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Even with the buffs I'm still not sure the Stronghold is worthwhile. If the issue is "we don't want the Stronghold to completely overshadow everything else; there has to be a trade off" then the Stronghold, sorry, is never going to be worthwhile. With how much money you dump into that piece of poo poo it drat well better overshadow every other inn! As it stands the only reason you fully complete your Stronghold is because you really just need to do everything in the game that's presented to you. You want a trade off? How about : the stronghold is flat out better because I don't have to buy the whole goddamn inn?
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Jul 17, 2015 21:58
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It's kind of difficult to look at the stronghold as a whole in terms of cash in and reward out. Most of what you spend your gold on is defenses to raise a nebulous defense bonus that prevents your taxed income from being robbed, which is a wash because the gold intake from that doesn't even offset the investment in defenses. So what's the point of building defenses really? At one point I thought defenses would allow me to ignore raiding parties but they still tore my fortress down when I ignored them, so I always manually go back and defend against them (I hate this mechanic, time consuming). Now there are a couple of buildings that are kind of worth building. All of the herb/monster part buildings give you free stuff that is used in crafting. That's useful at least. The Bounty Hunter building you will always build because it generates quests which leads to experience + gold + items. You can build for mercenaries which translates into much cheaper defense upgrades than building the defensive structures. Again though this goes back to the taxed income ratio, but at least this investment:reward makes a little more sense than building the fortifications. Personally I like hiring mercs just to have some people running around. You have a couple of cosmetic buildings which don't really pertain to me because I don't like walking around my Stronghold since it's such a ghost town most of the time. There's the vendor buildings which I never really got too much out of personally. There could be some improvements here probably just to make them worthwhile. They're useful as Od Nua shortcuts right now for buying camping supplies or selling junk. And finally you have the rest bonus structures which we've talked about enough.
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Jul 17, 2015 22:10
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There are a non-trivial number of players that absolutely loathe strongholds as a concept and never want to interact with stronghold mechanics. It's difficult to make something feel robust and rewarding but also completely optional. And yes, the stronghold is a money sink. We have virtually no economic drains in the game. Purchased items, crafting, and the stronghold are the only three and they're all things you don't actually have to interact with (though most people buy a decent number of items).
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Jul 17, 2015 22:17
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I'm fresh off my first playthrough and now I'm thinking about POTD. How well would four melee characters, a wizard, and a priest work out? Would I be gimping myself by having a lopsided party like that?
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Jul 17, 2015 22:22
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rope kid posted:There are a non-trivial number of players that absolutely loathe strongholds as a concept and never want to interact with stronghold mechanics. It's difficult to make something feel robust and rewarding but also completely optional. that last bit has my curiosity piqued - do you keep stats of how much gold players spend, which items are most often purchased, etc? it seems to me a lot of items are no-brainers, while a good bit are lackluster compared to items you would normally have at that point (assuming a thorough player that explores and does sidequests)
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Jul 17, 2015 22:31
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Tyrone Biggums posted:I'm fresh off my first playthrough and now I'm thinking about POTD. How well would four melee characters, a wizard, and a priest work out? Would I be gimping myself by having a lopsided party like that?
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Jul 17, 2015 22:41
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We don't, unfortunately, but based on observations and conversations, a lot of players buy at least a few uniques from stores. As for the relative power of items, some of it is subjective and a lot of it depends on when you encounter the item. Some people don't stumble across a store until far later than they are expected to and the items don't seem as appealing.
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Jul 17, 2015 22:41
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rope kid posted:There are a non-trivial number of players that absolutely loathe strongholds as a concept and never want to interact with stronghold mechanics. It's difficult to make something feel robust and rewarding but also completely optional. Will the expansion be adding more in the way of quests/dialogue/interactions to the stronghold? A few small sidequests involving your prisoners, for example, would be absolutely amazing. A followup to the Ogre story if you actually hire him would be great too. But I'm not sure if by optional you mean "every piece of content in the game must be accessible without the stronghold" because yeah obviously the stronghold is never going to be not disappointing if that's the case...
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Jul 17, 2015 22:44
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Rascyc posted:There's the vendor buildings which I never really got too much out of personally. There could be some improvements here probably just to make them worthwhile. They're useful as Od Nua shortcuts right now for buying camping supplies or selling junk. I wish the loot was distributed so that the stronghold vendors had 2-3 uniques each to sell.
