Yellow Rabbit

Every time I hear "games were better back then" I prepare myself for distinguishing whether the speaker has not seen good games now, has not seen bad games back then, thinking everything from back then was better because he was basically another person, or smart enough to speak about specific genre or niche. Not that I'm disagreeing with OP about that inspiration stuff with industry just shaping itself etc, but generalizations are usually bad thing. IMHO what Obsidian really doing with PoE (and inXile with WL2 and T:ToN, and Larian with D:OS, and Harebrained with Shadowrun) is kicking dead mare named "pnp-inspired-crpg" which suddenly appeared to be not nearly as dead as someone would think. That's just awesome for everyone fond of riding this horse, so thanks should be in order despite the quality of these games as they are. I think.

If I got it right from the start, devs just going to hardcode as few game mechanical stuff as possible, therefore making it moddable, and answer every question about this stuff if someone asks. But there likely won't be special tools, manuals or something like that for modding. Initiative should be ours, not the other way around. I believe that's what Karkarov wanted to say.

@Didier2: Not sure why you're calling Brute Force and Perception "silly". These skills are quite meaningful regarding both game mechanics and reality simulating. Problem is they don't depend on attributes in any way like they should. This CLASSIC system overall looks like an unfinished experiment. Not a bad one, but unfinished. Speaking about perks and traits, WL2 as it is ended up being compared to Fallout much more than it's needed, if you ask me. And conclusion more often is "This is lousy Fallout!". I think the first reason devs came up with brand new role system is to avoid using SPECIAL (does it fall under Fallout license, by the way? Just curious.) I just hope people playing PoE will never conclude "This is lousy Baldur's Gate!".

Kinda agree with both Lephys and Ink Blot here. All skills (Brute Force, for that instance) make perfect sense as a part of game mechanics but they clearly not intended to simulate real life. It scratches the eye from time to time, but game's game. We're making all kinds of assumptions due to mechanics in other games, aren't we? I guess you're half right here. There obviously are needless (or at least not so useful) skills in Wl2, but I've left with impression they were made in order you could allocate all skills among 7 members of your team without repeating. Make a bunch of narrow specialists or something like that. Of course, that doesn't concern combat skills.

Hm. Never thought about it that way. Thanks for the tip But still, I'm used to role systems defining what character is good at and what he's bad at. Replacing it with "what he's good at and what he's very good at" doesn't seem right to me, it's cutting off significant chunk of roleplaying options. As if this game has much of those to begin with. Besides, why wasteland denizens we pick up as companions wandering all around are just as exceptional as our core team then? Maybe they meant weapon skills. Some attributes affects chances to hit with either ranged or melee weapons, that much is true. But percentage is too small to be of real use anyway. I didn't pick up any info about attributes influencing non-combat skills neither from in-game tips nor from manual. I think devs would've describe that if there was some.

Only real complaint I have about WL2 is its weird role system with attributes disjointed from skills. Adding connection between them would magically make all those "useless attributess" slightly less redundant and, among other things, more sense in terms of simple logic. I just keep feeling strange when I see Ranger with 1 point of strength crushing every door he sees with his high-level Brute Force skill. Never heard of dystrophy manifestating that way. Short-sighted snipers and retarded hackers goes into that list too. Other than that WL2 feels and plays really good for me. But what lessons PoE supposed to take from WL2 giving the fact only things they have in common are engine, genre name and some people among the devs?

There was that interview, "Deep dive with Pillars of Eternity" or something like that, which has raised a modding question amoong others. It's kinda odd no one in this thread recalled it yet. Looks like devs willing to tell about file formats, scripting routines and other technical stuff when asked, but writing appropriate tools working with those will be up to the community. And I'm pretty sure (don't know why though) that community will provide such tools. Maybe not instantly, but after some time.

@OP: PoE is a kickstarted story-driven party based RPG. As I see it, besides the fact people want such games made, it means one more thing: devs are passionate to make such (i.e. story-driven) games. They have probably the best narrative designers in genre for now. While in MMOs narrative design always was on the second if not the third role, not to mention it has different development price and certain requirements on permanent devs attention after release. Would they want to make MMO in this setting in first place? IMO such project could be considered by devs depending on a popularity of PoE after its releasing. Which is hardly will get to the sky since it is indeed a niche game with "a lots of reading and NO EXP FOR KILLING! *getting heart attack*".

Actually this is a good point for this thread. Dragon fights (and not only dragon for that matter) in BG2 were pretty easy for players who knew arsenal of available spells and possible tactics very good. In a game based on AD&D ruleset this arsenal is quite impressive, even with all the cuts regarding to its computer realisation, and took some time to learn it for a non-experienced player. Some time, some thinking and a lot of deaths during figuring out a way to take down "that ****ing scary monster over there" (I really AM assuming that simple reloading trying to get lucky dices' roll on every tough foe is not an option). If PoE will have such a requirements on a Normal difficulty level, I am completely okay with it. Harder levels could just reduce amount of convenient ways to kill monster (for example, adding certain resistances-immunities-other-complex-words) so that player would have to figure out a new one.

