Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[J_C]

btw looks like they got most annoying thing right - chars won't stack anymore if they try to reach the same space.

But what really looked bad is that the characters are totally obscured by trees and walls if they move behind it. When fighting the beetles, one of them was behind a tree and I didn't even see, what there characters were hitting. You could only see the selection circles.

 

[imweasel]

If everyone's just going to send the Fighter in to tank and have everyone sit back and cast nukes that is banal gameplay at it's finest.

Well, you could give your wizard some full plate mail and let him tank instead.

 

[coffeetable]

It's still not playing right though is it, the feel of combat is just off. If everyone's just going to send the Fighter in to tank and have everyone sit back and cast nukes that is banal gameplay at it's finest.

building out the AI state machines goes hand-in-hand with the balancing phase of development, because each feeds back into the other

 

[coffeetable]

also because state machines are a giant fukkin programmer timesink

 

[Sensuki]

It's still not playing right though is it, the feel of combat is just off. If everyone's just going to send the Fighter in to tank and have everyone sit back and cast nukes that is banal gameplay at it's finest.

Isn't this how the beginning of BG1 start out?

Not really, any character in half decent armor could tank on the front line at the start, this is the middle of the game though.

building out the AI state machines goes hand-in-hand with the balancing phase of development, because each feeds back into the other

My point was more a comment aimed at the playstyle that the system design is currently promoting as well as the "flow" of combat. IMO having multiple characters in melee atm is not a great tactic compared to Fighter up front and everyone else with heavy artillery / spells.

Combat doesn't have a fluid feel either, a lot of it is due to the animations / animation speeds and recovery time length.

For instance - the Orlan Archer's weapon animation is so quick, he pulls an arrow, fires it and goes back to standing idle, looking like it's a turn-based game. That 20 frame animation for the bow is just faaar too short. It would look smoother if they had a 'special' animation for the bow like they do for the Arbalest where the archer pulls an arrow, draws and has an aim time before firing or something.

 

[Semper]

But what really looked bad is that the characters are totally obscured by trees and walls if they move behind it. When fighting the beetles, one of them was behind a tree and I didn't even see, what there characters were hitting. You could only see the selection circles.

agreed. there should be zone around every char/monster for alpha blending, similar to dos. considering who attacks whom, afaik obsidian is working on selection circle indicators for visual representation.

 

[coffeetable]

My point was more a comment aimed at the playstyle that the system design is currently promoting as well as the "flow" of combat. IMO having multiple characters in melee atm is not a great tactic compared to Fighter up front and everyone else with heavy artillery / spells.

it's not so much the system design as the enemy AI being primative as hell. if aggro'ing individuals brought the whole group over, or if enemies went after whoever was doing them the most damage, the "one tank solution" would fail miserably.

 

[coffeetable]

But what really looked bad is that the characters are totally obscured by trees and walls if they move behind it. When fighting the beetles, one of them was behind a tree and I didn't even see, what there characters were hitting. You could only see the selection circles.

characters have a "shadow" that shows through, but yeah its nowhere near a strong enough effect atm

 

[Sensuki]

it's not so much the system design as the enemy AI being primative as hell. if aggro'ing individuals brought the whole group over, or if enemies went after whoever was doing them the most damage, the "one tank solution" would fail miserably.

Oh yeah there's that too, I've commented on the real basic AI quite a few times. Against the currently bugged beetles and spiders, the Fighter gets de_stroyed if you leave him in the melee on his own against the full stack (I've been trying to deliberately aggro the full groups) but he fares pretty well against other encounters such as the Skaen Cultists and such.

 

[Infinitron]

Edit3: I know you guys hate Polygon but whatever, video preview: http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/25/6066433/pillars-of-eternity-gameplay-video-preview

 

[J_C]

if aggro'ing individuals brought the whole group over,

Well this didn't work in the IE games either. :D So they stay faithful to the source material. I remember I always beated the difficult fights in IWD by cheesing only one member of the group out from the group and killing them one by one. Lame, but effective.

