Ignatius
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Posts posted by Ignatius
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I really like the idea of perks that tie into the armor your character wears. I think this is a good direction. (And I liked it in FONV.)
You could have perks for fighters that let them better utilize heavy armor, move faster, less stamina drain, while also giving the light armor bonuses to attack speed or movement when wearing light armor. I think heavy armor should definitely offer better mitigation as a baseline, but with the right perks, a light armored character could become just as resistant, or more proficient at dealing damage/performing more actions, depending on the direction you go with your perks.
Um, I just really like perks, I guess.
I have no problem with armor types being replaced with "better" versions. And I'd be fine with simply incorporating new interesting names for better tiers. It's really not a problem to me. It lends itself to the feeling of progression, and so long as a certain type of armor remains effective (through perks, stats, overall look) then I think the classic hide wearing barbarian can survive until the end of the game.
I also agree with what was said before, having benefits/down-sides to armor types beyond damage mitigation could be interesting.
This is all just stuff that I find appealing in games I've played in the past. Finding a resolution to this problem is beyond me. (I'm sure you'll figure it out, lol)
Cool face paint.
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Just for fun, here is JE Sawyer's stance on romances:
I don't hate love in game stories; I just hate reducing love to shallow, masturbatory fantasy indulgence. Maybe that's all love is to some people, but I think that's a pretty narrow view. Ego-stroking is very popular in CRPGs, which is one reason I don't feel comfortable doing CRPG writing anymore.I appreciate that people wanted more romance options in NWN2, but sometimes I think that people want there to be romance "victory" conditions for all companions. I think that can diminish some characters. For instance, if Shandra and Qara had their own romance plots, I think some people would still want Neeshka to be "romance-able", regardless of how Neeshka's author felt about the character's place in the story.That bugs me. I don't like the idea that you can "win" everything or get everyone on your side. I'm also not fond of the idea that romance always has to resolve with a "fade out" to implied coitus, but that's another issue.I'll re-state what I wrote before: I want romance to receive either less or more attention in games. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, especially when it's something with so much emotional potential. But I certainly don't want to go the route of, which is total fantasy indulgence and gross pandering.I'm with him. Then again, If Avellone can do it right, and make it meaningful, and more than just a way for the player to realize their fantasies through an RPG, then go for it. I don't think romance in an RPG is bad at all, it's been part of many great stories, it's just that Bioware has taken romance and re-appropriated romance as some awkward relationship that leads to awkward sex scene all wrapped up in the writing equivalent to that of a bad fanfic. So I can understand the resistance to ANY sort of romance in this game.
Then again: MCA
Do I need romance in this game? If the story permits it and it adds to the experience and the story in a worthwhile way, sure. But I'm often worried about other things when playing an RPG. Namely combat, quests, over-arching narratives, and everything else that makes a cRPG great, and over the years romance has made up but a tiny-miniscule part of that, if not at all. In some ways, the less romance this game will have, the more old school it will feel. The more it will stand as a contradiction to every watered down cRPG we've received over the last ten years. And isn't that sort of the point of this project?
Frankly, I could care less if this game has no romance. It won't be made a worse game without it. That's my official stance as guy who gave you money to maek me vidyogaemz.
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So, to be clear, you could have 1 HP, but full stamina, and you'd survive the fight so long as you don't take any more HP damage... right?
I like the system, because stamina makes sense, but I don't know how it will prevent rest spam. If you're at 1 HP and you know the boss is in the next room, I think most people will opt to trudge all the way out of the dungeon, rest up, and then come back to finish the thing off, completely negating the point of this system in the process.
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That which *must* be avoided:
The party walks into a room. Several skeletons or corpses are laying about the floor. When we reach the middle of the room (or the spooky altar, or whatever), the undead come to life, surrounding us! Gasp!
F*** that noise. If I'm exploring the Lair of Necromancer X or the Cave of Restless Souls or whatever, you can be damn sure that I'll be smashing the skulls (and maybe breaking the arms) of any inactive skeletons that I come across. Corpses? I'll be assuming "potential zombie" and hacking off the heads (and maybe the hands). Ancient king sitting mummified on his throne? I'll be taking that gigantic two-handed sword laying across his knees before I reach for the bejeweled crown.
It's funny you mention this, because quite a few of the dungeons in Skyrim follow this tactic. After the first time, you just kill the Draugr before they even get up.
Game design at it's finest! (Although sometimes they bust out of the walls, which is okay.)
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Romance isn't a cliche. That's like saying Romeo and Juliet is just like every other terrible chick flick ever made because it has romance. It's far too broad of a concept to say that two people falling in love is cliche. The only problem I have with romance in a game like this is that it always seems implausible, probably because it's badly written. And probably because writing a good love story is really freaking hard.
Attempting to buck cliches at every turn can be just as bad as embracing them. Sometimes a cliche works as good foundation for a story so long as something interesting is done with the cliche. Devils in the details and all that.
