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

[tuluse]

I'm far from an AoD master, but I've managed to put points into 3-4 different skills and make my way through. So I'm sure you could pump points into swords and axes and be effective. It would be a waste since you can only use one weapon at a time, but you could do it.

 

[Liston]

Once you have a system with character builds/classes which are significantly different and interesting to play in their own right, and content that can support this system, then you can start tweaking numbers to achieve a measure of balanced performance between them.

That's significantly harder and more error prone than designing with balance in mind from the begging. Making up cool shit and then trying to tweak it later is bound to end up as a failure.

What makes you think I'm taking this personally anyway? I just found it kind of funny that you dug up some throwaway comment of mine from a short discussion about Adepts in the SRR thread just to make a point here. Thus, I'm curious if it's just coincidence or whether you're Wyrmlord's alt and systematically keep tabs on everything people say.

The fact that you think that I have some special interest in your posting history makes me think that you are taking this personally. While I see how it may seem that way, it took me ~30s to search your posts in SRR thread after seeing your comment here. You don't have to be a master stalker to figure out that most people who bitch about balance here were applauding balance patch in SRR thread. And I'm nobody's alt but it's pointless to argue about that.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

@tuluse This is exactly what is NOT balance.

What AoD does is create content for all the skills. If you play like an idiot (e.g. Sawyer) and invest point in Swords AND Axes you are fucked in AoD.

I somehow doubt that Sawyer's intent is to let a build be viable when it's functions are intentionally eschewed.
Put all points in swords, then only use a rifle.

As far as I know (though do keep in mind that I'm no P:E scholar), this is exactly what he wants to do for stats at the very least. That is a D&D Warrior with 9 Strength would be impossible in P:E, instead there's a "Power" stat that increases the damage of everything across the board.

Once you have a system with character builds/classes which are significantly different and interesting to play in their own right, and content that can support this system, then you can start tweaking numbers to achieve a measure of balanced performance between them.

That's significantly harder and more error prone than designing with balance in mind from the begging. Making up cool shit and then trying to tweak it later is bound to end up as a failure.

Why? I honestly don't see how that's self-evident for single-player games. Hell, even at the highest level of multiplayer competition, Starcraft 1 (designed for interesting gameplay first) ended up a lot better than Starcraft 2 (designed for balance first).

What makes you think I'm taking this personally anyway? I just found it kind of funny that you dug up some throwaway comment of mine from a short discussion about Adepts in the SRR thread just to make a point here. Thus, I'm curious if it's just coincidence or whether you're Wyrmlord's alt and systematically keep tabs on everything people say.

The fact that you think that I have some special interest in your posting history makes me think that you are taking this personally. While I see how it may seem that way, it took me ~30s to search your posts in SRR thread after seeing your comment here. You don't have to be a master stalker to figure out that most people who bitch about balance here were applauding balance patch in SRR thread. And I'm nobody's alt but it's pointless to argue about that.

Chill bro, it's just a little Codex meme, I don't really think you're an alt or a stalker.

 

[Infinitron]

As far as I know (though do keep in mind that I'm no P:E scholar), this is exactly what he wants to do for stats at the very least. That is a D&D Warrior with 9 Strength would be impossible in P:E, instead there's a "Power" stat that increases the damage of everything across the board.

...and? If you have a low "Power" stat, then you won't be able to do lots of damage with anything. The feature works as intended. You can't have a low Power stat and still succeed at fights that require high damage to bypass a high damage threshold, for instance.

There are some people here that think that "balancing" means the game will be literally broken, that you can do whatever you want and the game will be easy no matter what sort of character you've built.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

one stat. makes you awesome at everything. that is what josh wants

 

[Onholyservicebound]

MCA failed because of sheer stupidity, nothing wrong with that, if you want to be a smooth talker that runs into hordes of ogres swinging a stick then you deserve to be killed off.

