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

[tuluse]

I hate it when people try to define level scaling as enemy levels being scaled.

Level scaling = umbrella term that means changing encounter difficulty based on PC level or party level. This can include, but is not restricted to, changing the levels of the enemies, increasing the numbers of enemies, replacing enemies with different kinds of enemies.

 

[Raapys]

Personally I'm not only against level scaling( which should definitely be encounter-scaling, if you absolutely have to have it ), but I'm also against this seemingly rather new/modern trend of having everything be 100% balanced. I don't know if it's a MMO thing or what, but to me all this balance is actually hurting the gameplay experience.

Much of the fun and cool in games of old was to find stuff that was anything but balanced; Robe of Vecna, Staff of Magi, Boots of Speed and spells like Time Stop/AbiDalim's/Planetar/SkullTrap/ProjectedImage/etc were some of the most memorable things in BG2. They weren't by themselves auto-win buttons, and you had to do some work to get them, but they were enormously powerful and opened up for entirely new combat tactics.

I just can't seem to find that anymore in today's "RPGs" and games in general. It's as if every piece of content, every gameplay mechanic, has gone through some kind of level-scaling machine that ensures that it will be exactly as powerful as all other content of the same 'level'. Oh sure, a weapon/spell/equipment piece will slip through every once in a while, to be patched at a later date perhaps, but for all intents and purposes it's very boringly balanced. It's all +10% damage and unlocked at level 5, then +20% damage and unlocked at level 10. Ugh.

 

[Aeschylus]

^
The level scaling in BG was minimal and only used in certain situations, like for critical path special encounters. The content was scaled using encounter scaling and not level scaling though.

Wasn't level scaling only used in monster spawns? It wasn't used for "critical path encounters" as far as I know.

I was actually talking only about BG2... but yeah, in BG I don't actually recall much if any level scaling. Certainly not in the main quest line.

 

[Kirtai]

Seriously, you guys. Why not worry about whether Project Eternity will have an equivalent of Firkraag or the Twisted Rune battles, or an awesome dungeon on par with Dragon's Eye or the Severed Hand?

These are the things that make games awesome. These are the things that people remember.

Instead we have a thread with 200 pages of people raging over health and inventory mechanics. Unbelievable.

Bikeshedding in action.

 

[imweasel]

I hate it when people try to define level scaling as enemy levels being scaled.

Level scaling = umbrella term that means changing encounter difficulty based on PC level or party level. This can include, but is not restricted to, changing the levels of the enemies, increasing the numbers of enemies, replacing enemies with different kinds of enemies.

Well everbody does that seeing that level scaling has become synonomous with "player centric level scaling", but if you want to get all technical:

BG used static level scaling and minimal encounter level scaling;
Oblivishit uses player centric level scaling;
Shitrim uses player centric level scaling and minimal static level scaling;
Dragon Age: Origins uses a ranged place/region & player centric level scaling hybrid;
Project Eternity will apparently use static level scaling and minimal ranged place/region & player centric level scaling hybrid

Better?

Wasn't level scaling only used in monster spawns? It wasn't used for "critical path encounters" as far as I know.

I am not really sure, because I personally never noticed it, I only read about it rather recently.

I do beleive that some content on the critical path was scaled. But you'd have to use google to find out exactly what was scaled.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I hate it when people try to define level scaling as enemy levels being scaled.

Level scaling = umbrella term that means changing encounter difficulty based on PC level or party level. This can include, but is not restricted to, changing the levels of the enemies, increasing the numbers of enemies, replacing enemies with different kinds of enemies.

Well everbody does that seeing that level scaling has become synonomous with "player centric level scaling", but if you want to get all technical:

BG used static level scaling and minimal encounter level scaling;
Oblivishit uses player centric level scaling;
Shitrim uses player centric level scaling and minimal static level scaling;
Dragon Age: Origins uses a ranged place/region & player centric level scaling hybrid;
Project Eternity will apparently use static level scaling and minimal ranged place/region & player centric level scaling hybrid

Better?

To improve your post actually say what you mean by those terms. I have no clue for example what is static level scaling.

