Pillars of Eternity

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

rope kid posted:

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

Hell yes. Awesome.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 20:07

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 01:46

Hand Row: May 28, 2001

VanSandman posted:

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.

I have wanted a favorites bar or custom party bar for a long time. Like I could put various party members skills all on the same bar ie cleric heal next to my wizards fireball.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 20:17

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

Hand Row posted:

I have wanted a favorites bar or custom party bar for a long time. Like I could put various party members skills all on the same bar ie cleric heal next to my wizards fireball.

I'd love this. Any ability of any of your characters on an expandable and collapsible hotbar or collection of hotbars.

Having to click each character, then an ability, then then enemy to be attacked... for every action you do is a bit tedious. Combat would be so much smoother if instead you could have customizable, completely open hotbar configurations. There are so many opportunities here to make the UI a joy instead of a pain.

One screen-wide bar you can put anything you want on. "1" activates bard's group CC, "2" activated Mage's AoE debuff, "3" activates Fighter's taunt which you then select the enemy to be targeted. "4" activates rogue's backstab, etc.

Or you could give everybody in the party their own independent hotbar.

Clicking ability->enemy1->ability->enemy2 would queue up attacks on multiple enemies, or you could queue repeated attacks on one enemy, etc.

If you're good and know the game inside and out, you could automate entire fights from one big chunk of hotbars in one pause screen, then watch the whole fight unfold when you unpause.

GreatGreen fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jan 17, 2014

# ? Jan 17, 2014 20:28

SurrealityCheck: Sep 15, 2012

Hand Row posted:

I have wanted a favorites bar or custom party bar for a long time. Like I could put various party members skills all on the same bar ie cleric heal next to my wizards fireball.

This is how it worked in mass effect 3, and it made cross-character ability combos very very easy. Diff designs though, etc.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 20:34

Fintilgin: Sep 29, 2004; Fintilgin sweeps!

coffeetable posted:

End of 2014 it's looking like, and the playable beta will likely turn up at the same kind of time.

It's a video game. Hope for late 2014, expect early/mid 2015.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 21:18

frajaq: Jan 30, 2009; #acolyte GM of 2014

So just computer intensive PoE will be? By the looks of the gorgeous videos and pics I imagine it won't run in my old lovely laptop :v:

I pray there are lots of "TURN OFF EVERYTHING PRETTY" options in the configurations.

# ? Jan 20, 2014 07:40

Scorchy: Jul 15, 2006; Smug Statement: Elementary, my dear meatbag.

frajaq posted:

So just computer intensive PoE will be? By the looks of the gorgeous videos and pics I imagine it won't run in my old lovely laptop

I pray there are lots of "TURN OFF EVERYTHING PRETTY" options in the configurations.

The pretty graphics are mostly pre-rendered 2D, so if you switch off some effects it will probably run and still look gorgeous. The original IE games hold up well to this day and use the same basic process.

# ? Jan 20, 2014 08:42

Fair Bear Maiden: Jun 17, 2013

frajaq posted:

So just computer intensive PoE will be? By the looks of the gorgeous videos and pics I imagine it won't run in my old lovely laptop

I pray there are lots of "TURN OFF EVERYTHING PRETTY" options in the configurations.

You'll probably have to wait a while longer for full specs, but rope kid said it'd run on "totally run of the mill PCs" in some old video update.

# ? Jan 20, 2014 08:47

Basic Chunnel: Sep 21, 2010; Jesus! Jesus Christ! Say his name! Jesus! Jesus! Come down now!

I just got a year-old laptop with an integrated video chipset and it can run Skyrim on low-mid settings like a champ. If Wasteland 2 is anything to go by, the public beta will probably have a weirdly high minimum spec requirement as resources are used inefficiently / are unoptimized (it loads jerkily at lowest settings on mine, currently). Once the quirks get sorted out it should have requirements more in line with its budget. You won't need a Crysis- or Witcher-capable rig.

# ? Jan 20, 2014 10:19

Kurtofan: Feb 16, 2011; hon hon hon

frajaq posted:

So just computer intensive PoE will be? By the looks of the gorgeous videos and pics I imagine it won't run in my old lovely laptop

I pray there are lots of "TURN OFF EVERYTHING PRETTY" options in the configurations.

