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I think you can ignore a skill offering bad advice, but there may be consequences down the line. It offers more options for dialogue. The amphetamine example is a consequence of you taking drugs: it becomes a habit. You might not be able to resist an addiction once you have it. At least not easily. You can play the skills against each other, so if your Logic is too high in some situation you can balance with some Drama for example. There will be a lot of reading dialogue and descriptions of things in the game, so it may not be for everyone's tastes. They have made an effort to keep the text fun and readable (not too long) in the game, and the skill list screen in the game offers direct bonuses and what they do.
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Oct 2, 2019 16:30
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Freaking Crumbum posted:i read through the links in the OP for the skill and ability explanations on the developer website, and i gotta say i wish they were more direct and to-the-point. there's all this flowery, pseudo-intellectual prose woven into the description of everything, and it made trying to parse what they intend for each skill to do very difficult for me. I wish they had something like a mechanics section for each skill separate from the rambling pontifications on the nature of humanity so that you could at least get an unambiguous explanation for what we should expect the skill to do in-game. The game was explicitly designed to ignore typical videogame RPG conventions of "Put points into thing to get better at thing." and is predicated on the idea of failure and negative results being as essential to the experience as positive ones. Considering how stagnant RPGs are mechanically and how disillusioned I've become with the meaninglessness of skills and other arbitrary metrics in how they actually make a playthrough feel unique, I feel this game forcing negative consequences into practically every facet of play is pretty invigorating.
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Oct 2, 2019 16:32
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Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:I feel this game forcing negative consequences into practically every facet of play is pretty invigorating. Same here. I actually want to use Cheat Engine to max out everything and see what kind of super hosed-up crime-solving prodigy I get.
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Oct 2, 2019 16:35
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They could add a NG+ mode with high skills, like the veteran start of Alpha Protocol.
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Oct 2, 2019 16:37
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Yeah. That would be a cool way to handle it. If only to show off how reactive to each other their skills actually are.
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Oct 2, 2019 16:41
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Hakkesshu posted:I also winced a bit at the whole "black person with theories on race" line but that's because it's hard to give game developers the benefit of the doubt because that sort of situation is so commonly mishandled. Meanwhile most of the writing and development philosophy we've seen has been nothing but extremely thoughtful, and given the recent cowardice of a lot of devs, it's refreshing to see someone speak frankly and loudly about how political their game is. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 16:41
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SelenicMartian posted:They could add a NG+ mode with high skills, like the veteran start of Alpha Protocol. So like the cheat book they give in the current build of plane scape torment?
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Oct 2, 2019 16:44
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the devs punishing min-maxing by having it turn you guy into a nutjob owns, get wrecked power gamers
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Oct 2, 2019 17:03
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Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:The game was explicitly designed to ignore typical videogame RPG conventions of "Put points into thing to get better at thing." and is predicated on the idea of failure and negative results being as essential to the experience as positive ones. which i am fine with on a conceptual level, but it's only fun if the player chooses to explore the failure option (rather than having it forced upon you). like if i want to play as an incorrigible junkie and my detective gets into a situation where someone bribes him with drugs, it makes sense i might explore saying yes to that offer. but if i'm building a character that i don't expect to be a raging addict and then the game decides "whoops your melancholic humor increased from 3 > 4 now you can't resist any addictive substances" and i was unaware that was going to be a consequence, that's very un-fun for me. that's why my first observation was "i wish the skill and attribute descriptions were more mechanically concise, so that i can better understand what i should expect by putting points in a given place". all that overwrought descriptive text obscures what risk / reward you might have to deal with when putting points into a skill. who knows, maybe in the actual game it will give you very clear indication of the potential results of your decisions "hey dummy you're increasing your loquaciousness by another point, this will make it so your character is unable to respond to a question in fewer than four lines of dialogue; also you won't be able to resist opportunities to be cruel to animals". but if not, it's going to be frustrating for me because it'll feel like i'm losing my agency to influence the outcome of the story
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Oct 2, 2019 17:06
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You do have a little bit of flex in controlling your moment-to-moment stats if you want to try to avoid/encourage some outcomes through Clothing and Drugs. Thought Cabinet is a bit more rigid because you have limited slots and have to spend a skill point to remove anything, but completed thoughts give multiple buffs so it might not be too painful to swap out at least a few in a game. Gonna be wild to see the speedruns on this and guy's running around collecting disparate gear and booze to slam through skillchecks.
