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

[Sensuki]

Mechanics does improve trap damage. Survival increases duration of consumables. Stealth allows you to get closer to enemies before they attack you.

Athletics currently controls when you become fatigued and Lore controls unlocking of bestiary entries - two of which are crappier bonuses than the other three.

 

[Abu Antar]

Mechanics does improve trap damage. Survival increases duration of consumables. Stealth allows you to get closer to enemies before they attack you.

Athletics currently controls when you become fatigued and Lore controls unlocking of bestiary entries - two of which are crappier bonuses than the other three.

I know, but they don't do much IN combat. I basically max out stealth and athletics every time in the beta.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

They have to set a release date to keep themselves motivated enough to finish the game within a reasonable time. Everyone needs dead lines, especially software developers.

They could have set a tentative release date and aim for that. But change it and extend it if things weren't going to plan. But when they lock that date in, they're now committed whether the game is polished or not. And I think they could've done things to extend that date if they weren't confident in releasing the game. Like early access and stretch goals. And I'm sure the backers would have understood. Now that option is well and truly passed and locked in. If they're not confident, or the game isn't polished enough, it's being released regardless.

And it doesn't help with the delay in releasing beta updates. If they continue with 2-3 weeks, we can expect maybe 3 or 4 updates before release? I just hope from now to release, we start seeing some 'wow' stuff, because the game needs it imo.

 

[Sensuki]

I have a feeling the next patch will be pretty significant.

 

[J_C]

To get this back on topic, what do you think Obsidian may have done wrong with the development of PoE? I've always felt they were at least 6 months behind where they wanted to be throughout the development cycle. For me it's the following, in my opinion of course.

The big one is not realising the implications of the stretch goals in the original Kickstarter. And this leads into:

- Releasing a beta without any experience on releasing betas to the public.

What experience do you have to have for this? They release beta, they get feedback like during internal QA, they improve the game based on feedback. The only thing is that they need to handle more feedback.

- Releasing the game on Mac and Linux and not having any experience with releasing games on these systems. We've already seen the Mac and Linux betas held up with no final word on their release date. I expect the Mac and Linux games won't be released this year and most likely released next year.

Mac and Linux version always falls behind, and I think a game developer level programmer is more than able to handle Mac and Linux programming

- Getting involved in the publisher side of development which although they've offloaded a lot to Paradox, they're still involved in it to a degree.

How are they involved in a degree?

- There will be over 2200 boxes that will need to be signed by the dev's before they're mailed out. No doubt this will be done after the game is released digitally, so it's not going to affect the development from now to the end of the year, but will take people away from their normal duties when they do have to sign them. I've seen folded up boxes on pallets in real life and can imagine having to sign so many would be a daunting task.

How is this a problem regarding game development? I think they happily sign those, after getting millions during a KS

- They'll have to sign over 500 Hardcover books as well.

Read above.

Cost of freight to have them sent over to the Obsidian office. Time in unpacking the boxes and signing them. Time in repacking them and sent to Paradox? Not a lot of books to sign, but still time spent on not doing game development.

I think not Josh or Tim Cain will unpack these boxes, but some janitor level anybody, who is not working on a game.
Overall, sorry, but your concerns are not valid. We have things we can be concerned about, but not these.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

What experience do you have to have for this? They release beta, they get feedback like during internal QA, they improve the game based on feedback. The only thing is that they need to handle more feedback.

The only thing they need to handle is more feedback? Okay. So they don't need to do any more beta updates for the backers. They don't need to get Steam involved with the updates. The only thing is that they need to handle more feedback. Gotcha.

Mac and Linux version always falls behind, and I think a game developer level programmer is more than able to handle Mac and Linux programming

As mentioned by Infinitron above, WL2 had all three released on the same day. Lets see if Obsidian can do the same with releasing all three on the same day.

How are they involved in a degree?

You're saying Obsidian aren't involved to a degree?

How is this a problem regarding game development? I think they happily sign those, after getting millions during a KS

They may happily sign those 2200+ boxes and 500+ hard cover books. Maybe Brother None or Sea could enlighten us with their experience with WL2? I'd be curious to know how many dev's at inXile (as well as others like MCA) have to sign boxes, an actual number of boxes to sign (There's over 1500) and how this affects the day to day operation.

I think not Josh or Tim Cain will unpack these boxes, but some janitor level anybody, who is not working on a game. Overall, sorry, but your concerns are not valid. We have things we can be concerned about, but not these.

Never said Josh or Tim would be unpacking the boxes. If what I post doesn't interest you, that's okay.

 

[mutonizer]

I have a feeling the next patch will be pretty significant.

Same here...

 

[Hobo Elf]

They have to set a release date to keep themselves motivated enough to finish the game within a reasonable time. Everyone needs dead lines, especially software developers.

