[I am very disappointed to hear the party will be reduced to five.]

 

More imaginary boo-hoo self-victimisation.

 

You're absolutely free to complain loudly that you don't like it. We're absolutely free to express our opinion that this is all much ado about nothing.  

Yes. The thing is, when you actually tell other people to stop complaining because you personally disagree with their opinion, that's when you're a controlling jerk who needs to shut up and let other people discuss their opinions. When you tell other people to shut up and stop complaining, and they call you out on it, you don't get to act like the victim whose being bullied by those mean complainers.

 

 

And in turn, we can immediately tell you to stop assuming that we're acting like victims rather than just annoyed at the tone of you guys. The victimization is happening strictly on one side and it certainly isn't us. Stop projecting on to us. The fact that we are telling you that your worries are unfounded doesn't somehow mean we are controlling jerks. We are simply telling you that this discussion is ultimately pointless and the burden of proof is on you.

And a-round and a-round we go, until one side decides to either stop responding (which the other side will immediately view as a win by surrender, of course) or something to actually talk about shows up. It's a grand old time, isn't it. (We need a smiley that's a mirrored version of the    so that we can have two guys hitting the same wall.)

 

 

More on-topic: I'm sad to see a reduction in party size since it means there is a bigger chance of missing great party banter and interesting companion comments. However, I understand that they would prefer to scale back the party to make combat more manageable, so it isn't a big issue. A sad but logical solution for better encounters.

[Proposed new health system, i.e. the one time I'll complain]

I think the big reason people would like to go back to a single-pool health system is because the dual-pool system feels less elegant and beginner-friendly. Something about a very simple and elegant solution just satisfies people, even if the solution doesn't work all that well. Couple that with people being used to single-pool systems and it's easy to see why people want to change it, despite it working great. While beginner-unfriendliness is an issue, it's nowhere big enough to scrap the system.

 

The dual-pool system means that short-term encounter and long-term strategic management have dedicated health pools rather than the same one and that helps with encounter and level design. There are consequences to playing poorly or hoarding resources for other encounters since you can't restore health resource-free and every point lost sticks with you. On the other hand, you start every encounter with max endurance (assuming health allows for it), so encounter design can always assume you to have some resources going for you.

 

It also fixes a lot of non-mechanical oddities and edge cases. While the potion beer cap and constant healer massages are potentially fun health management approaches if the rest of the mechanics support them, it has always struck me as odd how a guy with a gaping cannonball wound in their stomach can be just peachy with a refreshing sip of elixir or a good clerical neck rub. How is it that the best way to kill a dragon is to either have a very long straw or to eat a lot of potatoes constantly? Moreover if they do lose their (encounter) health, in PoE they'd simply fall unconscious and potentially get badly injured before some medical treatment. In single-pool health systems, they would need a proper resurrection spell or item and that is always too easy, considering how big that ability would be. JRPGs get hit by this the worst; I think anyone who has played a single one has made the complaint of "Why is that guy now suddenly dead when I have about 90 resurrection doodads I could easily use?"

 

The initial confusion and misunderstanding is a necessary evil for a system that works better and has more logic in-universe and I firmly believe they could minimize that with a more thorough tutorial, rather than a little side explanation box. After the system clicks, it works better for the rest of the game.

The injury-only system has the problem of only having consequences if one of the PCs goes down, whereas a full-on health meter allows more depth since a poorly played or a resource-starved encounter will reduce the player's health more than a well played or nuked one. With just injuries, as long as nobody went down, the results are the same and that's a sad reduction of depth.

 

 

As a barely related thing: If you've played Secret Hitler, you might have been confused and wanted to change the mostly redundant Secret Role and Party Membership cards to a solution that doesn't use two seemingly redundant cards. It's only after it clicks that it makes sense and even after that you might want to change it. I think what we are seeing here is the same thing and the end result will hopefully be the same: the current, initially confusing system will prevail, simply because it plays better, despite lots of people offering alternate solutions or asking it to be changed. Here's a post by one of Secret Hitler's devs that explains the design process of their particular confusing system.

