The bad things about Project Eternity...

[Sacred_Path]

you should read the skill descriptions better. deflection is a defense vs direct physical attacks. reflexes is a defense vs attacks of opportunity, traps and aoe damage. psyche is a defense against mental attacks and i dont remember the last one

so a rogue will easily avoid most of the aoe damage of a fireball and a fighter wont, however if a barbarian is pounding  on the fighter's shield with an axe he will barely put any hits in, while he will easily cut the thief in 2. that is the difference between the 2 stats. 

they do not provide the same defense in a different way, they provide defense against different things

Oh lawdy... and where does that go against what I said? They are both defensive stats, and there is a good chance that Obs will try to make both equally useful - i.e. block the same amount of damage over the course of the game.

 

BTW I was hypothetically speaking about two attributes, one of which influences deflection and one influencing reflexes. These may exist or not.

Edited October 25, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[teknoman2]

 

I'm sensing a potential misunderstanding here, so I'm going to go with a just-in-case clarification:

 

I could be wrong, but the way I gathered it, each different defense value (Deflection, Fortitude, Reflexes, and Psyche) will only function specifically against the attacks that target that particular defense type. BUT, they won't act as an armor value, or as an elemental resistance in some games (which, I'm sorry if I'm mistaken, but it appears both of you seem to believe it will? -- also, I could be the one misunderstanding the system).

 

If you have 10 Deflection and 25 Reflexes, and the incoming attack has an Accuracy/Attack rating of 20, then the type of attack it is (which defense it's targeting) matters a lot. If it's targeting your Deflection, then the foe has a 10-point advantage in his attack, which I believe translates directly into a 10-point shift in the miss-graze-hit-crit attack scale. So, instead of 5-45-45-5 (respectively, in the event of perfectly matched Accuracy and Defense values), your attacker would get 0-40-45-15. So, whatever attack that is (spell, ability, standard strike, etc.), it can no longer miss completely, it has a 5% lesser chance of grazing, and it gains a 10% chance to crit.

 

Now, instead assume that the attack was Reflex-based. So, the same 20 versus your 25 Reflexes (instead of 10 Deflection) results in a 5-point advantage to YOU, the defender. Shift the scale 5 points in your favor, and you get 10-45-45-0. Your foe has lost his chance to crit, completely, and has a 5% higher chance to miss.

 

So, it's not just a "Warriors' and Rogues' defenses are called different things but all work the same way against every single attack" situation. Which, yes, if it were like that, it would be admittedly quite silly.

 

And I apologize if I saw misunderstanding where there wasn't one. I'm only trying to be helpful, in the event something WAS misunderstood.

 

it's not a misunderstaning, i just oversimplified it

sacred i dont see your point. why is it a bad thing if you have different defenses for different types of attacks? and why should it matter how many times you may or may not have to rely on a particular defense type? or what you are afraid of, is that for every sword swing that you deflect there will be a fireball to make sure your reflexes wont be used less in the battle

Edited October 25, 2013 by teknoman2

[Sacred_Path]

why is it a bad thing if you have different defenses for different types of attacks?

never said anything like that

 

and why should it matter how many times you may or may not have to rely on a particular defense type?

If you had a defense that is never tested, would that bother you, for instance?

 

or what you are afraid of, is that for every sword swing that you deflect there will be a fireball to make sure your reflexes wont be used less in the battle

A perfect balance across defenses would probably be silly either way, no matter how it is achieved. Have a 1:1 ratio of melee attacks and spell attacks, or half as many spells but doing twice the damage, etc.

[teknoman2]

if i have a defense that determines if i get hit or not from traps and i make sure that i spring no traps i dont see why it should bother me. it would bother me to have a defense against traps in a game that has no traps.

on the balance topic, i dont see why anyone would balance the game to make sure each defese type gets the same amount of use, but even if they did, the result would greatly vary from player to player. if i focus all fire on the cipher and kill him before he can use his skills on me, then i dont need to worry about having high psyche, however someone else may decide to focus on the wizard first so he will take attacks from the cipher and will need psyche. so no matter how much they may balance it, it all comes down to how the player will act

[Sacred_Path]

if i have a defense that determines if i get hit or not from traps and i make sure that i spring no traps i dont see why it should bother me.it would bother me to have a defense against traps in a game that has no traps

I'm not sure that you grasp it but you are arguing in favor of a useless stat. If it's easy enough to bypass traps that you never need a defense for it then, by all means, that stat is useless. If traps are absolutely trivial either because they can easily be avoided or because the damage is negligible anyway, then there might as well be no traps in the game to begin with.

