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Gumbercules

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Everything posted by Gumbercules

  1. Gumbercules
    Those Aumaua heads look great! I was critical of the Aumaua concept art posted previously, but these do a really good job of looking weird and non-human yet not ugly. Also, kudos for avoiding the common fantasy trope of making the males look really alien and weird but then relegating the females to modern human standards of beauty. One thing I'm still not clear about: are those things on their heads supposed to be hair formed into dreads, or are those some type of fleshy tentacles? I'm wondering, are the Afro-Italian Vailians mentioned previously one of the three human ethnicities, and will the other two feature a similarly diverse blend of real-world influences? I think it's a great way to take inspiration from history without being forced into a set path, and it would be a shame if the other ethnicities were more standard: "So for this ethnicity over here, we took inspiration from a variety of southern European and north/eastern African cultures to create a blend we feel is fresh and interesting." "What about those guys over there?" 'Eh, those are the same Germanic white dudes you see in 99% of fantasy."
  2. Gumbercules
    This was a new render with different priorities. Here's what Josh said on NeoGAF: It seems that for the animated version, they were more focused on showing off the water level changes, character movement on the map, and the various lighting tricks. I agree with you that the original screenshot looked better and more detailed in some ways, but it's still a work in progress and I expect they'll continue to improve it.
  3. Gumbercules
    This seems like a good opportunity to post a link to this: http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/ It's a collection of animated 8-bit pixel art landscapes for a variety of environments at different times of day and year and with different weather. I hope Project Eternity's locations will be as varied and as good at evoking a mood.
  4. Gumbercules
    What about pre-rendering the 2D backgrounds with several different shadow lengths/positions for the major times of day, then subtly switching between them while still doing all the other color changes you're currently doing? I'm fine with the current setup, but that's just something that came to mind as a possible solution.
  5. Gumbercules
    Looks terrific! To nitpick, I echo some of the comments others have made: Hopefully you'll eventually have dynamic shadows that change with the time of day. The characters could have more animations such as when they're idle or when they cross difficult terrain. Some of the elements such as the bridge don't seem to have as much detail as the original screenshot. Still, it looks amazing and there's plenty of time to improve even further.
  6. Gumbercules
    What about occasions where a large battle is understood to be taking place around you, but your party still only faces the normal amount of enemies at a time, as is the case at the end of many RPGs? I don't know if the plot of Project Eternity will require such an event, but if it does are you confident that you'll be able to evoke the feeling of large armies clashing?
  7. Gumbercules
    Damn it, I want horsies in the game! And cows and sheep and goats and chickens and dogs and cats and rats and geese and deer and crows and heffalumps and woozles! But seriously, while I would have been fine with Obsidian creating a setting whose inhabitants didn't develop alongside horses or other large beasts of burden, now that they have firmly decided on a late Medieval Europe analogue I think it would be better and easier if they just kept the horses. Wild and domesticated animals would add a great deal of life to the scenery, mounted opponents have already been done in Icewind Dale 2 and wouldn't necessarily be more difficult to create than any unique monsters, and animated models of horses and other animals are already available for purchase on the Unity Asset Store if they don't feel like making them themselves: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/search/horse
  8. Gumbercules
    I hope they do end up doing something like this. There's also the Phoenix Wright/Ace Attorney games that did something similar (although they took it a step further and added plenty of animations) and there are various low-budget JRPGs on the DS that used dialogue portraits to great effect, such as Radiant Historia:
  9. Gumbercules
    Wow. I've had my share of criticisms of the art shown for Project Eternity so far, but I really like the stuff shown in this update! I especially like that you're apparently commited to the colorful eccentricity that can pop up in late Medieval/Renaissance fashion. I love the stripes and the feathery hat. Can't wait to see the dynamic environments. Keep up the good work!
  10. Gumbercules
    I agree with the sarcasm in this post. If people are going to nitpick grimoires, there's a host of other, already existing things in crpgs that can be nitpicked as well, not to mention the fact that a traditional wizard's staff or wand would have the same problem of getting knocked away or destroyed or stolen. As for Grimoire Slam, it sounds like the kind of ability that would be used in a life-or-death situation. "OMG, why is that wizard using that valuable book to help him escape that ravenous horde?! He should just get killed instead, doesn't he understand how priceless it is, unlike his worthless life?"
  11. Gumbercules
    I enjoyed all the silliness in the video for this update, especially the hawk screech. I like the idea of the engagement system in theory, although I share some of the concerns that other people have already voiced. I really hope that the pathfinding and basic AI is VASTLY improved from what we're used to with these types of games, or else things will get very fiddly and frustrating in a hurry. If it is improved however, I can see this system working quite nicely. Party members should probably know by default, whenever you send them somewhere, to avoid enemies' engagement zones unless absolutely necessary. Clicking while holding down some assigned key should override this and send them in a straight line instead, and there should be a waypoint option as well. For enemy AI, it can depend on the enemy type. Large, mindless hordes could ignore engagement zones and get tied up easily by fighters, while smaller groups of elite enemies could have the same avoidant behavior as party members and try to circumvent.
