|
Sensuki posted:I don't know if combat will be good until the very final beta builds before release, possibly not even then. I'm optimistic that it *could* reach the IE ranges, depends on progress made with patches/mechanics alterations. It's better than the IE games right now imo.
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 02:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 01:54 |
|
|
Furism posted:Learn some C# and get started on Unity, we can't wait to play your game. Hahaha, what the hell is this? Someone asked for gameplay opinions, and the man gave his honest opinion. No where did he presume he could make a better game. Is this one of those no criticism allowed threads?
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 02:38
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:No where did he presume he could make a better game. Sensuki has put together elaborate proposals for changing the game's mechanics and posted them here and on other forums. Megasabin posted:Is this one of those no criticism allowed threads? 
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 03:29
|
|
|
Airfoil posted:I tend to agree, but the game still has to be playable. Broken combat is fun for no one. Yeah, it's perfectly understandable why we wouldn't get any story spoilers. That being said, I'm holding out hope for more background stuff. How about a glossary? Man, I don't know.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 04:42
|
|
|
Under the vegetable posted:It's better than the IE games right now imo. Not even close IMO, unless you're using slow mode or autopause options. The default speed still has a ways to go. One thing that is better is the amount of activity required from classes. Classes still need a bit more work but most of them have more things to do - which is good.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 04:51
|
|
|
Furism posted:Learn some C# and get started on Unity, we can't wait to play your game. Sensuki posted:Going to assume that's a troll right ?
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 05:49
|
|
|
Under the vegetable posted:It's better than the IE games right now imo. Yep I've been playing BG1/2 on and off and going back to PoE is such a great leap already. Just the smoother controls and the moment-to-moment combat actions being spread out over the entire party rather than solely the casters makes it way more fun. Really waiting for the humanoid stats bug to get fixed so I can do another run through again. Speaking of which they were looking to get a new patch out today or yesterday, hope that's not too far delayed. Also some changes coming to the XP system: Josh Sawyer posted:Yeah, we're talking about various other forms of XP including exploration, trap, and lock XP. We've also discussed XP connected to unlocking elements in the bestiary, which is sort of a limited-pool form of combat XP that eventually gets exhausted and doesn't require you to commit genocide to reach it. Also, kith (humanoid people) are not (and would not be) in the bestiary, and those are the characters most often associated with quests. I hope they don't deviate too far from their initial XP concepts, but I've been waiting more XP breadcrumbs along the way as well. I'd definitely want quest XP itself to be broken up more along the stages of the questlines. The bestiary and the exploration XP seem like good ideas. If they want players to understand there's a limit on bestiary XP they'll probably need to explicitly write that out somewhere, as it'll be engrained on players early in the game. I'm less sold on lockpick and trap XP, especially since they're both tied to the mechanics skill, and I don't like players punished with XP for not taking specific skills, especially since they're already being punished by taking damage and missing loot already.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 06:13
|
|
|
Under the vegetable posted:It's better than the IE games right now imo. It can't possibly be, because I didn't play Pillars Of Eternity in 1998.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 06:21
|
|
|
Sensuki posted:Going to assume that's a troll right ? I personally can't make much of any review of how the game is turning out yet because at this point with the bugs that cause massive DT I can't even play it properly at the moment  I hope to give it a proper look-over at their next release.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 06:33
|
|
|
Scorchy posted:Also some changes coming to the XP system: Coming? I thought this was how Obsidian planned to do it from the start- the thought that i wouldn't have to be a murderhobo was certainly a big part of why I decided to back the game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 06:38
|
|
|
evilmiera posted:I personally can't make much of any review of how the game is turning out yet because at this point with the bugs that cause massive DT I can't even play it properly at the moment I haven't had the DT bug yet, and I have avoided the Paladin class and the Paladin enemies so I don't get the 8000 defenses bug. I've mostly just been doing testing rather than playthroughs. When the game is a bit more stable I'll definitely attempt some full play throughs. I think the Lore XP proposal isn't too bad because Lore's combat benefit can easily be metagamed around. Survival gives you consumable duration bonuses - cool. Stealth allows you to get closer to enemies - cool. Mechanics improves your traps - cool. I don't really like Athletics or Lore for combat benefits though. In the Infinity Engine games I would usually just rest when someone got fatigued and if that character is already on low Health, the endurance penalty doesn't really matter. For Lore, you can look up defenses values on the wiki or simply remember them - I have a good memory, so I would never choose Lore for combat benefits, only for RP reasons. So Athletics and Lore's combat bonuses seem pretty crappy to me in comparison to the other three, YMMV. XP for unlocks would make Lore better ... might not be the perfect way to do it, but it's a way to improve the lore skill in combat. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Sep 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 06:53
|
|
|
Seeing the mechanical concept ideas from the start of the campaign was kind of bittersweet because it was more or less a given that tester feedback would push them inch by inch back into the traditional skinner boxes. The XP-for-bestiary-unlock idea seems pretty cool to me, since I had already viewed Lore's bestiary revelation component as the least useful of any given skill, but as a carrot to traditionalists I don't think it will be all that effective. People weren't all that fond of the encounter challenge feature of IWD2 largely because you started off getting xp for combat and somewhere along the line you stopped (for the most part).
