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

[FeelTheRads]

Surf Solar, what do you use to render?

 

[Surf Solar]

Surf Solar, what do you use to render?

Vue Pioneer

 

[FeelTheRads]

The fuck. You can set the camera to a parallel projection in Vue?

 

[Surf Solar]

With some tricks, yes, it took me a while to figure it out. If you want I can send you the preset.

 

[Shannow]

Someone summarize this thread for me.

Obsidian is doing a He-Man RG called Project Eternia. Jaesun is going all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5LpwO-An4 over it. The rest of this thread is Vots trolling, Captain Shrek being retarded and lots of others being even more retarded by giving Vots and Shrek attention (and some inane rambling/one-liners). That should sum up 370 pages of this thread.
Now it's your job to find the 4 pages of quality posts in this thread. Get working

 

[Captain Shrek]

Which one of you is/was jarrakul?

 

[Jaesun]

Someone summarize this thread for me.

Obsidian is doing a He-Man RG called Project Eternia. Jaesun is going all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5LpwO-An4 over it. The rest of this thread is Vots trolling, Captain Shrek being retarded and lots of others being even more retarded by giving Vots and Shrek attention (and some inane rambling/one-liners). That should sum up 370 pages of this thread.
Now it's your job to find the 4 pages of quality posts in this thread. Get working

HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA

 

[FeelTheRads]

With some tricks, yes, it took me a while to figure it out. If you want I can send you the preset.

Nah, thanks, I stopped using Vue a long time ago. Maybe I'll contact you if I ever re-install it, just out of curiosity to see how it's done.
It's just that it kinda looked to me like a Vue render, but I thought I must be wrong since I didn't know you could have parallel projections in it.

 

[Surf Solar]

With some tricks, yes, it took me a while to figure it out. If you want I can send you the preset.

Nah, thanks, I stopped using Vue a long time ago. Maybe I'll contact you if I ever re-install it, just out of curiosity to see how it's done.
It's just that it kinda looked to me like a Vue render, but I thought I must be wrong since I didn't know you could have parallel projections in it.

I mostly use it because I can create animations for scenery graphics a lot easier than in 3dsmax for example.

Some watermovement test:



I would LOVE to know how the Obsidian folks will be doing animations and renderings, heh.

BTW, are you a fellow 3d/2d artist too? Would love to exchange some techniques here on the dex.

 

[tuluse]

I don't know, it feels "off" kinda.

I really hope this is not final angle they'll use in the game

They said they plan to use multiple angles, a higher one for indoors and a lower one for outdoors.

Nice, do you have a source for that? Didn't know it before

Josh Sawyer wrote it either as a forum post or a formspring answer, I'm too lazy to track it down. It was also quoted by someone in this thread, good hunting soldier.

 

[The Bishop]

I guess the best question is what's the advantage here? What does the system add/do that a single health bar won't?

Less volatility. In IE games the line between complete success and utter failure could be very thin. You could be wiping the floor with the enemy then have your mage pulverized into a thin red mist by a random backstab. Leaving critically important outcomes to a single saving throw doesn't sound too satisfying of a mechanic, especially when success or failure is outside of player control. Using stamina/health seems like a plausible solution to this problem. You can still have heavy hitting spells and abilities, but now losing a character is clearly a failure on player's part, not just a coin toss. With a significant punishment in place for such a failure, you can communicate it very clearly to the player that he needs to rethink his approach and revise his strategy.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Now it's your job to find the 4 pages of quality posts in this thread. Get working

Easy

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?members/anthony-davis.8589/

 

[Semper]

I was rewatching this screenshot of PE and read some of @villian of the story 's bitchings complaints and now I kinda have to agree even - the perspective is a bit wrong on that and the camera needs to be tilted differently.

Some stuff I experimented with (it's old already)

compared to fallout your angle seems off too. in fact your screen reminded me of a slighty tilted bg background. btw your renders look nice - do you render with a bump map or are the details texture baked/actual geometry?

 

[oldmanpaco]

I guess the best question is what's the advantage here? What does the system add/do that a single health bar won't?

Less volatility. In IE games the line between complete success and utter failure could be very thin. You could be wiping the floor with the enemy then have your mage pulverized into a thin red mist by a random backstab. Leaving critically important outcomes to a single saving throw doesn't sound too satisfying of a mechanic, especially when success or failure is outside of player control. Using stamina/health seems like a plausible solution to this problem. You can still have heavy hitting spells and abilities, but now losing a character is clearly a failure on player's part, not just a coin toss. With a significant punishment in place for such a failure, you can communicate it very clearly to the player that he needs to rethink his approach and revise his strategy.

Maybe. But making sure not to put your mage into a spot that would turn him into paste was the challenge.

I like the stamina/hp idea but balancing is going to be hard. I see great potential for this to make the encounters much easier.

I wonder if they will go for a -1 HP per second deal while players are unconscious after their stamina is drained. It would add some tension. You could no longer say 'Crap my mage passed out!' It would be 'Crap the mage passed out now I need to get someone over there to patch him up before he bleeds out all over the road'.

 

[Hegel]

With some tricks, yes, it took me a while to figure it out. If you want I can send you the preset.

Nah, thanks, I stopped using Vue a long time ago. Maybe I'll contact you if I ever re-install it, just out of curiosity to see how it's done.
It's just that it kinda looked to me like a Vue render, but I thought I must be wrong since I didn't know you could have parallel projections in it.

I mostly use it because I can create animations for scenery graphics a lot easier than in 3dsmax for example.

Some watermovement test:



I would LOVE to know how the Obsidian folks will be doing animations and renderings, heh.

