I personally love the ruleset for Pillars. I was so glad they moved away from the min-maxing of D&D and it made it a lot more exciting to create more fun and personalized characters. There was still room to optimize and min-max if you wanted to, but I never felt encouraged to do so; it felt like a choice, rather than an obligation. In that sense, I feel they certainly achieved what they set out to do, when they designed the rules for Pillars.
Watched it before, but I find myself watching again. Very well-thought out and insightful. If any other game devs are watching, I think this is a really good point: "If something is required for viable play, why is it optional?" -- meaningful choices vs. illusion of choice.
It's funny that half the replies taking offence at you calling it "niche" didn't watch the video - Josh described this talk as niche, several times. Those are his words! Open your ears guys lol, he's just quoting Josh
Companion stats barely matter once you get a bunch of good gear. After a fair few hours you can boost companion stats into whatever you like with rings, cloaks and enchantments anyways. My rogue has like 25 might because of all the equipment he has and I still had enough to boost my other party members as well. And I do like the shift away from stats being "the most important thing ever skill be damned if you picked bad stats" kind of system that characterized older CRPG's. In Pillars your stats aren't as important as your tactics and your party composition. There are so many buffs whether they be from gear or from spells that you can play the game in almost any way you want and I think that's genius design.
I was trained to repeat questions when answering a Q+A session in a public speech class. I assumed this was a rule for public speaking 101. I was wrong. It is awesome to see someone clarify and restate a question (regardless of whether a microphone was used to ask the question) into his microphone. This is one of the first Q+A sessions where the speaker has done this and it makes a huge difference! Thank you!
It's also a good way to really cement the question in your mind, and gives you a little time to formulate an answer while you're asking yourself the same question. Additionally, it helps convey to the person asking that A) you were paying attention to their question and B) you understood what it was they were asking. B is a little less obvious since, for the most part, a question is pretty straightforward, but it can be useful to reframe the question in your own words to see if a slightly different angle reveals any miscommunication.
Coming back to this after playing a paladin in bg3, and realising I was playing 'wrong' if I built a character that could count past 10 without borrowing someone else's fingers. Such a cool talk.
when i played pillars of eternity, when white march released, i thought to myself, once i figured out how the stats work, that it was a really special way and genius way of doing things. now, feels like a year later, i see how much thought josh and the staff put in there, and how they did it. fascinating to watch. I am super happy to see more of them in Tyranny!
I could watch stuff like this all day. Wish there were more crpgs out there, playing around with stats and minmaxing, solo challenge builds etc is one of my favorite things to do
It is fun to see how many people that think their own design philosophy is the universally "correct" one and that PoEs system sucks for having another philosophy. I personally enjoyed being able to build whatever I wanted and not feeling like I was going to be deadlocked 2/3rds through the game for not making an optimal build, but I understand that others enjoy the min-maxing experience and “git-gud” attitude way more than me (that is what higher difficulties are for btw). At the same time, it gets really boring to me when there are only a very limited “correct” ways of building different classes and you limit the viable builds. It just forcing the player into narrow formula slits once they have discovered (or more likely googled) optimal builds (a feeling I often have playing other RPGs). You don’t need choices to ruin your character to make them different and interesting, and I think they did a solid attempt at creating such system. I am really happy I backed them and got a great experience from it, but that is just my taste and I understand that others like different things and maybe want different experiences. We all like different fun.
I personally loved having my mage more capable of moving heavy things than my paladin. That's GREAT game design, great philosophy. Obviously the most correct. This game is awesome, but the stat design is terrible. It's a role playing game where you have to pretend the guy carrying a big fucking sword isn't as strong as the guy who reads constantly, just to keep basic immersion. And he did create dump stats. But he picked the wrong damn ones.
@@IAmAnEvilTaco "personally loved having my mage more capable of moving heavy things than my paladin" you talking about PoE?, cause there is no loot weight limit in the game. "It's a role-playing game where you have to pretend the guy carrying a big fucking sword isn't as strong as the guy who reads constantly." who said that the guy who reads constantly isn't capable of holding a sword himself? the fact that the guy isn't strong says it, he ISN'T strong, what you are pointing out isn't a problem with the design philosophy, but specific inconsistencies, like weight limit and required strength for carrying weapons. "And he did create dump stats" the fact that some states are less effective for specific builds, like intelligence for two-handed builds, doesn't mean that they are dump stats. low intelligence is going to hurt your will defense and buffs duration, so your build is going to be much more susceptible to will attacks and going to benefit much less from buffs. there are going to be downsides, but less harmful for a specific build. the whole design is about making attributes express themselves much better and realistically by making min-max an optimal way to play but not required one so your two-handed warrior isn't the hulk in context of the strength - intelligence difference, and also letting you benefit in any way from every attributes for most every builds.
@@eliran9231 i think he is talking about the cyoa sequences where the might stat affects your character physical strenght, which goes against what this stats system tries to do in the first place
Well, this doesn't really 'remove' the possibility of trap options, it just makes the traps more complicated. As he was saying, if you build a character with int then you need to make a build around using AOE and durations, because that's what your attributes support. The issue of having abilities that don't line up to your attributes still exists, it's just now that issue emerges every time you level up and pick an ability instead of only when picking your class and attributes. Is that really 'better?' maybe, but my opinion is that this is a class/attribute system designed by someone who would rather not have classes and attributes, as he more or less tells us. It loses the strength of class based systems, which is simplicity and intuitive archetypal designs and in return gives you the ability to make counterintuitive builds effective, like a barbarian with high intelligence who uses genius level intelligence to hit things that are further away with his axe while in a berserker rage. I guess that's amusing but it's hard for me to call it good design. The design philosophy they were following is just... not good for a class/attribute based system but rather than use a different system they stuck to it for the sake of tradition, which I disagree with. If your system and philosophy disagree, either use a different system or use a different philosophy. Going in blind to POE I ran into just as many 'trap' builds as I did in Baldur's Gate, which really just tells me that the solution isn't doing what it's intended to.
The better companions mod made me laugh. That 3 perception, haha. I'm personally not a fan of the companions, myself, but I appreciate the thought that went into them.
I like how Pallegina was a middle of the road Paladin with decently high interrupt ability and the mod went "No, I want a tree. Sturdy, life refilling and giving me lots of shade"
@@robertnomok9750 Just beat the game on hard with first Eder, then Pallegina as tank. Aloth or Hiravias as caster. And Sagani as ranger. Custom Chanter, Rogue, and MC 2H fighter. Did some stuff with Maneha and DoC as well. There was nothing wrong with the companions. Even though I upscaled every single time I could, the game was very rarely difficult. The last fight was over disappointingly quickly. I didn't need to grab all the best gear. I waited probably longer than I should have to enchant my gear to superior/legendary and with durgan steel. I am pretty certain I didn't optimize a lot of the gear I used. Basically, the game was just on the brink of being too easy on upscaled hard, with half the party as default companions. You could not be more wrong with your statement that they are useless above normal.
This is great! It's really nice to have things explained in this way. Pillars of Eternity is one of the best RPGs I've ever played. I just started Deadfire, despite having bought it a while back. This video helped get me acclimated to character stats again. I wish more game designers/developers would produce helpful talks like this.
