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

[Lacrymas]

But I dispute the idea that it's somewhat necessary, or even helping, to have the same systems and level continuity to make a proper sequel.

It depends on how they do it. It's a remake, but I'm not using the word with a negative connotation. Fine, they admit they fucked up and their system is basically unsustainable outside of one game or past that xp cap and I'm fine with them taking another gander at it. But it will be used in a negative connotation if the encounters echo those in PoE1, are basically copy-pasted clones of each other and we are going through the same motions but with a spin in the mechanics.

 

[santino27]

PoE2 is a remake of PoE1

Damn that "back to level 1" business really piss people off it seems.

Look at how character import is handled: in BG2 you started at the level you ended BG1 with, which meant the designers could make higher level content different from BG1's low-level AD&D adventure. In Deadfire you're starting at level 1, just like in PoE.

I don't get your point.

I get your point now.

Funny how BG's legacy turns out to be way, way heavier than we could have imagined. Back to level 1 doesn't trouble a single person in any other game that imports saves, but here it makes the sequel a mere remake.

It's not because it starts off at level 1, even if that's one of the big parts. It's an obvious attempt to (democratically) remake the combat system, the stronghold, the exploration and probably an edited narrative that doesn't rely on empty lore to fill space. While gluing extraneous and vestigial bits on, like the ship combat. BG2 wasn't designed democratically AFAIK, they just saw what the fans resonated with in BG1 and concentrated on those things to make something different.

That's one of the unfortunate consequences of using a homegrown combat system instead of something with decades of playtesting. You see it in a lot of the modern, non-D&D rpg sequels; DA2, ME2, POE2 all changed their combat/levelling mechanics fairly significantly from the first game (ME2 the least, since it was already a shooter). I too wish POE1's mechanics and combats had been fully baked from the start with the foresight and flexibility to accomodate future features like multi-classing and better skill usage, but if they'd taken the extra years to hammer that out instead of releasing POE1, refining the system, then revisiting the whole thing again because of the new features they wanted to sell POE 2 with, we probably wouldn't have ever gotten a POE1, let alone a POE2.

 

[frajaq]

They should have made an entirely new storyline and characters for PoE2 but someone cried about keeping saves and Bg1 to bg2 bullshit so we have an half sequel.

what's so bad about sequel where we can see consequences to our actions?

we can criticize the whole Dragon Age/Mass Effect series to hell and back but I always liked that aspect

 

[Lacrymas]

DA2 and ME2 had ulterior motives to do so. The Awesome Button, its marketability and all that. They regressed, however, both DA:O and ME1's combat systems were better than their sequels, they were just unrefined and the encounter design was non-existent in DA:O. Awakening just added more overpowered things, an archer could get to 100% crit chance f.e., not to mention the mages' everpresent dominion. PoE2's changes are to adhere to this contemporary democratization of development that is pure cancer because they can't differentiate between good and bad criticism and can't recognize what worked and what didn't in their own system. That is alongside the ulterior motives that is, not instead of them.

 

[Parabalus]

Even thinking about playing unmodded Bg1 makes me nauseous - the crawling movement speed to eraser 30 woodland maps to find the 1-2 points of interest on them combined with the garbage that is low level DnD combat.

I also prefer BG2, but you're nuts about the low level combat in BG being garbage. One of the best things about BG (or any other D&D campaign where you start at level 1) is the progression from low level weakling to level 7-9 ass-kicker.

Progression isn't related to lvl 1 combat being thrash. Post IE DnD rpgs leave you with lvl 3-4 after the tutorial/prologue so you skip the worst offenders. Bg2 starting XP (64k-125k) is where things get interesting, everything before is just bow spam.

DA2 and ME2 had ulterior motives to do so. The Awesome Button, its marketability and all that. They regressed, however, both DA:O and ME1's combat systems were better than their sequels, they were just unrefined and the encounter design was non-existent in DA:O. Awakening just added more overpowered things, an archer could get to 100% crit chance f.e., not to mention the mages' everpresent dominion. PoE2's changes are to adhere to this contemporary democratization of development that is pure cancer because they can't differentiate between good and bad criticism and can't recognize what worked and what didn't in their own system.

