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

[tuluse]

Is all about GM & Players style. Say you've planned and entire quest line, but instead of helping the Paladin save his friends, they decide to kill him, ask for a reward from the Dark (Under)Lord and then masscrate the village in tribute. Should they not get Xp and stuffies from doing those things? "No", says the man at Obsidian, "only my premade quest and ideas should reward players"! I know games have their resource limitations, but I'm not asking for this new plot, just that killing the Paladin is interesting and rewards my effort/idea. Probably huge quest will have this outcome, but I like to be able to do it at any point in the game, with anything... if not the items & subplots, at least some goddamn XP for killing a paladin, ffs.

And games like Baldur's Gate allowed both playstyles, you could follow quest happily and Mr. Designer would be very pleased, or you could go on a rampage and kill everything and still get interesting things and no one would shout "you're playing it WRONG!" Long story short, Sawyer would ban me of his P&P game before I've even made the character sheet.

Your example is shit. If the designers thought enough ahead to let you ask the Dark Lord for a reward, they're going to give XP for defeating the paladin.

 

[Infinitron]

In fact his design philosophy does not really differ so much from the philosphy adopted by the designers of BG2.

This is what BG2 did if you tried to kill a plot-critical character.

 

[felipepepe]

Except that you would be rewarded for killing the paladin and destroying the village.

Not if killing doesn't award XP and the whole let's help the overlord thing wasn't implemented as a valid quest. Killing thousands 0xp peasants gives me nothing.

What you would NOT be, however, is killing the paladin, destroying the village, and then wanting to get double the exp by killing the overlord.

On a P&P game that would be tottaly valid, and very fun, but would have insanely bad consequences that the GM would unleash upon players. And that's a thing, why is so bad for people to be assholes and try to get more XP? Add consequences, FFS. Could be as cheap as a deity killing you if you're to much of an asshole, like in PS:T, but let me do it! Munchkins will munchkin, but warping your design assuming that everyone is a muchking is not only paranoic, but also shows a massive lack of confidence on his own writting & design skills, as if you're game is so bad and unninteresting that everyone will prefer breaking it than paying it "the right way".

Only very shitty games like Fallout 3 had me killing everyone on the first playthrough (at least who I could), completly bored with the game and it's lack of charm...

>implying that annihilating every living being was actually a viable and rewarding way of playing Baldur's Gate

If you "pull a Skyrim" on it and forgo the main quest (and the game has enough content for you to do that), yes it is, and is very satisfying as well. Korgan always look so pleased.

 

[villain of the story]

Because Project Eternity is all about bending the roles of each class, so you can play how you want, resolve conflicts how you want and solve problems how you want.

If you want rigid class roles goback2DragonAge2 or whatever.

I'm really digging those fancy darkies and that kufi-wearing whitey. Meanwhile, the Dyrwood folk are all boring and brown, as expected. European forest dwelling losers.

Defined class roles allow for parties where each member has a distinct role to play in combat thereby forcing the player to use each member in a specific way. This encourages thinking and planning, in other words TAKKKTIKS. I didn't play assfuck age 2 past the shitty demo so I don't know anything about it.

You are so stuck in 80s. JA series say hi from the 90s.

 

[tuluse]

Nothing is stopping you from killing everyone, in fact I bet there are less restrictions on who you can kill than any current gen Bethesda game.

 

[Infinitron]

Nothing is stopping you from killing everyone, in fact I bet there are less restrictions on who you can kill than any current gen Bethesda game.

felipepepe has a situation in mind here where the game designer just "gives up" and stops providing scripted consequences for your killing, thus leaving experience points as your only possible reward for doing so.

Thing is, at that point, you've pretty much "broken" the game (or at least that area of the game) so why even go on?

The Wasteland 2 guys talked about this - they tried to provide as many interesting consequences as possible for mass murder, but conceded that at a certain point your game would basically be over. And if your game is over, why do you even need experience points?

