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

[Excidium]

Doing better encounter design than BG2 is impossible. If he's able to pull that off then Sawyer's a genius and should get his cock sucked by all the doubters here on the Codex.

What the fuck.

 

[hoverdog]

Doing better encounter design than BG2 is impossible. If he's able to pull that off then Sawyer's a genius and should get his cock sucked by all the doubters here on the Codex.

What the fuck.

He's right.

 

[Excidium]

No he's not. Almost every encounter in BG2 consists of a seemingly random quantity of monsters spawned on the same spot. Except for the EPIC ENCOUNTERS BRO that consist of 4~6 thugs covering the 4 archetypes inside a 20x20 room, Dragons that don't fly and liches with contigency, time stop and insta death spells up their ass.

Anyone with a monstrous manual on their lap could do the same encounters if not better ones...

 

[uaciaut]

stuff

First of all, "things I like" are the things that come together to form my opinion on a game. For example, I don't like DAO because I don't like: "list of stuff". Or I like Fallout because I like: "list of stuff".
So it's perfectly relevant for me to refer back to "things I like" when I am speculating about whether I will like an upcoming game or not.

That's perfectly fine, but what you're arguing is that Sawyer doesn't like X stuff that you like and that's only relevant if he's implementing said X stuff into P:E. E.g. he's not implementing d&d 4 into the game so i don't give a shit that he likes it and you don't like that he likes it.

stuff

Second, the old argument "Mechanic X is not evil in itself, it's how it is implemented that counts." True. But. If I have 5 games and all five are bad and all have a list of common elements, then statistics dictate that those elements are probably the cause. Think of smoking causes cancer. They can't prove a direct link between smoking and cancer but the statistical proximity between the two events makes it very likely that smoking indeed may cause cancer. Now replace smoking with cooldowns and you will see what I mean.

Which game have you played that you deemed bad solely based on the fact that it used cooldowns? I can certainly think of none that were made or broken by that fact. Actually more times than not games are broken by extremely shitty story related aspects first of all and then dumbed down mechanics that aren't necessarily bad on their own but they're developed in such a way that there's a minimal challenge to the player and in that aspect cooldowns work better for making shit more simple for your average dumb joe.

The fact that they work better for a bad public in games that were bad for a big number of reasons doesn't make necessarily bad. Whether they will be interesting to implement or not depends on the overall duration of normal/trash fights and really long/boss fights and whether you SHOULD get to use ability X more than once in a long fight or not, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me (this is an isolated example of how i think cd's could make some sense if they were implemented).

stuff

Third, there are some half-valid points in that wall of text. I can't say agree but I accept the possibility that you may be right.

By all means, feel free to argue pro or against anything i've said, i'd much rather argue over shit that concerns P:E directly or over shit Sawyer said WILL be in P:E and how i perceive it or you perceive it rather than discuss what type of toilet paper Sawyer will be using next week.

 

[Volrath]

No he's not. Almost every encounter in BG2 consists of a seemingly random quantity of monsters spawned on the same spot. Except for the EPIC ENCOUNTERS BRO that consist of 4~6 thugs covering the 4 archetypes inside a 20x20 room, Dragons that don't fly and liches with contigency, time stop and insta death spells up their ass.

Anyone with a monstrous manual on their lap could do the same encounters if not better ones...

Which IE game had better encounters?

Maybe this is something for an other thread but which cRPGs have the best encounter design according to you?

 

[Lord Andre]

...

Look, if I were to explain in detail the leaps I take in my logic, I'd have to write a book. The brain works fast and makes countless connexions a second, so yes there are contrivances in my arguments. For simplicity's sake, let's just say that there are certain gameplay elements considered for implementation that cause me to worry, although I am aware that said worries are well...worries and the quality of the final game cannot yet be determined do to lack of information.

 

[Excidium]

No he's not. Almost every encounter in BG2 consists of a seemingly random quantity of monsters spawned on the same spot. Except for the EPIC ENCOUNTERS BRO that consist of 4~6 thugs covering the 4 archetypes inside a 20x20 room, Dragons that don't fly and liches with contigency, time stop and insta death spells up their ass.

