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

[Hormalakh]

So my question is why is SA NOT a "sea of screaming, functionally illiterate imbeciles" or do they just moderate better than the Obsidian forums? Why are their opinions more favored over others? Ultimately only hearing from friends leads to a big ol' circlejerk. Besides most of his posts are quickly posted on Obsidian's forums anyway and people comment immediately. I've noticed that he reads those posts too.

Hmm, I guess what I'm advocating for here is for JES to come and visit us over at the Codex.

As for holding his feet to the fire, I think that's sort of lame. He's free to do what he will. I'm not sure why but I sort of see the guy as reasonable and don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. Tattling on him and just being a whiny snob is sort of dumb. I'm just venting here.

 

[Infinitron]

So my question is why is SA NOT a "sea of screaming, functionally illiterate imbeciles" or do they just moderate better than the Obsidian forums?

Paywall.

 

[Hormalakh]

I mean honestly though....Josh knows this is the internet right? Anything he posts anywhere will automatically be posted anywhere else its relevant. I already posted his thoughts to the Obsidian forums. People have continued to do this from the beginning of this kickstarter.

So ... like I said, mountain out of a molehill.

 

[Kirtai]

So my question is why is SA NOT a "sea of screaming, functionally illiterate imbeciles" or do they just moderate better than the Obsidian forums?

Paywall.

So they're a "sea of screaming, functionally illiterate imbeciles" with money to throw away then?

 

[Hormalakh]

Codex should totally implement the paywall. Maybe all the developers will come and post here then.

 

[Infinitron]

Codex should totally implement the paywall. Maybe all the developers will come and post here then.

Well, we sort of have a paywall for GD now...no developers have showed up yet.

 

[Blaine]

Blaine http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=341

This is definitely not the thread for such discourse, and in fact we don't even have a section for it at the moment. Suffice it to say, I see your "straw feminist" argument and raise you "no true Scotsman." If we really want to continue this, and we probably don't (since it's tantamount to an atheist arguing with a Christian), shoot me a PM. Or have the final say and then shoot me a PM, whichever, but I'm ejecting right now.

So they're a "sea of screaming, functionally illiterate imbeciles" with money to throw away then?

Yes. It's one thing to preorder a game super-early to get a deep discount and/or some unique benefits, but quite another to pay tenbux "just" to post on a forum.

It's well known that I'm in love with Star Citizen and Chris Roberts, but the backers... fucking Hell, I've never seen such retardation on the Internet as I've seen on the Roberts Space Industries forum. The Obsidian forum and Kickstarter comments are no better. They're worse than YouTube comments, or the Bethesda Softworks forum, or fucking GameFAQs for that matter.

No matter how much contempt I may display toward fellow Codexians, rest assured I hold you all (even suejak, Kosmonaut and Volourn) in the greatest esteem by comparison.

 

[Kirtai]

Codex should totally implement the paywall. Maybe all the developers will come and post here then.

Well, we sort of have a paywall for GD now...no developers have showed up yet.

So what's it like in there? Has the paywall made it a bastion of reasoned discourse and polite commentary?

 

[Hormalakh]

Ok getting back to the topic that actually matters, Josh responded.

"Every RPG I've played with this kind of deterministic no-missing system turns combat into longwinded battles of attrition. You win everything by outhealing the damage they do to you and/or by maximizing DPS. "

A: When you get down to it, they're all battles of attrition. This system is mostly just normalizing damage over time instead of the low-level 3E system of miss-miss-miss-x3 crit = death.

Q: What's your vision here, in practice? Should chipping away enemy's health with half-minimum damage "misses" be a viable tactic for winning fights? Or would that amount of damage be so meager as to be meaningless?

A: I think it would depend on the specific enemy/encounter. Generally, it just normalizes damage over time instead of spiking on (previously) 6-second intervals. A powerful foe that is ext. difficult to hit is probably powerful in other ways.

Q: But the "always hit" has led to enemy bosses that have 10000 HP.That doesn't make the fights difficult,it makes them a chore.Have you thought any solutions to this?IE games had interesting encounters but Firgraag for examble had only 180 hp. With the new system is something similar posible at all?

Firkraag didn't have a ton of HP, but the fight wasn't really about sending a bunch of guys with low THAC0s at him and flailing away for lucky hits -- though the strategies many suggest online often revolve around save or die + reload tactics. I argue that the most interesting strategies and tactics for defeating Firkraag don't rely on save or die + reload, but on a combination of elements to shift odds in your favor. I think this can easily work even with a partial-success system.

 

[tuluse]

Yes, that is how THAC0 worked. Either you succeeded your roll and successfully hit, dealing full damage, or you missed your roll and failed to hit, dealing no damage. I believe there were a few other ways to "soak" damage in AD&D 2nd and earlier (damage reduction or some such), but these were generally special spell effects or inherent monster/racial qualities.

