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

[Cross]

The first ever game made by Obsidian was produced with a smaller development team and using an engine and toolset unfamiliar to them and in half the time it took to develop Tyranny,

Is this true? We happen to have a KOTOR2 programmer posting here. Anthony Davis, how long did KOTOR2's development take and if it was really that fast, how did you guys learn to use the engine/toolset?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic_II:_The_Sith_Lords#Development

Development of the game began in October 2003.

Knights of the Old Republic II went gold on November 23, 2004

 

[Infinitron]

Of course, I'm not sure if KOTOR2 is a game you want to be praising for how short its development was.

But yes, it was incredibly dense with good writing anyway because Avellone was still operating at full capacity back then. I like thinking of that game as the "aftershock" of Planescape: Torment - MCA emptying out everything that was still left in his head after PS:T. It was never the same after that.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

KOTOR2 couldn't take smaller amount of time to finish, because KOTOR2 was never actually finished in a first place.

 

[Cross]

Of course, I'm not sure if KOTOR2 is a game you want to be praising for how short its development was.

Still ends on a higher note than Tyranny.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, basically, easily predictable problems that stemmed from shifting to a per-encounter system weren't solved, and the shift does nothing to alleviate 3.0's issues because the encounter design team is not up to the task of providing encounters that are just challenging enough to strain your resources on a per encounter basis.

UI/combat log being shit and useless, nothing new there.

What was the questline about in the beta?

I actually don't think the encounter design is bad, just the numbers behind them. They die way too fast to make a difference, otherwise they are very varied, with a few tricks up their sleeve that can catch you off-guard. If they had more HP, however, the normies would bitch 100% and probably won't be able to do anything on Hard mode. Maybe PotD is better in this regard. I think the encounter design is WM2 level. Otherwise, yeah, there is virtually no resource management and wounds are a very poor substitute. They shouldn't have removed the Health/Endurance mechanic. A lot of the combat problems also stem from the class design in general, which is simply not good and a step back from P1. The most aggravating thing about the whole experience is that it's not really all that different from P1, it just adds more bullshit and removes things that shouldn't have been removed.

Empower always seemed like absolutely pointless gimmick tbh.

And it is. At least for anything below PotD, it might see more use there, but I have to test it. It will be used if some fights last long and keep you on your toes throughout it. There's this trend of fights being over too fast, even before my first Spiritshift is over, which kind of defeats the purpose of being a Shifter. A lot of sub-classes are designed to reign supreme in longer fights, but there are none in the beta.

 

[Roguey]

The first ever game made by Obsidian was produced with a smaller development team and using an engine and toolset unfamiliar to them and in half the time it took to develop Tyranny, and had twice as many companions (12 vs Tyranny's 6), yet those companions were much better written and designed and richer in content than Tyranny's.

That's because they were all written by Chris Avellone, who might very well be the fastest, highest quality writer in the industry. He also believes that he should have cut two of them.

There really is a massive gap between the kind of work Chris can produce in a given length of time and everyone else.

 

[Infinitron]

Something worth keeping in mind re: the beta, it is possible that the characters you get are overlevelled for that area of the game.

 

[Lacrymas]

Something worth keeping in mind re: the beta, it is possible that the characters you get are overlevelled for that area of the game.

They aren't. All the side-quests you get are flagged as "too high level for you" at the start AND you begin with basically no gear.

 

[Infinitron]

Something worth keeping in mind re: the beta, it is possible that the characters you get are overlevelled for that area of the game.

They aren't. All the side-quests you get are flagged as "too high level for you" at the start AND you begin with basically no gear.

Yeah, that's why I figured they might give you overlevelled characters actually, to compensate for the lack of custom gear you'd have in a real playthrough of the final game.

Don't know about the sidequest flags, but you'd think Josh would prefer to err in the direction of making the beta a bit easy to be able to collect more feedback (instead of getting a ton of noobs complaining GAME IS TOO HARD)

 

[Lacrymas]

Well, joke's on him if that's the case, because the Obs forums are full of tears that it's too hard.

 

[ArchAngel]

Of course, I'm not sure if KOTOR2 is a game you want to be praising for how short its development was.

But yes, it was incredibly dense with good writing anyway because Avellone was still operating at full capacity back then. I like thinking of that game as the "aftershock" of Planescape: Torment - MCA emptying out everything that was still left in his head after PS:T. It was never the same after that.

And for me that is their first and still only truly good game.

 

[Lacrymas]

After perusing the Obs forums, it turns out multi-classes are bugged and receive more ability points than intended, making them way overpowered compared to single-classed characters.

Speaking of that, I forgot to mention that taking passives trumps active abilities 90% of the time. Active abilities all use the same resource pool, so they compete with each other, while passives are powerful and work all the time. Not only that, but you do end up picking the exact same things for each class, be it passive or active.

Drugs and potions are ridiculously overpowered. Armor is overpowered and worth stacking as well, the bear Spiritshift is unkillable. Proficiencies outside of tanky ones are pointless and not viable.

 

[Sizzle]

I also don't believe they have goods that will be of interest to Vailian traders for the chief to put his faith entirely on that.

I may be misremembering this, but I thought the Chief's idea behind this was to have the Vailians establish a presence/outpost on their island, that would help them grow as a settlement and bring in further trade and other enterprises as the Radiant Adra trade develops.

It's one of those "give up your traditions and culture for economic progress" type conundrums, that was so common in colonial Africa and other similar places.

 

[Lacrymas]

If you put it like that, yeah, I guess it makes sense. The special adra is the only thing to lure them there, though, I don't see a reason for them to make an outpost for anything else. And there isn't, if you destroy the adra the whole plan with the Vailians fall apart.