 

[Mrowak]

In fact his design philosophy does not really differ so much from the philosphy adopted by the designers of BG2.

This is what BG2 did if you tried to kill a plot-critical character.

True. So, well... It isn't much different.

 

[felipepepe]

felipepepe has a situation in mind here where the game designer just "gives up" and stops providing scripted consequences for your killing, thus leaving experience points as your only possible reward for doing so.

But I'm not asking for thousands of scriped consequences... just the same old tried ones. Is a system that works very well on various games, like Arcanum or Fallout; kill people, get XP/gold/items but there are consequences. And the consequences are very simple, bountyhunters, bad karma, NPCS don't speak with you... nothing groundbreaking, and yes, it limits your playthrough and each time reduces what you can do more and more, until there is nothing to be done but kill every single person in the game and that's it. I have no problem with that, I know I'm "breaking" the game, the fun is seeing how far can you go.

But unless you're saying that Sawyer will make a ton of sub-quests, rewards and consequences for my murderous spree instead of just plain giving me XP, then he IS giving up before even starting and just removing a part of the game I like for no reason besides him disliking it. Killing a lone woodcutter and getting 10xp is ok, killing it and getting a whole sub-quest on how he was a retired warrior is awesome, killing him and *nothing* is just lazy.

 

[Broseph]

This thread:

 

[Infinitron]

felipepepe has a situation in mind here where the game designer just "gives up" and stops providing scripted consequences for your killing, thus leaving experience points as your only possible reward for doing so.

But I'm not asking for thousands of scriped consequences... just the same old tried ones. Is a system that works very well on various games, like Arcanum or Fallout; kill people, get XP/gold/items but there are consequences. And the consequences are very simple, bountyhunters, bad karma, NPCS don't speak with you... nothing groundbreaking, and yes, it limits your playthrough and each time reduces what you can do more and more, until there is nothing to be done but kill every single person in the game and that's it. I have no problem with that, I know I'm "breaking" the game, the fun is seeing how far can you go.

Fine, then do it without getting XP. I like going on killing sprees in Deus Ex and seeing what will happen. I get no XP there.

killing him and *nothing* is just lazy.

Lazy? Giving you an XP reward for killing somebody isn't something that requires designer effort. You can mod it in yourself if it bothers you so much. (Judging from the noise on these forums, you might expect a full-blown AD&D Rules total conversion mod for PE soon after its release, although I doubt this will actually happen.)

 

[Mrowak]

felipepepe has a situation in mind here where the game designer just "gives up" and stops providing scripted consequences for your killing, thus leaving experience points as your only possible reward for doing so.

But I'm not asking for thousands of scriped consequences... just the same old tried ones. Is a system that works very well on various games, like Arcanum or Fallout; kill people, get XP/gold/items but there are consequences. And the consequences are very simple, bountyhunters, bad karma, NPCS don't speak with you... nothing groundbreaking, and yes, it limits your playthrough and each time reduces what you can do more and more, until there is nothing to be done but kill every single person in the game and that's it. I have no problem with that, I know I'm "breaking" the game, the fun is seeing how far can you go.

Nothing stops you from doing so even if you remove XP from the equation.

But unless you're saying that Sawyer will make a ton of sub-quests, rewards and consequences for my murderous spree instead of just plain giving me XP, then he IS giving up before even starting and just removing a part of the game I like for no reason besides him disliking it. Killing a lone woodcutter and getting 10xp is ok, killing it and getting a whole sub-quest on how he was a retired warrior is awesome, killing him and *nothing* is just lazy.

Actually I would argue that rewarding XP for killing stuff is lazy whereas creating the entire background around that takes a lot of effort.

Let's face it: providing xp with monster grind has always been the most lazy way of mirroring character progression. I'd dare say it actually is mark of bad game design to provide XP in such way - let's face it: games that mainly rely on that are pretty boring combatwise.

 

[villain of the story]

So, what exactly would be the benefits and drawbacks of picking one weapon group over the other? A warm feeling of successfully larping a peasant by using pitchforks and sickle?

