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

[imweasel]

Pillars of Shitternity

That gives me an idea...

But I'll save it for later.

 

[Mangoose]

IIRC according to the BG2 manual mages weren't supposed to be able to learn 9th level spells unless they have 18 INT.

I'm not saying BG attribute system is perfect but atleast it has a very solid impact on non-pure caster classes' performance in combat.

Except that you have to be a complete retard not to max your intelligence and min (most) everything else.

Call me when you actually have to spend time deciding how to spread your attributes in BG.

..

Don't be a retard. Yes, it may take time to learn the system, but once you know the system it is a piece of fucking cake to create a character. The only "time spent" is rolling until you get high enough stats to shift around.

Dual classing is the exception, I suppose.

 

[Azrael the cat]

IIRC according to the BG2 manual mages weren't supposed to be able to learn 9th level spells unless they have 18 INT.

I'm not saying BG attribute system is perfect but atleast it has a very solid impact on non-pure caster classes' performance in combat.

Except that you have to be a complete retard not to max your intelligence and min (most) everything else.

Call me when you actually have to spend time deciding how to spread your attributes in BG.

..

Don't be a retard. Yes, it may take time to learn the system, but once you know the system it is a piece of fucking cake to create a character. The only "time spent" is rolling until you get high enough stats to shift around.

Dual classing is the exception, I suppose.

Isn't the issue more one of limiting the hybrids? I.e. a mage/sorceror will max int and be able to cast everything, whereas a ranger/bard/paladin CAN do that, but at the cost of his fighting stats, so attributes govern whether he's casting-oriented, true hybrid or melee-oriented.

Obviously any dice-roll system for character creation in a computer game will trivialise that, but that's why the IE games shifted to a point-buy system.

It's a long way from being perfect, but just as a matter of basic structure it's not a bad template.

 

[Mangoose]

IIRC according to the BG2 manual mages weren't supposed to be able to learn 9th level spells unless they have 18 INT.

I'm not saying BG attribute system is perfect but atleast it has a very solid impact on non-pure caster classes' performance in combat.

Except that you have to be a complete retard not to max your intelligence and min (most) everything else.

Call me when you actually have to spend time deciding how to spread your attributes in BG.

..

Don't be a retard. Yes, it may take time to learn the system, but once you know the system it is a piece of fucking cake to create a character. The only "time spent" is rolling until you get high enough stats to shift around.

Dual classing is the exception, I suppose.

Isn't the issue more one of limiting the hybrids? I.e. a mage/sorceror will max int and be able to cast everything, whereas a ranger/bard/paladin CAN do that, but at the cost of his fighting stats, so attributes govern whether he's casting-oriented, true hybrid or melee-oriented.

Obviously any dice-roll system for character creation in a computer game will trivialise that, but that's why the IE games shifted to a point-buy system.

It's a long way from being perfect, but just as a matter of basic structure it's not a bad template.

I dunno, I still found it simple even for hybrids... I mean I agree less straight forward than a pure class, but again it's not hard to figure out the system and know which stats to max and which stats to min. Character in D&D building only gets complicated in PNP where either (A) you have a good DM that takes into account all your stats so you can't "dump" a stat and/or (B) you're playing 3E+ where there are a lot of feats and multiclassing is more complicated especially if you throw in prestige classes.

But in terms of in video games, I guess 3E is not so bad, but AD&D (BG1/2/IWD1) is not a good template to emulate IMO.

And again I'm not at all talking about PoE. I haven't played it yet so I refrain from judging it. I'm just being pedantic and nitpicking about BG1/2 lol.

 

[Infinitron]

Yo Edward_R_Murrow http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/95694753261/your-opposition-to-hard-counters-is-well-known-but-im

melnorme said: Your opposition to hard counters is well known, but I'm curious. Is there a level of absolute immunity to some spell or status effect that you ARE willing to accept? What if it only protects against a very narrow set of spells/effects? What if it's only temporary?

There are effects on items, racial abilities, talents, and spells that grant high Defensive bonuses against families of effects. The most notable examples are the priest’s Prayer Against _______ spells. They aren’t immunity, but they reduce existing durations a lot and they give large defensive bonuses, which tend to result in a lot more Miss or Graze results and few Crits.

I've followed this up with another question about whether he would be okay with an immunity that's very temporary (seconds, not minutes) and whether he'd be okay with stacking resistance buffs so high that you're almost immune anyway.

 

[Sensuki]

Has only played League of Legends and not DotA - therefore banal opinion on ability design

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Guys, pls explain to me what is 'a hard counter'. I'm noob and thus not familiar with this term.

