Infinitron

It's apparent that Pillars of Eternity will have few to no spells and items that grant outright immunity to things. Instead, it'll make more use of the saving throw and resistance systems. So, for instance, instead of "Immunity to Charm" you'll get "Resistance to Charm + 50". I asked Josh about the details of this principle on his Tumblr:

Over at the RPG Codex, MicoSelva wrote about how gameplay went down with a character with minimum values in all attributes:

The "terrible build" is a result of playing poorly. Not knowing what you are doing at character creation = not even bothering to understand the rules = playing poorly. And frankly speaking, it's pretty difficult to get "stuck with a terrible build" in BG, unless you not only have no idea of what you're doing, but are also actively going out of your way to "experiment" with dual-classing etc. Most of the time it's pretty straightforward to just take a base class and level it all the way to the cap. Straight fighters, priests and mages were perfectly valid in BG and BG 2, often outperforming the badly built dual/multi-classed NPCs. Multiclasses were just as easy. The few ways you could actually "end up with a terrible build" involve either A) Not understanding what attributes do (and giving your Fighter 3 STR and 18 INT), or B) Not understanding what dual-classing does. Both times the fault clearly lies with the player. I remember when I played BG 2 for the first time. It was my first ever AD&D game (or maybe Torment, IDK). I remember not quite grasping the concept of "negative armor class", or the Vancian spell system. Nevertheless, I managed to take that Fighter all the way to ToB's end. It was the first AD&D character I ever made, and it was probably the best character in my entire party (after Edwin). All it took was sticking to what I understood and not taking any risks with things I didn't comprehend too well (like dual-classing). So yeah, IMO the BG series was pretty forgiving with the "stuck with a terrible build" thing. Torment even more so, with the adjustable attributes and on-the-fly class changes. Really it didn't need more simplification/dumbing down. Lord Vicious: To put things briefly, the developers of this game subscribe to the philosophy that character creation is not gameplay, and therefore should not be difficult. This isn't going to change, so there's no point in discussing it.

From last year:

Wrong analogy. A bad build would be more like forgetting to put your queen on the chessboard.

That's not not what people are complaining about. In fact, right now it would only make the issue worse. You'd be spending a lot more points on a stat that doesn't make enough of a difference.

The adventures of Sucky, an Orlan with minimum attributes: http://www.twitch.tv/micoselva

Almost certainly 40 dollars. That's turning out to be the "standard price point" for Kickstarter retro-RPGs. See Divinity: Original Sin, Wasteland 2.

Muscle wizard boss? It's already been done. (so ironic)

You should have posted an excerpt like I did. :smug:

