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

[DraQ]

I'll gladly sacrifice some miliseconds for not straining my fucking eyes

And I will happily strain my eyes a little bit to not have to put up with

mostrosity of an interface.

 

[Blaine]

Pedestrian mind spotted.

Having to snipe with your mouse is good for FPSes, not GUIs

Vision is also a factor, as Excidium pointed out. You may be technically correct, although as far as I'm concerned it's pure conjecture, but this should really only be an issue for elderly people using laptop trackpads. Using "sniping with the mouse" to describe clicking stuff that isn't shoved into the extreme corners of the screen is hyperbolic as fuck.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

Just give us 1:1 keybinds for every mouse function and there is no issue. Select character 1-6 keys. Use ability 1-9 keys, a 'next page' button and a very adjustable hotbar. Make enemy and friendly status effects easy to access with mouse hover-overs or something. Never needed much more than that functionality in an IE game. If the Eternity's UI was identical to IWD's it would make no difference to me, I could give a piss where they put the portraits as long as I can map the keyboard to do most of the heavy lifting.

 

[Delterius]

Actually, I think they're hiding all information from us. A more detailed UI is in order:

See. It could be worse.

 

[DraQ]

You may be technically correct, although as far as I'm concerned it's pure conjecture, but this should really only be an issue for elderly people using laptop trackpads.

Still beats a group of whiny artfags for whom a functional interface is not pweeetty enough.

Interface is a tool.
Good interface should be fast, convenient, straightforward, powerful and keep the fuck out of the way when not needed.
Interface is not art (although it may be artistically pleasing as long as it doesn't hamper its primary function) and interface should most definitely *not* be a minigame.

Anyone who puts form of an abstract interface before its function should be doomed to an eternity of trying to do shit using Skyrim's menus, because that's what this kind of prioritization failure leads to - nonfunctional clusterfuck that's meant to look pretty.

Now get off my fucking lawn.

 

[Kirtai]

Interface is not art (although it may be artistically pleasing as long as it doesn't hamper its primary function) and interface should most definitely be a minigame.

I think you meant not be a minigame.

Otherwise I completely agree. Especially with using Skyrims UI as a punishment for bad design.

 

[DraQ]

Interface is not art (although it may be artistically pleasing as long as it doesn't hamper its primary function) and interface should most definitely be a minigame.

I think you meant not be a minigame.

Ok, fix'd.

Otherwise I completely agree. Especially with using Skyrims UI as a punishment for bad design.

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

 

[Dreaad]

You don't have to click anymore though



It works more like detect secret doors in BG2.

Good, but the time to detect should be short as to not be noticeable. Arcanum and Fallout did a good job with the auto-stop before hitting the trap while having a fast trap detection time.

Yes of course lets make traps irrelevant, in fact why not go all the way... make all the chars sprint everywhere like they are on drugs, unlock all locked chests so no poor player has to miss out on content on the first play through. All so that you can get to the AWEHSOME combat faster.

Traps in games SHOULD be a pain to deal with... that is the point of traps. Realism all the way, so that you have to eat in game may be shit, but removing viable game mechanics for the sake of speed is bad.

 

[DraQ]

You don't have to click anymore though



It works more like detect secret doors in BG2.

Good, but the time to detect should be short as to not be noticeable. Arcanum and Fallout did a good job with the auto-stop before hitting the trap while having a fast trap detection time.

Yes of course lets make traps irrelevant, in fact why not go all the way... make all the chars sprint everywhere like they are on drugs, unlock all locked chests so no poor player has to miss out on content on the first play through. All so that you can get to the AWEHSOME combat faster.

Traps in games SHOULD be a pain to deal with... that is the point of traps. Realism all the way, so that you have to eat in game may be shit, but removing viable game mechanics for the sake of speed is bad.

Then again, the point of spotting traps is not falling in them.

 

[Sensuki]

I never had a problem with the traps in BG1 or 2. I'm going to wait and see what the P:E traps are like before I decide whether it's worse or not. We'll probably get to see one during the gameplay video at Rezzed.

 

[Delterius]

One thing is the GM killing his players because they always forget to roll for traps and, yet, simply claim that the roll is implicit, their characters would have never entered a dark dungeon without searching for traps and bla bla bla.

