Game News Pillars of Eternity II Fig Update #58: Forgotten Sanctum DLC coming December 13th, Patch 4.0 Preview

[Suicidal]

Balancing your encounters around the player having access to all their abilities at all times is not bad intrinsically and can lead to very interesting encounter design. The problem is that in Pillars (haven't played Deadfire yet) the encounter design is sub-par and most encounters are won by rounding up all the mobs at some chokepoint and AoE-ing them all to death with all your available spells.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Balancing your encounters around the player having access to all their abilities at all times is not bad intrinsically and can lead to very interesting encounter design.

Two words: "Pathfinder: Kingmaker" (technically, four words, but whatever).

 

[Parabalus]

Balancing your encounters around the player having access to all their abilities at all times is not bad intrinsically and can lead to very interesting encounter design.

Two words: "Pathfinder: Kingmaker" (technically, four words, but whatever).

That works in PF:KM because of kingdom management - it makes every rest meaningful and costly, so there is a penalty to spamming, unlike PoEs and IEs.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Obsidian are just as good as Fortnite with its updates! Seriously one of the coolest game devs working today!

Deadfire is snatched, cut creased and that strobing is lit, sis

 

[AwesomeButton]

Balancing your encounters around the player having access to all their abilities at all times is not bad intrinsically and can lead to very interesting encounter design.

Two words: "Pathfinder: Kingmaker" (technically, four words, but whatever).

That works in PF:KM because of kingdom management - it makes every rest meaningful and costly, so there is a penalty to spamming, unlike PoEs and IEs.

Thanks for answering the question which I won't have to ask.

 

[Prime Junta]

I don't recall a single occasion in PoE where resting was restricted (but then you didn't need to rest often anyway, even in PotD), so I'm not sure what the Woedica challenge is supposed to accomplish.

Without it, the best strategy is just to spam your best highest-level spells every encounter.

With it, the best strategy is to conserve them until you need them.

The strategic considerations of Vancian spellcasting require resting restrictions, otherwise it just becomes resting spam.

Yep -- and it's possible to self-restrict. That's how you're "supposed to" play the IE games too: most have limited or no resting restrictions, but if you rest after every fight, you're ruining it for yourself.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Without it, the best strategy is just to spam your best highest-level spells every encounter.

This statement is nonsense. Every ability scales as you level up, so most of them stay useful until the end of the game. Late game DLC bosses and megabosses will drain all of your highest tier abilities before you even take half of their health.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Every ability scales as you level up, so most of them stay useful until the end of the game. Late game DLC bosses and megabosses will drain all of your highest tier abilities before you even take half of their health.

Anything less than those megabosses is completely trivial, though, because there’s no reason not to spam your abilities in every fight. You lose all sense of “you-vs-the-dungeon” for “you-vs-alley-thief-#4”. Your fighter will always use disciplined strikes, your barb will always rage, your wizard will always cast arcane veil because there are no long term concerns about whether you will need them later down the road. Feels bad...

 

[Safav Hamon]

Then the problem isn't the system, but individual encounter design.

I found SSS borderline impossible without using Chanters, Ciphers, or Monks, because every other class would run out of abilities.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Then the problem isn't the system, but individual encounter design.

I found SSS borderline impossible without using Chanters, Ciphers, or Monks, because every other class would run out of abilities.

I’ll admit I haven’t played SSS yet, but running out of abilities in a fight that you are fully rested for sounds like a stat-bloat problem to me.

What I wanted from PoE 2 was long dungeon crawls with difficulty adjustments made through enemy AI components the player could turn on or off similar to the SCS mod from the IE games. I didn’t necessarily expect to get it, but that’s what I wanted. For me, the second game’s problem is not encounter design, but dungeon and system design.

Set piece encounters on islands and ships was not what I was expecting, and it felt like a departure from Durgan’s Battery or fighting the Torn Bannermen at Craigholt in the White March.

The set piece encounters are not bad - they have learned many lessons from the first game - but making all abilities per encounter and giving the player auto-recover endurance without long term tracking of health removes even the possibility of self-restricted attrition-based gameplay. And it’s why a played the first game multiple times, but I can’t seem to get excited about booting up Deadfire again.

 

[Safav Hamon]

I’ll admit I haven’t played SSS yet, but running out of abilities in a fight that you are fully rested for sounds like a stat-bloat problem to me.

Most of the time you're just hopelessly outnumbered and flanked. Squishy builds have a terrible time in the DLC.

What I wanted from PoE 2 was long dungeon crawls with difficulty adjustments made through enemy AI components the player could turn on or off similar to the SCS mod from the IE games. I didn’t necessarily expect to get it, but that’s what I wanted. For me, the second game’s problem is not encounter design, but dungeon and system design.

