Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Althorion]

If I remember correctly, coup de grace was usually only effective vs low HD enemies, like goblins, after a sleep spell. But that might be my NWN bias.

In pen and paper D&D 3, you could only use coup de grace against helpless (bound, sleeping, paralyzed or otherwise unmoving) opponent. You’d need to be in melee range and take a full action (so you couldn’t get closer and then attack). You automatically hit and score a critical (because of that, it can be only used on a creature that can be critically hit, so no undeads etc.) and that counts as a sneak attack. If the target survives it, they have to make Fortitude check with difficulty 10 + damage dealt, so nearly impossible, and die if failed.
So it is always useful and even more so against full health enemies.

 

[jewboy]

I don't think Josh has ever said to himself "let's balance this game for children". It just sounds absurd. He balances them for himself.

You know the guy? How would you have any idea what he says to himself? Anyway I didn't say he balanced the game for children. The audience in general for games are children first and this game in particular seems oriented toward the younger generation that didn't grow up on 2nd Ed. D&D. Actually if the posters on the obsidian forums are representative a lot of them didn't like or even play BG2. They seem to prefer say Skyrim or some unnamed MMORPG. The combat is very MMO-ish even after tank n spank was discouraged with better AI (a smart move).

I think the combat system it most resembles is WoW which is the only MMORPG I've ever played. The point was that I'm sure Obsidian does not care what some middle aged gamer thinks of his shiny new real time uber-balanced (except not really) combat. I'm not the target market and it's tough for me to think like some 12 year old or whatever age they are targeting.

Maybe he is right to have such short duration for CCs (3 seconds does sound too short though, but I haven't seriously played the game since release), in the IE games you can basically make any fight trivial when the mobs aren't immune in some way. Sleep is ridiculous at low levels, especially with ring of wizardry. Then it gets replaced by Chromatic Orb when it no longer functions.

I never found much use for sleep spells in the IE games actually but maybe you are thinking of BG1 which I barely played at all. I could see such low level spells like that being useful in that game. It's pretty silly to say you can make any fight trivial if the monsters aren't immune. You mean with CTRL-Y? It's pretty tough to argue that Pillars is a harder game than BG2. It really isn't, but Pillars 3.05 PoTD is quite hard as I've said. Maybe even comparable, but certainly not harder especially when you consider the whole silly 'knockout' thing where no one in your party can die even if you want them to unless everyone does.

Maybe his short duration CC and disable spells make sense to Sawyer and his minions if that is who he is designing his combat for but for me they just are not fun. At all. Even if they are effective. Although it's really hard to see a disable spell that doesn't last much longer than a fighter knockdown ability being particularly effective especially when it is only per rest and not spammable.

The other alternative for tough encounter design is generously sprinkling random mobs with immunities, just like an MMO. Or have no CC at all.

Have you played BG2ToB? I mean really played it all the way through? With SCS installed? That most certainly is not the only alternative. Instead of nerfing everything and making all the classes relatively weak to keep them on the level of a basic fighter you can give casters on both sides very powerful and long lasting spells with hard counters and let them have at it with good AI scripting. You end up with a nuclear holocaust but it's a lot more fun than weak characters hitting each other with sticks. Although really any sort of system can be made fun if you try. Sawyer did not try afaict. Fun was not one of his design objectives.

I really don't see the harm in allowing casters to have summons that last long enough to get killed or disables that actually disable for some significant amount of time that actually makes a difference in combat or cc that actually keeps enemies from reaching you for some prolonged duration. Yeah web + cloudkill was cheesy at low levels where it worked, but it could also be a fun tactic if used in moderation. Pillars doesn't really have powerful spells like that because it would make a fighter seem too weak in comparison. Or at least I think that's the justification.

As far as I am concerned btw this game does not have any CC at all. I absolutely refuse to use any CC spells or abilities in this game due to the absurdly short durations involved. I think just using debuffs to make the enemy less effective makes more sense. The debuffs tend to have much longer durations which make them actually useful.