More random stuff: The dungeon, Poko Kohara, is better than 90% of the ones in PoE1 because it's tied to the overall narrative and there's another mini-story to uncover there. It's still not good, though. The aesthetic is typical Engwithan ruins, like all the ones we saw in PoE1, the differences are miniscule and not worth mentioning.

Healing is too strong, I predict a Lifegiver Druid sustaining the whole party and making them unkillable.

The Beyond is a vague concept that I don't think works very well.

Itemization is good, it's like the best designed items in WM2.

 

[Sizzle]

If you put it like that, yeah, I guess it makes sense. The special adra is the only thing to lure them there, though, I don't see a reason for them to make an outpost for anything else. And there isn't, if you destroy the adra the whole plan with the Vailians fall apart.

Well, yeah, that's the entire conflict - help them save the adra (in hopes that the Vailians will establish lucrative trade and save their failing island), or get them to move to another island, but still maintain their identity and independence.

More random stuff: The dungeon, Poko Kohara, is better than 90% of the ones in PoE1 because it's tied to the overall narrative and there's another mini-story to uncover there. The aesthetic, however, is typical Engwithan ruins, like all the ones we saw in PoE1, the differences are miniscule and not worth mentioning.

Agreed. I really hoped they would lay off the Engwitihian stuff (surely they can't be the only advanced ancient race in the world?) in PoE2, but at least that quest gives me hope that their involvement will be more interesting than in PoE1.

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't see a reason to let them maintain their "identity" and I don't think it's really a conflict. They don't have that much of a culture outside of different names for gods and the fruit eating thing. I guess the social strata, too, but social positions aren't exclusive to them. Everyone says how shit it is to live there, how there's no food and how the lagufaeth are encroaching on their territory. They are trying to experiment with the lagufaeth children, which has no guaranteed results, and that one guy who wants to save the seeds of the fruits, but everyone in the village is against that, so it's not sustainable.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Honestly I'm not to bothered with how combat will be on release. The class system Sawyer devised almost guarantees combat is going to be broken, but at the same time it should make for good replayability and if he has proven one thing, its that he is willing to spend time and resources on polishing the gameplay. So I think that's a price worth paying for unbalanced combat on launch.

The important part is if they get other shit right. Fallout style world map exploration combined with pirate theme with archipelagos, weird islands, sea monsters, hidden treasures and shit like that is 100% incline. So that alone should be massive improvement over the first game. So that +100 hours of WM quality RPG and we got ourselves a real diamond. But 100 hours of Twin Elms and we've got ourselves a turd.

 

[Jarpie]

Not really. I was mostly just looking to prove my earlier point that Obsidian weren't looking to make a short game (despite what Eric said in our interview with him back in 2016). The exact number of hours is probably bullshit. It'll certainly be bullshit for me.

Who thought that PoE2 was gonna be a short game? Every now and then they've been naming BG2 and how they want PoE2 to be to first PoE what BG2 was to BG1, and BG2 is literally filled with content.

If that's the case, hopefully PoE 2's good content isn't frontloaded like in BG2. BG2 imo falls apart after you leave the city, the drow stuff especially was pretty fucking shit.

 

[Lacrymas]

Oh, the combat will be a complete disaster on launch, I'm 99.99% certain of that. It is a disaster now, a very limited slice, let alone the whole game only their retarded (judging by previous experiences) internal playtesters have tried.

 

[frajaq]

I still don't get it why they reduced the party size

 

[Sannom]

FUCK THAT QUOTE FEATURE! FUCK IT DRY WITH GRAVEL! PROGRAMMERS, LEARN TO PROGRAM SHIT AND TEST IT!

I still don't get it why they reduced the party size

Five is a nice, prime number. That's why I always kept to that party size in BG2. Well, that and you didn't really need a specialized thief, so you could fill up your secondary arcane caster with a thief/mage.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I prefer it at 5. It should improve readability of combat - POE1 was too much of a visual clusterfuck. More importantly should make designing a party much more challenging. With 6 and the existing classes you could really pack the party with everything and then some, and so the only make to you sweat was by throwing 10000 trash mobs at you.

 

[Iskramor]

Oh, the combat will be a complete disaster on launch, I'm 99.99% certain of that. It is a disaster now, a very limited slice, let alone the whole game only their retarded (judging by previous experiences) internal playtesters have tried.

My prediction is that everything will be ok except writing.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yes, the 5 party limit does indeed feel a little bit more limited in a good way. It doesn't improve readability at all, though, somehow it's even more of a clusterfuck than P1. Although P1 is in the unfortunate state of Priests carrying the entire party by themselves and the whole game playing completely different if you don't have one in the party, so there's that.

My prediction is that everything will be ok except writing.

Compared to P1 and average video game standards, the writing in the beta is ok. As in, it's over quickly enough that it doesn't get on your nerves. I'd say it's on the same level as White March. It's still terrible compared to pretty much every other standard, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[Iskramor]

Yes, the 5 party limit does indeed feel a little bit more limited in a good way. It doesn't improve readability at all, though, somehow it's even more of a clusterfuck than P1. Although P1 is in the unfortunate state of Priests carrying the entire party by themselves and the whole game playing completely different if you don't have one in the party, so there's that.

My prediction is that everything will be ok except writing.

Compared to P1 and average video game standards, the writing in the beta is ok. As in, it's over quickly enough that it doesn't get on your nerves. I'd say it's on the same level as White March. It's still terrible compared to pretty much every other standard, but that's neither here nor there.

But lore dumps are not will not be fixed so how writing is exacly better? Are they tunned down adjectives and descriptions?