[[SUGGESTION] Variety for wands, rods and scepters]

It might be nice and interesting if the magical implements had a small de/buff associated with them, making them less useful as damage dealers but more useful as a source of minor status effects. Balancing may prove difficult, but it would also separate them neatly from the other ranged weapons, aside from being the only source of non-pierce ranged damage. Something like scepters causing an accuracy debuff thanks to their way too bright projectiles, etc.

 

Unique stuff would be where the fun begins. An ice scepter might slow people down, a lighting one could have high Interrupt values, while a poison one might lower something like endurance defense a bit.

 

I'd suggest adding empowerment into the mix as well. An empowered scepter might actually shoot projectiles that blind people for a couple of seconds for a few ten seconds, a ice scepter might freeze people, a lighting scepter would stun people, poison could actually poison... I'd expect this to be too much trouble for too little gain, but it would make for interesting weapon types.

[Deadfire stealth.]

 

This is why i hope at least for local rooms you can sneak into them with only your stealthy character. So allow limited party break up.

 

 

PoE1 already has limited party break up, sort of. I mean, you can't leave the area, but you can move a single, stealthy character around independently of the rest of the group. I distinctly remember this being useful in one of the Doemenel quests.

 

The only thing missing from it now is the ability to actually split the party and travel around in the local area. Eg, in Raedric's keep, it would be great if you could travel around in a smaller party through the entrances and stairs. Leaving the location proper (in other words, accessing the world map or returning to the ship) would require the party to gather, but anything in the location would be accessible by sub-parties.

 

It might be possible, as they have noted that the game now loads all the neighbouring areas as well as the actual area you're in. It might make party-splitting technically feasible. Then it's down to game design and if it fits in.

[Casting outside of Combat]

It's one of the reasons I'm kind of apprehensive about this whole "empower" thing, to be honest...

 

It would be nice to see it in action instead of just reading how it's supposed to work. It might help in understanding the system and alleviating the worries about it.

 

However, I doubt it'll go anywhere. Besides moving actions over to per-encounter system that can then be empowered, the system seems to be a crucial part of multi-classing balance.

[Mages.]

 

Spells outside of combat should be implemented for all classes, but I don't think that giving the wizard every single type of spell - like the OP is proposing - would make any sense, it would just turn all of the others characters obsolete.

 

The OP never said that.  Stop putting words into people's mouths.

 

He does ask for wizards to have spells that were locked to other casters in PoE and couple posts down he asks for (or at least references as a counter-point) all the various spells Baldur's Gate and through that D&D has. So saying that he wants wizards to have access to all types of spells is not far off the mark.

 

 

 

What about rogues and fighters? They desperately need more attention from the team, not this unbalanced, overpowered, silly, and illogical class that is the wizard. 

 

Kind of weird to compare classes like Rogues and fighters to a class that is meant to have a variety of spells.  =\

 

Are they though? I realize in tabletop games, wizards generally start with just jack and eventually attain godhood through the "I have a spell for this!" effect. But in a CRPG, a wzard having a key for every lock, or even most locks, is bad for balance. You either design stuff for a party with a wizard and everybody else will have a bad time, or one without a wizard and the wizard party will just stomp everything.

 

Besides, they already have a large variety of spells and more importantly, they can use most of them with multiple grimoires. Limiting wizards by excluding them from certain types of spells, like heals or summons, will help make other caster types more useful without the wizard just taking over their role.

The larger issue here seems to be that PoE does not have utility spells. I don't mind but it's a rude awakening for all the people used to wizards having spells to make other character types obsolete (eg. Knock vs. lockpicking).

[Casting outside of Combat]

I'm wary of allowing buff spells to be cast outside combat. The party huddling like a sports team before a fight to cast all the buffs is fairly tedious gameplay and rewarding the player for doing tedious gameplay is bad game design IMO. Some of the most annoying gameplay for me has been applying buffs to people to survive in combat. I like the fact that buffs in PoE were much less a thing and they sound especially unneeded now since everything is per-encounter by default.

