Pillars of Eternity

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rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Krowley posted:

That's rad. I wonder if Sworn Enemy applies to every enemy or just a specific type.

Sworn Enemy is an active use 1/rest ability for paladins. They target one specific enemy and gain bonuses against that enemy until (presumably) the enemy goes down.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 23:31

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:05

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Lotish posted:

I can dig it. That screenshot looks sexy as hell.

Still hoping that Barbarians get melee AoE effects that do benefit from Intelligence, because I really want to have an Int Barb.

A high Int barbarian would have a larger Carnage radius and Carnage is Extremely Gnarly.

We set up a fight last week with (among other things) two aumaua barbarians dual-wielding battle axes. A lot of people provoked the fight at toe-to-toe range and the aumaua immediately Frenzied. It looked like they were just wading through the party cutting down wheat. Carnage rolls attacks and damage separately from the base attack, but it is still very nasty and bad news if a bunch of dudes are grouped up.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 23:41

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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The Crotch posted:

EDIT: But is a spell wasted entirely if it gets interrupted?

Currently, no. If a spell or ability doesn't go off, it isn't lost but it has to be started over.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 23:55

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Elardh Dwr is a unique breastplate. It's Glanfathan for "Steel Swan".

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 01:34

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coffeetable posted:

Just noticed the +2 from the amulet suppresses the +1 from the breastplate. Does the same system apply to derived stats? So if you have a +1 Con helmet which gives you +2% health, and a +4% Health breastplate, is the health bonus (but not the actual con bonus) from the helmet suppressed?

No.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 02:02

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Jimbot posted:

When coming up with language, do you draw any influences from real-world languages? If so, which ones?

Yeah I'm almost entirely ripping off/recombining various languages for our conlangs. Vailian is based on Italian, Occitan, French, and a li'l Catalan. Glanfathan is based on Cornish and Welsh with a li'l Irish. Eld Aedyran is based on Old English and a li'l Icelandic.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 02:04

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Twobirds posted:

As someone who finds the language-building fascinating, would I find some good reading in the 'World Almanac' add-on on the backer site?

Maybe. We will almost certainly be including all of the pronunciation/orthography/grammar notes, names, and glossaries.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 02:44

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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VanSandman posted:

Oh God I'm going to stop and figure out how to position people pixel perfectly each time I change my party

We've mostly copied the formation UI from Temple of Elemental Evil, BTW.

Rinkles posted:

I'm guessing the scroll bar is a mockup or doth some mystery reside above Might?

It's all a mockup. ~*

But yeah, that's the "top" of the sheet.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 03:36

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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User0015 posted:

Give me this game already please, tia~~

Looking at the stats page rope kid, how are you going to explain to idiot players like me what the benefits are for having a high accuracy compared to penetration? In the same vein, do I need dex to hit on spells? Do spells gain bonuses from penetration? Also, her stats say her Might is 13, but it appears her might is actually 12, but boosted by equipment. Might want to note that her stats are being artificially modified (for good or ill) with maybe a (+/-) on the stats page. Especially important if the equivalent of feats have a stat requirement (or dialogue has a req or etc...) and I mistakenly think I have the minimum but don't.

Accuracy is your chance to hit with any attack -- weapon, spell, gun, etc. doing damage, causing status effects, etc. -- it doesn't matter. All other things being equal, 1 point of Accuracy is 1% greater chance to hit (shifting crit, graze, and miss accordingly). When you do something offensively, you are always trying to hit and that always depends on your Accuracy vs. the target's defense(s).

Penetration is armor negation and it's something I'm less interested in attaching to Perception than Interrupt. If we did use Penetration as something modified by Perception, every attack that does damage would have a base Penetration that could be increased by Perception. It is more likely that we will stick to the old system, in which some specific spells and weapons have an inherent Penetration but other attacks simply try to brute force through DT the old-fashioned way (more damage).

As a side note, we're extremely unlikely to have attribute prereqs for Talents. In the last Pathfinder game I ran, I removed ability score prereqs from every feat and it make no discernible difference to the balance of the game (of course, I also made all of the ability scores more equally valuable, which helped).