 

[roshan]

if aggro'ing individuals brought the whole group over,

Well this didn't work in the IE games either. :D So they stay faithful to the source material. I remember I always beated the difficult fights in IWD by cheesing only one member of the group out from the group and killing them one by one. Lame, but effective.

Heart of Winter though implemented a call for help feature, you aggro'd one, the whole group came over. IWD2 did that as well.

 

[J_C]

Heart of Winter though implemented a call for help feature, you aggro'd one, the whole group came over. IWD2 did that as well.

I admit I didn't play HoW and only a little IWD2. That's cool if they implemented it. They should do the same in PoE.

Although isn't it possible that the AI in PoE is depending on the enemy? The beetles won't call for help, you can cheese them easily. They are not intelligent. But if you meet an intelligent race, maybe they call for help.

 

[Hegel]

Time to dust off the Lithuanian hitman.

 

[tuluse]

It's still not playing right though is it, the feel of combat is just off. If everyone's just going to send the Fighter in to tank and have everyone sit back and cast nukes that is banal gameplay at it's finest.

Isn't this how the beginning of BG1 start out?

Not really, any character in half decent armor could tank on the front line at the start, this is the middle of the game though.

You can do the same in PoE for the most part. Monks and Barbarians in particular are good front line combatants.

 

[Infinitron]

This just in - Pillars of Eternity doesn't have MMO-style combat roles. Or at least, its health/stamina system works directly against one of those roles: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68...g-us-any-non-combat-health-healing/?p=1498255

[..]On the other hand, if you're letting your one tank get f*cked up constantly, that's kind of your fault.

Hmm, what's the role of a tank is not to be the one to get ****ed up instead of others?
I mean you might not agree with the need for a tank (which I have no problem with), but once you allow that path to be taken, then that's pretty much their role? I mean, fighters have nothing but talents dedicated to do just that, soaking up damage and get ****ed up constantly. The more you use resources to "CC" and "prevent damage", the more useless they become at their one and only role in the game...
...so it's not a failure or a fault if your tank gets ****ed up really, according to the game design, at least some of it, it's actually a success if the tank is getting hit constantly, because that's what everything in the class is designed for...except the Health system...

Depends how define tanking. If you define "tanking" as "the character that stops enemies in their tracks and takes most of the hits", then the health system is irrelevant and the fighter is doing his job just fine.

But if you define "tanking" as "the character that absorbs most of the party's total health resources", then yeah, Pillars of Eternity makes that impossible, because the only health/healing resource available to a character is his own health bar.

So there's a tradeoff between tanking and having to worry about long-term/strategic damage spread across your entire party, unlike the Infinity Engine games where you could "healbot" your tank until you ran out of healing spells, and he was 100% effective until that time.

I don't think this is necessarily a downside. In fact, it makes me laugh. A lot of people on this forum complained that "Pillars of Eternity pigeonholes us into MMO-style 'combat roles'!" Yet here is a mechanic that diminishes those roles and forces you to mix it up more...and now people are complaining about that.

 

[Shadenuat]

How is that on Obsi forums I always lose the track on what was the topic even about on page 2 already.
And how do people manage to combine "I never played the beta and never backed the gaem" with posts that fucking long where they talk how much they actually know about the game.
"U always lose health even if it's a graze!" - "Well no it seems in beta you don't if it's less than 1 dmg" - "No but I watched stream u do so health sucks!"

When people whine on the 'dex they at least make some sort of a fucking point. Er, usually.

Also Infinitron, you freak me out when you use local friendly smilies.

Or at least, its health/stamina system works directly against one of those roles

The class roles are still too strict and Fighter is very MMO-tanky, so it kinda like one part of design cancels another.

It's true that Fighter doesn't have x6 times health than other party members like in MMOs however to make him work 100% like in MMOs where whole party runs behind one guy and heal heal heal dps dps dps

 

[LizardWizard]

Kinda fucked up they couldn't throw backers a pity patch before the long weekend.