Anyone with a monstrous manual on their lap could do the same encounters if not better ones...

Which IE game had better encounters?

BG2...But it benefits from already starting at mid-levels which gets you tougher opponents and more powerful spells to mess with. The merit of encounters in IE games goes to AD&D, with the large variety of monsters and spells.

Maybe this is something for an other thread but which cRPGs have the best encounter design according to you?

Hmm...I don't know. Encounter design has always been passable in CRPGs. There's more to encounter design than just spawning monsters, where the battle happens is just as important as what you are fighting. CRPG devs often forget that.

 

[Jvegi]

"Best" encounters: AoD of course. Fallout to some extent. Arcanum (although combat mechanics is bad). BG2. River of Time excepting the temple.

You're out of your damn monkey mind.
Arcanum... For fuck sake, how could you even type this shit?

 

[hoverdog]

"Best" encounters: AoD of course. Fallout to some extent. Arcanum (although combat mechanics is bad). BG2. River of Time excepting the temple.

 

[Broseph]

Just put the fucker on ignore and be done with it.

 

[Arkeus]

Well, i DID quite like River of time. We will not mention it had cooldowns though.

 

[imweasel]

Why wouldn't stamina regenerate outside of combat? What's the big fucking deal?

It is a deal because it is health that regenerates rapidly.

Doing better encounter design than BG2 is impossible. If he's able to pull that off then Sawyer's a genius and should get his cock sucked by all the doubters here on the Codex a $50 crack whore.

Fixed.

My treat Sawyer, you'd deserve it.

 

[Hormalakh]

FUCK ME. You guys are the fucking worst. 10 pages of straight shitposting. Seriously. The worst. I used to come here for news on RPGs not on who wants their dick sucked because they're the RPG Elite. How many of you fuckers are high schoolers vying for acceptance on these boards anyway?

God damn. seriously. can we mod this non-relevant shit out please? feel free to get rid of this post too if you want, but i'm tired of hearing about Josh Sawyer when it's not related to Project Eternity in any shape of form. We got it guys, he plays Skyrim. You're scared about his mechanics implementations. Can someone say something relevant please?

10 fucking pages...

edit: nevermind. Found the ignore button. can't take it anymore...

 

[Infinitron]

FUCK ME. You guys are the fucking worst. 10 pages of straight shitposting. Seriously. The worst. I used to come here for news on RPGs not on who wants their dick sucked because they're the RPG Elite. How many of you fuckers are high schoolers vying for acceptance on these boards anyway?

God damn. seriously. can we mod this non-relevant shit out please? feel free to get rid of this post too if you want, but i'm tired of hearing about Josh Sawyer when it's not related to Project Eternity in any shape of form. We got it guys, he plays Skyrim. You're scared about his mechanics implementations. Can someone say something relevant please?

10 fucking pages...

edit: nevermind. Found the ignore button. can't take it anymore...

Hormalakh is Ignoring...
#UsernamePosts
1 Captain Shrek 9,822
2 imweasel 248

 

[Cosmo]

indeed...

 

[AMG]

"Best" encounters: Arcanum

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Roguey]

Last few pages of this thread: SAWYERFEST '13

It's not terribly difficult to troll the Codex, and doing so in the same way for months on end paints someone as more of a pathetic imbecile than a clever puppetmaster.

Despite being a harsh criticizer, I'm easy to please.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd have thought that Divinity Original Sin has had more resources put into it than $ 4 m, that they have had plenty of creative freedom (if Swen's words about how they're making the game they've always wanted are to be believed), and that they never "proved" they can make a good turn-based game.

In the Kickstarter comments Vincke said both OS and DC cost less to make than Divinity 2, which was more than 8 million. It might be around 3 million or so?

Does anyone have the full quote and context of "Pretty much all games get it wrong"? Google doesn't turn up anything. Roguey?