  12. Gumbercules
    I like this idea, although they may decide that it's better to go with one iconic look for each flavor of Godlike, given the zoomed-out isometric perspective. Still, I hope there does turn out to be plenty of variation. That said, there shouldn't be mandatory randomization of any kind in character creation in the 21st century. Have a random option, but also allow people to choose the look of their Godlike PC if they want instead of having to pointlessly re-roll.
  13. Gumbercules
    Thanks for the update! I like how the ears of the first Godlike are animal-based, yet they also evoke the look of flower petals. It's a good way of reinforcing the nature theme of that particular Godlike from multiple angles. The other three designs seem maybe a bit too extreme, unless that's the point. It's certainly difficult to imagine any of the three having remotely normal lives when their heads constantly look like they'll come apart into fire/water/lightning. I look forward to seeing some Godlike with either subtler, weirder, or less element-based features in the future, but this is a good introduction to them. For a future art update, could you show us something that required lots of experimentation and revision (such as maybe the final design of the Orlans, Aumaua, or Godlike) and show the various iterations and rejected versions, with an explanation of why certain designs were accepted or rejected? I always find that sort of stuff interesting.
  14. Gumbercules
    So I guess the takeaway is that we can't just flip medieval Earth upside down and assume that the result will approximate Project Eternity's world. Cool! I'm looking forward to eventually learning more about the world and the cultures in it as the game gets closer to release.
  15. Gumbercules
    I thought that Aedyr was supposed to be based on northwestern Europe and the Vailian Republics were a mixture of African and Italian? Shouldn't it therefore be the other way around?
  16. Gumbercules
    Neat update! I love seeing these kinds of details. I have a question, Adam. Along with morphing the armor to fit different races, would it be possible/worthwile to somehow give each companion character a signature filter that customizes the armor or clothing that they wear? For example, one companion's armor might always look more scuffed-up or patched, while another might have religious symbols applied to their clothing.
  17. Gumbercules
    Great update, if rather short. That orlan looks much better than the aumaua, although that may be partly due to being a color painting rather than some grayscale drawings. I think you could make orlans even more non-human looking, but I'm satisfied with the current design. Like others, I'm also curious whether there's a single pantheon of gods, or if there are multiple (perhaps somewhat overlapping?) pantheons depending on culture and location. Also, since it looks like the gods will be reasonably active and known to exist, a way to preserve some mystery and ambiguity would be to make them all slightly insane in their thinking, at least by human standards. And since atheism would probably be impractical in this type of world, you could instead have people who acknowledge the gods but don't respect or worship them, and who either openly defy them or try to slip through life and death without drawing their attention.
  18. Gumbercules
    Thinking about damage types some more, I'm becoming less enthusiastic about both the original system and especially the new system. I was originally excited by the simulationist properties of the original system, but thinking about it some more I don't think that constant weapon-swapping makes for a very fun or interesting system. The new system is worse still because it loses the elegant simulationism of the original system while further emphasizing weapon-swapping. Whatever the final system looks like, I think it should have a minor influence on how people play the game compared to things that are more interesting and fun like spells/abilities, class roles, weapon/armor effects, and positioning. I mentioned that Mount & Blade has a similar damage type system, but during actual gameplay player skill plays a much larger role than damage type which just adds a bit of extra flavor. Similarly, in Project Eternity, players should notice slight differences in effectiveness when using different weapons against different armors, but it shouldn't be a major concern unless you're playing at a higher difficulty level or just really like to min/max.
  19. Gumbercules
    The DT changes with fancier chainmails, as long as they affect the DT system as a whole, will not terribly affect it. The equation would distribute evenly among all armors. I've tested it with the spreadsheet. The rules stay the same. Piercers do best in their piercing category. Crushers always do best in the higher end. Slashers do best at the beginning tiers. It's just that now, every weapon hits for less damage. Because ultimately a masterwork chainmail (or platemail or whatever) should be a better armor in general. It's always better to have a +1chainmail over a regular chainmail. It's just another multiplication that you add to the beginning of your equation (1-armor bonus) X everything else. Where armor bonus is a % between 0 - X% where X < 100. I also tested it in a scenario where if armor bonuses increase, the base DT of that armor slightly decreases (nothing more than 1-3 points). The numbers change and ever so slightly shift, but the rules stay the same. Anything more than that and you're starting to change your armor tier designations. If the shifts become 5 points or more, you're effectively shifting your armor to a different tier. Which would "make sense" in the real world. As you add more chain to your padded armor, it becomes less and less a padded armor, and more and more a chain mail. So you really shouldn't be calling your padded armor with 51% chain mail, a padded armor anymore. You should be calling it a chain mail with 49% padded armor. What I'm saying is that in order for the system to maintain at least some degree of intuitiveness, Leather should always have lower DT than Mail which should always have lower DT than Plate, and so on. Doing that allows players to develop a general sense for when weapon types become the most effective, whereas introducing overlap just adds confusion. Luckily, based on the examples you're giving, you seem to agree, since armor bonuses that are calculated before DT would affect all weapons equally and would maintain distinction. So we're on the same page more or less, and I was just trying to figure out what was already in Josh's system vs. what you and other people were suggesting as additions.