 

[Parabalus]

Have you played BG2ToB? I mean really played it all the way through? With SCS installed? That most certainly is not the only alternative. Instead of nerfing everything and making all the classes relatively weak to keep them on the level of a basic fighter you can give casters on both sides very powerful and long lasting spells with hard counters and let them have at it with good AI scripting. You end up with a nuclear holocaust but it's a lot more fun than weak characters hitting each other with sticks. Although really any sort of system can be made fun if you try. Sawyer did not try afaict. Fun was not one of his design objectives.

BG2 (especially ToB) balancing with SCS/Tactics on Insane is so bad the game gets harder for every non wizard you have, because it's just another powerless schmuck you have to babysit.

I really don't see the harm in allowing casters to have summons that last long enough to get killed or disables that actually disable for some significant amount of time that actually makes a difference in combat or cc that actually keeps enemies from reaching you for some prolonged duration. Yeah web + cloudkill was cheesy at low levels where it worked, but it could also be a fun tactic if used in moderation. Pillars doesn't really have powerful spells like that because it would make a fighter seem too weak in comparison. Or at least I think that's the justification.

Pillars spells aren't any better. A single priest can chain cast storm of holy fire to clear basically every encounter, a cipher can perma spam Amplified Wave (15 sec AoE knockdown), wizards can chain 1-2-3-4 spell mastery AoE CC spells every encounter or just spam shadowflames, druid storms are still redic.

As far as I am concerned btw this game does not have any CC at all. I absolutely refuse to use any CC spells or abilities in this game due to the absurdly short durations involved. I think just using debuffs to make the enemy less effective makes more sense. The debuffs tend to have much longer durations which make them actually useful.

You use both, when you have an accuracy advantage CC becomes devestating. You have two priests in your party, start combat with emp. interdiction + devotions/bless, your wizards' CC will crit. If you land a disable on a standard enemy he should die under it's duration because his defenses get lowered and you perma crit.

 

[FreeKaner]

As far as I am concerned btw this game does not have any CC at all. I absolutely refuse to use any CC spells or abilities in this game due to the absurdly short durations involved. I think just using debuffs to make the enemy less effective makes more sense. The debuffs tend to have much longer durations which make them actually useful.

I have no idea what you mean, later in the game a Wizard can literally chain CC whole encounter groups for entirety of duration of combat with petrify and shadowflame(?) ball. If anything, past 13 the game gets too trivial except boss/dragon fights because of the absurd amount of CC you can chain, unless enemy gets lucky resists you can finish fights without taking a single point of damage. I just think you have not played the game past act1 and your party composition (2 monks, 2 priests, 2 wizards) which all tend to get over the curve later in the game and don't have strong CC early on. Get some ciphers, druids, fighters and chanters then you'll see how it works. Cipher and chanter especially both get two very strong early paralyse spells.

 

[jewboy]

The 3 pure spellcasting classes are still the strongest

Priests and Wizards. Not Druids. Not anymore. They are just a sad sad class now. As are ciphers I think. But my point was they are very weak compared to any cRPG I've ever played. Compared to caster classes in other games. Games that had combat I tended to enjoy a lot more. There just isn't much tactical depth to Pillars combat even when it is hard enough that I have to reload 10 times to win the battle. The difficulty is nice, but it is often difficult for the wrong reasons like just because the enemy has such high stats that they cannot be hit by weapons or spells more than like 1 time in 20 and can spam disables that I have no protection against.

I have no idea what you're smoking. With the custom characters and team setup you have you should be outright bulldozing through the game, maybe the early levels would be harder than with a standard party.

Well I am glad I am not bulldozing through the game. Otherwise the combat would be incredibly dull. As I said I like the difficulty level in 3.05 PoTD. Very different from release. The significant battles are now very difficult but not impossible. It is unfortunate that Sawyer felt the need to reduce rather than increase tactical options however. He doesn't like a battle to be won in a particular way and just forbids it. No killing one of a group of super-difficult enemies and then trying to retreat for instance which is something I consider a completely valid tactic and something that most games in the past have allowed. Although the monster can also give chase. And yes I know that the enemies mostly seem to have tethers and that you can let them chase you to the end of them and then shoot them in the back when they turn around. That's not even cheese. It's an exploit of bad AI and certainly not a valid way to 'win' a battle.