Yeah me too, though I managed to run Mass Effect 2 and New Vegas on my laptop so hopefully it should be good?

# ? Jan 20, 2014 10:36

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

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

LogicNinja: Jan 21, 2011; ...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...

rope kid posted:

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.

Project Your Graphics Card Burns In Hell For Eternity: An HD++++ Experience With Dynamic Wind Streams.

# ? Jan 20, 2014 19:38

FuriousGeorge: Jan 23, 2006; Ah, the simple joys of a monkey knife-fight.; Grimey Drawer

If PoE doesn't feature glorious TressFX I'm taking back my Kickstarter donation. It's 2014, people. :colbert:

# ? Jan 20, 2014 23:06

Gyshall: Feb 24, 2009; Had a couple of drinks.
Saw a couple of things.

We getting an update this week?

# ? Jan 21, 2014 02:43

applesaucers: Jun 13, 2012; loyalty, faith, and motivation; a conviction that will lead to victory no matter the odds

Recent updates have been on a biweekly schedule, so probably not.

# ? Jan 21, 2014 03:31

Scorchy: Jul 15, 2006; Smug Statement: Elementary, my dear meatbag.

Gyshall posted:

We getting an update this week?

There was one last week so probably not. There's always the the Dev Tracker if you want new info: http://pedevtracker.azurewebsites.net/

Friendly fire can't be turned off:

quote:

We don't have any plans to make FF a toggle. Our approach with difficulty is to add or remove enemies to change the tactical considerations of encounters and to hide or reveal information based on user preferences. FF is just a part of how some spells work and I don't think it's a good idea to make that something the player can toggle. It changes the values of those spells too much, IMO.

...

When FF gets turned off, the effectiveness of all spells that could have FF goes up significantly. If a subset of AoEs are to be markedly powerful compared to alternatives, FF (or some equivalent) should exist as a drawback. This allows the player to choose between using powerful friend-or-foe AoEs, less powerful foe-only AoEs, and powerful targeted spells. When FF gets turned off, that middle category largely becomes obsolete and even the targeted spells logically get bumped down a peg.

Deflection vs. DT:

quote:

First, I want to distinguish between Deflection and Damage Threshold. Deflection is what enemies attack, it's like AC in D&D. Deflection is derived from the character's class, level, and other bonuses from gear, spells, etc. Damage Threshold is what's used to reduce damage once you get hit and it comes mostly from the armor you wear, though heavier armor slows the character's actions (attacks, spells, etc.) down.

The advantage to wearing lighter armor in PoE is a faster attack speed, which can lead to great offensive potential. If you wield a single-handed weapon with no shield, you will gain an Accuracy bonus, but not a Deflection bonus. A dude with padded armor and a rapier will attack frequently and with higher accuracy, but he'll be relatively easy to hit and take more damage. If you want a great Deflection, wear a shield and accept standard Accuracy (or even reduced Accuracy for heavier shields). If you want to soak a lot of damage, wear heavier armor.

# ? Jan 21, 2014 03:33

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

I really hope with all this talk of fast and slow attack speed a character having a large two handed slow weapon actually has some visual weight behind his movements. Like, I hope the animations are noticeably different.

I know that's a lot of work and all, but man, having damage attacks only differ by 'wait X*2 seconds for animation to play again' and 'wait X*.5 seconds for animation to play again' is really sad to me.

The Banner Saga had some really nice weighty animations.

# ? Jan 21, 2014 03:40

Gyshall: Feb 24, 2009; Had a couple of drinks.
Saw a couple of things.

Scorchy posted:

There was one last week so probably not. There's always the the Dev Tracker if you want new info: http://pedevtracker.azurewebsites.net/

The dev tracker is in my RSS feed

Always awesome to see new updates there.

Had no idea it was biweekly, so I'll hold my proverbial horses.

# ? Jan 21, 2014 03:56

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Glad to hear that about FF. No FF I think is one major reason why certain types of video game combat are simplistic and shallow (*cough* MMORPGs). Don't have to actually think tactically about hurling ginormous fireball spell constantly when it can never hurt your allies or yourself.

