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

[Captain Shrek]

If TOEE had RTwP, it would have been a shittier version of IWD. Way, way more shittier.

And conversely, if IWD was turn-based, it would have approached a version of gameplay much more closer to the Gold Box games.

Well.

At least with Turn based combat they would have been forced to remove the shitty trash mobs and actually put some efforts into tactics.

 

[Kirtai]

I know that, I just meant that future games don't need to have the same reliance on RNG, especially since they'll have different rulesets.

Actually.

No good game should rely on die roll/Random number generator. Die rolls are just for flavor. Tactical combat should be completely be winnable without relying on lucky or loaded ( ) dies.

Well yes, that's what I meant by "After all, getting utterly destroyed in a fight not because of bad play or poor choices but just because the RNG decided to shit all over you isn't fun."

Seems we're in violent agreement

 

[Dorateen]

If TOEE had RTwP, it would have been a shittier version of IWD. Way, way more shittier.

And conversely, if IWD was turn-based, it would have approached a version of gameplay much more closer to the Gold Box games.

Well.

At least with Turn based combat they would have been forced to remove the shitty trash mobs and actually put some efforts into tactics.

In case you weren't aware, I believe tb combat is the far superior model. Lord Andre's post merely struck me as a whimsical hypothetical design. If IWD (and BG) were turn based, it would be something to celebrate.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Well yes, that's what I meant by "After all, getting utterly destroyed in a fight not because of bad play or poor choices but just because the RNG decided to shit all over you isn't fun."

Seems we're in violent agreement

What part of it is violent?

Also the way you phrased this:

future games don't need to have the same reliance on RNG

Seemed to be that you were under the belief that Random Number generators were necessary for Older games.

 

[Moribund]

I agree in principle with shrek but (need to make this a template since this comes up so often) I find usually the people complaining do so because they made a critical failure on understanding the game system or made a party of half orc bards or something.

Because it's simply not a problem in DnD, not really a problem in Wizardry or practically any game series I can think of. If you often have these unlikely everyone dies moments something is out of whack in your play style. Like people playing the old gold box games who never realized you could cast other spells than fireball and that they did as much or more as fireball did, stinking cloud, charm, web, etc. for example.

 

[Lord Andre]

If TOEE had RTwP, it would have been a shittier version of IWD. Way, way more shittier.

How so? I don't disagree, I'm just interested in knowing why you think it's shittier?

The very good thing about TOEE was the faithful implementation of d&d combat mechanics BUT...but everything else was horrible. Index style - here we go:

- The Temple of Elemental Evil original Greyhawk campaign was mediocre at best. And I'm talking mediocre in pen&paper where at least the DM can throw in some twists and coordinating with real life humans keeps things interesting. Still MEDIOCRE. The Greyhawk theme is barely visible, might as well be Forgotten Realms no one would see the difference. Low-level straight forward kill the bad boss in the dungeon type of thing.

- Why did they choose to base their game on it ? Fuck knows. But let's see what it got us.

- Boring storyline. Incredibly boring quests and towns. Trapped in the last layer of hell - boring first town. No note-worthy NPCs. Dialogues with skill checks that don't do anything remotely interesting. And so on.

- Combat encounters that amount to nothing more than popping moles, no imagination, nothing.

- Loot and loot placing - shit. At least crafting skill is dully implemented.

Draw the line and what do we have ? A d&d combat simulator with ZERO content. ZERO. There is no game there, just a good engine waiting for someone to develop some fucking content for it.

A shame really. Truly a shame. Weakest of the Troika trio.

 

[Kirtai]

Seems we're in violent agreement

What part of it is violent?

Just a figure of speech, a play on "violent disagreement"

Also the way you phrased this:

future games don't need to have the same reliance on RNG

Seemed to be that you were under the belief that Random Number generators were necessary for Older games.

No, I don't believe they were necessary for older games, but rather that they were overused or had too big an effect in some cases. Future games should be able to avoid this with the benefit of hindsight, not that anyone in computing even seems to understand the concept of learning from the past...

 

[Captain Shrek]

:shrug:

 

[Kirtai]

Draw the line and what do we have ? A d&d combat simulator with ZERO content. ZERO. There is no game there, just a good engine waiting for someone to develop some fucking content for it.