Most CC spells will last around 10 seconds, more on crits.

Those are generally some of the longer ones except for rare gems like puppetmaster which the nerf bat seems to have missed . Most are more like 3-8 seconds. Crits don't matter because they are (and are supposed to be) rare. High int does increase the numbers a bit to more like 12 seconds or something but that is still so short that I barely notice it.

My first char was a chanter and their Phantom summons have a 12 second duration even with a 20 INT and I found them to be extremely annoying. The micromanagement is not tactical. It is just tedious to have to keep re-summoning them. I find that 12 seconds is more like 2 rounds for my characters. In a battle that might last 50-100 rounds or more. Tactically it just seems to make very little difference afaict.

That's 2-3 castings for a normal encounter, you might be lacking damage (too defensive character builds?), since you have 4 casters and 2 monks.

Yes my parties are slow and defensive with dumped DEX and medium-high CON and also low level. My casters are only 2nd level except for my main char which is L3 but just a priest, but surely that's a valid way to play the game. Or is there only one right way to play the game due to the short spell durations? I had this idea that the spell durations were based on the short battles that might result from playing the game on easy or something, but it may also be balanced around high DEX characters.

Spell disables are incredibly powerful compared to DD spells, especially on wizards, dunno why you would consider them useless.

Because the duration is so short that they don't really seem to affect the outcome of any battles I've fought so far. I haven't faced any dragons yet though. Maybe in the really tough battles as in the toughest ones in the entire game the disables will be useful, but up to Caed Nua / Raedrics I don't see any disable/cc/summon spell that lasts less than 10 seconds having any significant effect tactically. Even if it does make a difference the annoyingly brief effects are just not fun for me. I'd rather win the battle some other way. At least if you could spam those short spells they might be more worthwhile but it seems like Sawyer was specifically trying to prevent you from being able to do that with Chanters and Ciphers. I guess because it might have been fun.

Druids are still very good, only their lvl 7 and 8 spells suck comparatively.

Well their spells are clearly inferior to wizards and priests now and the duration of their animal form abilities just make me laugh. Ridiculous durations as usual. I don't even know why that ability needs a duration. Especially since they aren't even that strong. They might have just added a bit of variety to the combat, but instead they are just something to try for 2-3 rounds once in a long battle. Totally lame.

I don't think Obsidian truly intended all of this. In the beginning a lot of the classes had significant power I think, but people (like me) must have complained that the game was too easy even on PoTD. So they did what they do best and just nerfed everything. So all of the abilities which before might have been at least somewhat interesting and fun are now just meh or in some cases completely useless at least imo. But then I guess their goal was to make no class more powerful than a fighter, a strategy I thought might result in something like this.

Their goal should have been to make combat that was both tactically challenging and fun. Instead they made the hardest setting actually hard which is good, but the combat is only fun (at least for me) in the hardest battles just because winning is such a challenge. Not because there is any great tactical richness compared to something like BG2+SCS.

It's a beautiful game with some genuinely challenging and interesting battles where the enemies quite often target and make a beeline for the squishies just as SCS enemies did in BG2. So I am enjoying it to a degree now that I have spent a long time messing around with different tactics (like learning to spam consecrated ground) and play styles. But I'd still rather play BG2 or even Icewind Dale. The combat in those games was just more fun for me. I never really liked BG1 combat for some reason though. I guess that would be an interesting comparison for me. I think most of the people who like Pillars combat more than IE combat never much liked the IE games anyway. With the exception of BG1 I loved them. Especially BG2. At least the dialogue is much better I think. BG2 had really terrible writers. Although so far I don't like the story itself.

 

[jewboy]

BG2 (especially ToB) balancing with SCS/Tactics on Insane is so bad the game gets harder for every non wizard you have, because it's just another powerless schmuck you have to babysit.

