Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?

[Stun]

One aspect I didn't like at all in Skyrim. Your antagonist got to be a jack of all trades,

If it did only that, it'd be understandable, since Skyrim is not party based. You only have 1 character, so it makes total sense for the game to allow you to dabble in a wide range of skill-sets if you wish, while you're trying to get through the game world's various conflicts/resolutions/obstacles/dungeons/minigames.

 

But the problem with Skyrim is that it doesn't just let you be a jack of all trades. It lets you be the master of all trades. And that's where the system falls, crashes, and dies. It is almost a universal opinion, even from total die-hard Skyrim fanatics, that the game ends up being so easy and mindless at high levels that it's practically not even a game anymore once you reach level 50.

 

Which is a shame, because at low to mid levels, when it's still an rpg, and you're not yet the leader of all factions (lol), it's actually pretty fun.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Stun

[Bos_hybrid]

I backed an RPG made by Obsidian.

 

So yes, so far it seems like I'm get what I was led to believe.

 

 

Of course it could all be a smoke screen for a my little pony high school simulator.

 

[JFSOCC]

Large Post

I cannot stress enough how much I disagree with this.

 

The logic that P:E should go with a DnD like system is an appeal to tradition.

I'm in favour of giving everyone the same amount of information and let them learn a new system. Roleplaying is about character choice, not character ability. If someone wants to have his melee wizard, why the hell not? If someone wants a Rogue who can handle his own in combat, that's fine too.

Just make sure that no-one can be good at everything, and let the player make those choices.

 

I have no doubt that with a new ruleset gamebalance will be emergent, and it might go against expectations, but that's what makes it interesting.

 

I prefer an evolution over a rehash.

[IndiraLightfoot]

JFSOCC: Precisely, just as long as no classes and combinations thereof become walking story picklocks, as it were, of the entire content of the game. I love combos and multi-classing, personally, but given the variety of classes in-game and the party size limit, it would be nice if it at least took two playthroughs to experience the bulk of the game's story content.

[Malekith]

http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/476555580379526832

Read it. That is what we'll get and i'm perfecly fine with it.

If someone played the IE games solely because of D&D, tough luck. They were clear from the start that they won't use it. After all they didn't need to spent resources to make their own system. If they liked D&D, Pathfinder is free.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Malekith: Thanks for the link. As I don't follow Josh on Formspring, it's great to get to hear what he thinks about these core things. Having read it, I feel even more certain that we are in for one helluva ride!

[Micamo]

But the problem with Skyrim is that it doesn't just let you be a jack of all trades. It lets you be the master of all trades. And that's where the system falls, crashes, and dies. It is almost a universal opinion, even from total die-hard Skyrim fanatics, that the game ends up being so easy and mindless at high levels that it's practically not even a game anymore once you reach level 50.

I hold the same opinion of TES games as I do for New Vegas. The parts that matter are held intact at high levels no matter how overpowered you get. The only part that becomes irrelevant are the unplayably bad fight sequences that I rush to get over with as fast as possible anyway.

 

Ideally, a party with six different classes shouldn't be enough to even discover/open up half the game. For that you need to do new playthroughs.

I think this is a really poisonous design direction to take: When you're making mutually exclusive bits of game content you have to be very careful that you aren't just tacking on extra hours of gameplay. It should be no secret that I'm a big opponent of the cult of "longer games are better games."

[JFSOCC]

How does making content mutually exclusive make a game longer, exactly?

[Micamo]

How does making content mutually exclusive make a game longer, exactly?

Because to see all the major content you have to replay the game, potentially many, many times. See The Cave as a good example of a game that was absolutely crippled by this desire to create "replay value."

[teknoman2]

 

How does making content mutually exclusive make a game longer, exactly?

Because to see all the major content you have to replay the game, potentially many, many times. See The Cave as a good example of a game that was absolutely crippled by this desire to create "replay value."

