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

[tuluse]

Apparently Obsidian keeps tabs on the codex, so discussing stuff here can reach their ears.

Also, something like wanting good AI is patently obvious. We might as well ask for good visuals or good writing. It's pointless unless you can express how you want the AI to be good.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Bingo. I give fuckall to everyone else. I just want MY game to be good. I'm not an expert at IE, but if they fucking challenge me then I'll get good. Why the fuck do I have to wait for a god-damn Strategems mod to challenge me?

LOL, man you're talking about Strategems (which is an awesome mod, immeasurably better than that cheesy tactics crap)? Do you realize how far that is from what we'll most likely to get from PE given Sawyer's statements? It will be probably BG2 difficulty at most, with all "hardcore" options toggled on of course.

 

[Hormalakh]

I gave my ideas here. Like I said, I'm not an expert at IE games (nor at AI), but I've played a game or two in my life and I've played games where I've seen atrocious AI. I have heard that IWD/IWDII did a lot of things right, but unfortunately I haven't played it, yet.

We had a good discussion going, and many of the things mentioned were, I thought good ideas. Of course, I'm not an AI expert, but these things came to mind. I can't design their AI for them so that's up to them. Tim Cain had talked a lot about fuzzy logic back when he finished Fallout. He thought it would be good to try that with companions. Why not give the level of AI that we want for our companions to some enemies? I know there's a lot of technical know-how and limitations, but I don't think we've reached it.

I remember when enemy AI used to be an important "thing" back in the day. We'd hear that as a feature when I was younger.

I also got on Steve Weatherly's case about it during his update. I linked my thread to him there.

 

[Karmapowered]

now with all the data-collection they do via Steam or whatever online scheme a given developer is using

First thing I disabled in ME2. One of the many "features" I despised the game for. If EA's marketing wants my gaming profile, they ought to pay me for it, like any other company.

By giving up and giving them the answers, we have already failed. That is the point.

Problem is that if you overall design the game for the casual crowd, it will still show in its every pore, regardless if you add a few toggle-able options for "old school" gamers as an afterthought.

Agreed. I don't see how this could be contested.

The kind of toggles I am interested in are : auto-map, visible combat log, unlimited saves. A functional questlog too, please. I could probably come up with more if I put some efforts into it, but nothing of revolutionary .

I also don't know where did you get this "draw your own map of the dungeon" nonsense, it is my impression that most people here (who are interested in PE) don't expect or demand Dark Heart of Uukrul level of difficulty or something but instead would be more than happy with an IE inspired game with all those things CRPG fans took for granted at the time - no quest compasses, health regeneration and people with exclamation marks above their head, the possibility of party members actually *gasp* dying during the combat, normal difficulty actually being reasonably challenging with higher difficulty modes reserved for people who feel they mastered the system etc.

I am a fan of the Fire Emblem series, no need to elaborate to have me convinced. One screws up, and it isn't because of an obscure/undocumented gameplay feature, one pays the price for it. Sounds logic to me.

About the "draw your own map dungeon" nonsense, you'd be surprised

Of course some small improvements would be welcome, such as making plain fighters more fun to play, better pathfinding, more skill/attribute checks (talking about IE games beside Torment obviously, IWD2 also had some unique reactions due to player's race/class).

That's where we probably won't agree (not sure though, to be honest).

I don't want cRPGs to simply go back to the level of an IWD challenge (or equivalent). Finding vorpal slayers +4 in barrels outside the inn, no thank you. Boss encounters that are trivialized by a defunct pathfinding, no thank you. Giving me visual cues enough to know beforehand with a 100% guarantee which the most deadly is among the whole crowd of enemies, and therefore the one to eliminate first each time, no thank you. This only leads to boring, repetitive, unchallenging encounters, no matter the level you set the "difficulty" slider at.

I want something else, something better, improving on the existing, not something endlessly rehashed and recycled out of old stuff, as good as it might have been, and still is by some modern standards, and this "better" does rhyme with a modernized AI to me.

 

[Karmapowered]

@Karmapower Well the good/bad thing about Project Eternity is that they said they'd listen to our voices. If more people were on the forums saying "hey I want good AI" instead of "Wow Rob! You're hilarious! Can we have a medicine-ball flail, cuz it's like totally bodacious!" then maybe Sawyer would read those posts and get on Weatherly's ass about getting the most top notch AI out there.

It's all a matter of voice in this world, I'm afraid. The buffoons are usually louder than the intelligent ones...

