Development Info Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #39: Classes, Cooldowns, Attacks, Damage vs. Armor, and Tilesets

[Infinitron]

Not certain about this rock-paper-scissors approach to armor.

I've asked Josh about this on his Formspring. Thought he didn't like that kind of approach.

"If a weapon is bad it does half damage before DT is even applied " feels like it might result in a lot of tedious weapon switching busywork.

Wouldn't that happen with the old system as well?

I do like how even that test area looks better than Wasteland 2. Absurdian continues to one-up inEPTile. January's almost a week away from being over, when's that update going to happen, Fargo?

Itz coming.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Not certain about this rock-paper-scissors approach to armor. "If a weapon is bad it does half damage before DT is even applied " feels like it might result in a lot of tedious weapon switching busywork.

Also I don't care if the IE games hid enemy stats and only referred to health in vague words, I'd like to see those numbers.

I do like how even that test area looks better than Wasteland 2. Absurdian continues to one-up inEPTile. January's almost a week away from being over, when's that update going to happen, Fargo?

That approach is indeed not very satisfying and a bit too actiony. I am not sure but it might end up breaking the entire resting mechanics. But I have to think about that. This is not a simple or obvious issue.

 

[villain of the story]

VOTS is the biggest Obsidian fanboy around, he just likes to larp angry cynic.

It's a woman thing.

You want to know about woman thing, read Roguey's WL-butthurt posts.

 

[Roguey]

"If a weapon is bad it does half damage before DT is even applied " feels like it might result in a lot of tedious weapon switching busywork.

Wouldn't that happen with the old system as well?

The difference with the old system was that one could probably do well enough attacking someone with slashing and piercing weapons or crushing and piercing depending entirely on the damage output of whichever the "ineffiecient" weapon/person was. Now that we have a straight up 50% loss before DT is even applied I see very little reason at all to use anything except slashing for no-armor, piercing for light-armor, crushing for heavy.

 

[Infinitron]

The difference with the old system was that one could probably do well enough attacking someone with slashing and piercing weapons or crushing and piercing depending entirely on the damage output of whichever the "ineffiecient" weapon/person was.

"Probably" being the key word. Not sure what Josh's original intention was here.

 

[Marsal]

"If a weapon is bad it does half damage before DT is even applied " feels like it might result in a lot of tedious weapon switching busywork.

Wouldn't that happen with the old system as well?

The difference with the old system was that one could probably do well enough attacking someone with slashing and piercing weapons or crushing and piercing depending entirely on the damage output of whichever the "ineffiecient" weapon/person was. Now that we have a straight up 50% loss before DT is even applied I see very little reason at all to use anything except slashing for no-armor, piercing for light-armor, crushing for heavy.

I don't follow the development of PE closely, but are there weapon skills? Maybe you just eat the loss of damage in some cases in order to be able to hit things reliably (and apply status effects or elemental damage)? Hard to say without knowing the exact mechanics.

 

[Scruffy]

So...looking at those attack roll mechanics: You only have a 5% chance of missing. By and large you'll either be hitting with full damage or hitting with half damage.

In most of the modern RPGs these days where stuff like to hit chance has more or less been removed, this is countered with HP bloat. If you're always hitting the enemy then the enemy simply has a shitload of HP to let them take more hits.

Frankly this is one of the most frustrating things to deal with and it leads to some really boring and arduous gameplay. Dragon Age 2 is an extreme example of what happens to encounter design and HP bars when To Hit chance is 'streamlined'.

I wonder how Sawyer et al. will work on making sure a system like that is both balanced and fun. The armour system looks like it might help with that but even that might not be enough.

what arkeus said, and also, hey maybe in this game people will actually go down when you, you know, HIT THEM WITH A SWORD OR AXE, instead of staying there taking hit after hit after hit... just sayin'...

 

[Irenaeus]

Tags: Josh Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Project Eternity

Obsidian's Josh Sawyer offers a new Project Eternity development update, which is mostly a mechanics update this time. Have a snippet:
Damage Type vs. Armor Type

We've previously talked about how different weapon damage types (Slash, Crush, and Pierce) fare against Damage Threshold (DT) in the game. We implemented that system and found that while it worked well on paper and scaled well, it was unintuitive when put into the game. It was not possible for players to make informed decisions about what weapons to use against a given armor type because doing so required making relative damage vs. DT calculations for all weapon types , i.e. having a spreadsheet open for comparison at all times.

What's so fucking wrong with a spreadsheet? Are we babies or something?

:declining:

 

[Roguey]

I don't follow the development of PE closely, but are there weapon skills? Maybe you just eat the loss of damage in some cases in order to be able to hit things reliably (and apply status effects or elemental damage)? Hard to say without knowing the exact mechanics.

It will likely be broader than a specific weapon and thematically-grouped in the same way that Cowboy and Grunt were in F:NV. E.g. Aristocrat Weapons might cover Rapier, Pistol, etc. Peasant Weapons might cover Quarterstaff, Hunting Bow, Hatchet, etc.

 

[jiujitsu]

I don't know... I liked the update.

 

[Irenaeus]

I don't know... I liked the update.