Playing Pillars Of Eternity in 2019, I have to say that the guys at Obsidian achieved all the goals they set for themselves. After not partaking in any D&D activities for a decade I had no problem getting into PoE's stats system and making a viable build without screwing it up completely from the very beginning. Then it took me 20+ hours of playtime before I reached a point where I tangibly felt the need to acquire new gear and/or talents to boost some aspects in preparation for future harder encounters. I am confident that the character building process will be just as smooth, intuitive, forgiving and entertaining even to a person who has never heard of D&D.
Out of all the modern day CRPGs PoE has by far the worst and least meaningful stats. Not a masterclass. Just some chode, that doesnt even like the genre, trying to defend why its not bad just because everyone hates it and all in the name of inclusivity. This dude should be bagging groceries and not giving talks about game design and balance.
Fantastic talk. I started a new game of Pillars after watching. I never got around to playing White March. I wanted to start a fresh game on PotD. The Pallegina stats on that companions mod made my head spin. I just don't have the heart to min-max like that. I hate having negative stats. Also unnecessary even on PotD. I'm really looking forward to what they can do now that they already have the game system in place and pretty well fine tuned after the patches and expansions.
Pillars of eternity stats defenses attacks buffs system is truly remarkable and extremely well thought out. Having all builds be viable It's not that bad And actually helps the game out a lot... It's good to see some diversity even though it's it's mainly only a difference of one stat or another... It makes the game more about the experience and you still get a real sense of power from your character from their abilities alone not just because of their stats... I wonder if Boulder's gate 3 will pick up on this?
Do I need to remind that they had to REMAKE that system after release because 1.0 was garbage with several stats being next to useless while stats granting accuracy were the best?
This is fascinating, and something that I would struggle with as a designer. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are people who are experts and dedicated to this one very narrow part of systems design. It's so important!
Since he briefly mentioned Mass Effect, I'll say that in the later games where skills had branching upgrade paths, the paths weren't always equal; or anywhere close to each other. For example, you could choose between +30% damage, or turning a single target skill into a 10m AoE that hits 3 targets. Who is going to chose 30% more damage on a concentrated target against 200% more damage applied to a group? This was also multiplied by 'skill explosions' where primed enemies detonated for more damage, causing a cascade burst. Against lone boss enemies damage output could lean on crunchy weapons like sniper rifles or shotguns.
an answer to that rhetorical question, from personal experience, is "people playing the hardest difficulty setting and picking off 1 mob at a time from cover for most of most missions". ME2 had a lot fewer enemies that would flush you out of cover than the further ones, and a lot of players never stopped playing 3 and A like they learned in 2. I'd say a good example of poor choice design is the shepard upgrade that shoehorns a giant multiplier to paragade points you DIRELY need for some of the hardest checks at the end of the game...into only one side. I don't even remember the effect of the competing shepard passive, I've never completed a ME2 run where i cared that little about securing everybody's loyalty; most people I know haven't. the vanguard dev gets props on this front from me. Charge gains bullet time and a sizable chunk of extra shielding for being single target, the choice is pretty competitive.
This is a 7 year old video at this point but i still had to comment. I am in the process if writing a TTRPG for my own personal gratification and this talk has given me such a depth of insight into things to question and look into. Fantastic!
Made a high intellect and high perception barbarian after watching this. Surprisingly fun despite the low damage, now I wish there were more games like this where attributes offer different expressions for classes instead of being necessary for classes to function
awesome seminar, I freaking love POE, I can't get in to many games these days, POE paid homage to golden age games I love while bringing a vibrant world with interesting combat mechanics to life.
Would love this guy to be the designer for the kotor remake. A lot of the points he said, i was guilty of doing in kotor, just dumping stats in one place, or having a centralized stat that i could focus on entirely. In eternity, i kinda enjoy thinking about my stats and builds thoroughly
I tried to play PoE five years ago and gave up because it was so hard to understand what the different attributes were about and how to min/max for different classes. Having watched this I now understand that it's not really something you need to do in this game, and the reasons make sense. I am now playing it again.
Amazing talk. Thanks Josh Sawyer (and Brenda Romero)! When I started playing Pillars of Eternity, the attributes were the very first thing that got me into that game. I always enjoyed playing uncommon characters that in other RPGs were absolutely non-viable. It felt great to finally be able to play the character I wanted.
Thx for this video, I am now motivated for PoE full playthrough. I started and dropped this game 3 times. But now I see the idea of the stat system and it makes sense
fun viable build: in pillars my favourite earlygame build is a solo orlan rouge with maxed out might and stealth and backstab. right out the gate you can oneshot most early enemies with a 79 damage burst with a crossbow from 2m then go back to stealthing around. so long as your stealth is high enough to get within 2m of the enemy without being detected you kill most enemies :)
interesting that they gave this much thought to this, but the characters are still very limited in use. If you have a char you want for his strength, not maxing it to 20 in POE is a mistake, all the mini text adventures have skill checks at 18 or 20, so you have to have them maxed to use.
This is a tough problem in CRPG's. You can have a nice linear scale in combat, so that 15 INT and 16 INT are both equally viable. But the skill checks in conversation are usually just binary. If you have 16 INT, you get everything, but if you have 15 INT you get nothing. The only way to really get around this is to roll randomly for conversation checks.
@@JackMack That is not the only and frankly the worst way for cprg, as it ignores save/load Better options: * Don't require max stats to pass adventures, doh, make it a choice to use a stat based option not a reward for maxing the stat. Don't hide best options behind stat gate * Provide options that are based on combination of stats (for example check for sum of int and willpower) you can to it up and require multiple high stats for passing the gate, that way overspecialization will result in less options, not more. Basically reward stat distribution you want characters to have
@@Dkoooz I disagree with you. Disco Elysium used random skill checks to great effect. It can work well when done right. The key is not to cut off progression behind those checks, and treat failing skill checks as an important part of the game. Neither of your solutions fix the issue I'm talking about: The check itself is still binary. If the skill check is at 15 INT, then having 10, 11, 12, 13 or 14 INT is all exactly the same as having 0. Either you have the stat at the required level, or you don't. Summing up INT and WILL is the same, you have the required points or you don't. In the rest of the game, each stat boost gives you a meaningful improvement. 11, 12, 13 or 14 STR all make a meaningful difference in combat. It's not just a system where you need 15 STR or you're out of luck. Using random skill checks isn't a perfect solution, but when it's done right, I think it can be better than a straight stat check. It means that boosting your stat to 11, 12, 13, etc, all give a meaningful improvement to your chance of success. It's not just a "You must be this high to ride" system.
@@JackMack in disco elysium it worked to great effect of me starring at loading screen after reload. Binary outcome is not a bad thing in itself its when bibary outcome means you don't progress unless you don't meet stat requirement we have a problem. That is the first approach, just don't make players feel that they NEED max stats, make other options viable. Using combination of stats again allows you to have more character variation pass the gate alleviating perceived pressure of maxing stats to meet some checks.
@@JackMack Roll plus skill modifier is the best solution for that problem, well unless you are playing a videogame and could just save scum your way into a success check.
