Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Parabalus]

How does a full playthrough feel with the expansions installed? Does it feel like "OK, this is a bit better overall" or does it feel like an incoherent mess?

I am talking about full completionist playthroughs, from start to finish, with both expansions installed.

It's like the difference between Gothic 2 with or without NoTR, ie. it's pretty fucking substantially better.

More reason to question if this game really has the depth that everyone claims in theory / on paper that it does.
If I can muddle my way through with a retarded group of characters without strategic planning at all on POTD.. why should I give a shit? I thought this was the be all end all?

If By Act 4 I haven't died once.. I am making a rant thread about how Infinitron and Prime Junta are full of shit.

Go to TWM at level 6 (intended level) , if you can really do everything ironman style "without planning" (first time you encounter something, no meta knowledge, else there's obviously no point ) on PotD , you should probably stop playing games and do something productive for mankind because you are a genius.

Same applies for the hardest encounters

Spoiler

Adra, Alpine, Llengrath, Radiant Spore

on PotD, if you don't have to stop, strategize and plan for (some of) them please do share your OP strats which defy the will of .

 

[Prime Junta]

A real-life example is choosing between casting X or Y spell, for example one spell being a party buff, the other an enemy debuff, and having to take into account 4-5 afflictions which are currently affecting your party or the enemies. Then what if you have a choice between multiple debuffs, all affecting different enemy defenses with different percentages?

I do understand that many players would prefer for something awesome to happen whenever you hit a button, rather than actually having to think of the decisions you make.

I'm a bit surprised sometimes to find so many of them here though.

Oh, but I forget - "most humans can understand percentages", right? Well, please tell me the result of "Movement speed reduced by 1.25" when I don't know what's the initial movement speed? Or how much of an effect would be "?Deflection - 20"? This is laughable compared to the light and simple D&D rules.

Seriously defending PoE's combat system is a very ungrateful task.

I got a feel for it pretty quickly. There are plenty of abilities, spells, items etc. which, for example, buff your movement speed by (some value). I try them and observe the effect. Or, I cast that "Deflection -20" spell and see how the melee to-hit percentages shift. I don't do any math. I just notice that golly gee whiz, my melee to-hit chances are in the 10-20% range so maybe I need to buff my ACC or debuff their DEFL, then I do one or the other, and notice that the numbers went up to the 50-60% range, and that makes me happy.

 

[Athelas]

Or how much of an effect would be "?Deflection - 20"? This is laughable compared to the light and simple D&D rules.

Only if you're assuming every player has a lifetime of D&D experience. PoE's rules are probably easier to understand for a newcomer for a number of reasons, the most obvious one being that there's nothing like the 'upside down logic' of 'lower= better', as is the case with Thac0 and AC. 'Deflection -20' is functionally identical to 'AC +4' - in both cases you need to know your accuracy/Thac0 to compare it against - except D&D is more complicated, since it has special edge cases for rolling a 1 or a 20.

 

[Infinitron]

IIRC, AwesomeButton's ultimate point in this argument is that the IE games do have all that stuff too, but let you short circuit it with all sorts of hard counters and immunities so you don't have to care. ("Saving throw vs Paralysis -1? Lemme show you my Ring of Free Action, suckers!")

 

[Bubbles]

'Deflection -20' is functionally identical to 'AC +4' - in both cases you need to know your accuracy/Thac0 to compare it against - except D&D is more complicated, since it has special edge cases for rolling a 1 or a 20.

PoE's ruleset is also plenty complicated in that regard, since glance/crit modifiers are additive, not multiplicative. That means that a Cipher with a 220% base damage modifier cares a lot less about accuracy than a character with a 110% base damage modifier.

 

[Athelas]

'Deflection -20' is functionally identical to 'AC +4' - in both cases you need to know your accuracy/Thac0 to compare it against - except D&D is more complicated, since it has special edge cases for rolling a 1 or a 20.

PoE's ruleset is also plenty complicated in that regard, since glance/crit modifiers are additive, not multiplicative. That means that a Cipher with a 220% base damage modifier cares a lot less about accuracy than a character with a 110% base damage modifier.

Sure, but those aren't special exceptions that 'break' the rules. The point of the 1 and 20 rolls was to make playing tabletop more exciting and dramatic, but someone who picks up a cRPG without having ever played tabletop doesn't have that frame of reference - it will just come across as some weird quirk to them. My point wasn't about which system was better/more complicated/etc, but which was more intuitive.

