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

[tuluse]

I found the DnD experience intrinsic to playing an IE game. The further the experience is from DnD the angrier I will be that they sold it as an IE successor.

By Sawyer's own words, removing the miss mechanics that DnD uses creates a different feel. He thinks it's a superior feel, pretty much every RTwP RPG since BG2 has had worse combat, so I'm not sure why I should believe him.

 

[Grunker]

Of course, something I thought was inevitable from the very start was that sooner or later, P:E discussion will turn into the same discussion that NMA/DAC/etc had during Van Buren / FO3; what constitutes the feel, or magic, or style, or 'core principles' of a 'Fallout game' / 'IE game' / 'IE combat'? Some FO fans felt FO is not FO if it's not turn-based; so would P:E no longer have been true to its spirit if it had become turn-based? Does P:E have to be D&D inspired and, as Lancehead just said, keep as much to P&P as possible, or was that a situational thing due to BG's creation story that is not necessarily beneficial now?

You're missing the point, or in the very least my point. I haven't said "oh, he's not true to the IE-core which is this and this" I'm asking: "Where is the IE?" All Josh has done so far is tell us how the IE-games sucked and what he wants to change. Besides the isometric viewpoint and pre-rendered backgrounds, so far he's done nothing to to tell us how this is a spiritual successor to the IE-games, which is the basis for their promise.

Saying "well, we can't make a successor to the IE-games because what is the IE-games?" is a motherfucking shameful cop-out. They made the choice to promote themselves as an IE-game successor, they must tell us how they plan to achieve that.

Excuse me if I'm critical of a man who has said more or less nothing about how he plans to make his game like the IE-games, but instead insists on inventing everything from the ground up. We paid on the promise that this team would make their vision of re-imagining the IE-games. We didn't pay for Josh to make his dream-game (don't say that you did unless you can point to exactly where in the pitch it was framed as such).

It's very, very basic, and you are just being apologetic. They say they're going to make something resembling IE games, they have to do so. Instead, Sawyer insists to make his own game, to "fix" the RtwP-genre as a whole. In essence, the pitch should have been "We want to make this-and-this new game" and not "we loved BG and IWD so we want to make a game like it." Not unless they plan on doing just that.

Now, am I saying they won't make an IE-like? No, we know shit at this point. Am I saying you're just as blind as any random CoD-fan if you aren't the least bit critical of them not telling us how this game is an IE-like? Hell motherfucking yes.

 

[Grunker]

The bottom line is this: I LOVE Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. I want a game like those. I backed on the promise that was what I would get. Josh might be able to make something better, he might not. The point is I don't give a fuck. I give a fuck about the games I know and love and wanted back. They don't want to make that, then fine, but then don't fucking say that's what you're going to do.

Presumably these guys produced the crap that was NWN2 because they were forced to make a lot of compromises, that's the story we've been sold. By now it seems Josh genuinely think NWN2 had better combat than the IE-games. The fucker is welcome to that misconception, but I sure as hell hope he understands he was paid mainly by people who find such a statement to be absurd.

 

[roshan]

Your character's health sets an upper limit on the amount of times that can happen, though.

Your health represents your store of strategic healing resources, which also includes resurrection spells. It's just automated for you, instead of having to cast the resurrection spells on the dead characters and then click "Rest" to auto-cast the healing spells like in the IE games.

Of course, in IE games you didn't have access to easy resurrection at the beginning of the game - but Sawyer would argue that at low levels, most players just reloaded if they ever lost a character. Degenerate!

One difference. In the IE games you could choose not to use resurrection and raise dead spells. In fact in almost all of my playthroughs I make it a point never to use those spells. Here resurrection is inbuilt into the system so even if you want to play things hardcore, your characters will autoresurrect against your will.

 

[Infinitron]

Besides the isometric viewpoint and pre-rendered backgrounds, so far he's done nothing to to tell us how this is a spiritual successor to the IE-games, which is the basis for their promise.

How many times are you going to repeat this nonsense? Nothing? Really?

Look at the races and classes, man! There was outright mockery ITT of how obviously D&D-cloned they are.

One difference. In the IE games you could choose not to use resurrection and raise dead spells. In fact in almost all of my playthroughs I make it a point never to use those spells. Here resurrection is inbuilt into the system so even if you want to play things hardcore, your characters will autoresurrect against your will.

