Pre-release Pillars of Eternity quotes (or: Josh Sawyer writing checks Obsidian can't cash)

[Roguey]

Adam Brennecke's been utterly terrible at D&D for decades, and you expect Sawyer to turn people with a comparable amount of skill around within 29 months. Not happening with anyone's leadership.

 

[Copper]

Fuck it, this thread ain't dead.

One thing that puzzles me is why they repeated so many of D&D 4th Ed's issues, and actually made some of them worse. Specifically, monster stat balance, per encounter/per rest abilities, and skills.

There was a lot of bitching about early 4th Ed monsters being high hit-point / low damage, especially at high levels, which is more or less my impression of the majority of PoE monsters as well. WotC later tuned monsters quite a bit to pack more of a punch, but require fewer hits to put down, typically due to lower AC than HP I think. I remember some comments that Real-time meant monsters needed to be a bit tanky, but I never really saw the logic, and the final game suffered from it in my opinion. (I guess it plays like this if you're super anal about maximising your crit chance, but that uber min-max style isn't interesting for me).

I also found the balance of at will/encounter/rest abilities far better in 4th ed, for all their homogeneity. One or two encounter abilities that have a decent amount of impact, a few at-will abilities so you have a choice in your short term tactical goals (just make 'em modals), and a significant daily power. 4th ed suffered from 'pop your encounter first, and your daily as soon as it's semi optimal' to some extent, but the bevy of encounter abilities in PoE were worse for enticing lazy players like me towards a perfectly workable rote formula. Blind with ranged rogue, Knockdown with your tank, curse enemies with priest, and arcane blast the mob around the tank for Raw damage with your wizard.

Party skills are pretty poor as well - the only things worth caring about seem to be maxed Mechanics for 1 char, Athletics for everyone, and maybe stealth or lore to avoid or completely cheese fights. Skill challenges might have sucked, but they at least gave multiple ways the skills of the entire party could be combined to solve problems if you were good enough at describing them. (GMing stuff like Feng Shui would probably help.) EDIT: This is probably smart enough feature creep control, but come on - this is not complex scripting once the bedrock is in place. Maybe it didn't stabilise in time.

 

[tdphys]

Fuck it, this thread ain't dead.

One thing that puzzles me is why they repeated so many of D&D 4th Ed's issues, and actually made some of them worse. Specifically, monster stat balance, per encounter/per rest abilities, and skills.

There was a lot of bitching about early 4th Ed monsters being high hit-point / low damage, especially at high levels, which is more or less my impression of the majority of PoE monsters as well. WotC later tuned monsters quite a bit to pack more of a punch, but require fewer hits to put down, typically due to lower AC than HP I think. I remember some comments that Real-time meant monsters needed to be a bit tanky, but I never really saw the logic, and the final game suffered from it in my opinion. (I guess it plays like this if you're super anal about maximising your crit chance, but that uber min-max style isn't interesting for me).

I also found the balance of at will/encounter/rest abilities far better in 4th ed, for all their homogeneity. One or two encounter abilities that have a decent amount of impact, a few at-will abilities so you have a choice in your short term tactical goals (just make 'em modals), and a significant daily power. 4th ed suffered from 'pop your encounter first, and your daily as soon as it's semi optimal' to some extent, but the bevy of encounter abilities in PoE were worse for enticing lazy players like me towards a perfectly workable rote formula. Blind with ranged rogue, Knockdown with your tank, curse enemies with priest, and arcane blast the mob around the tank for Raw damage with your wizard.

Party skills are pretty poor as well - the only things worth caring about seem to be maxed Mechanics for 1 char, Athletics for everyone, and maybe stealth or lore to avoid or completely cheese fights. Skill challenges might have sucked, but they at least gave multiple ways the skills of the entire party could be combined to solve problems if you were good enough at describing them. (GMing stuff like Feng Shui would probably help.) EDIT: This is probably smart enough feature creep control, but come on - this is not complex scripting once the bedrock is in place. Maybe it didn't stabilise in time.

