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Everything posted by Lephys
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I think whatever you get to do, they should get to do. If you rest, they should get to rest. Maybe if you've killed anything (actually killed, not just de-Stamina'd), it should only "come back" (or be replaced/reinforced) under specific circumstances. If you kill 5 out of 10 wolves in a pack, then flee, you shouldn't come back to find 10 wolves. They're not going to take their fallen brethren to some Wolf Temple and resurrect them, or go hire some other wolves or raise new cubs in like... 8 hours. But, anywho. The thing is, there'll still be advantages to running away, then re-confronting an encounter, even without resting. You'll get your per-encounter abilities back. You'll go back to full stamina (maybe you were getting unluckily hammered by crits or crazy "flukes" very quickly in combat, so the problem wasn't so much that your whole party is super low on Health, but that they were all about to be "knocked out" (0 Stamina), thus resulting in a game over because you simply couldn't finish the fight. So, you run away, a little lower on resources, but you come back to try again with a fresh, full set of Stamina. Maybe this time you handle things better. Plus, the enemies will still have their Health damage as long as you do. So, you can always re-enter combat in a different formation, and use different tactics to compensate for the altered factors this time around. Focus-fire on the low-Health enemy (even if he has full Stamina again), etc. Sure, if it's just "Ahh, we're all about to die, let us flee!", then there aren't many advantages to fleeing, other than "we didn't all die! yay!". However, there are plenty of circumstances under which there ARE advantages to fleeing, even without resting in between confrontations. Also... this makes me wonder how fleeing might work with any number of downed (unconscious but not dead) party members. Can people carry them out of combat? If you just run off, will the enemy just go finish off the grounded people? Is it even functionally possible to flee from combat with anyone downed?
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It would, but these are not naturally-occurring entities that the devs are just outfitting with weapons. Their talents, and any other traits whatsoever, are just as adjustable as the weapon they possess. Thus, there's no more worry of this somehow inadvertently occurring than there is about a Wolf without opposable thumbs being assigned a sword to wield, or something. Is this further evidence that the implementation might be more trouble than it's worth? It sure is. But it's hardly a conundrum. I realize this. I didn't mean "we'll literally just run the exact same football play, every time we fight this guy." Specifically where you step and what order in which you use abilities and such will be different, and you can even use completely different party makeups and strategies. However, your goals will be the same, because a bunch of factors will be the same. "Oh, he's got hefty plate armor, so we're all gonna wanna worry with DT-breaching than attack speed." Or "Oh, that guy's got a huge two-handed sword, so we need to make sure to work against damage types A and B in this fight." That kind of stuff. Just, ideally, in complete isolation, it'd be really nice to play a game in which your combat challenges mixed it up a bit. In a way. That's a hardly an "and therefore, that's how the game should obviously work" observation. There's a lot more to consider before making such a decision, and I'm not really privy to enough info about the game's design context to even begin to decide whether or not such a thing should be implemented, or how. That's why we end up brainstorming and discussing so much hypothetical stuff around here. "Theorycrafting" and all that.
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Noted, but, how might one go about determining what's an appropriate barrier, and what isn't? How is the toughness of a given enemy or challenge to be determined? I hope there won't be too many more. I appreciate your answers, for realsies. I'm just either correct, or mistaken, in my thinking on this, and if I'm mistaken, I'd like to know that and correct my thinking.
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Tomes are lame
Lephys replied to Mr Moonlight's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
The magic is in not-the-person in almost any magic system ever. All the person ever does is channel/shape it. Who cares if your body holds the magic while you shape it, or anything at all that isn't your body does so? You're still the one doing the spell-weaving. Specifically in PoE, it's not as if there're just fully-formed spells in any given tome, and anyone who isn't a Wizard can just pull a pin on the tome, hurl it at someone, and watch it magic-grenade everyone to death. It's just how I feel really. No worries. I'm not trying to get you to feel differently. I'm just making sure you weren't mistakenly feeling that way because you were missing something. It was just "for what it's worth" info. I am sorry, though, that the game's Wizard design contrasts with your preferences. Hopefully it won't hinder your enjoyment of the game too much.- 88 replies
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Update #77: Art in Alpha
Lephys replied to BAdler's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
Didn't say you could make it stretchy. I said you could shape it to a torso. Though, as I already said, fastening it would have to be done differently, and probably wouldn't be practical (from a "your enemy can now probably easily destroy the integrity of your armor's security upon your person" standpoint). Plenty of fabrics aren't stretchy, and yet they still get fitted to people. This isn't an "and therefore everyone would obviously, realistically, all-things-considered, make all their armor like that, 8D!" argument, or I'd say that. It is what it is. One COULD physically make scale or chain links fit a given torso, instead of just being a drapey-type "garment." That's all I'm saying.- 338 replies
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Update #77: Art in Alpha
Lephys replied to BAdler's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
I didn't say it does. I said it probably could be made to. Hell, you even can sculpt boobs into a solid plate breastplate. It's just detrimental to the functioning of the armor. It's not physics-defying or anything. Scales are rigid pieces of metal. If you curve them, they won't just straighten back out on their own. I'm not saying it's practical. I'm saying it's possible.- 338 replies
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I wouldn't say there isn't any, but I do believe it's quite possible that it isn't really very valuable. They would, but the game wouldn't be particularly lacking if no enemies ever called out their specific weapon. i.e. "I shall decorate my halls with your entrails!" I don't know if there's really a best way to do it, off the top of my head, but it would be kinda nice if some combat encounter with a specific person (someone's body guard or something) wasn't just always the same static thing. Especially with all the stuff that changes with your character and party in different playthroughs, it'd be nice if you didn't just fight "that guy who uses that exact same equipment and weapon and AI and I already know exactly how to anticipate and beat him." Again, when it's value is hardly at all story integral and is mostly just combat-challenge value. I think dynamics in the combat challenge aspect are a lot more important than some slight dynamic to loot, though. Although, I think almost any general system (especially anything repetitious) could use a pinch of "randomness," for seasoning.
