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

[Jasede]

I like it when there's a variety of options, some inferior to others.
Sawyer sounds like a munchkin.

 

[waywardOne]

It really speaks volumes about the decline of the genre that all of that needs to be spelled out. To that last bit, those weapon choice situations are only going to be "real" if wielding and/or carrying the different weapons is a genuine obstacle. If a fighter can easily be proficient in dagger+sword+pike, and there's no restriction in obtaining or carrying them, it's just spreadsheet masturbation and the only thing resembling a tactic is opening the inventory page to do a weapon swap (or will that be a hotkey?).

 

[hiver]

If a fighter can easily be proficient...

Yup, thats exactly what it will BE.
Sawyer practically said so! Right after he practically confirmed pony unicorns!!!



Burn the Witch! BURN THE WITCH!!! BUURN THE WIITCH!!

 

[Murk]

It really speaks volumes about the decline of the genre that all of that needs to be spelled out. To that last bit, those weapon choice situations are only going to be "real" if wielding and/or carrying the different weapons is a genuine obstacle. If a fighter can easily be proficient in dagger+sword+pike, and there's no restriction in obtaining or carrying them, it's just spreadsheet masturbation and the only thing resembling a tactic is opening the inventory page to do a weapon swap (or will that be a hotkey?).

This is something that concerns me as well -- the constant "this is tactics" in regards to talking about 3 weapon types (piercing, bludgeoning, slashing) is absolutely silly. All that it will necessitate will be "hit enemy -- see low damage feedback due to resistance -- switch to appropriate weapon". No one is going to think "Ahh, John here will be my slasher and Jamal will be my bludgeoner" and somehow alternate which char is doing what. They'll just carry a spare weapon. Or more likely, not even bother at all just like in every other IE game that wasn't a magical golem or a demilich.

In terms of ACTUAL tactical choices, nothing has been said about the game that isn't crap that people could just guess.

 

[Jaesun]

Again, they are doing an emulation of the IE games.

 

[Murk]

That much is well established, my question (if it even is one) is why are they talking about this instead of actual tactical options?

 

[Lancehead]

Because that's the stage of design they're at now. I imagine they're far from encounter design, which is where real tactics exist.

 

[Moribund]

That's what he thinks tactical options are.

 

[Shadenuat]

If daggers will be DPS and swords better for tanking, I'll start murdering people, I can say that at least.
(Seriously, the fucking dagger-warrior. Warrior specializing in last resort weapon. Thefuck.)

 

[Jasede]

That'd be the logical consequence of this modern school of thought that "everything has to be balanced". Bleh. I _want_ my dagger to be a worse weapon than a short-sword. But maybe I can conceal it with a Dex check. Bet I just blew Sawyer's mind...

 

[Irenaeus]

GZiets

Wtf is this hair!?

 

[mediocrepoet]

That'd be the logical consequence of this modern school of thought that "everything has to be balanced". Bleh. I _want_ my dagger to be a worse weapon than a short-sword. But maybe I can conceal it with a Dex check.

Yeah that was my line of thought too. I don't know who he's trying to appease with that sort of decision anyway. Oh thank Christ, now I can finally have the full plate dagger specialist warrior I always dreamed of. I get not necessarily wanting oddball weapon choices like some of the stuff around morning stars vs maces vs flails that have existed in possibly every edition of D&D... but that doesn't mean every weapon should be different but equal where equal means doing equal dps either.

On the flip side, if weapons like swords are better for hacking a moderately armoured guy to pieces whereas daggers start failing pretty quickly against anything but unarmoured targets - that might be interesting. Or if they have skills related to them that are about striking accurately to boost their armour piercing qualities or something... you could actually arrive at something interesting. What I don't really want to see is like: long sword 85 dps, short sword 85 dps (but swings faster), dagger 85 dps (swings a lot faster), greatsword 85 dps (swings slower), etc.

 

[Lancehead]

There's no DPS.

 

[tuluse]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63...olution-damage-vs-armor-and-a-tileset/page-13

There will absolutely be circumstances where using a certain weapon, weapon type, spell, spell type against a specific enemy will be a tactically inferior choice, just as there is in A/D&D. The reason you have a party and the ability to switch weapons, spells, abilities, etc. is to allow you to adapt to the tactical requirements of different battles.

In 3E/3.5, if you have a character equipped with a mace and a character equipped with a longsword facing off against a zombie and a skeleton, insisting on attacking the skeleton with the longsword and the zombie with the mace will almost always be a bad tactic. Insisting on casting sleep against them is a bad tactic. If you cast Reflex-based AoE damage spells against rogues and monks, that's usually a bad tactic. Casting fireball at a red dragon is a bad tactic. If a tactic is never circumstantially bad, that's the death of tactical challenge. Why think of something else to do when the thing you've always done works just fine?

