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

[Ellef]

Anything new in there for us non Germans?

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

As long as loot randomization is nothing like IWD1, we're good here. I don't know what Black Isle was thinking when they decided to have randomized loot tables beyond vendor trash for items besides, "Hey, Diablo did it...why not us?" cargo-cultish nonsense. It was a complete failure on all fronts. Not only was there often a huge disparity in items acquired (+20% Hide in Shadows cloak vs a robe tied for best-in-slot, crappy shortsword vs Mage Dagger +3 that adds tons of extra spell slots) but it prevented players from seeing a lot of unique, interesting gear. I played through IWD1 twice without even knowing that Elven Chainmail, Chess Piece Figurines, or certain Wands existed; stuff that clearly was of import and had some thought placed into it. I cant imagine being some poor low-level designer, making a cool item, and knowing that upwards of 40% of the playerbase will never encounter it.

Now BG1/2 style randomized loot...that's decent enough. A few encounter-appropriate gems/potions/scrolls being chosen from a table is a-okay, provided it isn't the only avenue of acquisition.

I wouldn't call anything related to money in any IE game "balanced". There's nowhere to go here but up.

I wouldn't put the IE games on the floor as far as economies go. Many RPGs have zero utility for currency past a certain point, whereas the IE games always kept it relevant, whether it was for buying consumables or doing "cheesy" stuff like recharging wands/staves/rods through selling and then buying back. While gold was trivially easy to come by at times (oh look, a couple dozen sets of magical arms and armor dropped by ToB foes), it never became virtually worthless in the way coinage did in, say, some of the Gold Box games (PoR, SotSB, PoD spring to mind).

The IWDs are probably the games where you can be starved for gold the longest. BG1 and BG2 have you as rich as you could possibly want within a very short timespan.

That's mostly because the BG games actually give the player some real freedom in exploring the gameworld while the IWD games are extremely linear. A player in either Baldur's Gate game has the freedom to do more quests and visit more areas in the same time it would take the IWD player to reach a certain checkpoint. More linearity means ease of economic balance. Hopefully PoE will take full advantage of this benefit.

 

[Grunker]

Playing Enhanced Edition right now, and I just found a Robe of Enfusing 15 minutes after spending my first big wad of cash on one

That's mostly because the BG games actually give the player some real freedom in exploring the gameworld while the IWD games are extremely linear.

Not really. It's also because the Icewind Dale economy is more tightly balanced (for obvious development reasons). However in hindsight one of the few major improvements to Baldur's Gate 2 would have been inventive money sinks and higher vendor prices. BG2 could have easily sustained a doubling on all vendor prices, and even main quest beeliners would have been able to afford 90% of what they wanted.

 

[Tjaron]

Anything new in there for us non Germans?

They talk about
- relearning 2D level design and productive workflow
- game increasing in size 600-700% by reaching KS stretch goals (more races, more classes, more companions, 2 big towns, mega dungeon, stronghold, crafting)
- focus on QA/bugfixing (additional testers from paradox, external team)
- how the game got better through many interations of improvemtens and bugfixing and how this appeased the fans
- how they work hard to get rid of their bad image of releasing overly buggy games

 

[Ellef]

Anything new in there for us non Germans?

They talk about
- relearning 2D level design and productive workflow
- game increasing in size 600-700% by reaching KS stretch goals (more races, more classes, more companions, 2 big towns, mega dungeon, stronghold, crafting)
- focus on QA/bugfixing (additional testers from paradox, external team)
- how the game got better through many interations of improvemtens and bugfixing and how this appeased the fans
- how they work hard to get rid of their bad image of releasing overly buggy games

Cheers

 

[Sensuki]

As long as loot randomization is nothing like IWD1, we're good here

Currently it's a bit worse than IWD1.

 

[Infinitron]

As long as loot randomization is nothing like IWD1, we're good here

Currently it's a bit worse than IWD1.

Not to Edward, if it's not randomizing major items (ie, "beyond vendor trash").

(IIRC, they did say something about randomizing backer-submitted items, which I would expect to be "major" or at least not vendor trash, but also that you can always find them somewhere else)

 

[ushas]

ushas - they probably have global loot lists that they assign to containers, so they should be able to easily fix them so that you get more consistent loot - like instead of no armor, normal armor or fine armor to just pick one of those outcomes and stick with it.

Yes, I understand that from the report. You have a point.

Just on a side, thought about an option that the random pool may be deliberately wider in the BB. For example, I don't know whether it's intended to randomly run into Exceptional gear (enchantment of lvl 8) on a trash container at a time of 4-6 lvl. Wasn't there discussion about plate armors not being accessible till later in game? But I guess getting things randomly is still better than level scaling

Also for the money, play on Path of Damned (or at least Hard on human settlements)... For example in Skaen hideout you don't need to worry about containers when killing 60+ human animals gives you so much gear to sell. I will need to check it, but I think they have something like fine armors/weapons? Their value is ~200 cp.

On Easy there is much less enemies. I wonder the income difference, easy <--> hard ...

 

[Sensuki]

As long as loot randomization is nothing like IWD1, we're good here

Currently it's a bit worse than IWD1.

Not to Edward, if it's not randomizing major items (ie, "beyond vendor trash").

They also randomize major items.

There are a few locations in the beta with IWD1 style loot - you get a random magical item from a table. Amulet of Protection, Gauntlets of Ogre Might, etc etc. Same scum the container until you get the one you want. It's pretty dumb.

