Infinitron

Is the game being structured so that players can often go back and pass those skill checks after they've gained some more levels and raised the relevant skills, or is it more like "that's what your character was specced to do, deal with it", like in the 3rd Edition D&D CRPGs? In those games, the imposition of a level cap on your skills meant that it always felt (to me at least) like you needed to constantly stay "topped off" at max level with the skills you'd chosen in character generation. It discouraged you from specializing in other skills in the middle of your character's career. If you WERE "topped off" at a certain skill, you could usually always pass any skill check with it when you encountered it for the first time. The games never really threw a check at you that was purposely designed to be something that you couldn't pass until later. So it was like, if your character was predestined to be able to do something, then he'd be able to do it always, and if not, tough cookies, do it in your next playthrough with your next character. Compare that with, say, Fallout, which was built around the idea of slowly building up your character's competency with various skills over the course of the game, even requiring you to do so with Small Guns --> Energy Weapons if you wanted to remain competitive in combat. Which was kind of bad, but also helped emphasize that sort of design - always improving the same skills was the wrong way to play the game.

You guys are being trolled

Semantics. It's the same thing as making a bunch of class-exclusive skills, like Perform for Bards in NWN. Ah, but you say "no, we're basically taking existing universal skills and chopping them up into class-exclusive skills, not creating new ones whole cloth!". Well, I'd say that's still almost as much work in terms of balancing and re-balancing.

i believe that you're categorizing in a differnt way than i would. ultimately, if class abilities are only usable in combat, then that only fits in one of the three categories of the "holy trinity" as Monte Carlo put it. The current division is between combat-focused abilities and non-combat-focused abilities, whatever their names are. Non-combat skills have uses outside of combat and can offer interesting gamplay outside of combat. Distinguishing classes in categories outside of those that are primarily combat, would be more fun to play, I believe. Lore, mechanics, survival, etc do not all have direct combat applications. Class abilities may (or may not, I'm not sure). Yeah, I'm talking about adding "class abilities" that are also useful outside of combat. Of course, many of them would be things that affect dialogue, and so we're back to the original problem - Obsidian don't want to add lots of class-specific stuff in dialogue. But the thing is, it would be easier for them to add more class-specific stuff in dialogue than it would be to add new skills. So it sounds like you're asking them to do more work to compensate for the absence of something that would require less work. That's...not likely to happen.

WoW clones are dying. F2P tank games are alive and well.

Hormalakh: Why do these "class-specific skills" even need to be skills at all? If you want your classes to feel unique than just give them more unique class abilities. The skills can remain universal, as they are in all RPGs. The IE games weren't skill-based RPGs and it's okay for an RPG inspired by them to have a relatively minor/"neutered" skill system.

Games aren't real life.

Not to permitted to create mods? Paradox? If that's true, then it just goes to show how meaningless EULAs actually are.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-19-paradox-and-obsidian-we-both-know-theres-no-bs The mention of "boxed versions and special editions" as something that's not a sure thing makes me think Paradox might be taking a cut off the digital release of the game as well.

If that's the kind of deal that they're making, it's probably more than that. Nowadays PC games make almost all of their money on digital (on Steam, to be precise), so giving Paradox just 30% on the already small amount of physical sales would be a pretty measly payoff for them.

If it's anything like inXile's deal with Deep Silver, then Paradox will get a portion (perhaps the majority) of the profit on physical copies of the game sold in shops, but all digital purchases go directly to Obsidian.

https://torment.uservoice.com/forums/197950-game-ideas/suggestions/5584076-co-operate-with-pillars-of-eternity-in-allowing-sh#/

Obsidian's in-house engine has been abandoned: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/111519-feargus-urquhart-talks-future-of-the-industry-and-obsidian-at-kri-2013.html

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/77541947335/what-are-some-cliched-rpg-or-d-d-tropes-you-are truewarriorpoet asked: What are some cliched rpg or d&d tropes you are personally tired of seeing, and how do you plan on creating your own vision in PoE so it introduces familiar but unique twists on them? (he doesn't actually answer that question)

You're going to be able to mod this game easily, guys. It's just creating new areas that's complex as hell, just like in the IE games, where almost nobody did it. There's a price to pay for those lush prerendered backgrounds.

Sorry, I was faster than you: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65108-confirmed-no-romances-in-pillars-of-eternity/

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-10-pillars-of-eternity-interview-off-cuts

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/76165227151/do-you-think-it-is-important-for-attributes-to-allow silkvalley asked: Do you think it is important for attributes to allow certain archetypes? For example, a clumsy and physically weak wizard, yet she deals tons of damage with her spells. The priest who's outstandingly accurate with his spells, but is not a master in sleight of hand and pickpocketing (Dexterity). Similarly, should increasing the damage he deals with spells (via attribute) also increase the number of items he can carry?

I think they added an FR region to DDO as well.

In general, PnP license holders are remarkably clueless about video games. Even what TDE is doing is a crude shotgun approach - throw the license at a bunch of developers, see what sticks. It would do a LOT for D&D's brand awareness if there was a D&D videogame released annually, but somehow they don't understand that.

W2 is not going to be $25.

OP, that's not what "cool down" means. I think your real complaint is that there are just too many abilities; their method of refreshing has nothing to do with it. I also find your assumption that they considered spell components strange. Why would they consider that? It deviates more from the IE style of gameplay then what they're doing now.

I don't think this is how it worked out. Yes, it was often very smart to leave your wizards/spellcasters back from the fray. A large part of that is because they had no need to get close to the action. They could rain down death at range. Putting them close to the front line was unnecessary for them to be effective and made protecting them more difficult/a distraction. In PoE, the fights are designed for all characters to participate. As always, you should be prudent about how you involve them. In the early game, you will have a smaller party (whether through companions or player-made adventurers) and fights will be balanced around having a smaller party. Even so, whatever the characters' classes are, the fights are balanced for their collective participation. Thanks for replying to my posts, Josh. As to how it worked out, I wouldn't say that wizards always "rained down death at range" because in the fights I'm talking about, using their spells would have been a waste. And sling stones are hardly raining death. Now I'm just one guy, but I did often find in the IE games that only a few characters in my party were responsible for most of the party's kills - and it wasn't because the other characters were weakening the enemies first. That happened because for most of the games' fights, I didn't really need those other party members.

Unlikely.

Shouldn't this thread be moved out of the Pillars of Eternity forums?