 

on the balance topic, i dont see why anyone would balance the game to make sure each defese type gets the same amount of use

because you believe that if it costs the player equally much to raise A as it costs to raise B, both should be equally useful. If you haven't noticed any signs of this mentality in the P:E design process you probably haven't followed Sawyer's statements.

 

but even if they did, the result would greatly vary from player to player. if i focus all fire on the cipher and kill him before he can use his skills on me, then i dont need to worry about having high psyche

And if you focus your fire on an enemy with physical damage (assuming, like you did, that there is only one per encounter) then you don't need much deflection. Your point?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

All this mention of "souls" just has me thinking about soul music, and I'm not sure if that mental image is very conducive to my roleplaying...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk8D7L7EPcg

 

Makes me want to roleplay a Bard who sings and dances.

Edited October 25, 2013 by KaineParker

[teknoman2]

 

if i have a defense that determines if i get hit or not from traps and i make sure that i spring no traps i dont see why it should bother me.it would bother me to have a defense against traps in a game that has no traps

I'm not sure that you grasp it but you are arguing in favor of a useless stat. If it's easy enough to bypass traps that you never need a defense for it then, by all means, that stat is useless. If traps are absolutely trivial either because they can easily be avoided or because the damage is negligible anyway, then there might as well be no traps in the game to begin with.

 

on the balance topic, i dont see why anyone would balance the game to make sure each defese type gets the same amount of use

because you believe that if it costs the player equally much to raise A as it costs to raise B, both should be equally useful. If you haven't noticed any signs of this mentality in the P:E design process you probably haven't followed Sawyer's statements.

 

but even if they did, the result would greatly vary from player to player. if i focus all fire on the cipher and kill him before he can use his skills on me, then i dont need to worry about having high psyche

And if you focus your fire on an enemy with physical damage (assuming, like you did, that there is only one per encounter) then you don't need much deflection. Your point?

 

are you by any chance a reporter or a politician? if not you should consider becoming one, you have a skill for twisting what others say

 

1. im not arguing in favor of anything, i just said that i do not mind the presence of a defense stat if it has a valid reason to exist. that i may or may not have need of it, depending on the way i play, is something entirelly different.

 

2. i dont follow much any coments that i dont find in this forum or in updates, that's true. however i do not see the reason why the various stats should not be equaly useful. you may play in a way that renders a stat useless to you, but if it provides a solid alternative to the way the game plays, someone else will use it.

 

3. the point is that everyone will play it their way, so the skills and stats they will need to accomodate their style, will be different for each player. you may have a group of only thieves and not trigger a single trap, someone else may not have a thief and will need an alternative to survive a dungeon full of traps. so the defense vs traps that is useless to you, becomes priceless for him. there are no inherently useless stats, just ways to play that may not require them

[Sacred_Path]

My argument revolves around design before player choice. After all you have to set up your systems in some way before the player ever gets to influence them.

[teknoman2]

My argument revolves around design before player choice. After all you have to set up your systems in some way before the player ever gets to influence them.

and that is what i say too. every player will influence the system differently, so all aspects of the system should be equaly viable for all possible choices.

[Sacred_Path]

It's not all down to player choice/ preferences/ style of course.

 

Example: during one quest or story segment, you're proceeding through the levels of a dungeon. There are two mandatory encounters worth noting. One involves a group of enemies who can't be taken down easily at your level (or scale) and they deal much more than trivial physical damage. Another encounter further down the dungeon involves one very powerful magic user who also can't be taken down easily and deals much more than trivial magical AoE damage. Let's say the first encounter is especially painful or just memorable to you or maybe you don't even get past it. So your next party is built around the avoidance of physical damage by, say, high deflection scores. The downside is that you have pretty low reflexes across the board. So your new vigorous party deals well with the first encounter, but when they hit the mage, they get the clobbering of their respective lives. That wouldn't be cool, right?

[decado]

What is the purpose of this thread?  The goddamn game isn't even out yet.

[Gfted1]

What is the purpose of this thread?  The goddamn game isn't even out yet.

From post #1:

 

So, we know quite a lot of stuff about Project Eternity so far and I guess most of us are equally psyched to delve into Dyrwood.

 

What I'm interested though is: what are the things you've learned about PE up until now that didn't please you or that you did not like at all? Is there anything you wish to be different?

