Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: Eric Fenstermaker on Pillars of Eternity​

[Cosmo]

- Some spirited discussion as to whether Thaos is sympathetic, whether his actions make sense, or even if he is well written.

Thaos was a rather good vilain, the things that hurt the most are his "deus ex machina" moments, like the animancy trial. The asylum thing builds up something nice and urgent, but then the momentum dies : the moment i saw that balcony during the animancy trial i knew what would come next : the game depriving me of any agency, when it was supposed to reach an apex.

Some of that can be alleviated either with a bigger resource investment or by a reduction of the number of categories that create reactivity.

Yes please, that's why i hope PoE2 to be the same lenght or shorter, less scattered (narrowing reactivity on fewer or broader character builds for example), and more focused on player agency and reactivity.

- Are the companions dull?

I, for one, think it's just a matter of reactivity and consistency. There's the wordcount discrepancy between Durance/GM and the others for example, but there's also the fact they as a whole could react more to everything around them (i suspect it comes from you shirking from non-voiced quips and simply floating texts).
Personnally i would be perfectly fine to have had only a few words voiced at the beginning of dialogs, to set the tone, and nothing more...

Yes, there are certainly places in the game where the exposition gets too thick, even outside of the intro area.

It was not just the "thickness" or the amount, but the fact that there was a definite "wiki" feeling to it. It could have emerged more naturally from the setting IMO.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Thanks for the answers, Eric.

I was mostly interested in what would you say about the Thaos discussion, since he is indeed the biggest mystery in the game. I think his true motives were hinted with enough depth for us to pick up and run with our theories. I like doing that and solved it well on my side, particularly the relation Thaos has with Iovara and the PC. You didn't address this yet, but what stands out to some people as forced is the whole Watcher/Awakened situation and the first encounter with Thaos. I admit it is a bit of a coincidence, but it sure gets the game going.

I have no problems with the End of Act 2 with the player in the balcony unable to stop the fate of the Duc. Being surprised by Thaos appearance, his actions and the player's inability to stop him shows that the player has to deal with events beyond his control. The consequences of the trial for Defiance Bay are shown in slides, so I'm ok with that, even though it is a bit strange how the way the trial was going on before the interruption would have such different consequences with the Duc's final decision. The city felt alive (and undead) enough to me, maybe more interaction with nobles/higher class would increase the experience if you want an advice (because we have a lot of interaction with pretty much every other social group).

There were more than enough reactivity and character banter for my tastes, but of course the more, the merrier. I understand, however, the costs associated usually escalate with the more categories, quest decisions and companions you introduce in the game, so I give it a pass. Maybe a little smaller game and most focused would solve this, but would also necessitate a double down on work. You guys proved your quality and I'll gladly help fund another project with double the money (I backed PoE for $77). Your suggestion of more options for different priests to flesh out their different aspects would greatly enrich the game world experience and make it feel more like a real world.

Never felt saturation of exposure, much less a 'wiki' style. I like the Lore you guys came up with, the lore books were amazing and one of the best things in the game. Can't speak for the people who got tired of reading, but I feel they don't read much, as in, they read slowly and get headaches with text.

As for builds, I had tons of fun with combats with a lot of different combinations, so just keep doing your thing.

One of the few complaints I have is how godlike PCs were not adequately integrated in the game, they seemed a bit overkill to me, but that has been already addressed.

Oh, and the quest solution to Blood Legacy should include a way to send the girl back to her uncle after you erase her memories:

After the encounter, speak with Aelys if she is still alive, and advise her on where she should go. Return to Lord Harond in Dyrford, and the quest will end.

Thanks again for coming over to comment on the game. Big fan of the writing!

 

[Trashos]

Eric, thanks for your answer on the entropy subject. It is very rare to see non-physicists being able to put a couple of thoughts together regarding physics. So color me impressed regardless of what follows.

OK, entropy can be a chaotic (ahem) subject, but here is the deal:
The only way to reduce the entropy of a system is to transfer heat out of it. Rymrgand is the god who can do that by absorbing heat and therefore Rymrgand is the god of low entropy. Mirror that and Magran is the goddess of high entropy.
So the intuitive conclusion here is that Magran should be the goddess of entropy. That's what I would have expected.

