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Verenti

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    Feedback on game

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    You know, a lot

     

     

     

     

    No voice acting. Voice for me is the important part of the game. I feel that voice acting gives the characters souls that makes the game experince more enjoyable. I did not support Kickstarter but I just bought the game just to try it out. I quit after 5 hours into the game. I feel that reading text makes me tired & no voice acting makes the dialogues less fun. Anyway I just want to say that VOICE ACTING IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR MODERN GAMES.

    And I want to make big feedback short. So I just do a 1 - 10 scale.

     

    Combat System 6/10
    Story 10/10
    Sound effects 10/10
    RPG system 10/10

    Graphics 8/10

    Exploration 7/10

    Voice acting 1/10

     

    Just so you know. You do not need to feel left out. I did not finish Divinity Original Sin or Wasteland 2 either. Because these games have no voice acting.

    It really destroyed the game experience for me but yes yes I know. Kickstarter has limited budget bla bla :D

    I quit playing Wasteland 5 hours into the game. I quit playing Divinity Original Sin 6 hours into the game. And I stopped playing Pillars of Eternity because reading dialogues is just not preferance. The story is actually very awesome but I just could not finish the game without voice acting on dialogues.

     

     

    Have you considered that maybe RPGs aren't your genre?

     

     

    I do like RPG games. Here are the RPG I have played and liked.

     

    Spellforce 1 & 2

    Star Wars: Knights of the old republic 1 & 2

    Mass Effect 1,2 & 3

    Dungeon Siege 2 & 3

    Dragon Age 1,2 & 3

    Zelda

    Fable 1, 2, & 3

    Titan Quest

     

    And also Van Helsing 1 & 2

     

     A lot of those games aren't RPGs. They're action games with stats.

    Feedback on game

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

     

    No voice acting. Voice for me is the important part of the game. I feel that voice acting gives the characters souls that makes the game experince more enjoyable. I did not support Kickstarter but I just bought the game just to try it out. I quit after 5 hours into the game. I feel that reading text makes me tired & no voice acting makes the dialogues less fun. Anyway I just want to say that VOICE ACTING IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR MODERN GAMES.

    And I want to make big feedback short. So I just do a 1 - 10 scale.

     

    Combat System 6/10

    Story 10/10

    Sound effects 10/10

    RPG system 10/10

    Graphics 8/10

    Exploration 7/10

    Voice acting 1/10

     

    Just so you know. You do not need to feel left out. I did not finish Divinity Original Sin or Wasteland 2 either. Because these games have no voice acting.

    It really destroyed the game experience for me but yes yes I know. Kickstarter has limited budget bla bla :D

    I quit playing Wasteland 5 hours into the game. I quit playing Divinity Original Sin 6 hours into the game. And I stopped playing Pillars of Eternity because reading dialogues is just not preferance. The story is actually very awesome but I just could not finish the game without voice acting on dialogues.

     

     

    Have you considered that maybe RPGs aren't your genre?

    • Like 1

    Mature ESRB rating

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by Verenti

    First of all, this game looks awesome. I really, really, really, want to give Obsidian my money for this game. It's made me start a new game of Baldur's Gate 2 just to scratch the isometric rpg itch I've been having recently.

     

    Now, I'm probably in the minority asking about this, but it's a concern that will determine whether or not I'll buy this game.

     

    So: based on the Mature ESRB, how prevalent is the (stronger) profanity in this game?

     

    The ESRB summary says:

     

     

    The word “f**k” appears in dialogue.

     

     So, is that one instance? Is there only one dialogue where it appears? How often is it used? I guess we won't really know until the full game is out. 

     

    Don't get me wrong, I appreciate more "mature" writing and themes. I don't mind "lore based profanity". But I recently bought Shadowrun:Dragonfall, and the (more explicit) profanity occurred so often that it was immersion breaking and annoying, and unfortunately Steam doesn't offer refunds. However, I recently learned that GOG offers refunds, so I can certainly try it out.

    You played a game with "punk" in the title of the genre and you found explicit swearing to be immersion breaking?

    • Like 14

    PoE Embargo ends March 23rd, Backers wait for the 26th?

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

     

     

    Did the kickstater even say backers get the game before anyone else? 

     

     

    Nope. I don't get the stink over this since they never promised early access nor hinted that there would be one. Backers already get perks that non-backers get.

     

    So they are basically complaining about not getting something there where never promised?

