PrimeJunta
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Posts posted by PrimeJunta
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Not to be that guy, but you are about as far from the average gamer as one can get. Expecting developers with a rather limited budget to cater to every super niche (should they make an option to toggle away spiders for all the arachnophobes that play the game?) is more than a bit unrealistic.
Your best bet is to hope someone makes a mod that addresses your specific hangups.
I think Hormalakh's idea of genuine save-scumming in ironman mode will get the job done for me just fine, actually. So I'm actually pretty happy with the way the game's shaping up!
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Well if you put it this way...then you should stop playing any games altogether and get professional help.
That, Sharp_one, is none of your business.
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One question. Who cares? It's like saying:
"I like my fries with ketchup, but I end up overflowing them with mayonnaise if there is any in the fridge or on the table. And I don't like mayonnaise, so we should ban the mayo!"
or
"I'm allergic to onions but I order extra onions in everything that has that option and I end up being sick, so we should ban the onions"
The fact that you use save game that way shows that you do enjoy playing it that way. It makes you comfortable unlike no save which makes you nervous. Why would you want to be nervous? To brag on the forums? To be cool?
Nope, I don't enjoy it. It becomes a compulsive activity, something I have no control over. Similar to someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder who runs home fifteen times to check that he locked the front door before finally being able to leave, and then spends the entire vacation worrying that he really locked it. Games that reward backtracking through frequent save/reload trigger this type of behavior in me, and I don't enjoy it.
I agree, it's not healthy to do this. That's why I try to avoid games that do trigger this, and since I've already paid for P:E, I am hoping it's not one of them. And since Hormalakh started a topic about it, I'm weighing in. You, of course, are just as free to state your preferences, and the devs are free to ignore both of us. Grand, isn't it?
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Saving and loading. Simple as that, you cannot "abuse" it. It's single player game. It has nothing to do with difficulty of the game or the experience of the game. If I want to check every dialog option before making my final decision, that's my business.
Oh, I can and do abuse it. I told you, willpower is my dump stat. If I get nervous, I start saving every five seconds. I also easily flip into "optimization mode" where I abuse savegames until I get the result I want, whether it's about fights, locks, or conversations. This jolts me out of the game and ruins my enjoyment.
For example, I just replayed Fallout. The manual actually tells you to save before attempting anything interesting. That makes skill checks almost meaningless. I found myself just saving every time I attempted to repair/science/lockpick something, and reloading until it worked. I never, ever just continued if I perma-failed on somehting. And yes, it did significantly detract from my enjoyment.
If I had more willpower, I wouldn't do this. Hell, if I had more willpower I would stop playing games past the point I stopped enjoying them, but I don't, and I do. I do a lot of stuff I know is bad for me simply because I don't have the willpower not to.
That's why I like crutches like permadeath without the possibility of savegame abuse, like NetHack on somebody else's server, and which is why a combination of ironman and a difficulty level low enough to make dying rare sounds good to me. And which is why I suggested an optional, adjustable savegame timeout for P:E, combined with mechanics that don't result in frequent dying {which already appears to be in anyway}.
Once more, I really don't care how you (ab)use your savegames - I just have preferences of my own regarding game design. Specifically, for the reasons cited above, I have a strong preference for games that do not reward constant saving and reloading. Sadly, I don't much care for most genres where this is not a problem; I find linear shooters and adventure games boring, for example.
That's your problem, be proud of being an idiot it's a part of American dream, otherwise the terrorist wins, right?
Nah, Finnish stubbornness. But since it's clearly getting in the way of the discussion, I'll yield and switch to "savegame abuse" from now on.
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Instead of saying "don't ruin my game," I'd like to hear from those of you who have experienced games where the saving/loading mechanic worked really well with the game mechanics.
NetHack. On a server you don't own. Where you can't save-scum.
Procedurally generated roguelikes aside, I can't think of a cRPG where this was done really well. There are some that managed it better than average in places, or well in some ways. For example, both Witchers: they had delayed consequences, which effectively discouraged save-scumming {yes, I'm continuing to use the term, so there Sharp_One} in dialogs and such. Or, naturally, Planescape: Torment's creative (and not at all universally applicable) solution to work around permadeath. Both had their own problems in other areas which effectively canceled out their strengths, at least for me, and I save-scummed just as badly with them as with, say, the original Fallouts with their massively lethal criticals that pretty much forced you to save often or just lose your entire session on one bad die roll.
I think that these cheap "lives" are so deeply built into our assumptions of what makes a cRPG "hard" or "easy" that a game that really, genuinely doesn't encourage you to save-scum would have to be designed that way from the ground up, including the world, the story, and the mechanics.
For example, imagine a cRPG set in a world where only nobles carry lethal weapons, and their behavior is governed by a strict code of honor, and where murderers are apprehended and hanged. Violence and combat might be common. There would be ritualized combat such as duels and jousts between nobles, carefully set up so that there would be winners and losers but the risk of death would be low. There would be brawls and muggings leaving the loser bruised and bloodied but (usually) not dead or maimed. Losing a fight would have consequences; sometimes what you'd expect, sometimes unexpected, always interesting.
And then there would be truly climactic fights. The ones where it's for real. Not light dueling swords with the first to draw blood declared the winner, or jousting in heavy armor with lances designed to shatter, but to the death with the best weapons and armor you could find. That would have to be for some pretty damn good reason, too, to risk it all.
