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

[Infinitron]

Oh fuck. I'm actually afraid Josh will come out in favor of respeccing. He's talked about it before.

 

[Jaesun]

It probably will be locked into the HARDCORE option. No respec.

 

[Diablo169]

Why on earth would you even need respecing in a single player game with save files? The mind boggles.

 

[empi]

I guess it's for people who can't read the manual etc. and just want to get into the action so try to get through char creation quickly so they can get to the pretty pictures and romance and stuff.

:declining:

 

[7hm]

Why on earth would you even need respecing in a single player game with save files? The mind boggles.

I'd rather they make it easy to mod or cheat in. Have a respec potion that can only be created through debug mode or something. That way the game isn't balanced with it in mind.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

No respec.

 

[Roguey]

Respec's already been confirmed and discussed like hundreds of pages ago. Get with the times.

 

[Infinitron]

Respec's already been confirmed and discussed like hundreds of pages ago. Get with the times.

Source?

Sawyer has been supportive of the concept of respecs in the past, but I don't believe he's discussed it in the context of this game.

 

[mediocrepoet]

 

[Roguey]

Respec's already been confirmed and discussed like hundreds of pages ago. Get with the times.

Source?

Sawyer has been supportive of the concept of respecs in the past, but I don't believe he's discussed it in the context of this game.

Something Awful forums. It's closed to visitors now, just view his post history. Here's what I saved.

Things I am in favor of in RPGs:

* Allowing the player to respec advancement choices (e.g. skills, feats, spells, etc.) at specific points in the game.
* Tying the respec to something that is explained in the context of the world (e.g. a trainer NPC of some sort or at least a location where the character can spend time).
* Imposing a non-trivial cost to the respec.
* Tying respec capability to level of difficulty and/or game modes.

Things I am not in favor of:

* Allowing the player to respec the base aspects of a character (e.g. class, race). Especially when it comes to companions, many of these concepts are too integral to what the character is all about.

I have been making RPGs for 13 years. During that time, I have directly watched literally hundreds of people play these games and indirectly heard many more describe their experiences. I've seen expert players, moderately-experienced players, and people who are new to RPGs. It brings me only misery to see someone stop playing a game because they slowly realize they made an irrevocable strategic mistake due to their own ignorance, lack of experience, or even careless reading of a description.

I think it is good to allow advanced players to lock off respec options and I think it is good to put an in-game cost and location restrictions on when/where respec can occur, but I think it is extremely valuable tool, even for experienced players. In a system that allows myriad options, it is extremely easy for a player to make a choice that is valid and grants a benefit but does not produce the outcome they expect (e.g. produces an orthogonal rather than directly complementary/stacking benefit)

tl;dr if you complain about this you're being dumb, stop caring about how other people play their game

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey cannot into links http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...506352&pagenumber=90&perpage=40#post407719398

Yeah, now that you mention it, I do remember reading that.

But again, even that is not technically a confirmation for PE specifically. He's just saying he's in favor of it in RPGs.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Hrm, he actually puts it in a fairly reasonable way. If it were tied to difficulty settings whether in cost or accessibility at all it probably wouldn't be something many people here would see at all - just like you could play games like Dragon Age or NWN with friendly fire enabled or disabled (though at least in DA:O it was a bit of a clusterfuck since the game was obviously designed for having it off since it was a pain in the ass to stop your guys from running into your own spell effects).

On the one hand, I don't like the idea of the game being designed for something and then being screwed up on a harder difficulty because of that design decision. On the other hand, if it's not something I see I don't care. It just strikes me as pointless since you can reload an earlier save if you find out you fucked up your leveling somehow - which shouldn't normally come up if you actually read what things do - assuming that there are no skills with no use put into the game a la RoA. Even having the option to confirm your level up choices before they become permanent is alright since it protects you from mis-clicks.

 

[Shadenuat]

It brings me only misery to see someone stop playing a game because they slowly realize they made an irrevocable strategic mistake

He makes it sound seriously overdramatic.

 

[Infinitron]

MISERY

 

[Roguey]

But again, even that is not technically a confirmation for PE specifically. He's just saying he's in favor of it in RPGs.

I am 100% certain Dullsville will have a respec option given his thoughts on the matter. He wouldn't feel that passionately about it and then just not include it.

(though at least in DA:O it was a bit of a clusterfuck since the game was obviously designed for having it off since it was a pain in the ass to stop your guys from running into your own spell effects).

Sounds like a micromanagement fault on your end, Origins definitely wasn't balanced for the easiest difficulty setting (the only one that disables friendly fire completely for the PC version).

It just strikes me as pointless since you can reload an earlier save if you find out you fucked up your leveling somehow - which shouldn't normally come up if you actually read what things do - assuming that there are no skills with no use put into the game a la RoA. Even having the option to confirm your level up choices before they become permanent is alright since it protects you from mis-clicks.

