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

[Alex]

Image on center monitor -- is that from PE?

vs http://instagram.com/p/Zb6QhBJx_X/

That hand-drawn image looks pretty beautiful, like something from the Adventure games of old.

...

I know this is a bit beyond the scope of the whole idea, but I kinda wish they had used images like that instead of 3d...

 

[Alex]

Yeah that was a weak argument, but I still don't like it. I don't see what's gained from hauling back 26 longswords that sell for 1 gold a piece.

I agree that it's silly, but you know, if people are gonna spend time doing that, you might as well make it as painless as possible. Hopefully the game is balanced such that you don't have to pick up everything to make a living.

Personally, I'm surprised that more people aren't pissed that the game doesn't have per-character inventories.

Aren't the quickslots thing you mentioned earlier the character specific inventory?

 

[Infinitron]

Aren't the quickslots thing you mentioned earlier the character specific inventory?

Yeah, but I mean the regular inventory. Icewind Dale had quickslots too so it's not analogous.

 

[tuluse]

Yeah that was a weak argument, but I still don't like it. I don't see what's gained from hauling back 26 longswords that sell for 1 gold a piece.

I agree that it's silly, but you know, if people are gonna spend time doing that, you might as well make it as painless as possible. Hopefully the game is balanced such that you don't have to pick up everything to make a living.

Personally, I'm surprised that more people aren't pissed that the game doesn't have per-character inventories.

Aren't the quickslots thing you mentioned earlier the character specific inventory?

Yeah I was under the impression that each character would carry their own consumables and a few weapons.

I think the top of pack idea is really good personally. It's abstracting the fact that in combat you're probably going to drop your 50lbs backpack to start fighting, and out of combat there is no reason you can't spend time to find what you want so there is no reason to make the player sort through everything.

 

[DraQ]

It's a lazy approach, he "broke a rule" instead of adressing it's consequences. If the system encourages me to kill everything just for meager 10xp, he should provide me a reason not to do it, add some weight to my decisions, not just remove rewards from what I shound't do.

Is like adding a heavily guarded bank to the game and leave the coffers empty, because you're not supposed to be rewarded from robbing it. Now I won't steal the game because I know it's empty, not because I don't want to or fear the consequences. Lazy and entitled as fuck.

Now instead of killing an NPC and facing the consequences, people will kill them and reload since they didn't gain nothing from it. This is dumbing down and streamlining a game to fit the creator's idea of "playing it right", nothing else.

This post is all the proof one could ever need that traditional XP based sytems with kill XP and whatnot fucking dissolve their players' brains.

It's not removing rewards. It's not including artificial and abstract rewards for doing pointless shit and, as a consequence, not having to work around derpy metagaming driven by derpy design by piling even more fucking cruft.

It's not as if J.Sawyer secretly hollowed all the NPCs and creatures out in very sinister manner, keeping all the precious XPs for himself, because do you know what falls out of fucking person, random bear or whatever once you stab them dead?
Not XPs.
Guts.
If you have no use of a pile of bloody, stinking guts, then why do the fucking stabbing in the first place?

Seriously, your complaints make you sound like a brain damaged person.

I think You are approaching it from the wrong angle. Awarding XP for killing is a retarded legacy mechanic that should have been thrown out the window years ago. It has been copied from D&D to everything and we are so accustomed to it that it feels natural, but it really does not make any sense.

However, I am not saying that awarding XP for defeating enemies is wrong, especially if that defeating serves a purpose (like completing a quest).

But if defeating a fearsome guardian of some sort is worthy of XP, then surely so is bypassing this guardian by stealth or whatever creative means player may devise.
It also makes no sense, both in terms of logic and player motivation to dole out XPs multiple times for the same guardian.

So what makes more sense:
-trying to forsee every posible solution and script XP rewards, failing, scripting abuse prevention and all that shit in order to keep combat XP and stealth XP and lure-powerful-monster-into-dungeon-to-make-them-fight-guardian-XP and so on.
-assigning XP reward ONCE, when taking the loot, and leaving actual solution as an exercise to the player

?