This would be a very different game than the usual kind that leaves you (figuratively and sometimes literally) standing astride a mountain of corpses. Would it be fun? It could be. Or not. It all depends on how well it's done, just like with any game. Will P:E be that game? Unlikely. Would I even want P:E to be that game...?
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It's a single player game. What possible difference should it make to anyone else how much or how little I choose to save my game?
It shouldn't.
On the other hand, what difference would an optional, settable save-timeout for the benefit of those of us totally lacking in willpower make to you?
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Save scumming is a term exclusive for roquelike games, it means copying the save file and reusing it in case of death (roquelike are ironman mode only, if char dies then save is deleted). It's used by idiots here who have no idea what it means. In normal games you save, you load nobody's business how much and when.
As far as I can tell, its usage has shifted since roguelikes became a niche of a niche. Do you have a better term to suggest for abuse of save/reload, now that you've established your old-skool geek creds?
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I've tried ADOM and Angband, but the only ones I've really gotten into are rogue (the original) and Nethack. I've ascended with most of the classes on that one. (Not that the class even makes much difference by the time you're past the castle.)
Also Dwarf Fortress, if that counts.
I do enjoy that type of gameplay; however I'm not sure I'd like it in a game where the content isn't procedurally generated. I'll certainly give P:E's Iron Man mode a try; in fact I might start with a combination of Iron Man/Easy, assuming a usual frequency of dying at Normal difficulty.
My problem with most games is that when I get tense I start save-scumming, which jolts me out of it. With many of them the level of difficulty assumes that you have a relatively recent save to come back to anyway. Few things are as annoying as racing through stuff you've just played through just to be able to continue. I'd rather take that "punishment" as a five-minute timeout. Wouldn't want to force it on anyone though.
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I wouldn't mind an optional timeout on save. Terrible save-scummer here, and it hurts my enjoyment.
Even better, I'd like a game that doesn't reward save-scumming, with no constant dying, and delayed consequences.
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While it wouldn't be my outfit of choice for spelunking, it's entirely possible to travel in plate armour and to fight in it for quite a few hours. Then again, I wonder how many people would complain about the need to pull a cart full of armour and having to put it on for several minutes before every fight.
I certainly would... if I actually had to do that in-game. You rarely poop in-game either, though, and it would be just as easy to let the game handle the chores while you, the player, make the decisions.
For example. Have a bivouack with the mules showing up there, let you prepare a couple of different loadouts, switch between with them with a few clicks, but only in camp. Alternatively, have a pack mule follow you when out and about, but only into areas where a pack mule could believably enter (i.e., not underground, indoors, or into areas that require climbing etc.). In that case allow switching loadouts the same way whenever not in combat. If applicable (e.g. day/night cycle, buff timeout, encounter risk etc.), have the game keep track of how much time it takes to switch loadouts.
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I don't think anyone wants to see PE turn into some jrpg weaboo schlock fest.
Only if it has cute friendly anthropomorphic animal races. As romantic options.
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OK, fair enough.
FWIW, I run my PnP D&D game(s) with this assumption, and we've found it both workable and interesting.
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Wouldn't that depend on how it's implemented and balanced with the rest of the system?
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You know what I'd like? A game that deals with armor encumbrance realistically.
You'd travel with pack mules for your stuff and only wear and carry gear appropriate to the circumstances. This would make room for a much wider range of viable armor for different circumstances, and open up possibilities for interesting tactical gameplay; for example, ambushing a group of enemies who are not prepped for battle - i.e., have their battle armor packed up for transport rather than on their backs, and are unarmed or only lightly armed - would give a real advantage. Being at the receiving end of such an ambush could make for interesting challenges too.
Naturally the UI would have to accommodate for this, letting set up different armors and carried inventories e.g. for city, bushwacking, or pitched battle, and switch between them without having to manually click-n-drag every piece of gear. So you'd wear light leather armor form wilderness scouting or caving, ordinary clothing with maybe a dagger hidden in a boot for the city, and your best and heaviest armor if you were girding your loins for a pitched battle.
I'd be surprised if P:E was the game to actually do this; it would very much break with cRPG convention and the "Infinity engine" inspiration, but one can always dream...
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Magic cookies. The ones baking them are High Elves, obviously.
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Have them wear pointy red hats, ride reindeer, and deliver presents at Yuletide.
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I just want unintended consequences.
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Because only nobles are allowed to carry weapons?
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The setting seems to be pretty strongly Eastern-influenced to me. For one thing, there's the whole souls and reincarnation thing with the debate over the nature of gods (actual gods or merely very powerful reincarnated/reborn beings), which is an actual major point of contention between Hinduism and Buddhism.
For visual and architectural influences, check out the building in the wallpaper picture:
From where I'm at, that looks a lot like a (ruined) Japanese, Chinese temple, especially the hanging bells.
On the other hand, Cadegund and Edair at least are obvious Westerners, and Sagani has the feel of a Siberian nomad. It looks like the world of Eternity is culturally extremely diverse. I trust Obsidian intends to have it all mesh rather than just being a random jumble of cool-looking characters.
And I certainly don't see any problems fitting monks into the setting, whether they're "Eastern" or "Western" in flavor.
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Optional
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
Options cost more than you might expect, though. They tend to interact in unexpected ways and add overhead to testing, especially if they affect mechanics (e.g. AI, difficulty). Having lots of options also makes it especially important to pick good defaults.
In practice, adding options also tends to add bugs, balancing problems, and general instability. That's why I hope the devs are very conservative about which options to add.