  20. Gumbercules
    I like the idea. As you say, it's a culture that's still fairly free of over-use in fantasy, so the more of that the better.
  21. Gumbercules
    I like your suggestions, Hormalakh, and agree that the main issue is conveying information rather than changing the system. One thing I'm still not entirely clear on: do we know if different types of armor will ever have overlapping DT ranges, or will they always be distinct even for special armors? For example, your labelling idea may run into trouble if fancier Chainmail armors end up having higher DT than plain Plate armors. On the other hand, fancier armors could give just give bonuses to defense and various stats instead while always falling into the expected DT range, which would avoid this problem. On another note, the Mount & Blade games use a similar cutting/piercing/blunt system which may be worth taking a look at. I don't have the time to do it myself, but here's a thread that examines their system: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=137021.0
  22. Gumbercules
    Thinking about this some more, here's how you can divide up the information you give the player (with credit to Kaz and SunBroSolaire for some of the ideas): A detailed weapons screen that gives you all the information in the spreadsheet from the previous page plus anything else that could possibly be needed. Allow the player to compare the selected weapon to any other weapon in the inventory or to weapons encountered in shops or dungeons. Maybe make it so that you can even compare weapons that were already encountered but that the player currently doesn't have access to. On this screen, everything is shown in real numbers rather than abstractions like Good or Poor, but you can use color-coding or bolding to emphasize better values. The main UI should probably have a way of indicating what weapon each party member has equipped. Mousing over this icon in combat displays the Good, Average, Poor comparisons I talked about earlier. Opening the inventory in combat and mousing over the other available weapons displays the same information for the other weapons. Selecting a party member in combat and pressing a hotkey displays a color-coded circle around each enemy corresponding to the same Good, Average, Poor comparisons mentioned before. The combat log displays DT information. I think the key is a mix of detailed, accurate, absolute information for strategic decisions (purchases, crafting, weapon loadout) and quick, approximate, relative information for tactical decisions (which enemy do I fight with which character with which weapon?).
  23. Gumbercules
    The color-coding is for relative values, which requires some metric for comparison. There is something similar I'd considered where you would receive an indication of whether your weapon's damage was hitting its minimum damage through damage threshold. That lets you know that piece of information, which is helpful, but it doesn't help indicate the efficacy of any other action. Aren't relative values enough in combat? In the middle of a battle, you don't need to tell a player how a particular weapon compares to all available weapons in the game, you only need to compare it to the other currently available weapons, and rank them from best to worst for each available enemy. Outside of combat, you could have a more detailed screen that lists all the nitty gritty details for those who want that kind of thing. For those who don't want to get into detailed comparisons, it's easy enough to see how various slashing weapons compare to other slashing weapons, piercing weapons to other piercing weapons, etc. and as long as you emphasize that players should keep a variety of weapon types with them everything should be fine.
  24. Gumbercules
    Hey Josh, did you see my post on how to fix this without simplifying the system? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63207-update-39-non-core-classes-cooldowns-attack-resolution-damage-vs-armor-and-a-tileset/page-4?do=findComment&comment=1302895 In the spreadsheet screenshot you posted, you even have it color-coded already, which could correspond to Good, Average, and Poor effectiveness.
  25. Gumbercules
    Good update! At least on paper, I really prefer the previous version of the Damage Type vs. Armor Type/Damage Threshold system. Of course, it could be that the newer system works better in practice, but if you decide you miss the subtler, more gradual approach of the former system, I have a suggestion on how to make it viable without confusing the player: Have the game do all the calculation/spreadsheet comparison work, and just show the player the results! C'mon, this is a computer RPG, not a tabletop RPG where this would be cumbersome. For each individual fight, have the game compare all available weapons against all available enemies, and sort each combination into Good, Average, and Poor designations. Each time the player either presses a dedicated button or mouses over the appropriate part of the screen (this is merely a UI issue, the details can be worked out later) have the game tell the player how a particular weapon works against particular enemies. Have the information refresh for each encounter. So for example, let's say the player is fighting against Grublorfulox the Murderator, his three Close Combat Goons, two Ranged Goons, and a Heavy Goon. You select Edair, and the game tells you that his current longsword is Good against the Ranged Goons, Average against the Close Combat Goons, and Poor against Grulborfulox and the Heavy Goon. Switching to a different weapon gives you different results. Later on, you fight Grubagsdhkjg's twin half-brother Jeff, who controls two fearsome Were-socks. The game no longer displays the information about the previous fight, instead it just compares your weapons to the current enemies. Eventually, the player gets a feel for how different weapons and armors compare and no longer needs to rely on this information, but can still access it if necessary for whatever reason. And of course the more detail-obsessed player can do their own calculations rather than rely on the vaguer Good, Average, or Poor designations.
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