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

[Grunker]

Where this "toon" comes from anyway? I've always called it PC or player character.

true bros call it avatar man

especially seeing as this game is ie related

 

[bminorkey]

Oh, come on, there has to be someone other than me who cares about this: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60594-ui/

Do they even have much maneuverability here, given the engine?

 

[Grunker]

Oh, come on, there has to be someone other than me who cares about this: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60594-ui/

GREAT thread.

So sad to see so many wanting a mini-map. That shit belongs in aRPGs.

 

[Norfleet]

If your magic missiles fail you kill them with your herbalism skills?

While often mistreated in computer games, in PnP, herbalism an be quite a deadly skill. It doesn't matter what your armor class is when you're busy turning black and purple and shitting out your own melted internal organs.

What was one of the most popular playstyles in Fallout: a sniper-diplomat.

The Sniper-Diplomat is a kind of baffling and incongruous style, really. To function as a Sniper-Diplomat essentialy means you've metagamed the system to the point where you've already made the decision to shoot or talk: Snipers fight at long range, diplomats talk to your face. The two are not terribly compatible when not metagamed because either you give up your range advantage as a sniper, or you're shouting at people in a decidedly undiplomatic way. Now, Heavy Weapons Diplomat, on the other hand...

 

[Jarpie]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60585-tropes-vs-women/

I'm really looking forward to this game, it makes me want to replay all of the old games (now, if I could just get PS:T to work properly...).

However, something I really hope to not see is the stereotypical Damsels in Distress and other unpleasant tropes. I mean, this is a fantasy world, equality is a possibility!

This isn't to say that Baldur's Gate, Planescape and all the other games are filled with such tropes, but I do think that it would be awesome if, when making Project Eternity, this is given some real consideration.

Maybe talk to Anita, who is behind Tropes vs Women in Video Games?

Sawyer gave money to that project FYI.

Yeah he did but it doesnt make her videos any better. Look, I'm all for gender equality but she looks for and finds mysoginy and sexism in things where it really isn't. Even one of my female friends said that she's an idiot and seeking for attention.[/quote]

 

[Jarpie]

Where this "toon" comes from anyway? I've always called it PC or player character.

true bros call it avatar man

especially seeing as this game is ie related

I always associate Avatar with Ultima-games so can't use that

 

[Dexter]

I never really friended up with these "Level Up, Spend Skillpoints"-systems employed by so many games. I mean, I guess it works and all that, but I never understood why when doing nothing else but butchering entire landmasses and ridding them from indigenous lifeforms you "Level Up" at some random arbitrary point and can decide that you can get better at Diplomacy or Repairing or whatever, which is the exact opposite of your playstyle so far.
I guess the best attempt for a skill system that makes sense in a CRPG imo was kind of how Ultima Online handled it, getting better at certain things by increasingly doing them, but the grindy part of that (with being an MMO) was rather annoying and it was also prone to exploitation.

I dno, some system where you start out as a certain archetype and then get better by trying to solve things diplomatically, or by mostly backstabbing/poisoning people or outright going berzerk on their asses with the possibility to "study" from certain characters or by reading books etc. in the game world kinda seems to make more sense than pushing points into things xD

 

[Infinitron]

I never really friended up with these "Level Up, Spend Skillpoints"-systems employed by so many games. I mean, I guess it works and all that, but I never understood why when doing nothing else but butchering entire landmasses and ridding them from indigenous lifeforms you "Level Up" at some random arbitrary point and can decide that you can get better at Diplomacy or Repairing or whatever, which is the exact opposite of your playstyle so far.
I guess the best attempt for a skill system that makes sense in a CRPG imo was kind of how Ultima Online handled it, getting better at certain things by increasingly doing them, but the grindy part of that (with being an MMO) was rather annoying and it was also prone to exploitation.

I dno, some system where you start out as a certain archetype and then get better by trying to solve things diplomatically, or by mostly backstabbing/poisoning people or outright going berzerk on their asses with the possibility to "study" from certain characters or by reading books etc. in the game world kinda seems to make more sense than pushing points into things xD

That's why this game will mostly hand out XPs for solving quests.

