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

[Infinitron]

As long as the spell/attack fortitude for a DC of 93-102, well... it's not increasingly diminished at all.

Sure, you could tune spells so that a high level caster is always tangibly more dangerous to (also high level) characters with the lower Fortitude save.

But what about lower level casters? It seems the effect of this design is that all classes are able to steamroll lower level encounters.

If you're "slumming" in a low level area, it doesn't matter much if you have a 95 or 100. All your characters totally outclass the opposition.

On the flip side, if you're the one who's lower level, your tools for defeating a high level boss are much diminished. Even a dumb fighter will be pretty impervious to your spells.

 

[Themadcow]

Love the stronghold update. Having my own, expandable castle in an RPG has been one of my favourite parts of gaming since Suikoden.

 

[Arkeus]

If you're "slumming" in a low level area, it doesn't matter much if you have a 95 or 100. All your characters totally outclass the opposition.

On the flip side, if you're the one who's lower level, your tools for defeating a high level boss are much diminished. Even a dumb fighter will be pretty impervious to your spells.

Sure, if you are ten levels under or something. You gain something like 2.5 in each category for each level you have, with a difference of 15 (the equivalent of 6 levels) between your highest and lowest save. Given PE will probably only have 12 or so levels, this definitely WON'T have the impact you are saying it will. It just means that with a 6 level gap between you and the adversary, the worse save is now as high as their good save.

Unless you are pretending that a 6 level gap should not mean "ok, you really, really need to think this through"?

 

[Infinitron]

If you're "slumming" in a low level area, it doesn't matter much if you have a 95 or 100. All your characters totally outclass the opposition.

On the flip side, if you're the one who's lower level, your tools for defeating a high level boss are much diminished. Even a dumb fighter will be pretty impervious to your spells.

Sure, if you are ten levels under or something. You gain something like 2.5 in each category for each level you have, with a difference of 15 (the equivalent of 6 levels) between your highest and lowest save. Given PE will probably only have 12 or so levels, this definitely WON'T have the impact you are saying it will. It just means that with a 6 level gap between you and the adversary, the worse save is now as high as their good save.

Unless you are pretending that a 6 level gap should not mean "ok, you really, really need to think this through"?

Yes, and there's also the fact that since missing is less common in PE (including for spells and saving throws - a spell can still hit you for half minimum damage/duration/whatever even if you make the saving throw) a gauntlet of lower level characters can still wear you down and perhaps eventually defeat you.

I guess under this system, lower level enemies are more explicitly defined as "strategic irritants".

 

[Lilura]

Slow combat mode, lol.

So is the game running at around 30 AI updates like IE, and this makes it 15 or so? I liked being able to double AI updates to 60 in IE config. So, I hope there's a fast combat mode for IE vets.

 

[Infinitron]

Slow combat mode, lol.

So is the game running at around 30 AI updates like IE, and this makes it 15 or so? I liked being able to double AI updates to 60 in IE config. So, I hope there's a fast combat mode for IE vets.

The slow motion mode is supposed to be an alternative to pausing. Your double speed mode isn't worth much if you're still pausing every two seconds to issue new orders.

 

[Lilura]

The slow motion mode is supposed to be an alternative to pausing.

I know, I can read.

Your double speed mode isn't worth much if you're still pausing every two seconds to issue new orders.

made a large difference for me with IE games.

 

[Rake]

The slow motion mode is supposed to be an alternative to pausing.

Has Sawyer clarified on that? Will the two co-exist or will be an option to have spacebar slow-mo the combat instead of pausing it?

 

[Infinitron]

The slow motion mode is supposed to be an alternative to pausing.

Has Sawyer clarified on that? Will the two co-exist or will be an option to have spacebar slow-mo the combat instead of pausing it?

I didn't mean to imply that slow motion replaces pausing. There's no reason to believe you won't be able to do both.

 

[Roguey]

Good to know he approved of my ideas

As I recall, you wanted a Dark Souls-style respawning for every area and that's not happening.

If you're "slumming" in a low level area, it doesn't matter much if you have a 95 or 100. All your characters totally outclass the opposition.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64297-character-rollaholic-mea-culpa/page-3#entry1368426

I think it's good to mix up encounters so they're not constantly balanced around maximal uses of resources or overly formulaic. Sometimes it's nice to just roll a bunch of scrubs in an otherwise difficult dungeon.

