Game News Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #9: Challenge Modes and Godlike Races

[Dorateen]

I don't understand the introduction of Godlike races in this update.

Aren't Dwarves already confirmed?

Harumph!

No they are not...

Well they are in the concept art.

And on this here wiki thing:

http://eternitywiki.com/Dwarf

While they might not have discussed the dwarves and elves of their setting, the Devs have been pretty upfront that among player character generation options would include the traditional races.

Besides, with all this talk about the Godlike, I figured it was implied the world's most perfect creation would naturally be a part of this project.

Harumph!

 

[oldmanpaco]

That was by far the best update. It's almost enough to get me back to backing them.

Just wish they would explain their philosophy for the spell system and the AWESOME button (souls).

What? How do the souls equal *awesome button*

From update #5.

Through a variety of techniques (e.g. martial training, meditation, ritualistic evocation, mortification of the flesh), some individuals are able to draw upon the energy of their soul to accomplish extraordinary feats. These abilities range from the mundanely superhuman to the explosively magical.

Seems like an awesome button to me. Just speculation on my part and I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Duraframe300]

Through a variety of techniques (e.g. martial training, meditation, ritualistic evocation, mortification of the flesh), some individuals are able to draw upon the energy of their soul to accomplish extraordinary feats. These abilities range from the mundanely superhuman to the explosively magical.

Seems like an awesome button to me. Just speculation on my part and I hope I'm wrong.

That's speculating a lot. I don't even get the connection to an awesome button in the classical sense. Do we press S the entire time to activate these abilites?

 

[Tel Prydain]

That sounds like a fairly simple lore explanation of the traditional levelling mechanic, a fairly flimsy explanation of why the PC is getting better while most NPCs are stuck as retardo-villager classes. PC is getting better as they use martial training, meditation, ritualistic evocation, mortification of the flesh to draw on ‘soul power’ and get all kickass.
It’s nice that they want to take the (fairly silly when you think about it) RPG levelling mechanic and try to ground it in the lore of the world.
It takes a special kind of logic to interpret is as an ‘awesome’ button.

 

[Stabwound]

This game is going to be great, but I can't help but feel that all of these stretch goals are meaningless and would have been in the game regardless. Oh well, whatever. They're doing well with marketing this shit and the more money the better.

 

[Volourn]

"I don't understand the introduction of Godlike races in this update.

Aren't Dwarves already confirmed?

Harumph"

NO TRUTHIER TRUTH HAS BEEN WRITTEN THAN THIS ONE.

 

[IDtenT]

Expert mode sounds p. retarded. "This mode is for Experts, so we treat you like a casual and hide vital information"

No, he's talking about hiding things like thresholds for dialogue choices (to make it more like PS:T, where you don't see dialogue choices at all unless you have requisite stats)

Are you sure? I'm thinking something more like new vegas [Lockpicking 35/40] thing but with it hidden so you don't know if you meet the necessary requirement for the dialog choice.

I must say I myself prefer choices being left out, rather than failing in a choice. How does one fail at dialogue? It's retarded LARPing shit.

 

[IDtenT]

I know that it's all a marketing gimmick but c'mon, ironman and "expert" modes as stretch goals? What it takes to implement those? Flipping a switch in the code? Jews.

"Path of the damned" I can understand, because it should take time to balance and test.

Lol. Path of the damned won't be balanced, they'll just throw everything at you that was included in all the difficulty levels. It explicitly says that.

 

[Roguey]

I must say I myself prefer choices being left out, rather than failing in a choice. How does one fail at dialogue? It's retarded LARPing shit.

"You try to pick the lock and fail." How is that LARPing?

 

[tuluse]

Expert mode sounds p. retarded. "This mode is for Experts, so we treat you like a casual and hide vital information"

No, he's talking about hiding things like thresholds for dialogue choices (to make it more like PS:T, where you don't see dialogue choices at all unless you have requisite stats)

Are you sure? I'm thinking something more like new vegas [Lockpicking 35/40] thing but with it hidden so you don't know if you meet the necessary requirement for the dialog choice.

I must say I myself prefer choices being left out, rather than failing in a choice. How does one fail at dialogue? It's retarded LARPing shit.

Does LARP just mean whatever people want it to mean now?

 

[Stinger]

The removal of the thresholds sounds great, personally though I still hope they stick with FNV's approach where failed dialogue options have different lines to successful dialogue options.

For example when bartering with Mr House for the chip a low Barter Courier says something like:

"You'd better pay more or else you're chip out of luck"

Which is both hilarious and still adds an element of ensuring the player is aware of their lack of skill but only if they're actually reading the dialogue options.

Everything else sounds great, I hope those 'godlike' races are playable and have major consequences on the game world and overall play style.

 

[IDtenT]

"You try to pick the lock and fail." How is that LARPing?

Lock-pick isn't part of dialogue.

I'm talking about dialogue options that your character is not capable of and no I don't mean persuasion either. Let's say there is a wisdom modifier for a choice that breaks down a process logically. It's absolutely retarded to then make you fail a dialogue choice that is quite obvious in its meaning. That is indeed eerily similar to LARPing. Only the mechanics LARP for you.

 

[Roguey]

"You try to pick the lock and fail." How is that LARPing?

Lock-pick isn't part of dialogue.

I'm talking about dialogue options that your character is not capable of and no I don't mean persuasion either. Let's say there is a wisdom modifier for a choice that breaks down a process logically. It's absolutely retarded to then make you fail a dialogue choice that is quite obvious in its meaning. That is indeed LARPing.

[insufficient wisdom] Pretzel logic.
[high Wisdom] Sound logic.
Not seeing the larping.

 

[IDtenT]

"You try to pick the lock and fail." How is that LARPing?

