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docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Twin Elms was less complex than Defiance Bay in a lot of ways, but honestly, by that point in the game, that suited me fine.

As for the stronghold, I don't necessarily think it needs major mechanical benefits or exclusive unique items or sidequests or whatever, as nice as those would be. I think it just needs to feel like it's a part of the gameworld. I'd like people to notice it's there when they talk to you. Maybe it gives you the odd extra dialogue option, or additional quest resolution, like that one quest late on where you have the additional option of resolving things peacefully by taking a mercenary leader hostage. More of that, basically, is what I'd like, and if that meant less of something else, that would be fine, I think.

And if people would genuinely complain that they can't get every piece of flavor dialogue unless they build the stronghold, well, those people cannot be negotiated with regardless, I suspect.

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Sea Otter
Oct 9, 2012

rope kid posted:

Do you want us to cut six quests and ~20 characters/dialogues from the expansion areas for the stronghold?
Well, obviously, no-from where I'm standing.

rope kid posted:

Twin Elms isn't extra content.
Yes, the two huge hubs were planned even during the crowd-funding campaign: Twin Elms was "big city 2" 3.5m stretch goal. The initial scope of "Project Eternity" was aimed at something with the size of BG, which has a single big city ,or, Baldur's Gate, of course. The initial city in PoE was Defiance Bay. IIRC, rope kid once told that the game ended up around the size of BG+ToSC expansion, which was, to avoid possible confusion in the context of the latest circumstances, without the White Reach expansion.

All in all, I believe the devs did their best in realizing the initial concept while making the game commercially successful, too. Did they promised too much with the stretch goals?-Probably, in certain parts, but, as a whole, the game is already a solid work and, even from commercial point of view, product. That said, hopefully, they will be eventually able to do some "unfinished businesses" through their upcoming works.

DrShevek
Jan 6, 2015
"Solid work" isn't exciting though. The game does alot of things very well but the stronghold is barely competent. Why have mediocre things in the game? If you include something, strive for excellence. Strive to excite players and make an experience memorable. The stronghold in this game was extremely forgettable.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
The prison is a perfect example. Costs money to build, but in return, you can put prisoners in there, breaking their quests and stopping you from looting their bodies, giving a chance for them to escape the prison giving you nothing, but you also have a chance to blandly sell them to someone for a chunk of gold and no dialogue!

It's pretty much never worthwhile.

Diomedes
Dec 24, 2005
If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.
I think what might have been better would be to have a more realised stronghold, but also make it optional by making it mutually exclusive with one or two other options that are also cool. I think back to BG2 and while there wasn't a choice - it was set by class - there were different strongholds.

What if on arriving at the keep, there are a couple of interested parties preparing to try and claim it already. You'd get a few choices - clear the keep and claim it for yourself would be one of them. Another might be to assist some Doemenel aligned aspirant lord claim the keep, get loads of money and or a cool item or two, big faction boost, and maybe a sweet house in Brackenbury. Or you could help a team of animancers claim the keep for use as a research lab, and in exchange they use their magics to give you stat boosts and some unique ability. Other options aren't too hard to think of.

From there, I'd probably make the keep itself a little bit mechanically simpler - smaller perhaps, less upgrades requiring multiple map tile swaps or whatever is going on there, fewer interior areas, but add some quests, a bit of diplomacy between yourself as lord and neighbouring towns and lords, some recognition in a dialogue or two now and then in the rest of the game, tax management and a few policy decisions, and one or two assaults to fight off. I think most of this would come down to NPCs, dialogue and quest scripting - not too much would need to be built in terms of areas, not too many encounters etc.

I'm sure it amounts to more work on the whole, but it would give people more choices and the ability to avoid anything related to stronghold management if they didn't want it.

DrShevek
Jan 6, 2015

ProfessorCirno posted:

The prison is a perfect example. Costs money to build, but in return, you can put prisoners in there, breaking their quests and stopping you from looting their bodies, giving a chance for them to escape the prison giving you nothing, but you also have a chance to blandly sell them to someone for a chunk of gold and no dialogue!

