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

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Sorry, missed that one. But that approach would be very anti-Sawyerist, and would essentially be a variation on the Arcanum approach (instead of different technology branches, different class-based branches).

It would still use the same skill for all those things, though. Don't see anything anti-Sawyerist about it.

Plus, if you're doing that, then why involve durability in crafting at all?

To give fighters a reason to take crafting? The question is "why not"? Skills should be broadly useful IMO, they shouldn't only do one thing.

Okay then, let's game out this system: non-monk tanks take crafting because it increases durability, monks and non-tanks take crafting because of the class-specific crafting options. If these two categories clearly choose the skill for specialized reasons, then why the hell wouldn't you just specialize them off the bat? Make a weapon repair/maintenance skill and a crafting skill; that way the player has more choice in the matter. The only reason why you wouldn't is because of fundamentalistic Sawyerism that every skill must be useful for every party member. You said that belief increases player choice; it doesn't.

 

[Liston]

What I am not fine with is
The complete mathematical unification across as many systems as possible because of the thought that it produces "better gameplay" - it doesn't.
Giving skills a gamist or arbitrary combat application to make up for their lack of appeal to more than a single character in a group when IMO this is not a problem in the first place and it could be solved in a more simulationist manner including non-combat application

I'm not sure what you mean by mathematical unification, but I guess that you want combat and non-combat skills strictly separated? It makes sense, especially because that is one of their goals with separation of skill points. But there is no reason to be so strict to not allow any indirect combat benefits like being able to use weapon longer, if you have problems with that than you probably also want to move stealth to combat skills poll because it can be used for better positioning and backstabbing. And I somewhat agree with you that it is easy to add fluff that will make systems seam less arbitrary and I appreciate when developers do that although I don't find it that important. For example they could make it so that every time you rest your equipment will gain some durability proportional to your crafting skill to simulate maintenance, that would produce similar effects while making more sense (although it is easily exploitable if resting isn't restricted). Even in its current form you can look at it as a high level abstraction of maintenance so I don't think that it is that arbitrary.

Edit: You can also make it that at each rest equipment gains percentage of durability lost since the last rest. Percentage is proportional to crafting skill and it doesn't effect broken equipment. That produces very similar effects, isn't exploitable and satisfies "simulations" needs.

 

[Infinitron]

Okay then, let's game out this system: non-monk tanks take crafting because it increases durability, monks and non-tanks take crafting because of the class-specific crafting options. If these two categories clearly choose the skill for specialized reasons, then why the hell wouldn't you just specialize them off the bat? Make a weapon repair/maintenance skill and a crafting skill; that way the player has more choice in the matter. The only reason why you wouldn't is because of fundamentalistic Sawyerism that every skill must be useful for every party member. You said that belief increases player choice; it doesn't.

If it doesn't increase player choice, it at least doesn't confuse the player with useless skills.

Anyway, there's not much more to say here. I've asked Josh to explain how Crafting is useful for long range, non-melee characters and classes. Let's see if he responds.

 

[Grunker]

Time to give Grunker and Blaine a lesson in verbal logic

Why am I included in this? Have you seen me make a comment in relation to this since you cleared it up? No? Then perhaps exclude me in your random shotgun salvos next time.

Also, Infinitron, I'd advise you read the Star Citizen threads when Blaine says shit like this:

I do appreciate Infinitron's Back to the Future approach to justifying all of Josh and Tim's design decisions. It's certainly innovative.

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

I don't think you have a clue as to the true hypocrisy going on here.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Okay then, let's game out this system: non-monk tanks take crafting because it increases durability, monks and non-tanks take crafting because of the class-specific crafting options. If these two categories clearly choose the skill for specialized reasons, then why the hell wouldn't you just specialize them off the bat? Make a weapon repair/maintenance skill and a crafting skill; that way the player has more choice in the matter. The only reason why you wouldn't is because of fundamentalistic Sawyerism that every skill must be useful for every party member. You said that belief increases player choice; it doesn't.