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 07:34
|
|
|
Depends what you're talking about really. I couldn't give a rats about XP for combat because I find I play the same anyway. I'll fight stuff unless Stealth actually allows for alternate quest resolutions. Usually it doesn't, it just means that you expend resources. I do care about balanced choices though, so if there's a way to make the Athletics and Lore skills be more useful in combat then that would be nice.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 07:48
|
|
|
I'm not persuaded they need to go through the effort of redesigning the XP system when they could just stagger the rewards through quest stages and assign more objectives on the map (or maybe they already did this in the latest build? I just remember that originally you'd barely get any XP in the beta because you could only get the rewards at the end of the long quest chains, and the broken journal would often remove quests from your log). Ideally you'd want combat to be rewarded in some way (XP or loot in 99% of the cases) most of the time, but still have the player consider whether engaging in yet another combat encounter will be worth it or not. You also want combat to be really, really good, so that some players would engage in it for the pure fun of experiencing the mechanic, and not because of some implicit reward, but that's something most CRPGs have been traditionally bad at.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 07:50
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:Hahaha, what the hell is this? Someone asked for gameplay opinions, and the man gave his honest opinion. No where did he presume he could make a better game. Is this one of those no criticism allowed threads? There's a difference between "Here's my in-depth analysis of what should be improved" and "I doubt Obsidian will ever get the combat right because they're not implementing 100% of my in-depth analysis of what should be improved." Hence the sarcasm on my part. I think it's great Sensuki spent so much time analyze the mechanisms of the game, but it wouldn't hurt to realize he never released (to my knowledge) any game himself so maybe he should trust Obsidian more.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 09:45
|
|
|
The combat has nothing to do with the attribute system, why would you think I would be saying such things out of spite? Also nowhere did I say anything like what you said. Nathaniel Chapman (ex-Obsidian employee) said that games only usually become fun right at the end of the development phase. I believe he is correct about that, especially regarding real-time with pause which appears to be a lot harder to get right than turn-based. Currently I don't find the combat in Pillars of Eternity that much fun and neither do many other people. The ones that are saying it is better than the Infinity Engine games appear to be the people who didn't find the Infinity Engine combat that good. On the last page of this thread I also said this quote:I'm optimistic that it *could* reach the IE ranges, depends on progress made with patches/mechanics alterations. e: When I make suggestions I also usually state that they are one or more of many possible solutions, depending on what it is. You're correct I've never made a game. I am a backer and a player, and I am offering my opinions as a player - which is what they're after right? No one's stopping anyone else from doing that. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Sep 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 09:54
|
|
|
I really havent had much problems with how Sensuki makes his suggestions or states his opinions. He occasionally throws the word "suck" around a little too loosely but he is usually detailed and reasoned. Not to mention that most of his critiques are valid and his suggestions are usually decent.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 16:19
|
|
|
Definitely not the most politically correct person 
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 16:22
|
|
|
Wouldn't changing the XP system be a big pain in the rear end at this point? Presumably they'd have to go around manually readjusting everything and adding it all up along the way to make sure you can still reach the right levels by the right points.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 20:00
|
|
|
It's really easy, actually.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 20:08
|
|
|
To elaborate, our XP is all derived out of a relatively small table. We establish tiers of quests (by character level) and allocate a total amount of XP to be spread among all quests marked for that level. In turn, each quest is marked with a given level and as major, standard, or minor. The major/standard/minor classifications determine relative proportion of XP share that the quest gets when all quests are taken into account. So if 28 quests are marked as level 4 and level 4 quests only have 1000xp allocated for them, the per-quest reward is really tiny. We mostly just adjust the allocated XP in each tier and what quests are classified as, level-wise. To accommodate additional sources of XP, we start by determining those fixed-pool allocations and subtract them from the total quest XP. The exploration-related XP is a) not large and b) easy to quantify. The bestiary-related XP is also relatively easy to quantify because we associate total XP per bestiary entry, of which there are a fixed amount. We still have to tune after that basic estimation, but it's not a hard or time-consuming process overall. We currently track within 1 level of our expected targets for XP acquired over the course of the game, so I'm not too worried about it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 20:34
|
|
|
I couldn't care less about combat XP but I do think the Lore skill needs a bit of help IMO. Won't be very useful in combat for those with Combat HUD disabled in particular.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 08:10
|
|
|
