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

[jewboy]

Well popular is relative. The idea had its supporters. Like lots of other shit ideas. I can't be arsed to find the links now and it doesn't really matter at this point anyway.

 

[Infinitron]

Anyway, I see prone mainly being used when you're knocked down or crawling for cover. No need to do anything that way.

Stealth.

You were indeed correct about PE all along, VotS. Do you have any contacts at Obsidian we should know about?

The funny thing is I'm quite certain VotS has happily pledged to this game.

 

[jewboy]

This is why design by consensus is usually catering to the common denominator or the loudest asshole in the room. These guys know rpg's so I do hope they ignore the 'fan' titter tatter and do what they feel works best.

And yeah, sounds like an ie game. Which is cool, since some of the best rpg's ever were ie games.

The sad part is that I don't think they are pandering. I think they are doing what they genuinely believe will result in the best game. Whether they are defining "best" as the game they would most like to play themselves or as what will bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number I don't know. I just know that this news is very bad and that at least the magic system in the game is going to be awful. Also these kinds of decisions don't bode well for all of the other decisions they will have to make in the design phase. At this point Obsidian has lost my trust completely. I just hope they leave a lot of time for playtesting. They may be in for a very unpleasant surprise when they start playing thiis cooldown based combat for themselves. I think they have grown way too over-confident about their abilities. Of course most of the kickstarter backers will love the game no matter what kind of shit they squeeze out.

 

[villain of the story]

Why? Why the fuck is it pathetic? You can turn it on you dipshit. Fuck, why do you have to tear down everything? Don't you have other things to do? Every fucking time there is an update, you find something to bash. FF is optional! Read my lips: O-P-T-I-O-N-A-L.

Butthurt detected

Oh wait, what was it that you said?

"Combat difficulty"
"Conversation mode"

O-P-T-I-O-N-A-L



And if you haven't noticed, I am positively surprised by a few little things as well.

 

[Jarpie]

Shouldn't his name be Retard of the Story?

 

[villain of the story]

My thoughts on this Adventurer's Hall business, also posted at Obsidian PE forum:

It's an "Adventurer's Hall". Narrative-wise, it will be like hiring nobodies so I'm not sure I'd like it if they pulled some personal crap on me and nagged me about their personal drama bullshit. However, if you could just up and create new characters once you reached whatever necessary level, it would also be kind of disappointing. Too easy, no? So I sort of agree with Crusty. I'd like behaviour traits (though not annoying things like autonomous looting) to balance it.

Jagged Alliance 2 comes to mind. Characters had all sorts of traits that made them authentic. Some hated the water. Some, the heat or rain or desert or night or each other. Some were psychotic and went on auto-fire sprees even though you had only wanted to shoot once. Etc.

In fact, it might have been far better if you could just hire (as in, keep them paid for as long as you wanted one) premade and reasonably fleshed out NPCs at this Adventurer's Hall with behaviour traits and very brief backgrounds ala JA/JA2 sans the plot-narrative depth promised for the companions.

More so, they could use "the custom NPC" reward exclusively to fill the Adventurer's Hall roster.

Either case, having to pay to keep a custom character from Adventurer's Hall would be a good point to balance it and give world currency extra meaning. After all, it's extremely likely that we will become crazy rich by mid-game.

 

[villain of the story]

Pet thing is fucking stupid but before you bitch ask yourself: "why does it matter if it is purely optional?"

It matters because they will be wasting their precious resources on modelling, animating, texturing and AI-writing a retarded piece of shit running around you, waving its tail. I thought animations were so hard, why waste time and manpower on this retarded bullshit while they could do grappling instead?

 

[villain of the story]

Shouldn't his name be Retard of the Story?

Truth too turdy to handle, Derpie?

 

[CrustyBot]

It's a good one. I completely forgot about JA 2 when making my comparison.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

This is why design by consensus is usually catering to the common denominator or the loudest asshole in the room. These guys know rpg's so I do hope they ignore the 'fan' titter tatter and do what they feel works best.

And yeah, sounds like an ie game. Which is cool, since some of the best rpg's ever were ie games.

The sad part is that I don't think they are pandering. I think they are doing what they genuinely believe will result in the best game. Whether they are defining "best" as the game they would most like to play themselves or as what will bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number I don't know. I just know that this news is very bad and that at least the magic system in the game is going to be awful. Also these kinds of decisions don't bode well for all of the other decisions they will have to make in the design phase. At this point Obsidian has lost my trust completely. I just hope they leave a lot of time for playtesting. They may be in for a very unpleasant surprise when they start playing thiis cooldown based combat for themselves. I think they have grown way too over-confident about their abilities. Of course most of the kickstarter backers will love the game no matter what kind of shit they squeeze out.

