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Drifter
Oct 22, 2000

Belated Bear Witness
Soiled Meat

rope kid posted:

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.

Oh rope kid, you're wrong; you've stolen my heart. :ninja:

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LogicNinja
Jan 21, 2011

...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...

rope kid posted:

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.

Thanks, that sounds pretty good! The "observation" part I'm no good at/not patient enough for, but the rest sounds better than most of what I usually see in games.

e: No randomly pickpocketing poo poo from people sounds just fine to me. I've never met a pickpocketing mechanic that's made sense and been fun.

verybad
Apr 23, 2010

Now with 100% less DoTA crotchshots

rope kid posted:

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.

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.

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?

verybad fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jan 17, 2014

idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!

SurrealityCheck posted:

Thinking about the example of DX:HR and it reminded me of an interesting bonus of the PoE system - the more you explicitly reward and differentiate between the atomic actions the player can take the more you control those atomic actions. In the case of Deus Ex, everybody was gently nudged towards the stealth action because every single non stealth kill came with opportunity cost, and you were explicitly reminded of that by little text notifications!

I think the text notifications were actually part of the problem. The way it seemed like the XP rewards were supposed to work is that if you ran in guns blazing, more guards would spawn to fight you. So you'd be getting less XP per guard, but since you fought more guards you'd end up in the same vicinity. But:

1) Seeing a ten pop up when you know a thirty is possible is demoralizing.
2) There were never enough guard spawns to make up the difference.
3) You could frequently get multiple XP rewards that should have been mutually exclusive. For instance, the "ghost" bonus for getting through a level without being seen still applied even if you knocked everyone out. (I can't help but think that one's just a plain oversight.)
4) Mixing and matching the bonuses could result in a large variance of XP, positive or negative.

I think it was a worthwhile attempt, just not vetted thoroughly enough.

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008

This is me as I make another great post


Good luck with your depression!

rope kid posted:

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.

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

rope kid
Feb 3, 2001

Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

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.

rope kid
Feb 3, 2001

Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

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.

El Pollo Blanco
Jun 12, 2013

by sebmojo

(and can't post for 5 days!)

Planescape Torment style pickpocketing in-dialogue mechanics with multiple outcomes, and a choice of actions to take while attempting to pickpocket someone? Game of the Year.

Rinkles
Oct 24, 2010

What I'm getting at is...
Do you feel the same way?

El Pollo Blanco posted:

Planescape Torment style pickpocketing in-dialogue mechanics with multiple outcomes, and a choice of actions to take while attempting to pickpocket someone? Game of the Year.

Wait where are you getting the second bit from?

El Pollo Blanco
Jun 12, 2013

by sebmojo

(and can't post for 5 days!)

Rinkles posted:

Wait where are you getting the second bit from?

Sorry, to clarify, that is how the mechanic worked in Planescape Torment, and I'm hoping it will be the same in PoE.

chiefnewo
May 21, 2007

rope kid posted:

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.
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.

Can you sort of fudge it by making the player's circles get bigger when they're in the light?

Drifter
Oct 22, 2000

Belated Bear Witness
Soiled Meat

Rinkles posted:

Wait where are you getting the second bit from?

The same place anyone gets information when they mention something being GoTY. Their imagination.

coffeetable
Feb 5, 2006

TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

chiefnewo posted:

Can you sort of fudge it by making the player's circles get bigger when they're in the light?
The problem isn't the UI, it's that this isn't a stealth game and adding a dependence on lighting would make stealthing a party of six a giant timesink.

Drifter
Oct 22, 2000

Belated Bear Witness
Soiled Meat

coffeetable posted:

The problem isn't the UI, it's that this isn't a stealth game and adding a dependence on lighting would make stealthing a party of six a giant timesink.

Can my characters mine for clay and ore, and then use that ore to make a railroad, and then use a small family of drakes they've captured to bake the clay into bricks and then ship the bricks over the railroad into towns, and then lay each individual brick like in minecraft to build houses and then corner the housing market and then buy my way into the governing aristocracy and then lead a coup and then invest in university education and public health services and then develop sewer systems and then use my bricks to build it and then live in the sewers and then become the Rat King of the Underneath when I abdicate my government position aboveground?