It's pretty much never worthwhile.

That prison should have led to more quests or a hidden joinable npc or something. All you do is trade those guys away for a few gold pieces if they dont run away first. That is not exciting at all. Let me get a bunch of prisoners and get a demon to join my party in exchange for their souls or something.

The stronghold itself felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity for player choice as well. It would have been cool if you could do stuff like choose different ways for it to look or maybe have to choose between buildings (choose armory or potion shop, but not both, etc). Also, so much reactivity could have been possible. It was cool that you could get the ogre to join you but there should have been way more of that.

Mr.Pibbleton
Feb 3, 2006

Aleuts rock, chummer.

DrShevek posted:

That prison should have led to more quests or a hidden joinable npc or something. All you do is trade those guys away for a few gold pieces if they dont run away first. That is not exciting at all. Let me get a bunch of prisoners and get a demon to join my party in exchange for their souls or something.

The stronghold itself felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity for player choice as well. It would have been cool if you could do stuff like choose different ways for it to look or maybe have to choose between buildings (choose armory or potion shop, but not both, etc). Also, so much reactivity could have been possible. It was cool that you could get the ogre to join you but there should have been way more of that.

The ogre's commentary was one of the most enjoyable things about the stronghold, although the crafting supplies were pretty good.

rope kid
Feb 3, 2001

Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

DrShevek posted:

"Solid work" isn't exciting though. The game does alot of things very well but the stronghold is barely competent. Why have mediocre things in the game? If you include something, strive for excellence. Strive to excite players and make an experience memorable. The stronghold in this game was extremely forgettable.
Content does not burst forth from our foreheads fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus through desire and good intentions.

Sea Otter
Oct 9, 2012
The backers cooperated to save the company from their possible demise (I think there must be quite many people including myself sensed something wrong with their situation...) and the devs essentially did their great job in proving themselves in return within the limited resources. From where I'm standing, I believe that it's already a good example of crowd-funding project. So, basically, I'd rather hope stronghold fans would be happy, too-well, as long as it won't distract the game from its core gameplay established by BG.

Diomedes posted:

I think what might have been better would be to have a more realised stronghold, but also make it optional by making it mutually exclusive with one or two other options that are also cool. I think back to BG2 and while there wasn't a choice - it was set by class - there were different strongholds.
Yeah, that could have been a possible alternative: Combining it with faction choices at either Defiance Bay or Twin Elms would save some resources as well as making it integral part of the whole game. In such format, choosing the Dozens can give the players an option of letting their characters stay rogue-ish especially if equivalent quest lines were provided. Reducing the cities into one while providing interesting enough choices could have made the game feel more completed but it was not an option after the goal was achieved.

Rascyc
Jan 23, 2008

Dissatisfied Puppy

Wizzzrd posted:

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.
God it's so utterly forgettable though.

DrShevek
Jan 6, 2015

rope kid posted:

Content does not burst forth from our foreheads fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus through desire and good intentions.

I can totally respect that. I just think the Stronghold is this thing where you tried to please those that didnt like the Stronghold by making it inconsequential. So, its like your design goal didnt lend itself well to creating an impactful feature. I mean, if something is ging in, do it right. When you guys said no to romances, you said its cuz it would need to be done right (not that Im a fan of romances...). The story would have to work with it etc. The same should be true with the stronghold, if its going in, shoot for impressive not ignorable.

ceaselessfuture
Apr 9, 2005

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."
I think a lot of people are forgetting just how barebones the Strongholds were in BG2. There were initial quests receiving them (that were, themselves, sidequests relating to getting the 20k), a few other scripted events and then, what, getting some rent money every month?

The stronghold isn't the best thing in PoE, sure, but it's not like it's completely terrible. It could use work, but PoE has come very far in the few months it's been out, so I'm sure it'll get addressed.

