Codex Review RPG Codex Retrospective Review: Pillars of Eternity Revisited

[Harg Harfardarssen]

The punishment isn't the encounter, it's that you don't complete your rest and have some additional resource depletion. So resting is a risk in that you may have even fewer resources than when you started (Just don't give xp for the encounter.)

Well, that's a different system. In a game like BG2, there's no additional resources that are used up (unless you're typically chugging potions and firing scrolls for every random encounter, but again, that'd mean more resources used up resting at 25% than 75%).

If instead you're talking about a system where resources are consumed upon rest (like in PoE, but not in BG2) and the random encounter is used to waste one of these, you're talking about a system where you're just upping the cost of the resource a bit (so if it cost you 100 GP to rest 4 times normally, with 1/4 chance of a random encounter it now costs 100 GP to rest 3 times). But instead of just upping the price, you're adding a bunch of repetitive trash encounters. And repetitive trash encounters is one of those complaints about PoE that people then completely ignore outside of PoE, even suggesting adding more of them in "solutions" like this.

By resources, I mean ability uses more than consumables. Basically vancian spell slots or MP or whatever. The kinds of things that are replenished on rest for zero marginal cost. So as long as the encounters are non-trash enough to burn enough of those slots/mp that the random encounter is a net loss, it is a disincentive to rest.

Whether it is enough of a disincentive depends on making that encounter hard enough. If resting is only safe when you are at 75%, well...mission accomplished. If a player wants to neurotically rest every time they hit 75% and ruin the game for themselves that's their problem. The idea is just to shift the needle so constant resting is not a risk free, easy-peasy solution. Otherwise you feel like you are playing non-optimally by not resting all the time.

In other words, it's not a zero sum game where people will either never rest or rest every encounter, it's a continuum and if you push it so that resource marshaling across more encounters is encouraged the game will be better for it.

Although, I think rests in dungeons outside of scripted encounters are stupid, so I guess my favored solution is to just disable resting in dungeons.

 

[Prime Junta]

Fixed seed yo.

Backtrack to an inn it is then.

Monster respawn with no xp for second kills.

Your cure is starting to sound worse than the disease.

 

[Fenix]

Also PoE is a trash boring game for me because solo game there turned in constant kitefest as far as I heard.
BG already was at a point I could barely play it sometimes, because party-based game in RTwP loool, but PoE has like x5 times more micro, which is ridiculos.
So if some prove me wrong and solo in PoE isn't kitefest, I'll play it.

Why? Why, Josh?

Why do you have such an aversion to placing even somewhat realistic limitations on seemingly minor details like this? A thousand of these little cuts are what killed any joy for me playing PoE. Unlimited stash, for example. Basically meaningless rest. Inconsequential time between quests/traveling. So many things abstracted all in the name of "fun". Why?

In contrast, things done the opposite way are what make Underrail incredible for me. Tightly controlled economy, for example. Very hard to find the best items. Monstrous difficulty spikes (but fairly distributed). Attention to detail in ways that made the player plan, think about his approach, plot revenge on the last encounter that wiped the floor with him. None of that exists in PoE. Not even with the adra dragon fight which had to be ultra-cheesed to beat.

Stop playing it so safe, Josh. Take some chances and throw some all-or-nothing components in there. Give us the equivalent of a Disintegrate spell. Force us to limit our supplies. Those little details are what keep us coming back night after night, playing until 2AM.

PoE never did that for me even once.

Lol, or not. If what you say is true - never got that far in PoE - then no way I'll play PoE.

 

[almondblight]

By resources, I mean ability uses more than consumables. Basically vancian spell slots or MP or whatever. The kinds of things that are replenished on rest for zero marginal cost. So as long as the encounters are non-trash enough to burn enough of those slots/mp that the random encounter is a net loss, it is a disincentive to rest..

Other than the time wasted on the random encounter, it's an incentive to rest. A party who has attempted rest 8 times and had 2 random encounters isn't going to be worse after rest in terms of Vancian slots the party who attempted rest 4 times and had 1 random encounter. They're both coming out of the rest healed and with spell slots refilled. The only difference is that the party that rested less is hitting the random encounter when they're weaker. For example, let's look at a party's strength (health/spells) as they go through 4 encounters. One party rests once, the other rests twice:

Always rest party: 100% -> 80% -> successful rest -> 100% -> 80% -> unsuccessful rest -> 60% -> successful rest -> 100% -> 80% -> successful rest -> 100% -> 80% -> unsuccessful rest -> 60% -> successful rest -> 100%.

