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IcyDeadPeople
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Posts posted by IcyDeadPeople
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All of the above - different types of houses for different characters would be great.
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From the limited information provided about the diverse cultures and ethnic groups in the game world, I would hope for some diversity among mages and spellcasters as well.
Why not have the option of playing a scholarly type of mage and then next playthrough perhaps a tribal shaman from one of the tribes in the Southern Boreal region, for example.
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It wasn't so much used to mod the game, it was to make new content. It had menus where you could just pick units and terrain features and do it all point and click. You could use triggers and scripts and edit stats and all that, but I would love to just have the option to create my own dungeons to fight through. I can do the logic triggers like if this guy goes here then this happens, but anything that requires an ounce of real programming and I'm out.
It was very in depth for people who wanted that. For me it was a super simple point and click level creation tool. The Warcraft 3 version was powerful enough to make DoTA (actually much more complex than DoTA which is fairly simple) which has spawned its own genre at this point.
Considering that the engine will be isometric and based on Unity, I'd imagine level design features will be likely more on the intuitive side. Certainly it will be less complex with regard to lighting, DoF, etc., compared to toolsets for 3D engines.
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Confirmed user friendly mod tools
if its something user friendly enough that I can make quests or dungeons I would increase my pledge. But I doubt that ever happens because that basically would require something like the starcraft editor for me to be able to work it. I guess that's not even really mod tools, that's a map/dungeon editor.
Not familiar with the starcraft editor, but there is a big range of complexity and ease of use among various official mod tools. Even with the more complex and robust toolsets, there is a lot you can learn to do quickly without having prior experience making mods.
Certainly, it takes a lot of time to become an expert with any toolset, but you might be surprised at how easy it can be to make and publish a very simple mod, like tweaking certain gameplay settings to your liking, or adding a random encounter or small dungeon, etc.
I don't know exactly how much of the dialogue in Project Eternity will be voiced, but my understanding is that at least part of it will be text-based. Recording high quality voiced dialogue is one of the most challenging aspects of making a quest mod, so if we are able to make text based quests that integrate well into the base game, I think we might see some really fun and ambitious content mods, enhancing the replay value and extending the life of the game.
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If they add official mod tools as a stretch goal, I will immediately increase my pledge. I feel this greatly enhances the value of the game.
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Well I think I speak for a large portion of the community when I say that we really really really really really really want mod tools as a stretch goal!
Thoughts?
If they add official mod tools as a stretch goal, I will immediately increase my pledge. It greatly enhances the value of the game.
EDIT: Would love to see integration with Steam Workshop as well.
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Dragon Age Origins would have been 10 times better if it had less quests and more areas or at least it felt like the areas only opened up by attaining a quest.
It was a fun game, and although I'd agree it would have been improved with more areas to explore, in my view it would have been improved even more with a greater number of side quests. It certainly never felt like there were too many quests in the game. I love games with hundreds of quests, the more the better, even if they take place in some of the same areas.
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Hopefully, including these modes officially makes it easier to mod them - e.g. imagine having an .ini file to change many of the parameters.
Do you think there is still the remote possibility of a stretch goal for official mod tools? If so, I'd definitely increase my pledge.
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Which type of replay are you more interested in? New game plus where you can beat the game with one character and start the game over with the same character (Baldur’s Gate did this). Or more along the lines of once you finished the game you need to make a new character (Dragon Age: Origins like). Or a game that never ends (Elder Scrolls).
A game that never ends that I can keep replaying with very different characters would be ideal. I don't want to join all the factions and play through all the questlines during my first playthrough, perhaps I won't even complete the main quest the first time, I'll simply start a new playthrough whenever it feels like it's time to retire that character.
I'd like to be able to play a different character each time with a different class, race, and very different point of view and playing style, taking on different quests and associating with different NPCs, etc.
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EDIT: Sorry, forgot to post the question:
"I know this has been answered by implication, but will the PCs be gaining experience only for achieving objectives or will they also gain experience situationally by picking locks and killing monsters and other skill based actions in the game?"
Feargus: "You will get XP for both - Tim might have covered that in Update 7 (not totally sure thought)." This answers the question for me. I prefer it done differently, but it's the way it is."