If it doesn't increase player choice, it at least doesn't confuse the player with useless skills.

Anyway, there's not much more to say here. I've asked Josh to explain how Crafting is useful for long range, non-melee characters and classes. Let's see if he responds.

One last thing though, because it's important: there's nothing "confusing" about being able to pick a skill that's probably useless. If I want to have a mage who's really good at weapon maintenance then I should be able to have that, ditto if I don't. That's player choice. If I want to play Fallout with Gambling, Outdoorsman and Throwing tagged, that should be my decision (which can lead to amusing LP's by the way). Sawyer's whole philosophy is, oh no, what if somebody picks a skill that turns out to be not as useful as they thought it would be, better scrap it or "enhance" it by merging it with something else so that players can never make the "wrong" decision. You can defend this all you want, but don't pretend that it increases player choice.

 

[Infinitron]

One last thing though, because it's important: there's nothing "confusing" about being able to pick a skill that's probably useless. If I want to have a mage who's really good at weapon maintenance then I should be able to have that, ditto if I don't. That's player choice. If I want to play Fallout with Gambling, Outdoorsman and Throwing tagged, that should be my decision (which can lead to amusing LP's by the way). Sawyer's whole philosophy is, oh no, what if somebody picks a skill that turns out to be not as useful as they thought it would be, better scrap it or "enhance" it by merging it with something else so that players can never make the "wrong" decision. You can defend this all you want, but don't pretend that it increases player choice.

My claim is that it increases the player's pool of GOOD choices, at the cost of eliminating some of the less useful (but perhaps amusing/challenging) ones.

I'm not saying it's the only right way to make a game. Fallout-style systems also deserve their time in the sun. But it is a legitimate design philosophy and I hope that when the game is released (hopefully complete and not rushed or buggy, which is the true danger for this game) that the Codex will come to appreciate it.

 

[Blaine]

Also, Infinitron, I'd advise you read the Star Citizen threads when Blaine says shit like this:

I do appreciate Infinitron's Back to the Future approach to justifying all of Josh and Tim's design decisions. It's certainly innovative.

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

I don't think you have a clue as to the true hypocrisy going on here.

And what hypocrisy would that be? The promised features for Star Citizen are so ambitious that you consider them too good to be true. Nowhere in those threads has there been an argument over game mechanics.

No, the argument between you and me (and others) is solely over pay-to-win concerns, and I share those concerns... to an extent. I've told (and proved) this to you many times, but apparently, if I don't take a shit on the game, curse the day Chris Roberts was born, and assume the worst, I must be a rationalizing apologist. It's you who're the unreasonable extremist here, Grunker, but you're too stone-headed to realize it.

Observe what Blaine the rationalizing Chris Roberts apologist posted on the private subscriber's forum this morning:

Spoiler

Who's that? Is that the most eloquent anti-p2w champion on an entire forum full of fanboy zealots? It could be. Kudos on slandering me enough in a different thread to draw me back into the argument, though. Real mature.

 

[Roguey]

Care to explain where the fun in item durabillity is?

Do tell, where's the fun in a money-sink?

Tension. Using less efficient equipment means you must play better to compensate.

Plus the "I have too much money" thing is a complaint I've seen a lot, especially here. Maybe we should just streamline money from RPGs and make bartering goods and services the only financial transaction.

Or maybe Josh ought to give in to his SA pals and make crafting more like Dragon Age II's, which is what they seem to want.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

My claim is that it increases the player's pool of GOOD choices, at the cost of eliminating some of the less useful (but perhaps amusing/challenging) ones.

One last caveat: he's of course right to want to eliminate the pure D&D dumpstats (wisdom for Fighters, etc.), but he's taking it way to far. Anyway, enjoyed the discussion, not particularly interested in PE itself (sure is pretty though), but Workshop is a bit dull these days, so this is a nice replacement.

