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

[Kosmonaut]

Or a diversity-loving LIBRUL.

 

[Hormalakh]

Clearly the nay-sayers were right. ... everywhere. This newest update shows it.

On a more serious note, anyone know whether this can cause problems for good AI? I imagine whenever you have an awesome mechanic, the devs are likely to lean on it quite heavily, and if there are easy ways of side-stepping the whole situation, the whole mechanic becomes moot. The only example I could think of was some sort of glitch where the melee enemies constantly kept switching their engaged enemy and thus rendering the whole thing moot. Something like a rogue sneaking in and out of engagement and preoccupying the melee fighter while everyone else just prances by.

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, they need to make sure the AI routines support it properly. No enemies constantly trying to reach your weak mage not realising they are running into the barbarian, or...

...whoa. I just realised. This means if you have 4 party members surrounding a single strong enemy in a small room, you could surround the enemy and retain a small distance, ensuring that whenever it exits one engagement it runs into another engagement. The adventurer's equivalent to a mosh pit. :D

 

[ironyuri]

Yeah, they need to make sure the AI routines support it properly. No enemies constantly trying to reach your weak mage not realising they are running into the barbarian, or...

...whoa. I just realised. This means if you have 4 party members surrounding a single strong enemy in a small room, you could surround the enemy and retain a small distance, ensuring that whenever it exits one engagement it runs into another engagement. The adventurer's equivalent to a mosh pit. :D

Or there could be a significant combat malus modifier to being effected by multiple, overlapping engagements?

If you're fighting on all sides and not in a defense stance, or perhaps an aggressive stance targetting your weakest opponent, you'd almost certainly be cut down the most you turned your back on one or other enemy.

 

[Tigranes]

Right, but making engagement that extensive would entail many other changes in encounter design. E.g. the conventional encounter design of peppering many-weak-enemy encounters & single-big-enemy encounters would need to be revised; the design behind such 'big lumbering hulks' would need to be modified, perhaps running the risk that they become phased out. Obviously, such extensive modifications would raise all hell on the Codex.

I'd be happy with a simple and sensible way of accounting for polearms so that they're more than just Big Axes.

Edit: Also, ironyuri ARCANUM LP YOU BASTARD.

 

[Hormalakh]

I couldn't agree more with you ironyuri. The IE games were basically a bunch of "ok let's crush these peons" until i got to a mage battle and then I had to start getting creative. it always seemed that the unless the monsters had magic, the battles were pretty much "trash mobs". it would be greatly interesting to have melee become an actual consideration instead of just magic battles.

frankly, while I hope that the Obsidian crew does the AI right, I really don't think they'll get it right and we'll likely have to wait for a tactics/strategems mod to get it right, just like they did with the mages in BG2. Getting the mechanics right in the first place will definitely be a big step in the right directions nonetheless.

 

[Niektory]

• The wizards' Grimoire Slam allows them to attack an enemy in melee with their magically-charged grimoires

Hell yeah!

 

[Tigranes]

Right, but making engagement that extensive would entail many other changes in encounter design. E.g. the conventional encounter design of peppering many-weak-enemy encounters & single-big-enemy encounters would need to be revised; the design behind such 'big lumbering hulks' would need to be modified, perhaps running the risk that they become phased out. Obviously, such extensive modifications would raise all hell on the Codex.

I'd be happy with a simple and sensible way of accounting for polearms so that they're more than just Big Axes.

Edit: Also, ironyuri ARCANUM LP YOU BASTARD.

I promised something soon in the Expeditions news thread, and I've talked to Esquilax over PM about it. I'm getting back onto it, bro don't worry.

Also, I would wholeheartedly support a radically revised encounter design. One of my biggest peeves about RPG design is bland encounters. I'd rather have some well tailored encounters without x trash enemies, y mini-boss enemies, z level boss enemy.

Going into a room where you're confronted by, say, two huscarls with locked shields and an overlapping area of engagement, supported by a single archer, and mage kept well behind would encourage real strategic thinking. The day can't come soon enough when encounter design is more sophisticated than copy-paste 12 kobolds here, there, here, there, then suddenly MEGA KOBOLD.

Certainly, I'm in agreement. One of the reasons I like AOD is that although it doesn't exactly 'revolutionise' encounter design, it does make some sensible decisions and make small things matter so that you think about some of these things. But there is scope for so much more here. I remember DA:O flirted with some of this with skill synergies, shield abilities, etc., until it turned out some of it was genuine, most of it just became diluted into MMO abilities.

One thing I would like to see is a slightly slower pace of combat, or at least, a very responsive and easy pause mechanism, so that you can actually handle such things going on. I've seen people play IE or NWN games by just selecting all & clicking attack, then casting spells or whatnot with individual characters while that was going on; I can't imagine that being conducive to such proper tactics. (Yes, turn based would be one answer, but not here...)

 

[imweasel]

Oh look, and update from Sawyer. Decline, here, decline there, decline, decline everywh- ....... Wait.... Wut? Wut is dis?

Hmmm, this is good actually. Pretty darn good. Hmmm, no decline. More of this and then Sawyer won't have to pass out flyers for KFC after all. :D

 

[Cyberarmy]

So we can create a mad melee wizard who only uses his/her tomes for battle?
Killer Bookworm party on its way!

 

[CappenVarra]

But if you Grimoire Slam an ooze, will it make the spells in it unreadable? How about Grimoire Slamming a fire genasi?

