
Chippy
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Common pitfalls of CRPG games to avoid
Chippy replied to TrashMan's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Drop percentages as a do or die concept. Example: in Total War a Ninja had 96% chance to succeed. He fails. In Assassins Creed, you send an assassins in with 99% chance. They fail. Convince me that the engine is capable of interpreting that 1-4% (and you only need look up conversations on dice rolls for NWN to see people's thought on that), but otherwise anything above 95% should be a pass. It's an analysis through the percentage mechanism designed to evaluate an overall skill, not random 1% interferes with skill and it all goes critically wrong. I don't have a problem with a random thing causing failure, I just see the communication of it happening through percentages (of this value) to be flawed. -
RPG elements that I would die for
Chippy replied to Djantari's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
addendum: placing the katana at the top o' the sword-chain is a bit like placing the chinchilla at the top o' the animal kingdom food-chain. tiger>polar bear> crocodile> chinchilla? seriously. a short, fat, draw-cut weapon that were useless against armour? am understanding that obsidian is making a game, so reality not need match game content. heck, as you increase realism you invariably decrease fun when dealing with these kinda games, but that being said, am kinda tired o' game developers perpetuating katana myths. the katana deserves a place 'bout equal with fire-hardened pointy stick on the ">" list... and if the stick is long enough, we would probably give the advantage to the stick. HA! Good Fun! that is what we get for posting in wee hours... *sigh* tiger<polar bear<crocodile< chinchilla regardless, the katana were not even a particularly effective weapon in its historical and geographical context, so to place it up against and ahead of superior weapons is what we rail against. HA! Good Fun! I heard they shattered a lot to such an extent that some Samurai avoided blocking (on the flat edge) altogether. But yeah, its the concept that appeals to me - the fact that a weapon and smith have been crafted in a particular manner that achieves a particular standard. It's a bit romantic, but I'd like to think that only a few have achieved that level, and that there is a katana out there that is as deadly as lore would suggest. Metalworking was/is such a closely guarded craft, that it's kind of possible. So "Golem wielding a two handed hammer in both hands would just blast past that parry from katana wielding gnome". But then it's fantasy. Gnome might have drunk a potion. So maybe the above paragraph is preferable to the aformentioned quote...if handled with care... -
Update #76: Music in Pillars of Eternity
Chippy replied to BAdler's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
Great update, great music. I've found in the games I really appreciate (and films) is how the music tracks compliment the arc of the story. You know how Star Wars A New Hope started off with Luke looking towards the future, then the drama in Empire Strike Back, followed by the music in the final battle between Luke and Darth Vader, it was very similar to the way specific battle music played in Throne of Bhall against (spoiler free) certain enemies. I think FF7 managed it pretty well also. So it seems to me that they follow this beginning, middle, end formula of trilogy/chapters in 1:hope, 2:drama, 3:massive orchestral summary that brings the character stories to a close and makes certain parts of the body tingle. Did for me anyway.- 221 replies
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I THINK I was wrong about it being in Skyrim, as I ran a full scan with MCAfee and came up with a warning on a file located in the heavily modded version of FF7. However they did warn users about that ("artemis" something), so I'm sitting on the fence as it could have been a clever way of politely smiling while stabbing victim in back.
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RPG elements that I would die for
Chippy replied to Djantari's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
I suffer from a massive weapon identity complex - I like the idea of katana, but games seldom include wakizashi and tanto, so while I also use axes, I hate the idea of dual wielding both. And a katana with any other off hand weapon doesn't make sense. Scimitar's are Drizzt's weapons, and most two handed weapons are big and clumsy. Sword and shield just makes my shield arm hurt thinking about it, and armoured gauntlets are clearly asking for broken fingers. So, I'd kill for a chance to adjust my weapons into stuff that suits my, umm...style. Like maybe if daggers could be hidden so enemies don't realize your the guy backstabbing their mates and go hostile (with suitable checks). Or two handed weapons have a specific purpose - like spears can impale or trip, two handed axes can disarm shields, crossbows ignore certain armour. Stuff like that. Might cure me. -
RTS example: Shogun 2 had the ai create 20 stack armies out of thin air because the developer decided the ai could never beat the player. They "improved" on that (so I'm told in Rome: Total War, but I experienced it in King Arthur 2) by introducing a capture the flag scenario; so I've just beaten an army outnumbering me 2:1. using great tactics and skill and am just about to kill their general, but because they captured the flags, it's game over.
