Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Transfiguring Roar]

My point is that he might do better to try and remember what made playing RPG's fun when he first played them. I am guessing it was not how balanced or elegant some system was, but rather something else. I think he may be over thinking the design and that something less obsessed over might in fact be more fun.

I agree with what you're saying, but I personally find the problem is how the system holds up long term, after the initial and/or mid-term fun. That's when some semblance of balance and challenge becomes a little more important and fun to me in tactical games.

Edit: I guess end-game balance is what matters to me.

 

[tuluse]

There was an old AD&D module (maybe escape from slaver lord pits or something) where the mid level party starts the game stripped of equipment and Armour and trying to escape captivity. They are forced to use sticks, and other broken or scavenged items as weapons at first. A module like this might not be possible if every choice were just as good as any other since being naked and wielding a stick would have bonuses that made it a viable 'choice' compared with chainmail and a bastard sword.

To me that seems just dumb. There is nothing wrong with having worse equipment or choices because it makes for increased design variety and options like in the module above. Eliminating such things because they are 'trash' choices seems to miss the point of playing these games in the first place. A RPG is not a competition.

You can still have a progression of weapons. But each "type" of weapon should be viable in JES's world.


Fuck me why am I replying to this.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

My point is that he might do better to try and remember what made playing RPG's fun when he first played them. I am guessing it was not how balanced or elegant some system was, but rather something else. I think he may be over thinking the design and that something less obsessed over might in fact be more fun.

I agree with what you're saying, but I personally find the problem is how the system holds up long term, after the initial and/or mid-term fun. That's when some semblance of balance and challenge becomes a little more important and fun to me in tactical games.

Edit: I guess end-game balance is what matters to me.

I agree with this. I actually can't stand and simply stop playing high level D&D, for instance I could not finish BG II just because I got tired of how high level D&D works. I love low and mid level D&D, so obviously there is an issue here because I am not the only one who feels this way.

 

[Hormalakh]

Honestly, I am holding off judgemental opinions on how "fun" the system will be until I've actually played it. A lot of times the excessive detail really makes the whole thing seem bland and not fun when it actually it doesn't make a lick of difference without experiencing it. "Fun" is so subjective that theoretical discussions on the value of itemization and abilities, etc are not really valid. You experience fun, you don't intellectualize it.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Agreed, Hormalakh, but we can reflect on what has been fun/not fun in the past to get a general idea.

 

[Sensuki]

I think there might be a bug with detection. Wizard got swarmed when he started casting instead of when the spell was cast.

LOL first thing I did was see if the Beetle encounter wasn't as difficult due to the selection and command working now. First thing I did was cast Fireball. The next thing *6* beetles bum rushed the Wizard and even the Fighter's engagement could not be triggered in time.

Dead Wizard in about 3 seconds due to bugged DoT Poison.

Things went bad from there.

 

[Sensuki]

Dimitri has also adjusted all of the female breast proportions to exactly how I requested

Will have to see if it makes any difference in the top down view though, haven't checked yet.

 

[tuluse]

I think there might be a bug with detection. Wizard got swarmed when he started casting instead of when the spell was cast.

LOL first thing I did was see if the Beetle encounter wasn't as difficult due to the selection and command working now. First thing I did was cast Fireball. The next thing *6* beetles bum rushed the Wizard and even the Fighter's engagement could not be triggered in time.

Dead Wizard in about 3 seconds due to bugged DoT Poison.

Things went bad from there.

BTW, web doesn't trigger detection. So you can web, then have your archers shoot, and there is a good chance your wizard can get a fireball off in time.

 

[Sensuki]

Web isn't in the BB Wizard's Grimoire AFAIK.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

man, we're idiots. Not like those super-edgycool non-IE-fans who drop by once in a while to tell us how they don't like PoE.

P:E plays nothing like the IE games except that its generic fantasy and RTwP.

Those guys are rad.

Yeah man, your strawman makes you look like totally edgy cool.

... Divinity and Wasteland ...

There is near unanimous agreement that D:OS is FUN despite its minor flaws.
And WL2 is a linear piece of phoned in shit.onlyd fanboys and ks apologists like dildolos and infinitron insist otherwise.

But no, of course, what you're doing is completely different, right? 'cause you hate Roguey. You'd hate being compared to him, 'cause according to you he's a "lame-ass troll" who "derails threads" about games and developers he doesn't even like. So nah... it's nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. Better dispel those thoughts from your mind, quote my post and post a butthurt-emoticon.

