The bad things about Project Eternity...

[rjshae]

 

-Elves.

So we got a whole new world, one in which we could have any number of new and exciting things and we got... elves.

For some reason I don't mind dwarves so much as I do elves, despite them being just as broadly used as bloody elves. They just don't feel as creatively stagnant. Also the Sagani piece is still my favourite bit of PE art.

 

I know it's a matter of opinion, buuuuuuuuut thankfully elves are here to stay You already have a bunch of new races: godlike, orlan and aumanabananarama. Just give it a go.

 

There's no reason why the P:E designers couldn't give elves a reboot and move them further away from the overused archetypes used in D&D.

 

Why not give them a different type of soul--a nature spirit--that is not subject to rebirth as humans? They could dump the idea of elves being wizards and instead introduce them as the original druids. Maybe they can live for ages, but a good part of that time could be spent as raw elements of nature. Their life as a humanoid form is actually an aberration meant to fulfill a life-long quest for inner meaning. They can shift back into their nature spirit forms, but doing so entails risk of entering the wilding state and losing their purpose.

Edited October 23, 2013 by rjshae

[GhoulishVisage]

 

I know it's a matter of opinion, buuuuuuuuut thankfully elves are here to stay You already have a bunch of new races: godlike, orlan and aumanabananarama. Just give it a go.

 

 

See, this is what I don't understand.

Why are people so resistant to new concepts?

Even the Orlan and Aumaua aren't too fresh, taking up the slots of the halfling and the half-orc from DnD. Their spin just happens to be unique enough that the parallels aren't entirely obvious.

The Godlike (doubtful that's their final name) are basically Genasi and there's little to differentiate them.

 

It's the same thing with the guns, when the KS first went up there was a big furore about there being guns in PE and how that would somehow de-legitimise the setting because they didn't want to step away from the safe bubble that fantasy rpgs have created, even if that difference was as minor as guns being present.

 

Why do people just want to see the same stuff over and over and over again instead of new concepts and races individual to settings being introduced?

The Qunari were an interesting part of DA:O and one of the only good parts of DA2 not because they were a new spin on elves or dwarves, but because they were an entirely new idea that was unique to the setting.

It's hard for something to become iconic to a particular ip if that ip just uses the same old stuff from all the other games, books and movies.

 

So why do you want to see the same things over and over again? Especially when they're as played out and dull as elves?

Edited October 23, 2013 by GhoulishVisage

[Sacred_Path]

first you accuse the game of being silly because the statement: "if the X stat is responsible for 2 different types of attacks then the same defence stat should counter both (even if one is magical and the other physical)", is not true, and now you accuse the game of having this statement as true. make up your mind or go troll somewhere else

I adivse you to read my posts again because I said nothing of the sort. I was talking about two different stats responsible for mitigating two different types of damage but eventually both ending up being absolutely equally useful, i.e. blocking about the same amount of damage over the course of the game.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[Lephys]

I was talking about two different stats responsible for mitigating two different types of damage but eventually both ending up being absolutely equally useful, i.e. blocking about the same amount of damage over the course of the game.

You could just as easily argue that classes being equally useful is somehow bad, as they'll both win about the same amount of battles throughout the course of the game. As if the differences in gameplay and the HOW of it all in any given situation is of no consequence.

 

The fact of the matter is, if you have more hitpoints, versus getting hit less often, each amounts to completely different reactions and tactical approaches to even the very same situation. Why? Because all the enemies aren't the same. The external factors vary.

 

If they didn't, then yes, I'd see the exact flaw that you seem to be getting at. It wouldn't matter which contributed to your ability to survive a given number of attacks: quantity of hitpoints, or dodgeability (for example). But, since the factors you're dealing with change, it DOES actually matter.

