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

[tuluse]

So I have a question for the PnP crowd who thinks that IE=DnD. If we were back in the 90's and Tim Cain was making Fallout and he said he was going to be making it GURPS based then suddenly it didn't work out, would there be this much butt-hurt?

What I mean to say is that even though he couldn't use GURPS, was the fallout mechanics and gameplay worse for it or better for it? Did it become so terrible that the game was considered popamole?

This doesn't make any sense. There was never a Fallout game that used GURPS.

Also, if we told what was happening as Fallout 1 was being made there probably would have been lots of raging for legitimate reasons (outdoorsman, science, repair, gambling, doctor, first aid).

 

[Hormalakh]

Look, its dishonest to think that they could have used D&D as their system even from the start. We were sold this picture of the game being some sort of minimalist approach to IE games. They asked for $1.1mil and didn't have more than 6, was it, classes and a lot of the other stuff came due to stretch goals. The intent was never to build the next BG2. It was a hope that such a thing would be possible in the next iteration if P:E sold well. But they always played it off as the goal being the absolute minimum you'd need to make a half-decent game.

The point is this: I don't know exactly what makes an IE game but it's one of thsoe "when I see it I know" kind of things. I don't think, at this point, that they're sticking to the IE formula exactly, but I don't think that's because they aren't using D&D (2e or 3e).

tuluse Tim Cain had the intention of using GURPS as the Fallout game system. There was a lot of people upset that he couldn't do so. It's been mentioned before. When that fell through the SPECIAL system was put in place.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Look, its dishonest to think that they could have used D&D as their system even from the start. We were sold this picture of the game being some sort of minimalist approach to IE games. They asked for $1.1mil and didn't have more than 6, was it, classes and a lot of the other stuff came due to stretch goals. The intent was never to build the next BG2. It was a hope that such a thing would be possible in the next iteration if P:E sold well. But they always played it off as the goal being the absolute minimum you'd need to make a half-decent game.

The point is this: I don't know exactly what makes an IE game but it's one of thsoe "when I see it I know" kind of things. I don't think, at this point, that they're sticking to the IE formula exactly, but I don't think that's because they aren't using D&D (2e or 3e).

What makes an IE game?

Nothing really.

IE games were essentially some of the Best games labelled as RPGs when they were made. They had good and sensible plots, nice combat (except Escape from tournament Planet) and overall well thought out implementation of mechanics especially an amazing spell system.

They were also 2002. Which is 10 years from this year.

Since then a lot of things have changed. There is better technology, better understanding of what makes good games and more experienced playerbase.

And what we get is dumbing down since then (Except TOEE and blast me, UFO:UE from 2K games) .

 

[Lord Andre]

The way I see things:

Josh Sawyer: "We are adding grappling to the game." -

Josh Sawyer: "We are eliminating dodge from the game."

It's not rocket science. More depth = good, less depth = bad.

Up until now, most of Sawyer's design decisions have fallen in the second category therefore I'm criticizing him. Apologetics can suck it.

 

[Hormalakh]

Ok so we're finally getting somewhere. I agree with you Lord Andre. More depth is moar better. I seriously think that Stamina/Health is more depth. I also think the new glancing/miss is more depth.

Whether the class skills/abilities is doubleplus good is something I don't know. Same with inventory. Inventory smells of less depth but I've heard good arguments that it's more deep.

The point is though, that D&D doesn't suddenly mean the greatest amount of depth a game could possibly have.

 

[tuluse]

tuluse Tim Cain had the intention of using GURPS as the Fallout game system. There was a lot of people upset that he couldn't do so. It's been mentioned before. When that fell through the SPECIAL system was put in place.

This almost seems like you're intentionally misinterpreting the criticisms here.

We are not complaining because it's not using a pnp system, we're complaining because Sawyer is making what we consider fundamental changes to a system that he is supposed to be creating a successor of. We expect certain things to be the same or similar.

Speed and randomness of combat is one.

Similarly interesting spell list is another.

 

[Hormalakh]

A lot of what I said wasn't directed at you tuluse. Some do actually argue, though, that PnP = IE. I don't think that's legitimate. And as for change being bad just because it's change, I don't think that it's fair either.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Sometimes reading the Codex is like traveling into Bizarro World.

I like D&D too, but so far as I know, no one ever said they were going to use D&D or even make a close copy of D&D. What they said was that they were going to try and make a IE style game, touting things like full party control, character generation with multiple races and classes to choose from, RTwP combat, an isometric viewpoint and maybe one or two other features that I'm neglecting to mention here. Everything else was up in the air, but they've said since early on (probably day 1) that what they wanted is to develop their own thing so they can finally have some IP control and maybe make some money.