It's a pity the never released the engine or at least a good set of modding tools for third parties to make games with.

 

[Hormalakh]

Points

Yeah, that makes sense. I haven't had a chance to play it fully, but that's in line with what I thought. I thought you had an issue with the game mechanics. It seems most of the issues are with the game content. Imagine if they used BG2's content on that game engine with its combat implementation. That would be cool, huh?

 

[Captain Shrek]

Points

Yeah, that makes sense. I haven't had a chance to play it fully, but that's in line with what I thought. I thought you had an issue with the game mechanics. It seems most of the issues are with the game content. Imagine if they used BG2's content on that game engine with its combat implementation. That would be cool, huh?

????

Dude..TOEE was a turn based game! Totally different mechanics compared to IE.

 

[Hormalakh]

Turn-based is only one portion of game mechanics. I don't really want to get into this right now, but you have to distinguish game mechanics from game content. Just like BG2 was content loosely based on D&D game mechanics, you could take the game content of BG2 and implement it into ToEE game mechanics. It would be a different game, yes. But there is a distinction between mechanics and content.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Turn-based is only one portion of game mechanics. I don't really want to get into this right now, but you have to distinguish game mechanics from game content. Just like BG2 was content loosely based on D&D game mechanics, you could take the game content of BG2 and implement it into ToEE game mechanics. It would be a different game, yes. But there is a distinction between mechanics and content.

Of course there is. IE games are different from TOEE in both. I already made that reply earlier, although you conveniently ignored it.

 

[Lord Andre]

Points

Yeah, that makes sense. I haven't had a chance to play it fully, but that's in line with what I thought. I thought you had an issue with the game mechanics. It seems most of the issues are with the game content. Imagine if they used BG2's content on that game engine with its combat implementation. That would be cool, huh?

Yep. Really cool indeed. Here's hoping PE comes close despite RTwP.

 

[Hormalakh]

Sawyer's on OEI forums: any questions people want answered?

 

[Captain Shrek]

Sawyer's on OEI forums: any questions people want answered?

yeah.

What made them reconsider in combat regen?

 

[Hormalakh]

Sawyer's on OEI forums: any questions people want answered?

yeah.

What made them reconsider in combat regen?

What do you mean? Stamina regeneration in/out of combat? He usually doesn't answer why questions. If you have a mechanics question, he's more likely to answer.

 

[Lord Andre]

Sawyer's on OEI forums: any questions people want answered?

What are his thoughts on loot placement ? A lot of rpgs have the problem where heavily guarded or hard to pick chests yield less than satisfying rewards while easy to access chests yield better results.

 

[Hormalakh]

Sawyer's on OEI forums: any questions people want answered?

What are his thoughts on loot placement ? A lot of rpgs have the problem where heavily guarded or hard to pick chests yield less than satisfying rewards while easy to access chests yield better results.

I'll ask, but he's said a lot about this already. I think his answer is going to be something like, "we'll be balancing loot to fall in line with the risk/reward structure."

 

[Captain Shrek]

Sawyer's on OEI forums: any questions people want answered?

yeah.

What made them reconsider in combat regen?

What do you mean? Stamina regeneration in/out of combat? He usually doesn't answer why questions. If you have a mechanics question, he's more likely to answer.

It is a mechanics question: Earlier there was in combat regen. Now there is not. What made them change their mind?

 

[suejak]

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

All of whom are greater then anything inXile has ever produced. Yeah, Fargo sure knows what he's doing.

And all of which are worse than most BIS games.

I'm assuming both LS and tuluse are arguing for Obsidian here? Feargus was head of BIS too. Yes, he headed the studio that made Fallout 2, Icewind Dale 2 (a.k.a. the best game ever made), and Torment.

 

[Hormalakh]

He answered that already. "Cooldowns in the sense that most people use them were never really in. Per-encounter and per-rest will likely be the two common types of use limitations. A fighter's Surge would likely be (and is currently) per-encounter."

Stamina currently regenerates (very slowly) in combat, but we're likely to switch it to being post-combat only and very rapid. You'd have to rely on Stamina-healing abilities (e.g. the fighter's Surge [self only], priest's Recovery [AoE, lesser amount], or paladin's Revive [unconscious ally only, but immediately gives a big Stamina boost]) in combat, but would regain Stamina quickly once the combat state ended.

