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

[Infinitron]

Shouldn't you wait for the auto-attack bug to be fixed before judging that, Grunker

Not to mention more feedback etc.

 

[Grunker]

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.

Well, that only compounds the problem is my point. You make positioning matter, which leads to tedium and lack of clarity if you can't interact with positioning meaningfully, so you solve the problem by adding ways to interact with positioning, which means you'll have to micro more. In obvious ways. With abilities that are self-explanatory and not that interesting to activate. So by ackknowleding that NWN2's positioning sucked, you add to the problem by making players engage with those issues even more.

Shouldn't you wait for the auto-attack bug to be fixed before judging that, Grunker

Why does the lack of auto-attack matter Infinitron? My main issue is with positioning and the constant use of abilities over six characters. Auto-attacking literally has nothing to do with any of what I wrote.

 

[Infinitron]

Why does the lack of auto-attack matter Infinitron? My main issue is with positioning and the constant use of abilities over six characters. Auto-attacking literally has nothing to do with any of what I wrote.

I don't know, because having to micro-manage auto-attack too makes the other micro-management feel even worse?

And then there's the pathfinding which is bad now, which means you have to micro-manage movement more as well. It all adds up.

 

[Grunker]

Why does the lack of auto-attack matter Infinitron? My main issue is with positioning and the constant use of abilities over six characters. Auto-attacking literally has nothing to do with any of what I wrote.

I don't know, because having to micro-manage auto-attack too makes the other micro-management feel even worse?

Maybe, I guess. But I don't actually think I auto-attacked a whole lot during my play. I felt like I was constantly pausing to issue ability-commands and changing targets anyway, so most of the time, I was switching stuff around before need AA. Aside from the obvious tedium that followed from mopping up without auto-attacks, but that's why I didn't comment on those types of situations.

 

[Shadenuat]

I'd still probably would have ditched AOOs and just worked with AI targeting better. IE worked OK without these gamist-like hold-the-line mechanics. The engagement mechanic is not very clear for now, I don't even understand it visually, just know it's there since I have combat log all opened all the time.

Also with new interruption mechanic and action bars and resolve and perception AOOs are not as necessary to punish actions you usually want to punish.

 

[Infinitron]

Why does the lack of auto-attack matter Infinitron? My main issue is with positioning and the constant use of abilities over six characters. Auto-attacking literally has nothing to do with any of what I wrote.

I don't know, because having to micro-manage auto-attack too makes the other micro-management feel even worse?

Maybe, I guess. But I don't actually think I auto-attacked a whole lot during my play. I felt like I was constantly pausing to issue ability-commands and changing targets anyway, so most of the time, I was switching stuff around before need AA. Aside from the obvious tedium that followed from mopping up without auto-attacks, but that's why I didn't comment on those types of situations.

Are you sure you actually had to use those abilities?

Eh, anyway, as Sawyer said, the talents will let you develop characters in a more passive (or active) direction, so this issue is going to be addressed, one way or the other.

 

[Grunker]

I'd still probably would have ditched AOOs and just worked with AI targeting better. IE worked OK without these gamist-like hold-the-line mechanics. The engagement mechanic is not very clear for now, I don't even understand it visually, just know it's there since I have combat log all opened all the time.

Yeah, my solution is to do one of two things:

1) Scrap AoOs. Compensate by making tanky classes have more stickiness, like immobilizing abilities and so on.

2) Scrap AoOs. Make engagement work so that once characters go into melee-range, they are "locked in combat" (can't move away from each other at all) unless they use a disengagement ability.

There are still problems hefted to those solutions, but I don't believe they're as obnoxious as the current system.

 

[Grunker]

Why does the lack of auto-attack matter Infinitron? My main issue is with positioning and the constant use of abilities over six characters. Auto-attacking literally has nothing to do with any of what I wrote.

I don't know, because having to micro-manage auto-attack too makes the other micro-management feel even worse?

Maybe, I guess. But I don't actually think I auto-attacked a whole lot during my play. I felt like I was constantly pausing to issue ability-commands and changing targets anyway, so most of the time, I was switching stuff around before need AA. Aside from the obvious tedium that followed from mopping up without auto-attacks, but that's why I didn't comment on those types of situations.

Are you sure you actually had to use those abilities?

Excusez-moi? Using them made me leave combat with less Health-damage. In other words, the game told me "you played me right." Don't come to me after agreeing with me about incentives in the XP-discussion and tell me I should play the game poorly because it's not fun to play well. That's a clear problem of design.

Eh, anyway, as Sawyer said, the talents will let you develop characters in a more passive (or active) direction, so this issue is going to be addressed, one way or the other.

I'll see it before I believe it homie.

EDIT: Who knows, Infinitron, you were right about the attributes. I'm just not seeing how they'd be able to solve the current levels of micro.

 

[Infinitron]

Grunker Well, I'm not sure I was right about the attributes (I did kind of flip-flop on whether they had to have a deeper impact or not) but okay.

Anyway, show your post to somebody from Obsidian. It's at the end of a page so they might miss it even if they're reading.

 

[Grunker]

Grunker Well, I'm not sure I was right about the attributes (I did kind of flip-flop on whether they had to have a deeper impact or not) but okay.

You were wrong that they were OK without any impact, but you were right when you say we overstated the insignificance of their impact.