Your problem is that you think of game design in terms of "let's define some rules that make sense theoretically, and let the game emerge organically from those rules".

That is a sandbox game design philosophy which neither Obsidian nor Bioware have ever championed.

And XPs, being highly abstract and contextual have never been a rightful part of sandbox philosophy in the first place.

XP isn't the only way a game can reward you. Even if there was no way to go outside the "level band", which I doubt will be the case, there will be other things to do in the game world.

Seriously, was there any shortage of fun stuff, challenges and exploits to do in Deus fucking Ex?

OMG DEUS EX HAD NO KILL XP HEAVILY SCRIPTED CONSOLETARD STREAMLINING DECLINE

They fixed that in DX:HR.

With hacking XP too.

 

[Kirtai]

I dislike kill XP since it tends to make you view absolutely every single living thing in a game as a profitable target to kill. I'd rather have a more nuanced system where outmanoeuvring or other alternatives are equally valid.

BTW, DraQ

It's not as if J.Sawyer secretly hollowed all the NPCs and creatures out in very sinister manner, keeping all the precious XPs for himself

This is the most entertaining mental image I've encountered all day. I can just imagine Sawyer sneaking up on hapless NPCs with a coring knife, emptying them out and stuffing the hollow shells with straw.

 

[Murk]

Ahh yes I recall playing Bloodlines and never-metagaming there with the training manuals.

Oh wait, yes I do.

Get the manual -- sell it to the store so you can buy unlimited copies, pad your skills, then only put points it when the manual reached its limit -- or vice versa -- put a few points then pad it with the manual (depending on the cut off and requirement of the manual itself).

 

[DraQ]

Alex, you seem to be arguing a lot about how you like Kill XP, and very little about the issue it causes. How do we reward all play-styles equally in your opinion, if Kill XP stays?

Put enough XP for the other uses?

And how do you forsee all the other solutions to a quest, especially, if there is rich mechanics that player may use creatively in place?

The problem with solution dependent XP (superset of kill XP) is that it's prone to breakage, requires tons of work to prevent abuse, and revolves around boxed-in solutions.
If you dole out XP for goals and goals alone, you automatically reward all possible solutions - foreseen and unforeseen - remove abuse and pathological gameplay, and accomplish all that by just placing a single trigger with value attached to it.

 

[Grunker]

^ Because God forbid the player should have the freedom to tackle obstacles as he wants to, amirite? Also I love how this

it's prone to breakage, requires tons of work to prevent abuse, and revolves around boxed-in solutions.

needs no explanation, it can just stand alone - because you say so, rite?

Inb4 you re-suggest your magical Use-XP solution that would solve all problems yet no one has thought of yet but you.

 

[Grunker]

Ahh yes I recall playing Bloodlines and never-metagaming there with the training manuals.

Oh wait, yes I do.

Get the manual -- sell it to the store so you can buy unlimited copies, pad your skills, then only put points it when the manual reached its limit -- or vice versa -- put a few points then pad it with the manual (depending on the cut off and requirement of the manual itself).

Manuals were a horrible idea. How does that relate to the Quest XP again?

Bloodlines' quest XP even solves the issue (that I'm still not sure exists) that Alex brought up with quest XP and open world, because XP was directly usable in the character system and there were no levels. Thusly there was no need to make the "packets of leveled content" Alex warned about (though as I said, I don't think that's the case without Bloodlines' character system either, I'm just saying that if it is, Bloodlines solves it).

 

[SCO]

The worst kind of 'stupid mechanics used for xp' i can remember (besides grinding that is) was the way IE gave you XP for learning wizard spells. Not out of any 'unbalancing' crap (though the ability to then forget a spell to do it again was odious), but because it caused you to acquire resources you weren't necessarily interested in. Like vacuuming all the loot of every battle to ditch it on a seller now that i think about it.

