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

[Arkeus]

Thanks! Do you know if they have opened up about the Paladin class? I recall they were thinking about making him a team player. I was hoping the pally to be a one on one fighter; i.e. the pally takes on the boss while the fighter takes on the minions.

Seems to be the opposite- Paladin are optimized about taking care of groups enemies, as well as being an all around team-player.

 

[Dorateen]

Of course adventuring with a player-generated party is not the way P:E is meant to be played. But since when do veteran, hard-core gamers care about a writer or designer's wishes when trying to enforce their vision on the player? Such individuals can go to hell on a cracker.

 

[Infinitron]

Tidbits from Formspring:

 

[Kosmonaut]

Tidbits from Formspring:

The original Fallouts... hard? Seriously? o_O

 

[Borelli]

By 21st century standards yes. Fallout 1 is hard at beginning because you have no armor and only a basic weapon but later it gets ok. In 2 if i remember correctly even at the very start random world map encounter could have those xeonomorph aliens who would kill you at lvl 1, although it is definitely easier than the RPGs that came before it.

 

[DraQ]

I want the very concept of divine and epic levels to perish in flames.

 

[Mother Russia]

By 21st century standards yes. Fallout 1 is hard at beginning because you have no armor and only a basic weapon but later it gets ok. In 2 if i remember correctly even at the very start random world map encounter could have those xeonomorph aliens who would kill you at lvl 1, although it is definitely easier than the RPGs that came before it.

Fallout 2 had xenomorph aliens? Are you serious? I know there was an alien spacecraft, and ofcourse the Deathclaw mutants...but actual aliens?

Pics?

 

[Mother Russia]

I want the very concept of divine and epic levels to perish in flames.

Exactly. The concept is shit in both pnp rpgs and video rpgs. (though I do not recall a single crpg or real video game rpg that allowed such high levels. The closest IMO comes Throne of Bhaal)

If the entire game revolves around this concept it could work, somewhat like White Wolf's Exalted, where a newly generated neophate exalt can take on a small army of normal humans and emerge victorious. But even WW has yet to find a way to make it work without involving buckets of dice, though TBH the main reason for that is their shit Storyteller Game system that requires Dice Pools. Exalted 3 will come out soon, so hopefully they will have fixed this...but I doubt it.

 

[tuluse]

I want the very concept of divine and epic levels to perish in flames.

Exactly. The concept is shit in both pnp rpgs and video rpgs. (though I do not recall a single crpg or real video game rpg that allowed such high levels. The closest IMO comes Throne of Bhaal)

Well there is the game that Ziets is famous for, Mask of the Betrayer.

 

[Endemic]

Fallout 2 had xenomorph aliens? Are you serious? I know there was an alien spacecraft, and ofcourse the Deathclaw mutants...but actual aliens?

Pics?

Wanamingos, they look like they're inspired by the xenomorphs from Aliens series. Were apparently an escaped genetic engineering project. They're found in one of the Redding mines, the San Francisco tanker and random encounters around the army depot\north of Frisco.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Wanamingo

There was evolved version planned for Fallout 3 which was cut, but someone modded in FO2 versions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FUxrMUVY1s

 

[Borelli]

Yes the wanamingos, i called them xenomorphs since that is what they are reminding me of although lore wise they are not from another planet but also mutants.

Exactly. The concept is shit in both pnp rpgs and video rpgs. (though I do not recall a single crpg or real video game rpg that allowed such high levels. The closest IMO comes Throne of Bhaal)

Mask of the Betrayer also had >20 levels but it felt out of place fighting lvl 20 forest animals, barbarians, assassins and the like. If the game was not continuation from original campaign (and the story would have worked just fine if it was made that a random adventurer recieved the curse albeit with minor modifications to it) i'm sure it would not need epic levels.

 

[uaciaut]

Yes I read it. You are a retard.

Pregenning ur entire party will be like BGII, where in it will not be the way the game is meant to be played. You will not gain as much xp and will misss out on the best quest, it will be the devs way of punishing you for not choosing their npcs with their unique stories and witty banter.

Not really, in BG2 you had to pate a multiplayer game and kind of "work around" the rules if you wanted to play an entirely-generated party of characters, P:E will have a feature called Adventurer's Hall that lets you create your entire party. Character-specific quests were flavour mostly and generally gave really small (especially relative to the ToB xp values) rewards so they were hardly something that obligated you to play with NPC's.

edit: man you guys are brutal when pointing out mistakes D:

Thanks! Do you know if they have opened up about the Paladin class? I recall they were thinking about making him a team player. I was hoping the pally to be a one on one fighter; i.e. the pally takes on the boss while the fighter takes on the minions.

Not sure if this is meant to be a jab at me >.>

If it isn't - i think Sawyer mentioned a bit about class specifics at one point (he basically mentioned vaguely one for almost each class in one of his updates). There were a few more details given on the forums and on his formspring as people asked him stuff. I saw more in-depth stuff about monks: he doesn't want to go with the traditional asian-like monk. Basically monks absorb stamina damage for a number of rounds and turn it into a sort of resource iirc and if they don't deal with it within a specific time all of that damage comes back and they behave much like a ticking bomb.

I believe he said something about palladins being weaker alone but doing better in parties as supportive-type of fighters (auras?).