Feargus said he prefers it done differently? Or was that someone else who said that part?
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Can someone link me to where they said that you'd only get experience for quests? Because if so, that is as disheartening as experience from combat.
It's in the Kickstarter update video where they talk about non-combat skills.
Wow, thanks for providing the source. I watched that video previously and didn't even notice. I recalled him mentioning you could gain XP by doing non combat activities, but I didn't hear the part where he says all the XP is from quests. As it wasn't mentioned in the written Update #7, I thought he was talking about XP rewards for using your skills.
Here is what Tim Cain says:
We also want to make sure that non-combat abilities can be used to avoid combat if that's what you want.So, if you want to sneak past enemies or somehow find a way across a ruined bridge so you can avoid bandits on the side of the river, if that's what you want to do, we're going to make abilities that let you do that. And more importantly, when you do avoid combat, you're not going to get any less experience points in the game for doing so. We're not going to reward you for killing things, we're going to reward you for doing the quests that are laid out in the game. So if you decide to go through the game doing as little combat as possible, you'll level up just as fast as someone who kills everything that he encounters.
This would seem to present a huge challenge for the developers to design a way for the quest XP to take into account the fact that people can go around the map and do all kinds of different quests in different order.
If the game was a linear corridor cinematic game like Mass Effect, it would seem to be much easier to plan how much XP the player will receive for each quest, but from the limited information we've received about Project Eternity, it seems that the game will have a much more open map with more player agency in terms of where to go, which NPCs to associate with, which quests to take on, etc. Now I'm wondering if Obsidian will split up the game world into much smaller "acts" or "chapters," to allocate quest XP in a certain way.
They really don't have a choice if they're going with quest-based experience. The system is inherently linear, it's not possible to implement it in any way that isn't a figurative corridor. The only way players can do level 10 quests is if they do level 5 quests. You cannot bypass it in any way.
It's a massive error, and knowing Obsidian, I'm guessing they'll switch to a Fallout system before too long. It's one of those ideas that may sound great on paper, but once you implement it and see the end result, it won't look as good. I doubt Obsidian is going to want such a highly linear system.
Experience only through questing has never had a viable implementation outside of linear narratives, or systems like ME2 and ME3 where the "Leveling" doesn't actually do anything.
I wouldn't quite write it off just yet. These folks are really smart and they've worked on so many great RPGs over the years, perhaps they have come up with some ingenious new approach to character progression to be explained more in a future update.
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I'm not sure why people think that rewarding for completing objectives (whatever those may be) is somehow more appropriate or feasible with a more linear game.
The only videogames I've played where the XP is earned from quests have all been games with a more linear design.
Let's say there are 200-300 quests in the game, which is extremely optimistic, comparable to the number of quests in a huge open world TES game with a massive budget, for example. That means you must decide in advance how much XP the player will gain from each. If you have absolutely no idea about the order in which the player will complete these quests, how would you decide how much XP to reward for each?
Even with an optimistic estimate of the total number of quests, there are still very few total quests compared to the total number of monsters, for example (kill based XP), or the total number of opportunities to use your skills (for skill use XP), so the amount of XP you earn from each quest has a huge impact. The problem becomes even more pronounced if there are only 50 quests, for example.
If this were a linear corridor cinematic game, you would have a pretty good idea what level you expect the player to be when they complete each quest or enter each new level.
It seems like this quest XP approach will present some design challenges, but I've greatly enjoyed every Obsidian game I've played so far and I'm certain this dev team knows exactly what they're doing and will be iterating and dedicating resources to balancing the character progression. I just have no idea how they will handle it. Perhaps many of the quests will be level scaled, with scaled XP rewards?
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Can someone link me to where they said that you'd only get experience for quests? Because if so, that is as disheartening as experience from combat.
It's in the Kickstarter update video where they talk about non-combat skills.
Wow, thanks for providing the source. I watched that video previously and didn't even notice. I recalled him mentioning you could gain XP by doing non combat activities, but I didn't hear the part where he says all the XP is from quests. As it wasn't mentioned in the written Update #7, I thought he was talking about XP rewards for using your skills.