I get being irritated about something like no attacks missing ever, which strikes me as a terrible design decision, but he's backed off on that, so what's the point of continuing to be irritated? It's not even clear to me that missing is an essential feature of an IE game or if it is, I guess I just play them differently than most people.

Personally, I don't think every comment Sawyer makes about design is a great idea, but I also pledged more money than I should have to try and give Obsidian a chance to do their own thing to see what shakes out AND to see a full 6 member party RPG with (hopefully) some decent chargen options even if you only create the main PC. Nothing that they've said indicates that they're deviating from the core features they promised. If you somehow tacked on D&D or "I can't believe it's not D&D" homebrew game system on as one of the features, that's really on you. They never said anything like that. It just happens that the games they worked on and the members of the IE games were D&D games, but it's an entirely contingent trait of what they are.

Besides, even if they could sort out the legal issues, how much do you suppose it costs to license D&D these days? My guess is it would make the overall ~3-4M budget look like a drop in the bucket. And it would still lead directly back to them not having control of their own IP. I'd actually like to see Obsidian have some options beyond get a new contract or go belly up and maybe have some sort of sustainable revenue stream.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I prefer a Darklands-like separation of stamina and health + degenerative serious wounds.

 

[Hormalakh]

I think he's going for the Darklands approach with health/stamina imo. He talks about Darklands CONSTANTLY.

 

[Lord Andre]

Stamina/Health is more depth.

- If stamina was fighter mana and health was fucking health I'd agree, but right now stamina is fake health and health is even more health => dumbing down.

I also think the new glancing/miss is more depth.

- It is now, after he put it back. Why did he want to axe it in the first place ?

Whether the class skills/abilities is doubleplus good is something I don't know.

- That is one instance where lack of info prevents me from forming an educated opinion so let's assume it's good for now.

Same with inventory. Inventory smells of less depth but I've heard good arguments that it's more deep.

- The belt existed before e.g. quickslots, backpack existed before e.g. inventory, stash is just an excuse to loot every little thing and eliminate inventory management. Now, inventory mangement is not that much of a core gameplay element, but the magical teleporting stash fucks up the organic feel of the world big time.

Sawyer also said he wants to make fighters more active. Will he implement grapples, trips, disarming, feints, acrobatics ? No. Instead we will have soul powered falcon punches, omni slashes and other comic book shenanigans.

I am not ripping on Sawyer just because, there are actually issues that deserve a critical eye.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Sawyer also said he wants to make fighters more active. Will he implement grapples, trips, disarming, feints, acrobatics ? No. Instead we will have soul powered falcon punches, omni slashes and other comic book shenanigans.

I am not ripping on Sawyer just because, there are actually issues that deserve a critical eye.

This.

This has always been a problem with melee in DnD based/inspired games. Fighters are always this passive skills or simply skills that do more damage with reduced defense etc that essentially again boils down to the same hit until dead shit.

 

[Johannes]

Has the health/stamina distinction been outlined how closely, exactly? Is it more like HP being around the ranges HP in D&D is, with Stamina being a regenating resource that prevents you from taking too much damage too fast? Or stamina being closer to the D&D HP, with PE HP being more about encouraging damage avoidance on the long term?

 

[Arkeus]

Has the health/stamina distinction been outlined how closely, exactly? Is it more like HP being around the ranges HP in D&D is, with Stamina being a regenating resource that prevents you from taking too much damage too fast? Or stamina being closer to the D&D HP, with PE HP being more about encouraging damage avoidance on the long term?

Those things haven't been said.

I expect Stamina to be a bit below what is normal for DxD health, and health to be what is normal for D&D health, but that's pure conjecture.

What we do know is:
-Health would drop at a slower rate than Stamina in average cases.
-There are abilities that could mitigate either health or stamina damage (For example, Barbarian get less stamina damage but more health damage).
-There are no ways to heal heath beside resting.

 

[Hormalakh]

Shut the fuck up about popamole.

This is NOTHING like popamole.

Stop generating antipathy for PE by mentioning a hated game. This is a shitty tactic.

fixed it for you. you haven't really said anything that has any semblance of truth . you've used emotion, generalizations, and flat-out mischaracterizations to hate on this game. this is like that last time you were on and you kept yelling at me to "stop using realism as a reason!" when I wasn't even doing that.

I think the stamina/health mechanic is a huge improvement over the older system. It allows them to limit resting while not forcing players to get out of the zone of combat. If you can't see that, well then that's a shame. It doesn't make stamina/health a bad mechanic. I would prefer this over the other one any day. Regardless of whether it follows Darklands' mechanics or not.

 

[Hormalakh]

You don't really think stamina is going to be significantly regenerating during a battle, do you? If you do, I would recommend you go back and read what he's said about it.

Stamina is basically a per battle health. Health is a resource over several battles. The game is obviously going to be balanced with this new mechanic in mind. If you play well over a series of battles, you don't have to keep backtracking to the campsite to rest. If you suck at combat, then yeah you'll have to backtrack. Why is this an issue?

