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

[Infinitron]

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.

It's possible to retreat and reform the lines if an enemy breaks through, it's not a permanent/immediate effect.

 

[tuluse]

It's possible to retreat and reform the lines if an enemy breaks through, it's not a permanent effect.

Enemy breaks through, Gets next to wizard. Wizard is engaged. Enemy gets on attack off, half of wizards health is gone. Wizard retreats, enemy gets aoo, wizard is down. Wizard was primary damage dealer, so party wipes.

 

[Infinitron]

Enemy breaks through, Gets next to wizard. Wizard is engaged. Enemy gets on attack off, half of wizards health is gone. Wizard retreats, enemy gets aoo, wizard is down. Wizard was primary damage dealer, so party wipes.

And in between those steps is plenty of opportunity to do something to stop it.

That's not a save-or-die gotcha, it's an example of somebody who gets unlucky and then decides to play poorly in response.

 

[tuluse]

And in between those steps is plenty of opportunity to do something to stop it.

That's not save-or-die gotcha, it's an example of somebody who gets unlucky and then decides to play poorly in response.

With the current speed of things, this can all happen in about 2 seconds. It's basically a single mistake leading to party wipes.

It's also a failure of systemic benefits to armor, resolve, and con. There is no point to having those things 90% of the time for 4-5 of your characters.

 

[Infinitron]

With the current speed of things, this can all happen in about 2 seconds. It's basically a single mistake leading to party wipes.

Well, if that's too punishing, maybe the speed needs to be tweaked. I still wouldn't call it "degeneracy" though.

It's also a failure of systemic benefits to armor, resolve, and con. There is no point to having those things 90% of the time for 4-5 of your characters.

Sure...unless you anticipate that enemies WILL in fact break through your lines and decide your characters should always be ready for them, eh?

But we already know the stats are going to be repurposed/rebalanced.

 

[Sensuki]

Welcome to many of my issues with the game atm.

 

[tuluse]

Well, if that's too punishing, maybe the speed needs to be tweaked. I still wouldn't call it "degeneracy" though.



Sure...unless you anticipate that enemies WILL in fact break through your lines and decide your characters should always be ready for them, eh?

But we already know the stats are going to be repurposed/rebalanced.

It's degenerate because the party that doesn't anticipate that will be more powerful, so using save-reload to deal with mistakes is the better strategy.

 

[Infinitron]

*shrug* We can't stop people from saving-reloading every time something doesn't go their way. Enemy scored a crit - RELOAD!

The only thing you can do is reduce it by always giving players a viable escape hatch, and sorry, but I don't see "enemies broke through the front line" as inescapable. Put your wizard farther away if the enemy is catching up with him so quickly, and reengage the enemy with another of your melee guys.

 

[Volourn]

This page is full of retartet anti PE arguments. DUMBDUMBS.

 

[tuluse]

*shrug* We can't stop people from saving-reloading every time something doesn't go their way. Enemy scored a crit - RELOAD!

The only thing you can do is reduce it by always giving players a viable escape hatch, and sorry, but I don't see "enemies broke through the front line" as inescapable. Put your wizard farther away if the enemy is catching up with him so quickly, and reengage the enemy with another of your melee guys.

I've been playing. 9/10 times they don't break through. It's not a common enough event to worry about it except with save scumming.

And true enough, sometimes the wizard going down doesn't lead to a party wipe and no reload happens.

When a party wipe *does* happen, and I reload to play the battle with the same general tactics just not making one mistake (or having the AI randomly make another decision), that is the exact kind of degeneracy Sawyer was wanted to avoid.

 

[J_C]

Well, if that's too punishing, maybe the speed needs to be tweaked. I still wouldn't call it "degeneracy" though.



Sure...unless you anticipate that enemies WILL in fact break through your lines and decide your characters should always be ready for them, eh?

But we already know the stats are going to be repurposed/rebalanced.

It's degenerate because the party that doesn't anticipate that will be more powerful, so using save-reload to deal with mistakes is the better strategy.

Save scumming....scumm! You do a mistake, you deal with it. C&C bitches!

 

[Shadenuat]

You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. High risk strategies are high risk, what else is new.

And you don't have to dump con for ranged characters either.

 

[Rake]

You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. High risk strategies are high risk, what else is new.

And you don't have to dump con for ranged characters either.

The problem is that it isn't "high risk", and it's the most powerfull tactic, working on everything so far. You just make your party that way, use the same tactic on everything. 1/20 times it will fail, but it was just bad luck/a moment of carelesness. Just reload and try again with the same tactic yet again. And it will work.
All of them problems Josh tried to eradicate as they are degenerate gameplay.

 

[coffeetable]

if only Obsidian had the chance to spend some more time balancing before release!

 

[Rake]

if only Obsidian had the chance to spend some more time balancing before release!

Don't doubt it, just making fun of Infinitron's apologising, that have reached Roguey levels. In all honesty, i expect PoE to be my favorite kickstarted game (TTON is a strong contender though), and has a shot to be in my Top 3 games of all time. And the problem's i have with some of Sawyer's decisions have nothing to do with balanced attributes or combat XP (i like both of them in theory, although the execution needs work).
I'm way more buthurt about no hard counters, boring magic and boring itemisation (the last two a byproduct of the no hard counters/no save or die/balance things)

 

[DefJam101]

*shrug* We can't stop people from saving-reloading every time something doesn't go their way.

