Development Info Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #39: Classes, Cooldowns, Attacks, Damage vs. Armor, and Tilesets

[Lord Andre]

LOL first we have not complicated enough. Now we have too complicated? Not trying to brown-nose to VD; it's just he's made a game before. Few here have and pretty much (as is obvious from some comments) don't know what they're talking about when it comes to design. They just want a game to fit their needs. So their problem-solving is of limited value.

Anyway, like I said, we needed more information before we can yell "decline." Now we have it. Where did the pundits go?

I'm not yelling decline. Honestly, there is nothing in the update that would seem to me as outright decline. BUT, but I do find Sawyer's approach to things to be rather bland, boring and mediocre. This armor issue is just the latest item in a long list where he scratches his ear with the opposite hand. Give me grappling, give me tripping, give me disarming, give me levitation, flight, acrobatics, give me the posibility to toss my dwarf npc at my enemies, something. Brainstorm me some new tactical maneuvers instead of messing around with numbers on an age old mechanic that amounts to switching weapons. But no, Sawyer is nothing more than an engineer - he can balance your check book and fix your PC but he can't create something new to save his life. His idea of interesting spells is adding fire damage to a weapon or firing a miniblast from your staff. Fooling around with silly spreadsheets when he should be brainstorming cool ideas for characters and abilities.

 

[kazgar]

LOL first we have not complicated enough. Now we have too complicated? Not trying to brown-nose to VD; it's just he's made a game before. Few here have and pretty much (as is obvious from some comments) don't know what they're talking about when it comes to design. They just want a game to fit their needs. So their problem-solving is of limited value.

Anyway, like I said, we needed more information before we can yell "decline." Now we have it. Where did the pundits go?

I'm not yelling decline. Honestly, there is nothing in the update that would seem to me as outright decline. BUT, but I do find Sawyer's approach to things to be rather bland, boring and mediocre. This armor issue is just the latest item in a long list where he scratches his ear with the opposite hand. Give me grappling, give me tripping, give me disarming, give me levitation, flight, acrobatics, give me the posibility to toss my dwarf npc at my enemies, something. Brainstorm me some new tactical maneuvers instead of messing around with numbers on an age old mechanic that amounts to switching weapons. But no, Sawyer is nothing more than an engineer - he can balance your check book and fix your PC but he can't create something new to save his life. His idea of interesting spells is adding fire damage to a weapon or firing a miniblast from your staff. Fooling around with silly spreadsheets when he should be brainstorming cool ideas for characters and abilities.

Problem with too many ideas means there's usually enough time to playtest and bugfix them all, and the same faces will all be back here in 12 months time saying how PE had so much potential but Obsidian stuffed it up yet again by putting too much in and it being buggy and awkward. Flawed Gem alert.

 

[Lord Andre]

LOL first we have not complicated enough. Now we have too complicated? Not trying to brown-nose to VD; it's just he's made a game before. Few here have and pretty much (as is obvious from some comments) don't know what they're talking about when it comes to design. They just want a game to fit their needs. So their problem-solving is of limited value.

Anyway, like I said, we needed more information before we can yell "decline." Now we have it. Where did the pundits go?

I'm not yelling decline. Honestly, there is nothing in the update that would seem to me as outright decline. BUT, but I do find Sawyer's approach to things to be rather bland, boring and mediocre. This armor issue is just the latest item in a long list where he scratches his ear with the opposite hand. Give me grappling, give me tripping, give me disarming, give me levitation, flight, acrobatics, give me the posibility to toss my dwarf npc at my enemies, something. Brainstorm me some new tactical maneuvers instead of messing around with numbers on an age old mechanic that amounts to switching weapons. But no, Sawyer is nothing more than an engineer - he can balance your check book and fix your PC but he can't create something new to save his life. His idea of interesting spells is adding fire damage to a weapon or firing a miniblast from your staff. Fooling around with silly spreadsheets when he should be brainstorming cool ideas for characters and abilities.

Problem with too many ideas means there's usually enough time to playtest and bugfix them all, and the same faces will all be back here in 12 months time saying how PE had so much potential but Obsidian stuffed it up yet again by putting too much in and it being buggy and awkward. Flawed Gem alert.

Or, and aparently this is unheard of in the gaming industry, you prioritise. You have 20 new ideas but only enough time and resources to implement five. You then have a team meeting and debate until you decide the best 5 of the bunch and implement those. Problem solved. And way better than implementing zero new ideas.

 

[kazgar]

Once this one's a slam dunk, think of all the cool stuff they can put in the sequel leveragingthe well designed base!

 

[Infinitron]

No response from Josh to my comment on Formspring. I think we might just see yet another permutation in this system at some point.

I doubt that.

First, Obsidian/BIS games were always easy, so I wouldn't expect a challenging combat out of the blue.

