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Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Azarkon

Arcane
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
2,989
I don't get what you're trying to argue, I agree with you completely. My point was precise, about permanent inherit immunity to lower weapon enchantment levels - that's not rock paper scissors, it's binary pass or fail, and that I can understand why Obsidian decided against it. They went for weapon type immunites, but didn't insist upon them like BG2's golems, so they feel irrelevant.

Weapon type immunities are soft counters - since you can still use a weapon you're not proficient in - and punish specialization. Enchantment level immunities are hard counters, and punish lack of resources. We were talking about the relative satisfaction of treasure hunting, and finding an enchanted weapon in Dungeons and Dragons is supposed to feel rewarding, and it does, because +1 is significant. Finding a +5 accuracy weapon in Pillars of Eternity is not nearly as rewarding, because +5 accuracy is much less significant. So in this respect we're not talking about the same issue, since weapon type immunities can never be a proper substitute for enchantment level immunities.

The Starcraft comparison isn't very good though, because it predominantly hinges on soft counters that vary dramatically with the player skill involved, ie. vulture kiting micro vs zealots, dragoon/zealot demining, splitting air units vs irradiate, cloning BC Yamato vs Carriers, etc. You as a player have much more agency, because you can scout and even the success of early cheeses hinges upon minor execution from both sides

The example you mentioned, having no anti-air vs e.g. zerg muta switch, is almost impossible.

You could have a few dragoons or proton cannons or turrets up, but you'd lose instantly to a mutalisk switch that you did not scout. Even in the event that you are, in fact, a much better player, you still have to respond to the hard counter through building the proper answer. You can't just ignore it. The fact that the "safe" strategies developed in Starcraft ended up working in all sorts of preemptive protection mechanisms against hard counters is a consequence of their threat level, not the other way around. Your standard build timings, scout timings, etc. are motivated by a long list of possible counter strategies, and it took many years of professional gaming & analysis to figure out, down to the second, what you had to do to be safe. So yes, Starcraft eventually became a competition over mechanical skill, but this fact ignores just how long it took to get there, which is a function of the game's depth. Had it been possible to meet every challenge in Starcraft with just mechanical skill alone, the game would've been strategically stagnant much sooner.

To bring this back to CRPGs: in a game in which any character build and any party composition can meet any challenge in the game, there would be no need for thought or strategy in that area. You'd just pick whatever you want and it'd all work. Such a game has lower strategic depth. It has more strategic versatility, but this versatility is superficial - when all choices lead to the same result, no choice matters. I don't think Sawyer quite appreciated this aspect of game design as much as he should have, when he first came up with his philosophy. Yes, you want to give players choices. But those choices have to matter and not just in the sense of fluff. It's also not bad design for there to be better choices and worse choices, as long as it takes time & effort to figure all that out. After all, games are supposed to be a problem solving activity, so why is it so wrong for there to be better and worse answers?
 
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AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
That smacks more of their unwillingness to make smart loot tables and instead go the easy route and give you 142389423740234238 kobold spears.
Actually, Josh has promised they are working on that - this time around not every kobold will drop all the items - weapon, shield and a crafting component. Drops will vary.

gosh that was so funny yesterday from Josh and the Valentine's Day announcement, what a great actor being all shy and coy on the picnic blanket lol! I do like what he had to say but I do hope that it adds more to the companionship built within the party as a whole than it will be with falling in love and having romance because even in Shadows of Amn I always picked the dialog option to stop the romance of any character from moving forward because I like to explore and do side quests along with following the story than have interpersonal party distractions of conversations happening all the time
Please use shorter sentences.
 

Mazisky

Magister
Joined
Mar 8, 2015
Messages
2,082
Location
Rome, IT
As they said, 2 really interesting things are coming via update:

Later this week the big city will be unveiled with footage

Next week the new stronghold aka ship plus random encounters
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Actually, Josh has promised they are working on that - this time around not every kobold will drop all the items - weapon, shield and a crafting component. Drops will vary.

I'm not convinced. Having an infinite stash defeats the purpose of having inventories in general, most hack and slashers don't have infinite stashes even (although we mod them in, because fuck that). If Josh thinks the IE style inventory was shit (and most of the time it kinda was) then make up something else, not just remove that aspect altogether, or if they remove it remove character inventories as well, no need for a middle-man. The reagents for crafting also adds in an aspect to be considered, but that should be fixed with a decent crafting system, i.e. it shouldn't have you carry around 50 bottles of slug jizz and 30 chicken vaginas. Maybe do what DA2 did and mark the reagents you find on the map, then only use money to craft whatever it is that you want, bam you also have a decent money sink. If they don't want infinite crafting they can limit the amount of times you can use a reagent node.
 
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AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Having an infinite stash defeats the purpose of having inventories in general
This has been my argument as well. In the IE games, my problem was usually weight, not inventory space, with 6 characters each with 16 slots, not counting additional containers. Apparently I am one of the few people who took inventory management as part of the game and not an annoyance.

30 chicken vaginas
:lol:
 

cruelio

Savant
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
369
Josh just confirmed that all romances are homosexual only. To even start a romance players have to declare "I am l / g / b / t / q" to make sure. Josh is open to adding more categories as a stretch goal.
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
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Ommadawn
Well, future eighth companion stretch goal confirmed.
Hope it's a FUCKING DWARF

latest
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
Sagani was fine, but we need a stereotypical DWARF. A belligerent, drunken, angry asshole who will berate Aloth for being a limp-wristed elf, and will bro out with Eder.
 

Sizzle

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,471
Also, one of the companions (the blue guy, I guess)... Takehu (or however it's spelled) confirmed as chanter.
 

TT1

Arcane
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Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Looking at

it seems they've included every class except druid and chanter (which is also possible, seeing as we don't know what the blue guy will be yet):

Eder: fighter or rogue
Aloth: wizard
Pallegina: paladin
Xoti: priest/monk
Rua's sister: ranger
Serafen: barbarian/cipher
Blue guy has a dagger on his belt, I'd bet on a rogue. Obsidian seems to be loving their counter-clichés (for whatever reason) thing going on right now, so a huge dude being a rogue would fit that pretty well.
It'd make sense for him to be a Monk though. Seems to fit his looks and clothing.
Surely they wouldn't make another big Aumaua chanter companion.

That looks more like a wand in his belt to me.

I think its a flute. Or a tin whistle.

Maybe he's a druid/chanter godlike.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

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