 

[Rivmusique]

x that makes y completely useless. Like how Chaotic Commands makes confusion (and a bunch of other stuff) do absolutely nothing in IE games.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

x that makes y completely useless. Like how Chaotic Commands makes confusion (and a bunch of other stuff) do absolutely nothing in IE games.

Thank you!

 

[FeelTheRads]

Guys, pls explain to me what is 'a hard counter'. I'm noob and thus not familiar with this term.

Let's look at it this way:

In one corner you have Andhaira, in the other DarkUnderlord.
Andhaira casts Discuss. Now, DarkUnderlord could cast Redirect To RPGWatch, but that only has a certain percentage of success.
On the other hand, if he casts IP Ban, that would be a "hard counter" because it stops Discuss completely. Unless Andhaira then uses his Proxy in which case DarkUnderlord has to cast Detect Paki to figure out if it's the Proxy of Andhaira or not.

And that's why hard counters are a lot more fun and interesting, they require more tactics from both sides of the conflict.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Guys, pls explain to me what is 'a hard counter'. I'm noob and thus not familiar with this term.

Let's look at it this way:

In one corner you have Andhaira, in the other DarkUnderlord.
Andhaira casts Discuss. Now, DarkUnderlord could cast Redirect To RPGWatch, but that only has a certain percentage of success.
On the other hand, if he casts IP Ban, that would be a "hard counter" because it stops Discuss completely. Unless Andhaira then uses his Proxy in which case DarkUnderlord has to cast Detect Paki to figure out if it's the Proxy of Andhaira or not.

And that's why hard counters are a lot more fun and interesting, they require more tactics from both sides of the conflict.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Guys, pls explain to me what is 'a hard counter'. I'm noob and thus not familiar with this term.

Let's look at it this way:

In one corner you have Andhaira, in the other DarkUnderlord.
Andhaira casts Discuss. Now, DarkUnderlord could cast Redirect To RPGWatch, but that only has a certain percentage of success.
On the other hand, if he casts IP Ban, that would be a "hard counter" because it stops Discuss completely. Unless Andhaira then uses his Proxy in which case DarkUnderlord has to cast Detect Paki to figure out if it's the Proxy of Andhaira or not.

And that's why hard counters are a lot more fun and interesting, they require more tactics from both sides of the conflict.

That's one hell of a post.
I raise my hat to you, fine gentleman.

 

[Abu Antar]

I have been trying to keep up with the discussion in this thread, and it isn't easy. After reading peoples' opinions on attributes, etc, I have been thinking to myself that they would be better off with a classless system if balance is what they are aiming for. Everyone is almost equally good at everything, might as well let me customize all characters of my own(even companion stats) and be done with it. That way, the way attributes work now, would not be such a big problem compared to a class based system.

Why classless? Because the way everything related to gaining abilities and talents feels more automated than it should. Attributes aren't doing enough the way they are handled now. Let me fully customize my character with all abilities, talents, spells, etc. Or hell, remove spells from character and only make them purchasable from stores and then you can add them to grimoires that everyone can have the ability to equip. This would make for better replayability than the current state of how things are.

I also miss multi classing or dual classing. This was known to not be in for a very long time, but I have also been disappointed for a long time.

 

[MicoSelva]

Report back how it went.

Sorry, I only noticed the question now.

It went pretty well. Low statline does not impair your character very much. As I wrote in my crude analysis of main attributes (not sure if they can actually be called 'main' at this point), they mostly impact Defense against abilities and spells.

Offense-wise, the heaviest loss was Sucky's mind control (Puppet Master) only working for 34.5 seconds, when it would work for 46.5 seconds with INT maxed out. 35 seconds was enough to win the encounters I engaged in (that ability is a no-brainer first-strike spell for every combat - BALANCE), but I can see these 12 seconds matter in harder fights and/or higher difficulty.

Might's impact was rather minor. Weapon type and enemy armor is much more important and additional Might is useful to overcome DT, especially for lower-damage weapons. Sucky still dealt reasonable damage, especially with his abilities (which ignore DT altogether AFAIK).

BTW: axes currenty suck ass compared to other weapons. 10% additional damage on criticals (which happen 10% of the time on average) - big fucking whoop. Other weapon classes get stuff flexible damage type (swords), which allows them to hit through lower DT, staright-up ignoring DT, etc. All of these are more powerful than 1% more damage on average.

Constitution's impact is negligible. You get around 2 levels of advantage in H/S at level 10, but having 240 H/S instead of 200 does not mean much. Could still be important in tougher fights/higher difficulty. I certainly did not feel like Sucky's 119 HP was not enough and that he would do much better with more.