There's also that entropy sort of "begins" at absolute zero, so if we look at him as kind of the point of origin of entropy, we might expect him to be a cold dude.

This is a bit ike saying that the dwarves are the gods of height "because that's where height begins". I can see where you are coming from (and I did enjoy the argument in a poetic kind of way), but the end result is counter-intuitive to me.

The way I made sense out of it in my head was that something warm that cools into equilibrium within a relatively cold environment is exhibiting entropy. So if Rymrgand lives in a cold domain and is carries a cold environment with him wherever he goes, then everything that gets near him is relatively warmer and entropically cools in his presence.

A similar line of thinking can be applied to Magran who carries high temperatures with her. She entropically heats in her presence.
So this is not enough to dab Rymrgand as the god of entropy, as this argument does not tip the scales.

The conclusion that will make sense to physicists is the one I mentioned in the beginning. Maybe nobody outside physicists will care about this, but I thought you might like to know.

 

[Irenaeus III]

This entropy/physics talk is too nerdy for me. I liked all the Gods and their lore in the game. No need to out-fedora the writers about it.

Fantasy games need more poetry, less SCIENCE!!!!

 

[Trashos]

Uh, I did my best to speak on Eric's level of understanding, which is pretty impressive for his background. My best is not always good enough, so who knows whether I succeeded.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Are you calling Eric ignorant? The nerve of these people.

 

[Neanderthal]

I tell ya what I think'd be a good antagonist sometime later in Poe cycle, fuckin Durance, hear o some fire an brimstone zealot preachin heresy that gods are not divine. Meet some converts to his cause, while masses shit all over this ridiculous notion an point to clear evidence o gods presence. Reflect some o renaissance truths that were repressed by church and made eveybody uncomfortable, Copernicus' Sol centric solar system, Gallileo's discoveries etc.

Course that shunt bloody end just in killin Durance, should hav whole bevy o options, side with, shrug in apathy an walk away, kill the beggar, start work on a new Godhammer bomb an all that.

Not a save the world plot, though goddites'd talk about saving souls, but more the rise of a new way a thinking an turmoil it brings.

Physic bit: I thought stars as big ole burning balls o nuclear reaction were opposite o entropy, they create rather than wither away, their heliospheres allow life to flourish an all that safe from cosmic rays an their supernova throw building blocks o life all over universe. Entropy is opposite o that innit, empty disordered space where everything has seperated an drifted away an its just a few degrees over absolute zero?

Not a scientist though, ha you can probably tell.

 

[Infinitron]

People associate entropy with cold because extreme cold makes people slower and more sluggish. It freezes things, bringing movement to a halt - a layman's interpretation of what "entropy" means. Doing the opposite would be too weird even for professional trope-subverters, although maybe for the sequel they can create a heretical/heterodox Rymrgand worshipper who likes heat.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Entropy is overrated.

 

[Irenaeus III]

I tell ya what I think'd be a good antagonist sometime later in Poe cycle, fuckin Durance, hear o some fire an brimstone zealot preachin heresy that gods are not divine. Meet some converts to his cause, while masses shit all over this ridiculous notion an point to clear evidence o gods presence. Reflect some o renaissance truths that were repressed by church and made eveybody uncomfortable, Copernicus' Sol centric solar system, Gallileo's discoveries etc.

Other than this pop-culture ignorance of history, you are onto something here. I'd love to join the equivalent of the Counter-Reform/Society of Jesus to fight against heresy in this setting.

 

[Trashos]

People associate entropy with cold because extreme cold makes people slower and more sluggish. It freezes things, bringing movement to a halt - a layman's interpretation of what "entropy" means. Doing the opposite would be too weird even for professional trope-subverters, although maybe for the sequel they can create a heretical/heterodox Rymrgand worshipper who likes heat.

Quite the contrary, entropy is the exact opposite of slow and sluggish. Where is that trope coming from? Some goddamn holywood movie, I take it?
I thought that heathens (ie, non-physicists) associated entropy with chaos, which is conceptually correct and more akin to quick and random movement.

 

[Neanderthal]

Other than this pop-culture ignorance of history, you are onto something here. I'd love to join the equivalent of the Counter-Reform/Society of Jesus to fight against heresy in this setting.