Well that is a bit of an exaggeration. A kensai/thief could one hit kill with his backstab at higher levels in some cases when enemies were not immune (although SCS basically killed that tactic for wizards due to stoneskin prebuffs) and ranger/clerics and druids were incredibly powerful with their insect spells and fire elemental summons (which lasted quite a bit longer than 12 seconds). A wizard was certainly not the only powerful class. But yes casters were a lot more powerful than non-casters just like in most cRPGs that I've played. It even remains true in Pillars strangely enough. Casters may be weak compared to other games but they are still the strongest classes.

Pillars spells aren't any better. A single priest can chain cast storm of holy fire to clear basically every encounter, a cipher can perma spam Amplified Wave (15 sec AoE knockdown), wizards can chain 1-2-3-4 spell mastery AoE CC spells every encounter or just spam shadowflames, druid storms are still redic.

Actually the Amplfied Wave duration is 8 seconds which is maybe like 2 rounds with a low DEX party. I don't see how that is going to win any non-trivial battles. Ciphers are just theorycrafting for me though. I haven't played one 3.0+ but I've already had enough combat experience to get an idea for how long things take and an 8 second disable doesn't seem to do much. Especially if I am spending a per rest spell I'd rather debuff an enemy for 20-30 seconds than disable him for only 8. Your example is AoE and so a bit different, but in general the disable and cc spells just seem way too short to be useful and I've never seen a game with such short spell durations before.

I didn't even bother to take the Phantom summon with my Chanter after actually using it for a while and seeing how pathetically short those 12 seconds really are. I was open minded about it. I figured maybe 12 seconds was longer than it seemed in real fights, but nope. It was just long enough for the summon to get in 2-3 hits and then it was gone after having accomplished very little. Its 1-2 second stun affects were at least good for a laugh. I think its stuns used to be a lot longer, but again people complained the summon and its stun effects were 'OP'. So it was nerfed.

You use both, when you have an accuracy advantage CC becomes devestating. You have two priests in your party, start combat with emp. interdiction + devotions/bless, your wizards' CC will crit. If you land a disable on a standard enemy he should die under it's duration because his defenses get lowered and you perma crit.

When do you ever have an accuracy advantage in this game? The Caed Nua phantoms for instance have a deflection of 71 (and a reflex of 76 and a will of 79) and most of my chars have an accuracy no higher than 30s or low 40s. I don't see many ways of boosting ACC so much. I guess Eldritch Aim + Devotions for the Faithful, but DftF is a 4th level spell. Most of my party is only level 2. It will be a while before I can try that one. It does seem quite powerful despite its relatively short 30 second duration which I could see getting annoying. But Eldritch Aim has only a 15 second duration which in my battles is not that long.

In general I don't like relying on crit effects. My party seems lucky to hit anyone at all let alone crit and almost all my chars have a PER of 18 or 19 but of course my party is caster heavy and that's the price you pay. I think relying on crit or even INT boosts to make cc/disable/summon spell durations more reasonable is terrible game design. Ugh. Really discourages different play styles. Also if you can perma-disable later in the game why bother making you button mash so much to do it? Just allow for longer disable effects in the first place.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Proper use of the phantom is to drop it on a group of enemies who are disabled, about to recover, and not being focused by your party. It gives them something to hit and makes your front line way stronger for 12 seconds.

 

[almondblight]

Summons that last 8 seconds? These are a joke. In fact I don't think there is a single crowd control or summon or disable spell in the entire game that is worth taking.

Druids have been nerfed into utter uselessness due to all the cries of the storm spells being 'OP' on the forums probably. After the storm spells were nerfed into total 'let's just delete this spell' uselessness the class is a complete joke. Probably Druids are the most extreme example...

Now I have a party of 2 Monks, 2 Priests of Skaen (the best priests), and 2 Wizards all with min-maxed stats.

Most of my party is only level 2.

Huh? So you're only around level 2, but you're sure that the wizard summons - which you don't even start to get until level 7 - are worthless? You're sure that the druid storm spells - which you don't even start to get until level 5, and you need a druid in your party (which you don't have) - are worthless?

