Pillars of Eternity

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

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

JanPospisil posted:

The Kickstarter ideas have me puzzled. Open world and/or episodic?! Those are the two worst possible traits for a game on that engine with that technology they have for Eternity! Goodness me, I can't imagine how that'd work.
I mean, a procedurally generated open world would be great, but their environments are all handmade, so it would look significantly "worse". And episodic open world? What?

Where did you get procedural from? All the article said that they're interested in making an open world game, nothing about procedural generation. It'd be just as handcrafted as New Vegas/Skyrim/GTA/whatever else. They'd probably have to tweak the scope of the game map depending on the amount of funding but even a single small town and it's surroundings could be enough for an open world game as long as you can do whatever you feel like inside that town. Probably the only difference between whatever they want to make and Eternity would be that the world would be one continuous place instead of bunch of separate locations. As for episodic open world games, I'd guess they mean that it would basically be an open world game with a ten hour main game and a bunch of ten hour DLC expansions that add more content to the same world.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2013 22:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:26

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Megazver posted:

The thing with the Infinity/Eternity engine maps is that they're basically one giant handmade bitmap. Skyrim and New Vegas are reusable models on top of a procedurally generated terrain. GTA has a budget you could drown small countries with, if converted into physical money.

They could do an open world game, but they'd probably have to switch back to tile-based terrain. As I recall Divine Divinity was basically one big top-down sandbox game.

An episodic game would have to have a real tight focus, tighter than Alpha Protocol. And frankly, I'm just not a huge fan of the episodic model. I can't play rpg DLCs because it's such a pain in the rear end to reimmerse myself back into the game again. Episodic for RPGs would make it even worse.

And please leave Numenera to Fargo. There are other settings to do and frankly it's okay, but it's not that great.

I suspect even Eternity is reusing plenty of non-setpiece assets like trees, rocks and skeletons. They're just baked into the pre-rendered background instead of rendered at runtime. They could do an open world game with similar scope to Eternity, simply by taking Eternity's X screens worth of locations and smashing them together into a single continuous location that contains the same amount of content as those X screens together. They'd just have to ad some location streaming tech to limit how much of the world the computer has to handle at a time and set the game in a smaller locale.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2013 23:10

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

I think that the best way to implement consumables is to hardcap the amount you can carry low and then throw them at you constantly, so instead of hoarding them for the big fight that never comes, you're encouraged to use them or lose them.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2013 21:28

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Captain Oblivious posted:

I mean poo poo this is almost as asinine as some dumb shpiel I read in AD&D about how like, no Druid magic isn't really magic because like

Druid magic are ~ultranatural~ and magic magic is ~supernatural~ like that actually loving means anything

The entire discussion started because of these posts:

Zore posted:

Aragorn used magic, and having super cool magic stuff to back you up has been a hallmark of every myth ever, from Sun Wukong's cloud and infinite staff to Achilles magic abilities and equipment.

DatonKallandor posted:

When does Aragorn use magic? He uses magic items, which everyone else does too, but I can't remember him ever casting anything remotely like a spell. He's a Ranger with good gear - and if you compare him to a DnD Ranger he's a whole lot less magic, since DnD Rangers eventually got to be pocket Druids.

And

SoggyBobcat posted:

That's more of a royal bloodline sort of thing rather than any overt use of magic.

What I gather from this discussion is that the supernatural stuff in LOTR is either magic or not depending on which definition of magic you use but you can't really differentiate between what Gandalf does and what Aragorn does. It's either all magic or none of it is and this whole discussion has been just people with different definitions of magic talking past each other.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2014 20:54

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Captain Oblivious posted:

I'M MAD AS gently caress ABOUT NERDY PEDANTRY

The crux of the argument is that because it's a natural phenomena it's not magic, but that's the case in 99% of fantasy so you either believe magic doesn't exist in any fantasy or in all of it.

And that's without getting into how worthless a distinction it is. The point being made communicates nothing of worth and basically only exists to get the teacher to award a shiny gold linguistic star.

The star is actually a plastic sticker that will fall off later today

I guess some people like to differentiate between magic as an inherent quality of a thing and magic as a supernatural science/technology analogue that has to be perfected through study. I don't really care about this discussion either. I have just noticed that a lot of internet arguments tend to result from people talking past each other because everyone has slightly different definitions of the terms being used and it kind of annoys me when I notice it happening.

E: Also, I think it's less about the worthiness/worthlessness of the distinctions and more about everyone just assuming that everyone is using the same definitions when they are not. It doesn't really matter how accurate the definition being used is, it's more important that everyone participating in the discussion is using the same definitions even if they might be the wrong ones. At least then everyone is on the same page and the discussion can go somewhere more constructive than bickering about what counts and doesn't count as the thing being discussed.