 

It's no different from chess. All the pieces can kill all the other pieces, but they're all forced to address the chessboard in a different fashion. No one claims that their differences are rendered moot, simply because they could all ultimately accomplish pretty much the same thing.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Lephys

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Why not give them a different type of soul--a nature spirit--that is not subject to rebirth as humans? They could dump the idea of elves being wizards and instead introduce them as the original druids. Maybe they can live for ages, but a good part of that time could be spent as raw elements of nature. Their life as a humanoid form is actually an aberration meant to fulfill a life-long quest for inner meaning. They can shift back into their nature spirit forms, but doing so entails risk of entering the wilding state and losing their purpose.

 

 

Why doesn't this have more likes?

[Sacred_Path]

You could just as easily argue that classes being equally useful is somehow bad

Yes you could and there are people who've done that. I can remember some posts where people expressed the wish that mages start out weak but have much greater power growth than fighters. At least, I don't find it horrible if a class is inherently weaker (i.e. less frequently useful than others), particularly if there are situations where they can really shine and that would be much more difficult without them. I find the quest for perfect balance to be unnecessary in many cases, unless the imbalance results in really derpy gameplay (like resting every few steps, or ranged weapons being useful in close combat).

 

The fact of the matter is, if you have more hitpoints, versus getting hit less often, each amounts to completely different reactions and tactical approaches to even the very same situation. Why? Because all the enemies aren't the same. The external factors vary.

Exactly. If let's say not getting hit is sufficient to keep a wizard alive behind the lines by dodging the occasional arrow, but damage mitigation is necessary on a front liner, then why should the latter not really be more useful, overall, than the first?

[JFSOCC]

If I have to pick, I'd say we don't need a ton different species of intelligent creatures. Humans will do.

but it's a minor gripe. hardly worth mentioning, certainly no deal-breaker.

[Stun]

George Ziets is no longer working on the game.

Wait, what?

 

Is there a story behind this? Or is he simply finished doing what he was assigned to do?

[Lephys]

Yes you could and there are people who've done that. I can remember some posts where people expressed the wish that mages start out weak but have much greater power growth than fighters. At least, I don't find it horrible if a class is inherently weaker (i.e. less frequently useful than others), particularly if there are situations where they can really shine and that would be much more difficult without them. I find the quest for perfect balance to be unnecessary in many cases, unless the imbalance results in really derpy gameplay (like resting every few steps, or ranged weapons being useful in close combat).

I understand that, and I share that sentiment (regarding a class being "inherently weaker"). The problem, I think, lies in the plethora of interpretations of that, and the disconnect between them. What I'm getting at is that, if picking a Mage gets you through the 100 combats you have to get through to beat the game, and picking a Warrior gets you through the 100 combats you have to get through to beat the game, then you could very easily say "they're equally feasible/useful," so they must be bland and horribly un-unique. Both of them have means of not-dying. Both of them have means of killing things. Both are sufficiently dequate to get through the whole game. And yet, they play COMPLETELY differently. That's kind of the point.

 

See, you don't mind a class being "inherently weaker," but what do you mean by weaker? Would you want a class who, in ANY possible situation imaginable, performs 50% as well as ANY other class in that same situation? I should hope not. So, maybe you want a Wizard to be squishier, but you also want him to possess some compensating circumstantial factor that, say, Mr. Heavy Duty Warrior doesn't have, right? Like the ability to blast 15 things into particles once he gets to higher levels, from a distance. Can a Warrior kill 15 things in a single blast? Nope. But he can also take them on individually or in small groups, face-to-face, without dying to a sneeze.

 

Thus is the nature of variance and balance. You don't want one class to gain 17 abilities per level, and another to gain only 1. Or have one class gain 6 stat points per level, and another gain none. That OBVIOUSLY would be ridiculous. So, that's the kind of "equality" I'm talking about, and that's the kind that's important. Not "when my Wizard attacks, he should be doing the same DPS as the Warrior." No. DPS is ONE factor. Because it's not governed by simply attack speed and damage. It's governed by the situation. How often are things grouped together to be struck by AOE? Depends on the enemy and environment and tactics employed, and some chance. How often are things more susceptible to fire than they are to swords? What if things are attacking from a range? Now the Warrior's ability to not die to a couple sling bullets trumps the Wizard's ability to rain down the apocalypse from the get-go, because the Wizard can't just stay away from his foes to revel in safety.

