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The tl;dr of our findings about which attribute does which may change over the course of the beta, but we can still use the same graphs to tell you what each point in an attribute gives, and whether it has a relationship with another and then put it into some bullet points on the wiki.
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Sep 15, 2014 08:51
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Drifter posted:No, you're right; some of this talk is getting really weird and masturbatory. While I don't mind personally, as good mechanics can only serve to improve an already awesome-looking game, I have to admit I feel a little left out by all the scaaary numbers  Hopefully there'd be a lot more to talk about once the game comes out.
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Sep 15, 2014 08:56
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Yeah I'm in the same boat - I find the numberchat so boring I can't even finish reading ropekid's posts on the topic (and his posts are the main reason I check this thread), but I'm hoping it'll end up leading to a game I'll find more enjoyable despite not giving a poo poo how it all works under the hood.
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Sep 15, 2014 09:14
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Bettik posted:Yeah I'm in the same boat - I find the numberchat so boring I can't even finish reading ropekid's posts on the topic (and his posts are the main reason I check this thread), but I'm hoping it'll end up leading to a game I'll find more enjoyable despite not giving a poo poo how it all works under the hood. You don't need to number crunch in most games to do fine with 'em, even if it's a thing you can do. Nothing wrong with theorycrafting and numbers chat even if I don't personally follow it though, for a lot of people it's part of the fun. It's only a good thing if a large variety of people find something enjoyable for them in a game like this and that's looking to be the case.
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Sep 15, 2014 10:37
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I tried to steer the discussion towards writing but it was hijacked back to Numb3rs  Buck Turgidson posted:How deep is the trap mechanic? I mean the sort of traps that you find throughout the dungeon. The trap mechanic in the IE and NWN games is easily one of the weakest aspects of the games. They just slow down the gameplay and dungeon exploration unnecessarily and don't really add any challenge, fun or strategy. In a game with clunky party control (like NWN2), they are a source of frustration. For now it seems buggy - my Rogue detected a couple of traps in one of the dungeons, but I couldn't seem to disarm/retrieve them. She was in Exploration/Sneak mode when she found them, so that may or may not be required to get a bonus to spot them. The way they were placed though seemed very IE and NWN-y. I'm not sure how differently you could design traps though? Inspector Gesicht posted:I know I've asked this before, but can Chanters and Ciphers learn new abilities outside of leveling like Wizards? I should hope that if you could get extra or unique abilities through exploration or some quests (not necessarily just for those classes even). Aren't Ciphers close to D&D Psionics?
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Sep 15, 2014 11:43
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Furism posted:For now it seems buggy - my Rogue detected a couple of traps in one of the dungeons, but I couldn't seem to disarm/retrieve them. She was in Exploration/Sneak mode when she found them, so that may or may not be required to get a bonus to spot them. The way they were placed though seemed very IE and NWN-y. I'm not sure how differently you could design traps though? Ugh. If they can't think of a way to implement them well, then they shouldn't bother. The only thing that that kind of trap accomplishes is making me waste time inching my dudes through dungeons waiting for red boxes to appear on the ground so I can disarm them. What's the point?
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Sep 15, 2014 12:04
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Buck Turgidson posted:Ugh. If they can't think of a way to implement them well, then they shouldn't bother. The only thing that that kind of trap accomplishes is making me waste time inching my dudes through dungeons waiting for red boxes to appear on the ground so I can disarm them. What's the point? I agree that having to crawl in Spot/Sneak mode in trap-heavy dungeons is a pain in the rear end. Basically if I just have to bump the Mechanic skill of a character so she will spot the traps from a comfortable distance, I'd be happy with that. I wouldn't mind a reasonable amount of traps in that case, because it's a cheap way to stock up and use them on tougher fights.