This assumes that someone is saving in multiple slots without ever overwriting/deleting them or that they want to replay hours because of one mistake. Other things he said:

And ten hours in you realize that rapiers, (what you wanted to use) are actually categorized as "light blades" not "swords" and that they're governed by dexterity. This is the sort of mistake that actually happens, for real, all the time.
...
The situation I described earlier (bought Sword specialization and bumped Str, later realized Rapiers are Light Blades that use Dex) is still quite possible. The character may be viable and a perceived strength of the system may be that you can make a character who is moderately good with Swords and Light Blades. The problem is that the player misunderstood how the system worked. Even if the player is able to move forward, he or she has permanently spent resources in a way that he or she cannot/does not want to take advantage of.
...
I think many of you would be blown away by how often players will look directly at a description of an option, pause, seem to analyze it, and then select it without putting 2 and 2 together until much later.

When that happens and the error results in, let's say, ~15 minutes of lost time, as a designer I go, "Hey dummy, pay attention." When that happens and the error goes unnoticed for 5... 10... 20 hours, the problem is so far in the past that I would rather just sigh and slide an emergency exit button toward them.

As a non-system-related example, in Fallout: New Vegas, we pop up a message box before the end of the game. It says (paraphrased) HEY MAN THIS IS THE END OF THE GAME. IF YOU WANT TO KEEP PLAYING, YOU SHOULD NOT START THIS. BECAUSE IT IS THE END. AND THE GAME WILL BE OVER. Even so, a huge number of people missed it or claimed to have missed it, so we later had to hard-code in an extra auto-save game at that point.

I could take some sort of grumpy tough-guy attitude and say "Well, tough shit," but I don't think that's beneficial to me or the player.

 

[Volourn]

"And ten hours in you realize that rapiers, (what you wanted to use) are actually categorized as "light blades" not "swords" and that they're governed by dexterity. This is the sort of mistake that actually happens, for real, all the time.
...
The situation I described earlier (bought Sword specialization and bumped Str, later realized Rapiers are Light Blades that use Dex) is still quite possible. The character may be viable and a perceived strength of the system may be that you can make a character who is moderately good with Swords and Light Blades. The problem is that the player misunderstood how the system worked. Even if the player is able to move forward, he or she has permanently spent resources in a way that he or she cannot/does not want to take advantage of.
...
I think many of you would be blown away by how often players will look directly at a description of an option, pause, seem to analyze it, and then select it without putting 2 and 2 together until much later.

When that happens and the error results in, let's say, ~15 minutes of lost time, as a designer I go, "Hey dummy, pay attention." When that happens and the error goes unnoticed for 5... 10... 20 hours, the problem is so far in the past that I would rather just sigh and slide an emergency exit button toward them.

As a non-system-related example, in Fallout: New Vegas, we pop up a message box before the end of the game. It says (paraphrased) HEY MAN THIS IS THE END OF THE GAME. IF YOU WANT TO KEEP PLAYING, YOU SHOULD NOT START THIS. BECAUSE IT IS THE END. AND THE GAME WILL BE OVER. Even so, a huge number of people missed it or claimed to have missed it, so we later had to hard-code in an extra auto-save game at that point.

I could take some sort of grumpy tough-guy attitude and say "Well, tough shit," but I don't think that's beneficial to me or the player."

Tough shit, bro.

 

[mediocrepoet]

(though at least in DA:O it was a bit of a clusterfuck since the game was obviously designed for having it off since it was a pain in the ass to stop your guys from running into your own spell effects).

Sounds like a micromanagement fault on your end, Origins definitely wasn't balanced for the easiest difficulty setting (the only one that disables friendly fire completely for the PC version).

Not especially. The tactics settings would cause them to run into firestorms and the like and if you didn't start turning on puppet mode/disabling their AI, they would run back into aoes even if you told them to run back out of them. As I recall, I wasn't able to set up tactics that wouldn't keep them running into things, I had to disable their AIs so they wouldn't do anything at all without being told to. Considering that there were skills to give them more tactics slots and the like - that doesn't seem to be them being balanced around friendly fire. It's been a long time but I also don't believe that the only setting lacking friendly fire is the easiest one, but I can't be bothered to go check either. I used to play on whatever the hardest one was and began to find the game trivial but annoying since your party was stupid enough to want to run into firestorms, etc. if you let them. If they couldn't hardcode don't stand in/run into fire as part of the basic ai, they should've had a tactic command that you could put in the priority list e.g. get out of aoe.

 

[Infinitron]

UPDATE: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/339083



Project Eternity Update #29: Fulfillment and the Pros and Cons of Nostalgia and Realism

Update #29 · Oct. 30, 2012

Armor Design

Design update from Josh Sawyer



Let's talk about armor design. Taken on its own, armor design isn't of eminent importance. It's just one of many subsystems that make up Project Eternity. However, looking at it in detail can expose problems that can be found across our various subsystems: by making something work well in a new system and setting, we can often put it at odds with the nostalgia of the old games (and "realism").

