Update #13: 50K Backers Brings New Mega Dungeon, Stretch Goals, and More! (PayPal too!)

[Tigranes]

Love the backer reward dungeon idea, hopefully we'll get to at least 5 levels on that.

 

Banner Saga, which was kickstarted, is rolling out betas to all 20,000 of its backers over the next few weeks. I'm one of those, so I'll be able to see how such a large beta goes for them. Of course, at the moment only a few thousand pledged enough for betas in P:E, right?

[hideo kuze]

MFW

 

The current plan is to make The Endless Paths with three subterranean levels, but it can grow larger with your help. For every 2,500 additional backers, the depths of Od Nua’s castle become deeper, which means one additional level will be added to the vaults.

 

We also have a new stretch goal at $2.4 million dollars to announce: Crafting and Enchanting!

 

 

Whether it's brewing basic potions from herbs and minerals

this sounds like a prelude to potion gulping fest

 

 

or upgrading a humble broadsword into a custom-named, magically-imbued weapon of distinctive and legendary power

[Rink]

I like the stretchgoal, and I think it is great that there now is a way that everyone sees how more money makes the game bigger. That is great!

 

But of course like others I have even more questions now than before :D

 

I personally like if crafting can make normal swords better and lets you put together legendary weapons from specific components that u collected (BG2) or upgrade already special weapons with specific items. I always liked how BG2 made every weapons special by telling a story, giving a specific name and made them unique. THAT felt legendary.

To craft "legendary" weapons like in skyrim is just strange, because there can be no legend on a weapon if you just crafted it yourself. Maybe it will be legendary after the game, when u saved the world with it but it cannot start out as that

 

It is always difficult, to make crafting correct, because it shouldn't be over- (it isn't realistic that someone that hasn't devoted his life to making swords can make a better sword than a long dead dwarf that worked his life on a blade) and it shouldn't be underpowered (if the skill is useless, nobody will pick it and use it). I am sure they will find a way.

 

A big dungeon? That is great if it will not turn into 20 levels of hack and slay. If they tell stories, make quests and puzzles and tell a good story with it, then I am sure I will be happy with it.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Rink

[hideo kuze]

So if there's 70 000 backers in the end the dungeon will have more than 10 underground levels.. Bigger than The Temple... The one thing I didn't like about ToEE is that it was focused into a single place/building which encompassed most of the game's content. I know this will not be the case with Eternity, but still.. this dungeon would be needlessly large and become a chore eventually.

 

I'd rather they focus on making 8 new (smaller) outdoor areas with a few caves than trying to have the player exit on the other side of the planet with a mega dungeon.

 

But hey, I don't want to sound negative, it's just that I personally dislike spending days and days with my party in a single dungeon.

 

 

I'm also for unique crafting recipes (one recipe -> unique ingredients -> unique item) and against producing countless staple items. I'd prefer the player to not be able to craft the best items in the game...

 

 

Agreed with everything.

Alternatively, regarding the dungeon, IMO it could also be cool to have instead an abandoned/ruined region, which consisted on several building ruins, dungeons and the castle.

Some of those would have connections to each other or to the castle directly, others would not.

This would allow you to explore one or more at a time, while not feeling like a chore.

 

It would be great if they added characters and roleplay/C&C to the dungeon, so that it isn't kill everything on sight.

[Lucreto]

So I get the digital strategy guide with my pledge of $140. Can anyone confirm that to me? 1am for me the brain is thinking of bed.

 

I think there should be a new tier between $140 and $250 where you get a physical strategy guide just for the backers with all the names published in the back. You can get another tier for a numbered collectors guide signed by the development staff.

 

I recommend Piggyback to make the guides as they are of high quality.

[LordCrash]

Carsomyr (BG2) was also crafted from the basic sword and the Eye of Tyr. And it was the best two-handed melee weapon in the game for a good paladin/warrior. I like the approach that there are craftable legendary item if very rare or better unique ingredients are needed to craft them.

Edited October 2, 2012 by LordCrash

[JeremyR]

I'm concerned about the crafting system. All too often the game balance gets designed in the expectation that people will gear their characters crazily, which essentially forces everyone to use the crafting system, even if they don't enjoy that sort of thing (which I don't).

[Ieo]

Sooooo..... dumb question, but.... What exactly is a strategy guide? Clearly I've never used such a thing for any of my games, only the manuals (and often not even that unless there's stat math going on). Is a strategy guide mainly for combat?

[Shevek]

I think crafting is good. This way devs don't have to overitemize the game and stick loot for every possible build allover the place. Instead, people can make the gear to match party make-up and builds.

