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

[bminorkey]

If bracketed comments are meant to clarify the flavor of a given line, that's one thing - they don't need to have anything to do with skills. e.g. when context doesn't make it clear, a line that's meant to command obedience could have something like (Speak in a low, commanding voice) prefixed to it.

The only situation I can think of that hypothetically merits skill tags is when you can say the exact same thing using different skills (say, either [Bluff] or [Intimidate]). This situation shouldn't exist in the first place; every line should have one predetermined response (or two at most, in case you aren't convincing enough). This is why Bluff is a stupid skill, by the way.

I believe everything threatening should use the Intimidate skill, whether you mean it or not. Bluff has its place you just have to take care some crafty smartass does not try to use it instead of other skills.

The thing with bluffing is, it's not a clear-cut skill. You might be bluffing when you intimidate someone. You might be bluffing when you say bandits raided you and took the gold. You might be bluffing when you say you're fluent in French. In each of these scenarios you're bluffing, but through a different skill-set (intimidation, acting skills, and common knowledge / quick-thinking respectively). Yeah, you could probably break the scenarios down to discover something you might call "bluffing skill", but even then you'll end up with a fairly useless skill that's always heavily dependent on other skills as well.

 

[Mrowak]

Ok, so I "fixed" the issue...

... but boy did that remind me how much I suck at Photoshop.

 

[Murk]

Look, some people (like me) don't care about being immersed in character dialog -- we want our options made obvious so we don't have to pretend about the motivations of our PC. When I play a game, I do not transpose myself into my character, I just play an abstracted character with skills and abilities that are to my liking.

And in those cases, I'd rather there be something to denote when the words "Look, what you're doing is going to end in trouble" mean it's an intimidate check or not.

If you guys want to toggle skill-tags on or off then fine, whatevs, but some of us just want to play a game where we don't have to guess at the motivation of an imaginary character when we're asking for reward money for a fetch quest.

 

[evdk]

BSN Codex!

But I can live with a toggle.

 

[bminorkey]

Look, some people (like me) don't care about being immersed in character dialog -- we want our options made obvious so we don't have to pretend about the motivations of our PC. When I play a game, I do not transpose myself into my character, I just play an abstracted character with skills and abilities that are to my liking.

And in those cases, I'd rather there be something to denote when the words "Look, what you're doing is going to end in trouble" mean it's an intimidate check or not.

If you guys want to toggle skill-tags on or off then fine, whatevs, but some of us just want to play a game where we don't have to guess at the motivation of an imaginary character when we're asking for reward money for a fetch quest.

Boy I have just the game for you.

 

[Shadenuat]

Fuck toggle. Dialogues should be written in expansive literate way, not the way that lets you pick line instantly because skill check in brackets gives you Pavlov's saliva relieve. Wish they will mimic Planescape and Arcanum without stupid meta, and add discriptive lines and actions ("Flex your muscles intimidately") so people who got used to sharp one-liners will have their brains melted trying to read and comprehend dialogue screen with more than three options and sentences longer than five words.

 

[evdk]

Well, "Fuck toggle, no tags" is my default opinion too, I am just preparing myself for the reality check.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

ToggableTags (catchy name!) is one of those suggestions that try to satisfy everyone, but only superficially. If you can remove the [Intimidate] tag you need to make it so the player still knows that option will attempt to intimidate the NPC, and so you write it in a way that the tag is unnecessary ("It would be a shame if something happened to your store")...but then why have the tag in the first place?

 

[Murk]

Fuck toggle. Dialogues should be written in expansive literate way, not the way that lets you pick line instantly because skill check in brackets gives you Pavlov's saliva relieve. Wish they will mimic Planescape and Arcanum without stupid meta, and add discriptive lines and actions ("Flex your muscles intimidately") so people who got used to sharp one-liners will have their brains melted trying to read and comprehend dialogue screen with more than three options and sentences longer than five words.

this is fine -- as long as there's a clear way to denote what that option means. It doesn't have to be [Wisdom] or some such, it can be something like "Attempt to understand their situation: "Look, it seems to me that..."" and I'd be fine with it. But if there's no way to tell what the option is other than somehow pretending I share the same motivation that my imaginary PC does, then no, forget that.

Games have very cleverly done things like given you options to reach for a weapon, or to open your cloak showing a gun in a holster (or something similar) in the past. Whatever, as long as there's a way to know that you are now entering a situation in which a skill-check happens. The skill-tag, should it show, should never be for a case of "superior option" but rather, just to let you know you are attempting a skill-check of some kind.

The way I see it, is if you have a diplomacy or intimidate option, it should always be available, even if you are 99% likely to fail until the end game when your stats are ridiculous. If you want the way that diplomacy option is denoted to not be with a tag or different colored font, then fine, but there should be SOMETHING to let the player know that they are using a skill-check and not just a regular dialog option.

bminorkey
WoW has skill checks in dialog? Or any kind of check other than "did you complete necessary quest prerequisite"?