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On the other hand, if a mage's lightning bolt can fry multiple armored enemies to goo, then why can't it break the hinges off a door?
Your wizard blasts the lock with a bolt of lightning. The lock melts and the door is now welded shut.
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Whatever BG2 did. The artifacts were spread out enough that getting them felt great. However, I think ToB went a little to overboard in terms of artifacts. Every fight gave you some godly piece of gear. I guess that's how high level content works, but... I still didn't like it!
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Thank you for this. I love hearing Sawyer talk about this stuff. He's a smart dude.
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The reason a game like PE won't need quest markers is because of an in-depth quest journal and the fact that you won't be exploring an area that equal's the size of a small county. I mean, in BG2, finding a quest objective wasn't exactly hard. At the very least the quest giver said you could find said person in X area of the city. And the areas were only SO large with a handful of people. And if you talk to a few of them, you'll figure out where to go. Or you'd just run into what you needed to find through your travels and being diligent in your exploration of every nook and cranny, which is how RPGs should be.
Skyrim uses quest markers because the quests are lazy and they're all one-step fetch quests with little to no choices involved. Fetch quests are boring as heck, thus they gave you quest markers to tear through them as quick as possible so you can get your goodies (usually about 200 gold).
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I don't care what the boss does, so long as this plays when I fight him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJeAYcaWKus
The issue I've always had with the "boss battles" in games like BG2 and even FONV, is that the fun is pretty much over when you hit that last boss. There's no more wandering or open-ended exploring, the game is telling you it's clearly over and there's only one direction left to go. Even having a speech check or some such doesn't really help matters, because it's still an obligatory moment/fight and compared to the freedom you had before those final events it just feels less interesting. Of course, you can't have a game without an end. And there's the matter of an end to a great story, and that's the pay off I suppose.
Anyway, I agree with Hellfell, the last battle should occur at a bar where you and the villain talk it all over and party amicably or there is an all out bar fight.
To me, it is the journey that matters - not the destination.I think this is what I meant to say. In a well made RPG, the "last boss" is more a wrapping up of all the threads in a very satisfying way, not so much a pinnacle of the power creep. Besides, there's level 15 of the dungeon to serve that purpose.
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A better question is: How much did Baldur's Gate 2 cost? Because this game is closer to that than to some mega production like Dragon Age or Modern Warfare.
Never mind, should read threads. lol Five million for BG2? Psh, then this'll be cake. Though this does feature quite a bit more content... Hmmm.
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The game was, like... five bucks on Steam a week ago.
I bought it for 2 bucks, har. The game just had too much going on. It was an RPG at heart with action elements that played like an RPG more than an action game so it all just felt a bit wonky. Then there was the hacking and that killed the game for me, so I ended up only playing about an hour. I heard they had a patch to fix the hacking, maybe I'll go back to it someday, but New Vegas is really all I need for my Obsidian fill.
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I WANT TO BE A DRAGON.
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What you suggests is still a bit too much on the creative side of free labor. I'm sure Avellone or Zeits would enjoy writing bestiaries/books enough that they'd rather do it themselves.
Maybe they have some Excel work for you to do. Like plugging in 2000 separate figures or something.
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How about, you are the chosen one, however, someone else keeps solving the problems ten minutes before you get there!
DARN!
I was very much satisfied with the FONV plot. Worked very well for that game. You're more or less just carving a niche in the world, which is what makes it so compelling. Tipping the balances, how you see fit. I don't think not having an option to go back to a boring job as Courier really matters. I mean, by the time you've gotten your revenge, you're so wrapped up in other going ons, that dropping everything and heading back to your boring job as a courier hardly makes sense.
"Hey, Mr. House, running New Vegas sounds neat and all but um... I'm just gonna go back to being a simple courier. This is just all too exciting for me."
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Nonsense. Quest markers and mud crabs are two mandatory features at the top of my list for this game.
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I busted up laughing when he said, "Thanks for funding a really huge game!" and then started listing off the ridiculous amount of stuff they have to create. As much as I envy the position of game developer, I could also see how it'd be a bit of a nightmare. Phew, stressful.
I have no concerns though. This game will rock.
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I believe these are the quotes from JE Sawyer that have sparked this thread and the power-gaming discussion in general.
Tim and I would rather not give XP for general killin' because it leads to a lot of weird/degenerate scenarios, but I have no problem with having quests oriented specifically around killing and receiving XP for achieving sub-objectives/the main goal.Gameplay degeneration occurs when a player engages in gameplay not because they enjoy that gameplay but because the game's mechanics put the player at a disadvantage for not taking advantage of it. Rest spamming is one example. Wholesale slaughter/genocide is another. Quests that involve a peaceful option to resolve that get turned around after completion when the player murders the saved parties is a familiar expression of this sort of degeneration. If XP is linked to quests and objectives within quests, the player has much more freedom to resolve those quests in whatever way he or she wants, whether that means talking through it, fighting, sneaking around, or using some mixture of skills/scripted environment objects to reach the goal.I think the original intent of this wasn't really to tackle power-gaming at all, but to balance the various approaches player's might consider. Anyway, it hasn't really been set into stone yet, but more a thought Tim and Sawyer had.
