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

[Blaine]

*refreshes forum every two hours*

*2-3 more pages of arguing about inventory with each refresh*

 

[Jaesun]

Inventory is VERY FUCKING SERIOUS BUSINESS!

 

[Jaesun]

Hey it's our resident retard! Give him a big hand everyone.

 

[Temaperacl]

[...]
Not getting rid of it, though, leads to some people being OCD about collecting and selling as much as possible. Of course, I don't think that just making a place where you can dump everything and sort it out later is the best solution to that "problem".

I would say that this entire Finding good item in a pile of trash idea is not nice. Simply because it smacks of a mini game and a bad minigame at that. Removing such things completely is in line with reducing annoyance.

You disagree with the "we don't wan't to put a big blinking 'Important!' light over things" concept or if you prefer a rephrasing, you believe that we should not have to worry about incomplete information [Or is it just the scale of the incomplete information that you don't like - certainly, it isn't an all or nothing choice]? Is that only in regards to inventory, or does it apply to the other aspects of the game as well?

Fundamentally, the problem of sifting the good from the bad is a representation of the problem of incomplete information. My specific example was merely a sample of a system I enjoyed (I liked that aspect of the Gold Box games.), and certainly may not be perfect, but the basic behaviour of figuring out what is important remains unless you get rid of the incomplete information problem - essentially, an inventory parallel of the "this is the important path(s)" solution to the incomplete knowledge about locations problem.

 

[Kz3r0]

Hey it's our resident retard! Give him a big hand everyone.

 

[Roguey]

Nope, he's said stuff to this effect already. Roguey can you help me out here? I need sources. I know you got them. he's talked about goign this approach, hasn't he?

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=407551559

I've talked with Tim about this for a while and here's the thing: camping out in the wilderness and setting watches and getting ambushed by jackasses has a great classic A/D&D feel to it, but it got pretty silly in games like IWD2. I'd like to build in reasonable mechanics that make you rest in the wilderness, but I don't want it to result in the sort of degenerate "rest after every fight" stuff we've faced in the past.

Incidentally, the idea for this new system may have come from one of Sawyer's YCS chucklefuck friends. They're unanimously praising it over at their SA off-site forum and sneering at all the 'nards who are crying over their verisimilitude/immersion.

I feel like rubbing more salt in this wound so have some random quotes:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=407549939

I think it's important to genuinely capture the feeling of the games we're referencing back to, but that doesn't mean we should ape all of their mechanics directly.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=407880942

some of the conversations about PE seem to demand stuff that isn't particularly great design then or now (IMO).

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=409114825

The goal is not to make everyone "happy" because a) it's impossible and b) some people are only happy when their niche is excessively rewarded.
...
We have stated pretty clear goals both internally and externally. As long as we feel that we hit those goals and the majority of players agree, we can't worry about the margins who a) never agreed with those goals or b) don't feel we met them. It's just not a productive way to go about design.

And this was quoted earlier in the thread but I must emphasize certain aspects since it looks like some here overlooked them
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=410740776

The team did not discuss alternatives because no one objected to anything in the system Tim and I proposed. Also, we were trying to solve two problems: forced marching back to merchants and also continual inventory shuffling. Your individual character backpack that was large enough in BG to carry three suits of armor, five longswords, 200 arrows, eight stacks of potions, five scrolls, and assorted gems is now a shared backpack that can hold all of that and more. I'm not going to come up with a lore reason for why it works that way because I don't think the majority of players care. Additionally, I think any lore explanation I would come up with would be absurd. I'd rather just say, "This is how the inventory, pack, and stash systems work," and spend our narrative/world building time on designing interesting areas, characters, factions, and choices for the player to interact with.

Your beloved poof and Chris Avellone have forsaken you.

 

[Captain Shrek]

[...]
Not getting rid of it, though, leads to some people being OCD about collecting and selling as much as possible. Of course, I don't think that just making a place where you can dump everything and sort it out later is the best solution to that "problem".

I would say that this entire Finding good item in a pile of trash idea is not nice. Simply because it smacks of a mini game and a bad minigame at that. Removing such things completely is in line with reducing annoyance.