'Course, it's been over a decade since I've read any of that mess.

That's not quite right.

Firstly, DnD had critical hits, so it was a trinary outcome (miss, hit, crit).

Secondly, you rolled damage after, so there were degrees of hits and crits.

If Saywer wanted to add "light hits" or something in this manor.

Monster A has 10 ac against light hits, 15 against normal hits, and a 20 always crits (or confirm crit like 3E), I think we would all be fine with this. It would add something to the equation. Instead he's just taken missing out completely.

 

[tuluse]

The more I think about the gameplay changes Sawyer is introducing the angrier I get. I feel lied to.

We want to make an IE-like game. Oh except we don't want it to feel anything like ADnD. We want to make sure all your precious snowflakes of characters are good so we'll give them all soul magic no matter what class you choose. Missing an attack might make you feel bad, we'll take that out of a game.

A: When you get down to it, they're all battles of attrition. This system is mostly just normalizing damage over time instead of the low-level 3E system of miss-miss-miss-x3 crit = death.

So Sawyer doesn't understand why someone would play Roulette over a Slot Machine. Better normalize winnings over time, that's the only way people can have fun. Trust me, I've been watching people play games since you were diapers chump.

 

[Hormalakh]

I feel the same way Tuluse; being lied to. I liked the way IE games played. I was fine with their implementations and while I don't mind a few changes here and there, this whole system seems like a completely new one and nothing like how IE played. If I knew then what I know now, I would have waited on investing, especially since they already hit their $1.1 mil goal. I would have waited for the first game to come out before paying more than I've ever paid for for a game. Once I saw the mechanics in action, then I would consider investing in a future game.

I still do have hope in the game, but I now know, after much anger earlier, not to really expect an IE game like before. Once I accepted that, it became easier to accept the approach this game is trying to take.

 

[Blaine]

Advocatus diaboli: Normalized damage over time (as opposed to randomized bursts of high/low damage interspersed with none at all) may de-emphasize luck and accentuate strategic planning. This is arguably preferable to the old-fashioned reliance on high or low die rolls.

 

[Hormalakh]

Answer: It changes the situation from an incomplete information situation to a mathematical problem situation; it is no longer a game, it is a one-time math equation.

 

[Zakhad]

Advocatus diaboli: Normalized damage over time (as opposed to randomized bursts of high/low damage interspersed with none at all) may de-emphasize luck and accentuate strategic planning. This is arguably preferable to the old-fashioned reliance on high or low die rolls.

This, to some extent.

So far, what Sawyer seems to be trying to do is make save-scumming and metagaming irrelevant/less important. Random events with huge consequences only really work where you can't keep reloading (roguelikes). Otherwise, we all know that the vast majority of players will just reload again and again. We've all done it. The idea that it makes for a good game is just the lazy conservatism of liking the devil you know. By reducing the difference between crit/hit/miss, you reduce the likelihood that a reload will alter the result by much. So if you do reload, you have to think of a whole different approach, or walk away from the encounter and come back. Strategy/tactics come to the fore.

If what Sawyer intends is indeed to make in-game tactics have more weight than savescuming/metagaming, I'm all for it. Which is also why I have no problem with the "all parties should be viable" thing either. Those who want the reverse are just butthurt because they'll no longer get to jump on fora and laugh at the newbs who somehow failed to know that you needed an 11th level mage by the third chapter if you wanted to progress. This kind of thing is what makes walkthroughs so game-breaking in so many of these games, and so required for a first-time through success. It's also why so many of us end up getting the reward then killing the reward-giver, because meta-knowledge tells us that we're better off that way. Something Sawyer's also on record as being against.

I mean, sure, we all have fond memories of the IE games, but they're no fallout1/2. They're easily broken with the right metagaming/character building, they have a boring morality system (other than torment), irritating (and shallow) companions (except torment again), and combat that... wasn't really that good (especially torment). You got people stuck against other people mid-battle while trying to negotiate hallways, people randomly perma-dying through a lack of a very specific spell being prepared before that encounter (reload, memorise spell, rest, try again), terrible path-finding even around other actors right next to them, and so forth.

If PE had actually just been a direct fanfic-style tribute to the IE games, we all would have been on here after release, complaining about the exact things in the game that were direct copies of BG etc. Nostalgia makes (some of) us forgive IE its sins, but repeated in a new game the faults would have been glaring. They had to be fixed.

Yay now I'm going to drown under a wave of raaaaagggeee

 

[tuluse]

Why sell the game as an IE successor if you hate IE games?

I likely would have donated anyways because I like Obsidian's writing, but it still feels like a bait and switch. Why not just say they want to make a brand new party based RPG? Why name drop BG, PS:T, and IWD all over the place?

