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

[bminorkey]

I would actually go with a four-tiered system.

I would use Stamina, Fatigue, Health, and Morale.

Morale would be depleted at a moderate pace, and it would be damaged by actions or taking hits. It would represent the psychological fatigue or stamina (health) of your character. You would need time or resting to recover this, or perhaps spells/songs and encouraging words.

This would also help to better emulate the realities of actual combat and adventure, in which it is much more realistic to encourage and inspire your allies during battle to keep them performing at peak capacity. You could help restore Morale temporarily by using "encouragement" on each other, etc.

I think this would be a great system too -- sort of an extension of Draq's.

I would actually go with a five-tiered system.

I would use Stamina, Fatigue, Health, Morale and Tolerance.

Tolerance would be depleted at a moderate pace, and it would be damaged by taking hits or certain spells. It would represent the physical tolerance for pain of your character. You need time or resting to recover this, or perhaps spells and herbs.

This would also help to better emulate the realities of actual combat and adventure, in which it is much more realistic to break down under sheer physical pain during battle, etc.

(Yes I'm being cheekish but again, selective realism does not a good game make.)

 

[Jasede]

I'm reading the conversation that developed with Heretic Saint after I went to bed. Talk about fighting a hydra or an army of the living dead. They just keep regrowing heads no matter how often you cut some off or keep shambling towards you no matter shotgun blasts you fire into the crowd.

 

[Jasede]

I looooove how people are looking to console trash like Dark Souls for ideas for PE. Hilarious

Yes, that'd be pretty unreasonable, taking ideas from a game they are clearly taking ideas from, they mentioned over and over and clearly have a massive deal of respect for. You're just the worst.

 

[Spockrock]

It'd probably even use a console-style save-at-resting-places-only system. It'd be the God Hand of RPGs where everything is about managing your resources from encounter to encounter and having to restart the entire segment if you fail, until you get good enough to get by- and get a terrible score since you did so poorly. Why hasn't anyone made that kind of game yet? Feels like a niche that could be explored.

two words for you: Monsters' Den

 

[LeStryfe79]

Dark Souls is a good game.

 

[bminorkey]

I looooove how people are looking to console trash like Dark Souls for ideas for PE. Hilarious

Yes, that'd be pretty unreasonable, taking ideas from a game they are clearly taking ideas from, they mentioned over and over and clearly have a massive deal of respect for. You're just the worst.

I seriously don't get how any Codexer could call this fantastic game trash.

 

[almondblight]

(Yes I'm being cheekish but again, selective realism does not a good game make.)

True, but neither does it make it bad. A number of war games use morale well. HOI 3 uses organization and supplies quite well. It really depends on how you implement things, which is why the backlash against the stamina system in general is silly.

For instance, let's say that the stamina system works as a full shield. No HP is taken away until your stamina runs out (though we know this isn't the case). To kill someone you have to get through their stamina and their HP. Stamina regenerates and can be healed, HP can't. This (assuming nothing else changes about HP and stamina) is the same as having a system that's full HP, but where you can only regenerate and heal HP from, say, 30% - 100%, but any hits you take when below 30% can't be healed. Which would mean there'd be more attrition than a game like BG 2, where for the second half of the game you can mostly heal completely between fights.

On the other extreme, let's say stamina and HP loss are completely unrelated. You lose a certain amount of HP each hit, no matter how much stamina you have. Then stamina becomes a separate source of attrition, in addition to HP, not replacing it.

Of course, you can add interesting dynamics to this system, like having a stamina cost for actions, enemies having stamina that retreat and heal, attacks (for you and for enemies) that do more damage to stamina/health, etc.

This isn't to say that you can't screw up such a system. With the first example, you could give the player too much stamina and make it recharge too fast, and in the second one, you run the risk of making it superfluous. But those problems aren't inherent in the system.

 

[suejak]

I looooove how people are looking to console trash like Dark Souls for ideas for PE. Hilarious

Yes, that'd be pretty unreasonable, taking ideas from a game they are clearly taking ideas from, they mentioned over and over and clearly have a massive deal of respect for. You're just the worst.

I seriously don't get how any Codexer could call this fantastic game trash.

I don't get how you're a Codexer.

 

[bminorkey]

True, but neither does it make it bad.

Which is why for the most part it isn't a factor, and before making our UI explode with health bars we need to forget "fun" is a buzzword for a second and focus on that.

