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

[Lancehead]

Then you're missing out on some other skill. That's not homogenisation, that's your choice to get Crafting for all of them. The problem with your argument is the presumption that the benefits of Crafting outweigh benefits any other skill may provide, which is baseless.

 

[coffeetable]

I fail to see any logic in "more than one party member can benefit from Crafting" leading to "homogenisation".

You have three frontline fighters, you only want to repair/buy new weapons every X amount of time, a fighter with a damaged weapon is a worse fighter than one without a damaged weapon, so you give each fighter the amount of crafting skill it requires to make it through the X amount of time without their weapon getting damaged. The result is a homogenized frontline in terms of crafting skill.

How can you afford NOT to level Crafting?

Like I said, it's conjecture but I'm expecting every other non-combat skill to have combat value. Alchemy improves potion buffs, Cooking improves food buffs, etc

 

[CappenVarra]

Timmy!

Also, finally a mechanic I'm in favor of - having item durability, that is. The implementation sounds kinda wonky and dull, but hey... Improvamentations incoming :D

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Then you're missing out on some other skill. That's not homogenisation, that's your choice to get Crafting for all of them. The problem with your argument is the presumption that the benefits of Crafting outweigh benefits any other skill may provide, which is baseless.

Fine, then let's say you only raise the crafting skill of two of your frontline fighters, but spend the points of the third one elsewhere. The result is that halfway through a dungeon two fighters have undamaged weapons and one has a damaged weapon and is relatively useless. What's the point? The incentive is clearly to keep all your fighters at more or less the same crafting level to account for the amount of times you're willing to refresh the weapons/armor.

 

[Lancehead]

Then you're missing out on some other skill. That's not homogenisation, that's your choice to get Crafting for all of them. The problem with your argument is the presumption that the benefits of Crafting outweigh benefits any other skill may provide, which is baseless.

Fine, then let's say you only raise the crafting skill of two of your frontline fighters, but spend the points of the third one elsewhere. The result is that halfway through a dungeon two fighters have undamaged weapons and one has a damaged weapon and is relatively useless. What's the point? The incentive is clearly to keep all your fighters at more or less the same crafting level to account for the amount of times you're willing to refresh the weapons/armor.

Again, you make it out as if Crafting is indispensable for a fighter. Why? Instead of Crafting the fighter will spend money on repairs, new weapons, and use those skill points on some other skill. Why is your assumption that a fighter with Crafting is better off than a fighter without Crafting but with some other presumably useful skill?

About your example: First, great, the combat looks challenging. And the fighter has many options if his weapon is damaged. He can carry extra weapon in your equipment belt. Extra weapons in backpack. If nothing else, he can stick it out with the damaged weapon because it's not broken. Meanwhile he can enjoy whatever other skill (e.g. alchemy) he invested in instead of Crafting.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Again, you make it out as if Crafting is indispensable for a fighter. Why? Instead of Crafting the fighter will spend money on repairs, new weapons, and use those skill points on some other skill. Why is your assumption that a fighter with Crafting is better off than a fighter without Crafting but with some other presumably useful skill?

No I don't. All I'm saying is that the incentive is that every fighter puts the same amount of points in crafting. Homogenized can equally mean that nobody puts any points in it, or that everyone puts max points into it.

About your example: First, great, the combat looks challenging. And the fighter has many options if his weapon is damaged. He can carry extra weapon in your equipment belt. Extra weapons in backpack. If nothing else, he can stick it out with the damaged weapon because it's not broken. Meanwhile he can enjoy whatever other skill he invested in instead of Crafting.

The other fighters in this scenario in all likelihood also have extra weapons on their belt, and they can also fight with damaged weapons; why does the equation count for one fighter but not for the others? The point remains: however important you make crafting, if the effect of crafting on degradation is impacted in the same way for each party member, then the incentive is to keep it at the same level for each party member of a certain role (e.g. frontline fighter).

 

[Cosmo]

No I don't. All I'm saying is that the incentive is that every fighter puts the same amount of points in crafting. Homogenized can equally mean that nobody puts any points in it, or that everyone puts max points into it.

That's your sperg side talking buddy. Nobody but you feels this pressure to "homogenize". Two good reasons among others to quit your little fixation : equipment can be swapped between party members at any time you want (other than combat) and whatever its state of decay, to counter ; and not every fighter type has the same relation to equipment : barbarians, with their light armor, will be cheaper to maintain. Even truer for monks.

 

[Sensuki]

I agree that it does give frontline fighters the incentive to all dump any extra skill points into Crafting to minimize item degradation, and I don't like that. It should be related to weapon proficiency or something instead but there is no such thing to speak of in P:E.

