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

[Hormalakh]

Your fear of engagement makes me wonder if it isn't a good idea with poor implementation, sensuki. I really hope they figure the engagement bit out and get all the bugs and extra shit taken out because I'd like to play with it.

Also, I hope they have a monster that can AOE remove status effects/buffs/debuffs. That sucker will be scary.

Also Bester Sensuki for the mod. Looks sexy

 

[Sensuki]

One thing this game highlights: There's nothing wrong with being immune to certain things, the way other games do it.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I was first planning to run through the game unmodded and then with Sensuki/Bester stuff but am starting to think I might be better off just playing with their mod from the start considering I actually liked IE games.

 

[J_C]

One thing this game highlights: There's nothing wrong with being immune to certain things, the way other games do it.

It is really scary/funny that Sawyer think that it is good design to remove them.

 

[Infinitron]

It is really scary/funny that Sawyer think that it is good design to remove them.

Uh, immunity hardly equals automatic incline. You know what game had a prominent immunity mechanic? Witcher 2, with its Quen spell. Really awesome design, that.

Stripped down to their core, immunities can quickly become tedious rock paper scissors busywork. The reason people liked them in Baldur's Gate 2 was the whole high level strategic spell memorization/preparation metagame behind them and the relatively uncommon wizard duel context in which you used them, which made you feel like a Crazy-Prepared arcane badass.

Immunity itself as a mechanic can be as popamole as anything else.

 

[Sensuki]

Not really. Creatures and characters being immune to arrows was actually one of the ways that archery dominance was mitigated in BG2. You couldn't use it against every encounter. Golems are another example. In Icewind Dale the Harder Yxunomei (+3 weapons or higher) and Harder Belhifet (virtually immune to most spells) mods make them much tougher to deal with, forcing you to be a bit creative sometimes.

While this kind of stuff won't exist in Pillars of Eternity, the means are there to make creatures/characters very resistant to certain types of attacks/status effects. Not actually sure whether Obsidian went that route though, and if they don't - I'll look into it via modding.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh, so we're talking about characters with flat-out natural immunities to stuff even without spells? That doesn't even give you the satisfaction of having participated in something awesome like a mage duel, it's just a big fat "lol you're fucked" that you get occasionally if you're not prepared with the right weapons. I guess it rewards the Crazy-Prepared item hoarder playstyle, though.

High resistances that still let you do 1-2 damage instead of flat-out immunity are better. Play Banner Saga and you'll see

 

[Seari]

You have 6 fucking characters, it's not hard to adapt to immunities. Makes the combat fun.

 

[Sensuki]

Oh, so we're talking about characters with flat-out natural immunities to stuff even without spells? That doesn't even give you the satisfaction of having participated in something awesome like a mage duel, it's just a big fat "lol you're fucked" that you get occasionally if you're not prepared with the right weapons. I guess it rewards the Crazy-Prepared item hoarder playstyle, though.

I can't think of a single case where you're never not prepared for immunities in the IE games. Quite often the designers would conveniently place the right gear near the encounters with immunities. A cool one I remember is in the BG2 De'Arnise Keep, there's a War Hammer +1, +4 vs Giantkin on one of the pedestals, but as soon as you take it you wake up the Iron Golem nearby you can only hit those things with +3 or greater weapons, Blunt weapons do full damage, and I think *maybe* sometimes if you're lucky you can pierce their magic resistance as well with magic missiles.

To beat that I usually gave the War Hammer to my PC who's never proficient with War Hammers, and you need a Mage and Priest handy nearby because the Iron Golem slows and poisons you. Those golems are a nice little tactical challenge because using your whole party vs that encounter is a dumb idea. I usually just use 3-4 characters for that one and quite often not at the same time.

 

[Infinitron]

It can be better if a game really encourages you to carry around a variety of weapons. But AD&D, with its narrow weapon proficiency system (which bizarrely was made even narrower in BG2, wtf) did the opposite. The system tells you to pick one weapon and focus on it, and then later on it's like "LOL, you believed that? Why'd you sell all those other weapons? Should have kept that +4 club against golems, loser!"

But beyond that, I think players WANT to build and roleplay characters that use a certain iconic weapon type and they feel a little cheated out of their roleplay experience when they're blatantly forced to use something else. So it's like, if my dwarven axeman can help out with 1-2 points of damage per hit against the enemy with high resistance to axes while the other guys in my party do most of the damage, that can be nice. And maybe if they all get incapacitated, he gets to be the last one alive and score the killing blow against the heavily weakened enemy, and save the day. Instead of the player having to reload a saved game at that point.

