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

[tuluse]

Sawyer hasn't said anything about about costing stamina, and that would not make sense considering armor it's there to protect stamina. It does lower attack speed though.

 

[Infinitron]

The only thing that will reduce stamina in PE is taking damage from something, AFAIK.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Well, i think Arcane Veil protects them getting interrupted while armor help to mitigate damage or armor can be taxing stamina thus making spells cost more. this is my %100 speculation though, Arcane Veil could be a simple Wizard Armor or shield spell.

Stamina = Regenerating life. It used to regen during battle in early concepts and now does so outside the battles only.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

High velocity. Wizard Veil cannot react fast enough
Wizards can wear armor. Even full plate.

Reverse Holzmann shielding? Cool. The world would be better off if more rpgs were Herbertesque instead of Tolkienesque.

 

[DraQ]

High velocity. Wizard Veil cannot react fast enough
Wizards can wear armor. Even full plate.

Reverse Holzmann shielding? Cool. The world would be better off if more rpgs were Herbertesque instead of Tolkienesque.

Suddenly Brian.

 

[Kirtai]

Well, yes. Obviously


But what I meant was that any random person with a decent rifle, shooting skill and patience can be an utterly deadly threat to a mage vastly more powerful than they are.

That isn't much of a change from bow or good crossbow.

Or just getting hired as help and putting something in the tea.

True for primitive firearms but they have a lot of room to grow (e.g.compare a flintlock with a modern sniper or anti-materiel rifle) while there's not nearly the difference between modern and primitive bows or crossbows.

 

[Roguey]

Sawyer hasn't said anything about about costing stamina, and that would not make sense considering armor it's there to protect stamina. It does lower attack speed though.

Armor lowers the speed of all combat actions (but not movement), not just attacking. A mage wearing heavy armor will take longer to cast spells.

More Sawyer stuff from SA:

Most of what we've developed so far are working concepts, not "marketing" concepts. In the time that it took Polina to fully develop and render out the godlike character (over a week), she could have knocked out a bunch of more basic concepts. We've released those in the past and said, "These are works in progress" or "These are working concepts" and people still react negatively to them. Even the cave piece, which is another working concept, has been criticized for looking cartoonish. Environment artists know how to build rocks and generate rock textures. It's a waste of the concept artist's time to fully render out things like that, so we don't have them render to that level of detail unless it's really called for.

Wasteland 2 all over again. Except the cave looks good and that desert didn't.

I prefer to avoid true labyrinths/long dead end corridors in favor of loops -- even if those loops take you down or up levels. We haven't talked much about the specifics of fog of war implementation, but we will have it. The feeling of discovery during exploration is hindered without it.

We're having multiple saving throw types? Oh lawd!

They're defenses, more like 4E, where the attacker is always trying to meet or exceed the target number. I.e., the defender does not roll to defend, the attacker always rolls to hit, regardless of what form the attack takes. "Def" is "Deflection", used to oppose targeted physical attacks that can be blocked.
...
There are targeted physical attacks that oppose other defenses. For example, a weapon made of flame (i.e. no solid material) would be opposed by Reflexes instead of Deflection. An attack that is meant to knock a target down with sheer force would be opposed by Fortitude. In general, we want characters of all classes to have a variety of attacks that can target different defenses.

That sounds pretty ace and sounds like it should keep front line fighters a bit more interesting to manage. How much testing of that system have you guys done and at what point do you go "Right, this is what we're going to implement"?

It's the system we're currently using. The basics of it are pretty simple. Most of what we have to monitor is how defenses scale as characters and critters gain levels, equipment, abilities, talents, etc. One thing we're doing that is unlike D&D is advancing defenses uniformly every level for every class. If you advance a level and Deflection increases by 2 points, so will the other three defenses, regardless of what your class is. In this way, character classes retain their same base differences between defenses from 1st level to 15th and beyond. In pre-4E D&D (especially), saving throw differences were proportional rather than absolute, so as levels rose, the gap between good and bad saves got larger. Additionally, a character's ability scores generally complemented the good saves, widening the gap. E.g. rogues have a "good" Reflex save bonus and bad Fort/Will. Rogues also tend to have high Dex and don't usually have high Con or Wis. This means that the good saves get better and the bad saves stay the same. When save DCs need to be challenging for characters with "good" saves, this means that high level characters can be stuck in trivial/impossible save situations based on what save type is being attacked. A 16th level rogue making a Reflex save will probably laugh off the results easily (especially if Evasion is in play), but a Fort or Will save at a similar DC could be extremely difficult to make -- with really bad consequences.

So elegant.

 

[Murk]

I want to know more about this absolute increase in defensive stats. The idea that rogues have bad fort/will saves is not bad, but if he's arguing the scale of the gap is too much, then I can understand that. But if the argument is that high level characters should have universally good defenses across/between classes, then I am against it.