Good, we agree then.

 

[J_C]

I looooove how people are looking to console trash like Dark Souls for ideas for PE. Hilarious

Yes, that'd be pretty unreasonable, taking ideas from a game they are clearly taking ideas from, they mentioned over and over and clearly have a massive deal of respect for. You're just the worst.

I seriously don't get how any Codexer could call this fantastic game trash.

I don't get how you're a Codexer.

Oh shut the fuck up newfags. You don't know shit about, Dark Soul. The more enlightened Codexers play and enjoy the game for months now, just look into the Dark Sould topic on the Codex.

 

[bminorkey]

I don't get how you're a Codexer.

Harsh words darling.

Also, (general statement about class of people) => (person making the statement is a member of that class of people). Niiiiiiice you should teach my uni's Logic 101 class.

 

[suejak]

I don't get how you're a Codexer.

Harsh words darling.

Also, (general statement about class of people) => (person making the statement is a member of that class of people). Niiiiiiice you should teach my uni's Logic 101 class.

Did I make a general statement about a class of people...?

 

[Captain Shrek]

I looooove how people are looking to console trash like Dark Souls for ideas for PE. Hilarious

Yes, that'd be pretty unreasonable, taking ideas from a game they are clearly taking ideas from, they mentioned over and over and clearly have a massive deal of respect for. You're just the worst.

Can you tell me why is it a good inspiration for PE?

 

[bminorkey]

I don't get how you're a Codexer.

Harsh words darling.

Also, (general statement about class of people) => (person making the statement is a member of that class of people). Niiiiiiice you should teach my uni's Logic 101 class.

Did I make a general statement about a class of people...?

You're a little bit confused.

Anyhow - look - let's not get all defensive here. I shouldn't have ganged up on you. My bad. Keep it classy.

 

[Jasede]

If PE had half the atmosphere, mood and writing quality and story intricacy and duplicity of Dark Souls while combining it with a traditional RPG experience rather than an action-RPG/game one it'd already be the best RPG that's ever been made.

Dark Souls' strength comes from being a Gesamtkunstwerk. Everything in it connects: every song, every enemy, every animation, every weapon swing, every NPC, every line of text, every sound effect, every tiny detail in the level design constantly is in line with the vision of the game. The amount of coherence is astounding and the effect is one of a game that was carefully hatched rather than put together piece by piece. Games like that are preciously rare. Perhaps Torment, if you discount the combat, or MotB, if you discount the combat, or perhaps even KOTOR 2 if you discount the combat (damn, Obsidian...).

 

[suejak]

Don't forget "every checkpoint"!

 

[Jasede]

 

[bminorkey]

I've probably put more hours into that fucking work of art than I have into any other game. Had it since release, still turn it on about twice a week.

BTW. This is Dark Souls general now.

 

[suejak]

bminorkey, what is your native language?

 

[bminorkey]

bminorkey, what is your native language?

Are you seriously going to be all butthurt now?

 

[CrustyBot]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61...romance-thread-pt2/page__st__300#entry1255537

• HereticSaint likes this

 

[Jasede]

 

[Minttunator]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61...romance-thread-pt2/page__st__300#entry1255537

Oh, I skimmed past that at first, since it was too long. Is he doing a line-by-line on my post? I guess I should take the time to read it then. Or then again, maybe not.

I am not at all surprised, though, that Merin and Heretic seem to be butt buddies. Birds of a feather and all that.

 

[trais]

N E way
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/383724128504402114

For P:E are you thinking that armour will make a person harder to hit, or harder to damage? Or a combination of the two?

Probably harder to damage, but I haven't discussed it in detail with Tim.

My batting average goes up again.

Looks like Sawyer wisely assumed the position of Tim's bitch in design department Who knows, maybe PE combat won't be too bad...

 

[Keshik]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61...romance-thread-pt2/page__st__300#entry1255537

Oh, I skimmed past that at first, since it was too long. Is he doing a line-by-line on my post? I guess I should take the time to read it then. Or then again, maybe not.

I am not at all surprised, though, that Merin and Heretic seem to be butt buddies. Birds of a feather and all that.

Yeah and cataloging the abuse the pro-romance people get. At least the remarks against them are nice and out there rather than the constan backhanded, woe-is-me nonsense they spit out. They should make Merin a moderator there :D