A fighter would know how to keep his sword in good condition, and a ranger would know how and when to restring his bow.

 

[Lancehead]

Again, you make it out as if Crafting is indispensable for a fighter. Why? Instead of Crafting the fighter will spend money on repairs, new weapons, and use those skill points on some other skill. Why is your assumption that a fighter with Crafting is better off than a fighter without Crafting but with some other presumably useful skill?

No I don't. All I'm saying is that the incentive is that every fighter puts the same amount of points in crafting. Homogenized can equally mean that nobody puts any points in it, or that everyone puts max points into it.

I don't see any such incentive, not unless there's too many skill points, at which point there are more incentives than Crafting.

About your example: First, great, the combat looks challenging. And the fighter has many options if his weapon is damaged. He can carry extra weapon in your equipment belt. Extra weapons in backpack. If nothing else, he can stick it out with the damaged weapon because it's not broken. Meanwhile he can enjoy whatever other skill he invested in instead of Crafting.

The other fighters in this scenario in all likelihood also have extra weapons on their belt, and they can also fight with damaged weapons; why does the equation count for one fighter but not for the others?

The equation applies to other fighters also. They're enjoying reduced repairs (alongside being able to craft items) while missing out on whatever the skill the third fighter is enjoying.

The point remains: however important you make crafting, if the effect of crafting on degradation is impacted in the same way for each party member, then the incentive is to keep it at the same level for each party member of a certain role (e.g. frontline fighter).

Why not spend some money on repairs and invest those points elsewhere maxing out some other skill? Why is the second option unattractive compared to the first without assuming there's an abundance of skill points?

 

[Grunker]

In any game I've ever tried, Crafting has only added to the game if it allowed you to Craft things inaccessible by other means. Crafting gear means that either:

1) Rewards and items in the gameworld are worthless as Crafting is better.

2) Crafting is worthless because found items are better.

Contrast this to games like The Witcher where crafting exists in its own space. What you gain by crafting is only attainable by crafting, and hence crafting is neither worthless nor a substitute for anything.

EDIT: Asked Sawyer on Formspring about it.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

That's your sperg side talking buddy. Nobody but you feels this pressure to "homogenize".

Most people don't restspam in IE games either; doesn't change that the fact that it being the best gameplay option is bad design.

equipment can be swapped between party members at any time you want (other than combat) and whatever its state of decay, to counter ;

Yeah, of course your bad-at-crafting-fighter can swap his weapon for one properly maintained by a good-at-crafting-fighter. A riveting gameplay element that simulates one party member doing the crafting for the entire party.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

This clown couldn't design his way out of a wet paper bag.

 

[Sensuki]

Contrast this to games like The Witcher where crafting exists in its own space. What you gain by crafting is only attainable by crafting, and hence crafting is neither worthless nor a substitute for anything.

EDIT: Asked Sawyer on Formspring about it.

Very good point

What did you think about the BG2 system (artifacts) and KotoR2 (upgrading stock items with better parts) ?

 

[Duraframe300]

I'm not sure how J.E. Sawyer is at fault here (If you don't like the mechanic) Doesn't the update state at the beginning that Tim designed it?

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

No I don't. All I'm saying is that the incentive is that every fighter puts the same amount of points in crafting. Homogenized can equally mean that nobody puts any points in it, or that everyone puts max points into it.

I don't see any such incentive, not unless there's too many skill points, at which point there are more incentives than Crafting.

Fine, let's suppose we take your route and say, I'm not going to give all my frontline fighters the same amount of crafting, but fighter A gets a far smaller amount than fighter B. On what basis do you decide this difference? The only conceivable reason would be as Sensuki mentioned that fighter B has more spare skillpoints for whatever reason. In other words it's a completely arbitrary feature to individualize repair.

 

[Carrion]

Obsidian made the weapon/armor repair system work really well in New Vegas, and it also made the game's economy much more balanced than in most of the other similar games. Betrayal at Krondor also did a decent job with it, although it didn't affect the gameplay that much as there were plenty of repair items available for free all the time. In New Vegas you only had to maintain one character's stuff, though, and the amount of combat was much lower than what it'll probably be in PE. If you have a party of six characters and the weapon degradation rate is even slightly too fast, it will most likely become tedious as hell. On the other hand, I guess that Sawyer as a balance-obsessed guy is more likely to get that kind of stuff right than most (at least I'm expecting that Sawyer will fiddle with it at some point and it won't be all left to Tim Cain).

Having the character's crafting skill magically affect the durability of a weapon is another piece of Sawyerism that I don't really like. You could see that as an abstraction of weapon maintenance, but it still sounds very artificial to me. PE's not the first game that did it, but still.