I think they did a fairly great job at this. The stats kind of make sense, like you have that mighty wizards, meaning they have powerful hard hitting spells, and you have clever wizards who outsmarts their foes - meaning they crowd control them. And a fighter can also be mighty. What I don't like is how they tied those things to the choose your adventures section of the game, using your wizards to push rocks or bend metal bars.
I find this interesting. I wasn't part of the Pillars Beta, but I have been playing Baldur's Gate 3 a lot in early access. While BG3 is a lot more "pure" DnD, it's fun to see how a lot of the same reactions exist. While not to the ability scores. Ther's been reactiosn to companion stats, and to how things aren't "right" with regards to "ideological purity". Always fun to see how games evolve from early stages imo.
we used to circumvent some of the issues by simply rolling six times 4d6, delete the worst die of each roll and after the fact you could freely choose on which attribute you wanted which roll... that way it was way easier to play the class you wanted to...
I don't see Might as Strength in the way you use Strength to lift something heavy. I see Might more like being Skilled. It is the one ability score that stands out to me most because in game there are checks for it as Strength, but it otherwise works more like Skill (as in just being good at doing what you do). I don't have any issues with how they did this all though, I love that it just works out in game as attributes. PoE
Right. I thought of might sort of being forceful. A mage can be mighty, just in a different way. It's just sort of awkward that it also affects their muscles too, but no moreso than quantifying intelligence and wisdom.
I had a witch type rogue character in another game and I had her might high because of intimidation and checks for people being fearful of your power depended on might, since she was supposed to be a feared legendary centuries old witch I wanted those options for her. Plus might also increased melee damage.So I went int and might. :)
@@quayseanthomas-el6910 that's exactly what I meant! Usually that would just be folded up into charisma but that didnt exist so you made the combination that fit what you needed. Thank you.
I felt it was just power. A wizard with powerful spells can intimidate people with the threat of magical violence, and can also apply their poweful spells in order to e.g. break down a door without a a hammer
I'm definitely jazzed about the gameplay effects of this system. What I do have problems with is the roleplaying problems with some of these stats - e.g. it's unclear what a "Mighty" character means in roleplaying terms. Actually, that's the only one I have an issue with - even a rename would be fine for me :-P
I think the ambiguity is beneficial. I mean, what comes to mind when I say "Mighty Wizard"? Not a ripped guy. But I can imagine Might meaning physical strength aswell even if I'm playing a wizard because that's the type of character I have in my mind.
Really good chat, and really good game. This conference made me appreciate the game even more. And I get that there are a lot of D&D fans, but they can't deny the game is unbalanced as fuck
But D&D is supposed to be that way, there are things that are going to be better than others there is just no escape to that, homogenization doesn't lead to fun things because quoting Syndrome from the incredibles movie "When everyone is super, no one will be". Also you can still min max in PoE is just that the game is more easy and with a widest range for error.
I loved AD&D being unbalanced. It makes characters completely different and you need a group to make things work. I always preferred and DMed high fantasy settings because AD&D was designed for that if you ever played past name level characters. Artifacts, plane travelling, alternate prime material planes. Characters who even up to 30th level can be brought to their knees with planar travel and high level monsters that are also as smart as the players.
This makes me think of the Divinity games by Larian Studios. It's essentially classless, but the variable builds are generally viable no matter how you allocate attribute and skill points. You can min/max or take a more lateral approach and still play the game.
Its still kinda imba though as in optimal build dialoguewise is still dumping a certain stat aka constitution and maxing rest or most needed stats is still best. Admittantly only is safe option on lower difficulty games of poe1 and or poe2
I always thought the way stats worked in the original 7th sea was neat, because they all had such a broad reach. Like, Panache both affected social interactions AND initiative. Finesse ultimately was a god stat, but there wasn't any true dump stat.
Fucking great talk. Also people who play video games enough that they are interested in game design and development love niche shit. This is good stuff
ahh back when we all played in Mystara. I miss playing from basic to immortal. Been a long time since i picked up the game. edit: fat fingers don't always spell well :)
The thing about giving all the characters middle of the road stats in a system with a small gulf between lowest and a highest stats is that you effectively have a bunch of characters with the same stats. If we want to give the stats to the character based on who they are supposed to be, then we haven't succeeded with middle of the road stats. Pallegina is said to be failing physical tests and really perceptive, but there is literally a 2 point difference between something she's supposed to be really good at and something she's supposed to be bad at. And 2 points in a system where the gulf between low and high is low, 2 points might as well be 0 points. Personally I didn't see any of the companions as actually weak or awful or lackluster, mechanically speaking, but in terms of stating them in terms of personality I don't think they succeeded. Looking at Pallegina's stats what I saw was a jack of all trades. Which is fine, because you can't specialize much anyway.
Agreed, odd that after the first half where he explains in detail why it's important to allow people to express their characters in the full numerical range, he pivots to justifying why all the NPC stats ended up looking like a middling 3E point buy
They designed the companions to be middle-of-the-road and jack-of-all-trades intentionally so that people could fit them into their party if they desired.
We're talking about the stated motivation of characterizing the players and NPCs through stats, and how that motivation fell through in the results. The original commenter likely agrees with your point -- did you not read the last paragraph? I don't mean that negatively, it can be hard to notice the 'Read more' text when it breaks off at a whole paragraph
Sure I did. I think they expected bigger attribute gaps than the developer intended to imply, but perhaps there was an internal process by which the character writing and attribute selection were misaligned.
What I like the most about this talk are some of the stock pictures he's used during the presentation. Old obscure memes and little nudges that remind the viewer this guy is "one of us" without hamfisting them in. Too many speakers try too hard at seeming aloof and professional, like they absolutely shouldn't love what they do and mustn't get on eye level with the audience.
a caveat for paladins in 3.0 D&D: they could lay on hands as a free action to themselves, this means that their charisma score can in many ways take the place of their constitution score. their charisma score boosts all their saves, and thus as far as saves are concerned charisma takes the place of 3 stats. most abilities are based on charisma. therefore most stats that one assumes are a given for the paladin (like constitution) are not needed. thus strength, charisma, and wisdom (unless you are going to play the paladin as a fighter) become the needed stats, and thus isn't dependant on 4 stats. a paladin though has only one dump stat, intelligence, which makes it still a tough class to excel at (needs more points). the paladin can no longer lay on hands to himself as a free action in 3.5, and thus needs constitution (back to a need for 4 high/max stats).
beat the F out of the entire game (xp included) on POTD. Never min-maxed stats, didn't use food, seldom potions. I believe the lowest stat on my char I had was ~8-10. Never went below that for RP reasons :D I also went with PC + companions; never mercenaries. Didn't really have to optimize anything. So great job Josh & Team.
I agree with a lot of what he says in this presentation, and yet I felt that the classes in PoE felt more fungible than those in previous games as a result of the design goals. I suppose this is down to personal preference, but I like my classes to feel distinct; if that means you have to tether an essential function of a class to a specific stat (like the ability to learn higher level spells to intellegence) I don't have a problem with that. BGII allowed for multi and dual class characters, so I think that the idea that the AD&D ruleset as used in the inf engine games didn't allow for real player choice is a little overstated.
Good talk. I just started the game, and the first conversation is asking me questions... like, totally different responses and backgrounds. I dunno what to do, if I pick the wrong thing am I lying? Maybe I'm not cut out for this game..
