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

[tuluse]

If they only show aoe circles for selected characters it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Rake]

At the end of the day the problem is that Sawyer wants positioning to be importand in battles. And in RTwP that is tricky. I loved IE combat, but that worked because IE ignored positioning. NWN2 made it matter(less than PE for all we know) and we know how that ended.
I won't say it can't be done right, but the potential for fuckup is there.

 

[Grunker]

At the end of the day the problem is that Sawyer wants positioning to be importand in battles.

Yep.

 

[Rake]

At the end of the day the problem is that Sawyer wants positioning to be importand in battles.

Yep.

Sawyer:

All Zealous auras apply to paladins as well as the people around them. That said, scattering the party is playing against the benefits of the paladin just as having a barbarian solo a singular powerful enemy is playing against the barbarian's benefits (specifically, Carnage AoE melee damage) and having a wizard try to dump low-damage AoEs on one or two targets is playing against the wizard's benefits.

Positioning is often an important element of IE combat and we believe it should be in PE as well. Fighters works well as islands. You can plant them in the middle of a hallway (even a wide one) and they can lock down melee combatants running through the area. They work less well (or rather, provide less benefit) in immediate proximity to their allies because they can't force anyone to engage them over someone else. They also have trouble when enemies are primarily ranged-based and spread out.

Paladins do not work well as islands. They work well with one or more allies around them. They don't have to be holding hands, but they can't be on opposite sites of a battlefield. Yes, a wizard, ranger, and rogue in the party could spread far out from the paladin (I don't really think most of them need to), but in many cases, a full party will likely have two more melee-oriented characters in the party (most IE parties have 2 or 3). A paladin standing 10' in front of a ranger and wizard can provide the same Zealous Barrage benefits to shooters and casters that he or she would if he or she ran up alongside a monk and a barbarian. Even if a ranger or wizard are on the other side of the battlefield, if they are the closest ally attacking the paladin's current target, they'll gain the benefit of Coordinated Attacks.

Paladin Talents will unlock more offensive capabilities for them, but the bog-standard paladins won't hit like wet noodles just because they don't have Abilities specifically dedicated to smashing in faces. It makes sense that in a tabletop game like D&D, a "buff beacon" character should be avoided because the player experience can be boring. That's why 4E buff abilities are often minor actions or they are side effects of attacks (e.g. Healing Strike). In a party-based CRPG where the player is controlling up to six characters, every class doesn't need to be a self-contained murder machine with the same number of active use (or even offensive) abilities.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

 

[Kem0sabe]

At the end of the day the problem is that Sawyer wants positioning to be importand in battles. And in RTwP that is tricky. I loved IE combat, but that worked because IE ignored positioning. NWN2 made it matter(less than PE for all we know) and we know how that ended.
I won't say it can't be done right, but the potential for fuckup is there.

I always had trouble micromanaging backstabbing rogues in rtwp games, i feel like turned based is the ideal format if you want to make positioning essential to combat.

 

[Sensuki]

positioning works in RTS games though

 

[Space Satan]

Positioning is always weird when it comes to attacks of opportunity, especially when sides comes into play. In BG2 as Assassin your only option was to crawl to main mage and stick your dagger right up his ass and then - run the hell out, showering in healing potions.
If PE would feature once again mages as they were in BG2 - i.e. main targets that should be taken ASAP, then speed would be useful only if ranged weapons and abilities would suck.
And we know that firearms' speciality in PE world is fucking up wizards.

 

[MicoSelva]

Ok, I promise* to drop the colon subject after this, but I couldn't resist myself.

THERE IS NO COLON IN PROJECT ETERNITY DAMMIT

J.E.S. himself proves You wrong!

We will be doing an update on the technology of P:E, but in brief, the firearms of this world are relatively recent inventions and equivalent to the single-shot wheellock weapons found in 16th century Europe. Their use is uncommon and for specific purposes.

See?

source: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60265-please-no-guns/page-2#entry1192544

Spoiler

*maybe

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=12#post416647154

 

[MicoSelva]

Infinitron's e-stalking of Josh Sawyer is reaching creepy roguey levels.

 

[DraQ]

positioning works in RTS games though

RTS games revolve around bulk quantities of disposable units, though.

Even if positioning is important they give you generous margin of error.