It's still not playing right though is it, the feel of combat is just off. If everyone's just going to send the Fighter in to tank and have everyone sit back and cast nukes that is banal gameplay at it's finest.

The issue is exacerbated with guns being OP as fuck combined with friendly fire (Druid DoT will one-shot your own party) and most damage spells being AOE.

Think I'm definitely going to run pure melee flavored parties and ignore ranged weapons altogether first playthrough with perma death on. Play that shit like X-com.

 

[Rake]

Kinda fucked up they couldn't throw backers a pity patch before the long weekend.

It's still not playing right though is it, the feel of combat is just off. If everyone's just going to send the Fighter in to tank and have everyone sit back and cast nukes that is banal gameplay at it's finest.

The issue is exacerbated with guns being OP as fuck combined with friendly fire (Druid DoT will one-shot your own party) and most damage spells being AOE.

Think I'm definitely going to run pure melee flavored parties and ignore ranged weapons altogether first playthrough with perma death on. Play that shit like X-com.

That. I never have more than one ranged party member in this kind of games. If you want me to pewpew, it fits better in a all gun sci-fi / post apoc / cyberpunk setting

 

[Sensuki]

You can do the same in PoE for the most part. Monks and Barbarians in particular are good front line combatants.

That's because they're the tank classes. Barbs can stay at the front for ages if you dump healing on them, they don't take Health Damage as much as other classes. Monks can IF they spend their wounds, atm there's some situations where you can't spend them fast enough due to recovery time.

 

[tuluse]

You can do the same in PoE for the most part. Monks and Barbarians in particular are good front line combatants.

That's because they're the tank classes. Barbs can stay at the front for ages if you dump healing on them, they don't take Health Damage as much as other classes. Monks can IF they spend their wounds, atm there's some situations where you can't spend them fast enough due to recovery time.

Right, so it's not just fighters who can tank.

 

[Sensuki]

The designs are working as intended:

Fighters, Monks and Barbs can toe to toe on the front.

Paladins can kinda do it if you build them to. Haven't tried a chanter in melee yet.

A Ranger's animal companion can do it if you max the shit out of CON, currently bugz tho

Rogues, Priests, Wizards, Ciphers, Druids not in spiritshift form get beat on pretty hard if they are at the front.

What I would like is a bit more flexibility there. The BB Party promotes 1 forward and rest back play. It would be nice to give more classes a bit more flexibility to float in between.

 

[tuluse]

So I just realized a degeneracy caused by Josh's systems.

The most powerful ranged characters are the ones who dump resolve and constitution. They also are not wearing armor to attack as fast as possible. None of this matters because with the engagement system and reasonable tactics, they're never going to be threatened anyways.

However, if you make a mistake, it means they're going to go down fast. This means to play the most powerful party, you're going to be saving before any reasonably difficult battle and just loading if you make some minor mistake that leads to an enemy getting through to your backline.

It also means ranged combatants are going to be inherently better than melee combatants unless their default damage and speeds are ridiculously different, which goes against Sawyer's easy to understand mantra.

 

[J_C]

So I just realized a degeneracy caused by Josh's systems.

The most powerful ranged characters are the ones who dump resolve and constitution. They also are not wearing armor to attack as fast as possible. None of this matters because with the engagement system and reasonable tactics, they're never going to be threatened anyways.

However, if you make a mistake, it means they're going to go down fast. This means to play the most powerful party, you're going to be saving before any reasonably difficult battle and just loading if you make some minor mistake that leads to an enemy getting through to your backline.

It also means ranged combatants are going to be inherently better than melee combatants unless their default damage and speeds are ridiculously different, which goes against Sawyer's easy to understand mantra.

So even Josh's degeneracy-proof system couldn't avoid degenerady. But nice try Sawyer.

 

[Sensuki]

There's actually a fair bit of degeneracy.