If you attacked first time you saw him (i.e. with level 8-11 party) I'm surprised it took you only three hours to kill him. *chuckle* He's not all that nasty for the party after returning from Underdark. In fact I always felt kind of pity for him. "Put the Red Dragon into Red Book" and other Greenpeace-ic crap.

Whoa. That's a tough one. Maybe seeking for scientific explanations of this behavior should be delivered to a scientist? Say, someone with "psy-" as a prefix in speciality name. Then again he could only make it worse, they're all kind of nuts. But I really do like your idea about way to make world a better place for living. I don't think this method should be applied to Valorian, I have no real reason to think he is that bad [yet], but the idea itself sounds like a very good one.

I hardly feel like interrupting you, guys, but this thread has slightly different purpose if I recall it right. You know, other than insulting each other. Disregard that, thanks for fun!

My special thanks to Valorian, aluminiumtrioxid and Hiro Protagonist II for extending my vocabulary. No, seriously, as non-native English speaker I've never even heard about some words you were using during your... errr... conversation. *eagerly scribing something in his notebook* Uhm... Sorry about that. Not sure if my input will be of use, but here it is. Baldur's Gate 2 1. Main plot. IMO it just became too epic too quickly since BG1. Having Athkatla as main quest hub wasn't annoying at all, but all that places like Underdark and other Planes, epic creatures that I am have to and able to kill ("Hi, demilich Whatwasyourname, I am mage %charname% 25 years old and I am so much stronger than you!") left me with certain impression I am taking part in theatric performance director of which a little too much excited to look healthy. Not that I have something against epic stories and dreadful creatures. I'm just a little shocked by abruptness of story in becaming epic one. 2. Romances. I always knew good adventurers' party does ordinary things like killing dragons or saving nations only when they have free time from arguing with each other. And all dragons certainly are polite enough to wait them finish their arguing. Not impressed. 3. Evil is stupid. I always took all the disadvantages of evil way in this game as a hint from designers. "Being bad will bring you to harm". I know it's a role playing game and there must not be such restrictions in it, but considering auditory Bladur's Gate 2 was made for, I think this is possible too. Or maybe designers just didn't pay enough attention to evil path, I don't know, but it's playable after all. Just not as comfortable. For the sake of truth - all that I listed is just narrative details that got my attention while playing. I don't mean they're done plain wrong, but there is way to design such things smoother. I apologize for my grammatics, tried to make not too much mistakes.

So you want game to favor your needs in order you don't have to cheat? I got that. I guess we won't come to agreement here, because for me cheat is always a cheat whether it used by me manually or built into game mechanic. I think this is again a question of balance between hardcore (e.g. challenging) playing and player's comfort. I'm really tired of the second part, but that's my problem.

@Plutone00 To be honest, it doesn't settle in my mind why you find such type of randomness factor a bad thing. Let's imagine you're a mage and want to find a good staff for yourself. You go in the magic store and find there one, but it has very high price, because good stuff is always expensive. Then you're thinking "Man, this sucks. I don't have such money. Maybe I could find some other mage and recover staff from him?" You're walking around the town and finding a mage who might have what you need. Then it's your choice - kill him or search his house and find it. Or both. Didn't find what you sought? Well, **it happens. All the time. Try another one. Or maybe you found a staff, but it accidentally turned out that you're not mage? Give it to your party mage, he'll find use for it. Don't have mage in a party? Then sell the staff and make profit (value of in-game money is a different question). What's the problem? If you came here for quest, you'll get not only item in reward but experience too. Not that all quests are played only for those.

I didn't mean loot from coffin must be randomized Completely random drop mechanic meant for other types of games entirely. I supposed that misc and/or crappy stuff should be placed randomly. Moderately valuable stuff should be adjusted for falling from certain monsters/people or in certain places, or both. If you want a good magic staff, go kill some mage or rob mage's house. Maybe you'll find something good, maybe not. And incredibly valuable items should be placed manually. And of course (that's slightly off topic here, but still) there must be items that couldn't be dropped or found at all, just crafted. Dreams, dreams...

Just read through whole topic again. Twice. Started it third time, but got bored on the middle. Found no opinions you're talking about, except, maybe, one, which was not completely clear to me. Most responders either voted no for endless fights or didn't speak about fights at all. Is it something wrong with my eyes?

Call me dreamer or, maybe, stupid, but drop system you describing must be somewhat depending on logic. If I went into famous warrior's tomb, opened his coffin and found there mage's staff just because I'm a mage and need items like this, it would seem wrong to me. Logically. upd: as there already was said here, random drop's good for money, potions and low quality crappy things of all sorts, but really valuable stuff should be placed manually.

Maybe you're right. There wasn't any levels above terrain's surface on the Od Nua concept though. But I don't know how hard devs gonna stick to it.

I hope I won't be executed for these words, but I think 15-level dungeon is a bit too large. There's gonna be incredibly much fighting anyway, there's just no other options. What would I personally prefer is a good reason to go down there, story of some sort. Not just for loot or experience, and certainly not because "there lives big scary annoying evil that needs to be killed immediately, or WE ALL DOOMED!!!" And maybe it would be good to find some clues about builders of this dungeon. I mean, what kind of insanity would bring any reasonable creature to dig THIS deep?

