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

[sea]

This game is goddamn beautiful.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Hey Anthony Davis, what's with all the activity all of a sudden? Vacation time?

I'm actually working pretty hard and family has been keeping me SUPER busy. I just have had some time TODAY to pop on between compiles and merge resolutions.

 

[Zed]

lol the characters are white balls what kind of cheap shit did I back

 

[imweasel]

What is up with the pixels on the window panes? Pixels are missing where there should be pixels and vice versa. Did you cut out the window panes for the dynamic lighting with the magic wand tool in photoshop? Other than that, everything looks great. Welll deserved brofists to the PoE tech guys.



Now show us some good gameplay, you assholes. That E3 demo better be good.

Spoiler

:D

 

[Cyberarmy]

lol the characters are white balls what kind of cheap shit did I back

Thats a bit racist...

 

[Roguey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak52BLOFyuo&google_comment_id=z13otdazptvwcdvrr04cfzjyjujhvve5jpo0k

LBurhenn
2 hours ago

Looks good. Shame I had to stop following this game when I learned there is no romance and it has steampunk guns and junk. Just following Divinity Original Sin now.

Could be worse, I guess!

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/471719748179615744

reminder that the historical era between medieval tymes and the present day is "steampunk".

Yesssssssssssssss.

 

[Yuri Gagarin]

 

[Copper]

Well, animancy does seem pretty 'steampunk' if you're willing to stretch the definition to include anachronistic but 'mundane' technology doing fantastical things.

 

[Infinitron]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives#Clockpunk

 

[eremita]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives#Clockpunk

"Elfpunk":D

God, I hate this world.

 

[Johannes]

Josh checks Something Awful before (probably at) work.

Prometheus and I were having a discussion about the armor system, since it has changed quite a bit over time. I said that Crush was the best damage type vs. plate ... but it turns out that's actually not the case anymore. Estocs are the best weapon vs plate armor.

Plate is least resistant to Shock damage, but if you're going to use melee weapons, estocs, stilettos, and maces all have DT negation and are usually your best bet on occasions where the target's DT is uniform against the physical damage types (Slash/Crush/Pierce). In both models (original and current), two-handed weapons are best when DT is really high. If DT is really high and the DT has no physical vulnerabilities (like plate armor), estocs are the most efficient.

This bit is old info

Daggers are Slash and have an inherent Accuracy bonus. Stilettos are Pierce and negate a portion of DT.

On Mace DT negation (which I think is new info as it's not on the wiki)

Generally yes due to the mace's DT negation. Swords and maces do the same damage and attack at the same speed. The benefit of a sword is "Best of Slash/Pierce" where they do damage against the type that the armor is weakest against. If both Slash and Pierce DT on the target are equal (and equal to the base DT), the sword doesn't really have a benefit. In those circumstances, a mace will almost always be better.

And Maces absolutely rape Mail armor

E: In case anyone was wondering, maces are extremely good against anyone in mail. Crush is mail's worst damage type and maces negate DT on top of that. With a mace against standard mail the target has close to 0 DT.

Hmm, not sure I like this faux-realistic approach. In IE games you chose weapons based on their cool magical special abilities, likewise for armor, for the most part. Trying to add to that too much mundane modifiers into it just muddles that up in a likely not very interesting, RPS way, and those rules have quite little to do with real combat either.

 

[Infinitron]

"Faux-realistic"? Blasphemy.

He's trying to make it so it's not always LONGSWORDS ARE THE BEST, even at the early, low level, non-magic-up-the-ass stages of the game. Don't see anything wrong with that.

 

[tuluse]

It seems like each character will be carrying 2-4 weapons that they will switch between during battles as you pick one that works best for the current encounter.

Seems like a nice upgrade on IE where you found your super weapon and just used it exclusively.

 

[Dorateen]

I did switch to fire-damage weapons when fighting trolls, or a weapon with disruption properties for fighting undead. So IE did allow for contextual swapping of weapons to some degree.

 

[Merlkir]

It seems like each character will be carrying 2-4 weapons that they will switch between during battles as you pick one that works best for the current encounter.

Seems like a nice upgrade on IE where you found your super weapon and just used it exclusively.

True dat. I've always wanted to use maces and polearms, but if it wasn't for classes that specialized in them, very few games made them viable.

 

[Johannes]

It seems like each character will be carrying 2-4 weapons that they will switch between during battles as you pick one that works best for the current encounter.

Seems like a nice upgrade on IE where you found your super weapon and just used it exclusively.

If you're just switching the weapon for best damage, but doing the same routine regardless of your weapon, it's pointless. Just busywork of calculating the best DPS for a situation and switching to that.