Yes, that's a fair point. The game is being streamlined here, to fit the way in which most players played these sorts of games (ie, "resurrect and heal between every battle")

 

[Grunker]

Besides the isometric viewpoint and pre-rendered backgrounds, so far he's done nothing to to tell us how this is a spiritual successor to the IE-games, which is the basis for their promise.

How many times are you going to repeat this nonsense? Nothing? Really?

Look at the races and classes, man! There was outright mockery ITT of how obviously D&D-cloned they are.

Bullshit. Fucking every RPG ever had races and classes. You are proving my point by showcasing these stock concepts shared by most games in the genre as though that proves the game's relation to the IE-games.

 

[roshan]

Sawyerism in a nutshell: Tricking save scummers into accepting failure instead of reloading, by shifting the consequences of failure into the long term.

You screwed up a battle? No biggie, your short term resource (stamina) will regenerate. As long as you manage your long term resource (health) well over time, one single failure won't cripple your party. No need to reload.

Of course, in practice, the player has still lost critical resources by screwing up and he might want to reload and try again, but it's presented in a way that makes it seem less dire. Psychological manipulation.

For me, reloading represents losing the game, and having to redo things in order to win. If I play a game and don't end up reloading, there is no possibility of losing, and hence no challenge at all, like the computer game equivalent of taking a walk in the park. It is a dumbed down experience, streamlined for morons.

 

[Infinitron]

For me, reloading represents losing the game, and having to redo things in order to win.

For you, yes. For many others, reloading is a way to cheese their way through the games with perfect playthroughs by reloading every time one single roll of the RNG doesn't go their way. RPGs are more complex than binary "losing" and "winning".

 

[Darth Roxor]

Honest question:

Why exactly do we give a damn about people who reload during fights in Fallout as long as it takes to get a lucky crit-induced flawless victory? Because they get steam achievements for it or something?

 

[Infinitron]

Bullshit. Fucking every RPG ever had races and classes.

Let me say this again because it seems you didn't get it the first time.

The game has a six man party. It has equivalents of all the main D&D races and classes. It has a spell memorization/preparation mechanic. It is PC exclusive. It will be text-heavy. Like you said, it is 2D isometric with prerendered backgrounds.

This is the IE experience, man. Everything else is just details.

 

[Grunker]

If they wanted to innovate the genre, they should promote their game as such.

If they wanted to make a return to the old way of making games, they should promote their game as such.

They did the latter. Now why do you think this is? Probably because people trust their love of the IE-games more than they trust a random game designer with a doubtful resume and his crazy ideas.

But fuck it, this discussion is as pointless as it ever was. I hope you're right.

 

[Infinitron]

I asked Josh a question, which he kind of misunderstood (well, I was being kind of cheeky) but it is a good restatement of his principles http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/411582357821218135

When it comes to mechanics, I believe we should design systems that work together to produce challenging gameplay content and a variety of tools players can use to overcome those challenges. If challenges can be easily circumvented by using one skeleton key tactic (whether it's reloading, a singularly overpowering item/ability, or something else), then the gameplay will get boring quickly.

I think gameplay is most enjoyable when there's a balance of frustration and triumph. Without frustration, triumph becomes cheap. Continuous frustration with minimal/infrequent triumph often feels like it isn't worth the effort. Every player has a different balance point for what they enjoy, but if the systems have easy "outs", it can make the challenges trivial.

 

[Hormalakh]

I think there is a difference between reloading because you didn't know what was going to hit you and reloading because the way you played sucks. I think Sawyer is trying to get rid of the former but keep the latter.

Man Infinitron he answers ALL your questions. What are you guys buddy buddy?

 

[Tigranes]

Grunker:

Where am I being 'apologetic'? I thought the 50% no-miss system was pointless and a devolution, and said so; I think the recent compromise is nice, and said so. Did I say nobody should criticise Sawyer? No, I make fun of people who believe he is some kind of left-wing revolutionary whose political radicalism infuses his design with Evil, or people who flip their top at every single change without providing good rationale. And no, that doesn't represent everyone in this thread (or I wouldn't bother posting). So isn't it you making strawmen when you're talking about blind non-criticism?