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Oct 2, 2019 17:29
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Freaking Crumbum posted:which i am fine with on a conceptual level, but it's only fun if the player chooses to explore the failure option (rather than having it forced upon you). like if i want to play as an incorrigible junkie and my detective gets into a situation where someone bribes him with drugs, it makes sense i might explore saying yes to that offer. but if i'm building a character that i don't expect to be a raging addict and then the game decides "whoops your melancholic humor increased from 3 > 4 now you can't resist any addictive substances" and i was unaware that was going to be a consequence, that's very un-fun for me. that's why my first observation was "i wish the skill and attribute descriptions were more mechanically concise, so that i can better understand what i should expect by putting points in a given place". all that overwrought descriptive text obscures what risk / reward you might have to deal with when putting points into a skill. I can understand that but I believe a core part of their design philosophy is emulating pen and paper spontaneity to a pretty unprecedented level and in many P&P RPGs that kind of stuff is commonplace, you fail a roll, fail a constitution check, now the DM decided you're addicted to Potent Dwarf Chronic and you have to deal with it even if you necessarily didn't want it. What can make that fun is if it introduces scenarios that persistently react to that condition and thus creating branching, unique events that feel just as whole and fulfilling as if you had succeeded and avoided those consequences. Not always having a choice is part of P&P, and Disco Elysium from appearances seems somewhat uncompromising on that front. As for the ambiguity, I can't help but feel that's also intentional, they seem to want to inspire an instinctual playstyle that will, for your first playthrough at least, make you obsess less over the numbers and just slam in anything as long as it seems interesting and enjoy the disparate results and consequences, and to me that sounds great. Not having to worry about which skills are good or bad, that loving up will deny me content or more satisfying arcs or quest conclusions because the game is entirely built around constantly loving up and having it open up more options rather than deny them is to me, extremely liberating. One of my most hated aspects of RPGs is sitting in the character screen wondering which perks, skills, etc. are worthwhile or utterly useless, it's an ingrained habit of mine to worry about it ever since playing games like Wasteland and Darklands and recognizing that there were always some skills that did little, or outright nothing, but not knowing which. And here is a game where practically every choice is some guaranteed level of making you a gently caress up, where not knowing is actually exciting instead of dread inducing? I'm onboard with a whole lot. I understand your position from a cut and dry mechanical perspective, but I feel like this game, if it's done right, is going to be a "jump in the deep end" type experience.
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Oct 2, 2019 17:48
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Speed running this game is probably as exciting as watching some visual novel speedrun *skips text faster than anyone*
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Oct 2, 2019 17:49
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The point of the design is to make failures interesting enough to look forward to. If you spec into being a junkie you may not be able to resist the bribe but that wouldn't just be game over, it would open up an entire arc where you can choose to go into rehab, or perhaps decide to betray your dealer later, or just go into a circle of self hatred.
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Oct 2, 2019 17:49
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Pwnstar posted:I hope you can go full into exploring hidden mysteries and just kinda solve the main case incidentally while you are trying to figure out what secrets the buildings are keeping from you. Freaking Crumbum posted:maybe in the actual game it will give you very clear indication of the potential results of your decisions "hey dummy you're increasing your loquaciousness by another point, this will make it so your character is unable to respond to a question in fewer than four lines of dialogue; also you won't be able to resist opportunities to be cruel to animals". but if not, it's going to be frustrating for me because it'll feel like i'm losing my agency to influence the outcome of the story
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Oct 2, 2019 18:01
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Looking at this video for some dialogue/skill check examples that more explicit than what was in the trailer or the main site's screenshots, I see some examples of conversation with your attributes, how you can hover to see what a skill check will take, and at least once where a failure gives you some different response choices than if you'd presumably passed. First one's on the official site, just an example of inanimate objects pitching in, too. Spoilering the others just as backup; I'm sure some want to go in with as little foreknowledge as possible.     Couldn't say I noticed explicit thresholds of when your stats might start offering feedback if it's more involved than "do you have it unlocked yes/no" but there is an example of getting a task solely from your mind. Something that stands out to me a bit more on this is noticing the passage of time; I dunno how much pressure there'll be to keep ahead of a hard limit, but the clock does keep ticking in conversations.