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Lot of variation on what people think a sucker punch is. For me it's playing Assassins Creed for over 100 hours without dying at all, able to complete any challenge with full sync (even the tank one without cheese) and get through any combat encounter or QTE - but what ruined the games for me was those occasions where the camera took control (you had to fight it to look around) and positioned itself in the direction you had to leap in. That direction was at an odd tangent/angle incompatible with mouse/keyboard, and the ledge it pointed you towards was false - resulting in you falling to your death and having to replay 10 min to get back. Rinse and repeat because maybe it was the mouse/keyboard setup until I realize that I had to fight the camera to advance at an odd angle to a ledge I would have seen if it wasn't trying to 'help' me. Sucker punch. Immersion breaking to the point where I began wondering if these occasions - maybe 1/50- where because some member of staff was working a holiday/weekend and just stuck them in there because they resented the player enjoying the game. Completely different from me building a 3rd edition character that can re-roll on a 1 against all save vs fort (death) spells, but dies against nightmare @ save vs will. That I see as my ignorance of the rules. Whether they're crappy rules or not is a matter for debate...
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I appreciate and agree with your point, but will be a bit patronising in pointing out that there were quite a few ways to deal with basilisk's and mages - it might have been exploiting the ai to summon skeletons in front of a basilisk and pepper it with arrows, or cheese to use a protection from magic scroll on kangaxx/mages, but that and a few other options existed. What I'd like from Obsidian is to see more of what you suggested in the foreshadowing - like my ranger being able to tell an absent minded mage hung his robe out to dry on that tree a few hours ago, or a cleric sense the eeevil in that tomb. If they can keep/expand on the combat mechanics seen in the IE games, and iterate those mechanics with roleplaying elements informed by character skills, I'll be one happy camper.
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Excellent - great to hear. Everyone should agree on what a sucker punch is, and if your the kind of person that wants it in your game (where either the player skill, experience, or character skill and experience is ignored for a gotcha GM moment), then god bless you because Obsidian arn't doing that, and maybe you can look forward to it in a mod. *Salutes everyone*.
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In considering the replies I have to admit I've been unbelievably stupid in recent weeks, as I'm moving house I just left the PC on and it's been used by someone with dementia, and my brothers mates in between my communications with solicitors, estate agents, etc ... so I pretty much repeated what happened at work years ago. Yeah. I've seen idiots set up as a patsy and pay for it, but suppose that as a hobby, you just don't want to invest too much time/effort into a thing that should just be relaxing after work. So I'm thinking: scale back on the mods for games that arn't much fun anyway, grab seperate laptop and PC as work only > gaming only. Install every concievable virus protection on each, and only connect the gaming PC to the internet for mandatory updates from microsoft, steam and video card drivers. The best answer would be to not have a gaming PC ever connected to the internet, (validate windows on format through phone call) but I'm pretty sure that doesn't work...
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I need to educate myself a bit on viruses, having been hit pretty bad recently and in the past - so as title suggests am curious about how much control a person can get if their intent is to install malicious software embedded into a mod? And does virus protection pick it up?. I used Norton, but their yearly fee was a joke, Kapersky broke down every time Microsoft updated windows, and McAfee seem useless. I worked in a college that supposedly had the latest security (teaching high risk adult offenders 98% of which were male) and was the only member of staff that had issue with 14-16 year old's being brought into that environment - and in return my colleagues tried to access child pornography on my workstation (with general access) but that made it past their security measures, so I don't expect too much from virus protection. But am concerned about mods, as I think it was some Skyrim virus/stuff that recently made it's was onto my PC. The recent virus accused me of offensive material on the PC - but if I paid x amount of money, I could escape a jail sentence... I haven'y used my PC to play a game in weeks, and have only used it for emails, and am seriously considering not using mods for game ever. Which would be a shame. But not as much as loosing my career and life.
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I'm of the mind that these guy's have proven themselves (and InXile - I don't even bother to post there) and every post I've made on this site has been: "It would be great if..." If the day comes when I'm sitting here with a crap W2 and POE sitting in front of me, I think I'll just sigh and give up gaming. But I know that wont happen - because all of these guy's have proven themselves. So it's pretty simple for me: I donate money, get some swag (assuming I remember to provide details) and people who know more about making great games than I do get to do so with (hopefully enough) funding, time, and freedom. Edit: And if there is a need to edit in a remark on their inclusion of publishers for marketing, I'll do so when I think of one.
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RPG elements that I would die for
Chippy replied to Djantari's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Weapon's that have a significant purpose or choice in their use. Even if it's just cosmetic. E.g. Weapons in Assassins Creed; dagger felt like quick-kill brutal weapon, longsword was a duelist type choice, two handed implemented for mounted knights and heavily armoured. Yes it all fell apart because the game was easy and you could find ways around enemies resistances, but the flair and animations made those weapons stand out, and I enjoyed outfitting my character to cover most scenarios. So -if I was an entitled gamer- I would like that shiny stuff implemented as it helps move away from dagger>shortsword>longsword>Bsword/katana just doing 2 extra dam per category, bit slower on the attack, and having the same animation. If I was really entitled, I'd go off on a tangent about specializing in daggers and making them armour piercing, or horizontally flying (per feat) to eye plate slots... -
The Case for Romance.