 

[Immortal]

you should probably stop playing games and do something productive for mankind because you are a genius.

Go to TWM at level 6 (intended level) , if you can really do everything ironman style "without planning" (first time you encounter something, no meta knowledge, else there's obviously no point ) on PotD ,

Too late for iron man. I was expecting POTD to be really hard so I didn't choose iron man.
This is the last time I am restarting a new game.. I have gotten so sick of the starting areas.. (This is my second time restarting after playing on hard)

But in fairness I haven't claimed the harder encounters / expansions are easy.. YET. I am hoping they give me lots of trouble. Time will tell.

> Can't Handle Twitch Gameplay
> Pausing too slow..?

...therefore, I explore the systems, and get a kick out of finding ways to neutralise enemy abilities while getting through their defences.

I honestly don't get what's so hard to understand about this.

(Edit: I used to think this is the way everybody plays systems-rich games like this. It was only when I encountered a certain Australian that I fotund out that some people play these like mini-RTS's, and engage with the systems only to the minimal extent needed to support that. Even practiced that a bit, but decided that it wasn't my thing.)

You are misunderstanding. I don't care how you play the game, all the power to you.
I was just pointing out the weird dichotomy of you saying that you can't handle the twitch pacing of character micromanagement but find a pause button too slow..

Don't read too deeply into my poking and prodding. Not everyone is out to get you.

 

[Trashos]

I see Button's point in this, as I too dislike the way the afflictions are structured. I invariably enjoy complexity, but the complexity in PoE's afflictions seems to be meaningless. So, instead of preparing for my next move by doing calculations, I try to develop a "feel" like Prima Junta says. But I would rather have been able to do my calculations.

To illustrate my point: I am on my 5th full playthrough and I still can't tell you what each affliction does without looking it up. Can you?

I mean, look at this shit. Weakened:
–2 Might
–20 Will
–20 Fortitude
–2 Move Speedhttp://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Move_Speed
–2 Constitution

Some random stats are affected for -2 and 2 random defenses are affected for -20. If there is a point in Weakened being like this, I don't see it.

How about Weakened affecting just Might and Fortitude? It would have been much better.

 

[Excidium II]

Or how much of an effect would be "?Deflection - 20"? This is laughable compared to the light and simple D&D rules.

Only if you're assuming every player has a lifetime of D&D experience. PoE's rules are probably easier to understand for a newcomer for a number of reasons, the most obvious one being that there's nothing like the 'upside down logic' of 'lower= better', as is the case with Thac0 and AC. 'Deflection -20' is functionally identical to 'AC +4' - in both cases you need to know your accuracy/Thac0 to compare it against - except D&D is more complicated, since it has special edge cases for rolling a 1 or a 20.

Of course you need to understand the formula to understand how variables affect the result.

But PoE makes it way more complicated because of the miss/graze/hit/crit thing.

 

[Infinitron]

How about Weakened affecting just Might and Fortitude? It would have been much better.

Nah, it's those two -20 direct penalties to the defense scores that are most significant. When you look at all the afflictions together, you see that there's a sort of logical hierarchy to it: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Status_Effects#Afflictions

Hobbled harms Reflex, Blinded harms Accuracy, Deflection and Reflex, Frightened & Terrified harm Accuracy, Sickened & Weakened harms Will and Fortitude. Etc.

 

[Dorateen]

Speaking of The Forgotten, the fight on the bridge, anyone know what the deal is with this:

Spoiler

Late in the game, probably in Act III, I returned to Defiance Bay and inside the Goose & Fox Inn there were ghosts of the defeated Forgotten adventuring group standing around in a circle. Couldn't interact with them. I was rather disappointed we didn't get a second fight with the undead version. Is this just an easter egg or was there some other significance? Their reappearance kind of flies in the face of the setting's reincarnation theme.

 

[Infinitron]

Speaking of The Forgotten, the fight on the bridge, anyone know what the deal is with this:

Spoiler

Late in the game, probably in Act III, I returned to Defiance Bay and inside the Goose & Fox Inn there were ghosts of the defeated Forgotten adventuring group standing around in a circle. Couldn't interact with them. I was rather disappointed we didn't get a second fight with the undead version. Is this just an easter egg or was there some other significance? Their reappearance kind of flies in the face of the setting's reincarnation theme.

