Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Grotesque]

You know when you made a good RTwP combat design/game mechanic when players are forced to pause around every 3, 4 seconds and try to keep up with everything is going on in the battle or adjust to new situations.

 

[Athelas]

I honestly can't tell if that's sarcasm or not.

 

[Gozma]

You can do this in a turn-based system with a well-designed interrupt mechanic. It's not a perfect solution, but neither is pausing the game every four milliseconds

You do realize not all of us play IE games this way?

Legit question here, how do you rare-pausers manage it when like you have a TPK, then you reload and do the same fight again? Pausing is so powerful in those games you can easily turn a fight that's nearly impossible without pause into complete triviality. Do you still force yourself not to pause on the reload, or what?

The IE/NWN2/DAO games have so many layers of shit you can do to make fights easier; it's like you can get up all your tedious buffs, you can use your tedious consumables, you can have rogues sneak around doing pre-battle stuff, you can pause more to manage pathing and AI stuff, you can tinker with AI script stuff, you can rest/backtrack to rest safely. You have to be like 10 levels of tedium deep before you have no option but to have a tactical thought and nothing in the game every really gets you to that point naturally.

 

[Roguey]

I thought the whole point of pausing was to make better tactical decisions.

 

[Athelas]

You can do this in a turn-based system with a well-designed interrupt mechanic. It's not a perfect solution, but neither is pausing the game every four milliseconds

You do realize not all of us play IE games this way?

Legit question here, how do you rare-pausers manage it when like you have a TPK, then you reload and do the same fight again? Pausing is so powerful in those games you can easily turn a fight that's nearly impossible without pause into complete triviality. Do you still force yourself not to pause on the reload, or what?

The IE/NWN2/DAO games have so many layers of shit you can do to make fights easier; it's like you can get up all your tedious buffs, you can use your tedious consumables, you can have rogues sneak around doing pre-battle stuff, you can pause more to manage pathing and AI stuff, you can tinker with AI script stuff, you can rest/backtrack to rest safely. You have to be like 10 levels of tedium deep before you have no option but to have a tactical thought and nothing in the game every really gets you to that point naturally.

Sure, you could curb stomp over almost everything in the IE games if you simply cast the buffs that cover every possible status ailment, but:

A) you'd have to be quite a high level to have enough spell slots to buff your entire party (unless you had three or more clerics, I guess);
B) it's not very fun. It's much more fun to keep resting to a minimum and try to do the best with the resources you had. What you describe (constantly resting and pre-buffing) sounds like the opposite of fun.

PoE won't allow pre-buffing and resting anywhere, by the way (and also limits the amount of buffs you can have active at a time, I think?). It also doesn't seem to have spells that provide immunities against status effects, just increased resustance.

I also don't see how pausing 'can easily turn a fight that's nearly impossible without pause into complete triviality'. Unless you're describing the difference between not pausing at all and pausing every quarter of a second. Though even then, it doesn't make much sense, since there is no 'free time' in an RTwP game.

 

[Mangoose]

The IE/NWN2/DAO games have so many layers of shit you can do to make fights easier; it's like you can get up all your tedious buffs, you can use your tedious consumables, you can have rogues sneak around doing pre-battle stuff, you can pause more to manage pathing and AI stuff, you can tinker with AI script stuff, you can rest/backtrack to rest safely. You have to be like 10 levels of tedium deep before you have no option but to have a tactical thought and nothing in the game every really gets you to that point naturally.

All that tedium is tactics mang!

 

[Roguey]

Incidentally most of those things can also be done in turn-based D&D crpgs.

D&D is shit, cargo cult D&D-derived games are shit too.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Legit question here, how do you rare-pausers manage it when like you have a TPK, then you reload and do the same fight again?

Obviously, I reload the fight and try different tactics or just try to execute better.

Pausing is so powerful in those games you can easily turn a fight that's nearly impossible without pause into complete triviality. Do you still force yourself not to pause on the reload, or what?

