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

[Gangrelrumbler]

But they are misrepresented. I mean look on the Risen 2 - total orientalisation of the Voodoo.

Every mythology is misrepresented in popular media and especially in video games. Minotaurs are just people with bull faces, titans are friendly giants instead of godlike beings and when actual Gods appear they are usually parodies of themselves. Hades got turned into Satan in Disney's Hercules, Odin was turned from a trickster into a madman bent on world domination in Marvel's Thor. Probably because mythological beings are there to provide entertainment and fill required roles (the brute, the cunning villain) than to represent anything.

 

[deuxhero]

And Hades is the one who didn't really fuck over mortals for the sake of it, while fluffy cloud not!god is actually a serial rapist whoes main domain is dangerous weather.

 

[hiver]

hey Hormalakh , would you ask Josh about guns being easy wizard killers? They seem like one shot insta-killers for wizards, per descriptions so far, which seems way too cheesy - and unbalanced! -so... could he clarify how easy it will be going around and one-shotting wizards with guns?
And while were at it - how will they play out against other classes?

 

[Hormalakh]

I can ask, but I think I already know the answer. Sensuki or Roguey or Infinitron can back me up if I'm wrong. Ultimately, the guns are useful against a single wizard spell the arcane veil (They can penetrate it). However, mages can have hitpoints higher than the single shot of a gun. Also, guns are for the most part single-shot because of their extremely high reload times. guns aren't really meant to play as OP as people make them out to be. Darklands had guns too.

they're not really weapons that you'd use constantly unless you outnumber your enemies and have someone who's a crack shot. Otherwise, by the time you use a gun more than once, I'm pretty sure melee classes will close the distance and engage you on melee-combat at which point you'd be at a disdvantage.

 

[Hormalakh]

anyone here agree with what Josh said about 13th Age? Anyone played it here and have thoughts? Alex?

 

[Sensuki]

hey Hormalakh , would you ask Josh about guns being easy wizard killers? They seem like one shot insta-killers for wizards, per descriptions so far, which seems way too cheesy - and unbalanced! -so... could he clarify how easy it will be going around and one-shotting wizards with guns?
And while were at it - how will they play out against other classes?

Wizards have a spell/ability called Arcane Veil, which gives them a short duration increase to Deflection (AC) and Josh calls it their "oh shit" ability. I think it's a per encounter power. Firearms ignore the Arcane Veil.

Firearms have an accuracy penalty IIRC. I don't think you'll be able to one shot anything in this game unless you come up with some super build and break the system.

 

[cherry blossom]

As to the matter of black people in fantasy... look at W2 for example

But more seriously, i really, really wish that any of them that usually complain about being misrepresented in fantasies made or based upon more "scandinavian" legends and myths - would just fucking go and do their own fanatsy stories and games - based on their own legends, myths and culture. For fuck sake.
Because i would really love to play something like that. Where the generic white guy would be the lip service - expendable side kick.
And because the Scandinavian myths are completely spent and overused and turned into mindnumbing cliches built out of cliches.

I loved liked the bioware... what was its name... (google recollect spell!) - Jade Empire - precisely because it was not another "white" fantasy. Yes, even a bioware game. (actually it was pretty decent compared to any other shit bioware threw out after BG2)
And dont go all "bwaaah but evil slavers stole mah culture and made me eat burgers and coca cola all day!" - fuck you. You have google, dig and search. Go to Africa and rediscover it all.

Fucking hell, i would love if an actual African would take some of his culture myths and legends and make an RPG based on that.
I would back that with real money.

Stop fucking complaining about not being Scandinavian-western European knights and princesses - youre not, your never were, you never will be - start doing your own thing. Let whites complain why they cant be... .... ... - what? I dont know... nobody is teaching me!

