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

[Athelas]

You don't have his relentless cynicism.

He's never coming back, is he?

 

[Infinitron]

Athelas trololololo http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/105467468041/combat-is-the-time-when-it-makes-the-most-sense

melnorme asked: "Combat is the time when it makes the most sense for every character to move as fast as they possibly can." Simulationism? In my Pillars? It might make sense for _them_, but for the player it makes sense for them (and everything else) to be slower, because it's during combat that he needs to be able to see what's happening as clearly as possible. Meanwhile, outside of combat, he wants to zip from area to area as quickly as possible.

If your problem is with the speed of movement (or anything) else, that’s why the Fast and Slow modes exist. You can explore in Fast mode and it will automatically drop to normal speed when combat starts. If that’s still too fast, you can drop it directly into Slow.

The faster characters (monks, Wild Sprinting barbarians, animal companions) all move fast enough in combat that it makes more sense for them to be running than power walking. If characters are slowed down, the game does have a threshold where it knows to switch over from slow run to fast walk.

I guess they can't change it now.

 

[tuluse]

he'd just "solve" it by restricting distance between party members or something

I really dislike Sawyer's instinct to always move towards arbitrary restrictions in order to gimp no-brainers, rather than looking towards more systemic solutions. The problem with resting and pre-buffing in IE games was that the player party was the only one active outside of combat. Rather than take something interesting (player activity during non-combat) and balancing things by applying it to the enemy (e.g. having them fortify themselves and lay ambushes while the player rests, or have magically sensitive enemies sense the player using pre-buff spells and either attacking or preparing themselves defensively), Sawyer seemingly invariably reacts by restricting that interesting thing; in this case by restricting player activity and choice during non-combat. It's the dullest imaginable way of achieving balance imo.

Your suggestion is better, but you do realize it's an insane amount of work right? Plus it would actually be a rather radical departure from the the IE spiritual successor that they promised.

So while some of the changes Josh is making are not ideal, I'm ok with them and I'm pretty sure I'm still going to enjoy the game.

 

[Seari]

Slow mode
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Fuck you Sawyer

 

[agris]

That would be cool, but are there actually any RPG's where enemies do what you describe?

The SCS mod for BG1/2 lets enemy mages and priests 'fortify themselves' before fights.

 

[Ninjerk]

You don't have his relentless cynicism.

He's never coming back, is he?

 

[Zed]

anyone else prefer speedwalking to running?
running looks so silly to me.

 

[Athelas]

It's what people would presumably do in a real fight rather than leisurely strolling towards or away from their enemy. Though it's not doing the combat any favors.

I guess they can't change it now.

I guess he meant players using slow mode rather than them slowing the animations down. Though the hobbled status ailment pretty much does produce an extremely slow running animation, so I don't see why they couldn't slow down the general combat speed a bit.

 

[tuluse]

anyone else prefer speedwalking to running?
running looks so silly to me.

The move speed is too fast compared to the attack speed imo. It's just not very pleasant to play. You can't set up AoE traps very easily at all.

I don't bother with the equivalents of cloudkill because the enemies are going to race out in about .0001 seconds.

 

[Seari]

Try using slow mode.

 

[Athelas]

Well, you can estimate where the enemies will be when you're done casting and adjust where you place the AoE accordingly...

...which, with the current movement speed, is usually the other side of the battle field.

 

[Zed]

anyone else prefer speedwalking to running?
running looks so silly to me.

The move speed is too fast compared to the attack speed imo. It's just not very pleasant to play. You can't set up AoE traps very easily at all.

I don't bother with the equivalents of cloudkill because the enemies are going to race out in about .0001 seconds.

I meant animation

 

[Nihiliste]

Consumables as an exclusive solution to characters being able to buff doesn't strike me as an improvement. How many RPGs have made managing consumables interesting?

 

[Bester]

If you get free prebuffs before battle, they might as well just be class bonuses that are always on.

And if you're gonna win battles, they might as well make all enemies die whenever they see you approach. Looks like you could work for Obsidian, they sure could use people like you in there.

That would be cool, but are there actually any RPG's where enemies do what you describe?

There's a mod that does it for BG2, no big deal there.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, you can estimate where the enemies will be when you're done casting and adjust where you place the AoE accordingly...

...which, with the current movement speed, is usually the other side of the battle field.

To be fair, my experience with circular AoEs in the IE games is that they were most often used on either crowds of enemies in confined quarters, who were so dense they couldn't actually move much, or thrown so the edge of the AoE would hit a line of enemies who were attacking your guys (like a kind of WW1-style artillery barrage, calculated to hit the enemy line but not yours). Actually trying to hit a moving target on open ground was pretty unreliable.

Anyway, this has to do with enemy speed, not the party's speed, which they seem more flexible about.

 

[Bester]

Your suggestion is better, but you do realize it's an insane amount of work right? Plus it would actually be a rather radical departure from the the IE spiritual successor that they promised.

And cutting shit out all over the place, introducing engagement, castrating mages etc - that's not a radical departure. Yeah RIGHT.

And it's not an insane amount of work. You change one prefab - all creatures depending on that prefab are changed.

 

[Infinitron]

Uh guys, Jim the Dinosaur was trolling. Having enemies pre-buff does nothing to make the mechanic more interesting for players. From the player's perspective, they're just enemies that happen to be tougher now.

 

[Bester]

Uh guys, Jim the Dinosaur was trolling. Having enemies pre-buff does nothing to make the mechanic more interesting for players. From the player's perspective, they're just enemies that happen to be tougher now.

Sawyerism makes people dumber apparently. No, prebuffs don't just make enemies tougher, end of story. They give you a chance to dispell them, which adds tactical options.

