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

[Grunker]

Oh hooooooooooooooo. Don't get me started on that quote of yours Sensuki. If what he says is true, and there are backers (i.e. the ones he is designing the game for) like that, then it makes no sense that they backed an IE-like... His own argument eats itself.

I'm saying this because I'll talk to a tester (volunteer or pro) with a ton of RPG experience and later watch him or her play remotely. Or I'll pop open a Let's Play on YouTube from an enthusiastic player and watch how things turn out. Sometimes they ace it, sometimes they don't. Either way, what I see on that monitor doesn't lie.

Yet to gain this "ton of RPG experience" these players must have beat a lot of RPGs... RPGs that did not have what you claim they "actually need." Anyone have a clue what argument he is trying to make here, go ahead.

because your argument is that PE is using 4e as the backbone.

No, my argument is that I'm leery of some of the things Sawyer likes about 4E, and I disagree with some of the statements he made about it. Anything else is just you making shit up... again.

you look at the trees and miss the forest.

Please point to where I said "P:E will be a terrible game because of these few 4E elements" or get the fuck out of here with those retarded strawmen. In fact, I think you'll find me praising P:E as it looks so far more than the opposite throughout this thread.

I am capable of having a nuanced outlook on P:E - I find things both brilliant, lackluster and terrible in Sawyer's design choices. I comment on them as I see them, not with some overarching "P:E will be shit/brilliant" agenda in the back of my hand like you seem to think I'm doing.

 

[Sensuki]

Grunker does have a point Hormalakh, and a very good one. It's simply called hindsight.

We can very well extract a 4E inspired feature from the game and say that this is not as good as X because building a character in P&P or playing a character in P&P, this is what I felt, and I thought it was worse compared to X.

That is experience and in Grunker's case A LOT of experience, that counts for something.

I am not as experienced of a P&P player as Grunker and it's been at least 5 years? Since I've played anything. But I can do exactly the same for a different example.

For Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 they took out the lean feature (among other things). Lean had been a feature in Call of Duty since Call of Duty 1 and a player's ability to lean was paramount to their success as a competitive player in most roles (AK or Sniper usually, SMG not required but very useful). I never bought or played the game but I predicted that it would have a negative impact on the gameplay and decrease the skill gap between players ... and sure enough it contributed to that fact.

 

[Hormalakh]

To be honest man and this is just my opinion, from the sounds of it most people who beta test/QA test games aren't particularly fantastic gamers. I think he's been traumatized by how terrible people actually are at games. He seems to be pretty good at RPG games himself, but when he talks about his experiences of watching others it's as if he's seen some truly awful shit. It just goes to show with how bad Adam Brennecke and Chris Avellone are at games that people who work on games aren't necessarily very good at them. I'd wager that most of the people at Bioware are pretty awful at games too. Anyway as a result it seems he feels like he has to simplify systems to put a retard meter in there so it's possible for people like Adam and Chris to play through the content without being frustrated at the cost of perhaps some complexity that people like me would enjoy.

except he has always fought against it in designing his other games (the post that roguey made re: MoTB) and that goes against what you're saying.

You honestly cannot tell me that ONE STAT for ALL BONUS DAMAGE sounds riveting. People who think that choosing attributes is annoying would probably be like "Great", but I just think it's terrible. I was expecting something a bit different but not this. Two sources of damage (magical and physical) is about the simplest I would go if I was an RPG designer doing a game like this.

This is frustrating to people like me and probably others here too that a game advertised as an "Old School RPG" has to have mechanics like this because people that play games in zombie mode and don't pay attention might accidentally pick a martial character and max the magical damage stat without realizing and then get frustrated at the game because they're having a hard time in combat. And I am telling you, based on what I have read (on SA and formspring, Obsidian etc) that is one of the reasons for a design decision like that.

No, I agree with you. One stat for bonus damage is pretty derpy. I don't expect him to do that and I think enough people have voiced their concern that he gets the idea (btw BONUS damage wasn't a 4e mechanic soo.... ). And his response to my question about attributes on formspring kind of put that to rest for me. i just chalked the BONUS DAMAGE stat to being a bad example. I'll wait to see what he actually comes out with before I get mad.

Josh's quote ...blah blah.

