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

Yeah because engagement radius is a circle and when two units are standing close to each other, these circles overlap so when an enemy runs inside the first engagement radius they encounter and move to auto-attack the unit that engaged them, they will also move through the engagement radius of the second unit, and movement inside that circle triggers the AoO. I think they've tried to tweak it a bit since 1.0 but I do remember some people saying that this still happens.

Due to less engagements in PoE2, this issue will rarely be present, however as I doubt many units in the same combat will have it.

 

Jesus Christ, being pissed at the game because one knows how to abuse it? I can't stand this way of thinking. RPG makers are generally not skilled at designing combat mechanics.

Just swallow the Kool-Aid and enjoy.

edit: Actually I will find all of you and force the Kool-Aid down your contrarian throats. You will see the light.

 

This is just... wat

One needs to be built to take hits (and actually damage prevention can block Wound gen so you’re often better off focusing on endurance or healing) while one needs to be built to deal a shit ton of damage. I mean, how is this even a question, it’s so obviously inferred? One gets his power from taking damage, one from dealing damage.

Now tell me about the magnificent and glorious differences between fighters, rangers, barbarians and paladins in the IE-games. The closest they get to class identity is BG2 which has kits that provide just a hint of the variety in PoE, though not even close to the same thing, except for a few of the most brilliantly designed ones, perhaps (of course you’ll still be left wanting for any kind of customization beyond the class choice itself).

Oh and the IE-games also break your precious “muh four base types” nice and tidy split, since a Mage or cleric casting the right spells make a better fighter than just a fighter.

I know we’ve had this discussion a billion times in this thread, but of all the PoE criticism, lack of class variation, especially compared to the inspirational baseline, is the most hopw roewur ne of them all. At this point the arguments have gotten so reductionist that even if one PoE class worked by stopping time itself and assuming control over enemy casters while another could break terrain and use it to build prisons to slowly suffocate enemies, detractors would still be going “but whuts the difference really, they both still kill their opponents by doing damage...”

Git gud

No, seriously

 

This has nothing to do with why engagement is bad. It doesn't necessarily promote tanking and spanking, and the AoO is the reason why it is bad.

 

It’s bad because it runs counter to the choice of making the game RT. It’s infinitely better than just AoOs though, which is evident to anyone who has played NWN2

 

I agree that attacking PoE class build diversification is just folly because that is one of the only areas that it does well at - The number of different ways a character can be built within the confines of the chosen class due to selecting different abilities and talent combinations.

The issue is that even though your character builds are different the standard combat formula is pretty much the same for every encounter due to the homogenisation of the game mechanics. Combat in the IE games can be played in *extremely different* ways due to several rule differences between the IE games and Pillars of Eternity and it largely boils down to the per-encounter nature of Pillars and the changes to Stealth and Invisibility.

Pillars restricts what you can do inside and outside of combat, and once you are in combat you are stuck in combat until all the enemies that you have aggro'd are dead. This is probably the single largest change overall because it negates pre-buffing, retreating, looting and equipping items mid-combat. Due to the lack of these restrictions in the IE games this already creates quite a large rift in playstyle between players. There are lots of players that use these features very little and lots that use them very often. Stealth, and it's interaction with the aforementioned features also plays a HUGE difference in how different the game plays, and how different players can play the game.

Pillars changed Stealth to be something that every character can naturally do and it is used to get close to enemies without them seeing you, essentially a scouting and positioning tool. Stealth in the IE games is largely restricted to Thieves, although anyone can use an invisibility potion. Thief characters can use Stealth and Invisibility to do a variety of cool things - you can stealth into a room alone with strength/damage prebuffs, backstab and kill a guy, use an invisbility potion or re-stealth, pick up their gear, go outside - equip whatever gear you stole on your party, and then enter the room with their gear and smack the shit out of the other guys. Thieves aren't as good at combat as Warrior classes, and, at least in BG2 until they get Use Any Item at Level whatever it is, they stay that way and sometimes in the trashy-but-not-trashy fights they can even be a liability if present in the immediate combat - but because of this kind of stuff, you can (but don't have to) play them completely differently to a Fighter - unlike in Pillars where the actual things that you do in the game are kinda the same.

There is way more to it than just these things - the large differences in THAC0, AC, weapon and armor proficiency rules & restrictions plus the larger lean towards vancian casting also play quite a large part, but there are fundamental mechanical differences outside of the class system that completely change, and also restrict players into playing the game a certain way, and classes playing a certain way.

