Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire + DLC Thread - now with turn-based combat!

[IHaveHugeNick]

"How is the actual playing experience?"
Subject A: "Underwhelming"
Subject B: "It works, that's about it"
Subject C: "Solid"

I mean you already predicted the actual playing experience. On the basic level combat just like IE games was TB forced into RTwP, so in that sense it works. But the balancing of abilities, encounters, level design and everything else has been made for RTwP. And so it works and is reasonably polished for a beta ( incoming wahwah I saw visual bug and it gave me AIDS), but it's all very barebones.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm not too far in yet but I have a question:
what's the point of using a fast weapon over a slow weapon now if you always get one attack per 'round'?

 

[Safav Hamon]

Quicker initiative and casting

 

[Reinhardt]

And what's the point of quicker initiative then?

 

[Safav Hamon]

It depends on your strategy. Going first and using abilities faster is invaluable for many builds.

Although if you have to ask why initiative is important in TB combat, you're an idiot.

 

[Efe]

as long as enemies arent mainly ranged, having worse initiative means they just move in to your attack range which is strictly better than opposite

 

[Safav Hamon]

What if you're a glass cannon? What if you want to block a chokepoint before enemies get through? What if you want to interrupt a mage before he casts a spell?

Initiative is important. Anyone that disagrees is simply incompetent and doesn't understand basic tactics.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What if you're a glass cannon?

Wear armour.

What if you want to block a chokepoint before enemies get through?

Wear armour so anyone can block the way. Annd if you are well armoured, enemies getting through doesn't matter.

What if you want to interrupt a mage before he casts a spell?

Cast actions take a turn, so you're better off wearing armour so you move after the mage and can exercise an interrupt after he commits to casting.

This initiative shindig should be better thought if the solutions to all your questions is wear armour.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Cast actions take a turn

Cast action speed is based on initiative (another reason why it's important), and can happen in the same round. They can even happen instantly.

This initiative shindig should be better thought if the solutions to all your questions is wear armour.

Heavy armor has diminishing returns. Many of the late game and DLC bosses will cut through DR like butter, so initiative is more valuable.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Someone on the Obsidian forums shed light on how casting speed and duration work

Some observations based on personal experience last night:

The system makes a lot of sense if you think of initiative as time units. Each round seems to be considered 6 seconds (Arcane Cleansing went from 999s to 167 rounds). Each point of initiative seems to be one second, roughly (Chill Fog has a cast of 4.5 in turn based and 4.5s cast time in real time afaik).

Fractional initiative seems to count for determining acting order, but is otherwise rounded up.

A round ends when all actors have taken their action. You can delay your actions as long as you haven't done anything, and it will put your character at the very end of the round (first in, first out). Delaying basically sets your initiative to LAST_ACTOR_INITIATIVE + 1

How casting works: the spell will take effect at CASTER_INITIATIVE + CAST_TIME. Rounds are not delayed by casting. Example: Watcher with initiative of 6 casts Chill Fog (Cast time of 4.5) with no action speed bonuses. Spell should go off at initiative value 11 (6 + 4.5 = 10.5, rounded up). If someone would act at an initiative value higher than that, it means the spell will fire the same round. Otherwise it gets pushed to the next round. If the last actor acted at an initiative value of, say, 10, the Watcher's Chill Fog will go off at initiative value 1 in the next round.

Base initiative is 6, modified by armor initiative penalty, dex and action speed. Stealth provides -85% initiative. Starting a fight from stealth pretty much assures you to act first in the first round of the fight. Subsequent initiative depends on what actions you take. Using a weapon/spell will put you at whatever initiative that weapon/spell has. Not taking any action puts you at initiative 0. I still haven't figured how to dash (trade action for extra movement).

Effect duration: they seem to have taken real time ability duration and divided by 6. For instance, a Monk's Swift Strikes will last 2 rounds once you get about +20% duration from Int and PL (from 10s real time duration to 12). This seems to round down.

 

[Butter]

So it sounds like you benefit from having one really slow guy in your party? That way your casts by other characters will always go off on the same round they're cast.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'll name my really slow mercenary Safav.

 

[Safav Hamon]

So it sounds like you benefit from having one really slow guy in your party? That way your casts by other characters will always go off on the same round they're cast.

