Osvir

Here's some keywords: - Kickstarter Budget - Expansion/Sequel - Mods - Future

Point taken Sensuki, but no one is asking for a change in how the mouse control works. Merely an open discussion, rethorical in nature, about movement animation (Walking or Running) as well as mouse control schemes seen in other games. What Few presented for instance, is a good solution, without impairing the mouse control whatsoever (1 click = Walk, 2 click = Run). My idea/solution, would impair the mouse control though, and I am not denying it. How the Player moves & controls the character (mouse, hotkey, keyboard) is very much relatable to how the Characters moves & controls on the screen (running, walking, animation).

From another thread: Oooh! This reverbates some stuff I brought up (and I even made an expansive Class idea for it xD) So, IndiraLightfoot, out of curiosity, is the strength of the "Wizard" Class in numbers? Is it more fun to play when you have 2-3 Wizards in your party? What was your experience like? Satisfying or did you ever feel that your 3 Wizards took too much space in your party, and were you bothered by it in any way?

There's also the typical "Hold mouse-button down"~ Divinity: Original Sin uses that, and depending on where your mouse-pointer is in relevance to the characters they will walk or run (close to the character = walk, further away = run). Though, that might be a bit difficult, because scroll panning and camera control. Your solution/idea much better

You will only learn to appreciate the Ranger when you Sneak/Scout with the animal companion in Dyrford Crossing, that's when you will realize it's full potential (hint: There is no sneak animation for the Animal Companions... vroooom vrooom! bah, you'll get it). EDIT: Jokes aside, I still don't like it either to be honest, but I did learn to appreciate the Druid much more, so maybe I will learn to appreciate the Ranger as well. It's just a bit of an "itch" about the obligatory Spiritshift and Animal Companion. At least you can avoid using the Spiritshift Ability, which you can't with the permanent Animal Companion. Huh... a shared Action Speed/Recovery? Taking turns attacking? (Ranger attacks once, then Animal Companion attacks, then Ranger etc) Example: 1-Fighter Attacks 2-Ranger Attacks at the same time 3-Fighter Attacks a 2nd time 4-Animal Companion attacks 5-Fighter Attacks a 3rd time 6-Ranger Attacks Hm?

I'm split. On one hand, I want super amazing fantastic super animations that... hm... something like "Dungeon of the Endless"* (Turn-based psuedo-realtime) combined with Assassin's Creed :D :D On the other hand, I want simplistic amazing simple animations that convey an image, an idea. Abstraction. Something like Baldur's Gate, or like most RTS/MOBA games out there that have 1 or 2 attack animations, movement animations, spell cast animation, etc.. On the third hand that mutated out of me just now, I'd be perfectly fine with static 2D images with represented VFX. Like in PnP, or Open RPG, Tabletop boardgames etc. or even Card games (Hearthstone images). The simplest of the simplest methods. * Characters move in realtime, "turn-based" is more like... "room-based" or "door-based". When you open a door, you also have a % chance of summoning monsters. You can pause and re-position your characters etc. etc. animations are simple (but complex), because 2D pixelart.

Imo, I think the Animal Companion would fit much better as a "Chosen Talent" rather than a "Class Core" ability. I know this thread is about the Ranger Class, but it has some issues I feel is relatable to the Druid as well. Again, I feel the exact same thing about the Spiritshift ability for the Druid. I think it would be better as a talent. Which brings me to Priests, and Druids, and spell gain when leveling up... *shrug* These are my 3 main issues with the classes, in general, Priest, Druid & Ranger, at the moment. Animal Companion, I'd rather want it to be a Talent (Beastmaster Path) Druid Spiritshift, I'd rather want it to be a Talent (Shapeshifter Path) Priest & Druid Spell Gain, I'd rather want it to be gained like a Wizard, Cipher or Chanter (Pick a few at level up, rather than getting all of them) Probably not happening (because balance), might be able to mod in.