Geez, looks like we completely misunderstanding each other's points. I'll try to be a little more specific, but that gonna require more words. Oh my... It would be stupid to argue with that argument of yours, so I won't do this. And never did, surprisingly, you just got my point a little wrong. I'll try to explain. RPG genre became a mainstream not so long ago. What does completely ordinary guy want from RPG-game? He realizes that there must be some story, maybe big one, some quests, some fighting and stuff like that, but he doesn't like reading or figuring things out, he just wants some fun for his money. Maybe it would be better for him to choose shooter or something else in that case, but he doesn't want it, he was told that RPGs are cool games for real men, so he starts the game and gets bored with it in a few minutes because it's accidentally turned out that game's name is Planescape:Torment. And most of the people are of this type. You can say that such games are meant for people of the other type, and there is indeed a lot of people enjoying such games, there's plenty of them, and yet they're just minority. Majority doesn't like thinking while playing, and this is never going to change. That's what I was talking about. They don't want to think but still want to play RPG, they don't realize this genre requires brain using from player, and developers have to satisfy their needs for the sake of business. All for player's comfort, and genre's classic can go to hell, it's too old anyway. That's why we have terrific hybrids of seemingly good ideas (attempt to give something worthy to "core audience") with drastic simplifications that kills all impression. Skyrim, for example. Or Dragon Age 2. It is likely that gamedevs don't like what they're doing themselves, but they haven't any other options, they must make games that are able to get sold to majority. So it's useless to wait real RPG-game from big studios nowadays, they don't want to risk their money with niche project. And there are indie developers. They don't make game for money, they make game because they want to make a game, and they can afford to make niche game, but they're not professionals and can hardly provide quality we're used to. They have plenty of ideas and trying to get sponsors here and there, but usually fails. That's why I'm incredibly happy with Pillars of Eternity and Tides of Numenera. It's so good that professionals still want to make games like this and niche audience are able to fund its creation, even if they are just minority. Phew... There's a lot of letters up there, huh? I'm sorry for that. Just got a little too excited. But there must be some sense in all of this somewhere. And I'm sorry about mistakes I could've made, I'm still not good with English.

Not a chance. Gamedevs make games people want (e.g. buy) from them, not the contrary. One person in the scale of industry means nothing. There are very few people like you demanding really exciting story. There are not much people like me demanding reasonably exciting story. Most of the people demands something with next-gen graphics and as simple in gameplay ways as possible, nothing more. So developers just need to work out something like Skyrim and they will have profit. So they do. Time is changing, people don't. Even PoE wouldn't exist without great passion of Obsidian guys for making games of such type (for that they will have my eternal appreciation) and possibilities of crowdfunding. It seems to me I've already said a bit too much, so I'm going to shut up for a while. I would be happy if there was a game with the story you want. But I doubt that is going to happen. Cheers!

It occurs to me you kinda misinterpreted terms then. "Grind, gather loot, kick bosses' arses" sounds like typical Diablo-style game to me, and Diablo IS NOT AN RPG and never was one. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game and I love it very much, but it pisses me off when someone calls Diablo role-playing. It is action/adventure perfectly designed for rest playing with the brain switched off. So put aside MMOs, they have nothing to do with the story. Put aside countless Diablo-clones (you generally spoke about them, didn't you?). What will remain? Games PoE aiming at exactly. There are very few of such games, but they do exist, and they don't need true-branching story to get people playing them over and over again with exciting. I agree that such a story would be an advantage for them, but it's not essential. As for losing customers, gamedevs aren't going to lose many customers for this reason. I don't mean to offend you, but your kind of tastes are somewhat rare among the gamers. Most of them (us) are okay with a story whatever it is, linear, branching or pseudo-branching, if it is well written. Sadly there aren't well written stories in games nowadays too! Witcher you have spoken off based on the book of pan Sapkovsky entirely, and this game has reasonably good story only because book author took great part in its design.

I don't know much about localizations in English, but I'd suspect that depends on amount of in-game text too. Almost every game with much text written in English natively and doesn't need localization (except for Japanese games, but Plutone00 already talked about that. Besides, Japanese language is SO difficult). Have you heard anything about game named "Pathalogic"? It has been made in Russia, got very good comments from critics in Europe and USA as well, but completely failed on the market because of poor localization exactly. I haven't tried to contact Obsidian with this question directly yet, but maybe I'll try that after holidays.

jRPG is a little different theme, it's almost separate genre. Japanese are weird guys from our point of view and they were always tend to storytelling in their games rather than gameplay. I think it's their habit or, speaking politely, tradition. On the other hand, eastern gamedevs are tend to put only one idea in one game (if put any at all) and focus on gameplay instead. So players just got used to it and don't ask for anything else, except for few like yourself, and it just doesn't make sense for developers to push themselves and write multiple stories for one game. They would better make a series of games from multiple stories, or bunch of spin-offs. Besides, one truly exciting story, linear or not, can outcome "true branching" story written in a rush in almost every way. Of course, it's all just my personal opinion and nothing more.