While the later Mass Effects were worse as RPGs, ME1 had the worst combat system. If you're going to be a third person shooter you just can't leave out headshots - ME3 did it best IMO.

 

[Lacrymas]

While the later Mass Effects were worse as RPGs, ME1 had the worst combat system. If you're going to be a third person shooter you just can't leave out headshots - ME3 did it best IMO.

I meant in terms of stats affecting the combat and such, which are also part of the combat system. It was trying to be an RPG first and a shooter second. I didn't about about the exclusion of headshots in ME1, but their inclusion would've detracted from the stats, as it would place the emphasis on your twitch skills, rather than the character's stats.

 

[Jenkem]

Anyone else back this game on the premise that POE 3.0 finally worked out all the kinks and was good so they would have a solid foundation to build off?

Only to have it all scrapped and started over from the beginning by Adolf Sawyer?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Anyone else back this game on the premise that POE 3.0 finally worked out all the kinks and was good so they would have a solid foundation to build off?

Only to have it all scrapped and started over from the beginning by Adolf Sawyer?

Well, it's not that much from the beginning if you look at it, some things are left intact...

It's not because it starts off at level 1, even if that's one of the big parts. It's an obvious attempt to (democratically) remake the combat system, the stronghold, the exploration and probably an edited narrative that doesn't rely on empty lore to fill space. While gluing extraneous and vestigial bits on, like the ship combat. BG2 wasn't designed democratically AFAIK, they just saw what the fans resonated with in BG1 and concentrated on those things to make something different.

... but the measure to which all systems are being revised, from base stats to skills, to combat rules, combat pacing, party limit changes, it's solemn evidence of how "good" PoE's system was. The ravings of fanboys will always be there, but the fact is that the system is heavily revised. Why is that, if it was so good?

 

[Jenkem]

It's not because it starts off at level 1, even if that's one of the big parts. It's an obvious attempt to (democratically) remake the combat system, the stronghold, the exploration and probably an edited narrative that doesn't rely on empty lore to fill space. While gluing extraneous and vestigial bits on, like the ship combat. BG2 wasn't designed democratically AFAIK, they just saw what the fans resonated with in BG1 and concentrated on those things to make something different.

... but the measure to which all systems are being revised, from base stats to skills, to combat rules, combat pacing, party limit changes, it's solemn evidence of how "good" PoE's system was. The ravings of fanboys will always be there, but the fact is that the system is heavily revised. Why is that, if it was so good?

Because most people thought that POE 3.0 was far more playable and a better experience than previous versions, but it happened to not be as "balanced" as they had hoped (which is why people probably enjoyed it more) and we all know how is important to the director

 

[Lacrymas]

Even thinking about playing unmodded Bg1 makes me nauseous - the crawling movement speed to eraser 30 woodland maps to find the 1-2 points of interest on them combined with the garbage that is low level DnD combat.

I also prefer BG2, but you're nuts about the low level combat in BG being garbage. One of the best things about BG (or any other D&D campaign where you start at level 1) is the progression from low level weakling to level 7-9 ass-kicker.

Progression isn't related to lvl 1 combat being thrash. Post IE DnD rpgs leave you with lvl 3-4 after the tutorial/prologue so you skip the worst offenders. Bg2 starting XP (64k-125k) is where things get interesting, everything before is just bow spam.

How did I miss this juiciness, lololol. Parabulus, you are quoting yourself and refuting your own opinion! Unless you were trying to quote someone else, but this way is funnier. Also, it isn't just bow spam. I haven't been bow spamming since the first time I played BG1.

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

This thread is like watching 4 trains with autistic conductors racing at full speed from 4 directions towards a junction. Every sensible part of me tells me to look away but I...just...can’t.

 

[CptMace]

but the measure to which all systems are being revised, from base stats to skills, to combat rules, combat pacing, party limit changes, it's solemn evidence of how "good" PoE's system was. The ravings of fanboys will always be there, but the fact is that the system is heavily revised. Why is that, if it was so good?

