A few concerns and questions regarding the E3 video

[Chilledfish]

Hi, after watching the video, I've noticed a few things that I want to talk about:

1. Non-magical attacks (and maybe even some magical ones) don't seem to have a clear visible effect. The same thing was true for POE1; regardless of the damage, all hits appeared the same. In BG2 there was a screen shake for crits, and I'm sure that there are much better ways to show a solid hit, such as a stagger animation.

 

2. The titan looked like he could wipe the entire party with a single kick, yet he just stood there, occasionally attacking a party member with a very weak attack compared to what it seemed he could have done. The grab was cool, but then he just throws the guy on the ground for no apparent reason.

I'm sure that balance is the basis for all of this, but it just seemed wrong.

 

3. I didn't get how the inventory system and the health system work. Have they said anything about those? I've seen something about a change in the health system, but nothing concrete.

 

I'd love to know what you guys think about those things.  

 

[smjjames]

1 & 2: Given that it's still pre-alpha (as stated in the E3 vid), I assume that it's still a work in progress. The titan's death also seemed rather unspectactular to me, compared to the way it was described in the fig update that showed concept art of it.

 

3: What are you confused about with the inventory system? It's not all that different from PoE1, just more streamlined and tried to make it more accessable. For the health, the way I understand it is that instead of the short term endurance and long term health damage, there is the single metric which has health that recovers after combat. In place of the long term system is that over time and/or when you get KO'd, you get wounds, which are only removeable via rest. I don't think we (besides the devs that is) know the deeper details of how it all works yet.

[Chilledfish]

1 & 2: Given that it's still pre-alpha (as stated in the E3 vid), I assume that it's still a work in progress. The titan's death also seemed rather unspectactular to me, compared to the way it was described in the fig update that showed concept art of it.

 

3: What are you confused about with the inventory system? It's not all that different from PoE1, just more streamlined and tried to make it more accessable. For the health, the way I understand it is that instead of the short term endurance and long term health damage, there is the single metric which has health that recovers after combat. In place of the long term system is that over time and/or when you get KO'd, you get wounds, which are only removeable via rest. I don't think we (besides the devs that is) know the deeper details of how it all works yet.

My main worry about the damage animations (or lack thereof) was because that's how it was in PoE1. It's true that it's a very early buile, but I can't just assume that it is something they're going to work on.

 

So if that's how it's really going to be, the health will be exactly like in Dragon Age?  

 

What I didn't understand was about the personal inventories. In PoE1, you could everyone's inventory on one screen. Now it appears that it's not the case anymore. Will there be a way to quickly look for a specific item if you don't know who has it?

[smjjames]

I've never played Dragon Age, so, I can't compare it from personal experience.

 

For the inventory, I looked back at the E3 vid and I see what you mean. Nothing's been said or explained as far as that goes I believe, but you could put the question up on the thread for the Q&A twitch stream that's later today, http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/93020-deadfire-qa-twitch-stream-july-12th/ , or ask during the twitch stream.

[Chilledfish]

Thanks.

[Insidous]

In my opinion they should just get rid of personal inventories altogether. Just one big stash/shared inventory for all characters and no more searching where you put what

[rjshae]

In my opinion they should just get rid of personal inventories altogether. Just one big stash/shared inventory for all characters and no more searching where you put what

 

That would be too much abstraction for my taste. When you're in combat, you should have only limited access to any inventory.

[smjjames]

 

In my opinion they should just get rid of personal inventories altogether. Just one big stash/shared inventory for all characters and no more searching where you put what

 

That would be too much abstraction for my taste. When you're in combat, you should have only limited access to any inventory.

 

 

Pretty sure moving anything in/out of inventory or quick slots or worn items is locked while in combat. The question is about while out of combat.

[Wormerine]

In my opinion they should just get rid of personal inventories altogether. Just one big stash/shared inventory for all characters and no more searching where you put what

That is true. With unlimited stash, personal inventory doesn't have a function, maybe except easy to find items for later use for said character.

[Wormerine]

 

1 & 2: Given that it's still pre-alpha (as stated in the E3 vid), I assume that it's still a work in progress. The titan's death also seemed rather unspectactular to me, compared to the way it was described in the fig update that showed concept art of it.

 

3: What are you confused about with the inventory system? It's not all that different from PoE1, just more streamlined and tried to make it more accessable. For the health, the way I understand it is that instead of the short term endurance and long term health damage, there is the single metric which has health that recovers after combat. In place of the long term system is that over time and/or when you get KO'd, you get wounds, which are only removeable via rest. I don't think we (besides the devs that is) know the deeper details of how it all works yet.

 

My main worry about the damage animations (or lack thereof) was because that's how it was in PoE1. It's true that it's a very early buile, but I can't just assume that it is something they're going to work on.