 

I agree with a lot of that and disagree with some of it, but perhaps most strongly concerning pre-buffing. How anyone can remember pre-buffing with fondness is beyond me. Hated it even when I was a teenage fanboy who thought the IE games could do no wrong.

 

Guys I'm confused by all this masked passive aggressiveness. Do we like the poe2 beta and are thus, hopeful for the release, or are we simply angry at this attempt to improve a flawed game with no redeeming qualities???

I need somebody to sum up the walls of texts in the past pages, and give me a quite conclusion, so I know what to feel and think about dis gaem, when others ask me.

 

When in doubt, you must go to the Codex teachings. The most important chapter tells us that:

"Everything is shit (but I'll still play it and make thousands of posts about it)."

 

I use all of that and I'm happy it's gone since it's unbalanceable and degenerate.

How do you design encounters for players who spend 2 minutes prebuffing and resting after each one compared to those who don't?

Not being able to drop combat stops so much cheese with only the cost of an occasional reload for normal play, it's inelegant but welcome.

I'm not sure why you're dancing around the issue here - (pure) thieves are a garbage class in IE.

Bg2 provides a nice example since they don't even want to burden normal players with a thief and make them all thief/mages with low thief levels who can still do everything needed.

Restealthing that often is just exploiting the AI, even more if you run with Boots of Speed. It's also more proof that pure thieves are a joke class, since a bunch of enemies have undeserved immunities to backstab, or permanent passive true sight.

Gonna be GotY.

 

It's only bad in real-time games. It's fine in turn-based.

 

Best gameplay design coming through:

 

Is that unironic, Parabalus? In that case

 

This argument has been done to death but essentially it's completely unnecessary. AoO exists in TB to allow units to react to enemies moving by them when it's not their turn and it only really makes sense in games where movement and non-movement actions come from the same resource pool, such as AP or a Full-Round action versus otherwise. In realtime it is *always* your turn, you and enemies can always react to anything that happens in the game as soon as it happens. If a guy runs past you you can select and attack him in realtime, do something else to him in real-time, move your characters as a reaction to this enemy moving in real-time.

I think pre-buffing is good for a variety of reasons, but I also acknowledge that there are several issues with pre-buffing in the IE games.

The issues (specific to the IE games) is that prebuffing can completely negate the effects of gimmick enemies, it largely makes encounters easier, some people find it a chore and if you opt out of the resource management system through rest spamming, you can theoretically pre-buff every encounter you please.

I think that saying that these issues are caused by pre-buffing are incorrect, and can be solved by correcting the flaws in the contributing systems.

Firstly - if a game has a stricter resource management system, such as in Knights of the Chalice then pre-buffing could pose certain risks other than "it's unreasonable that I can rest for 16 hours with no consequence, rite now". The risks are that a) you don't necessarily need to use a specific buff, essentially wasting it for the day and b) depending on the duration of spells, pre-buffing could mean that while you may have the effect of a spell at the beginning of combat, it might run out during combat. I know that the IE games weren't necessarily designed with pre-buffing in mind (except, albeit lightly, BG2) but if a game was designed with it in mind the flaws that exist in the IE games could be reigned in.

One thing that enemies don't have to worry about is strategical resource management, so setpiece fights could and should be designed for pre-buffed characters. Contingencies and Spell Sequencers are also pretty cool.

Protection from Petrification and Potion of Mirrored Eyes negates a Basilisk Petrification - essentially turning an enemy that ends the game straight away if your PC is hit by the gaze, to a free 1400-4000XP that does almost no damage. The issue here is that the creature is just not well designed, and could be given other things to do if petrification isn't working. Vampires aren't really much if you are Protected from Level Drain, although I do recall playing with a mod that makes them use Dire Charm and whatnot more. I can't remember if there's anything you can do to negate Mind Flayer Intelligence Drain. Ability drain in the IE games is quite interesting considering that if any of them reach 0, you die so it is a way of effectively bypassing the health system entirely and forces you to adapt to it. This isn't related to pre-buffing at all, but it is something that I thought way pretty cool.

Also for some reason you can pre-buff yourself in Pillars with a consumable ... which is pre-buffing, but you can't cast a spell/use an ability ... okay then.

So while it may not make sense in every game, I think that my dream IE style game would be designed with it in mind, absolutely.

 

There is an inherent problem with designing a game based on player expectations. This includes both trying to determine how people play and how they ought to play.