Doesn't rest as much party: 100% -> 80% -> 60% -> successful rest -> 100% -> 80% -> 60% -> unsuccessful rest -> 40% -> successful rest -> 100%.

They both end up at 100% after their most recent successful rest. The difference is the party that rests less is put at a disadvantage during some in game encounters, and during the unsuccessful rests (they're going into both with lower strength).

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Fixed seed yo.

Backtrack to an inn it is then.

Monster respawn with no xp for second kills.

Your cure is starting to sound worse than the disease.

Well since PoE gives no xp for monster kills the first time...

They both end up at 100% after their most recent successful rest. The difference is the party that rests less is put at a disadvantage during some in game encounters, and during the unsuccessful rests (they're going into both with lower strength

Or tweak the numbers so that there is a possibility the resting character gets more randos than they can handle. So you risk have failed rests until you are too weak to risk another one. Of course, that's a different kind of shitty trap to offer the player, but TBH, I was probably reacting more to Roguey's glib fatalism that you have to indulge the players worst instincts than any deep commitment to random encounters when resting.

Basically, just decide if you want the player to take on a single encounter or multiple encounters at a stretch. If its the latter, its probably best to just disable resting until that stretch is over. OCD maniacs will backtrack after every fight, but that's not everyone. To be safe, just give some xp bonus for not backtracking.

 

[almondblight]

Or tweak the numbers so that there is a possibility the resting character gets more randos than they can handle. So you risk have failed rests until you are too weak to risk another one.

Again, with that kind of fail state you're better off going in with full health than at 20%. Unless you do something like increase the chance of a random encounter per rest, but I don't know of any game that does that. And in the end, limiting rests that way is probably much worse than limiting rests via campfires (since now you're creating some kind of invisible fail threshold).

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Again, with that kind of fail state you're better off going in with full health than at 20%.

But you would be better off never going in at all. The possibility that resting would get you killed gives the player an incentive not to rest. The point is to create a situation where the player would have been better off not resting, i.e. consequences for the choice.

Unless you do something like increase the chance of a random encounter per rest, but I don't know of any game that does that. And in the end, limiting rests that way is probably much worse than limiting rests via campfires (since now you're creating some kind of invisible fail threshold).

I'm not talking about what games have done, I'm talking about hypothetical mechanics for making resting in the dungeon something other than a no brainer. Which requires a fail state to possibly ensue from resting. I don't want resting to be a "good" option, if it is going to be present at all I want it to be a gamble you take because you aren't sure you can make it otherwise. I'm not sure how that's an invisible fail threshold. You take a gamble, it fails, you die.

Alternatively you could just give incentives for not resting like xp bonuses/penalties (however you want to frame it). The point is that if you end up allowing resting in the dungeon which is intended to be completed without rest-spam, then give each rest a trade-off, whether that tradeoff is the possibility of a fail-state resulting or a determinate disadvantage imposed by the rest. Camping consumables doesn't work because its a logistical hassle not a consequence.

 

[Spectacle]

Again, with that kind of fail state you're better off going in with full health than at 20%.

But you would be better off never going in at all. The possibility that resting would get you killed gives the player an incentive not to rest. The point is to create a situation where the player would have been better off not resting, i.e. consequences for the choice.

Unless you do something like increase the chance of a random encounter per rest, but I don't know of any game that does that. And in the end, limiting rests that way is probably much worse than limiting rests via campfires (since now you're creating some kind of invisible fail threshold).

I'm not talking about what games have done, I'm talking about hypothetical mechanics for making resting in the dungeon something other than a no brainer. Which requires a fail state to possibly ensue from resting. I don't want resting to be a "good" option, if it is going to be present at all I want it to be a gamble you take because you aren't sure you can make it otherwise. I'm not sure how that's an invisible fail threshold. You take a gamble, it fails, you die.

Alternatively you could just give incentives for not resting like xp bonuses/penalties (however you want to frame it). The point is that if you end up allowing resting in the dungeon which is intended to be completed without rest-spam, then give each rest a trade-off, whether that tradeoff is the possibility of a fail-state resulting or a determinate disadvantage imposed by the rest. Camping consumables doesn't work because its a logistical hassle not a consequence.

If you're certain that you can complete a dungeon without resting then it makes sense to not rest at all, but if you think you're going to need one or more rests anyway to be able to handle the entire dungeon, then you're better off resting early so that you increase your chances of surviving a random encounter.

If resting is risky even for a party that's near full resources, then you're pretty much locked into designing dungeons that can be completed in one go, unless your game is some hardcore roguelike where the player is expected to sometimes fail horribly just from bad luck.