I honestly had no idea the whole do quest/kill quest giver thing was so prevalent in gaming. I imagine most people who are following this game treat their experience a little more seriously than that and have some role-playing obligation to maintain the integrity of their experience by not being a complete psychopath. But I guess this is stuff designers have to think about.
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The Cult of the Sightless Eye in BG2 was always satisfying to me for some reason. It starts so humbly with some crazy cultist, then before you know it, you're unearthing ancient civilizations and killing Elder Beholder's with world destroying magic items.
I guess it works for it's unpredictability. Much like a good story, I suppose.
I also like the Slaver quest in BG2, because I like to kill slavers and you feel particularly righteous in this one when you take down the entire organization. Sure, it's pretty straight-forward but still satisfying.
FO: NV also has a ton of great quests. They all offer some major choices and the end-result is always interesting. Particularly Boone's quest where you have to find out who sold his wife into slavery. Just leading the culprit to their deaths is both satisfying and a bit unnerving. And I suppose it's a bit like your skinner quest, though a bit easier to solve.
NV has a lot of fun quests actually. Very underrated game, if you ask me.
I know I'm forgetting a ton. Really, all I need in a quest are interesting choices wrapped up in a worthwhile narrative that isn't too predictable. Pretty easy, right?
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lol
The poll is split 50/50.
Game play/story in an RPG are more intertwined than most games, I think. A quest is usually a small story in itself, and the choices you make to affect that story make up the game play part of it. But the story has to be interesting enough that you care about the choices, and the choices have to be interesting in themselves, but when you get tired of talking, killing stuff should be enjoyable. But still, even beyond killing, interacting with the story IS game play. (I'm getting redundant, eh?)
However, I find game's with good game play and a throw away story a lot easier to replay than the alternative. Many have said Xenogears had a great story, (it's quite involved/complex) but the game play is criminally bad, so I could barely manage to get through it once. Then again, JRPGs.
But I can't really think of a lot of game's I've played where I said, "That was great. The game play was garbage, but man... what a story!"
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Hertzfeldt
Great, now I have to watch Rejected again.
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Well, you ask if 4 million is enough. Yet their original goal was a measly 1.1m. Either they based this on past experience/expectations of cost or they're just plain stupid.
Umm, going with the former here.
Or maybe their intention all along was to deliver 1/20th of a gaming experience. Well, at least we get 4/20ths now!
(I'm bad at fractions.)
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I'm a bit fed off with dragon. Can we have something new?
Yes. Enormous moths will terrorize the world of PE.
edit: the moths breathe fire.
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I don't see the issue.
You are driven to enter a dungeon not because of the experience that cannon fodder gives you but because of the lore surrounding it, the quest experience probably attached to it, and the treasure to be found, etc. What you do while in that dungeon is up to you and the kind of character you want to play. If that's through non-violence then more power to them.
(As an aside, I really don't think a large majority of the fights will be able to be avoided/snuck past. The heart of the game IS tactical combat, it's right in the pitch/tag line, so I don't see that happening. There will be plenty of opportunities for diplomacy, yes, but to create so many classes/skills/combat, and then just let a player disregard it, seems highly unlikely. Diplomacy will likely pop up at key moments and stealth will be used where it makes sense, but not as a main component of game play.)
In the grand scheme of things, giving experience or not giving it for killing a measly pack of wolves really doesn't matter. People might be a bit shocked at first when they don't get their XP, but they're still going to kill the wolves threatening their party. It's not like it's a chore. It's a fight with some wolves, it only take 5 seconds at most. Unless it's the Uber Wolf, in which case there is probably an objective tied to it.
I just can't imagine this game being so filled with endless random pointless encounters that you'd start to become frustrated with not getting experience for it. If the game is filled with that kind of game play, then I want my money back!
Also, people keep making examples based on games with boring/non-tactical combat. I'm not saying the IE game's had the best combat in the world, but they deserve a little more respect than to be compared to the Witcher or Skyrim. Yeesh.
Bottom line is that if OE needs to make a ton of meaningful fights in this game in order for this system to work, then heck yeah! I'm all for it. If I wanted to endlessly kill hordes of zombies I'd go play an ARPG or grind in an MMO.
For what it's worth, your post was very interesting and it definitely made me think.
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Obsidian's front page survey
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted · Edited by Ignatius
haha...Call of Duty.
I hope it's most like BG2. Best of everything. ToEE's combat would be nice, but without TB combat, that ship has sorta sailed.
I wonder how Josh feels knowing that more people would would like PE to be like CoD than his IWD games... Hmmm.