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

[Brotherman Bill]

You know grunker if you had paid more attention to the KS maybe you wouldn't have been so disappointed. That there would be a new character system was never a secret. To use your own metaphor, try reading the ingredients list first.

As for "what he's presented is very different from the IE-games." - now you are leaping to conclusions. We have very little to go on here, and we have no idea how it's gonna mesh with all the other elements of the system, which also aren't revealed. And arguably how it interferes with the quests, the environment, the encounters and so on are as important if not more important.

 

[Shadenuat]

"Torment had bad combat."

Eh. I don't think it is possible to make Torment with good combat. That won't be Torment anymore. Torment has torment's combat, where immortal dude walks around hitting everything with talking club, regenerating like Wolverine and casting anime spells based on Manual of the Planes.
You can't make "balanced" Arcanum, because that would mean players won't be able to blow windows with dynamite, turn all in sheep inside and loot chest with disentigrate spell. Balance is fiction.

I don't think the sense of humor in Fallout was in the mechanical design, but in the content supporting the mechanical design.

Content can be just a few lines of text, but it's mechanics that delivers it. It is strange J.S. separates them like that.

 

[Grunker]

The most hilarious part of the whole miss thing is that it is such a grade a showcase of how Josh looks like he has no idea what he's doing. P&P perfected all these systems through more than a decade. You want hit-or-miss? We got that with regularly scaling systems like BAB. You want glancing blows and "realism"? Just use always hit and damage reduction! You want a combination? Use a bell-curve and damage reduction. Yet Josh insists he knows better than everyone else.

You know grunker if you had paid more attention to the KS maybe you wouldn't have been so disappointed. That there would be a new character system was never a secret. To use your own metaphor, try reading the ingredients list first.

You know hero if you had paid more attention to my arguments you would know that my criticism isn't on there being a new system but on it diverging so much from the IE-games'.

 

[Kaldurenik]

It was earlier in the thread, but now there is misses, glancing blows, and hits. Hits = the calculation of damage is solely dependent on DT and other secondary processes, so, a 'normal hit'; Glancing Blows = your damage is already scaled down before those processes, e.g. you do 50% damage, which can be further mitigated by DT, etc; Misses = you miss entirely and deal no damage, a 'normal miss'.

My argument is that this represents not a half-way compromise between the IE system and Sawyer's original proposal, but a system that is much closer to the IE system, and makes only a small (and I think, positive) change. The reason is, as I said before, a no-miss system qualitatively changes the intuitive and mathematical basis of combat. The shift from a system where you 'sometimes hit' to a system where you 'always hit' makes the hit/miss calculation qualitatively identical to other systems like DT; e.g. there is no longer any difference between an enemy with 5 DT, and an enemy with 0 DT that you miss against every single time, if your hit damage is 10 and your miss damage is 5. In other words, a dodge character becomes mathematically identical to a block character, which intorduces an obvious poverty to combat variety. In the compromise proposal, this qualitative difference that was present in the IE system is maintained; at the same time, it is actually further variegated through the introduction of glancing blows.

Short version: as far as we understand it, it seems to me that Sawyer's original proposal was a reduction of a key qualitative difference and thus combat / tactical variety; the compromise actually can retain and enhance it.

Sounds better i agree.

Did not like the "no miss" thing but im fine with there also being glancing blows.

 

[Infinitron]

Prediction: When this game is released, after the first month, very few people will be complaining about the mechanics or rules. The vast majority of the complaints will be about the controls, the setting or some particularly boring or unpolished area of the game.

 

[Raapys]

Well yes, after the first month anyone who didn't like the mechanics or rules will long since have put the game away.

 

[Dorateen]

I wish I could brofist Roshan's posts.

I've long railed against the tyranny of the developer, and designers who are determined to force their vision on the player. What was the earlier post somewhere upthread about Sawyer making decisions by observing players. What is he now, Big Brother? I think I liked Sawyer better when I only knew him as the designer who worked on the IWD series, making games that were unapologetically counter in design to bioware.

 

[Grunker]

Prediction: When this game is released, after the first month, very few people will be complaining about the mechanics or rules. The majority of the complaints will be about the controls, the setting or some particularly boring or unpolished area of the game.

I could make it clear again that I haven't said I predict the game to be bad, but then at this point you've already picked up on that or are ignoring me.

 

[Infinitron]

That post wasn't directed at you.

 

[Grunker]

Just sayin'

 

[Jaesun]

EatingPopcorn.gif

 

[Syril]

Prediction: When this game is released, after the first month, very few people will be complaining about the mechanics or rules. The vast majority of the complaints will be about the controls, the setting or some particularly boring or unpolished area of the game. The vast majority of complaints will be about some banal shit that one cares about but the codex and there will be a 400 thread page about it.

 

[Broseph]

EatingPopcorn.gif

 

[Captain Shrek]

EatingPopcornThrough the other end. .gif

 

[Brotherman Bill]

You know hero if you had paid more attention to my arguments you would know that my criticism isn't on there being a new system but on it diverging so much from the IE-games'.

We know almost nothing of the system. You are, as mentioned, jumping to conclusions. And also suffering from an extreme aversion to everything new, bizarrely criticizing Josh for "*knowing* better than everyone else" because he tries to make an original system
While at the same time claiming to know that you actually *know* perfection

P&P perfected all these systems through more than a decade.

perfection so perfect it applies perfectly to a CRPG with as of yet undisclosed features!