Yeah, I don't understand that second audience question... nothing needs to be workshopped "tabletop"... it's irrelevant. I doubt even modern pen and paper RPGs are "workshopped" tabletop. Heck, many roleplayers use computers to manage stats and such. What would testing with pen and paper tell you that couldn't easily be discerned with the software itself?
I just finished my first play through and I feel a bit ambivalent about the stat system. It worked out well in the sense that regardless of what I tried to build, everything felt at least kinda viable and offers a lot of options. But the inherent problem with that is on the other side, that I can't specialize as much as I want to for my second campaign. Once I finish a game and want to continue with a second round, I tend to min max the shit out of it, so I try to make builds that really excel at one certain thing or more. And while there are some itemization strategies that can really make your character go crazy in PoE (not many though), the stat system simply doesn't allow that stuff to happen. Not only because of the relatively small gains that the stats offer, but also because stats on items don't stack (which would be a good way to compensate at least a little bit for the lack of stat impact). So of cause I can max out might to base 20, add another 3 off of items plus consumables for a few more percentages on damage or healing, but it's simply not as satisfying as reaching the 25 strength level in DnD which basically turns you in to a living god.
I love talking about my newest 3.5 character, a fighter monk, Er monk fighter. He's a fighter that used all of his wonderful feats on gaining the unarmed combat ability of a monk. I also took a few levels of sorcerer because shocking grasp and rogue for sneak attacks pins and evasion. His attack bonus will exactly the same as a level 20 monk and his saves will be pretty close, also, by the time he's maxed out. After building him on paper, I began to wonder if I could build him in a game like Pillars of Eternity. I haven't checked yet but if it's possible, I will have to play more of this already pretty good game.
@@gaming4life551 His backstory is orphan, raised by evil monks. So, I've been having fun throwing different monk combos at the party. Gonna have make up a monk\psion. Thanks for the suggestion.
@@michaelblosenhauer9887 ha love it. I think the 3.5 ed psionics handbook had a Prestige Class named "Mind Monk" which required both classes to qualify.
This talk basically summarizes all of the reasons why I have grown to hate most attribute systems. I hope many developers listen to this talk and learn to make attribute systems that furthers meaningful decisions and personalization, not just act as traps for new players.
You know one way to help against low stats would be to have them do a failure event that makes the game/quest more difficult but still lets you progress forward. Like of you fail stealth and get thrown in jail you wind up in the middle of a prison break that was planned by other people before you got there. That way attribute checks aren't just "you must be at least this tall to do x"
@@pablobronstein1247 Which is good, because pretty much anything you try to do will require several different checks in a row and a single failure can gate that option off. That said pretty much everyone plays that game using the exact same build anyway.
@@Dieonceperday I half-agree with you. I don't mind the game locking me out of options, I mind them not hiding it well enough. People are accustomed to Bethesda style playthroughs where you can do and be everything. Problem is rpgs aren't real life and infinite branching is sadly not possible, but AoD was on the right track imo.
I want to see the equivalent presentation about Disco Elysium. I was going to explain why, but that just resulted in me staring at my keyboard for a few minutes; those who have played it know why.
Very interesting, great that they accepted this narrow talk. Can be a lot more valuable, if for a smaller crowd. Ironically, kind of the opposite of the system he describes.
A great insightful look at such important elements. The only thing I would suggest is that for the character creation when I have no context of the classes yet when I am on my first NG, I would REALLY like a in depth explanation of the character types you expect to exist, including a typical "All rounder" for that role. Like I made a cipher to begin with and I barely feel the impact of intellect on them because it is in conflict with my expectations of the character I wanted to make and that is with the "Gold star" focus on me marker. Also I want to compliment the character defining dialog choices, all the props to your writers.
08:11 ~ Mr. Sawyer receives might love from me for his awesome "work". However, it is funny he says this about Pillars of Eternity but anyone who has played the game on the difficulty setting "Path of the Damned" knows companions' stats are exactly like the reasonable steering fighter "Eder" or the Reasonably Intelligent wizard Aloth… hopefully they fixed the Goddess stats of companions respectively, in PoEII since they are reusing the of the original characters. Though it would be wonderstrukk to find lol-r-sk8's character in PoEII. 😅 What he said about them thinking the stats were fine and that it is only posteriorly is really only true for none-PotD difficulties. In that the importance was increased for all 'stats', and they seemingly haver missed that specific how that difficulty level changed the, instead of the players' perception.
Yeah, in pen and paper the DM can hand out magic items that get around bad stats and even badly designed (mechanically speaking) characters. In a CRPG, that's not really possible -- but that's kinda part of the game (replay value).
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
I personally love the ruleset for Pillars. I was so glad they moved away from the min-maxing of D&D and it made it a lot more exciting to create more fun and personalized characters. There was still room to optimize and min-max if you wanted to, but I never felt encouraged to do so; it felt like a choice, rather than an obligation. In that sense, I feel they certainly achieved what they set out to do, when they designed the rules for Pillars.
Sometimes these talks make me want to buy a game more than any amount of marketing
It was a good game. 👍
Oh I bought Pillars after watching this lol
It’s included in my subscription now to ps+ and I’m so excited
shame that poe was dogshit
marketing would be so easy if you got an hour long talk to sell it.
then again...
Watched it before, but I find myself watching again. Very well-thought out and insightful. If any other game devs are watching, I think this is a really good point: "If something is required for viable play, why is it optional?" -- meaningful choices vs. illusion of choice.
I just watched this for the first time but I know I'll come back too!
Love it when I finally find the kind of talk I'm looking for
exactly
*option
Why is might an option then?
@@Wastedswan not every character needs might. CC focused characters buff/debuff etc
Josh is such an amazing speaker. I could listen to him talking about RPG design for hours.
Who wouldn't want a mindbogglingly specific "niche" panel topic? This is good.
Best niche thing that ever happened to the GDC :).
It’s not mindbogglingly specific. It’s core game design at a game dev conference.
Niche? Christ. What?
It's funny that half the replies taking offence at you calling it "niche" didn't watch the video - Josh described this talk as niche, several times. Those are his words!
Open your ears guys lol, he's just quoting Josh
@@apollo849 Ah. But then I take offense at Josh instead of OP.
Companion stats barely matter once you get a bunch of good gear. After a fair few hours you can boost companion stats into whatever you like with rings, cloaks and enchantments anyways. My rogue has like 25 might because of all the equipment he has and I still had enough to boost my other party members as well.
And I do like the shift away from stats being "the most important thing ever skill be damned if you picked bad stats" kind of system that characterized older CRPG's. In Pillars your stats aren't as important as your tactics and your party composition. There are so many buffs whether they be from gear or from spells that you can play the game in almost any way you want and I think that's genius design.
I was trained to repeat questions when answering a Q+A session in a public speech class. I assumed this was a rule for public speaking 101. I was wrong.
It is awesome to see someone clarify and restate a question (regardless of whether a microphone was used to ask the question) into his microphone. This is one of the first Q+A sessions where the speaker has done this and it makes a huge difference! Thank you!
