Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Development Info Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #41: Dwarves and Doors (and a complete lack of proofreading)

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Don't feel like it. But, hey maybe you're right. Roguey, care to weigh in?
The simple proof is that I *always* used kiting as an argument.

As an argument against spell and ability cooldowns, not stamina regeneration.

EDIT: :lol: This is stupid.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,655
I have to say that I still doubt locked doors and chests can be anything but a trivial barrier in a game where you have SIX party members. You only need to invest in ONE specialized lock-picking character to open a locked door or chest. That's just not a lot in the larger scheme of things, no matter how gimped he is.
Josh has made it clear that you won't be able to cover every skill available with six party members. Investing in lockpicks means having to sacrifice something else.
Why not? What's so terribly wrong with multiple solutions in an RPG?
Already answered in http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/348227261540887760

And it's not like bashing makes lockpicking useless. It alerts enemies, automatically triggers traps, etc.
Alerting enemies and triggering traps: Insignificant short-term consequences compared to losing out on another skill.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Investing in lockpicks means having to sacrifice something else.

None of which will be worth missing out on locked loot chests or "hidden" areas behind locked doors, unless, as sea proposed, they're much rarer than they were in the IE games.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,655
Investing in lockpicks means having to sacrifice something else.

None of which will be worth missing out on locked loot chests or "hidden" areas behind locked doors, unless, as sea proposed, they're much rarer than they were in the IE games.
You can't say this for certain when you don't even know specifically what the other skills are. Lockpicking in New Vegas is useful, but not an essential skill.
 

Delterius

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
15,956
Location
Entre a serra e o mar.
And it's not like bashing makes lockpicking useless. It alerts enemies, automatically triggers traps, etc.
Alerting enemies and triggering traps: Insignificant short-term consequences compared to losing out on another skill.
What other skill in place of Lockpicking can possibly be worth:

All the items that you'd lose, in case bashing damages the contents of a chest.

All the resources you must spend in order to fight battles of increased difficulty, in case of bashing alerting enemies to your presence.

All the resources you'd spend in order to cope with the costs of suffering traps now and again.
 

roshan

Arcane
Joined
Apr 7, 2004
Messages
2,426
Not only would I rather have all doors in the game as possible to destroy, I would rather have destroyable walls too. I mean, it has been a feature of AD&D since the first edition, when it sometimes was a better idea to avoid a deathtrap room by circumventing it than trying to understand the lethal trap. Now, I don't mean to say I expect PE to do this (specially since walls are static, as far as I understand), but I still wanted to mention it to remind you guys how behind times CRPGs are. to date,very few computer RPGs implemented anything like a passwall spell or a dig spell. Those usually are the domains of rogue-likes. My point, thus, is that having "unbashable" doors is a big step back, in the opposite direction of where we should be going.

Have you played NOX? Pretty fucking awesome ARPG that's not a Diablo clone. You can bash walls in to find secret areas, but smacking walls erodes weapon durability pretty quickly. Lots of other really great mechanics too.
 

roshan

Arcane
Joined
Apr 7, 2004
Messages
2,426
The "realism" argument is similarly baffling. Unless players interested in this change genuinely desire realism across the board (reduce carry weight and health by 80%, make radiation damage virtually impossible to remove, etc.) I perceive it as a disingenuous argument. The genuine argument almost always comes down to, "I want to open locks but I don't want to spend points on Lockpick."

JE Sawyer making a stupid strawman argument.
 
Self-Ejected

Irenaeus

Self-Ejected
Patron
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Messages
1,867,980
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Cidade Desespero
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera
The "realism" argument is similarly baffling. Unless players interested in this change genuinely desire realism across the board (reduce carry weight and health by 80%, make radiation damage virtually impossible to remove, etc.) I perceive it as a disingenuous argument. The genuine argument almost always comes down to, "I want to open locks but I don't want to spend points on Lockpick."

JE Sawyer making a stupid strawman argument.


