Update #70: New Year Project Update

[mstark]

 

By the way, have you changed the way fonts are handled, or are they still bitmap fonts? The new text looks fantastic (asked about this on page 1 ).

 

To be clear, that stat page is a mock-up and the text is still from PhotoShop.  That said, the in-game text is much better looking because Brian found much better settings for it.  There are still bugs to work out, but it's looking better in-game.

 

Ah, thanks for clarification. I'm hoping the in-engine result will end up as good as the Photoshop mock-up; it makes all the difference if the game both feels and looks like reading a well typeset book.

[Ineth]

Best. cRPG character sheet. Ever.

 

And what we see in the screenshot is not even the "Detailed Stats" tab, just "Basic Stats"!!!

[charms]

I want to become a rascal.

[rjshae]

I'm going to take a wild guess that The Devil of Caroc is the name of the PC's pet...

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

Wizard with high Might (Strength) and Dexterity: His fireballs will disintegrate enemies as they deal exceptional damage and are very accurate.

He will also be good at walking on suspended ropes and moving large rocks.

 

Wizard with high Intellect and Perception: "Hey look, I have huuge fireballs (sadly I need a few of them to kill a rat), but I *am* able to interrupt the rat's attack pretty often!"

 

Please look at the character sheet in this update.  The listed character has a 13 Might, granting +26% to Damage.  Let's assume you're Pro Mighty and have an 18 Might.  That's +36%.  Or you're an Ordinary Joe with a 10 Might, which is +20%.  Let's say a normal Fireball does 5-30 damage.  Pro Mighty does 6.8-40.8.  Ordinary Joe does 6-36.  Ordinary Joe does not need multiple fireballs to kill a rat because his average damage is 21 vs. 23.8.

 

Of course, these aren't the final values for the attribute modifiers, but proportion of advantage is important.

[Lephys]

Resolve is used in situations where the character's intensity, presence, or believability are the deciding factors.  E.g., mental intimidation, inspirational leadership, a well-acted lie.  Intellect is used for convincing people through logic, either persuasion or obfuscation.  You could use Intellect to make a compelling case for something or you could use it to present a plausible (but made-up) scenario to explain yourself out of trouble.  Strength is used for outright physical bullying and intimidation.  E.g. picking people up, smashing things, imposing yourself, etc.

A) This is great. *thumbs up*

 

B) This presents an excellent example to clarify to those folk who think the physical/magical distinction doesn't matter at all (I just want to re-iterate that I'm not trying to bash the system, and I realize that it's a lot simpler the way it is in terms of balancing and mechanic/system coding, etc., and I'm not trying to say "THAT DOESN'T MATTER, FIX THIS ANYWAY!" -- I only want to make my minor concern clear and understood, as some seem to not understand it, exactly)

 

Wouldn't the game suffer if, instead of those various methods above, you simply had a Persuade skill that represented all three of them? Put some points into Persuade? You're now:

 

1) Better able to intimidate people with physical bullying,

2) Better able to appeal to people's interest in reason and logic

3) Better able to intangibly compel people to believe you due to the sheer conviction of your presence and words.

 

That would be worse than having Might affect physical things, which someone might happen to be intimidated by, having Resolve affect people's compulsion to believe/trust you, and having Intellect affect your ability to use reason and logic, which certain people might be quite concerned with.

 

With Might, what if you, as a Wizard, try to intimidate another Wizard, and he knows the workings of all your spells and has immense magic defense or something, and thusly isn't really worried about magical attacks to his person? OR, what if you try to use a big, burly Fighter to intimidate a bigger, burlier Fighter? He's probably not that worried about you taking him down, but someone who just manifests fire in his hand (a Wizard) or lifts him up into the air without even touching him would probably be pretty scary.

 

With everything jumbled up into Might, those two distinct scenarios don't even exist, because everyone's just either Mighty or they aren't. If you're mighty, you're scary. If you're not Mighty, you're not scary.

