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

[Jaesun]

kotc is knights of the chalice?

Yes.

 

[oscar]

The IE games themselves gained pretty much nothing from being RTwP, beyond making the clearing of trash mobs slightly faster. Pretty much the only things to rightfully be drawn upon from them is some cool character portraits, nice pre-rendered backgrounds and the interesting writing of Torment.

But it's pretty damn strange to suddenly chuck in a League of Legends combat system. What 'spiritual connection' does the game now have at all to the IE games? The isometric view point? Their (truthfully kind of crappy) RTwP was the only binding theme.

To me this just seems a chronic misdirection of time, money and talents into what could have been something truly awesome (which will now be 'kind of nice' at best if everything works out). Instead of plucking the best from the past he's trying to tackle problems that no one but a FPS fan who suddenly tried to play an RPG would find a problem (dice rolls? is this Risk or something lol wtf is this shit dude my guys missing but on the screen hes standing right next to him!! omg my wizard dies a lot when I put him on the frontline magic users suck in this game lol).

It's outright manipulative to sell this one as oldschool and for the fans and play along like 'hey I'm one of you guys ' and then change the game to a 'Baby's First cRPG' type thing designed to draw in people who didn't like cRPGs because of things like dice rolls and specialised classes.

 

[Infinitron]

Hmm, judging from his responses, I think Josh may have been convinced to add a critical miss that actually misses to his system.

 

[Infinitron]

BTW, here's a JoshPost which I don't think was pasted here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63091-josh-sawyer-on-miss-and-hit/page__st__80#entry1296177

Gameplay degeneration isn't a pejorative commentary on players using it. When I write about gameplay degeneration, what I mean is that both the intended gameplay styles (from a design perspective) and the players' desired gameplay styles effectively go out the window because the system rewards some other method(s) of gameplay. It's not a gamer's fault for making use of an obvious loophole or method of min-maxing, but it is our responsibility (as designers) to try to align fun design intention with actually fun gameplay.

If we design a system that rewards resting every 5', the gamer isn't at fault for using it. We put it in there! If we design a system that rewards savescumming, we (the designers) are the ones to blame. If we design an inventory system that rewards traveling back and forth to haul load after load of loot out like precious grains of sand, again, we're the ones that built the system.

My job is to give the player interesting challenges to overcome and a variety of tools to overcome those challenges. If their solutions to the challenges involve mentally un-engaging rote tasks or exploiting loopholes, I believe that most players don't like that. I believe most players would rather have us think about and eliminate loopholes and present challenges that allow them to overcome challenges in a "stand up" fashion.

Another example is kiting, which has been brought up a number of times and is a pernicious problem in a lot of games. The steps we take to solve kiting issues will not be made to slap the hands of gamers we think are doing something "bad". If we allow and effectively reward kiting, then kiting becomes the low-bar for overcoming combat challenges, but it will be our fault for letting it happen.

All of this stuff is really separate from the hit-miss/RNG conversation, which is really about normalizing randomness a step more than D&D does -- that's all.

 

[Rake]

The problem for me is that they hope to turn this into a francize.That automaticaly means that they must draw in modern gamers too,people whose RPG experience are Oblivion,Mass Effect and Dragon Age.In BSN 80% of the "fans" havent play NWN because it was too "oldschool".But the kind of game these people want has nothing to do with the RPGs of old. And IE fans payed for that game, not Call of Duty fans

 

[Sazabi]

You know

While we have our Van Buren/Interplay boards times Josh Sawyer discussions back..... Something is missing

Troika

It's just not the same if we can't point out how much better Troika is, then go to another thread about Arcanum or TOEE and then bitch about those games.

No, wait. Wait.

We have InXile

I'm in tears.

 

[Hormalakh]

Infinitron yeah, the dude actually seems to listen to reason.

 

[Infinitron]

The problem for me is that they hope to turn this into a francize.That automaticaly means that they must draw in modern gamers too,people whose RPG experience are Oblivion,Mass Effect and Dragon Age.In BSN 80% of the "fans" havent play NWN because it was too "oldschool".But the kind of game these people want has nothing to do with the RPGs of old. And IE fans payed for that game, not Call of Duty fans

I don't think that's why the game is turning out to be this way. It's turning out like this because that's how Josh Sawyer rolls.