 

[Hormalakh]

This is a repeat of old battles and butthurt. I'm not going to keep talking about this.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/project-eternity-interview-irontower.78596/page-3
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61264-automatic-regeneration-of-hit-points-during-combat/

The arguments have already been made. People gonna start eating popcorn soon.

As for your trashtalk. Here's some evidence.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/109792-project-eternity-interview.html

Buck: How do you intend to integrate challenging, tactical, and ultimately rewarding battles within Project Eternity without requiring long resting periods between each fight? And what are your thoughts on regeneration and early access to character resurrection?

Josh: I think that capturing the dungeon-delving feeling of the Icewind Dale games and many tabletop AD&D adventures means that there should be both strategic considerations and tactical considerations in exploration and combat. To me, that means that there's some level of upfront resource planning going on as well as a moment-to-moment consideration of "is it worth spending Resource X now or should I save it for later?" I.e. a tactical consideration can also be a strategic consideration if resources are part of a running series of battles (as most dungeons are).

However, I don't think all resources need to be per-rest, only the more powerful ones at a character's disposal. For casters, this means shifting slightly away from the AD&D/3E paradigm of most spells being linked to a per-rest spell count. Within a battle, there should be tactical considerations to using any spell, and we don't want resources to be spam-able, but a caster's base abilities will likely not require a full rest to recover.

As for regeneration, I'd like to experiment with handling health in a manner somewhat similar to the 1992 RPG Darklands. Characters have two health resources: Stamina and Health. Proportionally, the character takes much more Stamina damage from an attack than Health damage. Stamina recovers relatively quickly on its own (and with the aid of magic) but Health damage requires rest. If a character hits 0 Stamina, he or she will go unconscious. If a character hits 0 Health, he or she dies.

This sort of a system provides a buffer for characters so they can be temporarily defeated in combat without being brought to the verge of death every time. Similarly, allowing a character to recover to full Stamina over a short period of time does nothing to help his or her Health, so walking around with full Stamina and low Health would be extremely dangerous.

As far as resurrection goes, Project Eternity will not have any form of in-game resurrection. Healing magic of any sort is extraordinarily rare in this world and resurrection would pull at the fabric of the mortal reincarnation cycle. However, we may include an option to turn off permanent character death. Naturally, this would be disabled in Expert Mode.

You can tell Josh Sawyer to shut the f*** up about Darklands and to stop generating sympathy for the game for name-dropping. I'm just repeating what he said.

 

[Infinitron]

And even if it were, Combat in Darklands was shit. it was a great game for entirely different reasons like a shiton of skills that were ALL implemented and a open world and other little tidbids. Stop generating sympathy for PE by mentioning a favorite game. This is a shitty tactic.

"Generating sympathy"?



What is this, a propaganda war? Get a grip, man.

 

[roshan]

fixed it for you. you haven't really said anything that has any semblance of truth . you've used emotion, generalizations, and flat-out mischaracterizations to hate on this game. this is like that last time you were on and you kept yelling at me to "stop using realism as a reason!" when I wasn't even doing that.

I think the stamina/health mechanic is a huge improvement over the older system. It allows them to limit resting while not forcing players to get out of the zone of combat. If you can't see that, well then that's a shame. It doesn't make stamina/health a bad mechanic. I would prefer this over the other one any day. Regardless of whether it follows Darklands' mechanics or not.

The problem is that Obsidian is taking a leftard approach to limiting resting, as opposed to taking a right wing approach. The right wing approach would be to penalize resting - for example, by making it riskier, or by making it require limited resources. You can only rest if you've got enough supplies. Don't have any more supplies? Perhaps head back out and gather supplies, or try a desperate attack on the enemy's storage area or supply chain. Or even by implementing time limits for various dungeons and quests. Rest for 112 days and 16 hours? The quest is fucking over already, you idiot. Or, every time you rest in a particular dungeon, the chance of being interrupted increases, eventually at one point, resting will be impossible - this gives the feeling of escalating danger as one goes deeper into the dungeon or wilderness, and somewhat organically curbs resting (as opposed to for example setting a hard limit on number of times one can rest). The right wing approach means adding difficulty, and if possible, much more difficulty, to the game.

On the other hand, Obsidian's "solution to resting" (SINCE WHEN THE FUCK IS RESTING A PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE???) is to implement regenerating health, PLUS another backup health meter that autoresurrects your character as long as it isn't zero, and then spells that will prevent this backup autoresurrection meter from running out! And if it does run out, you STILL don't die, unless you are playing on expert mode. And you can still rest to replenish the meter! This is not improvement, it is DECLINE, and the Codex of all sites should sniff out the bullshit.

