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

[Roguey]

They're making a spiritual successor to the IE games so if they were to "replace" one of the class/race archetypes with something weirder there would likely be complaints.

The most extreme thing they've done is replace the sorcerer (a slightly different wizard) with psionics and merged halflings and gnomes into orlans.

 

[Sensuki]

I'm just a bit confused as to the reason you quoted my previous post, I was referring to the Wizard & Mage by name alone and not content.

They've done more extreme stuff than that - such as changing how attributes work.

I don't think it's a bad thing for people to expect/desire something familiar. Radical changes are often (nearly always?) really terrible.

 

[Roguey]

As always, there are Josh-quotes for that.
http://spring.me/JESawyer/q/427389647

Do you think developers should ignore the demands of some hardcore fans to keep obsolete or inferior features in the sequel just because it was in the original?

I think developers should try to make a good game. While this means they do have to understand the expectations established by previous titles, they have to be willing to re-evaluate mechanics if they've demonstrably failed or caused problems in the past. I think its most important that they keep the spirit of a franchise/series/world alive. If they can do that while improving a mechanic, they should go for it. If changing mechanics radically alters the feeling of the setting and series, the cost has to be weighed very carefully.

http://spring.me/JESawyer/q/630402078

Isn't having too much or too firm of a 'concept' in mind when approaching concept art a danger? The initial character designs for Deus Ex: Human Revolution provoked a huge backlash because the New Renaissance concept had overtaken good taste.

It is better to be talked about than ignored. I believe the following:

If you enter into creative endeavors cautiously and conservatively, you will create things that are cautious and conservative.

If you enter into creative endeavors aimlessly, you will create things that feel empty and disconnected.

I think it is best to be passionate but flexible, to consider mainstream tastes and expectations, but not to be bound by them.

 

[Rake]

The most extreme thing they've done is replace the sorcerer (a slightly different wizard) with psionics

More like they replaced wizard with sorcerer and just kept the name.

 

[Lhynn]

Problem with 4E is the mmo feel, the fact that. It has lost a lot of lethality, most adventures are pretty straightforward, that means there is no tension in battle, most of the stuff you can be doing in a round is good enough, hard to fuck it up. The thing is not that all classes feel the same as sawyer pointed out, it is that every character of said class feels the same, your warrior and the next warrior are about as effective, about as resourceful, etc, and that kills variety. Also makes you feel like just another mook of your level in the next level appropriate encounter.
There is too much of an emphasis on combat, way more than in 1 or 2nd edition, and that hurts the game, because even if having good combat mechanics is awesome in a game about fighting, they alone are not enough, there needs to be flavor to make the world come to life, it acts as a motivation of sorts.
The combat should never be the end, it should be a mean (one of many hopefully) to get to your goal.

4E is a dumbed down, watered down version of the experience we used to get with previous editions.

Now, what i wish we got from PE is simply something in the line of old PnP systems, by this i mean, classes that are defined by what they do with their lives, not by their combat roles. What i want are scholarly mages, devoted priests, warriors as experts in the art of war and fighting, rogues that are friends of the shadows being all about wits, romantic bards, and a huge list of etcs.

I dont want dpsers and tanks, and healers and hexers and all that fucking shit mainstream brought.

I belive i have said this before, but it was mostly ignored and i find it hard to believe that no one actually cares about this shit.

 

[Roguey]

The most extreme thing they've done is replace the sorcerer (a slightly different wizard) with psionics

More like they replaced wizard with sorcerer and just kept the name.

Not really...? Wizards in PE store spells in grimoires instead of choosing from a x-times-per-day pool. If I'm not misremembering, they can choose new spells on level-up like 3rd edition wizards but some spells can only be learned from in-game scrolls.

 

[Rake]

The most extreme thing they've done is replace the sorcerer (a slightly different wizard) with psionics

More like they replaced wizard with sorcerer and just kept the name.

Not really...? Wizards in PE store spells in grimoires instead of choosing from a x-times-per-day pool. If I'm not misremembering, they can choose new spells on level-up like 3rd edition wizards but some spells can only be learned from in-game scrolls.

They way they talked about the spellcasting in combat, that when you use a spell enough times it locks the entire level of spells in cooldown. Unless this has changed. After 800 pages i don't remember.

 

[Infinitron]

It's probably not a cooldown any more. It's just locked until the next encounter.

And yes, PE wizard is D&D mage/sorcerer hybrid.

 

[Sensuki]

As always, there are Josh-quotes for that.

Do you think developers should ignore the demands of some hardcore fans to keep obsolete or inferior features in the sequel just because it was in the original?