Hell, even if it doesn't, it's because they're working on more compelling content anyway.

Besides, what else would you have used that ~30k copper for? There's only so many uniques in the game to buy, and you aren't using all of them. It's not like fully furnishing the Stronghold has a negative impact on your game.

And, obviously, you don't need to do it.

DrShevek
Jan 6, 2015
These are the quests from ONE of the strongholds from BG2 (in addition, of course, to the fight to get it which got you the flail of ages).

http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Ruling_the_de%27Arnise_Keep_and_Lands

Additionally there was the planar sphere, the bard one, the rogue one and one more if i remember right.

DrShevek fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jul 18, 2015

Excelzior
Jun 24, 2013

DrShevek posted:

These are the quests from ONE of the strongholds from BG2 (in addition, of course, to the fight to get it which got you the flail of ages).

http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Ruling_the_de%27Arnise_Keep_and_Lands

Additionally there was the planar sphere, the bard one, the rogue one and one more if i remember right.

but you couldn't get more than one stronghold's quests (without modding the game)

e : the ruling quests. You could do the quests to acquire them all, yes.

DrShevek
Jan 6, 2015
Thats replay value. You replayed and saw different stuff. Though, honestly, I modded on replay it to get them all at once.

ceaselessfuture
Apr 9, 2005

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."
That's exactly what I'm talking about. If you guys are really that hard done by for some "quests" that are resolved by literally three or four dialogue options then I really don't think there's any pleasing you.

DrShevek
Jan 6, 2015
Well, theres the associated quest in acquiring the stronghold as well. Moreover, I think folks came to this stronghold expecting an Obsidian twist on it as well. Strong narrative, player choice, etc. So, an updated stronghold that exhibit the badass rpg design of New Vegas and MotB.

Rascyc
Jan 23, 2008

Dissatisfied Puppy
looks like your big head preference is spreading ropekid..

ceaselessfuture
Apr 9, 2005

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."
I could absolutely get behind an improvement of the current stronghold, for sure.

I hope that Obsidian makes this their cash cow for a while. At this point, I'd buy any expansions and keep playing through new patches whenever available. Hell, if they made the Stronghold expansion a ~$5 DLC or something, I'd be down in a heartbeat.

DrShevek
Jan 6, 2015
I would throw down 35 bucks for a proper stronghold xpack. Though I do recall a time when Sawyer and co put out free xpacs (Trials of the Luremaster)

bongwizzard
May 19, 2005

Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"
Grimey Drawer

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.

What would it cost, in general terms, to make a game like PoE exactly the way you wanted with no compromises? In both money and time?

I have three parties like almost to act three and am loving it. My only two complaints are 1) load times, which might be my PC, and)2 it feels sometimes like the combats seem crowded and difficult to manage visually. Like, the way the transparent layers of some of the backgrounds and the character/monsters overlap and confusing manner. It's not something I really remember noticing in the IE games I played. Seems like the camera angle is lower maybe?

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos
I think the important takeaway is the PoE stronghold is a hulk not worth saving and with any luck future stronghold-like features will be farmed off to a mobile developer as a second screen experience.

Tongue only partially in cheek here, if the stronghold is supposed to be for the strongholds sake you need at least a modicum of management game chops because "moneypit to increase two numbers and make the map less grungey" should be embarassing to ship when just browsing this forum on a phone redirects you to a better spreadsheet game on the Play store every other page.

TexMexFoodbaby
Sep 6, 2011

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN
Hmm... condescension starting early tonight.

Khizan
Jul 30, 2013


rope kid posted:

Once the Kickstarter completed, that was never an option. The choice was always about where content went in the game.