The problem with 2ed D&D was that the proficiencies forced you to exclusively use a single type of weapon per character, so you couldn't do much switching unless you happened to have several good weapons of the same type, which did happen but not quite enough. But the different magic weapons, at least in BG2, were very varied and interesting. Whether a weapon granted you defensive bonuses, superb damage, spellcasting bonus, stunning attacks, etc., was definitely more interesting than "good vs X type of armor". It is after all a game predominantly about magic so why not focus on that.

Now, I don't have a problem with having different mundane weapons be different... But they should vary by something else than dps vs. different targets, cause that doesn't affect your fighting style, but just the length of a fight.

 

[Infinitron]

That busywork is what we call "tactics". And it's not just about damage, but also speed and range.

But yeah, I realize now that one of the reasons many people on the Codex can't grok Pillars of Eternity's design is that they are much, much more nostalgic for BG2 than they are for the other IE games.

For a number of reasons, I'm actually most nostalgic for BG1, which might be why I'm a lot more sympathetic to Josh's decisions. I don't remember the "Infinity Engine experience" as a BG2-like cornucopia of wild magical items and game-breaking abilities where the core mechanics receded into the background and didn't really matter. I remember it as something a lot more gritty and down to earth.

 

[Athelas]

BG1 was 'gritty and down to earth'?

By the way, how does the interrupt system factor into this? I assume weapon types have a different interrupt stat?

 

[Infinitron]

By the way, how does the interrupt system factor into this? I assume weapon types have a different interrupt stat?

Yep, that's another differentiator.

 

[Nihiliste]

That busywork is what we call "tactics". And it's not just about damage, but also speed and range.

But yeah, I realize now that one of the reasons many people on the Codex can't grok Pillars of Eternity's design is that they are much, much more nostalgic for BG2 than they are for the other IE games.

For a number of reasons, I'm actually most nostalgic for BG1, which might be why I'm a lot more sympathetic to Josh's decisions. I don't remember the "Infinity Engine experience" as a BG2-like cornucopia of wild magical items and game-breaking abilities where the core mechanics receded into the background and didn't really matter. I remember it as something a lot more gritty and down to earth.

I loved most of the IE games, but I do hope this resurgence of Kickstarter RPGs ends up giving us at least one game more in the BG2 vein of feel and experience.

 

[Grunker]

BG1 was 'gritty and down to earth'?

Compared to BG2? I think saying anything else would be a pretty controversial statement, lol.

 

[Johannes]

That busywork is what we call "tactics". And it's not just about damage, but also speed and range.

Calculating dps (which inludes speed) is not really tactics, it's just simple math. If weapon range is a relevant factor that's more interesting already, depending on how well they overall implement the movement/interrupt/etc. mechanics.


And of course BG2 was the best IE game by a long shot, yes.

 

[Infinitron]

Calculating dps (which inludes speed) is not really tactics, it's just simple math.

Making decisions about what to use in a battle is tactics. And ultimately, your objective in a battle is to deplete your enemy's health to zero, so this whole "optimizing your DPS is low-brow and popamole and not really tactical" attitude seems really silly to me.

As for how complex it can get, the game has a DT-based armor system and a wide variety of class abilities that may apply all sorts of modifiers throughout the battle, so it may not always be as simple as "choose the best weapon against the enemy's armor".

 

[Roguey]

JES believes tactics involve facing a situation where enemies have multiple kinds of resistances. Weighing opportunity costs, prioritizing opponents = tactical.

 

[Athelas]

New - Norwegian- interview with Sawyer interview. http://www.gamer.no/artikler/intervju-pillars-of-eternity/160347

Google translated and there's some interesting bits:

- It took us a while to get into godformen again, how best to make the kind of game areas. Once everything worked out , we managed to design large, beautiful sites very quickly . The game is now bigger , yes , slightly larger than Icewind Dale . We are not quite up to Baldur 's Gate II size, but it's close , said project designer .

What will it take for you to create a game that is the size of Baldur 's Gate II?
-I do not know. We 'll see if we get to make a sequel , how quickly we so, can produce things. For us it was a big part of the preparations this time , to figure out how to make this kind of game again . We worked with the Unity game engine for the first time and used Maya to design areas in three dimensions. It has been a long time since we worked on a two-dimensional perspective.- As our designers are familiar with creating this kind of game again, with the slightly old-fashioned way to structure assignments and other things , I believe we can produce things much faster . If Pillars of Eternity is a success , and bi can spend more time so we could probably have done it. For this particular game , we wanted first and foremost to create a game worthy of the Infinity Engine games in size and ambition. And we realized that reaching up to Baldur 's Gate II certainly was beyond our reach right now . Perhaps in the future , sugar Sawyer .