gkathellar

As excited as I am for PoE, one thing really has me worried: western RPGs have a problem with endings. Anyone remember the Mass Effect 3 debacle? Everybody got mad about ME3's ending, and they were right to be, it was crap. But to be honest, it was probably the best ending Bioware had ever done - not because it was particularly good, not because it was head-and-shoulders above the rest, but because it was perhaps the only ending they had ever done. Think back. How did BG1 end? BG2? Jade Empire, KotOR? NWN? Each game reaches its climax, final challenges are overcome, and then, they just sort of ... stop. An authority figure tells you about the rest of your life. Maybe you get a 30-second cinematic. A scene where assorted peasants cheer meaninglessly for you. Paragraph-length written epilogues for your party members. This isn't strictly a Bioware problem, although they certainly exemplify it. It's an issue with the entire genre of RPGs in the west1, including everything from older, pure-action games like Diablo and newer turn-based games like Divinity: Original Sin with the familiar abrupt cutoff, to sandboxes which don't have any ending at all until you inevitably get bored. It's a trend that Black Isle/Obsidian has sometimes ducked partially - in having protagonists that are more complex and involved with the narrative than just "HELLO MY NAME IS PLAYER SURROGATE," games like PS:T and TSL are slightly better than most. In other cases, like Stick of Truth or MotB, they've dodged the bullet entirely and delivered a really genuine wrap-up that left me with a feeling of being finished. But then on the other hand we have games like the IWD series, or the NWN2 OC (light spoilers) ... Maybe this isn't as important for most people as it is for me, but since I'm here for the narrative, I want things to wrap up in a way that's satisfying. I want a proper denouement, and an ending more emotionally substantial than just watching something explode while someone narrates ominously. That doesn't necessarily mean wrapping everything up, or answering all of my questions in life, or giving me 15 minutes of Hobbits getting patted on the head in different locations. But it does mean that I want a story to end like a story, not like a game of Connect Four. All of this leads back to my greatest worry about PoE: that, like so many of these otherwise excellent games, it will fail to deliver an effective ending, or even a closing act. It's not that I don't have confidence in Obsidian's ability to write an ending - as I've mentioned, it's one of the very few developers that definitely has the know-how to write and direct solid endings. But it is something I hope they give active thought to avoiding, because this is such a plague on Western RPGs. So much time is devoted to giving players things to do that core narratives lose emotional significance, and become little more than an arbitrary - and often extremely sudden - stopping point. I hope that, as a spiritual successor to the IE games, PoE can surpass them in giving real emotional satisfaction to its ending. (Sorry if my thought process here is a bit disorganized - this is the kind of thing I have an essay's worth of thoughts about, but no desire to write a paper on, so I'm trying to sum it up.) tl;dr - In developing PoE's story, I encourage Obsidian to carefully consider the historical flaws in the endings of IE games and other CRPGS, and how to avoid them. Japanese RPGs are by no means necessarily better, but in my experience it's a less persistent issue for them, in part because JRPGs often duck the biggest underlying causes of No Ending Syndrome.

Wasn't it a goal to make the powers easier to understand than the IE games? Because right now it's harder since the game hides information from us. I was concerned about this "hiding" too - in the last BB build they removed the "effects" info from vegies, meat etc - then it occured to me that this may be by design simply because they are still tweaking all that stuff??? Sure, but that would be a good reason NOT to hide the information - if anything, the tweaking/input period is when allowing people to see exactly what's under the hood is most important, since they can't give real feedback if they don't know what's happening.

I don't know about degenerate (a word that is rapidly becoming meaningless on this forum), but it's definitely obnoxious.

No party chat in the beta.

Well, the reason permadeath isn't the default (but can be enabled) is because a lot of people hate permadeath. The reason death is permanent is, I think, that Obsidian is trying to give us a setting that (a) requires minimal suspension of disbelief, and (b) isn't a crazy magitech Star Trek setting where godlike spellcasters and magical items can get around virtually every physical limitation of human existence. That can be fun in its own right, but what they billed to us was a medieval fantasy game, not a, "nobody think about the implications of being able to reverse death1," game, or an RPG about "what would happen if people used the Flametongue to power otherwise inefficient steam technology that has existed since the time of the Byzantines?"2 Ohgodwhat "Shadow Thieves? Hah! I'll just build a railroad monopoly, join the Council of Six, and visit Spellhold on a routine inspection."

Bear in mind that it's a beta. It exists to be examined, criticized, and refined - not to immediately fulfill all of our wildest dreams. You get a default Rogue/Wizard/Cleric/Fighter party because the Obsidian devs want to be sure that people are testing classes against what should be a fairly generic, balanced background party (and because they want to be sure that the default 4 are indeed a balanced party). The Adventurer's Hall isn't so much there to give you a bajillion options as it is to make sure that it works. And if it really bugs a player, that's what the console is for. Letting you trigger a script exactly 4 times, however, is not.