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 04:25

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Gyshall posted:

Also, the update mentions equipment variations. Is that to say if I pick up an Iron Sword of Cool Stuff +1, and then pick up an Iron Sword of Moderate Stuff +1, they would have a different model? Or purely statistical variations? (or both)

We will try to make as many physical variants as is practical. I can't guarantee that every variant will have a different model, but we do want to distinguish them as much as we can.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 04:25

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Yeah, it's her order, the Brotherhood of the Five Suns.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 10:46

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Ratios and Tendency posted:

How are we pronouncing Pallegina because, uh...

pah-lleh-DJEE-nah

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 10:53

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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I think we're going to support right-click AoE scaling at least for guard functionality.

Yes, we are bringing that back for this game even though I am apparently the only person who used it.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 17:03

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Fair Bear Maiden posted:

Eh, thinking about it, I can see how Pallegina (palle = balls, also used for testicles + gina out of vagina) might sound silly, but despite being a native speaker that didn't really come to mind when I saw the name, it just seemed like a made-up Italian-sounding name.

I don't think it's an exaggeration that 1-3 times on every project, someone writes to me and lets me know that if you change/drop/add two letters and an accent in a character/place name, it means Farty Poop Butt or equivalent in their native language.

For Ed�r, someone told me about the German footballer Norbert Eder. Someone else told us that in Hungarian if you add a letter or two and shift an accent it's apparently some goofy TV character.

Even if we directly used real world names verbatim, those names often mean wacky things in other languages. At least she's not named Salma.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 17:13

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QVC Drinking Game posted:

There was a guard function in IE games???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PreAABChTyQ

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 17:14

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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We're still tuning overall combat speed, which should be similar to mid-level IWD or BG2 combat. We also have a slow mode that drops the speed of the entire game world to about 50% (maybe even slower). You can play pretty big fights in that way without much (sometimes any) pausing.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 17:25

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Wingless posted:

Explain this "guard" business.

The shield icon in the main HUD can be clicked and dragged (and will really ONLY work if clicked and dragged) to create a radius that the selected characters will guard. They move to the center of the circle and will move to intercept enemies that move inside the radius. If there are no enemies in the radius, they return to the center of the circle.

In PE there will be a default radius but we want to allow it to be scaled.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 17:32

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Most of the ability and racial bonuses that were absent for BG were added in IWD (and were definitely there in IWD2). IDK about BG2.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 18:02

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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It might be. Currently it's just a fixed (slow) speed.

On the topic of GAMEHAX that are actually just little-known parts of the game, is everyone aware what clicking on matching open/closed brackets in F3/F:NV's hacking minigame does?

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 19:14

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Guard certainly wasn't required for ProGaming but it was useful.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2014 03:06

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Wingless posted:

This raise the problem of how do you reward any sort of devious thinking or extra effort on the player's part?

If it is not rewarding enough to play on its own, stop playing our terrible game.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2014 16:57

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Wingless posted:

I did not think making a general comment on reward structure in computer games would provoke such a weirdly snarky response.

The response was not intended to be snarky, but 100% sincere. If participating in a specific type of core gameplay is not enjoyable on its own, our game is bad and I sincerely encourage people to not engage in it/not play the game. There is one main thing we want to reward with XP in our game: pursuing and completing quests. Our quests are unique, they cannot be repeated, and they typically can be completed in a number of different ways using a number of different gameplay mechanics. If you get tired of talking to people to solve quests, start provoking fights. If you get tired of fighting, start sneaking around. If none of those things are fun anymore, then the game's not fun anymore. I don't want to motivate people to grit their teeth while using gameplay mechanics they hate because there's an XP incentive for doing so.

SurrealityCheck posted:

If you have an XP system you already have an explicit reward structure for the player. It makes sense to have that reward structure incentivise playing the game in an interesting way; players will go for the long term reward over the short term gameplay reward almost every time simply because that is how people play RPGs.

