Pillars of Eternity - Sensuki's Suggestions

I think mostly because they just dumped you in the middle of a random area of the game with little explanation of the purpose of your quest. The cumbersome rules are another aspect of this. If you've changed all the rules and didn't explain, (in detail), the effects of those changes then combat is a nightmare and you spend a lot of time going back and creating viable characters.

I'm so happy Lords of Xulima was there to wash the taste of Eternity out of my mouth

HiddenX said:

Try to hold 4 lbs for 60 seconds at stretched arms and you know how heavy it really is. And bastard sword fighting without heavy armor is suicide.
Try to walk 1 km in heavy armor…

Wearing heavy armor is also possible for a fragile Mighty Wizard in PoE - unencumbered.

It is just gamey.

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I can't remember that I've ever disagreed with you before, but now I actually do. You CAN create your frail wizard (and I intend to have one), but the stat you dump is constitution. Constitution is the physical stat. I had a really hard time coming to terms with the abstract "might" stat, but now I have no problem with it. And yes, you can put armor on your frail wizard, but every spell he tries to cast will take forever in that clumsy suit of iron. Also, the classes will have better builds and worse builds, and unique talents and abilities. I think you're reading things into the system that isn't necessarily there.

That said, I haven't played the game, only read discussions on the forum. The system might be a total disaster in the end, but I'm way more optimistic now than I was when I first read about the attribute system (which at first glance felt more WTF?). I do not want completely open systems in party RPG's, I like my classes. But variations within classes is not a bad thing, quite the opposite for me. I love gaming systems and looking for a perfect build, but I also love RP'ing less than perfect builds (A favorite being my dual two handed sword wielding ranger in NWN2.) I do believe the system of PoE will have room for this. Time will tell.

azarhal said:

If someone can't pick up a Bastard Sword, I doubt they would have the capacity to hold their grimoire.

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Even your grandfather can probably pick up bastard sword for a second but I doubt he is able to slash and parry with it for dozens of minutes. I also doubt that fragile mage needs to slash and parry with his grimoire….

azarhal said:

PoE is using Might in term of power/force, its in game description reflect that.

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It reflects the soul system of PoE world - its said there are many kinds of training, either physical (military) or magical, that draw power from persons soul. So might represents this soul power that is connected to both power of the will and muscles. But… is there any physical training that DOESNT draw power from the soul? Is power of your muscles/body somehow separated from soul energy or not? Because there is also Constitution attribute related to BODY HEALTH, toughness etc. It hints that even in PoE world there is some way to train your body apart from soul power. But how is that possible if this physical power has NO effect on your physical attack (damage)?? Its based just on Might = Soul energy. For me this is potential hole in the logic of this system - depends on how much abstraction you are willing to accept.


They could easily design it this way:

- Strength - physical power, + weapon damage, + Soul attribute
- Willpower - mental power, + spell damage, + Soul attribute
- Soul - soul power, developed by both physical and mental training

Combat:
- melee damage - weapon + Strength bonus + Soul bonus
- spell damage - spell + Willpower bonus + Soul bonus

This system reflects their idea about souls. It allows mage to wield weapons with stronger might because of his developed soul energy, BUT it also reflects the fact that he is not in the same physical shape as pure fighter. Is it better solution than Sawyer's Might attribute? I will leave it to your judgement.

Alright. In that case, simply imagine raw magic power that draws from your physical strength. Then you can't have weak casters because physique is a requirement. That does make the frail wizard an impossibility though, but it's not hard to imagine a world where physique is required to be able to cast spells, I believe there are several fantasy worlds in literature where this is the case. I wouldn't complain if they added another ability for magic power and renamed might to strength, but I regard the question as trivial, it's only semantics. Since might doesn't increase your survivability, it increases your damage output. Two different stats wouldn't make a difference. You could argue that then the wizard can use a sword instead of spells?!! But then you're not playing to the classes strengths.

I agree with everything Tomas is saying here (too lazy to click the button).

Third option: Might is drawn from soul power, and the difference in strength between someone with huge amounts of soul power compared to someone that's "only" physically strong is so vast that the users physical strength is negligable. A physically weak person can still draw upon his soul power to perform feats of strength that no ordinary man could no matter how well trained.

There, now you can have your frail wizard again, but he's got the soul power to bench press 500lbs.