Second, they don't have a habit of letting you attack enemies you aren't ready to attack yet, so I don't expect a large attack/defense discrepancy.

Third, Sawyer thinks that missing is like bad for business, so I don't expect him to let the player miss a lot just because he is a few levels below the target.

In a balanced fight, you have a 5% chance of missing. In an unbalanced fight this chance can probably go to 15% - a value usually reserved for critical chance attacks. Time will tell.

There you go with your assumptions again. Josh has already mentioned examples of going up against enemies that will be so hard to hit, that the player will only be able to miss, graze or (I think) hit on a maximum roll. No critical hits would be possible against such an enemy.

 

[Moribund]

He did come up with ideas most of them were just crap, though, or attempts to address things that are not real problems. Probably a hint is that if something is a "problem" and better systems don't address it there's a reason.

rtwp kills off your ability to do many things like I mentioned in other thread. 2D kills off a lot of others like levitation and grappling.

But people always say theoretically rtwp can be just as tactical and awesome, so why not try to actually deliver that instead of just rehashing the same lame ideas and numbers nonsense?

How about you can only control one character directly, the main character? At the start of combat you place everything and give them some general orders like movement orders or target priority, perhaps a list of spells they can use - keep it high level, though. Almost like a tower defense game, some of them are actually pretty fun. Then you can control your main character a while and then after x time you get to redo orders.

Then the ridiculous micro is taken out which is looking like it will just get made MORE tedious by the minute. You also have some planning to do, and combat can become interesting again. You can spend 20 minutes setting up for a fight in a tower defense game. Maybe make this more like 5 minutes for a big boss fight and almost none for an easy random fight. Could be pretty fun but I doubt we'll get anything too innovative. Not in a good way at least.

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63...tion-damage-vs-armor-and-a-tileset/?p=1303180

Well, we're going to try this system out, but I do admit that I'm not 100% sold on it. I was really having a lot of trouble working out the wide variation in values in the original system (I made a post with the spreadsheet on the previous page) after adjusting formulae and values for weeks. If we do "go back" to the original system, it will need to include some remedies for communicating relative damage in the interface.

 

[Zeriel]

PE would be way better if it were turn-based. It's really too bad--they had a chance to achieve the greatness of ToEE's combat combined with Black Isle strength in plotting and storyline, but the pull of nostalgia and making sure all the old Infinity Engine fans bought it was just too much.

 

[Black]

IE fucks up rpgs even posthumously.

 

[Roguey]

LOL first we have not complicated enough. Now we have too complicated? Not trying to brown-nose to VD; it's just he's made a game before. Few here have and pretty much (as is obvious from some comments) don't know what they're talking about when it comes to design. They just want a game to fit their needs. So their problem-solving is of limited value.

TBQH a good critic doesn't necessarily have to have experience with what's being critiqued and any sucker can ~design~ a game (all you need are a pencil, paper, and dice). Making something good, that's something else; even critics have trouble. Just ask Roger Ebert about Beyond the Valley of the Dolls or Lesifoere about her epic gay/bi/ace-filled novel that had to be rewritten from the ground up three times and hasn't actually been published.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There you go with your assumptions again.

I'm all about the track record.

Sure, it would be nice if Obsidian went and made a challenging RPG, unlike anything they've ever done before, but why would they? What would be the reasons for them to do so? I hope we all agree that they are playing it safe with PE. and challenging combat and playing it safe are two different things.

Josh has already mentioned examples of going up against enemies that will be so hard to hit, that the player will only be able to miss, graze or (I think) hit on a maximum roll. No critical hits would be possible against such an enemy.

I'll believe it when I see. Not because I think that such a thing is impossible but because Obsidian doesn't want to frustrate players and many people will be very frustrated if they can't kill something. So, either, you can kill it by ganging up and grazing it to death or such encounters aren't meant to be taken seriously (like trying to fight Lothar in PST).

 

[Kz3r0]

Yes. Look what it has done for:

And of course:

So, you see, this can only be a sign of total

Growing the Beard


"Okay, since when did this show become AMAZING?! "
— Yugi, Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series, Episode 52

The opposite of Jumping the Shark,

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrowingTheBeard

 

[Infinitron]

Sure, it would be nice if Obsidian went and made a challenging RPG, unlike anything they've ever done before, but why would they? What would be the reasons for them to do so?

Because this is Kickstarter and everything has changed.

Look at it this way: Josh has said that PE on hard/expert difficulty will be at least as hard as Icewind Dale 2. So unless you think he's lying, that's the kind of difficulty you should expect. (no self-respecting Codexer will play at a lower difficulty, I should hope)

 

[FeelTheRads]

Josh has said that PE on hard/expert difficulty will be at least as hard as Icewind Dale 2.

Wait, hard/expert are the PE versions of Heart of Fury or was there something else?