 

[evdk]

ToggableTags (catchy name!) is one of those suggestions that try to satisfy everyone, but only superficially. If you can remove the [Intimidate] tag you need to make it so the player still knows that option will attempt to intimidate the NPC, and so you write it in a way that the tag is unnecessary ("It would be a shame if something happened to your store")...but then why have the tag in the first place?

Because people are idiots and want them in, duh. "I cannot salivate until the light switches on."

 

[Murk]

I believe you are making a strawman fallacy in the case of people like me. I do not think a skill-tag should always denote a superior option, it should ONLY denote that you are using a skill-check. Whether that is a good choice or not should depend on the outcome of your-skill check (success or failure) and whether or not that line of progress was good or bad.

If you intimidate the king and succeed in ripping off extra gold, it should be a bad idea because now you are an enemy of the state that is a terrorist.

If you try to use diplomacy on someone and you fail, it should be a negative outcome in which they are offended by your cheap attempt to manipulate them.

The skill-tag will only denote that you are in fact using a skill.

 

[evdk]

In that case I do not understand why you would want to have the tag at all, as clearly would be superfluous.

 

[Volourn]

"I believe you are making a strawman fallacy in the case of people like me. I do not think a skill-tag should always denote a superior option, it should ONLY denote that you are using a skill-check. Whether that is a good choice or not should depend on the outcome of your-skill check (success or failure) and whether or not that line of progress was good or bad."

100% correct. Whya re people so against showing skil checks in a RPG? Youa re role-playing a character not yourself. I bet the same people who are against it are the same people whoa re for combat outcomes to be spelled out. It amkes sense to include it for non combat stuff. Only FAKE role-players are anti this. REAL AHRDECORE ROLE-PLAYERS WANT THIS IN THE FUKKIN' RPG FFS!

The lack of intelligence is for the people who are ANTI STATS IN AFUKKIN' RPG FFS FFS FFS!

 

[Murk]

evdk
Not always. Look, this all comes down to whether or not the dialog options are "done well" which is the catch-all-subjective-copout (tm) that can easily remedy 95% of all discussions on this forum. I do not trust the developers to subtly write dialog lines that fit into the theme of the game so well and still manage to be informative about the game's mechanical aspect. So, whenever I am faced with a dichotomy of form vs function, I always -- ALWAYS -- pick function.

If I had to pick between a game that gave me obvious skill-tags per choice or ran the risk of me picking options that use skill-checks but do not make it at all apparent that they are doing so, I will pick the former.

If a game is made so well that the two are seamlessly joined and I know clearly what each option entails without a meta-game feature, then fine.

But like I said, Function > Form, 100%. I grew up playing games that are abstracted interactions as represented by numbers, grid paper, and simulations of systems and behaviors through purely verbal delivery. I do not care if a skill-tag appears in front of an option or if it has a brief fluff text about flexing muscles. I do care if an option in a game has unforeseeable consequences that have no implication or foreshadowing. These implications and foreshadowing(s) do not need to be so opaque that a 6 year old can understand them, they can be subtle and potentially-missed if the player is not paying attention, but my willingness to trust a developer to make such things "tastefully" is not very high, and in such cases I would opt for the simple but ubiquitous skill-tag for, as Roguey said, greater transparency.

 

[Monad]

evdk
I do care if an option in a game has unforeseeable consequences that have no implication or foreshadowing.

This is just plain stupid and would make for an incredibly boring game if you always know what will result from your choices. I don't think tags are necessary nor do I think the consequences of your choices should always be transparent, quite the opposite actually. A lot of times you won't know how someone will take something you say to them or what will happen if they do take it a certain way.

 

[Murk]

You do not understand what I said, and you left out the other part where I said that those implications or foreshadowing(s) do not need to be insultingly obvious.

It is not that I should know WHAT will happen, but rather, what the possible repercussions are. It is quite simple -- if the game is attempting to run a skill-check, there should be some kind of indicator to the player.

I may not know how someone will take my attempt to intimidate or bluff, but I do know that I am now trying to intimidate or bluff. I do not think I should be made aware of what exactly will occur but rather that I am in fact doing that action. All skill-tags do is denote that you are actually using your bluff skill or wisdom stat.

Why this is so difficult to understand, I do not know.

 

[deuxhero]

Any word on killable children?

 

[Shannow]

Tags are a shitty, lazy mechanic for devs that cannot into dialogue. And companion-suck-up-meters are plain shit. Just sayin'.

 

[Jarpie]

I asked this in Reddit during Kickstarter campaign

If you are going to put social skills such as speech, diplomacy, persuasion, intimidate or something similar to those, would they be tied to the classes like in D&D 3E/3,5E or free for all classes?

And MCA replied with:

We are tying responses to attributes, but what we want to avoid in the mechanics is using attributes as "insta-win" buttons (for example, often in previous RPG titles, using the Skill option often is the instant win for quest solutions). What we'd rather do is have attributes and skills open up a range of new information that allows you to make a more informed decision about a choice rather than gate you to a solution.
This may sound complicated, but it's like the Empathy skill in Fallout 1 and 2 - it would only tell you if the person you were talking to would react positively or negatively to your dialogue option, but that didn't mean it was the right option to choose in every situation, and som

Someone asked continuation with:

Right, sometimes in New Vegas the speech (or speak?) skill did feel like an instant win button.