# ? Jan 21, 2014 05:08

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Definitely, magic tends to be incredibly boring without it. All hail friendly fire.

Jackard fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Jan 21, 2014

# ? Jan 21, 2014 07:23

The Crotch: Oct 16, 2012; by Nyc_Tattoo

Why limit friendly fire to just magic? :getin:

# ? Jan 21, 2014 07:30

Eddain: May 6, 2007

I like that strategy in Baldur's Gate where you stack your main melee fighter with fire resistance and just have all your casters drop Fireballs on his location.

# ? Jan 21, 2014 23:26

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

http://imgur.com/gallery/BlDYE

I know you guys like maps and stuff. Someone uploaded a couple of old high-ish res maps that I thought maybe you'd like to see. There's nothing crazy, but oh well.

I kinda like these two.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 08:58

Rolling Scissors: Jul 22, 2005; Turn off the fountain dear, it's just me.; Nap Ghost

The dudes with the magnificent flocks of hair are on the map because:

http://www.antiquemaps.co.uk/book/chapter10.asp posted:

THE STORY OF THE WINDROSE

Collectors new to our subject may wonder about the significance of those figureheads symbolizing the winds which frequently border fifteenth- and sixteenth-century maps. In seeking their origins it soon becomes apparent that here, myth, legend and historical fact intermingle and, as so often happens in studies of cartography, we have to start by going back to the earliest days of the Greek world.

In classical lore the names of the four principal winds Boreas (north), Notos (south), Burus (east) and Zephyrus (west) - are ascribed to Homer who told of Aeolus, the son of Hippotes, the father of the winds. Aeolos, it was said, jealously guarded the winds in a remote cave in Thrace, but was prevailed upon to release them as a gift to Odysseus who had long awaited a favourable wind to take him on the next stage of his Aegean adventures. The adverse winds were to be restrained in a leather bag but the story in the Odyssey relates how they were unwittingly released with dire consequences for Odysseus and his crew. The compilers of the early medieval maps followed the Homeric legend, the winds being represented by 'wind-heads', sometimes using their 'Aeolus' bags or, more often, simply by figures blowing benignly or ferociously depending on the nature of the wind they represent. Apart, however, from the genesis of the wind names in Greek mythology, what do we know of the more practical aspects of the subject?

Life for the peoples of the Mediterranean was inseparable from the sea; Minoans, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans all left their mark and all were dependent for survival at sea on their knowledge of the winds. The Greeks - who deified the winds - developed and refined the basic idea of the four principal winds by adding others adjusted to the summer and winter sunrise and sunset, roughly equivalent to the northwest, north-east, south-west and south-east. From the earliest times the 'winds' became synonymous with 'direction' and chart makers must have soon found that it was convenient to combine indications of direction with the names of the winds: in consequence, the windrose took shape. One of the earliest, consisting of twelve winds, was set out by Timosthenes of Rhodes, a Greek admiral of the third century BC on whose work Marinus of Tyre is said to have relied for calculations of distances in the eastern Mediterranean. These in turn were accepted by Ptolemy in compiling his Geographia. It would be too much, however, to expect to find in those early times a 'standard' windrose acceptable to all seamen throughout the Mediterranean. Long after Timosthenes, the Tower of the Winds, erected in Athens about the year 100 BC had only eight sides bearing emblematic figures representing Boreas (north), Cecias (Kaikias) (north-east), Burus (east), Apeliotes (south-east), Notos (south), Lips (south-west), Zephyrus (west) and Skiron or Corus (north-west).

Following the Greeks, the Romans were no less mindful of the need to propitiate the gods, or rather goddesses, before any major undertaking at sea; white animals were sacrificed to the beneficent winds, black animals to those regarded as malevolent. Later generations of seafarers in north-west Europe and the Mediterranean may not have deified the winds as their ancestors did but they were equally dependent on them. Charlemagne is said to have introduced new Frankish names for the 12 point windrose and, centuries later, traders from the Low- Countries started to use their equivalent of the modern English terms North, South, Fast and West for the four principal winds.