It's not solely cooldown-based though. And we knew before that some sort of cooldowns were considered.

Also, it's still only the system for the wizard class and it's not fixed. Tim specifically says at the end that it's just ideas for now and said they look at the reactions and asks the public if they have better ones.

 

[Jarpie]

Shouldn't his name be Retard of the Story?

Truth too turdy to handle, Derpie?

No because I don't mind that kind of cooldowns that much.

 

[Infinitron]

More so, they could use "the custom NPC" reward exclusively to fill the Adventurer's Hall roster.

That's an excellent idea.

 

[Semper]

You were indeed correct about PE all along, VotS. Do you have any contacts at Obsidian we should know about?

could you please stop sucking his cock? villain's ego'll explode... after 3-4 days in, sawyer spoke the first time about changing the resting system and adding considering kool-downs to balance the usage of ablilities. since then vots repeated his "clever" analysis day after day, not noticing that EVERYBODY expected such an outcome. you don't have to be einstein's fucking incarnation to draw the right conclusions.

 

[Volourn]

"Also fireball, haste and stoneskin are not low level spells, jut FYI. Low level = 1-2 level. Fireball starts with 3."

r u retarted?

When you have levels of spells, level 3 and 4 is definitely on the lower end of the spectrum. U cannot into logically.

Unless they make low level spells utterly useless this is a dumb plan. And, since they stated their goal was to make sure low level spells were still useful later on.. this contradicts them...

Magic missle is almost always useful in DnD. Thank god, you coulodn't just spam it. Afterall, why would a mage bother with a staff if they can do 5d4+5 points of MAGIC damger each round which TRUMPS a great sword. FFS

 

[Infinitron]

"Also fireball, haste and stoneskin are not low level spells, jut FYI. Low level = 1-2 level. Fireball starts with 3."

r u retarted?

When you have levels of spells, level 3 and 4 is definitely on the lower end of the spectrum. U cannot into logically.

Unless they make low level spells utterly useless this is a dumb plan. And, since they stated their goal was to make sure low level spells were still useful later on.. this contradicts them...

Magic missle is almost always useful in DnD. Thank god, you coulodn't just spam it. Afterall, why would a mage bother with a staff if they can do 5d4+5 points of MAGIC damger each round which TRUMPS a great sword. FFS

Cantrips, remember them?

 

[J_C]

My thoughts on this Adventurer's Hall business, also posted at Obsidian PE forum:

It's an "Adventurer's Hall". Narrative-wise, it will be like hiring nobodies so I'm not sure I'd like it if they pulled some personal crap on me and nagged me about their personal drama bullshit. However, if you could just up and create new characters once you reached whatever necessary level, it would also be kind of disappointing. Too easy, no? So I sort of agree with Crusty. I'd like behaviour traits (though not annoying things like autonomous looting) to balance it.

Jagged Alliance 2 comes to mind. Characters had all sorts of traits that made them authentic. Some hated the water. Some, the heat or rain or desert or night or each other. Some were psychotic and went on auto-fire sprees even though you had only wanted to shoot once. Etc.

In fact, it might have been far better if you could just hire (as in, keep them paid for as long as you wanted one) premade and reasonably fleshed out NPCs at this Adventurer's Hall with behaviour traits and very brief backgrounds ala JA/JA2 sans the plot-narrative depth promised for the companions.

Either case, having to pay to keep a custom character from Adventurer's Hall would be a good point to balance it and give world currency extra meaning. After all, it's extremely likely that we will become crazy rich by mid-game.

This is why it is hard for Obsidian. Everybody wants a different thing, even on the Codex. At first people were bitching about the lack of creating a party. Now that they have announced it, you would find it dissapointing to creaty a whole character. Who should Obsidian listen to? You, or me, or the other thousand Codexian who can't decide what is good, and they are arguing about it all the time.

And if you haven't noticed, I am positively surprised by a few little things as well.

I know, but it it easier to pick on the negativity.

More so, they could use "the custom NPC" reward exclusively to fill the Adventurer's Hall roster.

Great idea!

"Also fireball, haste and stoneskin are not low level spells, jut FYI. Low level = 1-2 level. Fireball starts with 3."

r u retarted?