I read those comments too Sensuki, and I responded to him in a long-ass post in Obsidian's forums. We even talked about it here on the Codex, when Excidium asked me how the hell I missed the dice mechanics in the BG2 manual.

I can't say to know what he's thinking. But I actually think it's not as "simple" as you're making it out to be. In any case, I've asked him a formspring question to this effect and we'll see if he answers.

Grunker does have a point Hormalakh, and a very good one. It's simply called hindsight.

it's hindsight only if he know enough to draw from experience. I've pointed out several times that the development of the game isn't exactly like 4e so Grunker doesn't know exactly how it'll play out. picking apart individual mechanics is tough, yes. But "it's trashy because it's derived from a 4e mechanic" is oversimplifying the argument.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Repair in Fallout was a completely plausible choice unless you consider it in terms of an extreme "ultimate build" perspective. Removing it as a skill, without "de-systematizing" it

Except repair is already non-systemic as it's used exclusively for limited amount of scripted spots. If, for example, you'd also have to maintain and repair your weapons and other gear, then there would be no reason to even think about removing it.

I was using desystemize in the sense Infinitron used earlier in the crafting discussion (concerning removing the stripped down situational crafting skill altogether), not in the situational/systemic sense.

Imagine going through GURPS

Does not compute. It's a PnP system, therefore even non-systemic stuff can be treated as systemic as GM will provide content indefinitely according to his judgement of situation.

But just because you pump all your points into Accounting for some reason doesn't mean the GM has to suddenly make it have to have some arbitrary systemic benefit, or even make it appear frequently in a non-systemic fashion either. Just like in theory a player new to Fallout wouldn't know whether or not there's a ton of shit to repair in the game. I'm starting to think that the only way round the gamist objection that purely situational or weakly systemic skills don't belong in an ultimate (or even good) build is through generated content: if every stat has an indeterminacy built into it then having to adapt circumstances to your build rather than vice versa becomes the norm. Like you said: "The challenge to building character shouldn't stem from knowing where to pump the points to create effective gameplay tool, but from using the tool you've created effectively."

 

[Sensuki]

No, I agree with you. One stat for bonus damage is pretty derpy. I don't expect him to do that and I think enough people have voiced their concern that he gets the idea (btw BONUS damage wasn't a 4e mechanic soo.... ). And his response to my question about attributes on formspring kind of put that to rest for me. i just chalked the BONUS DAMAGE stat to being a bad example. I'll wait to see what he actually comes out with before I get mad.

I don't think it is an example. The answer in the Codex Q&A, if you note the wording was a real live example. So I'd say get your mad hat on again bro and join the protest.

is that all of their bonuses are uniformly applied instead of being keyed to specific types of weapons or attacks. E.g. one Attribute affects bonus damage (and healing) and one affects bonus accuracy -- regardless of the weapons or spells being used.

I got mad about it on SA and called it gamist. After thinking about it more though the problem isn't that it's gamist, it's too simple.

Anyway he said

Combat-heavy class-based systems that attempt to achieve class balance are almost universally very far away from being simulationist. I don't think there's any point in trying to squeeze simulation into a genre of systems that are so fundamentally *~ gamist ~* in their mechanics. I think some of the persistent failings of A/D&D come from an insistence on trying to do just that.

 

[Excidium]

This 4e=suck is stupid IMO.

Again you pull shit out of your ass. I've stated several times - even in posts you referenced - the ideas in 4E that were really solid.

Lot of people hate it for bandwagon reasons but it is p. solid if you like attrition battles and lots of tactical abilities, triggers, situational effects and oh shit guys I got distracted for a second and forgot to apply the regen from looking at the barbarian's bulging muscles, can I get a turn and my healing surge back because I actually wasn't supposed to drop to 0. The bard can get his daily back too. Oh by the way is this guy bloodied? Ok then hang on let me check something real quickly, I forgot what this power does

 

[Hormalakh]

Oh hooooooooooooooo. Don't get me started on that quote of yours Sensuki. If what he says is true, and there are backers (i.e. the ones he is designing the game for) like that, then it makes no sense that they backed an IE-like... His own argument eats itself.

