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

[Osvir]

IIRC engagements work while moving and as soon as your character enters the engagement he will stop and require further input to continue moving to avoid accidental engagement attacks. I don't see it as a problem, in the chase scenario every class have disengagement ability that immediately puts some distance between you and the attacker so further engagements will only happen if you are slower or stop running for some reason.

I seem to remember something about each character having a number of opponents they can engage, and each engagement is triggered by proximity. This allows fighters (with a high engagement count limit) to block chokepoints. If an opponent tries to leave after having engaged you, you get a free attack.

I haven't followed this discussion entirely but just wanted to reply to this. Remember that it works both ways, if you try to leave the area, the enemy gets a free attack. Not to mention "Escape" mechanics, "Tumble" perks/talents or boosts that the AI enemies can possibly have as well (I admit this is more of potential outcome, speculation, but not necessarily what Obsidian will do). Knockback attacks to push you out of proximity or short "stuns", "shocks" or whatnot to disengage you from "proximity", or more formerly called: "Engagement Circle". If the AI triggers some sort of "I need to run away!"-code/parameter, I think it would try to push you away before doing so (unless "Panic" or something).

Also, not all classes or characters have the ability to engage more than 1 enemy. I think the only statement thus far is that a Fighter can engage 2 or 3 enemies at once when he is in a certain stance and "lock them down". This means that if you are facing an enemy Fighter you'd be facing the same challenge.

 

[coffeetable]

I didn't say that

Eh?

I haven't followed this discussion entirely but just wanted to reply to this. Remember that it works both ways, if you try to leave the area, the enemy gets a free attack. Not to mention "Escape" mechanics, "Tumble" perks/talents or boosts that the AI enemies can possibly have as well (I admit this is more of potential outcome, speculation, but not necessarily what Obsidian will do). Knockback attacks to push you out of proximity or short "stuns", "shocks" or whatnot to disengage you from "proximity", or more formerly called: "Engagement Circle". If the AI triggers some sort of "I need to run away!"-code/parameter, I think it would try to push you away before doing so (unless "Panic" or something).

Also, not all classes or characters have the ability to engage more than 1 enemy. I think the only statement thus far is that a Fighter can engage 2 or 3 enemies at once when he is in a certain stance and "lock them down". This means that if you are facing an enemy Fighter you'd be facing the same challenge.

Found the source: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63432-update-44-the-rules-of-melee-engagement/

 

[gromit]

Dude, take a hectic battle in BG2, and imagine a Myth or Total War-style slowdown system implemented on top of that? Isn't that better? You seriously believe it's not better?

Not one bit, because BG2's gimpy, try-hard mapping of "six second" turns to six seconds in real time had already resulted in a lot of waiting around while nothing happens. OK, positioning still happened... but not to the point where you could duck behind a wall without an arrow following you. Even then, there weren't any real movement or engagement mechanics.

So we're down to corralling hostile pathfinding without ZoC, and adding the alien element of reaction time.

Hooray, you get to watch all the pointless fluff at half-speed, and still fail to click a button in time before the moment it decides a bunch of stuff will happen in the next few seconds and makes it all happen at once.

Playing that in slow-motion just sounds painful. Not much ever really changed in the moment. It needed fast-forward.

This system, whether it's good or bad, in a good game or a bad one, could at least side-step that problem, and make slow-motion useful at the same time, by having a more natural, fine-grained sequence of actions. Hell, even just compressing IE's 6s into 3s and actually separating the initiation, completion, and result of actions would have done wonders (but caused more "you wrecked D&D" yelling than there already was.)

 

[Roguey]

KOTOR replaced 6 second rounds with 3 seconds.

It was still awful.

Fortunately Eternity isn't bothering with round bullshit.

 

[Infinitron]

FWIW, I found that the rounds weren't so bad once you get multiple attacks per round. So it was more of a problem in BG1.

 

[tuluse]

Also, each character was on their own timer, so it was pretty easy to stagger actions and something happening most of the time.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Also, all that "slow motion" means is that combat can happen at multiple speeds (between 2 and infinity) at least one of which will be the fastest speed and one of which will be the slowest speed. We're assuming "normal" will be the fastest speed, but there's nothing stopping them from having a fast motion. Or making the normal speed faster than what we're thinking.

 

[Arkeus]

Our slightly-above-average dungeon levels contain ~1 gig of render data, uncompressed.

~1 gig uncompressed per level of dungeon, or for the whole dungeon (with an average how many levels)?

For a single level. The number of levels in a dungeon isn't necessarily relevant, but the number of levels in the game is. This is going to be a large game with a lot of maps.

That number does include all renders, btw (final, diffuse, specular, etc.).

 

[Sensuki]

Project Eternity UHD edition: 50GB!

