Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[mediocrepoet]

Plus INT to know how to handle a weapon, its strengths, weaknesses, its inherent properties, and how to swing and utilize in a smart, efficient and effective way. Plenty of stuff like this goes into fighting that could be simulated with INT imo. Hope u guys are having fun!

This would make sense to me except that the radius of carnage already starts out at 1.5m (roughly 5 feet), so you at base can reach your weapon reach (weapon + arm's length) + 5 feet... and then if you're smart you can stretch beyond that because reasons. Basically, from a simulationist perspective, since the RTWP system in POE is basically real time and each attack roll is a swing (unlike old school AD&D rules where a round is 1 minute and an attack roll represents all sorts of maneuvering), I'd be curious to see what the hell carnage is actually supposed to represent because if it's just a cleave, it doesn't make sense. If it's some sort of psychic shockwave generated by the barbarian soul rage or something, then sure, I can buy that based on the world lore. Like I say, I tend to just leave it as they're game rules, not a world simulation.

Also, if your character isn't smart enough to know which end of a weapon to hold, they have bigger problems.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Both the term "barbarian" and the associated lack of intelligence, were attributes applied to a people from outside of their community. Concepts of a "barbarian" may emphasize one stereotype or another, or neither.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Both the term "barbarian" and the associated lack of intelligence, were attributes applied to a people from outside of their community. Concepts of a "barbarian" may emphasize one stereotype or another, or neither.

Ok. What does this have to do with anything?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Both the term "barbarian" and the associated lack of intelligence, were attributes applied to a people from outside of their community. Concepts of a "barbarian" may emphasize one stereotype or another, or neither.

Ok. What does this have to do with anything?

I was continuing from Lyric Suite's post about Conan specifically. And generally, we seem to be discussing if it's immersion-breaking for a barbarian to have high INT.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Both the term "barbarian" and the associated lack of intelligence, were attributes applied to a people from outside of their community. Concepts of a "barbarian" may emphasize one stereotype or another, or neither.

Ok. What does this have to do with anything?

I was continuing from Lyric Suite's post about Conan specifically. And generally, we seem to be discussing if it's immersion-breaking for a barbarian to have high INT.

Yeah I see. I guess I side tracked in my own head just because I tend to see that sort of issue as more of a symptom of how the underlying system diverges from a simulationist one and is different than things with actual D&D roots, rather than the issue itself (i.e. that the system isn't simulationist or if it is, what it's simulating isn't obvious or intuitive).

FWIW, I tend to think that it's that what it's meant to simulate isn't intuitive or obvious. Sawyer used to have interview answers where he was talking about how everything kept going back to soul energy or whatever. So might isn't physical strength so much as soul intensity or whatever, so it dictates damage for everything, etc. Whether a player thinks that's stupid or not is another matter.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So might isn't physical strength so much as soul intensity or whatever

except there's might dialogue checks for doing things like bashing through walls and picking people up by their shirt

 

[AwesomeButton]

We've been discussing this probably since PoE's backer beta, and I've always been on the side against these high-might wizards and high-int barbarians. But I think high-might wizards are really the tryhard argument in this case. The really strong argument for (the absurdity of) balance over intuitiveness taken to the extreme, and for attributes losing their meaning are "high-might bullets from firearms cause more damage". That's what's really tough to explain, but Sawyer maintains he made a compromise for balance's sake.

 

[AwesomeButton]

So might isn't physical strength so much as soul intensity or whatever

except there's might dialogue checks for doing things like bashing through walls and picking people up by their shirt

Apparently not even the quest designers are up to speed with Sawyer's cope methods.

 

[Parabalus]

So might isn't physical strength so much as soul intensity or whatever

except there's might dialogue checks for doing things like bashing through walls and picking people up by their shirt

Sounds like Soyer should have fired them.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So might isn't physical strength so much as soul intensity or whatever

except there's might dialogue checks for doing things like bashing through walls and picking people up by their shirt

Yeah, if only I would've thought about that.