It's also a good way to really cement the question in your mind, and gives you a little time to formulate an answer while you're asking yourself the same question. Additionally, it helps convey to the person asking that A) you were paying attention to their question and B) you understood what it was they were asking. B is a little less obvious since, for the most part, a question is pretty straightforward, but it can be useful to reframe the question in your own words to see if a slightly different angle reveals any miscommunication.
Every playsession of Pillars i ask myself like 'how did they get to this design of attributes?'. Glad this talk was made and published open.
Engineering stand up comedy … nah
Coming back to this after playing a paladin in bg3, and realising I was playing 'wrong' if I built a character that could count past 10 without borrowing someone else's fingers.
Such a cool talk.
when i played pillars of eternity, when white march released, i thought to myself, once i figured out how the stats work, that it was a really special way and genius way of doing things. now, feels like a year later, i see how much thought josh and the staff put in there, and how they did it. fascinating to watch. I am super happy to see more of them in Tyranny!
13:18 And now I finally understand why the berserk AoE works the way it does.
I could watch stuff like this all day. Wish there were more crpgs out there, playing around with stats and minmaxing, solo challenge builds etc is one of my favorite things to do
It is fun to see how many people that think their own design philosophy is the universally "correct" one and that PoEs system sucks for having another philosophy. I personally enjoyed being able to build whatever I wanted and not feeling like I was going to be deadlocked 2/3rds through the game for not making an optimal build, but I understand that others enjoy the min-maxing experience and “git-gud” attitude way more than me (that is what higher difficulties are for btw).
At the same time, it gets really boring to me when there are only a very limited “correct” ways of building different classes and you limit the viable builds. It just forcing the player into narrow formula slits once they have discovered (or more likely googled) optimal builds (a feeling I often have playing other RPGs). You don’t need choices to ruin your character to make them different and interesting, and I think they did a solid attempt at creating such system. I am really happy I backed them and got a great experience from it, but that is just my taste and I understand that others like different things and maybe want different experiences. We all like different fun.
I think people are so vocal not because the system deserves criticism, but because the video title is a bit bombastic.
I personally loved having my mage more capable of moving heavy things than my paladin. That's GREAT game design, great philosophy. Obviously the most correct.
This game is awesome, but the stat design is terrible. It's a role playing game where you have to pretend the guy carrying a big fucking sword isn't as strong as the guy who reads constantly, just to keep basic immersion. And he did create dump stats. But he picked the wrong damn ones.
@@IAmAnEvilTaco
"personally loved having my mage more capable of moving heavy things than my paladin"
you talking about PoE?, cause there is no loot weight limit in the game.
"It's a role-playing game where you have to pretend the guy carrying a big fucking sword isn't as strong as the guy who reads constantly."
who said that the guy who reads constantly isn't capable of holding a sword himself? the fact that the guy isn't strong says it, he ISN'T strong, what you are pointing out isn't a problem with the design philosophy, but specific inconsistencies, like weight limit and required strength for carrying weapons.
"And he did create dump stats"
the fact that some states are less effective for specific builds, like intelligence for two-handed builds, doesn't mean that they are dump stats. low intelligence is going to hurt your will defense and buffs duration, so your build is going to be much more susceptible to will attacks and going to benefit much less from buffs. there are going to be downsides, but less harmful for a specific build.
the whole design is about making attributes express themselves much better and realistically by making min-max an optimal way to play but not required one so your two-handed warrior isn't the hulk in context of the strength - intelligence difference, and also letting you benefit in any way from every attributes for most every builds.
@@eliran9231 i think he is talking about the cyoa sequences where the might stat affects your character physical strenght, which goes against what this stats system tries to do in the first place
Well, this doesn't really 'remove' the possibility of trap options, it just makes the traps more complicated. As he was saying, if you build a character with int then you need to make a build around using AOE and durations, because that's what your attributes support. The issue of having abilities that don't line up to your attributes still exists, it's just now that issue emerges every time you level up and pick an ability instead of only when picking your class and attributes. Is that really 'better?' maybe, but my opinion is that this is a class/attribute system designed by someone who would rather not have classes and attributes, as he more or less tells us. It loses the strength of class based systems, which is simplicity and intuitive archetypal designs and in return gives you the ability to make counterintuitive builds effective, like a barbarian with high intelligence who uses genius level intelligence to hit things that are further away with his axe while in a berserker rage. I guess that's amusing but it's hard for me to call it good design. The design philosophy they were following is just... not good for a class/attribute based system but rather than use a different system they stuck to it for the sake of tradition, which I disagree with. If your system and philosophy disagree, either use a different system or use a different philosophy. Going in blind to POE I ran into just as many 'trap' builds as I did in Baldur's Gate, which really just tells me that the solution isn't doing what it's intended to.
The better companions mod made me laugh. That 3 perception, haha. I'm personally not a fan of the companions, myself, but I appreciate the thought that went into them.
I like how Pallegina was a middle of the road Paladin with decently high interrupt ability and the mod went "No, I want a tree. Sturdy, life refilling and giving me lots of shade"
Thought? They are useless on anything above normal. Why create not just suboptomal companions but badly created ones?
@@robertnomok9750 From personal experience, you are wrong. That is all.
@@robertnomok9750 Just beat the game on hard with first Eder, then Pallegina as tank. Aloth or Hiravias as caster. And Sagani as ranger. Custom Chanter, Rogue, and MC 2H fighter. Did some stuff with Maneha and DoC as well.
There was nothing wrong with the companions. Even though I upscaled every single time I could, the game was very rarely difficult. The last fight was over disappointingly quickly. I didn't need to grab all the best gear. I waited probably longer than I should have to enchant my gear to superior/legendary and with durgan steel. I am pretty certain I didn't optimize a lot of the gear I used.
Basically, the game was just on the brink of being too easy on upscaled hard, with half the party as default companions. You could not be more wrong with your statement that they are useless above normal.
@@Taeerom path of the damned the only diffucly i play on so could be wrong about hard.
This is great! It's really nice to have things explained in this way.
Pillars of Eternity is one of the best RPGs I've ever played. I just started Deadfire, despite having bought it a while back. This video helped get me acclimated to character stats again. I wish more game designers/developers would produce helpful talks like this.
Playing Pillars Of Eternity in 2019, I have to say that the guys at Obsidian achieved all the goals they set for themselves.
After not partaking in any D&D activities for a decade I had no problem getting into PoE's stats system and making a viable build without screwing it up completely from the very beginning.
Then it took me 20+ hours of playtime before I reached a point where I tangibly felt the need to acquire new gear and/or talents to boost some aspects in preparation for future harder encounters.
I am confident that the character building process will be just as smooth, intuitive, forgiving and entertaining even to a person who has never heard of D&D.
Ironically, I'm about 8 hours into Pillars 2 (never played one) and this makes me want to re-roll. Mighty Wizard....
Masterclass. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
Out of all the modern day CRPGs PoE has by far the worst and least meaningful stats. Not a masterclass. Just some chode, that doesnt even like the genre, trying to defend why its not bad just because everyone hates it and all in the name of inclusivity. This dude should be bagging groceries and not giving talks about game design and balance.
@Mod Whatever you say smooth brain.
@@MrMasters1983 lol dude, Joshua is the best :) how dare you
Fantastic talk. I started a new game of Pillars after watching. I never got around to playing White March. I wanted to start a fresh game on PotD.