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Sep 15, 2014 12:11
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Furism posted:I tried to steer the discussion towards writing but it was hijacked back to Numb3rs
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Sep 15, 2014 13:02
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Inching is a lot less painful with fast forward, and the point of numberschat now is you don't have to freak out about whether you're making an awful character or not every time you level, but instead get to make an informed choice about what things you want to emphasize on your character. Hopefully you'll be able to pick a stat spread entirely for rp purposes, and have strengths that you can play to in order to do well. Numbers now is better than numbers at every level up that you have to worry about. That said, I could do with some more lore. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 13:03
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Indeed. Personally I love breaking down and analysing systems, and developing new ideas, but apart from that this whole process of input and assessment by way of graphs and formulae, and Josh's continued refinement of the system, is something very worthwhile that will benefit everyone. It's certainly nothing to be afraid of, and the good work being done now, for all it's complexity, will reduce the need for such complex analysis by players in the end. If it's successful, you won't need to work against, abuse or exploit the system to play the kind of character you envision. The design goals Josh has outlined are revolutionary, and represent a desire to fix so many things that were wrong with, and impeded variety and alternative means of fun in the old IE games. Realising that vision is an iterative process that needs exactly this kind of discussion. It will be worth it.
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Sep 15, 2014 13:22
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Disco Infiva posted:I don't think this can be so easily handwaived as theorycrafting since the head honcho of PoE is directly engaged in its discussion. Except PoE's stat system isn't finalized yet (I think? I scroll past all :sperg: posts) so it's basically all theorycrafting at every level.
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Sep 15, 2014 13:27
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Krowley posted:Except PoE's stat system isn't finalized yet (I think? I scroll past all :sperg: posts) so it's basically all theorycrafting at every level. It's active engagement with the creator about how best to realise the design goals as they pertain to the attribute system. The fact that it isn't finalised is exactly *why* this kind of analysis, and alternative proposals are being made.
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Sep 15, 2014 13:36
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We can probably figure out how to have number- and lore-chat in the same thread! Some hints about the main storyline are in the beta: Apparently a lot of people are giving birth to hollowborn, that is, babies without souls. I haven't found a book that says what this does to them, but I guess they are brain-dead people (or maybe like the 'Tranquil' in Dragon Age). It's probably safe to assume that at least part of the storyline will be to solve that. Ogres seem smart enough to speak like anyone else, but they're still barbaric enough to eat people venturing too close to their lair. Probably because the people who come close intent to kill them. Also, they don't mind if the said lairs are shared with nasty spiders.
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Sep 15, 2014 14:36
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Furism posted:We can probably figure out how to have number- and lore-chat in the same thread! Spiders are a good source of protein when foolish adventurer stock isn't around.
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Sep 15, 2014 14:38
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Disco Infiva posted:I don't think this can be so easily handwaived as theorycrafting since the head honcho of PoE is directly engaged in its discussion. I don't mean to blow your mind or anything but a lot of math goes into any kind of competent game design. The veil is pulled back but you're not seeing anything new.
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Sep 15, 2014 14:50
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Captain Oblivious posted:I don't mean to blow your mind or anything but a lot of math goes into any kind of competent game design. The veil is pulled back but you're not seeing anything new. I'm not sure I follow you: why did you respond like that to that message? Nothing in it implied math doesn't go into game design.
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Sep 15, 2014 14:52
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Diomedes posted:It's active engagement with the creator about how best to realise the design goals as they pertain to the attribute system. The fact that it isn't finalised is exactly *why* this kind of analysis, and alternative proposals are being made. Heh, I didn't mean to start a fight over how much GRAPHS was too much, you're probably right that this is good discussion overall, it's just *very* overwhelming for someone new to the discussion. Whatever ends up getting decided on, I hope it's something that, much like e=MC2, boils back to simple and relatively easy to understand equations (i.e., "if making a melee caster, pump X and Y stats in a 2 for 1 ratio" or suchlike). The bigger concern I have is just being able to understand the system at a basic level. I mean, I just spent like a month min-maxing the hell out of Divinity: Original Sin, I like this kind of thing, and trying to even figure out the basic debates y'all are having is confusing me! I think it's just that there are so many "new" terms ("Resolve", "Might") and even the terms that seem familiar ("Int") don't seem to mean the same thing they have traditionally . . . hrm. Let me try explaining this from another angle. For most CRPGs, the character-building part of the game is about figuring what the "best" combinations are and making effective long-term strategic choices. That's usually a little complicated, but not extraordinarily so; a few hours of research and some forums browsing will usually find you some decent strategies and builds and once you figure out what character concepts "work" (i.e., "in this game sword/board is a good choice for battle mages") and what don't ("you don't get enough points to fully specialize in four magic schools on one character") you know how to build your dude(s). This game seems so wide-open that it seems like that initial character-planning threshold is going to be a lot higher. That might be really awesome! But it's surprisingly intimidating, too. I guess I need my mages to be all buff so their spells will do good damage? How important are duration and area of effect (do battles last a long time? More damage is always good, but extra Area of Effect is wasted, or can even be harmful if the game has friendly fire!) I guess the idea is that, like, an int-based mage would be focusing more on CC, while a might based one would just be big single target damage? Is there such a thing as a dex-based mage? So many options
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Sep 15, 2014 14:59
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That's the thing, they're trying to build a game where there's no objectively 'best' build. There will be 'best builds' for your playstyle, but they don't want absolute best builds. That's the goal anyway, I have no idea if it's mathematically possible while still fun to play.