Yeah, I liked it too. I'm just bitching about the armor thing. Also, I'm not sure how the cooldown/Moba stuff for abilities will work. The classes, attack resolution and dungeon look awesome.

 

[handup]

But why not have a NWN2-style display window showing you the combat mechanics, that way you can just see a -10 next to your damage output and figure out that you might want to switch weapons, rather than rework the entire DT system (Which now that I think about is not that much of a DT system anymore, anyway).

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I'm actually trying to make that phrase into a Codex meme.

Fastest way to kill a meme is to announce it.

 

[tindrli]

Obsidian Entertainment and our legendary game designers Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer are excited to bring you a new role-playing game for the PC. Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment.

Project Eternity aims to recapture the magic, imagination, depth, and nostalgia of classic RPG's that we enjoyed making - and playing. At Obsidian, we have the people responsible for many of those classic games and we want to bring those games back… and that’s why we’re here - we need your help to make it a reality!

But Hey BROS!!!! YOU will get quality animations!!!!!

 

[Marsal]

I'm actually trying to make that phrase into a Codex meme.

Fastest way to kill a meme is to announce it.

You have a FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED UNDERSTANDING of memes, bro.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Oh don't encourage him.

 

[Marsal]

Oh don't encourage him.

You have a FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED UNDERSTANDING of encouragement, bro.

 

[Maiandros]

would you mind repeating that please? I am not sure i grasped it in its entirety?

 

[Captain Shrek]

Milhouse is NOT a meme.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

As I suspected, shitty holistic HP system that doesn't account for weapon vs. armour styles and body location. SO ORIGINAL, SO NICHE, UNLIKE EVERY OTHER GAME, WHAT GREAT FUCKING JOB IT IS!



And how is that number generated? The same old simplistic shitty linear damage model, I bet?



That's fucking retarded. You want good and easily memorable diversity without having to look up fucking tables? Take a fucking cue from real life for once, Josh. Here is more or less how it works IRL, Josh:

Plate: Impervious to Slash / low susceptibility to Pierce / average susceptibility to Crush
Mail: low susceptibility to Slash / medium-high susceptibility to Pierce / high susceptibility to Crush
Other: medium to high susceptibility to pretty much everything.

And instead of relying on an arsenal of weapons to support your very original idea of a simplistic combat model, how about you actually give us weapon techniques as options to use against any given armor type? Like half-swording against someone in plate suit. The way it worked in real fucking world, the way it makes sense, the way it is fun.

Oh wait, I remember: grappling animations are MISSION IMPOSSIBRU! OLOLOLOL!

Enjoy your featureless bland copycat Real Dime with Crap game, people. Made to fill a niche that's been abandoned. The way nobody makes them any more. YOU-NICK!

As it is, even Baldur's Gate has a better combat model, which is just pathetic.

Exactly.

I wish they'd hire actual experts like Jean Henri Chandler or Jacob Norwood to design combat.

 

[Country_Gravy]

This update may have sucked, but I haven't watched it. However, the beard gets a 8/10. I think this is a sign of good things down the road for this game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

We've previously talked about how different weapon damage types (Slash, Crush, and Pierce) fare against Damage Threshold (DT) in the game. We implemented that system and found that while it worked well on paper and scaled well, it was unintuitive when put into the game. It was not possible for players to make informed decisions about what weapons to use against a given armor type because doing so required making relative damage vs. DT calculations for all weapon types, i.e. having a spreadsheet open for comparison at all times.

Hardly a good reason to ditch something. "yeah, it's too complex, most people can't into numbers, you know... they just want to have fun, not look at spreadsheets". And who the fuck needs to look at a spreadsheet? If you see that your slashing weapon isn't very effective against, say, skeletons because suddenly you do a quarter of your normal damage, you pull out a hammer and see if it works any better.

Basically, if the difference is so minor that you need a spreadsheet to catch it, you don't need to switch weapons to increase your DPS by 3.8%. If the difference is noticeable, then you don't need a spreadsheet.

While having to carry different weapons and switching them regularly might not be fun for some people - teh tyranny of micromanagement! - it's more fun than never having to change your weapon.

Edit: from the comments:
"the weapon vs armor mechanic still seems way too complicated."

In a balanced Attack and defense scenario, the majority of attacks wind up being Hits or Grazes. If the Accuracy and defense values are out of balance, the windows for each result shift accordingly, while always allowing for the possibility of a Graze or a Hit at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

Worked so well in DA2, didn't it?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I think this is a sign of good things down the road for this game.

What, the beard?

 

[Castanova]

I'm worried about this game. It really feels like they want to avoid making another Dragon Age but they're using the same design thought processes that led into the creation of Dragon Age.

 

[almondblight]

While having to carry different weapons and switching them regularly might not be fun for some people - teh tyranny of micromanagement! - it's more fun than never having to change your weapon.

Not so much about not being fun (though there's that too), but more about turning the game into this:

Of course lots of people will say, look at the complexity! Look at my options! I could try to put the star into the round hole, or into the square hole if I want.

Simply adding more options doesn't make the game more strategic.