However, if you choose to play a smooth talker and have no real advantages yet tons of disadvantages, then there's a problem. Since NV was recently mentioned, I'll use that as an example.

In FO3 charisma is a dump stat, speech checks can be reloaded, and the perks have no effect once you reach a certain skill(Master trader, for example).(FO1 is equally lackluster for that build)
In FNV, Charisma made followers as strong as the player would be at a similar level, speech checks had a definite number, and they were plentiful enough to warrant a diplomatic play-through.(FO2's companion limit based on CHA was similarly effective in making that build viable.)

How is it ever a good idea to waste time and effort in implementing something useless and gimped? I prefer to play something where every build I make was designed to be effective/useful. I don't think good and shitty is really much of a choice. I assume Sawyer wants to make the game so everything you choose will have a positive effect in some way, there are no shit decisions really, just different advantages to different decisions. (MCA style failing should still be allowed, if you put points into sword and use a rifle, then yes, you should lose, but that kind of thing should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual of players.)

 

[Liston]

Why? I honestly don't see how that's self-evident for single-player games. Hell, even at the highest level of multiplayer competition, Starcraft 1 (designed for interesting gameplay first) ended up a lot better than Starcraft 2 (designed for balance first).

Because design of complex systems is a complicated. You end up with a lot of subsystems that interact with each other and changes of one subsystem can (and often will) have unforseen consequences throughout the whole system. Introducing even simple changes to a system in the middle of its implementation can force you to redesign (and thus reimplement) a big parts of the system, often it can even make it more cost effective to trow away your whole work and start from scratch.

Because of that before you even start designing a system you have to clearly define problems and goals and (ideally) make a process where design and implementation phase are completely separated. Analogy that is often used is building a house, it is just more wise and easier to first make the blueprints and then build than to simply start building and then demolishing every time you want to change room layout.

No matter what, you are going to end up tweaking some numbers, but if you try to solve problems you didn't think about during design more often then not you are going to end up with a disaster.

 

[Gozma]

In FNV, Charisma made followers as strong as the player would be at a similar level, speech checks had a definite number, and they were plentiful enough to warrant a diplomatic play-through.(FO2's companion limit based on CHA was similarly effective in making that build viable.)

Bad example because they made the fairly bizarre decision to have party time mentats, egregious even amongst the general background radiation of poorly designed buff-tedium

FNV was mass-market and probably self-consciously designed not to prevent you from making the PC into Bethesdaman, able to do anything in a single playthrough and pass any stat check or combat by stacking thousands of console inventory-fucking buffs while studiously avoiding any sense of character or personhood in favor of being a pure cipher. The only system that was any good is DT, which is like Sawyer's silver design hammer unto video game nails

 

[Ninjerk]

I think MCA is trolling.

 

[Arkeus]

I hope think MCA is trolling.

Corrected.

 

[Ninjerk]

Shrek's post is the obvious response but, seriously, MCA fandom has got to creep him out at least a little bit.

 

[PlanHex]

I hope he progressively gets better and better (perhaps with a bit of help from the viewers as well) and in the end when he is crowned New Master Of Arcanum, he goes back and does commentary on these first seasons and throws up in his mouth at how bad he was, so he knows how we feel.

 

[Rake]

Shrek's post is the obvious response but, seriously, MCA fandom has got to creep him out at least a little bit.

MCA's fandom likes his writing and story ideas. We know tactical gameplay isn't his thing. Sure, most didn't expected him to be SO bad, but still...
PS:T, KOTOR2, Alpha Protocol. See a trent here?

 

[hoverdog]

Shrek's post is the obvious response but, seriously, MCA fandom has got to creep him out at least a little bit.

MCA's fandom likes his writing and story ideas. We know tactical gameplay isn't his thing. Sure, most didn't expected him to be SO bad, but still...
PS:T, KOTOR2, Alpha Protocol. See a trent here?