[Elthosian]

Oh, crap, crafting and alchemy? Damn, I really hope you make that like Arcanum did with its schematics, requiring a lot of specialization from the player, and not allowing you to get UBER-POWERFUL when you've only played 10 hours of the game.

[bronzepoem]

Come on! You guys should give us several beautiful pictures and more introductions, then jump the goal to 2.6 million.

 

Please don't jump by 0.1 millions. Please give us several goals and up to 3millions tomorrow. Please give us more promises and startling news, we don't care even you are lie. Please give us more hope!!

[Gfted1]

Carsomyr (BG2) was also crafted from the basic sword and the Eye of Tyr. And it was the best two-handed melee weapon in the game for a good paladin/warrior. I like the approach that there are craftable legendary item if very rare or better unique ingredients are needed to craft them.

 

To be fair, that example was starting out with a legendary weapon (+5) and making it a little better (+6).

 

Staring out with a mundane weapon and crafting it up to a legendary weapon makes me a little nervous. Seems a bit like MOTB where you wind up with some insane weapon with 3 different kinds of elemental damage attached.

[hideo kuze]

Carsomyr (BG2) was also crafted from the basic sword and the Eye of Tyr. And it was the best two-handed melee weapon in the game for a good paladin/warrior. I like the approach that there are craftable legendary item if very rare or better unique ingredients are needed to craft them.

 

You also have a point there.

 

 

But IMO, for this to be possible some or all of the following would have to happen:

- recipe is very difficult to obtain, eg: lost knowledge on some dangerous location, or requires high lore skill to see it in a book, or is a very costly rumor (may not even work)

- you would have to sacrifice those rare items, eg: such item is the only thing that can cure the plague, but you opted for indulging yourself as using it for your own interest

- very high craft skill

 

And if the item is to rival legendary items (which I disagree, unless this is a 25+ player level game), then you better max out that craft skill

[nikolokolus]

Come on! You guys should give us several beautiful pictures and more introductions, then jump the goal to 2.6 million.

 

Please don't jump by 0.1 millions. Please give us several goals and up to 3millions tomorrow. Please give us more promises and startling news, we don't care even you are lie. Please give us more hope!!

 

God I hope this is sarcasm.

[ImRhoven]

Yey, megadungeon! I hope the game's story allows for time for you to explore and rummage through dungeons and stuff. I'm an explorer type gamer, but I always feel a bit odd when playing a game where the story is driving you forward because the end of the universe is arriving ANY MINUTE NOW and you're the only one who can stop it/my fiancee is kidnapped if I don't rescue her oh-god-the-horrible-things-that--they-could-be-doing-to-her, but "ooh, that's a pretty location! I bet all sorts of interesting stuff is there! Of course it's completely unrelated to my universe/loved one saving quest, but I'm taking a month long detour to explore it anyway!"

 

I'm neutral on the crafting stuff though, don't mind that it's there, but I could live without. Just don't allow for completely balance breaking stacking enchantments.

[Hypevosa]

- you would have to sacrifice those rare items, eg: such item is the only thing that can cure the plague, but you opted for indulging yourself as using it for your own interest

 

Forcing people do be evil or selfish for a legendary item is unkind - it's not like to forge the ultimate sword of evil you'd need to save the lives of a hundred babies or something >_>

 

I agree, there should be some items where making them involves an act of selfishness, but having that be at all a common theme would just be punishing role players for sticking with alignment.

[NateOwns]

Super stoked for the mega dungeon!!!!

 

I wish they would give us more than one stretch goal at a time though...

[Superdeluxe]

Need to have 3 stretch goals people like to aim for the one 'after'

[SqueakyCat]

I actually like they way they've been coming out 2 or 3 at a time, and the game already has everything I personally was hoping would be included.

 

I personally love the mega-dungeon inclusion as long as it's intriguing, well-written and has puzzles/traps (old-school style). Adding additional levels just makes it even better.

 

Crafting and enchanting will please alot of people I would imagine.

 

Thanks for even taking on a project like this. It's been far too long.

Edited October 2, 2012 by SqueakyCat

[Kasoroth]

I like the idea of crafting, but it is a bit tricky to get right. If it's too weak, nobody will waste time/skill points/etc on it. If it's too powerful, it is a huge penalty to anyone who doesn't take it, and it takes a lot of the fun out of finding loot. For example: Skyrim with maxed out Alchemy (for making smithing/enchanting potions), smithing, and enchanting (for enchanting items, and making smithing/alchemy boosting gear), and the feats to go with these skills will let you make items far better than anything you can find. Looting becomes essentially pointless, and even most of the legendary artifacts aren't worth using.

