Gameplay - Interaction Design Question

[cs2501x]

Is Pillars of Eternity's style of interaction more like Diablo or is more like the Ultima series?

 

There's a bit of depth to this question but the simplest comparison might be through mouse interaction: In Diablo if you click the mouse, your character automatically moves to said location or attacks. Additionally, there's limited world interactivity and more emphasis on fast progression through a storyline. In later Ultima games the left mouse button was used for interaction/"hands", and the right mouse button was used for movement/"feet". Additionally, many of the objects you see are movable, destructible, combinable, stackable, etc.

 

Thanks,

CS 

[MReed]

It seems likely that this game would follow the model of the Infinity Engine games, which would mean that a left click either moves, attacks, starts dialog with or interacts (pick up an item, open a door, open a chest) depending on what you click on.  Unusual actions (such as talking to a hostile enemy, attacking a door / chest, pick a lock, making a non-default attack [e.g. spell or ability]) would be handled via a left click on an action button (resulting in a cursor change), followed by a left click on the target.  Note, however, that nothing has been announced on this topic, as far as I know.

 

Altogether separate from the UI question is the "Are objects are movable / destructible / stack-able".  Again, no announcement on this topic, but I suspect that this won't be the case as many of the "objects" in the game won't exist as separate entities -- they will merely be painted props on the per-rendered 2D-background image.  While there will be some 3D objects in the game world (anything that can be picked up, for example), the fact that many items are not would seem to generally prohibit these types of interactions.  It would, for example, be very confusing to discover that crate A and crate B can be stacked on top of one another, but crate B and crate C cannot (because crate C is part of the per-rendered background).  This would also be consistent with the Infinity Engine games, although this were technical issues that existed in the IE games that don't apply any more (specifically, the IE games were pure 2D games, with no 3D elements).

[Ffordesoon]

MReed is likely correct. I expect a level of interaction density comparable to BG2, which is pretty much a midpoint between Diablo and Ultima.

[cs2501x]

Great responses, folks--thank you very much.

[Nonek]

Personally i'm hoping for a lot more text descriptions in the game than were present in most of the IE games, with the degeneration of games one can't expect the level of interaction that Ultima boasted, but this can be redressed by making a lot more features linked to textual descriptions. If said text descriptions also involve testing our skills in translating, lore, mythology or what have you then all the better.

[Lephys]

You know what I miss? The Fallout-style context cursors. I think you had Move, Talk, Use Item On, Inspect, etc. I think it was click-and-hold, in that game, to bring up a list of different interaction choices?

 

Not saying it has to be implemented exactly like that, but I LOVE that you didn't just right-click on a thing that, for some reason, obviously demanded inspection, and you just inspected it. And I'm not saying it necessarily happened (or at least to the depth it could have) in Fallout, but, such an ability sets up for things like gathering information from a deliberate focus on a person's visual appearance before actually speaking to them, or speaking to a hostile entity, etc.

 

*shrug*. I liked them a lot.

[JerseyP]

I also vote for more text descriptions. An example of this was the ability to examine khalid's corpse in Irenicus's dungeon. A little description pops up. It took me a minute to even remember what Nonek was talking about because it was used so infrequently.  I have no idea why this interaction was ignored so much in the first place. Seems like a great way to add depth to the game.

[Sheikh]

I think interaction would need to be more intuitive than the infinity engine games, but preferably also less obvious. What Lephis describes about fallout sounds good.