My other characters could still be adventuring, though.

coffeetable
Feb 5, 2006

TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

Drifter posted:

Can my characters mine for clay and ore, and then use that ore to make a railroad, and then use a small family of drakes they've captured to bake the clay into bricks and then ship the bricks over the railroad into towns, and then lay each individual brick like in minecraft to build houses and then corner the housing market and then buy my way into the governing aristocracy and then lead a coup and then invest in university education and public health services and then develop sewer systems and then use my bricks to build it and then live in the sewers and then become the Rat King of the Underneath when I abdicate my government position aboveground?

My other characters could still be adventuring, though.

No, Peter Molyneux doesn't work for Obsidian.

Rinkles
Oct 24, 2010

What I'm getting at is...
Do you feel the same way?

coffeetable posted:

The problem isn't the UI, it's that this isn't a stealth game and adding a dependence on lighting would make stealthing a party of six a giant timesink.

I guess you could have different stealth range modifiers on some special maps. It's always easier to stealth in the Murky Forest. It's always harder to stealth on the Flat Plains of Eternal Sunshine.

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

Rinkles posted:

I guess you could have different stealth range modifiers on some special maps. It's always easier to stealth in the Murky Forest. It's always harder to stealth on the Flat Plains of Eternal Sunshine.
I assume they will do this.

LogicNinja
Jan 21, 2011

...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...
Will Rogues (or other classes) Have abilities that enhance stealth? Getting to spend a certain amount of time in someone's circle before being detected, for example.

evilmiera
Dec 14, 2009

Status: Ravenously Rambunctious

Drifter posted:

Can my characters mine for clay and ore, and then use that ore to make a railroad, and then use a small family of drakes they've captured to bake the clay into bricks and then ship the bricks over the railroad into towns, and then lay each individual brick like in minecraft to build houses and then corner the housing market and then buy my way into the governing aristocracy and then lead a coup and then invest in university education and public health services and then develop sewer systems and then use my bricks to build it and then live in the sewers and then become the Rat King of the Underneath when I abdicate my government position aboveground?

My other characters could still be adventuring, though.

With Mount and Blade plus a few mods, sure!

El Pollo Blanco
Jun 12, 2013

by sebmojo

(and can't post for 5 days!)

Drifter posted:

The same place anyone gets information when they mention something being GoTY. Their imagination.

Yes, wondering if a certain mechanic mentioned by a dev will be similar to that of another game which several of the current ObEnt team worked on is totally the same as grandiose Molyneuxian exaggeration.

Rinkles
Oct 24, 2010

What I'm getting at is...
Do you feel the same way?
I should have mentioned this when asking about stealing. How will short range sneak attacks work? Are they in?


rope kid, I know you know this, and also this is a form of promotion for your game, and also some of the goon responses border on sycophantic, but regardless, thanks for communicating so freely and frequently with us. It's pretty cool of you. Another thing that's probably mostly impossible with (modern) non-KS/indie games.

Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




GreatGreen posted:

I'd say the items should stay the same. Otherwise you get into weird balance issues. Giving a character a more powerful item would make him more powerful than he'd be on a lesser difficulty. If that's the case, fighting "harder" enemies with a stronger character probably wouldn't be any tougher than fighting "medium" enemies with a slightly weaker character. In that situation, the difference between easy and hard would basically be that an easy playthrough would provide the same sense of challenge while giving you more boring looking loot.


I kind of think some rewards should be different for a 'just makes sense' reason: if I kill everyone in a place I should be able to take their stuff, whereas if I don't I shouldn't. Thus the combat option should result in potentially more material rewards.

Personally though one of my favourite examples of 'different rewards for different approaches' which plenty of people have mentioned is Alpha Protocol, where if you go through an area shotgunning everyone in the face to reach your objective, you get a bonus relating to your ability to shotgun people in the face, and/or your reputation for shotgunning people in the face. Whereas if you sneak through an area without anyone noticing you get some kind of 'congratulations you're even better at sneaking now also thank you for not murdering all the people in that house we appreciate that.'

Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

and god is on your side
dividing sparrows from the nightingales
Even non-RPGs suffer from the "No reward? This is bullshit" thing. I remember when GTAV came out players were appalled at how many missions and side-activities didn't pay out money, or paid too little. If the only reason you're shooting it out with government agents and swerving through traffic to escape is because the game gives you so many fakebucks afterwards, you might not be playing for the right reasons.