That's a problem with expectations more than the game itself.

They didn't want Deadfire to be a traditional dungeon crawler, and not every RPG has to be a traditional dungeon crawler. The better question is whether the game is successful at what it's trying to be, rather than what it's not.

 

[Ulfhednar]

That's a problem with expectations more than the game itself.

They didn't want Deadfire to be a traditional dungeon crawler, and not every RPG has to be a traditional dungeon crawler. The better question is whether the game is successful at what it's trying to be, rather than what it's not.

They don’t need me for Kickstarter shekels anymore, and I could give two shits about a PoE 3 if it’s anything like Deadfire. Sounds like it all worked out.

Hey there, Owlcat!

 

[Roguey]

most encounters are won by rounding up all the mobs at some chokepoint and AoE-ing them all to death with all your available spells.

This is a degenerate crutch for which there is no cure beyond scripted tricks like having things spawn behind you (annoying if overused).

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

SSS seems deliberately designed to fuck with try-hard munchkin builds. Which I gotta say is quite amusing.

 

[Alpan]

Yep -- and it's possible to self-restrict. That's how you're "supposed to" play the IE games too: most have limited or no resting restrictions, but if you rest after every fight, you're ruining it for yourself.

It's not the player's fault or concern that the game does a poor job providing restriction. If there is an element of "ruining the game for oneself", it's in the slight sense of discomfort every time one presses the rest button -- a nagging feeling that it shouldn't be as easy as this, that the game designers phoned it in, didn't do their jobs properly.

 

[Elex]

That works in PF:KM because of kingdom management - it makes every rest meaningful and costly, so there is a penalty to spamming, unlike PoEs and IEs.

not only, many quest have time requisite or similar.
one example is: save 2 different NPC that fight some enemy you have to be fast and don't rest for a chance of save both of them.

 

[SlumLord]

Christ, they just keep flogging that dead horse of a game...

I wish PoE2 could make me cough up the same kind of vitriol some codexians have toward it, but I can't even bring myself to hate the thing. It's just so fucking deflated, both in concept and execution.

Tried to play through it twice now, maybe third time's the charm?

 

[Zeriel]

The highlight is the Woedica god challenge mode, which will disable health regeneration and turn all per-encounter abilities into per-rest abilities (AKA "Vancian spellcasting"), effectively restoring IE/PoE1-style strategic resource management. Josh Sawyer provides!

An optional difficulty mode that introduces core game mechanics is not a solution. It's like games that let you turn off quest compass--when the entire game is designed around quest compass being turned on, with no writing or quest design to support players who play without that guidance. I usually don't post in Pillars threads anymore, but this is an entirely new level of horseshit.

 

[Safav Hamon]

An optional setting that was added by request of the community is horseshit? Okay...

 

[Zeriel]

The idea that it will alter core game design principles is horseshit, yes. You don't turn a family sedan into an off-road SUV by slapping different tires on it.

 

[Safav Hamon]

No it wont alter the core design principles, but it will alter the gameplay experience in a major way.

Play it with Rymrgand + Eothas challenge on and it will be quite grueling and fun.

 

[Immortal]

most encounters are won by rounding up all the mobs at some chokepoint and AoE-ing them all to death with all your available spells.

This is a degenerate crutch for which there is no cure beyond scripted tricks like having things spawn behind you (annoying if overused).

Or having enemies not follow you to choke points...

 

[Roguey]

Or having enemies not follow you to choke points...

This kind of switching of combat states can be tricky, particularly since it can also be exploitable.

 

[Infinitron]

The highlight is the Woedica god challenge mode, which will disable health regeneration and turn all per-encounter abilities into per-rest abilities (AKA "Vancian spellcasting"), effectively restoring IE/PoE1-style strategic resource management. Josh Sawyer provides!

An optional difficulty mode that introduces core game mechanics is not a solution. It's like games that let you turn off quest compass--when the entire game is designed around quest compass being turned on, with no writing or quest design to support players who play without that guidance. I usually don't post in Pillars threads anymore, but this is an entirely new level of horseshit.

I agree with this sentiment in a general sense, but sometimes an ugly, duct-taped hack can be good enough, no? Just like the self-enforced "hack" of not rest-spamming in the IE games.

 

[Immortal]

Or having enemies not follow you to choke points...

This kind of switching of combat states can be tricky, particularly since it can also be exploitable.

No more complicated than anything else. It might require level designers to actually flag where those hotspots are.. but similar systems have been done in NWN2 AI..
Just avoid piling into doorways. Switch to range weapons or back off and force the players to come through.

It doesn't have to be super complicated - just not utterly retarded.