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Oct 2, 2019 19:28
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Vonkrieger posted:lol you gently caress off oval office. have fun roleplaying as a proud boy because you're too wussy to do it irl
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Oct 2, 2019 21:48
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Freaking Crumbum posted:i read through the links in the OP for the skill and ability explanations on the developer website, and i gotta say i wish they were more direct and to-the-point. there's all this flowery, pseudo-intellectual prose woven into the description of everything, and it made trying to parse what they intend for each skill to do very difficult for me. I wish they had something like a mechanics section for each skill separate from the rambling pontifications on the nature of humanity so that you could at least get an unambiguous explanation for what we should expect the skill to do in-game. Funnily enough that is what i love the most about this skill system and what made me insta-wishlist on steam as soon as i read the first skills explanation blog post. Your skills are not just game mechanics, they are characters with an agenda and a personality. For what i understood by playing the demo last year, the skill don't really force you to choose a specific option, but determine what options you have in the first place, outside of some default ones.They do so by talking to you and forcing you to notice specific elements or try to push specific lines of talk or action. Having higher points in a skill gives it more influence on you and makes it more likely to try to push you in a specific direction, becoming potentially really angry if you fail or refuse. It's not a case of being forced at kicking the puppy because your authority is at 5, but of having half light remind you of the dog that has bitten you when you were a kid, encyclopedic knowledge writing a wall of text about the puppy breed, inland empire asking you to bark at him to see if it can teach you the secret language of dogs and electrochemistry screaming that you need a loving cigarette right now
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Oct 2, 2019 21:49
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Alpheratz posted:Your skills are not just game mechanics, they are characters with an agenda and a personality. For what i understood by playing the demo last year, the skill don't really force you to choose a specific option, but determine what options you have in the first place, outside of some default ones.They do so by talking to you and forcing you to notice specific elements or try to push specific lines of talk or action. Having higher points in a skill gives it more influence on you and makes it more likely to try to push you in a specific direction, becoming potentially really angry if you fail or refuse. i noticed that from the screen shots posted above that gave example conversation threads and it took me a moment to parse out what was supposed to be happening. it sounds like the idea is "by building your detective X Y Z way, you're saying that you wanted to be a badass action hero, so the game is dynamically going to present you with situations where being a badass action hero is the most logical outcome" which is a different way of looking at it then what i got at first blush. i guess they're trying really hard to avoid a scenario where you can make a hero that's killed 1000 foes in bloody melee combat but still starts every conversation encounter like a blank slate and could just spontaneously decide to suddenly make a bunch of pacifist conversation options. like, the more times you choose to be [Deceptive] you slowly lose the ability to pick [Honest] conversation options.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:24
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Alpheratz posted:For what i understood by playing the demo last year, the skill don't really force you to choose a specific option, but determine what options you have in the first place, outside of some default ones.They do so by talking to you and forcing you to notice specific elements or try to push specific lines of talk or action. Having higher points in a skill gives it more influence on you and makes it more likely to try to push you in a specific direction, becoming potentially really angry if you fail or refuse.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:30
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Anyway if you are a boring person who doesn't want to follow your id then just max out your volition.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:33
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Man, everything about this game seems awesome. Can´t wait to see what kind of freak I manage to end up with.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:45
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lol at inland empire starting its attempts to sabotage you by getting you to ruin a karaoke night. powerful mood.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:45
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Hogama posted:That did seem to be what the automatic checks were for. Like after a hesitant reply from someone, both Authority and Empathy chimed in successfully, and the followup response choices were to rake them over the coals a bit more, reassure them, or just do a follow-up question based on a keyword. So presumably, if you fail both those auto-checks, the only response option you have is the single question? well you get options relate to failing a check, or even open a completely different dialogue tree
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Oct 2, 2019 23:02
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Alpheratz posted:well you get options relate to failing a check, or even open a completely different dialogue tree The main idea being that you still mold your available options by your Skill spread, Clothing, and Thought Cabinet ideas, in addition to choices you make. Another thing I'm curious about : when you roll and fail a skill check that can be tried again, it puts LOCKED on that check. Do you happen to know if that's for the current conversation (so you have to back out and try again) or if some amount of time needs to pass or whatever before another attempt can be made? I'd assume the latter so you're not incentivized to just brute force coin flips on the spot, but still maybe take a shot at them since it's not necessarily a permanent failure when you miss?
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Oct 2, 2019 23:32
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The white skill checks that you fail at can be retried again after you put a point in that skill or (I think) increase it in some other way, like via clothing/drugs. The map helpfully tells you where they all are and whether you can retry them yet. The red skill checks are the ones that you can try only once and result in branching if you fail.