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You would think this is true, and it sounds obvious. But for some reason, it simply doesn't turn out that way (at least with the IE games). Fair enough, but I dare say that has to do with the specifics of the IE games. Obviously the significance of level disparity is pretty huge in that ruleset (as is evident by your example of the solo Sorcerer tossing insane spells, etc.) That being said, I'm not sure how, mathematically, having 3 or 4 maxed-out people instead of 6 maxed-out people at your disposal is somehow relatively not more difficult. Sure, maybe the challenges were designed so that 3-4 maxed out people can handle them without too much difficulty, and having those extra two people doesn't really help you much. But, that's kind of what we're getting at here. If that's the case, then it means there aren't really any challenges designed so that a full party's worth of combat resources is significantly useful towards the encounter not leaning toward impossible. There are, of course, a plethora of factors at play in the generalized "challenge" of combat. It's not just one setting. But, that's just the basic observation. The more necessary it is to have 6 people worth of resources in a quantitatively-limited combat system for a given encounter, the less likely fewer people are going to get the job done. You are not grasping this at all. It's not about the fact that they're more likely to hit than you are. It's about the fact that they get seventeen chances to your 1 chance. They get 17 sets of dice, and you only get one. Even if you have a 90% chance to hit, and they all have 60% chances to hit, you're still ridiculously outnumbered. No matter how cunning you can be with that one character, you could be equally as cunning with that character, AND his party member friend, AND his other party member friend, and so on. In which case, you'd have to refrain from using cunning just to maintain any challenge at all in the exact same fight but with 6 people instead of 1. You're not getting the relativistic nature of this, I don't think. You keep thinking of a single character somehow using a lot of intelligent combat tactics, but a group not doing the same thing, as if they'd somehow be incapable of doing so, or limited by their numbers and oodles of extra abilities and spells and standard attack rolls, etc.
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I find it unrealistic to happen every single time you move, whether you've taken a step or 7,000 steps.. I never said a human having to catch their breath is unrealistic. A human being incapable of moving to another target on the battlefield and transitioning with any grace directly into attack/defense (engagement) is unrealistic, is all. It's beside the point, since the reasoning for the decision isn't "because we're trying to simulate reality perfectly." But, I just thought I'd clarify, as you didn't seem to follow the specifics of my observation.
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"But it was made for us."
