zlarm
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Posts posted by zlarm
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Thanks for the clarity.
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I donated through KS and I haven't received any emails from obsidian... KS and amazon sent me one saying my payment was processed yesterday but thats it. I wouldn't worry about it you'll probably get one in the next few days.
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I really hope they can keep 13 levels from becoming overly tedious.... I remember that 8? or 9? level dungeon in NWN and man was that ever a chore to complete. Watcher's keep and Durlags tower are both examples of megadungeons done right but those were only what 7 levels each? They have their work cut out for them if they're going to keep a dungeon almost twice that length interesting.
I like the idea of maybe dividing the dungeon in thirds or quarters and having to progress a certain amount in the main story before finding an item that will unlock the next portion. Either that or they could create a huge difficulty spike every 3 or 4 levels (with ample warning of whats to come in the next portion). That way if you really wanted a serious challenge you could put your low level party through maybe part of the 2nd portion (although with a lot of struggle). But most people who don't want to spend hours reloading every encounter just come back in after they've levelled a bit.
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Sounds like they ran out of ideas for stretch goals... Not that I'm complaining. I'd rather they just take the time to stamp out all the bugs and refine all the content they're going to be adding. Hell 2 big cities. None of the IE games had that and I'm sure they gonna be a real pain to properly implement.
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I voted for... but I do have a concern about say an encounter with a group of enemies (for example a very tough enemy adventuring party) that is not assigned to a quest. Will defeating these guys give no experience then? I'd be kind of disappointing if I spent a lot of time setting up a good strategy and upon finally beating these guys to receive no xp.
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I'm firmly in the minimalist UI design camp. I thought the UIs in both dragon ages were good (although they could pull out the minimap and replace the terrible portraits and health/stamina bars) and replaying the old IE games I just couldn't get used to how much screen space the UI takes up.
Don't much like the looks of the ToEE UI, particularly the neon colours. IWD 2 was okay I guess. I personally liked how they downsized all the inv, spellbook buttons since I always use the hotkeys for them anyways. Still much too chunky for my tastes though.
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Screenie is fantastic. Keep up the good work
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Timestop felt great when you finally got it.
Recently discovered sunburst which is kinda nifty
Flesh to stone and disintegrate are also kind of fun but most high levels save and it destroys their stuff.
So favourite is probably bigbys crushing hand. Conjure a giant fist to pound enemies. Whats not to like?
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Well, I guess they hope that PE will be a commercial success.
Many of us believe it will, but it's not guaranteed. But then again kickstarter projects are not guaranteed to successfully deliver on their goals in the first place.
If your reward includes a copy of the game, what it actually means is that if the development of the game succeeds as planned, then you will get a copy of it.
Similarly, if your reward includes a copy of the expansion, what it actually means is that if the development of the game succeeds as planned, and if after that it sells enough copies to fund development of an expansion, and if the development of the expansion then succeeds as planned, then you will get a copy of it.
Yes, it means you have to go out on a limb.
But that's what you are doing anyways, whenever you support a Kickstarter project.
It is up to you to decide, which risks are acceptable for the amount of money you choose to pledge. If you are unsure about the expansion, simply ignore it and only choose the corresponding tier if you would have chosen it anyways.
I'm aware of the inherent risks in supporting a KS idea. It's not that risk which was concerning me. My main concern (which Adam has now addressed) was that the KS money would be going to pay for the expansion content. That decision would mean that a percentage of the money donated by any tier not receiving the expansion would be funding content they would then have to pay extra for. That wouldn't be fair as many people have been donating with the knowledge that their money would be going towards making the base game (which everyone will be receiving) as good as it can be. Anyways its a moot point now that Adam has stated all the KS money will go to the main game.
As a bit of a side note I wonder how they will be funding the expansion. Surely they will start work on it months before the main game ships (this is how development usually works) and they see any money from sales. Will they get a loan? Start another KS later one? Do they have enough reserves to cover the cost of an expansion?
Edit: and now Feargus (thanks squeaky cat) has answered that question.
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My question would be how are they going to fund the expansion pack? From the KS campaign?
Edit: Nvm Adam posted while I was writing this.
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Haha! Well I guess since my monthly income is a grand total of $0 (or well negative) and I pledged more than a dollar my pledge/income quotient is greater than everyone else. Which means my input is more important?!? I declare that PE should be a carbon copy of DA2. Shed me those warm salty tears 'codexians'.
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As most have stated I don't like the idea of taunt, but the AI does need to be smart enough to not fall for common cheese mechanics like kiting as has been mentioned. I liked some of the ideas Ieo posted. I'm not really sure how aggro works but isn't it the idea that enemies target whoever is dealing them the most damage. While that seems like a somewhat simplistic system damage being dealt should definitely be a factor in who the AI decides to attack, along with who is closest (and hopefully the smarter enemies will preferentially target casters/healers or people close to death).
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I can immediately see that the Shrek character represents the forces of good and the Caerdon character represents the forces of evil that are now destroying everything that was good about some of the older cRPGs. I hope you are happy with DA2, Caerdon. Because that's what you are begging for with posts like yours. Just remember that as you attempt to push games as far as you can stand into the anti-intellectual, popamole paradigm there are others with even less patience for standing around thinking and they will always prevail. Always. Less intellectually oriented games, all other things being equal, will always be cheaper and easier to make and will always be crowd pleasers. That's all a publisher ever needs to know. Once you venture down that road at all there is no escape from your destination, which is a game with breathtaking graphics which even a monkey could play.
While I do appreciate that you are some kind of super-genius with an IQ of 210 who can think as fast as a computer, what about the rest of the 99.9999999999999999999% with average intellects who cannot think as fast as a 5 Ghz quad core CPU? I guess they should start their own kickstarter? The idea of real time combat without built in pause mechanics being tactical is ridiculous. If you love popamole combat and can't get enough of clicking pixels to death with your mouse, at least be honest enough to admit it. Or go play against an excellent chess player, but limit your turns to no more than 1 second and allow them to take as much time as they need to make a move. Come back and report the results Mr. I-am-as-fast-a-thinker-as-a-computer. There can be no debate about whether turn-based is a more strategic style of gameplay. It is that pretty much by definition. You can argue all you want about whether it is a fun style of gameplay, but it is clearly more strategic unless you are just fighting without thinking.
Oh yeah. And if the developers ever have any question about how the combat in this game should work, just look to the fantasy cRPG with the greatest combat system ever: ToEE. Look no further than Tim Cain. In that sense it's really not that complicated. Once you have replicated that, then we can talk about improvements.
Wow just wow.... I'm speechless. I don't know even know where to start. Are BG, IWD, PS:T (you know most of the games that are inspiring PE) no longer old school RPGs? I guess they're only for us intellectually challenged because clearly there can't be any depth to a game that isn't TB. Its not like theres a WHOLE GENRE of strategy games that are real time (oh wait there is). And it's not like in real life situations you'd have to make decisions in real time (oh wait you would). Oh well realism is for the intellectually challenged. Caedron you are clearly everything that is wrong with the games industry. You should go play DA2 or chess (which you'll obviously lose at cause I'm implying you're dumb).
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Without a doubt plot. The last RPG I played with a truly amazing plot was MotB. But I've played plenty of games with good gameworlds since then (the new deus ex, skyrim, some of Biowares recents, dark souls). The games industry truly hurts for good plots.
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The main thing is that monks need to be differentiated from fighters and clerics. While that doesn't automatically mean they have to do kung fu, having them unable to wear most armours and focus on completely different weapons then fighters and priests (along with unique special abilities) goes a long way in fulfilling that goal. Kung fu also helps in that regard.
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A wizard with trousers, that should make a bunch of people happy.