 

it's called replayability and has nothing to do with the game's length. if i am a priest of the god of death, i cant do the quests that are meant for followers of the god of life and vice-versa. the game will last the same if i follow either path, but i cant follow them both in a single playthrough.

im not a fan of forced replayability (when i have to replay the game for trivial things that should not make a difference as oposed to logical forks on the game's path), but im even less of a fan of having  the "you can do all quests no matter your allegiance" trend from the TES series.

Edited July 4, 2013 by teknoman2

[Micamo]

it's called replayability and has nothing to do with the game's length. if i am a priest of the god of death, i cant do the quests that are meant for followers of the god of life and vice-versa. the game will last the same if i follow either path, but i cant follow them both in a single playthrough.

Replayability is touted as a wonderful property in a game precisely because it extends the game's life. I'm not talking about "how long it takes for you to reach the credits" I'm talking about how long you can play a game before you exhaust it of interesting content and move on to the next game.

[Malekith]

 

 

How does making content mutually exclusive make a game longer, exactly?

Because to see all the major content you have to replay the game, potentially many, many times. See The Cave as a good example of a game that was absolutely crippled by this desire to create "replay value."

 

it's called replayability and has nothing to do with the game's length. if i am a priest of the god of death, i cant do the quests that are meant for followers of the god of life and vice-versa. the game will last the same if i follow either path, but i cant follow them both in a single playthrough.

im not a fan of forced replayability (when i have to replay the game for trivial things that should not make a difference as oposed to logical forks on the game's path), but im even less of a fan of having  the "you can do all quests no matter your allegiance" trend from the TES series.

 

She has a point. All content cost money. Let's ay you have money for 10 hours. You can make a 10 hour long game. If you deside to make different paths for god of life and death, and each path takes 1 hour, you spent money for two hours for content that cannot be seen in one playthrough. You still made 10 hours of content, but your game lenght now is 9 hours. Continiue to add exclusive content, and the game will be really sort, but very replayable because every time you start you can see new content.

I'm not against  diferent paths, in fact i like them and hate TES game's approach, but the developer's must keep in their mind and the overall length of the game.

[teknoman2]

now that i read it again i see i misunderstood what was being said... probably because i was reading it way after midnight

[IndiraLightfoot]

I'm old-fashioned here. I think the small easter eggs and nods to other computer games that we see in most games post year 2000 are lame replacements for what I think should be a lot of exclusive, meaty and diverse content depending on what you are playing as and how you play the game. I know it's not a financially sound way of saving money and time, but if there's one thing I love of games of yore is how much exclusive content there was, and how hard it could be to reach even one of those secret gardens, weird planes or what not. Obviously, I'd love to see a CRPG plum with that. Funny thing is - if you design the entire game with that in my mind from the ground up - it wouldn't be such a big deal, because you have six characters, and they all make loads of choices and pick certain identities, so it will still be a patch work of RPG exuberance.

[Killyox]

 

...melee fighters only amounted to point-attack-forget.

Huh? There were 10 on-use abilities available to the warrior pool in BG2.

 

 

But the subject is not Promises vs BG2. It's Promises vs Infinity Engine Games. Plural. BG1 ID1-2 PS:T etc had nothing going for melee characters. 

 

Expanding upon what you have said; 10 skills is not that good when you consider how many close combat focused classes you had and that you couldn't have those 10 skills until very high level. They were also for the same classes, no uniqueness like in the case of spells. You could not even have all of them, just some, and even then usable like once or twice per day if memory serves.

 

That's not something I want in modern RPG.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Killyox

[SymbolicFrank]

I loved Aerie in BG2 for her abilities when I got her. And I had saved her, so all was well. But I dumped her when I got seriously fed up with her whining. Which left a glaring hole in the abilities I wanted covered by my party. Which wasn't all that easy to fill. And the same went for Jaheira, after I discovered the Harpers.

 

And that's fine! I like it that way!

 

It's just like real life, if you ever managed a big project. Which is totally cool.

 

With D&D 3.5/4, you simply pick a random party member to improve the thing you want. It would be like, a non-whining Aerie, who could also pick locks.