The counter to your arguments, is that while pillars has a similar power curve to 4e (in to-hit/ defense levels) they have a far more powerful buff/debuff system. Monsters do hit hard when they are reliably critting your character, especially on POTD. Most of the problem is it's so easily to get over-leveled in the game, that you never see these things happen. I couldn't imagine tracking 5-6 buffs/debuffs in PnP, but I think that's where pillars has pushed the envelope. There really is an interesting strategic class development aspect ( though not for druids/priests), and tactical richness in the buff/debuff system, but it took me playing PotD to find it. If that was combined with tactical movement, ( lose engagement ) I think it would be great. The buff/debuff system actually makes per-engagement abilities less of a no-brainer, because you have to decide if you've made an optimal place/time to use them. That being said, I think you're correct that having more powerful, but more limited engagement powers might amplify the risk/reward part. On path of the damned... there are a lot of encounters that optimal play will make or break the encounter, regardless of what level you're at. (thought I could just walk in and wipe out stelgars at level 11-12, nope ). I really like this aspect of the system. Now we just need better AI, encounter design and no engagement

 

[Copper]

Fuck it, this thread ain't dead.

One thing that puzzles me is why they repeated so many of D&D 4th Ed's issues, and actually made some of them worse. Specifically, monster stat balance, per encounter/per rest abilities, and skills.

There was a lot of bitching about early 4th Ed monsters being high hit-point / low damage, especially at high levels, which is more or less my impression of the majority of PoE monsters as well. WotC later tuned monsters quite a bit to pack more of a punch, but require fewer hits to put down, typically due to lower AC than HP I think. I remember some comments that Real-time meant monsters needed to be a bit tanky, but I never really saw the logic, and the final game suffered from it in my opinion. (I guess it plays like this if you're super anal about maximising your crit chance, but that uber min-max style isn't interesting for me).

I also found the balance of at will/encounter/rest abilities far better in 4th ed, for all their homogeneity. One or two encounter abilities that have a decent amount of impact, a few at-will abilities so you have a choice in your short term tactical goals (just make 'em modals), and a significant daily power. 4th ed suffered from 'pop your encounter first, and your daily as soon as it's semi optimal' to some extent, but the bevy of encounter abilities in PoE were worse for enticing lazy players like me towards a perfectly workable rote formula. Blind with ranged rogue, Knockdown with your tank, curse enemies with priest, and arcane blast the mob around the tank for Raw damage with your wizard.

Party skills are pretty poor as well - the only things worth caring about seem to be maxed Mechanics for 1 char, Athletics for everyone, and maybe stealth or lore to avoid or completely cheese fights. Skill challenges might have sucked, but they at least gave multiple ways the skills of the entire party could be combined to solve problems if you were good enough at describing them. (GMing stuff like Feng Shui would probably help.) EDIT: This is probably smart enough feature creep control, but come on - this is not complex scripting once the bedrock is in place. Maybe it didn't stabilise in time.

The counter to your arguments, is that while pillars has a similar power curve to 4e (in to-hit/ defense levels) they have a far more powerful buff/debuff system. Monsters do hit hard when they are reliably critting your character, especially on POTD. Most of the problem is it's so easily to get over-leveled in the game, that you never see these things happen. I couldn't imagine tracking 5-6 buffs/debuffs in PnP, but I think that's where pillars has pushed the envelope. There really is an interesting strategic class development aspect ( though not for druids/priests), and tactical richness in the buff/debuff system, but it took me playing PotD to find it. If that was combined with tactical movement, ( lose engagement ) I think it would be great. The buff/debuff system actually makes per-engagement abilities less of a no-brainer, because you have to decide if you've made an optimal place/time to use them. That being said, I think you're correct that having more powerful, but more limited engagement powers might amplify the risk/reward part. On path of the damned... there are a lot of encounters that optimal play will make or break the encounter, regardless of what level you're at. (thought I could just walk in and wipe out stelgars at level 11-12, nope ). I really like this aspect of the system. Now we just need better AI, encounter design and no engagement

That's fair enough - unfortunately more micro (stacking debuffs, etc.) is not my idea of fun, so it's a bit of a polarising design.

 

[Roguey]

Time for pre-release White March part 1 quotes! Not so many this time though.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=4#post445619782

In any system of a significant size/with a large number of options, I don't think it's possible to achieve a state that would be objectively considered perfectly balanced. We can (and will continue to try to) improve balance, but there's always going to be something that players consider substandard.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=5#post446703480

This sounds kinda... dungeoncrawly. "Hey, you loved crawling through that megadungeon, right?" - "I mean, it wasn't bad, but not r-" - "WELL YOU'RE GONNA LOVE CRAWLING THROUGH THIS ONE."

The expansion isn't a mega dungeon or mini-mega dungeon or anything like that.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=5#post446761958

Not so sure about the encounter design and frequency of fights as shown in the footage, though.