It kind of breaks down when the stats are used in dialogue, but whatever.

 

[mediocrepoet]

We've been discussing this probably since PoE's backer beta, and I've always been on the side against these high-might wizards and high-int barbarians. But I think high-might wizards are really the tryhard argument in this case. The really strong argument for (the absurdity of) balance over intuitiveness taken to the extreme, and for attributes losing their meaning are "high-might bullets from firearms cause more damage". That's what's really tough to explain, but Sawyer maintains he made a compromise for balance's sake.

Yeah, me too. It's just another one of the things that irks me about POE's system and Sawyer's weird design goals. It's just on my mind again now that I'm replaying the game and re-acquainting myself with its quirks, for better or worse.

 

[Parabalus]

We've been discussing this probably since PoE's backer beta, and I've always been on the side against these high-might wizards and high-int barbarians. But I think high-might wizards are really the tryhard argument in this case. The really strong argument for (the absurdity of) balance over intuitiveness taken to the extreme, and for attributes losing their meaning are "high-might bullets from firearms cause more damage". That's what's really tough to explain, but Sawyer maintains he made a compromise for balance's sake.

It's not just balance though, the system is much more interesting than DnD's. Gives you some actual choice in character building, instead of mindlessly pumping the required attributes.

 

[AwesomeButton]

We've been discussing this probably since PoE's backer beta, and I've always been on the side against these high-might wizards and high-int barbarians. But I think high-might wizards are really the tryhard argument in this case. The really strong argument for (the absurdity of) balance over intuitiveness taken to the extreme, and for attributes losing their meaning are "high-might bullets from firearms cause more damage". That's what's really tough to explain, but Sawyer maintains he made a compromise for balance's sake.

It's not just balance though, the system is much more interesting than DnD's. Gives you some actual choice in character building, instead of mindlessly pumping the required attributes.

If I have to make a quick and uneven generalization, PoE and Deadfire are better approximations of a PnP game on the PC than the IE games. The IE games (Except PST) are most accurate in translating what was easiest to translate - the combat calculations. Other than that, they are videogames and not shy about it. If you look at them in historical succession, it's IWD2 that makes the most effort to feel like a PnP adventure. Sawyer was already aware of the weaknesses of IWD and the BG games specifically as "PnP ported to the computer medium".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Interacting with the world through dialogue options is the opposite of tabletop-like design. Using skills/items/spells/whatever to interact with the world is more of a tabletop-like design, such as most of Fallout, charm in BG1, etc.,
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that pillows has at least one dialogue option that lets you charm someone.

A lot of modern RPGs remind me of this

 

[mediocrepoet]

Interacting with the world through dialogue options is the opposite of tabletop-like design. Using skills/items/spells/whatever to interact with the world is more of a tabletop-like design, such as most of Fallout, charm in BG1, etc.,

I've always thought this is one of the better points that you tend to make. The only time I think it breaks down is when you'd want to use something mid-conversation, such as interjecting with a punch or something. It's more clunky to do it in the more sandbox style of games like you're mentioning, at least in all of the cases where I've seen those types of systems presented.

Either way, you hit the nail on the head both about it being a more tabletop style of system, but also that it puts the onus back on the player to consider how to deal with things and resolve the game's problems as presented as opposed to walking down whichever paths the dev decided to guardrail in for you.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Interacting with the world through dialogue options is the opposite of tabletop-like design. Using skills/items/spells/whatever to interact with the world is more of a tabletop-like design, such as most of Fallout, charm in BG1, etc.,
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that pillows has at least one dialogue option that lets you charm someone.

A lot of modern RPGs remind me of this

I was thinking of the scripted interactions and reactivity to class and backgrounds, which is more prominent in PoE/Deadfire. Both games have dialogue reactivity in quests.

The freeform combining of items by a "Use on" mechanic a la Fallout is only stressing the disadvantage of having a computer for DM, more often than making the player feel like he came up with the idea without help from the DM.

