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

[Mrowak]

It was a serious question, but okay

In that case, I guess I simply don't have data to discuss with you and I do not fancy to play the game again at its current stage of development. BTW, when is it getting released?

 

[Infinitron]

It was a serious question, but okay

In that case, I guess I simply don't have data to discuss with you and I do not fancy to play the game again at its current stage of development. BTW, when is it getting released?

Next year, possibly in March

 

[Starwars]

The current beta is nice in that it's actually the first version where I can play through all of the content with bugs not really getting in the way. First time I've gone through Lle A Rhemen. Played through on Normal this time which felt a bit easy overall but perhaps appropiate giving how many times we've played through much of the beta content now. Not sure, I think I would've liked it to be slightly harder at least.

The game is a lot of fun in my opinion. Can't wait to play the final version.

 

[Rake]

It was a serious question, but okay

PoE spells are severly underwhelming compaired to even that, and it's by design. And don't start about overpowered mages. Nothing stoped Josh from making the mages on par with the BG2 ones, and use the soul excuse to give the other classes hard counters and supernatural abilities of equal power. Give Chanter all summoning spells and allow out of combat summons. Give cipher all the charm/stun/dominate, but increase the duration of these spells as it was in AD&D.
Give rogue invisibility/short range teleport/ shadow door/poison abilities. Make paladins magic registand like monks were in BG2. Give monks antimagic abilities like inquisitors had in BG2 etc.
You could retain class balance while still having overwhelming magic, hard counters and chess like wizard duels with move and countermove. Only now the other classes could take part in those duels as well, turning BG2 wizard duels in PoE party duels.

Here you go

 

[tuluse]

Cyphers and Chanters are very fun imo.

Mages come next for me, and I find the BB mage more fun than the BB priest.

Monks are also cool.

I haven't spent much time with paladins, druids or rangers, but I don't like fighters, rogues or barbarians,

 

[Infinitron]

It was a serious question, but okay

PoE spells are severly underwhelming compaired to even that, and it's by design. And don't start about overpowered mages. Nothing stoped Josh from making the mages on par with the BG2 ones, and use the soul excuse to give the other classes hard counters and supernatural abilities of equal power. Give Chanter all summoning spells and allow out of combat summons. Give cipher all the charm/stun/dominate, but increase the duration of these spells as it was in AD&D.
Give rogue invisibility/short range teleport/ shadow door/poison abilities. Make paladins magic registand like monks were in BG2. Give monks antimagic abilities like inquisitors had in BG2 etc.
You could retain class balance while still having overwhelming magic, hard counters and chess like wizard duels with move and countermove. Only now the other classes could take part in those duels as well, turning BG2 wizard duels in PoE party duels.

Here you go

Thanks. Now, what abilities do you plan to give those classes for the high level sequel

I don't know man, this yearning for AAAwesome abilities...I don't need to tell you what it reminds one of.

 

[Rake]

It was a serious question, but okay

PoE spells are severly underwhelming compaired to even that, and it's by design. And don't start about overpowered mages. Nothing stoped Josh from making the mages on par with the BG2 ones, and use the soul excuse to give the other classes hard counters and supernatural abilities of equal power. Give Chanter all summoning spells and allow out of combat summons. Give cipher all the charm/stun/dominate, but increase the duration of these spells as it was in AD&D.
Give rogue invisibility/short range teleport/ shadow door/poison abilities. Make paladins magic registand like monks were in BG2. Give monks antimagic abilities like inquisitors had in BG2 etc.
You could retain class balance while still having overwhelming magic, hard counters and chess like wizard duels with move and countermove. Only now the other classes could take part in those duels as well, turning BG2 wizard duels in PoE party duels.

Here you go

1)Thanks. Now, what abilities do you plan to give those classes for the high level sequel

2)I don't know man, this yearning for AAAwesome abilities...I don't need to tell you what it reminds one of.

1)Nothing. Just increase the magic registance- antimagic potential or whatever. The point is that other classes have ways to interfere with spellcasting and counter mages, not giving every class equal abilities to mages. And if Josh disagrees, i don't see why he couldn't give other classes stronger HLA. What exactly stops him?
2)Hey, not my idea that all classes should have symetrical progression, not mentioning active abilities. I would be indifferent if mages left every other class in the dust, and i would actualy prefer if 2/3 of the classes were 100% passive.

 

[Infinitron]

Or you could accept that low magic, subtlety and pacing are also oldschool values, not just muh quadratic wizards

 

[Rake]

Yes, there is also that, but in that case the ball is on Obsidian to make this kind of combat interesting. And so far their efforts seem...lacking.

 

[Osvir]

I agree with the bolded part Rake.