Another entirely is if the GM kills the player from rolling for traps and then moving on. Sure, almost 5 minutes passed and the GM still hadn't told you that you found the trap, but that totally couldn't mean that, as far as you know, the was clean.

And that was how I felt in the Infinity Engine games. Finding those traps was almost always piss easy for my characters - but I was still often trapped simply because 'search for traps' was a flimsy function at best. It took its sweet time to work in between those pseudo-rounds and the area of effect isn't quite clear.

A well made party shouldn't fall for unknown traps (that can be spotted), they'll have someone to spot them. And as DraQ said, there can still be danger for traps in the moment of disarmament, etc.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Yes of course lets make traps irrelevant, in fact why not go all the way... make all the chars sprint everywhere like they are on drugs, unlock all locked chests so no poor player has to miss out on content on the first play through. All so that you can get to the AWEHSOME combat faster.

Traps in games SHOULD be a pain to deal with... that is the point of traps. Realism all the way, so that you have to eat in game may be shit, but removing viable game mechanics for the sake of speed is bad.

Just make trap-detection non-random and instant; everybody wins. Need 80 skill to detect a certain trap, but no one in your party has above 79? You can stand around for hours and nothing will happen.

 

[Dreaad]

Twould be nice if there was just a system like... hmmm, you remember that first time you walk into irenicus's room in the first dungeon of BG2 and some message pops up, something like "My spider senses are tingling." Having something like that as a passive system that (if your skill is high enough) tells you that traps are around, and then you can either charge ahead (running away from something or chasing something) or pause and take the time to find/disarm the traps.

 

[Delterius]

Twould be nice if there was just a system like... hmmm, you remember that first time you walk into irenicus's room in the first dungeon of BG2 and some message pops up, something like "My spider senses are tingling." Having something like that as a passive system that (if your skill is high enough) tells you that traps are around, and then you can either charge ahead (running away from something or chasing something) or pause and take the time to find/disarm the traps.

But the issue isn't so much that I want to know when search for traps. As long as the middle of the town square isn't rigged with blobs that represent an iron bear claw then I already know when to stop and take my time. Where traps might be located in RPGs is a cliché.

Rather, the issue are times when Imoen triggers a trap that was resting next to her (for tens of seconds no less) either because I couldn't really tell the radius of her spot trap skill or because I couldn't tell when exactly that radius had been searched (or, in this case, had not).

Straight up telling you to stop and be paranoid can be interesting because it fosters just that, paranoia, with game mechanics. It would be according to The Codexian Way of Emotional Engagement®. But this is a trade off: the player is no longer expected to learn/be able to tell that a dark and damp dungeon might be rigged. This isn't quite up there with the most refined of gamer instincts, but it is something to consider.

Besides, there should be a reason why your character has 'spider sense'. Even if its not conveyed as a actual character ability, you are, at the very least, being favored by whatever deity rules the setting.

 

[Dreaad]

^ Heh maybe there should be fake traps if your skill isn't high enough, making your thief char see assassins everywhere.

 

[SCO]

And that was how I felt in the Infinity Engine games. Finding those traps was almost always piss easy for my characters - but I was still often trapped simply because 'search for traps' was a flimsy function at best. It took its sweet time to work in between those pseudo-rounds and the area of effect isn't quite clear.

Searching had a very useful secondary function (mostly for mods TBH) of detecting both magical invisibility and thief stealth.

 

[tuluse]

With fast-regen stamina, out of combat traps are going to be pointless (Roguey would point out here that with no limitations on rest, they were equally pointless in IE games). The only interesting trap mechanics will be during combat. So having detect trap skill leading to amount of time it takes to find the trap, rather than a binary on/off switch is appropriate and actually interesting.

So assuming Obsidian can into dungeon design, this will mean out of combat the only thing to detect will be secret doors. I'm not sure how to make this interesting.

 

[SCO]

Also that itsy tiny bitsy off-center combat log tells me it's not going to be reused for conversations (or that conversations will be utterly tiny).

