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

[FeelTheRads]

I'm starting to like this Bubbles guy.

 

[roshan]

D&D Bless is +1 to hit. That's a 5% increase chance to hit.

This is completely incorrect. Bless is a +1 to your AB which does not necessarily translate into 5% increase chance to hit.

If your enemy has an AC of 15, and you have an AB of 6, adding the roll gives you a range of 7-26, which means you have a 45% chance to hit. Bless adding to this means you now have a 50% chance to hit the enemy, but your chance to hit has actually increased by 11.11%. If you previously only had a 5% chance to hit, bless would actually increase your chance to hit by 100%.

Now bless is a fairly minor spell but that +1 AB is always relevant because numbers in DnD are small and not bloated. Anytime you find an enemy that you actually miss against fairly often is always a good opportunity to use a bless spell. On top of this, the spell as opposed to more powerful buffs lasts a long bloody time. I recall in IWD2 being able to clear maps before my bless ran out. There is almost no excuse not to cast it all the time.

Honestly, pretty fucking awesome for something you get at level 1.

 

[Bubbles]

D&D Bless is +1 to hit. That's a 5% increase chance to hit.

Only in the most abstract sense. +1 to hit could theoretically double your hit chances.

(what roshan said)

 

[Duraframe300]

I want mah muscle wizard.

 

[Athelas]

D&D Bless is +1 to hit. That's a 5% increase chance to hit.

Only in the most abstract sense. +1 to hit could theoretically double your hit chances.

(what roshan said)

If the +1 from Bless actually doubled your chance to hit, it would mean you have a slightly less tiny chance to hit, so his point still stands.

 

[Shadenuat]

In D&D and BG1 in particular (BG2 introduced summon cap) your party can reach up to 20+ creatures (in BG1 standard summon gets you 4-6 creatures often), so shit like +thac0 or +AC and Strength in 40 feet radii can be effective. Top it with Haste and you can murder people with a bunch of level 1 Wild Dogs.

 

[Harold]

I want mah barbarian genius.

 

[Tytus]

I want mah muscle wizard.

When I hear the words "Muscle Wizard" I want a mage that specializes in flesh manipulation. Like making your enemy muscles explode or turning his tendons into tentacles that attack and strangle anyone around him, or just releasing high amounts of lactic acid into his musculature making him so fucking sore he can't fight effectively. Or he could just simply make a flesh golem.

 

[roshan]

If it doubled your chance to hit, it would still be a theoretically tiny chance to hit, so his point still stands.

Errr... If you consider doing twice as much damage "tiny" then I don't know what to think. Maybe PoE really did need to be dumbed down with bloated numbers, I guess some people simply cannot comprehend dice rolls.

 

[Shadenuat]

I want mah muscle wizard.

In PoE everyone is muscled, don't worry.

Since everyone has at least some damaging abilities, even Chanters have songs that do dmg, I don't see a reason not to have 18 Might/18 Con on every char. The last stat is either Dex or Int or a mix of them. Not sure how chance to hit with spells works so maybe INT is actually a dump stat for some casters.


For something positive, I like that most bosses and end level enemies can be talked to and persuaded in a very flexible way. Even dumb ogre. And animancer quest has very gray choices and possible consequences.

 

[Infinitron]

There's a dude on Something Awful who says Int is the most important stat and everything else can be dumped.

The Balance shall be Complete when every single stat has somebody who claims that about it

 

[Harold]

Since we're on the subject, what do PER's Interrupt and RES's Concentration actually do??

 

[Tytus]

There's a dude on Something Awful who says Int is the most important stat and everything else can be dumped.

The Balance shall be Complete when every single stat has somebody who claims that about it

True strength comes from intelligence not raw muscle power, just look at Hitler

 

[Shadenuat]

There's a dude on Something Awful who says Int is the most important stat and everything else can be dumped.

The Balance shall be Complete when every single stat has somebody who claims that about it

INT is useful for buffs and heals so it's Cleric's favorite stat. But if you only want to spam magic missiles, it's useless. And it's actually easier sometimes to land a smaller fireball than a badass big whole screen one.
It is checked in dialogue often game being Obsidian and all that.

 

[serch]

I can respect Sawyer for getting away of the whole wizards get all the cool things, fighters are just there as easy to use, low complexity chars. D&D needs a 7 th stat, magic power or something. Mental stats should be equally useful to every character to avoid stupid repercusions in campaign worlds. Sawyer is tacking that too.

 

[Wizfall]

Very few real butthurt in this thread, most of it concerns not crucial aspect of the game.
It's obvious reading the thread the game have not big design flaw.
Lot of bugs and thing missing (especially concerning combat feedback) but even being pessimistic these things should be fixed.

