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

[LeStryfe79]

I haven't done the Obsidian forums yet. I'd like to cut back on my alcohol consumption first.

 

[Blaine]

I never managed to suffer through the generic and unbelievably shitty original campaign of NWN2 to reach the well done expansions so many people are fond of. I've owned the game since years ago, but uninstalled it in disgust after the first fifteen minutes of generic scenery, generic elves, generic barmaids, generic music, generic (and cheesy) dialog... Christ, that was awful. That it was salvaged in any way seems a miracle.

My respect for Obsidian somehow survived NWN2. I pretty much worship the ground any prominent Fallout and Fallout 2 developers walk on, so they could shit down my throat and I'd probably still buy their games.

 

[asper]

Man, I forgot how ridiculously good the SoZ music is... Was it recorded with a real orchestra? It makes me think of old hollywood movies.

Blaine, it's possible to play the expansions without finishing the OC.

 

[undecaf]

I haven't done the Obsidian forums yet. I'd like to cut back on my alcohol consumption first.

Perhaps it would be better to try and cut back afterwards.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Eh, I didn't mind the OC. There were ways to play it (diplomatic barbarian) that made it pretty decent.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There is an example:

I have to say I honestly did not expect this to be confusing to anyone. Here's an example. Bob the Fighter has 32 Stamina and 30 Health. He gets hit by a number of attacks that subtract 25 Stamina and 5 health (leaving him with 8 Stamina and 25 Health). He is a fighter, so he chooses to use one of his abilities to regenerate Stamina. He does this and quickly bounces from 8 Stamina to 15. Unfortunately, he gets smacked again for 20 Stamina and 4 Health. He is knocked out (effectively 0 Stamina) and at 21 Health. The guys who knocked him out move to other targets.

Francine the priest casts restore stamina on Bob when combat is over. He recovers to full Stamina quickly, but is still at 21 Health. Depending on how the next few fights go, they will either have to retreat to rest or find a safe resting spot up ahead.

Sounds like they split health in two bars: the real deal and the "buffer" or "shield". Kinda like the Protoss.

I guess the best question is what's the advantage here? What does the system add/do that a single health bar won't? When it comes to the Protoss the advantage is obvious. When it comes to all classes in an RPG, I'm not sure, but we don't know enough at this stage to see how this design is going to play out.

It does sound like they want to have faster fights (where you can bring down an opponent faster) but avoid consequences ("I'm alright! I'm not dead!). So, you can have fake HP-regen and party members getting up after fights. At the same time, they do want to introduce some consequences, so if you start losing the real HPs, shit gets serious. Kinda feels like a compromise.

 

[Blaine]

Blaine, it's possible to play the expansions without finishing the OC.

In that case, I'll probably look into it again at some point.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Short term health = Short term strategy
Long term health = long term strategy

With 2 bars, they can simultaneously exist. Plus it allows for well oiled RPG game mechanics while keeping within lore of little healing magic. I've used this system for years in my PnP homebrew, and everyone likes it quite a bit.

 

[Grunker]

It's a great system in P&P at least.

 

[Snerf]

It is monkey-house crazy over there. I posted:

This is not a dating simulator. If they want romances between npcs or salty pirates away on the high seas for long months, well that's one thing. But the last thing PE needs is to degenerate into an adolescent vehicle aiming to satisfy lonely people who want their player characters to awkwardly flirt for a few minutes and then totally do it. Forcing romances into the game to tick a bioware created expectation box would be a poor choice.

If someone's enjoyment is based on the artificial relationship factor, I would strongly recommend any one of a thousand creepy Japanese dating "games".

and got:

This is not a killing simulator. If they want killing between npcs or salty pirates away on the high seas for long months, well that's one thing. But the last thing PE needs is to degenerate into an adolescent vehicle aiming to satisfy murderers who want their player characters to kill people.

Just join your countries army.

This is how you sound.

If you truly believe that adding romance degenerates a game into being an adolescent vehicle, than it's fair to say that you've never played PS;T or BG2, probably any of the IE engine games and have been playing Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Specially seeing as you referenced bio ware specifically.

Also, you probably don't read books. Something that has been around long before you or I have been. One type of book that tends to sell more than others are romance novels, why? Because it's what people enjoy, who reads said books? I can tell you that they wouldn't enjoy a JRPG dating simulation. You're comparing two things that are completely different from one another, based on bad factual information. Which is apparent in your entire comment. Romance has been around a very long time, movies, books, theater, for many a years. I'd expect the same level of romance to be in a video game.

Holy shit.

 

[Arkeus]

Short term health = Short term strategy
Long term health = long term strategy

With 2 bars, they can simultaneously exist. Plus it allows for well oiled RPG gameplay while keeping within lore of little healing magic. I've used this system for years in my PnP homebrew, and everyone likes it quite a bit.

That's my feeling yeah. They probably want to make long dungeons where rest is utterly impossible, so they did a "you can use a lot of ressources each fight, and you'll get a good part of them back. However, beware of attrition."

If done well, it could be pretty fun.

Anyway, glad people seem to like SoZ as it's the NWN2 game i played the most by far. They also reintroduced death :3

 

[Infinitron]

This is not a killing simulator. If they want killing between npcs or salty pirates away on the high seas for long months, well that's one thing. But the last thing PE needs is to degenerate into an adolescent vehicle aiming to satisfy murderers who want their player characters to kill people.