Some abilities or talents may help ameliorate the deficiencies of a certain damage type vs. armor, but our system doesn't reward hyperspecialization as in 2nd Ed. AD&D Combat & Tactics Mastery rules or 3E. I.e., you can't really be "heavily invested" in a specific type of weapon. Our specialization groups always bridge damage types, so if you have access to equivalent gear, there's not a negative incentive to equipping another type of weapon.

If you really want to have "the sword guy" who never switches to non-sword weapons, you're going to have to be more selective with what enemies he engages. In circumstances where every enemy is resistant to slashing weapons, you're going to be at a severe numerical disadvantage. One of the keys to designing good tactical encounters is to occasionally diminish a certain tactic so the player has to seek other approaches. If we allow you to build a big enough hammer that everything can be treated like a nail, that tactical element becomes irrelevant.

That said, our approach is not to say, "This is the tactic you must use now." as much as, "This is a bad tactic to use now." We believe the latter opens up more possibilities for the player than the former.

 

[Rake]

If you want to be pedantic, IE would mean that it has to specifically use the Infinity Engine.

It's not being pedantic. Dump DnD and it's nothing like IE games. There's also more character to a set of games than that anyway.

You can't lump torment in with BG series they are totally different in spite of using IE.

Now this game will be similarly different in aspects like storytelling etc. that don't even cover the engine.

If you take out DnD then it will be nothing like IE at all. If you make the new game system sawyer was talking about it's simply going to be shit. It will be rtwp shit but homewrld and dune 2000 are rtwp too, that alone doesn't mean much except it will be not as good as turn based - gameplay will have lots of micromanagement, kiting, and fantic pausing to switch characters. I could kite all the IE games except torment to simply never even take any damage.

But otherwise, yeah? You don't think ToEE is an IE-inspired game?

They probably looked at it for inspiration, in a horrible warning kind of way.

That even further proves you're full of shit because ToEE's mechanics were pretty much D&D and even you don't consider that an IE game.

Did IE invent DnD? No, they ruined it. PE won't even have that though, game will be utter shit and any defenders are going to have to do better than that. Story is only thing that can save it at this point but then this is the company that made AP so I don't expect much there either.

So what the fuck are you talking about? Who let this moron join the Codex? Ban this dimwit.

Indeed.

Well, if you believe that the IE games were shit and their only saving grace were the D&D then yes, P:E is not for you. But that's not a problem with the game, you just weren't part of the target audience from the start. P:E is for people who liked the IE games. Realy liked, not "P:T had cool story but gameplay was a chore, or BG2 had great encounter design but the actuall combat sucks"
Sawyer thinks that what made the IE games what they were is not the combat mechanics, but a combination of things. If your only reason you played tha IE games were D&D i don't understand why you even bother with P:E. It was clear from the start that it won't be a D&D game

 

[Captain Shrek]

Really liked, not "P:T had cool story but gameplay was a chore, or BG2 had great encounter design but the actuall combat sucks"

Anyone who believes otherwise needs to explain themselves as to why or admit it's nostalgia goggles.

Sawyer thinks that what made the IE games what they were is not the combat mechanics, but a combination of things.

Does he now.

Like what?

 

[Lord Andre]

Sawyer's on OEI forums: any questions people want answered?

What are his thoughts on loot placement ? A lot of rpgs have the problem where heavily guarded or hard to pick chests yield less than satisfying rewards while easy to access chests yield better results.

I'll ask, but he's said a lot about this already. I think his answer is going to be something like, "we'll be balancing loot to fall in line with the risk/reward structure."

How about asking for some juicy info on the cipher class ? I can't think of anything else, I suck at questions.

Edit: How about he address this issue:

Grappling is bear-hugging a weaker opponent thus immobilizing him and yourself. Great for stopping a bad ass wizard from casting nukes or for stopping a guard from triggering an alarm button or an archer from shooting save-or-die magic arrows etc. The greatest tactical benefit that it adds is that monsters can do it to you and they usually have better strength. Thus a wizard might want to take a perk in casting while standing still since even a low level orc can take him out of combat in this manner. It adds depth to combat.