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

Roguey

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Well if classes gain a new ability every level, Wizards will get passives and stuff, because they definitely won't be getting access to spell levels THAT quickly. Probably some Arcane Veil stuff and whatnot.
He made it clear spells are the only thing they get after first level. It'll work like third edition. Level 2, choose another level 1 spell, maybe at level 3 you can choose one from level 2, and so on.
 

Surf Solar

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YCS, he emptyquoted a poster who said "which brings me to my second point: Feat Qualifications are for the lose."

It's in-line with his hatred for prestige classes. Too much up-front planning.



How fucking retarded is that. :retarded:
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
YCS, he emptyquoted a poster who said "which brings me to my second point: Feat Qualifications are for the lose."

It's in-line with his hatred for prestige classes. Too much up-front planning.
Does this mean he plans to make every single feat equally interesting to take, or is there going to be simple requirements like "be level 7 or higher"?
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Oh hai Roguey http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/466042285247722776

JXsu45d.png


He talks about prereqs despite AN4RCHID not bringing them up in his question. Possibly Josh is reading this thread.
 
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Well it might be a robust and well balanced system and all. But isn't fixed class ability per level-up be a bit too linear (i get that talents still provide some variation)? I can understand spell levels for wizard, but it could be remedied as a choice for the players between higher spell levels v/s making a lower level spell per encounter resource from per rest (or per day). But the player should be given ample opportunity to screw up and (possibly) break the game.
 

AN4RCHID

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Well if classes gain a new ability every level, Wizards will get passives and stuff, because they definitely won't be getting access to spell levels THAT quickly. Probably some Arcane Veil stuff and whatnot.
He made it clear spells are the only thing they get after first level. It'll work like third edition. Level 2, choose another level 1 spell, maybe at level 3 you can choose one from level 2, and so on.

Source? He seems to contradict that here:

http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/463118067715558680

Maybe you're confusing spell level with level?

Oh hai Roguey http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/466042285247722776

JXsu45d.png


He talks about prereqs despite AN4RCHID not bringing them up in his question. Possibly Josh is reading this thread.

Cool, well I'm glad they're thinking about this at least. It does sound like they're planning about as many abilities as the level cap, meaning every character would have the same class abilities by endgame, besides talents. Which is unfortunate.
 

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't see how that follows, at all. Or are you talking about characters with the same class? In that case, I don't see what's so unfortunate about the game working exactly like D&D does.
 

Kem0sabe

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Worst thing about D&D were the level ups where your character didn't receive anything but hp/saving throws/etc. Every level up should present the player with a choice of perks and or abilities, for example in New Vegas i always play with the extra perks mod and the perk at every level mod, made for a much more enjoyable experience.
 

Grunker

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Worst thing about D&D were the level ups where your character didn't receive anything but hp/saving throws/etc. Every level up should present the player with a choice of perks and or abilities, for example in New Vegas i always play with the extra perks mod and the perk at every level mod, made for a much more enjoyable experience.


*AD&D

3.5 fixed this somewhat, and Pathfinder makes it glorious.

New Vegas is so fucking easy playing with a perk every level sounds dumb as fuck.
 

Kem0sabe

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*AD&D

3.5 fixed this somewhat, and Pathfinder makes it glorious.

New Vegas is so fucking easy playing with a perk every level sounds dumb as fuck.

I always go for the weird perks for flavor. My New Vegas character is a walking/killing/dancing circus freak. :obviously:

3.5, at least crpg wise, would have been better if the skills you put points into actually did something meaningful. SoZ did a semi good job at using your skills during travel, exploration and dialogue, but otherwise i'm yet to see a D&D game with a good/interesting character progression system.
 

AN4RCHID

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I don't see how that follows, at all. Or are you talking about characters with the same class? In that case, I don't see what's so unfortunate about the game working exactly like D&D does.

Yeah, characters of the same class will always have the same set of class abilities at max level. I think it's unfortunate because it means less player input on class development and customization. If there are enough talents to choose from this won't be such a big issue, but if you only gain one talent every 3 levels, and the level cap is 10 - 15, well... Multiclassing is starting to sound pretty good, huh?