 

I tend to like socketed gem/rune based systems for several reasons:

1) Crafting an item from scratch should be a very time consuming task. While a single player game could easily just say "3 days have passed, your crafting is finished", it doesn't really make sense to do that if there's any sense of urgency in the story, and it would be impractical if there were any actual time limits or time triggered events to worry about. Swapping gems or runestones in a socket seems more realistic for an adventuring craftsman.

 

2) It allows players to customize items without necessarily making the items more powerful than found items, and found items are a good source of gems/runes.

 

I just recently started playing Torchlight (Linux version from Humble Bundle) and I like the idea of being able to remove gems from an item, but being able to salvage one or the other, but not both. My preferred system would be along the lines of:

1) Most magic items are actually ordinary socketed items with one or more gems pre-installed.

2) Each item/gem combination will have a salvage difficulty. Skill too low can't salvage it at all, a bit higher can salvage one or the other, higher can salvage both.

3) Smiths in town can perform the salvage for a price, and some smiths are more skilled than others, and more powerful/difficult items cost more to salvage. Some items might be too difficult for any of the NPC smiths to salvage both parts, but the best should always be able to salvage one or the other.

4) Characters with crafting skills/feats can perform similar salvage for free at a workbench.

5) Characters can get a portable toolkit to perform salvage in the field, but at a penalty. Masterwork toolkit is more expensive, but gets rid of the penalty.

6) Some legendary items have unique powers imbued directly into the item, so they can't be removed. These items could potentially also have sockets for customization.

7) The base items will also have a variety of special materials, quality levels, and number of sockets, so that when you find a high quality rare material weapon with 3 gems in it, it's a tough decision whether to save the gems or the item (if you're not good enough to do both)

Installing a gem in an empty socket is easier than removing it without damage, but still requires tools and a bit of skill.

 

The advantage of a system like this is that there are some things that only a really skilled PC crafter can do, and a moderately skilled PC crafter gains a significant convenience and cost benefit, but there's no particular item or magical property that's strictly off limits to non-crafters.

 

Crafting custom base items from special materials could be interesting too, but it makes more sense to have the PC bring the rare materials to an NPC crafter and special-order the item, and come back a few days later, rather than having crafting be instantaneous. This solves the problem of PCs suddenly (over the course of weeks or a few months) becoming better crafters than someone who's been doing it for 30 years. A PC becoming more skilled at a very specialized task (removing a magical gem from its socket without damaging either of them) makes some sense, because it's probably something that most smiths rarely do, because they're typically making the items, not disassembling them. An adventurer might pry more magic gems out of junk weapons in one day of mega-dungeon delving than an average smith does in a year.

 

-Kasoroth

Edited October 2, 2012 by Kasoroth

[Matthiasa]

Another level per 2500, not to bad as each 2500 people is ~$110K. So just meeting the current goals leads to 5 levels which isn't bad. To reach much more than that at current funding rates seems a bit unlikely though. (~100k in the past 4 days) Even being generous and keeping that rate would lead to maybe being able to hit a goal at 2.6m. But yeah setting farther out goals may encourage people to raise the amount they are backing with as the average is currently $43.82.

 

That said... I am a fan of a good dungeon and being able to potentially craft the stuff my mage will use.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Matthiasa

[Archmage Silver]

A nice content update, I'm liking it. Like someone mentioned on Kickstarter, this mega-dungeon-deal could end up being bigger than Watcher's Keep, which would be something!

[Hornet85]

Sometimes I swear this game will never be made if the dev had to listen to each and everyone of us. We can never agree on anything.

 

The dev knows what they are doing. Me for one, trust Obsidian 100% on making a great game, and not a customized game to my own personal taste because we all have different taste. Let them do what they think will work for the game.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Hornet85

[Archmage Silver]

Sometimes I swear this game will never be made if the dev had to listen to each and everyone of us. We can never agree on anything.

 

The dev knows what they are doing. Me for one, trust Obsidian 100% on making a great game, and not a customized game to my own personal taste because we all have different taste. Let them do what they think will work for the game.

I trust Obsidian's ability to handle this as well, I wouldn't have dropped my money on this if I didn't trust them to be able to make sense of it. They'll take some ideas from us and then let us know how things are progressing. We'll get our say too - if most people object to something being done in a certain way, I'm fairly sure that Obsidian will consider other ways of getting it done.

[septembervirgin]

I guess we have about sixteen or seventeen levels total to look forward to? That sounds copacetic. I do hope that there will be purchasable expansions and DLC that increase that number later on.