Also Grunker; missing the point as usual.

God forbid the player should have the freedom to tackle obstacles as he wants to, amirite?

WTF? Did you comprehend the concept? Kill everyone you fucking want

edit: unless you are answering a dumbfuck i ignored instead of DraQ that is.

 

[SCO]

BTW, no xp for battle is likely to keep levels low even on a large game. Think about it, as everyone that posts around here seems to prefer low level D&D to high level.

 

[Alex]

This post is all the proof one could ever need that traditional XP based sytems with kill XP and whatnot fucking dissolve their players' brains.

It's not removing rewards. It's not including artificial and abstract rewards for doing pointless shit and, as a consequence, not having to work around derpy metagaming driven by derpy design by piling even more fucking cruft.

It's not as if J.Sawyer secretly hollowed all the NPCs and creatures out in very sinister manner, keeping all the precious XPs for himself, because do you know what falls out of fucking person, random bear or whatever once you stab them dead?
Not XPs.
Guts.
If you have no use of a pile of bloody, stinking guts, then why do the fucking stabbing in the first place?

Seriously, your complaints make you sound like a brain damaged person.

I think felipepe's point is that this change from what was expected in the game make it looks like the designer absolutely loathes the idea that the player would approach his game with an idea of fun so different from his own. Like if he was trying to patch holes of anyway the player could break what he planned for him. I think that might not be the right viewpoint, as it seems to be a bit ass backwards to insert mechanics in a game that support a kind of play you aren't validating in any other way. Still, PE will always be compared to BG, so I figure it kinda draws this kind of comparison. Besides, at least before you could get a bit of xp from the annoying quest giver you killed instead of obeying through all kinds of dumb hoops to get the reward.

Alex, you seem to be arguing a lot about how you like Kill XP, and very little about the issue it causes. How do we reward all play-styles equally in your opinion, if Kill XP stays?

Put enough XP for the other uses?

And how do you forsee all the other solutions to a quest, especially, if there is rich mechanics that player may use creatively in place?

I never said that dynamic xp should be the only kind of xp. If you are feeling lazy, just put enough static xp the player can use it to get to a high enough leel to face the game. If you aren't, put in some more interesting system so it is a resource, like I mentioned earlier. Or so something else entirely. I am a happy camper as long as xp is more interesting than "you are on chapter 4, so you must be between levels 9 and 12. I will probably be happy otherwise too, but when xp is given out like that, it doesn't really feel like any kind of reward. At least to me.

The problem with solution dependent XP (superset of kill XP) is that it's prone to breakage, requires tons of work to prevent abuse, and revolves around boxed-in solutions.
If you dole out XP for goals and goals alone, you automatically reward all possible solutions - foreseen and unforeseen - remove abuse and pathological gameplay, and accomplish all that by just placing a single trigger with value attached to it.

Why would you want to avoid breakage and prevent abuse? If the player wants to do something that is unfun and retarded so he has 16000xp instead of 15000, why not let him? I think the game should try to reward smart behavior by the player and also try to make sense as long as the player is playing in a way that makes sense. But if the player wants to go out of the logical bonds, just let him. Assume he knows what he is doing. Because to try to stop him will inevitably make the game way more restrictive than it needs to be, and people can learn to restrain themselves, while games can't learn to be more open.

 

[SCO]

What is it about a computer game that makes people think that the game should cater to every fucking distorted behavior? Is it because they're normally singleplayer? Because, let me tell, you; if you want 16000xp instead of 15000xp so much, there are memory editors for that. Imagine this on a checkers game. 'Right mate. I'm bored with this game. Lets play the same thing, but the checkers now can jump over some empty spaces. Rad right? You can play normally, but you'd be gimping yourself. Lets go.'.

 

[Alex]

What is it about a computer game that makes people think that the game should cater to every fucking distorted behavior? Is it because they're normally singleplayer? Because, let me tell, you; if you want 16000xp instead of 15000xp so much, there are memory editors for that.