Anyway, let's talk about the actual substance of the argument, which I imagine is your goal as well. I may be wrong but my impression is people are picking up far too much from Sawyer's tone - i.e. that Sawyer believes the IE games were Broken and he will Fix them into the Great RTwP Game. What I see, substantially, is that he is building a new system from ground up due to the lack of D&D, and when he does so, he's not trying to recreate IE D&D without the license, e.g. change 'Constitution' into 'Hardiness' and call it a day, he's trying to make various changes that he believes to be improvements. I find that just fine, because I think that's the same as BG2 changing the area exploration design from BG1, or IWD2 implementing 3E rules, or Torment introducing an immortal protagonist that is 'trained' into three different classes. Every IE game was different, and every future IE game that was never made would have been different; that's what defines a style. As long as these changes are (1) sensible and improve gameplay, and (2) do not change the fundamentals of an IE spirit or style, there is no problem.

That's why I say it's important for people (not you, in general) to provide their rationale as to why they think health/stamina or no-miss would violate their definition of the IE spirit, and change the fundamentals of how the combat feels. My own take was that the original 50% no-miss system was in danger of doing so, because that's not just a quantitative change but a qualitative one, it makes things less instinctive, it can encourage grinding tactics, etc. My opinion is also that miss/glance/hit is not just a compromise between the two positions; it is actually a solution that remains in the original IE camp and then makes a minor improvement, because the general principle (you hit or you miss) is now the core again, but it is simply variegated further with glancing blows. I see that as an improvement that makes the combat more complex while retaining the feel of IE games, which was not the case with the original proposition.

That's the kind of rationale I have for my opinions, and I think that's the kind of conversation that would be productive to have.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

It is kind of interesting to compare our demands to those of a publisher. The publisher has a certain expectation of what game it wants, just like we do. When that conflicts with what the devs want to make, the publisher pushes back and uses what leverage it has to try and get the devs to make that game.

The difference is that the publisher wants a game that fits its idea of profitable, while we want a game that fits our idea of IE-like (or "old-school" or whatever frame of reference is used). It'll be interesting to see how the different motives have an effect on the compromises the devs make.

 

[Infinitron]

I think there is a difference between reloading because you didn't know what was going to hit you and reloading because the way you played sucks. I think Sawyer is trying to get rid of the former but keep the latter.

Man Infinitron he answers ALL your questions. What are you guys buddy buddy?

To be honest, he might be responding to me because he's been informed that I'm an RPGCodex staff member who's posting in this thread.

But he has ignored plenty of my questions in the past.

It'll be interesting to see how the different motives have an effect on the compromises the devs make.

It's possible that we've already had an effect by changing Josh's mind about the "no missing" thing. There have been other things as well.

 

[roshan]

For you, yes. For many others, reloading is a way to cheese their way through the games with perfect playthroughs by reloading every time one single roll of the RNG doesn't go their way. RPGs are more complex than binary "losing" and "winning".

Huh? Who even does this? Who reloads pointlessly for no reason? I don't reload after fighting a wolf because it did one damage to my character. And if someone is retarded enough to play that way, why should you get your panties tied up???

It seems Obsidian's approach is: Someone will probably reload if his character dies! Let's effectively remove death from the game. Oh wait - what if someone reloads after he misses an attack? Well, let's remove missing from the game! What if someone reloads after taking damage? Let's implement regenerating health! Now we have a game that NOBODY can lose, no matter what they do! Now they can focus on romancing halfling transexuals and dwarven paedophiles!

 

[Hormalakh]

No complaints from me Infinitron. It's great that you're asking questions and reaping the brofists. More info for us to quibble about here on the dex.

Roshan, I think you're mischaracterizing his intentions. Many people played the old IE games with rest-spam. If you did so and always had a fully-healed party then some battles would be fairly easy for you. Yes, obviously many people (like me) didn't rest spam after each battle. So you have two different play styles when it comes to battles. Then when fights are designed, which play style do you consider? If you take the first one as the norm then some battles can become impossible and resting becomes really another name for regenerating health. If you take the second play style as the norm, then the first group of people will say "battles were easy in this game."

So there are a few design choices you can make: do not allow people to camp everywhere, or make autoregen the norm and so your health for each battle is defined by how much stamina you have. Josh is making both of these design choices because he wants everyone to be on the same playing field. When you've made rest-spam a consideration then you can build challenging battles with this mechanic in mind.

