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

[Jaesun]

pre-buffing is an abomination.

 

[imweasel]

when will u people realise computer game design and implementation are a science and the men behind these works need to be scientists and not some copycat schemer with a degree in creative writing and/or marketing.

Sawyer has a history degree.

Anyway, he has admitted that he isn't so good with higher math. I remember how we was trying to design some rather complicated combat stuff by fiddle fucking around with numbers in an excel table, which isn't so smart. I doubt that he ever got it right. I'm actually pretty certain of that now after playing the beta.

is the beta any good?

No.

Download it if you're curious or want to QA though.

 

[Duraframe300]

Looks like Steve has finished his rewrite of the pathfinding system. Looking forward to the update.

Source?

QA

Nick Carver specifically. Already posted it a few posts below.

 

[Shevek]

Volourn:

Think of it this way. In the IE games, they made a bunch of arcane and divine spells and made it so all the noncasting classes did nothing else (other than autoattack or disarm crap). In this game, they created some truly unique classes with thier own unique list of spells and abilities. So, its sorta like they evened things out a bit. On balance, there are plenty of spells and abilities in this game. However, instead of less than half the classes having a monopoly on all the cool abilities, all classes have their share of tactical options to contribute to the party.

Rather than looking at it as "one dimensional mages," think of it as a "multi-dimensional party."

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, now rogues have some in-combat skills. But they lost all the relevance outside combat, due the streamlined skills. Any class can now pick locks & spot traps as well as the Rogue. I don't think it's a worthy trade-off.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Ok, Snerf was a bro and donated me a key, here's some feedback after finishing the beta and derping a bit with the game:

Good stuff:
- Looks great.
- Everything outside of combat plays like a proper sequel to IE games.
- The text-adventure bits are nice.
- Heavy nostalgia feelings.

The bad:
- these fucking %-based systems, from stats to spells and items.
- Hard to understand things during battle.
- UI needs some work.
- Icons are too small.

Here's some more detailed feedback:

etc, etc..

OMG, that sword 'Justice' with is 1000% (lol) 'crush' damage (or whatever the fuck) is everything wrong with % based shitty modern game design. That is truly fucking awful. What was wrong with AD&D ? I have never seen anything beat AD&D magic items. A +2/+3 vs. Lizard-man Longsword with a name and a back-story is so much more engaging than these piles and piles of % stacked shit that only reminds you that you are playing a game designed by a person with some sort of OCD problem. Its such a fucking mess. Its so sad too, because its so beautiful and so much of it is perfect, but then you have this 'modern' % based 'balanced' battle arena at its core that seems so confused about what it is trying to be.

I wish somebody would just take these truly great POE assets and use some version of 1st to 3.5 edition of D&D and spend the rest of the time designing all the other parts of the game outside the system. Its such a problem because now all this beautiful art and work is held hostage by somebodies life long dream to show the world how RPG's should really be designed or something. At least that is how it is feeling right now.

 

[J_C]

This, a millione times. How great is that Josh is an RPG messiah who knows RPGs better than anybody else, huh Roguey? Oh, he designed a shitty Diablo ruleset for an IE style cRPG? How wonderful! And the worst thing is that I will still love this game, but I will constantly have this feeling in the back of my mind that in terms of rules, it is not like the IE games.

 

[I_am_Ian]

It will be alright, bros. I am going through the same thing you are so I went over to the Wizardry thread that has become active again thanks to Octavius and got my fix of actual fun and challenging RPG systems talk.

 

[Haba]

this is what happens when u give control of a computer role playing simulation to an individual who hates fun

fix'd that for ya

 

[J_C]

I only just realized that items no longer have weight and carrying 6 heavy armors is the same as carrying six eggs. I bet Josh really regrets making that "Strength Wizard" example.

I also hate that "you're out camping in the wilderness and want to craft a minor stamina potion? sure, just grind down an amethyst, combine it with fresh river reed, then add 600 fucking gold coins" shit. This whole "balance for the balance god" thing really needs to be reigned in before it completely destroys fun and immersion.

What the fuck?

Is this the best JES could come up with to solve the money sink problem? This is so logical. Add coins to craft something.

 

[I_am_Ian]

It's the standard Crafters Union fee.

 

[commie]

Percentage thing is meh, but who gives a shit really? If you faggots are such 'experts' of the RPG genre, shouldn't be that hard to work out. Important thing is it's like I'm back in 1998 when playing, complete with the love/hate RTwP combat that even now for me degenerates into a clusterfuck. Sure, I would have loved it TB like Divinity, but fuck it...I commend them for sticking with IE style after promising IE style. When devs start to tinker and change mechanics just to suit some groups then shit gets worse.