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/53770-elegance-in-crpg-rulesets/

Hi Obsidian developers.

Most of us have now played Dragon Age and enjoyed it to varying degrees. For me it was great fun despite the ruleset not because of it. Quite an achievement if you think about it.

I'm not asking you to comment on DA whatsoever (unless you'd like to

) but if you were to make a similar game with an original IP then what principles would you follow? Would you choose to abandon classes? What other games have got it right and which have got it wrong?

Am interested in your thoughts.

Short answer: pretty much all games get it wrong IMO. I'll write up the long answer later.

Basically I think that most designers are overly concerned with what's come before when they sit down to write CRPG mechanics. When looking at mechanics that typically go into CRPGs, it's pretty hard to reverse-engineer a plan of intent. The conclusion I'm usually left with is that they wanted the system to "look like an RPG" on a UI screen. They have classes and stats and skills and skill/talent trees and a ton of derived stats when probably not all of that is necessary.

I believe that game designers, whether working in the RPG genre or otherwise, should establish what they want the player to be doing within the world. That is, they must ask themselves what they want the core activities of the player to be. Within those activities, the designer can find ways to allow growth over time in a variety of ways. How they want that growth to occur and what sort of choices they want to force the player to make -- that's what should drive the design of the advancement/RPG system.

Instead it usually seems like most designers sit down and say, "Well what are the ability scores going to be?"

RE: Moving units: Nobody cares enough about the advancement mechanics to make or break sales. Mass Effect and Oblivion both show that you can have extremely simple (from a player perspective) advancement mechanics and as long as people enjoy the core gameplay, the apparent simplicity/non-traditional nature of the mechanics doesn't matter.

 

[Excidium]

Basically I think that most designers are overly concerned with what's come before when they sit down to write CRPG mechanics. When looking at mechanics that typically go into CRPGs, it's pretty hard to reverse-engineer a plan of intent. The conclusion I'm usually left with is that they wanted the system to "look like an RPG" on a UI screen. They have classes and stats and skills and skill/talent trees and a ton of derived stats when probably not all of that is necessary.

I believe that game designers, whether working in the RPG genre or otherwise, should establish what they want the player to be doing within the world. That is, they must ask themselves what they want the core activities of the player to be. Within those activities, the designer can find ways to allow growth over time in a variety of ways. How they want that growth to occur and what sort of choices they want to force the player to make -- that's what should drive the design of the advancement/RPG system.

Instead it usually seems like most designers sit down and say, "Well what are the ability scores going to be?"

Look no further than Guido Henkel's Deathfire. Ability scores pulled from D&D, negative abilities from RoA, dumb skill selection...

 

[Roguey]

PS More Sawyer

also i don't care how pro anyone is, it's gonna be tough to balance 'daily' resources against 'encounter' resources, altho a no doubt lot easier for a crpg dev than a ttrpg dm

one of the advantages of a CRPG where the enemies are all computer controlled and there's no DM to adjudicate abuse is that imbalance becomes obvious really quickly (IMO).

ppl get rill mad at me when i talk about degenerate gameplay but it's not actually a criticism of them but of badly designed mechanics that encourage the player to do boring, path-of-least-resistance shit.

 

[Hormalakh]

Some tidbits from the OEI forums. A discussion about ethnicity/race. Answers from our lord and savior, the holy father, Josh Sawyer Peace Be Upon Him, etc etc.

Q: So I can't be a native, Glanfathan elf for example?​

A: No. The player can't be a native Glanfathan or Dyrwoodan. We want your character to be as unfamiliar with this area as the player is.

Q: Does this mean that Aumaua are limited to large, salt-water, aquatic origins (sea/ocean)?

A: Aumaua aren't amphibious, just semiaquatic. They can live anywhere other races can live, though they are usually most comfortable living near water.
------
In another response:
Wood elves make up almost half of the population of Aedyr and orlans are also found near savannah folk, north of Readceras (which is north of the Dyrwood).