About the end of the 13th century the discovery of the magnetic compass finally enabled sailors to plot a more accurate course even if they were still reliant on wind power. In the new era the windrose was combined with a compass card with as many as 32 directional points but it seems that its use was not always welcome. Traditional knowledge of the winds gained over many centuries was not to be discarded lightly and there was always suspicion of the accuracy of the compass itself due, no doubt, to magnetic variation, then, of course, not understood. In fact, the use of the wind names persisted for centuries and appeared on most of the first printed world maps. These show a confusing array of wind heads bearing what seem sometimes to he almost a random choice of names, Greek, Latin and medieval. During the century which spanned the printing of the first maps down to Mercator's elegant drawing of Ptolemy's maps in 1578, engravers conjured up every style of wind head ranging from those on the Ulm Ptolemy (1482/6) - where thev look like benign citizens of Ulm rather than Greek Gods - to those on the Ortelius world map of 1564 where they seem to have become contemporary figures of the Low Countries. A particularly fascinating example is the Gregor Reisch (c. 1470-1525) map of the world (1503) embellished with twelve windheads bearing a variety of Greek, Latin and medieval names - in the case of 'South' using all three, while in another, 'Vulturnus' is looking through a pair of spectacles, perhaps not surprisingly, as he has been placed in the north-east quadrant of the map instead of the south-east where he properly belongs! 'Vulturnus' is similarly misplaced in a number of other maps of the time. On occasion, as in the Laurent Fries World Map (1522), the wind names are incorporated in a decorative border without the benefit of windheads.

By the fourth quarter of the 16th century the classical 'wind-blowers' had outlived their time and were giving way to other more abstract forms of decoration. About the same time the compass rose, which of course had long appeared on portulan and manuscript sea charts, finally displaced the windrose and for centuries became an essential and highly decorative feature of printed charts and of many other maps which included an area of sea.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 10:47

CountingWizard: Jul 6, 2004

Will the gameplay follow the typical pattern of: save before every battle and reload until you win without anyone dieing? My typical Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale/TOEE/Dragon Age experience followed that pattern since death had such strong penalties and occurred so frequently. In each one of those games I eventually stopped playing because of it.

I've been playing Temple of Elemental Evil lately, and I stopped following that pattern and just accepting my losses, but now I spend too much time travelling back and forth after each battle. I was wondering if this game will handle things any differently.

CountingWizard fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Jan 22, 2014

# ? Jan 22, 2014 15:44

Fair Bear Maiden: Jun 17, 2013

The game uses two resources instead of the usual hitpoints: Stamina and Health. Stamina are the closest to hitpoints, given that when they go to 0 the character is knocked down and out for the battle, but Health is the long-term stat: if it reaches 0 you die. You take damage at a 4:1 Stamina-Health ratio, meaning that you can usually be knocked down 4 times before dying. Also, resting at a camp replenishes your health.

There's also a babby mode that you can toggle that makes it so that your characters just get a "Maimed" status instead of dying in combat, which still severely limits their ability in combat until, I think, you rest at a camp.

If your whole party goes KO during a battle it will still be game over, but overall KOs don't carry the same weight they did in the IE forebears of PoE.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 15:59

VanSandman: Feb 16, 2011; SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER

edit: Beaten with a proper explanation.

VanSandman fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Jan 22, 2014

# ? Jan 22, 2014 15:59

Ihmemies: Oct 6, 2012

I thought magnetic compass was invented when Jesus Christ was around, not 1300AD, but whatever.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 16:19

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

CountingWizard posted:

Will the gameplay follow the typical pattern of: save before every battle and reload until you win without anyone dieing? My typical Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale/TOEE/Dragon Age experience followed that pattern since death had such strong penalties and occurred so frequently. In each one of those games I eventually stopped playing because of it.

I've been playing Temple of Elemental Evil lately, and I stopped following that pattern and just accepting my losses, but now I spend too much time travelling back and forth after each battle. I was wondering if this game will handle things any differently.

Just a suggestion, but you may want to reduce the difficulty of the games you play until you have a better grasp of what each game requires. Difficulty seems to mostly effect enemy hitpoints and damage output of enemy attacks, so it's not like you would lose out on any story stuff.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 16:39

Rolling Scissors: Jul 22, 2005; Turn off the fountain dear, it's just me.; Nap Ghost

Ihmemies posted:

I thought magnetic compass was invented when Jesus Christ was around, not 1300AD, but whatever.