The main problem with Lore I think is that it's hard to tell if it's useful or not. There should be some more obvious ways to let the player know that a Lore skill check was just failed/passed.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 08:28
|
|
|
No no, out of combat Lore is great. In combat it's benefit is that it unlocks Bestiary entries faster. If you already know what those entries are via your own memory or metagaming - the benefit is nullified. It's handy to be able to see them on the combat tooltip, but the players who play in Expert mode or find the combat HUD annoying will disable it and that makes the Lore combat bonus even more useless. Whereas you can't do that for Survival (extra consumable durations) or Stealth (get closer to enemies), or Mechanics (Traps deal more damage). Athletics also has the issue where the prevention of fatigue doesn't matter if a character has less than 25% of the total stamina. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Sep 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 08:35
|
|
|
I mean when in combat I wouldn't mind to know when my Lore skill unlocked/failed to unlock a Bestiary entry.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 12:29
|
|
|
They could do that by showing it in a different color on the combat hud i guess
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 13:34
|
|
|
Sensuki posted:No no, out of combat Lore is great. In combat it's benefit is that it unlocks Bestiary entries faster. If you already know what those entries are via your own memory or metagaming - the benefit is nullified. It's handy to be able to see them on the combat tooltip, but the players who play in Expert mode or find the combat HUD annoying will disable it and that makes the Lore combat bonus even more useless. I'd favour going more punitive with it. Enable it in Expert mode, but make it so you can only see those stats if you have a character with the appropriate lore skill along (or a party total lore skill to make it valuable on multiple party members). Makes it more important as a mechanic. I'll admit to not being entirely certain why people would want to turn it off though, it doesn't make sense in any sense other than a 'I'm going to test my metagaming ability' one. Don't the benefits of knowing the enemies health surely far outway the slightly increased clutter of an extra popup when you mouse over an enemy?
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 19:42
|
|
|
They (Combat HUDs) weren't necessary to play with in the Infinity Engine games and I prefer the "Injured" text? I can definitely see why they added them in for PE, because combat is confusing as hell atm compared to the IE games (patches should be able to fix). The only reason I use them is because the combat stances and idle animations do not change depending on whether a character is idle or in recovery - if/when they add in a different stance for recovery, I will always play with the Combat HUDs off. Why would I invest in the skill for combat purposes if I can remember or look up the values. I'd rather put points into something that actually gives me a good bonus, such as Survival. All the health dots do is represent those states, tbh they should use Health bars that represent actual HP instead IMO - that's more transparent. Sensuki fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Sep 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 20:03
|
|
|
Cool cover for the PC Gamer:
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 20:13
|
|
|
I like that pulp fantasy book cover style. Needs more armor spikes and anime battleposes for optimal 2014 PR campaigning though. Someone grinning in an overbearingly smug way is a plus too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 21:29
|
|
|
Nice, but they should've had someone with a gun. That's one of the biggest "This ain't your daddy's D&D" things I saw in the original teaser image, just that quick glance of "Whoa, does that lady have a rifle she's blasting the baddies away with?"
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 21:29
|
|
|
Krowley posted:I like that pulp fantasy book cover style. Agreed. Maybe "Dis is da new poo poo, yo"
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
If there's no charisma stat, how do you explain Eder's beard? 
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 22:18
|
|
|
yeah it's a shame they don't have cadegund there. A gun-wielding paladin of the god of fire is a cool as heck concept and her art was one of the first things to interest me in the game. That and the line about godhammer citadel in the teaser.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 22:18
|
|
|
quote:Adam Brennecke @adam_brennecke
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 00:36
|
|
|
Krowley posted:Someone grinning in an overbearingly smug way is a plus too.  Smug Eder is best Eder.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 00:39
|
|
|
AXE COP posted:yeah it's a shame they don't have cadegund there. A gun-wielding paladin of the god of fire is a cool as heck concept and her art was one of the first things to interest me in the game. That and the line about godhammer citadel in the teaser.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 01:09
|
|
|
Basic Chunnel posted:Cadegund is no longer a CNPC iirc
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 01:41
|
|
|
no one knows anyway quote:Hello, everyone. We have released an update to the backer beta on Steam. We are still working on the Mac and Linux builds, so they are not currently up there (we are working as fast as we can on them, I promise). We have lots of new changes and fixes. As always, please play the build and give us feedback on our forums.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 01:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 01:54 |
|
|
Woohoo new patch! e: wow 2.0 gb Scorchy fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Sep 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 01:49
|
|