The 'Sidian Tyranny thread

[Nonek]

I agree the IE games and most others have implemented this middling to poorly, however the response to utterly remove a feature that's difficult to implement is tiresome and wrongheaded, implement it better, improve it. We have had twenty plus years of games streamlining, stripping features and content, and this is just another step on that road, with the usual cheering on of this dumbing down. Eventually games will simply play themselves like the Dungeon Siege if we continue removing features.

 

Asking for more and better should be an intuitive reaction of any consumer, whereas this dumbing down and simply not bothering should be reviled.

 

Edit: Hopefully there will be magical resistance, as that can serve as an interesting feature. Though personally as a GM i'd rule evoking a Fireball, which explodes producing heat and combustion, to be a purely physical/elemental force and not subject to magical resistance. I'd use that against Magic Missiles, Walls of Force etcetera.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Nonek

[Bartimaeus]

Again, I agree with you...in theory. When I actually know the reason for "dumbing it down"...which is so the AI can actually use the same tools that I'm given as a player, making the game more difficult and fair...and when I know that it's danged near impossible to implement it in a way that will serve the gameplay (i.e. making human-like decisions, which is really what it comes down to when dealing with such an incredibly messy AoE spell like Fireball in a BG-like game), I unfortunately have to side with the developers. It is better than the even more idiotic decision to treat the player and the AI differently by creating an AI-only version of the spell that doesn't affect their friendlies while forcing the player to use a version of the spell that does, which is what many other developers would do (and what many have done in similar situations) to shortcut (i.e. cheat) their AI being able to do what the player can do. I want better, but even though it's been over 15 years since BG released, AI is still just not where it needs to be for that to be realistic. As such, I can perfectly understand why this is what we're getting.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Nonek]

I agree that there should have been some improvement in the fifteen years since BG, not to mention all of the features which were dumbed down and missing from the IE games themselves from the previous generation.

 

Blanket removal of a system rather than making it work is not an improvement however, and should be highlighted as regressive. There's been decades of this streamlining, excused and championed, while the press harps on about innovation, time that there was an attempt to actually innovate and improve rather than accept more of the same degeneration.

 

Edit: As far as making the game more difficult, well i'd like to see it but I don't hold out any hope, I expect i'll kill hundreds if not thousands without even taking a single scar or suffering any form of attrition. RPG or homicidal Superhero simulator as per usual.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Nonek

[Bartimaeus]

No, it's not an improvement...it's a "let's-just-side-step-the-issue" tactic at absolute best. I can sympathize with the developers, particularly for a smaller project/team like Pillars of Eternity/Tyranny, but it's certainly nothing to look forward to/admire in of itself.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Nonek]

I'm probably far too passionate about this, it's becoming my hobby horse. However i've no wish to spoil the game for anyone so i'll take a little time off from the thread, Tyranny is hardly the worst culprit.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I agree the IE games and most others have implemented this middling to poorly, however the response to utterly remove a feature that's difficult to implement is tiresome and wrongheaded, implement it better, improve it. We have had twenty plus years of games streamlining, stripping features and content, and this is just another step on that road, with the usual cheering on of this dumbing down. Eventually games will simply play themselves like the Dungeon Siege if we continue removing features.

 

Asking for more and better should be an intuitive reaction of any consumer, whereas this dumbing down and simply not bothering should be reviled.

 

 

You don't seem to be comprehending the concept of opportunity costs. Sure, the developers could spend X amount of resources on balancing the game around the concept of friendly fire, or they could spend the same amount of resources on stuff that actually matters. Pillars had friendly fire; I never once found myself in a position where that feature meaningfully affected my tactical decision-making.

[Nonek]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

[Zoraptor]

 

I agree the IE games and most others have implemented this middling to poorly, however the response to utterly remove a feature that's difficult to implement is tiresome and wrongheaded, implement it better, improve it. We have had twenty plus years of games streamlining, stripping features and content, and this is just another step on that road, with the usual cheering on of this dumbing down. Eventually games will simply play themselves like the Dungeon Siege if we continue removing features.