You could call it an Easter Egg, yeah. They're backer NPCs, one of the few who got to have an actual role in the game.

 

[Trashos]

How about Weakened affecting just Might and Fortitude? It would have been much better.

Nah, it's those two -20 direct penalties to the defense scores that are most significant. When you look at all the afflictions together, you see that there's a sort of logical hierarchy to it: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Status_Effects#Afflictions

Hobbled harms Reflex, Blinded harms Accuracy, Deflection and Reflex, Frightened & Terrified harm Accuracy, Sickened & Weakened harms Will and Fortitude. Etc.

You are agreeing with me without agreeing with me.

Hobbled harms Reflex

Yes, Hobbled is a good one.

Blinded harms Accuracy, Deflection and Reflex

This is exactly my problem: Is there any reason why it should affect Accuracy AND Deflection AND Reflex?

Frightened & Terrified harm Accuracy

Frightened and Terrified also affect Resolve, so I guess they affect Will, Deflection and Concentration too. Not sure about it though, as the afflictions seem to affect the stats and the derivative defenses in ways that break the game's own rules. This is a huge mess at any rate.

Sickened & Weakened harms Will and Fortitude

Sickened affects all attributes, so I guess it affects all defenses.

Now, some of the effects are small, but imagine being affected by multiple afflictions at once, like when fighting Ogre Druids. The pile stacks up.

 

[Excidium II]

This is exactly my problem: Is there any reason why it should affect Accuracy AND Deflection AND Reflex?

I guess this is one of those rare moments where Josh considered stuff making sense.

 

[Infinitron]

This is exactly my problem: Is there any reason why it should affect Accuracy AND Deflection AND Reflex?

Well, it's a powerful status effect, with accordingly fewer abilities that cause it (which is what makes the Rogue's Blinding Strike such a treasure).

Now, some of the effects are small, but imagine being affected by multiple afflictions at once, like when fighting Ogre Druids. The pile stacks up.

Yes, the effects of the attribute penalties are small and you could streamline them away, I guess (I thought you were worried about the sequel going popamole?). But they might have their uses, and once you realize the primary purpose of the afflictions is direct Defense score reduction, you don't have to pay attention to them.

One thing I've suggested to Sawyer is to more formally/explicitly organize the afflictions in a hierarchy, rather than just putting them in a big list. You could have tiers - Light Afflictions, Moderate Afflictions, Severe Afflictions. Then there could also be spells that only address particular tiers - Suppress Light Affliction, Suppress Severe Affliction, etc.

 

[Bubbles]

Shouldn't Blind also have a chance of making people Frightened? A lot of people would react poorly if they suddenly lost their eyesight.

 

[Ninjerk]

Any one of the status effects generally causes cascading defense failures (I almost tried an Orlan paladin out for TCS for this reason).

 

[Excidium II]

Shouldn't Blind also have a chance of making people Frightened? A lot of people would react poorly if they suddenly lost their eyesight.

Shouldn't it last forever? They just got eye gouged.

 

[Hegel]

Yeah but something something souls

 

[Trashos]

Yes, the effects of the attribute penalties are small and you could streamline them away, I guess (I thought you were worried about the sequel going popamole?). But they might have their uses, and once you realize the primary purpose of the afflictions is direct Defense score reduction, you don't have to pay attention to them.

One thing I've suggested to Sawyer is to more formally/explicitly organize the afflictions in a hierarchy, rather than just putting them in a big list. You could have tiers - Light Afflictions, Moderate Afflictions, Severe Afflictions. Then there could also be spells that only address particular tiers - Suppress Light Affliction, Suppress Severe Affliction, etc.

The complications here are meaningless. Why does Frightened affect Resolve? How does that make things different, interesting or more strategic? It just complicates matters needlessly.
The current design complicates things so much that nobody will do any actual calculations, and then tries to remedy that by giving on-size-fits-all solutions like "Suppress Afflictions". This is not a clean or interesting design.

An interesting design for strategy would be to have afflictions that affect ONE thing. Have Blinded affect Accuracy. Have another affliction affect Deflection. Then you choose the one you want or choose a relevant defense if you are the one afflicted. That would be a system that people would be able to follow and you could build actual tactics around it.

