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

[Delterius]

Whats the problem? I dont have a SA account.

 

[dukeofwhales]

according to rose literally no one on the show floor has made it past the beetles in dyrford crossing so far #tuningtyme

Apparently there's a lot of people worse than Adam.

If I was thrown into the game at level 5 with a full party and with no knowledge of the systems I would suck too. Not really a fair indicator of how people will do when they start with one level 1 character and get more party members/level up over time while learning the game systems & mechanics.

 

[coffeetable]

You do not play competitive games. Your opinion on which competitive game is a better competitive game is invalid.

lol

 

[Nihiliste]

Probably not a fantastic way to build excitement for new/casual fans if everyone is getting crushed by the beetles. I know, I know, who wants them anyways, but unfortunately Obsidian will need to bring some converts to the fold for this game to be a success. I'm pretty sure it will anyways, but I want this game to do as well as possible.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Roguey: Codex Cassandra.

"The Cassandra metaphor is applied by some psychologists to individuals who experience physical and emotional suffering as a result of distressing personal perceptions, and who are disbelieved when they attempt to share the cause of their suffering with others, and they feel like they are being ignored."

What's the matter Roguey, on too many ignore lists?

 

[Infinitron]

Moar videos!

Orkenspalter TV:



GameReactor:

 

[Rake]

Is any of them the one they said will show the druid?

 

[coffeetable]

agreed. without knowing anything about the current difficulty level, it's probably too low and should be raised at least slightly

as long as it isn't like that one island in Icewind Dale, the one with the hasted undead warriors who can reliably hit -10 ac and can wade through high level turning attempts like they aren't there

mmm ha ha

 

[hoverdog]

sup guise

been there, done that, played about two hours of this shit on Wednesday (I would write here sooner if I had a fucking internet connection), wanted to play more on Thursday and Friday, but those fucking queues man

what can I say?
- it looks downright gorgeous, I had to change my diapers at least seven times
- character models... aren't that great, but at least they're passable
- the dialogues, with all the attribute testing and [mood stance]s - MAH LORD
- I really hope the final icons will be similar to those IWD placeholders
- though those in inventories feel too small, at least on a fullHD screen they're simply miniscule
- combat. right now, it was a complete clusterfuck to control. it might be because I was thrown into an unknown system with 5 leveled characters for whole of two hours with only years of Infinity Engine as experience, but I definitely struggled at times with coordinating, using abilities, avoiding pinning down my ranged attackers and being blocked in melee. I think I was more getting used to it towards the end, though, but there's a lot of polish to be made yet.
- pathfinding is TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE. I wasn't able to count the times my melee fighters were stuck one by another when trying to get into melee range; they just tried to run directly towards the enemy but weren't able to move an inch. This shit needs major improvements.
- then again, walking from place A to place B didn't include getting critically stopped by a table, so maybe there's hope yet
- I can't say anything about the hero-eating insects, I went West
- encountered some pretty funny bugs, like characters permanently stuck doing attack animations, or zoom out function downsizing characters rather than actually zooming out
- UI could get some improvements, for example health bar is not distinct enough
- fuck I want to play the shit out of this gaem

ask me anything

oh, and 'sup

 

[Infinitron]

An aside:

Remember all the butthurt about the music a few months ago? What's happened with that, huh?

I noticed that the game's battle music is more in the Baldur's Gate/Michael Hoenig tradition than the regular background music. Not a bad compromise, I guess.

 

[Roguey]

The programming team better hope their completely rewritten pathfinding code is up to snuff because I'd hate for them to ruin Josh's brilliant vision.

 

[Raghar]

The programming team better hope their completely rewritten pathfinding code is up to snuff because I'd hate for them to ruin Josh's brilliant vision.

We should say to Josh, he forgot to use the same pathfinding as BG2, because otherwise he wouldn't mimic the old feeling properly.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I think that one of the more "technical" reasons why D:OS was so enjoyable to many reviewers, was the really well-done pathfinding. So I really hope Obsidian fix this issue, or else the game's review scores are bound to suffer, especially given the well-established "Bugsidian" reputation, and that would be a shame.

 

[Frusciante]

An aside:

Remember all the butthurt about the music a few months ago? What's happened with that, huh?