I like AD&D as much as the next man, but if they went for something else here, then I'll take it as a challenge to learn this system. Big deal. Also +10% for giving all classes something interesting to do for a change.

 

[RK47]

 

[commie]

I only just realized that items no longer have weight and carrying 6 heavy armors is the same as carrying six eggs. I bet Josh really regrets making that "Strength Wizard" example.

I also hate that "you're out camping in the wilderness and want to craft a minor stamina potion? sure, just grind down an amethyst, combine it with fresh river reed, then add 600 fucking gold coins" shit. This whole "balance for the balance god" thing really needs to be reigned in before it completely destroys fun and immersion.

What the fuck?

Is this the best JES could come up with to solve the money sink problem? This is so logical. Add coins to craft something.

Crafting is a form of Alchemy. People would have to add a lot of lead to make Gold in the past, so in order to craft items, the process has to be reversed: use gold to make base metals. Logical.

 

[Nihiliste]

I haven't played the beta but this thread has me worried. I'm going to try my best to avoid reading more about it so I don't get negative about the game. The look and feel of the game certainly look spot on from videos so the mechanical problems are certainly concerning. I wasn't really expecting it to play that much like the IE games though, after hearing Josh's design manifesto that he's been putting out there the past couple years.

The mechanical changes, as long as they find a way to make it fun, I'll get over. But really it will be a huge problem to me if the itemization/spells/locations/characters don't have the same kind of character and inspiration as the best IE games. No noncombat spells and boring %based itemization rather than great backstories sounds like something I'm going to find very disappointing.

I think there's a fundamental dissonance between the average backer's desires and what we're going to get - the Kickstarter was marketed based on success of Black Isle, but the big names (Avellone/Cain) who were involved in their best games (PS:T, FO1/2) are hardly involved while the guy behind IWD2 and known hater of BG2 is project lead. Plus as a storyfag I'm disappointed that the guys behind Obsidian's best creative effort (MOTB) are working for Inxile.

I'm pretty confident that this will still be a very enjoyable game, just maybe not to the extent that I initially hoped.

 

[roshan]

You forgot no stat requirement, weightless combat, arbitrary UI, useless combat log, Diablo-like itemization, not a single non-combat/utility spell, and Avatar-race as "original content, do not steal".

Still looking forward to it, as illogical as that sounds. :3

One of the main elements of Diablo 1/2 was that you needed stats to use items. If this is not the case, then PoE doesn't even manage the level of complexity of a hack and slash game that is close to two decades old.

 

[Duraframe300]

I haven't played the beta but this thread has me worried. I'm going to try my best to avoid reading more about it so I don't get negative about the game. The look and feel of the game certainly look spot on from videos so the mechanical problems are certainly concerning. I wasn't really expecting it to play that much like the IE games though, after hearing Josh's design manifesto that he's been putting out there the past couple years.

The mechanical changes, as long as they find a way to make it fun, I'll get over. But really it will be a huge problem to me if the itemization/spells/locations/characters don't have the same kind of character and inspiration as the best IE games. No noncombat spells and boring %based itemization rather than great backstories sounds like something I'm going to find very disappointing.

I think there's a fundamental dissonance between the average backer's desires and what we're going to get - the Kickstarter was marketed based on success of Black Isle, but the big names (Avellone/Cain) who were involved in their best games (PS:T, FO1/2) are hardly involved while the guy behind IWD2 and known hater of BG2 is project lead. Plus as a storyfag I'm disappointed that the guys behind Obsidian's best creative effort (MOTB) are working for Inxile.

I'm pretty confident that this will still be a very enjoyable game, just maybe not to the extent that I initially hoped.

Cain is a lot more involved than Avellone and there are guys that worked on MOTB working on this.

Anyway. Remove yourself from the discussion till release. I can near guarantee you that everything will look different by then. As far as Storyfaq qualities I doubt you have to worry at all.

Eric Fenstermaker is my favourite video game writer and Obsidianitie actually.

 

[roshan]

Percentage thing is meh, but who gives a shit really? If you faggots are such 'experts' of the RPG genre, shouldn't be that hard to work out. Important thing is it's like I'm back in 1998 when playing, complete with the love/hate RTwP combat that even now for me degenerates into a clusterfuck. Sure, I would have loved it TB like Divinity, but fuck it...I commend them for sticking with IE style after promising IE style. When devs start to tinker and change mechanics just to suit some groups then shit gets worse.