 

[Blaine]

This clown couldn't design his way out of a wet paper bag.

I'm hoping that most of the game will be pretty darned good despite the harebrained gigglesome frippery that is Josh's "vision" of game design.

For every red flag he raises, in rides Roguey and a merry band of apologists to rationalize why it's really not a big deal, everything will work out fine, it's actually a good thing rather than a bad thing, et cetera. Can't see most of those tattered flags anymore since they've been argued to death, but they're still there, mashed into the mud.

I need to check Something Awful at some point to see if they're polishing his knob whenever he posts something. And don't get me wrong: I actually like Josh. I also like my grandmother, but she has no business driving a car.

 

[Sensuki]

Having the character's crafting skill magically affect the durability of a weapon is another piece of Sawyerism that I don't really like. You could see that as an abstraction of weapon maintenance, but it still sounds very artificial to me. PE's not the first game that did it, but still.

That is my main problem with it as well.

Something Awful has some good against item durability posts on there.

 

[Zed]

The latest update is very disappointing to me. I honestly don't like anything Mr Cain says in it. Nothing. MMORPG crafting (with auto-learning recipes on level up? wut), and tedious nonsensical durability penalties on weapons.

I hope they scrap all this and just copy-pasta BG2. The crafting was perfect for its purpose. It supported the idea of "only a handful of smiths in this entire realm may craft turboarmor from dragonscale!" while still allowing the player to "craft" items. Also, this being a service for the player by a master smith, it costs money. No need for stupid-ass moneysinks like durability when a set of dragonscale armor costs you 20k gold coins.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Having the character's crafting skill magically affect the durability of a weapon is another piece of Sawyerism that I don't really like. You could see that as an abstraction of weapon maintenance, but it still sounds very artificial to me. PE's not the first game that did it, but still.

There's just so much stupidity in every aspect of the way they're going about this. Nobody's even mentioned (or at least I think so) this yet:

every attack with a weapon degrades that weapon by one unit, and armor and shields are similarly degraded when the wearer is attacked.

Am I reading this right as a midget punching your shoulders and a ballista to the gut doing the same amount of armor damage?

 

[Infinitron]

I find it interesting that the most controversial updates have been written by Tim Cain.

Crafting & Durability: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/528227
Cooldowns: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/318515

Am I reading this right as a midget punching your shoulders and a ballista to the gut doing the same amount of armor damage?

"Project Eternity, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gamism"

 

[Blaine]

No need for stupid-ass moneysinks like durability.

I want to examine his logic again, step by step:

1. The flow of currency will balanced around players investing in the stronghold.
2. However, investing in the stronghold is optional, so players who don't will have a surplus of currency.
3. A gold sink is therefore required to curb this surplus.
4. The gold sink chosen will affect all players equally, whether they invest in the stronghold or not.
5. It must follow that either stronghold investors won't have enough currency, or else the gold sink won't actually do much to curb the surplus possessed by non-investors, defeating the point of it.

It makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Cosmo]

So a high crafting skill means your weapons, armor, and shields degrade more slowly and you can repair those items (and those of your companions) more cheaply than a vendor.

I guess this begs an explanation : if crafters can indeed repair (assuming Cain's not talking about the "maintain equipment" abstraction), then the whole debate is null and void.

 

[Roguey]

Am I the only one who remembers that weapons would break in the early game of BG? And I never even played it.

I approve of Tim Cain trolling everyone with his abstract crafting and durability systems.

 

[Grunker]

Contrast this to games like The Witcher where crafting exists in its own space. What you gain by crafting is only attainable by crafting, and hence crafting is neither worthless nor a substitute for anything.

EDIT: Asked Sawyer on Formspring about it.

Very good point

What did you think about the BG2 system (artifacts) and KotoR2 (upgrading stock items with better parts) ?

Obviously that falls under "only attainable by crafting" i.e. I like it.

For every red flag he raises, in rides Roguey [...] to rationalize why it's really not a big deal.

Jesus Christ the irony is so thick I could cut through it with a wooden spoon.

 

[Blaine]

There's just so much stupidity in every aspect of the way they're going about this. Nobody's even mentioned (or at least I think so) this yet:

every attack with a weapon degrades that weapon by one unit, and armor and shields are similarly degraded when the wearer is attacked.

Am I reading this right as a midget punching your shoulders and a ballista to the gut doing the same amount of armor damage?

You're reading it right. I'm hoping that we'll find that there are spells/abilities/throwable items (acid, lava, etc.) that can cause equipment to become damaged, because that's an actual, legitimate, sensible reason for a durability mechanic.