In RTwP its not always your turn. You have rounds, where your actions within rounds are restricted. And in D&D like games, your AoOs are restricted by your dex. No reason why that can't get into a Round based game. Some idiots like those sort of things I hear.

 

All that and you don't touch on the actual problem of pre-buffing: the fact that on a complete playthrough of the IE-games, you have spent so. much. time. simply going through the same routine pre-buffing motion.

 

Then don't do it. You can easily play through the game without ever prebuffing.

This is the same as what I said:

Not the way I would play it, I'd decide this is too much of an exploit to do it. But yet again, at least this game allows me to decide how I want to play. Unlike PoE which has to keep me constrained in what the designer decided is "non-degenerate".

 

If you want to make do without the orgasmic gameplay heaven that is SCS, you can... oh that's right, you never played it, right?

 

On Kit Walker 's post?

Yes, I don't agree with Sensuki 's (and your's?) dismissal of AoO In RT. Looking at Sensuki's post below you:

It also exists to provide melee combatants with an ability to stick to ranged. IE games are utterly horrible in this regard!

In IE games, if you have a melee chasing a ranged, even if he has higher movement speed, he won't land a single hit, since he will come into melee, start the attack animation, and his target will walk away, repeat forever.

If you don't react in time (move your backline before you are engaged) you should be punished, not be able to reactively render your character immune by running.

You can do the body blocking/CCing in TB too, you however can't run away reactively since you're effectively stunned when the enemy acts.

Basically I'd argue the opposite, in RT fluid movement for ranged characters means they have a much bigger advantage than melee, compared to TB. That makes AoO more/as important in RT than in TB, since in TB melee can gapclose+attack in their turn without enemy interruptions.

Yeah, I don't really like difficulty shaming but he proudly exclaimed he never touched SCS/Tactics - his stance (in my own play experience) is correct for the entire vanilla game and the vast majority of modded though.

But even if you can eliminate/minimize prebuffing through your prowess as a player, the designers balance the encounter around an assumed level of party preparedness - if everyone has to play by the same rules (or more egalitarian - PoE prebuffing) they can just be made harder baseline, without having to waste time prebuffing as a player.

You only lose out if you were unable to progress without constant prebuffing (artificially inflating your party power), but then you can simply turn down the difficulty for the same result, and save some time to boot.

 

I have nothing against SCS, it will just have to wait until I'm in the mood for BG again.

Also, I thought is was "wah-wah, unfair" to compare modded IE games to PoE, or does this only apply when convenient for one side of the argument?

 

You heard that argument from me..? I compare SCS to Path of the Damned directly in my review. Comparing IE Games without SCS to PoE does not work out well for the IE games in terms of difficulty.

 

Eh, yes, no one is challenging the reason for its existence, just its functionality. The reason I asked about your salute is the fact that in NWN2, AoO's neither help melees stick to ranged, nor does it in any way, shape or form improve actual gameplay. NWN2's combat is a mess to control already - throwing in hypersensistive movement-related punishment is the last catastrophic failure into a disgusting tonic.

Nevermind our more general disagreement about AoOs in principle. Any sane man should agree that NWN2 did not do a good job implementing them.

 

I think I am going to be a cipher-rogue what is that called

 

I don't think it's possible to draw any conclusions about anything from NWN2 combat. It's such a perfect snarl of clusterfuck that it's just not possible to pick out individual threads of wrong from it.

 

How much you have to prebuff depends on game difficulty+your "skill", for the majority of Kodex posters I'd assume the latter is big enough to eliminate most, if not all, prebuffing in vanilla Bg2.

This doesn't invalidate prebuffing as a concern, since even though your prowess as a player saves you annoyance in this specific case, you are still affected because the game is designed around degenerate mechanics. If the game were harder, you'd be screwed too. PoE1 resting system is a good analog.

I agree that Nwn2 combat was a total mess, but were AoOs a step above the norm in shittyness?
The entire movement system sucked massively, so it's hard to says AoOs are the culprit, they certainly added to the dumpster fire.

I don't think the principle of you getting chain AoO'd to death if you try to run from someone in melee is bad, the worst part of Nwn was that melee maneuverability was nonexistent (instant, continuous mass AoO compared to PoE's few).

For ranged vs melee, it's the extreme opposite of IE games, where if you chase someone with the same MS, nothing happens, in NWN you AoO spam maul him to death. PoE is somewhere in the middle, which is where I think it should be.