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

[Shadenuat]

Ah yes, Arcanum, so charming.

Yeah. All that fuss makes me want to replay it again. Maybe with tech party? And I want Dante. Wonder if I could keep him--
wait, was that sarcasm?
Eh, I'm not good at sarcasm.

 

[Shadenuat]

If you defend Arcanum's combat for any reason, you're a retard. It's as simple as that. The combat may have redeeming qualities, but so do some mass murderers. No one cares that a mass murderer helped old ladies cross the street, donated to the March of Dimes, and was quiet while reading in the library—their transgressions are so great, the redeeming qualities are totally overshadowed and you'd be a jackass to even mention them. So it is with Arcanum's combat.

Oh for the love of god Blaine, you need to speak for the public or play in drama, not talk about games.

 

[Grunker]

Ah yes, Arcanum, so charming.

Stop being a complete retard, you're better than this. Arcanum did not have "small inconsistencies", it was broken beyond any form of repair in its character system.

Also "Fuck it! Let's have a level 1 feat that gives +20 strength and one that gives a single hit point!" was not the approach Tim Cain took to Arcanum.

This comment was not directed at Arcanum however but at your accusation that because I disagree with Sawyer's design philosophy I must inherently have no belief in the basic concept of balance.

And do find me those people who care nothing for balance at all. You claim they exist here, but I doubt it. I do not doubt that people have challenged Sawyer's idea of it, but to outright state people are fine with useless skills in Realms of Arcania or think that +20st/+1HP is a cool system is stupid, and you know it.

Sawyer's problem is absolutism, and yours is that you believe he will achieve the first system in the world's history which will not have a balance discussion/balance consensus after its release. People here have claimed little else, and your claims that they are blind idiots does little but display your own blind idiocy.

Should someone exist in this thread who would claim balance is of no concern whatsoever we share our disdain of said individual. But again, it's up to you to prove his or her existance.

 

[Blaine]

Oh for the love of god Blaine, you need to speak for the public or play in drama, not talk about games.

This from the guy who threw a picture of Hamburger Helper in my face? Seems to me you're the one who's cut out for drama.

hey fucktard, can you show me where I have said Arcanum combat is good?

Can you show me where I said you said Arcanum combat is good? No, you can't... because I never did. Did you even quote the correct post? Who's the fucktard here, shit-for-brains?

I've said that you were defending Arcanum's combat, which is true, because you were. But you shouldn't have been, because that's retarded.

 

[Shadenuat]

I've said that you were defending Arcanum's combat, which is true, because you were. But you shouldn't have been, because that's retarded.

It's like

Even you surely don't think Arcanum's combat is "excellent". Do you think it's "good"? "Adequate"? "Poor"? "Terrible"?

but

If you defend Arcanum's combat for any reason, you're a retard. It's as simple as that.

You understand you've put me and Shrek in an unwinnable position even if I think combat is "adequate" or just does't bother me, or Shrek thinks it's "unbalanced" but "has potentinal"? By you being a complete dickwad, you know

 

[Blaine]

I haven't put you in a no-win situation. It's perfectly reasonable to make an assessment of Arcanum's combat according to your own tastes, although "adequate" is stretching it a bit... in my opinion. I'd call it adequate at best, terrible at worst, and just plain bad on the average.

That's not how this conversation began, however. You leapt to the game's defense and began to tick off a list of the (alleged) good qualities of its combat, then threw out strawmen such as "must be too difficult for some people" and "guess some people play melee humans and fight everything".

 

[Shadenuat]

then threw out strawmen

Yes, the mythical strawman, a heavy artillery on the ready, which, whenever gets "thrown", all your arguments are invalid - no matter what was the reasoning of it to begin with or was it made on purpose at all. Handy shit.
So, what's wrong in pointing out that better thought out build can make for better game experience?

And conversation actually started with this:

Arcanum's combat system is unplayable. It can be endured, but "play" indicates engaging with the game in an enjoyable and recreational manner, rather than resigning oneself to profound suffering and meaningless drudgery

Which I think is a load of over dramatized crap and even with all it's flaws something Arcanum does't deserve.

 

[DraQ]

Arcanum combat was a baffling clusterfuck of derp.

A mixture of broken shit, nonsensical shit, tedious shit, lack of mechanics that would make sense in the context and lackluster presentation.