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

The only system that was any good is DT, which is like Sawyer's silver design hammer unto video game nails

Unless a later patch fixed things, damage threshold in New Vegas was terribly implemented. Because there was one universal stat for damage threshold (unlike Fallout 1/2, which had multiple ones for different types of damage), it greatly favored weapons with a higher damage-per-shot and punished the use of automatic weaponry, especially in the late game where everyone and their brother had high DT.

And the silly workaround of adding a certain percentage of the damage to "bleed through" hardly helped automatic weapons stay relevant while eliminating one of the most satisfying results of a damage threshold mechanic; feeling like a tank when in high-level armor. No longer could your Vault-Dweller Courier strike a Superman pose against raiders armed with nothing but rifles, impervious to all (but a freak critical) in his power armor.

DT in New Vegas not only discouraged certain playstyles, but failed to bring along one of the most satisfying features of the original DT system in Fallout 1/2. Seems like a total failure in design by my standards. They probably would have been better off just going with Bethesda-style Damage Resistance percentages.

 

[Infinitron]

Unless a later patch fixed things, damage threshold in New Vegas was terribly implemented. Because there was one universal stat for damage threshold (unlike Fallout 1/2, which had multiple ones for different types of damage), it greatly favored weapons with a higher damage-per-shot and punished the use of automatic weaponry, especially in the late game where everyone and their brother had high DT.

I think you may be disregarding a variable here

The concept of universal DT is perfectly fine if multiple consecutive hits can be guaranteed, which is the case in a traditional CRPG where no manual aiming is required

 

[felipepepe]

I believe Edward's point is that if you fire 5 bullets that do 5 damage each or a single bullet that does 25 - and the enemy universal DR is 4 - you'll deal 5 damage with the automatic gun and 21 damage with the other one. Hardly seems fair.

 

[Ninjerk]

Shrek's post is the obvious response but, seriously, MCA fandom has got to creep him out at least a little bit.

MCA's fandom likes his writing and story ideas. We know tactical gameplay isn't his thing. Sure, most didn't expected him to be SO bad, but still...
PS:T, KOTOR2, Alpha Protocol. See a trent here?

I haven't watched the last video all the way through, but do you really buy someone literally clicking every distinct shape on a UI like HURR DURR WAT THIS DO?

 

[Infinitron]

I believe Edward's point is that if you fire 5 bullets that do 5 damage each or a single bullet that does 25 - and the enemy universal DR is 4 - you'll deal 5 damage with the automatic gun and 21 damage with the other one. Hardly seems fair.

Then adjust the numbers until it's fair. There's nothing inherently wrong with the tradeoff of more hits with less damage per hit vs less hits with more damage per hit.

 

[felipepepe]

I believe Edward's point is that if you fire 5 bullets that do 5 damage each or a single bullet that does 25 - and the enemy universal DR is 4 - you'll deal 5 damage with the automatic gun and 21 damage with the other one. Hardly seems fair.

Then adjust the numbers until it's fair. There's nothing inherently wrong with the tradeoff of more hits with less damage per hit vs less hits with more damage per hit.

That's the point, it wasn't adjusted. Instead they added the "bleed through" stuff, were a % of the damage would always get past, even if your DR is twice the damage of the weapon.

It's Sawyer-ism 101; you'll always deal at least a bit of damage, and you'll always take at least a bit of damage; no superheroes, or useless characters, only "balance".

 

[Gozma]

There were a lot of relevant "use high DPS poor DPH weapons on me" enemies with no DT like cazadores and nightstalkers that meant you wanted to be able to cover multiple bases and no weapon was the clear cut best for all situations, at least to the point of sperg I took it. It encouraged trying new guns constantly to balance between factors and fill niches. It's a good system. It's funny but I bet Sawyer considers it a failure because the relevant information is quite "hidden" (e.g. you can't check enemy DT in-game without a perk with fairly high requirements).

