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

[Sensuki]

That's cool that they're going to clean up the portrait consistency

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

I have a theory/prediction about the companions in PoE: they are all going to have elements of their character (race/"sub"-class/abilities) that are not available to the PC. The only one that currently fits my theory definitively is Pallegina: she is a subrace that the PC cannot be. For now, there is also reason to believe one companion will be a machine of some kind and and another a ghost. I would bet that the priest companion will be priest of a god that the is not available to the PC (maybe the god of the hunt mentioned by Zeits) and that the Ranger Companion will have a companion unavailable to PC rangers. The wizard might end up being a tranny. As for the Rogue and Fighter companions, I could easily see them have unique abilities that are unavailable to the PC. Or maybe I'm just smoking some good shit.

 

[Sensuki]

Nope that's a very good guess. I know one of the answers to that for sure, but I would say they are doing those kind of things.

 

[Nihiliste]

Good to hear those voice sets are placeholders, and really good to hear that Kaz is going to be going over the portraits. Right now they really don't feel like they belong within the same set of images. Too bad about the item sketches, that was a detail that gave the itemization in BG2 a lot of charm.

 

[Sensuki]

There's always PE2.

Here's some insight into my attribute system:

You cannot actually raise Accuracy higher than +1 per point otherwise it vastly outclasses Might as an attribute. In light of this, I think that reducing the total accuracy values that classes get at level 1 should make Dexterity have more of an impact for all classes.

For the people that think Action Speed is overpowered: A 20% increase in Action speed correlates to +20% DPS if the target has 0 DT (due to the nature of attacking more often), this is equivalent to 10 Might. However if the target has any DT at all, Action Speed is WORSE than Might because it also raises the Effective DT by 20% (due to the nature of attacking DT more often).

Attack speed works differently in real time than turn based, when handled as a percentage. In TB, extra action points gives you more movement and depending on the amount of AP it takes to complete an action - a percentage increase based on the amount of AP the action took. If moving 1 square in TB costs 1AP and you have 6 AP, an extra action point gives you +16.67% to movement. If a shot takes 3 AP and you get an extra action point, it could theoretically increase your DPS by 33% assuming it allows you to take an extra shot. This is why AP is overpowered in TB pretty much all of the time.

 

[Blaine]

I'm pretty sure I spent far too much time on this.

 

[Sensuki]

There's a tricky aspect to damage output that should always be considered, which is the fact that increased damage output does not always result in enemies going down more quickly. Against any given enemy, it will take a number of damage-inflicting actions (which each take a certain amount of time) to reduce the target's Stamina to 0. Even using dead average damage rolls, there will be many cases where increased damage will not result in the enemy being dropped in fewer actions.

E.g. let's say the enemy has 100 Stamina. Each attack you make does 15 Damage on average, and for convenient math let's assume no DT on the enemy. It will take seven attacks to make that enemy go down. But let's say you get a 10% bonus to damage. It will still take seven attacks to make the enemy go down. Or let's say the enemy has 50 Stamina and you do 18 Damage on average. It will take 3 attacks. With a 20% bonus to damage, it will still take 3 attacks. With a 35% bonus, it will still take 3 attacks. Only when you get to about 40%+ does it actually result in fewer actions/less time to drop that target.

Currently, 8 points of Might is worth 16% additional damage. It can certainly make a difference, but it is not an overwhelming advantage and there are a lot of situations where it that margin does not actually make the battle end more quickly. Interrupts do need more work to make their mechanics more transparent and obviously beneficial, but that's just something to consider.

I'm thinking about planning at the attribute level rather than in-the-field strategy. The level of knowledge is imperfect but recognizing that damage++ does not always equal more efficient action use in combat is valuable.

It's kind of just extending the 3.X concept of Concentration to affect everyone rather than just folks casting spells.

We have discussed making the hit reactions longer, which would certainly make Interrupts a much bigger deal. They're currently only 15 frames. A 30 or 45 frame Interrupt would be much more noticeable and also much, much more punitive.

Dear lord, turn that ship around!