Chippy replied to NanoPaladin's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
I've never cheated on Viconia. Actually that's not entirely true - I've just never felt the inclination to. -
Just thinking about how area of space and party positioning was important in IE games, e.g. corridor allowing 2 characters with low ac to block enemy advance, behind them character(s) with a long reach weapon, and again in the third row a character with a ranged weapon or spells. Sort of on the fence on whether that was a good thing or not. Maybe there should be a penalty to fighting from the second and third rows, or feat selection informing that type of formation fighting?...
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One thing I've always been bothered by is games that insist on having the battle music louder than any other form of music. Really. Annoying. I'm very particular about protecting my ears, but there's times I just can't be bothered to keep adjusting the sliders, so play games with background music barely audible, which usually sets battle music to normal. So separate sliders would be great, or maybe all music within roughly similar decibel level would be fantastic.
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Ideas We think would be Hilarious
Chippy replied to Influx27's topic in South Park: The Stick of Truth: General Discussion
Taking the advice from a moderator on another site, I have submitted this epic item for consideration in South Park: The Stick Of Truth. Balls Of The Dragonborn. These artifact level balls were lost in a battle between an ancient dragonborn and some random dragon atop mount hrothgar in a battle longwindedly voiced by an on looking Greybeard: "As much a titanic struggle between dragon and man as when my pet terrier finally tore asunder his favourite fluffy rat toy. I expect the dragon wouldn't have stood a chance - and I know we may have needed this dragonborn fellow - but he was clearly going to start making a racket, so I found myself echoing the advice of a great orc chieftain at the start of every battle; 'Go fa tha soft bits'. In the end the dragonborn ended up making a racket after all ...Terry didn't take several days with his nemisis...and in retrospect it was really all a bit of a mistake on my part". As the dragon finally reared back to bellow his triumph it almost choked on it's hard won prizes, and in a catastrophe henceforth referred to as the 'sundering', each ball was spat both east and west from atop the mountain - or as the greybeard onlooker would refer to as: "A bit of a lefty and righty moment". In the most cataclysmic snowballing example of destruction Skyrim had ever seen the two balls rolled a path of devestation through the land and finally came to rest at Dawnstar in the east and the vampire stronghold in the west. After each faction shood away the seemingly unkillable travellers embedded in each snowball, they were crafted into two of the greatest flails skyrim had ever seen, and after centuries of war were brought together in a resounding clang during an epic battle that shook the mountain walls and kept the surrounding province's up for days. Each flail was lost after the two remaining leaders of each army struck each other instantly dead by either critically hitting the other simultaneosly in the eye, or perhaps because they had an indeterminate amount of health left. Statistics: Ball of the East: More powerful at sunset, was used as the bell clapper in the dawnstars belltower for centuries and hangs slightly higher on its chain than the ball of the west. This makes it an excellent choice as a off hand weapon. Able to twist on its chain and perform a twisted torsion/whirlwind attack 1/day. Ball of the West: More powerful at sunrise and during the day. It was used in a failed attempt to strike down the sun, didn't quite get there and landed back at firing point - blasting a hole in the roof and allowing the vampires to become more powerful anyway as they soaked in the daylight. Rumours were that this flail spent most of it's time since in the castle dungeons. If the ubove is seen as inverted, or back to front, thats ok; Powers are interchangeable depending on whether user is facing north or south, or whichever way the flail heads happen to be hanging. Artifact Level Powers: Closer inspection reveals each ball to be possessed of a sentience, the ball of the east being a force for good that demands its owner scale a high point once per day to sing a hymn of righteousness, while the ball of the west remembers it's time as a debauched implement in the vampires dungeon and requires a less than paladin like action per day to maintain it's loyalty. Failure to perform either of these acts results in a roll of 1D20 vs deaf and blind status effects respectively for 1D10 hours. Regeneration: (If combined). Similiar to a rumoured hand and eye once owned by a lich god, if the user were to take advantage of the incredible regenerative powers of these artifacts the ultimate sacrifice could be made for the ultimate gain. Subsequent user rolls per adult mod based encounter thereafter may result in the artifacts planer shifting back to their original owner and no assumptions of permanent ownership should be made. -
It's weird how that paradigm of interest for a specific game has been lost for me - like going from watching the Sopranos into gradual decline to a crappy series, and now I'm interested again and coming back to a great thing. Very cool.
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Jedi Knight 2, Nar Shadaa snipers. Fantastic example of gaming strategic difficulty being fun right?. Maybe. Not for me though. I agree with the OP - I like strategic difficulty - but I do not appreciate walking into a 1' square tomb with a demilich emitting a 2' aura of no save death. Also on the Sirens subject, that was very much the BG:EE developers changing the script and deciding that Siren charm = instant death. Why was that? Original BG didn't deal with it that way, and it doesn't make RPG sense, which makes it worse than sniping really.