Something have had me curious lately... and a bit of the complete opposite of "SUPER FANTASTIC AWESOME AMAZING REALISTIC ANIMATIONS!!!" from my previous post. Is abstraction a mechanic, a feature, in old-school cRPG's? Looking back, so many games have worthless or no animations whatsoever, and it's perfectly fine. Some very simple VFX. Because the games are great anyways. But how important are Animations... really? And without advanced animations... is Abstraction an Art that can be conveyed into a development? (maybe? but difficult ) RPG's are all a lot about abstraction, aren't they? I.E. ROLEPLAYING. Simulated PnP, D&D, tabletop, boardgames. Which all could be viewed as, from an angle: Playing with abstraction. Would we care if the characters moved like the Spiderweb Software games? (Avernum, Geneforge, Nethergate) or even Tales of Maj'Eyal? (TOME) or even NEO Scavenger? (Probably, because it wouldn't be tributing to the IE game style, I'm speaking rethorically, how much does it matter if the characters are mostly static South Park 2D paper avatars with little movement, or dynamicly superior 3D models?). The point is to convey, through the medium (the engine/game), movement. Our minds will fill in the blanks. Graphics, animations, means nothing. What's most important (in a cRPG), I believe, is how well "movement" is conveyed through "action buttons". NEO Scavenger is easiest to talk about, because everything is like Civilisation combined with Scripted Events, so getting the idea of what happens in combat, traveling, searching, hiding etc. etc. gets easily abstracted. Underrail can go into this bin as well. These are all turn based games though, but what is to say that a realtime can't be static images? In Baldur's Gate: EE, the animations are simple, the paperdoll models almost feel like action figures, toy figurines in a way, they are basic in their movement. They walk (not run, which I am a bit bummed about in PoE), they have really basic attack animations, clear-visual-presentation and you can see and understand whenever one character attacks. Baldur's Gate & Baldur's Gate 2 are some of the best cRPG's out there, in my opinion. Why is more advanced/improved animation important, when the same effect (and often much better effect) can be achieved through a Player's abstraction with zero animation? EDIT: And, Surface Reflection, threads are almost always derailed in some way or another. People will discuss the subject, but perhaps not in a way you want it. You can try and moderate it, but at some point people start discussing with each other, rather than with the topic starter.

Welcome to the Mercenary Camp! This is a place to gather inspiration, or outright abstract and "hire" one of the Companions below into the Backer Beta or in the released title. "Hiring" means you copy+paste the attributes, portrait, name, culture etc. Put portraits in portraits folder. These are Adventurer's Hall Companions, custom made, and I thought sharing some of the characters I've made would be fun. The Adventurer's Hall is full of virtually infinite character concepts, and thought it'd be fun to create some "Named" Mercenaries/Laborers or whatever. Eodewyn, Human Druid Kasana, Elf Priest ^Eodewyn and Kasana/Spirit come in a pack (Like Khalid & Jaheira, or Montaron & Xzar). Byorgh, Dwarf Barbarian St'fein, Orlan Cipher Feron, Human Paladin Feel free to add/design more companions for the Adventurer's Hall, below is the simple template I used. Template:

Maybe, Nakia. However... if there is no "upkeep" at holding hired mercenaries, or a limit to how many you can have... that'd be an issue, personally. Hm, something I brought up before... AH companions costing money over time (taking a fee or whatnot)... could work if they are stationed at the Stronghold? But they take no fee if they are in the party. That'd mean you'd be able to have as many AH companions as deep as your pockets go. Or there might be a hard cap "You can only send back Max of 10 companions to the stronghold" or something. The Adventurer's Hall obviously doesn't count. Mute and soulless NPC:s need not apply. Of course they do, my AH companions have soul and are not mute. Abstracted personalities, banters, friendships and so on. I'm working on a thread/template for that though :D "Mercenary Camp", in essence, share your AH companions you've made in the BB and other Players can use them in their own parties.