Character customization seems limited and i'm not fond of it.
Still way more enjoyable than in other IE game where it was pathetic.
IE games had the worst system ever with in fact 0 customization apart from multi/dualclassing.
A fighting class : you only need constitution and dexterity (belt will make Strengh stat meaningless almost right from the start of BG2, and even without belt only 3 stats to max meaning everyone make the same character for a specific class. Even a casual dumbfuck player can't go wrong).
A Spellcasting class ? : only need 2 stats, constitution and the one you need to be able to cast spell (even worse means a 18 is mandatory otherwise no high level spellcasting possible).
Really pathetic system.

Despite that BG2 was an awesome game thanks to GREAT itemization.
That is maybe the biggest concern here , a diablo like itemization is very bad IMO and it could stay like that in the final product.
But otherwise seems everything should be great if it goes on that way.
Unlike W2 which had at least one major design flaws right from the start.

 

[Sensuki]

Great quests and encounters too. Some of your stat arrays are a bit extreme though.

 

[Bubbles]

INT is useful for buffs and heals so it's Cleric's favorite stat. But if you only want to spam magic missiles, it's useless. And it's actually easier sometimes to land a smaller fireball than a badass big whole screen one.

I don't know if lower difficulties remove friendly fire, but that's definitely another good reason not to pump Int on a damage-focussed spellcaster.

 

[roshan]

A Spellcasting class ? : only need 2 stats, constitution and the one you need to be able to cast spell (even worse means a 18 is mandatory otherwise no high level spellcasting possible).
Really pathetic system.

AFAIK this was never implemented in BG2. AFAIK you can actually dump INT as a mage. All INT affects is your lore value and scroll scribing chance, but I think if you lower the difficulty you get 100% scribe spells anyway (correct me if I am wrong on this). So if you dumped INT you would simply have the inconvenience of reloading a lot or lowering the difficulty whenever you need to scribe.

I don't think your casting stat even affects your enemy's ability to save against your spells as in 3E, please do correct me if I am wrong.

You are right though, it was quite pathetic.

 

[Abu Antar]

New personal record: Ogre down in 6 seconds.

The flaming weapon thingy the chanter has is way overpowered. I cut through everything like butter. Things were dropping dead before I could even prepare any sort of strategy. I will wait for the next update and then play on hard.

I don't care what systems are in, I am having fun.

 

[Bubbles]

More noose from the J-man:

Something that should be showing up in some weapon descriptions is when they are a "best of" damage type weapon. Weapons like swords and pollaxes are "best of" damage type weapons. In the case of swords, they will either do Slash or Pierce damage depending on the target's armor resistances vs. those types. Pollaxes do either Slash or Crush. There are other "best of" weapons but I can't remember them all off the top of my head.

One of the best weapons against stone beetles is a morning star. It does Crush damage and has a higher base Interrupt rating. Quarterstaves are also pretty good if you want to attack with reach.

 

[Osvir]

Level 1-5 List: All Classes

For referencing etc. in discussions and whatnot~

I think all these "Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization and Hold the Line" should be Skills that you Level up with Skill points instead... this allows the Player to pick whether they want to have a high Lore, or if they want to have a high Weapon Skill, or even if they can Hold enemies at bay. These are "general talents" and everyone but like 2-3 Classes have them and Character Building would become MUCH more diverse with Proficiency in the SKILL list.

Let the Class Specific Talents be some spiffy cool looking Ability Upgrade Screen (Because that's all they do anyways).

 

[Maculo]

Have you all made much use of the hired companions? The screenshot above reminded me that I have not tried it yet.

 

[Abu Antar]

Level 1-5 List: All Classes

For referencing etc. in discussions and whatnot~

I think all these "Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization and Hold the Line" should be Skills that you Level up with Skill points instead... this allows the Player to pick whether they want to have a high Lore, or if they want to have a high Weapon Skill, or even if they can Hold enemies at bay. These are "general talents" and everyone but like 2-3 Classes have them and Character Building would become MUCH more diverse with Proficiency in the SKILL list.

Let the Class Specific Talents be some spiffy cool looking Ability Upgrade Screen (Because that's all they do anyways).

I haven't picked any weapon specialization and only chose hold the line for my fighter. I seemed to do fairly well, either way. But I do agree your points.

 

[Jedi Exile]

I've played beta for a few hours and it seems underwhelming so far. Maybe this is because I expected too much from PoE. I don't like the graphics - it looks cheap and uninspiring (though there are some nice effects like falling leaves and butterflies). Combat is usual IE clusterfuck. Would be better if it was turn-based, really. It is difficult to judge other things like writing, quest design, exploration etc. because this is still beta and it is also horribly bugged. Time will tell.

Yeah those portraits are really ugly. What the hell were they smoking? But I guess they are in just for the beta.