I'm not actually arguing with you though, the things you say are exactly the same I did a month ago, I've just had time to think about it since then (and have read several discussions on the topic). What I'm trying to get to is that there are perfectly valid ways to explain why Magic damage and Melee damage gets increased by the same stat, you just have to be willing to think a little outside the D'n'D box. And I do love that box, but PoE might give me another box to love…

EDIT: Thanks Ilm.

crpgnut said:

I think mostly because they just dumped you in the middle of a random area of the game with little explanation of the purpose of your quest. The cumbersome rules are another aspect of this. If you've changed all the rules and didn't explain, (in detail), the effects of those changes then combat is a nightmare and you spend a lot of time going back and creating viable characters.

I'm so happy Lords of Xulima was there to wash the taste of Eternity out of my mouth

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They committed themselves to deliver a beta as they monetized the delivery of a beta.

A simple commercial operation is given too much importance.

HiddenX said:

Try to hold 4 lbs for 60 seconds at stretched arms and you know how heavy it really is. And bastard sword fighting without heavy armor is suicide.
Try to walk 1 km in heavy armor…

Wearing heavy armor is also possible for a fragile Mighty Wizard in PoE - unencumbered.

It is just gamey.

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Little is known about the art of fighting of people in the past in this area of the world.
Yet it is believed that people would not hold a one and half hand sword at stretched arms. Those weapons were used to swing or to pierce.

Retrieved full plate armours give a mass commonly around 20kg.Spread all over the body.
The common haversack during the napoleonic period (war of movement) was around 30kg. People had to walk more than 1km.
Modern armies: backpack around 40kg.

The focus should not be on this but on the technique to put to good use a tool that most people can wield.

HiddenX said:

But you can't create the common small fragile Wizard with powerful magic and low strength…
Josh system is very abstract.

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It is all about representation.

After reading this post, I have currently not much hope for this game:

while in theory everyone can use everything, using plate on mages, rangers etc is fucking awful since heavy armor reduces their action speed (by increasing recovery time - naked mage takes 3s time to cast and 3s to recover, while mage in heavy armor takes 3s to cast and 6s to recover)
same with melee weapons on classes which don't excel in fighting in close range - for example wizard has shitty melee accuracy, sure you can give him a poleaxe or whatever but don't expect him to be useful with that

and yeah you can make a terrible party, a team without a frontliner and a healer is gonna be pretty bad (at least compared to a team which does have them).


overall the class design is okay (..ish. theres not a lot of customization). the attribute and skill system is pretty much cosmetic though. the attributes have little to no real impact (there are no heavy penalties for dumping a stat, and no very strong benefits for maxing a stat, so you can just assign points more or less at random and its gonna be fine), and the skills, well, there are like 6 skills, and with 6 characters in the party you can basically master everything, so the skills might as well not exist at all. it feels like both these systems were added "CUZ GROGNARDS" because they don't really add anything.

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HiddenX, sometimes games are different in practice than in theory. It sounds a bit like you're theorising way more than you really need to.

How about just playing the game and seeing how it works in practice? Sometimes we get lost by focusing on a few details we don't like, and we miss the good things. Most games have them.

Not that I'm excited about PoE, personally, but I'm certainly planning to try it out.

DArtagnan said:

How about just playing the game and seeing how it works in practice?

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That's what I'm doing now; my answer in the above thread

If these things are true, the system is even worse than I expected. Obsidian is then not even staying true to their own design goals. (Which I criticized, not the beta)

a) they tell their gamer every build is possible
b) some stat-builds are nevertheless shitty
c) to make it work, stats are not so important anymore…

seems the system is neither fish nor fowl. No Grognard system and no modern fun system. Good Luck Obsidian.
I will return to this game when it is released. Unfortunately I have already backed it. Maybe Sensuki and others can prevent the worst and put some sense back into the system.

I'm off to Elminage Gothic, Lords of Xulima and Wasteland 2.

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I was theorizing about the game-mechanics, because I hoped they could enhance the mechanics of BG2. I really like well thought out game systems.

It's just a suggestion.

What you're doing seems to be overanalyzing a game that's yet to be released. Very few games can stand up to that level of design scrutiny.

Personally, I've found that I can enjoy games even if they don't do what I want them to do in all areas. It's a matter of NOT focusing on the issues.

But, again, it's just a suggestion. I've noted on several occasions that you like to analyze and put things into systems, and I think you're kinda being an obstacle to yourself here.