 

[Infinitron]

Josh has said that PE on hard/expert difficulty will be at least as hard as Icewind Dale 2.

Wait, hard/expert are the PE versions of Heart of Fury or was there something else?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/316398

 

[Roguey]

(no self-respecting Codexer will play at a lower difficulty, I should hope)

I'm playing on normal with certain expert toggles first because I don't like unexpected extreme difficulty spikes. Hard would be for the second time around if it's worth playing again.

 

[Rivmusique]

So what is the difference between the original weapon vs armor system and the new one? In terms of how you would play it? Because it seems to me that with both the solution is to carry one of each type of weapon (pierce, crush and slash) and switch out when you find one is doing too shit damage to kill the target/s before it/they can kill you.

 

[Roguey]

I'm all about the track record.

Sure, it would be nice if Obsidian went and made a challenging RPG, unlike anything they've ever done before, but why would they? What would be the reasons for them to do so? I hope we all agree that they are playing it safe with PE. and challenging combat and playing it safe are two different things.

It's about the audience. They're making this for fans of the IE games, so the goal will be to make it at least IWD series/BG2-level difficult, minus many of the imbalances of D&D.

I'll believe it when I see. Not because I think that such a thing is impossible but because Obsidian doesn't want to frustrate players and many people will be very frustrated if they can't kill something. So, either, you can kill it by ganging up and grazing it to death or such encounters aren't meant to be taken seriously (like trying to fight Lothar in PST).

http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/109792-project-eternity-interview.html

Buck: You've stated that you're taking an open world approach with the game, but will there be some areas where a more linear design makes more sense? When do you think a linear approach makes the most sense?

Josh: I'd like to avoid linear sequences whenever possible, but there are usually a few choke points the player will have to go through even in open games. For example, you have to get the water chip and deal with the Master in Fallout. There are a lot of ways to actually do those things, but you can't avoid dealing with them in some way. That's as "linear" as I'd like to get.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63091-josh-sawyer-on-miss-and-hit/?view=findpost&p=1296132

Many misses would likely be reduced to fractional Stamina damage and, by association, even smaller Health damage (we do track the fractions). Currently, our DT system has the same minimum 20% system as F:NV (excepting Crushing weapons, which currently do minimum 40%). Decent armor would turn that 3 Damage into 0.6 Stamina damage and 0.15 Health damage. Ten "missed" blows would result in 6 points of Stamina damage and 1.5 points of Health damage.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63091-josh-sawyer-on-miss-and-hit/?view=findpost&p=1296190

If you assume that the 8th level fighter stands there like a doofus doing absolutely nothing, sure. I don't know how you think you're going to outpace the damage/health of the other fighter while doing sub-magic missile damage before armor comes into play.

Keep in mind there won't be any health potions/unlimited heals for you to spam your way through fights. While you're doing .## damage numbers, they're doing whole ones.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Because this is Kickstarter and everything has changed.

The funding model has changed, but they still need to sell the game. Sadly, to do a decent volume you need to sell the game to retards and KS can't help you there.

Look at it this way: Josh has said that PE on hard/expert difficulty will be at least as hard as Icewind Dale 2. So unless you think he's lying, that's the kind of difficulty you should expect. (no self-respecting Codexer will play at a lower difficulty, I should hope)

I don't know. Intentions always sound good on paper, when specifics are missing. He said:

"Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat."
^ Doesn't sound like much.

"Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved."
^ Could be something, could be nothing.

First, if I recall correctly, HoF was for high level characters, so you had to beat the game once to unlock it and at level 1 you didn't have a chance. So, technically, HoF was a "spiritual successor" to Diablo difficulty modes - beat it on Normal to unlock Hard. IWD2 was a decent hack-n-slasher but not something you want to play again! the moment you beat it.

Second, HoF greatly increased HP, damage, and XP. According to the ever helpful internets:

All monsters get 80 + 3x their normal HP.
A 8hp monster would have 80 + 3 * 8 = 104hp in HoF mode
A 30hp monster would have 80 + 3 * 30 = 170hp in HoF mode

This isn't a difficulty mode, this is bullshit.

Now, in Sawyer's example, it's hard to get a feeling how hard these scenarios are. So, on Easy you get weak melee enemies, on Normal you get casters. How difficult the casters are to deal with? In all IE games, except for BG2, not very. Technically, they are more difficult than weak melee enemies, but it doesn't say much. Etc.

 

[Infinitron]

This isn't a difficulty mode, this is bullshit.

Literal-minded much? That's why Sawyer will replace the HP bloat with beefed up encounters.

In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty.

Now, in Sawyer's example, it's hard to get a feeling how hard these scenarios are. So, on Easy you get weak melee enemies, on Normal you get casters. How difficult the casters are to deal with? In all IE games, except for BG2, not very. Technically, they are more difficult than weak melee enemies, but it doesn't say much. Etc.

