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

[Volourn]

". But for example when you kill the spider queen in the ogre cave, how is the player rewarded for it? Honest question. It's not an objective to kill it and I don't recall what it dropped since loot mostly disappears when you pick it up. Was it worth it? I don't recall."

Just spider silk but liek you I am constantly hit with the vanishing inventory bug so no real details.


"If there's no quest for the spider queen, it means that she is not part of the game's rich tapestry of story telling and is therefore simple clutter designed to make the world feel less empty. Remember, real heroes only kill things they have a quest for."

Well said.

 

[felipepepe]

I've also got a bonus beta key up for grabs if you aren't getting one from Blaine or Crooked Bee and still would like one, just let me know.

I'd like it. Been wanting to test the system, but I didn't back enough for a beta acess...

 

[tuluse]

Go to villager and get a quest, find cave and get XP, do task in cave and get XP, turn in quest and get XP.

You only get XP in PoE by doing quests. If a villager didn't give you a quest then you don't get anything other than items.

1 10 min quest represents the whole game. Gotcha.

 

[Snerf]

I've also got a bonus beta key up for grabs if you aren't getting one from Blaine or Crooked Bee and still would like one, just let me know.

I'd like it. Been wanting to test the system, but I didn't back enough for a beta acess...

Cool, trying to figure how to PM it to you, but I'm having an idiot moment and can't find the PM button.

 

[imweasel]

Go to villager and get a quest, find cave and get XP, do task in cave and get XP, turn in quest and get XP.

You only get XP in PoE by doing quests. If a villager didn't give you a quest then you don't get anything other than items.

1 10 min quest represents the whole game. Gotcha.

No, you can play the beta for 5 hours. And the only way to get XP during these 5 hours is to talk to villagers and do their quests.

Don't get the quest from a villager, then you don't get any XP. It is simple as that.

 

[Blaine]

Users interested in beta key ordered by descending post number:

1.) Bubbles
2.) Cromwell
3.) JoKa
4.) Zep Zepo

I'll roll and then PM the beta key to the winner. If I somehow missed a respondent, you probably have bad karma or something.

 

[tuluse]

Put about an hour into the beta. I died in the same spot Brennecke, but I don't believe it was my fault.

It's really hard to tell what's happening combat right now. Units disappearing and reappearing (or not). There's almost no visual feedback for status effects. I used web and hold creature halt to great effect for the first two fights but they seem to have not been as effective in the last one. I have no idea why or why not. Also, I'm pretty sure my rogue went down after using escape and I don't know why.

I rolled a cypher and it seems like a p cool class. Lots of dominate mind and charm like abilities.

I don't think anyone has mentioned this but PoE uses SRR style intractable icons and they look almost as cheesy. Some things have the IE style color outline and at least one door had both, so I'm hoping they're placeholders while the outlines are finished.

 

[Blaine]

No, you can play the beta for 5 hours. And the only way to get XP during these 5 hours is to talk to villagers and do their quests.

Don't get the quest from a villager, then you don't get any XP. It is simple as that.

While I do favor omitting combat XP in favor of some other way of distributing XP, I'd much rather have combat XP in if the "solution" is to distribute XP exclusively through quests, especially in a blatantly combat-centric game. Abusable and imperfect though it may be, combat XP does have the effect of steadily rewarding the player for simply playing the game, which is the proper and thoroughly monocled tabletop way of handling XP/skill points/whatever (often with bonuses for "good roleplaying" or whatever after a session).

Ferreting out every last quest in order to progress, though most of us do it, is no more "natural" in theory or in practice than seeking out high-XP monsters to kill, or even grinding.

Quest XP being the be-all, end-all is... World of Warcraft and its imitators, pretty much. I trust this will be addressed before final release.

 

[tuluse]

Quest XP being the be-all, end-all is... World of Warcraft and its imitators, pretty much.

wut

You get XP for killing things in WoW

 

[Blaine]

wut

You get XP for killing things in WoW

Yeah, and you also get trash items in WoW that technically sell for gold, but that's not how people actually earn gold in the game because trash items are nearly worthless.

Be-all, end-all doesn't mean "the only," just that it overshadows everything else.

 

[nikolokolus]

Maybe add in exploration XP? Not for "get to the edge of the map, found a new zone," but XP for discovering things in the game world that are unique/special/hidden/etc. That at least still leaves open the fight/talk/sneak your way through approaches and would incentivize stretching yourself to the limit of your supplies and resources.

 

[Blaine]

Yes. Rewards for puzzle- and riddle-solving, disarming traps, conversational success, finding little secrets, and perhaps even one-time amounts granted for killing X number of monsters (after which you can learn nothing more from them), in addition to quest XP, would be a better way. That or keep track of a variety of activities and game elements and reward a variable, abstracted amount of XP every 30-60 minutes or so, mimicking tabletop RPGs in which XP is rewarded after a session wraps up.

I'm just dreaming, though.

It's gonna be quest-exclusive XP all the way, since that's much easier to implement and balance.

Thanks, Josh.

 

[Sensuki]

I believe someone getting felipepepe a key would be beneficial. Need as many monocled codexers on this shit as we can.

Look at what the POE beta is doing to us, the Josh-quoting epidemic is spreading...

I posted my first Josh quote earlier

Haven't posted a single quote of his in this thread yet

Just a note guys. The PE character art team has had a few flunctuations. I've been talking with Dimitri Berman and he said for a while, he moved over to another project and J.D. Cerince came across to PE.

Now James Chea and J.D. Cerince have moved off PE, and it's just Dimitri left to tweak all remaining Character Art. I guess that's fair because it's all "made", but it means we won't be getting any more head or hair variants or anything. So 2 Female Aumaua heads? too bad I guess.

I'm also a bit worried that they haven't mentioned Polina Hristova for a while. If Kaz is the only 2D artist left on the project ... ohh jeez.

 

[Volourn]

If this keeps up, I can see me being banned from Obsidian. L0L I'm getting baited into talking trash about Mr. Sawyer there. Not cool. He already hates me enough. Heh.

 

[Blaine]

If they ban Volourn from the Obsidian forums, all Obsidian employees and moderators must be banned from the Codex.

Uh, except for Codex regulars who somehow managed to beg their way onto ancillary staff or a playtesting position at Obsidian or whatever. They can stay.

 

[Jaesun]

Well unless Volo can provide actual constructive criticism and suggestions, I don't see why they would not ban him.

Why should they cater to another shitposter?

 

[Volourn]

L0L I've given plenty of 'constructive criticism'. Nice try though. Don't be butthurt. And, don't spread rumours.

 

[Jaesun]

L0L I've given plenty of 'constructive criticism'. Nice try though. Don't be butthurt. And, don't spread rumours.

Please provide me a link where you actually engage in constructive criticism on the Obsidian board.

I don't think that is actually possible. There is a reason you have that tag here.

 

[Volourn]

I got the tag because I'm a fukkin' HOT female. FFS

\I even fukkin' defend Obsidian from the idiots whining that the beta is 'unpolished'.

I'm not anti Obsidian, you dumbfuck. I just want the game to be fukkin' as good as possible. Unlike you.

 

[Tigranes]

The one thing you can't say about Volourn is that he is dogmatically against a particular game or company. Maybe the only real constant is his love for Neverwinter Nights. He has his principles, nobody's really sure what they are, but he's going to follow them no matter what game he has to love or hate. It's heroic.

I think we've actually banned very few people in the entire history of the forum apart from obvious spammers or such. We've even got the Soviet Conspiracy dude going strong. (I can't remember if Twinkie is banned)

 

[Osvir]

It hurts so much. I'm just going to replay SRR, the beta so far is a massive disappointment. I'd be deathly ill at this point, were it not for D:OS turning out to be so amazing.

Were you this butthurt on week 1 of the Divinity: Original Sin Early Access too? Or just short-term memory? (Crashing, glitching, clipping, imbalance, exploits, bugs, etc. etc.)

 

[Rivmusique]

Actually doing the quests/talking to village people this time. I have a bit of an issue with the way quest details are listed. Spoilers in case anyone cares about these sidequests:

Spoiler

For the quest you get to find the Lord's daughter, you eventually find a note talking about a cult under the town/wilderness. This information get sorted under the Find the Lord's daughter quest, however there is nothing to suggest the cult and her disappearance are necessarily linked at that point. Bit of a spoiler for the later part I guess. Also, you can ask the Ogre about her whereabouts and that adds something about the towns tanner/dyer (? names like Trygil or something) having possibly lied to you, but it is possible to get to the ogre and question him without talking to that guy at all.

I also broke the Cat and Mouse quest: I agreed to get Nyfre out, went to the inn, asked her story and then killed her and her party. Then I went back to the hunters and chose the "She told me different" option and then the [attack them] option, this resulted in a quest failed as someone vital had been killed. However, if you do the same thing but choose the "I killer her" option, then say "you're just as bad" [attack them], that completes it and rewards you.

They did say they were doing two journal setups at some point right? One more like the IE games?

 

[tuluse]

My fighter decided he doesn't want to take orders anymore and just stands there.

THIS IS MUTINY!

 

[Rivmusique]

My fighter decided he doesn't want to take orders anymore and just stands there.

THIS IS MUTINY!

Map change rarely works for me, but try it. Otherwise save/reload (though this seems to sometimes either boost your stats, reduce enemies or just set the game to easy (though it seems to reduce to damage you take so much, that I doubt even easy is meant to be like that)).

 

[J_C]

Holy shit, this is the biggest Codex meltdown since the announcement of Obsidian's South Park game. Now I know why Roguey didn't want to post in this thread, because s/he would have a brain aneurism by reading all of this. I wonder how would s/he explain all the fuckups Josh did?