Eternity Pillars of Eternity II Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[FreeKaner]

They are not boring, they are pieces in a chess set and have a functionality as such. Would you say rooks are boring because they can't move around as much as the queen? This magnifying glass-like treatment of the classes is one of the reasons PoE is such a mind-numbing chaos. Besides, I'd say only single-class Fighters have really nothing to do in BG because they have no special properties. Rangers and Paladins eventually get access to the Druid and Cleric spell list respectively, Thieves require special micromanagement to get the most out of their backstabs. Ranged characters have access to all kinds of arrows that need to be taken care of to maximize their effectiveness, etc. They just aren't as busy as their PoE1 equivalents. Ironically enough, this progression is what makes each class individually stand out more and have a gameplay niche.

You really need to play the entire BG saga with SCS.

Rangers and paladins getting access to druid and cleric spells is p. boring honestly. I liked Paladin inquisitor better, now that was fun.

 

[Lacrymas]

You not using what you are given is hardly the fault of the system, though. It's like blaming PoE that it's an auto-attack fest when you aren't using spells at all and playing on Normal. Sure, vanilla BG didn't require you to engage much with its secondary systems, but SCS improves that.

 

[Trashos]

Honestly what complex strategies/tactics do you have in mind? Except the generous use of Breach-type spells for mages?

Stop cheesing BG2's fights, and plenty of them become fairly complex. Summoning is the definition of cheese. On the other hand, even if we accept cheese, in BG2 we still had to figure out the correct type of cheese for every fight. Which kept the brain working and made it fun. If you don't use cheese, you 'll realize that every couple of fights you have to switch tactics (I am talking about Bioware's SoA, I have no idea about Beamdog's product). I guess I could list the fights that I found interesting in SoA, but do I have to? It will take me 30mins+ to list them all.

Really, how could it? How could a mechanic that lets you change your character's speed in terms of milliseconds and number of frames not offer a lot of choices that don't mean much? Of course your character being 0.1 seconds faster at doing something doesn't change much, of course it's "fake complexity" that doesn't lead to "changing tactics". And yet, it's not hard to argue that your character's speed is a pretty essential thing to let you determine and control in a a RTwP RPG.

I don't get it. Why is the mechanic in you example even there? The correct solution for a studio like Obsidian is to go with as simple a ruleset as possible, that leads to as complex strategies/tactics as possible (needed on highest difficulty, not lower). Easy to approach, hard to master, as they say. This is what will give them sales and prestige at the same time, but it is the exact opposite of what they are doing. They have these complex systems and then fight against them in order to not scare away the casuals. The end result in PoE1 was lacking.

 

[FreeKaner]

If summoning by default is cheese then the systems are broken.

 

[LizardWizard]

You could haste spam your way through 99% of BG1 at release.

 

[Lacrymas]

If summoning by default is cheese then the systems are broken.

How did you come to that conclusion? It means summoning is broken, not the systems. BG2 prevented summoning spam either way by capping summons at 5.

 

[FreeKaner]

If summoning by default is cheese then the systems are broken.

How did you come to that conclusion? It means summoning is broken, not the systems. BG2 prevented summoning spam either way by capping summons at 5.

Because simply and directly utilising one part of the system invalidates the system itself so much so that you have to actively ignore it, otherwise it's considered cheese.

 

[Lacrymas]

You consciously have to keep using the wand or spells to get as many summons as possible, it's not by simply using summoning spells here and there. The problem was that it wasn't capped, if you cap it then summoning magically becomes not an issue. Like in BG2. You can't summon spam in SCS in BG1 either because it requires you to run it in the BG2 engine.

 

[Trashos]

If summoning by default is cheese then the systems are broken.

No, unless you are forced to use a summoner. To cut a long story short, cheese is useful so that gamers don't get stuck and angry, and in my view it does not take away from the awesomeness of an encounter.

For example, when you find an enemy with sophisticated attack/defense abilties, one-shotting him is definitely not the solution that the designer had in mind for maximum pleasure, even if it is made possible from some of the game's systems. This sounds so obvious to me, that I really don't know why I have to defend this position time after time here. The serious gamer's job is to look under the cheese and enjoy the encounter as it was meant to be enjoyed.