I didn't say I don't use pause (it's a very useful feature and can make a difference in key moments) but I don't spam it histerically every second (or use autopause feature for that matter either). There's a certain belief from the turn-based camp on the Codex that just because for them RTWP system (in IE games) plays like a clusterfuck and they find it neccesarry to pause-spam to maintain any sense of control it makes it a general fact.

I don't consciously force myself to not pause incessantly, the style of play that involves little (relatively speaking) use of that feature comes naturally to me, it's the way I always played IE games. I don't strive to have a degree of control that turn-based system gives me when I play IE games, I accept them for the (small scale) RTS-y games with stats that they are (regarding combat obviously) and all that comes with that.

The IE/NWN2/DAO games have so many layers of shit you can do to make fights easier; it's like you can get up all your tedious buffs, you can use your tedious consumables, you can have rogues sneak around doing pre-battle stuff, you can pause more to manage pathing and AI stuff, you can tinker with AI script stuff, you can rest/backtrack to rest safely. You have to be like 10 levels of tedium deep before you have no option but to have a tactical thought and nothing in the game every really gets you to that point naturally.

I tend to like the battle preparation aspect of IE games, if I beat every battle the game throws at me on the fly I think of it as being on the easier side, heck one of the best things about various difficulty increasing mods for BG2 was forcing me to dig deeper and use every resource available for me (which includes potions that almost never see any use otherwise). Sure, a number of people will scream "metagame", an evil thing which has no place in modern gaming world but given that I love to replay games (and as a consequence I often navigate towards games which have good replay value) I obviously have a different view of it and accept it as something that to one degree or another is present in every game.

P.S. I don't group IE games with NWN2, DAO (and/or KOTOR games), while they share the same type of combat system they play/flow very differently IMO for various reasons.

 

[Sensuki]

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/anna-ström/62/286/9a3

Anna Ström - QA Tester on Pillars of Eternity (Paradox Interactive), focuses on Audio Testing

 

[Nikaido]

You know when you made a good RTwP combat design/game mechanic when players are forced to pause around every 3, 4 seconds and try to keep up with everything is going on in the battle or adjust to new situations.

The pathfinding is so good when you select all and click a mob you still have to manually reroute with multiple clicks some party members because they get stuck in between two other members and the pathfinding doesn't let them automatically find their way to the sides. Best RTWP gameplay, GOTY material right there.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHC8imCwYc#t=969

So much for obsidian making rtwp work well.

You know when you made a good RTwP combat design/game mechanic when players are forced to pause around every 3, 4 seconds and try to keep up with everything is going on in the battle or adjust to new situations.

The pathfinding is so good when you select all and click a mob you still have to manually reroute with multiple clicks some party members because they get stuck in between two other members and the pathfinding doesn't let them automatically find their way to the sides. Best RTWP gameplay, GOTY material right there.

Uh, wait a minute, couldn't this have been a case of a party member being locked in place due to melee engagement?

Poor Obsidian, they added a feature that makes the game look buggy and now people will complain about it.

 

[Nikaido]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHC8imCwYc#t=969

So much for obsidian making rtwp work well.

You know when you made a good RTwP combat design/game mechanic when players are forced to pause around every 3, 4 seconds and try to keep up with everything is going on in the battle or adjust to new situations.

The pathfinding is so good when you select all and click a mob you still have to manually reroute with multiple clicks some party members because they get stuck in between two other members and the pathfinding doesn't let them automatically find their way to the sides. Best RTWP gameplay, GOTY material right there.

Uh, wait a minute, couldn't this have been a case of a party member being locked in place due to melee engagement?

Poor Obsidian, they added a feature that makes the game look buggy and now people will complain about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHC8imCwYc&feature=player_detailpage#t=1345
You are pants on head retarded. My condolences.
I'm sure the guy stuck in running animation and being rerouted by whoever made that video was a feature from the melee engagement thing. I'm sure. It wasn't hideous pathfiding. (at 22:27, I also saw it happening in other places but I can't be bothered to find this crap again).

