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

[Cubiq]

Not the support department that's for sure

 

[Rumsteak]

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

Glad to see that they finally pull their fingers out and do some extra work. Their patches have been quite infrequent and underwhelming so far.

 

[aeonsim]

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.

Well good so your original "Gone" actually means not enough/not powerful enough spells rather than actually "gone", as in does not exist (for a number of the spell schools). So in some of these cases you should be arguing that the spells need to be balanced/improved rather than saying that do not exist.

Also a number of your missing spells are 7th lvl or higher, do we even have those in PoE yet (assuming similar spell levels)? Symbol of Death, Control Undead, Finger of Death.
Ghoul Touch has a replacement in Fetid Caress lvl 2, Death Ring may be a weak AoE insta-kill for weak enemies based on it's description.

Most of the "one shot fight over" spells have been removed or are currently not available in the spell ranges we have access to in the the first PoE game. Your also assuming that the PoE classes are going to follow the D&D spell progression and top out at around 9th class spells and are therefore assuming that a 6th lvl PoE spell should be equal to a 6th lvl BG2 spell. Now this may have been confirmed somewhere but I don't remember reading anything saying that.

In generally it seems to me that the Wizard class has been changed to a AOE energy manipulation class, with a few other abilities. Effectively they've become a classes designed to be versatile in damage dealing (ability to attack pretty much any defence). Other abilities like such as Summons and enemy manipulation have been moved to other classes.

Now this means they're certainly not as versatile as the D&D ones, and that you really need to treat the PoE wizards as a Kit/specialised wizard.
Wizard - Strong Evocation and Illusion specialist with a touch of Alteration and Necromancy.
Chanter - Appear to be the strong Summoning mage.
Ciphers - Strong Enchantment with some Evocation.

I do agree that the inability to pre-cast is a loss, though I do understand the reason for removing it.
And spell duals between mages have certainly need reduced or completely removed.

 

[Sensuki]

Here's my first public demo of it removed, just a short one, I'll try and record a longer session in a bit

 

[Hormalakh]

All that shows is that there's no reason to get rid of the engagement mechanic - as in engagement doesn't really make much of a difference in regular, passive combat. So why remove it?

It's a good first step but doesn't make much of an argument.

If you want to argue that engagement is not a good way of doing it, you have to try to break the game without engagement and see how cheesable it is. Try kiting, etc and see if it's egregious. Try maintaining melee area control. If a game without engagement is the same as with engagement (mostly) then it's not doing it's job.

 

[Sensuki]

It's neither an argument or a video that I will be using for my thread and that's exactly what I'm doing.

This was a video for the people who are QQing about me wanting to remove it, showcasing that it won't affect how they play the game.

In removing it I've found a few issues, AI related issues and animation related issues. Some weapons don't interact properly with moving targets (stilettos and greatswords for example) whereas a guy with an Estoc can easily skewer someone running away and units running after someone sometimes do this weird stutter because of an animation blending issue with running and the combat stance.

Before I post anything I want to find all the issues and exploits with no melee engagement and try and prove that it will be much less effort to do it that way, while also improving the gameplay.

One big plus is that it takes a lot of useless clutter from the screen (Engagement arrows and no need for custom engagement selection circle)

 

[Sensuki]

HAHAHA OH MY GOD AHHAHA AHAHAHH amazing video incoming

 

[Sensuki]

PRODOTO

 

[Athelas]

Now make a video of a party of 6 fighters destroying every enemy in the game by only using disengagement attacks.

 

[Sensuki]

It's on the list, that's for sure.

 

[Sensuki]

 

[Weirdstuffinspace]

Thanks Sensuki, at least I now know that whatever happens, and no matter how shitty and xp-less the combat will be, I can still have an excellent second playthrough with an all star metal singer party with matching soundtrack.

 

[Arkeus]

PRODOTO

Can you explain what's going on? Pretty sure i don't get what you are doing there.

 

[Sensuki]

I'm using action cancel to cancel the animation backswing, apparently if you do it before the animation ends you never go into recovery time ... hahah

 

[Christophe Desmarais]

let's not forget, shane defreest has a long standing history of blowing company budgets and hiring friends he want to impress for these gigs. He does so not in the best interest of his employers and their projects, but in the interest of his ego. He's been unceremoniously fired from every gaming company he's ever worked for, for unnecessary spending on these cons and parties that are ultimately only about making himself look good. who knows where the $$ came from, but that's where it went - no doubt the remaining time on shane's clock at obsidian is swiftly ticking away.

This thread still around? Aces.



I like how Obsidian felt it necessary to hire booth babes to promote this. Where'd the money come from to pay them? Was it Kickstarter funds, Paradox, or Feargus's own pocket?

This thread still around? Aces.

I like how Obsidian felt it necessary to hire booth babes to promote this. Where'd the money come from to pay them? Was it Kickstarter funds, Paradox, or Feargus's own pocket?

 

[Bester]

Tilda Swinton, eugh.

 

[Sensuki]

Just recorded the 6 Fighter Disengagement Attack example, it is glorious.

 

[Sensuki]

Don't repost this anywhere yet please, if I find it reposted I'll just make it private.

 

[Seari]

Improving AI will fix it.

 

[edhead]

What if, instead of ditching the whole engagement system, you just make enemies switch targets immediately after being engaged and only provoke a disengagement attack if they attempt to switch back and pursue the ranger? Maybe that would improve matters somewhat?

 

[Shevek]

I havent seen the latest vid but I noticed its six fighters. Is the issue defender mode increasing the engagement radius again? Can six rogues or six paladins do this?

 

[Sensuki]

Not as bad, you can clump up 2-3 Rogues and get a few disengagement attacks and you can stack sneak attack damage on top of it, which is pretty nasty (also Deep Wounds if you're level 6) and Barbarians have Carnage, so multiple Barbarians together can do a disengagement attack each and a Carnage AoE hit on every nearby enemy

The Fighters one is insane because of multiple engagements and larger engagement range.

You can also kite single enemies with two characters and get repeated free disengagement attacks over and over again if you micro properly (I made a video about that a long time ago).

 

[Hormalakh]

What if, instead of ditching the whole engagement system, you just make enemies switch targets immediately after being engaged and only provoke a disengagement attack if they attempt to switch back and pursue the ranger? Maybe that would improve matters somewhat?

What you're advocating for is that the computer should be able to do something superhuman and that pc players shouldn't be able to that same exact thing. If the computer can immediately switch targets after being engaged, why shouldn't players be allowed to do the same thing? This is poor game design. Simple solutions like this won't solve the problem.

 

[Hormalakh]

Improving AI will fix it.

And if not AI, then UI!

 

[Shevek]

Well, you do present interesting points. I am curious how the devs will respond. I still think AI can deal with this by making creatures mindful of nearby enemies when giving chase. But if thats not the case, you may get your wish.