Delightful fallacy.

As in, moving spell damage from might to intellect (or whatever attribute rules that now, what an incredible overhaul btw) changes anything to the original complaints that people had, ie. might illogically rules damage output of arquebuses for instance.
Combat rules have changed, in that DR is replaced by Penetration. They didn't remove engagement, it's still a d100 mixed with percentages system, there's still no prebuffing, no hard counters and what not.

Nice try though, bud.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Because most people thought that POE 3.0 was far more playable and a better experience than previous versions, but it happened to not be as "balanced" as they had hoped (which is why people probably enjoyed it more) and we all know how is important to the director

I share that opinion because I've been playing PoE since its Backer Beta, its second or third build.

However I still think it's overengineered in 3.0. I can't make any commitments whether I'll be able to produce a mod for Deadfire to try to improve its combat, but at least it will be possible to do so this time around.

Regarding the "not balanced enough" part, why is it that the BG and IWD games never "needed" any "rebalancing"? I wouldn't call either of them (4) especially balanced, some class/race/stats combinations were clearly better suited to the campaign than others.

One example of overengineered pseudo balance which ultimately serves for the designer's convenience, not for the player's increased range of choices:
Which is better - 1) choosing between having cheesed out base stats for your party in IWD, or roleplaying your party on one hand, or 2) generally not giving a fuck about and not even trying to remember the derived effects of your party's ability scores in PoE, because whatever you set, it plays pretty much the same, as long as your ability scores are above 8-9?

You do follow me, right? In one case you get a real choice - to roleplay or not to roleplay, and then you make sacrifices for roleplaying purposes, even though you could have cheesed the party out. In the other case you get the illusion of choice, because in the system where "each point counts", it counts for such a negligible difference, that it's next to nothing.

 

[CptMace]

You do follow me, right? In one case you get a real choice - to roleplay or not to roleplay, and then you make sacrifices for roleplaying purposes, even though you could have cheesed the party out. In the other case you get the illusion of choice, because in the system where "each point counts", it counts for such a negligible difference, that it's next to nothing.

Who hasn't roleplayed through icewind dale at least once in his life ?
I remember building a gay cleric once in my party. He fell in love with Arundel at first sight, but his low charisma meant that the archdruid wasn't interested. He decided to do penance after he almost broke his vows by traveling Icewind Dale naked. He although lost connection with his deity. I had to play with no armor and no spells, it made the combat quite difficult, but this kind of sacrifice is what we play proper crpgs for !
No but really, where are you going with this nonsense ?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Who hasn't roleplayed through icewind dale at least once in his life ?
I remember building a gay cleric once in my party. He fell in love with Arundel at first sight, but his low charisma meant that the archdruid wasn't interested. He decided to do penance after he almost broke his vows by traveling Icewind Dale naked. He although lost connection with his deity. I had to play with no armor and no spells, it made the combat quite difficult, but this kind of sacrifice is what we play proper crpgs for !
No but really, where are you going with this nonsense ?

Well, if someone does that it would be a bit extreme.

If you spread your points thinking about the character and not about the mechanics of the game, and if, in certain moments while playing you take a second to imagine how this character might feel or react, that would be roleplaying in a videogame, and at least to me, that's the limit to which it can conveniently go.

Another aspect of roleplaying, inventory management: I usually use my priest or mage to carry scrolls in his inventory.

Weapon specializations - more opportunity for roleplaying. Who uses what weapon and why?

Custom portraits, another aspect of roleplaying.

All in all, especially in the case of IWD - you could set yourself up for some roleplaying in the same way as in Battle Brothers.

The major drawback of this style of playing is that you need to have a concept of the party in your head. I know this is difficult for some people.

 

[Lacrymas]

They didn't remove engagement, it's still a d100 mixed with percentages system, there's still no prebuffing, no hard counters and what not.

Nice try though, bud.