I don't think it should cater to every behavior, but neither do I care for it restricting me as to how I approach the game more than it needs. I feel RPGs should strive to be more sandboxy, not less.

 

[SCO]

Ahh yes I recall playing Bloodlines and never-metagaming there with the training manuals.

Oh wait, yes I do.

Get the manual -- sell it to the store so you can buy unlimited copies, pad your skills, then only put points it when the manual reached its limit -- or vice versa -- put a few points then pad it with the manual (depending on the cut off and requirement of the manual itself).

Unlimited copies was fixed by the unofficial patch. It could still be 'abused' by using the manuals only on the maximum point at which they gave dots on, to prevent xp waste - this was FUN, on a min-max quest ordering way - but it also has nothing to do with the combat xp-mission xp dichotomy either either; because it was planning, something notoriously absent from grinding (actually, the camarilla edition mod reintroduced a grinding mechanic with the 'online university' which cost money - a very unused resource on the original game - which however encouraged grinding on a especially retarded manner due to HL2 inventory mechanics).

 

[DraQ]

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.

So your solution is essentially to LARP.


How about that:

If worship of "the Dark Lord" is within the scope of the game, you can become a cultist as a quest, and from this point onward game counts the deaths of non-hostiles as part of long-running quest, allowing you to receive some sort of rewards at the appropriate shrine (of course normal mechanics that would discourage you from wanton killing is still in place).

If worship of the Dark Lord, or at least rewards for it are outside of the scope of fucking game then no amount of LARP will change that, with or without kill XP, so cease your fucking LARPing. If you really need to kill stuff for "Dark Lord" then become a fucking Dark Kantian or whatever.

^ Because God forbid the player should have the freedom to tackle obstacles as he wants to, amirite?

And getting XP at the goal, after all obstacles have been tackled one waty or another prevents this how?

Can you even read?

Also I love how this

it's prone to breakage, requires tons of work to prevent abuse, and revolves around boxed-in solutions.

needs no explanation, it can just stand alone - because you say so, rite?

As a matter of fact, if you are capable of tying your own shoes, then it really doesn't need explanation.

But, for your benefit, let me elucidate:

-it's prone to breakage, because if you have multiple scripted rewards for different solutions you can usually manoeuvre in such way that you get all or at least more than one reward netting you several times more XP than expected and logical.
-it requires tons of work to prevent abuse, because you need to add checks to every of those XP rewards preventing player from getting them if he already got a reward for another solution
-it revolves around boxed in solutions because you only get rewards for solutions that are scripted to give rewards. If you script combat XP, diplomatic XP, and maybe XP for sneaking through difficult to open backdoor, then the player who finds a way to, for example, lure another monster in and let guardian and monster kill each other will get no XP because he did something you haven't scripted for.

Inb4 you re-suggest your magical Use-XP solution that would solve all problems yet no one has thought of yet but you.

Use based is for when you need a robust, simulationist system for handling stuff like large sandbox full of mostly questless content.
It has its own problems but is more robust than XP based.

So yeah. Grunker, you're a moron.

 

[Rake]

What is it about a computer game that makes people think that the game should cater to every fucking distorted behavior? Is it because they're normally singleplayer? Because, let me tell, you; if you want 16000xp instead of 15000xp so much, there are memory editors for that.

I don't think it should cater to every behavior, but neither do I care for it restricting me as to how I approach the game more than it needs. I feel RPGs should strive to be more sandboxy, not less.

But that is preference. The IE games were never sandboxy. BG was the closer to what you want, but BG2 was more restrictive, and way more popular. PS:T and IWDs were even more linear.
So the sandbox approach were never in Obsidian's plans, and i'm sure most backers didn't want expect it to be

 

[Alex]

Ahh yes I recall playing Bloodlines and never-metagaming there with the training manuals.

Oh wait, yes I do.

