Game News Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #23: Gameplay Video!

[Infinitron]

Still not sure what the whole "gamism" thing has to do with it though

It's easier to define by what it is opposed to.

A "simulationist" game designer might say something like "In the setting I'm creating, mages are much more powerful than other characters. That's life in this world, and life can be unfair. Immerse yourself in the fiction and deal with it."

A "gamist" would reply, "Fuck you, your setting and your immersion. I want some balance here because this is a game."

 

[Captain Shrek]

[
IE combat with spells and abilities to control positioning would be great.

Explain.

 

[Gozma]

Still not sure what the whole "gamism" thing has to do with it though

It's easier to define by what it is opposed to.

A "simulationist" game designer might say something like "In the setting I'm creating, mages are much more powerful than other characters. That's life in this world, and life can be unfair. Immerse yourself in the fiction and deal with it."

A "gamist" would reply, "Fuck you, your setting and your immersion. I want some balance here because this is a game."

Bad example, there's no reason balance of individual characters matters unless you are including a boatload of presumptions

 

[Infinitron]

Bad example, there's no reason balance of individual characters matters unless you are including a boatload of presumptions

It's a general example, one that is not necessarily relevant to Project Eternity (although it can be relevant, if the obvious best option is to create a party of six mages)

 

[tuluse]

[
IE combat with spells and abilities to control positioning would be great.

Explain.

Just some ideas off the top of my head.

Some kind of aura that melee fighters can activate that causes all enemies near them to move 1/4 speed.
The ability to issue a challenge that would force an enemy to attack the challenger.
A successful attack prevents an enemy from disengaging with the attacker.

 

[tuluse]

My first example has literally nothing to do with aggro, and my 3rd one was tied into another ability (which most MMOs eschew).

If your main motivation for designing 'classes' is combat, best not use classes. Simply because a wizard whose main focus is combat is essentially an archer with colorful arrows

Or he does AOE, or he does buffing or debuffing, or sets magical traps, or lots of other things I could think of.

 

[Captain Shrek]

My first example has literally nothing to do with aggro, and my 3rd one was tied into another ability (which most MMOs eschew).

You'd be surprised to know that DOTA2 (the MOBA game I have taken to play recently) does exactly this for melee tanks.

Or he does AOE, or he does buffing or debuffing, or sets magical traps, or lots of other things I could think of.

I'd rather he does Buffing, Debuffing and put magical traps and do flavor things like daze, sleep, frighten, paralyze etc. No need to force mages to have damage (Explicit) as a necessity, which is what we're talkign about. AOE are okay if they are once in a while.

 

[Angthoron]

Bad example, there's no reason balance of individual characters matters unless you are including a boatload of presumptions

It's a general example, one that is not necessarily relevant to Project Eternity (although it can be relevant, if the obvious best option is to create a party of six mages)

Hm, but doesn't it also reflect the end-goals of the project? Making characters unbalanced in a game with PvP environment, for example, completely screws things up, while in a different type of a game, you simply are able to give your make more super-abilities by the virtue of them being the mage, so it makes sense. And, if the game's party-based, it's fine to make superawesome turbomages as they're still an "aspect" of the player, while in a solo game, having one class overpower the rest is basically a design fuck-up. Sure, sometimes you get a developer that's over-obsessed with some aspect, like maybe (maybe) Josh is with balancing, but other than that, it's more about the end-goals and the general form, I think?

 

[Infinitron]

Hm, but doesn't it also reflect the end-goals of the project? Making characters unbalanced in a game with PvP environment, for example, completely screws things up, while in a different type of a game, you simply are able to give your make more super-abilities by the virtue of them being the mage, so it makes sense. And, if the game's party-based, it's fine to make superawesome turbomages as they're still an "aspect" of the player, while in a solo game, having one class overpower the rest is basically a design fuck-up. Sure, sometimes you get a developer that's over-obsessed with some aspect, like maybe (maybe) Josh is with balancing, but other than that, it's more about the end-goals and the general form, I think?