Ideally, it would work somewhat realistically eg. edged fighting is useless against mail and plate which require crossbows or firearms or specialised weapons like crushing weapons, certain polearms and stabbing and thrusting weapons like estoc or certain daggers, aimed at causing trauma or penetrating seams and splitting mail links.

That kind of diversity would especially benefit PE as the setting hosts various RL analogue cultures at different technological stages.

 

[villain of the story]

All three damage types are covered by any given weapon group. You'd choose one group over another for the unique properties of the weapons covered.

What unique properties does weapons have if all of them cover all damage types?

 

[Lilura]

Inbetween my enduring Storm of Zehir runs I had a dalliance with Hex Coda 01, a rather monocled C&C module for NWN1.

HC didn't dish out xp for killing things unless it would directly solve a quest. Like you can solve a quest to get an item by killing the guy, you get 500xp. Or if you bluff the guy out of the item in dialogue, you get 500xp. If you bluff and then kill, no, you don't get 1000xp. What this says is: Hello? You HAVE the item and the quest is DONE, douche. No milking xp here, go get your reward and feel the consequences of your choices.

Not saying the system is perfect, maybe killing a tough enemy should yield something ontop, but it eliminates hack n slash xp farming mindset, zeroes in on the role-playing aspects and lets you know there are different ways to do things and they're more or less equally viable, a rare art in cRPGs.

 

[Volrath]

felipepepe has a situation in mind here where the game designer just "gives up" and stops providing scripted consequences for your killing, thus leaving experience points as your only possible reward for doing so.

But I'm not asking for thousands of scriped consequences... just the same old tried ones. Is a system that works very well on various games, like Arcanum or Fallout; kill people, get XP/gold/items but there are consequences. And the consequences are very simple, bountyhunters, bad karma, NPCS don't speak with you... nothing groundbreaking, and yes, it limits your playthrough and each time reduces what you can do more and more, until there is nothing to be done but kill every single person in the game and that's it. I have no problem with that, I know I'm "breaking" the game, the fun is seeing how far can you go.

Nothing stops you from doing so even if you remove XP from the equation.

Seriously this. What's the problem?

 

[Infinitron]

Why is VotS brofisting a bunch of pro-PE posts ITT?

 

[sea]

Is all about GM & Players style. Say you've planned and entire quest line, but instead of helping the Paladin save his friends, they decide to kill him, ask for a reward from the Dark (Under)Lord and then masscrate the village in tribute. Should they not get Xp and stuffies from doing those things? "No", says the man at Obsidian, "only my premade quest and ideas should reward players"! I know games have their resource limitations, but I'm not asking for this new plot, just that killing the Paladin is interesting and rewards my effort/idea. Probably huge quest will have this outcome, but I like to be able to do it at any point in the game, with anything... if not the items & subplots, at least some goddamn XP for killing a paladin, ffs.

And games like Baldur's Gate allowed both playstyles, you could follow quest happily and Mr. Designer would be very pleased, or you could go on a rampage and kill everything and still get interesting things and no one would shout "you're playing it WRONG!" Long story short, Sawyer would ban me of his P&P game before I've even made the character sheet.

1. Who says players can't get loot and other stuff if they kill people freely?
2. Why do you treat XP as the only valid reward for going off the rails?
3. Baldur's Gate doesn't really allow "both" play-styles. At best it lets you kill an NPC and break a quest or location. Same with Fallout. None of that is in any way contingent on giving XP for kills.
4. Your equating killing everything with an alternate play-style is very limited. What about non-combat gameplay? Are you proposing that if someone plays outside the pre-designed quests, their only option should be senseless slaughter?
5. If you can give the evil overlord the paladin's head in tribute, or destroy the village for him, that is called a quest, because a designer would have to pre-script and write all of that. Which means that under such a goal-based XP system, you'd most likely get your XP reward. So... why did you even bring this example up if it makes absolutely no sense?