 

Asking for more and better should be an intuitive reaction of any consumer, whereas this dumbing down and simply not bothering should be reviled.

 

 

You don't seem to be comprehending the concept of opportunity costs. Sure, the developers could spend X amount of resources on balancing the game around the concept of friendly fire, or they could spend the same amount of resources on stuff that actually matters. Pillars had friendly fire; I never once found myself in a position where that feature meaningfully affected my tactical decision-making.

 

 

Balancing is balancing. There's no more opportunity cost to balancing for friendly fire than there is for balancing without friendly fire. The opportunity cost only comes if they change their mind half way through or have it toggleable and want to balance for both.

 

(Friendly fire systems tend do to be intrinsically more complicated because they have that added 'strategic' layer- do I use 2nd level ff area spell web, or 3rd level single target spell hold person; in a non ff system the dev probably cuts one or the other, deciding web with no ff is too powerful or you'd just use it and not ever use hold person- but it's only a tendency and that is part of the overall design decision as to whether to go for the obscure depth and opaque complexity or facileness accessibility and stupidity proof simplicity. For a simple example, if you turned friendly fire on/off in a non RPG like STALKER there would be gameplay differences- you'd be 'locked' to a faction- but the actual combat mechanics and balancing would be identical. You just wouldn't be able to damage your occasional companions or fellow faction members.)

[Infinitron]

Man you guys are overthinking this. This is just a more casual game

[Ganrich]

Man you guys are overthinking this. This is just a more casual game

Yup. As much as I am a fan of friendly fire... It isn't going to change. As long as PoE2 doesn't go that way I will be fine. The IE games had different focuses, and I think the same is fine in this case. If they are going to continue building on the PoE tools with multiple titles then it's fine if each franchise gets its differentiation. Just don't slip back these changes into an IP that already has its magic system set up.

[HoonDing]

People who are expecting anything other than casual from an Obsidian game are deluding themselves.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

I agree the IE games and most others have implemented this middling to poorly, however the response to utterly remove a feature that's difficult to implement is tiresome and wrongheaded, implement it better, improve it. We have had twenty plus years of games streamlining, stripping features and content, and this is just another step on that road, with the usual cheering on of this dumbing down. Eventually games will simply play themselves like the Dungeon Siege if we continue removing features.

 

Asking for more and better should be an intuitive reaction of any consumer, whereas this dumbing down and simply not bothering should be reviled.

 

 

You don't seem to be comprehending the concept of opportunity costs. Sure, the developers could spend X amount of resources on balancing the game around the concept of friendly fire, or they could spend the same amount of resources on stuff that actually matters. Pillars had friendly fire; I never once found myself in a position where that feature meaningfully affected my tactical decision-making.

 

 

Balancing is balancing. There's no more opportunity cost to balancing for friendly fire than there is for balancing without friendly fire. 

 

 

There is an opportunity cost to writing AI that doesn't suck arse at using AoE spells with FF, however.

[Zoraptor]

Given examples like NWN2's hideously suicidal/ homicidal default AI I'd agree with that, at least for a pre-existing/ converted system like D&D. Then again, default no ff NWN2 was also poorly balanced since you'd just load Qara (or Sand/ PC, but mostly Qara) up with Fireball/ similar and could nuke everything, while other characters were plink-plinking with their melee or ranged weapons.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Zoraptor

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, that's why it probably makes more sense to design a game around assuming friendly fire is either always on or always off, not either/or.

[Fenixp]

Another one bites the dust

Not really, friendly fire was implemented/ignored in RPGs according to whatever worked for that particular game since the inception of the genre. I'm more worried about Obsidian dropping 6 member parties and Josh Sawyer mentioning on several occasions that combat in Pillars of Eternity was confusing due to the party size, which quite frankly seems ridiculous to me.

[Labadal]

 

 

No Friendly fire makes combat a little more mindless, imo.

 

With it on, you have to actually consider the positioning of your characters.