But just to make clear, in contrast to A/D&D, PE's weapon types will not be strategically inferior, i.e. bad even in the absence of context. There are a ton of weapons in every edition of A/D&D that are flat-out terrible on paper compared to other weapons. In 3E/3.5, it's usually Simple weapons, but there are plenty of Martial weapons that most people would never take. For example, why would I use a Heavy Mace when I could use a Morningstar? The latter weighs less, does the same damage, has the same crit range/multiplier, and two damage types (B/P vs. the Heavy Mace's B). Why would I use a Greatclub when I could use a Heavy Flail? The Heavy Flail weighs 2 lbs. more but has a higher crit range and has bonuses against disarming and when making trip attacks.

So if you want to make a dagger-wielding character, even a dagger-wielding fighter, that will absolutely be a viable choice in PE. If we do our jobs well, it should be roughly as viable -- and vulnerable to tactical challenges -- as a fighter who uses longswords or a pike. I wouldn't say that's usually the case in A/D&D. But there will be cases where Dagger Guy is going to run into problems against a particular enemy -- just as there will be for Longsword Guy and Pike Guy.

Can't clerics use maces but not morning stars? Isn't that the whole reason for this. The weapons are balanced against what classes can use them? With fighters getting the best ones and wizards getting the worst and everyone else somewhere in the middle?

 

[Grunker]

In AD&D, clerics can use most non-sharp weapons - this includes morning stars (as in, clerics can use them).

In 3rd, any character can use any weapon, but clerics and wizards start with simple weapon proficiency and fighters with martial, for instance.

However, the differences Sawyer speaks about were intentional I believe, as the prices for weapons differ. Why use Greatclub instead of Heavy Flail? Well, if you can't afford the Heavy Flail a Greatclub is what you must choose. In most campaigns, these very small price differences wouldn't matter of course, and I agree with most of what Sawyer says there, but it is pretty notable that he (delibeteraly) leaves stuff out.

As with the longsword/dagger discussion he ends of with, it is, of course, a perfect illustration of the binary and uninteresting system they seem to be going for (as seen with rock-paper-scissors armor system and now weapons types). For all his criticism against D&D weapon types, switching weapons still isn't a tactical choice, it's just rock-paper-scissor (daggers are bad against X and good against Y). Compare this to systems like GURPS where the weapons are so completely different from each other you can't compare them on such a binary scale.

D&D goes for "this deals more damage but this has higher crit chance."

Sawyer criticizes this and opts for a "this works against X, this works against Y."

All the while better systems have long since started actually making weapons behave very differently, with no clear "good" choices or "good against X" type stuff.

The ironic part is that I don't mind D&D's version. It's good, clean, simple, which is why it ends up being binary, but that's the price you pay. What I mind is Sawyer giving the impression that he's invented star travel just because he's switching to one binary system to another.

*sigh*

We had the "Battle of the Systems" in P&P long ago, and have basically settled on the fact that different systems are good for different things. If we're in for the same exact battle, this time spear-headed by Sawyer and his ilk, who think they can somehow develop the "perfect system", it's going to be shitty. The "Battle of the Systems" debat that went down from 2001-2009 was one of the most boring debates I've witnessed about anything ever.

 

[Blaine]

I'm not sure when the "DPS dagger-wielding thief/rogue" archetype first appeared, but regardless of its origins, I detest it. If you're wearing cloth pajamas or a leather jerkin and are carrying only a dagger and perhaps a bow/crossbow, the last place you want to be is anywhere near a battlefield facing properly trained, armed, and armored opponents, let alone wild animals or mythological creatures. That's not to say that thieves/rogues shouldn't be capable of assisting their party with ranged weapons or by ambushing an enemy before fleeing back to the rear rank, but their expertise shouldn't lie in direct combat. Their damage potential is highly situational or supplemental. Their primary purpose is to scale walls, spot and disarm traps, pick locks, sneak around stealing things, carry out silent assassinations, perhaps work people over with their silver tongue, and so on.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy/prequel, early D&D, and dungeon crawler cRPGs respected this notion that burglars, thieves and rogues weren't mythical ninja-like creatures, and required the protection of trained warriors in their party if they expected to survive. P:E will allow mid-combat backstabs and other such rubbish, if I recall correctly, which... is annoying, but expected.