 

[Parabalus]

Interacting with the world through dialogue options is the opposite of tabletop-like design. Using skills/items/spells/whatever to interact with the world is more of a tabletop-like design, such as most of Fallout, charm in BG1, etc.,
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that pillows has at least one dialogue option that lets you charm someone.

A lot of modern RPGs remind me of this

I was thinking of the scripted interactions and reactivity to class and backgrounds, which is more prominent in PoE/Deadfire. Both games have dialogue reactivity in quests.

The freeform combining of items by a "Use on" mechanic a la Fallout is only stressing the disadvantage of having a computer for DM, more often than making the player feel like he came up with the idea without help from the DM.

It's not really freeform when most of the options do nothing, it's just whack-a-mole until you get to choose a page of the above storybook.

Real-life DMs dynamically generate new content depending on your actions, PC games aren't there yet.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Real-life DMs dynamically generate new content depending on your actions, PC games aren't there yet.

They aren't, but I still find attempting to approximate it a better solution. Creating many different ways, perhaps ways the designer didn't actually think of through interacting systems, to solve a problem presented to the player is much better than CYOA-style.
It's why I don't consider "immersive sims" to be their own genre, but what RPGs are. It's just describing something people already do when playing tabletop RPGs.

e.g.,

Needed to kill a high level troll so I went and found some lava, transferred it halfway across the map by creating rain puddles and cast terrain transmutation on it to move it forward, then dropped it on the troll.

I don't think they thought someone would actually do that when designing the encounter. But it sure did work as a way to get around it by using mechanics to interact with the gameworld.

 

[Parabalus]

Real-life DMs dynamically generate new content depending on your actions, PC games aren't there yet.

They aren't, but I still find attempting to approximate it a better solution. Creating many different ways, perhaps ways the designer didn't actually think of through interacting systems, to solve a problem presented to the player is much better than CYOA-style.
It's why I don't consider "immersive sims" to be their own genre, but what RPGs are. It's just describing something people already do when playing tabletop RPGs.

e.g.,

Needed to kill a high level troll so I went and found some lava, transferred it halfway across the map by creating rain puddles and cast terrain transmutation on it to move it forward, then dropped it on the troll.

I don't think they thought someone would actually do that when designing the encounter. But it sure did work as a way to get around it by using mechanics to interact with the gameworld.

This is combat though. Pure gameworld interaction has much less emergent gameplay than this, since the goals are more varied than 'reduce enemy HP to 0'.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Real-life DMs dynamically generate new content depending on your actions, PC games aren't there yet.

They aren't, but I still find attempting to approximate it a better solution. Creating many different ways, perhaps ways the designer didn't actually think of through interacting systems, to solve a problem presented to the player is much better than CYOA-style.
It's why I don't consider "immersive sims" to be their own genre, but what RPGs are. It's just describing something people already do when playing tabletop RPGs.

e.g.,

Needed to kill a high level troll so I went and found some lava, transferred it halfway across the map by creating rain puddles and cast terrain transmutation on it to move it forward, then dropped it on the troll.

I don't think they thought someone would actually do that when designing the encounter. But it sure did work as a way to get around it by using mechanics to interact with the gameworld.

This is combat though. Pure gameworld interaction has much less emergent gameplay than this, since the goals are more varied than 'reduce enemy HP to 0'.

If you're referring to what I quoted, it's both. It starts as dialogue if you attempt to parley with him.
It could have just as easily been a wooden blockade or something for my solution.

Combat is just another tool in the problem-solving toolkit in my opinion.

 

[Parabalus]

Real-life DMs dynamically generate new content depending on your actions, PC games aren't there yet.

They aren't, but I still find attempting to approximate it a better solution. Creating many different ways, perhaps ways the designer didn't actually think of through interacting systems, to solve a problem presented to the player is much better than CYOA-style.
It's why I don't consider "immersive sims" to be their own genre, but what RPGs are. It's just describing something people already do when playing tabletop RPGs.

e.g.,

Needed to kill a high level troll so I went and found some lava, transferred it halfway across the map by creating rain puddles and cast terrain transmutation on it to move it forward, then dropped it on the troll.

