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

[roshan]

No, it was about what dice rolls simulate. I proposed that things like AI, abilities and, in general, more detailed content, can replace to an extent what dice rolls are simulating.

Systems don't pose risk to players. Enemies pose risk to players. Again, the quality of this kind of game really depends on the content, not the systems.

I think you're discounting that randomness is also an essential consideration in strategic combat as without randomness there really is no simulation of risk or luck at all. As an extreme example, let's say a fireball always does a fixed damage of 45. If I see an enemy casting a fireball at my party, and everyone has 55 HP, I simply don't need to worry, I can leave them in the area of effect. Now, if a fireball does 10d7 damage, my characters can take anywhere from 10-70 damage in the attack.

Now the average damage is less, but all of a sudden, the fireball is much more dangerous - I can actually lose one, or even more of my party members. Even though my characters might only take 10 damage from the attack, now, I need to move all of them out of the area of effect. My response has changed completely due to the unpredictability of the situation. At the same time - I could leave certain characters to continue what they are doing, knowing the risk that the fireball poses - this is the kind of decision making that makes combat difficult!

You are confusing two totally different things - the numbers aspect of combat, and the AI. Even if the AI is really good, it is meaningless if players can predict the results accurately as then players will always be able to come up with the appropriate response.

 

[Infinitron]

You are confusing two totally different things - the numbers aspect of combat, and the AI. Even if the AI is really good, it is meaningless if players can predict the results accurately as then players will always be able to come up with the appropriate response.

Read the post above. Can you predict what the computer will do in a chess game "accurately"?

These are not two totally different things - unpredictability can be implemented in different ways, not just by rolling a dice.

 

[roshan]

The current ways most RPG's play lack depth, and the response of a lot of people is to maintain the facade so people can't see how shallow they are. That's why people hate DPS - once the player sees that five attacks doing two damage, two attacks doing five damage, and one attack doing ten damage are all the same, the illusion is broken. But we should be demanding better systems, not better illusions.

Straw man argument.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Oh yeah, Obsidian (or Sawyer) are totally capable of creating a game comparable to Chess. Totally fitting comparison. And that leaving aside the fact that Chess has absolutely nothing to do with RPGs.

Sawyer is only doing the only thing he's capable of. Trying to reinvent the wheel because you sometimes get flat tires.

 

[roshan]

You are confusing two totally different things - the numbers aspect of combat, and the AI. Even if the AI is really good, it is meaningless if players can predict the results accurately as then players will always be able to come up with the appropriate response.

Read the post above. Can you predict what the computer will do in a chess game "accurately"?

These are not two totally different things - unpredictability can be implemented in different ways, not just by rolling a dice.

Comparing RTWP combat to chess is absurd. Chess is inherently unpredictable because you have very little idea regarding what action your opponent will take in response to yours. You do your turn hoping for the best, then see what he does.

In a real time with pause RPG, you can see what your enemy is doing before effects are felt. For example, a spell might take 3 seconds to cast. In those 3 seconds, if the result of the spell is predictable, you can make the optimal decision as to what your response will be.

If you wanted a turn based RPG game to emulate chess more closely, that would make perhaps a little bit more sense, but would still be too far fetched a comparison to have any meaning.

 

[Infinitron]

One interesting thing about this system is that it can eliminate those situations where you have a super high dex character that nobody can hit, and the enemy is also hard to hit, and the two end up wailing at each other fruitlessly for minutes and missing until one gets a critical hit or something.

Since you'll be constantly taking damage in combat, you'll want to push for fights to end as quickly as possible. You'll want to find a tactic to break that symmetry, instead of letting it play out and hoping you get the lucky crit. Combat becomes a shorter, more brutal affair.

 

[Alex]

roshan

Hey, I didn't know you were back! Nice to see you posting around here again.

 

[Infinitron]

In a real time with pause RPG, you can see what your enemy is doing before effects are felt. For example, a spell might take 3 seconds to cast. In those 3 seconds, if the result of the spell is predictable, you can make the optimal decision as to what your response will be.

