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

No Infinitron, if you don't have a list of urls with quotes and names then you too will be spreading falsehoods.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68440-pause-with-real-time-combat/?hl=micromanagement
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68...ember/page-14?hl=micromanagement#entry1498744 <-- that one has Sensuki bitching about micro
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68116-pacing-class-complexity-longevity/?hl=micromanagement

I can keep going. The search function on the OE boards is pretty good.

 

second one is from v257, August 31st where selection and commanding characters was bugged, and clicking on UI elements also moved characters Nice try, but no cigar

Your video was clearly made from interpretation of recent discussions, the way you word it and the topics you mention are clear as day.

It might pay to actually watch the rest of the videos I made so you can actually understand what I'm talking about

 

Why do I need to know what you are talking about? I can play on hard without the need to micro all the time and engagement doesn't bother me. Your video is of no consequence.

 

So can I, and it's really boring. Feel free to keep being dismissive though.

 

Ok

 

No to the edit or the main post?

 

I haven't watched all of Shevek's videos, but isn't he playing with a fully custom made party? It is easy to play with all passive abilities that way, but who will play a BG successor with a premade party? Maybe one will do that during the n-th playthrough, but for the first few times, players will use the ingame NPC-s, who have their own skillset. And you can't fully costumize your skill there, at least not when you meet them. Only after you level up a few times.

 

His custom party contained classes that will all be covered by companions - Fighter, Chanter, Cipher, Rogue and Priest and the Barbarian he made could be covered by the PC - so it was a legitimate party composition. It is really really easy if you have certain party compositions and certain classes. Ciphers make everything a lot easier, so do Chanters. The only real difficulty in this game at the moment comes from OP enemies. Once those are balanced, the game probably won't be very hard. At the moment, provided you don't fuck up your combat opening, the encounter will be over after the first lot of actions are made. After that it's just a matter of riding it out.

However I have a feeling that due to the fact that the backers are not testing most of the game, Obsidian will not get around to thoroughly playing all of the available content and tuning OP creatures down. So I imagine there'll be a few left in the final game at least, perhaps more.

 

I'm not talking about having certain classes. Sure, you can have a barbarian, chanter, cipher when meeting NPCs. But when you meet a premade NPC, I assume it will have active and passive abilities as well. Sure, you can choose new abilities when you level up, but when you meet an NPC, he won't have only passive abilites, because I doubt Obsidian made them that way.

So I assume you can't have a party full of passive abilities like Shevek plays if you use premade NPCs.

 

Not all of the classes can be built to be passive. The spellcaster classes obviously can't. I know the Fighter can be built to be completely passive, but I'm not sure about the other martial classes.

By the way, does anyone think the abilities/spells that restore stamina or steal stamina from your enemy should be changed to give a temporary stamina boost instead (a la temporary hitpoints in D&D)? It would help preserve both stamina and health (since the extra temporary stamina wouldn't shave off health), whereas the current system of recovering stamina would seem to only help you fight longer in the battle you're currently in before being knocked down. And therefore 'healing' paradoxically makes you take more health damage.

 

With some classes there really wont be much difference in how they are played. You're supposed to meet all of the characters in the first half of the game, so that will probably be before level 4-5

 

It's a bit like that. If you're in no danger of dying then you shouldn't heal - because it's a waste of a per-day resource. If you are in danger of dropping, I'd say most of the time it's strategically better to use a heal, although at the end of the fight it's not. It is a pretty silly system.

 

I actually think the system is interesting in how it weighs short-term 'survival' against long-term health preservation. I think the problem is that the stamina healing abilities/spells are based off their D&D equivalents, which is dumb, because those healed HP and PoE's abilities/spells don't.

