Development Info Pillars of Eternity II Q&A Stream #5

[vivec]

That game should have been AoD or Underrail, Blackguards even. But since no one cares about quality, only about big names, its PoE.

 

[Excidium II]

Blackguards

vomit

 

[ArchAngel]

I've noticed that over the years the codex has been divided into two warring factions. One did not really even exist when I first started posting here (2005 IIRC). Or at least the numbers were so low you could count active posters on the fingers of one hand. Of course I am talking about the people who love Dragon Age and Skyrim and all of the other causal popamole action-RPGs that are all about non-stop action and little to no thought. No time for thought because...ACTION. These people seem to hate micromanagement and any combat encounter that takes more than a few minutes to resolve.

I don't think any game with dragonage-ish combat would have been acknowledged as even worth discussing in 2005. It would have been dismissed out of hand by most as I still think it deserves to be. I consider myself a part of the MicroManager faction. I like to micromanage my party. I like to make every single decision that might affect the outcome of the fight and I like my decisions to matter in the sense that there are many fights where if you just let your party autoattack you will all die most of the time. Every significant encounter (and most should be significant) should require thoughtful micromanagement in order to win. More Battlechess than Streetfighter.

It is true that basically any form of real time combat tends not to qualify even if you can pause the game. The IE games were a bit of an exception just because the autopause at the end of every round and at various other points did a pretty good job of mimicking a turn based style. The autopause system wasn't just tacked on as an afterthought. The whole system seemed to be designed for players who wanted to play that way. If that feature had been left out I don't think I would have liked any of the IE games except maybe PS:T. End of Round Autopause was absolutely critical.

I don't really understand the people who find all that decision making too tedious. For me watching little figures throwing fireballs and lighting bolts or swinging swords is not fun no matter how good the graphics are. I need to be part of the process or I may as well be watching someone else play. Because of this I always wonder at the inevitable complaining about party member AI in pretty much every party based cRPG. I never use it so I don't care how dumb it is. Even sentient level AI would take away the decision making from me.

The micromanagement issue might be the most important issue dividing the two factions but another one is The Right to Die. If my party is not getting utterly exterminated on a regular basis then the combat is not challenging. Period. Combat should be hard or maybe it shouldn't be there at all. I should have a sense of accomplishment after winning an encounter, and I won't have that unless I have already been killed trying to win it at least once even with careful micromanagement. IOW a battle should actually feel like a battle.

The problem with that arguement is that the most important game, for better or for worse, to come out in the Codex-verse in the last decade, PoE, encourages turn-based levels of micromanagement and yet the two camps that have formed around that game do not fit neatly in the paradigm you've described.

Actually it does not, it required madness level micromanagement beyond any turn based game I ever played (or you could let it play itself which is not fun). That is why many of us are mad. Most of us would probably complain half as much if the game was actually turn based. I say half because that would not fix too many trash fights and copy/paste encounter design.

 

[almondblight]

Trash fights and copy/paste encounter design are prevalent in 98% of Codex favorites. Even in some of the games that get held up for having the best combat. And you get people here defending them.

I mean, yeah, they suck. But it's a problem that afflicts the whole genre, not PoE in particular.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Sugarcoat it all you want, but PoE's combat pacing is very bad, hugely inferior to the IE games. That's why Josh has announced they are revising it. It took him a year to admit it, but I guess a fault is half redressed. After even the lead designer himself has commented on it being a drawback, the fanboyish throes "it's not bad, it's different"/"you will like it if..." are deeply moving to behold. Reminds me of how PoE was just such a great game at release, and then got 9 patches, which made it... perfecter?

Isn't he "admitting he's wrong" in the sense that PoE was still too IE-like in terms of pacing in his view and that they're moving all-out in the direction of per-encounter abilities for PoE2?

Ohh I smell crises! And by that I mean post realease crises! Go team Go!

 

[ArchAngel]

Trash fights and copy/paste encounter design are prevalent in 98% of Codex favorites. Even in some of the games that get held up for having the best combat. And you get people here defending them.

I mean, yeah, they suck. But it's a problem that afflicts the whole genre, not PoE in particular.

Not in a level that PoE does and they are either avoidable (in fallout games you ran out of the map when encountering random trash mob encounters all the time) or done with much faster (IE games had you murder those poor gibberlings or kobolds within seconds).

 

[jewboy]

The problem with that arguement is that the most important game, for better or for worse, to come out in the Codex-verse in the last decade, PoE, encourages turn-based levels of micromanagement and yet the two camps that have formed around that game do not fit neatly in the paradigm you've described.

Hmm. I think ultimately most probably do, but even if you are right the distinction still cuts to the core of the issue for me. Ultimately I have to side with the Micromanagers and Right To Die factions even when they like what I think are bad games. The problem with Pillars I think is that the combat is too MMO-ish and repetitive trash mob popamolish. It's also a bit too easy when played with a full party even at the highest (PotD) difficulty level. Not sure how much of it is Sawyer's failed shiny new combat system or how much just bad/lazy encounter design but it feels too much like a cross between an MMO and Dragon Age. So what makes the people who like that MMO/DA combat style different from people who don't? It seems that they are more tolerant of something, but what?