Fixed that for you.

Haha. Yes that's a good fix.

[Hurlshort]

 

Another one bites the dust

Not really, friendly fire was implemented/ignored in RPGs according to whatever worked for that particular game since the inception of the genre. I'm more worried about Obsidian dropping 6 member parties and Josh Sawyer mentioning on several occasions that combat in Pillars of Eternity was confusing due to the party size, which quite frankly seems ridiculous to me.

 

 

Honestly I thought it was a mess in PoE.  There were so many abilities and spells scattered across so many characters that I gave up micromanaging early on.  I'd prefer smaller parties.  In D&D I don't remember having so many abilities for melee and ranged folks, meaning I could just micromanage the magic ones.

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamesn.com/tyranny/tyranny-spell-creation-artifact-weapons

 

[Infinitron]

RPGWatch preview: http://www.rpgwatch.com/articles/tyranny-preview-382.html

[WorstUsernameEver]

Sawyer isn't working on Tyranny and he hasn't mentioned reducing party size as part of the plans for a sequel. I don't think the PoE IP will go in that direction, regardless of his personal feelings.

 

Personally, I do enjoy a 6-man party quite a lot, though I can see where they are going when they talk about chaos on the battlefield. I personally imagine a slower combat pace, more robust modular AI, and a cleaner interface and spell effects (the latter was already introduced in Tyranny) should be enough to solve the original game's problems in that sense.

[Bartimaeus]

 

 

Another one bites the dust

Not really, friendly fire was implemented/ignored in RPGs according to whatever worked for that particular game since the inception of the genre. I'm more worried about Obsidian dropping 6 member parties and Josh Sawyer mentioning on several occasions that combat in Pillars of Eternity was confusing due to the party size, which quite frankly seems ridiculous to me.

 

 

Honestly I thought it was a mess in PoE.  There were so many abilities and spells scattered across so many characters that I gave up micromanaging early on.  I'd prefer smaller parties.  In D&D I don't remember having so many abilities for melee and ranged folks, meaning I could just micromanage the magic ones.

 

 

That was certainly true for Baldur's Gate: for the low to mid levels, fighter-type characters had remarkably few abilities. In regards to party sizes, I've always played the BG series with only 5 characters, which I feel is the optimal amount in a number of ways...particularly seeing as most quest and all creature kill XP is split across your characters...so you gain XP 20% faster with only 5 party members...but then again, I also use a mod that reduces all quest and creature kill XP to only 50% of its original values, so I don't feel like I'm cheating by doing all of the optional side content that gives you oodles of XP and makes you overleveled. From what I could see, even in BG1 + TotsC, the game gives you roughly 1.5 million total XP over all the content (with maybe as much as 100-150K more than that that I am not counting), which split over 6 characters is 250k...or about 90k over the normal XP cap.

 

Did Pillars of Eternity split XP on a number of characters basis? I can't recall.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Infinitron]

It didn't split it (so a solo character wouldn't get 6x as much experience) but you did get progressively more experience the smaller your party was.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Infinitron

[Bartimaeus]

What was the mechanism for that, do you know?

[Orogun01]

Sawyer isn't working on Tyranny and he hasn't mentioned reducing party size as part of the plans for a sequel. I don't think the PoE IP will go in that direction, regardless of his personal feelings.

 

Personally, I do enjoy a 6-man party quite a lot, though I can see where they are going when they talk about chaos on the battlefield. I personally imagine a slower combat pace, more robust modular AI, and a cleaner interface and spell effects (the latter was already introduced in Tyranny) should be enough to solve the original game's problems in that sense.

Or just copy the gambit system from FFXII, DA:O did and that worked out great. There is no reason to constantly micromanage the party for what should be self evident moves.

[Humanoid]

What was the mechanism for that, do you know?

 

10% more XP for each "missing" party member I believe. So instead of 6 people getting 1000XP each, you have one person getting 1500XP. Appreciate the thought, but under my brief experience with trying it, it was decidedly Not Viable.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Humanoid