 

[Cynic]

As I recall, you wanted a Dark Souls-style respawning for every area and that's not happening.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64297-character-rollaholic-mea-culpa/page-3#entry1368426

No. I actually suggested the possibility of SOME monsters respawning on rest not all. All would be stupid and wouldn't work for this kind of game or make sense for the setting. The mechanic in of itself was what I was talking about; something that penalises resting and turns it into a kind of risk.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Your double speed mode isn't worth much if you're still pausing every two seconds to issue new orders.

Yes, it is. With higher game speed you simply spend less time watching your party executing your orders and the relation between time spent on planning/issuing orders and time spent passively can become much better.

 

[Cynic]

Lol at slow combat mode. Really need to see the combat in action, having a hard time thinking of many of their mechanics working well in a RTwP environ, prove me wrong Obsidian!

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

So low-level versus high-level combat in PE will probably end up like this: the "scrubs" can never crit (because the defense/attack ratio has shifted beyond that), never succeed a saving throw or cause the high level enemies to fail theirs. This isn't a problem because that just means they graze most of their attacks for 50% damage and "fail" all their other abilities/spells for 50% effect. So on the one hand you'll never feel truly powerful (like say when you pick up Power Armor in FO) or conversely ever be threatened by low level enemies because they can't ever get lucky crits or make you fail a saving throw. Is this more or less it, or am I still missing something?

 

[Infinitron]

Your double speed mode isn't worth much if you're still pausing every two seconds to issue new orders.

Yes, it is. With higher game speed you simply spend less time watching your party executing your orders and the relation between time spent on planning/issuing orders and time spent passively can become much better.

But because everything is going much faster, you're probably going to pause a lot more. I'm saying there are diminishing returns here.

Lol at slow combat mode.

Check out how the guy plays with game speed in this video to get an idea of how that works in a tactical real time game:

So low-level versus high-level combat in PE will probably end up like this: the "scrubs" can never crit (because the defense/attack ratio has shifted beyond that), never succeed a saving throw or cause the high level enemies to fail theirs. This isn't a problem because that just means they graze most of their attacks for 50% damage and "fail" all their other abilities/spells for 50% effect. So on the one hand you'll never feel truly powerful (like say when you pick up Power Armor in FO) or ever be threatened by low level enemies because they can't ever get lucky crits or make you fail a saving throw. Is this more or less it, or am I still missing something?

Sounds about right, although there's no telling what sorts of items and special abilities there might be that could help even the odds somewhat between low level and high level characters.

 

[Cynic]

Check out how the guy plays with game speed in this video to get an idea of how that works in a tactical real time game:

Myth is a very different kind of game.

 

[Infinitron]

Myth is a very different kind of game.

Doesn't really matter. An RPG has units with more abilities, but there are fewer of them to control and usually fewer of them to fight against, so the amount of attention required from the player is about the same.

Notice how the slow motion controls allow the player to modulate the speed of action to his liking, without having to engage in tedious "pause spamming".

Slow motion controls will be one of the best things to happen to this genre.

 

[Cynic]

Doesn't really matter.

Actually it really does. Different game, completely different mathematics behind the simulations.

Troop numbers, distance, time it takes to defeat an enemy, all the calculations this involves the specific action types for this kind of game(only a few examples), and how that affects the pacing of combat are crucial.

I see a real difficulty in justifying islow motion for a party based RPG with 6 or so PCs to control in a RTwP environment.

Seemingly RTwP only exists for the very purpose of providing a more fast paced action simulating alternative to turn based combat. Pausing as a mechanic doesn't break this paradigm, because as soon as you unpause the action is right back in your face, same speed as before. Same action feeling.

When you talk about slowing the game down, now you are removing that action feel, why bother with it then?

Games like Myth are very different because slowing the combat down where you have large distances to cover and multiple fights going on all over the place is just intrinsically different from fighting in a relatively small space with 6 or so characters to control and slightly more or less foes to fight.

I'm not saying you're wrong and that the slow motion will be 100% r00fles, I'm just saying I'm skeptical and the Myth video doesn't really do much to change my cynicism.

 

[Infinitron]

I see a real difficulty in justifying pause for a party based RPG with 6 or so PCs to control in a RTwP environment.

Seemingly RTwP only exists for the very purpose of providing a more fast paced action simulating alternative to turn based combat.

Games like Myth are very different because slowing the combat down where you have large distances to cover and multiple fights going on all over the place is just intrinsically different from fighting in a relatively small space with 6 or so characters to control and slightly more or less foes to fight.

And in an RPG with full party control, you have more abilities to use, enemy spells and abilities to react to, etc.

Ask yourself - why are these games RTwP and not just real-time, like Ultima VII or Diablo?