Players will play the way that they enjoy playing. If we judge that stealth is more interesting than combat or combat is more interesting than conversation and decide to alter the rewards players receive for engaging in that gameplay, we're putting two desires into conflict: 1) the desire to complete quests using the gameplay they enjoy and 2) the desire to achieve a maximally beneficial reward. I don't think that's a good conflict for us to set up because it often, demonstrably, results in players grinding through activities in ways they don't want to because the game incentivizes them to do so.

In-world reactions are something we will always emphasize because those reactions are purely for role-playing purposes. Sometimes the reactions are positive, sometimes they are negative, but they are intended to typically (though not always) align with the role the player sets out to play among the world's characters. If you're playing Alpha Protocol and Mike just starts blasting marines at the Embassy, I doubt players are negatively surprised by the reaction they get from other characters for it. You start blasting marines because of the reactions you're going to get!

# ¿ Jan 16, 2014 19:16

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Something I don't think I've mentioned about the AoE increase from Intellect: it's actual area that increases, not radius, which helps keep sizes in the "helpful" rather than "insane" category.

LogicNinja posted:

Hey, speaking of sneaking, have we heard anything about how stealth is going to be handled in this? I didn't find the BG2/etc implementation very satisfactory.

We've talked about it a bit before but I don't know if we've gone into great detail. It's a little more involved without being Commandos-level (though Commandos is a cool series).

All characters can invest in the Stealth skill, though rogues and a few other classes start with a bonus in it. When you enable Scouting mode (which is used both for stealth and searching), you will see circles of varying radii around your characters (exact visualization TBD, but we want it to "fit") based on their Stealth skills compared to a relative average of creature perception ratings on the level. There is both a minimum and maximum base size for these circles. If the characters are bunched up, at the places where the circles overlap, they merge together to essentially form what looks like a "cloud" of no-touch-zone. While Scouting, all party members move at walking speed.

AIs also have circles around them, an inner and an outer. Touching the outer circle of AI will cause it to investigate (move toward you). Touching the inner circle blows THE RUSE and they either initiate conversation or go hostile based on their AI state. In many areas, creatures have static positions or short wander radii, but we try to include one or two patrollers to increase the challenge of navigating through areas.

We don't use light-level, facing, or other mechanics as part of stealth because it becomes extremely complicated and difficult with six characters. However, even this simple implementation is enjoyable and feels much more consistent than what was in the IE games.

In one quest I recently played through, I knew where I needed to go but there were some guys arguing outside. Instead of seizing the initiative, I waited to see what they were talking about before going in. Once I realized I needed to move, they started to go on patrols. I belatedly attempted to back out but I bumped into one of the guards' outer radii. He moved to investigate, I couldn't get away fast enough, he initiated combat, and my party was sort of caught in the lurch. It made the battle much more challenging, but it was fun to play with and when I failed, I knew exactly why and it totally made sense.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 02:58

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LogicNinja posted:

Sounds interesting, and definitely better than the Baldur's Gate style "hit the Stealth button and we roll a die behind the scenes and find you or not".

I'd like to get a clearer picture of how this works with individual vs party (some characters will be awful at stealth, probably, and would ruin it for everyone if everyone went together)--you seem to suggest that all six characters will be sneaking together? I'd expect something more like the party hanging back and one guy moving up to scout.

What does it take to be "good" at stealth, besides investing in the relevant skill? Do you need to be patient so you can figure out what enemy wander/patrol paterns are? Do you need to have quick reaction times so you can get away (probably not, if it's RTwP, since you can just pause)? Do you need to be careful when moving around?

e: Also, how about the intersection of stealth and combat? In a lot of games sneaking up on someone doesn't give you much of an advantage--you make the first move, essentially, but you can't put a sword/gun to their throat/temple. Let's say there are a bunch of guards on patrol and I totally have the drop on them--how does that help me vs. just hanging out somewhere and attacking as soon as they get in range? What about if I've sneaked past the guards, into the castle, and sneak up on the lord of the castle and his guards?

Whether you're in Scouting mode or not, you can choose to move characters one-by-one or in groups. It also depends on what you're trying to do. If you just want to get a character or two into close range for the start of combat, you could/would leave the others behind. If you're trying to get the entire party through/around a group, then you'd move the whole party.