There's only one place where alignment has ever really been used extensively and made sense: Planescape. The PnP campaign setting, not the game - it was pretty much as ham-handed in PS:T as it usually is in CRPGs. Since this game doesn't even resemble Planescape, I can't say it feels especially absent. Especially since it's not like Alignment played much of a role in the other IE games.

I think the problem comes from the fact that many classes are pigeon holed into certain party roles (Rogues are DPSrs, if your not DPSing with your rouge you are sub optimal.) if the class system could be expanded so all classes could fill several party roles (with the correct stat/talent picks) then this stat balance would be perfect.I think we can all agree that a full class rebalance is totally out of the question, but some class rebalances (Sensuki sounds lake he want to take on that next) could work with this system very nicely. (I want me my dodge tank rogue). Rogue are utility/DPS in the IE games, why should it be different in PoE? Also, I like my class pigeonholed into specific roles, I don't need a pseudo-classless system where classes exist only to give different sparkles to the same abilities all the other classes can use. Rogue is many things in IE but DPS is not one of them. They can do burst damage with Backstab but as far as DPS goes they are behing fighters.Only high level Shadowdancer in BG2EE can have good dps and that is due to being able to go Stealth around enemies. If you deal damage you are a DPS. I said nothing about them being the best DPS of the IE games. Generally, when you call a class DPS, you mean to say that DPS is its focus and where it stands out. That said, while BG2 thieves were really a nova class when it came to damage (spike traps and backstab, yikes!), they could do fairly good DPS if you knew how to use them. Assassin's poison was actually pretty fantastic, IIRC. Bounty Hunters could do some unfair things with traps mid-combat. So on and so forth.

Maybe per-encounter abilities should be more situational in nature? Just off the top of my head, for instance, a per-encounter AoE or line might be more difficult to arrange due to friendly fire, while a roughly per-rest AoE or line wouldn't.

"But ... but ... melee can auto-attack! It doesn't need nice things!" Hey, whoa, hold on. What about those spellcaster builds that unhook their casting from any ability score, and get an infinite number of bonus spells, huh? Didn't see that coming, did ya? SHAZAM

I already have it. I already played BG1 and IWD2 Limited sample size consisting of easy games? Niiice.

That's fair - I'm used to per-encounter setups from tabletops and games where ability recovery is cooldown-based, but I can see how someone would have that other feeling about it. But again, if per-encounter and per-rest both stay around (and I expect they will) I feel like they need more proportionality.

This. The Health/Stamina thing echoes tabletop rulesets like Vitality and Wound Points, which are used as core rules in several third-party d20 games (Spycraft and Fantasy Craft, among others). That was what I was expecting - you'd take Health damage on critical hits, or when your Stamina was low. This present system is ... comparatively problematic.

It seems to me that, at present, there's no really clear distinction between what sorts of things you can accomplish with per-encounter powers and per-rest powers. For instance, a paladin's Lay Hands ability can heal a bunch of stamina - great! And by contrast, a cleric's healing spells can ... heal a bunch of stamina. A rogue's finishing move deals some extra damage, just like various per-encounter abilities. There's a difference in scale, sure, but not in type. The reason this bothers me is that per-rest abilities function in an essentially different space. Like Health, these are the abilities that pace your whole adventure. It feels as though they shouldn't just be bigger, but different. Not that I necessarily know what that would mean: if a per-encounter ability can restore stamina, should a per-rest ability be able to restore health? I dunno. Among other things, this makes spellcasters kind of frustrating to me at the moment - they have this large and complex selection of abilities, but in order to pace themselves, they have to spend a lot of their time not casting spells. That would be okay, I guess, except that those spells feel, intuitively, as though they could be per-encounter abilities without issue. I'm aware that this is kind of rambling, but ... thoughts.

Actual, genuine knowledge of what you're talking about (rather than a set of assumptions based on no personal experience or active observation). Hiyooooo!

[Description of the issue] My godlike paladin's defenses (including deflection) are all in the upper 3000s. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] Honestly couldn't tell you. At some point, attacks started missing. I checked after a while. There it was. I'm pretty sure it happened during play, though, and not on load - but not 100% positive. I was using a shield, if that helps. [Expected behaviour] My paladin's defenses should not be in the upper 3000s. 2000 at most.

Interesting, but too complicated in practice. Trying to process all of that would make my head spin.

Aye. Combat in IWD was a constant flood of "ohgodohgodgonnadiegonnaoooof made it through okay. Next area." And I hope they don't ignore the BG approach entirely, because the sheer unfairness and chaos of its high level fights was wonderful.