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Jul 17, 2015 22:46
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GlyphGryph posted:I guess the question is - what do you mean by optional? The stronghold could easily be rewarding without being mandatory, but it seems like the team has treated it as "The stronghold can never meaningfully effect or interact with any other part of the game ever" which is honestly just weird. I've heard more than one complaint about how aside from the bounty hunter the strong hold doesn't offer any actual content. Scorchy posted:I wish the loot was distributed so that the stronghold vendors had 2-3 uniques each to sell. rope kid fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 23:00
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GlyphGryph posted:A few small sidequests involving your prisoners, for example, would be absolutely amazing. A followup to the Ogre story if you actually hire him would be great too.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:08
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rope kid posted:There are a non-trivial number of players that absolutely loathe strongholds as a concept and never want to interact with stronghold mechanics. It's difficult to make something feel robust and rewarding but also completely optional. I'd feel comfortable saying that it's impossible to come up with a solution here that pleases everybody. If the stronghold conveys a benefit that is worth the investment, people who don't want to do it will be upset because they feel compelled to do it. If the stronghold is not worth the investment people who want a stronghold will be upset because it feels like a waste of time. These two groups are so fundamentally opposed that you just cannot please both of them. The current solution is probably the worst of all possible solutions. First, the boring stronghold upsets the 'want stronghold' people. Secondly, the stronghold just looks and feels lovely and half-assed and this means that people who don't have a horse in the want-stronghold/hate-strongholds race come down on the side of 'hate this particular stronghold' because it's a giant boring money-pit with terrible mechanics that allow for you to gain and lose stronghold events during travel time. I'll take "Sorry, no stronghold" over "halfass money pit" any day of the week.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:11
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rope kid posted:Retraining isn't a selective re-allocation of individual Talents, Skills, and Abilities. You're effectively tearing up your character sheet and rebuilding from level 1. I don't think it's a good idea to require players to do that if they didn't have the prescience to know that their class' soulbound weapon was going to be in a different category. A bit late to affect anything now but for sequels maybe weapons should be more class neutral. You can still have class centric soulbound relics (amulets, helms, etc). As far as strongholds, if more focus could be placed on stronghold quest rather than cell phone game like play, more players would get behind it. If you are going farmville like, copy Suikoden II and have the player collect cooks, stable boys, etc to make the place truly breath and feel lived it. At least increase the number of random npcs as you upgrade it. Have some people you meet come live there like that couple you meet in the first town that you into in the first city, etc.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:11
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You "gated" a lot of good content, including a character quest, behind the Endless Paths, though, and that was optional as well.rope kid posted:That was never the case and it still wasn't the case on the expansion. Whatever work is done on gated content is work not being done on content available to everyone.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:12
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GlyphGryph posted:You "gated" a lot of good content, including a character quest, behind the Endless Paths, though, and that was optional as well.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:16
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Khizan posted:I'll take "Sorry, no stronghold"
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Jul 17, 2015 23:18
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Tyrone Biggums posted:I'm fresh off my first playthrough and now I'm thinking about POTD. How well would four melee characters, a wizard, and a priest work out? Would I be gimping myself by having a lopsided party like that? Anyway, when all 4 were in melee, enemies died really quickly, though. Like Rascyc said, melee outdamages ranged combat by a fair amount, so it's definitely good when the area is open enough. Just, maybe don't spend every talent and ability on melee stuff if you go that route, and don't pick only classes that have to be in melee for their abilities to work. Edit: Oh yeah, I also had all four dual-wielding, and that's something I probably wouldn't do again. At least, having one character that's built for two-handed weapons and can use Pikes or Staves without losing effectiveness seems like a good idea to me now. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 23:26
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I think what we can take away from this conversation is that there probably won't be a Stronghold in PoEII.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:29
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I would hope what people take away is that all content costs something to make. If a bunch of people are asking for new dialogues and quests in the expansion, I have to ask how many characters and quests they want cut from the expansion areas, with the understanding that at a certain reduction of quest density, associated maps disappear with them.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:35
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GlyphGryph posted:You "gated" a lot of good content, including a character quest, behind the Endless Paths, though, and that was optional as well. the i hate big dungeons crowd is probably pretty insignificant in the people who'd pay money for an IE-like. it'd be like buying a fighting game and complaining that you spent the whole game hitting people
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Jul 17, 2015 23:35