 

Going even further, it's a bit like anything else in the game with distinct, contributing factors. Race. What if someone HATES godlike, AND Orlans, and you're a godlike Orlan? Wouldn't you want a system that represents that, as opposed to just shrugging and saying "You've got decent Resolve, so this person trusts you just as well as they'd trust anyone else who WASN'T a godlike Orlan, u_u"? Reputation. Well, this faction isn't very fond of you, BUT, this individual within this faction happens to be smitten with witty folk, and you're quite witty, so you get the combination result of their faction rep + their liking of your wittiness.

 

So, I just don't see how Might offering absolutely no distinction between burliness and magic is somehow completely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

 

Again (because people don't seem to see this when I say it), I don't think it's the biggest problem ever, or that the entire character system is screwed up because of it, but I simply think that, ideally, there'd be a distinction, and the game would benefit a bit from that distinction.

 

All that being said...

 

@Josh, if I might ask, is there a plan for such non-combat-damage-related situations and interactions in relation to Might? Is it just going to be a Might-check no matter the circumstances (ignoring the specifics of anything being physical or magical, or affected by that distinction at all) for things such as Intimidate, or moving heavy debris, or throwing something really far, etc.? I'm okay with the system as is, if that's how it's got to be, but I'm just curious how that will be handled, is all.

[Valorian]

 

Wizard with high Might (Strength) and Dexterity: His fireballs will disintegrate enemies as they deal exceptional damage and are very accurate.

He will also be good at walking on suspended ropes and moving large rocks.

 

Wizard with high Intellect and Perception: "Hey look, I have huuge fireballs (sadly I need a few of them to kill a rat), but I *am* able to interrupt the rat's attack pretty often!"

 

Please look at the character sheet in this update.  The listed character has a 13 Might, granting +26% to Damage.  Let's assume you're Pro Mighty and have an 18 Might.  That's +36%.  Or you're an Ordinary Joe with a 10 Might, which is +20%.  Let's say a normal Fireball does 5-30 damage.  Pro Mighty does 6.8-40.8.  Ordinary Joe does 6-36.  Ordinary Joe does not need multiple fireballs to kill a rat because his average damage is 21 vs. 23.8.

 

Of course, these aren't the final values for the attribute modifiers, but proportion of advantage is important.

 

 

Well yeah, your example shows that an 8 point differece in the attribute doesn't really have a relevant impact on damage, which isn't exactly a positive thing.

 

Proportion surely matters, but there are probably single target damage spells.. and there are certainly encouters where you fight a single enemy.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Valorian

[Elithranduil]

No mention of additional funding stretch goals. Would I be correct to assume they are off the table now?

[Tauron]

While you guys enter world of retoric and semantics about diff char stats, and how might this affect that, becouse why is what, or vice versa... I was wondering if we will have opportunity to reset our stats? If not completly reset, but be able to go back in time and change them around somewhat or sacrifice some for the other?

[DCParry]

 

 

One of the advantages of having different attributes governing physical and magical accuracy/damage, apart from important RP reasons, is to be able to fine-tune balance between physical and magical attacks.

 

If all damage is affected by Might and all accuracy by Dexterity, you can't adjust attribute-enhancing spells/talents/items with specifically physical or magical damage/accuracy in mind.

 

As a designer, why would I want to?  If someone wants to play a traditional wizard, they'll bump Int and have big AoEs and long effect durations, which is cool and beneficial.  If someone wants to make a muscle wizard, they can bump Might.  If they don't like the idea of having a high Might wizard, there are five other stats for them to bump for their benefit.

 

Tuning is easier when there are fewer/less diverse input sources.  If Might is the attribute that affects damage for everyone, it's much easier for me to calculate how that feeds into the system than if every arbitrary type of attack/damage has its own attribute that affects it.

 

 

I don't know.. I suppose there are several reasons.

 

Wizard with high Might (Strength) and Dexterity: His fireballs will disintegrate enemies as they deal exceptional damage and are very accurate.

He will also be good at walking on suspended ropes and moving large rocks.