http://kotaku.com/how-to-balance-an-rpg-1625516832 Excerpt: Why is game balance important in a single-player game? It's a question many players often ask rhetorically, but there are many important reasons why balance should be a strong focus, even in RPGs that focus on single-player experiences. Balance isn't necessarily about seeing what character builds are more powerful when put head to head, but about understanding the different types of challenges those characters will face when going through the game. Ideally, each type of character build has its own strengths and weaknesses throughout the game's content, but ultimately ALL character builds should feel viable in different ways. No player wants to spend 40 hours working toward a dead-end build. Similarly, few players want to accidentally discover that their fundamental character concept is an unspoken "easy mode" through the game. RPGs, especially the RPGs we make at Obsidian, are about choice and consequence. That doesn't just apply to the narrative elements, but also gameplay: character creation, character building, and tactical application of skills and abilities in the wild. If we do our jobs well, players will feel the sting of character weaknesses and the satisfaction of character strengths over the course of the game. Challenge is a tricky thing to balance for a wide range of players, but ideally it builds by giving players short periods of stress and mild frustration caused by a mental obstacle. Players examine the obstacle, consider their options, make choices, and eventually overcome it, transforming stress into a sense of exhilaration at their own ingenuity. But where does this process all start? For me, it begins with a common question I have with anything involving player choice. What Sort of Decisions Do We Want the Player to Make? By this I mean not only the choices players must make at an obvious level—Strength vs. Charisma, fighter vs. rogue, sword vs. axe—but also, the criteria that drive those decisions. These criteria could be as broad as deciding between a character class that does a lot of damage in combat vs. a class that is great at navigating conversations. Or, they could be as narrow as emphasizing attack speed over damage done on a Critical Hit. There are two levels at which players generally make these sorts of decisions. The first is aesthetic and conceptual: "Wizards are cool." "Clubs are boring." "Being strong owns." The second is mechanical/rational: "High damage is important." "Gotta have a healer." "Debuff effects can make a huge difference in fights." Different players balance these desires differently, but ideally an aesthetic choice will always map to a viable build, and a viable build will map to something players will find cool for their character. When this doesn't happen, it can result in a lot of annoyance from players. They are either forced to play something they conceptually like that is mechanically bad or they have to veer away from their character concept to be mechanically viable. In an RPG, this is undesirable — so say I, at least. That's why this initial stage should only end after you've soberly asked yourself important questions about why players would want to pick any given option you're presenting them. Take Out The Trash "Trash" or "trap" options are a time-honored tradition in RPGs, both tabletop and computer. Trash options are choices that are intentionally designed to be bad, or that don't get enough attention during development and testing to actually be viable in the game. It is now 2014 and, friends, I am here to tell you that trash options are bull****. In a computer RPG, any trash option that goes from designer's brain to the shipped product has probably gone through a few dozen cycles of implementation, testing, and revision. In the end, the trash option is the proverbial polished turd. Any seasoned RPG veteran that looks at it in detail realizes it's terrible and avoids it. Those who don't look closely or who aren't system masters may wind up picking it for their character under the mistaken impression that it's a viable choice. In any case, it's a bad option that the team spent a bunch of time implementing either for misguided schadenfreude or simple lack of attention. While big RPGs always let a few of these trash options slip through unintentionally, the best way to avoid the problem on a large scale is simply to ask why well-informed players, acting with eyes wide open, would want to pick any given option over a different option in the first place. There should be a good conceptual/aesthetic reason as well as a good mechanical reason. If one of those falls short, keep hammering away until you feel you've justified their existence. Sometimes, it's not possible. In those cases, at least you've had the good fortune to realize you're stuck with trash early in development — whether it doesn't fit aesthetically or doesn't work mechanically — and can justly dump it before more effort goes into it. As an example from Pillars of Eternity, we have maces and padded armor, two things that generally get short shrift in a lot of RPGs. In most RPGs, maces are slow and do poor damage with few elements in the "+" column. In Pillars of Eternity, they don't do any less damage than other one-handed weapons and they have the advantage of negating a portion of the armor on the target. Swords can do a variety of damage types, spears are inherently accurate, and battle axes do high Crit damage, but maces are a viable mechanical choice among their peers. Padded armor suffers even worse in most RPGs: in many games, there are literally no worse options than padded. The suits are often aesthetically ugly and mechanically awful—the quintessence of a pure RPG trash option—and if players are forced to wear padded armor at the game's opening, they'll gladly ditch it as soon as anything else becomes available. In Pillars of Eternity, padded armor actually offers reasonably good protection. It can easily be argued that our padded armor is more protective than is realistic, but the first goal is not verisimilitude, but justifying the player's interest. And, while heavier armor absorbs more damage, the heavier a suit of armor is in Pillars of Eternity, the longer it takes a character to recover from making an attack or casting a spell. A character in mail armor can absorb more damage than a character in padded, but the character in padded armor will perform more actions over a given period of time. This fundamental tradeoff is both easy to grasp ("take less damage vs. do things faster") and has universal implications for all characters. All characters perform actions, and performing actions more quickly is always better. All characters also need to be protected from damage. A tradeoff like damage reduction vs. movement speed would have dramatically different implications for a melee-oriented barbarian than a long-range wizard. We also intentionally avoided the classic RPG armor tradeoff of damage avoidance (i.e. dodging) vs. straight damage reduction. While it's easy to grasp conceptually, it's mechanically uninteresting and unengaging unless you get into spreadsheet-level minutiae of how the damage reduction curves play out over time. Spreadsheet gaming can be enjoyable on its own, but there should be a more obvious tradeoff that the player can directly observe in-game for the choice to feel meaningful. ... All These Feels The most important high-level goal with any choice the player makes is that they feel good. This is an abstract concept, but it's important to understand that games come down to a series of experiences for the player. The reason we tweak or adjust anything isn't simply to achieve a mythic "perfect balance" as a goal in its own right, but to make something balanced enough that the player's experience with that content is satisfying. There are myriad aesthetic and mechanical elements that feed into the player's perception of the options that are available to them. We want players to feel that their choices fit their character concept and are ultimately up to the challenge — without making the challenge irrelevant.