Dexterity does not matter much, because missing rarely happens. Spellcasters can straight-up ignore it, because spells get an inherent +10 accuracy bonus, so it is as if you had 10 more DEX. For Sucky, fighting was mostly a means to get Focus, so it did not matter that 10% of his hits were turned into grazes and only dealt 50% damage.

I have not found any use for Perception. Maybe if combat gets more polished, less chaotic and you actually tell what is going on, you will be able to focus on interrupting enemies using powerful abilities. At the current state - nope.

Resolve can actually be useful for a melee fighter who also uses abilities, because you will get interrupted a lot. Someone mentioned a Rogue's escape ability being interrupted which resulted in a dead knocked out rogue. But this is speaking theoretically. Again, it was really hard to tell what exactly was going in combat. Sucky might have been interrupted a few times when using abilities, because they did not fire up. (Or it could have been a bug with game not accepting input correctly.)

---

As for Defense impact, I have not noticed Sucky suffering any more than his colleagues, even though his Defense stats were around 25 points lower than theirs. He got hit with webs and such as often as everyone, but did he get slowed down more than others or something like that - I could not tell.
I have to note that he defended against physical attacks just as well as everyone, because main attributes have no bearing on Deflection.

 

[Grunker]

^ You should definetely post that over at Obs.

 

[Gord]

I dunno, I still found it simple even for hybrids... I mean I agree less straight forward than a pure class, but again it's not hard to figure out the system and know which stats to max and which stats to min. Character in D&D building only gets complicated in PNP where either (A) you have a good DM that takes into account all your stats so you can't "dump" a stat and/or (B) you're playing 3E+ where there are a lot of feats and multiclassing is more complicated especially if you throw in prestige classes.

But in terms of in video games, I guess 3E is not so bad, but AD&D (BG1/2/IWD1) is not a good template to emulate IMO.

I guess that's the point - minmaxing is a sign of (simplified) cRPGs and bad DMs. Countering it in PnP (or rather giving reasons not to minmax excessively) is relatively easy and can give even non-class-critical attributes a right to exist.

Personally I'd prefer a PnP-like approach that makes attributes more important by giving distinct and obvious disadvantages for very low values (e.g. dumping CHA means losing out on quests as people won't offer them to you, dumping INT will mean less conversation options and getting duped and even limit your combat actions, dumping WIS could be similar to INT, etc.). You could still minmax, but it will mean that you lose out on stuff for it.

If I understand correctly, PoE's attributes so far give the player some kind of small advantage for rising them, but overall it doesn't matter too much which one you rise - you will in the end mostly gain more DPS from it. I haven't played it, so I can't really say much about whether that works or not.

 

[Abu Antar]

I cannot brofist you post MicoSelva but it is very interesting to read.

We had already come to the conclusion that the attributes need a major overhaul, but your testing just proves this further.

 

[Infinitron]

^ You should definetely post that over at Obs.

MICO WHERE ARE YOU

Copy-pasted his post there: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67815-on-the-significance-of-stats/

 

[MicoSelva]

^ You should definetely post that over at Obs.

MICO WHERE ARE YOU

Copy-pasted his post there: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67815-on-the-significance-of-stats/

Thanks. I love how there is exactly zero interest about this at Obsidian forums. Maybe I should have given amore sensationalist title to the thread - I am not much of a marketing guy.

 

[Abu Antar]

^ You should definetely post that over at Obs.

MICO WHERE ARE YOU

Copy-pasted his post there: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67815-on-the-significance-of-stats/

Thanks. I love how there is exactly zero interest about this at Obsidian forums. Maybe I should have given amore sensationalist title to the thread - I am not much of a marketing guy.

There are like 69 threads about stats/attributes there.

Having read your write up, I am even more certain a classless system would be the way to go if they won't do a major overhaul to stats/attributes.

 

[coffeetable]

so: are we expecting a new build today?

 

[Sensuki]

Roby Atadero said "a new build at least every few weeks", I wouldn't expect a new build today but it's not impossible.

 

[Johannes]

On the other hand didn't Blizzard keep doing balance patches for Starcraft for like 10 years?

If a company kept getting income from a game maybe they could eventually do something like that. Not that it would really be pointful. I'd rather have BG3 with the BG2 AI than BG2 with SCS.

No, Blizzard didn't. There was basically 2 balance patches to the game - first the BW expansion, then patch 1.08. Beyond that the patches they made didn't change balance other than removing exploits.

 

[J_C]

Beyond that the patches they made didn't change balance other than removing exploits.

There was 2 big ones, and 2-3 small ones.
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/StarCraft_version_history

 

[Hamster]

x that makes y completely useless. Like how Chaotic Commands makes confusion (and a bunch of other stuff) do absolutely nothing in IE games.

But that was one of the best parts of IE. What the hell is Sawyer doing?