coming?

 

[Arkeus]

Still, the magic system is the part of the game i worry the most, at the moment. When is that update about wizards coming?

I think the last update said the next update was about wizard...

On the next episode of Pillars of Eternity: Josh Sawyer writes a class update about wizards and druids, and Adam meets a wacky goblin neighbor only he can see!

 

[hiver]

Yeah... so... when is that going to come? ETA please?

 

[deuxhero]

the game should not be played in chargen.

1. Ultimately only the complete newbs can make any kind of drastic mistakes that completely ruin a build.
2. Even if you do something horrible it is because there was some mistake in explanations or lack of proper explanation what which stat does.
3. Even if such a build is made, all it does is it makes you go back and play with another.

What Sawyer is doing there is basically making the chargen such as most capable players see it. None of you will make a completely useless build in BG2 - is that not correct? So, for you - practically, there is no bad builds in the game - you always make good builds. More or less.
Is it even possible to make a completely useless build in BG games? what... youre going to give 5 in strength to a fighter?

I've actually made a 16 strength (certainly not dumping a stats. This is literally enough strength to beat the Olympic weight lifting record in 1E and 3E, and I'm pretty sure it is in 2E but I don't have the encumbrance table on hand) longbow focused ranger once in BG. Even putting aside how he can't use anything but the most basic form of his chosen weapon with 16 strength, unless you buy one in candlekeep (You literally can not get enough to buy it and passable armor short of abusing the tutorial items on export bug) you won't find one for a significant amount of time.

BG's character creation IS very unfriendly to a beginner. Maybe not for the reasons Sawyer thinks (it's 99% Bioware sucks at descriptions), but it is pretty bad.


For example Bioware decide THIS should be strength's in-game description.

Strength measures a character's muscle, endurance and stamina. It is the prime requisite of Fighter.

Let's count the problems with this

1: "endurance and stamina" are actually part of constitution
2: prime requisite of fighters, even though half the classes in the game need it
3: WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT DO MECHANICALLY?!

A proper description might be something like

Strength increases a character's accuracy and damage with melee weapons as well as carrying capacity. A strength of 18 is needed to use a composite longbow.

Worse. What stats does the game say is important for Rangers? Constitution. Yes, con. The physical stats you need LEAST as a ranger (not dumpable, but a ranger could certainly get away with less con than someone in melee could).

 

[hiver]

Well... yeah?

Bad descriptions, or lack thereof in chargen, makes it impossible for anyone to figure out what to do with what effect, (W2 chargen is completely like that) and the game has retarded mechanics further along, that you cannot anticipate in any way, like that idiocy with a composite bow.

 

[Niektory]

have You come around to program the encounter AI yet? how advanced do You intend to make it? will it differ from creature to creature and/or culture to culture? will PC group vs NPC group encounters feature any special tactics?

Yes, we have a system in place for encounter AI. I would say it's "advanced" but not "fancy" - and designers can customize the hell out of it. Advanced is a bit of a loaded term methinks. It can mean different things to different people. Good game AI isn't smart. Good AI is predictable and deterministic.

Predictable and deterministic = boring. I don't like this approach because it leads to rote gameplay that's more about learning and exploiting the fixed AI routines. I prefer when the AI surprises me and forces me to adapt - or at least tries to. "Good game AI isn't smart" sounds like an excuse for failing to make it smart.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Predictable and deterministic = boring. I don't like this approach because it leads to rote gameplay that's more about learning and exploiting the fixed AI routines. I prefer when the AI surprises me and forces me to adapt - or at least tries to. "Good game AI isn't smart" sounds like an excuse for failing to make it smart.

Not if there's good encounter design. Dark Souls AI is dead simple, but because the designers knew how the AI would act, they were able to design encounters around those behaviors. A single deterministic enemy is trivial, but combining various enemy types you can create complicated tactical challenges. Bad AI exploits usually come with 'smarter' AI behaviors, like multiple levels of alertness and complex 3D pathfinding - see most stealth games, Bethesda's "Radiant" AI.

 

[Goegoff]

Predictable and deterministic = fair.

FTFY
And also, as ANA4RCHID said, beating AI because You've played by it's rules, but played better, is way more enjoyable than beating the AI because it chose to act stupidly.

 

[Cosmo]

You've played by it's rules, but played better, is way more enjoyable than beating the AI because it chose to act stupidly.

Precisely the reason why KotC was good by the way.

 

[Copper]

Well... yeah?

Bad descriptions, or lack thereof in chargen, makes it impossible for anyone to figure out what to do with what effect, (W2 chargen is completely like that) and the game has retarded mechanics further along, that you cannot anticipate in any way, like that idiocy with a composite bow.

Yup, raging every so often playing Mask of the Betrayer and the useless descriptions included for many 'duplicates the effect of Y' items, including most armour, etc. I think a vast amount of the tedium/lack of accesibility that Josh identifies is down to game designers being pretty shit at information architecture design, rather than the flaws in the system.

 

[hiver]

Clear consequence of designers writing those descriptions, not gamers. The difference between awesome "ideas" MCA can produce per second... and him playing Arcanum.

 

[LivingOne]

More Brennecke

TrueMenace, on 10 Mar 2014 - 01:13 AM, said:

Can you go into brief detail on how a semi-difficult encounter will play out in a battle in PoE? I'm anxious for a video, but I know that won't happen for a while. I'm just trying to imagine how the classes will play out.



