Project Eternity Update #36: Off to our elfhomes, but first...

[Jotra]

All this is to say, please be mindful of bloat on active abilities!

We are. Wizards will have among the most and fighters among the fewest, not because they "should", but because that's how we're choosing to design them. Among fighter abilities, many are modal, like 3E/3.5 Power Attack, so their strong tendency will be toward lower maintenance overall, but there will still be a range. Similarly, while wizards can select Talents that are more on the passive side, all of their spells are active abilities. You effectively can't play a fully passive wizard, only various flavors of active.

If you could aim somewhere between high level dnd and Dragon Age 1 where wizards had extremely limited(and unimaginative) spell selection it would be the sweet spot for me at least. Though having a system like memorizing limited amount of spells from a much larger selection kinda already limits the ability bloat and has nice side effect of being able to specialize your mages for a what is needed at the time.

 

What really don't like about high level dnd(I should say that I'm only familiar with it through CRPGs) are the crazy buff sessions. I think it's fair to say that if people start making mods to make it easier, like with NWN2, something has gone wrong. So I'd suggest cutting the amount of spells from that direction first.

 

BTW since someone mentioned pausing is combat going to divided into 6 second rounds like in IE games?

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I know this update was concentrating on the core 4, but armor and weapons sound like they're really important in this game. How do you envision monks to fit into the mix, and do you have any ideas to make a viable unarmed hero or someone with a martial art fighting style? My ideal character would be all about speed and a flurry of attacks, as well as stun locking badies or using misdirection to counter attack them. Maybe you guys could implement fighting styles like the dragon, tiger, monkey, praying mantis, etc.

[Game_Exile]

You're clearly in the wrong forum and, well.... are a bit wrong in the head when you claim "overuse" of a basic mechanism will ruin someone else's game experience from their own point of view. And there isn't even a balance argument at all. This is the exact same illogic used by a very small minority who say players shouldn't be allowed to save whenever and wherever and however many times they want "otherwise they will omg abuse it and ruin their own play experience even though they won't realize it!"

Excuse me bro, what are you mad about? I wasn't saying anything about anyone else's point of view, and I never said anything would "ruin" anyone's game experience. Exaggerate much? There clearly is a balance argument for both limiting pauses and especially for limiting reloads to checkpoints or nil. Doing either thing sets boundaries which shape the challenge in the game (this is obvious, to be frank, at least with saves and reloads). And you don't know what "illogical" means. I've been plenty logical about the pause issue.

 

If someone wants to "waste his own time" to reload 30 times, that's his prerogative.

If someone wants to enable every single auto-pause option and smack the spacebar once every four seconds, that's his prerogative.

It's fine with me if someone wants to do this. I still want to at least see some reasonably balanced difficulty modes where there are checkpoint reloads and also some cost or limit on the command pauses, if that can be balanced OK (and there's no reason why it can't be, or why it would even be that hard to do).

 

Seriously.... pause?

Oh yeah seriously, girlfriend. As if limiting the pauses where you can issue commands is some kind of monstrous, ultra revolutionary idea. Get outta here with that ****.

 

There already is a cost: if you pause the game too often, you'll be wasting real-life time that you don't need to waste, and you'll have a duller, less fun time than if you only pause when necessary. Unless of course you actually enjoy pausing every two seconds, in which case why should anyone stop you?

Maybe you can see why this isn't the best way to handle game balance?

Edited December 21, 2012 by Game_Exile

[sorophx]

Oh, and BG1 granite and gold interface FTW.

I hate it, mooded in BG 2 UI for my playthrough of BG 1

 

besides, IWD 2 UI is a lot nicer than all of them combined

[pl1982]

Just want to make a quick reply stating the interface look and feel is extremely important. I fully agree with Josh that it is imperative to capture that "feel" of the interface being an extension of the game world. I loved the IE interfaces for that reason, the interfaces seemed "organic" and "crafted from the world" (the stone like feel of the BG ones for example, I loved that). Also please give us a nice interface for our spellbooks! Make these look old and dusty (like old grimoires) and even better: when we browse them make the interface animate with a turning page (I am sure you know what I mean). I would love that; I doubt I am alone in this. Just wanted to mention that; interface is something that can so easily be neglected, but as I am playing through IE games again now, I am struck with how much the interface is part of the charm and "feel" of these games. Don't neglect it in PE.

[tohw]

About the Interface, on a personal note, i just have to add that since we have so much more horizontal screen realestate compared to vertical, would you guys consider putting the interface on the left or right side? It's the same issue i have with playing anything splitscreen on a widescreen tv, it just gives long narrow slits if its split horizontally, where if you split vertically you get a much more balanced portion of screen.