 

[Arkeus]

Stamina is short-term, Health is long-term. Stamina can be healed by magic and also regenerates on its own. Health can only be healed by resting. You lose Health at a 1:4 ratio from Stamina. If you try to soak your way through fights without armor, you're probably going to have to rest more frequently (or risk frequent maiming/death). Damage reduction via DT is effectively "free", i.e. whatever damage is reduced is taken off the total before it's applied to your Stamina, which means that you're also taking less Health damage.

PE, like IWD2, will often feature encounters that do not have numerical parity between party members and enemies, and melee enemies may often mob on a single target. In such circumstances, a theoretical 30% speed advantage (between heaviest armor and no armor) will likely not outweigh the increase in damage received. PE paladins have class abilities that are oriented toward dealing melee damage to small groups at close range but they are the exception. The barbarian in light/no armor is best suited to going toe-to-toe against individual enemies with high health and high hit damage. Once enemy damage gets high enough, the damage reduction afforded by armor becomes a small percentage (as it often was by deathclaws in F:NV).

The characters who gain the most by wearing light/no armor are the ones who receive the fewest individual attacks and whose abilities affect the largest number of targets (e.g. wizards).

Well, now we know the Health:Stamina Ratio.

 

[Infinitron]

We've known that for a long time.

 

[Arkeus]

We've known that for a long time.

Huh really? There were talks from Roshan about Health being lost at a tenth the rate of Stamina, so i might have forgotten we already knew it was a 4:1 thing.

 

[Infinitron]

We've known that for a long time.

Huh really? There were talks from Roshan about Health being lost at a tenth the rate of Stamina, so i might have forgotten we already knew it was a 4:1 thing.

Yeah, Roshan was making shit up of course.

 

[Lancehead]

It was already known to be 1:4? I only remember Sawyer saying in an interview that it was tentatively 1:2.

 

[Infinitron]

It was already known to be 1:4? I only remember Sawyer saying in an interview that it was tentatively 1:2.

Yes, it was. The reason nobody's quoted that figure is that we all assumed it would change.

 

[Roguey]

Then care to ask your pretend-boyfriend why he cut carry weight down by 100 in his NV mod? Or is he going to add a magical, non-accesible outside of player home, infinite stash in his next release version because he recently saw the light and thinks lootwhoring (a 'degenerate' behaviour btw) is the shit?

Fallout 3/New Vegas has gameplay that emphasizes survival/scrounging. The IE games don't.

 

[hiver]

And now we know that HP will increase throughout the game. Presumably stamina will too although i didnt ask about that specifically.

-edit-
which kind of aleviates all this whailing about HP and stamina resources... does it not?
It doesnt seem so scaaavy now right?

And if he answers my second question things might be a bit clearer too, generally speaking.

swell guy that sawyer.

 

[roshan]

Look you idiot, you could just as easily look at it from the other way.

The "default" encounter is lower level, and the encounter is boosted in difficulty to accommodate those who do side content.

For fuck's sake, you'd better be trolling.

Except that's not what's clearly written in the post. Please improve your reading comprehension skills and then get back to me.

 

[roshan]

Personally I'm not only against level scaling( which should definitely be encounter-scaling, if you absolutely have to have it ), but I'm also against this seemingly rather new/modern trend of having everything be 100% balanced. I don't know if it's a MMO thing or what, but to me all this balance is actually hurting the gameplay experience.

Much of the fun and cool in games of old was to find stuff that was anything but balanced; Robe of Vecna, Staff of Magi, Boots of Speed and spells like Time Stop/AbiDalim's/Planetar/SkullTrap/ProjectedImage/etc were some of the most memorable things in BG2. They weren't by themselves auto-win buttons, and you had to do some work to get them, but they were enormously powerful and opened up for entirely new combat tactics.

I just can't seem to find that anymore in today's "RPGs" and games in general. It's as if every piece of content, every gameplay mechanic, has gone through some kind of level-scaling machine that ensures that it will be exactly as powerful as all other content of the same 'level'. Oh sure, a weapon/spell/equipment piece will slip through every once in a while, to be patched at a later date perhaps, but for all intents and purposes it's very boringly balanced. It's all +10% damage and unlocked at level 5, then +20% damage and unlocked at level 10. Ugh.

I felt this kind of decline started with Icewind Dale 2. Sawyer's obsession with balance, scaling, making sure everything is the same all the time leads to shitty gameplay. I remember playing IWD2 vanilla back in the day, but rarely finding anything of worth, it was Returning Frost Dart ad nauseam.

