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

[Copper]

what

I'm kind of bored of standard fantasy settings.

I wouldn't accuse them so much of that, since the ultimate defense is of course that they financed the game by appealing to nostalgia for Standard Grade Fantasy, I mostly dislike how arbitrary/careless they are about basic structural fundamentals and making areas feel plausible. These screenshots are pretty, but still sort of dumb if you want to critique them.

Spoiler

Look at the fence - it has columns breaking it up, but none at the ends, or around the gateways. Speaking of which, nobody has a gate to keep people out of their property, so they were basically asking to get their brains eaten with their decorative folly of a fence. Stuff like the wooden park benches, etc seem really out of place as well, it isn't really a park, or a nice view, or some sort of public amenity like a water fountain (which would be a good, logical feature to have at a junction), etc, and allowing the barely contained mob of an early modern city to chill on the street rings pretty false. Nature is taking over, but in quite a half-hearted way, with no damage to the road, shit climbing on the fences, invasive species sprouting in every nook and cranny, etc, although this can be handwaved by the fact most trees appear to be dead. Also, no keystones at all in arches over doors.

Yeah, these are fairly petty complaints and I'm sure many of these things can/will be tightened up in beta, but I still think they should aim higher at using the environment to subtly show, not tell, how their world functions, how normal people live their lives, etc. For all its flaws, Bioshock did this well, just not in a very subtle way, although my classics are still the first two Thief games there.

Large open space is necessary for a fixed perspective tactical game, and I can see potential for using your fighter to hold the gateway while ranged attackers shoot through the bars, etc, but overall, the environment's design is a bit of a muddle as a place with a non-gamist function, despite the high quality of individual elements. And what happens when players kill every unliving thing there? It's not a fire-and-forget dungeon, it's a district of the city, so a lack of environmental reactivity to the fact that it's now been pacified will be a bit odd.

Obviously I'm far more of an environmental storytelling fag than most, so I don't really expect people to care about it in the end, but

 

[Hormalakh]

...

if i have another standard-fantasy game without chests/barrels littering every nook and cranny of every map, i'd be happy. PS:T did this really well and I appreciated how they'd use a variety of game locations for items. The chests/barrels are just very obvious, which is fine, but they are quite often out of place. there are chests in that map too: right next to a box filled with trash.

 

[Copper]

...

if i have another standard-fantasy game without chests/barrels littering every nook and cranny of every map, i'd be happy. PS:T did this really well and I appreciated how they'd use a variety of game locations for items. The chests/barrels are just very obvious, which is fine, but they are quite often out of place. there are chests in that map too: right next to a box filled with trash.

Yeah, that too, the only thing I hate more (in this respect) is stuff like walking into a treasure room and only being able to take a token amount of gold with you, leaving behind all the hard-baked assets in the room.

 

[Hormalakh]

They did say that these maps were going to be dynamic. That would be a good way to make these maps dynamic: fill up your gold storage in your stronghold with gold. As you increase your wealth, the map changes the amount of gold inside.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

ITT: people complain about "too many monsters = trash mobs" at the same time, they complain about "too few monsters because the lore won't allow it."

Assuming your party is a representative sample of adventurers, it would be weird if the total number of monsters you encounter would outnumber the population of the towns you visit. How are there more zombies than people in the world without a zombie apocalypse!

On the other hand it would be equally weird if you encountered all 30 of the zombified rich folks that exist in the region in one dungeon Why are they hanging out together?

Its a conundrum!

(actually, I just want the majority of encounter difficulty come from individually dangerous opponents rather than a war of mook attrition)

 

[Hormalakh]

Here's a thought:

a crazed animancer has taken to hiring local thugs to steal vagrants off the streets for him to experiment on in perfecting what is otherwise necromancy. Due to the dangerous nature of his work, he perfroms his experiments in a remote location and then observes the effects of the unwitting guinea pigs in the closest city/town/village.

wham bam! suddenly you have the occasional spike of zombies in an area. guards usually come in and take them out.

another animancer has taken to similar things, except he's richer. so he's kept the villagers in his stronghold and has perfected a way of using cipher magic to mind-control them. wham bam! you got a stronghold filled with zombies.

edit: since zombification is not contagious: it's unlikely to have an apocalypse of zombies. people start noticing when the streets are suddenly clear of the homeless. they also start noticing when homeless people begin to eat the faces off their buddies. guards and other law enforcement (likely some wizards) come in to solve the problem.

 

[Hormalakh]

as for liches: these are nothing more than animancers that have tried these spells on themselves. perhaps the more powerful liches are those animancers that have mastered multiple soul-bindings to a single body.

then your ghosts are souls that continue to roam in the countryside. perhaps these are actually the next generation of the zombie/ghoul/ evolution. When the skeletons get ground up to dust, they become "ghosts." The ethereal physicality is in reality the "dust come to life."

other interesting ideas: linking your spirit to multiple bodies.

 

[Abelian]

Assuming your party is a representative sample of adventurers, it would be weird if the total number of monsters you encounter would outnumber the population of the towns you visit. How are there more zombies than people in the world without a zombie apocalypse!

