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

[Athelas]

You're on a PC gaming forum and you're making fun of people being customers of an outlet that is virtually the only place where one has access to all the PC game releases.

Which begs the question, why are you on a PC gaming forum?

(inb4 'but GOG!' - the discussion was (also) about games not available on GOG)

 

[Grunker]

Codex making fun of an elitist niche group that clearly exhibits better taste and higher intelligence than the mainstream...

I thought about the irony of this for a bit but concluded that my point was made even stronger by the fact that Steam-deniers are an even more deluded form of elitism than the worst Codexian version of it is.

 

[Sensuki]

Off-hand weapon/grimoire clipping bug fixed

That bug has been fixed in our local build. Wizards will no longer have their grimoires visible with off- or two-handed weapons equipped except when they cast spells.

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[veevoir]

No, you're talking about attributes with effects that increase as you level-up - the attributes themselves become more valuable as you level up. That sounds like it could get mathematically messy - harder to balance than just having the level-up linearly increase various derived stats directly.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just harder.

No I'm not. You misunderstood me. i'm talking about te rest of the system drawing differently on the attribute system. Like a level five ability would add the bonus trice instead of once. It'sbasically a less fluid version of percentile progression. 4th ed already does it, like I said.

My problem with the system as is remains that it has little reason to exist at all.

From the PAX panel it would seem that attributes exist as a replacement for speech skills and modifiers for the text adventure parts. So while they have little mechanical impact (shame) - there is still a cool reason for them to exist.

But then again - for that they've could have got rid of the numbers alltogether and use descriptors - like PnP FATE or lately in cRPGs: NEO (Murder Hobo Canibal) Scavenger

 

[Jezal_k23]

So apparently archers didn't use to carry quivers on their back, but rather on their belt, and for a very good reason. In PoE they draw from their back.

Isn't Sawyer supposed to be a history expert?

Some would argue that video is far from historically accurate, as cool as it looks.

 

[Grunker]

Lars is an aquaintance of mine, and while his self-taught ability at trick-shooting is undeniable, that video is also sensational as all fuck. GeekDad's criticism isn't much better though, it almost trips over itself in its hysteria and shrill tone.

Don't use Lars' exceptional skill and hyperbolic video as a testament of anything even remotely historically accurate, and don't read GeekDad's blog as some sort of academically grounded criticism either.

(also don't expect historial accuracy from a fantasy RPG ffs...)

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Too bad the guy makes only 350$ from patreon. We should organize a fake ride on his twitter to boost his numbers a bit.

 

[Duraframe300]

ghoulishvisage asked: When designing the world of Pillars did you purposefully decide to develop the races, cultures and history in a more anthropological way compared to the usual fantasy lore, or was that just something that happened because of your love of history?

I just developed them the way I felt made the most sense and fit together reasonably well. I didn’t delve into the various cultures’ past with great detail but I did try to think about where they started, geographically, why/how they moved over time, and how they interacted with other cultures. I left a lot of it simple because some of the events are mysteries to the people of the world due to being prehistoric (literature-wise). A lot of the cultures now have written down what were previously oral traditions about their origins, but there are gaps, myths, and conflicting stories as well.

Some cultures refer to themselves using names that no longer make sense. E.g. “Thyrtan” means “meadow folk” in an ancient language but the people who use that term have lived in a hot, humid, forested equatorial region for centuries. Some obvious migrations are also unexplained or not definitively explained. People aren’t sure when the glamfellen (pale elves) separated from the scelterfolc (elves of Aedyr/Eir Glanfath), but it must have been many thousands of years ago based on linguistic differences and similar myths in each group. The physical similarities of the Aedyran elves and Glanfathan elves is hard to explain since neither culture has a migration legend that fits and their respective languages are almost entirely unrelated.

The Aedyre culture’s Eld Aedyran language is quasi-Old English, the Vailian culture’s Vailian language is quasi-Italian/Occitan/French, and the Glanfathan culture’s language is quasi-Cornish/Welsh because it’s easy to explain how (contemporary) Aedyran language is effectively English — borrowing from quasi-Germanic, quasi-Romance, and quasi-Celtic sources. The diacritics and letters used (or not used) in each source language were selected to make them visually different from each other in written text since that is how most players will interact with them. Occasionally a given name can be found in both Dyrwood and Eir Glanfath with the same sound but different spellings.

Anyway, I just tried to develop the lore in the way that I thought worked best. Hopefully people will like this approach.

 

[Sensuki]

(this is about the movement icon when casting a spell out of range)

I asked Kaz to modify the "move and cast" cursor a while ago for clarity but he only had time to update it recently. We've also talked about doing a range indicator in the past but, as always, that takes someone time to implement.