You disagree with the "we don't wan't to put a big blinking 'Important!' light over things" concept or if you prefer a rephrasing, you believe that we should not have to worry about incomplete information [Or is it just the scale of the incomplete information that you don't like - certainly, it isn't an all or nothing choice]? Is that only in regards to inventory, or does it apply to the other aspects of the game as well?

Fundamentally, the problem of sifting the good from the bad is a representation of the problem of incomplete information. My specific example was merely a sample of a system I enjoyed (I liked that aspect of the Gold Box games.), and certainly may not be perfect, but the basic behaviour of figuring out what is important remains unless you get rid of the incomplete information problem - essentially, an inventory parallel of the "this is the important path(s)" solution to the incomplete knowledge about locations problem.

Well.

I like to think that only relevant information need be abstracted. The rest only contributes to a lot of unnecessary hassle.

For example I would say that everyone drops stuff, it is not nice that all of it be powerful. If all of it is NOT powerful then it makes no sense to search through it all the time. The best way to solve the problem is to change it to a real skill based 'encounter'.

How about this:

Make it a dialogue/interaction option:

There is a pileand on encountering it, a dialogue tells you what you see and if you have the right spell/ability ready you make the right choice or else pick up the trash.

 

[evdk]

Your beloved poof and Chris Avellone have forsaken you.

I do not fanboy MCA because of his supreme system design skills.

 

[Roguey]

Avellone isn't even a system designer. He's purely narrative, has dabbled in areas in the past and on Wasteland 2.

 

[tuluse]

Avellone isn't even a system designer. He's purely narrative, has dabbled in areas in the past and on Wasteland 2.

He does quest and level design. Not just narrative.

 

[Hormalakh]

And this was quoted earlier in the thread but I must emphasize certain aspects since it looks like some here overlooked them
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=410740776

The team did not discuss alternatives because no one objected to anything in the system Tim and I proposed. Also, we were trying to solve two problems: forced marching back to merchants and also continual inventory shuffling. Your individual character backpack that was large enough in BG to carry three suits of armor, five longswords, 200 arrows, eight stacks of potions, five scrolls, and assorted gems is now a shared backpack that can hold all of that and more. I'm not going to come up with a lore reason for why it works that way because I don't think the majority of players care. Additionally, I think any lore explanation I would come up with would be absurd. I'd rather just say, "This is how the inventory, pack, and stash systems work," and spend our narrative/world building time on designing interesting areas, characters, factions, and choices for the player to interact with.

Your beloved poof and Chris Avellone have forsaken you.

thanks. yeah i forgot about this last quote. He's got a lot of stuff he writes on SA. When i read that stuff several days (yesterday?) ago it's when i told myself the inventory is fine: he explained it fairly well. I even linked to it if I'm not mistaken.

As for Darklands, I think that would be a cool way of doing "camps" in any case. Hope he looks into it.

 

[Hormalakh]

All this is to say, please be mindful of bloat on active abilities!

We are. Wizards will have among the most and fighters among the fewest, not because they "should", but because that's how we're choosing to design them. Among fighter abilities, many are modal, like 3E/3.5 Power Attack, so their strong tendency will be toward lower maintenance overall, but there will still be a range. Similarly, while wizards can select Talents that are more on the passive side, all of their spells are active abilities. You effectively can't play a fully passive wizard, only various flavors of active.

i take back everything bad i said about Josh. He's a bro.

 

[Alex]

I am all for discussing minutia and what appears to be pointless details, but you guys should chill. Flinging insults is not going to make the other party see your point better, much less agree with what you perceive, but they disagree, is the point of roleplaying games. Take Hormalakh or Roguey, for example. I don't usually even read their posts cause I know it is just going to be stuff we disagree about. If they want their game to be more like 3e or 4e, more closed and generic like chess, that is just how their taste goes. I am not going to convince them of the glory and beauty of the OSR, for example. I mean, sure, I made a lot of posts about that before, but I am not trying to prove a point of view wrong. I am trying to explain how I see things. Maybe you guys should keep this in mind?