Imagine it set in Raedceras, Durance has killed their god them brings em news that their are no gods, takes advantage o spiritual uncertainty to reap a massive following.

Quite the contrary, entropy is the exact opposite of slow and sluggish. Where is that trope coming from? Some goddamn holywood movie, I take it?
I thought that heathens (ie, non-physicists) associated entropy with chaos, which is conceptually correct and more akin to quick and random movement.

I thought eventually disorder o entropy made even sub atomic drift apart, resulting in cold empty space, though I know disorder can cause stuff when things are cramped together. Clouds o gas bump uglies, gravity gets cookin an makes stars eventually as all shit coalesces.

 

[Trashos]

Are you calling Eric ignorant? The nerve of these people.

No. He could have been a physicist, should he have chosen to.

I thought eventually disorder o entropy made even sub atomic drift apart, resulting in cold empty space, though I know disorder can cause stuff when things are cramped together. Clouds o gas bump uglies, gravity gets cookin an makes stars eventually as all shit coalesces.

The end of the universe is debatable, and I am not the right person to speak about it either. The gist of it is that entropy is related to greater movement. The consequences of greater movement can be misleading (locally, you may see empty space).

 

[Prime Junta]

I was a bit surprised about the whole entropy thing. It took us a good 400 years from the Renaissance to figure it out after all.

 

[Trashos]

...

...

....

OK, Neanderthal gave me an idea and I think I realised what is going on.

The false trope entropy=collapse that Infinitron is mentioning (and PoE is endorsing) probably stems from the collapse of the universe. It is wrong though, because the collapse of the universe (the universe folding unto itself) is due to gravity, not entropy.

It was some holywood movie fuck up, wasn't it? Which one?

 

[Irenaeus III]

Mods, please retardo all this "Entropy" bs discussion or move it to the SCIENCE!!! forum. TYA

 

[Athelas]

People associate entropy with cold because extreme cold makes people slower and more sluggish. It freezes things, bringing movement to a halt - a layman's interpretation of what "entropy" means. Doing the opposite would be too weird even for professional trope-subverters

 

[Infinitron]

People associate entropy with cold because extreme cold makes people slower and more sluggish. It freezes things, bringing movement to a halt - a layman's interpretation of what "entropy" means. Doing the opposite would be too weird even for professional trope-subverters

Nicely done, but did PS:T ever really make a point of associating Coaxmetal with fire? He was just using it to forge weapons to unmake the world. Maybe it's a subtle point that flew over my head, but you wouldn't think Chris Avellone-in-his-20s had a sophisticated understanding of physics.

 

[Irenaeus III]

MCA is literally better than Einstein.

 

[Fenstermaker's Folly]

He could have been a physicist, should he have chosen to.

Confession: physics was my worst subject. If I had chosen to be a physicist, I would have been the kind that forgets to carry the 1 when calculating particle trajectories at the large hadron collider and ends up opening a black hole that destroys the world.

 

[Jaesun]

He could have been a physicist, should he have chosen to.

Confession: physics was my worst subject. If I had chosen to be a physicist, I would have been the kind that forgets to carry the 1 when calculating particle trajectories at the large hadron collider and ends up opening a black hole that destroys the world.

And now we have Obsidian's next RPG.

 

[agris]

You would want to give a similar amount of love to all the racial reactivity so that godlikes don't feel so much cooler to play as than everybody else. It's a little like PS:T's problem with certain attribute builds creating a much more satisfying narrative experience. You want to be even-handed.

[...]

One of the most frequent posts you'll see on our forums is "why no love for character build x?" The answer is usually some combination of a) there was love but you may have missed a big portion of it in your playthrough (side quests you didn't try, maps you never visited, etc.), and b) because every other possible character build choice needed to get some love, and they all compete with one another for resources. Overall in Pillars, there was a lot of time spent to try to give reactivity to all of the character choices, and viewed in aggregate, it's an impressive chunk of text. But because only a small fraction of that text will show up for a given character build, most players never get a sense of the breadth of reactivity that the game offers. My dialogue editor says we checked for godlike 56 times over the course of the game

Just read the interview yesterday. Thanks for taking the time to write out such thoughtful replies! Good questions Infinitron, that's some of the Codex's best work. That being said... I think the first part of what I've quoted above isn't true and I'd like to provide some push-back against the notion that even-handedness produces great results.