 

[Grunker]

And what hypocrisy would that be?

You can't use the strawman that Roguey is apologetic without attacking his arguments and at the same time explain away Roberts' worrysome attitude towards World of Tanks with "there's probably a good reason." That he later disavowed the comparison does not legitimize the fact that you flat out stated stuff like "he probably doesn't know the model" when you had no idea that this was the case - i.e. you gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then after doing that, you come here and call everyone else apologetic because they use actual arguments from the horse's own mouth?

Apologizing for Roberts without knowing whether you're right, I can live with. Using a strawman against Roguey for being an apologist, I can live with. But those two at the same time? I had you pegged as one of the bros on here more interested in actual discussion and being informed than bullshit strawmen and being right.

Kudos on slandering me enough in a different thread to draw me back into the argument, though. Real mature.

You were being hypocritical and I called you out on it. You reap as you sow.

You're acting exactly like Roguey in the Star Citizen thread. If you can't see that yourself, it ain't my problem.

 

[Sensuki]

I'm not sure what you mean by mathematical unification, but I guess that you want combat and non-combat skills strictly separated?

Relating to non-combat skills, I was referring specifically to every skill needing something mathematically similar to the combat benefits gained by characters who chose Stealth (Stealth allows characters to get closer to enemies without being noticed, previous posts have hinted that the character's Stealth skill+modifiers will be compared against either a stat+modifiers but more likely a skill+modifiers (both static numbers) and that determines the distance which you can get before you are seen. One point in Stealth allows you to get slightly closer to an enemy regardless of your character when you are in Stealth mode).

if you have problems with that than you probably also want to move stealth to combat skills poll because it can be used for better positioning and backstabbing

Nah I don't really care about that. Firstly I do not believe that every skill in a game like this has to be taken by more than one party member. Josh Sawyer does. Okay, but I don't believe that other skills need to have the same type of benefit as Stealth. I believe that skills useful for everyone AND skills useful for one party member should be able to co-exist in a system. Josh Sawyer doesn't. Therefore Crafting has a combat-effective per-character sliding benefit like Stealth (and so will all other skills most likely because of their desire for mathematical unification).

The problem I have with crafting can be resolved by removing it from the skill list and making it an arbitrary action that every player can do. Prerequisites for crafting can be shifted to the recipes (level, skill, talent etc). If they want to keep item durability (for whatever reason) it can be made a separate feature of the game not related to Crafting (or skills, for that matter). That is the best path IMO if they are going to change it (because my other suggestion falls out of line with skills having a combat benefit).

But yeah perhaps Stealth in the skill pool is the problem

Edit: You can also make it that at each rest equipment gains percentage of durability lost since the last rest. Percentage is proportional to crafting skill and it doesn't effect broken equipment. That produces very similar effects, isn't exploitable and satisfies "simulations" needs.

That's fine with me on it's own - related it Item Durability by itself. My problem is Item durability related to Crafting and the side-effects it will have on character building.

 

[Blaine]

You can't use the strawman that Roguey is apologetic without attacking his arguments and at the same time explain away Roberts' worrysome attitude towards World of Tanks with "there's probably a good reason." That he later disavowed the comparison does not legitimize the fact that you flat out stated stuff like "he probably doesn't know the model" when you had no idea that this was the case - i.e. you gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then after doing that, you come here and calls everyone else apologetic because they use actual arguments from the horse's own mouth?

Except I did use an argument from the horse's own mouth. Chris Roberts has also insisted that Star Citizen will not be pay-to-win on multiple occasions, which World of Tanks very clearly is. Since those two stances don't jibe, it's very reasonable to speculate that he may not have been familiar with the exploitative particulars of World of Tanks. There's little or no apologism in that. It was simply an alternative to your all-caps, six-point-font assumption that he'd be copying the World of Tanks model wholesale—which is not actually what he said, although someone in search of evidence of the worst could certainly interpret it that way.

