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

[fantadomat]

Lets be honest here,resting is fluff thing you can easily game around. You can just save/load around the chance of encounter and food is never problem in almost all rpgs. It is not some core mechanic that everything is circling around it. In PoE it wasn't something game breaking,it was just tedious,you could easily rest 20 times in map,you just had to run around to restock. Limited resting is retarded and doesn't make any sense in PoE,a good resting system for me was the one in MM games. It was not intrusive and added immersion to the game.

 

[Lacrymas]

Was there supposed to be any tension, though?

"Supposed to" in what context? Isn't that what a limited resource system is "supposed" to do? Or was it "supposed to" be there just so they can say it's an IE homage?

How would you feel if Empower made spells cast as quickly as they did in PoE1?

What would that achieve? Making casters overpowered again and having constant instant spells because, surprise, surprise, it's not limited in any way. And, again, it doesn't affect melee. Slow casting is a good idea in a game with no resource management, so don't fuck that up.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Original argument about PoE1 made by Something Awful users: Rapidly casting every single spell you have in every battle (which you have no reason not to do because resting is effectively unlimited) is excessive micromanagement that makes combat unfun.

Which is a dumb argument because resting is very much effectively limited. If someone is constantly backtracking through 8 zoning screens to resupply, just so he can spam all of his top level spells on a single xaurip, you cannot blame the system for creating excessive busywork, that's all on the player who does to himself.

 

[Infinitron]

What would that achieve? Making casters overpowered again and having constant instant spells because, surprise, surprise, it's not limited in any way.

Sure, but we already covered the scenario where resting is unlimited. I said that the idea behind Empower is that the people who it's for are supposed to act like it actually is limited. Regardless of whether we accept that, for the sake of the argument, let's pretend that it is limited. In that case, you said:

If the resting is limited and they don't match the melee, what's the point of taking a caster even if Empowering will close the gap between them? Taking only melee will be easier, with better/consistent results and less bullshit.

Surely making Empowered spells faster would be a significant bonus here, in terms of making spellcasters have better/more consistent results and less bullshit.

 

[Delterius]

Was there supposed to be any tension, though?

"Supposed to" in what context? Isn't that what a limited resource system is "supposed" to do? Or was it "supposed to" be there just so they can say it's an IE homage?

Well, barring terribad builds in some games or PnP, you can't really doom yourself in most RPGs. They can either be finished with enough knowledge or grind. The rest system worked as a soft incentive to use spells and abilities as efficiently as possible.

 

[Lacrymas]

It would neither have better/more consistent results nor less bullshit. It's the same principle, but the other way around. If casters can match melee without Empowering, then Empowers will make casters overpowered and it will be better to bring only casters. If they can't match them AND the Empowering/resting is limited, then lugging around baggage who can keep up with melee only two times in a dungeon is pointless.

The rest system worked as a soft incentive to use spells and abilities as efficiently as possible.

Yet it doesn't work, people still rest spam and think resting is a pointless mechanic. And it is in this context. Why not remove it entirely and focus on other stuff rather than have it bogging down everything and creating this widening disparity between archetypes?

 

[Infinitron]

If they can't match them AND the Empowering is limited, then lugging around baggage like casters who can keep up with melee only two times in a dungeon is pointless.

Haha that sounds like what everybody says about low level wizards in D&D though, except instead of unempowered spells they have sling stones.

I've asked Josh Sawyer about this and gave him a link to this discussion. My suggestion might seem logically bizarre to him, because the idea was "if we make spells cast slower, then we can also make them more powerful". But Empower makes spells even MORE powerful, so how could they be fast? He might reject the idea out of hand because of that. But I hope he considers it.

It seems to me that a big issue with Empowering might be that people are so turned off by the slow casting speed of spells in PoE2 that they don't want to waste any additional per-rest resource on them. It feels like "throwing good money after bad". If the spells are so damn slow then at least they're free, right? Fundamentally they don't need the spells to be a bit more powerful, they need them to be faster. Arguably, even an Empower function that only made spells cast faster without making them more powerful could be worthwhile.

 

[Fairfax]

Fighting games. 20+ characters which each need to have 10-30+ different moves, however there cannot be any single character which is clearly superior to a majority of the rest of the characters.

There shouldn't be a character that completely steamrolls everyone else, but every good fighting game has multiple characters that are clearly superior to most of the roster.

Why? Because otherwise there is no point picking any other character except "larping", or more to the point: because then the game is not Tournament Viable, i.e. cannot be considered an eSport and is instead a mere "video game".

Most of the popular esports are and have always been deeply unbalanced.