Oo Koo fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jan 7, 2014

# ¿ Jan 7, 2014 21:08

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Will the ability descriptions of the chanter chants include a summary of the story that they are from? I want to know who the Brideman was and who was he slaying or whose spirits does "If their Bones Sleep Still Under that Hill, None Can Say" summon.

E: Also are there bonuses for telling complete stories? Like if certain chants all come from the same story and you use them all in the right order.

Oo Koo fucked around with this message at 18:55 on May 14, 2014

# ¿ May 14, 2014 18:49

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Sensuki posted:

At a glance I can sort of see not really needing Perception as a Priest because you spend a lot of time casting party buffs and are probably going to be primarily a ranged character.

Reading the example spells in the cleric update, they also seem to do offensive support. All the offensive cleric spells listed have some debuff component. As such I'd expect perception to be useful for increasing their offensive support capabilities by allowing their attack spells to more easily interrupt enemy spells and other delayed attacks.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 13:56

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Sensuki posted:

It's more on the fact that a fair amount of the Priest's time might be spent on casting party buffs and doing standard attacks. Those offensive spells might not be very often such as 1/encounter or 1/rest and the Priest is squishy, doesn't have a great accuracy with weapons and not the best defenses, so sitting at the back and using a ranged weapon (such as a bow, crossbow or gun) seems to be 'the way' to play.

Before being concerned about whether or not those spells and attacks cause interrupts, I'd be more concerned about their duration and AoE size (INT), Actually hitting those spells and attacks (DEX), Staying alive in combat (CON) and not being interrupted (RES), then perhaps the damage done by those hits and self-healing (MIG) and last of all Interrupt (PER). As a Priest, whether you interrupt or not doesn't seem too important.

That's just me. Although as I said, I haven't played the game, and maybe playing a character who uses a Hunting Bow and maxing Perception still causes a lot of interrupts.

Isn't that a matter of your build and what you want to focus on though? If you wanted to focus your cleric primarily on offensive support instead of damage, healing or party buffing and trust in your frontliners to keep your casters safe and from being interrupted. I could see placing perception near the top of the list along with intelligence and dexterity.

Also don't the stats also unlock options in conversation and those CYOA encounters? So you also have to take into account that perception might be important for any detective type quests.

Since all stats are going to be designed to do something useful, I'm planning to setup my stat spread according to their RP effects and adapt what I'm doing in combat to what I'll end up with.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 15:03

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Sensuki posted:

I'm only talking about their combat efficacy. I generally power game and play on high difficulty. The attributes are balanced for combat. Their combat benefits have nothing to do with the RP benefits. That's a different area of balance altogether.

A point put into Might gives you (based on the mock up which is likely now out of date) +2% damage and healing. You get something out of that every time you deal damage on a graze, hit or crit of any action that causes damage and any time you receive healing.

A point into Perception gives you +2% chance to Interrupt. Interrupts are not guaranteed and are based on the weapon (or spell) inherent value. You only get something out of Perception when you cause an Interrupt. If you're not using a weapon with high interrupt, that may not be very often. What does an Interrupt give you? It slows down the enemy by ~0.5-1 second which cumulatively reduces the amount of damage and duration of effects suffered by the party, by a very, very, very fractional amount each time. This also depends on your choice of target. It's better to interrupt characters with slower, higher damage weapons than it is to interrupt a faster attacking character (and/or characters with low Resolve if you're playing with the stat popups enabled).

These values will obviously be balanced a bit more, but point for point, you get more guaranteed benefits of pretty much all of the attributes than you do from Perception. For a class that's the least offensive-based out of all of the PE classes, it just seems like a waste to invest in Perception.

If you can actually pretty consistently cause interrupts with fast low-default interrupt value weapons and a High Perception score, then that's not too bad.

Yes that's a good point. I can kinda see why spells have an accuracy bonus, because then if you made a character with a lovely dex, casting offensive spells probably sucks.

The stated design goal of the stat system is that every stat is meant to be equally useful for every single character class depending on what you want to focus on and that there should be no dump stats. So it follows that unless Obsidian fucks up their balancing (which is possible but we won't know until the game is out) perception should be useful for any class, you'll just have to adapt your playstyle to take advantage of the improved interrupt chance.

E: Also, while interrupting basic attacks won't probably amount to much, interrupting some six second cast time mega nuke spell one second before it goes off can potentially win you the whole encounter since the caster just wasted five seconds doing nothing and you stopped whatever disaster they were about to unleash on you.