     

    Oh ok that makes all the sense   /sarcasum

     

     

    The precedent for giving Backers of Kickstarter projects access to the material before the public launch day has been established. Monte Cooke's rpgs have given backers early access to the books. For example, this last Character Options book for the Strange, I got a week before it officially came out. I don't know if it has officially come out.

     

    Satellite Reign and Wastelands 2 both gave access to the game in advance of the release. SR isn't out yet. Planetary Annihilation gave early access to all backers because they ran over their projected date. 

     

    In other PnP rpgs, Fragged Empire has given any player who requested it access to the playtest.

     

    While Obsidian was not obligated to get the game into our hands as quickly as possible, there is clearly a precedent of other high profile game companies doing exactly that. Therefore, there can be a reasonable expectation that a game which is, regardless of the realistic nature of the original projections, a year past said projections, to give those people whose funding made the work possible to have access whenever the developer felt comfortable releasing the finished product; one can argue this is currently the case, as they released the title to the critics.

     

    No one is saying they must do something, but rather that they should (have) do(ne) something. An opinion with which I agree. We were sold on this game years ago, and I assume it was our desire to play this game that drove many of us to give our money well in advance. I cannot speak for you, or anyone else, but to me, it seems an awfully long time to leave a man like that and to leave him so longer that you can, when you claim to be grateful to that man, seems to be working at cross purposes.

     

    Don't mistake this post for anger over the situation however. This is my disagreement, not my fury.

    • Like 2

    Steam Achievements

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by Verenti

    How do I say this politely? An IGN article is not scientific rigor, and to say that the highly specialized and decades-refined addictive triggers used in slot machines and the use of achievements are the same sort of brain manipulation shows a lack of academic rigor.

    You should judge the arguments, not who they come from. Otherwise it's just snobbery.

     

    King, Daniel, Pual Delfabbro and Mark Griffiths. "Video Game Structural Characteristics: A New Psychological Taxonomy." International Journal of Mental Health Addiction. 2010.

     

    Achievements fall under "winning & losing conditions"  in the frame work developed by R.T.A. Wood et al to discuss videogame addiction in their paper The structural characteristics of video games: a psycho-structural analysis. Wood argued that the human brain is conditioned to maximise wins and minimise losses.

     

    Weinstein, Aviv Malkiel. "Computer and Video Game Addiction -- A comparison  between Game Users and Non-Game Users". The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2010.

     

    Dr Weinstein, of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, writes a paper which deals with, amongst other things, a dopamine trial to test dopamine levels in gamers who have no prior traditional addiction versus those who have had addictions to ecstasy. The game he selected for the trial was MotoGP published by THQ, which has no zynga style exploitive microtransactions, nor traditional gambling systems like betting. While not mentioning achievements, it is clear by his research that people do get chemical carrots, so to speak, from playing traditional style video games.

     

    So to reiterate, you're wrong. Achievements are designed to motivate players to accomplish them and they do so by exploiting a person's psychology and physiology. And you're wrong to call out an article on IGN as illegitimate or scientifically unsound because of the source. Video games websites are chalk full of people who are interested in games and having university degrees.

     

    edit: And as I just dug through about 60 pages of journal articles to prove a point that never should have been needed to be made in the first place, no, I'm not interested in continuing  this conversation.

    Steam Achievements

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

     

     

     

    I can say that achievements negatively impacted my playthrough of Wasteland 2. Why?  Because I  played to collect them. I let the achievements dictate the path of my playthrough and the choices I made in the game. Why? Because playing the game straight meant that I'd have to play through again if I was going to gather the rest.

     

    For some games, achievements makes sense. They're mini-missions to give flavour to an action game and they work. But they work.  In RPGs, I should be doing something because it makes sense for my character, not because it will unlock a little picture on my account.

    Then do that. Achievements don't force you to do anything. That's all your choices, not the big bad achievement's bullying you into messing up your playing.

     

    The concept is of an achievement is a meta-game layer on top of actual gameplay. It's not as simple as you suggest, because games are actually rather great for preying on human weakness. It's the reason why slot machines are so successful: because they subvert the human subconciousness to illicit certain behaviours. In both cases, they exist to coax the player to keep playing to get the dopamine shot from having obtained a reward.

     

    You and I and mostly everyone else on the planet are actually chemically conditioned to pursue achievements.

     

    Slot machines are designed by teams of scientists to trigger specific parts of your brain that generate addictive behavior. The same trigger mechanisms are used in games like Candy Crush. Achievements are not that. Not only are achievement notifications toggable as a whole, but there is nothing in them designed to subvert or force your subconscious into specific actions. It's literally just lists of things you've done or can do and notifying when you have; whether you choose to do those things or not is entirely up to you. The two things are not directly comparable; it's like saying tobacco is addictive, so cabbage should be regulated.