Actually, I don't think being even-handed even produces memorable results. Yes, there are optimal PST character builds to extract the most story from the game. Still, the worst character builds in terms of narrative or gameplay experience, still result in a damn good story. I think there needs to be an imbalance, a dynamic range if you will, for there to be a chance at excellence. Why? Because of the second part of the quote that I've bolded, and because there will never be a game with The Perfect Scheduling, The Perfect Amount of Content and Resources. Games have been this way forever, and by striving for balance, blandness results.

Practically I know you have to consider the fact that you can't serve players up a shitty narrative or a shitty experience. That's fine, make the "worst" narrative/gameplay/C&C experience a player can have acceptable, and their "best" exceptional.

My perception of this is that developers hear players complaining about missing out on content because they didn't have perfect knowledge and didn't do X, Y or Z. These developers, being the reasonable people that they are, think "hum, I can fix that". But there is no problem to fix, rather that player's expression of frustration is the natural byproduct of someone seeing that they didn't have the same gameplay experience as someone else, and desiring it. That feeling has to exist in some players when playing a game with challenge and C&C.

Look at some classic games, were they even-handed with the reactivity and gameplay experience? Fallout's low intelligence dialogue certainly has no other in-game cosmetic reactivity aspects that correspond to the amount of time it must have taken to implement it, or for such a game-changing player experience. It was imbalanced, and it was amazing. Did a sneaking small guns traps character have about the same experience as a speech, science and energy weapons character? Absolutely not, and again, the resulting diversity in gameplay benefitted from the relatively weakness of skills like traps, outdoorsman, sneak etc because characters built using those skills resulted in manifestly different gameplay experiences. Think of the the Malkavians dialogue in Bloodlines, that's another massively imbalanced piece of cosmetic reactivity (in terms of development time) that is consistently brought up as one of the best parts of the game.

In general, a completel lack of balanced gameplay experience has contributed to the longevity of a lot of classic RPGs, including Baldur's Gate 1 and IWD 1. Those games absolutely punish the player for bad character development choices and not exploring the world. These classic games all have massive imbalances in terms of reactivity, narrative or gameplay experience, across player populations, and are adored. I can't think of a single RPG that that treated the player experience with even-handedness that is loved the way these other games are.

I think that the idea that even-handedness, balance, however you think of it - the idea that it improves RPGs is a fallacy.

/rant off, thanks again!

 

[Infinitron]

agris I think some of those things you described are cool, but not PS:T's character build "imbalance". What that gives you is basically just a better version of the same game. It's not like, "Wow, I'm a Malkavian, everything is completely different!".

 

[agris]

agris I think some of those things you described are cool, but not PS:T's character build "imbalance". What that gives you is basically just a better version of the same game. It's not like, "Wow, I'm a Malkavian, everything is completely different!".

That's my point though, how do you have a better version of the game without a worse version? "Eliminate the worse version and give everyone the better version!" you might reasonably be expected to say. Well then your choices don't mean anything. That's the point of dynamic range. Of choice. For choice to have an actual impact, and not just result in same-ness. Create worst to best option scenarios, so that players know that their choices have an impact. But make it so that the worst-case scenario is still enjoyable. That's what I was trying to say with the PST reference.

 

[Infinitron]

agris I think some of those things you described are cool, but not PS:T's character build "imbalance". What that gives you is basically just a better version of the same game. It's not like, "Wow, I'm a Malkavian, everything is completely different!".

That's my point though, how do you have a better version of the game without a worse version? "Eliminate the worse version and give everyone the better version!" you might reasonably be expected to say. Well then your choices don't mean anything. That's the point of dynamic range. Of choice. For choice to have an actual impact, and not just result in same-ness. Create worst to best option scenarios, so that players know that their choices have an impact. But make it so that the worst-case scenario is still enjoyable. That's what I was trying to say with the PST reference.

You're saying that for choices to have an impact there have to be ones that give you an experience that's better across the board, start-to-finish? I know that can't be right.

Malkavian or stupid dialogue is qualitatively different. PS:T high INT/WIS is just quantity.