 

On the other hand, I do realize that not being able to cast spells out of combat sucks for ambushes with the new stealth system. A compromise I'd suggest is being able to pre-cast spells and otherwise ready actions on visible enemies before springing your ambush and the springing always automatically starting combat mode with the visible enemies. This way, any buffs would still be cast in-combat but the buffs would go up at the very start of it. Pretty much like Shadow Tactics' shadow mode, actually.

The downside to this would be the fact that enemies also have ears this time and a wizard chanting tends to grab the attention of everybody around (not to mention the chanter chanting). So a wizard casting a long spell could ruin the surprise.

 

There are more traditional ways to sidestep the per-encounter spell limit (if you cast outside combat, the spell slot will only come back after either the next encounter, the spell running out or you leaving the area) but that only leads to huddles again.

[Deadfire stealth.]

New stealth info. Npcs will have vision cone, hearing radius and patrol patterns. This will allow more stealthy mission content with more use for stealth. Josh said where npc is looking will be important for detection and also sound.

 

I assume this is from one of the Q&A stream?

 

I'm pleasantly surprised by their decision to go full-on stealth gameplay. Hopefully they take notes from other stealth tactics games like the Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.

 

I have to wonder how essential stealth is now, though. If I'm going to play stealthily, how screwed is my party if some characters only have a couple of levels of stealth, like a traditional RPG team? Moreover, if another player decides to completely ignore stealth, how much stuff are they going to miss? I assume there are going to be lots of opportunities to also use stealth mechanics, otherwise why make them so in-depth. Do people without stealth miss out on a lot of content or is stealth actually, fully just a choice among the many? Can, for example, a good talker also surreptiosly (reverse-)pickpocket people by distracting or conning them?

[Proposed new health system, i.e. the one time I'll complain]

I'm honestly glad that their getting rid of that crappy convoluted system that was in PoE.  Just stick with one health bar like in other games please.

 

No. The health / endurance split was one of the best aspects of PoE's mechanics and added a lot of strategic depth to encounters. Instead of chugging wound-knitting health potions like it was your soft drink of choice, you actually couldn't tank through everything with a beer cap and a hose.

 

The split is great. The injury system sounds way too simplified and discrete compared to the granularity of the split.

[NPC reactions.]

I think Pillars 1 did it well with specific characters being ****, rather than generic people types. Sure, if the devs want to make your character feel like an outcast, having everybody treat them like dirt does that. However, I think it's better to have most people react to them with appropriate wary politeness (beggars will beg, nobles offer stiff greetings, etc.) and leave the douchebags to be actual characters the player can grow to hate and eventually kick the asses of.

 

At least in the Dyrwood, after getting Caed Nua you're basically landed nobility. Somewhat insignificant, rural, and "new money", but nobility nonetheless.
And in Deadfire, you're captain of a ship.
Whatever your original background, you're not scum to many people.

 

Coupled with this fact, most people shouldn't really try to antagonize you. If for no other reason that the fact that they might need to ask you a favor / give you a job offer at some point.

 

Of course, it would be great if your reputation played into this. Being known as a hero of the city should make the nobles react with proper politeness, commoners being excited to talk to you, etc. Conversely, if you do gain a negative reputation, suddenly the douchebag attitude and treatment would make sense and would be a nice touch.

[The loss of Vancian casting?!]

I will say that I deeply *love* the idea of an injury based health system. Because this will allow me to abuse all sorts of healing like in PoE. Add healing bonuses from survival, items, chants and combine it with Veteran's Recovery and/or Ancient Memory, Moonwell and so on and you won't go down. Now that the health is gone and injuries only happen when you go down it's going to be much easier to break the game. Hahahaha!

 

I really hope that if this is actually the case, the devs will chalk the injury system up as a failure and go back to health / endurance split. The lack of granularity in the injury system seems like a big step backwards in strategic depth.

