Osvir

@constantine: Maybe I should've clarified... most quests are "Return Quests" - Quest Giver - Go and Fetch the Objectives of [insert Quest] - Return to Quest Giver For instance: - Talk to Medreth (Quest Giver) - Kill Nyfre/Aid Nyfre (Fetch/Gain Info/Intel) - Return to Medreth (Return) Or... - Talk to - Do - Return to I was simply expressing the basic structure of most (if not all) quests (and not necessarily Baldur's Gate or Infinity Engine, most "Quest Structure" in any game is very simple, in its most basic form). Maybe my usage of "Fetch Quest" was wrong. But what I wanted to express with this post is... - Talk to (or even ignore) - Do stuff - Stuff happens - Do more stuff - Stuff - Do - Ignore - Do this - Then that - Or maybe in the other way - Then do - Return - Or don't return

Oh! I like that smoke bomb scenario! :D Another thought popped up... 1st: You encounter Medreth and his followers like they are, gain the quest. 2nd: When you do the transition into an area, Medreth's group could become "smaller" or re-positioned. 3rd: When you return to Medreth to tell him how it went with Nyfre, you could see less dudes standing around him, or they have placed themselves elsewhere. One might be leaning over the southern stone wall, on the bridge, overlooking the river, just chilling. One might be leaning towards a tree near the Temple. This would/could simulate that Medreth doesn't quite trust you, and is unsure whether you will perform the task for him or not, and when you return his repositioning of his dudes is to allow for better flanking or attack opportunities, if you would choose to betray him. If the group would be smaller, it could be abstracted as some of the cowled followers are in hiding nearby, and when the fight begins they spawn in a favorable positioning.

@OP/Thread Title/Topic: I'm playing Wizardry 6-8, 40 hours in on Wizardry 6, near finished with the Pyramids (I've got a Lizard-Fighter, Human-Samurai, Felpurr-Ninja, Dwarf-Valkyrie, Mook-Psionic and a Elf-Bishop). I've been drawn to old-school RPG's more and more ever since I started venturing to these boards, well, it was a thing that started to happen to me before Project Eternity as well. Next-Gen stuff hasn't really excited me, but the older gems do. Why? It's hard to put my finger on it but... abstraction & imagination. Your own level of capability to "imagine" stuff, the level of your own vivid and childish fantasy. Wizardry manages to unlock this, Baldur's Gate, Fallout, many of the old-school games places me in the story, in the narrative, and my fantasy and imagination goes wild. Much like reading a book, and imagining the interactions, environments and characters in the book, in your mind. Combat becomes vivid, for the brief moments that it occurs. My static portraits and the clunky sound doesn't do much, but in my mind's eye I see my environment, the enemies ahead of me, my heroes looking at each other nervously, or confidently. An example: "The fight begins, and the Samurai leaps forward, swinging his nodachi like a true sword master. The enemy didn't know what hit them. Still surprised, another one goes down, as from the shadows, Keera, a master assassin appears to backstab another one, acrobaticly she flips, slices another of the Amazulu's throats. Meanwhile, Ferrul has invaded the mind of one of the Amazulu's, she's writhing in pain, rolling on the floor. When only she is left, Larz moves up casually and thrusts his sword through her, ending her mental pain. The party moves on. /End of example I guess, a bit of an attempt of a new term here, one could call old-school roleplaying games "Role Reading". The gameplay isn't fantastic in Wizardry (most of the time, in combat, I'm simply holding down "Return" because it's pretty damn easy with my party), but it's the world, the lore, the interaction with it that's great, exploring, mapping, writing down notes, talking with NPC's. But also, as seen above in my "Combat example", is that You become a bit of the "author" in the plot, in what goes down, how your characters move, how they interact, how things are perceived. Wizardry 6 is a blocky, 2D FPS dungeoncrawl, the graphics aren't the prettiest of prettiest, but it's just simple, good, and extremely well abstracted. When entering the Pyramids I get a message, telling me that there's ornaments and paintings and statues along the walls. But all I see, visually, is mostly grey stone walls (taken from google, not my party, for some reason my Steam screenshots didn't work). In my minds eye, I do see all of the stuff though, I imagine that "golden" "sandy" color of the pyramid... much like how it is when I read a book. What Next-Gen RPG's do "wrong", I believe, is the "too much handholding". There's too much arrows, pointers, GUI and HUD elements that guides the Player through the game, whilst in Wizardry I am guiding myself through the game. I am exploring the game, I am inside the Zoo. Whilst in Next-Gen RPG's I feel as if I am on a Tour, a passenger on a railroad trolley, and I'm looking into the Zoo through a window, with a Guide stating "To the left we have a great outdoors environ, and to the right you can see the Dragon in the sky". And Demon Souls, Dark Souls, prove to us that Players create communities around games that aren't handholding you every corner, they explore it and a base of an enormous amount of fans gather around the table to join in on the discussion of "How to beat this or that". It proves to us that these games do work, yet most AAA developers seem afraid, scared of developing anything that the Players might explore themselves. It's like overprotective parents, afraid they will lose their children if they are too strict, so they turn to become softcore and more accessible. That's my cents. P.S. If you want a really really good RP game? Project Zomboid. Get it. It's amazing. For best effect: Find an RP server, or create an RP server with your friends. You can also play it locally, multiplayer co-op.