I like AD&D as much as the next man, but if they went for something else here, then I'll take it as a challenge to learn this system. Big deal. Also +10% for giving all classes something interesting to do for a change.

I think you might have missed the point. The goal of Pillars of Shitternity has always been to create a system that no one needs to learn, there is nothing to figure out because there is no way to craft a crappy character. All stats are dump stats.

 

[Shevek]

The game is good. There is just a vocal minority that would have preferred if melee classes did nothing but autoattack while wizards got all the game's cool abilities and that the game were still run in "rounds." Next thing you know, people will wish for THAC0 and syphilis.

 

[imweasel]

Its such a problem because now all this beautiful art and work is held hostage by somebodies life long dream to show the world how RPG's should really be designed or something.

It is truly a shame to see these beautiful assets go to waste. The art guys and writers did a fantastic job. Hopefully everything eventually gets fixed.



Anyway, I got a lot of shit from you niggers for criticizing Sawyer's absurd design objectives a while back. I bitched about the itemization problems, the HP regeneration and HP bloat, the lack of XP rewards and so on. But I was RIGHT. I was fucking RIGHT. And I warned you all. I'm the fucking anti-Roguey.

(but okay, I had no idea it would be this bad though.... ^^)

 

[Infinitron]

Hi Kevin, I hope that you guys at the T:ToN team are going to deliver on your promises for that game. With PoE, fans gave money to fund a spiritual successor to the IE games and what they instead got was health regeneration, auto resurrection, MMOG class specializations, no bad builds, no penalties, no XP unless you do exactly what Obsidian wants in the exact sequence that Obsidian wants, magic stash and no item weight, MMOG HP and numbers bloat, running around in combat and KEWL ANIMESHUNS instead of an abstract tactical system.

Instead of getting what they paid for, the fans got a particular designer's ego trip and modern day, dumbed down systems instead of classic ones. Please do not repeat these mistakes with T:ToN.

Go take a look at the Numenera ruleset and weep

 

[tuluse]

The game is good. There is just a vocal minority that would have preferred if melee classes did nothing but autoattack while wizards got all the game's cool abilities and that the game were still run in "rounds." Next thing you know, people will wish for THAC0 and syphilis.

A lot of people seem really upset that a low int wizard is viable.

Which I don't really understand. Their magical ability comes from innate soul power, not intellect.

 

[nikolokolus]

Nihiliste I think there's a few kinds of negativity going on here. I think some people are reacting to months and months of Roguey's incessant fellatio of Sawyer, some people are predisposed to dislike the combat system or have other issues with underlying systems choices and then there's just the plain ol' reaction to the wonkiness of the beta build. I guess I'm mostly in the last category with a dash of the second group. It seems fixable so long as you're not hung up on it being a D&D clone or can't get over Roguey or RTwP combat.

 

[Shevek]

The game is good. There is just a vocal minority that would have preferred if melee classes did nothing but autoattack while wizards got all the game's cool abilities and that the game were still run in "rounds." Next thing you know, people will wish for THAC0 and syphilis.

A lot of people seem really upset that a low int wizard is viable.

Which I don't really understand. Their magical ability comes from innate soul power, not intellect.

A lot of people are idiots. Stats are an abstraction. The thing is, crpg fans have been so used to being fed shit for so long, that they have gotten used to crying about things and seem unable to recognize something good when its there. Its like some fucked up version of crpg gamer ptsd.

Whatever, people will come around. The game is good. Damn good.

 

[Nihiliste]

Cain is a lot more involved than Avellone and there are guys that worked on MOTB working on this.

Anyway. Remove yourself from the discussion till release. I can near guarantee you that everything will look different by then. As far as Storyfaq qualities I doubt you have to worry at all.

Eric Fenstermaker is my favourite video game writer and Obsidianitie actually.

I'm not sure what Cain is working on besides the stronghold.

I hope you're right though, as I'm really looking forward to this game.

On another note I do think some of the new additions look fun - I'm particularly looking forward to trying the Cipher and Chanter.

Nihiliste I think there's a few kinds of negativity going on here. I think some people are reacting to months and months of Roguey's incessant fellatio of Sawyer, some people are predisposed to dislike the combat system or have other issues with underlying systems choices and then there's just the plain ol' reaction to the wonkiness of the beta build. I guess I'm mostly in the last category with a dash of the second group. It seems fixable so long as you're not hung up on it being a D&D clone or can't get over Roguey or RTwP combat.

The roguey backlash and the bugs I'm not worried about, more just the general response so far to the systemic decisions and feel of certain aspects of the game (class distinction, items, etc). I suppose there's no point discussing or reading too much into it though since I'm not going to touch this until its released.