Game News Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #24: Life and Death in the Dyrwood, CD Soundtrack

[Tigranes]

Stamina sounds great, Captain Shrek is retarded because he's commenting on semantics, not the mechanics. (Unless you think Darklands = Halo?)

As long as health remains difficult to restore, it introduces the kind of long-term attrition that limb damage did in certain other games, except whereas limb damage occured only rarely, you are dealing with granulated health states all the time. The critical part to me is that it's not that you lose Stamina till it's 0 then you lose health, which would be silly; each attack, depending on the type of attack, can damage both stamina and health in different proportions. Which means you can walk int oa battle with 60 stamina and 3 health, and die in one hit.... when resurrection isn't a solution.

It's fantastic and it's great to see they're not afraid to shake up something as generic as the HP dynamic.

 

[codexian reject]

Regenerating stamina health shield ? Is it HALO RPG ?
Permadeath only as a part optional “hardcore” mode and safe guarded by stamina shield... balls of brass indeed.
Until more details supplied, that is how I've understood this.

I've lost faith and instead of increasing tomorrow, I've just reduced pledge from 70$ to 40$ ( expansion pack )
It'll be still a good for what it is storyfag adventure game probably. If it'll be anything more, I can always buy it again after release...

 

[Kahlis]

Stamina could be utilized in their RTwP combat system to encourage a more defensive and preventative approach to battles. Running around mindlessly to avoid being hit by enemies could consume stamina and thus leave you vulnerable to inaction when you do decide to finally do something. At first I thought they were borrowing a page from Betrayal at Krondor with stamina as "soft" health and loss of hitpoints as modifying your overall stats/skills, but apparently that's too unforgiving. May as well have just done lethal and nonlethal damage like in D&D.

Still, I'm impressed that they seem to be consciously designing around permadeath to some degree. At least whenever I don't have a relapse in willpower and end up reloading claiming a character died "unfairly", I like the idea of continuing on and replacing them with new party members from that adventuring hall. Certainly will be amusing in peoples' LPs.

Regenerating stamina health shield ? Is it HALO RPG ?

It doesn't seem to imply that you only start losing health when you don't have any stamina left. I hope there will still be lots of ways to lose both quickly if you don't keep your guard up.

 

[Jasede]

Learn to freakin' read. It's not just hardcore mode, it's an option in standard mode as well. I swear, you people try to misread these as much as possible just so you can post about it.

Also this is gonna be upsetting, but not surprising to Shrek but I'll post it here because it's relevant.

Josh, would you kindly comment, specifically, on:

* The lack of healing (or is stamina really the new hit points in this crazy brave new world?)

* The XP model (do I get XP for killing a wandering critter not linked to a quest)

You can heal Stamina pretty easily. Priests can do it for a lot of folks, but fighters can self-replenish and paladins can bark orders at you until you suck it up and Deal With It. Health can't be restored by magic; it requires you to rest to get it back.

Tim and I would rather not give XP for general killin' because it leads to a lot of weird/degenerate scenarios, but I have no problem with having quests oriented specifically around killing and receiving XP for achieving sub-objectives/the main goal.

 

[FeelTheRads]

You can heal Stamina pretty easily. Priests can do it for a lot of folks, but fighters can self-replenish and paladins can bark orders at you until you suck it up and Deal With It.

So, quite clearly they renamed health to stamina.
And if you actually think that reduced health will affect your abilities in any way, you're deluded.

 

[Tigranes]

Stamina sounds great, Captain Shrek is retarded because he's commenting on semantics, not the mechanics. (Unless you think Darklands = Halo?)

Has never player Darklands.

As long as health remains difficult to restore, it introduces the kind of long-term attrition that limb damage did in certain other games, except whereas limb damage occured only rarely, you are dealing with granulated health states all the time. The critical part to me is that it's not that you lose Stamina till it's 0 then you lose health, which would be silly; each attack, depending on the type of attack, can damage both stamina and health in different proportions. Which means you can walk int oa battle with 60 stamina and 3 health, and die in one hit.... when resurrection isn't a solution.

It's fantastic and it's great to see they're not afraid to shake up something as generic as the HP dynamic.

Is a Obsidrone.

Holy shit, I like Obsidian games! My opinion must be entirely invalid, because if I like something, I've clearly been brainwashed! I would tell you all the times I've been negative to prove my intelligence, but I couldn't compare to your impartial and critical faculty of judgment, clearly proven by how you are criticising Obsidian.

Anyway, as others have stated, the biggest risk to the system is if too many people whine about permadeath and they backtrack. You have to have a synergy of different features and setting-wise it really doesn't make sense to revive people all the time, either. (You'd also expect that people generally have less stamina than HP, so there's always a large risk of it being depleted.)