Of course! But I think it requires a lot of attention, and now we're only talking about kiting as a thing, lots of stuff follows. How should they react to you kiting? How do you react to the enemy kiting? Guerilla tactics, hiding behind stuff, taking cover, flanking, ambushing, circling around. One enemy attacks, another one runs further away, attacks, and then they take turns, cycling each others attacks in sync. 1 attack, 2 run away, 2 attack, 1 run away etc.etc.. If the AI notices you are starting to kite, maybe they could react by circling, or disappearing away from you, only to appear later behind you. Or an enemy seemingly fleeing, but appearing on 2-3 maps later trying to ambush you, and have stalked you, or even gotten more friends to attack you. Having enemies flee combat, and disappear out of the map (e.g. despawn) doesn't have to mean they are "gone", it could mean backup, more incoming enemies, a bandit camp is abstracted as being close by. Maybe Medreth has a large caravan close by, and he's only part of the scouting group. An enemy that runs out at location X, Y (let's say, directly west from the Church/Temple of Berath door/entrance), could be programmed to "run" out of the map, circling the trees to the south of the Temple, and then re-appearing directly South of the Party spawn point in the Backer Beta, thus appearing behind you to flank you. AI could walk out of map, but the Player could not. This would give AI much more versatility, I think. EDIT: Returning to a question I placed on the board earlier: How would you play against the Adventuring Party if you were Medreth's group? What would you do to attempt to defeat the Party?

Off-topic curiosity: Isn't a troll codependent on codependency?

@Grotesque: Does Dark Souls reward you when defeating a difficult foe, or do you feel you accomplished something (in Dark Souls) when you defeat a foe you've struggled with? Does it matter what loot the dude had? If he was a challenge, a difficult obstacle, and when you finally defeat him, is that not a reward in itself? @Shevek: It's not to brag to friends. Internal rewards, rather than external rewards. Instead of getting confetti in your face and some item a la "Who's a good boy?"-reward, you get to be "the boss" yourself. You take control of the doggie bone yourself, rather than having it handed to you

AH companions are hired as level 1 characters, and then you level them up to N-1 (or up to the level you bought, you can buy a level 3 companion even if you're level 5).

The Paladin aura doesn't work this version and i have no idea if it stacks with the talent or not. I should've clarified, the Paladin has a spell/ability (IIRC the Shieldbearer) that they can use on an ally character/friendly target that allows them to escape (not on him/herself though). @Escape: Mobile, it serves the purpose of re-positioning, a.k.a. moving around. @Wild Sprint: Yep, it's not the best, but it does the job of breaking engagement in a pinch. @Not good strategy: *shrug* like I said, it is up to you to build that way or not. That does not mean that it is a non-existant strategy. You have 6 characters in your party to build. You don't have to build all 6 of them to be "dodgy". And like I said, it might not be the "best" strategy, but it's still a "strategy". A "No Healing" playthrough is not a strategy, but you can build a strategy around "No Healing". Strategy: b : the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal But of course, "Strategy" is only half the joy. You'll need to deploy a different "Tactic" for different Strategies. Positioning in combat in a "No Healing" playthrough would be a lot different than in a "Standard" playthrough. I use strategy and tactics differently on Path of the Damned, than what I do on Easy, for instance.