OK, can you perfectly predict what the enemy will do in a heavily scripted boss battle in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you honestly believe that dice rolls for damage and hitting are the only possible source of unpredictability in RPGs? Come on, really?

 

[FeelTheRads]

OK, can you perfectly predict what the enemy will do in a heavily scripted boss battle in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you honestly believe that dice rolls for damage and hitting are the only possible source of unpredictability in RPGs? Come on, really?

So you're saying that scripted battles are a source of unpredictability? Or that scripted battles are actually a "better system"?

 

[Infinitron]

OK, can you perfectly predict what the enemy will do in a heavily scripted boss battle in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you honestly believe that dice rolls for damage and hitting are the only possible source of unpredictability in RPGs? Come on, really?

So you're saying that scripted battles are a source of unpredictability? Or that scripted battles are actually a "better system"?

lol

The word "scripted" here doesn't mean what you think it means.

By "scripted", I mean that the bosses are programmed to react in many different ways with many different scripts to various tactical situations. Make that programming complex enough and the boss behavior become very hard to predict. It's not that there's one single script like in a set-piece battle in Call of Duty.

 

[Cosmo]

Simple fact : warriors being able to regain stamina makes this whole no-miss debate a moot point.
It's just that you're witnessing the implementation of a system that tries to be flexible by relying more on buffers than tresholds like in everything D&D (THAC0 and its various avatars).

 

[Grunker]

If you want to eliminate all or nothing to-hit systems, you use a bell-curve.

If you want to bury your head in the sand, you invent something from scratch because you think your God's gift to video game RPG systems.

 

[Cosmo]

Or you're humble, but want to invent new gameplay, and test it again and again, until IT WORKS.
Don't forget that they said from the beginning that they had the chance to invent a better system than something derived from p&p RPG, and then mutilated to fit RTwP. Let them try at least for fuck's sake.

 

[Infinitron]

I agree with Grunker that it would be wiser to employ a more moderated approach that does not eliminate misses entirely.

Ironically, Josh's solution for eliminating binary success/fail mechanics is itself binary.

 

[Aeschylus]

I can't quite decide on my reaction to this whole debate. On one hand, I don't really think it's that big a deal game balance-wise unless ranged weapons never miss (even in 'never miss' games like Gothic ranged weapons could miss, because it's just too broken if they don't). Still, the whole thing kind of depresses me, because it seems like the type of things in game design that I really enjoy -- chaotic systems, breakable systems, and a sense of humor in mechanical design (think Fallout 1) are being phased out. From a designers' perspective maybe these things aren't great, but I always like being surprised when playing games, whether its because something fails that I was sure would work, or vice versa. Most of my favorite moments in old RPGs happened when some utterly improbable gambit worked, and it seems like modern designers are determined to make such a thing impossible.

 

[Infinitron]

I can't quite decide on my reaction to this whole debate. On one hand, I don't really think it's that big a deal game balance-wise unless ranged weapons never miss (even in 'never miss' games like Gothic ranged weapons could miss, because it's just too broken if they don't). Still, the whole thing kind of depresses me, because it seems like the type of things in game design that I really enjoy -- chaotic systems, breakable systems, and a sense of humor in mechanical design (think Fallout 1). From a designers' perspective maybe these things aren't great, but I always like being surprised when playing games, whether its because something fails that I was sure would work, or vice versa. Most of my favorite moments in old RPGs happened when some utterly improbable gambit worked, and it seems like modern designers are determined to make such a thing impossible.

Hopefully Wasteland 2 will go more in this direction.

 

[roshan]

OK, can you perfectly predict what the enemy will do in a heavily scripted boss battle in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you honestly believe that dice rolls for damage and hitting are the only possible source of unpredictability in RPGs? Come on, really?

