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

[FuriousGamer87]

The beta art is beautiful but the game is kinda boring.
Also the controls are wonky
I thought for something to be defined as beta, the underlying mechanics and controls must be pretty much done already.
I am speaking as a person who play all the old CRPG and have replay IWD2 and ToEE for at least five times each.

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

That Once more guy is either an anonymous Obsidian staff, or a Something Awful poster. Most likely the latter I suppose.

That Once more guy is either an anonymous Obsidian staff, or a Something Awful poster. Most likely the latter I suppose.

Likely Andhaira alt, actually

Wrong on all counts. I'm just a bee in a hornets nest.

 

[Shadenuat]

Finally managed to get to level 8. Pure luck, game crashed once but reload did not wipe out quests. I also got experience triggers right, like visiting some places and dealing with the ogre, for example.
Now I understand why Sensuki thinks leveling is dull. Empty levels, feats that just pump already existing abilities, and abilities that just pump stuff class is already good at. Fighter gets more defense in various ways, Rogue more DPS. And holy hell, the spells. Say Cleric, he gets seal you can put on the floor on level 2, another one at level 3, another one at level 4... neither Wizard or Cleric get summoning spells, or new utility spells, or something that just feels fresh compared to previous levels. Magic missiles too. You get a level 1 magic missile, level 3 missile, level 4 missile... wtf. I hope you get more interesting spells during adventuring at least. Some stuff looks interesting like Phantom (BG Projection), and Invulnerability Sphere is in, but there's also a spell every level that does same shit Wizard's starting ability does - improves deflection. +10, +20, +25, urrh
Fact that Wizard's spells are actually Feats, so on level 6 or what you can improve your grimoire or take 4 level spell... wat.

And blank levels with only skill points suck.

Game would be better with say... 10-12 level being max level, but you'd get feat every 1-2 levels.
You also get levels too fast in beta, 1 level/quest basically.

 

[SniperHF]

Finally managed to get to level 8. Pure luck, game crashed once but reload did not wipe out quests. I also got experience triggers right, like visiting some places and dealing with the ogre, for example.

Wish I had that much luck. I want my fun to be ended but I can't get through the bugs first. Seems like every time something works right another trigger breaks 10 minutes later.

Maybe I'll give it another shot on the first patch. Agreed about the Priest spells, they are very dull. I think it's partially due to how many of them are AoE. Not much in the way of interesting decision making involved in spamming buffs on a giant mess of characters.

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

Finally managed to get to level 8. Pure luck, game crashed once but reload did not wipe out quests. I also got experience triggers right, like visiting some places and dealing with the ogre, for example.
Now I understand why Sensuki things leveling is dull. Empty levels, feats that just pump already existing abilities, and abilities that just pump stuff class is already good at. Fighter gets more defense in various ways, Rogue more DPS. And holy hell, the spells. Say Cleric, he gets seal you can put on the floor on level 2, another one at level 3, another one at level 4... neither Wizard or Cleric get summoning spells, or new utility spells, or something that just feels fresh compared to previous levels. Magic missiles too. You get a level 1 magic missile, level 3 missile, level 4 missile... wtf. I hope you get more interesting spells during adventuring at least. Some stuff looks interesting like Phantom (BG Projection), and Invulnerability Sphere is in, but there's also a spell every level that does same shit Wizard's starting ability does - improves deflection. +10, +20, +25, urrh
Fact that Wizard's spells are actually Feats, so on level 6 or what you can improve your grimoire or take 4 level spell... wat.

And blank levels with only skill points suck.

Game would be better with say... 10-12 level being max level, but you'd get feat every 1-2 levels.
You also get levels too fast in beta, 1 level/quest basically.

I agree with you on the banality of the spell-design, and I think this is partially a result of designing a system where the "power" of the spells do not progress with the caster's levels, therefore the caster has to get a new version of the same spells every few levels.

In regards to the speed of progression in the beta, IIRC, the noted in the beta update that the experience points given in the beta quests were intentionally overinflated so that characters would level up at a faster than normal rate.