They could have set a tentative release date and aim for that. But change it and extend it if things weren't going to plan. But when they lock that date in, they're now committed whether the game is polished or not. And I think they could've done things to extend that date if they weren't confident in releasing the game. Like early access and stretch goals. And I'm sure the backers would have understood. Now that option is well and truly passed and locked in. If they're not confident, or the game isn't polished enough, it's being released regardless.

And it doesn't help with the delay in releasing beta updates. If they continue with 2-3 weeks, we can expect maybe 3 or 4 updates before release? I just hope from now to release, we start seeing some 'wow' stuff, because the game needs it imo.

Software developers are never quite happy with the game they have and feel like it could always use a "little" bit more polish. They'd spend an eternity spit cleaning one game, if they could, and even after all the time they still wouldn't release it. The lack of a hard deadline leads to development cycles similar to Duke Nukem Forever or Titan, which was (recently) finally cancelled. With a deadline people will be pressured to work harder and more efficiently, leading to better results, rather than having an open date which means that people are free to fuck around and do nothing for long expanses of time. You'll end up with cubicles and offices filled with little notes of all the bugs and problems they need to fix, but no actual work being done.

 

[Sensuki]

Some "oh my god I obviously haven't played the Druid much" play

 

[Sensuki]

 

[Duraframe300]

From Brian Macintosh

Yes, there are some significant changes in this patch. We're just making sure this new stuff is stable right now - I wouldn't expect it to take longer than a day. Adam definitely wants to update very soon.

 

[Duraframe300]

enverxis said: What type of Sword is the Sword in Pillars of Eternity (Arming Sword, for instance) and why is it not called that instead ?

Swords encompass all one-handed swords that are larger than a dirk/gladius and are suitable for both cutting and thrusting. A specific sword could be an arming sword or a schiavona or something else in that general category. In contrast, sabres are much more suitable for cutting than thrusting and rapiers are much more suitable for thrusting than cutting.

 

[Duraframe300]

Wouldn't changing the XP system be a big pain in the rear end at this point? Presumably they'd have to go around manually readjusting everything and adding it all up along the way to make sure you can still reach the right levels by the right points

It's really easy actually

 

[Duraframe300]

To elaborate, our XP is all derived out of a relatively small table. We establish tiers of quests (by character level) and allocate a total amount of XP to be spread among all quests marked for that level. In turn, each quest is marked with a given level and as major, standard, or minor. The major/standard/minor classifications determine relative proportion of XP share that the quest gets when all quests are taken into account. So if 28 quests are marked as level 4 and level 4 quests only have 1000xp allocated for them, the per-quest reward is really tiny. We mostly just adjust the allocated XP in each tier and what quests are classified as, level-wise. To accommodate additional sources of XP, we start by determining those fixed-pool allocations and subtract them from the total quest XP. The exploration-related XP is a) not large and b) easy to quantify. The bestiary-related XP is also relatively easy to quantify because we associate total XP per bestiary entry, of which there are a fixed amount. We still have to tune after that basic estimation, but it's not a hard or time-consuming process overall.

We currently track within 1 level of our expected targets for XP acquired over the course of the game, so I'm not too worried about it.

Edit: For context: This relates back to the post just above this one.

 

[Volourn]

Such a dumb way to handle xp. Way too controlled and boring.

 

[Zed]

Such a dumb way to handle xp. Way too controlled and boring.

PoE boring? No way!

 

[SCO]

Butthurt overwhelming.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

Brandon has posted an update with the beta.
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68681-new-backer-beta-patch/

 

[Morality Games]

I have this overwhelming sense that despite the pervasiveness of complaints people will have mostly good feelings toward this game on release day. Negativity will be scattered and muted. Not sure where I acquired this notion.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?forums/wasteland-2.95/

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Pretty sure everyone already knows that's what's going to happen.

 

[Sensuki]

Just got a PM from Dimitri Berman, he's working on fixing the 2H weapon positioning on character's backs for the patch after this, which apparently requires a re-export of all 2H weapons.

 

[Sensuki]

Looks like Brian Macintosh is doing an all nighter to fix his UI bugs

 

[Sensuki]

Brian Macintosh PM to me explaining why dropping of items has been left out

Incidentally, to my understanding item dropping was excluded from the game intentionally not because of UI limitations but because disallowing players from dropping items in arbitrary locations simplifies some parts of the engine (particularly the save-load system), and the introduction of the stash makes it not strictly necessary.

 

[SCO]

Ahah, serialization strikes again.

 

[imweasel]

I have this overwhelming sense that despite the pervasiveness of complaints people will have mostly good feelings toward this game on release day. Negativity will be scattered and muted. Not sure where I acquired this notion.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?forums/wasteland-2.95/

Wasteland 2 also had an extra ten months of development time after the beta was released which drastically improved the game.