There is prebuffing in a sense - food. That stacks with other food and resting bonuses. I do agree, however, that it's better to remove prebuffing as it opens up more choices in combat, maybe the only thing you are actively choosing in each battle in PoE, everything else is tactic recycling. Besides that, there have been hardcounters for a while, all the "Prayers against" line are hardcounters. It will always be a d100 system as it works like a percentage that can be more subtly changed. D20 is also a D100 system, just with lower numbers, 1 in a D20 is equivalent to 5 in a D100. All equal 5% and both are "percentage systems". The difference is entirely psychological, a 1 in 20 looks like a more dramatic thing than a 5 in 100, even though it's the same thing. That's why people were arguing that the weapon focuses in PoE have less of an impact, even though it's not true, 6% is more than 5%.

 

[CptMace]

Who hasn't roleplayed through icewind dale at least once in his life ?
I remember building a gay cleric once in my party. He fell in love with Arundel at first sight, but his low charisma meant that the archdruid wasn't interested. He decided to do penance after he almost broke his vows by traveling Icewind Dale naked. He although lost connection with his deity. I had to play with no armor and no spells, it made the combat quite difficult, but this kind of sacrifice is what we play proper crpgs for !
No but really, where are you going with this nonsense ?

Well, if someone does that it would be a bit extreme.

If you spread your points thinking about the character and not about the mechanics of the game, and if, in certain moments while playing you take a second to imagine how this character might feel or react, that would be roleplaying in a videogame, and at least to me, that's the limit to which it can conveniently go.

Another aspect of roleplaying, inventory management: I usually use my priest or mage to carry scrolls in his inventory.

Weapon specializations - more opportunity for roleplaying. Who uses what weapon and why?

Custom portraits, another aspect of roleplaying.

All in all, especially in the case of IWD - you could set yourself up for some roleplaying in the same way as in Battle Brothers.

The major drawback of this style of playing is that you need to have a concept of the party in your head. I know this is difficult for some people.

I see what you mean. Now hear me : I don't believe poe's problem, in that regard, lies in its systems. I think it lies in its implementation, or more specifically, in the general quest design.
Poe's attempt at giving the player the opportunity to invest points in any stat while remaining efficient in combat, and doing so by giving each stat some impact for most classes, is a good thing imo. I don't get why we would even consider that IWD gave the choice to the player to either be very effective or build roleplay. There's none of that, it just doesn't give your the opportunity to build roleplay : but then again, who cares since the game wouldn't support it in any meaningful way (it's already cool to have some charisma checks in IWD). The true disappointment regarding POE was to see that they quit the job half-way, and didn't follow that logic with a proper quest design and proper world interaction. You can build your muscle wizard, but the world wouldn't really react in any way to that. It wouldn't even react to the PC being a godlike.
So why complain about the systems, in that regard ?

 

[Mazisky]

They should have made an entirely new storyline and characters for PoE2 but someone cried about keeping saves and Bg1 to bg2 bullshit so we have an half sequel.

what's so bad about sequel where we can see consequences to our actions?

we can criticize the whole Dragon Age/Mass Effect series to hell and back but I always liked that aspect

It's bad in this case because PoE1 had no memorable characters or storyline. So if they gonna start from lvl 1 (which i'm perfectly fine with), they better do another storyline and new chars, maybe with just references to the PoE1 events.

 

[Lacrymas]

The most succinct explanation for why PoE's systems aren't as good as the IE games is that it's a complex system that leads to simplistic and catch-all tactics. It's partly the AI, partly the encounter design, partly the total disregard for rounds/turns which made the IE games structured and readable, partly the overengineered class design and partly the spell/ability design that made only a few spells/abilities worthwhile and useful, even though you have more buttons to press. They all bleed into each other and make each other worse.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Regarding your post where you express skepticism as to how much the system has been overhauled. Well, I haven't played the beta, so I'll play the game and see, I guess. But I certainly shall hope the changes will be numerous and for the better. Of course, the major retardation of d100 and 10ths of a second mixed with percentages and x1.5 style multipliers remains. I just hope the granularity and "mishiness" as Sawyer called it is less.