Also I'm not the one prefacing every post of mine with a sentence about how people aren't understanding my argument, so one might wonder if it's the delivery there's something wrong with.

 

[Raapys]

Isn't divergence a problem though? I think many of us, at least, just wanted another IE game. Not something 'new and exciting', not something 'original and fresh' and not something 'better'. We just wanted 'good old'. Anything else is a risk. It might turn out to be equal, or even better. But it's just as likely to turn out to be worse. Why not stick with what we know but haven't had in a long time? Since that's what they advertised it as, I mean. If they wanted new and different, they should have said so.

 

[Lord Andre]

I want Josh's hard cock inside me !

Indeed.

 

[Grunker]

You know hero if you had paid more attention to my arguments you would know that my criticism isn't on there being a new system but on it diverging so much from the IE-games'.

We know almost nothing of the system. You are, as mentioned, jumping to conclusions. And also suffering from an extreme aversion to everything new, bizarrely criticizing Josh for "*knowing* better than everyone else" because he tries to make an original system
While at the same time claiming to know that you actually *know* perfection

P&P perfected all these systems through more than a decade.

perfection so perfect it applies perfectly to a CRPG with as of yet undisclosed features!

Also I'm not the one prefacing every post of mine with a sentence about how people aren't understanding my argument, so one might wonder if it's the delivery there's something wrong with.

Seems to me you're the one second-guessing experience and saying Josh is magically better a coming up with that kindda stuff, while I'm basing my opinions on what has been shown to work. You're the one making assumptions.

 

[Roguey]

Late game Fallout 2 is where the limits of the system really started to get pushed. Extended fights with Enclave troopers were typically slugfests where you and the enemies traded single-digit damage until someone (usually you) scored an armor-bypassing critical for triple-digit damage and annihilated the target.

Notmyexperience. By the time I was facing Enclave troops I already had the sniper perk and 10 luck. Every shot was a body-melting critical. It was fun for a few minutes.

You know what you also have in game design? Vision statements and overall coherent goals that you use as a framework for specific designs. You know what we haven't seen? Coherent vision statements and project goals for PE's system.

Josh says he isn't interested in writing down specific details in a design doc because they always change. Feargus Urquhart already mentioned that after the Alpha Protocol wreck, having a game specification document is mandatory for everything they do. Such a thing exists, they're just not sharing it.

Also how many times am I going to have to quote

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.

and

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

at you?

Additionally

Sometimes I'll mention something I don't think is particularly controversial (something that was in the IE games that I'd like to continue emulating) and it winds up generating a lot of antipathy.

Which ones are you thinking of in particular? Not calling you out, I'm genuinely interested.

Combat and non-combat skills being separate. In 2nd Ed. AD&D, this is just how it worked. In the IE games (other than IWD2), thieves and bards got percentile skill points, everyone got weapon proficiencies, and that was pretty much it. In IWD2, you got skill points and feats separately. There was overlap in combat/non-combat utility with feats and spells, but otherwise your combat and non-combat ability advanced through different mechanics. A lot of people really reacted negatively to the idea of these two things being purchased with separate currencies and it surprised me.

 

[Hormalakh]

While I agree that innovation is very dangerous, the innovations mentioned thus far (stamina/health bars, a more complex hit/miss system, new inventory style) have all seemed positive to me. I haven't found the inventory aspect especially fun or tactical in previous editions of cRPGs. Nor have I found resting everywhere a good thing in the older games. As for the more complex hit/miss mechanic I think many agree that this is a step up.

So while I'm very very wary of innovation, these three mechanics aren't outrageously over the top. If we start seeing limited spell selections I'll be the first "yelling" at Josh. The "lost battle" was in my opinion the one regarding his class skills/abilities and how they don't seem very IE-like (even though I gave up on this aspect with what we know so far about the class skills). If he continues "innovating" just for innovations sake and not to improve on prior mechanics that were lacking you'll see me there at the frontlines asking him to reconsider.

I would say that so far most of the innovations have been "good" and needed. There are a few I'm wary of.

 

[Grunker]

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.

and

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

This does nothing but prove my point that he believes his own magical designs to be superior to the game people were willing to pay 4 mill for.

Anyway, I don't know why we're continuing this discussion. We both know each other's differences of opinion, and we both agree that we know little anyway.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Also how many times am I going to have to quote

Yes, I also wonder how long are you gonna keep quoting Sawyer like he's preaching the TRUTH? Do you actually expect everybody to nod and accept everything this chucklehead is spewing out?

 

[Roguey]

My point is that "They're totally going to make a sequel to the IE games with the same mechanics" was a fiction you created in your heads. They never stated that anywhere on the Kickstarter page. M:

 

[Infinitron]

There were lots of people who were surprised (and dismayed) by how similar it was to D&D when they started listing the races and classes. I guess that caused some folks to start making assumptions.

 

[Johannes]

I don't see why you'd want them to mimic IE mechanics too closely. Of course it might be that they indeed are so bad at their occupation that they cannot improve upon a proven formula, but if that's the case, would they be competent of doing a mostly 1:1 copy of BG2 either?

Just taking something and religiously copying it won't automatically make it easier to make the design good. You need some understanding beyond a cargo cult to make a good sequel to something, regardless of how exactly faithful you plan it to be.