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

[Harold]

Bloodlines actually had pretty great loot. There wasn't much of it, but what you got was extremely rewarding and improved your situations. Magic items were generally powerful considering they took up no slots, armors were a massive increase in survivability and new weapons hugely improved combat performance.

And it had enough of it. Some things were available early but out of reach, some things were found during encounters and so on.

It was a "scarce" loot game but it had decent loot.

That was exactly my point in reply to raw. There would be no need for magical stash if you didn't find shit loot all over the place, which is the case with most RPGs: you find dozens of +1 swords or equivalent, then dozens of +2 and so on. This whole lootwhoring trend needs to die or just stay in hack&slashers and MMOs where it belongs.

(Thanks for linking to that thread Infinitron . Pretty cool, didn't know about it.)

In regards to the whole xp thing, I fail to understand why they don't just do it exactly like BG2 where, in fact, the large part of xp gained was quest-based, when you got those messages that everyone in your party got 50000 xp, while still giving some xp for killing mooks. It was actually a good way of fooling lovers of combat xp that all that mattered. They saw they gained 8000 xp for killing a golem and were fine with it, most not realising it was then divided by 6. Even when you added up all the combat xp you gained throughout BG2 it was still measly compared to the quest xp, which was what actually caused you to level up (in a traditional/non-solo game at least)

 

[Infinitron]

In regards to the whole xp thing, I fail to understand why they don't just do it exactly like BG2 where, in fact, the large part of xp gained was quest-based, when you got those messages that everyone in your party got 50000 xp, while still giving some xp for killing mooks. It was actually a good way of fooling lovers of combat xp that all that mattered. They saw they gained 8000 xp for killing a golem and were fine with it, most not realising it was then divided by 6. Even when you added up all the combat xp you gained throughout BG2 it was still measly compared to the quest xp, which was what actually caused you to level up (in a traditional/non-solo game at least)

I wouldn't be surprised if this is what they end up doing in Project Eternity. "The bigger the lie, the more they believe."

 

[sea]

Not to mention there is nothing worth buying in Baldur's Gate, except for a handful of magic items which you really don't even need. I usually only ever buy ammo and a couple of spell scrolls in that game, no more. The best loot still always comes from dungeons... which, to be honest, is hard to object to.

I think what you really need to do to have an interesting RPG economy is to get rid of money as a "universal loot resource." It's okay for loot to pour into the money pool, but to make money truly interesting in a way that is compatible with the RPG experience as we know it, we have to come up with other ways to spend money (horizontal expansion) in order for it to remain interesting and mechanically worthwhile. Let's think of a few:

• Spend money on skill trainers to gain skill perks (Gothic, Risen).
• Quests require large amounts of money to complete (Baldur's Gate II).
• Portions of the world map must be explored by expeditions before they can be reached, costs gold to send out expeditions.
• Food, shelter and even wages for party members are real concerns that must be paid for.
• Player has a keep/castle/land that must be maintained and upgraded, failure to do so leads to an unwinnable or much more challenging scenario (Neverwinter Nights 2).
• Money is a means of acquiring valuable resources - player can open mines, farms, quarries, magic nexuses, etc. which all cost money to build, maintain and staff.

Really, the only "challenge" is that I think for most developers, an RPG kind of starts and ends with combat and questing, because building tech to handle that is already very time-consuming. You need to have a solid plan for how to implement this stuff very early on in development - which is why I think we saw more experimentation and creativity from developers in the past when they had stable engines and gameplay formats to work with, or simply because they didn't need to spend time making everything look pretty and could just focus purely on mechanics and systems interactions.

 

[imweasel]

Fallout is perfect the way it is which makes it ones of the best games ever made.

Ah, a troll.

Ok, my bad. Fallout is utter crap, the worst rpg shit ever made.

I killed every rat I saw [while questing].

And that is why kill xp is bad?

 

[Roguey]

In regards to the whole xp thing, I fail to understand why they don't just do it exactly like BG2 where, in fact, the large part of xp gained was quest-based, when you got those messages that everyone in your party got 50000 xp, while still giving some xp for killing mooks. It was actually a good way of fooling lovers of combat xp that all that mattered. They saw they gained 8000 xp for killing a golem and were fine with it, most not realising it was then divided by 6. Even when you added up all the combat xp you gained throughout BG2 it was still measly compared to the quest xp, which was what actually caused you to level up (in a traditional/non-solo game at least)

Josh says that any amount of xp, no matter how trivial, has resulted in degenerate gameplay in his observations.

