Game News Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter Update #70: Screenshots, Stats and Stuff

[Grunker]

i don't know who is the bigger aspie

the developer who 'spergs out on explaining impossible architecture

or the people who rage about it

 

[Harold]

Obsidian: By aspies, for aspies

 

[Irenaeus]

One is being payed to do that, the others...

 

[imweasel]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/?p=1409083

The concept of adra was developed early on as a not-quite magical material that had some interesting properties. I like being able to have "impossible" structures, but I don't like hand-waving their impossibility away.

Sawyer reinvented reinforced concrete and calls it adra. Genius!

To bad adra doesn't work with keystones though.

 

[tuluse]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/?p=1409083

The concept of adra was developed early on as a not-quite magical material that had some interesting properties. I like being able to have "impossible" structures, but I don't like hand-waving their impossibility away.

Sawyer reinvented reinforced concrete and calls it adra. Genius!

To bad adra doesn't work with keystones though.

Reinforced concrete is metal bars running through concrete, not glue holding stones together.

 

[imweasel]

Ahh, yes. Adra is supposed to be a type of mortar....

Whatever.

 

[FeelTheRads]

i don't know who is the bigger aspie

the developer who 'spergs out on explaining impossible architecture

or the people who rage about it

Or the people who sperg about both of the above.

You have some weird definition of the word rage (apparently any negative comment is rage) and you actually really rage quite a lot more than the people you accuse.

 

[Jasede]

Just ignore him.

Making fun of Oblivion for having blunt axes = cool
Making fun of Sawyer's magical mortar = aspie rage

 

[Grunker]

Just ignore him.

Making fun of Oblivion for having blunt axes = cool
Making fun of Sawyer's magical mortar = aspie rage

How are the two in any way similar?

One was a stupid excuse to simplify a skill system, the other is a minor detail about lore.

 

[Jasede]

If you don't see how they are similar right off the bat, no amount of logical argumentation would change your mind.

 

[Crooked Bee]

One is a mechanical simplification, the other is a small architectural/"magic, duh" detail no one in their right mind should give a shit about.

 

[Infinitron]

If you don't see how they are similar right off the bat, no amount of logical argumentation would change your mind.

That analogy might have been appropriate if the axes in Oblivion were actually blunt in the game's lore. I don't think that they are.

As it is, a more appropriate comparison would have between between "blunt axes" in Oblivion and "Might for magical damage" in Pillars of Eternity (although even that might be justified by the game's lore, we'll see)

 

[Jasede]

You're being defensive; both cases are these forums making fun of something stupid. What other justification does one need? It's what this place was meant for. It's not at all different and defending magical mortar that is hand-waved away with some 'lore' that was made up in 3 seconds after realizing the artist's mistake is, while not cause for rage, definitely worth mocking, exactly like blunt axes.

If anything this is even more hilarious due to the clumsy pseudo-explanation. Perhaps my comparison would be more apt if Todd had written something like "they're blunt because magical bacteria coat the axes due fallout from the Oblivion gates".

 

[Grunker]

FFS Jasede. Making fun of Blunt Axes is relevant: it was a mechanical downgrade. It had meaning. Precisely because it was not irrelevant was the reason it became a joke; it was a perfect symbol for the long range of problems with Oblivion. When someone made a joke about blunt axes, you immeadiately thought about Oblivion's range of gameplay compromises. How do you compare that to aspies being mad about the way a fucking archway is constructed in a screenshot? You can't. One is a meaningful symbol of a game's shittyness, the other is a detail that hardly matters.

I guess in the end the biggest aspies are the two of us for even having a debate about something this non-sensical and irrelevant.

 

[Jasede]

I can live with that. Let's hope, for good or ill, PoE keeps providing.

 

[cherry blossom]

FeelTheRads Josh says hi http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/?p=1409030

With regards to the attribute system, I've posted previously that players must play to the strengths of their builds. Character's won't automagically be great at everything. If you build a wizard with a low-Int, you're de-emphasizing AoE size and durations, which is fine. A lot of wizard spells have AoEs and durations, but a good number are also single-target/instantaneous. The power of the wizard is not in brute force, but overall flexibility. You can choose to stick to a subset of the wizard's spells, but you aren't taking full advantage of their greatest class strength (lots and lots of spells). Again, totally fine and should be viable.

I haven't seen the post but someone said that there was discussion about the arches in the screenshot. I'm not sure if you can see the details of the arches, but the stones are actually held together with adra. Adra is a grown, shell-like substance that the Engwithans used both as structural elements and for binding purposes in their architecture. Often they would build things like traditional stone arches and grow adra in-between, using it like slow-growing mortar. As their buildings fall apart, it results in impossible-looking/gravity-defying ruins.

So it is confirmed then: Alpha Popamole and Pallevaginas of Eternity share the same setting.

Also from the same Obsidian thread, friendly-fire for morons confirmed:

We are looking into either allowing you to scale the effect size or have the "bonus" area be a foe-only AoE. E.g., if you cast fireball and it normally has a radius of 4m, but it's grown to 6.5m because of your Int, the area added between 4m and 6.5m only affects enemies. We probably won't get to it for a while, but we've been thinking about it.

 

[Roguey]

There's nothing wrong with grouping weapons together if there's nothing particularly special that requires them to be separate. Calling them blunt weapons was stupid, especially when you can refer to them as hafted.

 

[Infinitron]

Also from the same Obsidian thread, friendly-fire for morons confirmed:

The reason they're considering that is because it adds a negative aspect to boosting one of your stats, which is highly unusual in any CRPG. Rivmusique originally complained about that here earlier this week: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...project-eternity.75947/page-1062#post-3056906

 

[cherry blossom]

Friendly fire for morons is friendly fire for morons. They are the game developers, FFS, not modders using shitty tools to bend a preexisting game into another shape. Allowing the player to define the range of AoE is solid design but despite that, they still consider inferior design, possibly because morons might not realise that they can define AoE range.

 

[Infinitron]

Friendly fire for morons is friendly fire for morons. They are the game developers, FFS, not modders using shitty tools to bend a preexisting game into another shape. Allowing the player to define the range of AoE is solid design but despite that, they still consider inferior design, possibly because morons might not realise that they can define AoE range.

Allowing players to adjust the AoE of every spell might also be considered "dumbing down". The fact that a fireball ALWAYS has a certain set area of effect makes it a more difficult tool to use, with more risk.

 

[Grunker]

Friendly fire for morons is friendly fire for morons. They are the game developers, FFS, not modders using shitty tools to bend a preexisting game into another shape. Allowing the player to define the range of AoE is solid design but despite that, they still consider inferior design, possibly because morons might not realise that they can define AoE range.

Allowing players to adjust the AoE of every spell might also be considered "dumbing down". The fact that a fireball ALWAYS has a certain set area of effect makes it a more difficult tool to use, with more risk.

I support NFF +range over adjustable AoE for this reason precisely. Perhaps a compromise would be one where the player could scale only the additional range added from Int.

 

[Infinitron]

Perhaps a compromise would be one where the player could scale only the additional range added from Int.

Yeah, that's probably the best choice.

 

[cherry blossom]

Friendly fire for morons is friendly fire for morons. They are the game developers, FFS, not modders using shitty tools to bend a preexisting game into another shape. Allowing the player to define the range of AoE is solid design but despite that, they still consider inferior design, possibly because morons might not realise that they can define AoE range.

Allowing players to adjust the AoE of every spell might also be considered "dumbing down". The fact that a fireball ALWAYS has a certain set area of effect makes it a more difficult tool to use, with more risk.

I support NFF +range over adjustable AoE for this reason precisely. Perhaps a compromise would be one where the player could scale only the additional range added from Int.

Or maybe add a talent, perk or whatever that handles AoE range and player's ability to manipulate it.

 

[Roguey]

Friendly fire for morons is friendly fire for morons. They are the game developers, FFS, not modders using shitty tools to bend a preexisting game into another shape. Allowing the player to define the range of AoE is solid design but despite that, they still consider inferior design, possibly because morons might not realise that they can define AoE range.

I think they're considering the latter because he's unsure they can do the former. Remember when he was considering cooldowns because he was unsure about combat states?

 

[Athelas]

I'd prefer adjustable AoE's. Although it all comes down to how big the minimum AoE's (with no bonus from Int) are. If they are too small, this could make the whole concept of friendly fire trivial.