EDIT: Maybe it's because these stats are a little weird in the sense that large gaps play a significant role but 1-3 points are almost completely insignificant. The stats sure could use a lot of tuning in either case.

Anyway, show your post to somebody from Obsidian. It's at the end of a page so they might miss it even if they're reading.

You mean post somewhere other than the Codex?

 

[Infinitron]

Grunker Well, I'm not sure I was right about the attributes (I did kind of flip-flop on whether they had to have a deeper impact or not) but okay.

You were wrong that they were OK without any impact, but you were right when you say we overstated the insignificance of their impact.

EDIT: Maybe it's because these stats are a little weird in the sense that large gaps play a role but 1-3 points are almost completely insignificant. The stats sure could use a lot of tuning in either case.

Anyway, show your post to somebody from Obsidian. It's at the end of a page so they might miss it even if they're reading.

You mean post somewhere other than the Codex?

I mean PM it to Anthony Davis or badler.

 

[Hormalakh]

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.

 

[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.

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

Not working, I've save/loaded, rested in the Dracogen inn and changed zones. Still level 1. Did you buy a level 4?

 

[Jaesun]

IIRC agris someone mentioned, when ever you save a game, exit the game completely. Re-start the game and load and continue. That perhaps could be causing it?

 

[agris]

IIRC agris someone mentioned, when ever you save a game, exit the game completely. Re-start the game and load and continue. That perhaps could be causing it?

Do you mean I should do that immediately after saving, or when intending to load a save?

 

[Osvir]

Grunker in light of Hormalakh posting that quote:

It's also weird criticism where people seem to be expecting a flawless, bugless and 100% playable BETA without any technical issues.

IIRC agris someone mentioned, when ever you save a game, exit the game completely. Re-start the game and load and continue. That perhaps could be causing it?

Do you mean I should do that immediately after saving, or when intending to load a save?

Yes. Actually I'm not sure, try both?

1- Save Game
2- Exit to Desktop
3- Launch
4- Load

 

[Sòren]

i dont have access to the beta so my opinion might not be worth a shit. but playing a game which uses a progress/experience system that's actually different compared to other games would actually be pretty interesting right now (at least if its not as dumbed down as Skyrims or others).

IE character progress was bland anyway.

 

[nikolokolus]

Osvir Nobody is expecting a flawless, bugless beta devoid of technical issues. So you can take your strawman down now.

Personally, I wasn't expecting a beta build where combat is a total clusterfuck, where the kinaesthetics haven't been nailed down (at all), where the contrast between the models and the background is horrendous (which further exacerbates the clusterfuck problem). The attributes and itemization and some of the technical issues like inventory bugs and broken saves aren't the issue for me, because I see those as par for the course at this stage of development, but not having the combat "feel" pretty close to nailed down was a bit of a surprise.

 

[Grunker]

Me and I think Infinitron discussed before the fact that IE avatars never overlapped. Like, every unit was animated within its selection circles and one selection circle would never overlap with another unit's selection circle except to show a hit/attack animation. That effectively meant that units would never overlap, which made clarity self-sustained in combat. In other words, if the choice was between clarity and odd animations (like units hitting air for example), clarity won.

PoE could really use that.

 

[bat_boro]

So in a word is there any hope for the final product? I didn't read everything in this thread but it seems the impressions are not really positive...?

 

[nikolokolus]

So in a word is there any hope for the final product? I didn't read everything in this thread but it seems the impressions are not really positive...?

Yes there's hope ... a ton of work and iteration left to be done, but hope remains.

 

[Osvir]

I disagree nikolokolus, I didn't say everyone. "People" were meant as "Some people". Just like Grunker targeted "some" criticism. I've read far too many comments where people are saying they released the beta too soon, because bugs. Or people saying it's unplayable, because bugs. Or people complaining about bugs with comments like "This is a bug, that's bad, why did you release?".

To me that presents itself as "This is buggy, unplayable, I don't like it, Pillars of Eternity is bad", in essence/rephrase: "Some people aren't criticising, they're just throwing unintelligble shit around them". Maybe I should use past-tense though, because it has calmed down~

Isn't the Codex and gamers used to Early Access and Beta by now...?

 

[Grunker]

it seems the impressions are not really positive...?

It does?

Mine certainly are. There are issues (big issues), but so far, I think PoE will easily make "best Kickstarter."

 

[Frusciante]

Me and I think Infinitron discussed before the fact that IE avatars never overlapped. Like, every unit was animated within its selection circles and one selection circle would never overlap with another unit's selection circle except to show a hit/attack animation. That effectively meant that units would never overlap, which made clarity self-sustained in combat. In other words, if the choice was between clarity and odd animations (like units hitting air for example), clarity won.

PoE could really use that.

This should be fixed in the new update. Will probably make combat a lot easier to see. Hope they also fix some bugs like abilities not activitng properly etc.

 

[Duraframe300]

Me and I think Infinitron discussed before the fact that IE avatars never overlapped. Like, every unit was animated within its selection circles and one selection circle would never overlap with another unit's selection circle except to show a hit/attack animation. That effectively meant that units would never overlap, which made clarity self-sustained in combat. In other words, if the choice was between clarity and odd animations (like units hitting air for example), clarity won.

PoE could really use that.

This should be fixed in the new update. Will probably make combat a lot easier to see. Hope they also fix some bugs like abilities not activitng properly etc.

Do we have any confirmation of that like with the new pathfinding code?