Just join your countries army.

This is how you sound.

except "tactical combat" is mentioned as one of the game's core features inspired by the IE games, so THAT MAKES NO SENSE YOU RETARD fahdafdfa

 

[tuluse]

Sounds like they split health in two bars: the real deal and the "buffer" or "shield". Kinda like the Protoss.

I guess the best question is what's the advantage here? What does the system add/do that a single health bar won't? When it comes to the Protoss the advantage is obvious. When it comes to all classes in an RPG, I'm not sure, but we don't know enough at this stage to see how this design is going to play out.

It does sound like they want to have faster fights (where you can bring down an opponent faster) but avoid consequences ("I'm alright! I'm not dead!). So, you can have fake HP-regen and party members getting up after fights. At the same time, they do want to introduce some consequences, so if you start losing the real HPs, shit gets serious. Kinda feels like a compromise.

It gives both an immediacy to single fights (sound like it could be easy to get wiped if you're not careful) and medium-term resource management (have to head back to town when health is low).

Now that I think more you simulate the same thing with low amounts of health but freely available healing potions that you can only carry a certain number of. Similar to Diablo, when you're out of potions it's time to head to town.

 

[tuluse]

I never managed to suffer through the generic and unbelievably shitty original campaign of NWN2 to reach the well done expansions so many people are fond of. I've owned the game since years ago, but uninstalled it in disgust after the first fifteen minutes of generic scenery, generic elves, generic barmaids, generic music, generic (and cheesy) dialog... Christ, that was awful. That it was salvaged in any way seems a miracle.

My respect for Obsidian somehow survived NWN2. I pretty much worship the ground any prominent Fallout and Fallout 2 developers walk on, so they could shit down my throat and I'd probably still buy their games.

You can just jump into the expansions, you don't have to play the main game at all.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It gives both an immediacy to single fights (sound like it could be easy to get wiped if you're not careful) and medium-term resource management (have to head back to town when health is low).

This immediacy can be easily done with low HPs. The resource management (trekking back to town) isn't much of a management. So, it does sound like a fancy way to implement health-regen and people who are down but not dead without pissing off the hardcore fans who can only take so much.

Now that I think more you simulate the same thing with low amounts of health but freely available healing potions that you can only carry a certain number of. Similar to Diablo, when you're out of potions it's time to head to town.

Which isn't a very good design.

It's a great system in P&P at least.

It won't play like in P&P though. That's for sure.

 

[Infinitron]

Which isn't a very good design.

Uh, what's wrong with it? Just curious. It's a basic roguelike experience.

 

[Blaine]

Even P&P doesn't play like P&P. Real P&P is usually a bunch of dweebs interpreting the majority of the rules incorrectly, ignoring others entirely, hand-waving everything for the sake of expediency, then wrapping up early at 8 PM and doing an impromptu verbal summary of the last 1/3rd of combat. That's the traditional method, anyway.

When I still used to play tabletop RPGs years back, I always wished the combat system could be BattleTech except with role-playing involved. Which it could have, had anyone other me cared about the tactical game play. It was a miracle I was able to get people interested in GURPS, can't push 'em too far.

 

[Darth Roxor]

SoZ is in my top 3 Obsidian games list

Hell, maybe it's time for another playthrough...

 

[Aeschylus]

Even P&P doesn't play like P&P. Real P&P is usually a bunch of dweebs interpreting the majority of the rules incorrectly, ignoring others entirely, hand-waving everything for the sake of expediency, then wrapping up early at 8 PM and doing an impromptu verbal summary of the last 1/3rd of combat. That's the traditional method, anyway.

The rules are more like guidelines anyway. Anyone who's ever been a DM/storyteller/whatever will likely admit that they cheat massively behind the screen to make sure things don't go too crazy.

 

[LeStryfe79]

SoZ is in my top 3 Obsidian games list

Hell, maybe it's time for another playthrough...

Yeah, to me it's FO:NV, SoZ, then Kotor2. I didn't like the high level stuff or soul eater mechanics in MotB. My KotOR 2 experience with a buffoon Jedi was probably better than most.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah, to me it's FO:NV, SoZ, then Kotor2. I didn't... MotB.

What is this shit doing in my Codex?

 

[LeStryfe79]

I didn't stutter.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Which isn't a very good design.

Uh, what's wrong with it? Just curious. It's a basic roguelike experience.

Precisely (i.e. good for roguelikes, not so good for "tactical" combat; I didn't mean that it's a bad design for a Diablo game, so apologies for the confusion).

 

[Infinitron]

Which isn't a very good design.

Uh, what's wrong with it? Just curious. It's a basic roguelike experience.

Precisely (i.e. good for roguelikes, not so good for "tactical" combat; I didn't mean that it's a bad design for a Diablo game, so apologies for the confusion).

Hey wait a minute, AoD is a roguelike too rite?

In any case, I don't think the comparison between that and what Obsidian are planning is very useful. The similarity is superficial.

 

[Vault Dweller]

AoD's overall design does share some similarities with roguelikes' design (death is part of the experience and is unavoidable), but not with the roguelike combat (unlike Eschalon, for example).