Sure, I suppose, by picking the options/skills/talents/abilities that aid dodging as you level up you'll become more and more dodgy. Max out Intelligence for Deflection, and I think Constitution as well for the least risk if you get hit. Class & Race would be relevant as well, if you want to optimize it. Uhm so let's see... (copy+pasted from Official Wiki, // are comments) RACE Aumaua - Coastal Aumaua - Towering Physique: Coastal Aumaua gain bonuses to defend against Prone and Stun effects. - Island Aumaua - Long Stride: Island Aumaua move 5% faster in combat. // The Coastal seems promising, as you'd be able to disengage better without getting knocked down or stunned. Island too, if you want a faster character that you can move around and get to places with, and then you'll add talents/abilities as you level up. Dwarf - Boreal Dwarf - Hunter's Instincts - Boreal Dwarves gain +15 accuracy against any creature of the Wilder or Primordial types. - Mountain Dwarf - Hale and Hardy - Mountain Dwarves have a bonus to defend against Poison and Disease attacks. // Not really optimal. Elf - Pale Elf - Elemental Endurance: The Damage Thresholds for all Pale Elves are increased by 20% for all Burn and Freeze damage. - Wood Elf - Distant Advantage: Against any enemy that is more than 4m away, Wood Elves gain bonuses to Accuracy, Deflection, and Reflexes. // The Wood Elf seems promising, hit and run. Attack, disengage, and 4m away you get better deflection.. but then again, might not be very optimal still (as it's mostly good vs Ranged attacks I presume). Godlike - Death's Usher (Death godlike) – increases their damage against enemies with a low percentage of remaining Stamina. - Wellspring of Life(Nature Godlike) – All Stamina recovery that occurs over time, happens 25% faster for Nature Godlike. - Battle-Forged(Fire Godlike) – When reduced below 50% Stamina Fire godlike glow like metall in a forge and have higher damage Threshold. - Silver Tide(Moon Godlike) – Every Encounter when reduced below 75%, 50%, or 25% Stamina moon Godlike generate waves of healing moonlight that heals Stamina to them and their allies. // A Nature Godlike Fighter (With Constant Recovery) could disengage, take a hit or two, and recover a lot, and then head straight back in. The Fire Godlike, if disengaging and below 50%, gains higher damage threshold, and could function in the strategy, and the Moon Godlike could disengage, and if hit, it'll heal everyone else whilst doing it. Human - Fighting Spirit: Once per encounter, 5 seconds after being reduced below 50% Stamina, Folk temporarily gain bonuses to Accuracy and damage. // Not optimal. Orlan - Hearth Orlan - Minor Threat: When attacking any target that is also being targeted by a teammate, Hearth Orlan convert some of their Hits into Crits. - Wild Orlan - Defiant Resolve: After being subjected to a Will attack, Wild Orlan temporarily gain a bonus to all defenses. // Not optimal, or... maybe the Wild Orlan...? ------------------------------------------------------- Most optimal would probably be a Nature Godlike, Moon Godlike, or Coastal Aumaua. ------------------------------------------------------- CLASS // Going to run through these quickly without much comment. - Barbarian: No //A Barbarian benefits most from stationary attacks against mobs. - Chanter: No //A Melee Chanter that is in need of escape, but other than that, it wouldn't be particularly useful. - Cipher: No - Druid: No - Fighter: Yes //Duh - Monk: Yes //Disengage into potential Wounds into counter-attack/counter-engage - Paladin: Yes - Priest: No - Ranger: No/Yes //No as a ranged Ranger, Yes as a melee Ranger+Animal Companion benefits - Rogue: Yes //Duh - Wizard: No ------------------------------------------------------- These are simply thoughts on what would be most optimal as a starting choice, but I think that with Talents picks and specific Spell/Ability picks for a dodgy build could be viable with all of them. ------------------------------------------------------- TALENTS // Only picking those that are "ALL". You can follow the link to check it out further. - Cautious Attack [All] The character attacks from a defensive posture, taking care to never expose vulnerable openings. From this stance, characters receive a penalty to Speed (x0.8 ) but increase their Deflection (+15). - Weapon and Shield Style [All] Improve your mastery of shields. Increases equipped shield's deflection bonus by +10 and gives a reflex bonus equal to your shield's deflection bonus. // Two-Handed Weapon Style also gives deflection, but I didn't include it. - Superior Deflection [All] Increases the character's Deflection defense. - Wild Running [] These Glanfathan techniques help you resist immobilization and dodge disengagement attacks. // Wild Running might be Quest/Trained by NPC, because it doesn't have "All" or "Class" tied to it. Or it might be a scrapped old talent. - Graceful Retreat [All] Grants a bonus to all defenses against Disengagement Attacks. - Snake's Reflexes [All] Increases the character's Reflex defense by +10. ------------------------------------------------------- Be sure to check the "Talents" link (to the Official Wiki). Each Class has options to raise their Deflection values. ------------------------------------------------------- ATTRIBUTES - Deflection (DEF): Represents a character's ability to deflect direct melee and ranged attacks, and can be modified by a shield. It is mostly determined by level and class and is not influenced by any attribute. - Reflex (REF): Represents a character's ability to dodge area of effect attacks. It is based on Dexterity and Perception. // Dexterity, Perception and Intelligence would be the most important statistics for a dodgy character. I think the Wiki needs updating because "Intellect" does improve Deflection in the current build.