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rope kid posted:Once the Kickstarter completed, that was never an option. The choice was always about where content went in the game. I'm sure this has been asked before and answered, but do you regret adding the stronghold to the game? Do you think it would have been better if "no stronghold" had been an option and you'd taken it? I mean, obviously in an ideal world of infinite time and money there must have been someone on the team who thought the Stronghold was worth doing, But considering the limited resources, do you think you'd have been better off never offering it in the Kickstarter? rope kid posted:You're downplaying the aversion that people have to strongholds, specifically. If there's a "I hate big dungeons" bloc of significant size, I'm unaware of them. Stronghold aversion seems more comparable to romance aversion. How big a block is it? I don't even know how I'd go about trying to figure that out, hah. Surveys or something? I don't know anyone in real life who was disappointed in the presence of the Stronghold, and a couple who picked up the game specifically because it had one but ended up disappointed in how it was implemented. And obviously I'm a bit biased since I am a member of the "I hate big dungeons" block, hah. (Although I did like Endless Paths, you guys did well enough with it that it completely overcame my big dungeon aversion, which is probably also due to the fact that I was able to tackle it in bits and pieces throughout the game, so kudos on the Paths) Fungah! posted:the i hate big dungeons crowd is probably pretty insignificant in the people who'd pay money for an IE-like. it'd be like buying a fighting game and complaining that you spent the whole game hitting people But that's all anecdotal I got no idea how the numbers end up falling out, I just don't understand how someone who dislikes a part of the game would be upset over other people who enjoy that part getting stuff to enjoy doing there. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 23:37
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GlyphGryph posted:How big a block is it? I don't even know how I'd go about trying to figure that out, hah. Surveys or something? I don't know anyone in real life who was disappointed in the presence of the Stronghold, and a couple who picked up the game specifically because it had one but ended up disappointed in how it was implemented. And obviously I'm a bit biased since I am a member of the "I hate big dungeons" block, hah. (Although I did like Endless Paths, you guys did well enough with it that it completely overcame my big dungeon aversion, which is probably also due to the fact that I was able to tackle it in bits and pieces throughout the game, so kudos on the Paths) I loath strongholds and the Crossroads Keep was the worst part of NWN2 for me. They tend to either get forced on players, or have exclusive content/rewards that you can't compensate for elsewhere in a game, and if your character isn't the type you feel should end up owning a castle, then it feels Bad.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:51
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rope kid posted:I would hope what people take away is that all content costs something to make. If a bunch of people are asking for new dialogues and quests in the expansion, I have to ask how many characters and quests they want cut from the expansion areas, with the understanding that at a certain reduction of quest density, associated maps disappear with them. I would expect something with parity with the games this was inspired by. So, when I think of what my expectations are for a stronghold in PoE were, I thought maybe a total number of quests (with similar depth) to the multitude of Strongholds in BG2.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:53
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Octo1 posted:I loath strongholds and the Crossroads Keep was the worst part of NWN2 for me. They tend to either get forced on players, or have exclusive content/rewards that you can't compensate for elsewhere in a game, and if your character isn't the type you feel should end up owning a castle, then it feels Bad. My wife tell me this: dont half rear end things. Whole rear end or no rear end at all. That is my view of this Stronghold talk. Its got to be whole rear end.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:54
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DrShevek posted:I would expect something with parity with the games this was inspired by. So, when I think of what my expectations are for a stronghold in PoE were, I thought maybe a total number of quests (with similar depth) to the multitude of Strongholds in BG2.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:57
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If that makes the stronghold worth having in the game, yes.
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Jul 18, 2015 00:00
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In my opinion, the Stronghold is a-ok. It is a backer reward and not meant to be an integral part of the game. There is one thing that is gated and that is getting to Act II. You have to do one thing to get to Act II and that is listen to your Steward tell you how awesome you are and that you have just acquired a loving keep. The upgrade to repair the wall is even free. After that you don't have to do anything else with it if you don't want to. I like the Stronghold. I was pretty stoked when I upgraded the whole thing and it wasn't in ruins anymore. Hell, I even liked going to the library and sorting my books and poo poo. You can even hire the prostitutes from the Salty Mast. The Stronghold is a symbol of your prestige in the world. It's a also a jump off point for the expansion. Pretty clever. I can understand why some does not like a Stronghold feature, maybe there isn't enough to it, I don't know. Everyone has their ideas. But what I don't understand is, "the Stronghold sucks, take it out," or, "the Stronghold is gating the whole loving game," or, "why can't we move furniture around." The developers are going to make minor improvements to our Stronghold as they probably should but thank loving god they're not using all their resources on the loving Stronghold. It is what it is. What I want to see is some snowy poo poo, more kick-rear end abilities and talents, and more story and characters. They've done a great job setting up Eora and it can only get better.