Yeah, but it seems like the direction you went with was "Some people don't like strongholds, but we have to do one anyways, so we're going to make one but we're not going to give it any quests or benefits or anything of substance, it'll just be a thing you pour excess money into" and that's a pretty bad direction imo. Since you had to put one in I think you'd have been better off upsetting the anti-stronghold people and building a good stronghold. This one just managed to bother everybody.

bunnielab posted:

1) load times, which might be my PC

I think this has to do with how they store their save games; I know that on my computer the further I get in the game the longer the load times become. This is the #1 reason why I haven't bothered replaying it, honestly. The load times get so long that I read a book during them and then just end up ignoring the game in favour of the book eventually.

Khizan fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Jul 18, 2015

frajaq
Jan 30, 2009

#acolyte GM of 2014


FauxGateau posted:

Hmm... condescension starting early tonight.

Seriously, like there's criticizing unpolished features and there's just being plain mean

TexMexFoodbaby
Sep 6, 2011

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

frajaq posted:

Seriously, like there's criticizing unpolished features and there's just being plain mean

Too be honest everyone should pay attention to my own armchair design and my hilarious misunderstanding of the time and money needed to provide a fuller experience.

Mymla
Aug 12, 2010
I thought the stronghold in NWN2 was one of the best parts of the game, but the quality of the stronghold in PoE makes me wish it just hadn't been included at all. It's not really the sort of thing you can half-rear end.

Rascyc
Jan 23, 2008

Dissatisfied Puppy
Yeah but they were pretty much locked in after the KS. It's already known they had more plans for the Stronghold but reality always has a bone to pick with companies once it gets going. Content creation is p hard, and the NWN2 Stronghold even had quite a few problems too.

GrumpyGoesWest
Apr 9, 2015

FauxGateau posted:

Too be honest everyone should pay attention to my own armchair design and my hilarious misunderstanding of the time and money needed to provide a fuller experience.

Amen to that. All I know is I want more of this world. I want more dialogue, I want more characters, I want new locations. What I don't want is the devs to take all the resources they have and throw said resources into the goddamn stronghold. Personally, I don't post poo poo about games online but this world has so much to it to work off of. I just can't see how people don't understand that this game and it's world has a plethora of potential and instead of getting excited about the new characters or the new locations or discussing how perception will affect accuracy and the builds we can create out of it or speculating on multi-class abilities instead we're bitching about how mediocre the loving stronghold is. Yes, it could use some improvement I guess but it's the whole "the forest through the trees" thing. Put too much on the stronghold and the game as a whole is going to suck rear end. I mean obsidian doesn't have eight-hundred people to make a game like this. Hell if they did it would suck.

Sea Otter
Oct 9, 2012

Wizzzrd posted:

Amen to that. All I know is I want more of this world. I want more dialogue, I want more characters, I want new locations. What I don't want is the devs to take all the resources they have and throw said resources into the goddamn stronghold. Personally, I don't post poo poo about games online but this world has so much to it to work off of. I just can't see how people don't understand that this game and it's world has a plethora of potential and instead of getting excited about the new characters or the new locations or discussing how perception will affect accuracy and the builds we can create out of it or speculating on multi-class abilities instead we're bitching about how mediocre the loving stronghold is. Yes, it could use some improvement I guess but it's the whole "the forest through the trees" thing. Put too much on the stronghold and the game as a whole is going to suck rear end. I mean obsidian doesn't have eight-hundred people to make a game like this. Hell if they did it would suck.
Yeah, I guess I'm another who is happy with that the dev's didn't spend too much resource on the stronghold. I'd be happy with the big hub or any other factor which adds content and I'd like to see more of this world-for that direction, I'd personally prefer the image of drifting party rather than an individual who sets his foot on one place to gradually increase his power there. Also, I fear, depending on implementation, "stronghold" can make the world or the story less convincing.

Darkhold
Feb 19, 2011

No Heart❤️
No Soul👻
No Service🙅
Well I'm gathering from rope kid's comments that the stronghold isn't going to get the huge chunk of content I was hoping it'd get for the expansion which bums me out. It's still going to be the worst of all solutions in the fact it's (mostly) useless yet a huge money sink for the player.