The Pallegina stats on that companions mod made my head spin. I just don't have the heart to min-max like that. I hate having negative stats. Also unnecessary even on PotD.
I'm really looking forward to what they can do now that they already have the game system in place and pretty well fine tuned after the patches and expansions.
Khalid is my favorite BG companion, I even named my Dwarf Paladin in WOW after him...
Gorion would be proud of your actions.
@@DrowFighterMage Is that so, oh, omnipresent authority figure?
Pillars of eternity stats defenses attacks buffs system is truly remarkable and extremely well thought out. Having all builds be viable It's not that bad And actually helps the game out a lot... It's good to see some diversity even though it's it's mainly only a difference of one stat or another... It makes the game more about the experience and you still get a real sense of power from your character from their abilities alone not just because of their stats... I wonder if Boulder's gate 3 will pick up on this?
Do I need to remind that they had to REMAKE that system after release because 1.0 was garbage with several stats being next to useless while stats granting accuracy were the best?
This is fascinating, and something that I would struggle with as a designer. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are people who are experts and dedicated to this one very narrow part of systems design. It's so important!
Since he briefly mentioned Mass Effect, I'll say that in the later games where skills had branching upgrade paths, the paths weren't always equal; or anywhere close to each other. For example, you could choose between +30% damage, or turning a single target skill into a 10m AoE that hits 3 targets. Who is going to chose 30% more damage on a concentrated target against 200% more damage applied to a group? This was also multiplied by 'skill explosions' where primed enemies detonated for more damage, causing a cascade burst. Against lone boss enemies damage output could lean on crunchy weapons like sniper rifles or shotguns.
an answer to that rhetorical question, from personal experience, is "people playing the hardest difficulty setting and picking off 1 mob at a time from cover for most of most missions". ME2 had a lot fewer enemies that would flush you out of cover than the further ones, and a lot of players never stopped playing 3 and A like they learned in 2. I'd say a good example of poor choice design is the shepard upgrade that shoehorns a giant multiplier to paragade points you DIRELY need for some of the hardest checks at the end of the game...into only one side. I don't even remember the effect of the competing shepard passive, I've never completed a ME2 run where i cared that little about securing everybody's loyalty; most people I know haven't.
the vanguard dev gets props on this front from me. Charge gains bullet time and a sizable chunk of extra shielding for being single target, the choice is pretty competitive.
This is awesome. Very helpful for understanding how the developers made design choices.
POE has everything that I ever wished for BG/IWD. What a game!
Wow that was really insightful. Also made me want to try PoE again
This is a 7 year old video at this point but i still had to comment. I am in the process if writing a TTRPG for my own personal gratification and this talk has given me such a depth of insight into things to question and look into. Fantastic!
Made a high intellect and high perception barbarian after watching this. Surprisingly fun despite the low damage, now I wish there were more games like this where attributes offer different expressions for classes instead of being necessary for classes to function
awesome seminar, I freaking love POE, I can't get in to many games these days, POE paid homage to golden age games I love while bringing a vibrant world with interesting combat mechanics to life.
Would love this guy to be the designer for the kotor remake. A lot of the points he said, i was guilty of doing in kotor, just dumping stats in one place, or having a centralized stat that i could focus on entirely. In eternity, i kinda enjoy thinking about my stats and builds thoroughly
I tried to play PoE five years ago and gave up because it was so hard to understand what the different attributes were about and how to min/max for different classes. Having watched this I now understand that it's not really something you need to do in this game, and the reasons make sense. I am now playing it again.
josh sawyer keep me being a gamer till now. tks josh..
Amazing talk. Thanks Josh Sawyer (and Brenda Romero)!
When I started playing Pillars of Eternity, the attributes were the very first thing that got me into that game. I always enjoyed playing uncommon characters that in other RPGs were absolutely non-viable. It felt great to finally be able to play the character I wanted.
for me, by far, Pillars of Eterty 2 Deadfire has the BEST combat of ALL games that i played, not only CRPG's!
Super insightful. Thanks to Josh for the in depth look.
Great talk! I'd like more as focused and detailed as this one!
i love that Might affects spell damage, give me that buff wizard
Josh sawyer always look different every time I see him
Incredibly enlightening and well-spoken talk.
Thx for this video, I am now motivated for PoE full playthrough. I started and dropped this game 3 times. But now I see the idea of the stat system and it makes sense
There are so many times during this video I wanted to like it, and realized I already had.
fun viable build: in pillars my favourite earlygame build is a solo orlan rouge with maxed out might and stealth and backstab. right out the gate you can oneshot most early enemies with a 79 damage burst with a crossbow from 2m then go back to stealthing around. so long as your stealth is high enough to get within 2m of the enemy without being detected you kill most enemies :)
interesting that they gave this much thought to this, but the characters are still very limited in use. If you have a char you want for his strength, not maxing it to 20 in POE is a mistake, all the mini text adventures have skill checks at 18 or 20, so you have to have them maxed to use.
This is a tough problem in CRPG's. You can have a nice linear scale in combat, so that 15 INT and 16 INT are both equally viable. But the skill checks in conversation are usually just binary. If you have 16 INT, you get everything, but if you have 15 INT you get nothing.
The only way to really get around this is to roll randomly for conversation checks.
@@JackMack That is not the only and frankly the worst way for cprg, as it ignores save/load
Better options:
* Don't require max stats to pass adventures, doh, make it a choice to use a stat based option not a reward for maxing the stat. Don't hide best options behind stat gate
* Provide options that are based on combination of stats (for example check for sum of int and willpower) you can to it up and require multiple high stats for passing the gate, that way overspecialization will result in less options, not more. Basically reward stat distribution you want characters to have
@@Dkoooz I disagree with you. Disco Elysium used random skill checks to great effect. It can work well when done right. The key is not to cut off progression behind those checks, and treat failing skill checks as an important part of the game.
Neither of your solutions fix the issue I'm talking about: The check itself is still binary. If the skill check is at 15 INT, then having 10, 11, 12, 13 or 14 INT is all exactly the same as having 0. Either you have the stat at the required level, or you don't. Summing up INT and WILL is the same, you have the required points or you don't.
In the rest of the game, each stat boost gives you a meaningful improvement. 11, 12, 13 or 14 STR all make a meaningful difference in combat. It's not just a system where you need 15 STR or you're out of luck.
Using random skill checks isn't a perfect solution, but when it's done right, I think it can be better than a straight stat check. It means that boosting your stat to 11, 12, 13, etc, all give a meaningful improvement to your chance of success. It's not just a "You must be this high to ride" system.
@@JackMack in disco elysium it worked to great effect of me starring at loading screen after reload.
Binary outcome is not a bad thing in itself its when bibary outcome means you don't progress unless you don't meet stat requirement we have a problem. That is the first approach, just don't make players feel that they NEED max stats, make other options viable. Using combination of stats again allows you to have more character variation pass the gate alleviating perceived pressure of maxing stats to meet some checks.
@@JackMack Roll plus skill modifier is the best solution for that problem, well unless you are playing a videogame and could just save scum your way into a success check.
This is great. I'm not working on a PoE type RPG game but this was really helpful
First time I’ve seen that Sawyer didn’t run outta time lol.