 

[Parabalus]

In contrast, things done the opposite way are what make Underrail incredible for me. Tightly controlled economy, for example. Very hard to find the best items. Monstrous difficulty spikes (but fairly distributed). Attention to detail in ways that made the player plan, think about his approach, plot revenge on the last encounter that wiped the floor with him. None of that exists in PoE. Not even with the adra dragon fight which had to be ultra-cheesed to beat.

Stop playing it so safe, Josh. Take some chances and throw some all-or-nothing components in there. Give us the equivalent of a Disintegrate spell. Force us to limit our supplies. Those little details are what keep us coming back night after night, playing until 2AM.

Are you really praising Underrail's "I will dump 10k worth of goods at the feet of each merchant and periodically pass by to resell it?". Underrail only had a tight economy because it put a time limit on how much you can sell, you could add the same to PoE in a few lines of code. It's a weak part of the game, along with the slow movement speed.

Disintegrate exists and is the highest single target damage spell. Bg2 one is sucks, it nukes items so is limited to only thrash, which doesn't warrant lvl 6 spells.

Supplies are limited, try going through Caed Nua in one go at level 10ish, it's not a walk in the park. PoE rest system on PoTD had perfect pacing for me, but I never cucked out and quit a dungeon to run back for more supplies - that just version of Bg rest spammery, with masochistic travel times.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

If resting is risky even for a party that's near full resources, then you're pretty much locked into designing dungeons that can be completed in one go, unless your game is some hardcore roguelike where the player is expected to sometimes fail horribly just from bad luck.

Well, I like hardcore roguelikes so perhaps that is a preference influencing my opinion. But I also can imagine scripted encounters with resting as a potential result as a cushion. For example, you encounter a fellow adventurer who will watch over you while you sleep, but only for one night. Or a room you can lock and bar, but whose door gets broken down after the rest. You can choose when in the dungeon/floor to use the encounter, but it only happens a limited number of times. The problem is indiscriminate resting before every encounter as a no-brainer, not resting per se.

But perhaps the xp bonus is a better way to do it - for example, no rest is +10%, one rest is normal, two rests is -10% etc. Either way, either make resting have a downside or don't include it in the dungeon. Otherwise, why even bother having resources that don't regenerate after every fight.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Why are you Swayerist cucks so hell bent on limiting player freedom?

This is why I love Swen's design pilosophy of FUME. Becausr it focuses on the following:

Freedom (and Fun)
Universe
Motivation
Enemies (and Antagonist)


Lets see how the Swayerist agenda fits into fume:

Freedom (and Fun)
Being the autistic feminist cuck that Josh is, he absolutely hates giving player freedom resulting in his retarded ideology.
Swayerism clearly caters to the SA guoons who value balance and obsessive compulsion to reign in "degenerate" gameplay rates higher than freedom and possibility of fun.

Universe
P:E is a bland generic uninteresting universe which had potential but not realised due to shitty writing presentation and quest design.
Just like there is potential to find a diamond under piles of shit in a pigsty. But it is seldom realised.

Motivation
So PC is slowly going insane and wants to find the antagonist why exactly? I didn't even realise the PC is going insane and why the PC is running around trying to find the big meanie.
And neither did the incompetent writing and editing team at Obsidian.

Enemies (and Antagonist)
So much trash combat with so much micromanagement which is so pointless considering the qualities of enconters in the vast majority of the game.

Oh and the Antagonist is more or less absent for the vast majority of the game. Maybe he is having a relaxing vacation.

Final Verdict with Review No: n+1
I suggest potential players not to bother with this Pile of Shit and give your sanity meter a vacation from the inane chore by completely avoiding Piles of Shit With Cum.

 

[Grunker]

This is an important concept

1) Start arguing that AD&D has just as much or more build diversity as PoE

2) Have this assertion refuted based on the honestly obvious evidence to the contrary

3) Suddenly argue that yeah, there's lacking build diversity, but it's actually a strength, not a weakness!

If they say "convoluted", you say "you need handholding faggot?" If they say "no customization" you say "simplicity is beautiful." If they say arbitrary, you say "it works."

Pivot pivot pivot, deny deny deny - above all never concede to a flaw in the immaculate, perfect vision of our Lord and Saviour Gygax.

You people are a cult.

 

[Prime Junta]

OD&D was great. AD&D collapsed into rubble.

That was a pretty exciting time in PnP systems though. Lots of innovation going on. People came up with awful, awful solutions to a variety of problems -- and some fairly good ones. GURPSheads still walk among us...

 

[ArchAngel]

Why? Why, Josh?