This idea that you get experience only for quests, and not combat, is just plain old fucking retarded. I remember slogging through hook horrors in IWD2, getting zero experience and no loot. What was the fucking point?

Seems that Sawyer neither gets the concepts of fun, nor challenge.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

This idea that you get experience only for quests, and not combat, is just plain old fucking retarded. I remember slogging through hook horrors in IWD2, getting zero experience and no loot. What was the fucking point?

That had nothing to do with you getting no xp. You weren't getting xp because the game implemented 3E experience modifications based on challenge rating, which is basically a level cap. Essentially, you were too high a level to get experience from the hook horrors.

 

[roshan]

This idea that you get experience only for quests, and not combat, is just plain old fucking retarded. I remember slogging through hook horrors in IWD2, getting zero experience and no loot. What was the fucking point?

That had nothing to do with you getting no xp. You weren't getting xp because the game implemented 3E experience modifications based on challenge rating, which is basically a level cap. Essentially, you were too high a level to get experience from the hook horrors.

Yes, I know that, but at least a token 5XP would have been nice, so at least you get SOMETHING from the encounter. Clearing dungeons and getting more Returning Frost Darts or slogging through monsters and getting 0 XP simply wasn't fun or interesting at all. If you put the players to work, you should pay them for it.

 

[roshan]

We've known that for a long time.

Huh really? There were talks from Roshan about Health being lost at a tenth the rate of Stamina, so i might have forgotten we already knew it was a 4:1 thing.

Sorry, my mistake, looked up the interview and it really was 1:4 all along. Seems I will only need to autoresurrect 4 times before I get to die.

 

[tuluse]

This idea that you get experience only for quests, and not combat, is just plain old fucking retarded. I remember slogging through hook horrors in IWD2, getting zero experience and no loot. What was the fucking point?

That had nothing to do with you getting no xp. You weren't getting xp because the game implemented 3E experience modifications based on challenge rating, which is basically a level cap. Essentially, you were too high a level to get experience from the hook horrors.

This is some seriously deranged logic Harg. What you are saying is that Roshan being forced to face trash mobs for quest completion is far better than the idea that Roshan should feel rewarded (in a Computer Game he plays to have fun) from slaying the opponents.

Hardly justifiable, no?

I thought he was saying not getting XP had nothing to do with experience only for quests and by extension, was not a Josh Sawyer design decision. It was something built into 3E.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I thought he was saying not getting XP had nothing to do with experience only for quests and by extension, was not a Josh Sawyer design decision. It was something built into 3E.

What he is saying is pointless, what he is implying (not himself BTW; he's even unaware of the implication) is what I am simply making clear. I wonder if you missed this too Tuluse.

 

[tuluse]

He didn't make any implications on whether it was good or bad. The discussion was about Sawyer's game design philosophy. roshan complained because he didn't get xp for trash mobs in IW2, but that wasn't Sawyer's idea, so it has no bearing on P:E.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

No logic involved - I was making no judgments about what should have happened, just observing that he wasn't receiving xp because of 3E rules treating those monsters as too weak to give xp, rather than because of a perverse adherence by Sawyer a policy of xp for quests only. [ETA: wow, I am a slow responder apparently - yes I was doing exactly what tuluse said]

As for my opinion, I'm on the fence about quest only xp - I can see it being frustrating. At the same time, if you want to have non-combat solutions be equally viable, you have to do something to prevent slaughtering enemies after the peaceful solution for double rewards.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I thought he was saying not getting XP had nothing to do with experience only for quests and by extension, was not a Josh Sawyer design decision. It was something built into 3E.

What he is saying is pointless, what he is implying (not himself BTW; he's even unaware of the implication) is what I am simply making clear. I wonder if you missed this too Tuluse.

What the fuck does that even mean? I'm implying something, but not implying it myself because I'm unaware that my statement, though pointless, nonetheless manages to have implications?

Do you mean I'm unaware of the implications of my statement? If that's the case, no. There are no implications except maybe that you shouldn't blame Sawyer for DnD. Which was actually explicit, so not an implication.

 

[Grunker]

So-called "trash" mobs are great, fuck the haters.