 

[Blaine]

Alex, I hope you realize that when the shit hits the fan, both sides will shoot the holier-than-thou peacekeeper first before turning on each other.

 

[Alex]

Blaine

For some reason, in all my years here in the codex, I never managed to get into an insult fight.

 

[Blaine]

That's pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, a few of my arguments have been a little too effective in the past (not that I'm perfect mind you, but I have my moments), causing a few dimwitted posters to resort to newfag insults. I'm not sure whether that truly counts as an insult fight, though.

 

[Apexeon]

Josh -> Can I farm pigs in your game and stash the bacon in my backpack?

Games need more bacon.

 

[Captain Shrek]

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=410740776

The team did not discuss alternatives because no one objected to anything in the system Tim and I proposed. Also, we were trying to solve two problems: forced marching back to merchants and also continual inventory shuffling. Your individual character backpack that was large enough in BG to carry three suits of armor, five longswords, 200 arrows, eight stacks of potions, five scrolls, and assorted gems is now a shared backpack that can hold all of that and more. I'm not going to come up with a lore reason for why it works that way because I don't think the majority of players care. Additionally, I think any lore explanation I would come up with would be absurd. I'd rather just say, "This is how the inventory, pack, and stash systems work," and spend our narrative/world building time on designing interesting areas, characters, factions, and choices for the player to interact with.

Your beloved poof and Chris Avellone have forsaken you.

I am with you on this one Roguey. This indeed is terrible.

 

[Apexeon]

The team did not discuss alternatives because no one objected to anything in the system Tim and I proposed. Also, we were trying to solve two problems: forced marching back to merchants and also continual inventory shuffling. Your individual character backpack that was large enough in BG to carry three suits of armor, five longswords, 200 arrows, eight stacks of potions, five scrolls, and assorted gems is now a shared backpack that can hold all of that and more. I'm not going to come up with a lore reason for why it works that way because I don't think the majority of players care. Additionally, I think any lore explanation I would come up with would be absurd. I'd rather just say, "This is how the inventory, pack, and stash systems work," and spend our narrative/world building time on designing interesting areas, characters, factions, and choices for the player to interact with.

Your beloved poof and Chris Avellone have forsaken you. [/quote]

Looks like mega dumb down to me. Why don't they give the party a pick up truck option and some rednecks with shotguns to guard the lootzzz!!! And the truck has a town teloporta that runs on moonshine to get da lootzz to market.

Ps if the pick up truck can haul pigs then they got me .
My only weakness
Shame WOW went for panda's and not pigs.

 

[marooned]

I kinda wish this update would have brought something more lulzy/raging/interesting to discuss these holidays rather than a looting mechanic.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I kinda wish this update would have brought something more lulzy/raging/interesting to discuss these holidays rather than a looting mechanic.

It did.

There is the description of DA abilities and DPS being affected by defense mode. Also, how rogues can 'teleport' out of the combat and can backstab in an actiony manner.

 

[Oesophagus]

Games need more bacon.

Why do you keep going on about ba...

Location:Australia, Brisbane

oh

Looks like mega dumb down to me

Yup. They better have a good reason for this, ie. they make up for it with some impresive writing/quest design

 

[mediocrepoet]

Looks like mega dumb down to me. Why don't they give the party a pick up truck option and some rednecks with shotguns to guard the lootzzz!!! And the truck has a town teloporta that runs on moonshine to get da lootzz to market.

Ps if the pick up truck can haul pigs then they got me .

What if you could get the pick up to haul your entire stash back to town and then vendor it for you and bring you back the gold? It could also pick up some common potions and magic items and deliver them to you if you started to run short of, say, healing potions. Imagine the convenience.

 

[Hormalakh]

so i need someone who has somethingawful access to go here, download the attachment and give the rest of us access, please.

I'm sure we'd all appreciate it and we can shoot the shit about damage and numbers.

thanks!

 

[Infinitron]

so i need someone who has somethingawful access to go here, download the attachment and give the rest of us access, please.

I'm sure we'd all appreciate it and we can shoot the shit about damage and numbers.

thanks!

Uh.