 

I think it'd be interesting to see some critical thinking and maybe we can give the devs a bit of constructive input.

[teknoman2]

It's not all down to player choice/ preferences/ style of course.

 

Example: during one quest or story segment, you're proceeding through the levels of a dungeon. There are two mandatory encounters worth noting. One involves a group of enemies who can't be taken down easily at your level (or scale) and they deal much more than trivial physical damage. Another encounter further down the dungeon involves one very powerful magic user who also can't be taken down easily and deals much more than trivial magical AoE damage. Let's say the first encounter is especially painful or just memorable to you or maybe you don't even get past it. So your next party is built around the avoidance of physical damage by, say, high deflection scores. The downside is that you have pretty low reflexes across the board. So your new vigorous party deals well with the first encounter, but when they hit the mage, they get the clobbering of their respective lives. That wouldn't be cool, right?

it's called choice and consequence. you chose to make certain enemies easy to deal with, at the expence of making others harder. in your example you can make high deflection characters that pass the first encounter easily, then have anti magic buffs or items for the second encounter, or make high reflex group and spam aoe spells disregarding the friendly fire (that will mostly miss) for the 1st, then be able to avoid most damage in the 2nd or keep a balanced defense and have both encounters at equal difficulty

Edited October 25, 2013 by teknoman2

[rjshae]

 

My argument revolves around design before player choice. After all you have to set up your systems in some way before the player ever gets to influence them.

and that is what i say too. every player will influence the system differently, so all aspects of the system should be equaly viable for all possible choices.

 

They don't need to be equally viable... just viable. With steadfast persistence and/or clever tactics, you should be able to find at least one path to the end game even if you can't necessarily succeed at all the side quests because of your particular build.

[Sacred_Path]

it's called choice and consequence.

If the consequences are the same, there is no choice. That's pretty basic.

[Lephys]

Sacred... I have no idea what you're getting at.

 

You seem to be suggesting that having two different defenses that react differently to two different damage types is arbitrary, and sparks an arbitrary balancing of those damage types?

 

Let's take out the "redundant, arbitrary" split defenses, shall we? Let's just go with two, with the physical-versus-magic damage you used in example. So, what, Psyche and Deflection?

 

Okay, so, let's say now there's just "Defense." Because, why do we need two different ones? Awesome. Now let's see how not overly simplified the system is. What happens when you run into that room full of melee brutes/archers (physical combatants)? They do some number of damage to you, and have whatever accuracy, and your Defense acts accordingly. Now, instead, what if you were to go into that room full of spellcasters who blast the crap out of you? Well, let's see... your Defense acts the exact same way. So now... why is there magic damage, and physical damage? Why isn't there just "Damage"?

 

Obviously, you could just keep running with that line of thought and end up with no different attacks. No magic versus physical... just "attacks," and that's it. Everyone uses the same weapon and everything.

 

My point being that, variety is what makes things interesting. Sure, you can introduce variety, and then negate it. But, that doesn't happen just because there are multiple attack types and multiple defenses in the game. And it doesn't happen when you make both defenses viable, either. ONLY if you made both Deflection AND Psyche equally effective in all the same situations would it be problematic and insignificant. So long as high Deflection and low Psyche means something different for the player's circumstances in a physical fight than it does in a magic one, the defense types and attack types are not redundant, and are serving their purpose.

 

It doesn't matter if EXACTLY 50% of the encounters allow for Psyche advantages, and 50% allow for Deflection advantages. Why? Because it's a different set of encounters for each thing. You said it yourself: If something's inferior overall, then there's a problem. Why would you have two separate defenses, then have 90% of the game only give a crap about one, and 10% of the game give a crap about the other? Defense is a part of combat, and combat's a part of the majority of the game. So, why shouldn't you split the importance of the defenses evenly, and allow for different circumstances to decide the significance? Half the game's going to laugh at your 7,000 Deflection rating, and stab you in the 5 Psyche, and the other half of the game's going to curse your blasted 7,000 Deflection rating, and wish it could stab you in the 5 Psyche.

 

And that's only just ONE factor. There's much more, obviously, to beating a given encounter than "I have good defense against the attackers here." AND you've got 6 different people, who probably all won't have the exact same defense ratings, no matter what you do.

 

So, I see exactly what you're getting at. But, to be honest, it seems like you're only looking at it in isolation. You're finding a problem without the rest of the picture in place.