I don't know whether it's intended to randomly run into Exceptional gear

I believe it's unintended. Josh never intended for the Dyrford area to have exceptional gear and he asked the designers to remove it. They removed all of the exceptional gear on everyone I've encountered so far except one item .... buuut they probably forgot to edit the loot lists, or simply weren't told to.

 

[Ellef]

Yeah major magical items on randomised loot tables is the kind of shit they said they wouldn't be pulling iirc. It just reminds me of lazy hack and slash loot design. I wonder if they will respond.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, that's not ideal. I thought it was just random pieces of mundane armor and weapons, gems, etc. Though those things are still "generic" as far as magical items go, not the kind of unique item with a big description and everything that Edward was referring to

 

[veevoir]

Randomizing loot is one thing, but having shit random tables are another level of fucking up entirely. Just fromt that thread:

Spoiler

Sarcophagus:
1. Exceptional Quarterstaff (810 cp) + 2 x Pearl (2 x 100 cp) + 333 cp
2. War Bow + Opal (150 cp) + 936 cp
3. 432 cp
4. Opal (150 cp) + 300 cp
5. 368 cp
6. PollAxe (10 cp) + 912 cp + Garnet (85 cp)
7. Exceptional War Bow (810 cp) + 575 cp + Opal (150 cp)
8. Pearl (100 cp) + 852 cp
9. 234 cp + 2 x Opal (2 x 150 cp)
10. 588 cp + Pearl (100 cp)





I think the range is like ~ 400-1400 cp

Seriously? A chest that can award you 370 gp OR exceptional weapon + more than that 370gp (s basically about 300%+ total value)? This needs some tweaking and seeing how we're less than a month to release - I have a bad feeling about that.

 

[Apexeon]

If I want random lootz I will go play Lootiablo 3 to "lootz and back".
Hate that trash and the fact it sold 10 million dam gambling.

Expected more from POE then random loot (I hate it).

 

[Roguey]

The last few Obs games all had random loot (AP, NV, DS3, South Park) so I don't know why you wouldn't expect it.

 

[Sensuki]

Didn't play any of them. Random loot is good in ARPGs, but that's about it.

 

[CyberWhale]

The last few Obs games weren't (at) all marketed as a spiritual sequels to IE games.

 

[Athelas]

It's limited to some containers, IIRC quest rewards and loot of named NPC's won't be randomized.

That doesn't necessarily mean the itemization will be any good.

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

- focus on QA/bugfixing (additional testers from paradox, external team)

I assume by "external team" they mean Sensuki.

 

[Kem0sabe]

what i enjoyed more about the ie games were the the special items with associated descriptions and unique features. As long as those remain mixed here and there with some random loot, im happy.

 

[Apexeon]

Didn't play any of them. Random loot is good in ARPGs, but that's about it.

But then are ARPG's good?

Should rename them "Action role play gambling simulators".

 

[polo]

Im curious about one thing:

Sarcophagus:
1. Exceptional Quarterstaff (810 cp) + 2 x Pearl (2 x 100 cp) + 333 cp
2. War Bow + Opal (150 cp) + 936 cp
3. 432 cp
4. Opal (150 cp) + 300 cp
5. 368 cp
6. PollAxe (10 cp) + 912 cp + Garnet (85 cp)
7. Exceptional War Bow (810 cp) + 575 cp + Opal (150 cp)
8. Pearl (100 cp) + 852 cp
9. 234 cp + 2 x Opal (2 x 150 cp)
10. 588 cp + Pearl (100 cp)





I think the range is like ~ 400-1400 cp

Those item prices, are the selling or buying ones?

 

[Infinitron]

I don't know why you wouldn't expect it.

For starters: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11iox8/we_are_chris_avellone_tim_cain_and_josh_sawyer/c6mu2f3

 

[Apexeon]

I don't know why you wouldn't expect it.

For starters: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11iox8/we_are_chris_avellone_tim_cain_and_josh_sawyer/c6mu2f3

So the question now is how did we end up on the loot roulette table again?

 

[ushas]

Im curious about one thing:

Sarcophagus:
1. Exceptional Quarterstaff (810 cp) + 2 x Pearl (2 x 100 cp) + 333 cp
2. War Bow + Opal (150 cp) + 936 cp
3. 432 cp
4. Opal (150 cp) + 300 cp
5. 368 cp
6. PollAxe (10 cp) + 912 cp + Garnet (85 cp)
7. Exceptional War Bow (810 cp) + 575 cp + Opal (150 cp)
8. Pearl (100 cp) + 852 cp
9. 234 cp + 2 x Opal (2 x 150 cp)
10. 588 cp + Pearl (100 cp)

I think the range is like ~ 400-1400 cp

Those item prices, are the selling or buying ones?

Simply the ones listed in the item description. From my limited experience, those are also selling prices. For example, Opal stone you can sell for 150 cp and buy for 225 cp at Winfrith's Arms and Armory.

However, the price rises a lot when buying Fine and Exceptional gear.
Exceptional War Bow: selling 810 cp X buying 6075 cp

-> So getting an exceptional weapon randomly like this may be even more ... (how is the word) ... rewarding? Oh nope, that's actually the opposite...

Unless one isn't about to reward save-load effort.


On a side note, does anybody know, whether there is any further difference among shops or how much the reputation plays a role here?

 

[polo]

That was my point, the difference between a 300cp chest and an exceptional war bow (810cp selling) + 300cp one, could be 810cp if you don't use the bow, or ~1200cp if you use it.