 

[Grunker]

he sure does talk a lot about how those games he's supposed to revive and capture the magic of really just suck huh

in fact that almost all he ever talks about

 

[J_C]

he sure does talk a lot about how those games he's supposed to revive and capture the magic of really just suck huh

in fact that almost all he ever talks about

I think he just talks about the problems those games supposedly had.

 

[Infinitron]

he sure does talk a lot about how those games he's supposed to revive and capture the magic of really just suck huh

in fact that almost all he ever talks about

I think he just talks about the problems those games supposedly had.

Nuance? In my Codex?

 

[Blaine]

I think he just talks about the problems those games supposedly had.

Nuance? In my Codex?

I'm with Grunker on this one. Name-dropping the living fuck out of classic (or 1990s, if that's too recent for your personal definition of "classic") cRPGs to sell his game, then going on at great length about their shortcomings and how he's the Chosen One who will fix everything... it's obnoxious. Unless you're Roguey, in which case it's great. I've seen the "we will fix all the shortcomings of our predecessors" speel before in computer game development—and in every case they either failed outright, or created an entirely new (and sometimes far worse) set of shortcomings.

The more I hear from Josh Sawyer directly, the less I appreciate him. It seems I liked him far better when he was little more to me than a name on a credits scroll, a picture of some nerd, and a general list of his contributions to various projects.

 

[Infinitron]

The more I hear from Josh Sawyer directly, the less I appreciate him. It seems I liked him far better when he was little more to me than a name on a credits scroll, a picture of some nerd, and a general list of his contributions to various projects.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? If Obsidian were handling this Kickstarter more like inXile is handling Wasteland 2, then Josh would have kept his opinions and design decisions to himself, and we'd all be happy here. This thread would be full of sunshine and roses.

Plenty of your favorite developers are obnoxious. You just don't know it yet.

 

[Roguey]

I see nothing obnoxious about the truth.

Dragon Age could have used something like this. Keep those enemies from just walking past the warrior "blocking" a doorway.

I wonder if Josh shaved his moustache after I made that post comparing him with Herve...



i liked that moustache

It was a temporary joke http://instagram.com/p/V5z1leJx8q/

 

[Brotherman Bill]

he sure does talk a lot about how those games he's supposed to revive and capture the magic of really just suck huh

And here I thought you wanted people to be critical

 

[Cyberarmy]

I'm happy that they are upgrading melee combat mechanics of "old classics". Combat was never their high point except some low level party vs party battles or caster combats.
But all these upates would be futile if we don't get some decent AI that uses right tactics against us.

 

[Shadenuat]

It's just barebones, you can build a more active system around it after. Like there's already your charging, working in conjunction with AOO threat ranges.

 

[Grunker]

he sure does talk a lot about how those games he's supposed to revive and capture the magic of really just suck huh

in fact that almost all he ever talks about

I think he just talks about the problems those games supposedly had.

Nuance? In my Codex?

Nuance my ass. Every single one of his "Here I talk about rules/mechanics" has been about what was wrong with the IE-games and how to fix it. Your nuance is a falsehood, and therefore not nuanced at all. Otherwise, link me to the videos where he talks about all the great things that IE did and how they're implementing it in their game.

he sure does talk a lot about how those games he's supposed to revive and capture the magic of really just suck huh

And here I thought you wanted people to be critical

Do you come into this thread with purposes other than to throw around tired, trolly one-liners directed at my arguments? I'll bite one last time: I love the IE-games, Obs made a pitch saying "we'll bring IE back". Why would I want him to spend a bunch of videos telling me why they sucked?

Sure, change things up a bit, change a couple of things you were critical of in the original games. Most of us agree non-casting classes were pretty boring, OK, so change that. There's a general sense that AD&D is outdated, fair enough. That's not what Sawyer seems to be doing. He is funding the game he wants to make - which is extremely different from the IE-games. That is bullshit.

I've reiterated a bunch of times that I think I'll enjoy this game, but I don't understand why that means I should just shut up like the rest of you and nod approvingly whenever Josh trashes some of my favourite games in his design videos when he originally said those games was what he wanted to emulate.

 

[Infinitron]

Except from the description it sounds still very passive and even worse like TANK/DPS design ideas from MMOs.

A good melee is always reactive with many activated option unlike the dumb Defender mode; e.g. Grappling, Tripping, Disarming, stunning, charging etc instead of this modes bullshit.

Just staying loyal to the source material: http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Combat_Expertise

Otherwise, link me to the videos where he talks about all the great things that IE did

 

[Grunker]

 

[Roguey]

I've reiterated a bunch of times that I think I'll enjoy this game, but I don't understand why that means I should just shut up like the rest of you and nod approvingly whenever Josh trashes some of my favourite games in his design videos when he originally said those games was what he wanted to emulate.

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

What part isn't being emulated? Looking at the next-to-last quote in my sig he believes they were enjoyable in spite of their ruleset (except BG2 which he hated) so he's making a better one.

 

[Grunker]

I've reiterated a bunch of times that I think I'll enjoy this game, but I don't understand why that means I should just shut up like the rest of you and nod approvingly whenever Josh trashes some of my favourite games in his design videos when he originally said those games was what he wanted to emulate.

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

What part isn't being emulated? Looking at the next-to-last quote in my sig he believes they were enjoyable in spite of their ruleset (except BG2 which he hated) so he's making a better one.

Enjoyable in spite of their rule-set, enjoyable in spite of their lack of micro-management in combat, enjoyable in spite of having round, enjoyable in spite of having inventory-tetris, enjoyable in spite of almost all of their combat mechanics...

Sounds like Sawyer thinks the IE-games were enjoyable in spite of themselves entirely, so he's making an IE-game that isn't at all like one in order to compensate