There's 8+Infinite Companions. Adventurer's Halls, yo! :D And then there's the Stronghold, which would have defensive mechanics, and you can leave companions at the Stronghold, and perhaps even get Stronghold Helpers/Specific-Companions that help out or improve the Stronghold (An engineer? A psychic? A builder? Farmer? Ogre? Etc. etc.) EDIT: You might have 3 of the V.I.P companions in your party, and 2 of them back at the Stronghold etc. I don't think there's an issue with the amount of companions.

Looks like my specs, and the Backer Beta works fine for me. It'll probably run on your machine.

Well yeah, but thats a hypothetical perfect super awesome execution of this idea thats a bit too fantastical for me, or PoE at this point. // Not perfect, just well-developed, it'd probably take several years & cost & tech, to achieve just the system. Something like Assassin's Creed animations in slower non-action-game tempo. If you duel with enemies in Assassin's Creed, and simulate real time pacing of the IE games, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Why would you need to take down a dragon? Like what...wrestle him down? Tackle gibberlings? You would do whatever you do usually in the game. With a few extra moves. // It was rethorical, like, how would an animation look like of a "cinematic" sequenced fight against a dragon? If done super amazingly, that is. How would the characters act, run, hide, shield, block etc. How would the dragon act? (again, rethorical) How much time would it take to develop such a system? How do you translate the animations/movements seen in CGI from one of the Dragon Age: Origins trailers, into the game space? <- Imagine that in a realtime top-down isometric game, with pausing. Overlooking the battlefield and moving your characters/using abilities. Not happening anytime soon, but hey, just saying, it'd be Fabolous~! Holding your shield up is certainly something i would hope a modern game can reach. :stare: Not sure what you mean by being scorched by flames into ash.... ever played Fallout? No need for any flying jumps like in peter jackson movies. //Not even a Monk leaping with foot first into combat from a distance? Or running in real close, dashing up some sand or dust on the ground, and landing a Van Damme Roundhouse kick to the oppressors face? Or a Rogue, first dodging a sword strike, and then using the leverage of the enemy's body to "Leap" or "Jump" (Escape) away from the opponent. A Barbarian "Wild Sprinting", like a Rugby Player, plus swinging his two axes back and forth across like oars, or even "berserker" gung-ho Rambo leaping. Its not that complicated. Usual attacks wouldnt have any special animations. In case a character is holding a shield up - he just gets damaged if he fails his block roll. No need to have a special animation where the weapon is bypassing the shield and actually cutting or making wounds or stabbing anything. When a specific critical or dodge roll suceeds and fires off there would be animation for it. Because thats special. That animation in turn would not disrupt any other clear hit from other oponents in case of there being more of them. So if you would be performing a dodge, for example, from one enemy... the other would roll his attack against you and either achieve a hit without any additional animations or a miss. If the second enemy would score a critical while you are dodging then that animation would disrupt the dodge animation and execute whatever it needs to in that case. Its not really anything extraordinary to see a character fall or crouch maybe when crited. Its not rocket science. If the starting idea is actually down to earth and as simple as possible. //The "starting idea" is never rocket science either Or slowing down visibly, for example.... and maybe making wider lurching attacks which can be borrowed from other classes animations of the same kind. //Slowing down "action speed" based on Endurance levels?

Hm... but could the Backer Beta become a Demo? It's like hitting 2 flies with 1 stone, no? Because a demo is usually something that takes dev time away from the real development... and the Backer Beta is pretty much a Demo... no?

Save the game, put the Savefile in Dropbox, Exit the Beta, locate the Output_log file, put it in Dropbox too, copy the links here. For more info.