The hell am I reading?

 

[Parabalus]

Well I am glad I am not bulldozing through the game. Otherwise the combat would be incredibly dull. As I said I like the difficulty level in 3.05 PoTD. Very different from release. The significant battles are now very difficult but not impossible. It is unfortunate that Sawyer felt the need to reduce rather than increase tactical options however. He doesn't like a battle to be won in a particular way and just forbids it. No killing one of a group of super-difficult enemies and then trying to retreat for instance which is something I consider a completely valid tactic and something that most games in the past have allowed. Although the monster can also give chase. And yes I know that the enemies mostly seem to have tethers and that you can let them chase you to the end of them and then shoot them in the back when they turn around. That's not even cheese. It's an exploit of bad AI and certainly not a valid way to 'win' a battle.

Ah yes, retreating is such a display of tactical options, like killing the Lich in the City Gates Inn by dipping in and out of the Tomb so he doesn't get a single spell off. SCS blocks that doorway for a reason, to prevent such degenerate stuff.

Those are generally some of the longer ones except for rare gems like puppetmaster which the nerf bat seems to have missed . Most are more like 3-8 seconds. Crits don't matter because they are (and are supposed to be) rare. High int does increase the numbers a bit to more like 12 seconds or something but that is still so short that I barely notice it.

You have some fixation on duration for no reason. Realise that most spells in the BG's were save or die, they'd literally last long enough for you to die 100 times over. In pillars you have enough time to kill someone 2-3 times.

My first char was a chanter and their Phantom summons have a 12 second duration even with a 20 INT and I found them to be extremely annoying. The micromanagement is not tactical. It is just tedious to have to keep re-summoning them. I find that 12 seconds is more like 2 rounds for my characters. In a battle that might last 50-100 rounds or more. Tactically it just seems to make very little difference afaict.

Phantoms have a base duration of 12 seconds so you are outright lying.

Yes my parties are slow and defensive with dumped DEX and medium-high CON and also low level. My casters are only 2nd level except for my main char which is L3 but just a priest, but surely that's a valid way to play the game. Or is there only one right way to play the game due to the short spell durations? I had this idea that the spell durations were based on the short battles that might result from playing the game on easy or something, but it may also be balanced around high DEX characters.

Did you whine about level 2 wizards and level 2 clerics being shit? PoE casters are much better than their low level counterparts.

The game is not balanced around high dex characters, but jeez, use your brain. If you have lower action speed every second of enemies being CCed means less for you since you lower total output, that's why you are complaining about weak effects. Imagine casting hold monster on a troll and than complaining that CC is weak because you're wizard armed with a dagger + 0 can't kill it in the duration by attacking.

Well their spells are clearly inferior to wizards and priests now and the duration of their animal form abilities just make me laugh. Ridiculous durations as usual. I don't even know why that ability needs a duration. Especially since they aren't even that strong. They might have just added a bit of variety to the combat, but instead they are just something to try for 2-3 rounds once in a long battle. Totally lame.

The druid shift ability is incredibly strong, they do Rogue tier single target DPS while morphed. You can have storms running and absolutely maul everything. For perspective, if you have returning storm active and it stuns some standard human enemy for 3 seconds, that should be enough for your shifted druid to kill him.

I don't think Obsidian truly intended all of this. In the beginning a lot of the classes had significant power I think, but people (like me) must have complained that the game was too easy even on PoTD. So they did what they do best and just nerfed everything. So all of the abilities which before might have been at least somewhat interesting and fun are now just meh or in some cases completely useless at least imo. But then I guess their goal was to make no class more powerful than a fighter, a strategy I thought might result in something like this.

Classes are way stronger than on release and much more interesting too.

Keep in mind people soloed the game on PotD with most classes, the power level is still stacked in the player's favour.

Their goal should have been to make combat that was both tactically challenging and fun. Instead they made the hardest setting actually hard which is good, but the combat is only fun (at least for me) in the hardest battles just because winning is such a challenge. Not because there is any great tactical richness compared to something like BG2+SCS.