 

[Delterius]

And that was how I felt in the Infinity Engine games. Finding those traps was almost always piss easy for my characters - but I was still often trapped simply because 'search for traps' was a flimsy function at best. It took its sweet time to work in between those pseudo-rounds and the area of effect isn't quite clear.

Searching had a very useful secondary function (mostly for mods TBH) of detecting both magical invisibility and thief stealth.

I'm not really saying that search wasn't useful - I'd have to be crazy to do that. I'm saying that it wasn't reliable as far as the UI goes.

And I also think that searching boosts the chance to find secret doors (or, maybe, is it because having elves gives a chance to find secret doors without searching? can't remember well).

 

[SCO]

Some races had inherent search bonus or malus. I can't recall if they didn't need activation.

A interesting thing about BG2-IE is that it's possible to 'script' a M/T/C/W class by using hotkeys for thief abilities and scripts for thief level progression - the abilities are always there, just not displayed.
However, no mod did this already because scripting the level progression would be a major pain because BGScript sucks (and there is no script hook for the level up button, but there is one for resting).

Of course, then most party-thief AI pc scripts wouldn't work (because they check for class instead of ability).

 

[Blaine]

With fast-regen stamina, out of combat traps are going to be pointless (Roguey would point out here that with no limitations on rest, they were equally pointless in IE games). The only interesting trap mechanics will be during combat.

The obvious solution to this is for traps to knock off a large chunk of health, or kill characters outright.

Thoughtfully and intelligently placed traps in certain areas can make a game much more interesting. They go a long way towards forcing the player approach each new room in an interconnected area cautiously and with a bit of dread, as well as encouraging them to maneuver conservatively when fighting enemies at the threshold of an area that they haven't yet been able to check.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of the "press a button and wait a few seconds" method of trap detection, with perhaps a significantly penalized always-on secondary detection, since it's perfectly normal to notice odd things in the environment without specifically searching for them, just as with anything one might be on the lookout for.

 

[tuluse]

The obvious solution to this is for traps to knock off a large chunk of health

Maybe, but it usually seems lame to take a big hit just because you forgot to push search or decided to run somewhere because boredom was setting in.

or kill characters outright.

We both know this is not going to happen in a Sawyer game, so why even suggest it?

 

[Sensuki]

With fast-regen stamina, out of combat traps are going to be pointless (Roguey would point out here that with no limitations on rest, they were equally pointless in IE games). The only interesting trap mechanics will be during combat. So having detect trap skill leading to amount of time it takes to find the trap, rather than a binary on/off switch is appropriate and actually interesting.

Eh, not necessarily.

Getting hit by a trap in BG2 usually meant a rest spam or the use up some resources to repair the damage (spells, potions or abilities for healing/dispelling etc).

P:E theoretically should work the same, except the Health damage you take can only be removed by resting.

However since status effects are probably going be be fairly short in this game you may not have to waste utility spells in non-combat encounters. I don't know if that's a good thing. Most people will probably think so.

Hopefully expert mode and the upper difficulties are fucking brutal.

edit: sorry I forgot about having to reload because of getting killed by a traps and realized that's probably what you're talking about. Doubt we'll see them unfortunately I wonder, if you get taken to 0 stamina outside of combat by a trap, what happens ?

 

[Mangoose]

Trap-detection-on-command depends how well the graphics (or perhaps also sound) hint to the player that there is a trap. The problem is when there's a nondescript corridor with certain tiles (in this hypothetical example, the tiles don't look different) that are trapped.

And the problem with hinting at traps from a zoomed out perspective is that you can less easily rely on minute details to signify a trap. So you need to rely on "larger" hints - or use abstraction.

 

[Blaine]

Maybe, but it usually seems lame to take a big hit just because you forgot to push search or decided to run somewhere because boredom was setting in.

It's a tough ol' world out there.

You could ad lib that sentence into countless situations: "It usually seems lame to _________ just because you forgot to __________ or decided to ___________ because ___________." Yes, it's inconvenient and annoying, but in eliminating that inconvenience and annoyance you lose something else—an added sense of unknown danger, and the satisfaction of checking when your intuition tells you to and being correct.

It's decline-orientated thinking, in my view. I'm not trying to slam you with some huge insult, just my opinion.