I think developers should try to make a good game. While this means they do have to understand the expectations established by previous titles, they have to be willing to re-evaluate mechanics if they've demonstrably failed or caused problems in the past. I think its most important that they keep the spirit of a franchise/series/world alive. If they can do that while improving a mechanic, they should go for it. If changing mechanics radically alters the feeling of the setting and series, the cost has to be weighed very carefully.

Many games have been fucked up hard by this approach, particularly in the RTS genre; where designers have attempted to fix a mechanic and their proposed implementations is actually a lot worse.

Starcraft (with SC2 & Expansions), Age of Empires (with AoE 3), Diablo 3 (prime example), Empire Earth (EE1 was the best), Command and Conquer series, etc etc

FPS netcode design is another one. The best FPS netcode to date is probably QuakeWorld which was engineered in '96? Seconded by GoldSrc ('98). All attempts beyond are worse, even though some designs (such as the snapshot model) are technically better, the hit registration is still worse, lol (other candidates are probs Tribes 1 & 2 and Q3 CPMA, which is a 'mod').

Josh is neither an RTS or FPS guy though.

An example is in FPS titles, the development of animation and physics making it possible for a player model to have more realistic movement, with more sway to various body parts and flinch reactions to hits - this is actually bad from a competitive perspective because when you shoot someone in the head and their model flinches, your second bullet (assuming using automatic weapon) will miss because the head is not in the same spot as it was before, and the time it takes for you to adjust your aim again gives the person who you just hit an advantage.

 

[Hormalakh]

Many games have been fucked up hard by this approach, particularly in the RTS genre; where designers have attempted to fix a mechanic and their proposed implementations is actually a lot worse.

Starcraft (with SC2 & Expansions), Age of Empires (with AoE 3), Diablo 3 (prime example), Empire Earth (EE1 was the best), Command and Conquer series, etc etc

FPS netcode design is another one. The best FPS netcode to date is probably QuakeWorld which was engineered in '96? Seconded by GoldSrc ('98). All attempts beyond are worse, even though some designs (such as the snapshot model) are technically better, the hit registration is still worse, lol (other candidates are probs Tribes 1 & 2 and Q3 CPMA, which is a 'mod').

Josh is neither an RTS or FPS guy though.

An example is in FPS titles, the development of animation and physics making it possible for a player model to have more realistic movement, with more sway to various body parts and flinch reactions to hits - this is actually bad from a competitive perspective because when you shoot someone in the head and their model flinches, your second bullet (assuming using automatic weapon) will miss because the head is not in the same spot as it was before, and the time it takes for you to adjust your aim again gives the person who you just hit an advantage.

I disagree: many RTS's do not try to "fix" mechanics, they just build on previous implementations. They "fix" what isn't broken. However, I would say that 90-99% of the issues that Sawyer has with RPGs are the same issues that I and many others have had with cRPGs. Compared to RTS's, RPG's are much much more difficult to create and perfect. RTS's as a genre are older than RPGs and the game mechanics have always been more easily implemented: it's effectively a better chess game. RPGs have so many moving parts and so much qualitative components that it hasn't been perfected.

Also I disagree with your Diablo example: that is just a prime example of the developer "selling out" and not making the best game out there, but the most profitable one. This is not the case in PE.

 

[Sensuki]

No they're not. RPGs pre-date RTS.

Diablo 3 - went through many design (team?) changes before the final result, if you followed the development early on you'd probably understand what I mean, they set about making changes pretty early, but the merger with Activision and the WoWism of the company probably had a lot to do with the final result.

There's a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily broken in RPGs either.

There's also a quote of Josh somewhere where he says that "Designers implement stuff from the previous game simply because 'that's how the previous game did it'."

To be honest I wish more games took that approach because sequels are almost always worse than the previous title.

This is more a comment aimed at Roguey's wielding of Josh's quotes. I know what P:E is and I accept it, even if it's probably not my 100% ideal implementation of post-IE game mechanics.

 

[Hormalakh]

you're wrong.

RTSs were created by the Prussians as war games. RPGs are an extension of war games.

The things that aren't broken with RPGs are not the things that Sawyer intends to change.

http://ptgptb.org/0001/history1.html

 

[Sensuki]

That's tabletop bro ?

You don't have a real-time table top game war game.

 

[Hormalakh]

No they're not. RPGs pre-date RTS.
There's also a quote of Josh somewhere where he says that "Designers implement stuff from the previous game simply because 'that's how the previous game did it'."

To be honest I wish more games took that approach because sequels are almost always worse than the previous title.

