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

[Sensuki]

hoverdog

Cool. I think we have to have it sorted out by August 22nd. Feel free to send me a PM.

 

[Jaedar]

Have to resist pledging for backer beta. It's just not worth that much money

 

[Martius]

Maybe later they would make same thing as Larian and Inexile did, give beta access to all backers?

 

[Jedi Exile]

Maybe later they would make same thing as Larian and Inexile did, give beta access to all backers?

I am almost sure they'll do. October/November maybe.

 

[Liston]

I prefer gog, but Steam is the best client for releasing betas. When GoG Galaxy gets going, hopefully that will be able to provide a DRM-free alternative with the same convenience.

I doubt that Galaxy is going to replace steam for the betas. One of the big advantages of Steam that Galaxy won't have is mandatory patching. You don't wont to be in a situation where large amount of your testers are reporting issues that you have supposedly already fixed and having no way of knowing whether they are playing old version or you actually haven't fixed it properly.

 

[Infinitron]

I prefer gog, but Steam is the best client for releasing betas. When GoG Galaxy gets going, hopefully that will be able to provide a DRM-free alternative with the same convenience.

I doubt that Galaxy is going to replace steam for the betas. One of the big advantages of Steam that Galaxy won't have is mandatory patching. You don't wont to be in a situation where large amount of your testers are reporting issues that you have supposedly already fixed and having no way of knowing whether they are playing old version or you actually haven't fixed it properly.

You guys are putting the cart before the horse. GOG doesn't even have an Early Access program.

If they do eventually create one, though, they could easily force mandatory updates for Early Access games.

 

[Zzz]

Did anyone here not get the game, but want to get it for $20 usd? They do 3 keys for $60 usd as an add-on, so worth considering group buys I guess. I'm happy to do one.

Happily. Somehow I managed to not back the game back then.

I am interested in this, too.

 

[DosBuster]

I'm not even excited for the beta, I'm excited by the huge amount of inevitable butthurt that's going to hit this forum.

 

[Sensuki]

The irony is we're likely going to see like the whole beta before being able to play it - thanks to the Gamescom / Gen Con streams probably

 

[Abu Antar]

I hope not. The Beta should offer a few hours of gameplay. Either way, I will probably check out a video or two, but there is no reason to spoil oneself too much.

 

[Sensuki]

Hopefully we get Darth Roxor vs J.E. Sawyer at Gamescom.

 

[Infinitron]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/94343447161/hey-josh-just-another-question-the-backer-beta-will

theovf22stuff said: Hey Josh, just another question. The Backer Beta will give you a clear impression of how players approach the early game content, providing the team with information on what can be modified, removed or introduced. Without that kind of information for the later parts of the game, and only a small team working on PoE, how do you balance it? How do you approach it?

Our Backer Beta actually targets mid/high levels (5th-8th). Due to testing our E3/press demo and a few hours past that, I think we have a pretty good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of various classes/attributes in the early game. As an example, I recently re-ordered the rogue’s starting abilities because Finishing Blow and Dirty Fighting, while nice, seemed much less fundamental than the combination of Crippling Strike and Sneak Attack at 1st level. We also know that there’s currently a bias against Resolve and Perception for characters who aren’t in the front line, so we’re thinking about ways to address that.

 

[Sensuki]

I did say that about Perception and I thought Resolve would be handy for casters, but if the AI can't attack the casters at the back then what's the point.

 

[Sensuki]

Josh sounds a bit stuck:

I think the testers have found that Perception is still pretty useful on characters like bow-using rangers and rogues. I think most of the testers have casters spend so much time, well, casting, that they don't often see the effects of Perception on something like wand/sceptre/rod use. And because even relatively fast casts still take about two seconds (with an equal+ recovery unless under the effects of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion [a 3rd level spell]) it's hard to use them as intentional Interrupt counters. With the bow-users, they spend most of their time firing, so they're likely to cause a fair number of obvious Interrupts. With casters, it feels more like a lucky secondary effect.

I think the Interrupt/Concentration system currently has too many inputs to make the cause -> effect relationship clear. Interrupt strength is calculated using the attack's Base Interrupt (one of seven ratings from Weakest to Strongest), the attack result (Graze/Hit/Crit), and the attacker's Perception. Concentration is calculated using the defender's Resolve. Resolve has a much larger mechanical impact on Concentration than Perception does on Interrupt, but it seems to matter less often/make less of a difference than Perception since most characters spend a lot of time attacking a smaller number of targets.

We've talked about a few ideas. One was Penetration, which negates a portion of the target's DT, derived from Perception. We've also talked about increasing range (not area) of ranged attacks, though many melee-oriented characters could effectively dump that. For Resolve, it's harder to come up with appropriate derived stats, though we did once have a Health/Stamina split. It's not a particularly intuitive split, but if Constitution fed into Health and Resolve fed into Stamina, it would certainly make Resolve much more appealing. Some people have said that they don't care if their wizard doesn't have high HP/Health/Stamina/whatever in RPGs. I'm skeptical of that, though, because even if I don't see people jacking up their wizards' Con in AD&D, it's also pretty rare that I see people dumping it.

The interrupt system sounds too complicated. I really don't think there needs to be seven categories of interrupt (dunno about you guys), but that's not really the issue.

 

[Infinitron]

So he's considering dumping the Interrupt/Concentration system entirely? Or does that third paragraph describe things he wants to add in addition to it?