 

[General Maxson]

I know I'll sound like a heretic, but I actually think baldur's gate isn't a great crpg in the crpg sense, combat, character creation, c&c are lacking (IMO), but sense of a party going on an adventure is strong, nicely made, and I will be a very happy man if PE improves lackluster stuff and continues to build on the good stuff.

 

[Infinitron]

I know I'll sound like a heretic, but I actually think baldur's gate isn't a great crpg in the crpg sense, combat, character creation, c&c are lacking (IMO), but sense of a party going on an adventure is strong, nicely made, and I will be a very happy man if PE improves lackluster stuff and continues to build on the good stuff.

That is actually the classic Codex point of view. Baldur's Gate fans are the Codex's heretics.

 

[Lilura]

Going on a massacre in BG series is Chaotic Stupid and yields very little in the way of loot+xp. Unless you truly think that's role-playing a certain type, the only other reason I can think of for doing it is to lower your REP so you get a challenging, high-level encounter with the authorities that you can eventually fight off.

 

[tindrli]

i just want them to hurry up and release the damn game

 

[Brayko]

http://www.obsidian.net/component/poll/28-poll-pe-whichgame

ToEE in last place behind Call of Duty

 

[Mrowak]

http://www.obsidian.net/component/poll/28-poll-pe-whichgame

ToEE in last place behind Call of Duty

Well... ToEE wasn't that great. It had a good implementation of the D&D ruleset, but little beyond that. The encounter design bad, especially in the later part of the game and all those bugs. It wasn't very awe-inspiring experience.

 

[Blaine]

Out of all the idiocy you've ever spewed, this bag of hyperbole-filled goodness is the worst. The amount of tension in your butt for this man clouds your ability to argue coherently, and it's pretty obvious.

It has very little to do with "butt tension" for Josh. Admittedly, the hyperbole (combined with regular jabs at Roguey) may make it seem otherwise... look, sometimes I get in weird moods. Overall, I don't have a problem with the man. I do take issue with his "balance everything" and "fix all the 'mistakes' of my predecessors" approaches to designing P:E, and that's been true for months. Nothing's changed in that regard.

I'd planned to elaborate, but the forum experienced a service outage when I clicked Reply, and then I left. Fortunately, I have an extension that autosaves what I type.

Will the "Irish cat-midget"(?!)

Will every FAQ for the game that shows up on GameFAQs say "This class sucks, never choose it"?

Depends on whether combat performance is the one and only yardstick. Gandalf certainly didn't bring Bilbo along expecting him to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the dwarves.

I mentioned much earlier in this thread that I thought it was okay for a particular class (rogue-types, say) to have a lot of general utility or other speciality, but mediocre combat performance during a pitched battle—compared to, say, a fighter who has almost no utility at all outside of combat. That's pretty much what I'm talking about here. Quest for Glory was that way, sort of: Fighters had a MUCH easier time in direct combat than Thieves. Older D&D was similar, I think, though I barely remember.

The idea of the badass, enemy-lawnmower rogue is, to me, emblematic and/or symptomatic of a World of Warcraft-esque school of thought. As is toning down wizards to be "as appealing" as a fighter, rogue, or something else, though admittedly even old D&D did that.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh, that guy.

I mentioned much earlier in this thread that I thought it was okay for a particular class (rogue-types, say) to have a lot of general utility or other speciality, but mediocre combat performance during a pitched battle—compared to, say, a fighter who has almost no utility at all outside of combat. That's pretty much what I'm talking about here. Quest for Glory was that way: Fighters had a MUCH easier time in direct combat than Thieves. Older D&D was similar, I think, though I barely remember.

I doubt PE Rogues will be as mediocre in combat as they were in AD&D, but I guess they won't exactly be DPS machines either. Although you might be able to optionally develop them to be something approximating a DPS machine.

We actually don't know that much about PE's concept of a Rogue. Might be worth asking.