Here is what Tim Cain says:
We also want to make sure that non-combat abilities can be used to avoid combat if that's what you want.So, if you want to sneak past enemies or somehow find a way across a ruined bridge so you can avoid bandits on the side of the river, if that's what you want to do, we're going to make abilities that let you do that. And more importantly, when you do avoid combat, you're not going to get any less experience points in the game for doing so. We're not going to reward you for killing things, we're going to reward you for doing the quests that are laid out in the game. So if you decide to go through the game doing as little combat as possible, you'll level up just as fast as someone who kills everything that he encounters.
This would seem to present a huge challenge for the developers to design a way for the quest XP to take into account the fact that people can go around the map and do all kinds of different quests in different order.
If the game was a linear corridor cinematic game like Mass Effect, it would seem to be much easier to plan how much XP the player will receive for each quest, but from the limited information we've received about Project Eternity, it seems that the game will have a much more open map with more player agency in terms of where to go, which NPCs to associate with, which quests to take on, etc. Now I'm wondering if Obsidian will split up the game world into much smaller "acts" or "chapters," to allocate quest XP in a certain way.
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OK, how about
The Palatinate Ultimatum
The Cloven Wheel Supremacy
The White March Memorandum
The Dyrford Code
The Loghome Conspiracy
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I'd just ask for a hard mode that is actually hard.
Yes, please!
(or hopefully the possibility of official mod tools, which would allow for customized tweaking of the combat balance)
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Perhaps the name will end up being whatever they decide to name the world in which the game takes place.
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As to the OP: dear, I think we need subtler means to approach the matter. But there's alot of CRPG projects soon to come. This isn't the last.
Subtle I ain't. But don't worry, being loud is part of my personality, it doesn't mean this particular issue is driving me any more insane than anything else does.
Granted, it is annoying when I say "Just a heads up, XP for questing doesn't let everyone play however they'd like" and the response is "Y U WANT XP FOR KILLZ NUB?!?" I don't. Heck the only MMO I've ever really liked is DDO, which only gives out xp for . . . questing. (Granted, a "quest" in DDO is not like a "quest" in most other games.) I don't even particularly care if *this* game decides to support my brother's playstyle. Sure, there will be other games. I just want people to be accurate in what they say.
I'd be pretty surprised if the devs decide to adopt an "XP for each quest" approach. Project Eternity doesn't sound like it will be a very linear game, judging by the limited information we've received so far. Seems extremely unlikely that it would fit into such a linear progression model.
My guess is that we will get XP each time we use a skill, or perhaps some other kind of progression mechanic based on souls.
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- Road's End
- The Godhammer Protocol
- Durgan's Battery
- Carnival of Souls
- Crypt of the Sorceror King
- Incident at Eir Glanfath
- A Tale of Two Crowns
- Winter of Lost Souls
- The Soul Mirror
- The End of Eternity
- The Awakened
- The Eternity War
- Seventh Soul
- The Soul Whisperer
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- Road's End
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I like the idea of being able to incorporate a poll in any discussion topic. It would seem odd to restrict polls to a separate forum section IMO. In any active forum, if a particular discussion topic is not active for a few days, people might make new discussions about similar topics, whether it has a poll or not.
And then, would you ban polls from all the existing forum sections not related to Project Eternity? It seems like restricting polls in this way would cause a lot of work for the forum admins and ultimately do more harm than good.
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XP by quest completion only is good in theory but has never worked to satisfaction in practice.
It would seem to be more appropriate for a game that is much more linear in nature than what I've read about Project Eternity so far. If you can go to all sorts of different areas in this large game world, with all sorts of different playing styles, different factions and lots of quests you can complete according to your own approach, this doesn't seem to mesh with the type of linear corridor cinematic game that provides XP based on completing each stage of a predetermined mission.
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It's interesting to hear the devs talk about implementing a system whereby you get XP only for fulfilling objectives
Can you elaborate on where this was stated?
I'm familiar with some mention of getting XP for non-combat skills in the recent Update #7, but I wasn't aware of any confirmation the player only receives XP for quests. I took the comment in the update to mean it was likely XP would be linked to using your skills.