 

So if that's how it's really going to be, the health will be exactly like in Dragon Age?  

 

What I didn't understand was about the personal inventories. In PoE1, you could everyone's inventory on one screen. Now it appears that it's not the case anymore. Will there be a way to quickly look for a specific item if you don't know who has it?

I don't think there is a plan to add damage animations. While giving combat more clarity for the sequel is needed, a more impactful visual representation of damage being done is not something I felt I needed when playing PoE1. Something like "stagger animations" would be problematic as they would have to completely rethink how a combat works. Shake screen would work, but it was something which I would disable in BG anyway.

 

Right now the plan of health is to work in a similar fashion to Dragon Age, though the closest example is Obsidians Tyranny. There will be one health pool and once it runs out you get knocked out and gain an injury. Get knocked out with enough injuries and you die permanently. You remove injuries by resting. I really liked endurcance/health mechanic in PoE so I am against the change but we will see how it plays once beta is released.

 

The inventory works the same way it did in PoE but the UI prioritised bigass character model over showing all party members' inventory. Above the character model there are character portraits where you can switch between party members. It was something I noticed as well, but I am not sure how much of an inconvenience will it be. I would prefer though if there was a 6th tab, which would replace stash with all party members personal inventory for easier swapping.

[rjshae]

 

 

In my opinion they should just get rid of personal inventories altogether. Just one big stash/shared inventory for all characters and no more searching where you put what

 

That would be too much abstraction for my taste. When you're in combat, you should have only limited access to any inventory.

 

 

Pretty sure moving anything in/out of inventory or quick slots or worn items is locked while in combat. The question is about while out of combat.

 

I also like to keep certain inventory items associated with specific characters. Spell books with the Wizard character, for example. Having one big blob inventory could result in me accidentally selling an item I didn't want to.

[Archaven]

The titan death has me biggest worry. He go into a camera posing position before crumbles.

[smjjames]

Josh Sawyer did say in the July 12th twitch Q&A that there were still some issues going on with the titan at the time and some things weren't implemented yet.

[Archaven]

Josh Sawyer did say in the July 12th twitch Q&A that there were still some issues going on with the titan at the time and some things weren't implemented yet.

 

I can't recall much of any titans in games except the Might & Magic franchise. Still having that nostalgic feeling in Heroes 3 where Titans were so cool

[Blades of Vanatar]

Inventory... I would like some type of encumberence implemented. Carrying around 8 suits of Plate armor in NPCs inventory kind of kills any 'real feel' for me. Just wishful thinking on my own end...

[smjjames]

DnD has infinite storage too, they're called 'bags of holding'.

[Sedrefilos]

We should't take these videos too "literally", imo. Most of what we see is probably gonna change a lot in the end. Better let's wait till beta is out so we can see how the (almost) final product's gonna look like; then make our criticism.

[injurai]

 

1 & 2: Given that it's still pre-alpha (as stated in the E3 vid), I assume that it's still a work in progress. The titan's death also seemed rather unspectactular to me, compared to the way it was described in the fig update that showed concept art of it.

 

3: What are you confused about with the inventory system? It's not all that different from PoE1, just more streamlined and tried to make it more accessable. For the health, the way I understand it is that instead of the short term endurance and long term health damage, there is the single metric which has health that recovers after combat. In place of the long term system is that over time and/or when you get KO'd, you get wounds, which are only removeable via rest. I don't think we (besides the devs that is) know the deeper details of how it all works yet.

My main worry about the damage animations (or lack thereof) was because that's how it was in PoE1. It's true that it's a very early buile, but I can't just assume that it is something they're going to work on.

 

So if that's how it's really going to be, the health will be exactly like in Dragon Age?  

 

What I didn't understand was about the personal inventories. In PoE1, you could everyone's inventory on one screen. Now it appears that it's not the case anymore. Will there be a way to quickly look for a specific item if you don't know who has it?

 

 

It would be cool of there was a toggle that switched the inventory space below the player's between the stash and the rest of party.

[Wormerine]

 

 

1 & 2: Given that it's still pre-alpha (as stated in the E3 vid), I assume that it's still a work in progress. The titan's death also seemed rather unspectactular to me, compared to the way it was described in the fig update that showed concept art of it.

 

3: What are you confused about with the inventory system? It's not all that different from PoE1, just more streamlined and tried to make it more accessable. For the health, the way I understand it is that instead of the short term endurance and long term health damage, there is the single metric which has health that recovers after combat. In place of the long term system is that over time and/or when you get KO'd, you get wounds, which are only removeable via rest. I don't think we (besides the devs that is) know the deeper details of how it all works yet.

My main worry about the damage animations (or lack thereof) was because that's how it was in PoE1. It's true that it's a very early buile, but I can't just assume that it is something they're going to work on.

 

So if that's how it's really going to be, the health will be exactly like in Dragon Age?  