EDIT: In Eternity news, that character screen is baller as gently caress and though I know you guys are probably still figuring out which character goes where, you should throw up some more character portraits/etc to speculate over. Outside of the 'have multiple solutions to quests' bit, Obsidian is at their best when it comes to the party members. Atton Rand :love:

Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jan 17, 2014

Republican Vampire
Jun 2, 2007


Atton was interesting because, even though he theoretically broke down to broad didactic stuff about Star Wars that only dorky spergs care about, his criticism of said broad didactic stuff was justified by characterization to the point that you don't really notice that it's about how terrifying and hosed up Jedi are until you do his Jedi-fication quest. Up until that point it just seems like his (admittedly valid) perspective, which sort of troubles the kind of perspective most players have about Star Wars. Atton is used to being the storm trooper that's told that these aren't the droids he's looking for, and he's got coping mechanisms to respond to that. What's interesting about him is that he responds to the fantastical in a practical way that informs about his character.

I kind of feel like most fantasy games don't get that. Characters fall into player-friendly whedonesque roles without any regard for that broader sense of how they ought to function in society.

Mordaedil
Oct 25, 2007

Oh wow, cool. Good job.
So?
Grimey Drawer

rope kid posted:

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.
You say circles, but will the enemies have like ice-cones of field of view like in Commandos? I recgonize you'd want a certain circle around the NPC's since it makes sense you'd "feel" someone behind you if close enough, but I reckon if they were looking in your direction, their cones would be lowered accordingly with your stealth as well.

rope kid posted:

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.
Thank you. I always found the "use a guide to know what NPC to pickpocket and if failed reload" mechanic as a bullshit reward/risk system that doesn't really have any place in any RPG where you are not playing a prick.

Also it is metagame as gently caress.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang

Mordaedil posted:

You say circles, but will the enemies have like ice-cones of field of view like in Commandos? I recgonize you'd want a certain circle around the NPC's since it makes sense you'd "feel" someone behind you if close enough, but I reckon if they were looking in your direction, their cones would be lowered accordingly with your stealth as well.

rope kid posted:

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.

Mordaedil
Oct 25, 2007

Oh wow, cool. Good job.
So?
Grimey Drawer
Yeah, I was just hoping for a more direct answer, but I guess that does kinda come as direct as they come. Can't wait to see the final version anyway.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang

Mordaedil posted:

Yeah, I was just hoping for a more direct answer, but I guess that does kinda come as direct as they come. Can't wait to see the final version anyway.

Yep, now we kinda need to have a video of this. And guarding. And the dense flora animation of that last screenshot. This game will practically sell itself, the way it's headed.

Blotto Skorzany
Nov 7, 2008

He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

Furism posted:

Yep, now we kinda need to have a video of this. And guarding. And the dense flora animation of that last screenshot. This game will practically sell itself, the way it's headed.

Dense flora you say

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eozOQ9kgb8c

Blotto Skorzany
Nov 7, 2008

He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip
Speaking of soundtracks, Ben Houge is a cool dude

Bob NewSCART
Feb 1, 2012

Outstanding afternoon. "I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse."

How far off is any kind of playable version and where do I throw money at this?

Gyshall
Feb 24, 2009

Had a couple of drinks.
Saw a couple of things.

rope kid posted:

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.

That sounds awesome, really looking forward to the dialog in this game.

Stealth also sounds way more awesome than the Baldur's Gate games, so cool.

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Bob NewSCART posted:

How far off is any kind of playable version and where do I throw money at this?

http://eternity.obsidian.net/buy

coffeetable
Feb 5, 2006

TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

Bob NewSCART posted:

How far off is any kind of playable version and where do I throw money at this?
End of 2014 it's looking like, and the playable beta will likely turn up at the same kind of time.

GreatGreen
Jul 3, 2007
That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.
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?

Spun Dog
Sep 21, 2004


Smellrose
Will I have to gather my party before venturing forth?

a whole buncha crows
May 8, 2003

WHEN WE DON'T KNOW WHO TO HATE, WE HATE OURSELVES.-SA USER NATION (AKA ME!)

Spun Dog posted:

Will I have to gather my party before venturing forth?

You must!

VanSandman
Feb 16, 2011
SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER
One thing I'd really like to see is multiple ability hotbars when you've got multiple characters selected. Maybe they could collapse on top of each other to keep the screen uncluttered, but it'd be nice to be able to rapidly switch between characters without pausing sometimes.

rope kid
Feb 3, 2001

Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

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.

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LogicNinja
Jan 21, 2011

...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...

coffeetable posted:

End of 2014 it's looking like

More like Waiting for Eternity, amirite? :colbert:

e: Seriously, I am super excited about this and Torment coming out. I should've just kept on forgetting about it until it came out, that's probably the best thing to do with Kickstarters you really want.

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