Content Stretch Goals

[Archaven]

I'd like to see a very reactive villain as the stretch goal, who plays into the narrative of your companions and has significant reactivity to choices, and also appears throughout the game-

 

Jon irenicus and bohdi are good villains because they are more active throughout the story than most any newer rpg villain, the same way Darth Vader, the sheriff of Nottingham, and similar characters in various media are.

 

Thaos was interesting, but we rarely interacted with him, and thus he was never the vehicle by which we saw the progression of our party.

 

I'd like a henchmen we actively work against, meet and fight multiple times, and perhaps get a chance to sway later in the game

 

Edit-- eders brother, were he to be alive still, would work perfectly in this role

 

Having a companion which actually a villain? That's an awesome idea... why not spice things up like.. it's also an potential romance and you hooked up you got involved in betrayal and such. It's gonna drive folks mad.. but well at least it make a dent in your heart and memorable right?

[Piero]

Multi-classes abilities yay

Edited February 8, 2017 by Piero

[Gairnulf]

This is a bit of a crazy idea and too late to implement, but here it goes:

 

How to combat rest-spamming, proposition:

Implement a formula to calculate abstract "party power", hidden from the player. It can take into account party health, number of injuries, amount of available not yet used up per-rest abilities, other factors can be brought up. If the party wants to rest and its abilities are not sufficiently exhausted, penalize them - maybe take away some XP, maybe add some random malus. How does it sound to you?

[Lord_Mord]

 

Implement a formula to calculate abstract "party power", hidden from the player. It can take into account party health, number of injuries, amount of available not yet used up per-rest abilities, other factors can be brought up. If the party wants to rest and its abilities are not sufficiently exhausted, penalize them - maybe take away some XP, maybe add some random malus. How does it sound to you?

 

I like that. I dont like how that malus thing works, but the idea is definitely good. Yu could even have companion feedback, like that "Im tired I want to rest"-stuff, but the other way around. "Mom, I dont want to go to bed, I'm not tired"

[jones092201]

 

I'd like to see a very reactive villain as the stretch goal, who plays into the narrative of your companions and has significant reactivity to choices, and also appears throughout the game-

 

Jon irenicus and bohdi are good villains because they are more active throughout the story than most any newer rpg villain, the same way Darth Vader, the sheriff of Nottingham, and similar characters in various media are.

 

Thaos was interesting, but we rarely interacted with him, and thus he was never the vehicle by which we saw the progression of our party.

 

I'd like a henchmen we actively work against, meet and fight multiple times, and perhaps get a chance to sway later in the game

 

Edit-- eders brother, were he to be alive still, would work perfectly in this role

I agree with everything, except I'm a little worried about the "henchman that we fight multiple times" thing. This works well in books and movies but is hard to pull off in video games. The problem is that books and movies can establish how dangerous such a villain is by letting him win against the protagonist. Protagonist rages against the villain who is much more powerful, the villain wins easily but then in his arrogance doesn't kill the protagonist outright but sends him to die a slow agonizing death in his pit of doom from which the protagonist escapes at the last minute which gives him the chance to grow stronger and come back later to defeat the villain. Cliche trope, I know, but it works.

 

It doesn't work so well in video games. The developers can either have it be a real (hard but fair) fight, in which case they have to pull a deus-ex-machina plot device at the end to let the villain win anyway (worst option, Mass Effect 3 did that with their stupid Space Ninja -- won't forgive them for that, it wasn't even a hard fight) or let him escape. In any case, this diminishes the villain because he's already (often quite easily by competent players) been beaten and taking agency away from the player at the end of such a fight by giving the villain plot armor always feels contrived and frustrating to me.

 

Or they can make the fight so hard it's basically unwinnable but at the end pull a deus-ex-machina in favor of the player. That's a better option because it at least establishes the villain as a real danger but it's frustrating as well and the plot device at the end is no less contrived in most cases. Also, as long as the fight is winnable at least in theory, no matter how hard it is, some players will come up with a strategy to pull it off, in which case you have the same problem as in option one.

 

Third option is to have the whole encounter scripted, which can be good for the narrative but runs counter to the whole idea of a game where the player is supposed to have agency.