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Oct 2, 2019 23:55
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I'm looking forward to having a high Encyclopedia skill and bothering every NPC with inane trivia then crying when they won't respect me. Much like my real life self.
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Oct 3, 2019 07:09
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Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:One of my most hated aspects of RPGs is sitting in the character screen wondering which perks, skills, etc. are worthwhile or utterly useless, it's an ingrained habit of mine to worry about it ever since playing games like Wasteland and Darklands and recognizing that there were always some skills that did little, or outright nothing, but not knowing which. I'm with you on this completely. There has been a general slide towards CRPGs becoming min-max affairs where the game is balanced with the hardcore min-maxers in mind. And that leads to a sort of control freak obsession to create the right build, the right attributes, the right skills. Which on one level is fun. But it turns the game into more a strategy game than a roleplaying game, at least as I always understood the meaning of roleplaying. Of course, we won't know until the game is out and we've played it for a few hours, but this game seems to be saying "jump on in" and be this person. And just like in real life, you have some volition, some control, but far from complete control over what you do and say. A person like you would never even think of some directions, and would have a really tough time pulling off other sorts of directions. But it's not like there is this perfect build to find to beat the boss, it's not really about that. It's more about the fun of seeing how a character with a given mix of attributes functions under these circumstances... just jump in and experience it. My biggest concern, though, is that even if this is all very well done, the game may draw a lot of ugly reactions from the Steam audience and such. I find it really sad the portion of the reviews that basically identify a game's genre and then evaluate based on meeting all the conventions of the genre. This game is not likely to please people who expect a standard detective RPG.
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Oct 3, 2019 12:39
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I'm really impressed by the Empathy/Volition example. If that's the norm and not the exception, they have basically written every conversation as if you had a party of 25+ and each one could interject/argue with each other. Also, the UI to judge each interaction chance of success is very clear, and that's a big plus for me.
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Oct 3, 2019 12:54
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Fat Samurai posted:I'm really impressed by the Empathy/Volition example. If that's the norm and not the exception, they have basically written every conversation as if you had a party of 25+ and each one could interject/argue with each other. I feel like that may be Volition's special power, it fits. It's basically the one that interjects when your other stats are acting up to bring you back to reality. I doubt most other stats will interact with each other that much.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:02
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxYJyMFjbao "I want to have gently caress with you"
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Oct 3, 2019 16:21
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swPmDo8BvrU&t= (Swedish) Previews of (first day in) Disco Elysium are coming out. If you watch them and discuss it in this thread, please use the spoiler tags, thank you. Or else! Grumble grumble.
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Oct 3, 2019 16:33
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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/10/03/disco-elysiums-developers-are-in-a-bloody-battle-for-the-human-mind/ Some points: Hold on to your save games; The devs are considering a bigger sequel and possible expansion with both male and female protagonists, if they get an opportunity to make it.
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Oct 3, 2019 19:35
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SlightlyMad posted:https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/10/03/disco-elysiums-developers-are-in-a-bloody-battle-for-the-human-mind/ Man, you really buried the lead there, if they get to make their sequel the female protagonist is going to be 5 months pregnant. These guys are completely loving insane, if that interview is any indication. The game launch is the only thing that will reveal if they are insane geniuses or just nuts though. I must admit, I'm getting INCREDIBLY excited for this. To a ludicrous degree.
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Oct 3, 2019 19:57
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I've already observed some notable Skill divergences in the two videos and feel like I grok the system better now. Minor mechanical spoilers, I guess? You only see when your skills chime in when you have a successful check, but at character creation, you can only set your category ranks and make a single skill your Signature, which puts a point into it and increases the cap for that entire category by 1 (which means you can even have 1 Intellect and still have a skill cap of 2 for Intellect skills, if you want). So yeah, you've always got all 24 voices in your head - but with how the rolls work, the ones associated with your strongest categories are going to interject a lot more frequently. Because rolls add your category score to your skill score to your dice and compare the total to difficulty check; greater or equal means they get to chat, less than means they stay silent. So if you're starting up a Sensitive character, Inland Empire gets a lot of early influence even without a single invested point because the CATEGORY is at 5, which means that, say, the above auto-check passes with a 3 or greater roll (2 always fails, 12 always passes). But if Psyche was only 1, that roll would have to be a 7 or higher - you'd still have a fair chance with such an easy target number, but it's no longer nearly guaranteed. And that applies across the category, so a Physical character's going to get bugged by Electrochemistry for drugs a hell of a lot more often than the Thinker does. The mirror conversation has two difficult checks that are certainly meant for either coming back with bonus help (like how stopping the fan makes it easier to make the Savior Faire check to get the Horrific Tie), but also that's where focuses start to come in as well, since you'll have a much better chance with skill points backing up your rolls. But it's never 100% and it's never 0%. Also successful checks you choose to make aren't necessarily amazing outcomes anyway - dodging out of the manager asking about your bill doesn't mean you coolly get away with it, you just kind of piss him off as you awkwardly run to the door. Anyway, seems like build theorycrafting needs to take into account the 8 category points you start with and the Signature skill. Obvious as any of the above may or may not have been already, I'm already loving the writing. 