 

Just a thought.

 

Have a good one all.

[Osvir]

Just want to make a quick reply stating the interface look and feel is extremely important. I fully agree with Josh that it is imperative to capture that "feel" of the interface being an extension of the game world. I loved the IE interfaces for that reason, the interfaces seemed "organic" and "crafted from the world" (the stone like feel of the BG ones for example, I loved that). Also please give us a nice interface for our spellbooks! Make these look old and dusty (like old grimoires) and even better: when we browse them make the interface animate with a turning page (I am sure you know what I mean). I would love that; I doubt I am alone in this. Just wanted to mention that; interface is something that can so easily be neglected, but as I am playing through IE games again now, I am struck with how much the interface is part of the charm and "feel" of these games. Don't neglect it in PE.

 

This.

 

I'd also like to add in that it'd be cool if there were ways to directly interact with the world using the UI (clicking+dragging). Maybe be able to click and drag loot to our (Inventory) in the UI (or onto the characters themselves). Cast spells by clicking+dragging.

 

Clicking+Dragging stuff basically, but with the UI in mind (customization?).

[rjshae]

About the Interface, on a personal note, i just have to add that since we have so much more horizontal screen realestate compared to vertical, would you guys consider putting the interface on the left or right side? It's the same issue i have with playing anything splitscreen on a widescreen tv, it just gives long narrow slits if its split horizontally, where if you split vertically you get a much more balanced portion of screen.

 

Just a thought.

 

Have a good one all.

The concern I have with something like that is the amount of cross-screen travel you end up needing to do with the mouse. Having to constantly drag the cursor back and forth is tedious. It's nice to have everything more accessible.

[Monte Carlo]

The idea of rationing pauses is bonkers. Really appalling. It flies completely in the face of the original games.

 

Just sayin'.

[PrimeJunta]

How would putting some cost or limit on pausing ruin anything? There should be some mechanic in place that would encourage players to think about things and commit to certain tactics, and some penalty for overreacting to every wrinkle that appears. If the cost isn't competence or effort from the player then it should be hard resources, like an extra stamina cost for pausing the game and issuing commands during pause. I frankly don't understand what this ruins, other than the prospect of having really easygoing combat or needing to make really elaborate and precise calculations during combat. Please senoir, explain to me what part of your "experience" you will be missing.

 

A party-based cRPG should not be twitch-based. Limiting pause would make it just that. Resounding NO on that suggestion from moi.

[Gumbercules]

Maybe you can see why this isn't the best way to handle game balance?

 

I'm guessing it's because you feel it would lead to degenerate gameplay? I don't disagree that a system that requires or rewards constantly pausing to babysit all 6 members of your party is a bad one, but your solution doesn't actually fix the need to pause constantly, if there even is such a need, it just limits the ability to do so. That's a recipe for unnecessary frustration.

 

There are much, much better ways of fixing this problem, some of which the developers have already mentioned:

1. Improve AI and pathfinding so that players don't have to constantly worry that party members will get stuck somewhere, wander off to fight a clearly low-priority enemy, or waste a spell or ability unnecessarily.
   
2. Allow players to choose the ratio of active to passive abilities for each party member, so that not every one of them has tons of fiddly abilities unless that's what the player wants. This was even mentioned in the update!
   
3. Allow players to queue up multiple moves, attacks, and abilities in advance.
   
4. Allow players to toggle a wide variety of automatic pause conditions, such as pausing whenever a party member has killed an enemy and needs a new target (and have seperate toggles for each party member).
   

If all of this is implemented and the player is still pausing every two seconds despite disliking it, at that point it becomes a problem for a therapist to solve, not the game designers.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yes. Point 4 especially as it worked so well in the IE games. I always used it for 'trap spotted' and 'enemy spotted' for example.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

About the Interface, on a personal note, i just have to add that since we have so much more horizontal screen realestate compared to vertical, would you guys consider putting the interface on the left or right side? It's the same issue i have with playing anything splitscreen on a widescreen tv, it just gives long narrow slits if its split horizontally, where if you split vertically you get a much more balanced portion of screen.

 

Just a thought.

 

Have a good one all.

The concern I have with something like that is the amount of cross-screen travel you end up needing to do with the mouse. Having to constantly drag the cursor back and forth is tedious. It's nice to have everything more accessible.