Now, I don't know what you mean under "implementation". Implementation of what?

PoE allowing every build to be viable isn't that unique. Even in IWD you'd have a hard time creating a full party which ends up being non-viable. I can post my pretty crappy party as evidence, which managed to pass both IWD, HoW, and TotL. What was unique for me in PoE was for example how irrelevant it was whether I'll get 1 more point in deflection from Resolve, or 2, when I was receiving a per-levelup bonus to Deflection which made this choice meaningless. I can really pile examples until tomorrow morning, of how nonsensical this system is/was.

Your criticism of lack of enough reactivity in PoE is valid, but it's hard for any criticism for lack of reactivity not to be valid, no matter the game in question We have to give it to PoE that it has more stat and class reactivity (for some classes more than others) than any IE game. Even with its first-pass writing, this makes the game more fun.

 

[Infinitron]

The most succinct explanation for why PoE's systems aren't as good as the IE games is that it's a complex system that leads to simplistic and catch-all tactics. It's partly the AI, partly the encounter design, partly the total disregard for rounds/turns which made the IE games structured and readable, partly the overengineered class design and partly the spell/ability design that made only a few spells/abilities worthwhile and useful, even though you have more buttons to press. They all bleed into each other and make each other worse.

Actually the most succinct explanation is that you HAVE buttons to press. No buttons, no problem!

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ternity-revisited.116224/page-11#post-5189695
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ternity-revisited.116224/page-11#post-5189721

Longtime IE players are conditioned not to recognize auto-attacks as "simplistic and catch-all" - it's only when there are buttons to press that they notice, because pressing buttons is supposed to be when the "real tactics" happen.

 

[CptMace]

Now, I don't know what you mean under "implementation". Implementation of what?

I meant to say that, since Obs made a big deal about how they wanted to make sure their system allowed no useless or trash builds, and did so in order to allow people to roleplay®, I expected that they designed the game to take this into consideration and not just assume that their playerbase is full of larpers (which is very much possible, after all they asked for story mode). That's what I meant by implementation, it's not the proper term I recon, but hey deal with it.

Longtime IE players are conditioned not to recognize auto-attacks as "simplistic and catch-all" - it's only when there are buttons to press that they notice, because pressing buttons is supposed to be when the "real tactics" happen.

To be fair, that's what he meant by poe's complicated system. It makes you order your fighter to knock off - into the fray when the equivalent of IWD or BG simply clicked the enemy and fulfilled his role as well.
Now lies the question : which design is actually degenerate ? Both ? Probably both. Maybe.

Well, if someone does that it would be a bit extreme.

Some people have adventures. I am an adventure.

 

[Lacrymas]

Actually the most succinct explanation is that you HAVE buttons to press. No buttons, no problem!

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ternity-revisited.116224/page-11#post-5189695
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ternity-revisited.116224/page-11#post-5189721

Longtime IE players are conditioned not to recognize auto-attacks as "simplistic and catch-all" - it's only when there are buttons to press that they notice.

No, having more buttons to press means you have more buttons to press to get the same result as in the IE games. The IE games' fewer active abilities made them valuable and an event that can shape an entire battle. You can pre-plan or react in the IE games, in PoE you are constantly clicking the myriad of yawn-inducing abilities like Flames of Devotion, Barbaric Blow, Heart of Fury, Torment's Reach and all the other stuff. That constant clicking isn't necessary in the IE games because it has some respect for you, focusing the gameplay to the timing and quality of actions, rather than quantity. Like a sniper with few bullets. Really, playing through the BG saga with SCS makes the differences between the systems glaring, so I advise everyone who hasn't done so to do so, it's a much better demonstration than any amount of pixel ink anyone can expend. Make sure to check the option where mages and priests come pre-buffed, just like your characters.

 

[CptMace]

That constant clicking isn't necessary in the IE games because it is a faithful adaptation of a game played with dice and booze

FTFY.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's not a faithful adaptation, if it was it would've been turn-based. It just automates the mundane activities, something PoE doesn't have enough respect for you to do.