I think they did a fairly great job at this. The stats kind of make sense, like you have that mighty wizards, meaning they have powerful hard hitting spells, and you have clever wizards who outsmarts their foes - meaning they crowd control them. And a fighter can also be mighty.
What I don't like is how they tied those things to the choose your adventures section of the game, using your wizards to push rocks or bend metal bars.
Have you watched Avatar the last airbender?
@@mohandasjung yeah, why
@@IcoKirov I imagine Toph as a might wizard capable of push rocks and bend metal!
I find this interesting.
I wasn't part of the Pillars Beta, but I have been playing Baldur's Gate 3 a lot in early access. While BG3 is a lot more "pure" DnD, it's fun to see how a lot of the same reactions exist. While not to the ability scores. Ther's been reactiosn to companion stats, and to how things aren't "right" with regards to "ideological purity".
Always fun to see how games evolve from early stages imo.
Neat talk! I love niche, deep dive stuff like this
we used to circumvent some of the issues by simply rolling six times 4d6, delete the worst die of each roll and after the fact you could freely choose on which attribute you wanted
which roll... that way it was way easier to play the class you wanted to...
Thank you for this information im going to be planning an rpg soon and this is good info
I don't see Might as Strength in the way you use Strength to lift something heavy. I see Might more like being Skilled. It is the one ability score that stands out to me most because in game there are checks for it as Strength, but it otherwise works more like Skill (as in just being good at doing what you do). I don't have any issues with how they did this all though, I love that it just works out in game as attributes. PoE
Right. I thought of might sort of being forceful. A mage can be mighty, just in a different way.
It's just sort of awkward that it also affects their muscles too, but no moreso than quantifying intelligence and wisdom.
I had a witch type rogue character in another game and I had her might high because of intimidation and checks for people being fearful of your power depended on might, since she was supposed to be a feared legendary centuries old witch I wanted those options for her. Plus might also increased melee damage.So I went int and might. :)
@@quayseanthomas-el6910 that's exactly what I meant! Usually that would just be folded up into charisma but that didnt exist so you made the combination that fit what you needed. Thank you.
I felt it was just power. A wizard with powerful spells can intimidate people with the threat of magical violence, and can also apply their poweful spells in order to e.g. break down a door without a a hammer
I'm definitely jazzed about the gameplay effects of this system. What I do have problems with is the roleplaying problems with some of these stats - e.g. it's unclear what a "Mighty" character means in roleplaying terms. Actually, that's the only one I have an issue with - even a rename would be fine for me :-P
I think the ambiguity is beneficial. I mean, what comes to mind when I say "Mighty Wizard"? Not a ripped guy. But I can imagine Might meaning physical strength aswell even if I'm playing a wizard because that's the type of character I have in my mind.
Really good chat, and really good game. This conference made me appreciate the game even more. And I get that there are a lot of D&D fans, but they can't deny the game is unbalanced as fuck
But D&D is supposed to be that way, there are things that are going to be better than others there is just no escape to that, homogenization doesn't lead to fun things because quoting Syndrome from the incredibles movie "When everyone is super, no one will be". Also you can still min max in PoE is just that the game is more easy and with a widest range for error.
@@zzxp1 Where do you get the idea that D&D is unbalanced? If anything it's too _balanced_ , from my perspective.
I loved AD&D being unbalanced. It makes characters completely different and you need a group to make things work. I always preferred and DMed high fantasy settings because AD&D was designed for that if you ever played past name level characters. Artifacts, plane travelling, alternate prime material planes. Characters who even up to 30th level can be brought to their knees with planar travel and high level monsters that are also as smart as the players.
I want this man as a DM! He gives a care.
I love this extremely noodly topic because it applies to computer games / board games / card games / ttrpgs / ...
Great talk.
This is exactly what I hoped to see after watching the other PoE talk he gave.
This makes me think of the Divinity games by Larian Studios. It's essentially classless, but the variable builds are generally viable no matter how you allocate attribute and skill points. You can min/max or take a more lateral approach and still play the game.
This dude is a scholar on this topic and needs to be atleast consulted for every RPG game that calls itself serious
I was postponing playing Pillars of Eternity for long, but after seeing this i want to play it! Good explanation.
Its still kinda imba though as in optimal build dialoguewise is still dumping a certain stat aka constitution and maxing rest or most needed stats is still best. Admittantly only is safe option on lower difficulty games of poe1 and or poe2
I nerdgasmed all the way through. Love you Josh!
I always thought the way stats worked in the original 7th sea was neat, because they all had such a broad reach. Like, Panache both affected social interactions AND initiative. Finesse ultimately was a god stat, but there wasn't any true dump stat.
Fucking great talk. Also people who play video games enough that they are interested in game design and development love niche shit.
This is good stuff
ahh back when we all played in Mystara. I miss playing from basic to immortal. Been a long time since i picked up the game.
edit: fat fingers don't always spell well :)
Amazing insight. Great talk
Does anyone have some other good talks by this guy? This was one of my favorites
The thing about giving all the characters middle of the road stats in a system with a small gulf between lowest and a highest stats is that you effectively have a bunch of characters with the same stats. If we want to give the stats to the character based on who they are supposed to be, then we haven't succeeded with middle of the road stats.
Pallegina is said to be failing physical tests and really perceptive, but there is literally a 2 point difference between something she's supposed to be really good at and something she's supposed to be bad at. And 2 points in a system where the gulf between low and high is low, 2 points might as well be 0 points.
Personally I didn't see any of the companions as actually weak or awful or lackluster, mechanically speaking, but in terms of stating them in terms of personality I don't think they succeeded. Looking at Pallegina's stats what I saw was a jack of all trades. Which is fine, because you can't specialize much anyway.
Agreed, odd that after the first half where he explains in detail why it's important to allow people to express their characters in the full numerical range, he pivots to justifying why all the NPC stats ended up looking like a middling 3E point buy
They designed the companions to be middle-of-the-road and jack-of-all-trades intentionally so that people could fit them into their party if they desired.
We're talking about the stated motivation of characterizing the players and NPCs through stats, and how that motivation fell through in the results. The original commenter likely agrees with your point -- did you not read the last paragraph? I don't mean that negatively, it can be hard to notice the 'Read more' text when it breaks off at a whole paragraph
Sure I did. I think they expected bigger attribute gaps than the developer intended to imply, but perhaps there was an internal process by which the character writing and attribute selection were misaligned.
@@souptouchesme It's a game, not a puzzle.
Absolutely amazing video, thank you.
Great video , thank you!
What I like the most about this talk are some of the stock pictures he's used during the presentation.
Old obscure memes and little nudges that remind the viewer this guy is "one of us" without hamfisting them in. Too many speakers try too hard at seeming aloof and professional, like they absolutely shouldn't love what they do and mustn't get on eye level with the audience.
I have PoE 2 ready and frying for after I finish Pathfinder. I'm so happy.
a caveat for paladins in 3.0 D&D:
they could lay on hands as a free action to themselves, this means that their charisma score can in many ways take the place of their constitution score.
their charisma score boosts all their saves, and thus as far as saves are concerned charisma takes the place of 3 stats.
most abilities are based on charisma.
therefore most stats that one assumes are a given for the paladin (like constitution) are not needed. thus strength, charisma, and wisdom (unless you are going to play the paladin as a fighter) become the needed stats, and thus isn't dependant on 4 stats. a paladin though has only one dump stat, intelligence, which makes it still a tough class to excel at (needs more points).
the paladin can no longer lay on hands to himself as a free action in 3.5, and thus needs constitution (back to a need for 4 high/max stats).