 

[Infinitron]

I believe Edward's point is that if you fire 5 bullets that do 5 damage each or a single bullet that does 25 - and the enemy universal DR is 4 - you'll deal 5 damage with the automatic gun and 21 damage with the other one. Hardly seems fair.

Then adjust the numbers until it's fair. There's nothing inherently wrong with the tradeoff of more hits with less damage per hit vs less hits with more damage per hit.

That's the point, it wasn't adjusted. Instead they added the "bleed through" stuff, were a % of the damage would always get past, even if your DR is twice the damage of the weapon.

It's Sawyer-ism 101; you'll always deal at least a bit of damage, and you'll always take at least a bit of damage; no superheroes or useless characters.

Meh, no game designer would allow your character to walk around utterly invincible. That's dumb.

PE is doing the same btw, though I believe it's a minimum damage value that always penetrates the DT, not a percentage.

 

[Gozma]

I actually think they should have used an asymmetrical system in FNV where the PC doesn't have DT, just like HP from armor or something. There was no AI or any design of any kind to deal with the player's DT so it was pretty trivial to hit the DT point where enemies with SMG type crap were just useless.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Why? I honestly don't see how that's self-evident for single-player games. Hell, even at the highest level of multiplayer competition, Starcraft 1 (designed for interesting gameplay first) ended up a lot better than Starcraft 2 (designed for balance first).

Because design of complex systems is a complicated. You end up with a lot of subsystems that interact with each other and changes of one subsystem can (and often will) have unforseen consequences throughout the whole system. Introducing even simple changes to a system in the middle of its implementation can force you to redesign (and thus reimplement) a big parts of the system, often it can even make it more cost effective to trow away your whole work and start from scratch.

Because of that before you even start designing a system you have to clearly define problems and goals and (ideally) make a process where design and implementation phase are completely separated. Analogy that is often used is building a house, it is just more wise and easier to first make the blueprints and then build than to simply start building and then demolishing every time you want to change room layout.

No matter what, you are going to end up tweaking some numbers, but if you try to solve problems you didn't think about during design more often then not you are going to end up with a disaster.

That's all nice and true. However, designing interesting and complex systems is difficult. My point is, designing them while also focusing on balance is extremely difficult, because in many ways, "interesting" and "balanced" are at odds when it comes to gameplay mechanics. The more complex and fun something is, the more balance problems it results in. So, the focus on balance, in my experience, leads to mechanical homogenization and dumbing down, and the removal of options which are deemed too troublesome from a balance perspective. I know many, many examples of this, although they're mostly from multiplayer games, where this kind of thing is a lot more prominent. SC2 vs SC1 is probably the most high-profile, but there's a lot of others.

And you know, multiplayer games are between a rock and a hard place here, because they need to be as balanced, and as fun as possible, at the same time, and very, very few get this completely right. What I don't get is why anyone would willingly tie this boulder around his neck when designing a successor to IE games, which you yourself admitted were imbalanced as fuck, and everybody loved them anyway. This is true for a lot of the Codex' most loved games, actually. Fallouts, PST, Arcanum, System Shock 2, to name a few, are heavily imbalanced as well. And it honestly doesn't matter that much (well, it does in Arcanum's case to an extent, because you have to larp harm not existing).

I joked a bit earlier in this thread that Sawyer is designing single player, party-based WoW, but you know what's scary? WoW also went through several phases of streamlining and homogenization, where they attempted to balance PvE and PvP at the same time. And you know what? Some of their ideas at the time were eerily similar to Sawyer's. Funnily enough, D&D 4E was also compared to WoW for similar reasons.

Honestly, I expect PE to be a fun game that I will enjoy a lot. But I'm not holding my breath for Sawyer to prove himself a systems design savant and getting it right immediately. It would be nice if he did, but not expecting it.

 

[Gurkog]

Was it just me, or did enemies using .22 smg's hit my well armored character harder than most other weapons in the game. Probably the bonus critical chance and damage - since criticals bypass DT.