Lack of reloads, characters firing a revolver (or flintlock) like it was FN five-seven with extended 30rd mag, except faster, with about as much impact as firing a weakish airgun, free use item, exploitable discrepancies between TB and RT modes, derp AI (ok, so I'm going to blow the door to this magazine with steam spiderbot inside, no, don't run towards the door you stupid fucks, it's full of ticking explosives, what part of "blow" you do not get? What part of "move there and stay put" did you not get?) and so on - everything was fucking
.

As for whether the combat is part of the core of the game - if the game keeps throwing large amounts of combat at you, without giving you mechanical means of bypassing it, then it's part of the core experience.

PS:T had limited and mostly easily avoidable combat encounters, so even though combat system was shit, it didn't form a large part of the game experience.
Arcanum didn't really have the same luxury.

Anyway, I remember my first unpleasant surprise in arcanum was fighting some purple goblin shit just near he crash site - what was it anyway, and why are those creatures even in game?

Generally, living beings in games do not want to live.

"Killl... Meee..."

I don't get this either - for example having animals trying to survive rather than charge player mindlessly was one of the awesome things about SoC.

The first part is about Regenerating resource. If you give player that, you automatically ensure that there will be trash mobs and/or regular encounters. Why? Because now you no longer have to worry about players trying to save on things that might become unavailable. So you can throw as many enemies as you like at them.

Actually, I find this line of reasoning baffling.

The only* reason to ever put trash mobs in game is to make them part of resource management challenge - to have them whittle down important resources, discouraging player from pointlessly messing around, idling, and to put in strategic rather than tactical challenge element.

Regenerating resource happens to remove the whole fucking point, so why have trash mobs at all?

Sure, you can but merely being able to is not a legitimate reason. You can also make goatse flash on player's screen every tenth frame, but it's hardly something you should do.

*) apart from needing them for flavour or consistency reasons, but you usually don't, and unrealistic amount of moles popped by your typical RPG popagonist works against any kind of consistency or flavour your game may have.

 

[Roguey]

Stop being a complete retard, you're better than this. Arcanum did not have "small inconsistencies", it was broken beyond any form of repair in its character system.

You can't quantify "balance should be important but not y'know too important." Such attitudes lead to Arcanum.

This comment was not directed at Arcanum however but at your accusation that because I disagree with Sawyer's design philosophy I must inherently have no belief in the basic concept of balance.

And do find me those people who care nothing for balance at all. You claim they exist here, but I doubt it. I do not doubt that people have challenged Sawyer's idea of it, but to outright state people are fine with useless skills in Realms of Arcania or think that +20st/+1HP is a cool system is stupid, and you know it.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/whats-the-deal-with-balance.4618/ http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...is-it-necessary-in-single-player-crpgs.13876/

Sawyer's problem is absolutism, and yours is that you believe he will achieve the first system in the world's history which will not have a balance discussion/balance consensus after its release. People here have claimed little else, and your claims that they are blind idiots does little but display your own blind idiocy.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62993-skills-and-balance-in-pe/?view=findpost&p=1291275

We're not attempting a mythical perfect balance. We're attempting to make all of your options potentially appealing both before you play and after you've done a playthrough.

Seems like a worthy goal to me, worthier than Arcanum's. Will very likely result in a much better game too, especially since it's pretty obvious Arcanum's systems came first and then they tried to make content to support it instead of the other way around.

 

[Shadenuat]

<..> without giving you mechanical means of bypassing it<...>
PS:T had limited and mostly easily avoidable combat encounters, so even though combat system was shit, it didn't form a large part of the game experience.
Arcanum didn't really have the same luxury.

Sorry DraQ, but what? (You are right about the fact that there's even no reloading guns in the game, though, I'd give you that)
While PST obviously just generally had more dialogue in it, more running and less combat, it's actually completely the other way around when it comes to possibilities in avoiding combat alltogether. Planescape did not have any mechanics to avoid combat unless you were inside the dialogue, it had it's own finishing lines and meaningless grinds, maybe less than Arcanum, but still did. Have you forgot crypts, Baator, Curst or Fortress of Regrets (I guess we can give modron maze a pass as it's optional... sort of)? And while you can ran past many of those using location-to-location glitch, it's actually a bit nonsensical in itself, is't it?
Meanwhile, in Arcanum you have:
- Stealth which actually does't break if you push a door or pick a lock.
- Charm, Domination, Calm Animals, Teleportation. And scrolls/magical items of them.
- Invisibility and Invisibility potions.
- Reaction modifiers (which actually can make some creatures non hostile... although I won't cross my heart on it, maybe it's a bug)
- Just as in Torment, you can easely run past enemies to other location (yep, even avoid horrible BMC golem).
- And unlike Torment, I think there's only one mandatory fight (doors to Khergan's lair), but it is possible to get throught without touching a weapon.