 

So many factors, and that's what makes it so great. Dynamics.

 

Exactly. If let's say not getting hit is sufficient to keep a wizard alive behind the lines by dodging the occasional arrow, but damage mitigation is necessary on a front liner, then why should the latter not really be more useful, overall, than the first?

Because nothing dictates that being a front-liner is any better than being a behind-the-lines-er. If you have a party of 6 Ranger archers, you should still be able to get through the game. In some encounters, things are going to be VERY easy, and in others, things are going to be quite difficult. A handful of the encounters in the game (like those epic, optional ones) are probably going to be VERY difficult, and often your path through even necessary encounters/areas will be mandated by your lack of effectiveness without first acquiring better equipment and/or more levels (where another party build might be able to tackle that tough fight/area first -- in a different order). But, that doesn't mean that you just can't take anything on because you're SUPPOSED to have some minimum number of tanks... some specific party makeup, or you just-plain suck across the board. Again, dynamic factors are the beauty of it. If you rock at dodging, but your damage threshold sucks, then you're going to LOVE lower-damage foes who attack really, really fast, and HATE high-damage foes who attack less often. It's a balance. So is the rest of the game's design. If 90% of the game just says "You really just need a crap-ton of damage threshold on your armor, because nothing really ever has high accuracy and/or attacks very rapidly," then you've blatantly imbalanced your game within your own design's context.

[Sacred_Path]

I understand that, and I share that sentiment (regarding a class being "inherently weaker"). The problem, I think, lies in the plethora of interpretations of that, and the disconnect between them. What I'm getting at is that, if picking a Mage gets you through the 100 combats you have to get through to beat the game, and picking a Warrior gets you through the 100 combats you have to get through to beat the game, then you could very easily say "they're equally feasible/useful," so they must be bland and horribly un-unique.

My problem isn't that it makes both classes bland, but maybe that in both cases, there's nothing to be learned for the player. If a noob starts out making an uninformed decision about wether to play a fighter or a mage, let's say he's 50-50 about what class to choose. If you've played around with the game, and you find both fighters and mages to be equal in pretty much all circumstances, you're still at 50-50. You can't say "I'm going with an all fighter or fighter heavy party, because I've found that works best", nor can you say "I'm going to go with an all mage or mage heavy party because I enjoy the challenge".

 

See, you don't mind a class being "inherently weaker," but what do you mean by weaker? Would you want a class who, in ANY possible situation imaginable, performs 50% as well as ANY other class in that same situation? I should hope not. So, maybe you want a Wizard to be squishier, but you also want him to possess some compensating circumstantial factor that, say, Mr. Heavy Duty Warrior doesn't have, right? Like the ability to blast 15 things into particles once he gets to higher levels, from a distance. Can a Warrior kill 15 things in a single blast? Nope. But he can also take them on individually or in small groups, face-to-face, without dying to a sneeze.

A class is weaker if the party is more efficient, overall, if that party slot is filled by another member. Overall being the key word here, so no, it doesn't have to apply to every single situation; or rather, it should not apply to every single situation, because in that case characters of that class are a liability and a victim of bad design.

 

Some examples (at low levels): in BG, the average player will assemble a party of more non-spellcasters than spellcasters, because bows get the job done quite a bit more efficient than casters. This becomes clear to an experienced player (reading the manual is not enough, because the hit chance with a bow depends on the enemies' armor class). However, I've heard of quite a few people who like to make magic heavy parties on their subsequent playthroughs as a challenge and because they'd never take certain characters otherwise (like Quayle). This is not to say that casters don't shine, they do, but they can only fling so many Stinking Clouds and Fireballs before they've burned through them, and they die horribly easily.