Ok, my bad. Fallout is utter crap, the worst rpg shit ever made.

A game can only be 1 or 0, yes.

And that is why kill xp is bad?

Rats should be eliminated as opposition. They're nonthreatening bags of xp and a stupid cliche.

 

[Harold]

Josh says that any amount of xp, no matter how trivial, has resulted in degenerate gameplay in his observations.

True, but fighting against giving out meaningless combat xp in a combat-focused rpg (his description) is pointless.

 

[Grunker]

I wouldn't want P:E to have as little loot as Bloodlines. I'd want it to have as much as Icewind Dale.

 

[Grunker]

I agree with Roguey on XP, by the way. Quest-only makes the most sense from a gamistic viewpoint, and XP is a motherfucking gamistic invention anyway. Quest-XP solves a shitton of problems and creates none.

 

[Harold]

I wouldn't want P:E to have as little loot as Bloodlines. I'd want it to have as much as Icewind Dale.

Well duh, Bloodlines wasn't a party based game so I'd advocate PE having 6 times that much loot and not a single extra dagger , which will never happen of course.
Icewind Dale had somewhat interesting loot, the weapons and gear had some effects other than +1 stuff, but until you got to last levels of Dragon's Eye it was pointless shit loot, and near the end of the game (past the Ice Museum thing) it became trivial again because you'd rarely find something better than what you already had (the 2-endgame swords excluded).

 

[DraQ]

Who the fuck has a problem with trash mobs? A trash mob is just a term for any hostile creature/person that is not elite (like a boss or something). That's it.

A rat is just an extremely (extremely) low level trash mob.

I propose following definition:

A mob is a trash mob when it serves no actual purpose in game. If it isn't required for atmospheric or consistency reasons, and doesn't serve as either actual challenge or actual resource sink, then it is a trash mob.

Countless rats filling the caves in Fallouts fit the definition perfectly. Do they add to the atmopshere? No, arguably game would have been more atmospheric and feel more desolate without them.
Are they required for consistency? Nothing says 'wasteland' like squeaking moving carpet of furry rodents, right? No. Fucking no.
Do they provide challenge?
Are they a resource sink? If you don't switch to punches or melee weapons for them, you probably have too much ammo already, so no.

So what the fuck are they doing in game?
They are a trash mob, they exist solely to waste player's time.

And that is why kill xp is bad?

Kill XP is bad because it encourages behaviour that is nonsensical in-universe (killing stuff for no actual reason), skews reward balance towards combat option (even if other options are immensely rewarding, you can always take them, and go kill everything that moves afterwards), penalizes creativity on part of the player (any quest solution not explicitly predefined by devs are penalized if they don't include system awarding combat XP), and also leads to less interesting gameplay.

 

[imweasel]

In regards to the whole xp thing, I fail to understand why they don't just do it exactly like BG2 where, in fact, the large part of xp gained was quest-based, when you got those messages that everyone in your party got 50000 xp, while still giving some xp for killing mooks. It was actually a good way of fooling lovers of combat xp that all that mattered. They saw they gained 8000 xp for killing a golem and were fine with it, most not realising it was then divided by 6. Even when you added up all the combat xp you gained throughout BG2 it was still measly compared to the quest xp, which was what actually caused you to level up (in a traditional/non-solo game at least)

Utter bullshit. You received substantial xp from combat and from quests. There was more quest xp, but the combat xp was not measly in comparison to the quest xp you received.

 

[Harold]

Utter bullshit. You received substantial xp from combat and from quests. There was more quest xp, but the combat xp was not measly in comparison to the quest xp you received.

Are you perchance Volourn's cousin?

 

[suejak]

I think the vault entrance would have felt pretty dumb without the rats. It was a brief intro to the combat system in a low-risk situation and gave the player more to do on the first screen than just leave. It was a great area.

Now the rats in Fallout 2's Klamath? Total boring bullshit.

 

[imweasel]

Kill XP is bad because it encourages behaviour that is nonsensical in-universe (killing stuff for no actual reason), skews reward balance towards combat option (even if other options are immensely rewarding, you can always take them, and go kill everything that moves afterwards), penalizes creativity on part of the player (any quest solution not explicitly predefined by devs are penalized if they don't include system awarding combat XP), and also leads to less interesting gameplay.

Well, if I use your argumentation, then side quests are also non-sensical.