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Sep 15, 2014 15:07
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Furism posted:That's the thing, they're trying to build a game where there's no objectively 'best' build. There will be 'best builds' for your playstyle, but they don't want absolute best builds. That's the goal anyway, I have no idea if it's mathematically possible while still fun to play. Right, and that's a great goal! I was just surprised to find out how intimidating that was in actual practice. So many choices! Intially when I first read about the game I thought "oh that's great, I'll be able to play what I want!". Now as I read this stuff I'm realizing that without some better than / worse than indicators, I'm at more of a loss than I thought I'd be to actually figure out what I want to play. Too many years of min-maxing have corrupted me!
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Sep 15, 2014 15:11
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Diomedes posted:It's active engagement with the creator about how best to realise the design goals as they pertain to the attribute system. The fact that it isn't finalised is exactly *why* this kind of analysis, and alternative proposals are being made. Yes, I know what it is and why it's being discussed. Doesn't change the fact that it's boring for people who want to follow the thread but aren't into applied mathematics. Whatever, I'll shut up about it
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Sep 15, 2014 15:16
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Furism posted:I should hope that if you could get extra or unique abilities through exploration or some quests (not necessarily just for those classes even). Yeah, specifically Psions. But as he suggested, that's more of a Dark Sun concept, not Forgotton Realms lore like the IE games were.
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Sep 15, 2014 15:21
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xthetenth posted:Inching is a lot less painful with fast forward... Yeah but that's sort of missing the point. The mechanic is just filler. Unless they do something interesting with it, they might as well remove it. Would anyone really miss looking for red rectangles on the ground and, in NWN2's case, the 5 second animation that attends every disarm attempt?
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Sep 15, 2014 15:43
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How are people finding the recovery time mechanic? Can you still move when in recovery frames? Are there any actions that have an animation, but no recovery time, or that can be initiated even in recovery time? I'm mainly wondering if it makes the unit control feel sluggish and unresponsive. Most RTS games let you cancel out of a recovery animation to issue movement orders or to use different types of abilities (ie. you can cancel the animation backswing on a standard attack to cast a spell & vice versa), largely in part because that feels better when controlling a large amount of units. On the other hand, fighting games usually have recovery animations that you're locked into and leave you open for a counter attack, so as to make you consider carefully the timing of your attack. It seems an odd mechanic for a party-based actical RPG, to be sure.Buck Turgidson posted:Yeah but that's sort of missing the point. The mechanic is just filler. Unless they do something interesting with it, they might as well remove it. Would anyone really miss looking for red rectangles on the ground and, in NWN2's case, the 5 second animation that attends every disarm attempt? If the game has good ambiance & nice visuals, "forcing" the player to take it slow can help them appreciate it better. Traps aren't very interesting by themselves, I agree, but they're a useful tool for controlling the pace of the game. verybad fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 15:48
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Movement pauses recovery time which is a really bad decision IMO - which gives it that exact feeling - sluggish. I can perfectly understand why it was done, but I think the reasoning behind it is something that is also much like apprehension of action speed - based off a turn-based mindset. The idea that movement and other actions should be weighed against each other is a turn-based thing. This can be easily fixed. Movement should not pause recovery for melee characters. For ranged if they want there to be a trade off, just slow recovery down for bows and crossbow users, and I've noticed that arbalests, pistols, arquebuses and blunderbusses are all considered "weapon_firearm" for the purposes of how their reloading works. They could just copy_pasta that code and change it so that it slows recovery, and make it relevant to bows and crossbows only, so that fixes any glitches where you might be able to change weapon sets back and forth and remove the recovery time slow from bows and crossbows, as it would still have to finish the animation.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:04
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I don't see how being able to cheese recovery times by using them move instead of pausing recovery while moving is in any way more strategic. Making moving (which is an incredibly powerful thing to do, since it lets you get close to more fragile enemies and also escape more dangerous ones) have a trade-off seems great.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:21