Nice strawman btw, to try to deflect all the genuine criticism that P:E doesn't play like the IE games at all except generic fantasy and rtwp.
But when people like felipepe and sensuki point that out. You have the apologist strawmans...

 

[Volourn]

"Web isn't in the BB Wizard's Grimoire AFAIK."

He has it... and, it works on spiders...

 

[tuluse]

Web isn't in the BB Wizard's Grimoire AFAIK.

Sorry, Binding Web, level 2 spell.

 

[Sensuki]

Tried that tactic and yep it worked. Got a volley off before engagement.

----

They have decoupled the tooltips from the portraits and characters like I asked

However I found a bug with the Health values after loading a game

 

[Zetor]

Opening with web definitely gives me BG1-2 flashbacks. Next up, offscreen cloudkills? /troll

Anyway, would you say that combat is less tedious to play now? That was my biggest problem when I tried the first version of the beta.

 

[Sensuki]

Yes it's less tedious and it's much better now for evaluation. Select and Command works, but auto attack after spell/kill does not.

I would say that recovery times as a whole need a big tune, the -50% Speed for weapon styles that Sawyer has put in is yuck. Feels like playing the IE games at half speed.

I would also say that recovery for cast times are probably too slow as well.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm not making a value judgement one way or the other, but immediately replacing starting armor with whatever you find next is pretty much the opposite of an interesting decision, no?

So... an interesting choice would be to fight for a quarter of a game through pointless mobs that don't give anything of any value in order to get an armor that's slightly better than your current one, but really not necessary because your current one can even take you to the end of the game if you help with it some clicks from the crafting system?
My god, the choices! THE TYRANNY! Whatever shall I do? Protect myself in brown armor or in blue armor? Deal 10 damage with a sword or with a spell? I CANT DECIDE SO DIFFICULT

Fun game, indeed... for autists. Or "big boys in the design shop" as Infinitron would call them.

Fuck me why am I replying to this.

Indeed, the more you repeat it the dumber it sounds.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yeah man, we're idiots. Not like those super-edgycool non-IE-fans who drop by once in a while to tell us how they don't like PoE.

I liked every single IE game

So nah... it's nothing like that.

I don't see me derailing this thread

But next time I'll make sure to come back with some Swen Vincke quotes on why PoE design is terrible

 

[Sensuki]

Make a script where your account constantly PM's Roguey with such a quote.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I liked every single IE game

Even NWN?

 

[Sensuki]

Our prayers for new high quality portraits have been answered:

Here's Aloth's portrait btw - it's different from the old one, and he's a male

 

[DefJam101]

I think part of the problem here is that game design in general has become way to intellectualized. The quote above is from a person who has become completely obsessed with systems and game design efficiency as if efficiency of design were a worthwhile goal in and of itself. It feels like a person who wants everybody to know how smart he is as he over analyzes the entire process and forgets the purpose of games in the first place. He seems more interested in designing an elegant system than providing an interesting and granular world to explore.

I didn't read the rest of this post, but I'm going to assume this is your thesis. Your argument is flawed because JES's job is to be a systems designer in the game. If he doesn't intellectualize this stuff, who will? The job of creative design is to come up with creative stuff, not JES's job.

We're not talking about some retarded spiritual successor to Chess, though, we're talking about a game based on a game where you shoot real-time fireballs at crowds of bugbears — no amount of neoGAF posting can change the inherent inelegance of the basic design document. Either commit 100% to a game design philosophy where entertainment arises primarily from overcoming the game system, or just don't, so you can focus on more important shit, more important shit being the design and implementation of entertaining computered role-playing video game-game stuffs thats you puts in the videod games, which, incidentally, when you're the lead game designer on a computer role-playing video game-game, happens to be your entire goddamn job

 

[imweasel]

New patch. Less bugs. Dragon Age: Inquisition still has more depth than Pillars of Eternity. Game is still shit.

I know what the grognards will be playing this coming Winter.

 

[Ramireza]

I liked every single IE game

Even NWN?

NWN is NOT an IE Game.

 

[Infinitron]

Sensuki I'd appreciate it if you could upload a file with all the portraits not available externally in the game's portraits directory.

 

[Sensuki]

I'll have another look tonight. The only large one in the v257 was Eder's. The Aloth one is new.