Arcanum combat was a baffling clusterfuck of derp.

A mixture of broken shit, nonsensical shit, tedious shit, lack of mechanics that would make sense in the context and lackluster presentation...

...but still "occasionaly fun". Or do you *completely* disagree on that one?

 

[Grunker]

Roguey

You can't quantify "balance should be important but not y'know too important." Such attitudes lead to Arcanum.

You're completely fanatic. Such attitudes don't lead to Arcanum, ineptitude leads to Arcanum.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/whats-the-deal-with-balance.4618/http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...is-it-necessary-in-single-player-crpgs.13876/

Both quotes implicitly speak of the concept of True Balance (tm). There is nothing in them that suggest the very act of making a sensible, coherent system is a futile affair. I'm just now speaking in a PM with Vault Dweller on another game, and we're discussing why adding more viable options to that game could save its combat.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62993-skills-and-balance-in-pe/?view=findpost&p=1291275

I've spoken to this before and I will again: Either you claim that RPGs are unbalanced and you/your champion can reverse that (you and Sawyer did) or you claim you're not trying to aim for perfect balance (which Sawyer does in the above post). These two cannot be reconciled. Their reconciliation is this:

Person A: "All RPGs are unbalanced. I will change this."

Person B: "OK... so there won't be a balance consensus and discussion formed around your system?"

A: Yes.

B: "Well, OK... so how will your RPG be different?"

A: "It will have much MORE balance!"

B: "..."

It's absurd. Your claim is that Sawyer's system will be the first RPG to be constructed on a solid philosophy of balance. The only way we can possbily determine the truth of your statement is by looking at the consensus and discussions that will form around tactics and strategies in the system after P:E's release. Now you try to squirm out of that by saying: "Oh no, everything will be the same, but it will still be more balanced, see?"

It's bullshit, Roguey.

I don't think you and me are very different when it comes to what we actually want from our systems... I've been a very strong proponent for applicability and usefulness of system-assets for a very long time. I've also been outspoken about saving the Fighter and the Rogue from the ill fate they suffer in most systems. My one biggest annoyance with most RPGs is the lack of active choice and options for many classes in combat. In fact, I believe that if we took a discussion on rules systems in general with the people in this thread from the ground up, I'd agree much more with you than most others. I believe 4th edition had exactly the right ideas, just terrible executions, for instance. I also like most of what I hear Sawyer say when he's not making concrete suggestions but just talking vaguely about class utility.

The reason I argue so fucking much with you though, is that I think you make two crucial mistakes that seem like the result of fanaticism:

1) You cannot abide by any flaws in any system, going so far as to claim every RPG system ever is shit. This regardless of the fact that most of the "good" systems' flaws are heavily outweighed by their playability. You also rate this shittyness on the basis on a mystery system, yet uninvented - in other words, the false "God" argument: "Everything is shitty, because my invisible concept is better."

2) You believe so fucking strongly in Sawyer's vision that you are completely incapable of accepting the fact that there have been many who designed systems with exactly his vision. His utility-thoughts are part of GURPS' vision, but it's even more used in video games. It runs most rampant in the RTS and MOBA-communities, and look where that has brought them.

Meh, I'm fairly hopeful that Project: Eternity will be a pretty great game, I just like arguing with you about it because it's interesting to me that we're so close on so many points philosophically when it comes to RPGs, yet you seem to hate, with intensity, everything that I like.

 

[Grunker]

Arcanum combat was a baffling clusterfuck of derp.

A mixture of broken shit, nonsensical shit, tedious shit

Completely true, I...

Lack of reloads, characters firing a revolver (or flintlock) like it was FN five-seven with extended 30rd mag, except faster

Man you are such a 360-degree fag

 

[GordonHalfman]

but it's even more used in video games. It runs most rampant in the RTS and MOBA-communities, and look where that has brought them.

Where's that then?

 

[DraQ]

You can't quantify "balance should be important but not y'know too important." Such attitudes lead to Arcanum.

Lack of balance in terms of utility may lead to Arcanum, but balance was hardly the worst problem of Arcanum (if firearms were actually OP instead of magic it would even fit the setting). OTOH attempting balance in terms of power leads to yet another terminally boring scrub/MMO-like design.