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

Project Eternity UHD edition: 50GB!

You laugh but I remember people estimating that game might take around 20GB.

 

[Arkeus]

Project Eternity UHD edition: 50GB!

You laugh but I remember people estimating that game might take around 20GB.

He may be "laughing" but that doesn't mean that he finds 50GB that unlikely. Keep in mind that the infinity engine games were always very very heavy. In a time where almost all games were single-CD they were 5CD for each games, for example.

Hiven that quite a few games on steam are 20-30GB, i wouldn't be THAT surprised if a high-quality download of the game is at least 30-40GB.

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

Project Eternity UHD edition: 50GB!

You laugh but I remember people estimating that game might take around 20GB.

He may be "laughing" but that doesn't mean that he finds 50GB that unlikely. Keep in mind that the infinity engine games were always very very heavy. In a time where almost all games were single-CD they were 5CD for each games, for example.

Hiven that quite a few games on steam are 20-30GB, i wouldn't be THAT surprised if a high-quality download of the game is at least 30-40GB.

Nah. I remeber devs mentioning how they cannot go too high with game weight as P:E is niche PC game with Digital Distribution being main source of sales as opposed to 35 GB Max Payne 3 which is multiplatform AAA game with retail being main source of income. And while downloading additional 20GB-30GB isn't much for us, many places(murrika) have data caps or really slow connection.

 

[tuluse]

He may be "laughing" but that doesn't mean that he finds 50GB that unlikely. Keep in mind that the infinity engine games were always very very heavy. In a time where almost all games were single-CD they were 5CD for each games, for example.

Hiven that quite a few games on steam are 20-30GB, i wouldn't be THAT surprised if a high-quality download of the game is at least 30-40GB.

CPUs couldn't uncompress pictures in real time while running a game in 1998, things have changed a little since then.

 

[Space Satan]

I can't see the problem. Even if the game is 30 gb just add preload. It's 2013, 30 gb is nothing.

 

[Roguey]

I can't see the problem. Even if the game is 30 gb just add preload. It's 2013, 30 gb is nothing.

Bandwidth privilege. Think of the Australians.

 

[Rake]

I can't see the problem. Even if the game is 30 gb just add preload. It's 2013, 30 gb is nothing.

Bandwidth privilege. Think of the Australians.

I thought about them. What of it?

 

[Infinitron]

I can't see the problem. Even if the game is 30 gb just add preload. It's 2013, 30 gb is nothing.

Bandwidth privilege. Think of the Australians.

I thought about them. What of it?

 

[Sensuki]

I can't see the problem. Even if the game is 30 gb just add preload. It's 2013, 30 gb is nothing.

Bandwidth privilege. Think of the Australians.

I have 200GB limit so 30GB is no skin off my teeth.

 

[hoverdog]

People have bandwiidth limits in 2013?

 

[Sensuki]

We only just passed Mongolia as far as internet speeds go man. New Government is gonna handicap us again too. 25MB down 5UP max lmao, gg.

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

People have bandwidth limits in 2013?

In ex-british colonies. Canadians IIRC have 50GB, and some USA ISPs caps at 250GB.

 

[J_C]

People have bandwiidth limits in 2013?

Yeah, it is kinde funny that we have cheap unlimited internet in our little post-communist country, but first worldian people suffer this kind of fate.

 

[Lhynn]

People have bandwiidth limits in 2013?

Yeah, it is kinde funny that we have cheap unlimited internet in our little post-communist country, but first worldian people suffer this kind of fate.

Thats because theres there are costs related to that after a certain point. so in most developed countries have limitations on their bandwidth, gonna be a problem for us in the future tho, unless they solve it.

 

[Endemic]

It's usually because their infrastructure was built, funded and run differently. Places like Slovakia had prior investment into fibre lines, so there was less congestion when everyone was given near-unlimited bandwidth. People just needed a new socket and router. If you've already funded the physical lines, maintenance at the IP level is a relatively trivial matter. Canada's problem is the vast size of the country, and its terrain\climate, making infrastructure more difficult to build and maintain. Australia's situation is probably a mixture of these two sets of problems. There are some other secondary factors like how local business markets (taxes, level of competition) function as well.

 

[Lhynn]

It's usually because their infrastructure was built, funded and run differently. Places like Slovakia had prior investment into fibre lines, so there was less congestion when everyone was given near-unlimited bandwidth. People just needed a new socket and router. If you've already funded the physical lines, maintenance at the IP level is a relatively trivial matter. Canada's problem is the vast size of the country, and its terrain\climate, making infrastructure more difficult to build and maintain. Australia's situation is probably a mixture of these two sets of problems. There are some other secondary factors like how local business markets (taxes, level of competition) function as well.

Makes sense, you learn something new every day.