Okay, if you insist on assuming the worst, I'm not going to try and stop you.

At least you have the C&C to fap to, unlike Shrek.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Okay, if you insist on assuming the worst, I'm not going to try and stop you.

Assuming the best usually leads to much disappointment. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

 

[FeelTheRads]

irst, if I recall correctly, HoF was for high level characters, so you had to beat the game once to unlock it and at level 1 you didn't have a chance.

Nah, no unlocking necessary. And it could be done with a level 1 party. Just a lot of powergaming needed (for example starting with just 2-3 characters so you can level them up quickly and then add more as needed). Although I might have gone overboard because by the end of IWD1 on Heart of Fury I was pretty much overpowered. I found the end boss fight still difficult, though. Great fun, anyway.

 

[almondblight]

Is using one weapon better?

Maybe. If a game gives you a blue, green, and yellow sword, and you should switch to the blue one when facing blue enemies, the green one when facing green enemies, and the yellow one when facing yellow enemies, does it add anything to the game? I'd personally prefer a single weapon.

The idea behind different damage types isn't creating some kinda puzzle, but reducing the player's security level. Usually, you find a good sword, it's all you need to be ready for everything until the game decides that it's time for an upgrade. The different damage system says that one weapon isn't enough and you need more to feel safe. So, on a basic level it forces you to have and upgrade a small arsenal. The system starts shining when you run into mixed enemies, forcing you to make decisions and raising risk levels.

Can you think of many games where it worked out that way? The Baldur's Gate series had a system like the one you described, and I don't feel like it really added anything to the game. I don't think I ever switched for skeletons, because they died quickly enough anyway. I kept some extra +3 swords for any creature that was immune to anything lower. That was about it.

It doesn't have to be that simple either. Weapons can have more than one trait and you can build a fun system, especially if you add attack types and tie them to damage (like slash/thrust/chop). A rapier for example would do very high piercing damage. A saber mostly slashing with a bit of piercing (high damage slashing attack, low thrust). A broadsword - medium slashing, medium chopping, etc.

Tell me you wouldn't like to fuck around with a system like this one.

Depends on how it's implemented. If it's done the way people have been talking about it, or the way Sawyers spreadsheet is, I wouldn't care for it because it's still DPS. You're looking at the rules and picking the weapon that gives you the best damage output. Where's the challenge in that? Doing simple arithmetic?

Combat is interesting because of how things interlink. Chess would be boring if it only consisted of killing the highest level piece you can for that turn. It's made interesting because killing one piece or even moving one piece affects other pieces across the board and has ramifications for all the turns following it. If I'm just choosing slash or thrust because it does +5 damage against a certain armor type, there's no depth. If there are some tradeoffs, and they're connected to a larger strategy, then it gets interesting (trying to figure out if you're able to set up your pikemen to control certain zones to block out their heavy hitters and give your thief enough time to rush in and poison their mage). I don't see any reason to pine for a "if it's a skeleton, use a hammer" system.

 

[villain of the story]

Watching Sawyer design a combat system is epic fail / face palm every time he comes up with something.

For example, regarding the armor thing, I can think of a better system off the top of my head. Like so, index style:

- Scrap the concept of heavy/medium/light armor, it's stupid.
- Better armor as in plate over leather gives higher DT.
- Big weapons as in greataxes, greatswords, military hammers have huge damage but are very slow.
- Normal weapons as in swords, regular axes, spears have good damage and normal speed.
- Light weapons as in daggers, rapiers, short swords have low damage but are very, very fast.
- Balance speed and damage as in the points above so that against 0 DT, light weapons have best DPS, against medium DT (leather armor), normal weapons have best DPS, and against high DT (plate), big weapons have the best DPS.
- This also implies that if you attack an agile enemy with a big hammer, before you get your second strike in he has already hit you five times with his dagger. You would do huge damage but you might be dead before you get to deliver it.
- Also, the heavier your armor (as in weight) the more penalty you get to your weapon speed.
- This system brings more depth to the decision of how you equip your characters as there will always be a trade off and it also feels more organic.

There. I just made up a better system in 5 minutes and it also plays better to not having rounds and using a real time engine.

No. Fuck weapon speed discrepancies. "Bigger the weapon = slower it is" is one of the retarded tropes that need to die a miserable death. It's neither fun, interesting or unique. It's the fucking status quo of UNFUN.

 

[villain of the story]

Once again, if you have been following the conversation on the OEI forums, you'd realize this.

If you have been following the conversations on the OEI forums, you'd realise that Sawyer tends to say a dozen different things and mean it like it's finalized, going on about all kinds of intricate details, and then change his mind. Again. For the dozen+1st time. Which is fine but then again, perhaps he should just simply STFU about combat mechanics official KS updates until they seal the deal on it and keep his musings to the forums. Previously, he said all kinds of conflicting things about cool-downs.