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I didnt answer the poll, the first question is lacking an "all of the above" choice
I certainly understand, and I would be in favor of "all of the above," as well, as I like all of those features. I suppose the idea of the poll was to see which particular feature people find most appealing.
and I dont know enough about the world for the second question, but one thing I know I wouldnt like is if the factions worked in a similar way as they did in the elder scrolls games. The fact that your character could become the archmage, leader of a mercenary fighters guild, master of a band of assassins, leader of a thieves guild etc etc all in one go seemed especially ridiculous to me especially when you coupled that with little to no reactivity from the rest of the game world reguarding your accomplishments.
I think I would like to see fewer joinable factions (by all means put plenty of non joinable ones in as well) where choosing to become a full member/ vying for leadership of a faction would rule out the others.
-edit- poster above me pretty much nailed my sentiments towards the elder scrolls style of factions.
Personally I don't see any problem with other players being able to join multiple factions. In my case, I've never enjoyed playing a JOTA character and it doesn't interest me at all, but if some others enjoy sort of burning through all the game's content in one playthrough, it doesn't bother me if it is technically possible. If it's possible to play a hybrid fighter/thief/mage character, I suppose it might as well be possible to join a Fighter's Guild, Thieves' Guild and Mages' Guild, although I personally would never play that kind of character.
I'm actually hoping there is no generic Fighter's Guild, Mages' Guild, Thieves' Guild at all, but instead multiple interesting unique factions with their own backstories, alliances and enemies. And most of all with a logical purpose for the group's existence, besides serving to provide the player with quests.
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In the event Obsidian adds a mod tools stretch goal, I wonder if adding a new tier around $50 - 60 that grants access to a mod tools beta would help to generate additional pledges. I would certainly be inclined to increase the amount of my $20 pledge.
Obviously any mod tools beta would take place some time after the game has already been released, not to be confused with any closed beta of the game itself, which is part of the reward for the $140 tier and above.
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Update 7 is great...sylvius the mad does not have a point here..
He is basically saying Skill, Attribute points and feats should all be lumped...no thanks!
I don't know about Attributes, but if you have a single pool of perk points at each level up from which to choose a perk from among all your combat and non-combat skills, it would result in a tougher decision at level up, which in my view is more fun than a "no-brainer" choice as I believe J.E. Sawyer called it in a recent post.
Certainly it's still possible for there to be lots of fun options to choose from, and I'm sure Obsidian will work hard to avoid any "no-brainer" progression choices, even with the combat and non-combat skills split; however, if they were combined into one pool, it would seem to result in a more difficult choice.
[MODES] - How about a 5% experience bonus per difficulty mode?
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
I'd hate it. I don't play challenging modes to "grind" and level up fast or find phat lootz.
I really enjoy "survival" modes in games (or when added by mods) including location-specific injuries, blood loss, diseases, crippling injuries, wounds, infections, spoilage, food poisoning, etc., simply because that kind of gameplay is fun. I enjoy the process of crafting food, drink and medicinal items like bandages, splints, tourniquets, etc. I enjoy roleplaying a character who is struggling to survive in a harsh environnment. If I didn't enjoy it, there would be no point in playing that mode.
Getting experience faster would completely undermine the point of such a mode. Personally, I usually enjoy the lower levels the most in RPGs. I love that feeling when everything in the world is dangerous and you must struggle to scrounge and save up to buy a crappy iron sword. If I suddenly level up too fast, the game becomes boring.
I also tend to enjoy the kind of combat gameplay where the player dies and reloads often. Often this means the easy or "normal" combat difficulty setting might not be as fun as the harder setting. Why ruin it by forcing the player to level up faster? This is not WoW or Diablo, where people try to rush and level up as quickly as possible so they can do PvP at level 85,000 or whatever their cap is. In Project Eternity, there are going to be a lot of people like me who don't care about leveling up and just want to enjoy role playing a couple of interesting characters, considering that character's point of view and making choices according to what we think our character would want to do. We don't want to level up too fast, because if our character ever becomes too powerful or too wealthy, the game becomes boring.