 

On topic: I don't really like Vancian casting in CRPGs, so I'm just fine with per-encounter abilites and a rest-based "mana" pool that can boost them.

[A Reqeust for a walk toggle this Time]

I'm all for a mechanics-neutral walk/run toggle. As noted, it would make both sides happy, likely without any significant dev time and without necessating a UI redo since it could just be a button toggle.

 

However, start introducing mechanical changes, and I'm voting no. I understand if the stealth mode would force me to walk anyway, but needing to walk to spot traps or to stop guards from harassing me? No thanks. There's no real gain there, other than annoying people by forcing them to go slower. I'm one of the guys who just want to get where I'm going already. Even fast mode has felt too slow on a few occasions. Please don't make it necessary to go even slower.

If Pillars 2 were a proper explicit stealth game, I would be all for a mechanically significant walk toggle. For a generalist CRPG? Nope.

[A Reqeust for a walk toggle this Time]

I'm guessing that it's a UI design issue. It wouldn't explain why it can't be a button toggle, but the modern UI design usually hates things that won't be used by most people. Why waste screenspace for something 99% of people won't touch, or will touch once and then again to turn it off?

[Poll on preferred party size]

While I'm sad that I won't be able to have as many characters with me to interact with, I can understand that they chose to have better combat instead. If it's already a done deal, I'll deal with.

 

I hope the fact that we're basically lugging both the active and "benched" characters with us everywhere on our boat means that switching characters in and out of the party is much faster and easier than in PoE. It would take the sting out of the reduced party size.

[A Reqeust for a walk toggle this Time]

I would never touch this toggle unless they went ahead and added an annoying mechanical difference to it, but I don't see any reasons against including it either, so why not. Assuming it doesn't take long implement. You wouldn't think that it would, since NPCs have it already, but who knows, maybe they figured that party characters should look better than their NPC walk-cycle looked, so they neved added it.
 
 

I am also hoping that it will be modded in if they choose not to add it as a feature. And since it is already in the game, the option to have it as a toggle would have made sense. I do not know why he was so harsh with his statement. It almost seemed like a personal hatred for the feature rather than a "its a low priority right now" statement.

I am not trying to cause an argument, I love Obsidian games. During the live stream all other questions got actual answers and explanations, but this question got dismissed with disdain and condescension. As a backer and fan of Obsidian games I was just stunned with the tone of response. I still do not know how to react. The only thing I know I want to do is try and show that there are more people who are interested in this sort of feature, especially in an RPG. Though after seeing and hearing the tone of his response and the look on his face, I doubt it would matter.

 

I think you're seeing hostility and malicious intent where there is none. If I remember correctly, the answer happened at a point where alcohol might have had an effect and I think he was just surprised and amused that someone would ask about such a featureless feature. There's no gameplay difference between running and walking, there's no precision benefit you would get in other games since your movement is as accurate as your mouse cursor is and it seemed like they have received way more comments about how the party moves too slow even in fast mode and that they should add faster movement. Asking for a feature all about going slower seems like such a niche feature that it could easily fly under the radar and land in the infinite backlog.

 

Heck, I was laughing with him. Until I saw this thread, I didn't think anyone would seriously ask for such a "feature" and that had to be a troll/joking question about how slow the party already moves.

[Deadfire stealth.]

I agree that Time of Day buffs and/or possibly light-level based (de)buffs on stealth would complement the new schedule and weather system very well. It certainly makes sense that a sneakier type hiding in the darkness, the heavy rain or the shadows would have an easier time sneaking around than one waltzing in broad daylight or right under torches. Right now, doing anything sneakier with stealth is a bit too dull, since the only trick to staying hidden is being far away enough from the guards. Having the cover of darkness help stealth and making light sources places to avoid would be enough to make it more interesting. Having a proper visual representation of a guard's detection range would be nice too (potentially dependent on me having enough of some stat).