I know, I'm not saying it doesn't cause tons of issues (It's kind of obvious that it would, and again, the development time of it). That doesn't mean I don't want to see it regardless, because I think it'd look and feel amazing. Combat would become much more scripted. The Player pausing to throw a Fireball, and then it fizzles because your Wizard got attacked and decided to dodge. Or it blows up in the Wizards own face, or the Wizard dodges and throw the Fireball in motion. Naturally and obviously, that isn't easy to create, and it'd take a really long time to create as well.... Unless you are Ubisoft and the 3D models and animations of the Assassin Creed games are nearly there already

^and "Recovery Time" isn't "At the cost of responsiveness"? A dodge roll can take, 1 second, 2 seconds maybe even, if done by a martial artist or in the chaos of combat and adrenaline, and be ready to stand up and fight again, for the same amount of time it takes for that "Recovery Bar" to go to "0".

Correct? I'm not trying to be correct (except for the "Great animation does not equal Action Game", but combat would become way more "cinematic" action), I'm just throwing ideas (like always), and this is something I've said really early on how "Awesome it would be!!" regardless if for PoE or future PoE or any other future RTwP game, and OE has already said "That isn't happening anytime soon" or more correctly: "We don't have the budget for this" and even the Centaur example I use is something I think Tim Cain talked about in one of the earlier updates. I'm just reminding whichever developer or journalist might peek in at this board and give some influence to this idea: "Realtime with Amazing Animations+Pause" make it happen, Internet! EDIT: IF OE had listened to me really early on and developed solely for the purpose of "cool" RTwP animations like both the OP and me are flirting towards, the game as we know it would've probably had 100 (exaggerated guess) times less content, with less enemies, less areas to explore, less narrative depth and less of everything except combat. I am super glad they haven't taken this path, but I do hope they've laid out some groundwork, a base or a pillar for the future. Because this is such a daunting task (the animations that is), which would take an insane amount of time to develop, I'm thinking maybe Pillars of Eternity 3 might have more fluid animations, whilst Pillars of Eternity 2 might experiment with some more fluid animations. I believe the time required to make good animations like this would take about 2-3 years in itself, for all classes, weapon-types, vs enemy-types, blocks, parries, rolls, dodges, jumping, tumbling, slow-paced samurai circling each animations, spell-animations that flows well with everything else and... every single animation working with every single animation, and bug testing. It's a motherload of work and it ain't happening anytime soon... Unless Ubisoft with Assassin's Creed models and animations as templates ;D