 

What I didn't understand was about the personal inventories. In PoE1, you could everyone's inventory on one screen. Now it appears that it's not the case anymore. Will there be a way to quickly look for a specific item if you don't know who has it?

 

 

It would be cool of there was a toggle that switched the inventory space below the player's between the stash and the rest of party.

 

YES! That. I have sent this suggestion to Josh via tumblr not so long ago. Hopefully UI will get some more love.

[FlintlockJazz]

 

 

1 & 2: Given that it's still pre-alpha (as stated in the E3 vid), I assume that it's still a work in progress. The titan's death also seemed rather unspectactular to me, compared to the way it was described in the fig update that showed concept art of it.

 

3: What are you confused about with the inventory system? It's not all that different from PoE1, just more streamlined and tried to make it more accessable. For the health, the way I understand it is that instead of the short term endurance and long term health damage, there is the single metric which has health that recovers after combat. In place of the long term system is that over time and/or when you get KO'd, you get wounds, which are only removeable via rest. I don't think we (besides the devs that is) know the deeper details of how it all works yet.

My main worry about the damage animations (or lack thereof) was because that's how it was in PoE1. It's true that it's a very early buile, but I can't just assume that it is something they're going to work on.

 

So if that's how it's really going to be, the health will be exactly like in Dragon Age?  

 

What I didn't understand was about the personal inventories. In PoE1, you could everyone's inventory on one screen. Now it appears that it's not the case anymore. Will there be a way to quickly look for a specific item if you don't know who has it?

 

 

It would be cool of there was a toggle that switched the inventory space below the player's between the stash and the rest of party.

 

Personally I hope they do away with individual inventories (apart from what is actually equipped of course) and just have the stash whose weight limit is determined by the combined strength and number of party members.  While I like having a limit to what can be carried, moving things between party members just seemed like unnecessary busywork. 

 

And I would still hope for a stash onboard the ship to store the things I don't want to sell but don't want to carry any more either.  This would mean I could store things without worrying about selling them by mistake too, as that was one thing I found annoying in Pillars: I would have items that I wanted to keep (quite often just for nostalgia reasons) but since the stash had everything in it (divided into categories) I had to be careful not to just all the items through.  Having a separate chest on the ship specifically for this would have been great.

[injurai]

I enjoyed the bottomless stash in Pillars, I can't imagine going without it now. At one point I enjoyed inventory management, but no longer.

[MortyTheGobbo]

In a classical RPG like Pillars, encumbrance serves no real purpose. It's not going to be restrictive enough to be realistic, but it will be restrictive enough to be annoying. Carrying a dozen weapons and a few suits of armour with you makes no sense, even if you put in an arbitrary number that lets you carry eight suits of full plate, but not nine. If you want a realistic inventory, you need to put in really sharp limits, which clashes with the style of gameplay Pillars offers. So might as well go full hammerspace and not worry about it.

[Archaven]

I enjoyed the bottomless stash in Pillars, I can't imagine going without it now. At one point I enjoyed inventory management, but no longer.

 

while i'm enjoying.. i feel it being meaningless. might as well just convert those stash to gold coins. just only drop those useful loot, rares or uniques. so that i be happy i'm getting something good . i stashed all the crap loot and go back to merchant and sell them to find out it's really worthless price. so might as well just convert them to gold coins :D

[injurai]

 

I enjoyed the bottomless stash in Pillars, I can't imagine going without it now. At one point I enjoyed inventory management, but no longer.

 

while i'm enjoying.. i feel it being meaningless. might as well just convert those stash to gold coins. just only drop those useful loot, rares or uniques. so that i be happy i'm getting something good . i stashed all the crap loot and go back to merchant and sell them to find out it's really worthless price. so might as well just convert them to gold coins :D

 

 

Well, sometimes I just can't be bothered to sell stuff. Especially if I don't really care to have the gold to buy stuff. And I don't typically buy my gear. So having to offload a full inventory is just a hassle for me. I'd rather not reach a moment where I'm forced to do so.

[Archaven]

 

 

I enjoyed the bottomless stash in Pillars, I can't imagine going without it now. At one point I enjoyed inventory management, but no longer.

 

while i'm enjoying.. i feel it being meaningless. might as well just convert those stash to gold coins. just only drop those useful loot, rares or uniques. so that i be happy i'm getting something good . i stashed all the crap loot and go back to merchant and sell them to find out it's really worthless price. so might as well just convert them to gold coins :D

 

 

Well, sometimes I just can't be bothered to sell stuff. Especially if I don't really care to have the gold to buy stuff. And I don't typically buy my gear. So having to offload a full inventory is just a hassle for me. I'd rather not reach a moment where I'm forced to do so.

 

 

I enjoy  the bottomless stash too!. So much convenience and i'm not forced to abandon any loots lying around.