 

[Shadenuat]

If leveling on release would be dull AND slow that would be bad.

I think this is partially a result of designing a system where the "power" of the spells do not progress with the caster's levels

Perhaps, but some things just make no sense like the fact that spell selection for every Priest is 100% same no matter what god he worships.

That's a step back even from D&D, not to mention IWD or NWN.

Heck, for now spells make me think of the game as IWD2 that had everything that might have even a small chance of not having direct combat application (and by that I mean, no damage, defense or healing) stripped away.

Really shitty spell selection if you ask me. I wonder how many spells exactly are there in the game now, something tells me not enough.

...whole character system feels like IWD2 stripped of good chunk of flavor and customisation.

how many of them are AoE

Yes there are just too many AoE spells. Even starting heal is AoE. Druid's Barkskin is AoE, Charm Animal is AoE...
Maybe because there is no pre-buffing now, Obsi thought that single-target buff is too weak to be worthy of spending action on.

 

[Wizfall]

Can't believe some people miss the loss of the awful BG2 IE character system.
The worst system ever where you only need to max 2 stat at best, absolutely 0 customization possible, every character of the same class being strictly identical.
His only redeeming aspect was the multi-classing possibilities, otherwise it was totally rubbish.
As bad as PoE system seems to be it is better, at least now you can have slight difference between characters of the same class.

Caster types don't have much use for stats in BG2 (especially sorcerer, unless you want do derp around with a Wish spell) but as any kind of fighter hybrid I'd certainly max 3 stats atleast (STR, DEX and CON), maybe one more depending on whether I want to dual-class (only human) for which there's certainly incentive given how powerful dual-class chars can become.

I also think in BG2 kits add a lot to its CC system despite Sawyer viewing them as patches or whatever.

The lack of impact of stats should definitely be criticized (and it's something I'm disappointed with myself), but doing it on the basis of the IE games is bizarre. Here's the class progression chart for the Baldur's Gate - none of the stats are even referenced in it: http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Progression_Charts

Start BG1 with a fighter that has 3 in STR, DEX and CON, tell me how it goes (tip: run from the wolves).

Arguing with people like you is terrible because you show extreme bad-faith and you have to explain the obvious.
So let me tell you what you already know very well but don't say :
Pure spellcaster need 2 stat : the spellcasting stat (and even worse all the spellcasters has the same max in that stat otherwise cannot cast max high level spell so 0 customization here, wow sats are important you see lol) and in a lesser degree CON. Fantastic, awesome !
Fighter class need 2 stats (and i'm kind because Dex is not that useful unless maybe max so lol again) not 3 as i'm sure you know very well but play the retard, because right at the end of the Dungeon you have easy access at a belt giving you 19 ST (and latter 2/3 even better belt), that make strengh a utterly garbage stat . Especially there are no other great belt so you lose almost nothing.
And don't tell me it's metagaming moron because you know it after maybe one hour of gameplay that you totally wasted your time rolling for a good 18/?? stats as a fighter...
So wow now only DEX and CON interesting...for having what +4 AC maximum and meaningless to hit bonus with range weapon if you max it instead of minimum value, that huge for sure !
Still CON awesome ! what a great difference and impactfull main attributes ! for sure except everybody except a retard can have 18 in those if he wants, otherwise.
Pfff...

 

[Sensuki]

On the Cruel Disposition:

Yeah ultimately we want the darker options to stem from appropriate circumstances like:

* NPC is mouthing off.
* NPC is whining or complaining.
* NPC is in a position of extreme weakness relative to the PC (e.g. dying, at the player's mercy, a child, a social pariah, etc.).

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

Perhaps, but some things just make no sense like the fact that spell selection for every Priest is 100% same no matter what god he worships.

I think the priest spell thing may be intentional due to the game's lore. In the lore, the priest does not get his/her spells from the god they worship but from the intensity of their soul's belief yadiyada yadiyada yadiyada. Therefore, no matter which god a priest worshipped, their belief would not in actuality be any different that the priest of any other god's.