Why do you have such an aversion to placing even somewhat realistic limitations on seemingly minor details like this? A thousand of these little cuts are what killed any joy for me playing PoE. Unlimited stash, for example. Basically meaningless rest. Inconsequential time between quests/traveling. So many things abstracted all in the name of "fun". Why?

In contrast, things done the opposite way are what make Underrail incredible for me. Tightly controlled economy, for example. Very hard to find the best items. Monstrous difficulty spikes (but fairly distributed). Attention to detail in ways that made the player plan, think about his approach, plot revenge on the last encounter that wiped the floor with him. None of that exists in PoE. Not even with the adra dragon fight which had to be ultra-cheesed to beat.

Stop playing it so safe, Josh. Take some chances and throw some all-or-nothing components in there. Give us the equivalent of a Disintegrate spell. Force us to limit our supplies. Those little details are what keep us coming back night after night, playing until 2AM.

PoE never did that for me even once.

There was a limitation on how many camping supplies you could carry and guess what, people kept using them all up after every battle and backtracking. Josh does not want people doing that, period.

Those people are retards with too much time. I never went back to get more supply because that is boring and waste of time. I pushed on and rested when I needed to, not when I wanted to.
But in PoE 2 I guess I will rest all the time.. but not like resting matters since everything is now MMO-like cooldown based. RIP POE2.

 

[Darth Roxor]

given how generous poe dunjins are with bonus supplies, you really have to be a tardo to keep backtracking all the time

 

[ArchAngel]

One of the most fun things in PoE and in IE games is to push as long as you can without resting using up whatever resources you have gathered (low level spells, scrolls, potions and wands). This way of playing was less interesting in PoE since you could only use items from quickslots during combat (another way to kill fun in PoE) but it was still possible. Seems for PoE2 this will be killed off. I doubt these empowerments will be as meaningful as just not having access to your best spells after you used them up. Even in PoE1 when you got some spells to become per encounter you could beat most encounters by just using those (if you picked up right spells) and rarely using other spells.

 

[fobia]

You could put stuff you found in quickslots between combat though. You just needed to remember to do so.
Not so much fun killed imho.

 

[ArchAngel]

You could put stuff you found in quickslots between combat though. You just needed to remember to do so.
Not so much fun killed imho.

Still terrible design. Retards even put in feats that unlock more quickslots... fucking fun killers.

It is not fun killer if you rest often and don't care at all.

 

[Prime Junta]

But in PoE 2 I guess I will rest all the time.. but not like resting matters since everything is now MMO-like cooldown based.

(1) If you rest all the time, you'll have low-grade resting bonuses.
(2) No cooldowns have been announced.

 

[Roguey]

Monster respawn with no xp for second kills.

Someone brought this up with Josh early on, he said it'd be inappropriate for an Infinity Engine successor.

In the run up to PoE's launch, Sawyer had said that "Hard" was his ideal difficulty (they designed Hard first, removed tough enemies and replaced with weaker ones for easy/normal and bumped things up for Path of the Damned). Has there been anything from Obs to suggest this changed to PotD at any stage during development?

How about for PoE2? Anything been said to suggest that an attempt has been made to bring Hard closer to what PotD is for PoE? Or are those that vastly prefer PotD in the original best off jumping straight in to PotD2?

No, because Josh severely overestimated Obsidian designers' and testers' ability to understand the system he was creating. He and a couple of others were the only people who could even get anywhere on Hard, much less PotD.

 

[Riddler]

Monster respawn with no xp for second kills.

Someone brought this up with Josh early on, he said it'd be inappropriate for an Infinity Engine successor.

In the run up to PoE's launch, Sawyer had said that "Hard" was his ideal difficulty (they designed Hard first, removed tough enemies and replaced with weaker ones for easy/normal and bumped things up for Path of the Damned). Has there been anything from Obs to suggest this changed to PotD at any stage during development?

How about for PoE2? Anything been said to suggest that an attempt has been made to bring Hard closer to what PotD is for PoE? Or are those that vastly prefer PotD in the original best off jumping straight in to PotD2?

No, because Josh severely overestimated Obsidian designers' and testers' ability to understand the system he was creating. He and a couple of others were the only people who could even get anywhere on Hard, much less PotD.

What? I feel like hard should be doable for anyone who has at least passing experience with computer games.

Were things different in the beta or something?

 

[Carrion]

And where one is safely able to camp has always been a point of contention in RPG design discussion. The best solution I've ever seen is the random encounter chance while sleeping.