Edit: And yes, I'd be disappointed if low health had no penalties or indicators.

 

[Kahlis]

So all classes basically have completely reliable, autonomous, coordination-destroying healing surge powers now like in D&D 4e? So much for this being a party-based game. Then again, were it not for the stretch goals (which I'm sure they knew we would've gotten them to) the game would've been shipping with like four classes anyway. I'm a bit worried about just how much party synergy there's going to be.

 

[Jasede]

You can heal Stamina pretty easily. Priests can do it for a lot of folks, but fighters can self-replenish and paladins can bark orders at you until you suck it up and Deal With It.

So, quite clearly they renamed health to stamina.
And if you actually think that reduced health will affect your abilities in any way, you're deluded.

I still say we don't know enough. Let's assume worst case scenario: reduced health does nothing for your abilities.
We already know (at least based on the phrasing, so it's by no means confirmed, but bear with me) that damage is done to both health and stamina, but mainly stamina. So let's say you game the system properly and keep your Stamina as high as possible at all times. You'd still suffer from health attrition and have a real risk of dying- just much less so than someone who isn't playing the game as well as you and who'd lose all their health way earlier.

It's honestly not a bad system in my book. It beats the shit out of "rest everywhere to heal up".

 

[FeelTheRads]

I still say we don't know enough.

No, but I'm basing it on Sawyer whose main concern is not to punish the players. I guess we'll see. My bet is on pussy faggot gameplay, accessible to everybody and based on sitting around and waiting to regen.

 

[Jasede]

Sawyer may be a faggot mechanics-wise but he has Tim Cain breathing hard on his neck right behind him.

 

[Tigranes]

You're right, forget Darklands: that's me reading too many reddit comments at once and melding them together. I've played it (and you can find me posting about it I think), but regardless, that's my stupidity.

Back to stamina, you're still incapable of doing anything more than repeating OH GOD IT REGENS. Do you know why regen sucks? It sucks because (1) it makes healing trivial, (2) it makes damage trivial. So, does PE stamina/health, as we know it, make healing or damage trivial? Only if they fuck up the balance and you have 5000 stamina, or if you have to expend stamina before health is hit. Except they've said stamina is 'quickly lost', and that attacks can bypass stamina before it is depleted.

In other words, the foundation is sound. They just need to not back down on shit like resurrection, and make sure it's balanced properly.

 

[Helly]

I'll be damned, looks like they'll definitely reach the 3.5M$ goal now. Even without paypal.
Is it or , though ? I guess we'll know in two years (geez)

 

[Cosmo]

In other words, the foundation is sound.

And the game will be moddable. So even if they fail, the system will be fixed eventually.

 

[Volrath]

Regenerating stamina health shield ? Is it HALO RPG ?
Permadeath only as a part optional “hardcore” mode and safe guarded by stamina shield... balls of brass indeed.
Until more details supplied, that is how I've understood this.

I've lost faith and instead of increasing tomorrow, I've just reduced pledge from 70$ to 40$ ( expansion pack )
It'll be still a good for what it is storyfag adventure game probably. If it'll be anything more, I can always buy it again after release...

It's an option you can turn on during the other modes as well. Learn to read ffs.

 

[Jasede]

You're right about Arcanum though that game did seem hopelessly rushed and not play-tested enough. And of course you have a good point if you consider how little time they've given themselves here.

With all that said, I think even the biggest critics agree on one thing: even if the mechanics were to be spectacularly broken the game would still be worth to play for the story.

 

[J_C]

I love Obsidian games. But I am not a retarded fanboy to blindly like everything they develop.

No, you are just a retard who is making shit up about mechanics you don't know anything about. The only think that they said is that there is stamina which will take most of the damage and you can get it back quickly. They didn't talk about if any other mechnics is tied to stamina, or how it will regenerate, how long will it take etc. But of course you know everything.

 

[Abraxas]

The Stamina/Health thing sounds a bit like the vigor/wounds mechanic in Pathfinder's Ultimate Combat.

 

[Jasede]

You're right about Arcanum though that game did seem hopelessly rushed and not play-tested enough. And of course you have a good point if you consider how little time they've given themselves here.

With all that said, I think even the biggest critics agree on one thing: even if the mechanics were to be spectacularly broken the game would still be worth to play for the story.

This was one chance where we could have had both. But now since most people will not press for it, forget that.

But we are pressing for it. It's just that we all have different ideas on what a great mechanical combat system would be, especially in RtwP, something most aren't overly fond of (including myself - it worked well enough in BG 2 due to the encounters but as soon as the encounters are mindless, the system because abhorrent. NWN 2 OC is what I am currently playing and I basically just ignore the combat with my powerbuild + buffed party because it's not fun, requires no thought and is too easy even on the hardest difficulty anyway so you might as well just get it over with as quickly as you can)

 

[J_C]

I love Obsidian games. But I am not a retarded fanboy to blindly like everything they develop.