On the other hand it would be equally weird if you encountered all 30 of the zombified rich folks that exist in the region in one dungeon Why are they hanging out together?

Its a conundrum!

(actually, I just want the majority of encounter difficulty come from individually dangerous opponents rather than a war of mook attrition)

I wholly agree with having smaller, more challenging fights instead of the trash mobs. As for the number of monsters vs NPC's, I think it's an acceptable break from reality since the game focuses on the the party going to dangerous places rather their interactions with towns (similar to how BG2 had decorative shops that you couldn't enter because they sold trinkets).

 

[Jedi Exile]

Mechanically, they are ghouls and zombies

Was it a question about 'fampyrs' and other silliness? Lol, why just don't give them normal names?

 

[Hormalakh]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65...ife-companion-goals-and-the-undead/?p=1423302

Why does eating human flesh restore an undead's body? Even with the dead stomach still there I don't think stuff would be metabolized? How about other meats, why don't those work? If you'd bind a dog's soul to it's body (if they have any) would it crave dog flesh? What about a human soul to an animal's body, does that change the rules? How exactly do you differentiate between the stages of the undead? It seems to just be a continuous progression, yet there are stages to it. What happens if you forcibly strip the flesh off of an earlier stage undead, do you get a smart skeleton? How do undead move or even just stay together? If you cut an undead to pieces which piece will be the one with the soul. Or is the soul cut up? Does it permeate the entire body? What happens if the rich guy that got his soul bound got an artificial leg, does that also count as part of his body? If he replaced various parts of his body so that he had less flesh, would he then have to eat less as well? What if you put together the whole person from artificial parts and bound the soul of someone to it. Why is the last thing remaining of an undead's psyche a murderous rage, is that the natural state of a naked soul? If you put together parts of multiple undead would they work together or each on its own? What if the person with the bound soul got resuscitated, does it make any difference? How about the manner of death of the person, if you cut off the head which part will be undead? Can you use embalming techniques to preserve the body? Would the psyche then still degrade? Do undead feel anything? If yes the rotting body sounds pretty bad, if not then how do they even function in the world? What if you replace undead parts with living parts or vice-versa?
I think these animancers would need pretty large laboratories to conduct experiments, too and would probably have every do-gooder in the region on their ass :D . Opportunities aplenty for the classic horror themed asylums/hospitals/orphanages/prisons etc.

"The problem with you non-animancers is that you think you know everything when it comes to explaining the bigger picture to you. Do you not think that we animancers have thought about holding the body together when the spirit is linked to it? There are more mysteries to the human body than your puny minds can comprehend and even greater mysteries to the soul that even we can comprehend.

While your questions are intriguing to one such as yourself, they are not new questions for those of us who have spent our entire lifetimes practicing these arts. We have been thinking about these questions and finding their answers. Your questions remain those: merely questions. We, however, strive against those who wish to harm us and destroy our work -your so-called 'do-gooders'- to answer those very questions you pose. Yet, with every solution, new problems arise and we anticipate them and endeavor to solve them.

The short answer is 'We do what we can with the tools we have available.' The creation of an immortal being is not a simple incantation to 'spark' their longevity. As with anything complex, what lies before you is the culmination of many years of study and research, multitudes of failures, and the application of a series of what you call 'spells' as well as a bit of ingenuity of those that came before us. What looks like patchwork animancy to you, is in reality the creation of a sculpture using mud with many hands- as we adjust one aspect of it, another aspect shifts out of place. To explain the decades of research and study to one such as you would take longer than I care to spend explaining the nitty-gritty of what we have wrought. Suffice it to say that we 'link their souls to their bodies' and leave it at that. Anything more will probably be more than you can understand and I am not one to sit here and waste my breath."

Spoiler

Being an animancer is sorta like being a game-developer.

 

[tuluse]

Animancers are Lyric Suite.

 

[mastroego]

The lack of complex spells such as the ones we had in BG2 is a HUGE let down for me.
Still no game has DARED to do what BG2 did with magic.

And apparently there's even a low level cap.
Disappointed! I'll wait for dozens of user reviews before considering this game.

I've started BG2 again, btw.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

The lack of complex spells such as the ones we had in BG2 is a HUGE let down for me.

Yeah. Magic is the high point of BG2 for me. Wild Mage with simucarlum or Cleric/Mage with contingency and triggers. fun stuff.

Still no game has DARED to do what BG2 did with magic.

Arcanum. You can dominate an NPC, lead her away, kill her in privacy, Summon her spirit and taunt her. Oh and you can also raise her corpse to further defile it at your convenience.

 

[Rake]

Still no game has DARED to do what BG2 did with magic.
Arcanum.

Not even close. In theory, Arcanum's magic system had potential, in practice it was shit. What interesting mage battles did you had in Arcanum?

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Still no game has DARED to do what BG2 did with magic.
Arcanum.

Not even close. In theory, Arcanum's magic system had potential, in practice it was shit. What interesting mage battles did you had in Arcanum?