Paladin also has a disengagement, Fighter has knockdown, Rogue has Escape, Barbarian has Wild Sprint (which is riskful and hurtful if you use to move away from engagement). Wizard can teleport/swap positions with a friendly target. Regardless, I stopped at your post here for a reason: The game is made for you to play like you want to play. I can make a party and build my strategy around disengagement and mobility, with lesser tanks and more damage, or with debuffs/buffs to make a weak un-tanky character into a tanky character (relatively speaking, if I do -10 on one enemies accuracy, and +10 deflection on my character or whatnot). However, you can choose to position yourself at start of combat and play more Sticky, secure, and probably more safe/less risk without worrying about disengagement as much. My point? You'll waste points if that's what you feel you are doing. Parallely, if I want to build a Ranged Fighter (which is far from optimal on any level), I can do so and I can put points into building a Ranged Fighter, without wasting any points towards doing it. However, if I want a Ranged Fighter, but I put all points into Melee Engagement, then I am wasting points (because I'm not building like I want to build). EDIT: There's tons of material, resources, tools, for you, as the Player, to pick and choose from the Strategy Basket to create your party. Of course, some strategies will be better than others at general playthroughs (Good at everything) and niche playthroughs (Good at specific playstyle).

They probably hardly even read this forum. You do not contribute to eternity at all by discussing on this forum and if, then in an extremely tiny and indirect way. That is just the truth, whether that is a good or bad thing is your judgement, I think its a very good thing thank god because I do not like to be codependent with Obsidian. I post here purely for my own fun. I am saying that I dont need the devs reading this forum to find discussing here worthwhile. If you did, that would be codependency which you are very fond of I think. Codependency is never good for anyone. EDIT: Sorry for the vagueness, I agree with you on some of your underlying points. I won't be discussing or debating with you here anymore though, have fun! However, you are very welcome to continue the attempted friendly & civil PM I started, or, at least, that was my intention with it

I'm no professional but pondering and wondering about this... I think that removing Engagement would take probably more effort. A) Obsidian has developed the Engagement mechanic for 18-24 months, that's what's on their minds. "How to solve this or that?". Problem/Solution within the bounds of the Engagement mechanic a la "How to improve this or that?". B) Removing Engagement will cause lots of trouble with already existant skills, abilities, talents (which would then need to be accommodated in already written code, and strings, triggers, scripts, it would all have to be re-evaluated). C) Not that the AI is superb at the moment, but I think a Sticky Engagement has more potential for AI Behavior than "Free Movement" has. Furthermore, there already is AI for the current system, and removing Engagement would require more revisions in the code. Rather than just improving on what already exists. D) New bugs too. Removing Engagement is pretty much: "Let's not fix the bugs in Engagement Mechanic, and let's fix the bugs in the not designed/not produced non-Engagement Mechanic". I admit I might be completely wrong, and that I am no professional, but having been part of the Kickstarter project since near-start and followed each update and am interested in development/design outside of these forums, I think I've gained some insight over the some 10 years of gathered game development knowledge.