I have fun even in minor encounters because there is a lot more to micromanage, but I'm also an RTS fan.

Well that is a bit of an exaggeration. A kensai/thief could one hit kill with his backstab at higher levels in some cases when enemies were not immune (although SCS basically killed that tactic for wizards due to stoneskin prebuffs) and ranger/clerics and druids were incredibly powerful with their insect spells and fire elemental summons (which lasted quite a bit longer than 12 seconds). A wizard was certainly not the only powerful class. But yes casters were a lot more powerful than non-casters just like in most cRPGs that I've played. It even remains true in Pillars strangely enough. Casters may be weak compared to other games but they are still the strongest classes.

I didn't say that other classes were not powerful, but that they are that much weaker than wizards that it's a chore to even keep them alive. I enjoy Kensai thief the most myself, but it's joke next to Kensage.

It is much closer in Pillars since martial classes were given a lot of tools to compete. If you never buy camping supplies I'd even say they have a slight edge over the vancian casters.

Actually the Amplfied Wave duration is 8 seconds which is maybe like 2 rounds with a low DEX party. I don't see how that is going to win any non-trivial battles. Ciphers are just theorycrafting for me though. I haven't played one 3.0+ but I've already had enough combat experience to get an idea for how long things take and an 8 second disable doesn't seem to do much. Especially if I am spending a per rest spell I'd rather debuff an enemy for 20-30 seconds than disable him for only 8. Your example is AoE and so a bit different, but in general the disable and cc spells just seem way too short to be useful and I've never seen a game with such short spell durations before.

A cipher with 24 INT can chain cast Amplified Wave for a 13 sec AoE disable + 100 damage every second, knocking down every enemy in the group perpetually. They are considered one of the weaker classes.

You created custom chars and set them all defensively, that's why everything seems so slow for you. Unlike BG2, attributes in pillars matter a lot. Try dumping con and resolve on one set of your casters and see just how much more dangerous combat is for both sides. Or play with the default NPCs, they are pretty cool.

I didn't even bother to take the Phantom summon with my Chanter after actually using it for a while and seeing how pathetically short those 12 seconds really are. I was open minded about it. I figured maybe 12 seconds was longer than it seemed in real fights, but nope. It was just long enough for the summon to get in 2-3 hits and then it was gone after having accomplished very little. Its 1-2 second stun affects were at least good for a laugh. I think its stuns used to be a lot longer, but again people complained the summon and its stun effects were 'OP'. So it was nerfed.

The phantom can stunlock an enemy no problem. It's a LEVEL 1 invocation, compare it to Summon Monster 1.

When do you ever have an accuracy advantage in this game? The Caed Nua phantoms for instance have a deflection of 71 (and a reflex of 76 and a will of 79) and most of my chars have an accuracy no higher than 30s or low 40s. I don't see many ways of boosting ACC so much. I guess Eldritch Aim + Devotions for the Faithful, but DftF is a 4th level spell. Most of my party is only level 2. It will be a while before I can try that one. It does seem quite powerful despite its relatively short 30 second duration which I could see getting annoying. But Eldritch Aim has only a 15 second duration which in my battles is not that long.

I should have read this sooner, I would have realised you were an obvious troll. Yes, hail the might DnD level 1 casters, with their one magic missile of doom.

 

[Sannom]

Ah yes, retreating is such a display of tactical options, like killing the Lich in the City Gates Inn by dipping in and out of the Tomb so he doesn't get a single spell off. SCS blocks that doorway for a reason, to prevent such degenerate stuff.

Really? People cheesed it to that extent? And here I thought that taking a room for the night so that all its contingencies were gone was pushing it!

I mean, were wizards a threat without contingencies? Without it, Hasted warriors and archers could just disrupt all of their spell-casting and make them into weak, submissive kittens. Well, that and sneak-attacking the mage before the fight even began, that was always fun. Except for those bastards in the sewer, which were scripted to launch True Seeing as soon as an invisible character got into range.