     

     

    How to say this? You are wrong.

    It takes absolute no academic rigour to find a half-dozen articles talking about the science of achievements. They are not something that appeared by accident, they are a tool. They are designed to appeal to the player design with psychology in mind. Repeating this in the negative doesn't make it untrue, because it's well documented. Otherwise, why would people hunt achievements at all? Most give no gameplay benefit and they don't hold any social significance. So why pursue something that is effectively a waste of time? Because your brain releases a chemical that makes you feel pleasure when you overcome a challenge.

    Steam Achievements

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted · Edited by Verenti

     

    I can say that achievements negatively impacted my playthrough of Wasteland 2. Why?  Because I  played to collect them. I let the achievements dictate the path of my playthrough and the choices I made in the game. Why? Because playing the game straight meant that I'd have to play through again if I was going to gather the rest.

     

    For some games, achievements makes sense. They're mini-missions to give flavour to an action game and they work. But they work.  In RPGs, I should be doing something because it makes sense for my character, not because it will unlock a little picture on my account.

    Then do that. Achievements don't force you to do anything. That's all your choices, not the big bad achievement's bullying you into messing up your playing.

     

    The concept is of an achievement is a meta-game layer on top of actual gameplay. It's not as simple as you suggest, because games are actually rather great for preying on human weakness. It's the reason why slot machines are so successful: because they subvert the human subconciousness to illicit certain behaviours. In both cases, they exist to coax the player to keep playing to get the dopamine shot from having obtained a reward.

     

    You and I and mostly everyone else on the planet are actually chemically conditioned to pursue achievements.

    Steam Achievements

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    I can say that achievements negatively impacted my playthrough of Wasteland 2. Why?  Because I  played to collect them. I let the achievements dictate the path of my playthrough and the choices I made in the game. Why? Because playing the game straight meant that I'd have to play through again if I was going to gather the rest.

     

    For some games, achievements makes sense. They're mini-missions to give flavour to an action game and they work. But they work.  In RPGs, I should be doing something because it makes sense for my character, not because it will unlock a little picture on my account. That's why, I'm not going to look at the achievements until after my first playthrough.

    • Like 1

    I learned that fights don't give you experience

    in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

     

    And I want to play as a ballerina, dazzling the elite of Defiance Bay and gettomg swept off my feet by a sugar daddy. But guess what? That's not supported by the game. The characters you play as can only exist within the framework of the game, and that is to advance through the story(Side quests included) and explore the world. Anything you want to add beyond that is pure fluff.

     

    Not. Valid.

    Combat is already in the game. So combat XP was a perfectly viable option that the developers had.

     

    It's too late change it now, but my character motivations were just as "meaningful" and just as "valid role-playing" as any other motivation.

     

     

    Sneaking is in the game. Why don't we give experience for people who avoid fights all together? Or demonstrating the wisdom to know that ridding the woods of all predators would negatively impact the ecosystem in the long run?

     

    Maybe killing endless fields of wolves sounds like it would be in your character's motivation, and it's your character so it probably is, but a mercenary probably wouldn't do that for sport. Why? Because he'd understand that combat is an inherently dangerous undertaking, and risking his health (and therefore his livelihood) by do work pro bono, isn't a very smart thing for him to do. A mercenary isn't someone who fights blindly. It's someone who fights for money. In considering contracts, they have to consider risk versus reward. Obviously low risk, high reward contracts are best, but they likely aren't going to take high risk, low reward contracts. Why? Because combat is inherently dangerous. Even sport combat like Fencing is inherently dangerous. And it is a bit like the life of a professional athlete in that you aren't a mercenary for a long time, so, realistical speaking, why would they risk their income against a lucky hit by a brigand, wolf or other monster, depleting a possible future revenue stream (killing a threat before they are contracted to do so)? That's a very unmercenary action to take.

     

    The fact is, not-fighting with a threat can be as much of a "challenge" as fighting with it. In the case of the mercenary above, it would require some smarts and foresight to realise that wanton destruction doesn't benefit him. Is creating a sustainable business model less of an accomplishment than killing a bunch of people you had no real reason to kill?

     

    Here's the problem with rewarding player motivation in a crpg:

    1) the game has no way of communicating that. (It's possible to create one, but why bother?)