As you can understand, I would prefer the affliction design to change completely. Note that I believe that what I am proposing would lead to more complex tactics in practical play. But if for some weird reason they keep their system, I like your idea better than what we have now.

 

[Infinitron]

The complications here are meaningless. Why does Frightened affect Resolve?

Maybe somebody needs an affliction that reduces Resolve. Maybe there's some player who disagrees with my analysis of the afflictions and has built a gameplay style oriented around reducing attributes rather than defenses directly. The afflictions are a bundle of effects, they have something for everybody.

An interesting design for strategy would be to have afflictions that affect ONE thing. Have Blinded affect Accuracy. Have another affliction affect Deflection. Then you choose the one you want or choose a relevant defense if you are the one afflicted. That would be a system that people would be able to follow and you could build actual tactics around it.

That would be too constraining. What, you can't have an enemy that reduces both your Fortitude and your Deflection with a single cast of a spell? He'd always have to cast two spells in a row? Unless you want to change a bunch of spells so that they inflict more than one affliction at once, in which case you're just replacing one complexity with another. I can understand removing the "small" effects of the Afflictions, but not that.

 

[AwesomeButton]

IIRC, AwesomeButton's ultimate point in this argument is that the IE games do have all that stuff too, but let you short circuit it with all sorts of hard counters and immunities so you don't have to care. ("Saving throw vs Paralysis -1? Lemme show you my Ring of Free Action, suckers!")

My ultimate point pretty much coincides with Josh's own self-criticism: combat pacing is off, and it's difficult to read combat. I forget the interview where he said that, but it must have been posted somewhere on this thread anyway.
What I'd add to this is that I get the feeling PrimeJunta misunderstands my argument, thinking it is "the game's ruleset is too difficult, I just need an awesome button to be happy". No, I don't think the ruleset is too difficult to understand, just difficult to read, to say what's going on and what the best action (out of a set of possible actions) is in a given moment. It feels over-engineered. You can express simple thoughts in complicated language, or write simple thoughts in ugly script, but this doesn't mean people who don't understand you are simple.

I know the rules well enough, but when I'm at a higher level, I often feel like deciding on the best next action to preform with a character in a fight is just too much work, too many factors have to be weighted, and the payoff in terms of avoided damage from enemies/caused disadvantage to enemies would be too small anyway. That's what most people describe as "my actions during battle don't feel like they matter".

After a certain point most combat encounters (all besides those that we call "tough encounters", as if requiring any thought at all is equal to "tough") turn into the equivalent of one of those ready-made, "just add an egg" recipes, where you don't really need to add an egg, or use your character's abilities, but the designers thought they should make you feel like you actually need to, because you're not playing popamole. The housewife has to believe that the cake is home-made, or she will feel guilty that she can't cook.

Spoiler

I'm not saying encounters in the IE games are all very inventive or difficult, but there is never this "yeah whatever feeling", probably because they don't make you click no-brainer abilities. Not sure.

I have 2 incomplete playthroughs - one started with the release version and is 70 hours, the second I started with the 3.0 version and is at around 75 hours. So I know what I'm talking about. I'm also playing IWD just to be sure I'm comparing the games on equal grounds. IWD has the better combat, without a doubt. People can read those forums, play the games, and judge for themselves who is objective and who is a fanboy or a hater.

 

[Infinitron]

He's only said that he wants to make it slower by default in the sequel.

What I'd add to this is that I get the feeling PrimeJunta misunderstands my argument, thinking it is "the game's ruleset is too difficult, I just need an awesome button to be happy". No, I don't think the ruleset is too difficult to understand, just difficult to read, to say what's going on and what the best action (out of a set of possible actions) is in a given moment. It feels over-engineered. You can express simple thoughts in complicated language, or write simple thoughts in ugly script, but this doesn't mean people who don't understand you are simple.

...

I'm also playing IWD just to be sure I'm comparing the games on equal grounds. IWD has the better combat, without a doubt

Your comparison of the game with IWD suggests that what you want is a "set of possible actions" that is smaller. It's a 3E-like system - it really is more complex, no doubt about that. I think NWN2 would have probably gotten many of these same complaints if anybody had ever bothered to take the combat in that game seriously.