 

Wizard with high Intellect and Perception: "Hey look, I have huuge fireballs (sadly I need a few of them to kill a rat), but I *am* able to interrupt the rat's attack pretty often!"

 

 

I'd prefer to have wizard #1, but I really don't need him to be alpha and omega for walking across suspended ropes and moving huge rocks, as well.

 

 

 

I don't know why would it be harder to calculate if magical attacks are affected by stat B and pysical by stat A. Two distinct types, not "every arbitrary type".

 

 

That is why you don't dump all your points into one stat. 

[mstark]

No mention of additional funding stretch goals. Would I be correct to assume they are off the table now?

They've said this is still being discussed internally, and that they have nothing to say/announce about it yet.

[HumanFlesh+5]

Am I the only one who can't cope with words like "Elardh Dwr", "Frermas mes Canc Suolias" or the name of the banshees? I wish I could, but whether my head nor my tongue knows how to handle these. Will there be something like a pronounciation guide in the collectors edition of the game?

[Ineth]

I was wondering if we will have opportunity to reset our stats? If not completly reset, but be able to go back in time and change them around somewhat or sacrifice some for the other?

 

In Icewind Dale 1, you would find a small number of potions throughout the game, which allowed you to permanently alter the stats of a party member.

 

A probably incomplete list:

 

  Potion of Action Transference:   -1 dexterity, +1 charisma

  Potion of Holy Transference:   -1 dexterity, +2 wisdom

  Potion of Strength Transference:   -1 strength, +1 dexterity

  Potion of Life Transference:   -1 constitution, +1 strength

 

A nice way to "correct" some stat allocations without starting a new game, especially for newbies who may have made bad choices during character creation.

[DCParry]

Am I the only one who can't cope with words like "Elardh Dwr", "Frermas mes Canc Suolias" or the name of the banshees? I wish I could, but whether my head nor my tongue knows how to handle these. Will there be something like a pronounciation guide in the collectors edition of the game?

 

Says the person who is a landsknecht!

 

I have a trick I tell my students to use when encountering archaic words in their readings that they think they can never pronounce and hence never remember, which seems like a good strategy for single player gaming environment. When you come across one of these words that blows your mind, just try to say it out loud. You may not even come close to pronouncing it correctly, but that is fine. Once you create an audible version of the word, you will remember the visual markers better. I know it may offend some of our "nerdy" sensibilities to say something incorrectly, but in the long run it will be more enjoyable as you won't be searching for the meaning of the term as much as you will have an easier time remembering it. 

 

As an aside, the name of the order of paladins reminds me of the name of a nice French I had the other week. 

 

 

mmmMMmmmmm..... Knights of Camembert......

[Ineth]

Am I the only one who can't cope with words like "Elardh Dwr", "Frermas mes Canc Suolias" or the name of the banshees? I wish I could, but whether my head nor my tongue knows how to handle these. Will there be something like a pronounciation guide in the collectors edition of the game?

 

Yeah, I hope that all important names will appear in voice-over at least once, as early as possible.

 

It would suck to find out half-way through the game, that I had the wrong pronounciation for a companion or important city in my mind the whole time.

[HumanFlesh+5]

 

Am I the only one who can't cope with words like "Elardh Dwr", "Frermas mes Canc Suolias" or the name of the banshees? I wish I could, but whether my head nor my tongue knows how to handle these. Will there be something like a pronounciation guide in the collectors edition of the game?

 

Says the person who is a landsknecht!

 

I have a trick I tell my students to use when encountering archaic words in their readings that they think they can never pronounce and hence never remember, which seems like a good strategy for single player gaming environment. When you come across one of these words that blows your mind, just try to say it out loud. You may not even come close to pronouncing it correctly, but that is fine. Once you create an audible version of the word, you will remember the visual markers better. I know it may offend some of our "nerdy" sensibilities to say something incorrectly, but in the long run it will be more enjoyable as you won't be searching for the meaning of the term as much as you will have an easier time remembering it. 