MOBA style bashes would not be fun. Better hurry up and get my combat post done before they potentially ruin something

 

[roshan]

There's a tricky aspect to damage output that should always be considered, which is the fact that increased damage output does not always result in enemies going down more quickly. Against any given enemy, it will take a number of damage-inflicting actions (which each take a certain amount of time) to reduce the target's Stamina to 0. Even using dead average damage rolls, there will be many cases where increased damage will not result in the enemy being dropped in fewer actions.

E.g. let's say the enemy has 100 Stamina. Each attack you make does 15 Damage on average, and for convenient math let's assume no DT on the enemy. It will take seven attacks to make that enemy go down. But let's say you get a 10% bonus to damage. It will still take seven attacks to make the enemy go down. Or let's say the enemy has 50 Stamina and you do 18 Damage on average. It will take 3 attacks. With a 20% bonus to damage, it will still take 3 attacks. With a 35% bonus, it will still take 3 attacks. Only when you get to about 40%+ does it actually result in fewer actions/less time to drop that target.

Currently, 8 points of Might is worth 16% additional damage. It can certainly make a difference, but it is not an overwhelming advantage and there are a lot of situations where it that margin does not actually make the battle end more quickly. Interrupts do need more work to make their mechanics more transparent and obviously beneficial, but that's just something to consider.

This is utterly terrible game design, and explains exactly why this game is going to be a PoE (piece of excrement). Rather than making combat interesting, challenging and unique, he's actually talking about designing combat as a waste of time. In his perspective, the purpose of STR is not as a tool that could potentially help a player beat a challenging encounter, but rather as some sort of "perk" that may be able to reduce the duration of an encounter under certain circumstances. The very fact that they are so focused on the duration of encounters already shows that they are taking it for granted that every player will be able to win every encounter (all choices are cosmetic), they have designed the game with auto resurrection, health regeneration, no penalties to make sure that players never have to feel bad upon seeing a game over screen (no real challenge is ever presented).

Not only that it seems that he actually knows the attributes are virtually useless and that is it that way by design IE all builds are virtually identical and therefore BALANCED!!!

 

[Infinitron]

the purpose of STR is not as a tool that could potentially help a player beat a challenging encounter

The reason STR is a tool for helping players beat a challenging encounter is that it allows them to do more damage per attack, and thereby kill their enemy before he kills them. In other words, it's about the time it takes you to defeat the enemy.

roshan, I realize that all this mechanical reductionism of RPG concepts is ruining your immmersion and suspension of disbelief, and that it makes you think the game is somehow "soulless". I'd recommend you avoid this discussion. Leave the game design shop talk to us big boys.

 

[imweasel]

Rather than making combat interesting, challenging and unique, he's actually talking about designing combat as a waste of time.

Well, Sawyer is a major stealth fag after all.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

I hate this thread so very much.
My buyer remorse is getting worse by every post.
And any false faith I have that the actual game going to be better than the beta is long gone by now.
Damn it.

 

[Lord Andre]

I don't really give a shit anymore, so I'm not up to date with whatever percentile influences the other percentiles, but this shit seems boring. Looked at the classes, fucking boring. NPCs, fucking boring. Itemisation, fucking boring. Monsters, fucking boring. Generic crap all over the place.

What happened to "If you wanna' see what happened to the last assholes who tried to conquer us, go look at the big crater over there." They used those cool quotes in the beginning and I thought - finally some good shit and then Sawyer comes along with generic fantasy no. 9, retarded irish/celtic names that no one can pronounce and percentage cooldown faggotry.

Inxile is my only hope.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Leave the game design shop talk to us big boys.

To us big boys talking about imaginary games.

Sawyer comes along with generic fantasy no. 9

Well, you gotta sell, right? But Sawyer is totally not doing games for everybody...

 

[SwiftCrack]

I'm pretty sure I spent far too much time on this.