/ rant

Not saying all of their complaints about being excluded or ignored is always right but expecting whiny non-whites to use "their own" culture is pretty much racist. For instance, a black American is an American. You can't expect him or her to submit to a culture thousands of miles away and several life times ago. That person is an American, period, and has no other culture than American culture unless he or she actively submits to one (or maybe he or she submits to none!), whatever that may be. Expecting and telling minorities to choose the "right" culture is not anybody else's business. The matter is exclusivity, not cultural representation. They can be excluded for valid reasons but the reasons for excluding them are usually bullshit.

 

[Sensuki]

These might be new:

Forem qotes from you know who:

Our dungeon/interior corridors have all been designed with full party navigation in mind. You won't find anything as narrow as Firewine Bridge in Pillars of Eternity.

Our companion portraits are all separate from the PC portraits.

(So no going Eder's Portrait as your char).

This also gives some info on the accuracy formula:

There are a couple of thrown "kablooie" weapons. They don't use a special skill, but the character's normal Accuracy (class base + [{level-1} * 3] + Dexterity), sometimes with a modifier from the item itself.

There's another not PE related post on 13th Age that is unimportant.

 

[Zed]

(So no going Eder's Portrait as your char).

you could just put it in as a custom portrait.

 

[garren]

Our dungeon/interior corridors have all been designed with full party navigation in mind. You won't find anything as narrow as Firewine Bridge in Pillars of Eternity.

Oh yeah those, some designer must have had jolly fun times designing this stuff:

Damn I hated those areas.

 

[deuxhero]

Does this mean there are no choke points?

 

[Sensuki]

(So no going Eder's Portrait as your char).

you could just put it in as a custom portrait.

No doubt. I have no doubt there'll be Rest anywhere mods and access stash anywhere mods as well.

 

[Delterius]

Does this mean there are no choke points?

They are talking about excessively long and thin corridors, its not like doors will be as large as a party of 10. Not to mention the battlefield control motifs that so many classes have, you might just be able to make your own chokepoints even when there aren't any.

 

[deus101]

Our dungeon/interior corridors have all been designed with full party navigation in mind. You won't find anything as narrow as Firewine Bridge in Pillars of Eternity.

Oh yeah those, some designer must have had jolly fun times designing this stuff:

Damn I hated those areas.

Its not that much you raging cunt...

 

[Hormalakh]

No doubt. I have no doubt there'll be Rest anywhere mods and access stash anywhere mods as well.

And I hope your'e using the term "mod" very loosely here. Those two are as much mods as Game Genie was a "modder" for the old console games or hex-editing is.

Those "mods" will very likely break game rules in a massive way.

 

[Xor]

And I hope your'e using the term "mod" very loosely here. Those two are as much mods as Game Genie was a "modder" for the old console games or hex-editing is.

I agree - Game Genie was essentially a modding tool for consoles since it was changing the game environment in some way. Hex editing is more blurry, but I'd say it's definitely modding if you're changing data files.

Those "mods" will very likely break game rules in a massive way.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you upset that some people might have an easier time beating the game than others? How do people installing ease of use mods affect you in the slightest?

 

[Hormalakh]

My point is that I think "mods" like those really shouldn't be called mods (that's why it got the quotes!). When I think of mods, I think of programs or additions that don't take away from the developer's core intent when first making the game. I could care less how other people play their game, but ultimately it affects me because when it later comes to downloading mods to alter my playthrough, I have to sift through mods-that-don't-affect-the-core-intent and mods/cheats that do.

Call it laziness or whatever, but it's a real headache to have to sit through each of the mods that we currently have and decipher whether changing that aspect of the game would radically alter the core game play (usually for the worse). WeiDU is annoying when you have to go through each mod line-by-line.

 

[Abelian]

Its not that much

There's also the Nashkel mine levels, which were annoying to navigate with a full party due to the poor pathfinding.

 

[deus101]

Its not that much

There's also the Nashkel mine levels, which were annoying to navigate with a full party due to the poor pathfinding.

