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

[AwesomeButton]

How would you disallow backtracking? Honest question... I'm frequently wondering how would someone promote persistence

By literally not allowing you to exit the dungeon? Slammed shut door, rocks fall and prevent your return, the baddie erects a barrier etc. Or have a point-of-no-return somewhere in the dungeon. At most I'd program the game to autosave outside the dungeon the first time you enter it, so there's your compromise for the droolies.

This hardly fixes anything. Players will just savescum before entering those areas from which they suspect they won't be able to backtrack Like they savescum before the final area in PoE.

 

[AwesomeButton]

You can get off the ship and explore islands and whatnot on the world map, can't you? Or am I misremembering?

Obviously you can get off the ship, but as far as we've heard until now, world travel where you actually move your party on the world map (as opposed to just pointing and clicking on a location like PoE1's world map) is only at sea. So the assumption has been that random encounters only happen there.

Hm, I believe you can go in circles with the party figurine as much as you want, like you can with the ship, but bviously you can't just descend from travel mode into a normal walk mode, like in Fallout/Arcanum.

 

[Quillon]

On land it seems to be like Dragon Age Origins; location to location like in Pillars 1 but with travel path so we could get waylaid on the way.

 

[AwesomeButton]

On land it seems to be like Dragon Age Origins; location to location like in Pillars 1 but with travel path so we could get waylaid on the way.

No, you can see the figurine is clearing the fog of war, you can explore and find location markers, unlike in DAO.

 

[Quillon]

you can explore and find location markers, unlike in DAO.

I haven't saw clicking on an empty location on land so it may or may not be like that. In the vid above it seems like party is travelling between shore to selected location which is poko kohara. Rest of the FoW on the island could be cleared with ship sailing alongside it I guess.

 

[Iznaliu]

I wonder whether this will feature somehow in PoE2's plot?

 

[Lacrymas]

This hardly fixes anything. Players will just savescum before entering those areas from which they suspect they won't be able to backtrack Like they savescum before the fina area in PoE.

How are they going to savescum like this? The game autosaves before entering the dungeon, so in essence you have all your supplies and are rested up when you go into the dungeon. When you enter the dungeon the door slams behind you, now you have 2 camping supplies to get through it. You might reload the game before you've begun the dungeon, but how is that going to help you get through it easier? Yeah, it's gonna be metagame knowledge after that, but, short of randomizing the dungeon each time, that isn't possible to avoid.

 

[Sizzle]

 

[Iznaliu]

Yeah, it's gonna be metagame knowledge after that

Metagame knowledge is half the battle for many.

 

[Quillon]

Who dat? One of the archmages?

 

[Ulfhednar]

 

[AwesomeButton]

you can explore and find location markers, unlike in DAO.

I haven't saw clicking on an empty location on land so it may or may not be like that. In the vid above it seems like party is travelling between shore to selected location which is poko kohara. Rest of the FoW on the island could be cleared with ship sailing alongside it I guess.

You're right, that could be the case, but if you can go through the fog of war to a pre-discovered location, and can disembark at different points on the same isle (hence there is more than one overland route you can use to reach that location), it's not impossible that you could stumble upon an undiscovered location.

This hardly fixes anything. Players will just savescum before entering those areas from which they suspect they won't be able to backtrack Like they savescum before the fina area in PoE.

How are they going to savescum like this? The game autosaves before entering the dungeon, so in essence you have all your supplies and are rested up when you go into the dungeon. When you enter the dungeon the door slams behind you, now you have 2 camping supplies to get through it. You might reload the game before you've begun the dungeon, but how is that going to help you get through it easier? Yeah, it's gonna be metagame knowledge after that, but, short of randomizing the dungeon each time, that isn't possible to avoid.

How they are going to save-scum? Simple - rest up, stock up on what you might need, make a save beforehand, and go in. If you know you have to pass this dungeon only with what you have on you - oh, and in your unlimited inventory, the stash, lol - you can just buy up as much supplies as you decide and walk around with a shop inventory's worth of scrolls, potions, varied weapons enhanced for specific enemy types, and a maximum number of camping supplies.