 

[Trashos]

Maybe somebody needs an affliction that reduces Resolve. Maybe there's some player who disagrees with my analysis of the afflictions and has built a gameplay style oriented around reducing attributes rather than defenses directly. The afflictions are a bundle of effects, they have something for everybody.

Sure, give them a different spell or talent that affects Resolve. But there is no reason why they should be reducing the opponent's Accuracy at the same time. And, by the way, who will ever cast a spell to reduce the opponent's Resolve by 2? Is there one dude somewhere who wiil actually do that? I don't think so.

That would be too constraining. What, you can't have an enemy that reduces both your Fortitude and your Deflection with a single cast of a spell? He'd always have to cast two spells in a row? Unless you want to change a bunch of spells so that they inflict more than one affliction at once, in which case you're just replacing one complexity with another. I can understand removing the "small" effects of the Afflictions, but not that.

Yes, I definitely believe that all the small effects have to be removed.

What's wrong with two spells in a row (or a hard tactical decision)? Opportunity costs are still complicated (so I don't agree that this is popamole design- "Suppress Afflictions" is popamole design) and the design is much cleaner.

Anyway, maybe you have a point and I can see higher level spells affecting, say, two defenses, so you can have your cipher attack Will and your druid attack Reflex at the next opportunity. But they need to limit the groupings to the extent that one-size-fits-all defenses like "Suppress Afflictions" are not needed any more. If they can't do that, then they should stick to Afflictions limited to one effect.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Your comparison of the game with IWD suggests that what you want is a "set of possible actions" that is much smaller. It's a 3E-like, not 2E-like, system, it really is more complex, no doubt.

I was just writing the following, and you are right:
"One significant difference I see in IWD is that due to the way spell memorization works, a caster (along with all other characters) has only a few possible actions he can execute in a round. In PoE I usually have a choice between at least 15 different spells at any time during combat, and non-casters have many modal or active abilities. In IWD it's just "Turn undead", "Lay on hands", and that's pretty much all I need from my non-casters. Combat is faster, with less pausing but still intense, unless everyone has bad rolls in which case you stare at the party and enemies waving weapons at each other, which does feel dull (but I still prefer it to PoE's combat)."

You can also maneuver much more, due to the lack of engagement, enemies switch targets less predictably than in PoE too.

So, yes, PoE is more complex, but only tedium comes out of this complexity.

A major advantage of the IE games - the asynchronous individual rounds of the IE games are waaay better than the impossible to follow irregular intervals in which PoE characters preform actions. This has a big role in making combat easier to follow in the IE games, and I used to tell this to Obsidian during the Backer Beta days. Let's take a "simple" (PoE "simple") example:
9 characters are on screen - a party of 6 and 3 enemies.
Character 1 has .9 s until he can take action
Character 2 has 1.2 s until he can take action
Character 3 has 1.6 s until he can take action
Character 4 has 2 s. until he can take action
Character 5 has .5 s until he can take action
Character 6 has 1 s. until he can take action
Enemy 1 has .6 s until he can take action
Enemy 2 has .8 s until he can take action
Enemy 3 has 2.3 s until he can take action

Your priest is Character 5. Your fighter is Character 1 and is near death after being hit by Enemy 2. You have no way to see either of these times, so you can't really tell if it's better to use your priest to cast healing on Character 1, or a hitting spell on Enemy 2. The indicators, while you are paused, do not give you any hint as to how long it will take for the recovery times to pass. You just see the lines, you don't know how fast either one of them is decreasing in length (one of the many glaring mistakes in the UI, but don't get me started on that).

In addition, if you are going to cast a damaging spell on Enemy 2, you have to take into account your chances of hitting him, because spells are based on Accuracy, but what if you are under the effects of a debuff, that lowers your accuracy? Should you: 1) Cast healing spell now, disregarding accuracy; 2) Cast damaging spell now, disregarding the debuff, or 3) wait for the debuff to pass and then cast the damaging spell?

This example uses just three characters and it's a pretty standard situation. So, who's volunteering to make all those calculations, in every battle? I thought so.

And this is what passes for combat system in the IE games' successor. The short way of describing it I can think of is "clusterfuck". And I know I'm not going near any other game that uses this combat system. I hope I've made it clear where I see the problems. Mainly in the fact that the player is overloaded with information to the point where it becomes a better strategy to just disregard the ruleset and try to brute force your way through a battle, which works in 90% of battles anyway.