YOU SURVIVED! Christ...fucking ADHD kids whing about pathfidning.

Look...we all agree the Bioware RealTimeWith Pause games had great encounter design...so either you go through it by fucking ENCOUNTERING...or you are just whineing about the 1.5 min it took to traversle a zone.

 

[garren]

No one's saying BG was a bad game or whining about some retarded shit, were just pointing out a few areas that could have been designed better. Of course, it's been established that PoE will not have these kind of areas and this thread is not about Baldur's Gate anyways so yeah.. whatever.

 

[Xor]

Yeah, that maze at the end of BG1 was objectively fucking terrible.

 

[Delterius]

No one's saying BG was a bad game or whining about some retarded shit, were just pointing out a few areas that could have been designed better. Of course, it's been established that PoE will not have these kind of areas and this thread is not about Baldur's Gate anyways so yeah.. whatever.

Look. You complained about area design. The guy then told you to shut up because of encounter design. Which isn't very good in the particular area you're discussing. You're not supposed to apologize to just yet.

My point is that I think "mods" like those really shouldn't be called mods (that's why it got the quotes!). When I think of mods, I think of programs or additions that don't take away from the developer's core intent when first making the game. I could care less how other people play their game, but ultimately it affects me because when it later comes to downloading mods to alter my playthrough, I have to sift through mods-that-don't-affect-the-core-intent and mods/cheats that do.

Call it laziness or whatever, but it's a real headache to have to sit through each of the mods that we currently have and decipher whether changing that aspect of the game would radically alter the core game play (usually for the worse). WeiDU is annoying when you have to go through each mod line-by-line.

Believe it or not, but developer intent is actually something that the BG modding community enshrined. At least if you compare it to some other communities where it isn't even discussed, very few people care much at all about developer intent in TES as of late. Modding there is a matter of customizing the experience, whereas a good deal of BG modding is merely about refining the original experience. That's why even humongous projects like Big World seem to distinguish between modder madness and 'canon'. The thing is that the BG modding scene is way too old to care about all things equally -- we are talking about people who played these games multiple times for over 10 years. So you've got things like 'convenience tweaks' everyone.

Do keep in mind that the 'sanctity of the core rules' and things such as 'fairplay' are an ideal that modders have failed to live up with (mostly intentionally so) since the times of Wizardry. And being butthurt about people cheating or exploiting their way to fun® is no less moot today than it was then.

 

[Sensuki]

Those "mods" will very likely break game rules in a massive way.

No shit, but I'll bet you that 9/10 people who download PE mods will install them.

 

[Grunker]

My point is that I think "mods" like those really shouldn't be called mods (that's why it got the quotes!). When I think of mods, I think of programs or additions that don't take away from the developer's core intent when first making the game. I could care less how other people play their game, but ultimately it affects me because when it later comes to downloading mods to alter my playthrough, I have to sift through mods-that-don't-affect-the-core-intent and mods/cheats that do.

Call it laziness or whatever, but it's a real headache to have to sit through each of the mods that we currently have and decipher whether changing that aspect of the game would radically alter the core game play (usually for the worse). WeiDU is annoying when you have to go through each mod line-by-line.

This has got to be the whiniest post I've read on the Codex this year. I like you and all, Hormalakh, but I have no fuckin' clue what you're on about here.

WeiDU has insane customization which enables you to craft exactly the experience you desire - for whatever reason - and you whine because that means modding takes 15 minutes more?

Also "mods" aren't really "mods" if they "modify", according to you, they need to "add". wat. Mod is literally short for modifi-fucking-cation, and you don't see the irony of you saying "real mods are additions" (you know, as opposed to "modifications")? Christ. Maybe modders shouldn't be beholden to random users' misunderstood definitions of the word "modify" (hint: it's not a synonym to "add'), you know?

The semantic rant out of the way, what are you arguing for here? It's clear you don't want huge balance-mods that just install everything willy-nilly, so what exactly are you asking for?