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.formspring.me/GZiets

 

[Roguey]

The godlike woman looks more like an antelope than a hare.

 

[Infinitron]

The godlike woman looks more like an antelope than a hare.

 

[Murk]

Mask of the Betrayer also had >20 levels but it felt out of place fighting lvl 20 forest animals, barbarians, assassins and the like. If the game was not continuation from original campaign (and the story would have worked just fine if it was made that a random adventurer recieved the curse albeit with minor modifications to it) i'm sure it would not need epic levels.

I could see it going both ways -- you are wielding epic level powers in the form of the spirit-devouring, and you do have the option to devour gods and demigods, basically. Would be strange for a level 5 rogue to pull that off.

 

[taxalot]

Fallout is not hard ; it is much easier than New Vegas wit those GODDAMN FUCKING CASADORES.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.formspring.me/GZiets

 

[coffeetable]

 

[Roguey]

A sequel to BG is dumb and he's dumb for wanting to make one.

 

[Volrath]

I WANT TO BE A GOD!

 

[dnf]

A sequel to BG is dumb and he's dumb for wanting to make one.

He is dumb for wanting to make money? BG is really a safe bet among RPGs

 

[coffeetable]

ToB ties everything up pretty well, but I do like Ziet's ideas as to where to go next:

I’ve always thought that the struggles of a new FR deity could be pretty interesting. Think about what the Bhaalspawn would be up against: 1) few or no followers in a setting where a god requires worship to survive, 2) no divine portfolio to speak of, and 3) a fortress / headquarters that is still floating somewhere in the Abyss – not friendly territory, even for an evil PC.

Under those circumstances, I think a divine campaign would be a battle for survival. It’s suggested at the end of ToB that Cyric and his allies will be coming after you (whether the player is evil or not) because Cyric took over Bhaal’s divine portfolio. The player, as a nascent god, would be facing off against some powerful deities.

Terrible odds? Yes. But that’s great for a story hook.

Initially the player may just be staving off imminent disaster as Cyric and his friends move quickly against the player – several strong deities against a relatively weak one. I could imagine the player being forced to abandon the Throne of Bhaal and going on the run across the planes. The player’s goal would be to gain followers (faith=power), usurp the divine portfolio of another god, and carve out a base of power in the wider multiverse. Your journey could take you to some of the planes we’ve never visited in a CRPG – Mount Celestia, Limbo, and Mechanus, for example – as well as revisiting old favorites like Sigil, though seeing the City of Doors through the eyes of a minor deity could be a very different experience. In a divine-level planar campaign, the player might stir up a civil war on Mount Celestia, conquer a layer of the Abyss, or assemble an adventuring party of divine avatars. Ultimately you’d take back the Throne of Bhaal, smack down Cyric and his friends, and establish a place for yourself among the pantheon of gods.

Mechanically, it seems like a critical resource would be your divine power, which would rise with your number of followers (humans, divines, demons, or whatever), the extent of your notoriety and influence, and the importance of your divine portfolio. (The concept of divine rank could conceivably replace character level.) You’d create avatars to go adventuring in the various planes, so death wouldn’t force a reload. And as you travel the planes, you might learn ways to change or improve the traits of your avatar, or to create multiple avatars, each with different shapes and abilities, useful for different situations.

That’s just some quick brainstorming, but I think a divine-level BG3 could be a lot of fun, and the Bhaalspawn’s story could certainly go on if developers wanted to pursue it.

 

[Infinitron]

Our boy George seems a bit obsessed with the concept of epic high level divine campaigns.

 

[DraQ]

Mask of the Betrayer also had >20 levels but it felt out of place fighting lvl 20 forest animals, barbarians, assassins and the like. If the game was not continuation from original campaign (and the story would have worked just fine if it was made that a random adventurer recieved the curse albeit with minor modifications to it) i'm sure it would not need epic levels.

I could see it going both ways -- you are wielding epic level powers in the form of the spirit-devouring, and you do have the option to devour gods and demigods, basically. Would be strange for a level 5 rogue to pull that off.

The problem here is that... wait for it... you're thinking in terms of epic levels.

To reiterate that in more detail - you're thinking in terms of a continuous power curve that stretches from "I can stab a rat and emerge victorious 2 out of 3 times" to "I can stab gods, take whatever they dish out in return and emerge victorious 10 out of 10 times".
That's just shit and it causes stuff in all layers of your design to just break down and fold upon itself.
Seriously, it's just wrong and causes shitload of problems - mere mortals being able to take dozens of crossbow bolts through the sternum, hitting stuff for massive vs not so massive damage, encounters fluctuating wildly in terms of power because "durr challenge rating" and shit.

Pretty much the only kind of character for whom this kind of curve could be postulated is caster, but even then it's not curve you can reasonably traverse with a character over the course a game.
For all the other characters progression is very much bounded (at fairly low level too) and can be assumed asympthotic.
That's in terms of skill, in terms of stats like health or base attributes it can be assumed barely existent at best.

Anything beyond that must be a function of gear or special innate or acquired ability that doesn't just come as result of accumulating enough levels, but specific blessing, curse, being born a son of deity or something like that.

tl;dr
Epic levels are a superset of HP bloat and therefore shit.