 

As an aside, the name of the order of paladins reminds me of the name of a nice French I had the other week. 

 

 

mmmMMmmmmm..... Knights of Camembert......

 

 

:D

 

That's why I didn't use Landsknecht as my nick .. ;-)

[Lephys]

I don't know that stat "correction" is really an issue, so long as you know up front what's affecting what. Especially with percentages and such. You can't really put points into Might at the beginning of the game, see "+30% damage" out next to it, then 20 hours later go "Wait, I've been building everything to support Accuracy and AOE radius this whole time! I didn't know my Might wasn't helping that! Where can I fix my stats, lest I be doomed to a certainly unavoidable... erm... doom?!"

 

Sure, you might get somewhere and think "Man, I could use a little bit more Accuracy... I figured 12 Dex would do it, but I'd really like to have a bit more crit chance, statistically." But then, that's where items and such come in. Nothing needs to allow you to simply alter your character's innate attributes halfway through the game, is all I'm saying. By the same token, nothing really needs to give you stat points via progression. A few isn't such a big deal, but "get up to 10 more stat points simply be becoming better!" has always been a little weird to me in games.

[Pipyui]

Fantastic update!  Love the new UI and the stat transparency!

 

This is a great update and all, but it does leave me with an important question.

 

What does Frermàs mes Canc Suolias mean? And how does one pronounce it?

 

It means "Brotherhood of the Five Suns".  It's Vailian and is pronounced frehr-MAHS mehs kahnk swoh-LEE-ahs.

 

Actually, forget Pilliars of Eternity - you should kickstarter "Prosodies of the World, with Josh Sawyer: The Video Game."

Edited January 15, 2014 by Pipyui

[ProjectBG2Respawn]

Last update was quite long time ago, and it seems now you are nearly at the end of your adventure. I mean, most of the ennemies are finished, maps, spells, interface, quests... and so on. So let me tell you what i think of what you've shown us.

 

The ruins are nice, remind me lord of the ring a little bit. What are the circles on the ground ? Some kind of magic, or religious rituals ? Or is it just art from the builders ?

 

The divinities are charismatics and the design is very mature, great inspiration.

 

Party formations ! Well i guess you were excited to test it. Lucky you !!!

 

The blue-female-ghost-bitch* is simple but effective (looks like to cause some status effect and heavy soul damages, correct me if i'm wrong).

 

(*i do not know if she was a harlot in its previous life but many of them have a death "particularly tragic or in traumatic circumstances")

[xsikal]

Looks really good, all! And I'm glad my KS donation finally showed up as linked on the backer site.

[Lron]

The environment looks amazing and the stat sheet looks even better than I could have hoped for. I really like the way the attributes are designed right now.

 

Like others above me have said, I don't really see the problem with lumping magical damage and physical damage into the same stat in a setting where a characters soul powers his/her abilities. The attributes seem abstract enough that they don't describe a characters physical abilities, but her souls abilities.

 

 

Resolve is used in situations where the character's intensity, presence, or believability are the deciding factors.  E.g., mental intimidation, inspirational leadership, a well-acted lie.  Intellect is used for convincing people through logic, either persuasion or obfuscation.  You could use Intellect to make a compelling case for something or you could use it to present a plausible (but made-up) scenario to explain yourself out of trouble.  Strength is used for outright physical bullying and intimidation.  E.g. picking people up, smashing things, imposing yourself, etc.

A) This is great. *thumbs up*

B) This presents an excellent example to clarify to those folk who think the physical/magical distinction doesn't matter at all (I just want to re-iterate that I'm not trying to bash the system, and I realize that it's a lot simpler the way it is in terms of balancing and mechanic/system coding, etc., and I'm not trying to say "THAT DOESN'T MATTER, FIX THIS ANYWAY!" -- I only want to make my minor concern clear and understood, as some seem to not understand it, exactly)

Wouldn't the game suffer if, instead of those various methods above, you simply had a Persuade skill that represented all three of them? Put some points into Persuade? You're now:

1) Better able to intimidate people with physical bullying,
2) Better able to appeal to people's interest in reason and logic
3) Better able to intangibly compel people to believe you due to the sheer conviction of your presence and words.