BUT! With that said, I still think it would be better and make more sense (and would fit in lore-wise) if a priest's spell-selection was affected somewhat by their diety (i.e. A worshiper of the fire god would have more fire spells, or would deal more damage with said fire spells, or a worshiper of Ondra would have more healing spells or healinglier healing spells, or a worshiper of Hylea would have more haste-like spells or hastier haste spells, etc)

 

[Shadenuat]

Well it doesn't matter if lore states otherwise, as you said all priests more or less have different beliefs and different goals. It doesn't make sense if you praise for death, love, fire or rebirth, yet what you do in the world does not reflect your beliefs at all.

 

[Sensuki]

It's not because of the lore, it's so they didn't have to create loads of different spells for any classes except the Wizard. The lore simply validates the design choice in the game world.

This is also why classes have set ability progression, because a pool with extras would be too much work and harder to banalce.

 

[Rake]

It's not because of the lore, it's so they didn't have to create loads of different spells for any classes except the Wizard. The lore simply validates the design choice in the game world.

So far wizard's spell selection isn't something to write home about.

 

[agris]

So I bought a new level 4 adventurer and she starts out at level 1 with 0 experience and the 'level up' button is greyed out. Is there a way around this? I couldn't find a console command to add experience.

 

[Shadenuat]

It's not because of the lore, it's so they didn't have to create loads of different spells for any classes except the Wizard. The lore simply validates the design choice in the game world.

So far wizard's spell selection isn't something to write home about.

Yeah it's mostly pure damage, a bit of deliberating effects and load of +deflection spells.

The best spell selection is at level 1. The most worthy spell is Fan of Flames imo, that kicks ass even when you get levels 2-3-4.
It's basically Evocation+Abjuration+little of Transmutation. Most powerful and combat applicable D&D schools.

 

[Kaldurenik]

Well after playing around a bit more with the stats and some other things this is my feedback on it:

The stats in my opinion have some major problems. Not only with balance, but the fact that they are boring and uninspiring. And it would not mater if might increased damage by 5% or 10% for each point, it would not change anything. There is no negative effect of having a low stat. No stat scaling so that if you "max" a stats you gain a larger bonus and there is no stats to class synergy and yes i know its "meant" to be that way but its not helping. Then you have the dump stats that by the looks of it have no real effect at all and i doubt they would have any effect even if you increased the gain from the stats by x5.

So my general idea:

First of all move the "0" point to somewhere between 7-10 points. Then make so that if you have under that many points in something you gain a negative effect.
Then for when you have 14, 16 or 18 or 20 points in something you gain a larger bonus for each "step". Making it more worth to have higher values in the stats.
The dump stats need to be changed so that they are well useful. Im not sure how to do this maybe make so that each stat give "2" things instead of only one. So might could give for example damage and crit damage (or higher max health).

Yes i know the game is meant to be... well to put it in a nice way "simple" you cant fail with your character build. And i dont think they will make the stats have more class synergy.

Then you have items and yes they are very boring, having "some" general "magic" items is fine but the problem is when you throw them at the player all the time. Then you need to make the unique items well unique and even more powerful.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not because of the lore, it's so they didn't have to create loads of different spells for any classes except the Wizard. The lore simply validates the design choice in the game world.

So far wizard's spell selection isn't something to write home about.

Yeah it's mostly pure damage, a bit of deliberating effects and load of +deflection spells.

The best spell selection is at level 1. The most worthy spell is Fan of Flames imo, that kicks ass even when you get levels 2-3-4.
It's basically Evocation+Abjuration+little of Transmutation. Most powerful and combat applicable D&D schools.

Keep in mind that the best spells for wizards will be found in the world, as in AD&D.

 

[Kaldurenik]

So I bought a new level 4 adventurer and she starts out at level 1 with 0 experience and the 'level up' button is greyed out. Is there a way around this? I couldn't find a console command to add experience.

I only know that it took a min or so (or a zone reload) for me to be able to level the adventurer up.

 

[Shevek]

People bitching about stats and items... hilarious.