If anything, Feargus (the "business guy") is probably the one who's going to be more traditional about these things.

Remember, some of these simplifying mechanics are actually a bit complex. How do you think a Dragon Age Biodrone will feel when he runs out of health (actual health, not stamina) in the middle of a dungeon and can't heal himself because the game has no healing? How do you think he'll feel when he sends a critical item to his stash and has to trek back to town to get it back?

These solutions may be dumbing things down in some ways but they're also adding a layer of complexity that popamole games don't have.

 

[oscar]

He should feel free to make a streamlined, inviting, no-scary-dice-rolls RPG, but it's utter bastardy to do so when you sold your game to donators promising that this would be a "back to the roots" traditional cRPG. It's like some old awesome band with a really unique sound reuniting after twenty years and hyping up their new comeback as the return of that unique sound that the fans have been craving (and are willing to shell out for, as no one else is producing that sort of music), but then it turns out to be an RnB and electronic club-hit fusion featuring The Black Eyed Peas.

Old school cRPGs are a niche genre, but this Kickstarter has proven that it is one there is a market for and fans of it have shelled out a lot of money in the hopes of getting some more of it. Don't fuck it up by getting greedy and watering things down to give it more mass appeal.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

It's outright manipulative to sell this one as oldschool and for the fans and play along like 'hey I'm one of you guys ' and then change the game to a 'Baby's First cRPG' type thing designed to draw in people who didn't like cRPGs because of things like dice rolls and specialised classes.

I don't think that something Sawyer even cares about.

He does the stuff he does solely from the developer's perspective and he stated so repeadetly. Hunders of times actually. His decisions are based in countless table-top games, talking to QA, talking to other devs.


Anyway, can't say I'm thrilled about the recent stuff but the Sawyer has earned at least my respect to at least look at the final implentation. After all, he also did Icewind Dale 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. And despite all the discussions back then and now IWD2 certainly wasn't *Baby's first CRPG*. And F:NV did also its hardest (considering the shit base system) to provide challenge and not just hand everything on a silver plater (Death Claw Valley, Cazadors)

I guess having such a close look on development, especially in such an early stage amplifies Sawyerism discussions.

 

[suejak]

I dunno, now that he's come around on critical misses, I don't see a point in whining. Low-level D&D in the IE games sucked three very large testicles. Miss-wait-miss-wait-miss-wait-miss-OH FUCK LOST FOUR HP is kind of a hilarious gong show, but not really the way of the future.

Baldur's Gate was a shitshow unbecoming of 2014. Hope we can all raise our sippy cups to that one.

 

[tuluse]

Sure, but the easy solution is just to start at level 3, not to totally change how the game plays.

 

[suejak]

JE is a designer. He may not be Monte Cooke or Leonardo da Vinci, but he is an artist and an ambitious one. One thing you can never say about Sawyer is that he's apathetic. He's about as lazy and unmotivated as he is albino hairless.

If he wants to take a shot at making a video-game roleplaying system that is fun to play in real-time from level 1, I'm willing to at least wait and see what it is before I stick my incredibly large internet penis up his left-wing mangina.

 

[roshan]

I don't think that something Sawyer even cares about.

He does the stuff he does solely from the developer's perspective and he stated so repeadetly. Hunders of times actually. His decisions are based in countless table-top games, talking to QA, talking to other devs.


Anyway, can't say I'm thrilled about the recent stuff but the Sawyer has earned at least my respect to at least look at the final implentation. After all, he also did Icewind Dale 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. And despite all the discussions back then and now IWD2 certainly wasn't *Baby's first CRPG*. And F:NV did also its hardest (considering the shit base system) to provide challenge and not just hand everything on a silver plater (Death Claw Valley, Cazadors)

I guess having such a close look on development, especially in such an early stage amplifies Sawyerism discussions.

There's no way I'm buying that autoresurrection, health regen, magic stash, no missing is from a design perspective, ROFL! That's total and utter bullshit, whatever "design perspective" is just rationalization for dumbing down, plain and simple.