 

[Infinitron]

Uh, wait a minute, couldn't this have been a case of a party member being locked in place due to melee engagement?

Poor Obsidian, they added a feature that makes the game look buggy and now people will complain about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHC8imCwYc&feature=player_detailpage#t=1345
You are pants on head retarded. My condolences.
I'm sure the guy stuck in running animation and being rerouted by whoever made that video was a feature from the melee engagement thing. I'm sure. It wasn't hideous pathfiding. (at 22:27, I also saw it happening in other places but I can't be bothered to find this crap again).

You didn't specify what particular instance of poor pathfinding you were referring to in your original post.

Yes, that looks buggy, but the game is unfinished. Looking forward to Roguey's reactions when it gets the WL2 treatment due to stuff like this

 

[Athelas]

It's obviously deliberate to make positioning much more of a tactical challenge. It's physically impossible to surround a tiny goo with multiple party members. This limitation in pathfinding makes synergizing party movement vital. Obsidian are truly pioneers of RPG combat.

Spoiler

 

[RK47]

Waiter, there's a bug in my soup!
It's not buggy, it's just unfinished.

 

[Nikaido]

Uh, wait a minute, couldn't this have been a case of a party member being locked in place due to melee engagement?

Poor Obsidian, they added a feature that makes the game look buggy and now people will complain about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHC8imCwYc&feature=player_detailpage#t=1345
You are pants on head retarded. My condolences.
I'm sure the guy stuck in running animation and being rerouted by whoever made that video was a feature from the melee engagement thing. I'm sure. It wasn't hideous pathfiding. (at 22:27, I also saw it happening in other places but I can't be bothered to find this crap again).

You didn't specify what particular instance of poor pathfinding you were referring to in your original post.

Yes, that looks buggy, but the game is unfinished. Looking forward to Roguey's reactions when it gets the WL2 treatment due to stuff like this

Not sure if buggy is the right word here. Did you also call the infinity engine buggy when it did things like this ?
This kind of crap is bad design, not due to bugs. Only doing individual calculations rather than interlinked party movement when multiple characters are selected.

 

[Infinitron]

Now you're trying too hard.

New Codex interview contributed by Sensuki: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9547

 

[Black]

Now, now, shitty pathfinding that makes you want to play a PARTY BASED GAME solo is a perfectly fine throwback to IE games.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Now, now, shitty pathfinding that makes you want to play a PARTY BASED GAME solo is a perfectly fine throwback to IE games.

I always wished IE games had Dark Sun system where you control only one character during exploration and full party in combat.

 

[Athelas]

It's not a true IE experience unless characters traverse to the other side of the map to bypass a minor obstacle in front of them.

 

[Abu Antar]

Another Q&A by Dealspwn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a4aNDYNdbU&feature=youtu.be

 

[Abu Antar]

I spoke to Josh and because of the poor reception of the demo, this is what we will get instead:

 

[Athelas]

 

[Mangoose]

I think a bit ago we were talking about Escapes from Melee Engagement, and Sawyer said that generally there were no Escapes abilities, and that you had to rely on stuff like Interrupts, Knockdowns, etc. to break Engagement.

Perusing the official wiki it looks like at least one class has an escape ability... named Escape:

The rogue may hop a short distance away and break Melee Engagement.[2] The ability must be targeted on open ground to which the rogue has a clear path.

Usable once per encounter.

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Escape

 

[Sensuki]

Can anyone use some Photoshop magic to get screencaps of the options menus in that video? It's right near the end when they go to turn on big head mode, they show two of the options screens but I can't read the text on this screen, there's too much glare.

I'm on a public PC so I can't do it atm.

They also enter a new level via a console command or something at the end. Someone could cap that to grab some area names