Back in the days of 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, we had all sorts of quasi- or non-historical armor types like banded mail, ring mail, and studded leather. You wore the heaviest armor you could because it typically had the best Armor Class. If plate mail was available, there weren't many reasons to wear splint mail or (horror of horrors) chain.The default rules limited the viability of certain character concepts because most characters of a given class were funneled down a specific equipment path.

3E sort of solved this problem by implementing Maximum Dexterity Bonus, which meant that characters with high Dexterity scores would generally equip whatever armor gave them the maximum bonus to Armor Class without capping the Armor Class bonus they received from Dexterity. There were a few problems with this.

First, while it did help make previously "bad" character concepts (e.g., the lightly armored fighter) more viable, generally there were one or two choices per character build. If you had a high dexterity, you were not going to wear heavy armor. If you had a low Dexterity, you might wear light armor, but only for the higher movement rate it allowed.

Second, there was an equipment dead zone in medium armor -- the Maximum Dexterity Bonus caps and movement penalties of heavy armor without the nice Armor Class bonus. Also, if you were a ranger or barbarian, technically you could wear medium armor, but in practice you would never wear it because it disabled several class abilities.

The third issue is a common one with armor design: the ability to wear heavy armor hasvalue (classes receive it as a benefit and it costs feats to purchase in 3E), but it's presented as something with trade-offs. This in itself is not bad, but as previously mentioned, typically the decision of what type of armor to wear can more-or-less be made at the end of character creation. If your character wears a chain shirt at 1st level, there's a good chance he or she will be wearing a +5 version toward the end of the campaign. This is sort of nice because it means that you can have a consistently viable character concept, but there's not a ton of decision making about armor types after your adventuring career starts.

Finally, there's a way of naming and progressing things in A/D&D. Once you get your "base" armors introduced (for our purposes, we will include plate armor and its 2nd Edition kin, field plate and full plate), upgrades are expressed as +1 versions. It becomes pretty easy to understand once the hierarchical relationship and spread of armor types are established.

What does this mean for Project Eternity? It means designing a new armor system that rectifies deficiencies of older systems while maintaining a familiar feel is tricky. Additionally, the more dissimilar the armor relationships are to those found in A/D&D, the more they will be re-evaluated for verisimilitude (i.e. "realism").

We would like our armor system to accomplish the following goals:

• Make wearing different types of armor a real choice for the player based on both character build and circumstance. E.g. a swashbuckling lightly-armored fighter will tend to wear one of a variety of light armor types (maybe a gambeson or leather cuirass), but in a circumstance where protection is of utmost importance, the playermay still choose to wear heavy armor with a loss in build optimization.
• Disassociate armor value from class type in favor of different build types. E.g. a wizard can wear heavy armor and be a different type of wizard instead of just "a wizard who is bad".
• Allow a character to maintain a character concept throughout the game without suffering extreme mechanical penalties. E.g. a character who starts the game in some form of light armor can complete the game in some form of light armor with appropriate gameplay trade-offs compared to wearing heavy armor.
• Introduce new or upgraded armor types throughout the game instead of using ++ versions (which in itself would pose problems unless we directly duplicated A/D&D's d20-based attack mechanics).

Even with these three goals, there are a number of problems to solve. One of the biggest questions is how to break up and "advance" armor by type. In AD&D, you had something that looked like this:

Padded
Leather
Studded Leather
Hide
Scale
Chain
Splint
Plate (Tier 2)
Field Plate (Tier 3)
Full Plate (Tier 4)

Players typically couldn't afford plate, field plate, or full plate at character creation, but everything else was often within reach. It's not uncommon to see a hierarchy of armor types like this in many fantasy games, despite some of the questionable elements (did studded leather exist? Is raw hide armor actually better than cuirbolli leather?). You can get plate/field plate/full plate later in the game, but otherwise, you're getting +x versions of the base types at higher "tiers" of character advancement.

We could (as an example) structure some of Project Eternity's armor advancement like this.

