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

[Shadenuat]

Well, generally speaking

J.E. Sawyer, on 06 October 2012 - 05:03 AM, said:
I'm speaking generally, but I'd say 3E/3.5E influence with some 2nd Ed. and 4E bits here and there.

It's really stupid to assume D&D won't influence game heavely, concidering it shaped IE games into what they were.

 

[Infinitron]

Jaesun I actually haven't heard that there will be any per-encounter "mid level spells". Where'd you get that? Or are you just extrapolating from D&D 4E

Shadenuat Sure, but it's obvious that the spell system as described would be incompatible with what we're used to from D&D CRPGs. At least not without being completely fucked up. There are many other things we don't know yet. Stats, skills, feats. Almost nothing actually.

And after what happened with the magic system, I don't think we will know.

 

[Lord Andre]

The problem with you fanboys is that it never occured to you that Obsidian is going for the next-gen crowd. This type of thinking from respected members like Jaesun is mindblowing.

 

[Semper]

Fuck that bullshit. As annoying a sit is though the trolls defending this crap just makes it stupider.

stop your bitching, be happy and up your pledge because of

 

[Volourn]

Meh. They ahven't even officially confirmed they got my money even thoguh paypal says they sent it. So, I'm suspicious until I get confirmation. <>

Dwraves got them my money. they wnat more they need a better magic system.

 

[Shadenuat]

Video interview: Josh Sawyer on Project Eternity (20 minutes,in-depth)

Watching now thanks

 

[Jaesun]

Jaesun I actually haven't heard that there will be any per-encounter "mid level spells". Where'd you get that? Or are you just extrapolating from D&D 4E

Start at the 12:02 in the matt chat video where it starts) but 13:17 for it comes back on.

 

[ravenshrike]

Feargus is on twitter again, spouting one or two answers that make Sawyer sad.

@feargus: will you use a karma system like the one in fallout? I thought it worked better than alignment

@Ohad Something very much like that, but you'll have various kinds of karma/reputation that better simulates your actions locally, globally and with specific groups.

That said, this is vague enough to just be a case of different perspective.

If you think of a karma system as what the general peasantry thinks of you, then it makes sense to have it in. Of course, that means that actions which can't be traced to you like successfully stealing or silently murdering someone shouldn't count towards karma. It could also affect factions, and some factions might not even approach you if they don't like your general standing.

 

[Infinitron]

Sorry, but a 1d4 damage fire spell that is useful at level 1 is gonna be garbage at level 10. FFS

Garbage? You mean, like a sling stone?

 

[Surf Solar]

I always use Slings for my mages for when they run out of spells.

 

[Shadenuat]

Matt: I've got a question from RPG Codex.. r you familiar with these guys?
Sawyer: oh yeah

lol

Well the system does't sound bad but I'm wondering, how would it deal with kiting abuse, if cooldowns would be around 1 minute long.

And yeah, these are still cooldowns and spells replenishing and locking themselves, have no idea how would you make it lore-friendly, thus for me it's, overall a (and no I'm not saying Vancian is very lore-friendly to begin with, tied to the setting spell descriptions like in Planescape only solve that partially)

 

[Dexter]

200 pages huh

You know, all this fellating, constant appeal to "trust Obsidian!!!" even if it coincides with decline-based decisions and quoting of vague statements by "person in official capacity" as ultimate truth and arguments from authority trying to make people shut up is giving me horrible flashbacks of browsing BSN or Blizzard boards.

 

[Jaesun]

Just wait till the codex hears about the cool-downs in Wasteland 2.

 

[suejak]

Ok, let's call them "catnaps". Bam! Vancian system!

 

[Infinitron]

Well, one thing's for sure - Obsidian have bungled their explanations of game mechanics, not giving enough context and making everybody assume the worst at every turn.

It's not hard to understand why - on most message forums, most notably Sawyer's beloved SomethingAwful, there's very little awareness of game mechanics at all. It's just not something they're interesting in analyzing, or even aware that they should be analyzing. It's easy to sell them vague half-explanations that sound cool.

I've asked Josh more than once on his Formspring to provide more context when describing his design decisions but he seems to be very stubborn about these things.

 

[CrustyBot]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60...etric-third-person-and-cinematic/page__st__40



Why doesn't this thread just die?

 

[Lord Andre]

Watched the interview. Sawyer always looks like such a nice guy then he makes a face-heel turn and preaches cooldowns with a straight face.
It always baffles me. For about 10 seconds I start thinking "Maybe he's right. Maybe I'm over-reacting. If they balance it right, it might turn out fun." Then sanity starts flooding back and I realize "Cooldowns". So yeah, still

 

[Alex]

You know guys, I think we should really change our focus here. I think a cool down system can, in fact, be used to emulate the IE system. Sure, it is ass backwards. There doesn't seem to be any kind of advantage in doing so, and it seems to only open up exploits to me, but still, I am sure it can be done. What is really dangerous right now, I think, is that they will try to shape the spells to fit the oddities of this new system. Sawyer commented about how he disliked the Wizard could get his nose in the Thief's turf. He also wondered if all the powers normally associated with wizards, like save or die spells, should really be there. I think there is a good chance that more utilitarian and odd spells can go the way of the dodo.