Stats:

I think people forget that stats didnt mean shit in BG1/2 or IWD since all you have to do was hit the roll button for 5 minutes until you got about 90+ total in attributes. Then you could max your class' main stats (either wis, int or str) and then max dex for ac and con for hp (even that got messy since some classes didnt benefit from con over 16 unless they were a small race and got some silly bonus to saving throws). Cha was useless and you could dump that easily (especially in BG2 since you get the ring of friendship right away).

In this game, the devs are striving to make all the stats useful to everyone. In truth, two stats are a bit weak. Some folks are saying that stats in general do not impact as much as they should. Compared to the implementation of stats in the IE games, this is not a big deal and will be less of an issue once they add more value to perception and resolve. When you factor in all the stat checks in dialogs, stats seem to be implemented pretty darn well in this game compared to the IE titles.

Items:

Items in the IE games were a bit silly. People built parties around items. So, most folks wanted a paladin (typically an inquisitor) in large part for its ability to use the holy avenger. I ALWAYS made a ranger-cleric just because the Flail of Ages/Crom Faeyr combo was so good. That doesn't seem like good design to me. It seems unbalancing. The items get even worse in the IE games when one factors in cheap crap like immunity items that basically trivialize portions of the game (the shield of balduran comes to mind as a prime example).

In this game the unique items seem nice but not ridiculous (from what can be seen in the vendors). The regular items get a bit of a boost and some items get random stats. I think this is wonderful. People can now build parties around important shit like who is doing what in combat not over who gets what overpowered items. Also, this adds much more replayability to your game since players will get items with different attributes and that will make sure that subsequent playthroughs are different. In essense, this lessens the impact of metagaming.

 

[Shadenuat]

Keep in mind that the best spells for wizards will be found in the world, as in AD&D.

That's what I am hoping for. But it's still an issue for Druids&Clerics who also have too focused spell lists with many copycats every level.

In this game, the devs are striving to make all the stats useful to everyone.

By giving enough points to max all useful stats for every char. Right.

People built parties around items.

So itemization was so good that even classes that were shit were saved by imagination of designers who worked on creating cool artifacts. How's that bad.

 

[Trash]

Why would a low level group of adventurers get their hands on very powerful artefacts and spells?

 

[Grunker]

Played a bunch more now since I got a key. The game has problems, but the butthurt in this thread is way too strong. I suspect most of the problems that aren't just people complaining that the game isn't catering specifically to them will be marginalized or solved on release. My biggest worry remains that the micromanagement levels seem off the charts so far, just as me and Sensuki discussed like a year ago. IE-games had six characters but far, far less micromanagement of them. The level of micromanagement here is more than in most turn-based RPGs, which would be awesome if the game was turnbased. It's not however. Also, slow-motion does little to alliveate the issue. The problem stems from the fact that, like in the IE-games, you have to manage position, but here you also manage each character's abilities (and you have nearly no characters on constant autoattack duty). It feels fine in large fights, but when encountering random fights in the wilderness, it's jarring. In other words, all fights demand the same levels of complete management. The way different levels of management are handled in other games (like the IE-games) is that stuff that requires manage are expendable resources. Meaning you could micro every fight, but you don't, because you want to save the resource for another fight. That leads to a natural flow of fights demanding less attention and fights demanding more. Combat in Pillars of Eternity currently feels like reading through a book with a constant climax-arc.

Couple this with the fact that each character provokes (incredibly unclear) AoO's and you have a micro-nightmare. IT'S ALMOST LIKE THAT THING GRUNKER WAS TALKING ABOUT WITH NWN2, HUH. Unless you find joy in split-moving marines to avoid banelings, I don't think you'll have much fun with that. Things like managing your ranger's flanking with his animal companion, getting everyone to their places while thinking about whether or not that provokes 15 attacks of opportunity... all that is every bit as obnoxious, tedious and boring to play with as many of us predicted it would be. I have no idea how someone could look at those mechanics - purely designed for turnbased play - and say "wow, they sure fucked up with that in NWN2, I'm sure it just needs a bit of tinkering and then it'll be fine!"