 

[Roguey]

I want to know more about this absolute increase in defensive stats. The idea that rogues have bad fort/will saves is not bad, but if he's arguing the scale of the gap is too much, then I can understand that. But if the argument is that high level characters should have universally good defenses across/between classes, then I am against it.

The rogue still has weak fort/will saves, but unlike 3.5 D&D they still have a chance of actually making those throws. It's a treadmill when faced against opponents of equal level.

 

[Murk]

Ok, so the former -- he's saying the gap is ridiculously large and should be made reasonable, but still exist. That's fine, at least, the description is.

 

[Infinitron]

He's basically making the classes less specialized in terms of saving throws.

I imagine the original D&D concept was that every class should start out as kind of an everyman in certain aspects (such as saving throws) but grow increasingly specialized as it rises in level.

This system maintains some of that "everyman-ness" even at higher levels.

 

[tuluse]

The saving throw comparison doesn't work that well because these are different categories of AC.

 

[Roguey]

Looks like "going dark" doesn't mean not posting a lot of info on his favorite board.

All classes have class abilities. After first level, wizards' class abilities are access to spells, period. Fighters (and other melee-oriented classes) have access to their own class abilities. Whether they are literally magical in nature or not, they will in many cases be more powerful than a comparable spell gained at the same level. The ultimate advantage of wizards is flexibility. They can potentially learn all spells available to wizards and at any given time are only limited by what's in their current grimoire. If a wizard gains access to a spell at X level that does 20-50 damage to all targets at close range in a 10' radius, a comparable paladin melee AoE damage attack gained at X level will do significantly more damage and likely with a higher Accuracy.

It's unlikely that we'll actually do directly comparable abilities like that, but the point is that spellcasters (especially wizards) are not intended to be the only characters who have active use abilities. Though they will have the most potential abilities available to them at any given time, they will also require the most management to get the most out of them.

Yeah, already knew this, but it's good to have it reaffirmed.

 

[DraQ]

True for primitive firearms but they have a lot of room to grow (e.g.compare a flintlock with a modern sniper or anti-materiel rifle) while there's not nearly the difference between modern and primitive bows or crossbows.

Well, yeah, but modern sniper rifle will kill non-mages just as effectively and, like I said, magic is not just making exploshions with your mind.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I would love for them to use the Arcanum concept of Magic influencing the workings of complex mechanical objects, would go a ways to balance rifles in a medieval world setting.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/18/eurogamer-rock-paper-shotguns-rezzed-is-back/

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/18/rez...s-avellone-to-debut-project-eternity-at-show/

"Live Project Eternity showcase"? What is that, a demo?

Their prototype should be ready far before June. Could the "Vertical Slice" be ready too?

 

[Kirtai]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/18/rez...s-avellone-to-debut-project-eternity-at-show/

"Live Project Eternity showcase"? What is that, a demo?

Their prototype should be ready far before June. Could the "Vertical Slice" be ready too?

I hope that if he going to be playing it in front of people that there's no wolves in it.

 

[Arkeus]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/18/rez...s-avellone-to-debut-project-eternity-at-show/

"Live Project Eternity showcase"? What is that, a demo?

Their prototype should be ready far before June. Could the "Vertical Slice" be ready too?

I hope that if he going to be playing it in front of people that there's no wolves in it.

 

[DraQ]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/18/rez...s-avellone-to-debut-project-eternity-at-show/

"Live Project Eternity showcase"? What is that, a demo?

Their prototype should be ready far before June. Could the "Vertical Slice" be ready too?

I hope that if he going to be playing it in front of people that there's no wolves in it.

Bwuh?

 

[Jaesun]

I wonder what the hell they will be able to showcase? (Alpha) combat? Exploration? Character creation?

 

[Cyberarmy]

I wonder what the hell they will be able to showcase? (Alpha) combat? Exploration? Character creation?

An animating waterfall?

 

[Grunker]

I prefer to avoid true labyrinths/long dead end corridors

:/

The rest sounds cool. Defenses was one of the things 4E did very good. Sad thing that D&D Next isn't copying that system.

 

[Kirtai]

I hope that if he going to be playing it in front of people that there's no wolves in it.

Bwuh?

Did you watch his Arcanum playthrough?

 

[coffeetable]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/18/rez...s-avellone-to-debut-project-eternity-at-show/

"Live Project Eternity showcase"? What is that, a demo?

Their prototype should be ready far before June. Could the "Vertical Slice" be ready too?

A vertical slice is basically a single complete area. Its value stems from the fact that if you can get one area working, then you know there're no roadblocks and can likely get every other area working too. It's also the period of development where you set up your pipelines and estimate just how many areas you're going to be able to turn out before launch.

So a fully-functional demo pretty much requires the vertical slice be finished, though by June they should be into production and there might be areas other than the vertical slice available to show.