Like I said, I would prefer characters to be allowed fewer abilities but have more potential configurations, instead of every character eventually getting every ability. Personal preference I guess, but I think part of the fun of gaining an ability in an RPG is because it was a choice, mutually exclusive to other choices, that defines your character. If you just gain the same ability after x000 XP, and you know which abilities you'll end up with, eh... http://progressquest.com/play/. Of course there will be other choices - skills, attributes, talents, equipment - but this could be a choice too.

I don't like / care about D&D. inb4 hurr durr PE is IE successor.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't see how that follows, at all. Or are you talking about characters with the same class? In that case, I don't see what's so unfortunate about the game working exactly like D&D does.

Yeah, characters of the same class will always have the same set of class abilities at max level. I think it's unfortunate because it means less player input on class development and customization. If there are enough talents to choose from this won't be such a big issue, but if you only gain one talent every 3 levels, and the level cap is 10 - 15, well... Multiclassing is starting to sound pretty good, huh?

Like I said, I would prefer characters to be allowed fewer abilities but have more potential configurations, instead of every character eventually getting every ability. Personal preference I guess, but I think part of the fun of gaining an ability in an RPG is because it was a choice, mutually exclusive to other choices, that defines your character. If you just gain the same ability after x000 XP, and you know which abilities you'll end up with, eh... http://progressquest.com/play/. Of course there will be other choices - skills, attributes, talents, equipment - but this could be a choice too.

I don't like / care about D&D. inb4 hurr durr PE is IE successor.


Well if you want to talk about the IE games, most of them were AD&D and had even less customization than this. I didn't feel bereft of customization in IWD2 and NWN2 though.
 

Grunker

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*AD&D

3.5 fixed this somewhat, and Pathfinder makes it glorious.

New Vegas is so fucking easy playing with a perk every level sounds dumb as fuck.

I always go for the weird perks for flavor. My New Vegas character is a walking/killing/dancing circus freak. :obviously:

3.5, at least crpg wise, would have been better if the skills you put points into actually did something meaningful.


Can't blame the system for being implemented badly.
 

AN4RCHID

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I don't see how that follows, at all. Or are you talking about characters with the same class? In that case, I don't see what's so unfortunate about the game working exactly like D&D does.

Yeah, characters of the same class will always have the same set of class abilities at max level. I think it's unfortunate because it means less player input on class development and customization. If there are enough talents to choose from this won't be such a big issue, but if you only gain one talent every 3 levels, and the level cap is 10 - 15, well... Multiclassing is starting to sound pretty good, huh?

Like I said, I would prefer characters to be allowed fewer abilities but have more potential configurations, instead of every character eventually getting every ability. Personal preference I guess, but I think part of the fun of gaining an ability in an RPG is because it was a choice, mutually exclusive to other choices, that defines your character. If you just gain the same ability after x000 XP, and you know which abilities you'll end up with, eh... http://progressquest.com/play/. Of course there will be other choices - skills, attributes, talents, equipment - but this could be a choice too.

I don't like / care about D&D. inb4 hurr durr PE is IE successor.


Well if you want to talk about the IE games, most of them were AD&D and had even less customization than this. I didn't feel bereft of customization in IWD2 and NWN2 though.

*shrug* I liked the IE games for the art and stories, I wasn't big on the progression mechanics. I will grant you that PE sounds better already, I just think it could be even 'more better' with more branching character progression.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
*shrug* I liked the IE games for the art and stories, I wasn't big on the progression mechanics. I will grant you that PE sounds better already, I just think it could be even 'more better' with more branching character progression.


Well, personally, I think there's a limit on how many meaningful choices the game can give you before it becomes trite and shallow. I'm not interested in customization for customization's sake.

"CHOICE: +1 Strength or +1 Dex?"

"CHOICE: +5% movement speed or +5% chance of parrying?"

Boring!

This is a D&D-influenced game, you seem to be thinking more in the direction of a Fallout or Skyrim-style perk system or something.
 