Dodging could be an animation sequence, parrying too. Leaping into combat too. Instead of "Combat Log: Edér dodged the attack", you'd also be able to see it. Or swords clashing. The Player doesn't need to have control of the "dodge", but the animation would. What I am trying to say is that it doesn't have to be an "Action Game" just because really good animations (that is out of the question in terms of budget). It is not an entirely different game, if it follows the core game. It'd be an entirely visually presented game, but under the hood, with the dice rolls and the data going through the Combat log, it'd be the same. Instead of just "chop chop" at each other, they could parry, clash shields, and deal deathblows, and dodge out of the way. Under the hood, the characters would be throwing dice left and right, and perhaps even take lots of damage, but visually, an enemy would only be downed after you see a sword penetrating the chest. I usually compare with Assassin's Creed in these discussions (cus it's been a topic before), imagine if it was top-down isometric, realtime with pause. Mouse and keyboard controls. You can click and move your Assassin, and when they engage in combat it's all up to the Character's statistics, how you've built them and so on and forth, of course you'd be able to insert some commands into the combat sequence taking place, to gain advantage and win, to use an ability or a spell. Just like the IE games and PoE functions. The problem with this is that you'd require tons of different animations based on situations. It'd be most easy to make something like this with a boring encounter design (Face 1 enemy at a time, with 1 single player character). Or it'd require some really intelligent code and long pre-production to make it most effective, and templates, and time, so much time. How do you take down a Centaur compared to a Gibberling? Or a dragon even? How would your characters animation work against the dragon? Would they hold up their shields against the flame? Would they be scorched to ash in moments? Would they dodge and eventually chop off the head of the flying lizard? How would it work if you faced 2 enemies? Would they sync or would they abrupt the animations? Would a Dwarf with Hold the Line block and attack and be very active against opponents around him? Would he be losing "Endurance" over time due to his high-exortion of defending against them? Visually not taking a single hit, but visually over-extending his own stamina and getting more and more exhausted (thus, the Player would know why the character is taking Endurance damage). Characters would either be severely injured or killed outright as the sword is laid out on top of them visually, and the Player would get the feedback to know that "Darn, my character got killed". It's not RNG, when you have the "Endurance" shield either, unless a critical hit would take place and break through the "Endurance". From a Player perspective, you'd see the character fight with all their might, losing Endurance because of it, and when it gets low on Endurance you'd also find it making sense when the character is no longer defending as good as initially, and understand why the sword penetrated your character's chest, thus taking health damage and becoming either injured or dead. The Point/TL;DR: Good/Fluid Animations does not mean "It is now an Action Game". It becomes an Action Game when the Player gets to Control the Animations (Press "A"/"Left-Mouse Button" to attack). Like Assassin's Creed. But if Assassin's Creed only gave the Player control of the "movement" command (Which, in simplistic terms, is what the IE games do), it'd be an amazing looking RTwP game. "Mouse-click" would mean "Go to location", and if there's an enemy, the Character would engage and fight with that enemy, parry, dodge, block etc. all based on dice rolls+allowing the player to "insert" commands or new "animation" sequences mid-combat, or queue them up to take place when "X animation completed". However, all of this is just theoretical and hypothetical, because it's out of the budget for Obsidian. But! All hope is not lost.... Ubisoft does have all the assets already in their Assassin Creed games, their great and fluid animations... they'd just need to want to develop a Realtime with Pause Game.

Currently, there's 3 states (I think) for the AI. - Stationary/Idle. The AI stands in place, facing one direction. - Patrolling. The AI goes from X to Y, back and forth indefinately. - Combat. The AI begins to target and attack the Player (Most sub-group states, probably). What about an "Investigating" state?

Or a wise & stubborn master acrobat that is impossible to hit because he's got the moves during combat

This looks really good. That "Enemy Info" could be used as a general informations screen, in-depth. Instead of having all enemies information when pressing "Tab" in combat, you could get it on "mouse hover-over" and pressing "Tab" instead only shows "Name" and "State" (Barely injured, hurt, near death, etc.). - In-Depth Info = Mouse Pointer Hover [Target] - Tab = Enemy Name & State A bit more expansive: Even over paintings in the inn, or similar. Could be an on-the-go diary/logbook, on-screen with scrollbars. Object/Target identifier. Dialogue Log is more narrative, Combat more mechanical, and the "Target Info" screen objective.

I would've loved to see a Radiatedfalls for New Vegas, based off of the Frostfall mod in Skyrim. And even add in like, dynamic Radiation Winds that sweep across the land, and your Geiger counter will warn you and you'll have to take cover (STALKER does something like this, but it'd be much cooler in a Fallout game). I seriously hope Fallout 4 has some Survival mechanics in it. Make the world more terrifying and threatening, this is mostly a feature that is omitted or abstracted from most games. In Dishonored you can find food items that regenerate health, it goes all the way back to Wolfenstein. Albeit, those games go with a more mission-based food supply. It'd be odd in Dishonored to sit down and start cooking (it's based a lot on how the levels are designed). Survival mechanics = The world is a threat, not just the enemies on screen. In Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Wasteland & Wasteland 2, food items and a "Hunger" mechanic would add so much. Darklands too, and I'm not 100% sure, but you might have to eat stuff or you starve in Darklands... no? Regardless, it'd be awesome. For those that have checked out the game files and assets more in-depth than me, what sort of triggers/scripts are there? Could it be possible to create a Food Mod?