Could you give us a text description of a, say, memorable encounter you had so far playing the game? Your tactics, etc.



That could be amazing.



Thanks!

Most encounters involve much pausing, positioning your party, assessing threats, looking through your ability/spells, casting damage spells, buffing/healing the party, keeping an eye on stamina/health, etc.

Hiro Protagonist II, on 10 Mar 2014 - 01:41 AM, said:

Have there been any ideas that had to be abandoned or drastically changed? Was there any features you really liked but had to give up because it didn't fit into the game world?



Further to this. Do you guys make random funny stuff for the hell of it? We saw the +3 medicine ball flail during the Kickstarter campaign. Can you tell us any other funny stuff you made as well that obviously won't be in the game?

Hundreds of ideas. That's part of being a game developer. You have to learn how to let go of ideas.

Gumbercules, on 10 Mar 2014 - 01:45 AM, said:

Thanks for answering questions.



Does Unity have underlying problems that make large, open areas difficult to do or is it just a design issue for the RPGs that seem to be having trouble with this recently? I've been noticing a lot of funneling paths in Wasteland 2 for example. If it is a technical problem, PoE's pre-rendered backgrounds should eliminate the issue, so I'm wondering if you'll have plenty of areas with more than just a few obvious routes to move in?

I can't speak to other games. Our areas are designed like the IE games, so you should expect Pillars areas to be very similar.

Falkon Swiftblade, on 10 Mar 2014 - 02:40 AM, said:

Hey Adam, that's super of you to offer your time like this. I watched a pal play South park and I feel like the execution was amazing. One thing though I hope doesn't translate into Pillars of Eternity was the amount of choices to have in combat felt way too samey throughout the game. The attacks are kind of fun to watch once in a while but not hundreds of times. If there is not a budget for a lot of tactics, is there anything you guys can do so each encounter feels unique? Whether it be quips by the npc's like you did in south park, or some randomness. Maybe Enemy's can swap weapons in battle to change tactics or something?

The two projects have different goals. I wouldn't compare the two. Apples and oranges.

Gumbercules, on 10 Mar 2014 - 02:45 AM, said:

Thought of another question.



Has work started yet on any of the Kickstarter rewards that aren't part of the actual game? For example the campaign almanac or the novella. Will those be released with the game or before/after?

Yes! Our goal is to have the rewards ready by the time we ship the game.

Monte Carlo, on 10 Mar 2014 - 02:49 AM, said:

Hello Adam, thanks for taking time to answer questions.



Can you tell us anything cool about the mega-dungeon?



No problems if you can't.



Best,



MC

I don't want to spoil anything. Here's something: Brandon Adler designed one of the levels.

Falkon Swiftblade, on 10 Mar 2014 - 02:52 AM, said:

Can you give us an example of an idea for game play mechanic that was implemented that you either brought into this game that is unique, or maybe something you liked in another game and you borrowed it to fit into your game? An example might be how Gears of War introduced cover based shooting in a way that was unique at it's time, and since then other games use that tactic now. Similarly in that context, is it possible to use the environment for strategic use in combat? Such as maybe an archer or mage can attack a bunch of barrels that explode, or shoot down a hanging lantern that would catch something on fire...

The scripted interactions are unique. It's been done before, but not in this type of game, and to the extent and refinement that we are shooting for in Pillars (to my knowledge, please correct me). I think it's a great addition, and allows our designers to run wild without blowing up the budget.



You might be able to use the environment for a tactical advantage in combat, but it's not the norm. Most of the time the environment dictates where choke points are, and how much space you have to navigate in and around battles.

rjshae, on 10 Mar 2014 - 03:23 AM, said:

Hi Adam,



I'm curious to find out how the integration of the KS contributor NPC designs have been coming along? I'd imagine you're getting quite a few unusual ideas, which I'll bet are a challenge to adopt into the setting. Could you speak to that? Thank you.

It's going well! We are still in the process of getting information from everyone - so please make sure and get your survey done before the deadline.

alanschu, on 10 Mar 2014 - 06:04 AM, said:

You're presumably long gone, but I'm curious how you define alpha?

We tend to define it as feature complete (all features we want to be in the game exist in some capacity) but I think other places apply the term earlier than we do.

We have a similar definition of Alpha. Not only do we have all the features, but all of the content is in the game as well.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65617-adam-at-work/page-4

 

[Duraframe300]

No updates this week according to BAdler.

 

[Decado]

As others have mentioned I've never really seen this mythical game where you can outright create a terribly broken or ineffective character unless you really try to.

In DA:O, taking a thief or a warrior means you are only 30% or so as strong as a Mage played and levelled up with the same efficiency.

In BG, making a non-dual/multi thief means you are, likewise, around 30% as capable as any other classes: you can 'make do' if you use other classes by using your companions, but a thief is plain useless in BG AND has low-life, meaning that the odds of you dying are much greater compared to any other classes (even mage, as you are useless as a thief).

In BG2, using a thief or a warrior is, likewise, nerfing yourself- unless you are playing a trapper.

Let's not even talk about the joke that's the Bard.

Your meta knowledge of BG2 classes is pretty bad. Single class bard and even single class thief is equal to a mage. Especially when you reach epic level skills....

Yeah, this shit was pretty dumb. The BGII Swashbuckler is a murder machine, just as an example.