False, there's actually a couple of skills, talents, attributes, abilities that aid a "Tumble" build, but I think the components may be named differently. I've seen a couple of "+15 Disengagement Defense", so you can totally build a "Tumbler" character, but it doesn't quite feel optimal in the Beta, because of bugs. My ranged characters can get disengage attacks by just moving a bit against melee enemies blocked by my melee units.

@rjshae: They'll make a Kickstarter just to afford to make another Kickstarter for the Superbowl Ad, for a 15 second advertisement that the audience can skip after 3 or 4 seconds if they choose to. @Sheikh: Of course, but I think the topic title is a bit odd, and I felt like you did (but milder, kinder). I took a deep breathe and thought a bit what I was going to write, instead of just emotionally crying out my first impulse. Regardless, what I wanted to say is that there's nothing wrong in the community/fans promoting Pillars of Eternity, with or without Obsidian. In my opinion, the thread title would be better with "How do we want to help promote Pillars of Eternity post-release?".

The thing I have seen/heard about that is most likely an exploit is: - Disengagement Attacks, tricking the AI to move in and out of disengagement, without taking a single point of damage. You're basically meta-gaming and abusing a faulty AI or code-string which allows you to be "God Mode" and defeat enemies with little risk whatsoever. This is an exploit, found by Sensuki, and I think Obsidian is working on dealing with it to be less OP.

If I'm not completely mistaken, Paradox handles this. Regardless, the community has "word-by-mouth" and "YouTube" (Let's Plays, Reviews etc.). I think that Polaris (YouTube Group/Company? Dodger, TotalBiscuit, Jesse Cox+many more) might be in on Pillars of Eternity as well, just a feeling/assumption after seeing Jesse Cox play the game. EDIT: I've suggested Early Access, because it would allow Obsidian to polish the first title for a bit longer, and expose the title to more people on Steam at the same time. But... I get the feeling Obsidian doesn't want that, reputation-wise an Early Access is indie-company stuff, and Obsidian usually delivers AAA stuff, and might want to handle Pillars of Eternity as an AAA title (what with Pre-Orders on Steam too). Might even see some DLC stuff happening, post-release, and it already has happened too. "Expansion" was a Pledge Option, "Expansion" can be translated to "DLC".

Greying out, highlighting, "unlocking" each "section" as you go. A small button would be required to click "OK" to unlock next part. It fulfills the same function as "13 screens", but you keep all/most of the information on one single page. .grayed1 .grayed2 I also realized that "Gender/Sex" should be above "Portrait".

For us that play MOBA's we are very aware of this, of course. Kiting, juking, baiting, ambushing, backdooring etc. etc. all of these things is fair-game in a MOBA game, of course, kiting is a risk because there's a big chance the enemy will catch up to you. Even kiting minion waves often makes the creeps/minions catch up to you (early in the game). Kiting is a "pro-player" action, in essence. But, when you can take down an entire bandit camp (the one, the only, in Baldur's Gate) by kiting all of the bandits in guerilla warfare on any difficulty and win the battle with a single character, then maybe kiting is a bit too overpowered. I don't think kiting in itself is a bad thing, but when it becomes Champion/Hero vs Minion wave difficulty, it's unintuitative, and becomes more of a Dynasty Warriors hack. I wouldn't mind seeing the enemy AI, ranged characters, attempt to kite, or ambush, or backdoor, or juke, or having some "pro-player" actions. The beetles on PotD difficulty do move around a bit more for instance, and I even noticed some dudes hanging back against Medreth (on PotD), as if defending their backline which was pretty interesting and cool to see. Hah, I wonder if in the future it will be possible to hire pro-players to either act out or record enemy AI, just like a pro-voice actor is hired to do voice over I mean, if you want the best AI, wouldn't it be best to copy the best players?