Note: Expansive thoughts, but also thoughts about how "Food" functions in Pillars of Eternity. Its easy, simple, and doesn't need to be anything more than it is, but it could be an interesting "value" that matters. In Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Don't Starve, The Forest, Project Zomboid, Dead State and so on and forth, "Starving" is a really great feature. Although, those games are kind of built around "Survival", I don't think it is entirely excluded from any IE or PoE game, "Survival" fits into everything (Even Call of Duty). It adds a sense of "reality" to the characters, and as a bonus a great message to all gamers "You need to eat" ----------- What do you think about food in Pillars of Eternity? (Dengler sells it, Dracogen Inn) Do you use it? How? Is it clarified? Is it interesting? Personally, I use food on Hard and Path of the Damned, I don't think "too much" about what they do but I merely grab a bite that I think fits a character's personality (abstraction/Roleplaying) and what type of class they are. Mostly it is "This should help make my characters stronger for a bit". I started a post here, and it got me thinking about food that gives resistance to poisons, in particular, which sparked this thread. This is my idea: - Food could have several states, "Fed" (-10% Action Speed* for X minutes), "Energized" (+10% Action Speed* for X minutes), "Digested" (+15% Action Speed* for X minutes) - Fed (Recently eaten food, "heavier", well fed and jolly) - Energized (whilst digesting, getting more energy) - Depletes faster in combat - Digested (spent all energy/nourishment biologically) - Hungry (begins to get hungry again) - Starving (penalties) In essence, depending on when you eat the food you'd have better resistance against poison, or against mind magic, will defense or sturdiness, or no care in the world being drunk and berserkering. A type of food, root, medicine, herb or whatever it is you're digesting, giving benefits over time. Difficulty ties into this too as Easy-Normal doesn't need to rely on food whatsoever (don't need to eat at all), but on Path of the Damned, being out in the wilds for too long and you starve to death if you don't have food with you. Hm, even be able to go "Fishing", there are a lot of rivers in the Dyrford after all. "Cooking" food could be an action that takes 1 camping supply as well. This gets me thinking about "Morale" as well. Camping or Cooking in the wild could lower "Morale", and give a penalty after a while, and also constantly draining at a low rate, and Combat too affecting "Morale" and depending on who, why, where. And going to an Inn, Bar or Tavern and drinking "Beer" in the inn could trigger a "Scripted Event" a la Darklands with conversations with the group, or similar and raise Morale, of course. Sleeping at an Inn raising Morale as well. It could make the "Survival" Skill much more appealing as well, as it could decrease the rate of which the "DoT" Morale meter is degenerating at. What do you think? And do you have any ideas that you think would make food more interesting? (Crafting/Trading/Eating/When/How/Where/Cooking) The simplest method would be to simply have some foods that benefit certain "resistances", flat-out, into the current system. Should be easy to implement as well. Beer/Wine adding resistance against cold, for instance. * Action Speed is an example.

How would it look like if the Beetles were like... you know... beetles. They are HUGE in Pillars of Eternity, magically radiated. Like Molerats in Fallout, mutated, big. What if the beetles were like... small. Like beetles. Maybe not authentic sized beetles but, "bigger than feet"-beetles. Same thing with Spiders imo. Some times there doesn't have to be a "Special Spider"+"Big Spider"+"Some smaller spiders" in an encounter, some times something simple like "Lots of small spiders" can be an interesting and fun encounter in itself. I'd like to see smaller ones that are weak, but they come in a pack. Harmless one by one. No Adra or Wood Beetles in the composition, only like 10-15 "smaller than gibberlings" beetles that charge at you. Then again... in real life, the smaller the insect/animal, the more poisonous it can be (one of the deadliest poisonous snakes, tiny. Poison Spider? Tiny. Poison Frog? Tiny etc.) EDIT: Small doesn't have to mean "This thing is harmless" is what I'm saying. 1 Small Wood Beetle could be extremely poisonous, it dies in 1 successful Hit, or 2-3 grazes, but if it hits you you'll be poisoned hard.