I don't think they thought someone would actually do that when designing the encounter. But it sure did work as a way to get around it by using mechanics to interact with the gameworld.

This is combat though. Pure gameworld interaction has much less emergent gameplay than this, since the goals are more varied than 'reduce enemy HP to 0'.

If you're referring to what I quoted, it's both. It starts as dialogue if you attempt to parley with him.
It could have just as easily been a wooden blockade or something for my solution.

Combat is just another tool in the problem-solving toolkit in my opinion.

But a wooden blockade is another instance of 'reduce hp to 0 to proceed'.

And the parley dialogue is a Pillars style storybook exercise, nothing freeform about it. The closest to freeform dialogue are the TES minigames, and that's horrible.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Real-life DMs dynamically generate new content depending on your actions, PC games aren't there yet.

They aren't, but I still find attempting to approximate it a better solution. Creating many different ways, perhaps ways the designer didn't actually think of through interacting systems, to solve a problem presented to the player is much better than CYOA-style.
It's why I don't consider "immersive sims" to be their own genre, but what RPGs are. It's just describing something people already do when playing tabletop RPGs.

e.g.,

Needed to kill a high level troll so I went and found some lava, transferred it halfway across the map by creating rain puddles and cast terrain transmutation on it to move it forward, then dropped it on the troll.

I don't think they thought someone would actually do that when designing the encounter. But it sure did work as a way to get around it by using mechanics to interact with the gameworld.

This is combat though. Pure gameworld interaction has much less emergent gameplay than this, since the goals are more varied than 'reduce enemy HP to 0'.

If you're referring to what I quoted, it's both. It starts as dialogue if you attempt to parley with him.
It could have just as easily been a wooden blockade or something for my solution.

Combat is just another tool in the problem-solving toolkit in my opinion.

But a wooden blockade is another instance of 'reduce hp to 0 to proceed'. And the parley dialogue is a another storybook exercise.

yeah well, that's like your opinion man

 

[Lyric Suite]

One instance i liked is that you can chose to save the priest you freed from the dungeon after you agree to kill Kolc. You need a resolve of 16 but i thought it was a neat option.

I only found out because Raedric kept kicking my ass so i agreed to his terms to have the time to get Kana and while i was there i went to check what Kolc had to say lmao.

 

[mediocrepoet]

But a wooden blockade is another instance of 'reduce hp to 0 to proceed'. And the parley dialogue is a another storybook exercise.

That's overly broad. It's like saying any physical obstacle is reduce hp to 0 if you end up destroying it in any manner, or a storybook exercise if you use some other manner of bypassing it or engage in any dialog. It's like saying I win this argument because everything in the world is categorized as either this thing or that thing, no matter how much of a stretch.

 

[AwesomeButton]

It's not really freeform when most of the options do nothing, it's just whack-a-mole until you get to choose a page of the above storybook.

Real-life DMs dynamically generate new content depending on your actions, PC games aren't there yet.

I was going to get to that too. Sure, when you are on a PC, the freedom is always an illusion of freedom.

Using the Fallout-style free combining the player has three scenarios:
1. Getting a message to the effect of "this does nothing". If the player is lucky, the "computer DM" will have something funny to remark about this paticular combination, turning the mechanic into a potentially fun game in itself. Thus most cases when you use the mechanic will likely be hunting for fun responses from the computer. Not very rpg-like, especially PnP-like. Unless your DM is really good at improvising fun responses to the shit you come up with, without getting irritated, but then that's not a DM, it's an angel in human form.
2. You get the same kind of response, but only this time you were genuinely trying to accomplish something, which the DM hasn't thought of. That's frustrating, harshly reminding you that it's not a human at the opposite end of the game.
3. The least often encountered outcome - your combination works, and you get that "good rpg feeling".