Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[hiver]

Maybe some Lore name would be good. But they probably dont have any specific one.

 

[Space Satan]

It's pretty unlikely that a single character will be rendered useless fresh out of the day's first fight, but the reason why things like health (vs. stamina), maiming, and per-rest abilities exist aren't for tactical reasons (well, a little bit) but for strategic reasons. Adversity causes a player to consider alternate tactics and strategies. Without adversity, there is no reason to do anything differently from one fight to the next. If the composition of enemies changes or if the battlefield changes, those can promote tactical shifts. If the capabilities of the party members change, that can promote both strategic and tactical shifts.

If one party member uses all of his or her per-rest abilities in a big fight, the player may have to rely on per-encounter abilities, standard attacks, and items for that character. If one party member suffers a lot of health damage, the player may shift that character's position in the party and change how he or she uses that character. In the example Gfted1 quoted, that character was not useless, but was vulnerable. I did position him differently, I stuck to using ranged spells, and I moved him or ran defensive interception when enemies were swarming. Even a maimed character is not useless, but they are much less effective.

In contrast to the IE games, PoE is much more forgiving when it comes to raw luck and the long-term effects of individual combats. But yes, the expenditures and losses of one combat do roll over into subsequent combats if you don't rest. Even so, personal resource management is also much more forgiving in PoE than it was in the IE games due to the high number of per-encounter abilities and the function of our stamina mechanics.

 

[Sensuki]

Sawyer loves quoting Gfted1 - his target audience!

Plz like my game, Gfted1, please!

 

[laclongquan]

FFs this thread has reached beyond 1000+ pages. It fuck up the numbering at the end of page.

 

[Daedalos]

Chrome is better than firefox.

Motherless and xhamster is better than pornhub!

Just sayin'

 

[eremita]

Motherless and xhamster is better than pornhub!

Just sayin'

Thanks for the tip bro!

Just sayin'

Anyway, I would go for a more general class name. Soldier, Brawler etc. is too specific. Assuming of course that there's some diversity... With classes like Rogue (that could be Thief, Scout, Stalker, hell, even Ranger!), I would go for a Warrior.

Off the top of my head, there could be three main categories in case of "classes"; general class: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Cleric, Druid etc.; specific class (kits, specializations etc.): Duelist, Berserker, Necromancer etc.; and then something like a "job": Soldier. Of course, that's totally arbitrary and majority of classes could fall in different category. It's up to developer actually. The point is, those categories could provide some kind of clarity for the player, show him how stuff work in that particular universe.

 

[Goegoff]

Awww. Mr. Sawyer wants a portrait of Roguey: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/421908348208812032

 

[Duraframe300]

Plz like my game, Gfted1, please!

To be fair. Gifted1's complaining is annoying on another level. Just remember how long he dragged the degenerate thing out.

I kind of get Sawyer reacting like this.

 

[Roguey]

Gifted1 is ironically the opposite of gifted. I don't really understand why he or any of the other prominent Obsidian mods were considered mod material.

 

[SCO]

Gifted1 has been on the obsidian forums and derived forums since blackisle.

 

[Roguey]

So have Gromnir and Volourn but no one would think of making them mods.

 

[Infinitron]

Gifted1 is ironically the opposite of gifted. I don't really understand why he or any of the other prominent Obsidian mods were considered mod material.

Sup Tigranes

 

[Grunker]

Gifted1 is ironically the opposite of gifted. I don't really understand why he or any of the other prominent Obsidian mods were considered mod material.

What's your beef with Tigranes?

edit: infinitron is teh fast

 

[Roguey]

I don't like his opinions on Obsidian-related matters and I've noticed all the various snide remarks he's made at or about me.

 

[Grunker]

I don't like his opinions on Obsidian-related matters and I've noticed all the various snide remarks he's made at or about me.

You get offended by personal remarks? I'm sure there's a joke in here somewhere about stones and glass houses.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Sawyer loves quoting Gfted1 - his target audience!

You sound jealous

By the way, I am not really interested in combat mechanics, but I wonder how PE will play compared to Icewind Dale 2 - Sawyer's first game. What I remember from IWD 2 is terrible encounter design, not unlike one in Dragon Age 2, where you have enemies appearing from nowhere in the middle of the fight. Will it be the same in PE? Also, those trials in the ice temple and in the monastery - does Sawyer still consider things like this to be 'fun'? And the forest, ffs I wish this game was erased from my memory forever...

 

[Space Satan]

I don't like his opinions on Obsidian-related matters and I've noticed all the various snide remarks he's made at or about me.

Face it - you are just jealous he gets more attention from Sawyer than you.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, Roguey's limited by the fact that for some reason he/she refuses to register to any forum except the Codex. Or at least post on one.