That would be worse than having Might affect physical things, which someone might happen to be intimidated by, having Resolve affect people's compulsion to believe/trust you, and having Intellect affect your ability to use reason and logic, which certain people might be quite concerned with.

With Might, what if you, as a Wizard, try to intimidate another Wizard, and he knows the workings of all your spells and has immense magic defense or something, and thusly isn't really worried about magical attacks to his person? OR, what if you try to use a big, burly Fighter to intimidate a bigger, burlier Fighter? He's probably not that worried about you taking him down, but someone who just manifests fire in his hand (a Wizard) or lifts him up into the air without even touching him would probably be pretty scary.

With everything jumbled up into Might, those two distinct scenarios don't even exist, because everyone's just either Mighty or they aren't. If you're mighty, you're scary. If you're not Mighty, you're not scary.

Going even further, it's a bit like anything else in the game with distinct, contributing factors. Race. What if someone HATES godlike, AND Orlans, and you're a godlike Orlan? Wouldn't you want a system that represents that, as opposed to just shrugging and saying "You've got decent Resolve, so this person trusts you just as well as they'd trust anyone else who WASN'T a godlike Orlan, u_u"? Reputation. Well, this faction isn't very fond of you, BUT, this individual within this faction happens to be smitten with witty folk, and you're quite witty, so you get the combination result of their faction rep + their liking of your wittiness.

So, I just don't see how Might offering absolutely no distinction between burliness and magic is somehow completely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Again (because people don't seem to see this when I say it), I don't think it's the biggest problem ever, or that the entire character system is screwed up because of it, but I simply think that, ideally, there'd be a distinction, and the game would benefit a bit from that distinction.

All that being said...

@Josh, if I might ask, is there a plan for such non-combat-damage-related situations and interactions in relation to Might? Is it just going to be a Might-check no matter the circumstances (ignoring the specifics of anything being physical or magical, or affected by that distinction at all) for things such as Intimidate, or moving heavy debris, or throwing something really far, etc.? I'm okay with the system as is, if that's how it's got to be, but I'm just curious how that will be handled, is all.

 

 

I remember reading some quote from Sawyer saying that his focus is on making sure all attributes are viable options for all classes in combat. How the attributes are used in dialogue is more up to the writers. The examples you listed above don't describe a problem with the attribute system, but with the writers implementation of stat- and class-checks.

 

In your example with the Brute not being intimidated by a mighty warrior PC, but by a mighty wizard, what hinders the writers from checking both the class and Might-stat of the PC to determine if the Brute is intimidated by the PC? So a Warrior might attempt to lift the Brute with physical force and fail if his might is too low, while a wizards tries to pick up the brute with magic - with a lower might check - and fails if his/her might is too low.

 

And what hinders the writers from scripting in reaction modifiers so that the reaction from being a Orlan godlike with high resolve is negative, but not as negative as if s/he had low resolve?

 

If the writers forget to differentiate such checks between classes it's not the attribute systems fault, it's the writers or that most evil thing of all - lack of time and it wouldn't be different if magical and physical damage was influenced by different attributes.

 

And aren't you tired of always going for the same 2 or 3 stats when creating a specific class in the IE games?

[Zed]

fantastic update!

 

btw if kaz sees this:

a less rugged surface for the text box in the UI would give a more carved look while being a little easier on the eyes.

on the other hand, the rough surface gives a pirate chest sorta look and maybe that's what you're going for.

 

aggravating fan-who-thinks-he-knows-**** PS edit below :D

[Kaz]

^ I agree. For the final version I'll be reducing the noise and contrast on all textures that are drawn behind text. Thanks for the input.

[AGX-17]

[odindusk]

This is my first post.  This update #70 inspired me to stop lurking and to get on here to say that I'm really looking forward to this game.  Everything looks so beautiful and earthy and adventure-y.