<..> without giving you mechanical means of bypassing it<...>
PS:T had limited and mostly easily avoidable combat encounters, so even though combat system was shit, it didn't form a large part of the game experience.
Arcanum didn't really have the same luxury.

Sorry DraQ, but what? (You are right about the fact that there's even no reloading guns in the game, though, I'd give you that)
While PST obviously just generally had more dialogue in it, more running and less combat, it's actually completely the other way around when it comes to possibilities in avoiding combat alltogether. Planescape did not have any mechanics to avoid combat unless you were inside the dialogue, it had it's own finishing lines and meaningless grinds, maybe less than Arcanum, but still did. Have you forgot crypts, Baator, Curst or Fortress of Regrets (I guess we can give modron maze a pass as it's optional... sort of)?

Baator is what? 3 screens of copypasta Mars-like desert?
Fortress of Regrets was focused on running away from most combat. Fighting shadows more than absolutely necessary was strategically bad.
Stuff like that Strahan dude with his skeletons was completely side content, and PS:T is a type of game where side content isn't the king. Most of bandits were only hostile if ran too close to them and you could bypass them entirely if you weren't in the mood for fight.
I don't deny that there was unavoidable combat in PS:T but PS:T was the kind of game that was only occasionally punctuated by combat unless you actively sought it.
Arcanum OTOH will throw combat at you unless you actively avoid it in often very specific and build limited manner - at least from my early impressions.

...but still "occasionaly fun". Or do you *completely* disagree on that one?

I never reached the fun part on my attempted playthroughs (didn't go far). Further playthroughs pending.

So far the highlights of my Arcanum experience were:
-main menu
-main menu music
-background selection
-noticing interactive things like openable windows and destructible stuff, I'm also immensely hyped for stuff like summoning people's ghosts to talk with them, but I'll only see it when I muster enough strength for not one, but two consecutive playthroughs.

Everything else was deeply disappointing.

Man you are such a 360-degree fag

Ok, when I put a flintlock or any other early firearm in game, why exactly is it bad to make it look and feel like an early firearm?

This means rate of fire severely limited by reloads, loud, smoky, and dishing out a lot of damage per shot.

If I don't want to make it feel like early firearm, then why exactly am I trying to put one in my game? Hell, why the fuck am I trying to make a game that revolves around such weapons, among other things, becoming common in a world previously ruled by magic?

Wiz8 musket and blunderbuss were far better in that regard, and they were completely marginal to both the theme of that game and its mechanics. It's not hard to make a firearm that feels like firearm, and it's not hard to implement reload mechanics if you've done it in not one but two of your previous games.

 

[Shadenuat]

I never reached the fun part on my attempted playthroughs (didn't go far). Further playthroughs pending.

 

[Grunker]

but it's even more used in video games. It runs most rampant in the RTS and MOBA-communities, and look where that has brought them.

Where's that then?

An eternal revisionary state - constant patches and balance updates. The attempt to strive for perfection results not in balance but in different top strategies at different times, depending on which the patches favour at any given point.

 

[Lancehead]

Multiplayer games are different, though, because you're playing against other players.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Grunker, you are having a conversation with your own head. You completely fail to grasp what is being discuss and argue with strawmen instead. In this thread you are being essentially like cptn shrek, except more wordy and less tenacious.

 

[Grunker]

Grunker, you are having a conversation with your own head. You completely fail to grasp what is being discuss and argue with strawmen instead. In this thread you are being essentially like cptn shrek, except more wordy and less tenacious.

As obnoxious as always. I replied directly to Roguey, then went off on a related tangent. Because you disagree with my basic view you cry strawman and blow up a pretty harmful post.

I didn't use a strawman - all my "accusations" as to Roguey's arguments where gathered from conversations with Roguey. You did, however, which is ironic I guess. But I doubt at this point you'll even listen when it comes to this subject so I suppose there is no sense in replying.

 

[Murk]

Borement.

God I wish spacemoose was still around.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I just recently started a gunslinger type playthrough of Arcanum. It's still early (in Ashbury, but plotwise at the Black Mountain Clan), but I've definitely found the balance issues with guns to be apparent. However, so far the most glaring issues on this front are intimately tied to the broken combat itself. Its not that guns are less powerful, its that the advantages that the game seems to want to give to guns are poorly implemented. The game seems to want guns to have a range advantage over melee and a speed advantage over bows. I don't really care how realistic this is, as long as each of these advantages has an actual effect on gameplay. However, the range advantage is negligible.