 

I've honestly never seen a crpg where they pulled this off in a way that I found statisfactory. Even Baldur's Gate 2, that did it better than most, left me thinking after pretty much steamrolling Irenicus the first time in Spellhold, that the guy's really not all he's cracked up to be. Mods saved that for me later on by making that fight a lot harder so that I could at least find him credible.

 

I think the best you can do in video games is either having a succession of villains that give you the feeling of fighting your way up through the ranks of an organization, while having the real BBEG show up and disdainfully decline to fight you himself or, better yet, have the recurring villain be a mysterious schemer who you cross paths a few times but who's always a step ahead of you until you finally catch up with him.

 

 

good points, however-

I think a villain lieutenant (let's call him that instead of henchmen, because you're right, that has bad connotations) can work without over-reliance on the 'dues ex machina' plot device, and still function within the context of a crpg.

as you mention, the key point where the verisimilitude of the character can begin to feel forced or scripted is in encounters. What we don't want is the villain to feel like a final fantasy henchmen- (thinking VII and VIII had good ones, if I recall)

so here is how it might be done:

the first time you meet him (him being an arbitrary designation), you get the initial introduction, and he leaves you to his henchmen ( a little weak, but if the introduction and dialogue work, it can play)

the second time, maybe you meet him in a public place, and the fight is stopped by an authority figure (again, a little weak but this can play if the player is interested in the character and engaged)

the third time, you are hidden and you listen to him relay some plot points

the fourth is when you fight him and he absolutely crushes you. An unwinnable fight which comes right at that point when you're beginning to feel invincible as a party. A reminder that you still have a long way to go. This would then result in you being imprisoned, and having to escape. Some may not like this, but i can think some reasonable example of this: Dark Malak takes you in KOTOR, (the consequence being the turning of Bastila) Metal Gear Solid III (Excellent Game)- snake loses his eye.

the fifth time- is the final fight, where the sum of your interactions with the character will allow you to determine whether you have to kill the lieutenant or make some peace with him. IF the story has been engaging, and the villain is someone the player has garnered either sympathy or antipathy for, i think the pay of is there.

 

 

point being- i think active villains, who alter the game state in noticeable, reactive ways, are far more interesting than the being who is little more than a final boss you meet maybe two or three times through the game.

 

think for a moment if Eder's brother was the villain lieutenant. This would instantly boost Eder's reactivity, force some very difficult choices for both him and you, and allow a satisfying resolution to an open plot point . If, in contrast to Eothas's greater, divine goal, he was working to some end that ties in to the major sub plot (which i am assuming has something to do with colonization or resource monopoly being contested by Valian Trading Company, pirates, and whatever faction Rauatai give us), Pallegina would also have some stake in it, and you would have to navigate the competing desires of those two companions.

 

lastly, i like this idea because i think back to Darth Vader, who serves as a barometer for Luke Skywalker's growth throughout the original tribology. In IV, luke can only run from him. V, he can almost stand against him. VI, he has gained the expierence and strength not only to defeat his father, but turn him back from the darkside. This dynamic is only strengthened by the personal narrative between the two characters.

Something similar in POE 2, i think, is achievable and could only benefit the game. The forums have, since the reveal, stated almost unanimously their desire for  ​more reactive characters, who are more tightly bound to the plot. ​A good villain can serve to really achieve these goals.

apologies for the long post.

[Carados]

 

• Random encounters!
• More potential companions for the party roster.
• Naval warfare and even capturing enemy ships like true pirates! Arrrrr!
• Hireing crew for your ship (perhaps even former companions).
• Extra maps like dungeons, villages and wilderness areas is always welcomed.
• Gambling, drinking and all kinds of sideactivities.

 

 

Its nice to notice that almost all of those points have been fullfilled.

 

Encounters during sea voages?  check, although not random, but designed encounters.

Naval warfare and capturing enemy ships? check

Extra maps? check (uncharted islands)

More potential companions? check

Hiring ship crew? (check if we get 4,5 million and with slacker backers we likely will., so check)

 

Gambling, drinking and side activities? Didn't they say that they are going to have some side activities? And there is that fishing scretch goal, so...

 

ps. damn typos, been drinking here as well

Edited February 25, 2017 by Carados