 

[Arkeus]

It really speaks volumes about the decline of the genre that all of that needs to be spelled out. To that last bit, those weapon choice situations are only going to be "real" if wielding and/or carrying the different weapons is a genuine obstacle. If a fighter can easily be proficient in dagger+sword+pike, and there's no restriction in obtaining or carrying them, it's just spreadsheet masturbation and the only thing resembling a tactic is opening the inventory page to do a weapon swap (or will that be a hotkey?).

I guess it's a good thing that:
A°) you can't acess your inventory during a fight.
B°)Switching weapon takes character-time (not just player-time) which means that against different types of enemies switching weapons all the time is kinda dumb.

That'd be the logical consequence of this modern school of thought that "everything has to be balanced". Bleh. I _want_ my dagger to be a worse weapon than a short-sword. But maybe I can conceal it with a Dex check. Bet I just blew Sawyer's mind...

How surprising that 'conceal with a Dex check' is actually a good way to make the dagger 'viable', and as such you are agreeing with Sawyer.

 

[tuluse]

As of 3.5/Pathfinder, the dagger wielding rogue doesn't really exist. Rapiers are where it's at.

 

[Spectacle]

As of 3.5/Pathfinder, the dagger wielding rogue doesn't really exist. Rapiers are where it's at.

They're back again in 4E.

 

[DraQ]

I'm not sure when the "DPS dagger-wielding thief/rogue" archetype first appeared, but regardless of its origins, I detest it. If you're wearing cloth pajamas or a leather jerkin and are carrying only a dagger and perhaps a bow/crossbow, the last place you want to be is anywhere near a battlefield facing properly trained, armed, and armored opponents, let alone wild animals or mythological creatures. That's not to say that thieves/rogues shouldn't be capable of assisting their party with ranged weapons or by ambushing an enemy before fleeing back to the rear rank, but their expertise shouldn't lie in direct combat. Their damage potential is highly situational or supplemental.

This.

Dagger is good because it's small, light, concealable and doesn't get in the way when you're doing all sorts of weird stuff.
Dagger is very, very, bad when it's your only weapon and you're face to face with dude armed with something with several times your reach.

One of the good reasons to detest class-based system, actually. Fighter who only specializes in daggers is simply not a fucking fighter. He may be a viable character, but not for going face to face against people armed with longswords and axes, or monsters and other beasts. Fighter who specializes in daggers in addition to some other weapon may actually have a lot of edge over one that doesn't, because he has a weapon he can use effectively when deprived of his main weapon (if successfully concealed and not actually searched), as offhand weapon, as backup weapon, etc.

Their primary purpose is to scale walls, spot and disarm traps, pick locks, sneak around stealing things, carry out silent assassinations, perhaps work people over with their silver tongue, and so on.

Also disguise, recon, stealth attacks against vulnerable high-importance targets when meatshields are already occupied, sabotage and generally being where least expected.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Dagger is good because it's small, light, concealable and doesn't get in the way when you're doing all sorts of weird stuff.
Dagger is very, very, bad when it's your only weapon and you're face to face with dude armed with something with several times your reach.

Very true. This also reminds me of something - do daggers still ignore armor in the latest version of AoD? Man, that really pissed me off when I first played the demo. I understand this was done to balance all weapon choices, but it still sucked.

 

[DraQ]

Dagger is good because it's small, light, concealable and doesn't get in the way when you're doing all sorts of weird stuff.
Dagger is very, very, bad when it's your only weapon and you're face to face with dude armed with something with several times your reach.

Very true. This also reminds me of something - do daggers still ignore armor in the latest version of AoD? Man, that really pissed me off when I first played the demo. I understand this was done to balance all weapon choices, but it still sucked.

Well, dagger should be easier to aim in any openings or weak points in armour than any other weapon, but it shouldn't be much of a factor in frontal combat, because you simply shouldn't be able to get close enough with just dagger without getting killed.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Right, if you are grappling a dagger as a short weapon should be easier to use. But to simply have a high chance of ignoring armor in a straight up fight - that's just stupid. Why bother with heavy armor and all those other expensive heavy weapons at all then? Just arm your soldiers with knives and let them carve up the heavily armored infantry to pieces. Oh, because it doesn't work, that's why. Unless the difference in skill is huge, a lightly armored fighter with a dagger should get absolutely creamed 9 times out of 10 against a heavier armored fighter with a sword. I hate balancing done in such an obviously artificial way.

 

[Infinitron]

a lightly armored fighter with a dagger should get absolutely creamed 9 times out of 10 against a heavier armored fighter with a sword.

Who says he won't? You're forgetting the key word - context.

But just to make clear, in contrast to A/D&D, PE's weapon types will not be strategically inferior, i.e. bad even in the absence of context.

Heavy armor, sword - that's context.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Oh, I was still talking about what pissed me off in AoD. Sorry about the derail.