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60589-tell-me-about-the-developers/page__st__20#entry1204751

The Obsidian developers are, basically, the A-Team abut without the jewellery, fear of flying and poor marksmanship scores. They went rogue and hit the LA Underground after a series of bad Metacritic scores. They use dubious funding sources. They are currently locked in a shed making a CRPG using acetylene torches, pieces of corrugated iron and the big end of a 1978 Chevvy Impala. They even managed to rescue Tim 'Howling Mad' Cain from Troika a lunatic asylum.

Col. Ferg 'Hannibal' Urqhart loves it when a plan comes together.

 

[sea]

GREAT thread.

So sad to see so many wanting a mini-map. That shit belongs in aRPGs.

Nah. Minimaps are one of the most basic usability features you can have in an RPG. It doesn't have to show enemies etc., but landmark locations and stuff? Fuck wandering around aimlessly trying to find a quest giver in some town you last visited 20 hours ago.

 

[Dexter]

That's why this game will mostly hand out XPs for solving quests.

Which doesn't exactly solve the problem of chars talking their way out of every encounter and becoming axe-wielding champions, bashing everyones head in at every opportunity and becoming master diplomats or the master thieves that haven't stolen a thing so far and don't even know the purpose of the "hide into shadows"-button in the interface.

 

[Grunker]

GREAT thread.

So sad to see so many wanting a mini-map. That shit belongs in aRPGs.

Nah. Minimaps are one of the most basic usability features you can have in an RPG. It doesn't have to show enemies etc., but landmark locations and stuff? Fuck wandering around aimlessly trying to find a quest giver in some town you last visited 20 hours ago.

What's wrong with a toggled, linen-like map or digital overview like Baldur's Gate instead of the acardey mini-map that will stay an eye-soar in top right of the screen, with a bunch of shitty icons and shit?

 

[Kaldurenik]

I dont care if they make the map a transparent overlay that you can turn on or off. I dont care that much if there is a minimap or not the only thing i dont want is for it to show everything (enemies, loot, locations, no fow and so on).

 

[sea]

What's wrong with a toggled, linen-like map or digital overview like Baldur's Gate instead of the acardey mini-map that will stay an eye-soar in top right of the screen, with a bunch of shitty icons and shit?

Toggle maps are less convenient than regular mini-maps. As for style, I'm all for a nice hand-drawn kind of map, provided it's detailed enough, as I'm not a fan of, say, NWN2-style maps which are just a screenshot of the level itself taken from a top-down perspective. Icons for indicating important locations and NPCs is totally fine - do you really have a problem with knowing where the nearest shop is at a glance, for instance?

To be fair though, in a top-down game a mini-map probably isn't entirely needed unless the camera is fairly close to the ground.

 

[skuphundaku]

That's why this game will mostly hand out XPs for solving quests.

Which doesn't exactly solve the problem of chars talking their way out of every encounter and becoming axe-wielding champions, bashing everyones head in at every opportunity and becoming master diplomats or the master thieves that haven't stolen a thing so far and don't even know the purpose of the "hide into shadows"-button in the interface.

This is a very difficult problem which no CRPG that I know of has resolved yet: you either get XP for everything, including for killing stuff, which creates the situation that the player goes in rampage after rampage and decimates a whole continent but then goes and uses that XP to raise his diplomacy and research skills, which is a mindbendingly incoherent situation. The other extreme, which is brought about by the knee-jerk reaction to this is that, as a response of "NO MOAR XP FROM COMBAT!!!" cries, is to give XP just for solving quests. In this situation, you can get all your XP from doing non-combat stuff and then go increase your combat skills using that XP, which is, again, ridiculous.