Even the elves and orlans in Eír Glanfath migrated to the area within the past two thousand years; they don't have any apparent connection to the original residents and builders of the ancient structures.

Q: Thanks for the info on the ethnicities. Josh you live in California and you have no East Asian or Middle Eastern/Persians or Southeast Asians in your ethnicities for the humans?! For shame...

Edit: I understand the difference between the cultures/physical attributes distinction. I'm just interested in knowing which humans have specific physical attributes like epicanthal folds, rosy red cheeks, e.g. human's (and other races) physiological adaptation to geographical limits.

http://en.wikipedia....gent_properties

A: Ethnicity and culture are separate characteristics in the game. Individual meadow folk can be from the Vailian Republics just as coastal aumaua can be from Aedyr. The common-name descriptions of ethnicities don't restrict where they can be from. Literally every ethnicity in our race document has a bit-by-bit description of what physical characteristics they have, including facial features, skin tones, hair colors (and textures), eye colors (and shapes), etc. E.g., only savannah folk, pale elves, and boreal dwarves have epicanthic folds. Of those, only boreal dwarves have them consistently.

Q: Right, i understood that. i don't assume that ethnicities are equivalent to cultures. i think this is a step in the right direction (more anthropological in its description) and so that is why my question is "are these three human (i'm sticking to human for now) ethnicities limited only because of outside resource management, or are these three ethnicities the only ones that exist in the PE world?" You don't need/have to have everything described/flesh out in the first game but has this consideration been made?

not to belabor the point (sorry!) but here are a few good wiki articles on the topic. this is obviously an anthropological subject of study and has been heavily studied for many years. from what i've gathered (and I am by no means an expert), anthropologists have always gotten it wrong (and probably continue to do so). but the main idea is that many of the main differences in physiological traits we see between humans (black skin, epicanthal folds, deep rosy cheeks, etc) are due to evolutionary adaptations over thousands of years. however, we continue to categorize people based on very varying physical traits and sometimes these things are not as clear cut (nature rarely has absolutes) as we sometimes make them out to be.

http://en.wikipedia...._and_biometrics
http://en.wikipedia....oloid#Criticism

A: They are the only ethnicities known of in this part of the world.

I'm still really not sure what you're looking for here.

Q: Ultimately, does the ethnicity choice that I, as a player make, limit the, for example, skin tones I can choose for my PC? Can i toggle epicanthal folds, other physiological traits and still be a certain ethnicity?

an example: can my oceanic dude have white skin tone with nappy hair or can my savannah dude be black (i've also seen this)? it's rare, but it happens! Bless America with its crazy mixture of people...

A: We have not even started to figure out the total number of permutations of skin/eye/hair tones, hair styles, etc. We are not going to offer "eye shape" customization because you're never going to see the character in enough detail for that to matter. Those systems are extremely expensive to implement.
Well, one way or another, we will not have literally infinite combinations. There's always going to be a practical limit to what we can implement. Portraits will be more limiting in that regard than character models, though you can always override the portrait.

 

[kazgar]

Holy smokes, information about the game! Are you sure you're on the right thread Hormalakh ?

 

[Hormalakh]

i'd brofist you kazgar but i'm still a newfag.

 

[Delterius]

Some tidbits from the OEI forums. A discussion about ethnicity/race. Answers from our lord and savior, the holy father, Josh Sawyer Peace Be Upon Him, etc etc.

He was scarred by it, so yes, Hormalakh is on the right thread.

 

[Blaine]

Holy smokes, information about the game! Are you sure you're on the right thread Hormalakh ?

I'm shocked we haven't yet turned on each other like a pack of starving dogs to tear each others' throats out over these new scraps of genuine information. Guess they aren't controversial enough

Who wants to exchange vitriol with me regarding our differing opinions on top-of-pack inventory mechanics? I'm game.

 

[Infinitron]

Reminds me of the black guys on BSN who were pissed that their parents didn't look like their character when creating a Human Noble in DA:O.