Guns' longer range should give them a positioning advantage over melee providing a defensive advantage (by making it harder for melee enemies to attack) and an offensive advantage (using AP that would be required for movement for more attacks). However, positioning in Arcanum is 1) very difficult to do with any precision do to the hidden grid and 2) irrelevant anyway because combat almost always takes place over small spaces and AP is plentiful enough that moving from one target to another has a fairly low opportunity cost. Since movement is cheap enough that both you and enemies can close the range gap and still have AP left to attack, long range attacks provide you with negligible offensive and/or defensive advantages. Additionally, if your line of sight is blocked by an ally, when you click to target an enemy you end up just running right next to them eliminating what little range advantage you had and seriously interfering with using a ranged character as a "back row" attacker.

Another problem, which affects non-melee combat generally is that the combat pacing and lack of control over Allies renders micromanagement is pointless. Any plan you make will be irrelevant by the time it comes time to execute; combatants go down fast and move fast, so, in the period between conception and execution, the constant running around and repositioning will change the battlefield composition significantly. For melee, this isn't a huge issue b/c you're just running around trying to gang up on someone, but for anything that requires spatial planning (namely ranged and AoE attacks) its a giant pain in the ass.

Which isn't to say I'm not enjoying it, but the enjoyment comes from the finding of schematics and crafting the weapons, instead from using them. Yes, I am enjoying the dumpster diving. Commence self-loathing.

 

[DraQ]

I just recently started a gunslinger type playthrough of Arcanum. It's still early (in Ashbury, but plotwise at the Black Mountain Clan), but I've definitely found the balance issues with guns to be apparent. However, so far the most glaring issues on this front are intimately tied to the broken combat itself. Its not that guns are less powerful, its that the advantages that the game seems to want to give to guns are poorly implemented. The game seems to want guns to have a range advantage over melee and a speed advantage over bows. I don't really care how realistic this is, as long as each of these advantages has an actual effect on gameplay. However, the range advantage is negligible.

Guns' longer range should give them a positioning advantage over melee providing a defensive advantage (by making it harder for melee enemies to attack) and an offensive advantage (using AP that would be required for movement for more attacks). However, positioning in Arcanum is 1) very difficult to do with any precision do to the hidden grid and 2) irrelevant anyway because combat almost always takes place over small spaces and AP is plentiful enough that moving from one target to another has a fairly low opportunity cost. Since movement is cheap enough that both you and enemies can close the range gap and still have AP left to attack, long range attacks provide you with negligible offensive and/or defensive advantages. Additionally, if your line of sight is blocked by an ally, when you click to target an enemy you end up just running right next to them eliminating what little range advantage you had and seriously interfering with using a ranged character as a "back row" attacker.

Another problem, which affects non-melee combat generally is that the combat pacing and lack of control over Allies renders micromanagement is pointless. Any plan you make will be irrelevant by the time it comes time to execute; combatants go down fast and move fast, so, in the period between conception and execution, the constant running around and repositioning will change the battlefield composition significantly. For melee, this isn't a huge issue b/c you're just running around trying to gang up on someone, but for anything that requires spatial planning (namely ranged and AoE attacks) its a giant pain in the ass.

Which isn't to say I'm not enjoying it, but the enjoyment comes from the finding of schematics and crafting the weapons, instead from using them.

Yes, I am enjoying the dumpster diving. Commence self-loathing.

Well, it never hurts to practice.

Spoiler

Sorry.

Spoiler

had to.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Yes, I am enjoying the dumpster diving. Commence self-loathing.

Well, it never hurts to practice.

Spoiler

Sorry.

Spoiler

had to.

No worries. When I put it on a tee like that, somebody's got to take swing!

 

[BobtheTree]

Yea, I just beat Arcanum today for the first time. Did a dex/strength fighter build and I have to say, once I got my dex over 15, the game has been a cakewalk. I have so much AP and melee attacks require so little AP that I was attacking 4 to 6 times every round. My previous three characters all went guns and the problem always was that you just simply don't have the damage output. It wouldn't matter if you had a gun 3x more powerful just because melee builds let you attack so many times that you could take a low damage weapon, max dex, and easily lay waste to almost everything.

Still, outside the combat, Arcanum has a lot of wonderful features, but hell if it doesn't remind me a lot of the tedious spammy attacking of an ARPG most of the time (even though I played the whole game turn based).

 

[Murk]

Dumpster diving. /single tear of nostalgia

Give me ToEE combat in Arcanum and I will stick one thing of your choosing in one orifice of your choosing.