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

[Sensuki]

That's fine I'm just saying that your reasons for enjoying it are probably beyond what it does under the hood.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

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.

Let's dissect what you said.

>There are spell defence spells
Yeah, there's ONE spell that reflects damage. First, your mage is never going to get targeted, and second, it takes as much time to kill a mage as to cast this spell. There are no layers of protection, which is a huge problem.
There are spells that increase DT for a short duration to match a warrior's DT. But there's nothing like Stoneskin, immunity to normal/magicalal weapons, invisibility, etc. There's nothing that would give a wizard at least 15 seconds of respite and allow him to cast a few spells before becoming vulnerable again. And worst of all, those DT increasing spells can't be cast before the fight. You open with a mage - you're dead. You can't even prebuff yourself with a few DT increasing spells and open with a mage. So you never open with a mage, and once you open with a warrior, you never have to cast any defenses on your mage anyway because the AI won't target you. It's sadness...

> there are a number of life drain/theft spells (necromancy).
Exactly, so instead of this list of spells: Animate Dead, Command Undead, Disrupt Undead, Finger of Death, Ghoul Touch, Speak with Dead, Symbol of Death, etc
You have this list: drain hp.
Steal a spell is not necromancy, but ok, let's discuss it as well: you're probably never going to steal a low level spell, because it's useless tactics-wise. Stealing a HIGH level spell could be interesting in a long fight against a high level caster, like a lich. But there's no such thing in PoE, because see point 1 - mages have no effective defensive spells.
Drain is useless, considering that it's got lower damage and your mage is never in need of hp anyway.

> enchanted weapon creation (a staff and a second higher level weapon)
You can't give them to anyone, and you can't summon them before the fight. And during the fight they're a waste of time, since they damage less than magic missiles. Again, a useless spell that was made for the sake of making some spells.

> Teleportation (combat)
K. Thank you Josh Sawyer.

 

[Osvir]

And does it matter? Do I need to open the hood to know how to drive a car?

 

[Seari]

And does it matter? Do I need to open the hood to know how to drive a car?

You are an idiot.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah Minor Grimoire Imprint is pretty useless. Good idea, just bad implementation.

Josh recently nerfed the best Wizard level 1 spell and made it melee cast range never using it again (until I mod the range back)

 

[Rake]

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.

Let's dissect what you said.

>There are spell defence spells
Yeah, there's ONE spell that reflects damage. First, your mage is never going to get targeted, and second, it takes as much time to kill a mage as to cast this spell. There are no layers of protection, which is a huge problem.
There are spells that increase DT for a short duration to match a warrior's DT. But there's nothing like Stoneskin, immunity to normal/magicalal weapons, invisibility, etc. There's nothing that would give a wizard at least 15 seconds of respite and allow him to cast a few spells before becoming vulnerable again. And worst of all, those DT increasing spells can't be cast before the fight. You open with a mage - you're dead. You can't even prebuff yourself with a few DT increasing spells and open with a mage. So you never open with a mage, and once you open with a warrior, you never have to cast any defenses on your mage anyway because the AI won't target you. It's sadness...

> there are a number of life drain/theft spells (necromancy).
Exactly, so instead of this list of spells: Animate Dead, Command Undead, Disrupt Undead, Finger of Death, Ghoul Touch, Speak with Dead, Symbol of Death, etc
You have this list: drain hp.
Steal a spell is not necromancy, but ok, let's discuss it as well: you're probably never going to steal a low level spell, because it's useless tactics-wise. Stealing a HIGH level spell could be interesting in a long fight against a high level caster, like a lich. But there's no such thing in PoE, because see point 1 - mages have no effective defensive spells.
Drain is useless, considering that it's got lower damage and your mage is never in need of hp anyway.

> enchanted weapon creation (a staff and a second higher level weapon)
You can't give them to anyone, and you can't summon them before the fight. And during the fight they're a waste of time, since they damage less than magic missiles. Again, a useless spell that was made for the sake of making some spells.

> Teleportation (combat)
K. Thank you Josh Sawyer.

And you know the sad part? When you typed the word LICH in the context of PoE, instead of BG2 liches (the only IE game that liches felt special, IWD liches were a joke comparatively due to Josh Sawyer again) what it came to my mind was Warcraft 3 liches like Kel'Thuzad. Just another hero equal with the others. Why bother to steal his spells/abilities when with the same effort i can kill him?
High level caster in PoE doesn't feel like much of a threat, i suspect a High level Fighter/Monk/Rogue will be much harder to deal with

 

[Sensuki]

Just recorded a pretty hilarious disengagement abuse video using equipment from the beta. Will upload shortly

 

[Shevek]

Weren't you the guy saying that exploits in the IE games were no big deal and that people chose whether or not to exploit a system, etc etc? Anywho, I am genuinely happy you are finding these things. Seriously, all the bugs, exploits, etc you post about just helps the devs address those issues. I am sure they will see your video and then procede to fix and make the mechanic better.