That said, I cheese battles too sometimes, and on every playthrough I only play seriously the battles that I feel like playing seriously. Best of both worlds.

 

[CptMace]

Well, there's cheese and cheese. I remember an exploit in Demon's Souls, where you could shoot arrows through the fog gate and kill one of the maneaters before the fight even started. A completely retarded strategy, as it takes a thousand arrows, and definitely a cheese as, obviously, the devs didn't expect the player to break the fucking game.
Summons however, are the unfortunate result of adapting dnd by the book as much as possible. Rest-spam is another unfortunte consequence of this. There's no reason to have these systems to begin with, but they could still be supported better through game design. Take in-game time into consideration (which I guess was kind of the point of companions leaving the party after a while if the PC doesn't help them for their own agenda) or have enemies react better to swarm of enemies (I don't know, a Sleep or Confusion spell would do, considering that summons are often shit tier monsters) for instances.
But it's not the same thing, in the first case, game design isn't the problem. In the second case, it is.

Which just brings us back to the necessity of analyzing how systems are supported, rather than the systems themselves. SCS has been brought up, and it's a good example of how the game experience can completely change by keeping the same systems but designing different stuff around them.
I think it's a bit dumb to use SCS to defend BG's systems though, in that regard. It actually proves that the systems were not well supported to begin with. Wouldn't exist, otherwise.

You not using what you are given is hardly the fault of the system, though.

Indeed, but it's kinda the fault of the designer nonetheless.
It's like these people who remind everybody whenever they got the chance that mgs4 has rich gameplay. Yeah, it has, but 80% is useless from beginning to end because of shallow level-design, among other things.

 

[aweigh]

summong aint broken, in poe1 i always sold summon ites cos = 2 OP, but NO ONE i think would argue normal conjured ujnits blights, animals, etc: no one would call those spells broken

 

[aweigh]

hell 1st thing i do soon as i get KANA is use console commands to REMOVE/DELETE Kanas summons so i can leave him on SUPPORT AI profile without GODDAMN FUCKING KANA SUMMONING CUNT-USELESS SKELETONS INSTEAD OF CHANTING GOOD

 

[Lacrymas]

That's why I brought up SCS and said it's important. Yeah, the AI and encounter design weren't up to snuff in vanilla BG, but SCS shows that it's a very good system once it's supported well. The thing is, I don't think PoE will prove itself to be as good if the game undergoes an SCS level overhaul of the encounters.

 

[FreeKaner]

As it stands PoE2's systems look extremely flawed. A lot of ideas that are good on paper to fix the apparent problems but with terrible execution that exacerbates those problems more than it helps while also bloating up the systems.

 

[Haplo]

Well, that's very sad. With PoE 3.0 I really though Obsidian has an excellent system base for future games.

Too bad that, apart from adding features (subclasses and multiclassing, not that I found the latter necessary with the robust class system in PoE), they seem to have focused on fixing what wasn't broken. And balancing things that didn't need that treatment.

 

[aweigh]

i only glanced at AI gui and, peeps, regardless of all other ays poe2 will disappoin; THAT AI ROUTINE SYSTEM HAS ME MORE EXCITED TO SPEND 50 HOURS OBSESSIVELY

ANALYTICALLY

ANALLY

HYPOMANIACALLY

JUST spending time making sure fuckers dont do stupid shit. I enjoyed it IENSELY in FF 12, and in DAO it as frankly its ONLY saving grace.

people complain OH NOES I WILL BREAK GAME IN 2 MIN USING AI COMMANDS HEY WHAT IS AN IF THEN ELSE HEY HEY I SAID I 2 SMART FOR GAME

anyway, can u ust picture making a fuckig kick ass routine for WE CAN FINALLY HAVE COMPANIONS WHO CAN ATK AN ENEMY IF NECESSARY -- BUT WILL NEVER CHASE AFTER THEM + finally we will be able to script low level abilities spells for convenience WITHOUT having to swallow a complete UH WE GONNA USE ALL UR RESOURCES IF YOU ENABLE THIS OPTION K

its eliminating the inordinate amount of non-sequitors of PoE style RTwP where u PAUSE too muc, pausing equally like 3-6 ties in a row to ake sure-- REGARDLESS OF ENCOUNTER

- that Durance actually DOES switch away his Arquebs after alpa-striking, cos in poe1 moments like that are 100% random if hell behave well or not


quality ofu life is all i need. i am not interested in scripting final secret double dragon DLC bosses beaten without player input or whatever. heh. only real dum-dums think this is THAT

 

[aweigh]

just being able to script alpha srike weapon changement PHEW just alone thayt already enough!