I'm taking the bet that good game designers, able to craft games that I could be interested in, know about the Kodex, which has the reputation not to be the least knowledgeable to be the best site out there about cRPGs, and can spot good ideas for what they are, even if they only come by in lurk mode.

I don't want to sound like some kind of elitist prick, but I avoid the Obsidian forums, a bit like I avoid the BSN forums, Bethesda forums, etc.

Selecting easy mode is for scrubs. Not once in my life have I played a game on easy mode, including ones I'm unfamiliar with, such as a new (to me) 4x strategy game. In fact, if there's a "normal" difficulty, I usually up it to "hard"—especially these days, since "normal" typically means "a fucking baboon could beat the game by slapping its penis on the keyboard".

Why? Because training yourself to play on easy mode (or even normal mode) introduces laziness and bad habits into the mix. It's a crutch that allows you to play badly and/or make bad decisions with fewer consequences, or even none at all. I enjoy a good challenge. Start on normal, or hard if you're feeling up to it, and work your way up from there. You'll learn a lot more, and faster, too.

Sorry, didn't mean to ignore you.

I've never started a game on EASY either, for the reason you mentioned (I learn faster that way, and like many here I have had a gamers' background for years). Still, because I (and you, and most here) play that way doesn't mean other people/players won't. It did happen to me to switch a game on EASY for a moment, because I couldn't get past some (in my opinion) completely out-of-whack boss battles in the middle of a sneaking game : Deus Ex: HR. I had made it a point to try the battle a good dozen of times in NORMAL mode, before switching to EASY, suceeding, and then attempting again on NORMAL, before saving, and proceeding.

In any case, I believe that hasty generalisations hurt our arguments when the intention is to bring them up to the developper's ear, so I avoid them.

 

[Hormalakh]

LOL, man you're talking about Strategems (which is an awesome mod, immeasurably better than that cheesy tactics crap)? Do you realize how far that is from what we'll most likely to get from PE given Sawyer's statements? It will be probably BG2 difficulty at most, with all "hardcore" options toggled on of course.

Which is why I don't understand how some people say "AI is too tough to do. It's technically impossible to get better than what we already have." I think that's bullshit. Strategems is my example. If some guy can do that in his free time, our paid glorious game devs should be able to do better. Otherwise, fire them and hire the modders.

I say keep the BG2 difficulty for "easy" but then give me Strategems for "Normal."

 

[Blaine]

Karmapowered: The reason you found Deux Ex: HR's boss battles too difficult was because Eidos outsourced them to a third-party developer, and thanks to that they were shit for a variety of reasons. The developers fucked up. I know that's just one example, but generally speaking, if a competent and experienced player feels he absolutely cannot pass an encounter without lowering the difficulty, either he's not as good of a player as he thinks he is or the developers truly fucked up.

There's no in-between in any game, in any genre. If you're experienced with the genre and you put in some effort and apply yourself, and also assuming that the game is developed competently, you should be able to thrive on "hard" difficulty settings.

 

[Hormalakh]

And even enjoy "hard" difficulty settings because your brain will actually turn on. It's a different feeling.

 

[Karmapowered]

: The reason you found Deux Ex: HR's boss battles too difficult was because Eidos outsourced them to a third-party developer, and thanks to that they were shit for a variety of reasons. The developers fucked up. I know that's just one example, but generally speaking, if a competent and experienced player feels he absolutely cannot pass an encounter without lowering the difficulty, either he's not as good of a player as he thinks he is or the developers truly fucked up.

There's no in-between in any game, in any genre. If you're experienced with the genre and you put in some effort and apply yourself, and also assuming that the game is developed competently, you should be able to thrive on "hard" difficulty settings.

I have no qualms about wanting to find a mod that would allow me to skip the boss battles in DX:HR, because that's not what I would qualify as challenge.

Go in with the right aug', and the encounters become trivial. Go in with the wrong aug', and you'll have to resort to spraying their faces with fire extinguishers, while running around like a school girl. A bit like Brayko in Alpha Protocol. Makes a whole lot of sense, given all the gameplay that preceded said encounters. Thank you, but I'll pass.

There's no in-between in any game, in any genre. If you're experienced with the genre and you put in some effort and apply yourself, and also assuming that the game is developed competently, you should be able to thrive on "hard" difficulty settings.

If HARD mode comes with extra/improved features, like truly regenerating trolls, or vampires that act like vampires, like the SCS, you have my attention. If the whole intention is to sell me some disguised hp-bloat yet again, then I will have to decline the coveted HARDCORE gamer tag.