 

[Hormalakh]

roshan what autoresurrection? It's permadeath. there has already been much said recently about "no miss."

 

[roshan]

Then it's a good thing that healing health doesn't exist through magic or potions, right?

Seriously, this isn't "You can resurrect 10 times", it's a mix of "you have HP that you can't heal no matter what in dungeons/not resting places" and "It's much harder to quickly flat out kill a character than just knock him out ".

[/quote]

Sorry, that's what it is, very simple. If you "die" (get knocked out) in combat at 0 stamina, and then wake up afterwards, that's autoresurrection. If your health damage is 10% of stamina, that means you get to autoresurrect 10 times. Health not being healable through magic or potions doesn't mean anything because the REAL health (which is supposed to determine whether you get killed in battle) has been renamed to stamina and even warriors can surge stamina, it regenerates etc.

You are being confused by the fact that the terminology has been switched around to obfuscate things. What the real system in effect is that health (in this case "stamina") regenerates and is easily available, and on top of that there's an added mechanic of resurrection ("health") which is good for 10 resurrects since it depletes at 10% of stamina.

 

[Hormalakh]

Roshn did you think how Arcanum utilized stamina and health was considered autoresurrection?

 

[roshan]

Roshn did you think how Arcanum utilized stamina and health was considered autoresurrection?

I actually don't remember the mechanics in Arcanum very well. I didn't play it much, both times I got into it I encountered bugs in the very first town and ended up quitting. Maybe with the fan patches around I might give it another shot.

 

[oscar]

I don't know if it's fair to draw an Arcanum comparison, as it was pretty rare that you'd get knocked out and not killed in Arcanum outside of a magic user exhausting themselves (so they still had a lot of health but not much fatigue yet) and then getting hit. Even then while knocked out you can very easily be killed (easy to hit and don't get any defensive bonuses).

Vast majority of the time you and opponents died instead of getting knocked out, don't know if that's how it's going to work in PE.

 

[Hormalakh]

You're kidding right? The thieves in Tarant always used pipes to knock you out. Most ogres would knock you out, not kill you.

 

[suejak]

In fact, I got knocked out in almost every combat in Arcanum


Not to mention wonderboy Virgil casting himself into a coma.

 

[oscar]

The AI would knock themselves out usually because of retarded spellcaster AI exhausting itself spamming shitty spells or trying to heal a technological character but I don't think I ever got knocked out (perhaps against Luke and the Ogres but if I was it meant I was going to die anyway).

Perhaps I didn't get knocked out because game-breaking builds are so simple. In any case it seemed far more common to outright die, or if you get knocked out die three turns later after being kicked to death unconscious on the ground.

 

[roshan]

It seems in Arcanum being knocked out was a mechanic separate from being killed, and health and stamina were not linked together? Then that is totally different from Obsidian/Bioware style being "knocked out" which just means your characters no longer die in combat, but instead go to sleep then magically wake up after it's over ala NWN2, KOTOR etc. If I understand correctly, in Arcanum, you have to separate pools of resources you need to preserve, and both produce different effects, one leads to death, the other to unconsciousness?

In Project Eternity it seems that stamina and health are linked, and an attack that damages stamina also damages health, but at 10%. So what this effectively means is that stamina is the new health, which regenerates and surges, and instead of dying, you get knocked out. BUT, you still have 90% of health and so manage to resurrect after combat. So rather than in Arcanum, where health and stamina represent two different ways you could lose in combat (you can get killed, or get knocked out and then get killed), it seems in Eternity the system is designed so that you can lose in combat several times without suffering the consequences (you get knocked out 9 times in different battles, and only on the tenth do you actually die). Of course, this is if I understand both systems correctly.

 

[tuluse]

I'm not sure that's 100% accurate roshan. I think theoretically an enemy could keep hitting your knocked out characters to kill them.

 

[Hormalakh]

Not exactly roshan. (Are you pakistani btw? Roshan is urdu for bright)

Being attacked in Arcanum caused damage to fatigue and health at the same time. The mechanic being explained is pretty much the same thing. Fatigue and health are damaged at the same time in Project Eternity too.