 

[aweigh]

MY FUCKING KEYBOARD IS DYING I SPILLED COFFEE ON IT



















OK NOW!! (|) FUCK DONT EVEN HAVE WORKIG QUESTION MARK KEY!

 

[Anthedon]

This turned into the PoEII-version of the Elminage Gothic thread.

What are the odds that high(er) level combat content would look different from what is accessible now in the beta?

 

[Sannom]

Too bad that, apart from adding features (subclasses and multiclassing, not that I found the latter necessary with the robust class system in PoE), they seem to have focused on fixing what wasn't broken. And balancing things that didn't need that treatment.

That's only because you're a filthy mage-lover who's okay with mages having access to weapons but not with fighters having access to magic.

 

[Perkel]

Ehh looking at PoE2 only makes me depressed.

- portraits are out. 3d garbage heads are in. Why ?
- 3%-5% difference between each stat point is still in. Why ? 20% difference even 30% difference is barely a difference ! even at 50% it still only half speed/life/etc which means not a lot.
- 0 acknowledgment for their retarded "no hard counters" rule and by extension of that no meaningful actions that could change flow of combat.

So you are left with:
- maybe good story
- maybe good characters
- maybe great journey

In game mostly about combat.

I feel like Original Sin 2 failure will repeat itself.
Developers forgetting why people want to buy their game in first place.

 

[Ent]

the damage bonus from stats are percent multipliers rather than additive this time around (I believe).

 

[Parabalus]

As it stands PoE2's systems look extremely flawed. A lot of ideas that are good on paper to fix the apparent problems but with terrible execution that exacerbates those problems more than it helps while also bloating up the systems.

I liked PoE1 a lot, but everything I read about PoE2 makes me think it will be hot garbage (like DOS2?).

- 3%-5% difference between each stat point is still in. Why ? 20% difference even 30% difference is barely a difference ! even at 50% it still only half speed/life/etc which means not a lot.

FAKE NEWS!

This just isn't factual, go look IE games attributes point for point - PoE wins except marginally for exclusively STR melee damage. A bunch of posts about it.

You really need to play the entire BG saga with SCS.

Perhaps I should.

I don't think it changes as much as people think about the harder fights, it just makes every mage into a boss. Try Tactics if you're itching.

 

[Jenkem]

it's kind of silly to argue about the game mechanics from the beta which is already out of date when the game will receive tons of sawyer modifications even well after release.

best to judge it on the release build once it's available me thinks

 

[aweigh]

Spoiler

HEY NOW DAT SAWYER INCLUDED MOST IF NOT ALL GAME-VALUES IN UNPACKED UNITY FILES (u still need VS or somewhat intermediate lang/scripting know how, but at least u no longer need to use unity software for super-long process per object)-- ahem...

UHHHH MODDERS WILL FIX IT













































































































































( Is definitely possible, and already e have mods that increase casting times or DECREASE recovery values i also already saw on NEXUS a UUUUUKtonnnnn OF MODS ALTERING SPELLS, EAPONS ARMORS SPELLS ETC.

poe2 is DEFINITELY going to be modded and i am already doing very simple and basic numerical value tweaks to some values and some ranges: im using the SPEED MOD POE2 as a blueprint to take cues from as to where to go and what values do what: its trial and error but hey, this aint exactly rocket science either.

ANYBODY absoxluxtely ANY BODY can tweak some numbers; in closing im just saying that all of the complaints that can be relatively easily CHANGED (anything tied to a NUMBER!) will most defnintiely BE changed sooner rather than later, as that (frankly amazing) poe2 faster action times \ casting times MOD everyone is using over in OBS forums)
















































































obv no elite modder team can possibly tweak a sufficient numerical amount of scripting symbolons to change even 2% of the games actual non-NUMBERS-Stuff quality.

honestly i personally think it will be just as tediously patische and banal and boring and inert and impotent in its non-combat keening as POE 1, but maybe theyll surprise me! maybe itll be even more fucking boring.