 

[Maculo]

The Pillars system worked pretty well, why did they change it?

From my recollection of the PoE1 beta, Sawyer wanted to try to "fix" certain issues he saw from other games, such as kiting, dump stats, and rest spam. For example, the engagement system was meant to stop frequent kiting, which could break encounters. The issue is that you could still game or even abuse the engagement system (running enemy packs through a stationary tank to reap multiple engagement attacks). Therefore, it did not mean much to casual players who wouldn't know how to kite, and it didn't stop metagamey players who just found another avenue of abuse.

Another example is the attributes. Sawyer did not want dump stats, and tried to make each stat useful for every class, but it did not pan out that way. There still are technically dump stats depending on the class.

Limited resting supplies did not stop rest spam, but rather just made it annoying. It created no tension or need for decision making, especially when stamina just regenerates. The stronghold was meant to be a money sink, but you still were swimming in money.

The above is just my opinion and what little I remember.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The old supply system system worked excellently. It encouraged the player to keep things tight and to try and clear every encounter as efficiently as possible, in order to save supplies. It's called tactics. If someone is just carelessly spamming his spells, then he is playing like a moron. Making the game more fun for morons shouldn't be a thing in a prestigious oldschool RPG.

You may as well argue that parachutes don't work because people forget to open them, or that kidney transplants don't work because a lot of people forget to take their medication and the transplant ends up failing.

 

[FreeKaner]

If they can't match them AND the Empowering is limited, then lugging around baggage like casters who can keep up with melee only two times in a dungeon is pointless.

Haha that sounds like what everybody says about low level wizards in D&D though, except instead of unempowered spells they have sling stones.

I've asked Josh Sawyer about this and gave him a link to this discussion. My suggestion might seem logically bizarre to him, because the idea was "if we make spells cast slower, then we can also make them more powerful". But Empower makes spells even MORE powerful, so how could they be fast? He might reject the idea out of hand because of that. But I hope he considers it.

It seems to me that a big issue with Empowering might be that people are so turned off by the slow casting speed of spells in PoE2 that they don't want to waste any additional per-rest resource on them. It feels like "throwing good money after bad". If the spells are so damn slow then at least they're free, right? Fundamentally they don't need the spells to be a bit more powerful, they need them to be faster. Arguably, even an Empower function that only made spells cast faster without making them more powerful could be worthwhile.

The slow casting in itself wouldn't be an issue if the spells had reasonable impact. Also I think application of penetration to spells is completely meaningless as well it just makes them compete with normal damage types in an area it doesn't need to compete at all. I doubt people would mind varying levels of spell-casting speed (shorter for self-defensive spells, longer for big aoe effect ones etc.) that is tied to impact of a spell, in fact that sort of opportunity cost for flashy effects is something both "fun-loving" types and "balance-loving" types would like.

Empower making them faster is just vestigial, D:OS didn't have resting and I didn't see many people complaining. If you go towards something distinct you should do it all together not have one leg in the shallows and other in the stream, this was one of the faults of earlier IE games I think in terms of being either PnP or computer games.

 

[fantadomat]

When i read Infinitron's post i kind begun thinking. Does anyone knows a game where you have truly decimating spells that take incredibly long time to cast,like 5-10 turns? I don't remember a game where you have those ritual kind of spells. It will be pretty fun to see such a thing.

 

[fantadomat]

The old supply system system worked excellently. It encouraged the player to keep things tight and to try and clear every encounter as efficiently as possible, in order to save supplies. It's called tactics. If someone is just carelessly spamming his spells, then he is playing like a moron. Making the game more fun for morons shouldn't be a thing in a prestigious oldschool RPG.

You may as well argue that parachutes don't work because people forget to open them, or that kidney transplants don't work because a lot of people forget to take their medication and the transplant ends up failing.

I kind of agree with you mate,but you must agree that the limiting supplies system doesn't make any sense,after all you can pack only 2-6 supplies and a literal ton of steal weapons and armours. Batter system could have been if they limit the places you can rest,like having to secure some room to make it a save place if there is no alarms going on.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

High level Chanter invocations would count.

 

[FreeKaner]

The old supply system system worked excellently. It encouraged the player to keep things tight and to try and clear every encounter as efficiently as possible, in order to save supplies. It's called tactics.

That's called strategy. There is opportunity to have a strategical aspect in these type of RPGs if implemented well, such as the ship mechanics if they manage to do that, but overall there is not much strategy involved in resting apparently because some people just spammed every spell they got every encounter and just walked back to town whenever they were out of resting supplies. So we are at where we are now.

