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

[Captain Shrek]

:facepalm: No, not the AI. You. You have a line of archers. The enemy mob attacks one of them, who runs around while the others pincushion the enemy. If the enemy switches targets to another archer, that archer starts running and the first archer starts firing.

Are you serious?

Why would that happen? Suppose it happened how is this still not going to fail on the part of AI? You can now simply kite with TWO people.

 

[Delterius]

1 kites the other shoots. Why would that affect my shooter?

It probably won't as long as your shooter isn't attacked, and often that's exactly what the AI's target is suppoed to be.

 

[Infinitron]

I commented on Josh's response, hopefully he comments on my comment.

 

[Captain Shrek]

1 kites the other shoots. Why would that affect my shooter?

It probably won't as long as your shooter isn't attacked, and often that's exactly what the AI's target is suppoed to be.

Are you saying that you are dumb enough not to use two shooters? Ok.

 

[Grunker]

Oh no. Nonononono. Fuck you and your blind faith Roguey. TOP of pack? As in the pack is a modern, "streamlined" scrolling afair that is fucking annoying to sort and make sense of?

Yeah, sure, old inventories were a hassle. So let's use this modern concept which is much, much more of a hassle. Jesus Sawyer. I'm getting increasingly sad that you are a Top Gun of this project.

 

[Delterius]

1 kites the other shoots. Why would that affect my shooter?

It probably won't as long as your shooter isn't attacked, and often that's exactly what the AI's target is suppoed to be.

Are you saying that you are dumb enough not to use two shooters? Ok.

No. In the IE games, even quick/hasted enemies could often be kited indefinitely because the AI would switch targets to the last shooter who hit him from across the room, while his last target was next to him.

 

[Shadenuat]

If I understand it correctly you are not pew pewing with low level spells when you reach high levels, you are pew pewing with your wand/staff/orb at all levels.

Yeah, that's the type of magical damage execution which bothers me greatly.

It's THAT much of a big deal that you can (at a later level) pew pew with a low damage spell instead of doing the same thing with darts? Really?

Yes, but I'll save my reasoning before I know if it's DA's staves with written DPS on them or something less retarded.

 

[tuluse]

Ignoring 16:10

Indeed, this has been getting on my nerves recently.

So I read my email and not just the copy paste on here and they do cover 16:10.

Gold should have weight. This should be offset by the possibility of storing your wealth in gems / letters of credit. Do it Sawyer, you bastard.

Screw gold. Use a barter system. Better for world-building, gives inventory management far more consequence, and deals with the problem of the player having 1 million dollars but nothing to spend it on without relying on stupid gold sinks.

Society has had a monetary system for thousands of years, moving to a barter only system would be really stupid and world breaking.

Fucking casuals. All items should have realistic weights, and each character should carry a large pack that will hold up to 80 pounds (50 for females). These large packs are rendered on each and every character. Whenever a thief attempts a roll or somersault, even an empty pack will bang around on the ground, most likely causing the maneuver to fail utterly. The more weight someone's carrying in their pack, the more sluggish their performance in combat.

I think the group pack is supposed to simulate that in combat, your characters are retards and will just drop their pack of loot so they're free to fight.

 

[Captain Shrek]

No. In the IE games, even quick/hasted enemies could often be kited indefinitely because the AI would switch targets to the last shooter who hit him from across the room, while his last target was next to him.

In that case I would say that I am NOT defending IE games. They were NOT perfect. It is a pity that a new game is a step back from a less than stellar old game.

 

[Delterius]

No. In the IE games, even quick/hasted enemies could often be kited indefinitely because the AI would switch targets to the last shooter who hit him from across the room, while his last target was next to him.

In that case I would say that I am NOT defending IE games. They were NOT perfect. It is a pity that a new game is a step back from a less than stellar old game.

I don't see how this can be a step backwards, rather it can be sideways. And that's assuming somethings about the game's AI.

The only real statement there is that Sawyer doesn't want single-characters kiting - something that was also present in the IE games, and that strategic games should disallow.

 

[Shadenuat]

Society has had a monetary system for thousands of years, moving to a barter only system would be really stupid and world breaking.

But barter system did't vanish, it exists together wiith monetary system, sometimes even replaces it in lands far from civilization. You can still barter stuff from cities with farmers for their products at some places. Barbarians in Icewind Dale using same gold as everyone while braggin that they don't need anything from Realms was't exactly logical.
Also, barter system does't necessary exclude cash (Fallout).

 

[Infinitron]

No. In the IE games, even quick/hasted enemies could often be kited indefinitely because the AI would switch targets to the last shooter who hit him from across the room, while his last target was next to him.

In that case I would say that I am NOT defending IE games. They were NOT perfect. It is a pity that a new game is a step back from a less than stellar old game.

