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

[Lagole Gon]

The pornographic dissection of metaphysics in this setting still bothers me. Goddammit Avelone.

Still, probably day 1 purchase.

 

[Ent]

So pistols (and probably other fire arms) don't have a recovery phase and only have a reload phase. They could probably be a decent dps option now if you stack a bunch of reload speed lowering stuff.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Elex]

So pistols (and probably other fire arms) don't have a recovery phase and only have a reload phase. They could probably be a decent dps option now if you stack a bunch of reload speed lowering stuff.

the fireweapon tech is not improved since poe1?

 

[aweigh]

i'm glad firearms only have the reload phase now but i still don't understand why DEX doesn't affect reloading especially since in real life it does and it does so even more when talking about weapons like arbalests, blunderbuss and the like which were big and heavy and were laborious to reload.

making DEX affect reload (like it affects all other animations/frames) would also alleviate the need/urge to have a Chanter in a gun-heavy group since in vanilla PoE 1 (afaik) only way to speed up firearm reload animations was by using the Chanter phrase.

it would also help not make DEX a min/max dump stat as it currently is in PoE 3.07. (too many other ways to speed up rendering DEX an optional dump stat with few repercussions).

 

[2house2fly]

The pornographic dissection of metaphysics in this setting still bothers me. Goddammit Avelone.

Still, probably day 1 purchase.

Avellone did no writing in this game, so, good news

 

[Iznaliu]

The pornographic dissection of metaphysics in this setting still bothers me. Goddammit Avelone.

Still, probably day 1 purchase.

Avellone did no writing in this game, so, good news

I don't think Avellone was really responsible for PoE's metaphysical framework in the first place; I got the impression that that was more of the work of Sawyer and Fenstermaker.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

It didn't seem applied with a balanced touch but a heavy hand so I assumed it was Avellone.

 

[Lacrymas]

Wasn't George Ziets responsible for the gods? I seem to recall something like that.

 

[prodigydancer]

Well, I'm greatly disappointed with the caster changes in PoE2 so far. Casting times aside, when a 5-th level Druid has 5 spells in their repertoire... that's just sad. I won't go as far as to say the caster classes are completely ruined but that's how I feel anyway. The restrictions are very severe and just not fun.

Every game has rules and most rules are restrictions but they went way too far here. Their new system railroads players into picking the most universal spells and ignoring any situational ones. And then, of course, you cast the same spells in every fight during the whole game. It was possible to play PoE1 this way but you didn't have to.

They could've handled it differently, for example, by introducing casting conditions (day/night, indoors/outdoors, near a body of water, etc.) or material components or combos where individual spells are relatively weak. Pretty much any other system would be less stifling.

 

[Lacrymas]

They already said they are going to allow you to pick more spells.

 

[Quillon]

He disapproved the in game cowboy hat model some months back, yet there was this portrait all along.

 

[aweigh]

Having 3 skill checks for the same dialog option is the epitome of lazy fake-c&c. It trivializes the check, the game's writing and undermines the attribute and skills systems.

It serves only to fulfill the checklist design document. what makes me rage is that I'm sure a lot of codexers will go:

"oh, look, 3 skill checks! game has a lot of c&c!"

 

[Quillon]

oh, look, 3 skill checks! game has a lot of c&c!

 

[Haplo]

I guess this would be a background/class/lore check. Makes sense for people with specific background/studies to know such things. Now depends if 5 lore at this point is trivial or requires some dedication.

 

[aweigh]

it means that it's a check designed to be accessible by a wide assortment of stuff that every player will have 1 of, i.e. a check designed for "any build": therefore why is it a check in the first place?

things like attribute and skill checks should be tools that complement the underlying systems, i.e. they should be a way to further allow the designer to build upon the foundation of the game's role playing which stems from the character development mechanics: in this case attributes, classes and skills.

the crux of the matter lies in making sure each class has a purpose and that each secondary and tertiary system derived from the primary attributes is complimentary instead of superfluous: this is why it is so unbelievably hard to write these types of games because it is so easy to simply make everyone do everything; this is further compounded by the fact that if the designers go too much in one way and are too zealous it creates a sinkhole of mutually exclusive content which stoppers the production pipeline.

 

[Quillon]

What are those symbols anyway? The book represents history skill but the other 2? Barter and sailing? Which aren't in the skill list.

 

[Haplo]

I'm guessing at least one is background. Could also be class/subclass.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

So are the checks gonna do anything this time? If I had to pick a single moment I realized PoE is trash it would be that "check" available only to a priest of Eothas (sp?) at the end of the temple quest in the first town.