A solution would be to forgo XP altoghether. You would have a number of character points that you could use to configure your starting character and then, during gameplay, the character would evolve by gathering various resources (tools, weapons, relationships, prestige, money etc.), getting better at the things he does (something like TES and DS1, but the increases should be small, to avoid grinding) and learning from various rare teachers/instructors/manuals/etc. (these should be the only ways to greatly increase skills, but this potency should be counterbalanced by their lack of availability).

 

[almondblight]

You got it wrong. You are taking it as if, for each task (quest, etc. - you can call it whatever you like), there is only one (or more) way of solving it.

Not sure where you're getting this from. I said: "Alternatively, you could create a separate path for all three - more optimal, but much more work." Where do you get "there's only one path for everything!" from?

Good RPGs provide the player with multiple ways to solve a task, some of them being non-violent. These multiple ways may include everything from having to duke it out with difficult enemies, which would need a fully combat-focused build, to solutions which include some non-combat skills and some less difficult fights and all the way to pure non-combat solutions that could be diplomacy-based, knowledge-based or stealth-based. In such a game, the player needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of his character and plan accordingly. If the game system makes you an equally proficient fighter and diplomat, then it also obviates that need for planning, which is the RPG equivalent of popamole.

And again, you fall back into the Codex thought of "this RPG in my head is so awesome that their system sucks." Put your money where your mouth is. What game are you thinking about? I brought up Fallout and AoD since those are the only two RPG's with a no-killing path I can think of off the top of my head (the former requiring you to skip large parts of the game if you do so, mind you). In Fallout you could be good at everything if you wanted to, and in AoD it required you to specialized. Where's your mythical game where the combat an noncombat character builds, and degrees of them (50/50, 30/70 characters), are balanced?

Fallout let you do everything well only if you were open to grinding in order to level up all those skills you're talking about. If you really think that you did everything in Fallout, and especially in Fallout2, in one playthrough, then you don't even know what you don't know.

Go back and replay Fallout. Tag speech and your weapon skill of choice. You'll quickly find that you have more skill points than you need (I don't think speech of over 100 or weapons of over 150 improve much). By the time you get to the glow, there's a good chance you'll have a surplus of skill points because you didn't feel like dumping them into gambling or whatever. After reading all of those science and engineering books, you'll only have to add a few points into science and engineering to finish the glow and repair the power armor. And keep in mind that the designers drop those books off at the glow and in the brotherhood when they give you the power armor - the developers didn't want you to miss this.

Think most people missed out on most of the Glow the first time they played? Think most missed out on repairing the power armor? Especially with the developers dropping science and repair books around those areas? The only two things I remember missing out on the first time I played was the thieves guild (and you didn't need high thief skills for that if I remember right, just lots of stims) and the Bree alternate way of killing the Master. But neither of those were because I lacked the skill points, since I usually finished the game with a bunch of extra ones I'm not using, without grinding at all. As Volrath said, this build (Diplomat/Sniper) was probably the most popular one, and one that didn't need prior knowledge.

 

[almondblight]

I just don't want social characters to be the "easy route" (like in AoD for instance). I want combat to be the central aspect of the game, just like in IE.

Same, but this system seems like it would be less likely to include an instant win button, since all characters would have some sort of combat skills. So they wouldn't have to balance the game for a pure diplomat character, or include a weak fight after a diplomatic check for mixed characters - they can assume that all characters will be able to handle themselves in combat, and balance the game accordingly.

 

[Grimlorn]

Are Obsidian introducing kickstarter badges for the forums, or do you have to join that Obsidian Order?
Will there be a section of the forums that only these users will be able to post in?

 

[Jarpie]

Are Obsidian introducing kickstarter badges for the forums, or do you have to join that Obsidian Order?
Will there be a section of the forums that only these users will be able to post in?

Unless I'm mistaken there will be forum titles or something similar for those who have donated.

 

[skuphundaku]

Good RPGs provide the player with multiple ways to solve a task, some of them being non-violent. These multiple ways may include everything from having to duke it out with difficult enemies, which would need a fully combat-focused build, to solutions which include some non-combat skills and some less difficult fights and all the way to pure non-combat solutions that could be diplomacy-based, knowledge-based or stealth-based. In such a game, the player needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of his character and plan accordingly. If the game system makes you an equally proficient fighter and diplomat, then it also obviates that need for planning, which is the RPG equivalent of popamole.

