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

[Liston]

I didn't miss it. If durability is enough to siphon off the excess currency of those who refuse to buy better kit, then what about those who do buy better kit? Are you assuming that people will sell their equipment and just buy more when it's damaged, rather than repairing? Because once again, that's the only way your Swiss cheese logic makes any sense.

You are neglecting the fact that durability is adding value to bought items. Without durability there is no difference between the two same items and there is no reason to carry two same/similar peaces of equipment. So if you buy a sword for a good chunk of your gold and then find same/similar sword shortly after, you have wasted a lot of money (sell precises are usually significantly lower). It's really common to be able to find similar equipment to what you can afford and IMO it is the main reason why a lot of players are allergic to spending money on simple upgrades. In the same situation, if you have degradation, finding same/similar sword effectively doubles its durability and makes the purchase worthwhile. No matter how many items you find your purchase gives you an extra 100 durability and therefor have value.

 

[Infinitron]

You are neglecting the fact that durability is adding value to bought items. Without durability there is no difference between the two same items and there is no reason to carry two same/similar peaces of equipment. So if you buy a sword for a good chunk of your gold and then find same/similar sword shortly after, you have wasted a lot of money (sell precises are usually significantly lower). It's really common to be able to find similar equipment to what you can afford and IMO it is the main reason why a lot of players are allergic to spending money on simple upgrades. In the same situation, if you have degradation, finding same/similar sword effectively doubles its durability and makes the purchase worthwhile. No matter how many items you find your purchase gives you an extra 100 durability and therefor have value.

That is an excellent point.

 

[Rivmusique]

Mmm can not wait to click the repair all button every time I visit a smith. Such fun.

 

[Sensuki]

That's kind of stupid. Just rename the skill to "Crafting and Weapon Maintenance" in your mind, if that helps. Imagine your character becomes better at applying whetstone after each battle to diminish damage done to his sword, or whatever.

I don't use my imagination when I play games anymore though

It feels like a kind of tacky reason to circumvent the suboptimal choices of bad players and give people a reason to choose crafting on more than one character. I do not feel that Crafting needs to be taken by more than one character but it seems than Josh Sawyer does. There has got to be a much better way to solve the "why would I take crafting if someone else already has it" problem than relating it to Item degradation.

 

[Blaine]

Okay kid.

Confirmed for mad.

You're thinking in binary.

Now that would be a fair point, except that Josh Sawyer himself laid out his reasoning in binary, e.g. those who would upgrade the stronghold, and those who wouldn't. As I've said, this is a complex issue. Also, thinking in extremes is no better:

Let's say there's 1000 gold in the game. Let's say that kitting out the stronghold fully takes 800 gold, that buying great items throughout the game costs 400 gold, and that maintaining great items - found or bought - costs 400 gold.

So here're the extreme choices with durability:

• Fully upgrade the stronghold, buy and maintain 1/4th of the great items.
• Fully upgrade the stronghold, find and maintain 1/2 of the great items.
• Buy and maintain all the great items, 1/5th upgrade the stronghold
• Find and maintain all the great items, 3/5ths upgrade the stronghold

There are four options for people who buy items, two options for people who don't buy items.


Now without durability:

• Fully upgrade the stronghold, buy 1/2 as many great items.
• Buy all the great items, 3/5ths upgrade the stronghold
• Find all the great items, fully upgrade the stronghold

There are two options for people who buy items. There is one option for people who don't.

This probably looks good to you and all, but almost no players will absolutely refuse to buy items (or insist on using only found items)—most will engage in a combination of behaviors. Thus, your arbitrary list is no better than my binary presumption of stronghold/no stronghold. Also, balancing the game economy around extreme outliers is fucking retarded.

ps stop trying to think you are obviously bad at it

Reconfirmed for mad.

 

[coffeetable]

That's kind of stupid. Just rename the skill to "Crafting and Weapon Maintenance" in your mind, if that helps. Imagine your character becomes better at applying whetstone after each battle to diminish damage done to his sword, or whatever.

I don't use my imagination when I play games anymore though

It feels like a kind of tacky reason to circumvent the suboptimal choices of bad players and give people a reason to choose crafting on more than one character. I do not feel that Crafting needs to be taken by more than one character but it seems than Josh Sawyer does. There has got to be a much better way to solve the "why would I take crafting if someone else already has it" problem than relating it to Item degradation.

Sorry, what "bad players" are we talking about here?

And on it's own, any of the three tradeoffs I laid out wouldn't justify degradation. There are certainly better solutions to each individual goal. Together though, three distinct mechanics for those three goals would be far more unwieldy than durability.

 

[Blaine]

You are neglecting the fact that durability is adding value to bought items. Without durability there is no difference between the two same items and there is no reason to carry two same/similar peaces of equipment. So if you buy a sword for a good chunk of your gold and then find same/similar sword shortly after, you have wasted a lot of money (sell precises are usually significantly lower). It's really common to be able to find similar equipment to what you can afford and IMO it is the main reason why a lot of players are allergic to spending money on simple upgrades. In the same situation, if you have degradation, finding same/similar sword effectively doubles its durability and makes the purchase worthwhile. No matter how many items you find your purchase gives you an extra 100 durability and therefor have value.