I'm saying this because I'll talk to a tester (volunteer or pro) with a ton of RPG experience and later watch him or her play remotely. Or I'll pop open a Let's Play on YouTube from an enthusiastic player and watch how things turn out. Sometimes they ace it, sometimes they don't. Either way, what I see on that monitor doesn't lie.

Yet to gain this "ton of RPG experience" these players must have beat a lot of RPGs... RPGs that did not have what you claim they "actually need." Anyone have a clue what argument he is trying to make here, go ahead.

he's saying that there are many players that have played these games and have the experience of playing these games, but that because of flawed mechanics that are so simple to work around (rest-spamming, save-scumming, etc) they never really learned the basic mechanics of the game. and he's right. i've seen plenty of people play the old school RPGs and get through them fine through the use of "cheese" that were not ways that the designers ever intended the game to play: and these aren't gaming tactics, they're meta-gaming tactics. They are crutches that many "experienced" players use to just keep going. They usually involve a lot of time-wasting and "grinding" (for combat XP, for example).

These gamers when actually challenged by how well they understand the mechanics of the game , will always be frustrated. and a lot of the older games didn't really challenge them because they had backdoors and loopholes. their "experience" does not make them necessarily particularly "good" players. that's why so mayn of the older IE games were beatable by even a 7 year old. because you could meta-game or rest-spam or save-scumm, none of which actually require much thought.

because your argument is that PE is using 4e as the backbone.

No, my argument is that I'm leery of some of the things Sawyer likes about 4E, and I disagree with some of the statements he made about it. Anything else is just you making shit up... again.

you look at the trees and miss the forest.

Please point to where I said "P:E will be a terrible game because of these few 4E elements" or get the fuck out of here with those retarded strawmen. In fact, I think you'll find me praising P:E as it looks so far more than the opposite throughout this thread.

I am capable of having a nuanced outlook on P:E - I find things both brilliant, lackluster and terrible in Sawyer's design choices. I comment on them as I see them, not with some overarching "P:E will be shit/brilliant" agenda in the back of my hand like you seem to think I'm doing.

i'll admit, i missed the part where you said that it satisfied your bloodlust. my mistake.

 

[Excidium]

We've reached the level where even the quote tags gave up

 

[Hormalakh]

This 4e=suck is stupid IMO.

Again you pull shit out of your ass. I've stated several times - even in posts you referenced - the ideas in 4E that were really solid.

Lot of people hate it for bandwagon reasons but it is p. solid if you like attrition battles and lots of tactical abilities, triggers, situational effects and oh shit guys I got distracted for a second and forgot to apply the regen from looking at the barbarian's bulging muscles, can I get a turn and my healing surge back because I actually wasn't supposed to drop to 0. The bard can get his daily back too. Oh by the way is this guy bloodied? Ok then hang on let me check something real quickly, I forgot what this power does

i do remember someone (codexer or Obsidian dev(Josh?)) once saying that 4e would be a great system if it was a computer game instead of a PnP and that the reason a lot of people had issues with it because of the specific reason Excidium just described. computers are made for those types of systems instead of forgetful human minds.

 

[Sensuki]

he's saying that there are many players that have played these games and have the experience of playing these games, but that because of flawed mechanics that are so simple to work around (rest-spamming, save-scumming, etc) they never really learned the basic mechanics of the game. and he's right. i've seen plenty of people play the old school RPGs and get through them fine through the use of "cheese" that were not ways that the designers ever intended the game to play: and these aren't gaming tactics, they're meta-gaming tactics. They are crutches that many "experienced" players use to just keep going. They usually involve a lot of time-wasting and "grinding" (for combat XP, for example).

These gamers when actually challenged by how well they understand the mechanics of the game , will always be frustrated. and a lot of the older games didn't really challenge them because they had backdoors and loopholes. their "experience" does not make them necessarily particularly "good" players. that's why so mayn of the older IE games were beatable by even a 7 year old. because you could meta-game or rest-spam or save-scumm, none of which actually require much thought.

Actually no I don't think that's what he means. A player who doesn't think to buff their character with spells before an encounter probably hasn't figured out how to Rest spam. Because I'm pretty sure you could beat that Lower Dorn's Deep Encounter that he's talking about through the use of 'degenerate tactics' rather than just charging in head on.