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Oct 3, 2019 21:29
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I've been looking forward to this game for quite a while, and remember watching a preview quite a ways back that showed off some gameplay. But when I watched a preview of the first 20 minutes or so of the game this morning, it motivated me to go back to the Devs' "Introducing Metric" page. And I realize that I don't know how to parse the following: "Every Attribute has six Skills. In the beginning the amount of points you have in a Skill is equal to it’s parent Attribute. During the game you gain more points (Experience) by completing tasks and discovering secrets. Experience can be used to unlock Skills – it takes three points to unlock one. Once unlocked you may put more points into your Skill. The maximum amount you can spend on a Skill is equal to it’s Attribute. (Natural aptitude equals the learning cap)." Maybe I am being dense, but for me, the first sentence of the second paragraph seems to contradict the end of that paragraph. So is it that a) If I start with the Motoric attribute set to a "good" 4, then all the Motoric skills (Hand/Eye, Reactions Speed, etc) all start at 4? So the cop I am playing is actually starting out very different from the cop you are starting out as? OR b) If I start with the Motoric attribute set to a "good" 4, then my cop's Motoric skills are capped at a 4 (setting aside special things I find during the game that push that limit)? But that doesn't mean my cop begins with any special Motoric skills, thus regardless of your Attributes and my Attributes being set very differently at the outset of the game, our cops have identical skills, and only grow into their potential differences as the game moves along? These two possibilities suggest very different gaming experiences early on.
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Oct 3, 2019 21:30
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ShelticRule posted:I've been looking forward to this game for quite a while, and remember watching a preview quite a ways back that showed off some gameplay. But when I watched a preview of the first 20 minutes or so of the game this morning, it motivated me to go back to the Devs' "Introducing Metric" page. And I realize that I don't know how to parse the following: Checks use your attribute + relevant skill, so your Motoric 4 cop automatically has a base of 4 anytime those skills get checked. Someone playing a Motoric 1 cop only has a base of 1. When you put points into a skill, your rolls improve further, but you can only put points up to your cap. So, unaltered, your Motoric 4 cop can have a base of up to 8 in any one Motorics skill (MOT 4 + Skill 4).
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Oct 3, 2019 21:40
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I'm loving lmaoing over the fact that you can give your character brain worms for regurgitating lovely racial theories and not being smart enough to work past it. I'm sorry but that's hilarious.
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Oct 3, 2019 21:41
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Hogama posted:It's closer to your a), but parts of b). Excellent. Assuming you are right, that means multiple playthroughs can offer very different experiences, right from the beginning.
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Oct 3, 2019 23:15
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frajaq posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxYJyMFjbao I've been looking forward to this game for years, and this just cemented my desire.
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Oct 4, 2019 00:00
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Hogama posted:Also successful checks you choose to make aren't necessarily amazing outcomes anyway Robert Kurvitz posted:Sometimes it's best not to succeed a hand-eye coordination roll when you're aiming at a child with a gun, for example. I'm not saying this happens in No Truce With the Furies, but it happens in No Truce With the Furies. Gonna have to bow out of this thread and enter a self-induced media blackout to anything related to DE soon. Been following this game for like three years, so of course now that it decides to suddenly drop I'm not gonna have neither time nor money to play it, and I've already exhausted all relatively non-spoilery info. SlightlyMad posted:The devs are considering a bigger sequel and possible expansion with both male and female protagonists, if they get an opportunity to make it. Would take them a decade though, seeing as they were making this one for five years, plus about fifteen years more of worldbuilding beforehand. Not that it wouldn't be worth the wait.
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Oct 4, 2019 01:26
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