Now THIS fella here has a good point. These are the kinds of newfags the Codex needs. Infinitron is right for once.

 

[Infinitron]

I do not feel that Crafting needs to be taken by more than one character but it seems than Josh Sawyer does.

Actually, if you don't care about rapid degradation, you can do just fine with just one character with Crafting. He can still do all your repairs for you.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

That's kind of stupid. Just rename the skill to "Crafting and Weapon Maintenance" in your mind, if that helps. Imagine your character becomes better at applying whetstone after each battle to diminish damage done to his sword, or whatever.

I don't use my imagination when I play games anymore though

It feels like a kind of tacky reason to circumvent the suboptimal choices of bad players and give people a reason to choose crafting on more than one character. I do not feel that Crafting needs to be taken by more than one character but it seems than Josh Sawyer does. There has got to be a much better way to solve the "why would I take crafting if someone else already has it" problem than relating it to Item degradation.

I actually think this is one the very few parts of it that makes sense. It felt weird that Arcanum had one general "repair" skill next to all these specialized technical crafting disciplines: why would somebody real good at "repairing stuff" be better at fixing a tesla rod than someone who managed to build it himself? Of course crafting will probably be far less compartmentalized in PE, so that point is probably moot.

 

[Logic_error]

The Spirit Eating was also an additional bother since you had to worry about suppressing your craving or getting your next fix.

How was it bother?

It was a resource that you had to manage. You were either smart enough to manage it well or not. In fact it did a great job of avoiding full health and spell regeneration after every battle.

 

[coffeetable]

Confirmed for mad.

It's just faintly amusing when people try to punch above their weight and then fall flat on their stupidity.

This probably looks good to you and all, but almost no players will absolutely refuse to buy items (or insist on using only found items)—most will engage in a combination of behaviors. Thus, your arbitrary list is no better than my binary presumption of stronghold/no stronghold. Also, balancing the game around extreme outliers is fucking retarded.

Do you not understand what a convex volume (well simplex, but let's not go there) is? It's defined by its edges, which in this case are the extrema I gave. Of course players will engage in a combination of behaviours, and those behaviours can be represented by a convex sum of those extreme behaviours. More, if the game's response in edge cases is reasonable, it's likely to be reasonable everywhere else too.

 

[Logic_error]

Do you not understand what a convex volume is? It's defined by its vertices, which in this case are the extrema I gave. Of course players will engage in a combination of behaviours, and those behaviours can be represented by a sum of those extreme behaviours. More, if the game's response in edge cases is reasonable, it's likely to be reasonable everywhere else too.

Wrong analogy?

 

[Sensuki]

Sorry, what "bad players" are we talking about here?

If there was no side benefit to taking points in Crafting besides being able to Craft. There would be no point taking Crafting on any character but one. There are people out there that would not figure that out or still do it anyway at the expense of spending those points elsewhere. This is something that Josh Sawyer does not like to see and believes that it is the designer's fault, not the player's and one of his mandates is to remove or lessen the impact of such choices.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post407726683

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=3#post407880122

 

[coffeetable]

If there was no side benefit to taking points in Crafting besides being able to Craft. There would be no point taking Crafting on any character but one. There are people out there that would not figure that out or still do it anyway at the expense of spending those points elsewhere. This is something that Josh Sawyer does not like to see and believes that it is the designer's fault, not the player's and one of his mandates is to remove or lessen the impact of such choices.

I don't think Obsidian want an incentive for multiple characters to take Craft for this reason. I think it's because if there weren't auxiliary benefits, then it's a dead skill on all but one party member. You'd be biased against taking a Crafting NPC if your PC had Crafting, for example.

 

[Sensuki]

I do not feel that Crafting needs to be taken by more than one character but it seems than Josh Sawyer does.

Actually, if you don't care about rapid degradation, you can do just fine with just one character with Crafting. He can still do all your repairs for you.

No the design pretty much screams "take this as a melee character". Mind you that depends on how many skill points you get but as a melee character, any extra skill points are gonna wanna be dumped into Crafting to reduce the rate of degradation. Depends on what the other skills are and stuff and how many skill points you get though.

Of course crafting will probably be far less compartmentalized in PE, so that point is probably moot.

Crafting seems like it is [Crafting, Alchemy, Enchanting, Weapon Maintenance] all simplified into one skill.

 

[Sensuki]

I did say that the environment art pipeline was a big deal.

 

[Blaine]

Do you not understand what a convex volume is? It's defined by its vertices, which in this case are the extrema I gave. Of course players will engage in a combination of behaviours, and those behaviours can be represented by a sum of those extreme behaviours. More, if the game's response in edge cases is reasonable, it's likely to be reasonable everywhere else too.