Nothing's stopping the enemy from pulling this stuff on me, of course, besides the limits of good game design and my Perception score or another appropriate stat. Or a torch.

 

However, going full speed on it and including stuff like weight-based debuffs and a full sound system is going too far for a more generalized CRPG approach. Moving around gear to eliminate negatives from stuff like weight or boots is too tedious. Just having (de)buffs on stealth from appropriate equipment is plenty enough as it is. Things like sound-based detection work very well on full-on stealth games, but I think it would be a too specialized stealth mechanic for a CRPG and since there's no way to do silent takedowns in our system (I'm assuming but it seems like too little gain to me) it would very quickly become infuriating rather than nicely challenging. Vision cones are in the same boat and it would be odd how guards can only see like 100 degree cones but the party still has 360 coverage.

 

As much as I love stealth games like Commandos and Shadow Tactics, I'd prefer Pillars to keep its RPG mechanics on the forefront.

[Josh Sawyer on Miss and Hit]

Personally I've never seen the point of critical misses. What are they supposed to simulate? Just what are they representing, with results like dropping my armor and having the dagger I was using somehow backstabbing me in the back.

Fumbling your defenses badly enough to allow the enemy an easier time to hit I can get, but not the extreme strangeness some games have for their crit misses.

[Josh Sawyer on Miss and Hit]

Disregarding parrying for now, I can see how this would work nicely from a mechanics point of view if glance damage is locked only to stamina, but supposing that there is no such thing as a miss, it would result in strange situations when applied to ranged weapons. A rookie thief suddenly picking a small bow and still hitting (even if just a glance) the guy 40 meters away. Behind a tall wall.

I'm pretty sure that at least for ranged weapons the complete miss will have to be brought back, lest things turn to strange. But instead of the chance of miss being something like 30%, at least for melee attacks make it be under 5% like the critical miss chances of the old.

 

Regarding parrying and dodging and all that, one way I could see it working within this system is that instead of being included in the miss roll, it's rolled seperately and it results in the damage going one step down. That is, if you're hit with a glancing blow but you parry it, it turns into a complete miss. Or you happen to be unlucky and get a crit up your face, but you manage to dodge succesfully and reduce the critical attack into a normal one.

It'll need testing for the correct values and thresholds, but it might work and still result in a more normalized damage.

[Narrative Second Wind]

I can kind of see this happening in some situations but I can't see much good come from this unless it limited to a few questlines only. For the average bandit, you have no real value and by the time end-game rolls, they should be too scared of you to even consider attacking (and if they do, scared of enough to just kill you straight). Wolves care not for such material wealth, and ogres would much rather kill you before throwing you into that pot, I'd presume.

All in all, it's a nice twist when pulled off successfully but I can't see this being pulled off well even if it's only the occasional quest fight; it has to be rare and very limited to quest-specific moments. Even if they would make sense story-wise, gameplay-wise even fairly conservative use of this would be a poor idea IMO.

[Knocking on NPCs Door]

If this is included, I want to be able to do the Bardic Knock spell.

[Druids, Monks and Rangers - Issues]

I'd prefer if rangers would be limited in the amount of 'magical connection' they have to the wilds. To me, it would make more sense if the druids would be the ones to have a real magical connection, while rangers would be more like the expert scouts and wanderers. They might not have any magic connection (up tp the player) to the forests but you can bet your life that they can out-travel and out-maneuver even druids there.

In essense, druids use their abilites to read, manipulate and influence the lands to do what they're doing, while rangers use the lands. The druid might be able to read the forests and with their soul carve a path, but a ranger could just glance at the place and he could approximate to the accuracy of a few meters (or whatever they use) the nearest source of water, where's the shortest and stealthiest path, where the ambush lies and whether or not anybody has been through the place in a few days.

Their soul abilities are harder, though. Pretty much anything I can come up with either deals with bows or minor manipulation of the wodds or are direct rips off the rogue but with a wood theme. I'd also like to see a few city-dwelling rangers and desert rangers, which complicate things even more.

