Another interesting read in that long and lovely interview that PCWorld did with Adam and Josh in NOv 2013:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2071423/deep-dive-with-pillars-of-eternity-project-lead-josh-sawyer-the-full-interview.html?page=3

 

They discuss the reward system and the quest system, amongst other things, and here is a noteworthy excerpt:

"So there’s an optimal path—like Fallout: New Vegas, don’t head North right away.

JS: Yeah, to make things clear we are going to have stuff, like, “Hey, this looks like a really horrible cave.” Maybe you don’t go in there, or you’re super cool, you’re a really cool dude, and you go in there and you win and you get a special prize. We’re not going to scale that stuff, and we’re specifically going to put stuff near the crit-path that is potentially enticing and really dangerous with some warning so that you as a player will poke your head in and go, “Maaaaaybe.” We want people to see that stuff and be tempted by it and play the risk-reward game and feel proud if they make their way through it.

Or feel wise for waiting.

Do the rewards for those areas scale to level?

JS: No.

So if you go in early, you’ll get great loot. But if you go in later and slaughter everything, you’ll get a dumb reward you don’t need anyway?

JS: Yeah.

AB: For example, Od Nua—the Endless Paths of Od Nua is a fifteen level dungeon, it’s enormous. What we’re doing with that is as you go down into the dungeon, each dungeon level outpaces how fast you could level by going through it, so you basically have to be really good to get through it all in one run or you have to exit the dungeon, go do some other things, and then come back.

Is there a way to teleport out?

JS: There’s ways."

 

This is interesting, so if you challenge yourself and pick those horrible non-optimal path caves pretty early on, you'll get useful loot, but if you are level 8 or 10 or 12 doing them, not so much.

I love such challenges!

Me too! That's like half the fun of the IE games and CRPGs overall. I can't wait!

If they can manage something as cool as the lower levels of the Death God's Vault in MotB I'll be happy. If they remember to put in all the pieces of the Death God's scythe, that is.

You need to catch up on your reading man. These are old articles

Heh! I'm getting there, one year at a time.

do you know where the Endless Paths is? Because I do.

More or less, yes. I won't spoil anything for anyone, but thanks to Josh knack for language and me knowing quite a bit about place names, you can deduct the location just by having the PoE map in front of you. Also, I know where it is in relation to the beta.

Edited September 30, 201411 yr by IndiraLightfoot

Is there a way to teleport out?

JS: There’s ways."

WooHoo!

After reading the Fallout comic and getting Chance's Knife early on in my recent playthrough of New Vegas, I felt enormously satisfied to survive the Cazador's and such, glad this is not scaled. I must admit that Victor was my saviour on that little scouting trip however.

Super excited about this. Non-scaling loot in highly dangerous areas off of the critical path... Feel that juicy old-school cRPG goodness. :D

That will be fun indeed.

I still want XP for combat.

Maybe they can make a loot item called "combat." Then, you could collect it, and turn it in to someone for an XP reward.

Maybe they can make a loot item called "combat." Then, you could collect it, and turn it in to someone for an XP reward.

 

I hope I can stop laughing before I die.