This is pretty usual gameplay in these sorts of games, isn't it? I mean, RTSes AFAIK don't really ever give out immunities so casually. High resistances, yes, like Age of Empires with its classic rock paper scissors formula, but not immunity.

 

[Sensuki]

I don't think that's necessarily true. Sure, there are derp idiots that exist that get mad if their specific character concept isn't effective 100% of the time. There are also derps who get mad if their specific party that they want to play struggles at certain points in the game. I certainly don't cry a river when the weapons that I use aren't effective, I use something else and I assume most other people would adapt to the situation.

However on that subject, not specifically related to absolute immunities. I think that melee combat in Pillars of Eternity should be more viable than it currently is. It is severely outclassed by disable and ranged spam. Mind you, the Infinity Engine games were like that too, but melee combat was _way_ more viable than it is in PE BB v392.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

It can be better if a game really encourages you to carry around a variety of weapons. But AD&D, with its narrow weapon proficiency system (which bizarrely was made even narrower in BG2, wtf) did the opposite. The system tells you to pick one weapon and focus on it, and then later on it's like "LOL, you believed that? Why'd you sell all those other weapons? Should have kept that +4 club against golems, loser!"

But beyond that, I think players WANT to build and roleplay characters that use a certain iconic weapon type and they feel a little cheated out of their roleplay experience when they're blatantly forced to use something else. So it's like, if my dwarven axeman can help out with 1-2 points of damage per hit against the enemy with high resistance to axes while the other guys in my party do most of the damage, that can be nice

I don't really get that theory. In BG2 I carried around a range of weapons, for use in different situations. It did encourage me to carry them, because of the interesting itemisation and their uses against a variety of enemies. It was cool to gradually equip a party like that instead of using the same weapon every single time. Sure, you would miss out on bonuses for weapon proficiencies but these were hardly a game changer in these few specific fights. So instead of going "my dwarf axeman gets to do 1-2 points of damage vs axe-resistant enemies, nice" I'd think "my dwarf gets to try that warhammer I got on that quest, nice." I certainly didn't feel "cheated out of a roleplay experience", I felt I was doing what I could to get out of a tricky situation, like in my old pnp days.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't really get that theory. In BG2 I carried around a range of weapons, for use in different situations. It did encourage me to carry them, because of the interesting itemisation and their uses against a variety of enemies. It was cool to gradually equip a party like that instead of using the same weapon every single time. Sure, you would miss out on bonuses for weapon proficiencies but these were hardly a game changer in these few specific fights. So instead of going "my dwarf axeman gets to do 1-2 points of damage vs axe-resistant enemies, nice" I'd think "my dwarf gets to try that warhammer I got on that quest, nice." I certainly didn't feel "cheated out of a roleplay experience", I felt I was doing what I could to get out of a tricky situation, like in my old pnp days.

It's obviously a subjective thing. Sure, wanting to try out your new weapons instead of just boringly selling them is a thing. What I'm saying is more people would enjoy it if they weren't getting mixed signals due to the proficiency system.

As for doing what you can to get out of a tricky situation, keep in mind that taking down an enemy with puny 1-2 damage hits is also that! It's just less of a brick wall, "sorry you can't do that and don't even try, I don't care if you've been using that axe for eight hours and your character's name is Axey McAxeson".

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

It's obviously a subjective thing. Sure, wanting to try out your new weapons instead of just boringly selling them is a thing. More people would do it if they weren't getting mixed signals due to the proficiency system.

As for doing what you can to get out of a tricky situation, keep in mind that taking down an enemy with puny 1-2 damage hits is also that! It's just less of a brick wall, "sorry you can't do that and don't even try, I don't care if you've been using that axe for eight hours and your character's name is Axey McAxeson".

Yes, I guess it is subjective. For me, BG2 was probably the game where I carried around the largest range of weapons in any game. I didn't horde potions or vendor trash, but I found it hard to part with a "Halberd +2, +6 vs Dragons" even if I knew I would hardly ever come across a dragon. The interesting itemization and enemy immunities far outweighed the specialisation system in terms of motivating me.

 

[Sensuki]

The problem there is not absolute immunity to a damage type, it's the proficiency system

Don't give players a penalty when using a weapon by default - problem solved.

 

[J_C]

Uh, immunity hardly equals automatic incline. You know what game had a prominent immunity mechanic? Witcher 2, with its Quen spell. Really awesome design, that.

And TW2 was a great game.