[Full Looting]

I'd prefer full looting in the sense that any equipable/valuable item is lootable when I kill someone. An enemy arbitarily dropping only a part of its loot, if any at all, based on a dice roll is one of the most annoying things I know in RPGs.

Of course, things like basic pants and orcish undergarments would not be equipable nor valuable to begin with, so I think we can overlook them.

[Torches!]

A few things if this is going to be implemented:

 

1. Allow me to knock out enviromental light sources, Thief style. If I'm playing a rogue (which I will) I want to be able to shut torches and lanterns off to make my sneaking easier. Even if my rogue won't need it (skills, invisibilty ability), the warrior who couldn't sneak past a sleeping deaf-blind zombie most certainly is going to need the edge. The whole party is going to have to cross the place so...

The AI would of course react to this, one or twice he might just wonder how strong the wind has gotten or how a magelight seems to need a recharge but when lights seem to consistently go dark, it's going to ring some alarm bells.

 

2. Throwable torches and flares. As said, a thief with a lantern is going to stick out like a sore thumb painted in neon lights but I'm not sure if rogue, or anybody else for that matter, is going to have any kind on night/heat vision ability, so a throwable light source is a must. Whether it's a torch or a flare or some "light grenade" we can make, it'll be necessary. Good for judging the depth of a pit too. Heck, you could turn it into a weapon if some enemies were weak towards the light (shadow monsters?).

 

3. Belt-hung lanterns. Torches might be the initial go-to light source and keep themselves as the easy and disposable one, but at least at some point I want to have some kind of light source which won't take up a precious arm to hold. A lantern hung from the belt or a magical light crystal attached to the jacket would work well.

 

4. Have a "put out" button for the light source. Unless it's a one-off thing and it can't be put out, I'd favor a simple button to put out the light rather than having to stow it into my pockets to shut the light. More of a convinience thing but highly preferable.

 

5. If the game has swimming, include waterproof light source. Depending on how it's used, this would be both useful and for convinience.

 

6. Have certain things cause momentary lights. More of a neat little thing than anything necessary, but it could be cool for lightning spells and muskets and such to cause momentary extremely strong flashes of light that besides looking cool could allow for certain uses for them. Allowing at least a glimpse of the enemy, certain enemies reacting negatively towards it, puzzles...

[Druids, Monks and Rangers - Issues]

For monks, I'd say a bit of a redefinition from an unarmed class into a specialist class would be in order. Have them be the guys using more exotic/strange weapons, more about body control and mastery of one's body rather than a pinnacle of weapon/fighting skill fighters would have. Have monks do more irregular fighting styles, dabble in martial arts and such. Fighters would kick and grab too but monks would combine that and a lot of other things together. Coupled with PE's soul abilities for chi attack stuff, a very different fighting style that would include specialist attacks, exotic weaponry, martial arts and chi attacks would be very possible.

 

Druids, I'd say go with the system Alexjh and Umberlin have devised. Focus on a specific animal form that upgrades alongside the character and couple it with a differing way to use magic.

 

I honestly don't have much for rangers. I'd suggest them being more like advanced scouts, expert woodsmen/hikers/wanderers and excellent skirmishers rather than somehow magically having a connection to the forests and an animal companion. That's more of a druids shtick. Give some power to the city/desert rangers too.

[The Role of Rogues?]

While rogues are known for their stealthy nature both in and out of battle, many of them are quite talented with machines and contraptions of all sorts. High-born rogues are often very knowledgeable about esoteric, while many low-born rogues are well-equipped to survive in the wild.

 

Steampunk??

 

I was wondering that myself! :D

 

I'd certainly hope so. If the most technologically developed nations are on about reneissance level, the popularity of mechanical contraptions should be on the rise.

Rogues also kind of make sense for that kind of specialization, after all who else would need all kinds of devices for different things. Wizards are another possibility for combining steampunk and magic together for even more bizarre stuff but I can't see them actually using the mech-stuff much. If you want to go the hammerite route, priests could also fit.