I like this type of "realism" even in a high fantasy world. It's usually called internal logics and physics.
 

roshan

Arcane
Joined
Apr 7, 2004
Messages
2,426
The "realism" argument is similarly baffling. Unless players interested in this change genuinely desire realism across the board (reduce carry weight and health by 80%, make radiation damage virtually impossible to remove, etc.) I perceive it as a disingenuous argument. The genuine argument almost always comes down to, "I want to open locks but I don't want to spend points on Lockpick."

JE Sawyer making a stupid strawman argument.


I like this type of "realism" even in a high fantasy world. It's usually called internal logics and physics.

To me, it isn't just about realism though. It's about being able to interact with the same gameplay elements in multiple ways. For example, in Fallout 2, I could blow some (all?) doors open with dynamite. That was fucking awesome. Or, I could use my steal skill to plant dynamite in someone's inventory and blow them up. That was also fucking awesome.

I want to be able to STEAL a KEY from someone's inventory and UNLOCK the chest/door.
I want to be able to SNEAK across a room, STEAL a KEY from a drawer, and then UNLOCK the chest/door.
I want to be able to BASH the chest/door open.
I want to be able to DISINTEGRATE the chest/door.
I want to be able to BLAST the chest open with a SPELL.
I want to be able to KILL someone, LOOT the KEY and then UNLOCK the chest/door.
I want to be able to CONVINCE, THREATEN or BLACKMAIL someone into procuring the KEY for me.
I want to be able to TELEPORT my mage on the other side of the door.


Reducing non-combat gameplay to "either you have X ranks in a skill and get the goodies, or you don't have enough ranks and you don't get the goodies" is just absolutely fucking boring. Then, everyone will invest in the skill, and EVERYONE will get the goodies in the EXACT same way, ALL THE TIME! What the fuck is fun or interesting about that? Let people INTERACT with the gameworld in MULTIPLE ways. If Sawyer thinks this is just about people wanting to open chests and doors without investing in lockpicking then he is an absolute fucking idiot.

Now what about consequences?

* If your mage teleports across a door alone, perhaps he has to face an enemy all by himself. Perhaps he teleports himself in the middle of a wall and it's instadeath for him. Perhaps he teleports into a trap or ambush. Or a non magic zone and he can no longer teleport back out, and the door is locked on both sides. Now you need to find some other solution since the room not only contains the loot, but also your mage!
* Fireball a chest? Perhaps certain vulnerable items like potions and scrolls are lost, only armor and weapons survive but with reduced durability. (I'm not in favor of random loot destruction, I'd rather have some basic principle applied evenly.)
* Disintegrate a chest? Now everything disintegrates together with it. But MAYBE you were on a mission to destroy some evidence in the chest, so disintegrate is a perfectly viable solution in that situation.
* Threaten someone into getting the key? Maybe you fail the check, and he calls the guards instead.
* Bash the chest open? Perhaps you smash the potions inside too. Often maybe you're not strong enough to bash a reinforced lock. Maybe the lock is magically warded against physical attacks (this is a fucking fantasy game after all, make use of it to enhance C&C). Maybe you blow your party's cover.

Of course a lot of these are dependent on location specific scripts and design. But a simpler formula that can be applied across the game for chests and other containers would be:

Disintegrate (If such a spell is in the game - I don't actually like the idea of instakill spells, but if your putting it in, let us use it to interact with the gameworld, not just combat) - Destroys Everything
Fireball and other Energy spells - Smashes potions, burns scrolls, reduces equipment durability by 20% (Now you need to purchase some supplies and use your REPAIR skill to fix them up). May require multiple castings to blow open the lock, you waste your spells. Also some locks are warded against magic.
Bash - Smashes potions, chance of chopping the scrolls, requires high STR, doesn't work on reinforced locks.
Lockpick - Ideal solution, requires points invested in the skill.