 

[Prime Junta]

most of my chars have an accuracy no higher than 30s or low 40s

wat

If you can't get your main offensive characters' ACC to 60+ by the time you hit Caed Nua you're playing like a retard. Just sayin'. (And yes, hitting Caed Nua at level 2 is playing like a retard, how do you even manage that?)

Spoiler

For example:

Edér, level 4: Fighter: + 30, PER 12: + 2, level 4: +9, Weapon Focus: +6, use single one-handed weapon: +12, use Accurate or Fine weapon: +4 = 63.

Further:
Pick Noble weapon focus and use a dagger or rapier for another +5.
Give one companion Gallant's Focus for +4.
Have Durance cast Blessing or use Inspiring Radiance for +5.
Be a paladin with Zealous Focus for +6 and.

And of course if the main character is the main damage-dealer, stack PER and you'll get up to another +8 to your base ACC, which will get you past 80 if you want/need it.

 

[Lacrymas]

Even if what jewboy is saying is true, I don't get this obsession with characters 'feeling' powerful, let alone overpowered like the mages in BG. There is no challenge when you steamroll everything in your path.

 

[jewboy]

Even if what jewboy is saying is true, I don't get this obsession with characters 'feeling' powerful, let alone overpowered like the mages in BG. There is no challenge when you steamroll everything in your path.

When did I say I wanted to 'feel powerful'? It isn't about feeling powerful. It's about casters actually having some interesting spells that do useful things. So you are saying that the mage vs mage battles in BG2 SCS are about steamrolling everything and there is no challenge? Is that what you are saying? Again, have you even played the game? It sounds like most of you have barely played it and don't much like it. I'd be curious as to what your favorite games actually are besides of course Pillars. The other side gets interesting, nontrivial spells and powers too. With pillars they spent so much time trying to balance everything they forgot to make things actually fun.

I think this game is better than something totally worthless like anything in the Dragon Age series or anything from Bethesda but it does play a lot more like an mmorpg than crpgs I've enjoyed in the past and really plays nothing at all like the IE games. As I've said some of the harder battles on PoTD really are fun, but a fun that has been scaled down and balanced. I can just imagine them. "Tim, this spell effect is kind of cool but it lasts more than a few seconds. Have you lost your mind! What do you think you are doing? It might give the players some time to enjoy the cool effect. Shut that thing down before they have a chance to notice it."

 

[jewboy]

Really? People cheesed it to that extent? And here I thought that taking a room for the night so that all its contingencies were gone was pushing it!

I mean, were wizards a threat without contingencies? Without it, Hasted warriors and archers could just disrupt all of their spell-casting and make them into weak, submissive kittens. Well, that and sneak-attacking the mage before the fight even began, that was always fun. Except for those bastards in the sewer, which were scripted to launch True Seeing as soon as an invisible character got into range.

Ah. Another person who barely played the game. You must feel so lucky that you have new shiny games like Pillars. Sneak attacking the mage was no panacea even without SCS. With SCS the mages had stoneskin prebuffed, but you knew that right? Because you've played the game. It was just something that was fun and would occasionally work at higher levels.

And yes it was fun. The sort of fun that is barely present in Pillars. Hasted archers could not disrupt enough mage spells not to get utterly decimated by them. Go ahead and actually try something like that against one of the demi liches or dragons or the mage at the bottom level of Watchers Keep or in the mage fight in the Sphere ideally with SCS installed. See how it works out for you.

And are you saying that such a tactic doesn't work in Pillars? That sort of thing seems to be exactly how Obsidian wants combat to be like. Nothing too tricky. Just pair two equally leveled and balanced parties against each other and let autoattack and the stats do the work. No need for any special strategy or tactics. A large percentage of Pillars players seem to hate micromanagement. Although I must admit I've never seen the kind of micromanagement Pillars has before where you have to recast a spell every 6 seconds because the effect is so short. That sort of repetitive, nontactical micromanagement does get tedious pretty quickly.

I don't deny that casters and especially mages were 'overpowered' in BG2 and other IE games. Of course they were. Why? Because it's more fun that way and there is no pvp arena to worry about as there is in Pillars...oh wait. There isn't any pvp in pillars but I guess the idea was that if they wanted to make a pillars pvp arena (an idea i bet some of you here would love) all the classes would be prebalanced!