Lock-pick isn't part of dialogue.

I'm talking about dialogue options that your character is not capable of and no I don't mean persuasion either. Let's say there is a wisdom modifier for a choice that breaks down a process logically. It's absolutely retarded to then make you fail a dialogue choice that is quite obvious in its meaning. That is indeed LARPing.

[insufficient wisdom] Pretzel logic.
[high Wisdom] Sound logic.
Not seeing the larping.

You're assuming that the two options have different dialogue associated with it and by abstraction that dialogue is out of the player's hands, which is certainly not the case in IE games.

 

[tuluse]

"You try to pick the lock and fail." How is that LARPing?

Lock-pick isn't part of dialogue.

I'm talking about dialogue options that your character is not capable of and no I don't mean persuasion either. Let's say there is a wisdom modifier for a choice that breaks down a process logically. It's absolutely retarded to then make you fail a dialogue choice that is quite obvious in its meaning. That is indeed LARPing.

[insufficient wisdom] Pretzel logic.
[high Wisdom] Sound logic.
Not seeing the larping.

You're assuming that the two options have different dialogue associated with it and by abstraction that dialogue is out of the player's hands, which is certainly not the case in IE games.

But it has been the case in Obsidian games (well at least New Vegas).

Why does the dialog need to be out of the player's hands?

 

[Roguey]

"You try to pick the lock and fail." How is that LARPing?

Lock-pick isn't part of dialogue.

I'm talking about dialogue options that your character is not capable of and no I don't mean persuasion either. Let's say there is a wisdom modifier for a choice that breaks down a process logically. It's absolutely retarded to then make you fail a dialogue choice that is quite obvious in its meaning. That is indeed LARPing.

[insufficient wisdom] Pretzel logic.
[high Wisdom] Sound logic.
Not seeing the larping.

You're assuming that the two options have different dialogue associated with it and by abstraction that dialogue is out of the player's hands, which is certainly not the case in IE games.

That's my assumption based on how this was handled in New Vegas, yes. They have even more freedom with this title, so I don't see any reason why they'd cut corners on the text here.

 

[IDtenT]

Why does the dialog need to be out of the player's hands?

If the entire dialogue is displayed before clicking it and it doesn't change based on character ability then you can't fail at it sometimes and other times not. Either it makes sense or it doesn't. So they can't implement it like that, if they show the entire dialogue beforehand. Hence, you can only fail if the entire dialogue isn't shown beforehand in cases where things like wisdom and intelligence is used.

I'm okay with having dialogue choices appear when you have the necessary skill but not dialogue choices that would be impossible for my character to make and having them then fail after making the impossible dialogue choice.

 

[tuluse]

Why does the dialog need to be out of the player's hands?

If the entire dialogue is displayed before clicking it and it doesn't change based on character ability then you can't fail at it sometimes and other times not. Either it makes sense or it doesn't. So they can't implement it like that, if they show the entire dialogue beforehand. Hence, you can only fail if the entire dialogue isn't shown beforehand in cases where things like wisdom and intelligence is used.

I'm okay with having dialogue choices appear when you have the necessary skill but not dialogue choices that would be impossible for my character to make and having them then fail after making the impossible dialogue choice.

What if it's done like New Vegas?

Below skill level = option A = fail
Above = option B = success

Options C and D are also available, but are not skill based.

 

[IDtenT]

Why does the dialog need to be out of the player's hands?

If the entire dialogue is displayed before clicking it and it doesn't change based on character ability then you can't fail at it sometimes and other times not. Either it makes sense or it doesn't. So they can't implement it like that, if they show the entire dialogue beforehand. Hence, you can only fail if the entire dialogue isn't shown beforehand in cases where things like wisdom and intelligence is used.

I'm okay with having dialogue choices appear when you have the necessary skill but not dialogue choices that would be impossible for my character to make and having them then fail after making the impossible dialogue choice.

What if it's done like New Vegas?

Below skill level = option A = fail
Above = option B = success

Options C and D are also available, but are not skill based.

That would work. But only if it makes sense as to why A is retarded in comparison to B.

 

[Misconnected]

Wouldn't it be cool if NPCs were aware of dialogue-fail and would respond by using social skills against PCs?

When we play TTRPGs, NPCs use social skills as a matter of course, especially against PCs they know to be vulnerable to manipulation. And our PCs don't just try to guard each other against that kind of manipulation, they employ it against each other as well. It's lots of fun, and beyond CRPGs never having done it I can't really think of a reason why they shouldn't try.

 

[deuxhero]

Except PCs are immune to Diplomacy (and intimidate to coerce).

 

[Misconnected]

Except PCs are immune to Diplomacy (and intimidate to coerce).

I'm a bit iffy on the context of that statement. Do you mean in Project Eternity?

 

[deuxhero]

3.5 DMG I think it was.

 

[Bulba]

Why does the dialog need to be out of the player's hands?

If the entire dialogue is displayed before clicking it and it doesn't change based on character ability then you can't fail at it sometimes and other times not. Either it makes sense or it doesn't. So they can't implement it like that, if they show the entire dialogue beforehand. Hence, you can only fail if the entire dialogue isn't shown beforehand in cases where things like wisdom and intelligence is used.

I'm okay with having dialogue choices appear when you have the necessary skill but not dialogue choices that would be impossible for my character to make and having them then fail after making the impossible dialogue choice.

I think they used to grey out the options that you can't choose, but you can still read them and see that they are there

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The challenge modes are the $2.3 million stretch goal, so here's hoping they make it. In the meantime, the update's Kickstarter page can be found here.

You know, they sure are (potentially) wasting a lot of time developing concepts that are (possibly) not going to be included anyway.