Yes, if he suddenly implemented regenerating health and used exactly the same combat structure and level design as in BG2, it would be crap. Because those games didn't take rest-spammers into account. What he's doing is saying, "OK we know some of you are rest-spammers. We don't want you guys rest-spamming after battles because the combat becomes cheesy. What we're going to do is give you these set of rules and make battles taking these rules into account. Now that we'll limited your 'cheese-style tactics' you have to figure out how to play better to pass this portion of the game."

 

[Kirtai]

IThe difference is that the publisher wants a game that fits its idea of profitable, while we want a game that fits our idea of IE-like (or "old-school" or whatever frame of reference is used). It'll be interesting to see how the different motives have an effect on the compromises the devs make.

I expect that the devs want/need to make a game that will make us throw more money at them for their next project. The effect this will have will indeed be interesting to see.

 

[Jaesun]

The one thing is, will this have a very rich spell system selection like the IE games. Has there been any comments on that?

 

[Infinitron]

It seems Obsidian's approach is: Someone will probably reload if his character dies! Let's effectively remove death from the game. Oh wait - what if someone reloads after he misses an attack? Well, let's remove missing from the game! What if someone reloads after taking damage? Let's implement regenerating health! Now we have a game that NOBODY can lose, no matter what they do!

I imagine Sawyer's approach is to observe how people actually play these games, make note of when most (read: not you) players tend to "reload-spam", and do something to remedy that.

The one thing is, will this have a very rich spell system selection like the IE games. Has there been any comments on that?

I think so, yes. Roguey can probably find quotes.

Also I forgot to mention that the artists are apparently hard at work on creating a rich assortment of monsters, which was also a big thing in the IE games.

 

[Lord Andre]

BG2 had superb combat because of very good class variety, very good itemisation and very good spell list; all of this resulting in a plethora of ways to overcome the very good encounters.

The inherent flaws of the infinity engine are an issue only in the other games because they lack the above stated qualities - some more than others.

I have the distinct impression there are a lot of fags here who made it through the game only on normal difficulty with tactics like "fighter smash", "mage cast fireball" and kiting. I do not value such fags' opinion and nor should Sawyer.

herp derp

 

[Lancehead]

Excuse me if I'm critical of a man who has said more or less nothing about how he plans to make his game like the IE-games, but instead insists on inventing everything from the ground up. We paid on the promise that this team would make their vision of re-imagining the IE-games. We didn't pay for Josh to make his dream-game (don't say that you did unless you can point to exactly where in the pitch it was framed as such).

For better or worse, Sawyer agrees with that:

While I do think it would be neat to run a Kickstarter for "MY GAME MY WAY", where I tell you no details and people just have to fund it based on their love of art, that's not what Project Eternity is. It's also not accurate to say this is my dream game. Don't get me wrong -- I really loved working on the IE games and I've played and DMed a ton of campaigns in the Forgotten Realms -- but my dream games are things that would appeal to a much smaller audience than Project Eternity. Project Eternity was pitched as a game made in the spirit of the Infinity Engine games and that is still what we intend to do.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45102026&postcount=8320

 

[tuluse]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63091-josh-sawyer-on-miss-and-hit/page__st__140#entry1296448

If we design a system that rewards resting every 5', the gamer isn't at fault for using it.

But he also has no right to complain about it. If he doesn't like it, he could not use it.

I'm normally a live and let live sort of guy, but this sort of thing makes me fucking rage. I don't even know how to argue with this bullshit.

 

[Hormalakh]

Sawyer has made a few concessions to players already. One is this whole "missing" thing, the others being "lootable everything" (swords armor from every enemy) and finally making turning off [tags] in conversations a toggle-able thing.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63091-josh-sawyer-on-miss-and-hit/page__st__140#entry1296448

If we design a system that rewards resting every 5', the gamer isn't at fault for using it.

But he also has no right to complain about it. If he doesn't like it, he could not use it.

I'm normally a live and let live sort of guy, but this sort of thing makes me fucking rage. I don't even know how to argue with this bullshit.

which is why Sawyer is making these design choices, I think. The casuals are all about cheese tactics. The non-casuals are about hardcore. Sawyer is trying to find a balance between the two. Put them both on the same playing field and then design challenge on the new field. The casuals will have their belowed "regen" and the hardcores will have difficult battles in the new arena. This is a slight mischaracterization, but I think it's approximately accurate.