Sure you can. Make saving cost experience points.

 

[Gord]

Sure you can. Make saving cost experience points.

I liked the drama star system in frayed knights. Gave you an incentive not to reload, but wasn't too annoying.

 

[Grunker]

Sure you can. Make saving cost experience points.

I liked the drama star system in frayed knights. Gave you an incentive not to reload, but wasn't too annoying.

Agreed, one of the better inventions of that game, definetely. It felt like reloading was a strategic decision that cost resources, without the system neutering you or punishing you completely for doing it.

As someone who likes Ironman light better than full-on Ironman (though I will often play the latter), I loved that system.

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

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.

I've actually managed to build a very good high-con/perception/resolve melee Cipher who wears light armor and dual-wields stilettos. I wouldn't exactly call him a tank but he is a terror one-on-one.

 

[Abu Antar]

I have been thinking a bit about what bothers me with the classes, attributes and all that in Pillars of Eternity.

There simply aren't enough skills. I was disappointed the very moment I knew we would only get six skills. They are also boring as fuck. Where's my tumble, disarm traps and so on.

I also miss the flexibility of the D&D rule sets. Having played the IE games and NWN1+2 + expansions, there were so many character builds one could make. Since stats don't make a huge difference in PoE, I have a feeling that replayability with the same class won't be as great. I also miss dual classing/multiclassing. That's probably my biggest issue with the character progression system alongside the attribute system at this point. One can be fixed, the other can't. Allowing you to be more than one class made things so much more fun for experimentation. In PoE, I can build my fighter differently, but I don't feel that there will be a huge difference in how he plays. It also feels like I don't choose enough talents or abiltites for my characters. It is way more automated than other games of this type. I still they can improve things, but the flexibility will not be close to the BGs and NWNs.
___________________________________
The video Duraframe300 seems to have more slow combat. Am I imagining things or do you guys agree?

 

[Infinitron]

I have been thinking a bit about what bothers me with the classes, attributes and all that in Pillars of Eternity.

There simply aren't enough skills. I was disappointed the very moment I knew we would only get six skills. They are also boring as fuck. Where's my tumble, disarm traps and so on.

I also miss the flexibility of the D&D rule sets. Having played the IE games and NWN1+2 + expansions, there were so many character builds one could make. Since stats don't make a huge difference in PoE, I have a feeling that replayability with the same class won't be as great. I also miss dual classing/multiclassing. That's probably my biggest issue with the character progression system alongside the attribute system at this point. One can be fixed, the other can't. Allowing you to be more than one class made things so much more fun for experimentation. In PoE, I can build my fighter differently, but I don't feel that there will be a huge difference in how he plays. It also feels like I don't choose enough talents or abiltites for my characters. It is way more automated than other games of this type. I still they can improve things, but the flexibility will not be close to the BGs and NWNs.
___________________________________
The video Duraframe300 seems to have more slow combat. Am I imagining things or do you guys agree?

You might be imagining that the IE games had skills and non-automated character development.

 

[Abu Antar]

I have been thinking a bit about what bothers me with the classes, attributes and all that in Pillars of Eternity.

There simply aren't enough skills. I was disappointed the very moment I knew we would only get six skills. They are also boring as fuck. Where's my tumble, disarm traps and so on.

I also miss the flexibility of the D&D rule sets. Having played the IE games and NWN1+2 + expansions, there were so many character builds one could make. Since stats don't make a huge difference in PoE, I have a feeling that replayability with the same class won't be as great. I also miss dual classing/multiclassing. That's probably my biggest issue with the character progression system alongside the attribute system at this point. One can be fixed, the other can't. Allowing you to be more than one class made things so much more fun for experimentation. In PoE, I can build my fighter differently, but I don't feel that there will be a huge difference in how he plays. It also feels like I don't choose enough talents or abiltites for my characters. It is way more automated than other games of this type. I still they can improve things, but the flexibility will not be close to the BGs and NWNs.
___________________________________
The video Duraframe300 seems to have more slow combat. Am I imagining things or do you guys agree?

You might be imagining that the IE games had skills and non-automated character development.

I'm probably thinking about NWN 1&2 more, to be honest. I played the first for several hundred hours (online modules) and I've done a gazillion different characters for NWN2 and its expansions. I won't lie, I like the 3.5E rules

 

[Infinitron]

Haha, it's sort of like the Wasteland vs Fallout thing in Wasteland 2. The designers have the luxury of being able to pick and choose the simplest features from among the two to implement, and say "Well, it was like that in Wasteland/Baldur's Gate, so you can't complain "

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm actually not that upset about how things are. I just don't see myself replaying the game with the same class is all. To be honest, I'm not usually someone that goes deep into the systems of games. Either I like it or I don't. When combat in the beta works, I have mostly been enjoying it. The problem is, I guess, that I find character progression a bit boring. I still want to see how Pillars of Eternity's counterpart to /feats/perks will affect things.

I am also hoping they let us choose to keep the fast combat speed that the beta has. I know it might sound crazy, but after having played for little over six hours, I am used to it. For me, the speed isn't the issue, feedback is.

 

[Bubbles]

You might be imagining that the IE games had skills and non-automated character development.

I can understand not wanting to play Icewind Dale 2, but you should at least read up on its character system.