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

[Roguey]

Those people must hate BG2 then, you get like 5-10 quests just by wandering around early Athkatla and you have to remember what they are or check your journal. Actually I've heard Roguey talk a lot about Icewind Dale and NWN2 and stuff, but not much about the Baldur's Gates. Did you find that with BG2 chapter 2 ?

With BG2 I did the quests as I got them instead of amassing a large list.

The only things I remember having to come back to and fight later were Kangaxx and the Twisted Rune and those weren't too bad because getting back to them took no effort at all and it was pretty easy to remember where they were. So pretty much what Infinitron said, it's fine as long as you don't have to spend boring minutes walking across empty maps to get back to your tough optional encounter. Like if I had to go back to kill Firkraag later or that black dragon that would be annoying.

 

[Sensuki]

The very first time I played BG2 I had to backtrack in the Chapter 3 Bodhi's Lair fight because I didn't have enough Restoration / Negative Plane Protection.

My Kensai got drained down to level 3 or something twice (low AC etc), I used Aerie's Restoration spell the first time but then I didn't have another one and there went my main source of damage and brought the PC down to one more level drain before death.

That was my fault though and every other time I played I was prepared for that battle before I went in. I don't have a problem with that as it was only an issue on the first playthrough and I would criticize myself for that as a player rather than curse the game and the designers.

 

[Infinitron]

That has more to do with BG2's hard counter-based encounters than an actual "difficulty spike".

Which brings us to the question, just what is a "difficulty spike"?

 

[Sensuki]

That's right. I don't have a problem with hard counters, but that's something we won't have to worry about in Eternity obviously.

I'd say a difficulty spike is a piece of content that brings the player to a stand still. An encounter they have to reload to beat (or at least an encounter that is a severe drain on party resources). Puzzles might also count but people usually just bang their head against a wall until it works or just look up the solution. Some examples might be the Maths problems in KotoR 2 - because of the amount of possible dialogue answers it and number of steps it was difficult to brute force your way through the dialogue.

 

[Cosmo]

Which brings us to the question, just what is a "difficulty spike"?

Two possibilities i think :
A game that lulled you into a certain playing routine suddenly turns the table on you...
Or you get abruptly pitched against unfair odds, but with the gameplay still following the same pattern.

First case can be good because it forces the player to exploit a wider gameplay range, but one can wonder why the "normal" gameplay wasn't richer in the first place...
Second one is based on unfairness, but can be good in certain cases : optional battles, ones that are designed to make you deal with failure (tactical retreat, etc) ; but again i think it's better to redistribute richness and difficulty on the gameplay as a whole.

 

[Lancehead]

I wonder how those that dislike these "difficulty spikes" feel about similar but non-combat obstacles. For example, a locked chest at the end of a dungeon too difficult for the party to open when first encountered, and which would take a few hours before the party's rogue can open it.

 

[Infinitron]

I wonder how those that dislike these "difficulty spikes" feel about similar but non-combat obstacles. For example, a locked chest at the end of a dungeon too difficult for the party to open when first encountered, and which would take a few hours before the party's rogue can open it.

That happened to me in Dragon Age a lot in the first half of the game. Was pretty annoying.

 

[Cosmo]

I wonder how those that dislike these "difficulty spikes" feel about similar but non-combat obstacles.

It's way better to lock a whole chunck of content in that case, which is a good way to stimulate the player's curiosity and override the fact that world-building tied to early-game becomes quickly obsolete...
There's an example in Fallout 2 where a cave has an elevator you can't repare when you first see it. But usually "adventure" games like Zelda and Metroid handle this better, because they tie that to new abilities instead of upgraded ones.

 

[Xeon]

I can't remember if it was by mod or in vanilla but I used to be able to break chests in DA:O. There was a chance an item breaks but better than nothing.

Similar to KOTOR I think.

 

[tuluse]

I wonder how those that dislike these "difficulty spikes" feel about similar but non-combat obstacles. For example, a locked chest at the end of a dungeon too difficult for the party to open when first encountered, and which would take a few hours before the party's rogue can open it.

That happened to me in Dragon Age a lot in the first half of the game. Was pretty annoying.

I think it depends how the game mechanics work. Usually the player can't do anything about hard locks. Either he has the skill points or not. Sawyer intends to copy Dues Ex where hard locks mean using more picks. So as long as you have enough picks, you should be able to open the chest.