I refuse to go through BG1/2 without SCS nowadays. Ditto for the 1.13 mod (Drassen counter-attack activated, minimal drops) in Jagged Alliance 2. I would love to play most modern cRPGs with some Gothic features activated, so that I can't enter NPCs homes, to rob them blind of their supposed belongings, for example. I would equally love to duke it out with Orcs in a Dark Messiah M&M style combat, instead of having to constantly hammer my A/left mouse button. Sneak through dungeons in a Thief 1 style, with the associated punishment in case of failure. I hear great things about Dark Souls (I really have to try it one of these days).

That's the kind of extra challenge I'm looking for in my single-player cRPGs, starting in "NORMAL" mode, not "HARD".

 

[Dorateen]

Democracies....fucking retarded rule by majority.

This reminds me of that wonderful quote, which defines democracy as two wolves and a rabbit deciding what to have for dinner.

Liberty is arming the rabbit with a machine gun.

 

[Hormalakh]

That's a great quote.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
-Misattributed to Ben Franklin

 

[Roguey]

I don't care about the difficulty other people play, but I care when the "challenge" comes from special, optional modes like HARDCORE or GIVE ME DESU EX or 1999 MODE or whatever, because the game is never designed with that shit in mind to begin with. So either you play the game on the easy mode as intended or with a bunch of dumb, frustrating mechanics added to please the h4rdc04r crowd.

New Vegas was designed with hardcore mode in mind. I think it's safe to assume the same applies for Dully and Expert mode.

If we don't keep devs on their toes about this stuff, they'd decline too. I thought that was what the Codex was about. I've actually appreciated the constant cynicism about Obsidian, even though I expect them to do a good job. We've always gotta watch out for little signs of decline and STOMP the fuck out of it.

I don't think they're going to change their minds based on what a few angry people on forums think.

 

[evdk]

I don't think they're going to change their minds based on what a few angry people on forums think.

Never stopped the Codex before. And it shouldn't. Ranting against decline might be futile but it's better than bitter resignation. Not everyone can create his own game after all.
Also with crowd sourced games there might be a bit different demographic of fans involved and a few angry people on a message board somewhere could be a substantial part of your user base.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think they're going to change their minds based on what a few angry people on forums think.

And yet you spend so much time and effort being one of those angry forum people...

Don't underestimate the Codex. Just by reading what we have to say, minds can be swayed in in the right direction. And they obviously do care enough to at least pay attention to us.

 

[Blaine]

New Vegas was designed with hardcore mode in mind.

Yes and no. Companion AI in New Vegas is retarded (not that that's Obsidian's fault particularly) and you can't control their actions directly, so you have a choice between not using companions at all, accepting that they've died through no fault of your own, or meta-gaming—occasional save scumming, making them wait somewhere safe before a dangerous battle, et cetera. It's still somewhat rare for companions to die, but once is all it takes. Consequences are only good if the player deserves them. Companion perma-death is built into hardcore mode unless you use mods, so Obsidian fucked up a bit there.

The rest of it is cool, though.

 

[Roguey]

And yet you spend so much time and effort being one of those angry forum people...

Don't underestimate the Codex. Just by reading what we have to say, minds can be swayed in in the right direction. And they obviously do care enough to at least pay attention to us.

I say the things I do knowing nothing matters.

Also found a relevant Sawyer quote
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/332069220244288050

Do you think that "modern gamers are easily frustrated" is used as an excuse to strip away genuinely interesting design elements because they are hard to balance/expensive?

Maybe. I don't know. It seems like a pretty goofy excuse to me. Frustration is a fundamental element of "real" games, with gamers pushing past the frustration to achieve a sense of triumph. As designers, our goal should always be to find the right balance point for our audience. If the argument is that the gaming audience is much larger and, therefore, less h4rdc0r3 because the pool has been diluted, okay, but it's still our job to find the right balance points and feature set for the audience and its different segments.

One of the reasons I really wanted to include Hardcore Mode in F:NV was because I recognized that there was a significant chunk of the audience that would likely want something a bit tougher than sliding HP and DAM values around. I don't think Hardcore Mode is "really" hard, but compared to the default mode, it does require more attention and a bit more care in combat.

I know there's a subset of that group that wants things even more brutal and survivalist-oriented, for whom even the JSawyer mod doesn't go far enough. I don't think we should try to make everyone happy, but I do think that as developers we should recognize and try to appeal to the major "chunks" of our audience. With 5 million+ players, I don't think it's realistic to think one play still will fit all. And I don't think that saying, "Well, it's hard," absolves us of responsibility. We get paid pretty good money to figure out how people will play games. We should probably put some effort into actually understanding the audience and designing things that will work for them.