Feel free to ignore my suggestion

Analyzing systems of all kind is my profession and I'm earning money with it.
So I'll continue with analyzing…

But not PoE anymore - I think Obsidian still doesn't know what they really want.
So lets wait and see. If I release a beta version normally only minor things change after that moment…

Alright Hidden X, now you're talking about something I aboslutely agree on, you had me worried there for a while. The impact of the stats need to be changed, I would say to increase the impact with at least 50% (making a +2% a +3%) to make stats matter. If I pump everything into might and dump constitution I want my proper glass cannon, able to dish out ridiculous amounts of damage but unable to take more than two hits. This is also discussed alot on the forums.

Josh want loads of build to be viable, and that's fine. But I want the builds to be more different than they are now, and then stats need to have a bigger impact.

I haven't read through the user submitted suggestions, but I do agree that all stats should be useful to any character. From a roleplaying POV, you just can't defend a concept like "all wizards need high INT and should dump STR". In PoE, right now, there's no reason to create a high Perception melee fighter. Ever. If this could be remedied, and I could succesfully play a fighter who favors finesse over strength, I would be happy and the longevity of the game on people's HD's would be increased.

tomasp3n said:

Alright. In that case, simply imagine raw magic power that draws from your physical strength. Then you can't have weak casters because physique is a requirement.

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I think you are wrong. Because it this case magic should be related to your Constitution. Not strength. On fundamental basis - the idea that you need muscles to "control fire" or "wind" is pretty ridiculous. So lets say that magic is very exhausting. In this case mage needs either both Constitution and Strength or only Cons. So tell me why is another body attribute (Cons) in PoE? It should be represented by Might or Cons should have some positive effect for magic too. As I said it doesnt hold much together - but thats just my opinion about the core system. Not about the whole game.

Even if I can forget about it, I dont think its good idea. Strength and magic is separated in class-based systems for a good reason.

tomasp3n said:

Two different stats wouldn't make a difference.

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I wrote what is the difference at the end of my comment.

tomasp3n said:

Might is drawn from soul power, and the difference in strength between someone with huge amounts of soul power compared to someone that's "only" physically strong is so vast that the users physical strength is negligable.

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Sorry, but it doesnt make sense. Its similar to wielding very strong magical weapon. I never saw a game which would say to you - "From now your strength is ignored because the weapon is powerfull enough". Even if your strength bonus is tiny, its always there. Thats how RPG systems work.
Also - do you really think that level 1 hero has huge amount of soul power so his strength is negligeable?

tomasp3n said:

you just have to be willing to think a little outside the D'n'D box.

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Are you talking about me? I presented some arguments and possible alternative solution that respects their vision about souls. So you miss the point here.
I just dont take it for granted. But we will see how the whole game will turn out.

BTW I find your remark a little funny because it was Obsidian guys who wasnt so much "outside the DnD box" when designing classes…

tomasp3n said:

The impact of the stats need to be changed, I would say to increase the impact with at least 50% (making a +2% a +3%) to make stats matter.

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I dont know details but I basically agree.

I was actually responding to Hidden X, but you are part of the discussion so of course it was also directed at you Farflame. And I do agree on everything you wrote in the last post, I was just trying to think of ways to justify the might stat affecting both magic and melee. In the end it doesn't matter if the system works, I find there are more important discussions. Like the fact that stats should matter more than just small-medium bonuses. But the stats themselves and what they effect are perfectly fine of they go with Sensukis and Matts suggestion. After that is a matter of making the bonuses/penalties large enough to actually make a difference, which is trivial in comparison to making a balanced and we'll though out base system.

Glad someone here liked the suggestion.

Even if they don't implement our attribute system, I'm most likely going to be modding it in anyway so people can try it. Figured out how to do that today.

tomasp3n said:

And I do agree on everything you wrote in the last post, I was just trying to think of ways to justify the might stat affecting both magic and melee. In the end it doesn't matter if the system works, I find there are more important discussions. Like the fact that stats should matter more than just small-medium bonuses.

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Ok. Well, it was nice opportunity for discussion about some RPG basics.

Sensuki said:

Even if they don't implement our attribute system, I'm most likely going to be modding it in anyway so people can try it. Figured out how to do that today.

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Do you plan to split Might into Strength and Willpower/Int in your system? Also Perception could have bigger impact.

Nope. I like Might just how it is. It's a 'gamist' attribute system and Might works exactly as intended, no point changing it.

I will be doing some balancing testing of my own, I think that attributes need to have more of an impact so perhaps 3% Might and Con, +2 Accuracy per point ... stuff like that.

Intellect is a bit OP atm.