Of course, accessing the stash (both putting items into it and taking items out of it) could be disabled in certain areas, but why burden players with the need to consider what equipment to take and what to leave, or why put a cost on an inventory slot? Managing inventory was never part of roleplaying games, and it doesn't enrich the gameplay in any way, right?

Noo, all it does is promote players loading a savegame in their disappointment that the game didn't foresee the possibility that they may make a bad choice.

 

[Infinitron]

I think that's some Something Awful forum personality who pledged enough to put his portrait in the game.

Poll:

 

[Quillon]

but if you can go through the fog of war to a pre-discovered location, and can disembark at different points on the same isle (hence there is more than one overland route you can use to reach that location), it's not impossible that you could stumble upon an undiscovered location.

Not sure about that since the ship is intended for Poko Kohara and disembarks inconveniently at the bottom of the island rather than right next to the location, maybe there are set disembark points/only one disembark point for each island. For stumbling upon undiscovered locations, party discovers "Ravine" location while on board the ship earlier in the vid.

 

[AwesomeButton]

but if you can go through the fog of war to a pre-discovered location, and can disembark at different points on the same isle (hence there is more than one overland route you can use to reach that location), it's not impossible that you could stumble upon an undiscovered location.

Not sure about that since the ship is intended for Poko Kohara and disembarks inconveniently at the bottom of the island rather than right next to the location, maybe there are set disembark points/only one disembark point for each island. For stumbling upon undiscovered locations, party discovers "Ravine" location while on board the ship earlier in the vid.

A fixed number of disembark locations per island is something that has been confirmed, in that same update (36).

Well, if they discover a location while on the way to another location, that means discovering locations naturally is possible. In DA:O it was not.

 

[Quillon]

Well, if they discover a location while on the way to another location, that means discovering locations naturally is possible. In DA:O it was not

Yeah, I cited DAO for on land travel, discovering new locations naturally(?) could be ship exclusive here.

ed: Why the WTFs? If you are on foot and travelling from location to location there is no natural discovery. If the FoW you're clearing while doing this reveals a new location, is it natural discovery or intended discovery? So the real natural discovery is with ship since you're dictating where it goes anywhere on the sea. Natural discovery of nature of Eora ftw.

 

[Lacrymas]

Wow.

 

[Tom Selleck]

i still used godmode and increased str console commands in storymode

 

[AwesomeButton]

Well, if they discover a location while on the way to another location, that means discovering locations naturally is possible. In DA:O it was not

Yeah, I cited DAO for on land travel, discovering new locations naturally(?) could be ship exclusive here.

ed: Why the WTFs? If you are on foot and travelling from location to location there is no natural discovery. If the FoW you're clearing while doing this reveals a new location, is it natural discovery or intended discovery? So the real natural discovery is with ship since you're dictating where it goes anywhere on the sea. Natural discovery of nature of Eora ftw.

If it's intended, it's not a discovery. I mean a situation where you are travelling towards a known location through uncharted land, and while on the way, you discover another location.

All that is assuming you are right and the player caan't travel freely over land by clicking on the map. My guess is that this will be possible, rather than impossible.

 

[Alienman]

How would you disallow backtracking? Honest question... I'm frequently wondering how would someone promote persistence

By literally not allowing you to exit the dungeon? Slammed shut door, rocks fall and prevent your return, the baddie erects a barrier etc. Or have a point-of-no-return somewhere in the dungeon. At most I'd program the game to autosave outside the dungeon the first time you enter it, so there's your compromise for the droolies.

Rock fall. Such a classic

 

[AwesomeButton]

Why are we even talking about the degenerate strategy? Does anyone actually do that? The problem isn't that some autist rests after every fight, but rather that there's little reason to play well and conserve resources - the difference in terms of time saved between optimal and average play is small enough that it doesn't matter in practice. Hence making the resource management irrelevant, and caring about it like Prime Junta nothing but self-imposed difficulty.

I don't mean this as a slight, for the record, I do play both IE games and PoE this way as well, but the altered rest system in PoE doesn't factor into this preference.