I still understand where the Dev's are coming from (limited resources) but gently caress this sucks. Ah well I love the hell out of this game maybe they'll reconsider for their next one.

Edit: actually though I typed useless I think a bigger sin is that it's just flat boring. It's nice to see the upgrades once but after that there's no interest. I could handle useless if it was at least interesting to interact with.

Darkhold fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Jul 18, 2015

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Honestly, I think ceaselessfuture said it best:

ceaselessfuture posted:

Hell, if they made the Stronghold expansion a ~$5 DLC or something, I'd be down in a heartbeat.

The only worry is if Obsidian didn't make back the resources they would spend on the DLC. I'm also rooting for an expanded stronghold, but for all I know we're just a very loud majority. I can certainly see why people would prefer visiting new places and seeing new NPCs over having to return to the same ol' environs again and again. Even if you save resources on having to create new maps and stuff and just port over the planned expansion NPCs and quests over to the main game, it would feel very cheap.

That being said, have there been any simple modding tools to use for PoE? That way, people who do want expanded strongholds can make their own improvements.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang
I wonder if a small team (one programmer, one 2D artist, one 3D artist, one area designer, give or take) could crank out smaller scale $5-10$ DLCs and still make money. Like Bioware used to do with their Premium Modules for NWN1 (understanding doing 2D stuff like PoE takes more time than 3D).

Khizan
Jul 30, 2013


Stronghold was a bad choice for a Kickstarter stretch goal because it put them in a position where they had to have a stronghold but didn't want to commit the resources to making a good stronghold, which meant that we got this weak boring thing.

As it stands, I think they'd have been better off just putting the Endless Dungeons underneath the Eothasian temple, giving the old watcher a small tower, and committing the stronghold development time to other things.

Oasx
Oct 11, 2006

Freshly Squeezed
I liked the stronghold in the game, but given a choice between between a limited stronghold and more content in the rest of the game, I would pick more content.

trashcangammy
Jul 31, 2012

Oasx posted:

I liked the stronghold in the game, but given a choice between between a limited stronghold and more content in the rest of the game, I would pick more content.

What was it you liked about it?

Konsek
Sep 4, 2006

Slippery Tilde

Khizan posted:

I think this has to do with how they store their save games; I know that on my computer the further I get in the game the longer the load times become. This is the #1 reason why I haven't bothered replaying it, honestly. The load times get so long that I read a book during them and then just end up ignoring the game in favour of the book eventually.

Go to the save folder and move all your old save files to a new folder, it'll speed up saving and loading. I end up having to do this in a lot of games because I can't help but save way too much. Or just delete the older ones I guess.

Konsek fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Jul 18, 2015

Oasx
Oct 11, 2006

Freshly Squeezed

trashcangammy posted:

What was it you liked about it?

I like having my own place, that I can upgrade and walk around there knowing it is mine. I wish it was less of a money sink, because I didn't feel I could afford both it, and all the high level items I wanted. But just looking at it, seeing the Ogre I helped get a safe home, visiting the vendors and the library, it is just a nice feeling.

evilmiera
Dec 14, 2009

Status: Ravenously Rambunctious

Oasx posted:

I like having my own place, that I can upgrade and walk around there knowing it is mine. I wish it was less of a money sink, because I didn't feel I could afford both it, and all the high level items I wanted. But just looking at it, seeing the Ogre I helped get a safe home, visiting the vendors and the library, it is just a nice feeling.

Honestly I didn't mind it being a moneysink, beyond the earliest portion of the game were every pand was needed just to stay alive. The restoration process was nice, though it needed some more content and polish. Overall I'm happy it exists in the game, though I hope at some point later it gets to really shine.

Edit:vvv The only way we can have truly indie developers is if we send them lottery tickets and they win a few hundred million.

evilmiera fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Jul 18, 2015

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Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

Obsidian liberates themselves from publisher control with a shiny Kickstarter, only to find themselves directly shackled to the whims of the player base instead. It's straight out of a Greek tragedy or something.

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