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

[Infinitron]

Wat? It's not even being developed by the same company.

 

[Duraframe300]

coffeetable posted:
Seeing as you're around: how's the criticism of the beta lining up with what you expected it to be criticised for? Any surprises?

Rope kid posted:
I have to catch a flight soon, but nothing major so far, no. The vast majority of the issues people are reporting are things we knew about and were either in the process of fixing or knew we had to fix but didn't have time to address before Gamescom. There are a lot of minor comments people have made about classes and interfaces that will be good for tuning, minor adjustments, and making Talents, though

 

[Infinitron]

By the way, I've just realized critics of PoE's core class flexibility may be looking at this game from a skewed perspective. You're thinking of it like Icewind Dale, like how you would create an entire party, and how weird it would be to run a party of six barbarians who can stealth, or six paladins who can pick locks, or whatever.

But that's not how most people are going to play this game. You're creating ONE character. The rest are being supplied to you by Obsidian, and will probably all match up with various D&D archetypes anyway. Again, you're creating ONE character, so isn't it cool that he can be pretty much whatever you want?

 

[imweasel]

coffeetable posted:
Seeing as you're around: how's the criticism of the beta lining up with what you expected it to be criticised for? Any surprises?

Rope kid posted:
I have to catch a flight soon, but nothing major so far, no. The vast majority of the issues people are reporting are things we knew about and were either in the process of fixing or knew we had to fix but didn't have time to address before Gamescom. There are a lot of minor comments people have made about classes and interfaces that will be good for tuning, minor adjustments, and making Talents, though

"Ignorance is Bliss."

:D

 

[Infinitron]

 

[roshan]

By the way, I've just realized critics of PoE's core class flexibility may be looking at this game from a skewed perspective. You're thinking of it like Icewind Dale, like how you would create an entire party, and how weird it would be to run a party of six barbarians who can stealth, or six paladins who can pick locks, or whatever.

But that's not how most people are going to play this game. You're creating ONE character. The rest are being supplied to you by Obsidian, and will probably all match up with various D&D archetypes anyway. Again, you're creating ONE character, so isn't it cool that he can be pretty much whatever you want?

What happens if we don't want to play the game with a female paladin that Obsidian aptly named Pallegina?
(how creative naming her with a portmanteau of paladin and vagina.....)

 

[Rivmusique]

Monks and barbarians are pretty high maintenance

Is this meant to be showing in the beta? I've not played monks (well I did, but things quickly broke in that playthrough so I restarted with a different class before I really got to see him) but barbarians start with one 3 times per rest berserk ability, a stamina restore 1 per encounter and that wild sprint (which was also x times per rest IIRC). And they get a 1 per encounter shout at one of the level ups. Compared to fighters, who begin with 2 per encounter knockdown, 1 per encounter short term all-defense up ability and a defender modal that decreases attack speed but increases deflection (so you may find it beneficial to toggle off when the incoming attacks are low). Barbs seem relatively low maintenance at the moment.

 

[AW8]

 

[Infinitron]

Monks and barbarians are pretty high maintenance

Is this meant to be showing in the beta? I've not played monks (well I did, but things quickly broke in that playthrough so I restarted with a different class before I really got to see him) but barbarians start with one 3 times per rest berserk ability, a stamina restore 1 per encounter and that wild sprint (which was also x times per rest IIRC). And they get a 1 per encounter shout at one of the level ups. Compared to fighters, who begin with 2 per encounter knockdown, 1 per encounter short term all-defense up ability and a defender modal that decreases attack speed but increases deflection (so you may find it beneficial to toggle off when the incoming attacks are low). Barbs seem relatively low maintenance at the moment.

Good question. I'd PM Anthony Davis with it so he can pass it on. Obsidian isn't inXile and I fear their staff may abandon reading this thread if it continues to be as, uh, vibrant as it is right now.

 

[Hormalakh]

Good question. I'd PM Anthony Davis with so he can pass it on. Obsidian isn't inXile and I fear their staff may abandon reading this thread if it continues to be as, uh, vibrant as it is right now.

There's so much shitposting just to spite Roguey, JES, et al that even I stopped reading most of the thread. That and the fact that it doubles in pages every 24 hours. It's a cancer.

 

[Frusciante]

What most people here hating on PoE don't realise is that its just their personal subjective (and sometimes autistic) opinion about mechanics the average player doesnt even know about.

I bet 90% of the PoE players will just see the class/attribute system as something almost identical to the IE games and will enjoy it a lot.

 

[Black]

This is the best thread ever of the now :D

 

[Gord]

What happens if we don't want to play the game with a female paladin that Obsidian aptly named Pallegina?
(how creative naming her with a portmanteau of paladin and vagina.....)

I guess you don't use the palladin if you don't want/need it. Same as with BG1/2 companions. I suspect that there will be other choices.

Also dat name, is that really in the beta? If so, SJW thread incoming, I guess.

 

[Shadenuat]

Monks and barbarians are pretty high maintenance

Is this meant to be showing in the beta?