Lephys replied to Bryy's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Chicago-style pizza is friggin' amazing. New-York-style pizza is good, but pales in comparison to Chicago-style. And it isn't complex. It's simple. Simply better.- 340 replies
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Update #77: Art in Alpha
Lephys replied to BAdler's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
At the very least, though, that goes to show that it would, indeed, be prudent to design armor for female torso proportions as well, were you to have had a lot of female fighters in medieval times, as opposed to the "Nah, they'd all just wear the same armor" notion. Sure, the way the chest fits is still an exaggeration/abstraction from reality, but, I dare say even that isn't beyond the scope of some armor types. Look at the Roman breastplates sculpted like an entire male chest. They didn't really HAVE to do that. But they did. *shrug* I dare say that, shy of just sculpting two large bosoms into the armor, it's not really preposterous to think that maybe someone decided to specifically shape the overall torso armor to a female torso. Probably not worth the trouble to figure out how to get a form like that into something like scale (with a narower waist and slightly curved scales on the chest, and figuring out how to fasten it onto the person, since just over the shoulders wouldn't work anymore, etc.), but probably not impossible. But, mostly it's just a suspension of disbelief, again, just like how the same suit of armor fits everyone in your party, or you can go around fighting "without your helmet" but still have the protection of your helmet, just because you opt to see your characters' heads the whole time, etc.- 338 replies
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Or, you know... until the enemy makes 17 attacks for your every 1, and you die before you kill them no matter how well you're doing. And yeah... never fear! When you're solo, level 8 Wizard is in trouble, his at-will Level 1 spells will save him! Just like how a Wizard in Pathfinder can just kill a whole group of level 8 stuff, on his own, with nought but Ray of Frost. Also, this isn't an action game. No matter how skilled you are as a player, you cannot WILL your Fighter to land all his hits, or your Wizard to land his spells, etc. I already pointed this out. In Mario, you can actively move Mario around. Thus, one player might be able to get through the most ridiculous of levels, while another player will not. In an RPG with set mechanics and rules, and the representation of your characters' skills and capabilities, you are limited to those capabilities. You can't take out a dragon by yourself just because you're really, really skilled at controlling your mere 1 person. You don't need 6 party members. But, heaven only knows you need some minimum amount of party member capability. And yes, it logically follows that the more apt a greater number of people would be at handling some specific challenge, the less apt a [/i]lesser[/i] number of people would be. The closer you get to just 1 person taking on what 6 people are supposed to have a bit of trouble with (3 people... 2 people, etc.), the more unlikely it becomes. Unless you compromise by reducing the challenge of a given encounter to the 6 people, or take it closer and closer to impossible for the 1 or 2 people. This isn't about doing it wrong. We're simply observing an existing mathematical relationship inherent to challenge design. And no, again, you're ignoring the quantitative aspects of RPG combat here. You only have so much health, and so many spells to use, and the game is designed for you to have to make good use of your limited resources in order to succeed in general. Yes, you can use standard attacks a lot, too, but if the challenge didn't ever demand the use of your limited-use spells and abilities, then suddenly using them would make the game easy. If you can beat everything with one arm tied behind your back, then imagine what you can do if you cut that arm loose. Again, unless the encounters dynamically scale to your party size and capability, the more challenging something is for a party of 6, the closer to impossible it becomes for a party of 1.
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That's not telling me why/how. It's just claiming it's true. Could you explain how level scaling is inherently bad, no matter the particular use? And what about the encounters, relative to the player party, would make it possible to finish the game on different difficulty levels, and therefore reasonable?
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Wouldn't the enemies regenerate their stamina, due to their non-combat state, as well? And wouldn't your Health still be decreased, unless you used up your limited camping supplies to rest just to return to the same fight? It's not that I don't think it should be hard to escape from a fight. But... it just seems unnecessary to make sure it's arbitrarily difficult to do so, just so that no one could ever possibly maybe heal up and come back. Of course, also, if you go off and camp, maybe the foes go to their own camp and bring back replacement troops. It would really depend on what the foe was (wolves probably wouldn't do that, but then... maybe there are just randomly roving wolves in the forest, and you always deal with that, instead of just specifically placed wolf pack fights, *shrug*).
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I agree about how it's usually applied to enemies. I think I'd be fine with it, though, if it was sort of applied to a whole playthrough/instance at once, rather than on-the-fly rolls when you happen to encounter the enemy. As in, "There's always this one super nice axe, and this one super nice sword, but in THIS playthrough, Steve the Orc Commander is notorious for his axe, so Phil the Xaurip Lord has the sword this time. From the get-go." Of course, I dunno if it's feasible to implement it that way, or if it's even worth it to do so. But, the sheer change-up would be nice. Instead of "Oh, I'm not using axes this time, so I'm not really worried about Steve the Orc Commander, because all he ever wields is that one axe."
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Hidden Experience
Lephys replied to Mr. Magniloquent's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Yeah, I just mean that, functionally, there's nothing wrong with deciding in the middle of a friendly game of golf (for example) that you no longer wish to keep score. You can keep playing golf as if you never had been keeping score in the first place. However, you'd never be allowed to play 5 unscored holes, then decide you want to start keeping score again, then insist that you won at the end of the game. There's no reason to prevent you from abandoning the score-keeping in the middle of play, but there's absolutely no reason to allow you to resume score-keeping during play. The abandonment of score-keeping defeats the initial purpose of score-keeping. -
It's possible, sure. But the sheer act of movement wouldn't really stop you from acting. They're not really separate things. Look at sports (also requires a lot of movement AND a lot of precise physical maneuvers to accurately strike/hit/control things). Soccer players don't run across the field to the ball, then catch their breath, THEN pass/shoot the ball. They work it into their arrival at the ball. Sure, if you had to just spring like your life depended on it, and your focus was 100% on moving and 0% on interacting with anything at any point, you'd have to "catch your breath" before being prepared to utilize any amount of combat form to make an attack or defend -- to engage. Anywho, I fully understand how that's not really the most important thing in this regard, and I agree that it's good to see movement have its own costs for mechanical reasons. A lot of games simply teeter in the opposite direction, and allow you to make attacks and perform actions at the most awkward of times (like the instant you get back up, or come out of a daze, etc.). So, I much prefer the mechanically-sound abstraction of some recovery times when there might technically might not have been (realistically) than the one in which ludicrous amounts of impossible kiting take place (such movements + instantly-spin-around-and-strike attacks would be the most inaccurate things on the planet, realistically).
