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

[hiver]

Additionally, if respawns are to present any danger to the party - they must be strong and equipped.
And then... all that equipment should magically disappear?

Its just all too clumsy and very prone to clash with the setting and the story and very prone to become exploitative by players.

If cost of doing round trip with inventory full of crude clubs outweighs any possible profit you can make this way (and then the enemies have respawned), then you're effectively losing the war while you're winning the battles.

Yeah but... have you ever seen a game where a trip is costing anything?
Except time of course, even if its a quick travel but then again - time is infinite in games. Except in good ones.
(like Fallout!)

 

[tuluse]

You could have non-human enemies that don't use equipment. Beasts, monsters, ghosts, etc.

 

[dunno lah]

Provided that they all don't have gold and a couple gems every time you disembowel them.

 

[DraQ]

You could have non-human enemies that don't use equipment. Beasts, monsters, ghosts, etc.

Wolves.


(But seriously, what a shitty idea - arbitrary limiting the variety of enemies and excluding the actually interesting ones only because you can't design non-shitty gameplay dynamics.)

 

[Delterius]

I played Baldur's Gate and its successor around 50 times total at least (inb4 new meme) and I NEVER used a thief. Not a single time. Always dual-classed Imoen, never removed traps, always tanked them or went around them. So no, it's not bullshit, traps in BG were inconsequential.

Did you tank the traps with magic (such as Mirror Image and summoned creeps) and potions? Or were those unnecessary too?

Assuming that you did, I think its a good point to make that the other 49 playthroughs were tainted by your previous knowledge of the game. Its easy to act in retrospect, but its a entirely different thing to spend those charges on your Staff of Summon Fire Elemental or those per-rest spells. As such, I believe that traps don't need to be particularly punishing in order to be consequential: all they need is to force you to spend limited resources in place of a proper Thief.

 

[hiver]

You could have non-human enemies that don't use equipment. Beasts, monsters, ghosts, etc.

- that are endless and respawn every single time?

So you can just whack them?

 

[tuluse]

- that are endless and respawn every single time?

So you can just whack them?

Sure, why not? I can even think of easy lore reasons why. For example, ghosts who cannot be killed permanently, but just banished until the next nightfall.

 

[DraQ]

You could have non-human enemies that don't use equipment. Beasts, monsters, ghosts, etc.

- that are endless and respawn every single time?

So you can just whack them?

Are you suggesting moles?

Sure, why not? I can even think of easy lore reasons why. For example, ghosts who cannot be killed permanently, but just banished until the next nightfall.

With certain enemies it's indeed a good and potentially interesting idea, but I think you can agree that it's hardly universal.

 

[Grunker]

I played Baldur's Gate and its successor around 50 times total at least (inb4 new meme) and I NEVER used a thief. Not a single time. Always dual-classed Imoen, never removed traps, always tanked them or went around them. So no, it's not bullshit, traps in BG were inconsequential.

Did you tank the traps with magic (such as Mirror Image and summoned creeps) and potions? Or were those unnecessary too?

I have my hand-written notes from yeeeeaaars ago from my first playthrough. I don't have a thief in any of the early playthroughs, and I categorize loot from plenty of trapped chests and places, including catacombs.

I know for a fact I didn't summon stuff back then. Look, there's no point in defending BG's trap-system. It sucked, end of rhine.

 

[hiver]

- that are endless and respawn every single time?

So you can just whack them?

Sure, why not? I can even think of easy lore reasons why. For example, ghosts who cannot be killed permanently, but just banished until the next nightfall.

Because you cannot have that in every location.

"banished until next nightfall" works only if you sleep or rest from nightfall to nightfall, btw.
And why would you? How could you?

And does that mean all ghosts are like that?

You see, every example such as that just creates more and more problems that end up just hand waved away in the end. Because you end up realizing it cannot be solved in some sensible way. To the detriment of the whole game.
And there is a better solution.

Are you suggesting moles?

Were-moles.

 

[tuluse]

With certain enemies it's indeed a good and potentially interesting idea, but I think you can agree that it's hardly universal.

Fair enough. I think a good designer could come with either a good reason for respawning enemies, or a reason why you can't leave the dungeon to go rest for all the major dungeons.

 

[hiver]

my solution is better, easier to implement - and would make sense to boot.
while it wouldnt negatively affect the game, its mechanics, gameplay, story or the setting.

 

[Delterius]

I know for a fact I didn't summon stuff back then. Look, there's no point in defending BG's trap-system. It sucked, end of rhine.

I rather disliked the IE trap system, most of which the search function. And I do agree that the traps themselves were trivial. I'm just pondering wether they needed to be buffed individually or if other things like, actually designing the game over limited rest and resources, are preferable.

I didn't play BG 50 times - if you discount those millions of times I only went as far as the Friendly Arm because I suddenly decided to play as something else (good times), I'm closer to 3 times. But I only actually finished the trilogy once and one thing I did then was experiment with not resting at all in dungeons and dangerous areas. Discounting those moments when gave into the dark side, I was mostly successful. And one thing my experience should stress is that the game becomes much more interesting when you don't know what's next and is forced to ration your resources (spells, items and the like). Sure, it wasn't perfect - I became much more prone to stocking health potions (though it did give a more practical reasoning to the millions of gold pieces you acquire) - but fun nonetheless.