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Jul 18, 2015 00:04
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rope kid posted:Do you want us to cut six quests and ~20 characters/dialogues from the expansion areas for the stronghold? I would, aye. But I understand my opinions aren't the driving force behind stuff like this, hah. Well, okay, maybe like half that, assuming we're talking one to one. 3 quests and 10 characters with dialogue at the stronghold would be pretty awesome. Anyway, I'm kind of sorry I brought this up, I guess my questions were answered pretty well, I'm sorry if this sort of conversation frustrates you. I really do love the game, and you managed to get a Dungeon-crawl hater to love the Endless Paths, so I really do believe you do some awesome work. I just didn't think the rest changes sounded like something I would care about despite really wanting to like the stronghold too, I should have left it at that. Wizzzrd posted:Hell, I even liked going to the library and sorting my books and poo poo. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jul 18, 2015 |
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Jul 18, 2015 00:04
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I *definitely* appreciate the optional-ness of the Stronghold on repeat playthroughs. I won't replay Dragon Age Inquisition nor NWN2 because I've pretty much seen everything in the Stronghold portion of the game but I still must click through them like crazy to unlock certain stuff. The DAI warboard minigame is particularly meddlesome because I can't keep track of the bare min stuff I need to click through to get what I want (even with the system clock abuse trick).
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Jul 18, 2015 00:31
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I'm ok with the Stronghold being optional; I'm less ok with it being one big negative. It's a money sink with no reward. You are objectively better off ignoring it outside of the bounty hunter's building. Like the compromise between "no stronghold" and "yes stronghold" seems to be "a lovely stronghold that punishes the second group."
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Jul 18, 2015 00:35
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Rascyc posted:I *definitely* appreciate the optional-ness of the Stronghold on repeat playthroughs.
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Jul 18, 2015 00:51
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I was super disappointed with the dungeon since it was piss easy for the prisoners to escape from it even with security up the rear end
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Jul 18, 2015 00:53
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The prison is what I immediately thought of when I read ropekid's response up above about cutting content to implement stronghold content since it's probably the one area of the Stronghold where it's basically just for RP purposes as far as I've ever seen. I am really divided on all the extra content we got at the cost of Stronghold content since I am not a big lover of Twin Elms content. It's so easy to make that criticism though in hindsight after having played all of the content they implemented and take it apart piece by piece. It's also probably not really accurate to claim Twin Elms content was what we gained through lack of Stronghold content so who knows~
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Jul 18, 2015 00:58
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Twin Elms isn't extra content.
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Jul 18, 2015 01:05
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If any base game content is expanded in the expansion, there are several things I'd like to see more of before the stronghold is given any attention. I'm okay with that just being a vanity project. There should be more people moving in as it's upgraded, though, even if they only have one line of dialogue like the hirelings.
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Jul 18, 2015 01:10
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I thought Twin Elms was a better realized locale than Defiance Bay, actually.
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Jul 18, 2015 01:10
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Twin Elms is definitely not extra content. It's the third act and a very distinct and different part of the story. Twin Elms is a very appropriate location for our characters to actually interact with the gods and to start wrapping up our story.
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Jul 18, 2015 01:12
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I guess i can see why some people were disappointed by twin elms, since you are only there for like 20 minutes if you are just doing the main quest. I liked the plot reveals and sidequests alot though so that didnt bother me.
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Jul 18, 2015 01:15
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Clever Spambot posted:I guess i can see why some people were disappointed by twin elms, since you are only there for like 20 minutes if you are just doing the main quest. I liked the plot reveals and sidequests alot though so that didnt bother me. I wasn't so much disappointed by Twin Elms as much as it just isn't my style. I appreciate Twin Elms and found it appropriate for the story and I was also happy to be venturing into a different part of the world. More of my style would be a gunslinging Cipher working for Dunryd Row. I was so happy to find a loving spy organization and not mention old-school guns in a fantasy world setting. Which just goes to show the developers are touching on quite a few different areas that would appeal to a broad range of individuals.
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Jul 18, 2015 01:23
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I would've liked Twin Elms better if it was only split into two sections. I hate loading screens 
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Jul 18, 2015 02:09
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