 

[Hormalakh]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61...oints-during-combat/page__st__40#entry1244183

Captain Shrek: You have never played Darklands. Darklands does not allow auto-regenration.

curryinahurry: After combat in Darklands, stamina regenerates, health on the other hand only regenerates with rest. Or are you thinking of a different game?

Captain Shrek: Yes. I am indeed. Games like Skyrim, Dragon age and co. where Spells have cool downs, stamina regens. The onyl difference here is that stamina is ALSO health analogue. Which means, dropping all the pretense that stamina is just Health +, health also regens. That game was COD.

curryinahurry: Again, those are assumptions and I gave you a factual situation, that is the inspiration for at least the stamina portion of PE, that accomplishes the task elegantly. We have no idea of the rate of regeneration just like we don't know how quickly or in what quantity low level spells will regenerate or how this will actually effect encounters. The has yet to be designed. I'm going to leave it that; any more and we'll just be talking in circles.

cheers

Captain Shrek: >I gave you factual info

No you did not. Darklands DOES NOT REGEN STAMINA OUTSIDE COMBAT. This requires 1 hour rest. Your constant source of misinformation indicates that you haven't played it. Also, there seems to be some confusion in your mind. It has been clearly declared that:

1) There will be CONSTANT REGEN on stamina
2) There will be very easy ways to increase it if it is lost.

Probably should check your facts before arguing.

curryinahurry: This is getting sad. Stamina regenerates after combat while you are looting bodies. Did you get that from a wiki or something? Now I'm starting to think you've never played Darklands and you're just trolling.

Oh and btw, constant regen is meaningless without knowing the rate.

 

[Hormalakh]

The problem is that Obsidian is taking a leftard approach to limiting resting, as opposed to taking a right wing approach. The right wing approach would be to penalize resting - for example, by making it riskier, or by making it require limited resources. You can only rest if you've got enough supplies. Don't have any more supplies? Perhaps head back out and gather supplies, or try a desperate attack on the enemy's storage area or supply chain. Or even by implementing time limits for various dungeons and quests. Rest for 112 days and 16 hours? The quest is fucking over already, you idiot. Or, every time you rest in a particular dungeon, the chance of being interrupted increases, eventually at one point, resting will be impossible - this gives the feeling of escalating danger as one goes deeper into the dungeon or wilderness, and somewhat organically curbs resting (as opposed to for example setting a hard limit on number of times one can rest). The right wing approach means adding difficulty, and if possible, much more difficulty, to the game.

Politics aside, I agree with the point you're trying to make. Wrt resting and limiting it, If I were making a game, I would be more punitive. Josh doesn't think so. Something about frustration being bad. It's a design choice. They both do the same thing. One is less punitive (and I think Josh would argue less frustrating) for the player. It might be more fun too. We'll see.

 

[Hormalakh]

OK. You win.

 

[Arkeus]

Politics aside, I agree with the point you're trying to make. Wrt resting and limiting it, If I were making a game, I would be more punitive. Josh doesn't think so. Something about frustration being bad. It's a design choice. They both do the same thing. One is less punitive (and I think Josh would argue less frustrating) for the player. It might be more fun too. We'll see.

Isn't Josh's way the more punitive one though? I mean, All of the so-called punitive examples of restrictive rest don't actually restrict health or rest at all, and don't make sense lore-wise either. In fact, they don't punish in any way whatsoever.

Josh's way, OTOH, is a complete ban of resting as well as adding a punishing approach because of the health/stamina mechanic which forces players to think in a more strategic way.

So Josh's way is both more punitive as well as add strategic element to the game, instead of dumb "going to buy tents/save and reload so i don't have interruptions in my sleep".

 

[Infinitron]

Politics aside, I agree with the point you're trying to make. Wrt resting and limiting it, If I were making a game, I would be more punitive. Josh doesn't think so. Something about frustration being bad. It's a design choice. They both do the same thing. One is less punitive (and I think Josh would argue less frustrating) for the player. It might be more fun too. We'll see.

Isn't Josh's way the more punitive one though? I mean, All of the so-called punitive examples of restrictive rest don't actually restrict health or rest at all, and don't make sense lore-wise either. In fact, they don't punish in any way whatsoever.

Josh's way, OTOH, is a complete ban of resting as well as adding a punishing approach because of the health/stamina mechanic which forces players to think in a more strategic way.

So Josh's way is both more punitive as well as add strategic element to the game, instead of dumb "going to buy tents/save and reload so i don't have interruptions in my sleep".

That's a common theme here. What sounds superficially "more difficult" really just turns out to be "more metagameable".

 

[Lord Andre]

The fact that Shrek got burned by the new fag does not change the fact that stamina is a regenerating health meter. And who gives a fuck if it resembles Darklands ? As Grunker kept pointing out it should resemble a fucking IE-game.