 

It doesn't matter, you have your list of party members with level-up points and list of things you want to be able to do. Who cares about the personality?

 

With Pen and Paper, you have a Dungeon Master, who decides what can be done. You don't have that in a computer game. You either allow all of it, or make a list of what is allowed when. That's what we have to work with when playing the game. And that's decides by the designers.

 

 

Another point would be things like the monk. While I totally agree that it would be best for every party member to wear full-plate for survivability, why are you going to introduce a martial arts specialist, who certainly benefits from wearing full plate and (as I understand it) melee weapons.

 

And that's not all: while wounds are a Bad Thing for everyone else, for a monk, they're a resource! Well, it's more complex than that, because monks have both wounds and Wounds. The first is Bad, the second is Good, if you make the countdown.

 

So, what is the difference? Is it something we, the players can understand at a glance? Well, I haven't understood how it should work exactly, except that a lot of stuff determines in how far something becomes a wound or a Wound.

 

Or, in other words: you just have to try and see if you like it.

 

 

And last: most games we liked and remember best were all quite flawed, somewhat broken and certainly unbalanced. Then again, they did something new and unique.

[gentlemanorcus]

The Infinity Engine games played terribly and anyone who says otherwise can't see past their nostalgia. Their strengths were in their scripts and characters, not in their gameplay. Being an homage to the IE games doesn't mean replicating their terrible gameplay. It means getting down the things they did right.

[BruceVC]

My expectations going in were -

• isometric (or similar)
• real time with pause
• fantasy setting
• party based
• Made by people at Obsidian Ent.

So far, that's kinda how its looking to me, so I'd say its a success. They don't have the D&D license, they don't have the infinity engine; it was (to my mind at least) never going to be a 1 to 1 translation anyhow.

 

EDIT: I also have to say, realistically, you can have a game that is both Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. The entire ideas behind them are opposed to one another. Baldur's Gate kinda lies between them; I wonder if that's why everyone seems to think this should be Baldur's Gate III (without the name because, lawsuit).

 

 

I agree with these expectations but I would also add

 

• PC based so that the game benefits from PC architecture
• Strategic and meaningful  combat so that you need to consider your actions in battle and the consequences
• A new fantasy franchise that is well supported by fans financially so that the world can develop and we see sequels

Around the point about combat  this was one of the great things I enjoyed about the earlier IE games. You needed to realize if you got turned to stone you stayed that way until Stone to Flesh was cast and there was no auto-resurrection at the end of combat. This made the major battles something you had to think about and plan what spells you needed.

 

The last point I also think is overlooked by many. I don't just want PE to be bought by a few hundred thousand fans, I want millions of people to support this new fantasy initiative by Obsidian. This means some features and compromise need to be included in the game design that appeals to the wider fan base . So things like optional  Romance should be included as we know this is a good selling point and  draws in people who become almost fanatical. These types of fans are a good thing for the longevity of the PE universe ( I know I am repeating the Romance card again but these and other features that may seem unpopular do make sense )

 

what you guys don't seem to get is that Obsidian shut its doors 8 months ago and hired a small skeleton crew to impersonate Obsidian employees while Feargus, Avellone and a few others party hard with the 4 mil (that's a hell of a lot of hookers and blow)...when the 2014 2015 release date comes around they'll hastily put together an android game called Eternity mobile and re-open the doors of Obsidian ent. with a brand new mission statement geared towards producing tablet and smart phone games.

  That's funny, good one

[Dream]

The thing that worries me the most about "paying homage," "spiritual successor," and other such terms is that Dragon Age was supposed to be just that, and while it's not a bad game in and of itself it's definitely no IE game.

 

As it stands I can't help shake the feeling that the game we're eventually going to get will end up being more DA:O and less BG/PST/IWD.

[Hassat Hunter]

I think this is a really poisonous design direction to take: When you're making mutually exclusive bits of game content you have to be very careful that you aren't just tacking on extra hours of gameplay. It should be no secret that I'm a big opponent of the cult of "longer games are better games."