It will only make a difference if you're fighting enemies with very low initiative. Otherwise your actions will usually go off first in the next round anyways.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

What if you're a glass cannon?

Then I'm standing behind my frontline.

What if you want to block a chokepoint before enemies get through?

Then I'll do it with my frontline.

What if you want to interrupt a mage before he casts a spell?

I'll send someone from my frontlne.

Initiative is important. Anyone that disagrees is simply incompetent and doesn't understand basic tactics.

Your parents didn't understand basic birth control tactics.

 

[MajorMace]

I'll name my really slow mercenary Safav.

Don't forget to give him the cape of the obsidian order.
Also, dump Intelligence.

 

[fantadomat]

What if you're a glass cannon?

Then I'm standing behind my frontline.

What if you want to block a chokepoint before enemies get through?

Then I'll do it with my frontline.

What if you want to interrupt a mage before he casts a spell?

I'll send someone from my frontlne.

Initiative is important. Anyone that disagrees is simply incompetent and doesn't understand basic tactics.

Your parents didn't understand basic birth control tactics.

Have you gone down the deep end?!?! Why are you answering to that retard?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Have you gone down the deep end?!?! Why are you answering to that retard?

You know what, you're right, I'm just gonna put this cretin on ignore. He makes Roqua seem like a likeable individual.

 

[AwesomeButton]

whew:

 

[Haplo]

I mean you already predicted the actual playing experience. On the basic level combat just like IE games was TB forced into RTwP, so in that sense it works. But the balancing of abilities, encounters, level design and everything else has been made for RTwP. And so it works and is reasonably polished for a beta ( incoming wahwah I saw visual bug and it gave me AIDS), but it's all very barebones.

Well, for me one of the biggest achievements of the PoE systems was cutting ties with the rigid turn order and replacing it with individual action/recovery speed, quite successful IMO. Despite all the silly complains about fraction second durations in the resulting system. And even despite the more reasonable complaints about the messy combat and poor visual clarity of what is happening.

That was a very good change for a RTwP system IMO. One of 2 major things which PoE has over the old IE games (the other being martial classes actually being interesting and having a role beyond acting as a doorblock).

Therefore now moving turn-based seems very backwards. However I could see it work well in continuous rounds, where one character could act 1.3, 1.5 or even 2, 3 times as often as a slower one. Those happen to be my favorite turn based systems.

 

[Lacrymas]

I really don't think PoE's system is successful and, ignoring retarded mechanics like PEN, that mostly has to do with the readability. Like I've said before, it seems like it was designed by aliens and nobody was competent enough to playtest it and say "this isn't designed for humans". It's obviously playable since people have finished it, but if the difficulty relied more on AI than overwhelming you with mobs, the readability problems of both games would've popped out much more intensely. I don't think this is the way to go with RtwP systems. The first thing that has to be fixed is the UI. The only thing that is a definite step forward from the IE games is the lack of prebuffing, everything else is debatable.

 

[Haplo]

Eh, PEN might not have been a great idea, but it has nothing on DOS2 armor or round robin initiative retardation.

 

[fantadomat]

lack of prebuffing

I could never understood why people see it as a bad thing,nothing wrong with being prepared. It is one of the core things in the PnP game and it makes logic.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Without penetration, what would differentiate weapons - only attack speed and damage spread?

 

[Lacrymas]

I could never understood why people see it as a bad thing,nothing wrong with being prepared. It is one of the core things in the PnP game and it makes logic.

Because it isn't a choice, it's an automatic thing that only wastes time and it gives you a distinct advantage against enemies who don't prebuff. When you can't prebuff, you are actively choosing whether to buff in combat or do some other action, it's very logical and it adds a dimension.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I could never understood why people see it as a bad thing,nothing wrong with being prepared. It is one of the core things in the PnP game and it makes logic.

Because it isn't a choice, it's an automatic thing that only wastes time and it gives you a distinct advantage against enemies who don't prebuff. When you can't prebuff, you are actively choosing whether to buff in combat or do some other action, it's very logical and it adds a dimension.

Come on... Sneak-reconnaisance and positioning before combat is perfectly ok, but why would my characters drink a potion, "this isn't a choice", "wastes time".

Pre buffing should be in. And can be in, by modding items and spells.