 

[Branm]

Sounds like they want Temple of Elemental Evil style combat with positioning ....cat see it working in RTwP unless the overall combat speed is significantly slower then in NWN2 for instance.

 

[Starym]

I feel like slow motion will be the new pause, or even the default way to do combat in general in P[STILLNOCOLONMOTHERFUCKER]E. Sounds pretty good to me, especially if they actually allow for a range of speeds instead of just 1 togglable option - you'd only do really easy encounters in real time. At least that's how I hope I'll be playing.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I'm kind of curious as to whether the Paladin's auras power level will be set to make each aura generally useful in every situation or if different auras will be fairly weak in some contexts and really strong in others. Basically will there be distinct tactical decision-making around choosing to use particular auras. For example an offensive aura might be useful to quickly take down a single powerful melee enemy with high defenses so you can get to the high-damage ouput mage behind him. Then switch over to move-speed to dash to the mage. Once you are at the mage, you might not need the offensive boost b/c of how squishy he is, so you switch over to a defensive aura to protect the party from the skeleton archers around him.

The problem is that it seems difficult to have an aura that is powerful in one context but weak/mediocre in another with generic more damage/more defense type attributes. An aura that added a piercing characteristic to your attacks or provided magic specific defenses would be much more interesting.

 

[Sensuki]

positioning works in RTS games though

RTS games revolve around bulk quantities of disposable units, though.

Even if positioning is important they give you generous margin of error.

Depends on the game, Company of Heroes ... no (especially with Tanks).

 

[DraQ]

I feel like slow motion will be the new pause, or even the default way to do combat in general in P[STILLNOCOLONMOTHERFUCKER]E. Sounds pretty good to me, especially if they actually allow for a range of speeds instead of just 1 togglable option - you'd only do really easy encounters in real time. At least that's how I hope I'll be playing.

Slomo is definitely better than pause in a lot of way. Not having to toggle it all the fucking time being the first.

 

[Horus]

74,405
backers

$4,188,927

So the average price per gamer came down to 56$. I wonder how much they will sell when they released the game.

 

[Sensuki]

$35-49 ?

 

[Horus]

I was guessing about 15-20 thousand first couple weeks at 60$ and maybe 5-10 thousand in 10$ steam sale. Everyone who was into this genre probably paid already and those who didn't will buy it in first week.
Comparing this to the Last shitty DMC that sold 1.1 million is little sad.

 

[Sensuki]

If they show some gameplay footage this weekend that should generate a lot of buzz. There's been quite a few Slacker Backers showing up on the Obsidian forums over the past 6 months as well.

 

[Rake]

30$-50$ seems reasonable. Lower than 30 won't be because backers must have it cheaper, above 50 would be too much for a no cinematic AAAAAAAAAAAA game. Plus Obsidian doesn't need to sell at 60$ per game to have profit. If i was to quess it would be somewhere in the midle.40-45.
EDIT: oh, you mean sales. Noone know but i'm strangely optimistic. I believe based on comments in other forums that there are many people who would buy the game but didn't knew or don't care about kickstarter. I believe that it will sale 1M copies, just not at first week like AAA games. Remember, BG2 and PS:T continiue to sell even today.

 

[Gozma]

I feel like slow motion will be the new pause, or even the default way to do combat in general in P[STILLNOCOLONMOTHERFUCKER]E. Sounds pretty good to me, especially if they actually allow for a range of speeds instead of just 1 togglable option - you'd only do really easy encounters in real time. At least that's how I hope I'll be playing.

Yeah, everything he mentions sounds like a micromanagement click nightmare if the game has pause (that thing where he said a paladin gives a bonus to the nearest ally even if they're far away made me cringe at all the eyeball measurements and multiclicks it was going to cause). Taking it full MOBA mouse action game is the only way through, and slow mo is the only way to make that complicated.

 

[Infinitron]

I was guessing about 15-20 thousand first couple weeks at 60$ and maybe 5-10 thousand in 10$ steam sale. Everyone who was into this genre probably paid already and those who didn't will buy it in first week.
Comparing this to the Last shitty DMC that sold 1.1 million is little sad.

You mean the number of people who will buy the game? That's a gross underestimation. Legend of Grimrock sold hundreds of thousands of copies, dude.