Roguey

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Maybe you're confusing spell level with level?
Looks like. In that case you only get to choose spells every few levels.

YCS, he emptyquoted a poster who said "which brings me to my second point: Feat Qualifications are for the lose."

It's in-line with his hatred for prestige classes. Too much up-front planning.


How fucking retarded is that. :retarded:
You shouldn't have to plan out your character from first level to level cap before you even start playing. There's also the "I was working towards this but either overlooked or forgot about a requirement when leveling so now my character's messed up" factor as well as balance-headache considerations.

Looking at Numenera, even Monte Cook's moved away from this by making character creation as quick as possible. Receiving praise from Avellone (not too suprising) https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/341749038544195584
 

AN4RCHID

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*shrug* I liked the IE games for the art and stories, I wasn't big on the progression mechanics. I will grant you that PE sounds better already, I just think it could be even 'more better' with more branching character progression.


Well, personally, I think there's a limit on how many meaningful choices the game can give you before it becomes trite and shallow. I'm not interested in customization for customization's sake.

"CHOICE: +1 Strength or +1 Dex?"

"CHOICE: +5% movement speed or +5% chance of parrying?"

Boring!

This is a D&D-influenced game, you seem to be thinking more in the direction of a Fallout or Skyrim-style perk system or something.

But I'm not talking about fiddly choices like that. Choosing what ability to gain on level up, which Josh says he's considering, is a pretty transparent, meaningful choice. It just loses most of that meaning if you're going to get all of the abilities anyway. If there were like 20 abilities per class and level cap of 10, it would matter which abilities you chose. If abilities leveled up with your character, then it would matter what order you picked them up in. As it is, it just seems like it won't matter that much at all. So in that case, yeah, I guess you might as well not even present it as a choice.

edit: also...

"CHOICE: +1 Strength or +1 Dex? ... Boring!"

Not sure if serious?
 

AN4RCHID

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JESawyer 13h
Talents are a mix of active, passive, and modal. We've also talked about the player picking from different pools of abilities instead of saying that they have free reign or no choice at all.

Anyone have any idea what he's talking about here? Would different classes have access to different pools of talents? or would you have access to the tier one pool abilities from levels 1 - 4, tier two from levels 5 - 10, etc... Or something else?
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
JESawyer 13h
Talents are a mix of active, passive, and modal. We've also talked about the player picking from different pools of abilities instead of saying that they have free reign or no choice at all.

Anyone have any idea what he's talking about here? Would different classes have access to different pools of talents? or would you have access to the tier one pool abilities from levels 1 - 4, tier two from levels 5 - 10, etc... Or something else?


I think he's talking about letting you choose a pool at level-up instead of a specific ability. For example you might have an "Offensive Abilities" pool, "Defensive Abilities" pool, etc. You'd get the next ability from that pool when you choose it.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Not PE-related, but nice: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63885-humor-a-game-dev-student/

Josh Sawyer said:
What game design principles do you think are most important when creating new game?

I think it's important to consider both what you are setting out to accomplish and who your audience is (and isn't). Game development can take as little as a few weeks or as long as several years. If you get lost along the way, you can always return to these two questions: what am I trying to accomplish and whom am I making it for? The answers to these questions may change over the course of development. If they do, they allow you to change course. If they don't, reminding yourself allows you to refocus on the big picture when considering even small details.

Which area of the design process do you find the most difficult and why?

Pre-production. A lot of people like pre-production because it's a "blue sky" phase. The problem comes when questions aren't answered in pre-production and production begins. Then those blue skies turn grey and black and then the tears flow. Pre-production should be harder than production. If it winds up the other way around, not enough time was spent figuring out the big issues up front.

What element of game design do feel gets neglected the most?

The player experience. It's ultimately the most important thing to consider, but game development involves the creation of so many things and the troubleshooting of so many problems that the player's thought processes and emotional changes often drop out of sight. It's important for developers to play their own games, but that's not enough. We also have to consider how different members of our audience are going to think and feel their way through the game. There's not one way, but many ways. We don't have to accommodate them all, but at our best, we should consider them all and make an active choice based on the spectrum as we understand it.