Also, Obsidian has never created a game as fun to play as the old IE games, so I was hoping by mostly copying them, they would get it mostly right through just parroting, but I guess not.

 

[suejak]

I dunno, I just don't like how this makes every character so tanky. Even agile dodger characters will just be reducing incoming damage to DA2-style glancing blows. They'll have to be built to always take some damage whenever someone attacks them.

I think single-player RPGs are a great realm for chanciness. There's no reason it has to be "all-or-nothing" just because the chance for "nothing" exists. And the chance for "nothing" is kinda fun.

 

[Zakhad]

Why sell the game as an IE successor if you hate IE games?

I likely would have donated anyways because I like Obsidian's writing, but it still feels like a bait and switch. Why not just say they want to make a brand new party based RPG? Why name drop BG, PS:T, and IWD all over the place?

Also, Obsidian has never created a game as fun to play as the old IE games, so I was hoping by mostly copying them, they would get it mostly right through just parroting, but I guess not.

What an IE game means is different to different people. As they put it:

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

That says nothing about copying the same class structure or combat system, which they explicitly said through the development process that they wouldn't do. They're making an isometric RTWP RPG that has good writing, exploration, and dungeon crawling. That's what I paid for.


If I just wanted an exact copy of the old IE systems, I'd be supporting beamdog.

 

[tuluse]

the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale

This except none of it.

Edit: I don't want a copy of the IE games. You could improve on Bioware's interpretation of ADnD a lot, but Sawyers changes don't sound like improvements to me.

 

[Osvir]

Don't forget that the "Main Health" factor in P:E is Stamina!

So seeing as you are "Attacking the Stamina" of the opponent, there really is no "Miss". A "Glancing" hit could imply that the enemy is blocking or parrying (which can be represented in a Combat Log), which should cost some Stamina for the opponent.

Mortality (Health) is a second layer of on top of the "Stamina" factor on harder difficulties and in an option. I'm sure that it will follow some rules of its own and in some cases Stamina could even act as a "Shield" before taking "Damage".

 

[Hormalakh]

Even more stuff said on the Formspring for those interested. Seems like games like League of Legends are partly to blame the inspiration for this design decision. I haven't played LoL, but I have played DoTA (is it the same thing?) the Warcraft3 original.

I don't know, those games were always so short and you weren't always using a character for a 40-100 hour long game and so level ups meant less. I kind of liked how in cRPGs you always started out as a shmuck who couldn't hit anything and just constantly missed. Then, as you gained levels, you stopped missing as much, and you hit more and your enemies were the ones who missed.

I mean I don't really see DOTA and think, "man this would totally be how I'd imagine my IE combat!" I do like aspects of RTSs and MOBAs, but not as a complete shift over for RPGs. The choices and consequences made during level ups and inventory management, etc in those games seem so shallow and meaningless.

I'll still try LoL and see what is so inspiring to JES. Though, I doubt it'll change my mind.

 

[Zakhad]

the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale

This except none of it.

How do you know there'll be none of it? Fun can't be had without highly random combat that favours savescumming? Dungeon diving can't happen unless you have glass wizards? Combat not exactly like IWD can't be intense?

After seeing the way Sawyer was able to add some kind of balance to FNV after the cluster-bethesda-fuck of FO3 (and especially if we include his own patch as well), I'm eager to see what he can do to fix some of what held the IE games back. The spirit is sound, as are many of the mechanics - but not all of them. Sawyer's changes to FO3 didn't make battles about attrition, it did the opposite, by replacing the FO3 high-level HP sinks with high DT, lower HP monsters. If the game starts to play like an attrition-fest with these changes, I'm confident he'll change it.

 

[tuluse]

This game might have fun intense combat, but it will not be the "fun, intense combat... of Icewind Dale".

 

[Hormalakh]

This game might have fun intense combat, but it will not be the "fun, intense combat... of Icewind Dale".

Exactly this. I don't think his game won't be fun; it's just not what I expected.

 

[Zakhad]

This game might have fun intense combat, but it will not be the "fun, intense combat... of Icewind Dale".

I think you're reading that very much against the intended grain. When you say, "this has the fun, intense excitement of my last holiday" you don't meen the experience is identical, just comparable in its intensity and fun. otherwise the phrase "the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate" would mean it'd be the same companions and hero, and "the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment" would mean that it would re-use the same dialogue lines. In each case, it's a metaphoric or idiomatic expression meaning that it takes the archetype from these sources, but is not identical with them.

Therefore, as long as it's as fun and intense as IWD, they've fulfilled their promise. If they feel certain changes make this easier to do for all supporters (not just the skilled metagamers/walkthrough abusers/ load-spammers) then they are pretty much obliged to explore those changes.