 

[Hormalakh]

well it's all conjecture unless we hear it straight from josh isn't it? i wasnt talking specifically about the LDD example: i was replying to the larger discusion about player experience vs player talent.

 

[Sensuki]

It's actually interesting hearing this come from you at all because in the past you've campaigned for Hard/Complex stuff and in the "What Difficulty Are you going to play on" thread you posted that you're gonna start off with Ironman, Expert Mode and Path of the Damned. Want them to make an easier game for you so you can do it ?

I'm gonna roll with Expert mode and Path of the Damned as well (if it's playable, IWD1 HoF was not at level 1), but Ironman mode on the first play ? Fuck that

 

[Cowboy Moment]

So... focusing on class balance and accessibility in a cRPG leads to what is basically a party-based version of World of Warcraft? Who could have imagined such a development!

Although I do find it hilarious how hard Sawyer tries to dumb down his system, even in a game which is supposed to be a throwback to decidedly not-dumbed-down IE games. Will there be a "Truly Hardcore" mod available post-release, like it was for New Vegas?

 

[Sensuki]

The funny thing is besides World of Warcraft (in 2004) Josh Sawyer doesn't have any MMO experience or so he claims. The only MOBA he has played is League of Legends. That is some terrible experience right there.

It's funny there's a lot of us throwing up warning signs, but he's not picking up on it yet or just ignoring it.

 

[TheRabbitsGeorge]

Ehh, encounter design and C&C is what's going to make or break this game, not diversity of what role the MC plays as. If P:E has more C&C than BG2 or IWD(lol), and encounter design on par with BG2, it will be a great game. The IE games were never good because of their systems, apart from BG2 mage battles. You should not expect Fallout or Arcanum style character generation in an IE influenced game.

I don't have a problem with Josh's design philosophy. There should be no gimped builds because it entertains far fewer people than it frustrates. I am against dumbing down, and will be disappointed if P:E is as easy as SRR, but there is a big difference between making character generation difficult and confusing(which is bad), vs making sections of the game(dungeons/puzzles/combat) difficult and confusing(which is good).

 

[Duraframe300]

So... focusing on class balance and accessibility in a cRPG leads to what is basically a party-based version of World of Warcraft? Who could have imagined such a development!

Although I do find it hilarious how hard Sawyer tries to dumb down his system, even in a game which is supposed to be a throwback to decidedly not-dumbed-down IE games. Will there be a "Truly Hardcore" mod available post-release, like it was for New Vegas?

Eh, IE games were pretty dumbed down.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

So... focusing on class balance and accessibility in a cRPG leads to what is basically a party-based version of World of Warcraft? Who could have imagined such a development!

Although I do find it hilarious how hard Sawyer tries to dumb down his system, even in a game which is supposed to be a throwback to decidedly not-dumbed-down IE games. Will there be a "Truly Hardcore" mod available post-release, like it was for New Vegas?

Eh, IE games were pretty dumbed down.

Depends on what you compare them to, I suppose. Obviously they weren't dumbed down enough for Obsidian employees.

 

[Hormalakh]

It's actually interesting hearing this come from you at all because in the past you've campaigned for Hard/Complex stuff and in the "What Difficulty Are you going to play on" thread you posted that you're gonna start off with Ironman, Expert Mode and Path of the Damned. Want them to make an easier game for you so you can do it ?

I'm gonna roll with Expert mode and Path of the Damned as well (if it's playable, IWD1 HoF was not at level 1), but Ironman mode on the first play ? Fuck that

what are you talking about? where did i say i want an easier game?

i specifically asked josh if he would be willing to make the game hard enough so that he would have a tactically satisfying experience. i'm waiting to hear back.

 

[Lancehead]

i do remember someone (codexer or Obsidian dev(Josh?)) once saying that 4e would be a great system if it was a computer game instead of a PnP and that the reason a lot of people had issues with it because of the specific reason Excidium just described. computers are made for those types of systems instead of forgetful human minds.

Pretty sure that was Grunker.

 

[Sensuki]

what are you talking about? where did i say i want an easier game?

Sarcasm man, note the emoticon use ?

I agree when I first played 4E I was like, this would translate very well to PC. Almost as if they designed it with MMO/RPG in mind. Well they got Neverwinter Online at least HAHA.