 

[Sensuki]

I'm not sure but I'm hoping it's just pointing out historicals:

Penetration used to be a part of Perception. Josh wanted to split Health/Stamina but the majority opinion over at the Obsidian forums (with myself leading the charge) preferred them to be married, It's more intuitive and makes Con a really good attribute.

It appears he's still struggling with combat stats to use because he took out defenses from the equation, and won't use attack speed either. The fact that skills also give some combat bonuses also takes out the things they effect in combat.

I think it's time for some new ideas, rather than treading over old ground.

As I predicted - Might, Dex, Con and Int are all good attributes. Per and Res are lacking.

 

[Infinitron]

JResolve has a much larger mechanical impact on Concentration than Perception does on Interrupt, but it seems to matter less often/make less of a difference than Perception since most characters spend a lot of time attacking a smaller number of targets.

This sentence is funny to me. He's basically saying "the stat that protects you against Interrupts doesn't feel useful because you don't get hit by Interrupts".

If he's not ready to make Interrupts more ubiquitous even when you're facing "smaller numbers of targets" (and I can see why he wouldn't want to do that, it could ruin the IE "feels") then maybe he SHOULD cut the system entirely.

 

[Sensuki]

Here's my quick idea:

You could try something like Effect Reduction for Resolve where it reduces the duration of status effects by a small amount, then it kind of opposes Intellect as well as Perception.

edit: beaten by DatonKallandor

This isn't really IE-ish but you could have Dexterity effect Recovery time and Perception control accuracy instead. There's probably a way to make the math work so that it would be a useful attribute for everyone but not make OP. At least that would be useful for every class, as everyone acts in combat, whereas every action does not cause an interrupt or need to be resisted. Kinda seems like a no-brainer to me.

That way there's a few ways to have damage output:

Act more often - Dex
Do more damage per attack - Might
Hit more people with an AoE attack/longer durations - Int

Here's an idea for the Interrupt system too related to Perception governing accuracy: Since Interrupt relies on Dexterity (accuracy) anyway, you could make it so that grazes do not cause interrupts. Hits and Crits cause interrupts. Reduce the interrupt categories to three instead of seven: Low (Firearms?), Normal (Everything else), High (Morningstars, Thrust of the Tattered Veils).

Make it a straight check of Perception against resolve - dex higher than resolve = interrupt. Low Interrupt adds a penalty to the check, high interrupt adds a bonus.

I'm also repeating some of the stuff that I've said before, but I think it could solve the problem.

 

[Sensuki]

And here's my spread in post form:

So you could do like

Might: +%Damage & +%Healing
Constitution: +%Stamina and +%Health
Dexterity: -%Recovery Time (& -%Reload time)
Perception: +%Accuracy & +%Interrupt
Intellect: +%AoE Size & +%Durations
Resolve: -%Hostile Durations & +%Concentration

(Not forgetting that Might & Con increase Fortitude, Dex and Per increase Reflex and Int and Res increase Will Defenses)

Make the Interrupt system simpler and only apply on hits and grazes, whether it is still a chance to succeed or a straight check against Resolve.

This also allows for another character concept: The "Fast Character". Where a Mighty character might cause more damage on a single hit, and an Intelligent character might cause more damage (or durations) due to hitting more people with their abilities/for longer, a fast character might be competitive in these aspects by getting the opportunity to take more actions to do so - which would need to be balanced.

 

[Infinitron]

A stat for "fast characters" might be a no-no for the same reason that stats that increase the number of action points in turn-based games are.

 

[Sensuki]

Definitely a concern, but the amount of increase you get per attribute would be way less than the others.

In turn-based combat, extra AP is a pretty huge deal, but here we're talking about trimming some frames off recovery time, not a whole new action every "turn".

Let's say a standard combat encounter in this game is 30 seconds. In that time you can do like 15 attacks if you're using a Normal 1H weapon with no armor. I think that armor and shield penalties to recovery time could get pretty hefty, to somewhere around +60-80% combined (for say like Plate plus a shield, maybe even worse). If the amount of recovery time reduced is sensible, you would get a couple extra actions in at most. The numbers have to be balanced with Might and Intellect, because you don't want a Fast character doing more damage than a Mighty character over this space, but rather to be competitive as there are other things you can do with those extra actions as well.

You also have to remember that for every point you're putting into being faster, that's something you're not putting into something else as well.

I think you could probably get away with having it so that the current combat speeds are at characters with 10 Dex, you could bump your Dex up to 20, and you'd be getting something like 15-30% reduced recovery time, at best.

Now this does not equal 15-30% more actions, because your whole action is not 15-25% faster, only the recovery time is. The real benefit is half that, or less.

The problem with doing this is it's a bit mathy, but I'm not sure whether that matters due to the recovery bar UI element.

 

[Morality Games]

I'm not even excited for the beta, I'm excited by the huge amount of inevitable butthurt that's going to hit this forum.

Yeah, because we never get enough of that.

 

[J_C]

I'm not even excited for the beta, I'm excited by the huge amount of inevitable butthurt that's going to hit this forum.

I will start to ignore this thread after the beta hits, I don't want the Codex to destroy my excitement for this game with its constant nitpicking and bitching.

 

[Invictus]

Amen J_C I am super psyched for this game and all the "RtwP sucks" vibe is simply annoying, I rather just ignore this thread till release and enjoy the heck out of the game
Just look at the Fallout 4 thread; the game hasn't even been anounced and the butt hurt is already at over 100 pages ffs

 

[FeelTheRads]

Just look at the Fallout 4 thread; the game hasn't even been anounced and the butt hurt is already at over 100 pages ffs

Yes, and that is totally wrong.