Owlcat just tweeted out a survey:
It asks a lot about AI, micromanaging, console versions and turn-based systems…
If I had to guess, I think they are toying with the idea of following Pillars into TB land, alongside a console port.
The games I listed for best companion AI were:
Final Fantasy XII
Dragons Age Origins
Pillars of Eternity 2
Because in order of release, those are the games that let me create my own scripts for how the AI behaved, from “drink a potion if you are low on health” to “If you aren’t hasted, Haste yourself!” and I think that’s just the best way to do this sort of thing.
I also voted strongly for turn-based as the way to improve combat, “the way D&D was meant to be played” I wrote. :)
Would love to see them do that.
However, having the buttons and instructions for the survey in Russian was not helpful. I guess I completed the survey and was submitted, but since I couldn’t tell which button was “Submit” I’m not sure. I think one of the buttons was “God Back” and the other was “Submit”.
But you don’t need scripts for all of that.
E.g. Dragon Age Inquisition allows you to tell a character threshold below which they will drink healthpotion and number of healpotions you don’t go below. It’s actually more useful than DAO and easier to configure. Same with Haste: you don’t want scripting, you want character to cast it in a smart way. So just like in DAI you need options “don’t use that skill on your own/use it when appropriate/use it as often as you can”. DAO and FF12 scripting systems are primitive anyway. Instead of removing boring obvious decisions (the way Divinity or Pillars do) they allowed you to let your party play in a suboptimal but good enough way.
I’d actually be all for an RPG where scripting is part of character’s personality and you can affect it through character progression. DAO allowed you to get tactics skill, so that you sorta spent character points in “less microcontrol” stat instead of “more powerful character” and it was an obvious inefficient way to progress. I guess Dragon’s Dogma does something like that but its character tactics are too arcane to notice in action-focused system.
I didn’t say you needed it, I just think it’s the coolest. I like having that level of control over my party members, by automating some of the more common stuff like casting buffs or healing. If we are talking about real time games in particular.
If we are talking about turn-based games, I’ll handle everything myself.
Ah, as a customization tool that is fun in itself it’s OK, I guess. I also liked how it’s done in Fallout, through dialogue.
Really, that question about RPGs with smart companions had put me to stop. There’s no real-time RPG where I wouldn’t personally control my companions in any serious battle. I can remember games with fun companions but those were not RPGs.
Yeah, FFXII was really great for setting up these fun, cheesy ways to optimize your combat so you could run through a dungeon just hoovering up XP. Until you got to a place where you needed to refactor for flying enemies or poison effects. You never had quite enough in the toolset for a setup that handled everything, but that kept it engaging. My only complaint was how expensive it was to get all the gambits you wanted.
They fixed this in the Zodiac/Remastered edition - every Gambit is available to purchase from the start of the game, and they are much, much cheaper than they used to be, as well.
Only played the remaster and my problem was fast-forward thing. If I want to grind with gambits I don’t really have to change anything. Just let healers heal and come back to purifying crystal from time to time. I can get a level after ~5 minutes of fast-forwarding this way. Or maybe I can configure gambits for this specific area which will take 2 minutes… And then I’ll get a level every 4 minutes. And I’ll still have to come back to crystal from time to time.
The only occurance when I felt I have to add gambits was when I fought those hunter marks or whatever they’re called. When I discovered a first serious mark with 3 stars I was ecstatic. Here it is, the real meat of the game! I learned its moves for a couple of minutes, created a perfect gambit configuration…
And then I sat there for 15 minutes doing almot nothing. I used MP potions from time to time. I just looked at how slooooowly the HP bar of that enemy (it was some sort of a cheetah in a cave IIRC) lowers. Maybe I was underleveled, but I was still able to beat it - it’s just that it was as boring as it can be. After that I only played for the story.
Alex are you talking about Pathfinder? I spent 30 minutes today looking for gambits. Are you guys talking about FFXII?