Edited my post. You are limiting yourself severely if all you want from magic is mage battles. You can do shit like

You can dominate an NPC, lead her away, kill her in privacy, Summon her spirit and taunt her. Oh and you can also raise her corpse to further defile it at your convenience.

in Arcanum. Now that is what I call magic. truly fantastic.

 

[Goegoff]

The lack of complex spells such as the ones we had in BG2 is a HUGE let down for me.

Have I missed a quote, or where's the 'lack of complex spells' coming from?
Also, what's a 'complex spell'?

So far all I remember hearing from the developers is, that there won't be any save-or-die spells, and that there is no healing magic; and it might have been mentioned somewhere that there won't be any sequencers or the like (not sure on this one).

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

There won't be hard counters, or Save or Die spells.

We might need Roguey Sensuki or Duraframe300 to clarify but,
Will there be contingencies, sequencers, timestop? I think not.

My guess is wizard's magic spells will simply be reskinned versions of other class abilities which do damage/buff/debuff/crowd control which will target one (maybe more in some cases...but I doubt it) of those four defenses. Only thing seperating wizards from other clasess is thier versatility with thier potential arsenal with prepared Grimoires. No cool fun stufflike time stop or wild mage spells can be expected.

 

[Roguey]

Apparently D&D 5e has added temporary-damage-on-a-miss and it's making the grognards mad.

d&d players love realism, swingy chaos, in the game that greatly abstracts combat

Haha yeah, D&D players sure are fucking stupid. ToEE being ranked the 4th greatest module by Dragon magazine is more proof of that.

 

[Grunker]

ToEE being ranked the 4th greatest module by Dragon magazine is more proof of that.

That's proof of poor taste and nostalgia more than idiocy. Or honourable mention I suppose. Like when PONG gets mentioned on Best Games Evar lists. I don't think anyone really likes Pong enough for that.

 

[hiver]

The lack of complex spells such as the ones we had in BG2 is a HUGE let down for me.

Have I missed a quote, or where's the 'lack of complex spells' coming from?
Also, what's a 'complex spell'?

So far all I remember hearing from the developers is, that there won't be any save-or-die spells, and that there is no healing magic; and it might have been mentioned somewhere that there won't be any sequencers or the like (not sure on this one).

You havent missed anything. Nothing has been said. Just the usual PoE thread precognitive telepathy pulled out of ass and then presented as "must be true!".

 

[mastroego]

I'm not quoting precise statements, it's just my impression after gathering bits and pieces of information.

In BG2 I could do crazy stuff with Contingency, Spell Trigger, Time Stop, Spell Immunity :[School], Improved Alacrity, Spell Trap... battles against mages and liches could be the definition of epic (especially with mods). Not to mention how cool a fighter-mage could be (for example, trigger Tenser's Transformation, Improved Haste, and Strenght for an instant melee machine!).
I'll be happy to be proven wrong: I certainly hope cool stuff will be doable with magic in this new game.

But I have the feeling that BG2 will remain a once_only wonder in this regard.

 

[Hormalakh]

it's crazy to think that this game will be anything like bg2. BG2 had the basic infrastructure of BG1 to allow for more content delivery, more items, more spells, improved AI. they built off the shoulders of BG1. They didn't have to deal with technical issues and coming up with solutions to new problems. if they did, it was minimial. the developers had prior experience with the Infinity engine and knew how to work with it.

these are all new problems for obsidian to solve and that limits the amount of content they can deliver.

keep your expectations in check, and you won't be disappointed. PoE2 might be better than BG2, but I doubt PoE1 will be better than BG2. and this has nothing to do with josh sawyer's design philosophy or anything else like that. its just not feasible.

 

[Duraframe300]

it's crazy to think that this game will be anything like bg2. BG2 had the basic infrastructure of BG1 to allow for more content delivery, more items, more spells, improved AI. they built off the shoulders of BG1. They didn't have to deal with technical issues and coming up with solutions to new problems. if they did, it was minimial. the developers had prior experience with the Infinity engine and knew how to work with it.

these are all new problems for obsidian to solve and that limits the amount of content they can deliver.

keep your expectations in check, and you won't be disappointed. PoE2 might be better than BG2, but I doubt PoE1 will be better than BG2. and this has nothing to do with josh sawyer's design philosophy or anything else like that. its just not feasible.

....

Substitue *better* with *more content* and I agree.

 

[Lhynn]

I'm not quoting precise statements, it's just my impression after gathering bits and pieces of information.

In BG2 I could do crazy stuff with Contingency, Spell Trigger, Time Stop, Spell Immunity :[School], Improved Alacrity, Spell Trap... battles against mages and liches could be the definition of epic (especially with mods). Not to mention how cool a fighter-mage could be (for example, trigger Tenser's Transformation, Improved Haste, and Strenght for an instant melee machine!).
I'll be happy to be proven wrong: I certainly hope cool stuff will be doable with magic in this new game.

But I have the feeling that BG2 will remain a once_only wonder in this regard.

but... they werent balanced.

 

[Infinitron]

If Josh Sawyer wanted to balance Contigencies and Time Stops he'd find a way to do it. He doesn't need to because this isn't a high level uber-cheese campaign.