Excellently put. I've tried to say the same thing so many times. At some point in playing through PoE, you feel like you are better off switching to Story Time because tactics are the same, your equipment doesn't seem to matter. At least in Story Mode you would get through the grind faster.

We should note though, that the issue with resource management being irrelevant was already present in BG/IWD. You would finish both games with far more scrolls and potions than you would ever need. This partly has to do with players being inclined to load game if a character dies during combat, or if they use more than a couple of potions, etc.

How would you disallow backtracking? Honest question... I'm frequently wondering how would someone promote persistence

Ultimately, you can't. It's a videogame, and a player who is determined to abuse the rules, and play it as a videogame, not as an RPG, will always find a way to do that.

If you try playing this way in a PnP...
"Due to the clatter of the 25 dark elven swords you are carrying, you have now attracted the attention of a nest of gricks. Oh, my, you are almost overwhelmed by disgusting skittering sounds. Roll for initiative."

Who would have thought - what is common practice in PnP leads to "degenerate strategy" in a cRPG, namely the horrible practice of loading savegames. Lol.

Still, to provide a possible solution:
A designer could ask a developer to implement an algorithm which tracks if the player is entering-exiting the same few areas in succession, and after his behavior becomes "suspicious" enough, throws a random encounter at him. It's nothing difficult to do. Unless the designer thinks random encounters are haram, because players can load their game and retry. Big deal. Like we never did it in, say, Darklands.

Darklands solves the problem with rest-spamming outside of the city (where you can rest free of charge for inn accomodation) by steadily increasing the risk of guards or bandits finding you.

What's even more clever - after every day of resting in the woods, the player is shown the increased risk of being discovered and can see how the risk increases. Even if you try to savescum a few times when the risk is at 12, you will give up after you are unable to rest four times in a row. With time the player learns to expect to have zero chance of resting once risk is 12 or above, and is naturally dissuaded from save scumming.

A similar solution could prevent the player not just from rest spamming but from backtracking. They figured this out in 1992, can't be that big of a problem, if someone really wanted to address it.

 

[Prime Junta]

Who would have thought - what is common practice in PnP leads to "degenerate strategy" in a cRPG, namely the horrible practice of loading savegames. Lol.

You don't see the distinction between reloading to, say, replay a fight in order to try a different tactic, and repeatedly reloading in order to, say, get an uninterrupted rest, or pass a random skill check? Interesting.

edit: Also, the rest of you are approaching this wrong too.

The point isn't to make savescumming/restscumming/going back and forth etc. impossible. It's to make it unattractive, while keeping resting powerful. Incentives, bros.

(Making it impossible would of course be trivial -- save only on checkpoints, rest only in single-use campsites, and lock the door behind you. Lots of games do this all the time. Making it unattractive is a lot harder, if at the same time you don't want to make resting entirely optional.)

 

[AwesomeButton]

Who would have thought - what is common practice in PnP leads to "degenerate strategy" in a cRPG, namely the horrible practice of loading savegames. Lol.

You don't see the distinction between reloading to, say, replay a fight in order to try a different tactic, and repeatedly reloading in order to, say, get an uninterrupted rest, or pass a random skill check? Interesting.

edit: Also, the rest of you are approaching this wrong too.

The point isn't to make savescumming/restscumming/going back and forth etc. impossible. It's to make it unattractive, while keeping resting powerful. Incentives, bros.

(Making it impossible would of course be trivial -- save only on checkpoints, rest only in single-use campsites, and lock the door behind you. Lots of games do this all the time. Making it unattractive is a lot harder, if at the same time you don't want to make resting entirely optional.)

I do see the difference. If someone is determined to play this way however, I don't see why I should go through much trouble to stop them. For me this problem falls into "it's their game, let them play it".

Especially given the fact that the game takes the same stance on other problems, but not on rest spamming. Save scumming isn't the biggest of PoE's issues by far imo.

I don't imagine why it would be so hard to discourage savescumming before rest.

 

[Iznaliu]

Who dat? One of the archmages?

Spoiler

Eothas.

 

[Quillon]

Who dat? One of the archmages?

Spoiler

Eothas.

Spoiler

Looks more like Geothas.