(Alex seems like a good shortcut on your name --sry)
I really hope that’s hyperbole. :)
The discussion started here, kicked off by the survey Owlcat asked us to take.
Oh, sorry about that. Pathfinder doesn’t have good automation sadly, maybe they’ll change it eventually after that recent survey.
(Alex is fine, same Greek origin as for Alexander)
I just tried getting back into this.
Seems to me the moment you leave the mansion (i.e. the prologue) things just become messy and the game does a terrible job explaining it’s systems.
I rested my characters, couldn’t figure out how to allocate tasks (Expeditions: Vikings did a better job here) and after resting, some of my characters were still tired.
Random exploring, come across 3 wolves, they died very very quickly.
Further on, come across a single leopard, it kills all my party members.
I really really want to like this, but honestly, Pillars one and two, Tyranny and DoS2 all do a much better job at building the world, introducing interesting characters, and having interesting combat.
What am I missing?
A lifetime love affair with D&D.
@Gendal put it much more succinctly than I could, but yeah the problem here might be you don’t understand D&D and this isn’t a primer for new D&D players. I think there are rules/mechanics information in-game but I would recommend watching some videos that could explain the basics of things like “base attack bonus” and some of the better builds for new players to learn the game. You should not be dying to the battles you describe*.
*Depending on difficulty level and also the fact that early level D&D is pretty tough as your characters have low HP and a good critical hit can drop them. Make sure you play on the default difficulty, NOT the “even/normal looking” difficulty with full core rules, because the game is tuned to be harder for veterans of D&D.
It took me a bit to figure this out, and now I can’t even remember how I do it. Drag character portraits?
I think maybe you didn’t actually rest? Did you get attacked in the night and not go back to sleep? When you leave the ‘manage resting’ screen you still need to hit the ‘begin resting’ button. I’m not sure what I did wrong the first time, but I think it took a bit to figure out.
The D&D stuff I didn’t find too bad since I know how that part is “supposed” to work, but kingdom management is still confusing to me. I think the combat gets more interesting as you get further in and have more abilities.
I’m like you BBB. I’ve created characters a half dozen times and played and loved the prologue, but as soon as I have a castle, even if I set it to self-management, it turns me off. I do not understand why I have to wait months for a project to be complete before I can go out and explore. Why can it not be concurrent? That kind of time management is just frustrating to no end.
I know my complaint is not unique. I do not even mind the kingdom, just the back and forth silliness.
Well one of my steam friends is a fount of knowledge here.
He recommends I try a melee based character first.
I totally get the game is supposed to be hardcore, but there is, imho, a difference between being challenging because of content requiring you think of how best to use your abilities, and challenging because of badly explained rules etc.
For example, I find Into The Breach challenging, but that is due to the puzzle like nature of things. It explains itself pretty well. The fault, as such, is in me not being patient enough to think things 3 or 4 steps ahead!
Ditto Slay the Spire.
I think you mean the two weeks you have to spend levelling up an advisor or conquering a region. Yes, I agree that it’s annoying. I think it’s there both to add a degree of urgency and also as a way to advance time when you want to, like when you have a bunch of Problems, Opportunities, and Projects running and you want them to complete with one click instead of clicking the “skip day” button ten or more times.
There’s a late game Project that will reduce the time these take to one week instead of two. There are also mods you can use that reduce all events by half or even to one day. One day is probably too short, imo.
When you get a handle on Kingdom Management (which, I admit, can take a while) you’ll be able to schedule these events without too much annoyance. Be sure to read the Kingdom Management guide.
@BloodyBattleBrain I too have played PoE1/2, Tyranny, and DoS2 and I think PFKM surpasses them greatly. I have to two full play-throughs, so over 300 hours invested. It’s a fantastic RPG. I highly recommend the poorly named Fast Travel mod. It makes time run twice as fast while out of combat, so you can move around the map twice as fast. (And because time is running twice as fast it’s not a cheat of any kind.) I find the default movement speed to be way too slow.