I wrote up bugs on those encounters but they haven't been addressed yet. I also don't like the ones that were shown in the footage.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=5#post446985865

Implementing party AI helped us improve enemy AI as well. Even in the base game, enemies tend to use more of their abilities (and more intelligently).

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=5#post447063225

I think there are a lot of things that could be better about the stronghold both in basic design and execution. We ran into various implementation problems during development that we hadn't expected and I believe we can have both better systems and content if we make a sequel.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post447862586

A huge number of players want proficiencies and even more specializations. Even if people don't like how the subdivisions of weapons are laid out, a lot of players really want their character to excel in one or two specific weapons.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post447867960

There are a non-trivial number of players that absolutely loathe strongholds as a concept and never want to interact with stronghold mechanics. It's difficult to make something feel robust and rewarding but also completely optional.

And yes, the stronghold is a money sink. We have virtually no economic drains in the game. Purchased items, crafting, and the stronghold are the only three and they're all things you don't actually have to interact with (though most people buy a decent number of items).

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post447869576

And if we gated a bunch of quests through the stronghold, there would be complaints about that. It's not really an "everyone wins" decision since some people hate stronghold-gated content. That said, if we had spare area and narrative design resources during development, sure we'd make some stronghold specific content. That was never the case and it still wasn't the case on the expansion. Whatever work is done on gated content is work not being done on content available to everyone.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post447870176

You "gated" a lot of good content, including a character quest, behind the Endless Paths, though, and that was optional as well.

Stronghold content is available to everyone, though, it's just that, much like the endless paths, it's optional.

You're downplaying the aversion that people have to strongholds, specifically. If there's a "I hate big dungeons" bloc of significant size, I'm unaware of them. Stronghold aversion seems more comparable to romance aversion.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post447870254

I'll take "Sorry, no stronghold"

Once the Kickstarter completed, that was never an option. The choice was always about where content went in the game.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post447870865

I would hope what people take away is that all content costs something to make. If a bunch of people are asking for new dialogues and quests in the expansion, I have to ask how many characters and quests they want cut from the expansion areas, with the understanding that at a certain reduction of quest density, associated maps disappear with them.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post447871673

I would expect something with parity with the games this was inspired by. So, when I think of what my expectations are for a stronghold in PoE were, I thought maybe a total number of quests (with similar depth) to the multitude of Strongholds in BG2.

Do you want us to cut six quests and ~20 characters/dialogues from the expansion areas for the stronghold?

The answer to that will be "yes" for part two.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=7#post449379829

Difficulty settings are still designed around an expected average party level. With The White March coming out, the potential range of levels in the endgame is between 7 and 14. That's why we have an additional check for very high level characters.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=7#post449402007

We didn't design new stronghold content for Part I, but it's been a focus for me for Part II.

 

[agris]

Why are there no quotes about the design and difficulty of combat encounters?

 

[Sensuki]

Because Something Awful doesn't care about that.

 

[Roguey]

Why are there no quotes about the design and difficulty of combat encounters?

There are...?

 

[Immortal]

I think there are a lot of things that could be better about the stronghold both in basic design and execution. We ran into various implementation problems during development that we hadn't expected and I believe we can have both better systems and content if we make a sequel.

Sorry we shit the bed, please buy PoE 2

 

[agris]

That's misleading, and while I know it's your shtick, he's only asked about it in the broadest sense.

 

[aweigh]

yes there are difficult combat encounters, even for my uber power-gamed party. the only way they've achieved any kind of late-game difficulty is through enemies that spam affliction-on-hit abilities, like vithracks, spirits, the fish-people etc. due to the game's graze/hit/crit system unless you build the character specifically to resist afflictions they will always get paralyzed/charmed whatever.

there are two problems with this:

1) of these "difficult" encounters there are only like, 4 or 5. adra dragon, alpine dragon, vithrack bounty, and the craghold bluffs map and the fish-people hot springs in TWM. four set-pieces out of... 2 million fights throughout the game. yep. awesome.

2) this kind of "difficulty" is really dumb, as the spike is disconcerting. you go from steam-rolling to suddenly being defenseless against their afflictions.

the cragholdt bluffs map is really fun though, it's a whole map full of level 14 enemy units that emulate party builds with ridiculous stats and scripted use of abilities to simulate what a human would do. it's only 1 small map tho, and after you beat it you get a summon item that 1-shots dragons as a reward LOL