The "Blitz" mode of Blood Bowl wasn't that succesfull. That's why it isn't implemented in Blood Bowl 2. I never used it after I tried it once or twice and most playthrough vids I've seen was in classic mode. I don't know much about that, I just thought the real-time with pause mode has a couple of similarities with PoE's combat, except that it's AoO's are better in Blood Bowl, I suppose. I enjoyed the real-time mode a lot, to be honest. However, the AI are really dumb, and often only move one unit at a time, so touch downs become really easy. But this is off topic, sorry.

Every time I make a character, I come to the colors screen and skip it entirely, pick a portrait I like, then I go back, adjust colors and edits gear. I might even go all the way back to Culture, if I don't like the gear or it doesn't fit the character portrait. A "Culture" tab button could be clarified and easy to notice. Another solution would be to, instead of "Culture", add the option to the Player to pick starting gear on the "Appearance" screen. Maybe the character is a spy from the Living Lands, dressed up as an Aedyran. Or a traveler who simply passed through Rauatai etc. Depends how well presented the Character Sheet is, I tried making another mock-up of it. Cleaner and even more compressed. Still not fantastic but, trying to prove a point. EDIT: Attributes and Class could be swapped with one another as well (You can compare with this one, all of them, in an additional browser tab) EDIT: Skills/Talents become don't fit, or might fit up in the upper-right corner with Background. Or even.. 1st: Character Sheet 2nd: Abilities/Talents 3rd: Appearance (EDIT: Not relevant as a Character Sheet could be all in one except Abilities/Talents as seen in the above mockup. Isn't it common in PnP to have a spell list/abilities list sheet as well?) It could boil down to 2 screens. Right now, it is around 13 Screens.

Hm, maybe so. I wrote up a couple of points here what I think more on the matter btw, instead of fleshing it out here again.

Some of the ideas are also expansive, shelf material, small little "open later" boxes

And that has actually happened with eternity? I think what you mean is that we can give feedback/ test the game in the midst of development. Devs are still the ones coming up with the ideas of how to solve problems or redo things for the most part. That is still good though, yeah. Yes, that's partly what I mean. What I mean with "pitching" ideas is giving reasonable arguments to why a feature would be cool or not. Then it is entirely up to Obsidian to consider it or not. Discussions, debates around topics that may inspire the Devs. People have had ideas since Day 1 on what would be cool/not cool in Pillars of Eternity, and debated/discussed other people's ideas too.

I think I figured out, personally, what bothers me about the character creator UI in Pillars of Eternity. There's so much empty unused space. Here are all of the originals compressed (.zip), or you can tab through these: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 010, 011, 012, 013. Use them as you wish. Here's the unused .empty1 .empty2 space that I'm talking about. .Suggestion1: Character Portrait+Character Appearance // Merging these elements together will lessen back and forth clicking. .allofem: All of the options (except ability option), and truncated/compressed a lot, almost fits the same space. If I "squeezed" (making smaller) a bit more, all of it would fit on one screen, and possibly show the character model as well, top-down on-screen size (smaller window). I've simply thrown out all of the cards, I have not sorted them. Portrait could be in upper-left corner for instance, attributes in the middle or whatnot. A simulated Character Sheet. Furthermore, neither "Portrait" or "Character Appearance" needs to be on this screen, if Portrait+Appearance had their own screen. Name could be above the character on the "Appearance" screen, or on the "Character Sheet" screen. // Character Sheets are cool I really like the background art in the Character Creator, and it's stylish, but it's not a "Character Sheet". .Suggestion2: Speaking of appearance, there are 3 windows that affect the appearance during character creation. Culture, Color, Portrait. I merged them together with a simple "tab" trick in Paint. Simulating that "These values affect the Character's appearance" on one screen. There also only needs to be a single "Information" window on a "Character Sheet", compared to PoE's, that has an Informations window on almost all of the "Screens". Culture's information could be displayed on the Character Sheet, but on the "Appearance" screen it wouldn't show any information. Thoughts?

Oh! Well then, let me rephrase: If you think that combat is bad and unrewarding in lower difficulties, maybe you'd find combat itself more rewarding on higher difficulties? Otherwise, if one doesn't like combat, can't they just play on Easy and breeze through the combat and avoid it?