    2) the game has no way of arbitrating a "valid" goal and a "non-valid" goal. (Maybe I insist that it is very important for my level 1 character to walk down the street. 9,999,999 xp important)

    3) The current system elegantly deals with the  issue (You get a mission, and it doesn't matter how you resolve said mission, you get rewarded.) It allows a number of approaches to be weighted equally, and, if you care about combat balance, as many here really do, it allows for the game to remain balanced for longer. You can't grind to get ahead of the difficulty curve, so they don't need to stack the difficulty curve with a guess to as whether or not you had been grinding for xp.

    • Like 5

    Interview with Josh Sawyer tomorrow, Thursday the 19th at 8 p.m. EST on my Twitch channel!

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    It's really cool that you are so passionate about these features, but at the end of the day they're heard your complaints and they've decided not to adopt those changes.

     

    If you don't like engagement, the IE mod already gives you the ability to turn off engagement, or so I hear. If you think wizards should be more powerful, then you'll have to wait until someone will make that happen. But it's a single player game. It hurts no-one if you don't play vanilla.  But it's their game. They put the last two years of their lives into making this, so they should be the ones to arbitrate on the way the game is balanced. They're the ones who are putting their credibility on the line, we just put a few dollars up.

     

    There just comes a point where it's no longer constructive to harp on the same issue again and again.

    • Like 3

    I learned that fights don't give you experience

    in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

    I would note what Monte Cooke observed in the creation of Numenera: you reward players for doing what you want them to do. That's why Numenera gives xp for discoveries and not for combat (I wouldn't be surprised that T:ToN also gives no xp for combat.)

     

    So, I know we're all used to getting xp for killing baddies, but you shouldn't be rewarded for mindless slaughter. If you apply violence, it should be in service of a goal. If you can't answer "why" you killed every last animal in the forest, then maybe you shouldn't be rewarded for it. If you killed the lion to save that kid? Sure. If you killed the guard to ensure your associates could advance their plans to secretly dominate the city? Have some xp.

     

    Rewarding players for killing reduces the game to just a tactics simulator and rewards players for dumbing down the game. You shouldn't be bereft over having lost this.

    • Like 1

    If the game is gold....

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    Just because we are Gold Master doesn't mean we are finished working on the game. For reference, we are locking down our day one patch very shortly.

     

    As to the Kickstarter date, it is impossible to change it once the Kickstarter is active. Once Obsidian gained more money (and stretch goals) it naturally ballooned the schedule out. If we were to deliver it on the original date in the Kickstarter it would have only had five classes, no mega dungeon, fewer companions, etc..

     

    I didn't mean to imply that you lot could realistically set a day and hit it. I'm firmly in the camp of late and done than rushed and unready. However, I still maintain it's overtime -- whether or not the original quote was realistic. Am I angry about this? Nope. Do I want you to repeat my opinion? Not at all. I think it's a valid position none-the-less.

     

    And yes, that's a good point about the day one patch. But at this point, I'd settle for a slightly more buggy game now and get the patch when it drops, rather than wait longer than I had to. I mean, the features are all there, the assets are all final and I presume the game isn't riddled with CTDs. For me? That's enough. I never did NOT assume that there wasn't going to be post-launch patches. So as a player, I don't really see the difference between playing a game at a post-gold, pre-day one patch and post-launch, pre-early patch.

     

    However, as a professional, I can understand a degree of pride in making sure the work is as good as it can be before release. I guess it's not a big deal. A week from now, it's all going to be the same to me.

    If the game is gold....

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    And even if it's Gold, pretty sure they're still working on a Day 0 patch - wouldn't want to miss out on that.

     

    As for the extra year - eh, iffy. Early 2014 was for the original (~1.1 Million) Kickstarter budget, not the 4M they got. It was delayed, yes, but I'd say at most six months.

    Now, we all understand that a Kickstarter project is something that has never come in on time, but the reasons for those delays aside, they originally listed a date, although speculative, which they have passed by a year, in my understanding.

     

    Honestly, they should give us an early copy. However, it is understandable why they don't. The logistics of it must be a nightmare and giving people a choice between gog and steam and keeping those who just preordered the game on steam vs those who backed it seperate, from my understanding simply isn't possible.

     

    That said, I think it's quite inexcusable to delay backer rewards one second after they can deliver it to us. Surely, gratitude would merit having access to the game we helped fund a little in advance to everyone else, wouldn't it?

     

    Alas, it doesn't matter much. Policy at this point, I assume, is rather set in stone.

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