Well yes, but it was not used as a navigational tool in sea voyages until around by that date even by the Chinese, who were the first to do so, I think.

But to bring it back to topic, we need crudely drawn portraits of majestic heavy metal dudes in the world map margins in PoE too.

Rolling Scissors fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jan 22, 2014

# ? Jan 22, 2014 16:40

SurrealityCheck: Sep 15, 2012

So wait Rope Kid - the way the system is currently set up, you can't make an archetypal "fencer" who parries everything with his flashy moves?

No ability to have a main gauche, or anything?

# ? Jan 22, 2014 16:45

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

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

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

Do any weapons deviate from the normal 4:1 ratio of stamina damage to health damage?

# ? Jan 22, 2014 16:54

Tzarnal: Dec 26, 2011

Okay, so up to Skyrim TES games could not do dual wielding weapons, engine limitations. But people still wanted to do so, so instead they made "defending" weapons. Shields that just happened to look like swords or staves.

Reason I'm bringing that up is that I'd like to suggest defensive weapons for PoE, they act like shields for defense, they just look like an animate like wielding two weapons.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 16:58

Cheston: Jul 17, 2012; (he's got a good thing going)

Otto Skorzeny posted:

Do any weapons deviate from the normal 4:1 ratio of stamina damage to health damage?

Pretty sure weapons only damage stamina, and health just goes down as a result of stamina loss.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 17:04

Male Man: Aug 16, 2008; Im, too sexy for your teatime
Too sexy for your teatime
That tea that you're just driiinkiing

Otto Skorzeny posted:

Do any weapons deviate from the normal 4:1 ratio of stamina damage to health damage?

From what we've heard, stamina/health is a player-only thing. If your question is "Do any enemies deviate from the normal ratio?", then I wouldn't expect it. That change, even if properly telegraphed, would have a negligible impact on your tactical choices and your strategic choice is still "try not to die" except with an arbitrarily higher or lower punishment. All it'd be doing is subverting the system for the sake of it.

You could spend time crafting a scenario where that enemy is in an optional encounter you know about ahead of time, placed partway through a chain of encounters that demand to be done in one shot. Then there's a choice to either go after the riskier encounter but potentially break through before taking significant damage or go after the safer encounter that's been designed to have no easy solutions. That'd be a whole lot of effort to get right, and I'm not sure about the value of the payoff.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 17:10

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

Male Man posted:

From what we've heard, stamina/health is a player-only thing.

This is where I misunderstood things. I had assumed that NPCs and PCs/party members had the same character sheets, so to speak, such that it would be possible to knock enemies out (eg. when doing a pacifist run/conduct) rather than kill them in some circumstances. Do you have a link to the update where they talked about this?

# ? Jan 22, 2014 17:18

SurrealityCheck: Sep 15, 2012

rope kid posted:

Some weapons have an inherent Deflection bonus, but those bonuses are low compared to what you get from a shield.

OK. So if you wanted to do that, it would either be aggressive but squishy, or specialise in whatever way is available to make your defense good at the cost of offense. I suppose that makes sense.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 17:23

AXE COP: Apr 16, 2010; i always feel like

somebody's watching me

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.

I was also under the impression that enemies also had stamina/health. I know they share tons of other things with PCs, like NPC barbarians having Carnage.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 17:57

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 01:46

Male Man: Aug 16, 2008; Im, too sexy for your teatime
Too sexy for your teatime
That tea that you're just driiinkiing

Otto Skorzeny posted:

This is where I misunderstood things. I had assumed that NPCs and PCs/party members had the same character sheets, so to speak, such that it would be possible to knock enemies out (eg. when doing a pacifist run/conduct) rather than kill them in some circumstances. Do you have a link to the update where they talked about this?

Maybe I'm wrong. I just don't recall any mention of enemy stamina, and the system as-stated wouldn't make sense for an entity which is only designed to be active for a single encounter.

# ? Jan 22, 2014 18:20

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Pillars of Eternity

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