If they are micromanagers I'd like to actually ask some of them why the repetitive and samey (tank n spank) combat doesn't bother them and how they can still enjoy that sort of playstyle. Ultimately though if they actually like a combat encounter to take 20 minutes to resolve we are on the same side even if they are overly tolerant of flawed Pillars combat. After all it is the micromanagers that are ultimately going to be pro-TB. The most common complaint against TB is that it is too slow. I really have to wonder what the result would have been if Pillars had gone turn based. What would Sawyer have done with that?

 

[Azrael the cat]

Someone really needs to ask Sawyer some hard questions over the scale of the 1.0 to 3.0+ changes in PoE1.

Normally they're praised, in terms of being a uniquely radical alteration of the rule-set, a ground-up overhaul of the kind you'd expect when shifting between major editions of D&D.

But whilst such attention to improving the game (and it really was a remarkable improvement) post-release is praiseworthy, it raises some really disturbing implications as to how on earth a systems-focused project lead allowed a game to be released using a ruleset which stunk so badly that he rewrote the fucker.

If he'd just stuck with the 1.0 rules, and added engine/encounter/balance improvements, it would have remained a shit game, but at least you could argue that it's just a difference in tastes. But the fact that he changed the ruleset so drastically that it was more like a new edition than a balance patch, is tantamount to an admission of gross failure the first time around.

And you can't even blame schedules or funding. That explains the lack of polish, and sadly it's become accepted now that the kind of encounter design and balance refinements that used to happen in beta, now happen approximately 6-12 months after release. But these weren't the kind of changes that result from rushing out an unfinished product. We're talking about the fucking ruleset - what attributes affect what skills, massive alterations to class roles, entirely new abilities, reworking of armour/resistance rules, etc. I.e. stuff that is much closer to the 'bones' than the 'polish'.

Someone really needs to ask him: if he thought that 1.0 was a good ruleset that just needed balance/ability/polish changes, why did he change the ruleset so drastically? If he thought (correctly) that replacing 1.0 with a radically different ruleset was necessary, how the fuck did the 'basic bones' aspects that were changed (e.g. perception being a defensive attribute in 1.0, whereas it's the primary accuracy attribute in 3.0) make it into alpha? Again, we're talking ruleset, not balance or implementation. Shouldn't the ruleset have been nailed down near the start of the design process?

 

[Infinitron]

I think you're exaggerating the extent of the changes now.

how the fuck did the 'basic bones' aspects that were changed (e.g. perception being a defensive attribute in 1.0, whereas it's the primary accuracy attribute in 3.0)

Regarding this issue in particular, you should know that Josh Sawyer does not consider attributes to be an incredibly important "basic bones" aspect of the system. Yes, really.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I think you're exaggerating the extent of the changes now.

how the fuck did the 'basic bones' aspects that were changed (e.g. perception being a defensive attribute in 1.0, whereas it's the primary accuracy attribute in 3.0)

Regarding this issue in particular, you should know that Josh Sawyer does not consider attributes to be an incredibly important "basic bones" aspect of the system. Yes, really.

Seriously? What does he consider the 'basic bones'?

But in terms of the role-playing rule-set, how can attributes not be part of the basic bones?

I can see how, maybe, some armour choices might be closer to the skeleton of the system. But only in the broadest terms of 'do we have AC, DT, DR, at all'' - the balancing of those values aren't bones, they're just extremely important polish. To conitnue the analogy I guess that stuff is the musculature, and things like 'solo or party-based' or 'distinct roles vs all characters are equally useful in all situations' determine how developed the frontal lobe is, whereas engine issues, bugs and melting your graphics card are the brain's rear lobes.

(and yes, too much bloom is a skin condition like psoriasis, whilst DE:HR's colour filter is a well-intended but unfortunate by-product of bathing in urine as an experimental treatment for skin conditions, in that the condition being treated, the treatment, and the negative effects are all as far removed from the 'bones' of the game as you can get).

Obviously attributes are far from the only part of a rule-set's basic bones. But all shitposting aside, what does he consider the basic bones of a role-playing ruleset, if they don't even include attributes?

 

[ghostdog]

I think you're exaggerating the extent of the changes now.

how the fuck did the 'basic bones' aspects that were changed (e.g. perception being a defensive attribute in 1.0, whereas it's the primary accuracy attribute in 3.0)

Regarding this issue in particular, you should know that Josh Sawyer does not consider attributes to be an incredibly important "basic bones" aspect of the system. Yes, really.

Seriously? What does he consider the 'basic bones'?

But in terms of the role-playing rule-set, how can attributes not be part of the basic bones?

Exactly.

The game is so *balanced* that basic attributes don't really matter.

 

[l3loodAngel]

I think you're exaggerating the extent of the changes now.

how the fuck did the 'basic bones' aspects that were changed (e.g. perception being a defensive attribute in 1.0, whereas it's the primary accuracy attribute in 3.0)

Regarding this issue in particular, you should know that Josh Sawyer does not consider attributes to be an incredibly important "basic bones" aspect of the system. Yes, really.

Seriously? What does he consider the 'basic bones'?

But in terms of the role-playing rule-set, how can attributes not be part of the basic bones?

Exactly.

The game is so *balanced* that basic attributes don't really matter.

Fixt. The atributes are so watered down that they don't really matter.

 

[Barnabas]

I just hope only having a party of 5 works out. I barely even used the cipher and chanter now I'll have one less slot to mess around with (no homo). I like having 2 tanks so now I'll have to go to one. To me this is a yuge disappointment. Josh is really stirring up the community and I don't think obsidian is going to survive this change.