Obviously I can't predict the enemy's next move, but I can see what he is currently doing, or just about to do and react accordingly. Basic example: orc turns to shoot an arrow at my mage, I can move the mage out of range before he gets off a shot. In contrast, in chess, bishop is going to eat my rook, I can't do shit about it, so I need to think beforehand during my turn.

Basically, there is a "time" factor in RPGs which is not present in chess which makes comparing the two completely silly.

 

[roshan]

roshan

Hey, I didn't know you were back! Nice to see you posting around here again.

Hey, thanks, Eternity/Wasteland 2 have kind of awoken my interest in the Codex.

 

[Infinitron]

OK, can you perfectly predict what the enemy will do in a heavily scripted boss battle in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you honestly believe that dice rolls for damage and hitting are the only possible source of unpredictability in RPGs? Come on, really?

Obviously I can't predict the enemy's next move, but I can see what he is currently doing, or just about to do and react accordingly. Basic example: orc turns to shoot an arrow at my mage, I can move the mage out of range before he gets off a shot. In contrast, in chess, bishop is going to eat my rook, I can't do shit about it, so I need to think beforehand during my turn.

Basically, there is a "time" factor in RPGs which is not present in chess which makes comparing the two completely silly.

Okay, you're talking about unpredictability only in the immediate, second-to-second term. That's a subset of unpredictability in general.

However, even then, you might not have the ability or time to react. Maybe your mage is committed to casting a spell, or is just too close to get away. You can't always "react" to things perfectly like that. The system can still blindside you.

 

[CappenVarra]

Heh, I kinda get the impression Sawyer is trying to do to AD&D crunch what MCA did to its fluff... It's just, hasn't WoTC already done that (and it was meh)? And he's doing a great job of trolling people, I have to give him that; too bad everything he says makes the game sound less interesting to play. The proof will, as always, be in the pudding... But I might learn modding just to add Type E poison to the game and bring back some of the fun To the Tim-mobile!

 

[Aeschylus]

Making an argument based on comparing a video game to chess is silly because it is an argument from analogy, and arguments from analogy are always flawed due to the simple fact that although two things may seem similar or analagous in some respects, they are still ultimately different.

 

[Infinitron]

arguments from analogy are always flawed

That's a bit extreme. Analogies have no value at all, then?

 

[Aeschylus]

arguments from analogy are always flawed

How rhetorically oppressive of you. Analogies have no value at all, then?

Er, no, maybe I misstated a bit. Analogies have value in that they can illustrate aspects of things that may be opaque directly but more clear when viewed through another perspective.

What I mean is that if you are saying something like such-and-such must be true about x because it is true about y and x and y are similar in such-and-such way, that argument is going to be inevitably logically flawed because no matter how similar x and y are, there are inevitable differences between them that make logical argumentation based on one inapplicable to another. It's a pretty standard logical fallacy. A common example of this is the watchmaker analogy RE: intelligent design.

 

[Grunker]

An analogy is useful for explaining an argument, it's not an argument in itself.

"A stone cannot fly, my sweet mother cannot fly, ergo my mother is a stone."

 

[roshan]

Okay, you're talking about unpredictability only in the immediate, second-to-second term. That's a subset of unpredictability in general.

However, even then, you might not have the ability or time to react. Maybe your mage is committed to casting a spell, or is just too close to get away. You can't always "react" to things perfectly like that. The system can still blindside you.

Yes, but in chess, as opposed to being POSSIBLY blindsided, you are basically auto blindsided always so your moves must take into account all possible moves by the enemy. Here there is only a small possibility that you cannot react appropriately. Now here's the problem with minimum damage and no miss - it leads to battles of attrition which last longer, and are much less likely to blindside you.

Also, once the mathematical aspect is taken into account - If I know how much damage the orc can do, it is much less of a threat as compared to when I cannot predict how much damage it will do. For example, if I don't know, I will have to either flee, or cast mirror image, or try and engage the orc with one of my other characters. If I know the orc always hits, and does a finite, fairly consistent amount of damage, I can estimate how many shots my mage can survive right away, no risk or unpredictability left.