Hahaha I didn't realize there was a pants on wizards faction...I remember the opposite being the complaint in NWN (no robes for wizards)
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i wish engaging with soul bussiness would be evil in the game world
I hope they don't make arbitrary judgements on what is evil or not
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Yeah GB is a great site. Hopefully anyone who uses it periodically can show them a little support with the Chipin given the amount of work Buck and co put into their site.
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I can understand the sentiment. While variety is great I would mainly like to see as many unique maces, spears, flails etc.... as there are 1 handed swords.
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Well mod tools and coop would be my initial thoughts but since those are excluded I would say maybe a substantial expansion (5-10hrs) at 3mil. Something akin to werewolf island in TotSC (since we already have a durlag/watchers keep by the sounds of it). Maybe there could be a brief background/ initial write up about it to get people interested.
I also think a screenshot would drive up a lot of interest.
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Maybe severely limit the number of arrows you can lug around, but make each arrow account for more. I.e. do serious damage, but you want to use it for worthy adversaries, not all the small critters you run into (which you could finish off with a recycleable throwing dagger or some such). It's all down to the (as of yet unknown) game mechanics.
Not really a fan of that idea... You'd essentially be turning whatever archer class they have into a mage. I think everyone is starting to go overboard on the realism. Even the IE games didn't restrict you on things like that. Whats next? The more arrows you have the more likely you are to accidentally poke yourself so you should suffer damage over time?
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Except zero scaling does not force the player to follow a set path.
It might cause some paths to become very easy if you do them later, and it might cause some paths to be very challenging if you do them sooner. Or, even better, some paths might be harder or easier depending on your party-makeup if you meet them earlier or later.
Or, and this is the real prize, a shallower overall power curve in the game allows no scaling and player freedom, since the power difference from the minor enemies and more powerful enemies is smaller.
There should be encounters which, should you meet them too early, kill you easily. There should also be encounters which, once your character has developed, are trivial to defeat. And those trivial encounters shouldn't just vanish because you're stronger. City guards should be a fixed level. Bandits should be a fixed level. Wild dogs should be a fixed level. If I fight Ogres, and learn that I can kill them by doing 15-25 damage, then the next time I meet ordinary Ogres again that should still be true, even if I now do 45-60 damage per attack.
It may not force YOU to follow a set path but it will force a sizeable chunk of players to follow the set path (the easiest one first). Very few players are going to grind through the difficult main path before doing the easy one.I completely agree that there should be encounters that when you meet them to early should kill you easily but I think that should come from side quests and exploring. That said when the main path is linear scaling shouldn't be necessary.
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As someone else already pointed out you can't properly implement a non linear main path without some level scaling. For example if you need to perform 2 activities before progressing to the next chapter the 2nd one needs to be more difficult than the first. But if the designer wants to give the player the option of doing either first he can't make the second activity challenging without some form of scaling.
Secondly if you compare the playthroughs of two people one who does all side quests and one who doesn't do any it will be very difficult to balance game difficulty to both these players requirements without some form of scaling.
Not that I'm a big fan of level scaling but I can see why its used and I didn't mind it in the BGs and at certain points in DA:O.
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Only if spells can be cast instantly. What's your point?
True I don't really remember what the time difference is between casting one spell and then the next (but it was a noticeable amount of time unhasted)... My point simply was that cooldown systems come in many forms and that many of those who hate a cooldown system and would prefer a BG system should realize that the BG system was a form of cooldown (just not as noticeable).
8 companions: is it enough?
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted · Edited by zlarm
Personally I kind of prefer quantity over quality in this one aspect (to a certain extent - gone to far it becomes IWD like and I don't enjoy that as much). I'd trade 8 fully fleshed out companions with sidequests for 20 BG like companions. A lot of the fun I had in BG was bumping into a random companion on some offbeat map, experimenting with them for a bit and then killing them off (or not) to pick up the next one.
8 does seem pretty low to me. Hell I'd like to see at the least 1 per class but maybe thats just me. I really enjoyed planescape but the limited number of companions did grate on me a bit. I mean if you wanted a thief you had to have Anna, if you wanted a mage you had to have Ignus (and you couldn't even get him until super late).