 

I agree here. I'm a usability designer and one of my goals in anything I do is limit repetitive movements in anything I do, especially tedious ones. Things like having the close X button is a convention and needs to be there so the user isn't confused, but depending on game mechanics if everything is to one side or another it's not necessarily done optimally. It makes sense to have things grouped together, so all combat related skills are in one area, but you may find, especially on a somewhat larger screen you waste too much time scrolling from one side to the other while trying to navigate and use your ui, or forced to pause a lot more than needed if its on one side or the other.

 

I'm very interested in ui design and would love to do that for this game if it's in the cards. Personally I'd like a combination of what's been proposed so far as far as the old IWD and BG types of skin and designing context sensitive ui elements. I would like to create the ability to equip and compare, store, or junk an item upon pick up with a single click, saving time from having to keep rearranging stuff to make it fit inside your box. I'd give those folks who are OCD that old way of doing it too, but I'd prefer if I'm casting a spell for example to be able to click on the target and choose the attack rather than selecting my character, click on a tab & fiddle through 7 pages of spells choosing a spell, then selecting an enemy to attack all while dragging the mouse back and forth and disengaging me from the threat. I know this has a RT w P mechanic, I just want to create things a little more intuitive so the game flows better. At the same time I wasn't crazy with TEE and how much the ui took up screen real-estate in combat when choosing skills. I want stuff to only be visible as needed, yet not just be so jarring suddenly I pull a bus from under my hat.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I second the whole list. Great post, Gumbercules!

[StrangeCat]

Cool update looks like you devs have a handle on things.

 

try not to make the game to dumb by having que up this action and pause when dead , or this pause for this aciton.

really do not do that.

 

Look forward to your creature update here's to the New Year

cheers

[Gromnir]

no crpg sacred cow is more deserving of being ground into hamburger than is the Core Class nonsense. really.

 

...

 

the black isle refugees that is now working at/as obsidian is clear understanding that rejecting the dominant paradigm can be fraught with peril. chrisA's vanity cost black isle dearly when he chose to take roads less traveled in ps:t. (though, let us be honest, frequent chrisA took alternate path for no purpose other than to be different.) people expect core classes? yeah, we suspect they do. is far easier and safer to give players what they want than to give them... better.

 

is nothing you can do with core classes that you cannot also accomplish if you get out the meat grinder and go to work on old bessie. core-less system can makes sneaky characters or mage characters or healers. heck, with core-less you can make effective sneaky mages who heal. no core classes = more potential choice for player customization. more player choice in a crpg? that is a good thing, right?

 

look, we get why obsidian give us core-- is the safe move. nothing wrong with playing safe when a big bag o' money is on the line. nevertheless, we is more than a little disappointed that that the obsidians (many who has argued in favor o' classless over core for years n' years, n' yearsn'yearsn'yearsn'years, etc.) is keeping bessie around for yet another crpg incarnation. that fat bovine needs to get put down... hard.

 

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps we had a warning + linky to a certain apocalypse now scene... decided to remove in case kiddies and/or peta members is viewing.

Edited December 21, 2012 by Gromnir

[rjshae]

Meh. A troll.

[Gromnir]

Meh. A troll.

 

*chuckle*

 

kids these days.

 

*shakes head sadly*

 

at least stay on-topic.

 

example: the notion of rationed pauses is passing odd. for the purists, pause is a less than ideal concession to pnp turn-based roots. turns is giving more opportunity for tactical consideration than is pause or real-time. sadly, as fergie has identified in the past, even the bestest turn-based can be "soul-numbing." pause allows on-the-fly tactical reorganization... something we hope is necessary in eternity. if we were not Needing frequent pauses to order our small army/party, we would be disappointed as it would be revealing a dearth o' enemy ai sophistication. only reason we can see to limit pauses would be to hide developer shortcomings regarding ai... which is bad.

 

end example

 

see, if you is gonna be a putz, at least contribute something on-topic. makes it less likely that you will get us pruned for your bad form.

 

thanking you in advance for your future compliance, we is, as always...

 

Gromnir

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gfted1]

The idea of rationing pauses is bonkers. Really appalling. It flies completely in the face of the original games.

 

Just sayin'.

 

So do the myriad of other mechanics changes but we gots degenerate playing to stomp out.

[Sacred_Path]

So do the myriad of other mechanics changes but we gots degenerate playing to stomp out.

 

I'm curious about what makes you think so.

 

You have to think about how to build your characters, yes. You have to think about what your fighters should be doing. You can't rely on longswords to carry you through the entire game. Nothing of that really flies in the face of IE games, it's simply adding depth that was sorely needed.

 

I do hope some other areas get a complete overhaul as well (I'm looking at you "Hide in Shadows/ Move Silently"; "Pickpocket"; mage buffs; pre-combat buff insanity; rest spamming).