View attachment 3916

 

[Duraframe300]

The LoLing continues.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

This is utterly terrible game design, and explains exactly why this game is going to be a PoE (piece of excrement). Rather than making combat interesting, challenging and unique, he's actually talking about designing combat as a waste of time. In his perspective, the purpose of STR is not as a tool that could potentially help a player beat a challenging encounter, but rather as some sort of "perk" that may be able to reduce the duration of an encounter under certain circumstances. The very fact that they are so focused on the duration of encounters already shows that they are taking it for granted that every player will be able to win every encounter (all choices are cosmetic), they have designed the game with auto resurrection, health regeneration, no penalties to make sure that players never have to feel bad upon seeing a game over screen (no real challenge is ever presented).

Not only that it seems that he actually knows the attributes are virtually useless and that is it that way by design IE all builds are virtually identical and therefore BALANCED!!!

Nah, what he's saying is simple - bigger damage doesn't always result in enemy going down faster which is true for any RPG, though it's far more of an occurrence if you only have one char to face enemies, whether because you're soloing or it's not a party based RPG (like most action RPGs for example).

Say, you have two fighters, one who does 40 damage per hit but has a very low chance to interrupt and the one who does 30 damage per hit but with a very high chance to interrupt and have them face a 90 hitpoint mage (in a one on one duel). They'll both need 3 hits to bring the mage down but fighter #2 will stand a much better chance to stop mage's powerful spell from going off while fighter #1 will likely achieve a costly victory.

Of course in another situation, fighter #1 could be in advantage. Say, they face a powerful 160 hp Ogre that does a ton of damage per hit, fighter #1 will take him in 4 swings while fighter #2 will need 6 (50% more).

 

[Grotesque]

Does that look balanced to you?

2H weapon attacks faster than 1H weapon and does like double the damage ... lol

1H gives you more deflection (from shield) or more accuracy (=more damage), although the indirect bonus damage from +15 accuracy is negligible compared to what you get after switching to 2H.

I am guessing the numbers will still be tweaked, but 1H with no shield is pretty much useless at the moment. Bonus deflection from shield is arguable IMO. 2x 1H faster attack is ok.

Sword and board always get the short end of the stick, when in reality it should be the most effective style. Something I'd like to see - as an attempt to buff shields - is to trigger attacks of opportunity on succesful blocks. And to prevent it from being too overpowered, blocking crits would cause the blocker to stagger instead.

skip to 3:35

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I'd recommend you avoid this discussion. Leave the game design shop talk to us big boys.

It appears that the neverending task of defending Obsidian is finally taking its toll on the Infinitron AI:

 

[Infinitron]

Eurogamer preview: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-09-03-the-past-lives-forever-in-pillars-of-eternity

The past lives forever in Pillars of Eternity
Hands on with the beta version of Obsidian's crowd-funded retro RPG.

By Dan Whitehead Published Wednesday, 3 September 2014

Nostalgia is big business on Kickstarter, where PC gamers flocked to back projects that promised to roll the clock back to a time before egalitarian game design buffed the sharp edges off beloved hardcore genres. Enter Obsidian Entertainment, and Project Eternity, a crowd-funded role-player that proudly wears the C for computer in CRPG.

The game, now under its full title of Pillars of Eternity, raised almost $4 million back in 2012. If that feels like an age ago where Kickstarter stories are concerned, then Obsidian's aim is to look back even further, and party like it's 1998, a time when Infinity Engine powered games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale captivated a generation.

Based on the current backer's beta, it's definitely on course to realise that dream. Pillars of Eternity is retro in the best possible way. The heart is warmly familiar, with navigation, conversation and inventory systems that feel like old muscles being exercised for the first time in years. Creaky and a little stiff at times, but you can sense the power still stored in those dusty sinews.

This is how combat looks at the moment. Not the best for making tactical party decisions.

The first thing you do is choose your difficulty setting. There's Easy and Normal, and a hard mode called Path of the Damned. On top of that are two additional toggles: Expert Mode removes the automated assists designed to ease novices in, while Trial of Iron is the extra hardcore option, restricting you to one save file and the threat of permadeath hanging over your character. On current form, that's going to be a real challenge, as Pillars of Eternity is seriously tough.