I don't see how this can be a step backwards, rather it can be sideways. And that's assuming somethings about the game's AI.

The only real statement there is that Sawyer doesn't want single-characters kiting - something that was also present in the IE games, and that strategic games should disallow.

Shrek's problem with kiting isn't that you can fire spells and arrows while running from an enemy, but that your cooldowns recharge while you run. I asked Josh about that in my comment.

 

[Lancehead]

Cooldowns should be suspended while running. Or make stamina deplete when you kite.

Edit: Actually both should be done. So the running character can't regenerate abilities. And while the remaining characters can fire at the enemy following the kiting one, you'd risk losing that character as his/her stamina depletes.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I don't see how this can be a step backwards, rather it can be sideways. And that's assuming somethings about the game's AI.

The only real statement there is that Sawyer doesn't want single-characters kiting - something that was also present in the IE games, and that strategic games should disallow.

I think there is some cross-talk here.

I have been talking about how:

1) The game is designed around ideas seemed to be borrowed from MMOs (cooldowns, Regens and Tank, Healer, Nuker trio ectc)
2) How the real time element of this game (and YES of IE games) can be exploited diminishing the game play challenge

Secondly IE games were Round based which is NOT ideal in my book but I can see why it might be used. This game is Animation time based. (sorry, not a technical term. I have discussed this thing earlier here). Which itself enforces certain kinds of tactics (Read Diablo tactics). When a game is designed around Abilities on regen/cooldown and RT, certain tactics naturally emerge, is what I am opinionating. There is where I may be wrong and you should try to prove me incorrect.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Cooldowns should be suspended while running. Or make stamina deplete when you kite.

*sigh*

I have a simple solution. Don't have Cooldowns!

 

[tuluse]

But barter system did't vanish, it exists together wiith monetary system, sometimes even replaces it in lands far from civilization. You can still barter stuff from cities with farmers for their products at some places. Barbarians in Icewind Dale using same gold as everyone while braggin that they don't need anything from Realms was't exactly logical.
Also, barter system does't necessary exclude cash (Fallout).

Ok, well have you ever played an RPG that *didn't* let you barter?

Just about every game in the history of transistors lets you trade your gear.

 

[Lancehead]

*sigh*

I have a simple solution. Don't have Cooldowns!

Well, yeah, but isn't that a high-level design decision, and therefore maybe too late to change?

 

[tuluse]

Cooldowns should be suspended while running. Or make stamina deplete when you kite.

*sigh*

I have a simple solution. Don't have Cooldowns!

How does that stop kiting? IE games didn't have cooldowns and were notorious for this.

 

[Captain Shrek]

*sigh*

I have a simple solution. Don't have Cooldowns!

Well, yeah, but isn't that a high-level design decision, and therefore maybe too late to change?

You mean, when the game is not even started to be programmed? I guess it's too late then.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Cooldowns should be suspended while running. Or make stamina deplete when you kite.

*sigh*

I have a simple solution. Don't have Cooldowns!

How does that stop kiting? IE games didn't have cooldowns and were notorious for this.

it does NOT stop kiting. It makes kiting either *less* useful or useless. The idea is to allow for smarter tactics to be the relevant ones, not the repetitive tactics to dominate.

 

[Shadenuat]

Ok, well have you ever played an RPG that *didn't* let you barter?

Trading gear to vendors with infinite amount of ingame currency is't exactly the way a bartering system works.

 

[Hormalakh]

kiting wasn't less useful in IE. it was just as useful, regardless of cooldowns. if you could kite an enemy to death, you did. his idea with the reloading of weapons is interesting. it might work. cooldowns could also be locked.

 

[Captain Shrek]

kiting wasn't less useful in IE. it was just as useful, regardless of cooldowns. if you could kite an enemy to death, you did.

Yeah, that indeed is a shortcoming of the game.

 

[Lancehead]

You mean, when the game is not even started to be programmed? I guess it's too late then.

No, I don't mean it's not possible, but I imagine that scrapping cooldowns would be the last thing on Sawyer's mind when trying to solve the kiting problem; he'd rather do low-level fiddling to abate the issue.

 

[Hormalakh]

Look another thing: cooldowns aren't gimiicky or decline per se. They can become cheesy if the devs don't take it into account, but cooldowns are actually realistic. I remember when I was a wrestler in high-school, a 2 minute match would take a lot out of you. wrestlers would always try to utilize "stalling tactics" to catch their breath before going for the next move.

it's the same thing: you're stalling your enemies until you catch your proverbial breath. If you can do it without being hurt, then you can be at an advantage, if you fail at stalling, then, well you failed. cooldowns can be a tactically useful and interesting dynamic. it just has to be done right. it seems to me that Sawyer is trying to figure out the best way without degeneracy.