Well, remember that Project Eternity might be a party-based game, but unless you go to the Adventurer's Hall - which is an optional feature for "hardcore" players that the game design can't rely on - you only create one character in chargen. The rest are pre-designed companions you meet during the game.

Josh would want to give you compelling reasons to choose any character class in chargen. So if one of them is clearly more powerful than the others, that's still a problem.

 

[tuluse]

DOTA is an MMO now?

Also, Sawyer has pointed to League of Legends for design inspiration.

Your mage will be able to do those things, but you can make one that shoots colorful arrows if you want. Classes are supposed to be very customizable.

 

[Angthoron]

Hm, but doesn't it also reflect the end-goals of the project? Making characters unbalanced in a game with PvP environment, for example, completely screws things up, while in a different type of a game, you simply are able to give your make more super-abilities by the virtue of them being the mage, so it makes sense. And, if the game's party-based, it's fine to make superawesome turbomages as they're still an "aspect" of the player, while in a solo game, having one class overpower the rest is basically a design fuck-up. Sure, sometimes you get a developer that's over-obsessed with some aspect, like maybe (maybe) Josh is with balancing, but other than that, it's more about the end-goals and the general form, I think?

Well, remember that Project Eternity might be a party-based game, but unless you go to the Adventurer's Hall - which is an optional feature for "hardcore" players that the game design can't rely on - you only create one character in chargen. The rest are pre-designed companions you meet during the game.

Josh would want to give you compelling reasons to choose any character class in chargen. So if one of them is clearly more powerful than the others, that's still a problem.

Ah, yes, that's right. I just remember that Josh is generally rather interested in proper balancing, like his mod for NV (nothing wrong with that, mind you!) hence I named him. Really, I like that approach, since I like to play melee characters, but their skills are very often dreadfully dull, while wizards get pretty much all the goodies.

 

[tuluse]

It was on his formspring, when people were bitching about no true misses. He pointed the LoL has a game where you couldn't miss because of the rng.

I don't see why interesting spells will make mages overpowered. You're forgetting that everyone has soul magic and they're all getting super powers.

I'm not surprised at all that other games have implemented the ideas I put above. They're good ideas. If you can just run past tanks, they lose their purpose.

 

[Captain Shrek]

It was on his formspring, when people were bitching about no true misses. He pointed the LoL has a game where you couldn't miss because of the rng.

I would really like to have those SPECIFIC posts.

I don't see why interesting damage dealing spells will make mages overpowered. You're forgetting that everyone has soul magic and they're all getting super powers.

Play DnD computer based games past level 3. And don't put words into my mouth.

I'm not surprised at all that other games have implemented the ideas I put above. They're good ideas. If you can just run past tanks, they lose their purpose.

The entire idea of a tank, is terrible.

 

[tuluse]

P:E isn't DnD. Fighters are getting magic soul powers.

 

[Infinitron]

We know what kind of powers they have: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/371907

Fighter

• Defender (Mode) - In the Defender mode, fighters' melee attack rates decrease while their melee defenses increase. This is a particularly useful mode to enter when a fighter is blocking a route of attack to protect other party members.
• Surge - This active ability allows fighters to rapidly regenerate Stamina for a short period of time.
• Melee Accuracy - Fighters have inherent skill with melee weapons that is reflected by a small accuracy bonus.

 

[tuluse]

Infinitron, that's at level 1 not all powers they're getting.

Captain Shrek, you think mages are going to be overpowered because why?

 

[Captain Shrek]

Infinitron, that's at level 1 not all powers they're getting.

Captain Shrek, you think mages are going to be overpowered because why?

Because I know what happens when Mages can deal damage effectively AND get flavor spells.

 

[tuluse]

Infinitron, that's at level 1 not all powers they're getting.

Captain Shrek, you think mages are going to be overpowered because why?

Because I know what happens when Mages can deal damage effectively AND get flavor spells.

Ok, but it's not clear this is an "and". I think if Sawyer does what he claims he wants to do it will be an "or". You can make a mage who is good at direct damage, or one who is good at buffing. Not both.