Get the manual -- sell it to the store so you can buy unlimited copies, pad your skills, then only put points it when the manual reached its limit -- or vice versa -- put a few points then pad it with the manual (depending on the cut off and requirement of the manual itself).

Manuals were a horrible idea. How does that relate to the Quest XP again?

Bloodlines' quest XP even solves the issue (that I'm still not sure exists) that Alex brought up with quest XP and open world, because XP was directly usable in the character system and there were no levels. Thusly there was no need to make the "packets of leveled content" Alex warned about (though as I said, I don't think that's the case without Bloodlines' character system either, I'm just saying that if it is, Bloodlines solves it).

Bloodlines' main quest is really linear, but I can't aim the same complaint at the XP system. The game lets you burn yourself or focus yourself however you want, and this doe indeed mean the designer can't have much control over what kind of character you end up with. That said, the game could have tried a little more to add different ways of doing things, specially towards the end. Still, I appreciate it lets you burn yourself and forces you to live with your mistakes.

 

[Grunker]

So yeah. Grunker, you're a moron.

I might very well be. At least it seems I misread you. When I read this:

it's prone to breakage, requires tons of work to prevent abuse, and revolves around boxed-in solutions.

I assumed you were talking about simple quest-based XP. You weren't?

 

[Alex]

What is it about a computer game that makes people think that the game should cater to every fucking distorted behavior? Is it because they're normally singleplayer? Because, let me tell, you; if you want 16000xp instead of 15000xp so much, there are memory editors for that.

I don't think it should cater to every behavior, but neither do I care for it restricting me as to how I approach the game more than it needs. I feel RPGs should strive to be more sandboxy, not less.

But that is preference. The IE games were never sandboxy. BG was the closer to what you want, but BG2 was more restrictive, and way more popular. PS:T and IWDs were even more linear.
So the sandbox approach were never in Obsidian's plans, and i'm sure most backers didn't want expect it to be

Like I said earlier, yes, that is my preference. And even BG2 was way more sandboxy than, say, Kotor 2 or NWN2. F:NV was better, but it also made really sure you couldn't go off the grid with its quests.

 

[Grunker]

WTF? Did you comprehend the concept? Kill everyone you fucking want

edit: unless you are answering a dumbfuck i ignored instead of DraQ that is.

I wasn't, but I think I might have misunderstood DraQ.

Your "as usual" comment intrigues me however, since I don't think I've ever seen you express disagreement with me.

 

[Rake]

What is it about a computer game that makes people think that the game should cater to every fucking distorted behavior? Is it because they're normally singleplayer? Because, let me tell, you; if you want 16000xp instead of 15000xp so much, there are memory editors for that.

I don't think it should cater to every behavior, but neither do I care for it restricting me as to how I approach the game more than it needs. I feel RPGs should strive to be more sandboxy, not less.

But that is preference. The IE games were never sandboxy. BG was the closer to what you want, but BG2 was more restrictive, and way more popular. PS:T and IWDs were even more linear.
So the sandbox approach were never in Obsidian's plans, and i'm sure most backers didn't want expect it to be

Like I said earlier, yes, that is my preference. And even BG2 was way more sandboxy than, say, Kotor 2 or NWN2. F:NV was better, but it also made really sure you couldn't go off the grid with its quests.

It seemed to me you wanted something in the lines of Arcanum or Fallouts. If you compair them to KotoR2 or NWN2 then yes, they were more open, but P:E will be as well. I expect it to be along the lines of BG2 openness.

 

[SCO]

Your "as usual" comment intrigues me however, since I don't think I've ever seen you express disagreement with me.

I like drama. Just fanning the flames.
Oh wait, you're one of the guys butthurt about ignore lists, along with ulminati, that too.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Personally, I'm surprised that more people aren't pissed that the game doesn't have per-character inventories.

Because most of people here played Dragon Age 7 times and most of people here actually don't care about mechanics. Remember that this place is full of MCA cultists.