I thought things were bad enough in NWN 2. If you take a look at the Moldvay version of D&D, you may be surprised to see that of the only 2 of the 27 magic user spells described cause direct damage (magic missiles and fireball). Maybe other 10 have direct combat applications (like fly, sleep and web). The rest of the spells not only aren't directly bellic, but are sometimes supposed to be real curve balls. Stuff like read languages is great to poke around things the GM might have, at first, thought just window dressing (Ok, on the way back to town, I am going over their supplies book we found. Do I find anything interesting there?). Others, like phantasmal force, are just there to foster player creativity. A good phantasmal force could be the doom of a major demon, if it is not careful. Others yet aren't so open, but can be used smartly. Wizard lock will work on anything with a lock. You might be able to use in that hellish ballista contraption the goblins are using against you, and suddenly what was a major threat is now licking your boots and begging for its life. Or who doesn't love the story of the party that, upon finding the heavily fortified room where the orcs had set up a last stand, simply locked them there and waited until they admitted defeat before releasing one by one into slavedom.

I mean, I know this isn't the kind of thing IE was known for, but I dunno, I think this game could build this up instead of simply letting it go.

 

[ravenshrike]

Well, one thing's for sure - Obsidian have bungled their explanations of game mechanics, not giving enough context and making everybody assume the worst at every turn.

It's not hard to understand why - on most message forums, most notably Sawyer's beloved SomethingAwful, there's very little awareness of game mechanics at all. It's just not something they're interesting in analyzing, or even aware that they should be analyzing. It's easy to sell them vague half-explanations that sound cool.

I've asked Josh more than once on his Formspring to provide more context when describing his design decisions but he seems to be very stubborn about these things.

They're still in the design stage. They probably haven't even done the most basic testing on the system beyond the crudest possible with pencil and paper. So him telling you specifics much beyond what they've already revealed would almost certainly be useless. This project isn't nearly as far along in design as W2 was before the kickstarter started. Not to mention W2 already had a play system to directly base the new one on, whereas they're designing an entirely new system. Ask him again in 6 months.

 

[x4nti]

...
2. Mid level spells - Can cast X number of spells, once cast they lock and you cannot cast any more of them at all in the current combat.
...

What do you base that on?

 

[Jaesun]

This is kind of a bitch to explain (on a forum) but if it were something like:

Level 2 Mage

[Low Level Spells]
None

[Mid Level Spells]
Level 1 Spells [zap, burning hands, push away]
Level 2 spells [stun, bark skin, play dead\
You can choose 2 spells for this combat, then all spells in level 1 AND 2 lock out.

Level 6 Mage

[Low Level Spells]
Level 1 Spells [zap, burning hands, push away]
You can choose 1 spell and then the Level 1 spell tier is locked. It has a 1 minute cooldown and then you can select it again.

[Mid Level Spells]
Level 2 spells [stun, bark skin, play dead]
Level 3 spells [Fireball, haste, slow]
Level 4 spells [Lightening, blind
You can choose 3 spells for this combat, then all spells in level 2,3 and 4 lock out for the remainder of this current combat.

Something similar to that would be fine by me. I don't know if this is what Josh and Tim have in mind.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, one thing's for sure - Obsidian have bungled their explanations of game mechanics, not giving enough context and making everybody assume the worst at every turn.

It's not hard to understand why - on most message forums, most notably Sawyer's beloved SomethingAwful, there's very little awareness of game mechanics at all. It's just not something they're interesting in analyzing, or even aware that they should be analyzing. It's easy to sell them vague half-explanations that sound cool.

I've asked Josh more than once on his Formspring to provide more context when describing his design decisions but he seems to be very stubborn about these things.

They're still in the design stage. They probably haven't even done the most basic testing on the system beyond the crudest possible with pencil and paper. So him telling you specifics much beyond what they've already revealed would almost certainly be useless. This project isn't nearly as far along in design as W2 was before the kickstarter started. Not to mention W2 already had a play system to directly base the new one on, whereas they're designing an entirely new system. Ask him again in 6 months.

But I'm not even asking that much. Look at Tim Cain's update this morning. He made a bunch of people here freak out for a day because they assumed that not only were there cooldowns, but in addition low-level spells were now infinitely castable WITHOUT cooldowns.

If he'd bothered to mention the resting mechanic even ONCE that wouldn't have happened. It's not that they haven't finished designing things yet, they're just terrible at explaining them.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Ok, let's call them "catnaps". Bam! Vancian system!

I brofisted you then I had to unbrofist you.

Catnaps?

 

[oldmanpaco]

This is kind of a bitch to explain (on a forum) but if it were something like:

Level 2 Mage

[Low Level Spells]
None

[Mid Level Spells]
Level 1 Spells [zap, burning hands, push away]
Level 2 spells [stun, bark skin, play dead\
You can choose 2 spells for this combat, then all spells in level 1 AND 2 lock out.

Level 6 Mage

[Low Level Spells]
Level 1 Spells [zap, burning hands, push away]
You can choose 1 spell and then the Level 1 spell tier is locked. It has a 1 minute cooldown and then you can select it again.

[Mid Level Spells]
Level 2 spells [stun, bark skin, play dead]
Level 3 spells [Fireball, haste, slow]
Level 4 spells [Lightening, blind
You can choose 3 spells for this combat, then all spells in level 2,3 and 4 lock out for the remainder of this current combat.

Something similar to that would be fine by me. I don't know if this is what Josh and Tim have in mind.

If this game has a spell called 'Zap' I'm going to kill someone.

 

[Infinitron]

Jaesun has been playing Quest for Glory