 

Dunno about Obsi-boards, but I stated that I don't like the concept of every class having a shitload of active abilities. And I also stated that I do not like the concept of every encounter requiring the use of (the same) active abilities. I don't really remember, but I don't think I was the only one (see the Grunker quote below). Morons might interpret such statements as:
"upset because they felt that PoE REQUIRES them to use a specific set of abilities in every single trash combat" *shrug*
I never commented on engagement though, since I don't play these types of games as RTSs, so I don't expect huge problems. Of course this will depend on AI targeting behavior and stuff.

Tron will take any "opportunity" to get a sneaky kick in. Whether it makes sense or not. Haven't you noticed? I think he's learning from me...

As I understood the stamina/health system you'll want to succeed the best way possible in every encounter because of health attrition, correct?
Some/many abilities can be repeatedly used without being depleted and require rests to recharge (e.g. at-will, per encounter, cool down, etc) in PE, correct? Using them will lead to better combat results, than simply bulling through without micromanagement, correct?
If that is so, it seems to me like the game encourages uning micro in every fight, even if it might not be required. Compared to IE games where you have to judge when to use which resource. (At least if you want to extend the times between rests as much as possible, which seems to be the main way most people played the games.)

On a positive note: I like what I'm reading about being able to build chars around passive feats instead of entirely relying on active stuff

 

Shannow:
Ya, the active stuff is there and you can use it when its needed or to be a bit more efficient but its not required every minor combat encounter. I might use a blind and/or a summon on a moderate level encounter (bunch of trash mobs that has maybe one hard hitting creature) but on the easy stuff, I will just plow through.

The bigger battles cannot be played passively but thats as it should be. The only major flaw I feel with the system is that magic doesn't have enough oomph for the bigger encounters but, then again, we are talking about the low levels here.

As a side note, its funny, Sensuki is making all these conflicting claims. In some posts, he says he wants stuff to be EXACTLY like the IE games (rounds) and in others, he wants it to be TOTALLY DIFFERENT (like making every single encounter a super ability using pause fest).

Quote 1 in response to my decrying IE abuse of AI through running around in combat:

Quote 2 in which he states he wants to change the IE formula and make all fights super pausy

I mean, wtf?

 

I was referring specifically to the Obsidian forums.

I challenge you to find a post where I say I want rounds in Pillars of Eternity.

If you didn't notice Quote 1 and Quote 2 are from the same quote LOL

Shevek you seem to think that difficulty = pausing.

This quote relates to tactical challenge. Tactical challenge does not equal pausing. Not all fights have to be like that, but I would prefer more fights that force me to react to what the enemies are doing, that force me to use my brain, to make choices between different approaches, to be at least a little bit intellectually engaging.

A lot of people play games to switch off. I don't want the combat in PE on Hard difficulty (or the game design in general) to be for those people.

 

Sensuki
1. I editted after I flubbed some pasting.

2. I don't think pausing is difficulty but many do and thats who I crafted my original message towards. Now, if you wanna get into some silly little tiff about what pausing equals, be it tedium, or difficulty, or whatever. Go for it, man. Maybe you can throw in more statements over how you play better and you can work in more references to your l33t CoD skills.

3. Your tactical challenge includes "micro" which tends to include pausing. I am not saying you can't have micro withpout pausing but the two do tend to go hand in hand. Also, most of your suggestions for tactical challenge on the boards seems to me like they would lead to tactical pausing.

 

Kotors, Neverwinter Nights, often NWN2, Dragon Age (unless you consider spamming cooldowns as micro .. lol)

 

I haven't seen anyone say that pausing = difficulty. I've seen people say that they don't enjoy having to pause a lot, but not that it makes the game difficult. Pausing makes the game LESS difficult.

Tactical challenge doesn't include micro specifically, it includes decision making. Players often undertake many decisions during a pause.

 

There aren't many of those types of games Infinitron. IE games, early Dungeon Sieges, 7.62 High Calibre, Darklands ?

 

wat

You're obviously penalized if you perform the micro in real-time, unless you posses a dozen hands. The point of pausing is to remove that penalty.