That aside, I don't actually remember the traps themselves well. I remember often triggering them because of how unreliable the search for traps function was, but I don't remember how strong the traps were. So I'm asking you if you had to spend (theoretically) limited resources in order to overcome them (such as spells, like Mirror Image, and item charges) and if you didn't. If its the latter, then I'd say the traps might need some buffing.

 

[Grunker]

Not that I disagree with you, but is there a point in there?

As in: which part of Sawyer's way of handling it do you dislike?

 

[Delterius]

Not that I disagree with you, but is there a point in there?

As in: which part of Sawyer's way of handling it do you dislike?

I just forgot this thread's about Sawyer and am discussing BG. You'd think I'd be used to that after 650 pages of the Sawyerist Heresy, but I'm a forgetful person.

 

[Gurkog]

Perhaps resting for extended periods could have a drawback... so you gain stamina and health for all of the time spent resting, but you have stat debuffs like decreased dexterity and intelligence because your characters are groggy. So you still gain some benefit to the long term strategic resources at the cost of a short term penalty. Also, putting in time sensitive quests can be a great way to discourage spending a month camping in a cave somewhere after every scratch.

 

[Grunker]

Not that I disagree with you, but is there a point in there?

As in: which part of Sawyer's way of handling it do you dislike?

I just forgot this thread's about Sawyer and am discussing BG. You'd think I'd be used to that after 650 pages of the Sawyerist Heresy, but I'm a forgetful person.

Eh, I dunno, we were just discussing Eternity's way to deal with BG's problems regarding traps.

 

[DraQ]

TBH if you remove healing from resting, there is no need to additionally limit it and all the reasons against it - for example maybe scouting ahead has revealed some massive clusterfuck that will demand your party being rested and in top shape to tackle?

 

[janjetina]

Respawning enemies is one of the worst plagues of RPG, being an endless source of tedious trash encounters. That is much more broken than even the most broken rest mechanics. At least you can choose not to rest. You can't choose for a band of trash enemies not to be respawned. Fucking MMO influenced game design.

 

[DraQ]

Respawning enemies is one of the worst plagues of RPG, being an endless source of tedious trash encounters. That is much more broken than even the most broken rest mechanics. At least you can choose not to rest. You can't choose for a band of trash enemies not to be respawned. Fucking MMO influenced game design.

You can - by not backtracking needlessly.
This way you won't be affected by respawn.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think respawning is that bad if you know in advance that you're triggering it by resting. It becomes a tradeoff that you need to decide whether you want to make.

It's random/spontaneous respawning like in the IE games that can be a pain in the ass.

 

[DraQ]

I don't think respawning is that bad if you know in advance that you're triggering it by resting. It becomes a tradeoff that you need to decide whether you want to make.

It's random/spontaneous respawning like in the IE games that can be a pain in the ass.

Also tedious and easy respawns:

*you rest to memorize spells*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
*you try to sleep again*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
*you try to sleep again*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
*you try to sleep again*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
*you try to sleep again*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
*you try to sleep again*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
GAAAH! LET ME SLEEP ALREADY!
*you try to sleep again*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
*you try to sleep again*
*you are "ambushed" by 3d10 kobolds*
*you murder kobolds*
*you try to sleep again*
*you rest for 8h*
*you resume adventuring*

 

[Delterius]

Eh, I dunno, we were just discussing Eternity's way to deal with BG's problems regarding traps.

Well, I backtracked a bit. If I'm not particularly retarded today, it seems that the discussion has evolved naturally. Traps are going to be as relevant as the Health damage itself is or, in other words, as much as the Rest mechanics demand that players think in the long term.

And given that P:E will make use of Rest areas, and its inspired by one game I haven't yet played (KotC), I have a question: are 'rest areas' (in KotC) something that you see with certain regularity like in Dark Souls? Say, there are these more or less 'equal' sections of dungeoneering that you're expected to survive through without recharging your resources? Or are areas more specific? Because I don't think that'd be an interesting idea, it might make area/encounter design uniform - just as the Soul's gameworld uniformly wants to kill you.

Considering three examples of 'Adventure': A section of 'wilderness' (here meaning a large region where danger can't exactly be culled once and for all); A isolated Dungeon and a active 'Enemy Base'.

In the first and second, I'd expect that resting areas should be more abundant - the party isn't necessarily in a hurry and its not like the dangers of the 'wilderness' are actively trying to kill them. Though one might argue that you shouldn't rest in a dungeon at all (and I'd agree), I think its a good thing to remember that, for the purposes of gameplay, the Sawyerist Heresy would probably see the adventurer's retreat to the dungeon's entrance in order to rest and then continue forward at a later date, and simply just letting them sleep in designated areas as equal things. The 'simulationist' way would just be merely more 'tedious'.

Whereas when attacking a organized group, especially the Antagonist himself, I'd expect that you're supposed to take the place by storm. If so, then the area shouldn't necessarily be a endless dungeon - and rest should be a bit more limited.

These are just a few examples of how the game's design should be flexible so that the story makes sense.

 

[janjetina]

A response to Infinitron's post: A better solution would be that the enemies who are present in a dungeon are proactive, employ scouting and attempt to ambush the party if the opportunity arises.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Also tedious and easy respawns

But at least this approach makes more sense than respawns in the exact same places where their comrades had died hours earlier, completely unaware the player's presence. The general idea of the BG approach was sound: the dungeon should react to the player's presence when he stalls/rests, though making it ambushes clearly doesn't work whether easy (like you said: tedious) or hard (savescum). A better approach might be to have the lower levels of the dungeon alerted to your presence: more traps are laid, enemies are less scattered around, etc.