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

[Rake]

When will Fenstermaker take his rightful place as an internet microcelebrity

When PE has a narrative to rival PS:T and MotB. MotB was how Ziets made his name, maybe PE will be Fenstermaker's shot to fame

 

[Roguey]

Fighters also benefit the most from wearing armor (they have a passive ability that gives them +5 DT when wearing armor or something) so the Fighter class is essentially a regenerating damage sponge. High Deflection, Defensive Mode, Armor = gonna take a while to bring em down and I'll bet there will be a lot of enemy fighters.

Well you can get by their high deflection by using attacks that target their lowest saves. I think he used psyche as an example, but there's also reflex.

Josh Sawyer ‏@jesawyer4h
tim is very excited about the stronghold. he regularly sends me updates about his terrible misfortunes in stronghold management.

Well well Tim is into interior decorating.

 

[Sensuki]

Well you can get by their high deflection by using attacks that target their lowest saves. I think he used psyche as an example, but there's also reflex.

Yeah I read that post by Josh too. What's your point? Fighters are still a damage sponge.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Nah, it's pretty easy to approach the hallowed rank of ninja cartographer in vanilla New Vegas without doing too much in the way of cheesy exploits. Just maxing INT as quickly as possible while picking up Educated ASAP will give you enough skill points to easily max out 6 or 7 skills, perhaps more. And given that out of the 13 skills, four are mostly combat focused, you're pretty well rounded as is. But if you exploit the buff-outfits and the magazines to scrimp on skill points, you can "effectively" be maxed in probably every single skill worth investing in and pass all relevant skill checks in such a way as to make the Nerevarine blush.

Maxing INT and picking up educated will net you 489, you need 1060 to max all skills. Take into account that there are combat skill checks. But here's the real problem with your bethesda man, maxing INT means that you have lower in other good SPECIAL stats. If Charisma is your dump stat, then your companions are way weaker, may not matter if you're hands on, but it is a fact. My pesudo bethesda man would be:
S:5
P:5
E:5
C:1
I:10
A:9
L:5
He can get 15 perks out of the 88 perks in game, 2 of which are educated, and weapon handling. He'll have low critical chance, fairly low hp, rad resistance, chem resistance, lmb damage resistance, shitty companions, and STILL not be able to max all skills and misses out on some pretty great implants. The build itself is definitely meta gaming, because it requires you know how much stat requirements the perks have, and the str requirement of the gun you want to use. As well as raising the 20,000 caps required to get the skills to where they need to be. The level 30 Fallout 3 char by comparison has 10 in every stat, 100 in every skill, is 80% resistant to damage, has pretty much every non roleplay based perk, and can carry any weapon, and take endless shots in vats. Skyrim's endgame character has maxed perks, skills, etc etc.

It's definitely not perfect, but that's what I use the jsawyer mod for, it's the design that FNV deserved.

Logical with bullets against power armor, not so much logical when you look at lasers on chitin or super mutant trash cans. But that's universal DT for ya.

I'm pretty sure all energy weapon ammo negates about 5 DT. But I see where you're coming from, I'd prefer they had the resistances like they did in FO1 and 2. But I don't see the flaws with the DT system to be as glaring as you do.[/quote]

 

[Carrion]

I think my INT 10 + Educated character had maxed out all but three or four skills when he hit level 50, and even the non-maxed skills were around the 50-80 range or so. That's pretty Bethesda to me, and I didn't even take all of the implants or make particularly good use of the skill books.

One welcome fix to the skill system would've been to make the higher ranks more expensive, like in, you know, Fallout. As it is, you can max out a skill way too early and cheaply, and because there's no randomization involved in the skill checks some of the skills (like Speech) turn into win-buttons that work every single time.

I think the balance is alright with the original level cap of 30, though.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

One welcome fix to the skill system would've been to make the higher ranks more expensive, like in, you know, Fallout. As it is, you can max out a skill way too early and cheaply, and because there's no randomization involved in the skill checks some of the skills (like Speech) turn into win-buttons that work every single time.

Randomization in skill checks (or DC) is something i absolutely hate. Specially those d20 rolls. it leads to a similar result, Btu with a lot more save scumming. Or on your (rl) luck.

And yeah the lv50 cap made it too easy to max all the essential skills in FNV.