(also lol Westwood College, tighten up the graphics, etc)
 

Mangoose

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Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity
JESawyer 13h
Talents are a mix of active, passive, and modal. We've also talked about the player picking from different pools of abilities instead of saying that they have free reign or no choice at all.

Anyone have any idea what he's talking about here? Would different classes have access to different pools of talents? or would you have access to the tier one pool abilities from levels 1 - 4, tier two from levels 5 - 10, etc... Or something else?


I think he's talking about letting you choose a pool at level-up instead of a specific ability. For example you might have an "Offensive Abilities" pool, "Defensive Abilities" pool, etc. You'd get the next ability from that pool when you choose it.
Are different pools necessary (does a party require a mix of characters with active, passive, and modal abilities) or can you fulfill most party roles with any "ability pool"?
 

Arkeus

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KS Update said:
Update by Adam Brennecke, Executive Producer and Lead Programmer

This month we are knee-deep in the Vertical Slice phase and this will be the team's focus for the month of June. It's our way of proving that we are ready to jump forward into production and start making shippable content.

The Vertical Slice is just that, a cross section (think of it as a slice of bread cut out from the middle of a loaf) of the world of Project Eternity. At the end of this phase the game will be feature complete, and the content building portion of the team, including area designers, environment artists, and character artists can make shippable content now. Our Vertical Slice is eleven maps large; encompassing our village and dungeon from Prototype 2, and the dungeon and wilderness area from Prototype 1 (we call this area "The Valley of Hector" internally). The content from the prototypes are refactored to fit within the context of the world and overall story of the game. Feature-wise, we are targeting to have the majority of the world building tools complete and all of the character classes playable up to level five.


A Vertical Slice dungeon concept by Polina. Her paint-over will be used as reference for the polish pass.

Here are our current tasks that we are working on right now:

Art
  • Modeling Hide Armor for Male and Females - Hide armor has been challenging to model and texture with skin tinting because there's a lot of skin shown.
  • Creating Orlan Heads - This includes modeling differences for the Wild and Hearth ethnicities.
  • Polishing Prototype 2 Areas to "Beta" - Extra shine is put into the areas to make them feel more alive and varied.
Design
  • Creating the Vertical Slice Area Design Document - The designers are adding more content to the world and fleshing out the village with additional quests.
  • Designing and Coding the Class Abilities for the Cipher and Chanter - The Cipher and his "focus" powered spells are working, and now Tim Cain is working out the Chanter phrase system.
Programming
  • Coding up the Save/Load and the Persistence System - This entails saving and loading games, and making sure the current map state is preserved across area transitions.
  • Wrapping up the Area Designer Toolbox - Doors, encounters, traps, triggers, loot, NPCs, and creatures can all be placed and manipulated through script.
Spells and Ability Audit
This morning Josh emailed me a list of working class abilities and spells. I'm excited to say that we have 54 abilities and 51 functioning spells as of today! Most of the spells are at the alpha stage, meaning another pass will be done at a later date to add visual effects and sound effects.

UI Version #2
Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on our UI mockups that Rob posted last week in Update #54. We loved everyone's proposed mockups and your discussions sparked some great ideas for the next iteration on the interface. We've already mocked up a new version that takes up less vertical space and is more compact overall. Once we feel it's ready to be critiqued, we will post it in a future update for more discussion.

That's it for this week. We'll be back in two weeks - we're off to E3 next week (and if you're a fan of South Park, keep an out for coverage on our Stick of Truth RPG)!
 

Surf Solar

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pe-dungeon-concept.1000.jpg


:bounce:

We loved everyone's proposed mockups and your discussions sparked some great ideas for the next iteration on the interface. We've already mocked up a new version that takes up less vertical space and is more compact overall.

:roll:
 

LeJosh

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That looks very Planescape-esque, I love it. Once the polish is in and it's in motion, fapfap indeed.

Still glad I backed this.

So were there enough minimalist tears to make more room for environments instead of UI? :p
 

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