Kill xp also does not mean that you will kill everything, just like you will not kill everything for loot. You have the choice to do so and will only do it if you want to or need to. Removing choice from combat to just making combat redundant is not a good idea in combat based game in my opinion. Combat xp is not always a good idea though, bloodlines and deus ex are good examples.

 

[imweasel]

Utter bullshit. You received substantial xp from combat and from quests. There was more quest xp, but the combat xp was not measly in comparison to the quest xp you received.

Are you perchance Volourn's cousin?

Nope, I am not Volourn and I am not his cousin. M:

 

[Grunker]

Kill xp also does not mean that you will kill everything, just like you will not kill everything for loot

Yes I will and yes I will.

 

[imweasel]

Kill xp also does not mean that you will kill everything, just like you will not kill everything for loot

Yes I will and yes I will.

Well, that is your choice then (even if you don't really need the xp or loot). You don't need the game designer to make that decision for you.

 

[Grunker]

The game rewards me if I do it. Why shouldn't I? I presume the game rewards me for doing what it wants me to do. If a game doesn't want the player to do that (because it's fucking boring) it shouldn't reward it.

Quest-XP doesn't have these problems.

 

[Mrowak]

The game rewards me if I do it. Why shouldn't I? I presume the game rewards me for doing what it wants me to do. If a game doesn't want the player to do that (because it's fucking boring) it shouldn't reward it.

So the answer is still to remove rewards from killing. Because quite frankly, those rewards don't make sense if you use common sense. What exactly experience do you gain by killing shit in the same way? In PnP I try to reward ingenuity and innovative approach to sloving problems (be it in battle or otherwise), as opposed killing stuff because the player had good dice rolls.

 

[Grunker]

So the answer is still to remove rewards from killing.

Yes? That has been my answer all along.

Also: Fuck "common sense." XP doesn't make much anyway. It's a bad argument. The good argument here is that Quest XP does what we what without having many issues.

 

[imweasel]

I could say the same about loot too, because that is also a reward. So no combat loot, only quest loot or loot in treasure chests. Actually no treasure chests, because you might have to senselessly kill to get the treasure.

And side quests don't make sense either, so remove that too.

 

[Mrowak]

So the answer is still to remove rewards from killing.

Yes? That has been my answer all along.

Also: Fuck "common sense." XP doesn't make much anyway. It's a bad argument. The good argument here is that Quest XP does what we what without having many issues.

"Common sense" dictates setting consistency and system's coherence. Unless you are going for :rofl: or mundblutian campaign ignoring it even in the mechanics it undermines the entire premise of the game. Common sense is why we have all these "economy", "resource management", "stat-based vs. ability based progression" and "loot" threads.

 

[Hobz]

Regarding loot I think quantity is not the problem, but rather linear growth in power. I like the Demon's Souls and Dark Souls approach, where there is lots of armor sets to loot, but none is making the others obsolete. It's all about balancing the different protections offered with poise and weight to match your build.

 

[Grunker]

So the answer is still to remove rewards from killing.

Yes? That has been my answer all along.

Also: Fuck "common sense." XP doesn't make much anyway. It's a bad argument. The good argument here is that Quest XP does what we what without having many issues.

"Common sense" dictates setting consistency and system's coherence. Unless you are going for :rofl: or mundblutian campaign ignoring it even in the mechanics it undermines the entire premise of the game. Common sense is why we have all these "economy", "resource management", "stat-based vs. ability based progression" and "loot" threads.

No, mechanics are why we have those. The economy isn't fun when it's broken. Resource management is important for a fun game. XP is completely arbitrary, abstract meta-concept in the first place. It's a good example of why discussing so-called "realism" is warped - the realism and feeling of "immersion" happens through the abstractions, not because you make your mechanics as life-like as possible. It's basically why DraQ is so horribly wrong.

See GURPS. Arguably the best system to go to to find realism. It achieves this through clever abstraction, not through looking at reality (unless you opt for maximum realism campaigns, which are living hell to run, proving my point).

 

[Kane]

That was exactly my point in reply to raw. There would be no need for magical stash if you didn't find shit loot all over the place, which is the case with most RPGs: you find dozens of +1 swords or equivalent, then dozens of +2 and so on. This whole lootwhoring trend needs to die or just stay in hack&slashers and MMOs where it belongs.

Wait, wait, wait, if I remember correctly, I also told you that P:E is a dungeon crawler. I am not saying that it is impossible to build an RPG with "slim-loot^tm" but OE is making P:E and not Bloodlines 2.