 

[Roguey]

By the way, I am not really interested in combat mechanics, but I wonder how PE will play compared to Icewind Dale 2 - Sawyer's first game.

His first game was Icewind Dale. IWD2 was the first time he had a leadership position and only for the first six or so months.

What I remember from IWD 2 is terrible encounter design, not unlike one in Dragon Age 2, where you have enemies appearing from nowhere in the middle of the fight.

It had some some bad encounter design dwarfed by a lot of great encounter design.

Will it be the same in PE?

Josh is aware that the quality of IWD2 was hurt by the quantity they felt required to make. They expected it'd end up as a 30 hour game at best and ended up with 60+.

They also feel required to make a lot of content for PoE as well but they're going in aware of what happened with IWD2 and also NWN2. There'll be a lot more talking this time around to help pad the time.

Also, those trials in the ice temple and in the monastery - does Sawyer still consider things like this to be 'fun'? And the forest, ffs I wish this game was erased from my memory forever...

He never considered those areas fun.

 

[DraQ]

The latest Update is the games name will be changed to "Pillars of eternal decline" to honour the Codex.

That was Legacy of Kain.

 

[Tigranes]

I don't like his opinions on Obsidian-related matters and I've noticed all the various snide remarks he's made at or about me.

Face it - you are just jealous he gets more attention from Sawyer than you.

It's true, I get Christmas cards from Sawyer.

If only I was more respectful of Roguey and did not have such degenerate opinions about Obsidian. Then, perhaps, I would be a forum moderator Roguey would approve of.

 

[Hormalakh]

Sawyer loves quoting Gfted1 - his target audience!

Plz like my game, Gfted1, please!

I really don't think Gfted1 is his target audience - and he knows it too. Gfted1 probably gets some attention because he's a douchbag mod. I've tried having reasoned discussion with him before, and failed.

 

[Roguey]

Last month, this reality's male version of Jocelyn Erica posted a few times in an IE general thread. I missed it so here they are now as a reminder of the direction PoE is headed.

Who was responsible for the 'use the thief with improved evasion as fireball bait' tip because that has gotten me through most of the tough fights in the game so far. Additionally my fighter now grabbed that feat so I drop a haste + protection from fire and have him charge blindly past everything to the spell caster followed by fireballs (please include such shenanigans in PoE).

I did. Targeting Rogues and Monks with Fireballs: How It's Meant to Be Played™

2e designers had some problems but they recognised how broken Haste could be in the wrong hands much more successfully than the 3e ones did.

In my last Pathfinder campaign I just removed the Standard action from Haste. There was no change in how frequently it was used. It's just that good.

Having played the shit out of Icewind Dale 2 and now replaying BG2EE, I am really disappointed with BG2EE. It feels like 90% of encounters include hostile mages that have Contingency: Stoneskin + Mirror Image + Protection from missiles + protection from normal weapons + some other bullshit, and all they cast are Hold, Confusion, Dominination, or Stun Spells that work on 4 or 5 of your party members each time. That or incredibly tough and hard to hit creatures that have hold and/or disease on hit, and hit with their first attack every time. I've game'd my main character's defense to -8 (negative 8 (aka really damn good)) as a Fighter wielding a two handed sword, and Vampires hit on their first swing (draining two levels each time!) Every Single Time They Attack Me. I've been such a bitch about abusing quicksave and I'm still poor as shit curing diseases and restoring levels, and as you can tell from this ranty post, am really losing my patience for it. And annoyed that I need to abuse quicksave rather than just playing the game.

IWD2 was so much fun and does not have any of this cheesey "difficulty".

You are playing the game wrong basically. High level D&D is utterly dominated by spell casters. It's always been that way.

BioWare included a lot of hard counter defensive spells in BG2. There's also an extreme metagaming aspect that gets introduced into a save-and-reload environment when you have spells like Contingency and Spell Immunity at the player's disposal. Those are cool spells in tabletop because, short of careful planning and divination, you're guessing and hypothesizing. BG2's caster fights are tuned for very specific counters and tactics that depend heavily on trial and error. Technically yes, those spells are part of AD&D, but caster battles typically did not go that way in any 1st or 2nd Ed. campaigns I ever played or DMed. The only way you could be prepared for all of those hard counters is through prescience.

Edited in original poster's complaint in the last quote because he is both right about IWD2 being a quality game and BG2 being full of stupid things and also really bad at playing games.

Jeez louise, get a cleric or two in your party.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Thank god we have Roguey to constantly reminds us how much Sawyer has to cater to idiots instead of being free to focus on just making a good game that has interesting mechanics, good encounter design and is reasonably challenging.

 

[Infinitron]

Jocelyn Eric

Who?