This is more a comment aimed at Roguey's wielding of Josh's quotes. I know what P:E is and I accept it, even if it's probably not my 100% ideal implementation of post-IE game mechanics.

Roguey was successful in trolling us, as usual. However, there is something to be said about sequels and whether they are always/ almost always necessarily worse than their predecessors. I don't agree with that, but this is more a statement of opinion and everyone's can differ.

That's tabletop bro ?

You don't have a real-time table top game war game.

The real-time aspect of RTS's while important, do not really give them much of a distinguishing factor. We don't have real-time tabletop RPGs either. The implementation of a computer game versus a pen/paper/tabletop aspect is more important. Ultimately, with strategy games (computer or table-top), the mechanics and rules are all set out before the game is started. With RPGs, content is created on-the-fly in table-top games, whereas computer RPGs must have all content pre-created. This poses a huge difficulty in RPGs and a lot of the game issues come out of this.

 

[Sensuki]

Roguey was successful in trolling us, as usual. However, there is something to be said about sequels and whether they are always/ almost always necessarily worse than their predecessors. I don't agree with that, but this is more a statement of opinion and everyone's can differ.

I know what Roguey is about, I generally only reply when it's an interesting topic for discussion. Sometimes you get the real Roguey but most of the time you just get the Sawyer persona.

Computer chess is not a real time game. It's turn based

First RTS was Utopia I think ? (if that counts)

 

[Rake]

No they're not. RPGs pre-date RTS.
There's also a quote of Josh somewhere where he says that "Designers implement stuff from the previous game simply because 'that's how the previous game did it'."

To be honest I wish more games took that approach because sequels are almost always worse than the previous title.

This is more a comment aimed at Roguey's wielding of Josh's quotes. I know what P:E is and I accept it, even if it's probably not my 100% ideal implementation of post-IE game mechanics.

Roguey was successful in trolling us, as usual. However, there is something to be said about sequels and whether they are always/ almost always necessarily worse than their predecessors. I don't agree with that, but this is more a statement of opinion and everyone's can differ.

But in cases that the sequel was better it didn't change shit it wasn't broken. It just added more content and fixed a few glaring problems. BG2 to BG, FO2 to FO. Now you can say that that is what Josh does, but his changes are more radical. And remember, Josh is trying to improve the game based on his design philoshophy of what makes the game more fun. Some people disagree with his design philosophy at a high level, so for them his "improvements" actualy make the game worse/less interesting.
Generaly i like what i hear from him, but i can understand why some people are disapointed. I was disapointed myself with some of his desisions.

 

[Sensuki]

The real-time aspect of RTS's while important, do not really give them much of a distinguishing factor. We don't have real-time tabletop RPGs either. The implementation of a computer game versus a pen/paper/tabletop aspect is more important. Ultimately, with strategy games (computer or table-top), the mechanics and rules are all set out before the game is started. With RPGs, content is created on-the-fly in table-top games, whereas computer RPGs must have all content pre-created. This poses a huge difficulty in RPGs and a lot of the game issues come out of this.

That post has nothing to do with changing the mechanics of a game.

 

[Sensuki]

Some people disagree with his design philosophy at a high level, so for them his "improvements" actualy make the game worse/less interesting.
Generaly i like what i hear from him, but i can understand why some people are disapointed. I was disapointed myself with some of his desisions.

One of the most interesting (good or bad?) things at the moment is that he says that Class abilities could be given in any order.

In D&D (and past CRPGs), Abilities generally had some sort of scaling, where the higher level you got, the cooler & more powerful abilities you got. Josh's version of class ability design seems like more lateral progression instead of an upward curve, unless abilities that have damage/duration scale with player level.

 

[Hormalakh]

That post has nothing to do with changing the mechanics of a game.

Which post? The Josh Sawyer post? Where he specifically says, "they have to be willing to re-evaluate mechanics if they've demonstrably failed or caused problems in the past?"

The point of the matter is, is that Josh isn't changing mechanics just to be cute or ~*different*~. He's doing it because he thinks that there are certain RPG aspects that didn't translate so well from table-top to computer and these remaining vestiges do nothing to add to the player experience. They are effectively poor computer game mechanics and there are different (note I didn't say better, necessarily) ways of implementing a mechanic that addresses the same concept.

 

[Sensuki]

I was not talking about Josh or P:E. I was talking about Roguey using that post as if it is the biblical law of game design.

No one here is complaining about the altering of the tabletop stuff (such as use of rounds in real time) in the IE games.

I'm sure many designers think that if they attempt to change something for the better it will be better, and many have failed.