 

Rather bad example: Icewind Dale (with Heart of Winter). Single class mages are almost always inferior to multiclass mages or bards; the latter can use better weapons and/ or armor, and while the single class mage could potentially cast spells of a higher level earlier, you're simply not going to find such powerful spells quickly enough for this advantage to work out. So, single class mages are real stinkers. Still, there are situations where someone may take one: 1) for flavor, 2) for roleplaying reasons, 3) because there is the very small chance that the few additional castings a single class mage with the same XP has over a multiclass may come in handy in a situation that may not come to your mind at the outset.

 

 

Because nothing dictates that being a front-liner is any better than being a behind-the-lines-er.

No, but there are reasons why you are a behind-the-lines-er, and in most cases this will be due to the fact that you're not as good at surviving [close] combat.

 

If you have a party of 6 Ranger archers, you should still be able to get through the game. In some encounters, things are going to be VERY easy, and in others, things are going to be quite difficult. A handful of the encounters in the game (like those epic, optional ones) are probably going to be VERY difficult, and often your path through even necessary encounters/areas will be mandated by your lack of effectiveness without first acquiring better equipment and/or more levels (where another party build might be able to tackle that tough fight/area first -- in a different order). But, that doesn't mean that you just can't take anything on because you're SUPPOSED to have some minimum number of tanks... some specific party makeup, or you just-plain suck across the board. Again, dynamic factors are the beauty of it. If you rock at dodging, but your damage threshold sucks, then you're going to LOVE lower-damage foes who attack really, really fast, and HATE high-damage foes who attack less often. It's a balance. So is the rest of the game's design. If 90% of the game just says "You really just need a crap-ton of damage threshold on your armor, because nothing really ever has high accuracy and/or attacks very rapidly," then you've blatantly imbalanced your game within your own design's context.

It's possible that better balance across classes actually improves the chance of many different viable party setups. It can also make things more boring. Trade-offs, I guess.

[Monte Carlo]

This health / fatigue thing and no healing potions seems obtuse and for-the-sake-of-it.

[teknoman2]

 

George Ziets is no longer working on the game.

Wait, what?

 

Is there a story behind this? Or is he simply finished doing what he was assigned to do?

 

he finished his job and went home

[Messier-31]

There's no reason why the P:E designers couldn't give elves a reboot and move them further away from the overused archetypes used in D&D.

 

See, this is what I don't understand.

Why are people so resistant to new concepts?

 

(...)

 

So why do you want to see the same things over and over again? Especially when they're as played out and dull as elves?

 

I have nothing against new concepts. But if we're talking about a classic fantasy cRPG based on good old IE games, then some things are "mandatory", I guess. I don't see anyone dissing the dwarves, I don't see anyone dissing the humans for that matter. Aren't they overused too? What makes the elves more dull than any other one of them? Pointy ears? True, I like the elves a lot, most of my characters were elven, but I'm excited about 3 (THREE) new races as well.

 

You say elves could use at least a reboot, and that those new races are old ones made up different. So you have halflings, half-orcs and genasi completely anew. I doubt that all of the PE world races should be done from the scratch, don't you think? Changing the entire setting by brute force so it will be 101% completely different and distinguishable from the others? - come on.

 

As some of you know I don't take kindly to monks in fantasy. But there's a lot more to choose from, so I gotta ignore it and have loads of fun with the rest of the game - which will be awesome anyway, m'right?

 

High five?