When you have levels of spells, level 3 and 4 is definitely on the lower end of the spectrum. U cannot into logically.

Unless they make low level spells utterly useless this is a dumb plan. And, since they stated their goal was to make sure low level spells were still useful later on.. this contradicts them...

Magic missle is almost always useful in DnD. Thank god, you coulodn't just spam it. Afterall, why would a mage bother with a staff if they can do 5d4+5 points of MAGIC damger each round which TRUMPS a great sword. FFS

No, level 3 and 4 is the beginning of the middle tier. And who said about magic missile? They don't use D&D you retard.

 

[villain of the story]

I agree. I am full of excellent ideas. I should be hired by Obsidian. Then I would troll the Codex, promising every next-gen feature I can think of to see where -if any- you lot draw the fucking line. Third person camera with actiony game controls for the younger people among our backers -see, it's not to cater to a wider audience! Finishing moves in slow-mo with voice narration: "M-M-Mutilation!". A quad-damage spell!

 

[Volourn]

Did you read his explanation? Fucknutz.

 

[Semper]

It's an "Adventurer's Hall". However, if you could just up and create new characters once you reached whatever necessary level, it would also be kind of disappointing.

da fuck?! that was the whole point of the adventurere's hall... to give the player the ability to create his own party. remember that half of the codex yelled decline because of pre-made companions?! now you can create your party and that's disappointing? dunno what to say

 

[Infinitron]

I WANT TO BE A DRAGON AGE http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61137-dragon-age-origins/

Actually though this is turning out to be a decent thread with some good analysis of DA:O's flaws.

 

[Volourn]

"No, level 3 and 4 is the beginning of the middle tier. And who said about magic missile? They don't use D&D you retard."
I'll give you a break and say level 4 is mid tier but level 3 is cearly low tier.

Low: 1-3
Med: 4-6
High: 7-9

FUCK YEAH!

That still means non stop spamming of magic missle type spells that can do 5d4+5 damage which is better than a fukkin' great sword. YEAH. That is dumb. Unless they nerf all low level spells to the point theya re garbage which opposes their stated goal of low level spells being still useful later on. YOU CNA'T HAVE IT BOTH FUKKIN' WAYS!

 

[jewboy]

This is why design by consensus is usually catering to the common denominator or the loudest asshole in the room. These guys know rpg's so I do hope they ignore the 'fan' titter tatter and do what they feel works best.

And yeah, sounds like an ie game. Which is cool, since some of the best rpg's ever were ie games.

The sad part is that I don't think they are pandering. I think they are doing what they genuinely believe will result in the best game. Whether they are defining "best" as the game they would most like to play themselves or as what will bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number I don't know. I just know that this news is very bad and that at least the magic system in the game is going to be awful. Also these kinds of decisions don't bode well for all of the other decisions they will have to make in the design phase. At this point Obsidian has lost my trust completely. I just hope they leave a lot of time for playtesting. They may be in for a very unpleasant surprise when they start playing thiis cooldown based combat for themselves. I think they have grown way too over-confident about their abilities. Of course most of the kickstarter backers will love the game no matter what kind of shit they squeeze out.

It's not solely cooldown-based though. And we knew before that some sort of cooldowns were considered.

Also, it's still only the system for the wizard class and it's not fixed. Tim specifically says at the end that it's just ideas for now and said they look at the reactions and asks the public if they have better ones.

Yeah. It does sound like modified Vancian with cooldowns except that it's heavily modified Vancian. The whole point of Vancian was that it took at least 8 hours to get your spells back. Now you can get them back before the battle is even over. And you can probably spam 1st and 2nd level spells continuously from the sound of this. I don't think they are talking about cantrips here. Or third level fireballs. I think they are thinking in terms of the typical sorts of spells you can find at first and second level. Will that include web or other AoE disabling spells? Who knows, but maybe. Maybe VotS or roguey know. Ask the resident seers. Probably it will at least include some single target disabling spells like hold person.

 

[Semper]

YOU CNA'T HAVE IT BOTH FUKKIN' WAYS!

omg, i agree with volo.

 

[Infinitron]

Remember that long casting times can help make powerful spells less over-powered.

 

[Cynic]

Wizards and priests had an unfair tactical disadvantage

FOR FUCK'S SAKE TIM, WIZARDS WERE AND ALWAYS ARE THE STRONGEST FUCKING CLASS IN THE GAME

HOW COULD YOU SAY THIS!

YOU MADE TOEE

I AM DISAPPOINT SON