 

[Sensuki]

Say it - "engagement is not broken"

 

[Sensuki]

I saw your edit from

to this

Weren't you the guy saying that exploits in the IE games were no big deal and that people chose whether or not to exploit a system, etc etc?

Wouldn't you prefer if the IE games exploits were removed from the game or fixed?

I was the person saying I didn't really use them. You were the one who confessed to playing them abusing web/cloudkill and rest spam, not me. As per my IWD Lets' Play, you will see that I most certainly DO NOT abuse rest spam, even with the rest anywhere mod installed.

 

[Shevek]

Fixed <-- sure

I just think we have a different idea of what that means. Perspective and all that.

Edits: Ya man, I am trying to dial down the hate. Its not healthy.

 

[Sensuki]

I don't hate you, but I hate some of your opinions

 

[Sensuki]

And done.

 

[Shevek]

I don't hate you, but I hate some of your opinions

Fair enough.

Edit:
Just saw vid. You know, its an abuse, but, its not that bad. The IE games had far worse abuse. In this one, you needed some very specific characters to effectively make the engagement attacks (fighters) and a priest to make them crit on it. Its an ambush. I think with some AI work (outside of the mechanic), that can be curbed.

 

[Abu Antar]

If they are going to keep engagement in the game, they need better AI that avoids your characters when they are chasing their current target. I'm also thinking that maybe when a character gets engaged by another character, they stop and fight instead of going on and getting killed by disengagement attacks.

It seems the system is here to stay, but they need to work on it for a long time if it is going to be good.

 

[Sensuki]

they need better AI that avoids your characters when they are chasing their current target

To get around that I'll just move my character slightly before they get in range (easier in slow mode) and boom, still score disengagement attacks. That would also create issues with pathfinding in narrow areas.

The system is not here to stay, in fact v364's gameplay improvements makes it possible to remove engagement and it plays very nicely - attack animations interact better with moving targets AND there's target re-acquisition. I am removing it from the game in a mod on release and modifying all associated abilities.

Obsidian can waste their precious development time trying to fix a broken system, that's their choice but that's not something I want them to do, that time could be better spent elsewhere - it's going to eat into 2D art, animation time, programming time and design time - no fucking thankyou.

 

[Shevek]

I am sure they can get the AI to switch to ranged weapons at distance (if humanoid) or to switch to nearest target to avoid an engagment attack when closing. Its an issue but its not a huge one. Also, having you be able to do this to the occasional non-intelligent enemy is ok.

 

[Sensuki]

Not all enemies have ranged weapons, and I don't believe they'll be able to fix it.

You try and tell me a solution that doesn't horribly trivalize the system, and I'll tell you how to break it.

 

[Abu Antar]

they need better AI that avoids your characters when they are chasing their current target

To get around that I'll just move my character slightly before they get in range (easier in slow mode) and boom, still score disengagement attacks. That would also create issues with pathfinding in narrow areas.

The system is not here to stay, in fact v364's gameplay improvements makes it possible to remove engagement and it plays very nicely - attack animations interact better with moving targets AND there's target re-acquisition. I am removing it from the game in a mod on release and modifying all associated abilities.

Obsidian can waste their precious development time trying to fix a broken system, that's their choice but that's not something I want them to do, that time could be better spent elsewhere - it's going to eat into 2D art, animation time, programming time and design time - no fucking thankyou.

What I mean is that Obsidian ((Josh?) want it in the game and it will be part of the vanilla game.

 

[Shevek]

Well, we can agree to disagree. I just don't think its that's big of an issue. Thank you for bringing to their attention; I am sure they will be able fiddle with the AI so it is a bit more mindful when giving chase.

And, players will always find exploits. I really don't think this one is that bad. The IE games had much easier to abuse mechanics than this.

 

[Sensuki]

What I mean is that Obsidian ((Josh?) want it in the game and it will be part of the vanilla game.

Maybe, but I'm not giving up.

Well, we can agree to disagree.

That's fine but like I said, it won't make a lick of a difference to how you play the game in the end I don't think, whereas it will for me.

 

[Seaking4]

I like the idea behind engagement but if it doesn't work it doesn't work and I don't see any reason to stick with it. Although there is only so much you can get from watching videos of the beta.

 

[Sensuki]

Some of the Obsidian guys must be working on the weekend.

 

[Abu Antar]

The QA guys, it seems.

 

[Sensuki]

BMac was on before too.