Josh also changes stuff not necessarily because it's better but because it's what he prefers. Project Eternity's Fighter is not necessarily a Fighter from D&D, it's a style of Fighter. He actually based it off how he plays his Warden character in a 4E campaign he plays in.

Josh's Rogue is not necessarily the canonical Rogue, it is merely one implementation of a Rogue, mostly inspired by 4th edition design.

All of Eternity's classes are different/more stylized/pidgeonholed than their D&D counterparts, like 4th edition but perhaps not so extreme.

They didn't necessarily need to be like that, that's just how he chose to design them. He is right about Bards though, they are pretty bad in most D&D editions.

 

[Hormalakh]

So what exactly are we complaining about? Give me specifics. I don't see anything wrong with what Sawyer said. As a general statement, his seemed to be a pretty good one. Designers shouldn't pander to the hardcore, especially if they're blinded by nostalgia.

You also have to remember, he didn't want to use D&D as his game mechanic. He could have. But he's been doing this a lot longer than you or me and he's probably got some ideas that he believes would play better in a cRPG.

Josh also changes stuff not necessarily because it's better but because it's what he prefers. Project Eternity's Fighter is not necessarily a Fighter from D&D, it's a style of Fighter. He actually based it off how he plays his Warden character in a 4E campaign he plays in.

IMO fighters were the most boring class to play in IE games. They did nothing interesting. His changes seem to be inspired by this more than anything else.

Josh's Rogue is not necessarily the canonical Rogue, it is merely one implementation of a Rogue, mostly inspired by 4th edition design.

What does it mean to be "canonical?" Why does D&D have to be the canon? Tolkien came up with this stuff a lot earlier than Gygax ever did.

All of Eternity's classes are different/more stylized/pidgeonholed than their D&D counterparts, like 4th edition but perhaps not so extreme.

Again, why should D&D be our bar? I know a few people here on the 'dex that know a shitton about PnP and they don't hold D&D as the glorious shining bible and word of god. IE was not amazing because it was D&D. IE was amazing for a different reason.

They didn't necessarily need to be like that, that's just how he chose to design them. He is right about Bards though, they are pretty bad in most D&D editions.

Yep.

 

[Sensuki]

Some games are hardcore. Those games should be designed for the hardcore.

I was stating that many games have been stuffed up by designers attempting to change mechanics from a previous title, whether it be because they wished to be innovative or they were trying to fix a problem.

There's not necessarily anything wrong with Josh's statement, but I was pointing out that games of a certain franchise or style have gotten worse over time due to that exact reason.

 

[Hormalakh]

Making sure a game allows sufficient challenge does not mean pandering to the hardcore. That's just proper game design. "Pandering" to the hardcore based on illogical arguments based mostly on emotion and nostalgia do not make great games. I tend to agree with Sawyer that most players do not know what they want. They think they know, but they really don't. Especially the ones that say they're "hardcore."

And I agree: I think some games should stay hardcore. I wouldnever dream of making "starcraft" any different than what it was. But the game (starcraft 1) wasn't built by taking gamer's inputs into account. The main mechanics were created by the developers. The fine-tuning and balancing had player feedback.

At the end of the day though, I still go back to what I always say: I agree with Sawyer that the older games had issues. Thus, there is a problem. What I don't know and can't know is whether I agree with Sawyer's proposed solutions. They sound logical and good on paper, but they could play either way. I admire him for trying to fix what was broken though. When I hear that he's "pandering" to any certain population, I get a little nervous. Whether they're "hardcore", hardcore, or babyz. He shouldn't pander, but he should listen to reasoned discussion.

The problems have always been the same. The proposed solutions have been adjusted accordingly based on feedback. Specifically, I think back to the hit-miss mechanic. That was due to lots of player feedback where we got a shift in how that mechanic played. It wasn't the fact that it was more or less "hardcore" that it made that change feasible. It was based on the spirit of what made the IE games good: the ability to play a variety of character roles.

 

[Sensuki]

They think they know, but they really don't. Especially the ones that say they're "hardcore."

You say you are hardcore. Go back a few months worth of posts and you'll find yourself complaining about difficulty and saying you're going to play on Hardest Difficulty with Path of the Damned and Ironman Mode on your first playthrough.

 

[Hormalakh]

As for the difficulty concept: like I said, it's proper game design. Dark Souls proved that as many of the old school games had proven time and time again. Make a game too easy as if to take away the challenge and feeling of accomplishment that you get from that game, and it loses all meaning and attachment that players might have for it.

If the babyz want to mash a few buttons while they watch their movie, fine. but don't let the rest of us suffer for it. They can suffer through shitty gameplay. We'll enjoy the challenges. And enjoy the story in the meanwhile too.