I don't mind the mockery, I recognize myself that it's kind of a LARPy thing.

Actually, Sensuki, I didn't care as much about the encumbrance as I did about just having separate inventories (whether on the same screen or not). Also, I interpreted Josh's response as saying that he would somehow combine inventory endurance limits into the unified grid. Like, you'd have one big grid, not physically separated between party members, with each box being color-coded to the companion it belongs. Stronger companions would have more boxes. I imagine that would look pretty weird, though.

That just does the same thing the mod I linked to does. It sounds like Sensuki has a different problem, unrelated to the classic NVIDIA issue.

trololololol Tried this? http://bitpatch.com/ie_ddrawfix.html

Yeah, that's already in, haha. Good, then.

That's not already in? I'd swear I read a developer saying that the slowness of the edge scrolling is a known issue, but if you hold down the mouse wheel and scroll with that, it works properly. Uh, let me check.

Nothing happens. You can kill the Ogre and he drops his head and some blood. If you're role playing a sicko packrat, you will have a valid RP reason for collecting that ogre head and placing it in your pack (you're a sicko pack rat!). If not, well, good luck finding a justification for your Meta-gaming/ESP. And that's it. You can then go meet the farmer for the first time, listen to his plight, and what he wants you to do, Then in that same dialogue you can show him the ogre's head. If you're lucky, you get XP for that. Welcome to fetch-quests 101. But make no mistake about this: If you go to that wilderness map before talking to anyone in the village, EVERYTHING you do there is unrewarded. No XP for exploration. No XP for clearing that giant cult dungeon. No XP for using your Might skill to force open the dungeon's entrance. No XP for slaughtering all the beetles and spiders that "block your path" to the ogre cave. No XP for entering that cave. No XP for dealing with the enemy party up north (even if you do it peacefully, which is an option). No XP for successfully Athletic-ing the Dragon Egg down from the ledge. NADA. Is this supposed to be anyone's idea of proper RPG design? "I am absolutely sure this is not a bug or unfinished content in a beta, and that the final game will work in the exact same way. Hear me roar!"

How about an option to middle click-and-hold so you can scroll without moving the the mouse pointer to the edge? You know, sort of like how you can change the view angle in many 3D games, but on a 2D plane.

Let me clarify that I'm absolutely not suggesting that it not be possible to reduce attributes below 12. They should just be initialized to a default value of 12 or so, with the possibility to reduce them to gain more free points.

Right now, when it comes the time to allocate attributes in character creation, all the attributes are initially set to their minimum values, and the player has a seemingly huge number of free points to allocate. I think that, psychologically, that encourages players to dump a lot of points into one stat - often the first one, Might - and maximize it, because they feel like they have a ton of them. This is reducing the coverage of different attribute builds that the beta testers are trying out, and furthermore, it's the cause of probably unwarranted accusations about how "everything except Might is a dump stat". Luckily, there's probably an easy way to address this. Don't start out all the attributes at their minimum value. Start them at an average value of 12 or so. Players will (seemingly) have less free points at their disposal, so they'll think more carefully about where they put them. Furthermore, they'll be reluctant to give up points that they "already have" allocated in their attributes, so they'll be less likely to dump all stats in favor of one. They'll become more aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each attribute, and how it affects gameplay. The only downside of this, of course, is that more players will be playing with "jack of all trades" characters and coverage of "extreme" builds will be reduced. But I think it's worth it.

You are contradicting yourself. We are the beta testers and we are verifying problems by debating stuff in this forum. I think "no bad builds" will always be a failure. Just makes the whole choice of stats totally uninteresting and unimportant. If I can just pick random stats and still have a good character in all situations then you have totally failed with game design. I'm not contradicting anything. All attributes being useful to all characters doesn't mean all those characters have to play the same way. Get. Your. Head. Out. Of. The. D&D. Box.

This debate really is a waste of time. If all attributes are useful to all characters, then that's good. That's a design goal. But if you can play your character in the same way no matter what attributes he has, with no perceptible tradeoff, then that's bad. That's what beta testers need to be verifying now, IMO.