It's also very generous with character options, with a creation system that adds a few fun extra layers on top of the expected genre norms. You can opt to play as Human, Dwarf or Elf, of course, or you could play as an Aumaua, a tall, semi-aquatic, Avatar-esque creature, or a goblin-ish Orlan, smaller even than a dwarf, and apparently known for "mental intensity and quickness". Most fascinating are the Godlike, misshapen mutants with unusual abilities.

The Godlike also offer good examples of the game's strata of sub-races. Godlike offer four different variations - Death, Fire, Moon or Nature - each with their own distinct stat nudges. Similarly, every other race can be more closely defined by the region they come from: Hearth Orlan are former slaves, while Wild Orlan are a little more rugged. Aumaua vary in ability depending on whether they're from coastal regions or islands.

Particularly interesting is the way that races aren't constrained to their natural body types. If you want an Orlan with the build of a towering Aumaua, or a human-sized dwarf, you can. Even more distinctions can be built in with deep choices depending on your sub-race and build. Some have optional background cultures or elemental magic specialisms for some character builds, while others offer more tangible physical perks. I had one character build, a Nature Godlike, who got to be accompanied by a giant black bear.

The options keep piling up. There are 11 classes to choose from, though parsing the difference requires hands-on experience. The dividing line between a skilled Fighter and a brutish Barbarian is easy enough to grasp, but magic users will want to test drive the Wizard, Druid and Chanter classes before working out their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Of course, there's an inn. Of course, the barman is a truculent source of local gossip.

Compared to the box-ticking that passes for character creation in some modern RPGs, your gateway to Pillars of Eternity does a good job of teasing the potential depths of the full game. For now, the beta boosts you to Level 5 so you have a healthy stock of skill points to distribute, and drops you in with no introduction and a full party of four additional characters.

There's a relatively small slice of the world to explore, centred around the village of Dyrford. It's here that Eternity's visual charms are best illustrated. This is a very nice looking game, with finely detailed backgrounds that offer just enough ambient animation to be enchanting. From the rustic town square to the flickering fire-lit interior of the obligatory inn, it really makes the most of its top-down view to create a welcoming and engaging world.

The lore is rich, but organically introduced through conversation. The writing is good enough that you quickly pick up on the unique hopes and fears of the town - not least that their children are Hollowborn, the meaning of which you piece together but is quite clearly not a good thing - and there are also some more obvious quest givers to get you started. Guards from the royal House Harond are searching for a missing noblewoman, an ogre has been stealing a farmer's pigs and a mercenary called Medreth needs help in drawing out an alleged mass killer of children.

Each plot thread leads you to explore the regions neighbouring Dyrford, and it's here that you'll definitely encounter combat. The maps are small, and you're hemmed in by scenery that dictates your route through the area, so there's no real way to avoid the many aggressive creatures that are placed in your path.

Unfortunately, right now combat is the weakest feature. Since the beta fast-forwards you past five levels of skill accumulation, and offers no tutorial, there's a lot of trial and error as you work out the pros and cons of your abilities. It doesn't help that battles unfold quickly, and too readily turn into incomprehensible melee scrums where it's all but impossible to click on any one ally or enemy with consistent accuracy. I found that playing on Normal difficulty, I got instantly slaughtered by the first enemies I encountered - a group of beetles, for God's sake. Playing on Easy, encounters were almost the opposite, and almost entirely devoid of challenge or strategy. Even then, I found that I'd breeze through some fights only to get killed instantly in another without really understanding what I'd done differently.

The map as currently available in the beta. It will be interesting to see it expand over time.

To help you make sense of the muddle, there are numerous auto-pause options, which will freeze the game whenever specific combat situations occur, and you can also slow things down with a prod of the S key. This at least helps you get your bearings, but doesn't address the jumble of overlapping characters you're expected to navigate in the thick of the action. It feels like a peculiar concession, as if the game is naturally leaning towards turn-based combat, but is afraid to commit fully for fear of annoying purist backers who cry foul at anything that doesn't fit their notion of what genre can offer.

