Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Bonerbill]

Glad to see my nigga Forton back in some form. I wonder if we're still going to get Cadegund and Kurren before they finish with PoE?

I guess we're getting the Barb in part 2.

Such overreaction. AI for player characters tend to be stupid as fuck anyway. Still p. lame they put those in but there's no words about improving the enemy AI.

The other changes are nice usability improvements.

Yeah, the AI is never perfect in these games. I usally have the AI on in Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age Origin, but I still find myself controlling the character most of the time.

 

[Athelas]

Glad to see my nigga Forton back in some form. I wonder if we're still going to get Cadegund and Kurren before they finish with PoE?

Pretty sure they were replaced with Durance and Grieving Mother respectively.

 

[Infinitron]

I think what felipepepe is trying to say is that the combat is so mindless/easy that even an AI could play it and win (against other AIs...) thereby exposing it all as an elaborate sham, but that seems like an exaggeration.

 

[Hegel]

They still can't get particles effects right, now even the backgrounds are messed up. Can't they just import IWD1-2 resources and spell effects?

 

[Excidium II]

I think what felipepepe is trying to say is that the combat is so mindless/easy that even an AI could play it and win (against other AIs...) thereby exposing it all as an elaborate sham, but that seems like an exaggeration.

It sounds like an exaggeration to me but I stopped playing after getting the keep and clearing the ogre level so what do I know

He's part of the codex PoE esports team and I trust his judgement but I see no reason to believe player AI will be able to win combat on its own that isn't already winnable by select all + right click

 

[Jimmious]

Wow, really nice stuff. Admittedly they did listen to the community. All of these were wanted features.

 

[Excidium II]

Still haven't had a chance to play Pillars yet (/Heroes of the Storm).

Literally a grindfest MMORPG for retards.

That is the edgiest comment I've read aobut PoE

 

[Bubbles]

This footage was filmed in normal mode.

IIRC most of the dev team can't play the game on hard.

 

[Excidium II]

Exidium I'm talking about Heroes of the storm.

Yeah I figured.

Because you can't grind in PoE

 

[Bubbles]

RPG designers generally don't play RPGs.

 

[Roguey]

They do, but as Josh says they

view gameplay as a chore. They are quite vocal about wanting to pursue the story and characters more as a choose-your-own adventure novel than as an integral part of a role-playing game.

 

[Excidium II]

They do, but as Josh says they

view gameplay as a chore. They are quite vocal about wanting to pursue the story and characters more as a choose-your-own adventure novel than as an integral part of a role-playing game.

That explains a lot.

No coincidence that every balance fix seems to be a direct result of player feedback on obsidian forums

 

[Bubbles]

Something not covered in the update/video because it's not a super high profile feature is that we can scale base abilities and weapons much more easily now, so things like Holy Radiance, Arcane Assault, and Spiritshift weapons/armor can become more powerful as the character gains levels. These updates will also be in the next patch.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80...ing-the-expansion-and-update-20/#entry1707579

Finally a Wizard buff!

 

[Irenaeus II]

I approve of all changes/additions. Can't wait to play this.

 

[Bubbles]

Eagle-eyed Gromnir strikes again!

not covered in the update were the anticipated changes to perception. such a change would be a balancing rather than a new feature, so we ain't surprised by failure to mention. regardless, can see clear from the video that 20 perception results in +10 accuracy and no deflection bonus.

 

[Zed]

I've been having a very hard time being excited for this.

The individual stealth stuff is good, and should have been in the game since start.

The companions are uninteresting. No MCA - the saving grace of the base game's writing, and all companions have been severely lacking in depth. Don't see how these will be different.

Also, I don't think I have a save game for the expansion, and I'm definitely not replaying the base game. Maybe in two years if they overhaul it with interesting encounters and better itemization.

 

[Excidium II]

Eagle-eyed Gromnir strikes again!

not covered in the update were the anticipated changes to perception. such a change would be a balancing rather than a new feature, so we ain't surprised by failure to mention. regardless, can see clear from the video that 20 perception results in +10 accuracy and no deflection bonus.

That was already known because they accidentally updated the perception tooltip in the latest patch or something.

 

[Bubbles]

There were a bunch of grognards still arguing that such a change would be "improbably dumb" and "bad for the game". Now we know that they were idiots.

 

[Excidium II]

More like they all dumped perception and are butthurt

 

[Shevek]

Those accuracy indicators are pretty cool. It should make it much easier for players to see how effective certain spells are vs others for a given target and promote less brute force play (especially on PotD).

Still p. lame they put those in but there's no words about improving the enemy AI.

I agree 100%.

 

[Bubbles]

Yes, we're currently testing internally with Perception granting a bonus to Accuracy and no bonus to Deflection. Even during the final phases of development (pre-launch and after launch), there was still a fair amount of internal debate about the balance of Perception and Resolve. At +2/point, it did seem like a really obvious "max on everyone" stat. At +1/point, it still feels valuable, but not extraordinarily so (at least according to QA so far).

Very sensible.

 

[Bubbles]

From SA:

Implementing party AI helped us improve enemy AI as well. Even in the base game, enemies tend to use more of their abilities (and more intelligently).

 

[Shevek]

From SA:

Implementing party AI helped us improve enemy AI as well. Even in the base game, enemies tend to use more of their abilities (and more intelligently).

The expansion is sounding better and better.

 

[Bubbles]

Piece by piece, the wonderous puzzle nears completion:

I was just talking to Roby and Adam about a respec feature. It's a little complicated, but it's not something we're opposed to and we're going to look into the logistics of implementing it. I know that's vague but character creation and advancement are complicated and sometimes seemingly simple things are quite difficult.

With some of the new scaling, I've been tuning down some of the other means of powering up base abilities (like Talents). Until now, Talents were one of the only mechanical ways that we could scale some abilities up.

 

[Roguey]

The individual stealth stuff is good, and should have been in the game since start.

Obsidian implemented a stealth system in 29 months, which is more than what inXile and Harebrained Schemes can say. This outcome is preferable to outright cutting it like they did (and stealth still does not exist in Hong Kong or the Wasteland 2 update).