People who want SCS difficulty out of the box are going to be disappointed. Deal.

 

[Spectacle]

That's a great quote.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
-Misattributed to Ben Franklin

It's pretty dumb actually. The wolves are carnivores, they have to eat the lamb or starve to death. No matter how well armed the lamb is they have to try and take it down for a chance at something to eat. The moral of the story is that when you have unresolvable conflicts of interest you will have nothing but violence no matter what your political system is.

 

[Hormalakh]

It's not about being angry. If you met me in person I'd never cuss and scream (and just generally be an emo) like I do here: I just feel more comfortable thinking out loud this way.

As for swaying of opinions, apparently Sawyer is willing to listen to reason. I've read many times that Sawyer considers opinions fairly and if you have an actual point, he takes that opinion into consideration. This is why whenever I try to write to the devs or think that something is worthwhile, I try to be convincing in my language (and actually sort of write fairly polished turds on their forums). If it's a bad idea, I don't mind - ideas are meant to be challenged and refined. If it's a good idea, they should consider it. I have gotten the impression that Sawyer is this kind of dev. Otherwise I wouldn't even try if I knew he wouldn't change his mind.

Edit:

It's pretty dumb actually. The wolves are carnivores, they have to eat the lamb or starve to death. No matter how well armed the lamb is they have to try and take it down for a chance at something to eat. The moral of the story is that when you have unresolvable conflicts of interest you will have nothing but violence no matter what your political system is.

This is called "concrete thinking" in my field. I'm pretty sure you're not 6 years old any more - must be a developmental disability.

 

[tuluse]

It's pretty dumb actually. The wolves are carnivores, they have to eat the lamb or starve to death. No matter how well armed the lamb is they have to try and take it down for a chance at something to eat. The moral of the story is that when you have unresolvable conflicts of interest you will have nothing but violence no matter what your political system is.

It must be a strange world you live in where 1) canines are carnivores and 2) there is only a single source of meat in the entire world and it is one lamb. Sounds like the wolves are fucked after that meal anyways.

 

[Kahlis]

Something something Pussy-ass faggot mode.

Thank you. The standards in games just keep getting toned down and down, and oftentimes when they're designed with the casuals in mind first the "hardcore" stuff that gets tacked on is very arbitrary and without any real thought put into it. I like how nowadays you see terms like "core gamers", implying that the people who actually like some challenge now and then and who actually have the self-awareness and attention span greater than that of a goldfish to allow them to notice and express concern for the gradual decline of series and the principles by which games are designed are just extremists.

Moreover, games are generally only designed comprehensively enough for one of the difficulty settings to be the "intended" experience, and in many modern games that's relatively easy and the pacing on higher settings feels difficult in a completely insignificant and slapdash way. But I almost get the sense that Obsidian has been designing PE with the intent to incorporate those more complex mechanics/settings all along, and they were simply introduced later on to help the kickstarter along.

 

[Blaine]

If I had my druthers, Obsidian would develop the entire game for old-school, hardcore fans, with no casual compromises whatsoever in mind during the process—but they'd set aside an extra month before release.

Having designed the game in pristine fashion, only then would they brainstorm components of the pussy-ass faggot mode to be implemented as a completely non-invasive, toggle-able feature. If some aspects of the pussification process won't work because they didn't design the game to include them from the get-go, too bad.

Also, I should note that using the words "pussy" and "faggot" could set off Josh's politically correct liberal sensibilities even if he does read what you write, unless he's savvy enough to realize that the majority of Codexians don't actually hate gays or women.

 

[Hormalakh]

You're not a "core gamer" Blaine. Doesn't matter what you or I think. We've got to first become "core gamers" before they'll care, apparently.

 

[Broseph]

You're not a "core gamer" Blaine. Doesn't matter what you or I think. We've got to first become "core gamers" before they'll care, apparently.

This is Obsidian we're talking about here, not Bethesduh. I've no doubt PE will at least be more challenging than all the other popamole shit we've been dealing with for the past decade.
I completely agree that the game should be designed with the hardcore in mind, though. Nothing more annoying than shitty difficulty sliders which only bloat HP. That's not difficulty, that's tedium.

 

[Hormalakh]

Yeah, frankly I hope Roguey's completely wrong about Sawyer and his mentality on this game. But we'll see... We'll see.
Hoping for day 1 SCS mod though in either case.

 

[Broseph]

I don't know. We all know Roguey's connection with Sawyer is quite... intimate.