 

[Angthoron]

Seems like Josh's ideas are pretty much what I was saying in my posts all along, minimal skill overlap + reward of chosen path.

It's not entirely that. There is going to be minimum overlap because he's cutting things which have even slightest overlap. Case in point, bashing doors. So you can't bash doors now because there is Lock Pick skill. It becomes worse. EVERYONE has lock pick skills. Even better, classes are all foremost paid attention to by the criterion of COMBAT usefulness. A wizard must deal similar kind of damage as a warrior and so must a rogue.

Well, at least it's not as bad as I erroneously presumed at first! I do agree that some overlap should exist, but I'm not sure if Bash is completely out? It could make sense to break some of the more basic doors with that, rather than use lockpicks on doors of flimsy huts or paper-thin chests. Maybe they'll still have that, and some other non-lockpick circumventions?

Melee classes should be doing more tactical things like the knockdowns, Tripping, bashing, Grappling, flanking, using special weapon styles (actively and not as a passive bonus) to take advantages of situations such as using Half Swords, using kicks etc to actually make melee interesting. More importantly not every build should be able to access all of them.

Yeah. The following, of course, is way more actioney-MMOey example, but I very much enjoye the way melee combat works in GW2 - it's frustrating and quite deadly, but also very much varied, the weapon skills and such are actually all different for all the different classes. Hell, D&D has tons of melee abilities, and yet most of D&D games that came out post-BG are basically "right-click, target, then select mage". Hnrgh, so fun.

The entire idea of a tank, is terrible.

This, so much this. "Hey guys, that guy that's clearly a wizard has been chanting and arranging baby bones for the last half a minute, do you think we should attack him?" "Nah, let's try to break this warrior's shield, I'm sure that's going to happen any minute now" "But the cleric's keeping him up!" "Shaddap, we've been in this henchman business way longer than you, greenhorn"

It does make things easier though, since without "aggro tables" what you get is a pile of mess for an average player that doesn't know that having two warriors take a defensive position in a narrow hallway and have the party behind them would take care of things nicely. That, or crowd control spells. Your average player will want to cast Fireball instead of Web, you know.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, at least it's not as bad as I erroneously presumed at first! I do agree that some overlap should exist, but I'm not sure if Bash is completely out? It could make sense to break some of the more basic doors with that, rather than use lockpicks on doors of flimsy huts or paper-thin chests. Maybe they'll still have that, and some other non-lockpick circumventions?

Obviously, if a door isn't actually locked, but instead barred, kicking it open is a good option. But I'm not sure if you even need a skill or stat for that.

 

[tuluse]

It also doesn't make sense that 5 goblins can just run right past your sword wielding fighter without having to worry him. AoO were handled so poorly in NWN2, and generally are shit mechanic for RT, so I have no problem with mechanics that directly affect how or where an opponent can move.

 

[Gozma]

It does make things easier though, since without "aggro tables" what you get is a pile of mess for an average player that doesn't know that having two warriors take a defensive position in a narrow hallway and have the party behind them would take care of things nicely. That, or crowd control spells. Your average player will want to cast Fireball instead of Web, you know.

Hallway blocking implies you can understand where the actual boundaries of areas are on the jpeg background in an IE game

 

[Angthoron]

It does make things easier though, since without "aggro tables" what you get is a pile of mess for an average player that doesn't know that having two warriors take a defensive position in a narrow hallway and have the party behind them would take care of things nicely. That, or crowd control spells. Your average player will want to cast Fireball instead of Web, you know.

Hallway blocking implies you can understand where the actual boundaries of areas are on the jpeg background in an IE game

Touche.

 

[Captain Shrek]

believe it or not, sawyer can make a way better game reading these few posts than playing LoL for all eternity.

 

[tuluse]

You do know that Wizards have at will spells? I can guess that they are going to be Ray of frost, Acid splash and arrow of flame.

Well yes, the mage is going to have *some* ability to do damage, but spells of that nature are so weak they don't unbalance anything.