 

[Carrion]

Randomization in skill checks (or DC) is something i absolutely hate. Specially those d20 rolls. it leads to a similar result, Btu with a lot more save scumming. Or on your (rl) luck.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of them either. There are other, better solutions. It's just that when you have 100 in Speech, you know that you'll be able to talk yourself out of every situation where it is possible, with no chance of failure. The game would need something to keep the player on his toes even if he has maxed out a particular skill, or just make it a lot harder to max out the skill in the first place.

 

[Ninjerk]

I liked the idea of delaying consequence to discourage savescumming. It's one thing I liked that Twitcher did, though I feel it could be expanded upon. Additionally, I think it would be helpful to have more dialog choices that aren't win/lose states (whether there's a skill check or not) essentially (like TM from Fallout).

 

[Excidium]

I liked the idea of delaying consequence to discourage savescumming. It's one thing I liked that Twitcher did, though I feel it could be expanded upon. Additionally, I think it would be helpful to have more dialog choices that aren't win/lose states (whether there's a skill check or not) essentially (like TM from Fallout).

Exactly.

Randomization only works well in CRPG checks if

a) You use a roll that tends to average results
b) You recognize different degrees of success and failure
c) You have tests decide success and failure and not winning vs losing

 

[Infinitron]

Speech skills: The only way to win is not to play.

 

[tuluse]

Exactly.

Randomization only works well in CRPG checks if

a) You use a roll that tends to average results
b) You recognize different degrees of success and failure
c) You have tests decide success and failure and not winning vs losing

Also,
d) you can spend a resource to boost poor rolls

 

[Excidium]

Yes that is good too.

 

[Hormalakh]

Update: Brennecke talking about shadow implementations:

We aren't using Unity's lightmapper, so probe lights couldn't be used. We have some ideas for alternatives that we are investigating.

they continue to work on the shadows
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64248-character-shadows-that-improve-blending-in-with-environments/

 

[Roguey]

I think the balance is alright with the original level cap of 30, though.

Josh agrees since his mod puts the cap back to 35 and has Logan's Loophole cap you at 21. The level cap increases were only added because they increase value of the DLC.
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/176364157614978301
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/176549800576055003
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/190102870165589021
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/277616331002482182

 

[uaciaut]

Randomization in skill checks (or DC) is something i absolutely hate. Specially those d20 rolls. it leads to a similar result, Btu with a lot more save scumming. Or on your (rl) luck.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of them either. There are other, better solutions. It's just that when you have 100 in Speech, you know that you'll be able to talk yourself out of every situation where it is possible, with no chance of failure. The game would need something to keep the player on his toes even if he has maxed out a particular skill, or just make it a lot harder to max out the skill in the first place.

Someone from the Obsidian team talked about speech not being an insta-win solution to a problem but rather a way to investigate deeper into problems and let the player make their own decisions based on how they can manipulate conversations rather than just have player skill all lines till the one with the speech check, click that one and then move on. Would probably be the most elegant solution to this but i still don't know if it's possible to implement it EVERY time there's a speech check needed.

 

[Lancehead]

Josh Sawyer ‏@jesawyer15m
chanter phrase, level 1: U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi. makes targets feel bad about their appearance/self-worth. -10 psyche.

I guess Psyche is one of the attributes.

 

[Infinitron]

Josh Sawyer ‏@jesawyer15m
chanter phrase, level 1: U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi. makes targets feel bad about their appearance/self-worth. -10 psyche.

I guess Psyche is one of the attributes.

It's a defense score, I believe. Though I suppose it could also be an attribute.

 

[tuluse]

It's a defense score, I believe. Though I suppose it could also be an attribute.

I think attributes are defense scores.

 

[Delterius]

But which one is the rectangle and which one is the square?

 

[Ninjerk]

But which one is the rectangle and which one is the square?

ohyou.jpg

 

[Space Satan]

willpsyche save

 

[Ninjerk]

THEYRE JUST DIFFERENT OK, LEAVE JOSH ALONE

 

[DalekFlay]

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of them either. There are other, better solutions. It's just that when you have 100 in Speech, you know that you'll be able to talk yourself out of every situation where it is possible, with no chance of failure. The game would need something to keep the player on his toes even if he has maxed out a particular skill, or just make it a lot harder to max out the skill in the first place.

As long as speech can only finish 1 out of every X number of quests, which is pretty common in these games, I don't see an issue with flat number success.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

willpsyche save

Although, something I find most retarded is how he is renaming all the races. I can't remember wtf he named dwarves...

 

[Infinitron]

Although, something I find most retarded is how he is renaming all the races. I can't remember wtf he named dwarves...

Huh? The dwarves aren't being renamed.