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Yes. I don't think you quite get what I'm saying. Think of it this way: A squad of 6 soldiers each has an assault rifle, and 1 extra magazine. What would be a challenge for them? I dunno... 50 enemy soldiers? That'd be pretty tough. Okay, so, now just remove 5 of the party soldiers. There's only one, by himself, fighting the same 50 soldiers. He still only has 1 extra magazine. Unless he can somehow fire his weapon 6 times more accurately than the group of 6 soldiers, while still being fired upon by 50 enemy soldiers at the same time and somehow failing to die, no amount of tactics is going to generate the physical ability to take on all 50 of those soldiers at the same time. Does that make sense? If he's using excellent tactics and managing to take out the encounter, then imagine what would happen if you had 6 of him, all using equally good tactics. You'd be able to take out 6-times more encounter than just the one guy did. Meaning, that encounter was only 1/6th of the challenge it really should have been. Some encounters will be easier for a full party, of any level, and some will be more challenging. They're not all just going to be "normal" for a party of 6. And, again, even if they were, the single dude is nothing but MORE limited than the multiple people. He's using thrown grenade-potions? 6 people could carry/throw 6 times the number of potions. He's using cool combinations of skills/abilities? 6 people could use 6 times the number of combinations of skills and abilities. I'm not saying it absolutely cannot be done, but you can't just magically avoid that relationship. Anything you can do, 6 people can do better. Even if you faced a single foe that could swing hard enough to kill you in one hit, it would STILL have to attack 6 times just to kill a party of 6, instead of a party of 1. And not-miss every time. It's the nature of the mechanics. The point is only that those concerns are valid, because that relationship is a very real thing. I'm personally excited about the fact that you can actually play through the game alone, but am admittedly curious to know exactly how that will play out and how they're handling this from a design standpoint. I suspect it will be very, very, very difficult. At the very least, there will be some optional encounters and such that will be pretty much impossible. It would be very, very different if you could just level to your heart's content. There'd still be a set amount of XP in the game, so, while a party of 6 could reach level 12, a single person could maybe reach level 15 or something. That would be different. But, since you can only hit level 12, you can never gain a quantitative (in the end) advantage over a full party, as a single person. You can level up faster than they do, but you're still facing the detriment of only having 1 person worth of combat resources to take on challenges designed to be formidable for 6 people worth of combat resources.
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Fair enough. Please help me to understand here, then. So that I can become cleanses from my Lephysness: What about it was nonsensical? Is it false that the particular "implementation" of seasoning in any given instance of food is what dictates the goodness or badness of the result? Or does that have nothing to do with level-scaling because it cannot be used to any particular degree, and can only be used one way? Or something completely different? I'd like to know how I can make sense in the future. And what, specifically, would constitute a "reasonable placement of combat encounters"? What would make the encounters more reasonable?
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Content or Quality?
Lephys replied to Namutree's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Hey now... that could be a great quest! Turns out the bears are people cursed by a Druid, but it turns out the person who asked for the pelts KNEW this, and sent you to just that area where he had "seen some bears living around there." Maybe they were cursed for a good reason. Maybe not. He'll pay handsomely for the pelts, though. Maybe someone else finds out and gets quite upset with you if they find out you murdered their brethren for pelt money, and/or maybe some awesome crafters join your stronghold/defense force if you turn them back into non-bears. Who knows? Not you, until you dare to tackle the quest. Boom. That just happened. -
I would agree that level scaling everything just because you bump into it at whatever level does this. Saying the merest existence of level scaling in any capacity or with any precision does this is like saying "seasoning ruins food." 7 cups of seasoning ruins food, or the wrong seasoning on the wrong food ruins food. But, obviously, seasoning, in general, is neither inherently bad nor inherently good for food. And why is that, exactly? I know, I just wanna hear you say it. When I say things, it's apparently nonsense, or my point can in no way be derived from my words. So, please tell me what it is that causes a problem with the Level 1 starting adventurer facing off against an area populated by level 35 monsters.