Answer - pausing was added to these games in order to allow you to have a better handle on the action when controlling a full party with lots of abilities. That's just the nature of real-time - when there are lots of characters on screen, more things happen at once than when there are fewer characters on screen. Unless part of the game's challenge is to react more swiftly when there's more on-screen action, which in a pure RPG it isn't, some form of time modulation functionality needs to be added.

Slow motion is better for this then pausing, because it does that without constantly tempting you to break up the action in a vain attempt to simulate turn-based combat.

 

[Arkeus]

So low-level versus high-level combat in PE will probably end up like this: the "scrubs" can never crit (because the defense/attack ratio has shifted beyond that), never succeed a saving throw or cause the high level enemies to fail theirs.

Well, you need a six level difference in a game with something like 12 levels in order for the 'low save' of a character to be equal what their 'High-save' is. This means that even with a 6 level difference, you can certainly make enemy fail their saves. Unless you think that a rogue will always succeed their reflex save against same-level enemies and so on. It won't be high-chance to make the save fail, and it won't happen if you don't target their weaknesses, but it can be done.

This isn't a problem because that just means they graze most of their attacks for 50% damage and "fail" all their other abilities/spells for 50% effect. So on the one hand you'll never feel truly powerful (like say when you pick up Power Armor in FO) or conversely ever be threatened by low level enemies because they can't ever get lucky crits or make you fail a saving throw. Is this more or less it, or am I still missing something?

I am not seeing the bit about the power armor? i mean, good gear counted for a LOT in the IE games, so it's quite possible that a high-gear low-level char could have an 'effective' level of 3/4 more than what he has.

 

[Cynic]

Answer: pausing was added to these games in order to allow you to have a better handle on the action when controlling a full party with lots of abilities.

Slow motion is better then pausing, because it does that without constantly tempting you to break up the action in a vain attempt to simulate turn-based combat.

It's not a temptation, it's a necessity. The action needs to be broken up, because there is so much going on in such a small space and within a relatively short period of time.

Slow motion is just another bandaid to the problem. It all boils down to the same thing. Which is that the crux of the matter is these games, these systems (multiple party members, differing gear, stats, large amounts of skills etc.,), were originally designed to be turn based. Logically because the permutations on what can happen in any single round are huge.

I hope for all our sakes that I am wrong and the combat is great (still waiting to see a single video of it), but please remember the last fantasy cRPG these guys did had some of the worst combat ever (NWN2) and IWD was made using an engine that wasn't theirs. They do not have a proven track record on combat, far from it actually. I think it's more logical to be skeptical rather than overly optimistic.

 

[Infinitron]

Slow motion is just another bandaid to the problem.

Even if it is a bandaid, which I don't agree with, it's still a better bandaid.

It all boils down to the same thing. Which is that the crux of the matter is these games, these systems (multiple party members, differing gear, stats, large amounts of skills etc.,), were originally designed to be turn based. Logically because the permutations on what can happen in any single round are huge.

I do not see any fundamental difference between the combat in RTSes and real-time party-based top-down RPGs. It's a difference of degree, not of kind.

If people can play Starcraft with dozens of units and apply advanced tactics even with no slow motion and no pause, then a six party member RPG with those "bandaid" features should be perfectly fine. Anything else is just whining.

 

[Rivmusique]

Slow motion is better for this then pausing, because it does that without constantly tempting you to break up the action in a vain attempt to simulate turn-based combat.

I don't get what you mean here.

I'd say it works well with pausing, as it replaces spamming the pause button to essentially achieve slow motion with a button you can hold/toggle to do the same thing. But pausing to navigate the UI and have multiple characters use abilities at the same time should definitely stay.

 

[Infinitron]

Slow motion is better for this then pausing, because it does that without constantly tempting you to break up the action in a vain attempt to simulate turn-based combat.

I don't get what you mean here.

I'd say it works well with pausing, as it replaces spamming the pause button to essentially achieve slow motion with a button you can hold/toggle to do the same thing. But pausing to navigate the UI and have multiple characters use abilities at the same time should definitely stay.

What I'm saying is that historically the pause ability in RTwP has tripped up lots of turn-based RPG players because they try to use it as a replacement for the "pause" that happens between turns in a turn-based game. Basically they pause after every single thing that happens, instead of just when the action needs to be slowed down temporarily because the battlefield dynamics are shifting dramatically. And that's just not a fun way to play these games. Pause-pause-pause-pause-pause.

With slow motion, you just put it on slow motion once, and play the fucking game.

 

[Space Satan]

I never played Game of Thrones but heared that time slowing was there. Does it work ell? Because last slowtime I recall was X-Com: Buereau and it was impossible to experience it properly due to overall faggotry.