 

[Koschey]

I wonder how those that dislike these "difficulty spikes" feel about similar but non-combat obstacles. For example, a locked chest at the end of a dungeon too difficult for the party to open when first encountered, and which would take a few hours before the party's rogue can open it.

That's not entirely comparable I think, at least the locked chest example. In most cases the locked chest is just a single binary pass/fail check without degrees of success or failure. Opening it won't feel or play any different than opening any other locked container. Compare that to a difficult combat encounter where even if you beat it you have stuff like number of used consumables, condition of the character(s) afterward or length of the battle as a gradation of success.

Edit: Oh right, forgot about that lockpick mechanic Sawyer wants to use. With that, you get different degrees of success of course, although I'd still say winning a tough battle feels more elating than using up lots of lockpicks.

A better non-combat example would probably be something like an optional trapped maze, because it's no longer just a single skill check, but a sequence of multiple different checks. Higher skills and attributes allow the party to disarm or avoid more obstacles (disarm the traps, unlock doors to less dangerous routes, climb or jump past traps, push boulders into traps to destroy them,...).

 

[Arkeus]

I think it depends how the game mechanics work. Usually the player can't do anything about hard locks. Either he has the skill points or not. Sawyer intends to copy Dues Ex where hard locks mean using more picks. So as long as you have enough picks, you should be able to open the chest.

Iirc, having picks just give you a bonus, but it still has a ceiling.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

I've been reading the Numenera player book pdf and was wondering (for those who have read it) which do you think will be more entertaining to play in a crpg, that or what you know of Sawyers current homebrew so far?

 

[SophosTheWise]

I've been reading the Numenera player book pdf and was wondering (for those who have read it) which do you think will be more entertaining to play in a crpg, that or what you know of Sawyers current homebrew so far?

I think we don't know quite enough to already judge PE's world. There are quite a few variables that still need to be adressed, before we know if everything works well together. I found some of the lore-bits to be really cool, like the war of the trees or the story of St. Waidwen. I love that JE draws inspiration from historical legends.

 

[Infinitron]

I can't remember if it was by mod or in vanilla but I used to be able to break chests in DA:O. There was a chance an item breaks but better than nothing.

Similar to KOTOR I think.

Mod.

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64489-project-eternity-and-surface-pro-2/?p=1380763

Tablet version confirmed.

 

[felipepepe]

We are trying to make the game one-button friendly

WHY?

 

[Arkeus]

We are trying to make the game one-button friendly

WHY?

Why not? it's not like the IE games were one-button unfriendly. they are just making sure that if they do want to port on tablet (like, you know, W8 tablets) it won't be impossible to play.

 

[Sensuki]

We are trying to make the game one-button friendly

WHY?

Because of Mac users. It's kind of banal but apparently Mac users don't throw away their shitty mac mouse for a normal 2 button mouse. Actually the iMacs in our uni lab have one button, but it has right click functionality on the right side anyway ?

I just hope they make it so you can customize your controls or they set stuff up like legacy IE.

 

[tuluse]

Why not? it's not like the IE games were one-button unfriendly. they are just making sure that if they do want to port on tablet (like, you know, W8 tablets) it won't be impossible to play.

Other than PS:T which had the worst UI of the lot.

 

[Grunker]

We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

Yeah, fuck you Sawyer and fuck you Obsidian. This is the kind of shit I pay on Kickstarter for. I pay you to focus 100% on that, not devote 90% to that and 10% to making sure you can sell a tablet-version.

Inb4 apologists saying "man it's totally possible to do a perfect PC interface that works well on tablets"

 

[felipepepe]

We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

Yeah, fuck you Sawyer and fuck you Obsidian. This is the kind of shit I pay on Kickstarter for. I pay you to focus 100% on that, not devote 90% to that and 10% to making sure you can sell a tablet-version.

Inb4 apologists saying "man it's totally possible to do a perfect PC interface that works well on tablets"

Exactly, it comes to the same point of W2 shitty console-friendly inventory.

 

[Sensuki]

The excuses for not having the portraits on the side were pretty funny as well because apparently having to move the mouse thousands of pixels is uneconomical or whatever. What a load of horse shit lmao.

 

[2house2fly]

It could also be more convenient to have a one-button interface on a laptop, then you just have to use one finger for everything.

 

[Sensuki]

The original reason they gave is because of Mac users, which is fair, but yeah since they all 'liked' the notion of BG:EE on a tablet I wouldn't be surprised if they desire to play Eternity on one as well. It also co-incides with a lot of the performance concessions they are making.