 

[Volrath]

So... focusing on class balance and accessibility in a cRPG leads to what is basically a party-based version of World of Warcraft? Who could have imagined such a development!

Although I do find it hilarious how hard Sawyer tries to dumb down his system, even in a game which is supposed to be a throwback to decidedly not-dumbed-down IE games. Will there be a "Truly Hardcore" mod available post-release, like it was for New Vegas?

 

[DraQ]

But just because you pump all your points into Accounting for some reason doesn't mean the GM has to suddenly make it have to have some arbitrary systemic benefit, or even make it appear frequently in a non-systemic fashion either. Just like in theory a player new to Fallout wouldn't know whether or not there's a ton of shit to repair in the game.

There is an important distinction.

PnP games have inherently open nature. It's not up to GM or module's author to decide in advance whether or not player will find use for accounting. If player finds an opportunity for using such skill, he can just tell GM. GM is also capable of making sense of such stuff as character background and make or scrutinize player-made characters for conforming with their background. In a PnP game the module, mechanics and even GMs personal notes are just a scaffolding for the game as GM contains vast amounts of implicit assumptions, information and patterns inherent to the gameworld that will allow him to adapt and expand adventure when need arises.

cRPGs, OTOH are closed systems. If there is neither systemic implementation of accounting skill with possible resulting benefits, nor premade content featuring accounting checks, you can tell with 100% certainty that the player won't be able to find *any* use for such skill. Since computer cannot really discriminate between character backgrounds, why allow such skill in the first place? Especially given that it most probably isn't going to be a module running on generic mechanics engine, but something using its own implementation of the ruleset.
In cRPG all the assumptions, content and patterns need to be pre-programmed and is immutable.

I'm starting to think that the only way round the gamist objection that purely situational or weakly systemic skills don't belong in an ultimate (or even good) build is through generated content: if every stat has an indeterminacy built into it then having to adapt circumstances to your build rather than vice versa becomes the norm.

Generated content needs systems unconditionally, though.

And yeah, trying to carve yourself a path compatible with your build is more feasible, if there is a whole world around you, rather than designer's "right path" surrounded by cardboard facades.

Like you said: "The challenge to building character shouldn't stem from knowing where to pump the points to create effective gameplay tool, but from using the tool you've created effectively."

 

[Grunker]

You should not expect Fallout or Arcanum style character generation in an IE influenced game.

I sure as fuck hope not. Both of those games had atrocious systems. Though at least Arcanum's had some potential, I suppose.

i do remember someone (codexer or Obsidian dev(Josh?)) once saying that 4e would be a great system if it was a computer game instead of a PnP and that the reason a lot of people had issues with it because of the specific reason Excidium just described. computers are made for those types of systems instead of forgetful human minds.

Pretty sure that was Grunker.

Indeed it was, but that came with a few heavy buts:

1) That it was more tactical RPG than full-fledged RPG

2) That it was turn-based

3) That encounter design took its weaknesses to heart (HP bloat especially)

 

[Roguey]

You can't tell me class variety isn't a problem in 4E and then claim it lost a lot of class variety. I don't care what bullshit excuses you use.

Sure you can. With a 0 to 10 scale with 0 being "all classes are the same with different names for the same things" and 10 being "no two classes are alike in any way" 4e would be a bit closer to 0 whereas 3.x would be a bit closer to 10.

i specifically asked josh if he would be willing to make the game hard enough so that he would have a tactically satisfying experience. i'm waiting to hear back.

He already said he was designing hard mode to be as difficult as core IWD2 and scaling it down twice to be as easy as IWD and something-below-IWD. Hardcore mode features appear to have the goal of adding strategic difficulty pulling it above core IWD2.

 

[Grunker]

He already said he was designing hard mode to be as difficult as core IWD2 and scaling it down twice to be as easy as IWD and something-below-IWD. Hardcore mode features appear to have the goal of adding strategic difficulty pulling it above core IWD2.

Maybe you should note that you're talking about encounters and tactical difficulty. There will be no strategic difficulty if he accomplishes his systemic goals; no combination of powers, talents and attribute ranges will be significantly surperior to the other. Players will not be rewarded for creativity in that department.

Of course he won't accomplish that goal so the point is moot, but still, for argument's sake