I been waiting for something like this, closest I could find were some pretty extensive but not for me rpgmaker tutorials.
beat the F out of the entire game (xp included) on POTD. Never min-maxed stats, didn't use food, seldom potions. I believe the lowest stat on my char I had was ~8-10. Never went below that for RP reasons :D
I also went with PC + companions; never mercenaries. Didn't really have to optimize anything.
So great job Josh & Team.
This content is so awesome
This man made fallout new vegas, the best game ever made.
Q.E.D.
Idk about best game ever, but definitely the best game in the Fallout series. It was the one I enjoyed the most.
Brilliant presentation. Thanks rope kid!
Pillars 1 and 2 are the best games I've ever played.
I love this game, I am currently playing it on PotD. Kudos who have done Triple Crown.
When's the josh-Lol-R-Sk8 meet-up going to happen? Will it be viable or optimal? We need these answers
I agree with a lot of what he says in this presentation, and yet I felt that the classes in PoE felt more fungible than those in previous games as a result of the design goals. I suppose this is down to personal preference, but I like my classes to feel distinct; if that means you have to tether an essential function of a class to a specific stat (like the ability to learn higher level spells to intellegence) I don't have a problem with that. BGII allowed for multi and dual class characters, so I think that the idea that the AD&D ruleset as used in the inf engine games didn't allow for real player choice is a little overstated.
Good talk. I just started the game, and the first conversation is asking me questions... like, totally different responses and backgrounds. I dunno what to do, if I pick the wrong thing am I lying? Maybe I'm not cut out for this game..
Yeah, I don't understand that second audience question... nothing needs to be workshopped "tabletop"... it's irrelevant. I doubt even modern pen and paper RPGs are "workshopped" tabletop. Heck, many roleplayers use computers to manage stats and such. What would testing with pen and paper tell you that couldn't easily be discerned with the software itself?
I just finished my first play through and I feel a bit ambivalent about the stat system. It worked out well in the sense that regardless of what I tried to build, everything felt at least kinda viable and offers a lot of options. But the inherent problem with that is on the other side, that I can't specialize as much as I want to for my second campaign. Once I finish a game and want to continue with a second round, I tend to min max the shit out of it, so I try to make builds that really excel at one certain thing or more. And while there are some itemization strategies that can really make your character go crazy in PoE (not many though), the stat system simply doesn't allow that stuff to happen. Not only because of the relatively small gains that the stats offer, but also because stats on items don't stack (which would be a good way to compensate at least a little bit for the lack of stat impact). So of cause I can max out might to base 20, add another 3 off of items plus consumables for a few more percentages on damage or healing, but it's simply not as satisfying as reaching the 25 strength level in DnD which basically turns you in to a living god.
This is a great talk
I love talking about my newest 3.5 character, a fighter monk, Er monk fighter. He's a fighter that used all of his wonderful feats on gaining the unarmed combat ability of a monk. I also took a few levels of sorcerer because shocking grasp and rogue for sneak attacks pins and evasion. His attack bonus will exactly the same as a level 20 monk and his saves will be pretty close, also, by the time he's maxed out. After building him on paper, I began to wonder if I could build him in a game like Pillars of Eternity. I haven't checked yet but if it's possible, I will have to play more of this already pretty good game.
Monk/Psion boi!
@@gaming4life551 His backstory is orphan, raised by evil monks. So, I've been having fun throwing different monk combos at the party. Gonna have make up a monk\psion. Thanks for the suggestion.
@@michaelblosenhauer9887 ha love it. I think the 3.5 ed psionics handbook had a Prestige Class named "Mind Monk" which required both classes to qualify.
@@gaming4life551 Oh, that's bbeg material, right there.
This talk basically summarizes all of the reasons why I have grown to hate most attribute systems. I hope many developers listen to this talk and learn to make attribute systems that furthers meaningful decisions and personalization, not just act as traps for new players.
You know one way to help against low stats would be to have them do a failure event that makes the game/quest more difficult but still lets you progress forward. Like of you fail stealth and get thrown in jail you wind up in the middle of a prison break that was planned by other people before you got there. That way attribute checks aren't just "you must be at least this tall to do x"
Check out "The Age of Decadence", failing a quest and f*cking up spectacularly can still move you forward.
@@pablobronstein1247 Which is good, because pretty much anything you try to do will require several different checks in a row and a single failure can gate that option off. That said pretty much everyone plays that game using the exact same build anyway.
@@Dieonceperday I half-agree with you. I don't mind the game locking me out of options, I mind them not hiding it well enough. People are accustomed to Bethesda style playthroughs where you can do and be everything. Problem is rpgs aren't real life and infinite branching is sadly not possible, but AoD was on the right track imo.
Great talk. Thanks for sharing!
I want to see the equivalent presentation about Disco Elysium. I was going to explain why, but that just resulted in me staring at my keyboard for a few minutes; those who have played it know why.
@@SeekSeekLest punch children in the face to assert your authority
#sigma mindset
Well, I never finished this game, but it was a good presentation
Very interesting, great that they accepted this narrow talk. Can be a lot more valuable, if for a smaller crowd. Ironically, kind of the opposite of the system he describes.
My question is "Why there arent any conjure monster spells for wizards in PoE?" I always liked my mages to have big, magical companions :)
There are, but they are not for wizards. Chanters can summon monsters in combat.
I like Mr. Sawyer.
Really interesting panel, but wow, tough crowd. No one seemed to even pick up on his jokes.
This was fucking fascinating
A great insightful look at such important elements.
The only thing I would suggest is that for the character creation when I have no context of the classes yet when I am on my first NG, I would REALLY like a in depth explanation of the character types you expect to exist, including a typical "All rounder" for that role.
Like I made a cipher to begin with and I barely feel the impact of intellect on them because it is in conflict with my expectations of the character I wanted to make and that is with the "Gold star" focus on me marker.
Also I want to compliment the character defining dialog choices, all the props to your writers.
great talk!
Great Insights ! Thanks!
08:11 ~ Mr. Sawyer receives might love from me for his awesome "work". However, it is funny he says this about Pillars of Eternity but anyone who has played the game on the difficulty setting "Path of the Damned" knows companions' stats are exactly like the reasonable steering fighter "Eder" or the Reasonably Intelligent wizard Aloth… hopefully they fixed the Goddess stats of companions respectively, in PoEII since they are reusing the of the original characters.
Though it would be wonderstrukk to find lol-r-sk8's character in PoEII. 😅 What he said about them thinking the stats were fine and that it is only posteriorly is really only true for none-PotD difficulties. In that the importance was increased for all 'stats', and they seemingly haver missed that specific how that difficulty level changed the, instead of the players' perception.
Yeah, in pen and paper the DM can hand out magic items that get around bad stats and even badly designed (mechanically speaking) characters. In a CRPG, that's not really possible -- but that's kinda part of the game (replay value).
Josh!