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

[Sensuki]

What the fuck? How did Duraframe300 and Sensuki not spot that?

http://www.polygon.com/2015/2/4/798...y-nears-launch-dev-team-begins-work-on-sequel

I haven't done a Pillars of Eternity news search since before the beta, and I was asleep.

 

[Duraframe300]

What the fuck? How did Duraframe300 and Sensuki not spot that?

http://www.polygon.com/2015/2/4/798...y-nears-launch-dev-team-begins-work-on-sequel

Some people work

 

[Sensuki]

Sawyer's rebuttals for "Combat Only" modals

Enjoying the new beta build for PoE but *please* change the way the modals work for Paladins and such. It feels *so* weird playing-wise that they're activated at the start of combat and not on all the time.

Why? There are three modals for paladins. One affects Accuracy, one affects movement/Disengagement, and one affects DR. The only one that makes a difference at the very start of combat is Zealous Focus, and that's in one specific case: you initiate an attack against a target when no enemies have acquired a party member as a target (e.g. against a neutral target, from stealth, or with a ranged weapon/spell at a target at the edge of the fog of war). As soon as that attack is executed, the entire party goes into the combat state. To me, nothing feels weird at all about those effects only turning on in combat. There's no practical effect to having bonus DR on outside of combat and you have Fast Mode if you want to zip around maps at high speed.

I do this all the time though, and it's kind of silly to miss out on the Zealous Focus accuracy bonus (and now Reckless Assault for Rogues too) on such an important move in combat - the opening move.

I preferred it when they were on all the time, then you actually get the bonus on every attack.

There are a variety of things that get enabled with those modals that would likely have to be shut off entirely, e.g. the visual effect indicators that a character has come into or out of the area of effect with Guardian Stance. We used to allow modals to be active outside of combat, but the constant presence or frequent re-application of visual effects was extremely annoying. We can certainly turn those off, but then you get no visual feedback (other than constantly watching the status icons of your characters) that a character is moving into or out of an aura's range.

With Zealous Charge, you were required to micro your party to keep them in close proximity to the paladin or someone would get out of distance and the party's movement rate would drop. It resulted in an extremely goofy series of accelerations and decelerations. In combat that doesn't matter because characters typically are not moving in formation and everyone moves at their own pace (if at all).

E: It is also completely, entirely fair and appropriate for Reckless Assault to not grant its bonus on an initial strike out of stealth since it's impossible for you to suffer any drawback from it.

I disagree.

You won't suffer a drawback from the modal if you're not being targeted (eg - sitting back with a War Bow or something) or just plain not drawing aggro. Having the modal as "Combat Only" makes it sub-optimal for you to open combat with a Rogue with Reckless Assault. Instead you have to let the enemy see you first, or open with another character and THEN attack with the Rogue, just to make sure they get their attack bonus from Reckless Assault on their opening strike (which is usually a per-encounter ability that you would really prefer to hit/crit).

Zealous Focus suffers from the same issue. If you want that bonus on the opening hit it requires you to let the enemy see you first. It just seems silly in both cases.

For Paladin modals,you could try is just have the Modal VFX only play in combat or something.

The game understands effects through how they are applied, i.e. visual effects turn on with application, so it's non-trivial to say "Oh, you have this game effect but you don't display visual effects until/unless combat starts," and all of the logic covering edge cases.

And again, Zealous March is extremely dumb/bad when it's active outside of combat.

With most of these issues, it's not that we haven't considered ways to handle a certain undesirable aspect, but usually that there are one or more exceptions/problems where a proposed solution causes negative repercussions. If something isn't handled systemically for a broad swath of abilities, it needs to be handled with specific scripts or flags on individual items. It's obviously more work to implement those, but it also makes them more difficult to test and maintain over time. I know that's a boring/frustrating answer when the answer seems so simple, but the reality is often that the simple answer is more complicated in execution.

 

[Sensuki]

Also new Fighter Ability Progression which is IMO better than before

This is the new fighter ability progression, by the way. All abilities become available at the listed level and can be accessed at any point in the future as well (as is the case with pretty much all abilities). Disciplined Barrage is now +10 but an Encounter ability. Critical Defense now also converts a percentage of Hits to Grazes. Crippling Guard has been deprecated.

1 Constant Recovery, +Knockdown (Active) or Disciplined Barrage (Active)

3 +Defender (Modal), Guardian Stance (Modal), Confident Aim

5 +Weapon Specialization, Vigorous Defense (Active), Into the Fray (Active)

7 +Armored Grace, Unbending (Active), Clear Out (Active)

9 +Critical Defense

11 +Unbroken

Disciplined Barrage @ 1/encounter and Knock Down being a weapon-based ability are both really good changes.