 

[Zed]

Boredom curing demonstration of Bester's PE mod, although I forgot to demonstrate a few of the features, such as TAB implementation with ability tooltips and stuff.

damn this is good work

 

[J_C]

If someone has a spare beta access for this game, I would gladly beg for it.

 

[Sensuki]

Also be careful about equipping items and activating modals and the order of which buffs are applied, can cause things to not work

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69...n-stacking-and-order-of-application-of-buffs/

J_C, if you're a current backer you can still buy a beta key. Probably not much point though. I wouldn't recommend buying one. Just wait for release.

 

[J_C]

Also be careful about equipping items and activating modals and the order of which buffs are applied, can cause things to not work

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69...n-stacking-and-order-of-application-of-buffs/

J_C, if you're a current backer you can still buy a beta key. Probably not much point though. I wouldn't recommend buying one. Just wait for release.

Yeah, that's why I want one for free. :D I don't want to spend money on it, I'm just very curious about how it plays at the moment. And I'm very interested in your (and other modder's) mods.

 

[Hormalakh]

A lot of people ITT forget the whole appeal of PnP D&D: players who knew the rulebooks well and had a solid understanding of the game system always benefited. D&D quite often played as a puzzle game where you'd have to "figure out" what the best way to approach a challenge was. Immunities were similarly created so that players had to learn about those monsters and how to best tackle them. This wasn't a big deal. All of a sudden, players don't want to be challenged with monsters who require a little thought and adjustment? What world am I living in? I guess in this world Drow items don't get destroyed by sunlight because we want the playrs to always feel good about themselves, eh?

The idea of old school games isn't just isomorphic 16-bit graphics which lots of text: there was an actual thought process that went behind the design that wasn't always about the player. Sometimes it was about making difficulties that only a select few players could pass. Now we live in the world of "everyone gets a cookie."

J_C don't waste your time. The beta will just irritate you and you'll not want to play the actual game.

 

[tuluse]

A lot of people ITT forget the whole appeal of PnP D&D: players who knew the rulebooks well and had a solid understanding of the game system always benefited. D&D quite often played as a puzzle game where you'd have to "figure out" what the best way to approach a challenge was. Immunities were similarly created so that players had to learn about those monsters and how to best tackle them. This wasn't a big deal. All of a sudden, players don't want to be challenged with monsters who require a little thought and adjustment? What world am I living in? I guess in this world Drow items don't get destroyed by sunlight because we want the playrs to always feel good about themselves, eh?

The idea of old school games isn't just isomorphic 16-bit graphics which lots of text: there was an actual thought process that went behind the design that wasn't always about the player. Sometimes it was about making difficulties that only a select few players could pass. Now we live in the world of "everyone gets a cookie."

J_C don't waste your time. The beta will just irritate you and you'll not want to play the actual game.

Josh doesn't want to punish players just because they don't know that basilisks turn you to stone. Which just leads to reload, having the right protection up and then rolling through them because it's so easy.

Instead he wants to challenge players moment to moment in combat so you have to adjust what you're doing in response to things that are happening.

While this approach does it make it easier for newbies, if done right, it makes it harder for veterans. You can't just memorize a bunch of immunities needed for each encounter and call it a day.

 

[Athelas]

I'm not sure that's the best example. None of the hard counters/immunities in the IE games were as brain-dead/boring as the basilisk encounters. There were even some interesting trade-offs: i.e. Free Action preventing you from being Hasted, Dispel removing both enemy and player buffs. A more nuanced system with more of such trade-offs would've been fine for PoE.

 

[tuluse]

I'm not sure that's the best example. None of the hard counters/immunities in the IE games were as brain-dead/boring as the basilisk encounters. There were even some interesting trade-offs: i.e. Free Action preventing you from being Hasted, Dispel removing both enemy and player buffs. A more nuanced system with more of such trade-offs would've been fine for PoE.

Yes, I could see that working. I can also see why Sawyer made the decisions he did and I don't think the overall philosophy if no hard counters is a bad one.

 

[Sensuki]

While this approach does it make it easier for newbies, if done right, it makes it harder for veterans. You can't just memorize a bunch of immunities needed for each encounter and call it a day.

I don't believe this is the case. The design for PE doesn't have very much moment to moment challenge, the challenge is pretty much all strategical - knowing the rules/game mechanics and the good ways to tackle encounters. New players are DEFINITELY going to die to encounters before they figure out how to beat them, or at least lose multiple party members.

In contrast, easy difficulty is very easy apparently. I wouldn't know, haven't played it.