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Furism posted:Ogres seem smart enough to speak like anyone else, but they're still barbaric enough to eat people venturing too close to their lair. Probably because the people who come close intent to kill them. Also, they don't mind if the said lairs are shared with nasty spiders. Trolls, on the other hand, are really stupid.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:28
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DatonKallandor posted:I don't see how being able to cheese recovery times by using them move instead of pausing recovery while moving is in any way more strategic. Making moving (which is an incredibly powerful thing to do, since it lets you get close to more fragile enemies and also escape more dangerous ones) have a trade-off seems great. Have you tried the beta? Recovery paused while moving feels horrible and it doesn't feel like the infinity engine games at all (YMMV tho). When playing Baldur's Gate did you ever attack a guy, then run away and then attack again when it was your turn to attack next? I'll bet you didn't. In PE there's also the disengagement mechanic. rope kid posted:Trolls, on the other hand, are really stupid. I found that funny, hahah. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 16:29
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Sensuki posted:Have you tried the beta? It feels horrible and it doesn't feel like the infinity engine games at all (YMMV tho). When playing Baldur's Gate did you ever attack a guy, then run away and then attack again when it was your turn to attack next? I'll bet you didn't. In PE there's also the disengagement mechanic. Yes constantly on my solo ironman runs and it feels great.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:38
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Which bit were you replying to? Movement pausing recovery or running away in a BG ironman solo ?
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Sep 15, 2014 16:40
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Sensuki posted:Have you tried the beta? Recovery paused while moving feels horrible and it doesn't feel like the infinity engine games at all (YMMV tho). When playing Baldur's Gate did you ever attack a guy, then run away and then attack again when it was your turn to attack next? I'll bet you didn't. In PE there's also the disengagement mechanic. It not feeling like an Infinity Engine game, even if that was the case (which I don't feel at all - yes I have the beta), is pretty much a non-point to me. So what? Not everything about those games was good. The entire stats system is based explicitly on not making the IE game mistakes. As for did I ever abuse mobility in Baldurs Gate, you bet I did. There was all sorts of exploitative poo poo you could do with movement (I soloed most of Baldurs Gate 1's non-setpiece fights with a single character by abusing movement, line of sight and stealth attacks), especially with caster classes. You could cast a spell and then quickly break LoS while the round ticked over in safety, then go out and cast again. Then there's the fact you could just run your people right up to the enemy casters and they couldn't do anything about it. The engagement mechanic in PE is already too weak and letting you recover while moving will make it (or rather the concept of a frontline) even weaker. DatonKallandor fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 16:41
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Yeah okay that's fair. I did that on my solo runs as well but not when "playing as intended". The combat feel was the best thing about the Infinity engine games, it has the best combat of any RTwP fantasy game at least. That's the sole reason why I replayed them again and again and again for years and years. None of that poo poo you mentioned is an issue with being able to move in between actions, you can do that poo poo in any RTS style game. Any of them. Those things are all faults of other parts of the design - the AI not following you, for one. You can abuse the pathfinding AI in Baldur's Gate worse than the others. I think they succeeded in making it feel like an AD&D 2E game, but didn't bother with preventing you from abusing anything. The disengagement mechanic is pretty lovely, but so is attacking a moving unit and then chasing it and having to wait your full recovery time before you can attack again because that poo poo didn't cool down while moving. Feels completely dumb. I think they should actually focus on fixing these issues rather than compromising a perfectly normal part of RTS style gameplay because of it, instead of opting for this 'easy' fix (that has it's own problems). Sensuki fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 16:49
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What I don't like with the reload/recover animation is that if shoot arrows or bolts to enemies with my Fighter, I won't be able to switch back to melee weapons until the reload animation is complete (by that time the enemies all walked passed him). So you can't "pull", effectively, which may or may not be intended. It also bugs the hell out of characters if you try to swap weapon sets in the middle of that reload animation.rope kid posted:Male ogres are quite intelligent but extremely aggressive, even with each other. They normally don't organize into larger groups unless they are wrangled by ogre matrons. It's very rare that they form communities of any significant size. The most legendary force of ogres was the army that destroyed White March, though it disbanded shortly after. 