Most other problems are either strongly overstated here or look solvable so far. I'm even starting to backpedal a bit on my criticism of both leveling and attributes. While certainly not sparkling with mass options and depth, both contain far more than the IE-systems ever did. While maxing STR and CON meant more for the melee classes of the IE-games, everything else easily means more for PoE-classes. In the end, we get more here than we did back then. On this point, I agree with Infinitron: the biggest problem here is actually lack of talents. Though I wish - really, really wish - that you got one talent per level and that the game was balanced around that.

The abilities are fun and satisfying to use as well, except for the utility stuff like "+3 speed" for the Wizard, which feels more like chores because of the micromanagement problem. However, with some more clarity in the combat, if they manage to solve the issue with micro, I believe even those will provise useful and cool once you get a hang of everything and start having each ability memorized so as to easily use them. However, like I said, this remains my biggest worry. I am quite fearful concerning how they will get themselves out of the rut they've stuck themselves in with the insistance on using AoOs, engagement, and positional mechanics. Positioning was extremely important and sometimes troublesome to handle in the IE-games already, but here, it's been cranked up to 9999.

Also, I'm not saying it's everything, but some of the criticism here seems like it stems from people being very bad at the game or trying to analyze how the game feels like in their hands without actually having had it in their hands for that long. I was certainly guilty of that. Which is only natural, but being bad and unfamiliar with how the game handles in your hands will automatically colour your view of stuff like clarity, impact of certain abilities and attributes etc. Certainly this is a thread of knee-jerk reactions if I ever saw one. I imagine people would be quite baffled if they - without any prior experience - were granted a party of a cleric/fighter, a druid/fighter, a fighter/mage, a bard, a wizard and a cleric in the IE-games and asked to go play.

 

[Shadenuat]

IT'S ALMOST LIKE THAT THING GRUNKER WAS TALKING ABOUT WITH NWN2, HUH.

It was something that has been discussed for tens of pages in "RtWP"-threads.

 

[Grunker]

IT'S ALMOST LIKE THAT THING GRUNKER WAS TALKING ABOUT WITH NWN2, HUH.

It was something that has been discussed for tens of pages in "RtWP"-threads.

So? My point was that it wasn't like they didn't know about NWN2 (you know, themself having made the game), and they stated they recognized the issue in that game. Yet somehow, that doesn't seem ackknowledged at all in PoE. Sensuki, I thought you stated several ways in which they would counteract these problems?

EDIT: also:

as many of us predicted

EDIT2: I mean, it's not literally as bad as NWN2 since you don't provoke oceans of the things by moving about, but the point is that movement triggers several effects which lead to tedious micromanagement and lack of clarity.

 

[Osvir]

Why would a low level group of adventurers get their hands on very powerful artefacts and spells?

Yep, it's a known issue. Some classes/builds are overpowered and imbalanced at the moment. Obsidian are aware because this is broadstrike implementation of the design (Which means that a Level 1 Chanter can summons 3 permanent, strong, skeletons). Or 18 Skeletons if you want a good laugh

EDIT: It's like when you work at a restaurant, you always make more than expected because you don't know how many customers you get. The design is implemented, I feel, in a similar way (lots of stuff are boosted more than necessary, because it is easier to take from something that is "too much" than adding to something that is "too little"). /EDIT

I remember reading one of the devs saying they will lower it to 1 Skeleton. I think getting an Invocation on Level 1 is a bit much, and you should only have Phrases~ maybe get an Invocation on Level 2 to get a feeling of progression I s'pose.

 

[Shadenuat]

Yet somehow, that doesn't seem ackknowledged at all in PoE.

Not exactly. The acknowledged it in some of their class design, like Cipher and Chanter, classes that have both strategic and tactical management when it comes to abilities. Like half the time they do something automatically and require low management, while on occasion they do something awesome.

The positioning is all over the place though, that is true.

I am going to be what, second guy I think, who is going to say that because of scripting DA:O was less of a bitch when it came to using active abilities.