To be good at stealth, you need to determine the way between the AIs that will keep you the safest distance away from them. Moving will also slightly "grow" your circle, so knowing when to stay put and when to move is important. A lot of it comes down to observation, planning, and timing. It is unlikely to be ultra-complicated, but should make you think.

Positioning is often important for how combat starts/goes down. If you just barrel into a group, the enemy "linebackers" (forward melee folks) will Melee Engage your dudes to prevent them from rushing toward their wizards, rangers, etc. Being behind that enemy line to begin with can be very advantageous, as it can be to flank the group.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 03:37

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Rinkles posted:

How do you steal if all AIs have an inner circle?

Picking pockets only happens through conversations for specific purposes (e.g. swiping a key or a little trinket). It's not a general mechanic to randomly use on folks.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 03:38

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verybad posted:

I'm confused here - what's the purpose of the circle around my characters? Does the enemy detect me when their circle touches my circle, or when it touches my character? If it's the first, since the radius of the circle is based on the average perception rating, does that mean an occasionally an enemy will detect me even though our circles are not touching? That could lead to some frustrated cries of "Bullshit!" from players, I imagine.

No, that never occurs. What you see is always what you get. The reason why a comparison to the average perception is done is to effectively normalize the range of circles. If your party has relatively low Stealth for their (high) level and walks into a low-level area full of unperceptive dopes, your party will all have tiny circles because you're King poo poo of Stealth Mountain.

quote:

Actually I'm a bit curious why you wouldn't include lighting levels with this system. It seems very simple: stand in a dark spot, your circle becomes smaller; stand in a bright spot, it grows. Since the circles give constant feedback to the player, and it makes intuitive sense that hiding in shadows is easier than hiding in broad daylight, it's not like there would be a problem with players not understanding the system or anything. I suppose it's a level design issue?

It's an information overload and micromanagement issue. If the goal is: don't touch the circles, it's relatively easy to figure out how to do that for a few characters or simply by keeping the characters entirely away from where the AIs are. If they have to do that and pay attention to lighting levels, you have to watch that for six characters. If the information is too hard to parse, the player will fall back to managing one character, which is really not what we're trying to funnel the player into doing.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 04:34

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Prokhor Zakharov posted:

So will stealth oriented rogues get some abilities like smaller detection circles, faster scouting speed, etc?

They have inherent bonuses to Stealth, so if you continue to invest in Stealth, they will always have the smallest detection circles in the party.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 04:34

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GreatGreen posted:

How far apart can we spread our party members and still keep them in the active party?

Can I send a rogue several screens away, at which point I'll be able to click on the rogue icon and have the camera center on the rogue, then click on the warrior or whatever and have the screen flip back over to the rest of the party?

Yes. As long as they're on the same map, you can do that.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 19:20

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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We're trying to make sure this will run on a wide variety of machines. It's too early to give definitive specs, but you shouldn't need a high-end machine in any way.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 19:37

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
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Some weapons have an inherent Deflection bonus, but those bonuses are low compared to what you get from a shield.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2014 16:47

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AXE COP posted:

I'm kind of sad about that because the d'Artagnan style duelist is my favourite archetype to play in fantasy games, and they almost universally suck.

They should be pretty good in PoE. If you dual-wield you're attacking much more frequently. If you wield a single weapon with nothing in the off-hand, you'll gain a good Accuracy bonus.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2014 18:55

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xthetenth posted:

With the way accuracy bonuses go, even if you're already accurate to the point of hitting basically all the time, you'll still see a benefit from getting more crits, right?

Yes. With a big enough Accuracy advantage, a character can wind up with almost all hits and crits.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 00:23

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DatonKallandor posted:

How are you doing frequency of attacks? Does "more attacks" also mean "faster attacks" - as in animation speed of attack because you need to fit them into a certain time window?

A character wielding two weapons is making more frequent attacks than one wielding one weapon (whether single-handed, two-handed, or with a shield). A character in lighter armor plays attack animations (and recovers from them) more quickly than one in heavier armor.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 00:24

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DatonKallandor posted:

Does an interrupted animation lead to straight up lost damage or would the attack just get pushed to later in the attack cycle? Or is there no cycle at all (like the 6-second turn of Baldurs Gate).