Removing other options in order to make lockpicking useful is just idiotic and just shows that these guys at Obsidian are just lazy bastards reducing gameplay elements to the bare minimum. Instead, the designers should look into putting as MANY options as possible, and then implement consequences to using those options.
 

Mrowak

Arcane
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
3,947
Project: Eternity
Lockpick - Ideal solution, requires points invested in the skill.

The only problem I see with it is that it is THE ideal solution. From the designer's standpoint bothering with alternative paths is but a hassle, because the player will *always* choose to pick the lock, and only if he fails, he will take advantage of other solutions. We will lead 6-men party here, so it will be easy to delegate one character specifically to learn opening locks. It's a non-brainer. The only thing that could limit lockpicking I can think if is damaging a lock with them so you won't be able to use a key (it was used in BaK). But what's save/load for?

In the end we end up with traditional approach: most containers will be locked, but if the quest demands it there will be "magical" lockpicking-proof locks, in which case you will be do some busywork, key-finding and puzzle-solving.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Roshan doesn't care about that, Mrowak. He wants to play in a sandbox with lots of options, not to play a challenging, tightly designed game.

So who cares what most players will do? It's the principle that counts. Simulationists gotta simulate.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
ITT we learn that chess is a simulationist game because you can protect your king in multiple ways instead of having a piece designated to save him from mates.

That's not really a good analogy. Defending your king with a game piece (instead of moving him far away, or letting him fight the enemy) is still a very limited, "gamey" rule.

Being able to defend your king with multiple pieces in chess would be analogous to being able to grant the lockpick skill to multiple classes and characters in PE.
 

CappenVarra

phase-based phantasmist
Patron
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
2,912
Location
Ardamai
Now you need to purchase some supplies and use your REPAIR skill to fix them up
You're forgetting that in the beautiful Sawyerian utopia of the future, there's no such thing as item durability. Dude's as combat-as-sport as it gets...

(not that IE games had it, but hey...)
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,655
All the items that you'd lose, in case bashing damages the contents of a chest.

All the resources you must spend in order to fight battles of increased difficulty, in case of bashing alerting enemies to your presence.

All the resources you'd spend in order to cope with the costs of suffering traps now and again.
You're speaking in nonexistent hypotheticals. No game that allows you to bash chests and doors open has SEVERE CONSEQUENCES for doing so.
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
I didn't know gamist = popamole.

Themoreyouknow.jpg


Lockpick - Ideal solution, requires points invested in the skill.

The only problem I see with it is that it is THE ideal solution. From the designer's standpoint bothering with alternative paths is but a hassle, because the player will *always* choose to pick the lock, and only if he fails, he will take advantage of other solutions. We will lead 6-men party here, so it will be easy to delegate one character specifically to learn opening locks. It's a non-brainer. The only thing that could limit lockpicking I can think if is damaging a lock with them so you won't be able to use a key (it was used in BaK). But what's save/load for?

Well, if the game is well designed, having a character with maxed out lockpicking would imply the party gave up some other skills. In which case, great, he gets the optimal solution to locked chests, but must use the suboptimal one to many other problems. Also, lockpicking might not be that optimal if there are mimics...

In the end we end up with traditional approach: most containers will be locked, but if the quest demands it there will be "magical" lockpicking-proof locks, in which case you will be do some busywork, key-finding and puzzle-solving.

Or, you could put in different solutions to your quest, so a character with lockpicking can skip the "puzzle" entirely, or face a completely different one.
 

Lancehead

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 6, 2012
Messages
1,550
Streamlining = popamole
He's not streamlining; streamlining is when multiple options are consolidated into few. The complaint here with Lockpicking is that he isn't giving as many options as possible.

You can have exclusive uses of skills and still retain build complexity and variety. Giving multiple options for a task doesn't increase system complexity, but creates different types of trade-offs than when you adopt a simulationist approach.

I didn't know gamist = popamole.

Themoreyouknow.jpg
One might call turn-based combat mechanics as gamist.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom