Preview Pillars of Eternity Presentation at PAX South 2015

[Athelas]

I wasn't saying they were closely related other than being checked in dialogue/events, just that besides the problem of making an interruption-proof berserker fighter a la minsc in chargen to suddenly discover that he's stephen fry in dialogue, there's also the issue a lot of party-based games have in attribute checks, namely that prison bars can only be bent by the protagonist, not the 7 foot half-orc party member standing idly next to him.

Uh, did you watch the stream? Anyone in the party can participate in scripted interactions.

 

[hiver]

sser

Heavy armor affects how well you cast your spells, so your wizard can wear it but you will feel the difference in his... wizardry. (not sure if it will affect one thing about casting or more, but it will affect something)
So you pay the price in one thing but get a bit of advantage in the other. In this case you cast dont cast the spells as well as pure wizard build, but you have some armor to protect you from physical damage.

Seems pretty simple to understand...

Its only the usual morons that started screaming how that will have no difference at all that made that general nonsense idea they just assumed seem real.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I wasn't saying they were closely related other than being checked in dialogue/events, just that besides the problem of making an interruption-proof berserker fighter a la minsc in chargen to suddenly discover that he's stephen fry in dialogue, there's also the issue a lot of party-based games have in attribute checks, namely that prison bars can only be bent by the protagonist, not the 7 foot half-orc party member standing idly next to him.

Uh, did you watch the stream? Anyone in the party can participate in scripted interactions.

Crap, thought it was already established that it didn't work that way. So how do the checks work then? Won't every party have at least one character with a high enough attribute value to pass each check?

 

[hiver]

Yes, theoretically, but you must choose which option to take yourself. Naturally, i would assume some such options will have higher skill requirements so not every party will be able to get it.

- the principle is the same as in SoZ.

everyone praised it there....

 

[Infinitron]

Crap, thought it was already established that it didn't work that way.

"Established" by me. It made sense because that way they could avoid....

Won't every party have at least one character with a high enough attribute value to pass each check?

^That. But I guess Sawyer doesn't care! You have been granted a reprieve from balance.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

^That. But I guess Sawyer doesn't care! You have been granted a reprieve from balance.

Wouldn't you agree then, all things considered, that attribute checks are kind of a pointless addition to the game?

 

[Semper]

Wouldn't you agree then, all things considered, that attribute checks are kind of a pointless addition to the game?

no, because there's still a treshold to overcome. plus there are checks for the whole party, as seen in the swimming test wich every member has to take on their own.

 

[Infinitron]

Just because you CAN have one character who specializes in each attribute doesn't mean that you will. Having several characters with high strength is pretty nice.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Just because you CAN have one character who specializes in each attribute doesn't mean that you will. Having several characters with high strength is pretty nice.

I said all things considered

 

[Liston]

Wouldn't you agree then, all things considered, that attribute checks are kind of a pointless addition to the game?

no, because there's still a treshold to overcome. plus there are checks for the whole party, as seen in the swimming test wich every member has to take on their own.

Also in conversations only attributes and skills of PC are checked.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

I wonder if its better to play with those dialogue cues or without. I dont really want the game to tell me but then again...

 

[tuluse]

I think it's kind of inevitable with a gamist (yeah I'm going this route, people can stop reading) attribute system. The advantage of gamist systems over simulationist ones is that you can offer clear rules which players can base their strategy off of (I know exactly what a high intelligence character does in combat: he suffers less interruptions - or whatever it is in PoE); you set aside your common-sensical understanding of what intelligence means and replace it with what it entails according to the game's logic. This simple game logic falls apart when dealing with wildly varied dialogues/events (what does getting the fact that I get less interruptions tell me about how well I perform in a chess match, or in a political debate).

edit: not sure why he didn't just drop attribute checks, it's not like they even factored into the baldur's gates (other than charisma based storekeep ones). Just go all in on reputation/disposition.

I just want to point out there is lots of fantasy literature where wizards don't have to be smart. So it's not really common sense, just "this is how fantasy RPGs have been in the past".

Edit:

Crap, thought it was already established that it didn't work that way. So how do the checks work then? Won't every party have at least one character with a high enough attribute value to pass each check?

Some checks can only be attempted with the main character, and other checks are checked by *all* the characters. In pax presentation they showed a swimming sections where all the characters had to pass the check or become fatigued.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Finally got to watch it. Pretty cool.

I wonder how many people were there? Does anyone know?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

It looks spell effects were turned down. Great!

 

[Durante]

No, it also represents strength. They used the muscle wizard in the presentation gameplay demo to bash open a passageway. The weaker party members couldn't.

That's the point I was referring to. And it sucks. It could be resolved by writing each such interaction twice (or more often?) I guess, and selecting how it goes based on the character class. Of course, a much easier way is to simply use attributes which make sense.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

is the combat music in demo a placeholder? or those are some kind of remixes of bg tracks ? they sound like really bad and uninspired remixes

 

[hiver]

errmm... are you guys really sure that each member of the party actually swam through those tunnels?

It seemed to me it was only that girl character Laura who actually dived and swam through it. Once she made it the rest of the team was just teleported inside.

Because when you think about it... if you had some characters that were missing required attributes then would not be able to swim through.... which means they would drown. Right?
Or at best remain on the other side and thats something that just would not do, right?

 

[Rake]

Because when you think about it... if you had some characters that were missing required attributes then would not be able to swim through.... which means they would drown. Right?
Or at best remain on the other side and thats something that just would not do, right?

I doubt Sawyer would go to such extremes. More likely if you lack the required attribute you get tired, or at most you arrive at the other side unconcious (0 endurance, 1/4 of Health lost)

 

[tuluse]

We could go of what actually happened in the video that Josh was explaining live "she failed her test and now she's fatigued".

 

[hiver]

That was just for that one character.


errm, excuse me ser Davis, may we have a word?

 

[Sensuki]

It looks spell effects were turned down. Great!

They were the same

 

[LeStryfe79]

This new age Hiver shit is p. cool. Brings back the good 'ol days.

 

[Bleed the Man]

errmm... are you guys really sure that each member of the party actually swam through those tunnels?

It seemed to me it was only that girl character Laura who actually dived and swam through it. Once she made it the rest of the team was just teleported inside.

Because when you think about it... if you had some characters that were missing required attributes then would not be able to swim through.... which means they would drown. Right?
Or at best remain on the other side and thats something that just would not do, right?

In this particular interaction, all members of the party needed to pass an aethletics check. In the case of the party Brandon made, only Laura didn't have enough aethletics, so as a consequence she is fatigued.

At least in this case there were no "extreme" consequences if you failed the check, just a penalty status.

 

[Anthony Davis]

errmm... are you guys really sure that each member of the party actually swam through those tunnels?

It seemed to me it was only that girl character Laura who actually dived and swam through it. Once she made it the rest of the team was just teleported inside.

Because when you think about it... if you had some characters that were missing required attributes then would not be able to swim through.... which means they would drown. Right?
Or at best remain on the other side and thats something that just would not do, right?

In this particular interaction, all members of the party needed to pass an aethletics check. In the case of the party Brandon made, only Laura didn't have enough aethletics, so as a consequence she is fatigued.

At least in this case there were no "extreme" consequences if you failed the check, just a penalty status.

This is correct.

I don't remember if there is a click and a page of text for EACH character, but each character that fails gets fatigued. When I played through this part, all but two of my party were either minor fatigued or major fatigued afterwards.

 

[hiver]

Nice. Good to hear.


I guess such relatively minor "stunts" (at least minor in the game world internal reality and plausibility scope) would not include any kind of extreme consequences in general, but rather apply different soft status penalties.
No need to repeat the process for each character separately if those can be resolved automatically.