 

 

If the consequences are the same, there is no choice. That's pretty basic.

True, but making the consequences of both overcomable in some way does not mean they're equal.

 

If the game offered you a choice between a sword or a fish as your weapon, would THAT be a choice? The fish does 1 damage and falls apart once it strikes something. The sword is actually viable because it lets you damage enemies and forcefully stop them from killing you. So, no, the game offers you multiple VIABLE options: a sword, an axe, a dagger, etc. They're all going to get you through the game, if you use them properly. They're not all going to get you through the game if you just charge at everything you see with all 6 party members, equipped with random weapons, and auto-attack everything to death.

 

Viability is about potential, not inherent effectiveness. A choice is viable because it CAN be plenty useful, under the right circumstances, and in combination with the right other choices. Not because it just does the same thing as something else, without any player input or cleverness applied.

Edited October 25, 2013 by Lephys

[Sacred_Path]

Sacred... I have no idea what you're getting at.

 

You seem to be suggesting that having two different defenses that react differently to two different damage types is arbitrary, and sparks an arbitrary balancing of those damage types?

 

Let's take out the "redundant, arbitrary" split defenses, shall we? Let's just go with two, with the physical-versus-magic damage you used in example. So, what, Psyche and Deflection?

 

Okay, so, let's say now there's just "Defense." Because, why do we need two different ones? Awesome. Now let's see how not overly simplified the system is. What happens when you run into that room full of melee brutes/archers (physical combatants)? They do some number of damage to you, and have whatever accuracy, and your Defense acts accordingly. Now, instead, what if you were to go into that room full of spellcasters who blast the crap out of you? Well, let's see... your Defense acts the exact same way. So now... why is there magic damage, and physical damage? Why isn't there just "Damage"?

 

Obviously, you could just keep running with that line of thought and end up with no different attacks. No magic versus physical... just "attacks," and that's it. Everyone uses the same weapon and everything.

 

My point being that, variety is what makes things interesting. Sure, you can introduce variety, and then negate it. But, that doesn't happen just because there are multiple attack types and multiple defenses in the game. And it doesn't happen when you make both defenses viable, either. ONLY if you made both Deflection AND Psyche equally effective in all the same situations would it be problematic and insignificant. So long as high Deflection and low Psyche means something different for the player's circumstances in a physical fight than it does in a magic one, the defense types and attack types are not redundant, and are serving their purpose.

 

It doesn't matter if EXACTLY 50% of the encounters allow for Psyche advantages, and 50% allow for Deflection advantages. Why? Because it's a different set of encounters for each thing. You said it yourself: If something's inferior overall, then there's a problem. Why would you have two separate defenses, then have 90% of the game only give a crap about one, and 10% of the game give a crap about the other? Defense is a part of combat, and combat's a part of the majority of the game. So, why shouldn't you split the importance of the defenses evenly, and allow for different circumstances to decide the significance? Half the game's going to laugh at your 7,000 Deflection rating, and stab you in the 5 Psyche, and the other half of the game's going to curse your blasted 7,000 Deflection rating, and wish it could stab you in the 5 Psyche.

 

And that's only just ONE factor. There's much more, obviously, to beating a given encounter than "I have good defense against the attackers here." AND you've got 6 different people, who probably all won't have the exact same defense ratings, no matter what you do.

 

So, I see exactly what you're getting at. But, to be honest, it seems like you're only looking at it in isolation. You're finding a problem without the rest of the picture in place.

I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you missed the obvious alternative (that all defenses aren't equal) in favor of the improbable/ impractical/ derpy one (that there should be only one defense).

 

Deflection and psyche are bound to be less problematic IMO because psyche, in all probability, will protect you from hard-to-quantify things like status effects.

 

If the game offered you a choice between a sword or a fish as your weapon, would THAT be a choice? The fish does 1 damage and falls apart once it strikes something. The sword is actually viable because it lets you damage enemies and forcefully stop them from killing you. So, no, the game offers you multiple VIABLE options: a sword, an axe, a dagger, etc. They're all going to get you through the game, if you use them properly.

In relation to my example, it's more like all weapons do the exact same damage. Maybe half of them target stamina and the other half target health, but you're gone all the same if one of these hits zero and they both replenish in the same fashion and with the same speed (for my example).