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Sep 15, 2014 16:53
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BG units would make pseudo-attacks or stand around until their time in the round came. It wasn't so much that recovery wasn't paused as much as the round timer continued moving for all characters regardless of what they were doing. That's why people would micro-kite their archers away for X seconds, pause for a few frames to fire, and repeat the process.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:54
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Sure, but only a small portion of the players actually did that, and you can prevent that by making the bow reload animations similar to the firearm ones, rather than compromising the rest of the gameplay just to fix that one issue.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:55
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Sensuki posted:The disengagement mechanic is pretty lovely
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Sep 15, 2014 17:09
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rope kid posted:A bunch of backers requested front-line stickiness. Sorry, I should have said "I don't think it's not strong enough". I like the mechanic itself.
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Sep 15, 2014 17:17
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Sensuki posted:Sure, but only a small portion of the players actually did that, and you can prevent that by making the bow reload animations similar to the firearm ones, rather than compromising the rest of the gameplay just to fix that one issue. Or just, you know, letting players kite with ranged attacks because microing dudes is actually fun? Sure you can balance that with turn times & reload animations, and maybe giving melee dudes some charge-type attacks & ability to cripple, but kiting is a pretty core RTS-mechanic imo. rope kid posted:BG units would make pseudo-attacks or stand around until their time in the round came. It wasn't so much that recovery wasn't paused as much as the round timer continued moving for all characters regardless of what they were doing. That's why people would micro-kite their archers away for X seconds, pause for a few frames to fire, and repeat the process. BG units also had a separate recovery times for spellcasting (and special abilites, items, etc) & attack actions, so if you were properly microing your dudes you could get a lot more mileage out of them. verybad fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 17:33
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Sensuki posted:The disengagement mechanic is pretty lovely, but so is attacking a moving unit and then chasing it and having to wait your full recovery time before you can attack again because that poo poo didn't cool down while moving. Feels completely dumb. Make the only recovery that does occur during movement the internal recovery for the free disengage attack. Now you get to chase with melee - although frankly "I want to be able to chase enemy characters with melee characters" is a ridiculously specific thing to insist on when there's so many other ways to deal with moving enemies like ranged crowd control, ranged damage and the (currently not nearly sticky enough) melee engagement system. Note that you can still kite with ranged characters even if recovery is paused while moving if your ranged character is faster then one being kited - which is the situation where kiting is supposed to be viable and where it makes logical sense to be effective. The faster person dictates the range the fight occurs at (if the terrain they fight in allows it, etc.). DatonKallandor fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 17:35
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verybad posted:Or just, you know, letting players kite with ranged attacks because microing dudes is actually fun? I think it's fun too. verybad posted:BG units also had a separate recovery times for spellcasting (and special abilites, items, etc) & attack actions, so if you were properly microing your dudes you could get a lot more mileage out of them. That's actually how all other RTS games work. Spellcasting actions and the like are separate from attacking. Usually they use per-spell cooldowns. But yeah that is definitely a good idea. They could be separated.
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Sep 15, 2014 17:44
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Sensuki posted:Sorry, I should have said "I don't think it's not strong enough". I like the mechanic itself. Not an unintentional double negative? 
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