Time limit (see: Fallout). It doesn't have to be strict, it's enough if the player knows that it's there. It doesn't even have to be a hard limit but simply something that causes negative things to happen if you take too long. It can be related to the entire main quest or just parts of it. As long as you know that time is a finite resource, you're encouraged to save it, only rest when necessary and avoid making any extra trips to the nearest town to resupply. Fallout also shows that it doesn't necessarily have to discourage you from doing side quests or exploring the game world either.

Of course it's never going to happen with PoE2 or any other Sawyer game, but it's a logical solution that can work really well if implemented properly (and admittedly also ruin the entire game if implemented poorly).

 

[Roguey]

What? I feel like hard should be doable for anyone who has at least passing experience with computer games.

Were things different in the beta or something?

Josh has spoken about how most people who get into designing RPGs are bad at them.

This will probably sound really bad, but I don't think most RPG designers actually think about gameplay -- especially not core gameplay. I think this is due to a few problems: first, some gamers (and even some game devs) view gameplay as a chore. They are quite vocal about wanting to pursue the story and characters more as a choose-your-own adventure novel than as an integral part of a role-playing game. Because of this, designers often focus on the creative aspects of RPGs to a fault -- essentially letting the core gameplay elements fall by the wayside. The result is, unsurprisingly, worse gameplay that even more players are loathe to engage.

He went into detail about Pillars's woes during the backer beta http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...awyer-writing-checks-obsidian-cant-cash.99149

I'm not sure what you're expecting. Individual creatures are tuned around the idea that their level is "worth" an equivalent PC level for a challenging Normal encounter. E.g., a party of five 5th level characters should be reasonably challenged (but ultimately win out) against a party of five 5th level monsters. That's one of the most straightforward ways we can establish a baseline of equivalency for what a creature's level means. On Hard difficulty, the party should be facing superior numbers in terms of overall levels in one of three ways a) more creatures of the same level b) the same number of creatures but some are higher level or c) fewer creatures who are mostly/all higher level. Whether a) b) or c) are used depends a great deal on the individual level and creatures that make sense there. We can't flood a map with creatures if it's cramped. We can't use a higher level companion creature if the jump in levels is too severe (e.g. Wood, Stone, and Adra Beetles all span several levels).

I can personally test things on Hard, as can Bobby and a few other folks, but most of the other devs cannot. Or rather, they wouldn't really get anywhere. If I listened to them for tuning advice, Hard wouldn't be hard at all.

The areas in the Backer Beta are now being tuned for the final game, so the content across the areas is targeted at different levels. You will likely enter Dyrford around 4th level (though you will probably have six characters, so I should add another BB character). Some of the content is tuned for 4th level, but a good amount is tuned for 5th and higher (e.g. the ogre cave). That means if you dive into certain areas with 4th level characters, things are probably going to be tough for you whether you're on Normal or Hard. Easy really is pretty darn easy almost everywhere IME.

And then they still had to implement a story time mode because easy was too hard for some players still.

As a bonus here are some other tester anecdotes he's shared about Icewind Dale and New Vegas http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...expansion-thread.100006/page-137#post-4409223

 

[Prime Junta]

Were things different in the beta or something?

In the early beta, combat was a completely unmanageable clusterfuck. Additionally, in the initial build, those beetles were like unstoppable fucking necro-panzers.

Edit: good times. I still have a holy terror of beetles from that beta.

 

[Delterius]

Always rest party: 100% -> 80% -> successful rest -> 100% -> 80% -> unsuccessful rest -> 60% -> successful rest -> 100% -> 80% -> successful rest -> 100% -> 80% -> unsuccessful rest -> 60% -> successful rest -> 100%.

Just don't fucking rest all the time. Good God. This display of excellent autism isn't representative of the wider world at all. Baldur's Gate was perfectly balanced for you to wade through most adventures and dungeons with minimal if any resting.

The game gives you an excessive amount of resources to burn through. If you rest all the time you won't have to drink potions, use scrolls or wands at all. Pillars is the same thing. Even at PotD the game gives you a shitton of camping supplies and resting options to last you through the game. There's no real point to the Crafting system if you just keep resting all the time. And that is considering most people are going to play on Normal anyways.

These discussions are always the same. A less than a handful of exceptionally autistic people who ruin these games for themselves assume that its natural to do so just because Baldur's Gate et al didn't have the balls to outright forbid resting in places. Its the same thing about the Stash. Nobody picked up every 20gp studded armor that fell from random bandits beyond whatever they could carry anyway. People cared for things like diamonds, magical weapons and winter wolf fur. And if you did you were an idiot. Its time to learn new things in life. Like how 20 of those armors amounted to 400gp of the 20K you earned half way through the game.