Edited October 24, 2013 by Messier-31

[teknoman2]

 

this makes no sense. each does a different thing and what it does, depends on the kind of enemies you fight. if you manage to fight against fighters only during the entire course of the game and you never fight a magic user, the stat that defends from magic becomes useless. besides not all characters have the same defense stats: a fighter has high physical defense, but next to no magical defense, a wizard has high magic defense but almost no physical

[Sacred_Path]

 

 

 

 

this makes no sense. each does a different thing and what it does, depends on the kind of enemies you fight. if you manage to fight against fighters only during the entire course of the game and you never fight a magic user, the stat that defends from magic becomes useless. besides not all characters have the same defense stats: a fighter has high physical defense, but next to no magical defense, a wizard has high magic defense but almost no physical

 

You don't seem to get it. I made a hypothetical example of two stats that might well exist in the game and support certain defenses. I think deflection and reflexes are the two terms in P:E. What does it have to do with the fact that fighters will have high deflection and rogues will have high reflexes? Nothing. My concern was that both stats could be interchangeable if they are used to the same extent in the game, i.e. the difference between fighters and rogues would be non-existant, defense wise. Which I would find derpy and uninspiring.

 

P.S. I doubt that Obs would put both deflection and reflexes in the game if only one was ever tested by the game. So no, the "only fighters" and "only mages" scenarios won't happen.

[PrimeJunta]

I didn't know "no naked Cadegund" was confirmed. If they do that, though, in all fairness they should add a naked Edair as well. Forton is, of course, already naked so that's not an issue.

 

Things I'm not thrilled about, huh? First off, I prefer to suspend judgement before I've actually played the damn thing. I don't have any huge preferences over, say, one attribute, XP, or combat system over another, if it's well implemented, hangs together well, and serves its intended purpose.

 

That said, after playing around ToEE a bit, I have been converted to the turn-based camp. It just fits a small-party cRPG extremely well, where every character has unique abilities. Real-time is better suited for RTS type things with lots of identical or near-identical units you move around, which then do their thing. So that's my first gripe: not turn-based.

 

Elves. That's a no-brainer. Also, dwarves. Elves and dwarves are way overdone in fantasy cRPG's IMO. We could do with one that doesn't have them.

 

Purple. There's gotta be some other color you can use for 'magic.' Why does it always have to be purple? Even the word 'purple' sounds dumb. Like a baby throwing up.

 

Some of the art styles. There's been some I like a lot, but for example those statues sculpted out of the rock in the one temple entrance scene we've seen aren't really to my taste. They don't give a feel of an old, distinctive culture to me. For some reason Polina's godlike concept also bugs me, I really didn't like that one. OTOH I've liked Kaz's art a lot, Defiance Bay looks to be shaping up great, and some of the dungeon and environment art we've seen is pretty sweet too.

 

"All characters must excel in combat." I would prefer a game that also has lots of non-combat challenges that let characters not built for combat shine. I really enjoyed having an über wilderness scout with All The Skills in Storm of Zehir. All he could do in a fight was plink with an arrow from time to time, but having a "Let me handle that" type that could do anything non-combat was really fun. Plus the combat got a bit more challenging (in a good way) since I had to do with effectively one less character, and the others had to keep him alive. I think I'm going to miss that. 

 

That's about all I can think of ATM. Overall I really like where this is going.

[Messier-31]

Purple. There's gotta be some other color you can use for 'magic.' Why does it always have to be purple? Even the word 'purple' sounds dumb. Like a baby throwing up.

 

Try "lavender".

[Sacred_Path]

I thought it's an established fact that green is the quintessential colour for evul magicks.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

From the start, I kinda wish they had tried for something more unusual and imaginative than yet another Medieval European Fantasy RPG, but since the game was pitched as a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine I understand why they did it.

 

I'm appeased on this score by the fact that the devil is in the details: just because you're making Medieval European Fantasy doesn't mean you're making a Tolkien rip-off, and the previous work of the writers along with the introduction of a lot of features from the Renaissance gives me hope the setting will have a look and feel all its own, even if (most of) the races and classes and such are very, very familiar. 

[Stun]

From the start, I kinda wish they had tried for something more unusual and imaginative than yet another Medieval European Fantasy RPG, but since the game was pitched as a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine I understand why they did it.

