Kingmaker - Gameplay Mechanics

Originally Posted by JDR13
There isn't really such a thing as the "PoE engine". PoE used Unity. Yes, it was a version modified specifically for PoE, but it's still Unity.

"PoE Engine" = Unity, plus all the things that Obsidian built on top of Unity for PoE/Tyranny. All you're arguing is terminology really, which is kind of pointless, but personally I think it's perfectly fine to call something an engine even if it's built on top of another engine.

Originally Posted by Archangel
More cool info and gameplay videos here: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/06/0…ur-dd-rpg-itch

Same slideshow as usual.
The fight against the ogres killed the assumption of expecting to be challenged. Enemies are felt in a few blows. The only challenge is to place inputs in real time.
The showcaser could have played the sequence RT no pause but it would have spooked the UgoIgo skillset audience, which is going to play it on slideshow mode.

The vid confirms two points.
One is that animation is on the down side. In order to please the UgoIgo crowd, they are slowing down everything. The result is that everything lacks dynamism. The few glimpses in real time showed that the whole sequence played in real time does not look fine.
Has nothing to do with being in alpha, has all to do with the slideshow requirement.
On a sidenote, it appears that some inputs freeze the ongoing play. Pausing is not required. If confirmed, this would even more destroy any opportunity to play that stuff in RTwP.

Two is that the RTwP content is poor. Mostly a succession of 4 vs 1, spoonfed to the player. There is nothing to achieve to reach that situation, ogres are placed already on convenient spots.

This is going to be another demonstration that RTwP products can not be developped without the corresponding audience.

Thank you for that video. I now have absolutely no desire to return to the joke that is RTwP for this game

Originally Posted by Stingray
"PoE Engine" = Unity, plus all the things that Obsidian built on top of Unity for PoE/Tyranny. All you're arguing is terminology really, which is kind of pointless, but personally I think it's perfectly fine to call something an engine even if it's built on top of another engine.

You guys are the ones who are arguing. I was just pointing something out. You can call it whatever you want.

But we weren't arguing about the term "engine", I knew what he meant when he said "PoE engine". Anyway I just watched the video now (hadn't earlier) and yeah, if they aren't using actual PoE code/assets…then they must have went way out of their way to make it look the same…

Well Obsidian went out of their way to make PoE look like an Infinity Engine game. I'm assuming these guys are just riding the wave and hoping to cash in.

That said, I don't think it looks very similar outside of the UI. PoE was a lot darker and less cartoonish.

Originally Posted by azarhal
Not lying, because I haven't seen them say they weren't using it directly (even when asked the question directly on reddit). They say that they were building their engine on top of Unity which is totally accurate even if Pillars/Tyranny engine was used as the base to speed up development.

Although, funny enough, POE used Unity base pathfinding engine at the beginning (somewhat revamped a bit later), so even if they started from scratch and just copied POE UI elements some stuff would be the same (but the copied UI stuff is kinda lazy to me in that case).

Pathfinding is not the same. In PoE the group moves like robots in perfect sync. And you can see in this video they don't.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Same slideshow as usual.
The fight against the ogres killed the assumption of expecting to be challenged. Enemies are felt in a few blows. The only challenge is to place inputs in real time.
The showcaser could have played the sequence RT no pause but it would have spooked the UgoIgo skillset audience, which is going to play it on slideshow mode.

The vid confirms two points.
One is that animation is on the down side. In order to please the UgoIgo crowd, they are slowing down everything. The result is that everything lacks dynamism. The few glimpses in real time showed that the whole sequence played in real time does not look fine.
Has nothing to do with being in alpha, has all to do with the slideshow requirement.
On a sidenote, it appears that some inputs freeze the ongoing play. Pausing is not required. If confirmed, this would even more destroy any opportunity to play that stuff in RTwP.

Two is that the RTwP content is poor. Mostly a succession of 4 vs 1, spoonfed to the player. There is nothing to achieve to reach that situation, ogres are placed already on convenient spots.

This is going to be another demonstration that RTwP products can not be developped without the corresponding audience.

It is a gameplay video, they are not going to show a difficulty encounter in it. I am sure those will come later.
And those were Trolls. Trolls in D&D are a simple encounter that is a gear and level check only. If those player characters were of high enough level, Trolls die fast. Their biggest trick is that they get up from the ground if you don't finish them off which might be a surprise to completely new players.