 

[Abu Antar]

In the beta, there were several checks I couldn't pass with my Shadowdancer. I think for some instances, being able to pass several checks is unavoidable.

 

[Lacrymas]

If the checks are just flavor options that do nothing, just like in PoE1, then it doesn't really matter who can pick them. At the top of my head, there are only a couple of instances of C&C in PoE1, whether you ally with the Iron Flail/Ogres or not and Raedric's, I don't count factions. Anyway, I don't think it's wise to expect check-based C&C in P2, they are probably going to be flavor options only, while the "real" C&C will be available to everyone.

 

[aweigh]

The problem arises when people think just having checks or just having dialog options = RPG. Well, my problem anyway. You'd be surprised (or not) at the amount of people on this site who think an RPG isn't an RPG if it doesn't have those things, usually completely blind to the fact that RPGs cannibalized this from other genres.

In any case I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that PoE features meaningless checks and frankly the entire game would lose absolutely nothing if they were all simply removed; nothing of value would be lost. All those man hours and thousands of wasted words could've been better spent designing better areas/levels.

Imagine if the game had several dungeons with the same effort put into them as the temple of eothas or raedrics keep! But they have to waste time putting in all that fake c&c, I suppose, because somehow this is what people expect or want.

EDIT: I have nothing specifically against an RPG having branching and mutually exclusive content, but having it in dialog instead of game play is one of the most soul-crushingly difficult endeavors an RPG team can set out to tackle.

Just look at AoD, it is one of the few RPGs ever made where dialog-driven checks aren't meaningless and it took 10 years to complete and was a labor of love. When it's done right, dialog-driven checks that lead to branching/mutually exclusive content can do a good job of simulating spontaneity but when we're talking about an RPG that's gonna be rushed (like PoE 2) I would much rather they simply concentrated on better area design and on improving fundamentally systems-driven role playing.

BTW, the other RPGs with meaningful dialog-driven checks that I've played besides AoD were Arcanum and PS: T. All 3 of them RPGs where if you removed the combat there arises the question of whether or not they are still RPGs.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It isn't really about C&C, IE games were never big on them anyway. However, do you remember how checks in IWD games were scarce, but pretty much always felt cool and rewarding? I mean, IWD2 isn't really a good game, but your god rewarding you for killing another priest of Bane with a unique reward was pretty fucking sweet. And take something as simple as the quest where you had to "interrogate" dead greenskins, but what you found out and the xp rewards was based on race and skill checks. That felt good. In PoE, when your mc happens to be a priest of the one specific god and then you have a quest in a destroyed temple of said god and in the end you approach a shrine or whatever that was that only a priest can "interact" with and what it gives you are another two lines of bland text... Yeah, fuck you too.

 

[FreeKaner]

The problem arises when people think just having checks or just having dialog options = RPG. Well, my problem anyway. You'd be surprised (or not) at the amount of people on this site who think an RPG isn't an RPG if it doesn't have those things, usually completely blind to the fact that RPGs cannibalized this from other genres.

In any case I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that PoE features meaningless checks and frankly the entire game would lose absolutely nothing if they were all simply removed; nothing of value would be lost. All those man hours and thousands of wasted words could've been better spent designing better areas/levels.

Imagine if the game had several dungeons with the same effort put into them as the temple of eothas or raedrics keep! But they have to waste time putting in all that fake c&c, I suppose, because somehow this is what people expect or want.

EDIT: I have nothing specifically against an RPG having branching and mutually exclusive content, but having it in dialog instead of game play is one of the most soul-crushingly difficult endeavors an RPG team can set out to tackle.

Just look at AoD, it is one of the few RPGs ever made where dialog-driven checks aren't meaningless and it took 10 years to complete and was a labor of love. When it's done right, dialog-driven checks that lead to branching/mutually exclusive content can do a good job of simulating spontaneity but when we're talking about an RPG that's gonna be rushed (like PoE 2) I would much rather they simply concentrated on better area design and on improving fundamentally systems-driven role playing.

BTW, the other RPGs with meaningful dialog-driven checks that I've played besides AoD were Arcanum and PS: T. All 3 of them RPGs where if you removed the combat there arises the question of whether or not they are still RPGs.

I am assuming these checks will be available to a lot more wider combinations because there are a lot more combinations now with all the social skills.

 

[fantadomat]

In the first game dialogue skill checks were useless and pointless. I was checking them because i am checkfag and found out that most of them just give you different dialogue line and that it is.