If an action is interrupted, it stops. If it's a repeated action like reloading/firing or performing standard attacks, it will restart from the beginning as soon as the interrupt animation finishes. For one-off/special use actions, the action isn't "lost" (meaning you can try using it again) but it will not auto-re-attempt.

QVC Drinking Game posted:

Sorry if this has been covered, but will there be visual elements that display AoE radius? I'm totally psyched for friendly fire but it got annoying in BG2 when you misjudged the radius of a fireball and toasted a nearby guard or something. NWN2/Dragon Age radius displays were a lot better.

Yes, you can see your AoE, but you also have the option to turn it off. In Expert mode, it's automatically turned off.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 03:39

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We do not have a lore explanation for why you can only wear two rings, sorry. We do use the two ring limit and the reasons are 1) overall game balance 2) tradition.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 20:51

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Sunning posted:

Are there limitations on certain equipment setups similar to how magic protection items didn't stack in older Infinity Engine games that ran ADnD 2.5e?

Currently, items and spells do not stack with each other. The exception to this are rings, because they are Special and Fancy. Potions do stack with other effects, but consuming a potion terminates ongoing effects from a potion currently in effect.

e: In the character sheet, we will show suppressed effects in italics so you can see what is being stomped by other items/spells.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 21:38

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Overminty posted:

Out of curiosity how do you determine which items' bonuses are used when you have more than one providing the same bonus?

Technically, effects with equal bonuses are all maintained and tracked. I'm not sure which one we say has precedence. It shouldn't really matter since the math is the same either way. However, if one of the bonuses is canceled or just runs out of duration, the other one(s) will take over.

rope kid fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jan 28, 2014

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 22:07

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Gyshall posted:

Awesome. Is this to prevent potion spam/superbuffing?

Potion spam should be less of an issue since you will play an animation to consume one (which can be interrupted, like other actions -- but does not provoke an attack as it does in D&D). It does allow you to have one pre-buff (and I do plan to tune potions to be fairly strong), but if you just keep slamming potions one after another, you're canceling the ones that came before with no real benefit.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 22:10

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Mymla posted:

What happens when abilities like this one crit? Same as a hit? Applies some sort of debuff to the target?

Right now, it's just the same effect as a hit.

Dr. Demon posted:

Concerning animal companions, will there be multiple species of animals to choose from? If so, will different species have different abilities, or will it be mainly a cosmetic choice?

Yes, there will be multiple animals to pick from. Each type is designed to have characteristics that distinguish it from the others.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 01:19

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:05

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Captain Scandinaiva posted:

I have a question about the UI, or more of a wish really. Will more detailed information about the game mechanics be integrated in the UI through tooltips and such? When playing many of the Infinity Engine games for the first time I often found myself confused on the mechanics. Today one also rarely has a paper copy of a game's manual ready, and it's a bit cumbersome to tab out and search a pdf. I think it would be great to have as much information from the manual as possible in the game itself.

Like, say you encounter a new enemy, you would be able to bring up information about that enemy by right-clicking them. That information could include what, if any, special attacks this enemy has. You could then click any of the special attacks to see what effect they have, maybe even how to counter the effects (see: Level and Energy Drain from BG2). Or, clicking your defense bonus would give you a full list of all effects currently affecting that stat, as well as a run down of how defense works mechanically.

We're addressing some of this already. From the character sheet, you can directly access an in-game summary of the rules (this appeared in the IE games as an "Information" button). You will learn information about enemies as you fight them. I don't just mean that in the obvious sense, but almost all creatures will have a cyclopedia entry. The more of these creatures you fight, the more information gets filled in about them. Once you know the standard defenses of a creature, those default values appear on their tooltips (in grey) until you attack them and learn the actual value.

In the combat log and character sheet, we will also be supporting brief/verbose outputs of formulae. Hovering over an entry will always give a verbose breakdown of what's going on.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 17:13

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