Originally Posted by Archangel
….
Trolls die fast. Their biggest trick is that they get up from the ground if you don't finish them off which might be a surprise to completely new players.

Indeed, the infamous "Troll Surprise"

Everyone knows that you best equip the Flail of Ages against trolls.

Originally Posted by Archangel
Pathfinding is not the same. In PoE the group moves like robots in perfect sync. And you can see in this video they don't.

They don't move in group like a robot in Deadfire version of the engine (I don't remember if they do in Tyranny).

Originally Posted by Archangel
It is a gameplay video, they are not going to show a difficulty encounter in it. I am sure those will come later.
And those were Trolls. Trolls in D&D are a simple encounter that is a gear and level check only. If those player characters were of high enough level, Trolls die fast. Their biggest trick is that they get up from the ground if you don't finish them off which might be a surprise to completely new players.

That is the point. That is a simple to handle encounter and yet gives way to the usual slideshow.

There will be no miracle. Complex situations will be dealt with the same way and makes it impossible to consider that RTwP is better to feature big battles.

Originally Posted by azarhal
They don't move in group like a robot in Deadfire version of the engine (I don't remember if they do in Tyranny).

Even if these guys got access to some version of PoE modified Unity engine (like some people are trying to claim), I am sure Obsidian didn't sell them their newest one that they still plan to use to release a game with

Originally Posted by Archangel
Even if these guys got access to some version of PoE modified Unity engine (like some people are trying to claim), I am sure Obsidian didn't sell them their newest one that they still plan to use to release a game with

I don't think they can even sell it, they can probably share it under whatever Unity use as a license though.

On the question of balance, I think that's an inevitable problem when you implement a rich RPG system in the scope of a CRPG. Because, if you allow for a wide variety of specializations and builds, with a balance of strengths and weaknesses in different scenarios, to a large degree the usefulness of the builds will depend on the content of the game. That is to say, a paladin might be very useful in a campaign that heavily features the undead, and less so in one that focuses on human conflicts.

To me, that goes with the territory, and discovering that you've picked a build that's not a great fit for the challenge at hand is far preferable than a developer's attempt to flatten the significance of build choices. In my ideal world, a great rpg might be expanded with multiple campaigns, allowing more builds to shine in different circumstances.

Originally Posted by Ripper
In my ideal world, a great rpg might be expanded with multiple campaigns, allowing more builds to shine in different circumstances.

Thats a cool idea. I think the concept of expansion campaigns works best for crpgs. They shouldn't require the base game through.

Originally Posted by Ripper
On the question of balance, I think that's an inevitable problem when you implement a rich RPG system in the scope of a CRPG. Because, if you allow for a wide variety of specializations and builds, with a balance of strengths and weaknesses in different scenarios, to a large degree the usefulness of the builds will depend on the content of the game. That is to say, a paladin might be very useful in a campaign that heavily features the undead, and less so in one that focuses on human conflicts.

To me, that goes with the territory, and discovering that you've picked a build that's not a great fit for the challenge at hand is far preferable than a developer's attempt to flatten the significance of build choices. In my ideal world, a great rpg might be expanded with multiple campaigns, allowing more builds to shine in different circumstances.

I would say in P&P balance is more important than in a party based computer game.
In P&P you only play your one character in a party and if you underperform noticeably worse than others it is less fun even if the whole party still wins and does well.

In a computer game, most players will not care that their party fighter underperformed compared to party wizard as long as he still was somewhat useful and party did well and won without big problems (that could be blamed on that fighter). Trying to chase some "balance" in such a game will only make the game worse as a whole.

Lets take Baldur's Gate as an example. You find an enemy wizard with a couple of tough animals that he controls. You got a mixed party. Your party wizard if well prepared and buffed can beat the encounter alone. He will first beat enemy wizard then deal with animals. It will take a lot of spells, kiting, lots of clicking and effort.
Or he can deal with enemy mage and then you use your fighter to deal with animals. Fighter will deal with animals fairly proficient with very little effort from the player and no usage of daily spells.
There is huge imbalance between fighter and wizard on paper, during gameplay that fighter is as useful to players as is the wizard.