Venture into the backer forum, and you discover another related debate burning up the threads. At the moment, the game offers no XP for victory in combat, only for completion of quests. It's an understandable decision when viewed in the context of the games Pillars of Eternity is trying not to be - "Go back to Skyrim" is a popular retort from those who see combat XP as an open door to grinding - but in a game that is clearly going to be very combat-centric, it does feel bizarrely punitive. The loot dropped by defeated enemies isn't exciting enough to compensate right now, and the thrill of victory in a tricky battle is undeniably dimmed when you realise you gained nothing of value from the encounter.

As always, the fact that this is a beta is a pretty good bulwark against criticism, even if its winter 2014 release window looms ever larger. Much can and will change over the coming months, and the combat balancing in particular is most definitely a work in progress.

What is clear is that those who backed Project Eternity on the promise of a thoroughbred RPG that embraces the classic D&D model, if not the actual license, aren't likely to be disappointed. Even at this early stage, and with only a few hours of gameplay to its name, Pillars of Eternity already feels generous, compelling and rich.

 

[J_C]

I don't really give a shit anymore, so I'm not up to date with whatever percentile influences the other percentiles, but this shit seems boring. Looked at the classes, fucking boring. NPCs, fucking boring. Itemisation, fucking boring. Monsters, fucking boring. Generic crap all over the place.

What happened to "If you wanna' see what happened to the last assholes who tried to conquer us, go look at the big crater over there." They used those cool quotes in the beginning and I thought - finally some good shit and then Sawyer comes along with generic fantasy no. 9, retarded irish/celtic names that no one can pronounce and percentage cooldown faggotry.

Inxile is my only hope.

Fuck off. The system is not perfect, but the classes, NPC-s and monsters are not boring, those are not the problem. Generic? Depends. BG and IWD were generic fantasy, but worked well.

Inxile is your only hope? Hah! Maybe you should check the Wasteland 2 thread where people bitch about how much they fucked up. (I don't agree, but many are on that opinion.)

Eurogamer preview: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-09-03-the-past-lives-forever-in-pillars-of-eternity

This is how combat looks at the moment. Not the best for making tactical party decisions.

Balance issues aside, this is one of the biggest problem they should address. Maybe they should dial back on the flashy effects.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Looks like a fight from NWN2.
See nothing in combat, party members rising up at the end, seems like they made a spiritual successor to something after all.

 

[Sensuki]

skip to 3:35

The bit at 13:30 is pretty cool, never thought of that.

 

[Lord Andre]

Fuck off. The system is not perfect, but the classes, NPC-s and monsters are not boring, those are not the problem. Generic? Depends. BG and IWD were generic fantasy, but worked well.

Inxile is your only hope? Hah! Maybe you should check the Wasteland 2 thread where people bitch about how much they fucked up. (I don't agree, but many are on that opinion.)

Yeah, yeah, keep fighting the good fight.

All I'm saying is that I watched some random beta plays on youtube and I'm not impressed. The classes are not impressing me. It seems you have all the flavors between Fighter and Mage with the same renamed abilities on each one. Do you want to see the same damage dealt as a sword or as flasy magic effect. Do you want to stun by smashing a guy in the face or by casting a spell. The choice is yours. And what's with per encounter stun ability ? Why would anyone start with anything else but a stun if they can do it every encounter? Maybe I just interpreted the video wrong...maybe it's not per encounter...please tell me it's not per encounter.

And don't get me started on the races and the different flavors of ridiculous flaming head syndrome. You want 5% frost resistance or 5% flame resistance...OPTIOnz, fuck yeah!

Monsters, different combinations of health and dps, variety fuck yeah!

Items, I have no idea but reading Sawyer's dismissal of weapon art, no hopes there either.

How about some simulation Sawyer ? An rpg is supposed to simulate a world, it's not supposed to simulate the stereotype of an RPG. This is Inception level of mechanics that make none to little sense in lore, in world, in logic.

Wasteland 2 has some god damn soul if nothing else, this shit... not so much. And yes I blame it on Sawyer.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What dismissal of weapon art?

 

[Grotesque]

What dismissal of weapon art?

"With weapons, the artists started with historical reference and made modifications, so there wasn't a library of sketches at the end of it like there was with creature images."
This one! R U Blind?