I noticed that the game's battle music is more in the Baldur's Gate/Michael Hoenig tradition than the regular background music. Not a bad compromise, I guess.

Honestly hearing the music ingame now I think it sounds great. Very fitting and very nice.

 

[Duraframe300]

Less than two days

 

[Grotesque]

Remember all the butthurt about the music a few months ago? What's happened with that, huh?

We are all audiophiles that would not criticize music from a video clip with substandard audio quality (a.k.a. piece of shit sound)

 

[Frusciante]

sup guise

been there, done that, played about two hours of this shit on Wednesday (I would write here sooner if I had a fucking internet connection), wanted to play more on Thursday and Friday, but those fucking queues man

Thanks for your impressions. Kind of surprised that there are not more impressions on the internet. Cant find anything on gaming sites etc.

 

[Infinitron]

sup guise

been there, done that, played about two hours of this shit on Wednesday (I would write here sooner if I had a fucking internet connection), wanted to play more on Thursday and Friday, but those fucking queues man

Thanks for your impressions. Kind of surprised that there are not more impressions on the internet. Cant find anything on gaming sites etc.

Gamescom isn't over yet. These sites have a lot of things to cover besides Pillars.

Besides, the game has already had not one but two large publicity blitzes not so long ago, so nobody's that eager to post about it again. And the beta is going to go public in a few days anyway...

 

[mindx2]

ask me anything

oh, and 'sup

Pick me up these PoE items and I'll pay you to ship it to me...

 

[Rake]

(except for the blue circles of course).

The colorblind mode was on. I suspect turning it of will make the circles like in IE

 

[imweasel]

(except for the blue circles of course).

The colorblind mode was on. I suspect turning it of will make the circles like in IE

Ah, PoE has a colorblind mode now? Okay, that's cool then.

 

[Hormalakh]

Probably not a fantastic way to build excitement for new/casual fans if everyone is getting crushed by the beetles. I know, I know, who wants them anyways, but unfortunately Obsidian will need to bring some converts to the fold for this game to be a success. I'm pretty sure it will anyways, but I want this game to do as well as possible.

Dark souls is also a hard game: people still love that game. The difficulty of the game isn't inherently what makes it fun, or not fun. There are many more aspects that matter.

 

[Hormalakh]

After watching the streams I have the feeling that constant microing all party in every encounter could be a huge pain in the ass.

I do not mean auto-attack not working, but having to use class abilities of ALL party members all the time (some of them through drop-down lists no less), even against basic opponents. In IE games fighters were very easy and fast to manage 95% of the time, as you just clicked who they were supposed to attack, here you will have to babysit everyone, just like in Dragon Age: Origins.

Since I enjoy such gameplay, this will only cause me to play slower, because my OCD will force me to go optimally through every fight, but I think this might be a deal-breaker for more casual players like my wife and and my sister, who both loved the first Baldur's Gate and enjoyed the second one (although the added complexity of high-level D&D was almost a deal-breaker for them and I had to help them in some encounters).

In the end, Obsidian might be surprised that this game does not attract the same crowd as BG did, although there are many more gamers out there right now, so the sales numbers might still be good.

I'd rather have less battles and that they cut out the trash mobs.

 

[Frusciante]

This article contains a screen I havent seen before: http://www.computerbase.de/2014-08/pillars-of-eternity-oldschool-rpg-auf-gutem-wege/

The dungeon screen seems to be from the backer beta.

 

[Jezal_k23]

If the quests are anything like New Vegas, the diplomatic options will be a lot 'dumber' than combat, since they often didn't require any particular problem solving or mental activity at all provided you had the right stats. Besides, that would make sense in a game like F:NV or Tides of Numenera where non-combatant characters are a viable player choice, but Josh has said Poe is not like that.

There are no social skills in PoE.

Yes, I know. Science wasn't a social skill in F:NV, but it was the most common stat check in dialogue iirc. No social skills is a good thing, but it doesn't mean the diplomatic victories will be any more challenging. For example, from the Gamescom videos it sounded like you have the choice of fighting the Ogre or simply picking the correct dialogue option.

It has been said before that an option that was enabled to you because of your stats won't necessarily be the correct option to pick, so supposedly you'll have to think about it a little more than "oh, this option is the best because I have enough intelligence to pick it!"