 

I'm expecting some minor ****storms when more info is leaked that makes people realize it's not just a graphical overhaul of any IE game.

[Lephys]

look, we get why obsidian give us core-- is the safe move. nothing wrong with playing safe when a big bag o' money is on the line. nevertheless, we is more than a little disappointed that that the obsidians (many who has argued in favor o' classless over core for years n' years, n' yearsn'yearsn'yearsn'years, etc.) is keeping bessie around for yet another crpg incarnation. that fat bovine needs to get put down... hard.

 

A), I don't see any reasoning here other than "classes are CLEARLY, OBVIOUSLY, BLATANTLY terrible and crappy and are just a safe choice to make money," which is none. It's just a statement with no presented basis.

 

B), Do you want Skyrim, in which you can literally max out every single character-progression option in the game, on 6 different party members? And, if not, what's so terrible about simply labeling and organizing the various spectrums of choices available to the player?

Edited December 21, 2012 by Lephys

[Kronos]

Great update and keep up the great work. When I make millions, I'll make sure to buy out OE, and give you guys loads of cash to make the IE style games that I love. I have great faith that this is the game I'm waiting for, so don't let me down

 

Have a great Christmas and New years.

[Hormalakh]

I was interested in knowing whether an unlimited "stash" backpack would be a problem from two perspectives.

 

1) If players do not need to discern between infinitesimal increases in gold by picking up all "vendor trash" and selling only "valuable loot," will this be a problem mid-game when it comes to balancing party economy? Have you considered whether players SHOULD pick up and sell every last useless armor and short sword, for example, to have enough gold or whether this would break economy balance? If the stash backpack isn't limited, are there any other ways you intend to limit this type of economy imbalance, e.g. vendors not buying "useless items", or vendors only having limited gold on hand?

 

2) Will an unlimited stash inventory cause any technical problems with savegames becoming too large? If the player picks every little thing up in the game and just stashes it in his backpack, can this pose a problem by corrupting savegames or having overly large savegames? If so, have you thought of ways to make sure that this isn't a problem?

Edited December 21, 2012 by Hormalakh

[rjshae]

^^^^

Oblivion allows you to pick up every little thing and sell it, down to the turnip, quill, and worn garment. Likewise, there was lots of low-value stuff available in Fallout 3 & NLV. Yes there were weigh limits, but you could instant travel back and forth between the location and a store. For me it never become a problem having all that low value loot available.

[Gromnir]

look, we get why obsidian give us core-- is the safe move. nothing wrong with playing safe when a big bag o' money is on the line. nevertheless, we is more than a little disappointed that that the obsidians (many who has argued in favor o' classless over core for years n' years, n' yearsn'yearsn'yearsn'years, etc.) is keeping bessie around for yet another crpg incarnation. that fat bovine needs to get put down... hard.

 

A), I don't see any reasoning here other than "classes are CLEARLY, OBVIOUSLY, BLATANTLY terrible and crappy and are just a safe choice to make money," which is none. It's just a statement with no presented basis.

 

B), Do you want Skyrim, in which you can literally max out every single character-progression option in the game, on 6 different party members? And, if not, what's so terrible about simply labeling and organizing the various spectrums of choices available to the player?

 

 

to point A... josh sawyer disagrees with you. am kinda curious to see if josh direct responds to issue o' eternity classes seeing as how they don't seem to fall in line with his espoused notions on the issue. have classes means that you Fix certain abilities to certain classes. looks up the definition-- classes divide and limit. hell, the classes themselves is arbitrary. did obsidian give a gameplay rationale for 4 core classes? nope. is a d&d holdover that was chosen 'cause o' tradition (i.e expectations). maximize freedom o' player choice and options would seem like a good thing in a single-player crpg, no?

 

point B is just plain... stoopid. seriously. recall that obsidian is peopled by many of the guys who made fallout. point to a bethesda product and say that obsidian would fail 'cause it sucked in skyrim? that wasn't Really your argument, was it?

 

btw, there is one aspect o' classes that is very beneficial to crpg development. d&d developed from tabletop wargaming, so classes is understandable (if harmful) holdovers... 'cause in wargaming, individual units gots to have quantifiable and comparable strengths and weakness. why need to know actual strengths 'cause traditional tabletop wargaming is PvP. balance is extreme important in a pvp game. choose black in chess and get huge advantage woulda kinda suck, no? balance is a far easier task with classes... but eternity ain't pvp. balance is still important, but not anywhere near as important as increasing player freedom and choice, no?

 

HA! Good Fun!