What sort of Barbarian did you have? Mine had Savage Attacks, One-Handed Mastery, Weapon Focus Sword, not a tank, but dealt tons of raw damage. Wild Rush is fun too, and extremely helpful. Both defensive and offensive (breaks disengagement attacks too IIRC). Repositioning etc. Much like the Rogue's "Escape", but to get into combat instead of out of it. This was on Easy, and this was my first successful Barbarian, all the other got squished (they seem to be pretty fragile and/or easy to hit).

Though, I wonder if the Rogue can become a bit more bardic, and perhaps have some lighter version only ally buff Chanter songs path in skills.

I also made an Aumauan Wizard Duo, BB Wizard, BB Fighter, BB Rogue, BB Priest, on Path of the Damned/Trial of Iron/Expert. Nyfre's group didn't stand a chance. Wizards are extremely fun in groups, and extremely powerful, but perhaps there was some expectancy in the air that there'd be 5'000 magical and fantastical spells that we were all thinking about collectively in different, equal, and opposing views, and trillions of schools of magic would exist. It'd sure be amazing, but reality exists too.

Wizards are most fun in groups I find, where one Wizard is one type of Wizard, and the other is another type of Wizard, and together nuke stuff into obliteration. I'm sure more spells will come out of expansions and mods as well.

Druids would be more interesting if they were split up in Generalist/Nature Druid, and Shapeshifting Druid, I think. Ciphers, Monks or Rangers I haven't gotten into much yet, Fighter is pretty standard with some improvements, Rogues are pretty familiar as well (apart from that everyone goes into sneak mode when sneaking, instead of individually), Priests are also pretty familiar. And Chanters are really fun.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

perhaps there was some expectancy in the air that there'd be 5'000 magical and fantastical spells that we were all thinking about collectively in different, equal, and opposing views, and trillions of schools of magic would exist. It'd sure be amazing, but reality exists too.

Trillions of schools of magic, eh? Good one. I'd suggest instead there was an expectancy that mages and spells would have more similarities in terms of variety and play-style with those in the IE games. Of course, once Josh confirmed that he wouldn't be including utility spells or hard counters it was inevitable that the variety and breadth of the magic system would be reduced. It's an inevitable result of a design decision and we've known about it for a while so there's not much point in debating it all again.

We can only hope that the other classes and the "balance" in the final game will make up for it overall.

 

[Osvir]

Well, I am exaggerating, duh. But... it'd be amazing with endless potential magic, in any fantasy game :D I'm sure many Devs/Artists agree in wanting to create it, but knows of limitations of reality.

I'm responding to many of the comments seemingly being disappointed about not having utility spells. I can't necessarily disagree, it'd be amazing with them and perhaps 100-200 (more realistic number) Spells, with a couple of unique Eora Universe Spell Schools. But I accept reality Then again, with all the soul business, maybe becoming a Chanter is a type of Spell School?

I think the spells are cool still though, and there is variation in it, and that Wizards are fun to use, but thus far definately most fun to use together (2-3 of them). I've got to try a full fledged 6 Wizard Party :D everything will get turned to dust >=D

 

[Starwars]

Was there ever a reason given for the omission of utility spells?

I hope they can introduce some of that stuff in the expansion and/or, if it happens, the sequel. To be honest, the game as it stands feels pretty ambitious in many ways, especially for a first game in the series so to speak. I don't know the budget of BG1 but the backer beta discussions are really mostly about the combat side of things right now which some people feel is bad (I'm pretty sure I'll end up liking the combat a lot more in PoE than the BGs at least), whereas I think there will be a lot *more* to expect in the ways of reactivity, c&c and so forth than BG1 ever had (any of the IE games really). There's the stronghold too which seems to be pretty involved.

But yeah, I do hope more situational, and sorta "odd-ball", spells will be added to the franchise at some point.

 

[Roguey]

Poppin' in this thread to point out that I noticed that this page right here http://eternity.obsidian.net/buy sez it's going to be out in "early spring," so last week of March at the earliest. 29 months? 29 months. Maybe a few weeks more into April.

 

[Athelas]

Was there ever a reason given for the omission of utility spells?

If you mean spells like Identify and Knock, then I think it's because Sawyer/Obsidian probably interpreted the 'essence' of the IE games as being combat-focused RPG's (as opposed to something like Fallout/Arcanum).

 

[Arkeus]

If you mean spells like Identify and Knock, then I think it's because Sawyer/Obsidian probably interpreted the 'essence' of the IE games as being combat-focused RPG's (as opposed to something like Fallout/Arcanum).

'Knock' is because it renders by itself a skill useless (lockpicking).

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah I don't understand Infinitron, you make a thread saying that Codexers prefer shit combat, and when we advocate for better combat, you have a go at us for it?

Wild Rush is fun too, and extremely helpful. Both defensive and offensive (breaks disengagement attacks too IIRC).