Edited October 25, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[Bli1942]

 

Don't like that the huge dungeon was such a big thing that'll obviously take some good development time. The only thing I hate about these isometric RPG's is having to troll through even a 2 level dungeon/cave of some sort, the combat is just filler to level up all I care about is the story and getting what I need from the dungeon.

Of course story is paramount. It's also not mutually exclusive to dungeons. The trick to making a dungeon memorable is to give it a good story. A story that ends up being just as compelling as the combat itself. And when they pull that off, there's nothing better in all of gaming. Often times though, developers fail. Even the dungeons in the IE games were hit-and-miss in that regard.

 

But.... Durlag's Tower, for example. That was one of the times that they hit it out of the park! It dripped with story and combat. To the point where I was more interested in it than I was for the main game's plot. That's what I want from PE's Mega Dungeon.

 

 

Yeah hopefully they nail it. As far as isometric RPG's go or even any RPG's in general, there are far more boring long dungeons than there are good ones so I guess we'll see

[decado]

 

What is the purpose of this thread?  The goddamn game isn't even out yet.

From post #1:

 

So, we know quite a lot of stuff about Project Eternity so far and I guess most of us are equally psyched to delve into Dyrwood.

 

What I'm interested though is: what are the things you've learned about PE up until now that didn't please you or that you did not like at all? Is there anything you wish to be different?

 

I think it'd be interesting to see some critical thinking and maybe we can give the devs a bit of constructive input.

 

 

I doubt very much that a thread on the forum entitled "Things that are bad . . ." is going to change a single thing about the game at this point.  The last thing that got changed was the crafting system, which was (from what I remember) still in the decision-making phase development wise anyways.  

 

I'm not trying to be a downer or anything but talking about aspects of a game that are "bad" before you even see any gameplay (let alone seen the beta, or played a demo, or played the game) is pointless, IMO.  Not only do you not know it is "bad" (how could you know, unless you play it?) you don't even know if you completely understand the thing you think is bad.  For example, how many posts have been made on the attribute system, and how many people are still confused about how it works?  The only sure-fire way to know if you will like something is to have enough information to make an informed decision.  We clearly don't have enough information.

Edited October 26, 2013 by decado

[PrimeJunta]

There won't be a pony. That's definitely bad.

Edited October 26, 2013 by PrimeJunta

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

There won't be a pony. That's definitely bad.

Then **** PE.

[Sarex]

I doubt very much that a thread on the forum entitled "Things that are bad . . ." is going to change a single thing about the game at this point.  The last thing that got changed was the crafting system, which was (from what I remember) still in the decision-making phase development wise anyways.  

 

I'm not trying to be a downer or anything but talking about aspects of a game that are "bad" before you even see any gameplay (let alone seen the beta, or played a demo, or played the game) is pointless, IMO.  Not only do you not know it is "bad" (how could you know, unless you play it?) you don't even know if you completely understand the thing you think is bad.  For example, how many posts have been made on the attribute system, and how many people are still confused about how it works?  The only sure-fire way to know if you will like something is to have enough information to make an informed decision.  We clearly don't have enough information.

 

Then what, pray tell, is the point of this forum, or at least this section of the forum? Also what are you doing in this thread? Why are you not in the "What part of P:E has you the most exited about it's release" telling the same things? This is a forum, people discuss things on a forum, that is what it's for. We don't know if the good things will be good, or the bad things will be bad until we play the game, but guess what, we sure as hell can guess.

 

To be honest you are just coming across as a kid yelling, hey everyone look at me.

[FacelessOne]

I really like majority of information given by devs and I think that we must wait for the first game-play video from PE. What concerns me is GUI and spells system, but there is no solid info about them...

[LadyCrimson]

There won't be a pony. That's definitely bad.

But will there be lolcats? That's almost as important as a pony.

 

 

 

....I don't think I've heard anything about P.E. to this date that severely disappoints me or anything. There's a few mechanics-stuff that makes me go "hmm, that's different", but mostly because I can't try it out yet.  Maybe it's not as different as it sounds on paper, if you know what I mean. Lots of things in life have made me go "hmm" and then turn out to by my new favorite thing.

[JFSOCC]

 

it's called choice and consequence.

If the consequences are the same, there is no choice. That's pretty basic.

 

choice should be more along the lines of "If I intimidate them, there might be less of them the next time I face them, but there will be more traps because they'll have to compensate for the gaps in their defences.

 

So it doesn't decrease the challenge, but changes it to fit your playstyle. If you prefer to deal with traps to combat, this is the better choice.