As it turned out, I was correct, and now I think you're mad that the bone you had to shake was taken away. That's understandable. It would be apologism if Chris definitively HAD chosen to use World of Tanks' revenue model and I then rationalized that choice. Giving him the benefit of the doubt when he seems to contradict his own statement that the game will not be pay-to-win is not apologism. It was logical.

Using a strawman against Roguey for being an apologist

it's not a strawman. Roguey unwaveringly agrees with and defends absolutely every single decision Sawyer makes, even if just to troll the Codex because she knows it's something controversial.

Fuck you. You were being hypocritical and I called you out on it. You reap as you sow.

I love how you consider yourself the arbiter of everything. There's been no hypocrisy on my part—you're blowing what's gone on in the Star Citizen thread far out of proportion. Knee-jerk reactions, anger, curse words spattered around every which way, and so on are the order of the day. You're always right and if someone disagrees and stands their ground, you get huffy.

 

[Grunker]

You're always right and if someone disagrees and stands their ground, you get huffy.

This is just ten pages ago:

Infinitron, coffeetable, Duraframe300, Rake, Lancehead: Hmm, fuck it. Upon further consideration, I was wrong, you were right. I concede to most of your points.

Straight up inventing shit to discredit people. Yeah, you're a shining example of integrity in arguments, bro.

Anyway, this is a silly conversation. You take my advice, or you don't. Either way, it's up to you.

 

[Roguey]

it's not a strawman. Roguey unwaveringly agrees with and defends absolutely every single decision Sawyer makes, even if just to troll the Codex because she knows it's something controversial.

In my Icewind Dale 2 article I criticized the cutscene and narration he wrote linking chapters 1 and 2 and brought up how creepy his rape fixation is.

Getting those who have grown annoyed with Sawyer's undomesticated snowmannery to defend his decisions was quite fun too.

 

[Liston]

Relating to non-combat skills, I was referring specifically to every skill needing something mathematically similar to the combat benefits gained by characters who chose Stealth

Are you referring to marginal benefits (I don't see any other similarity between stealth and crafting)? I have to disagree with you, it is a good thing that you have benefits no matter how much points you put into skill because it gives you more viable options. What is the problem with that? If you want hard skill checks that increase as you progress with the game forcing you to max only a handful of skills while ignoring the rest, you can as well change skill points with just choosing two/three skills during character creation that will automatically increase on every level up. I don't see any benefit to that approach, it adds nothing and only restricts a number of viable builds.

Firstly I do not believe that every skill in a game like this has to be taken by more than one party member. Josh Sawyer does.

No, he doesn't. He belies that every skill should be viable for any character, big difference.

I believe that skills useful for everyone AND skills useful for one party member should be able to co-exist in a system. Josh Sawyer doesn't.

It isn't about single characters skills being terrible, it's about skills that can benefit more than one character are better because again they give you more viable choices. It is better IMO if you have to make a decision what characters should invest in crafting and how much points they should invest than just to decide what character is going to be a "crafter" during character creation.

 

[Carrion]

Tension. Using less efficient equipment means you must play better to compensate.

There's no real tension when the system is completely predictable and weapon degradation is constant, though. Facing a weapon-destroying golem or a mage with armor-decaying spells would be another thing entirely, but it doesn't sound like anything like that is going to be in the game. I'm not really against item durability, as it can be used to balance in-game economy when done properly, and I'm all for having more money sinks in general, but at this point the system unfortunately sounds more like busywork than anything else. This is definitely one area of the game where a more chaotic, unpredictable approach would seem like a better alternative.

 

[Blaine]

This is just ten pages ago:

Straight up inventing shit to discredit people.