 

[Athelas]

Sawyer's rebuttals for "Combat Only" modals

Why are they only talking about the Paladin aura's when the real problem is that you're not allowed to initiate combat with like half the spells/abilities?

 

[ushas]

Sawyer's rebuttals for "Combat Only" modals

There are a variety of things that get enabled with those modals that would likely have to be shut off entirely, e.g. the visual effect indicators that a character has come into or out of the area of effect with Guardian Stance. We used to allow modals to be active outside of combat, but the constant presence or frequent re-application of visual effects was extremely annoying. We can certainly turn those off, but then you get no visual feedback (other than constantly watching the status icons of your characters) that a character is moving into or out of an aura's range.

Oh, I'd love that!
What is wrong with the icon indication? If the visual effects of modals can be certainly turned off, lets provide it to players as a menu option

I don't want to sound too critical, but I hope the gameplay design in nowadays games is not dictated by the VFX department...

 

[Sensuki]

Feel free to post that opinion on SA, and add your voice to mine.

 

[Roguey]

Good seeing Josh telling the featherfaces to flock off.

 

[Sensuki]

He's wrong though (other than the bit about time to implement it the way I said). There's a multitude of people up in arms about it across multiple forums.

e: Last I remember, the Combat Only thing was just a tickbox in the Unity Editor, I'll see if I can turn it off for Zealous Focus and Reckless Assault.

 

[Shevek]

Is there a way to mod out the combat only tag from abilities? Im a fan of most of the games systems but this is a derpy decision.

*Edit: ah, you answered it nice. Shame that each individual ability must be modded though.

 

[Shevek]

Also, can you ask Josh to leave the gameplay effect on but only enable the visual effect (without the initial animation) in combat if that matters so much? Never bothered me but whatever...

 

[Infinitron]

I think the idea of your characters HULKING UP with the modals only when combat begins is pretty cool. It's kind of silly when you can wander around and talk to people while glowing like a Christmas tree.

Probably shouldn't have any gameplay implications, though.

 

[Shevek]

Most obvious solution. Why alter gameplay to solve a visual issue?

 

[Sensuki]

Is there a way to mod out the combat only tag from abilities? Im a fan of most of the games systems but this is a derpy decision.

*Edit: ah, you answered it nice. Shame that each individual ability must be modded though.

There is, but Bester's Unity Editor does not work with the new version because they changed Unity versions from 4.5.3? to 4.6.1

Bester's Editor was for Unity 4.5

 

[Athelas]

Would it be possible to mod it so that buffs last beyond the end of the combat state? Like how Stoneskin could last like a day in the IE games (it doesn't have to be that extreme obviously).

 

[Sensuki]

Also, can you ask Josh to leave the gameplay effect on but only enable the visual effect (without the initial animation) in combat if that matters so much? Never bothered me but whatever...

Just post about it on the Obs boards, if enough people are complaining about it, they'll change it. Make sure you mention Reckless Assault while you're at it too.

 

[Infinitron]

Whoops, forgot to do this. New player portraits in the latest beta:

 

[Ellef]

Good portraits, we needed a dedicated monk and bow ranger. Everything outside of combat they seem to be handling well.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Good portraits, we needed a dedicated monk and bow ranger. Everything outside of combat they seem to be handling well.

Indeed, monk portraits and maybe a portrait for each elemental head type.

 

[Sensuki]

For those interested in "No Engagement", we updated how it worked for the new version, should be much more playable now

 

[Kem0sabe]

For those interested in "No Engagement", we updated how it worked for the new version, should be much more playable now

I hope the mod keeps expanding post release, everything so far has managed to add something nice to the beta.

 

[Ellef]

Yeah everyone of those tickboxes undoubtedly improves the game for me. Might actually download the mod and play the beta again, now that no-engagement is fully functional.

 

[ushas]

So there is going to be another beta before release? Great.

 

[ushas]

Feel free to post that opinion on SA, and add your voice to mine.

Isn't that closed paid forum?

 

[Sensuki]

Haven't you been posting on there? or is that the Obsidian boards

fully functional

It will be fully functional when I edit all of the items/spells/abilities that give bonuses against disengagement attacks something else, but I won't be doing that until someone updates Bester's Unity Editor Extension. But it's definitely a lot more functional than before.