Another idea I have for "empower" to truly work is that it could be "overload" type of effect where when it's pressed it just improves the action speed and "power level" of the character for a duration at the cost of their resting bonuses or whatever else. So the trade-off would be there and obvious instead of unaccountable "you will have less food".

 

[Althorion]

Another example is the attributes. Sawyer did not want dump stats, and tried to make each stat useful for every class, but it did not pan out that way.

He came damn close, though. I cannot think of any game that managed that better.

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem with Empower is that it doesn't affect melee, as they don't rely on per-encounter spells to function. It isn't the effect of the Empower itself. If they can somehow make Empower lucrative for both casters and melee, then there wouldn't be a problem. Or remove damage-dealing spells and only have utility/buffs/debuffs.

 

[Infinitron]

For example, the engagement system was meant to stop frequent kiting

This is one of them Sensuki Myths. It's not what it was meant to stop, it's just something that it happened to affect and annoyed him

 

[FreeKaner]

The Pillars system worked pretty well, why did they change it?

From my recollection of the PoE1 beta, Sawyer wanted to try to "fix" certain issues he saw from other games, such as kiting, dump stats, and rest spam. For example, the engagement system was meant to stop frequent kiting, which could break encounters. The issue is that you could still game or even abuse the engagement system (running enemy packs through a stationary tank to reap multiple engagement attacks). Therefore, it did not mean much to casual players who wouldn't know how to kite, and it didn't stop metagamey players who just found another avenue of abuse.

Engagement system worked fine for frontline melee characters and not so much anything else. Observing this they are reducing it to a trait for a more limited scope (fighters, paladins and few items if I remember correctly) which I think was the right call. Now you still won't be able to just kite around in a battle but some tactical positioning shouldn't be end of the world in all cases.

 

[Maculo]

Another example is the attributes. Sawyer did not want dump stats, and tried to make each stat useful for every class, but it did not pan out that way.

He came damn close, though. I cannot think of any game that managed that better.

Maybe, but the moment he introduced accuracy and deflection, both of which influenced by stats, it was not going to last. Tank characters need high deflection and constitution. Damage dealers need accuracy, damage modifiers, and speed modifiers.

For example, the engagement system was meant to stop frequent kiting

This is one of them Sensuki Myths. It's not what it was meant to stop, it's just something that it happened to affect and annoyed him

I recall it was to restrict movement in a fight, and by implication kiting. I do not know why it would not directly implicate kiting. I still do not think it added much.

 

[Lacrymas]

PoE neither eliminated rest spam, nor dump stats, nor kiting. So whoop-di-doo, great success there, gentlemen.

Tank characters need high [...] constitution.

No, they don't.

 

[FreeKaner]

PoE neither eliminated rest spam, nor dump stats, nor kiting. So whoop-di-doo, great success there, gentlemen.

Tank characters need high [...] constitution.

No, they don't.

PoE wasn't trying to eliminate kiting as far as I know. Just to there being no cost whatsoever to walking around (as is the case with IE games with pseudo-rounds where movements is essentially a super-action). The idea was that I think movement should have an opportunity cost, which it does in PoE.

 

[Maculo]

No, they don't.

I remember the build, but I cannot think of many other tank builds that dump constitution. Furthermore, I think that build only became viable with 3.0 and not 1.0, due to the added talents, gear, and respec at taverns. For me that is an exception to the trend of tank builds.

At 1.0, I cannot think of a tank build that dumped constitution.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Kiting has been effectively eliminated, not by preventing you from kiting, but by making it pointless to do so. Most of the time kiting accomplishes nothing. The only exception are a few disengage abilities and a certain cheesy combo of Chanter phrases that allows efficient kiting.

 

[Infinitron]

PoE wasn't trying to eliminate kiting as far as I know. Just to there being no cost whatsoever to walking around (as is the case with IE games with pseudo-rounds where movements is essentially a super-action). The idea was that I think movement should have an opportunity cost, which it does in PoE.

It's not really that either. The original video that introduced engagement explained that it was a defensive mechanic designed to allow characters to prevent enemies from walking through thin chokepoints, something that often happened in the IE games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AYp3q_N7pw

Later on, Josh seemed to become more interested in the concept of engagement as a character power to allow characters to "project threat over an area" in an offensive sense.

I happen to think that engagement as originally implemented in PoE1 was a bad mechanic. But it was not a failed attempt by Josh Sawyer to "fix kiting" or "punish movement" or anything like that. It's just a character power that became tedious because it was too common, just like if every single enemy in the game had ranged attacks or a damaging AoE or whatnot. Restricting it to Fighters only was the right thing to do.