Almost every quest has an optional combat element but there are quite a few that allow you to talk/sneak/interact your way around it if you want to. Especially the city-oriented quests tend to have a lot of conversation involved. The quest I started doing in my streaming session a few weeks ago, Rogue Knight, is mostly conversation and exploration with (I think) only one combat, and I think you may be able to avoid it in the end. If you just want to murder things, the wildernesses and (especially) Od Nua have very little conversation and a ton of combat.

 

[LizardWizard]

Where the fuck is the update

 

[Sensuki]

I followed up that answer with a wilderness area question

Do the wilderness areas feature neutral NPCs and quests like the BG1 areas? One of the things I enjoyed about the BG1 wilderness design was that pretty much every area had a few people to chat to and at least one quest (which unfortunately were usually just FedEx/kill quests).

The beta areas don't really feature them, but we saw that Valewood has at least one guy that you can talk to.

Off the top of my head, I think ~half of the wilderness areas have neutral/conversation/quest NPCs in the them.

 

[Grunker]

Here's hoping we'll encounter a lot of enemy adventuring parties who attack you after a single silly dialogue box.

(I'm actually not kidding, I love that shit in BG1)

 

[Ellef]

Who could forget the fastest dart thrower that has walked the Sword Coast.

 

[Infinitron]

Pull out yer daggers n' spells, and let's have at 'er!

 

[veevoir]

Who could forget the fastest dart thrower that has walked the Sword Coast.

I don't know why this encounter is so memorable. Was it his awesome helmet? The premise of him using ridiculous weapon nobody uses cause is crap? Or maybe because he was wrecking shit with it, that asshole.

 

[Sensuki]

YOU HEAR THAT ZAL?

 

[Cyberarmy]

Lol, that reminded the the man who threw as a sword in BG2 while entering the docks.
Entertaining (or highly disturbing) shit is hard to forget.

 

[veevoir]

Lol, that reminded the the man who threw as a sword in BG2 while entering the docks.
Entertaining (or highly disturbing) shit is hard to forget.

Speaking of disturbing shit.. (before patch it was nightmare): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vu__GHQthE

 

[Grunker]

Who could forget the fastest dart thrower that has walked the Sword Coast.

There's also the woman (?) who drops the vampiric long sword +1 who IIRC is out hunting and says something akin to you being the new prey.

Or the guys in the basilisk area who you can trade taunts with for like 6 dialogue boxes until they attack. BG1 is such a cartoony fucking game when it comes to the small encounters.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Who could forget the fastest dart thrower that has walked the Sword Coast.

There's also the woman (?) who drops the vampiric long sword +1 who IIRC is out hunting and says something akin to you being the new prey.

Or the guys in the basilisk area who you can trade taunts with for like 6 dialogue boxes until they attack. BG1 is such a cartoony fucking game when it comes to the small encounters.

Or that lunatic mage trying to summon some powerful ooze.
Or polymorphed apperabtice and his cruel fate (dependin on luck)

 

[Merlkir]

Have we talked about the PAX stream+Q/A yet?

http://www.twitch.tv/pax/c/5961162

 

[Infinitron]

Have we talked about the PAX stream+Q/A yet?

http://www.twitch.tv/pax/c/5961162

Uh, only in this big-ass thread here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...n-live-chat-thread-12-30-cst-19-30-cet.96702/

 

[Merlkir]

Right, separate threads I miss as usual. Nevermind.

 

[Sensuki]

Oh, what's the deal with Merchant gold?

I think that was something Bobby wanted. I don't particularly care either way. I believe the store inventories (and copper) are both supposed to refresh on regular intervals so you come back later either to sell more stuff out of your stash or buy new items that are in stock.

I talked to Bobby about the merchant gold limit. He/the area designers had originally wanted it to limit the effects that a modified vendor buy price (e.g., the merchant buys your stuff for more % money as a quest reward) would have. I told them to remove all of those and shift those bonuses to vendor sell prices (i.e., affecting what you buy from the merchant). That was done a little while ago, so the merchant gold limit isn't necessary. I'll write up an issue to get rid of it.

Looks like others are completing the game now

Plate is inherently better than other armors but it has a higher base cost and is found later in the game. You don't find suits of plate until you are already finding Fine suits of other armor. Fine plate doesn't appear until around the time you find Exceptional suits of armor.

In Nick Carver's recent full progression, I think he had two characters in modded unique brigandine at the end of the game.

In the end, enchanting costs will likely not be linear, so it will be more expensive (and limiting) to actually enchant plate since it is considered inherently "Fine". If you're not enchanting, it's not really an issue at all because you will never find Superb plate but there are several suits of Superb non-plate armor. You are effectively always finding suits of plate one quality tier lower than equivalent non-plate armor.