That modders only include whatever customizable options you have personally sanctioned? That changes to the core gameplay be called another word so it doesn't semantically dirty the "mod scene"?

I fucking guarantee you won't find a modding community much more dedicated to the seperation of non-dev-intent and dev-intent categories. Look at the hand-wringing that went on with the BG2 Fixpack (to the point where clearly dev-intended shit was put under "optional but cool") or the way Tactics was panned which culminated in SCS, one of the most fucking elegant mods, period. Customization and line-by-line WeiDU modding is a derivative of your concerns, not a detriment to them.

Unless spending an hour to mod your game seems like an unreasonable prospect to you. Most mods are split in content and modification categories anyway.

 

[Hormalakh]

Fair enough - though my post might seem otherwise, I don't really care that much about it anyway. Mods for all!

Now for something interesting.

Volourn, on 07 Apr 2014 - 10:50 PM, said:
Adventuring, by its nature, is dangerous. The instant deaths and other nasty effects exist to illustrate this fact. Fighitng a beholder or other deadlyc reatures who have such powers isn't supposed to be easy, welcomed, or cool. It is supposed to put fear into the player.
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They do in tabletop. In a game where you can reload, such as ours (excluding Trial of Iron), they don't create fear as much as annoyance. For many players, getting sacked by a Disintegrate effect simply means a reload and a metagame revision of their prepped defenses. In the second attempt, what would in tabletop induce fear isn't even an annoyance; it's simply obviated by a hard counter. BG's Protection from Petrification is a 2nd level wizard spell and grants blanket immunity. If you have a wizard and have that spell prepped, BG's fights against basilisks are trivially easy. If you don't, they become as swingy as most low-level BG encounters. Challenging in the sense that there's a good chance you won't get through them, but not particularly interesting since the individual die rolls have such a huge effect on the outcome.

Sarex, on 08 Apr 2014 - 1:41 PM, said:
But then isn't it like that for anything else in the game, you can reload if you fail or are caught unprepared. Where do you draw the line at what is annoying and what isn't, as this is a very subjective thing. If you step in to a deadly trap you simply reload and avoid it, if the enemy does a certain combo and gets you, you reload and plan for it. I am not sure I follow how that is different from anything else, is the problem that you can't outplay it or what?
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It is not like many things in the game. E.g. hit point loss is typically arrived at via the comparatively slow aggregation of rolled hits that normalize over the course of many attacks. A vulnerable character standing in a bad position is a tactical problem for which there are many potential solutions that can be arrived at over a longer timeline. This is why many A/D&D players often say that 4th-12th level A/D&D is the "sweet spot" for challenge in encounters. From 1st to 3rd level, combat is extremely swingy. The player's tactical decisions have less influence on life and death than the die roll. For practical purposes, a wide variety of standard attacks at low levels are death attacks (or at least incapacitating attacks) for many characters. In the mid- to upper-teens, A/D&D combat is dominated by attacking an enemy's weakest defense with an incapacitating status effect or overwhelming damage hit (e.g. in 3.X, a fighter's Will, which is notoriously fragile). The best defense? Hard counters vs. specific status effects or damage types, which are extremely difficult to plan for. Combat scenarios that build around hard counters turn into puzzles for which there are not good solutions if you don't have the hard counters prepped (assuming you have access to that hard counter at all).

Where I draw the line are single-check long-duration incapacitation effects against which hard counters are the only practical defense. Their effects on combat and the immediate aftermath promote reloading and metagaming more than in-the-moment adaptation to temporary or progressive incapacitation. Yeah, you can lose a fight via progressive aggregation of damage over 30 seconds to 2 minutes. This is a different type of problem with a more diverse variety of solutions than a fight you lose (or win a Pyrrhic victory) in 12 seconds because a basilisk waxed two party members as soon as you came around the corner.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65...es-and-the-gameplay-challenges-thereof/page-6