Tier 1
Doublet
Hide Armor
Scale Vest

Tier 2
Gambeson (from Doublet)
Leather Cuirass (from Hide Armor)
Scale Armor (from Scale Vest)
Mail Shirt

Tier 3
Armored Jack (from Gambeson)
Leather Armor (from Leather Cuirass)
Lamellar Armor (from Scale Armor)
Mail Armor (from Mail Shirt)
Half-Plate

This could probably accomplish our stated goals (we can assign them whatever stats we'd like, after all), but it does raise some questions for us:

• Should something like hide armor be supplanted/made obsolete by leather as an "improved version" or does that effectively kill the visual concept of the rough-hewn rawhide-wearing ranger or barbarian?
• If armor types like hide (or scale, or mail) should remain viable on their own, how should that "upgrade" be expressed to the player? Functional descriptors like "fine scale", "superior hide", etc.? Cultural or material descriptors like "Vailian doublet", "iron feather scale"? Olde tyme numerical descriptors like "scale armor +1", "half-plate +2"?
• Is it okay for an upgrade from a visual type of armor to maintain its relative position to other armor types even if "realistically" that upgraded armor is now probably superior in protection to other armor types? E.g. an armored jack or brigandine armor is probably more protective than even nice suit of leather armor... but mechanically, we're presenting it as an upgrade of a padded (doublet) armor type.

These are the sort of things we have been discussing and I have been thinking about. And while it is just one subsystem in Project Eternity, we will likely face many similar considerations as we approach the design of weapons, classes, spells, and other aspects of gameplay. I'm sure a lot of you have opinions on what you'd like to see, so please let us know on our forums!

Our next design update will be in two weeks and will focus on lore and story elements. Thanks for reading!

Fulfillment System

Fulfillment update from Darren Monahan

We’ve received a number of questions via our Support e-mail address and social networks about fulfillment, and I wanted to talk a little bit about what we’re currently working on!

First off, I wanted to announce that we’re developing a fulfillment site, which we’re hoping to have online in the next month or two (I was hoping to have it up sooner, but my first baby is coming into the world in the next few days, eeep!). Everyone who backed the project on Kickstarter and/or PayPal will be e-mailed details that will give you credit on that site. After logging in, you will be able to:

• Confirm the tier of choice that you wanted. A few of you donated on Kickstarter, and then topped up via PayPal, so you’ll be able to select the exact tier you wanted.
• Confirm any add-ons you wanted that weren’t easy to specify on Kickstarter or via PayPal.
• Upgrade your pledge to another tier, or add on for, ummm, add-ons.
• Update your e-mail address at any time.
• Update your shipping address at any time. (Shipping address only needed for physical goods – we don’t need that info for digital orders.)
• Indicate any specific details associated with your tier (T-shirt sizes, name in the credits, etc.)
• If you live outside of the USA, it will also verify that you’ve added enough shipping.

We’ll keep you guys updated in future, ummm, updates, on how progress is coming along!

Here’s an update to our FAQ on some of the questions we’ve been receiving recently:

Q: I donated on PayPal and besides a receipt from PayPal I haven’t gotten confirmation from Obsidian directly.

A: Not a problem. When the fulfillment site goes live, we’ll be merging the Kickstarter and PayPal data together into our own system, and from there we’ll be sending out project updates. For now, as long as you received a PayPal receipt, we’ll have you on file.

Q: I need to change my e-mail address before you send out details on the Fulfillment site. What do I do?

A: Send us an e-mail at support@obsidian.net with your old and new addresses (please e-mail from your old address if you can) and we’ll update our records before the fulfillment site e-mails go out.

Q: How do I add shipping? I missed being able to during the Kickstarter phase!

A: You can handle that in one of several ways:
You can hang tight for now and wait until our fulfillment system is online, or,
If you’d prefer to get it out of the way, you can visit our Shipping page and add it now (Amazon Payments and PayPal supported.)

Q: When will I get my backer badge on the forums?

A: That’ll come online with the fulfillment system.

If you have any other questions, feel free to visit our forums or drop us a line at support@obsidian.net!

For more news about Project Eternity and Obsidian, follow us on:
Twitter, Facebook, and our YouTube channel

FORUMS: Join the discussion on Update #29 on our forums!

 

[Shadenuat]

AHHH FUCKK

scared me, god.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Good stuff. Armor always seemed very awkward as they described it, especially in 3rd edition. Go light or heavy, but medium was trash.

It's these little details that count.

 

[bminorkey]

Should something like hide armor be supplanted/made obsolete by leather as an "improved version" or does that effectively kill the visual concept of the rough-hewn rawhide-wearing ranger or barbarian?

Yup. Kool impractical armor could be used, but just for swag points.

 

[Lubulos]

I love how they are trying to distantiate themselves from D&D. Hopefully the end result would be a fresh and fun-to-explore system.

 

[Volourn]

Yeha, they're to differniate thmselevs from DnD - with the same races, classes, and very liekly many fot he same skills and feats. hA. aND, WHILE THE ARMOUR MIGHT BE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT IT'LL BE FUNCTINGION THE SAME.

P.S. Even if they go with armour DR ala FO; DND beat them to it as DnD has armour DR as well and has for a very long while.

Nothing is original since Dnd liekly done it earlier.

 

[evdk]

Well, their system might not suck, that would be something D&D has not tried before.

 

[Jasede]

You take that back!