 

[Sensuki]

Combat is the time when it makes the most sense for every character to move as fast as they possibly can

I fucking knew it was because of simulationism without thinking about the combat.

Sounding an awful lot like a simulationist there, Josh.

Damn, beat me to it.

Combat wouldn't look as retarded if they just used the walk animation, and the animation blending wouldn't look as retarded either.

Is it just me or this is very tacky? Instead of having single, strong buffs you gotta cast several watered-down ones to get a proper effect. That's tedious, mindless clicking - and as far as I'm concerned the problem with IE buffing was exactly the tedium involved.

I agree it's tacky. Like I said, their solutions to a 'problem' are sometimes quite stupid. Spells didn't used to be that easy to cast, but they have to be because A) they don't want them to be too strong and B) no one cast them in the early beta versions because they simply weren't worth the cast time in combat. Now there's virtually no opportunity cost to buffing yourself in combat. I think that's a pretty dumb way of solving the problem in Pillars of Eternity, but it does solve the problem.

There's no fucking trade off. Either one option is better than the other or not. And it would be retarded to cast 6 buffs in a fight but you cast the one you need against that particular foe instantly for 0 resource cost and follow with damage spell. Back to trade off, there's no tactical choice, it's just this: either a spell does so much damage that it's too good not to open with or it does too little and you never use it. ever. because it's a party game and you have dedicated damage dealers.

For fuck's sake, the choice of what ability button to press does not equal tactics...Not even in shitty MMOs...

Pretty much yep. Most of the time the Wizard is at the back not getting targeted anyway, I don't believe I've ever cast a single protection spell other than Arcane Veil.

Actually I'mma rant a bit about this "tactics" concept that keeps getting thrown around.

Tactics means that one opponent is smart enough to deduce/figure out/guess what patterns of attack/defence his enemy will use and then make a plan around that pattern that makes the enemy's actions sub-optimal and self-defeating. It actually requires enough knowledge of the enemy and upcoming battle to make an educated guess on what to expect and plan a counter before the battle begins.

No that's strategy bro, not tactics. Tactics is in the moment decision making. Ability choice IS part of tactics, but it's not the only part of tactics, and just because you have a lot of abilities to choose from as a Wizard, that alone doesn't facilitate tactics.

Josh was saying he cast six buffs or some shit, if those are per-day buffs, that's a horrible waste of strategic resources. Currently Wizards have like 4 spell slots, 6 spells is a huge chunk out of those spells just to 'go in first' in combat. That sounds like pretty fucking retarded strategy and tactics to me, that would just send you back to rest at the inn after a few fights. Yawn.

ofc he just fights beetles over and over, so that probably factors into this

Just because I made a video series about Beetles in v278 (which was in October?) I fight beetles over and over do I ?

 

[Johannes]

Uh guys, Jim the Dinosaur was trolling. Having enemies pre-buff does nothing to make the mechanic more interesting for players. From the player's perspective, they're just enemies that happen to be tougher now.

Really now. Have you actually played BG2?

 

[Sensuki]

Enemies that have pre-buffs are better. enemy Wizards are a complete joke in Pillars of Eternity at the moment. Quite possibly one of the easiest classes to overcome.

Good question. In general, I'm not sure how Obsidian have dealt with (if at all) with "separated party exploits".

It depends on the combat state. If the combat state ends at any point, any buffs that are being cast or have been cast will either not work or, will end. However since the combat state is party wide, you could totally do what Jim the Dinosaur said as long as you maintain the combat state.

You can also trigger the combat state by attacking yourself, I'm positive I could find an exploit that would allow pre-buffing there.

TBH I'll probably just mod it back in for my combat mod, because their solution is dumb. So don't worry, guys who want pre-buffing.

 

[Maculo]

I would not mind the lack of pre-buffing as much if the combat and buffs were more clear (via UI or otherwise). The buffs remind me of cooldowns from MMOs, but without the UI and a different combat pace.

 

[Sensuki]

melnorme asked: "Combat is the time when it makes the most sense for every character to move as fast as they possibly can." Simulationism? In my Pillars? It might make sense for _them_, but for the player it makes sense for them (and everything else) to be slower, because it's during combat that he needs to be able to see what's happening as clearly as possible. Meanwhile, outside of combat, he wants to zip from area to area as quickly as possible.

If your problem is with the speed of movement (or anything) else, that’s why the Fast and Slow modes exist. You can explore in Fast mode and it will automatically drop to normal speed when combat starts. If that’s still too fast, you can drop it directly into Slow.

The faster characters (monks, Wild Sprinting barbarians, animal companions) all move fast enough in combat that it makes more sense for them to be running than power walking. If characters are slowed down, the game does have a threshold where it knows to switch over from slow run to fast walk.

Completely missed your point I think. I've never known a real-time game where units only speed up in combat. Pathable space is generally limited unless you're in an open map and movement after the opening is penalized during combat due to the engagement system and slowed recovery for ranged users. A run animation and fast movement speed only facilitates a full speed melee clash at the beginning of combat, which is completely different to how most Infinity Engine encounters played out.

Movement in combat in this game should be abstracted, not fucking simulationist.

 

[Hormalakh]

Won't this system of arbitrarily limiting buffs to combat just lead to silly situations where you "start combat" with a fast character far away from your party just to move back to your party so mages and priests have time to pre-buff?

Good point, though, you still have to wait until the enemy reaches you or you reach the enemy, time that reduces how long you have your buff. Easiest way to "fix" this is by giving buffs that are short in time - enough for half the battle time or the whole battle time, which is already like 1.4 seconds.

 

[Sensuki]

Some pre-buffs in the IE games only had a few rounds worth of time, so often they ran out before combat began if you casted them too early in the pre-buff chain