No, you are just a retard who is making shit up about mechanics you don't know anything about. The only think that they said is that there is stamina which will take most of the damage and you can get it back quickly. They didn't talk about if any other mechnics is tied to stamina, or how it will regenerate, how long will it take etc. But of course you know everything.

Hey.

At least I am giving reasons, right? Unlike you, who admitted that you had basically blindly followed Obsidian.

You are giving reasons about why this system will suck based on....what exactly? You don't know how it will work and how will they balance it. I stay silent because I don't talk about thinks I don't know about. If they show me how this system will work, I will state my opinion.

 

[Tigranes]

It is not sound unless I hear how from Sawyer.

Your explanation has been debated before and found wanting. There are TWO things that regen: Spells that heal stamina AND stamina. Also everything regens post combat except health. Meaning you will always have best abilities per encounter. To make them count you now must put a lot of trash mobs that don't outright kill you. Why? Because having all your powers per encounter means that not using them will feel underwhelming. Also, to have all the powerful stuff (and stamina) ready all the time + real time = = Spam tactics => use your most powerful spells first; run away or spam low damage spells until heavier ones regen.

Hence regen = trash mobs and lack of tactics.

Excellent, so after 10 posts now you are giving some arguments. Except now you're talking about cooldowns, not health/stamina regeneration. Seriously. All I have to do is take out the word 'stamina' and that post has NOTHING to do with stamina/health, or even, how cooldowns actually effect the stamina/health mechanic.

 

[Jasede]

You're right about Arcanum though that game did seem hopelessly rushed and not play-tested enough. And of course you have a good point if you consider how little time they've given themselves here.

With all that said, I think even the biggest critics agree on one thing: even if the mechanics were to be spectacularly broken the game would still be worth to play for the story.

This was one chance where we could have had both. But now since most people will not press for it, forget that.

But we are pressing for it. It's just that we all have different ideas on what a great mechanical combat system would be, especially in RtwP, something most aren't overly fond of (including myself - it worked well enough in BG 2 due to the encounters but as soon as the encounters are mindless, the system because abhorrent. NWN 2 OC is what I am currently playing and I basically just ignore the combat with my powerbuild + buffed party because it's not fun, requires no thought and is too easy even on the hardest difficulty anyway so you might as well just get it over with as quickly as you can)

What kind of excuse is that? Well I know. It's the bathesda/ EA excuse. is it broken? REMOVE It!

What are you talking about? What am I excusing? I said the NWN 2 OC combat is bad. I said that to show that I can empathize with where you are coming from. Nowhere do I insinuate that they should not focus on combat anymore as a result. Either my phrasing was poor or you are willfully misrepresenting what I wrote.

In a perfect world their game will have crushingly difficult combat and become the Dark Souls of infinity engine games. That's what I want from them and I've seen nothing yet that'd make that impossible to attain. The end.

 

[Jasede]

Bottom line is, I see what you're saying and I hate cool-downs as much as the next man but I feel that if you have attacks damage health as well and balance the encounters around this I think it can work out just fine. You don't due to their track record and that's fine too. NEXT!

 

[J_C]

I love Obsidian games. But I am not a retarded fanboy to blindly like everything they develop.

No, you are just a retard who is making shit up about mechanics you don't know anything about. The only think that they said is that there is stamina which will take most of the damage and you can get it back quickly. They didn't talk about if any other mechnics is tied to stamina, or how it will regenerate, how long will it take etc. But of course you know everything.

Hey.

At least I am giving reasons, right? Unlike you, who admitted that you had basically blindly followed Obsidian.

You are giving reasons about why this system will suck based on....what exactly? You don't know how it will work and how will they balance it. I stay silent because I don't talk about thinks I don't know about. If they show me how this system will work, I will state my opinion.

You mean when they have implemented it, right? Carry on. Because until then "IT's STILL IN BETA ***Waah***" excuse is valid.

You can cry as long as you want, but they will use this system. If they balance it well, it will work wonderfully, if not, it will suck. Balance is the key word here, just with any other game mechanics. And balance can be modified later. Until we see how it is balanced, we don't know how will it work. (This also applies to cooldowns of course.)

 

[hoverdog]

Captain Shrek
PossiblyDefinitely Retarded

 

[Jasede]

That's pretty much it. This system could work out just fine, depending on how the numbers and encounters are tweaked around it. Or it can be the tepid "wait for cooldowns on the Stamina spell, spam stamina, repeat" experience Shrek is fearing. There's really no sense in continuing this anymore because it's fruitless.