Oo Koo fucked around with this message at 16:31 on May 26, 2014

# ¿ May 26, 2014 16:20

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

Sensuki posted:

I know the design goals. What I am saying is that point for point (or % for %) Causing an Interrupt is simply not as good as the rest of the derived benefits from other attributes:

You get something out of CON every time you take damage
You get something out of MIG every time you cause damage or are healed
You get something out of INT from passives (always active), and every time you cast anything that has an AoE size or a duration

You get something out of DEX every time you make an attack where the defender's target defense is passed by the bonus accuracy from your DEX score on top of the roll and other benefits (which will be a lot, effectively increasing total damage and durations caused).
You get something out of RES when the bonus concentration of your RES score resists an Interrupt that would have otherwise passed, which is based on a weapon/spell value. (Lose Effective DPS and Durations from a fail)
You get something out of PER when the bonus interrupt from your PER score makes the difference to beat a Concentration check (Reducing Effective DPS and Durations from enemies on a pass)

The benefits from all of these are not equally balanced point for point or % by %. MIG, DEX, CON, PER and RES had 2% per point increases, AoE and Durations had 5x, although that most likely means that default values from consumables won't be huge, and default AoE sizes from spells won't be huge either.

Because Interrupts are based on a weapon inherent value, as well as having to actually cause damage, the derived benefit from Perception is a lot less than any of the other attributes. Which makes it a pretty crumby choice point for point compared to everything else. It would be interesting to know exactly how it is calculated.

That's why I think Perception just plain sucks on Priests. You get something out of it, but it's not a great benefit compared to everything else.

Hey I wonder if Intellect increases the duration of the DoT's inflicted by Sabres, that would be cool.

Isn't that part of the whole balancing thing? Percentage per percentage interrupt chance might be worse than bonus damage or accuracy or whatever, but that doesn't matter when a single stat point buys you +6% interrupt versus +2% damage or whatever the final numbers end up being. They don't all have to scale at the same rate. I'm pretty sure that it's possible to crunch the numbers so that the average damage mitigation over time from the increased number of interrupts matches the amount you get from increased healing or health or whatever. We won't know whether Obsidian manages to successfully calculate those magic numbers until the game is out. But at least in theory it should be possible to reach a state where a stat point has roughly equal utility value regardless of where you put it.

While we're on stats, I have a question of my own. How viable are generalists RP wise? Assuming the stat balancing works out, spreading your stat points equally across all stats shouldn't cause problems in combat since they'll all do something useful. But are there enough low level stat checks to allow a generalist to make up for the inability to pass the difficult checks with the breadth of their abilities? Are there combination solutions where you can reach a similar result to a single high level stat check by passing multiple low level ones for different stats?

# ¿ May 26, 2014 21:21

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

FRINGE posted:

If the spergs are already this busy then the design must be good.

Someone roll an interrupt quick!

Being "healthy enough" + "strong enough" should not necessarily get you past the equivalent of a wisdom check. PS:T did not have a balanced set of options/paths, but it did do a good job of making sure that you ended up with the feeling that exceptional stats were doing specialized and exceptional things.

I meant something like, you need to get into a tower that's sealed by a huge stone door. You can either go fight some monster to get the key from it's lair (for those that don't have the required stats), force it open (difficult strength check) or notice an overgrown window above the door (medium perception check) and climb through it (medium dexterity check). The end result for every solution is that you get inside, the way just differs. I'd like for there to be some unique quest solutions relying on multiple easier checks for different stats, so that being a jack of all trades makes you feel that the breadth of your abilities is exceptional in it's own way.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 23:00

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:26

Oo Koo: Nov 19, 2012

MartianAgitator posted:

No, stats will never be equal. Interrupt chance is an aggressive/utility option that may let you stun lock enemies. Reaching that point may let you make some encounters trivial in ways that extra damage, extra health or whatever else just can't match. On the other hand, any number of enemies may be immune to interrupt, making all those points worthless. We don't even need to know if there are a huge amount of interrupt-immune enemies or that it's incredibly broken to stun-lock enemies, or any other contexts that the game developers will add. It's gonna be a complex system and people will find ways to break it.

Balance is a myth. But Obsidian will probably make it feel balanced to people who don't experiment (or read the gamefaqs page). That's one of the things that matters.

Another, and more interesting thing, is giving us multiple ways to break the system. That and arbitrary restrictions are what make games really cool. You all are ready the FF5 Job Fiesta thread, right?

Well I said roughly equal utility value. Obviously you can't account for everything, but as you said they'll probably get close enough that there's no obviously best stat to raise. If the difference between optimal and sub-optimal stats ends up being small enough, personal preference for play style can easily make up the difference. If the player enjoys going "nope" at enemy spell casters and the difference between perception and whatever's the mathematically optimal stat is negligible, it's obviously optimal for their fun to invest in perception instead of whatever the best stat is.

# ¿ May 27, 2014 00:06

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