Now you know how I feel when I have to quote myself back at you. You may choose to believe that you have "evidence" that I'm an apologist and a hypocrite regardless, but I disagree. In my view, that's your confirmation bias and spin-doctoring at work. I can as easily say of your concession quoted above that a stopped clock is right twice a day, the exception proves the rule, etc., essentially arguing that one exceptional incident does not disprove a pattern of behavior.

My advice to you is to calm down, try to be more reasonable, and let it go every once in a while. Also, stop using "yah lost muh respect" as a constant tool for insulting people (or at least for insulting me, as this is the third time you've done so in the last several months). If your respect hinges on me agreeing with your worldview and opinions to the extent that you feel is appropriate, then I don't give a shit whether I have it or not.

 

[Grunker]

Yeah, whatever *shakes head*

Carry on.

 

[Sensuki]

Are you referring to marginal benefits

Combat-related "per-character sliding benefit" as he worded it. Yes.

No, he doesn't. He belies that every skill should be viable for any character, big difference.

My bad I misworded. "I do not believe that every skill in a game like this has to be able to be taken by more than one party member" - meaning that I believe that skills that only require one character to pick are fine in an RPG IMO. There is a place for those, just as there is a place for skills like Stealth. I do not believe you have to tack on side-benefits just to make a skill worth taking. D&D skills were not designed to be able to be taken by everyone without a penalty, what Obsidian have done is taken D&D skills and said ... what can we do to fix these and kept the mechanics rather the same and just tacked on little side-bonuses to make them more appealing. In my opinion this is a Bandaid over the Bullethole. Sure it does what it's supposed to do, but it then influences the reason for taking the skills. You no longer take Crafting because you want to Craft, you take it because you want the Item Durability stuff. Who crafts for the party doesn't matter as long as someone can do it. It doesn't fix the problem. Why would you take Crafting as a ranged character or a wizard ? You'll most likely be better off taking something else instead. It won't be a complete waste of a skill point but it's still sub-optimal. There are OTHER ways to validate such a decision rather than a combat buff related to weapon damage or accuracy that IMO would make much more sense, but because Stealth has combat effectiveness, it seems other skills have to as well.

Make crafting not a skill, problem solved. The same could be said by making Stealth a talent & class-ability possibly. Then it removes the pressure of every other skill having to have combat application.

I believe that skills useful for everyone AND skills useful for one party member should be able to co-exist in a system. Josh Sawyer doesn't.

It isn't about single characters skills being terrible, it's about skills that can benefit more than one character are better because again they give you more viable choices. It is better IMO if you have to make a decision what characters should invest in crafting and how much points they should invest than just to decide what character is going to be a "crafter" during character creation.

That doesn't address what I said. I said there is room for both types of skills. There can be skills that make you consider exactly what you said, and a pool of skills that only one party member needs to take (IMO).

 

[Blaine]

In my Icewind Dale 2 article I criticized the cutscene and narration he wrote linking chapters 1 and 2 and brought up how creepy his rape fixation is.

Once again Roguey, I'm referring to the decisions he's making right now and specifically his decisionmaking regarding Project Eternity, not shit that happened over a decade ago. You always bring up some shit that happened over a decade ago whenever anyone calls you out on your fangirlery.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I don't get why people keep posting in this thread.

It should just be retitled to "rpgcodex aspergers central".

 

[evdk]

I don't get why people keep posting in this thread.

It should just be retitled to "rpgcodex aspergers central".

Well, you've answered your own question, so...

 

[tuluse]

In my Icewind Dale 2 article I criticized the cutscene and narration he wrote linking chapters 1 and 2 and brought up how creepy his rape fixation is.

Getting those who have grown annoyed with Sawyer's undomesticated snowmannery to defend his decisions was quite fun too.

Don't forget you were against the original missing mechanic (or lack there of).

 

[Blaine]

I don't get why people keep posting in this thread.

It should just be retitled to "rpgcodex aspergers central".

I've become the very thing I used to hate.

 

[Kirtai]

I doubt even aspies would want to get embroiled in this mess.