And again, you fall back into the Codex thought of "this RPG in my head is so awesome that their system sucks." Put your money where your mouth is.

Right now I'm doing that by donating to worthy KS projects. When I'll get the time to do it, I'll start working on my game as well, but that's more something of a long term plan. Also, most of the codexers would hate most of my ideas, with some exceptions here and there, because most of the codexers are a depressingly regressive bunch. It would less than worthless to come out and say "BROS, THIS IS MY DESIGN DOCUMENT. DICSUSS!!!".

What game are you thinking about? I brought up Fallout and AoD since those are the only two RPG's with a no-killing path I can think of off the top of my head (the former requiring you to skip large parts of the game if you do so, mind you). In Fallout you could be good at everything if you wanted to, and in AoD it required you to specialized. Where's your mythical game where the combat an noncombat character builds, and degrees of them (50/50, 30/70 characters), are balanced?

I'm not talking about an existing game, but about how I see a game that I could really call a good CRPG. Fallout 1, Fallout 2 (especially), Arcanum, AoD, Gothic 1-3, Deus Ex, both System Shocks have almost all the necessary elements if you would put them all together, but, yeah, that game doesn't exist yet.

Go back and replay Fallout. Tag speech and your weapon skill of choice. You'll quickly find that you have more skill points than you need (I don't think speech of over 100 or weapons of over 150 improve much). By the time you get to the glow, there's a good chance you'll have a surplus of skill points because you didn't feel like dumping them into gambling or whatever. After reading all of those science and engineering books, you'll only have to add a few points into science and engineering to finish the glow and repair the power armor. And keep in mind that the designers drop those books off at the glow and in the brotherhood when they give you the power armor - the developers didn't want you to miss this.

Think most people missed out on most of the Glow the first time they played? Think most missed out on repairing the power armor? Especially with the developers dropping science and repair books around those areas? The only two things I remember missing out on the first time I played was the thieves guild (and you didn't need high thief skills for that if I remember right, just lots of stims) and the Bree alternate way of killing the Master. But neither of those were because I lacked the skill points, since I usually finished the game with a bunch of extra ones I'm not using, without grinding at all. As Volrath said, this build (Diplomat/Sniper) was probably the most popular one, and one that didn't need prior knowledge.

I played Fallout 1 in early 1998 and a second time in 1999 or so, so I can't claim to remember all the little details about it, but I doubt that, apart from the "in-your-face" things such as the power armor and The Glow, there weren't quite a few sidequests that were rather easy to miss. That's why I'm always suspicious of people saying "I did everything there was to do in this or that game". Unless you're talking about one of these newfangled ADHD modern shooters, you, most likely, missed something, especially in a good RPG such as one of the original Fallouts.

Also, you're thinking too much about Fallout 1 exclusively, which was pretty straigth-forward. Me, when I hear/read "Fallout", I always think "Fallout 1 and Fallout 2", and Fallout 2 has enough shit to miss unless you're really OCD or you have already played it 10 times and you know absolutely everything about it and you just do the 11th run to do everything in one go. And even then you might find out about some quest that you missed. I can tell you that for sure because I do know someone who played Fallout 2 12 times and, even then, he found out, somewhere on the net, about some obscure sidequest that he didn't know about.

 

[evdk]

I assume it's going to be like the "patron" tags here, except with tiers.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

For that stupid Obsidian Order or for KS pledgers?

 

[Jarpie]

For that stupid Obsidian Order or for KS pledgers?

KS Pledgers

 

[Jaesun]

The KS Pledge just states VIP FORUM BADGE.

 

[Tigranes]

No idea how it will work just yet, since there are different tiers. The Obsidian Order thing is wholly community-driven, and it just replaces the default post-count labels, so it won't really overlap.