OP, here's the big thing - you're making these broad assertions about how RTwP gameplay goes, despite saying in your opening post you've mostly ignored RTwP games. A lot of the people you're talking with are veterans of these types of games. On this subject, at least they know more than you (and I am one of them). Regardless of your hypothetical view of optimal gameplay, in reality, part of RTwP gameplay is learning to quickly evaluate events, differentiate significant ones from insignificant ones, make decisions quickly, and continue play relatively unimpeded - unless something genuinely puzzling comes up, which is the point. tl;dr play BG2 vanilla, and then w/Tactics + Ascension installed, then get back to us Protip: This is what paying attention and/or setting autopause features is for.

As soon as you dump one stat to 3 so you can put 18 in 2 other stats you are min/maxing even if there is a mechanical penalty for that 3. And if new players see that even 3 gives a bonus they will think it is OK. But changing 3 to penalty they will think it is bad and will think twice before min/maxing. I actually like being able to leave stats at 3 if I should so choose, though. It's ... I dunno, it's nice. I can't explain this. Hm. What about diminishing returns? Something like the largest bonuses between 3-10, slightly smaller bonuses from 11-15, and slightly smaller still from 16-18? That way, players could spread it out so extreme specialization was still tempting for particular builds, but not feel immediately as though that was always the way to go. Nobody said you will not be able to put stat at 3, just that new players unfamiliar with the system will mostly avoid putting any stat under 10 once they see it gives them a penalty as they don't know how much this penalty affects the gameplay. Yeah ... I'd prefer to have bonuses than functionally meaningless penalties. I really like the present "everything gives bonuses" model. Mechanical equivalency + ease of comprehension and simplicity = yes please.

Yes please. My experience has been that rules like these are pretty cumbersome and obnoxious. Also: unnecessary. Bear in mind that plate armor was entirely capable of deflecting shots from an early firearm (supplemented by its specific curvature), and that against an unarmored foe, an arrow might very well cause equal or even greater injury. Guns were fast (on the first shot, anyway), easily concealed, fantastically effective at striking range, and required minimal training and effort, but they didn't become clearly superior until the dawn of the flintlock. And all of this was true in a world where nobody has laser eyes.

As soon as you dump one stat to 3 so you can put 18 in 2 other stats you are min/maxing even if there is a mechanical penalty for that 3. And if new players see that even 3 gives a bonus they will think it is OK. But changing 3 to penalty they will think it is bad and will think twice before min/maxing. I actually like being able to leave stats at 3 if I should so choose, though. It's ... I dunno, it's nice. I can't explain this. Hm. What about diminishing returns? Something like the largest bonuses between 3-10, slightly smaller bonuses from 11-15, and slightly smaller still from 16-18? That way, players could spread it out so extreme specialization was still tempting for particular builds, but not feel immediately as though that was always the way to go.

Okay, but there have got to be some people like me, who look at a system and immediately think, "how can I work this for best possible advantage?"

I'm going to stay far away from discussion of RL morality here, and as has been mentioned, Eora's ethical consequences are not so clearly grounded. But D&D? Now there's something I know way too much about. With respect to FR in particular: just because someone is evil doesn't mean they've done anything in particular that you can or should justifiably punish them for - only that, given the right opportunities and incentives, they would be significantly more inclined to. Evil deities like Umberlee, Talos, and Beshaba (among others) are worshiped openly all throughout the setting. It's not the evil deities who are unwelcome in polite society, but the antisocial ones like Bane and Cyric, for whom "murder everybody" and "breathe" mean the same thing. The other thing is that on the D&D Great Wheel, people don't "go to heaven," or "go to hell," in the typical punishment-defined sense that we imagine it. When a mortal dies, after an initial waiting period they go to the realm of their patron deity, where they become a Petitioner. A Petitioner's job is to seek their deity's particular brand of enlightenment, working to bring themselves closer to the moral and personal ideals that this god embodies - the Powers, you see, are not just entities with big sticks, but physical ideals, literal ways of being made physically manifest in the planes. In achieving perfect harmony with their god's nature, the Petitioner merges with the deity as an equal participant in its existence. So a worshiper of Lolth goes to the Demonweb Pits when they die - not a pleasant place to be, mind you, but it's where they want to go, because Lolth is the thing they idealize most in the universe, and a thing that they can eventually join with and become a part of. For non-religious types (outside of FR), they become Petitioners for their alignment's plane itself. That can be considerably more unpleasant, but a Chaotic Evil petitioner still looks around the Abyss, looks at its masters, and thinks, "you know, it sucks being helpless here, but if I had just a little power, I would fit right in." And then they are part of miasma. Unless an obyrith eats them first. Or if they're really bad, in which case the Dark Powers of Ravenloft get them well before death. But that's neither here nor there.

Pfff, this isn't "pirate style." By the era of full plate, knights often carried a brace of pistols or other firearm, and from their training manuals, it seems clear that sword-and-gun was an extant fighting technique among heavy cavalry, such as the Polish hussars. And this was back when guns were worthless in terms of accuracy - depictions show that they were used chiefly as close-range weapons. Support Polish-style pistols!