MCA:

Chris Avellone glances furitively around:
Yeah, there were two points where it broke convention because I felt it needed to - one was with Lanius, and the second was with Ulysses. If you kept spamming the Speech button and choosing the first option without really listening to what they were saying, you'd end up screwing yourself. The reason I don't feel good about that is because that wasn't the precedent set with other conversations, so I don't know if I'd do it again if I had the chance.
But in Project: Eternity, I definitely want to do this. People who don't care about dialogue shouldn't take Speech skills anyway - those that do should have fun exploring the conversation and seeing what they can take away from it.

Also someone else asked about his first reply:

This is really good to hear, that aspect of skills has always bugged me. What about people simply acting differently if you have a high skill in (for example) intimidate? Rather than giving you specific "intimidate" dialog choices the NPCs just react to you as though you are intimidating.

And MCA replied:

Chris Avellone thinks:
We sometimes would assume auto-reactions based on perks and traits, although we feel it's more fair to a player to choose when and where they want to flex their mental muscles. Even someone with Terrifying Presence may not be having a terrifying day or want to role-play that at the moment.
Race reactions and more obivous elements (like in Fallout, people would react to what you were wearing), I feel clicks more with a player and is fine.

 

[Mrowak]

I asked this in Reddit during Kickstarter campaign

If you are going to put social skills such as speech, diplomacy, persuasion, intimidate or something similar to those, would they be tied to the classes like in D&D 3E/3,5E or free for all classes?

And MCA replied with:

We are tying responses to attributes, but what we want to avoid in the mechanics is using attributes as "insta-win" buttons (for example, often in previous RPG titles, using the Skill option often is the instant win for quest solutions). What we'd rather do is have attributes and skills open up a range of new information that allows you to make a more informed decision about a choice rather than gate you to a solution.
This may sound complicated, but it's like the Empathy skill in Fallout 1 and 2 - it would only tell you if the person you were talking to would react positively or negatively to your dialogue option, but that didn't mean it was the right option to choose in every situation, and som

Someone asked continuation with:

Right, sometimes in New Vegas the speech (or speak?) skill did feel like an instant win button.

MCA:

Chris Avellone glances furitively around:
Yeah, there were two points where it broke convention because I felt it needed to - one was with Lanius, and the second was with Ulysses. If you kept spamming the Speech button and choosing the first option without really listening to what they were saying, you'd end up screwing yourself. The reason I don't feel good about that is because that wasn't the precedent set with other conversations, so I don't know if I'd do it again if I had the chance.
But in Project: Eternity, I definitely want to do this. People who don't care about dialogue shouldn't take Speech skills anyway - those that do should have fun exploring the conversation and seeing what they can take away from it.

Also someone else asked about his first reply:

This is really good to hear, that aspect of skills has always bugged me. What about people simply acting differently if you have a high skill in (for example) intimidate? Rather than giving you specific "intimidate" dialog choices the NPCs just react to you as though you are intimidating.

And MCA replied:

Chris Avellone thinks:
We sometimes would assume auto-reactions based on perks and traits, although we feel it's more fair to a player to choose when and where they want to flex their mental muscles. Even someone with Terrifying Presence may not be having a terrifying day or want to role-play that at the moment.
Race reactions and more obivous elements (like in Fallout, people would react to what you were wearing), I feel clicks more with a player and is fine.

This is some great in out there.

 

[Spockrock]

did you expect anything else? it's fucking MCA, after all

 

[Mrowak]

did you expect anything else? it's fucking MCA, after all

It's also Obsidian. Let's not forget about NWN2 and AP, ok? The mechanics there were the very opposite of what he is talking about here.

 

[Murk]

Assuming the implementation is anywhere near as good as the description -- awesome.

 

[villain of the story]

The game designer hopefuls are crawling out of their holes:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61980-volunteer-labor/

I brought this up months ago on the BSN, and some of the devs on the Dragon Age team considered it a bit, so I'm wondering--would it be possible or helpful to offer volunteer labor for the most tedious, low-skill aspects of the game? I'm talking about, say, writing blurbs for books you can find in dusty corners, or writing journal entries or bestiary entries or any of those myriad of tiny details that can really flesh out the game but are a huge drain on the valuable time of devs who need to be doing things like writing character dialog, designing plots, creating cinematics, etc.

Well, that's a good thing, no?

I bet that's Excidium or that other creepy guy who released shitty nude mods for years and then hoped to be BioWhore'd.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

did you expect anything else? it's fucking MCA, after all

It's also Obsidian. Let's not forget about NWN2 and AP, ok? The mechanics there were the very opposite of what he is talking about here.

Well, NWN2 had (for most of its development) a lead that isn't at Obsidian anymore. (Now at Bethesda, before at Bioware)

And these are the EXACT mechanics of AP. There's no insta-win button and you can mix things up. You can argue about the implentation, but I have a hard time seeing how it's the very opposite.