Oh ho, breaking out the fancy nomenclature, are we? I notice you altered this six minutes after posting it to slather on more mathematical jargon (and fix a mistake or two) while I was tabbed elsewhere, but I'll just hang onto the original for sentimental value.

Let's dispense with the pretentious Googled twaddle and get back to basics. Consulting your list of extremes (and arbitrary gold cap, arbitrary ratio of stronghold expenditures to gear expenditures, etc.), absolutely no one will be able to fully upgrade their stronghold unless they use only found gear and their characters go half-naked and/or with their equipment partially damaged. Ideally, someone who uses and maintains found gear as much as possible and supplements it sparingly with store-bought gear will be able to fully build their stronghold by the last 1/4 or so of the game (or whatever milestone). THAT is what the economy should be built around.

What this means is that those who overspend significantly on store-bought gear won't be able to fully build their stronghold; it also means that those who hoard almost all of their cash and use only found gear, even if it's subpar or there are missing pieces, will be able to fully build their stronghold and still have money left over that hasn't gone into a sink. That makes sense, since they're so damned frugal. You don't need an arbitrary sink for people who are that dedicated to hoarding money. They can spend it on gear or lots of consumables if they wish; that's something tangible, at least. You only need an extra sink if you're reaching for an excuse for Josh Sawyer to have a repair mechanic.

That said, I like my idea (thrown acid/acid spells/magma/whatever destroying worn gear), and Liston had a good point, too. Those are actual good reasons to have a repair mechanic.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Crafting seems like it is [Crafting, Alchemy, Enchanting, Weapon Maintenance] all simplified into one skill.

That basically sums up what pisses me off so much about Sawyer's whole "balancing" approach. Arcanum understood precisely how you deal with the danger of a skill like crafting become superfluous in a party: just subdivide it and make these subdivisions interesting/powerful enough on themselves. That way, yes, you only need one party member good at electricity crafting, but it's useful to have multiple crafters all the same. Sawyers approach is, fuck it, everyone has to have at least some degree of the same amalgamated crafting skill because balance dictates it. It's fucking boring and possibly even banal.

 

[4too]

No One Expects ...




Fantasy adventure. No one expects ... the Second Law Of Thermodynamics!


Maybe this D+D denizen, can stand in for entropy,

devouring your +3 Sword Of Awesome!



If durability friction is not solely a resource sink hole for the PE indigenous consumer society, (a game with in an economic gain!), then it might imply the levels of maintenance that increase with weapon systems experience.

Physical weapons decay at a fractional rate when wielded ... scientifically.

Some may be able to maintain the cutting edge longer, and fewer hone and maintain the quality of the iron.

Buffing the party includes buffing the gear. Virtual Viagra anoints the gay blade and the real steel!

Magic might feed on Mana, physical systems on the energy devoted to maintenance.


For post modern consumer consummation, mountains of sugar, salt, and fat will eternally reign, as the magic mix of the consumer age.
For perpetual motives, we will always have enough cheese!
For Kickstarter impulses can lapse, and inertial spiral into the mass marketing miasma.
For those with little time, self esteem , or autistic repetitive co-dependance , GodMode/PopAmole will certainly prevail.



4too

 

[Infinitron]

4too

 

[Grunker]

 

[Arkeus]

I didn't miss it. If durability is enough to siphon off the excess currency of those who refuse to buy better kit, then what about those who do buy better kit? Are you assuming that people will sell their equipment and just buy more when it's damaged, rather than repairing? Because once again, that's the only way your Swiss cheese logic makes any sense.

My feeling her will be that Stronghold/Buying will be stuff that's hard to do if you aren't doing a lot of sidequests (and hence get more money than if you were just doing the main quest). So if the money is balanced so that if you do ALL sidequests you can buy a lot of the good items AND do the stronghold and have maintained armor/weapons, then the players who don't do the stronghold are likely to also not do all the sidequests, and so on.

It's basically balanced so that there is no excess for completionists

 

[dunno lah]

Anyway, like Blaine said, equipment degradation abilities in combat is something that I'm expecting. And that "one hit=one durabilty point" needs to be clarified. Infinitron, we I need some peace of mind here...

 

[Surf Solar]

I really like item durability managment int post apocalyptic games where scavenging actually is meaningful, not sure what I think of it in P:E but I'm giving it the benefit of doubt. I liked that the mundane weapons could break in BG1.

 

[tuluse]

Yeah. One thing I never figured out - did that stop happening after you cleared out the Nashkel mines?

It kept happening, I've tested.

Story wise there were a few reasons. You stopped the mines from being poisoned, but all the poison that had been put in was still there. It takes a while to replace all the weapons that exist in the area, I think the implication is that all the stuff you find or buy has been manufactured months ago.

There might have even been mention that the army was hording all the good stuff for themselves, but I might be imagining that. If I am, they should have put that in.