That's one of the best parts of a RPG. The consequences of your actions SHOULD be mutually exclusive. What point does making a choice have if in order to get all content it doesn't change anything. Than it can be just as well an adventure game. Choices should have consequences. Not be ignored to feed all the same content, or be conviently turned around if it no longer suits the story.

[Infinitron]

The Infinity Engine games played terribly and anyone who says otherwise can't see past their nostalgia. Their strengths were in their scripts and characters, not in their gameplay. Being an homage to the IE games doesn't mean replicating their terrible gameplay. It means getting down the things they did right.

 

 

 

The thing that worries me the most about "paying homage," "spiritual successor," and other such terms is that Dragon Age was supposed to be just that, and while it's not a bad game in and of itself it's definitely no IE game.

 

As it stands I can't help shake the feeling that the game we're eventually going to get will end up being more DA:O and less BG/PST/IWD.

 

Features of Project Eternity:

 

Six fully controllable party members, arranged in formations.

Isometric.

2D backgrounds.

PC exclusive.

Text heavy, without full voice acting.

Spell memorization/preparation mechanic (not mana and cooldowns like Dragon Age)

Obvious equivalents of all D&D races (not just Humans/Dwarves/Elves like Dragon Age)

Obvious equivalents of all D&D classes (not just Warrior/Rogue/Mage like Dragon Age but also Clerics, Paladins, Bards, etc)

Rich assortment of monsters (not just the same monsters repeated again and again with palette shifts like in Dragon Age and other console games)

Edited July 9, 2013 by Infinitron

[Malekith]

The Infinity Engine games played terribly and anyone who says otherwise can't see past their nostalgia. Their strengths were in their scripts and characters, not in their gameplay. Being an homage to the IE games doesn't mean replicating their terrible gameplay. It means getting down the things they did right.

IE games had very good gameplay. Better than any other game since them with the posible exception of ToEE.  So...no. Gameplay is one of the most importand parts and must be the same. That's what we paid for. If you don't like it, go play another game.

(In case you are a backer, why did you back this game at all?)

[Sacred_Path]

I'm playing Kiting: Enhanced Edition right now, and while not all gameplay is ****, combat certainly is.

[Stun]

The Infinity Engine games played terribly and anyone who says otherwise can't see past their nostalgia. Their strengths were in their scripts and characters, not in their gameplay. Being an homage to the IE games doesn't mean replicating their terrible gameplay. It means getting down the things they did right.

No. On like 3 of your claims here.

 

First, game play was actually really really really good in the IE games. It's their strong point. To this day, I've yet to play a party-based fantasy RPG that does it better than any of the IE games.

 

Second, there wasn't anything special (good or bad) about the scripts in the IE games. (and what exactly do you mean by this, anyway?)

 

Third, The characters? Since we're talking about the NPCs of 5 whole games, your claim is meaningless. They were hit and miss. They covered the entire spectrum from Brilliant, to average, to cheesy, to cliche, to completely empty.

 

(In case you are a backer, why did you back this game at all?)

I'd like to know this as well. It's honest curiosity. I'm fully aware that there were actually 2 big selling points for PE when its kickstarter was announced.

 

1) The IE game name drops.

2) The Obsidian logo.

 

So if your answer was "#2 is what made me back this game", then fine, but Obsidian has other, very not-IEish games that they're developing as we speak. You should probably seek out one of those. This game, PE, will very much be judged by how IEish it feels in the end, even if they do decide to tinker/alter/change the specific aspects of gameplay that we're familiar with from the IE games. But again, in the end, they're probably not looking to stray too far from the IE formula. And that means Gameplay feel, so you're bound to be disappointed if you thought the IE games had bad Gameplay.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Stun

[Malekith]

I'm playing Kiting: Enhanced Edition right now, and while not all gameplay is ****, combat certainly is.

I like it. But i would be curious if you have a better example of RTwP combat.