Not me. I don't understand why they chose to do Midieval European fantasy. You can't really describe the IE games as such (Planescape: Torment certainly wasn't). They were all Tolkienesque, yes. But that goes with the territory due to D&D and the forgotten Realms setting that they were based on.

 

 

I'm appeased on this score by the fact that the devil is in the details: just because you're making Medieval European Fantasy doesn't mean you're making a Tolkien rip-off, and the previous work of the writers along with the introduction of a lot of features from the Renaissance gives me hope the setting will have a look and feel all its own, even if (most of) the races and classes and such are very, very familiar.

Agreed. I think we're going to be pleasantly surprized by how fresh and unique the setting is going to feel, at least. I don't know about you, but I haven't played that many RPGs with true historical european influences. But the way Josh describes it, it sounds like this is going to be a game that world history buffs are going to love. And that's something you can't say about the Infinity engine games.

[Messier-31]

 

I'm appeased on this score by the fact that the devil is in the details: just because you're making Medieval European Fantasy doesn't mean you're making a Tolkien rip-off, and the previous work of the writers along with the introduction of a lot of features from the Renaissance gives me hope the setting will have a look and feel all its own, even if (most of) the races and classes and such are very, very familiar.

 

Agreed. I think we're going to be pleasantly surprized by how fresh and unique the setting is going to feel, at least. I don't know about you, but I haven't played that many RPGs with true historical european influences. But the way Josh describes it, it sounds like this is going to be a game that world history buffs are going to love. And that's something you can't say about the Infinity engine games.

 

To be honest, from what I've seen Eternity has little to do with DnD, it is more WFRP related in terms of the world - this is my own observation! Still it has a medieval european background, but wasn't that known from day one? The reason I backed the project was that I'm totally in favor of such a setting. Also, I am an incorrigible optimist, I won't believe these cliche concepts will spoil the gameplay even for a bit. Furthermore, as far as I know there always is Torment: Tides of Numenera for all of you who long for a different game design.

 

Please don't go "shun the non-believer!" on me

 

Shuuuuuuuuuuuuunaaaahh...

Edited October 24, 2013 by Messier-31

[Gfted1]

I wonder how many people will even notice the "true historical European influences". I know I wont know the difference between period accurate clothing / architecture vs. made up stuff. Unless the made up stuff it totally fantastical of course, but would I be able to differentiate between a building / clothing in BGII (made up) vs. a building / clothing in PE (realistic)? No. More power to them though.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

To be honest, from what I've seen Eternity has little to do with DnD, it is more WFRP related in terms of the world 

 

 

You probably will not be mandatorily covered in sh**, and won't die by blood poisoning around the third encounter, so... nope

Edited October 24, 2013 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Messier-31]

 

To be honest, from what I've seen Eternity has little to do with DnD, it is more WFRP related in terms of the world 

 

 

You probably will not be mandatorily covered in sh**, and won't die by blood poisoning around the third encounter, so... nope

 

Crap, back to the drawing board.

 

But also you won't be experiencing this rejuvenating healing magic everywhere around, resurrections, tons of magic loot on every corner, so... huh

[Stun]

Crap, back to the drawing board.

 

But also you won't be experiencing this rejuvenating healing magic everywhere around, resurrections, tons of magic loot on every corner, so... huh

Oh, I can assure you that the world will be positivily littered with magic loot. Have you been reading Josh's tweets? It's his favorite part of the job, creating magic items. A month or so ago he tweeted that he's already designing 50+ unique magic weapons. Now, considering how early they still are in production (relatively speaking) Look for every corner to be shiny by the time they're done.

 

And why not. Lets face it. We all say we want a low magic world, but we're just lying to ourselves.

 

Here's a scenario. You're "adventuring" and you come across 2 piles. The 1st one has a bunch of plain old non-magical equipment, while the 2nd one has a bunch of unique-looking magical equipment. 99 out of 100 gamers will walk right past pile 1 to get to pile 2.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Stun