No it doesn't. You clearly haven't been paying attention to what abilities do. Well that actually may be because Obsidian hasn't included the raw stats of abilities. Wild Sprint ignores the interrupt of disengagement attacks but gives you -20 Deflection. So yeah if you use it to disengage there's a very high chance you'll be critically hit disengaging - it's a woefully shit ability.

 

[Sensuki]

Josh on targeting indicators being changed

Kaz is trying out different indicators. I believe that build was made while he was in the middle of making another revision.

The selection circles and targeting indicators need to support displaying Engagement, so his iterations are working toward that.

 

[aeonsim]

Wizards are completely generic. Everything that made mages cool in dnd was tossed. They're now like wow's mages - generic dps (and a web... so what?). Gone are:
- spell combinations, like cast cloudkill and send in skeletons
- protection spells, layers of defense and dispelling spells.. forget mage duels
- spells that mages now don't have: invisibility, teleportation, summons, enchanted weapon creation, divination school spells, necromancy, actually it'll go faster if I just say this - almost all spell schools are gone.

The new mage spell schools: fireball school and web school.

And they do have some (an extremely small amount of) interesting spells, but they're nipped in the bud by their uselessness, due to PoE's lack of prebuffs, fights speed, recovery times and AI that doesn't target intelligently.

So have you been playing the beta? Because of the spell types you listed as missing at least 3 or 4 are in the game for wizards.

There are spell defence spells, Teleportation (combat), enchanted weapon creation (a staff and a second higher level weapon), there are a number of life drain/theft spells (necromancy).

With regards to utility spells I wouldn't be surprised to see if they turn up as dialogue options in interaction screens and conversations at some point (much like the options given if you have a cipher in the party in the beta). I don't particularly mind the loss of them as actual spells if you can still do similar things in interactions, any way will be interesting to see what the do in the full game.

Many of the spells do interact in beneficial ways, though not as crazily as cloud kill + skeletons.

 

[Osvir]

Yeah I don't understand Infinitron, you make a thread saying that Codexers prefer shit combat, and when we advocate for better combat, you have a go at us for it?

Wild Rush is fun too, and extremely helpful. Both defensive and offensive (breaks disengagement attacks too IIRC).

No it doesn't. You clearly haven't been paying attention to what abilities do. Well that actually may be because Obsidian hasn't included the raw stats of abilities. Wild Sprint ignores the interrupt of disengagement attacks but gives you -20 Deflection. So yeah if you use it to disengage there's a very high chance you'll be critically hit disengaging - it's a woefully shit ability.

I see! I disagree though, I think it's fun to use and it was very useful and helpful in my game and how I played with it. Note: Played with it. Not "Tested" with it.

 

[Sensuki]

Beneficial interaction is usually only related to status effects, which is a bit of a shame. Various things give the Rogue a sneak attack and stuff like that.

I see! I disagree though, I think it's fun to use and it was very useful and helpful in my game and how I played with it. Note: Played with it. Not "Tested" with it.

It's not useful for disengaging, it ignores the hit reaction but makes you take more damage. No one can hit you fast enough to stop you again after the hit reaction anyway, so for that purpose it is really bad. The movement benefit can be made close to useless with pre-positioning.

 

[Osvir]

I still disagree.

I had several moments where I had my BB Figher and Barbarian deal with one enemy, and meanwhile my Paladin was dealing with another enemy. Wild Rush helped to get from one point to another point quickly, and shift the positioning in combat. Sure, I probably took a hit when I did it (and didn't notice it, or maybe now realizing why my Barbarian got half Endurance from time to time xD)

The Barbarian wasn't a tank on my playthrough, it was more of a Chess Knight, or a Rook, a Mobile DPS Fighter, more or less aiding other set pieces on the board where needed, or if I entered battle prematurely, I could do Wild Rush to get the Barbarian into a good position in time.

EDIT: It also saved my Priest one or two times, and my Wizard one time IIRC.

EDIT EDIT: Again, I was playing the game, immersing myself in it. Wrote some "in character" notes in the Journal, to represent a Diary of sorts. It's a different experience to work with a game, and play with a game.

 

[Shevek]

It's a different experience to work with a game, and play with a game.

Yup

 

[Sensuki]

lol, you record yourself using it and I'll bet it will be that Wild Sprint helped you take more damage and get to the Paladin with no difference between the creature/unit attacking him's recovery.

Believe whatever you like

 

[Osvir]

Why do I constantly write Wild Rush xD I'm mixing it up with something else from some other game.

I believe I played combat the way I wanted to play combat, and there's nothing more to it really, just like Shevek played the combat like he wanted to play the combat in his video I saw something happen, and I reacted to it, and it worked, and it did what I wanted it to do, even if I took Endurance damage for it. Of course, I could've done it more effective, used a skill, perhaps even knockdown on the target, and Wild Sprint afterwards to avoid the AoO.