Nope, they're click-n-spank.
There is just no tactical reason to use their haste move, really, monsters rush in to you and if you want to whack someone in 1 round you want 3 muskets, not a barb. Rage is ehh... stamina regen is ok, but stamina regen = use healing potion, it's not by IE means a "high maintenance".

As for monks I tried them twice but they just continue to die in 2 hits from beetles before even getting a chance at using their stunning fist or whatever. They probably need plate armor.

Rogues also have that issue. There is also an issue of interrupts. I once got monsters close to rogue, I used his Escape, he got hit 2-3 times by fast enemies and staggered with interrupt = dead. Good Escape lul.

 

[Black]

Can't you just give your monks a huge gun?

 

[Shadenuat]

Well you actually want them to get hit, othewise their special attacks remain locked.

 

[Harold]

Keep calm. You can't have balance without ballistic fists. It's a sure bet they'll be patched it soon.

 

[Black]

Well you actually want them to get hit, othewise their special attacks remain locked.

Oh, I guess that makes it b

Spoiler

ullshit, needing to control how much your dude gets hurt in real-time while babysitting other characters.

 

[MicoSelva]

I managed to get through character creation on my second attempt (game crashed on portrait selection first time).

Meet Sucky the Orlan Cypher. I wonder how he will fare with this statline.

 

[Spockrock]

whoever says there are no non-combat spells is not paying attention. there's Charm, Domination, Bless, Aid and a crapton of other equivalent spells/abilities in the BB. were you trying to tell what each spell did by its icon or something?

the combat is fine as it is, the only major issue is pathfinding and model collision. I had bigger enemies try to get on top of smaller enemies in combat and get stuck in their models because the AI apparently doesn't react to obstacles that are other AI. all fights tend to devolve into huge piles of polygons as a result.

you can prevent this from happening by pre-placing your party before initiating combat far enough apart and using crowd control spells/abilities once the mob approaches.

at first I couldn't tell what was happening in combat, but turns out every character has a small circle above him/her. this circle represents the character's current action: moving, attacking, using an ability/casting a spell. with that realization combat became easy and enjoyable. shit does happen too fast if there are multiple enemies engaging the party, so for the first few minutes I put the game on "Slow", until we thin out the enemy a little.

I'm playing on Normal, though. and combat feels exactly as it says - normal. so far I'm impressed.

as for the whole "attributes are too meaningless" thing. here's what: I used to play this MMO, where people would lose their shit if you didn't have certain items equipped, because the game was so old and wouldn't get any updates to its equipment, certain weapons/armor were considered essential. and it all stemmed from the fact that even though a single extra point of Strength added by that piece of armor wouldn't mean much on paper (it's just a +0.5 to Attack which in turn affects damage) in longer fights it would mean that your character could break through the enemy's resistance to physical attacks. same with Dexterity; it would add up and allow you to miss less. and in a boss-fight 8/10 hits instead of 6/10 could be the deciding factor.

and PoE feels exactly the same. yes, single increments of Might or whatever seem meaningless right now, but your enchantments, skills and equipment will add to that - so, yes, it does pay off min/maxing, if you know exactly what kind of build you want to have by, say, the mid-game.

and if you don't want to min/max you don't have to, because Sawyer took care of that. have a mediocre character, it won't break your game.

it comes down to how enemies at higher levels will react to damage dealt, i.e. at what point in maxing out certain stats diminishing returns kick in.

 

[Frusciante]

I managed to get through character creation on my second attempt (game crashed on portrait selection first time).

If you keep crashing there might be a problem with the memory allocation on your system. Do you play on a windows 7 32 bit system?

 

[Shadenuat]

whoever says there are no non-combat spells is not paying attention. there's Charm, Domination, Bless, Aid and a crapton of other equivalent spells/abilities in the BB

If you're judging by how many spells can you cast outside of combat to raep enemy before engagement then all IE spells were non-combat.

 

[imweasel]

I managed to get through character creation on my second attempt (game crashed on portrait selection first time).

Meet Sucky the Orlan Cypher. I wonder how he will fare with this statline.

That is a perfectly viable build in PoE, because "balance".

Report back how it went.

 

[Jaedar]

I don't know if it is a viable build, but sawyer has promised all build would be, so if it isn't he has failed.

(And if it is, he has likewise failed, but for another reason)

 

[Duraframe300]

Monks and barbarians are pretty high maintenance

Is this meant to be showing in the beta? I've not played monks (well I did, but things quickly broke in that playthrough so I restarted with a different class before I really got to see him) but barbarians start with one 3 times per rest berserk ability, a stamina restore 1 per encounter and that wild sprint (which was also x times per rest IIRC). And they get a 1 per encounter shout at one of the level ups. Compared to fighters, who begin with 2 per encounter knockdown, 1 per encounter short term all-defense up ability and a defender modal that decreases attack speed but increases deflection (so you may find it beneficial to toggle off when the incoming attacks are low). Barbs seem relatively low maintenance at the moment.

Good question. I'd PM Anthony Davis with it so he can pass it on. Obsidian isn't inXile and I fear their staff may abandon reading this thread if it continues to be as, uh, vibrant as it is right now.

Doubt it.