BTW, are you a fellow 3d/2d artist too? Would love to exchange some techniques here on the dex.

Beautiful, is the background from ToB or is that something you made?

 

[Surf Solar]

These are all bump maps and some post brushing in photoshop. And yup, I didn't aim to get a fallout angle there, as said. The anklav dude is there because I thought it would fit to the rest of the scenery, heh.

Hegel - I mostly just used preset models in that scene there.

 

[Arkeus]

I wonder if they will go for a -1 HP per second deal while players are unconscious after their stamina is drained. It would add some tension. You could no longer say 'Crap my mage passed out!' It would be 'Crap the mage passed out now I need to get someone over there to patch him up before he bleeds out all over the road'.

 

[Vault Dweller]

<snip>

*The* bishop? The one I'm thinking of?

Less volatility. In IE games the line between complete success and utter failure could be very thin. You could be wiping the floor with the enemy then have your mage pulverized into a thin red mist by a random backstab.

Which is awesome and "cinematic"? The enemy managed to turn the tides of battle with a well placed backstab? And isn't that what various protective spells and trusted comrades are for? I mean, you don't just put your mage in the middle, tell him to commence casting diabolical spells, and forget about him, do you?

Leaving critically important outcomes to a single saving throw doesn't sound too satisfying of a mechanic, especially when success or failure is outside of player control.

Well, a mage is not a Death Star, so it's not a single saving throw, that's the point. I agree that a single throw should not decide the outcome of a fight, but there are many different ways to deal with it and going with the Protoss' shields isn't the best one.

A mage should be protected, both by spells, which will take time and reduce his offensive power, and party members, not by convoluted mechanics aimed to prevent him from dying prematurely.

Using stamina/health seems like a plausible solution to this problem. You can still have heavy hitting spells and abilities, but now losing a character is clearly a failure on player's part, not just a coin toss.

The coin toss you speak of is the direct result of a failure on the player's part. One of the best fights in IWD2 was the fight for the holy avenger. Keeping your mages alive there was a real challenge.

 

[Semper]

ah, then i misread your post.

 

[Leimreу]

I know that I'm approximately 25 pages late, but I wanted to comment on DraQ's post regarding Goal Focused vs Process Focused XP reward systems. I'll be brief: goal focused systems are used only by people who are too lazy or stupid to balance xp rewards according to the process focused system. Why? Because goal focused systems do not take into account the difficulty of the process that was used to achieve the said goal. Such a system could be viable only in cases, when all methods of achieving the goal are equal in difficulty, which is not the case in the majority of situations. My whole argument hinges on a point, that a more difficult solution should yield more xp, especially when this solution is a "class solution" (like engaging in melee combat while playing a fighter, instead of trying to handle the situation in a diplomatic way). IMO, cross-class solutions (like engaging in melee combat while being a mage) should yield less xp.

For example, consider a situation when a character is caught in a house, which is surrounded by multiple enemies. He has three options:
1. Walking out of the house and engaging the enemies in battle while being severely outnumbered with slim chances of emerging victorious.
2. Escaping through the basement or some sort of secret tunnel via stealth.
3. Taking the owner of the house hostage and trying to bluff/intimidate his way out.

The xp reward should be tweaked according to two factors: whether the solution was a "class solution" or not and the difficulty of the solution.

So, for example, a fighter trying to fight his way through would receive a larger base xp reward for choosing the most difficult solution and he would then receive some bonus xp for choosing his "class solution".

Goal focused systems are cost effective and are generally the easy way out, but process focused systems are superior in every other aspect.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Interesting idea but difficult to implement. How do you determine what the "class solution' is? A high level mage or priest could walk out and blow everyone away. Should they be punished for not trying to think or pray their way out of the house?

 

[Leimreу]

The "class solution" idea was just a bonus and I understand that it would be difficult to implement. My main point was that more difficult solutions should yield more xp and that's why a process focused system is superior, in my opinion. In an ideal scenario, every solution in the game would have some xp gain coefficient for every class, that would determine the end xp gain.

For example, a mage could have the following coefficients:
1.1 for direct combat (doesn't matter if he uses spells or goes into melee like a dumbfuck, since it's really hard to keep track of these things)
1.1 for diplomatic solutions
0.8 for stealth

While a fighter could have:
1.25 for direct combat
0.8 for diplomacy
0.8 for stealth

Let's assume a praty of two, which consists of a mage and a fighter. Now, a kill in combat would earn the party some base amount of xp (let's say 500 points). These xp points would then be equally divided amongst the party (500/2 = 250 points per character). These points are then multiplied by the class coefficient (250 x 1.25 = 313 points for the fighter and 250 x 1.1 = 275 points for the mage).

 

[tuluse]

I'm not sure it's true that a more difficult path should necessarily give more XP.

Firstly, you don't know what the makeup of a player's character or party will be. So what you designed to be the hard path could infact be an easy path.

Secondly, you're often punishing players for coming up with a novel approach or playing to their character's strengths.

If a player chooses a hard path, so be it. I don't see why he should get a greater reward than a player who found an easier way to achieve the same goal.

 

[bminorkey]

Goal focused systems are cost effective and are generally the easy way out, but process focused systems are superior in every other aspect.

This looks like a false dichotomy. Every goal can be seen as part of the process to achieve a greater objective, and every process can be seen as a sub-goal in its own right. How does this work in practice? Well, you will get your XP and gold for dissipating the angry mob (goal), but you'll be rewarded if you can avoid killing them (bonus objective ~ process), and rewarded even more if you can get them to join the feudal lord's militia (bonus objective ~ process).

 

[Dexter]

Boy, this thread is going places...: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61723-merged-women-feminism-etc-in-pe/