At least cheesy stuff like with the gates lich was fun and still somewhat challenging. Pulling an enemy to the end of his leash and then shooting him in the back when he turns around is I believe the standard cheese tactic for pillars. Gets the job done I guess. In BG2 we had ctrl-y though which was even more efficient. Yeah I know pillars has console commands for that too. Tell the players soloing by 'kiting' about those commands.

 

[Lacrymas]

Instead of nerfing everything and making all the classes relatively weak to keep them on the level of a basic fighter you can give casters on both sides very powerful and long lasting spells with hard counters and let them have at it with good AI scripting. You end up with a nuclear holocaust but it's a lot more fun than weak characters hitting each other with sticks. Although really any sort of system can be made fun if you try. Sawyer did not try afaict. Fun was not one of his design objectives.

...Pillars doesn't really have powerful spells like that because it would make a fighter seem too weak in comparison

Some examples. But really, you are complaining that spellcasters aren't powerful enough and how the overpowered BG2 mages were better because you could fling shit at other overpowered mages. And no, Pillars is very far from my favorite game ever, quite the contrary, I'm one of its most vocal critics.

 

[jewboy]

Ah yes, retreating is such a display of tactical options, like killing the Lich in the City Gates Inn by dipping in and out of the Tomb so he doesn't get a single spell off. SCS blocks that doorway for a reason, to prevent such degenerate stuff.


You have some fixation on duration for no reason.

Actually there is a very good reason. I've never played another game with such short spell durations. I did play Dragon Age briefly which had annoying cooldowns, but I don't remember cc/dsiable spells that expired after 3-6 seconds. To me that is just absurd. Completely ridiculous. It fundamentally changes the combat too. It's a cheap way to 'balance' and one that makes the combat a lot less enjoyable at least for me.

Realise that most spells in the BG's were save or die, they'd literally last long enough for you to die 100 times over. In pillars you have enough time to kill someone 2-3 times.

Are you playing on easy or are you talking about trash mobs. In 3.05 PoTD I didn't see a lot enemies that I could kill in just 2 rounds.

Phantoms have a base duration of 12 seconds so you are outright lying.

Actually none of the chanter summon durations are affected by INT. I've never been past Act 1 and even I know that. Try actually timing the duration if you don't believe it. It is indeed exactly 12 seconds. Just like they claim.

Did you whine about level 2 wizards and level 2 clerics being shit? PoE casters are much better than their low level counterparts.

I'm not saying Pillars priests and wizards are shit. I am just saying their cc and disable spells are shit because they are of such short durations that the only way they could be useful is if you can kill your enemy in 1 or 2 hits or basically if you play with a party where every character has maxed DEX maybe. Wizards are very useful as AoE damage dealers. After the great Druid nerf I think only the Chanters dragon thrashed ability can compete with them in terms of AoE damage. That's why I have 2 of them in my party.

The game is not balanced around high dex characters, but jeez, use your brain. If you have lower action speed every second of enemies being CCed means less for you since you lower total output, that's why you are complaining about weak effects. Imagine casting hold monster on a troll and than complaining that CC is weak because you're wizard armed with a dagger + 0 can't kill it in the duration by attacking.

I'm not complaining about weak effects. I am complaining about short durations. And no it's not the same thing. Did you mean not balanced around low DEX characters? Yeah I guess that seems clear. At least when it comes to cc/disable spell durations they are in fact saying 'fuck you' to low DEX characters even though it's a perfectly viable way to play otherwise. It is amazing to me that anyone could look at a 3 or even 6 second disable and think it is even remotely reasonable. In BG2 there were weapons that would stun on hit with longer durations than that. It's just silly and a cheap way to balance the combat.

The druid shift ability is incredibly strong , they do Rogue tier single target DPS while morphed. You can have storms running and absolutely maul everything. For perspective, if you have returning storm active and it stuns some standard human enemy for 3 seconds, that should be enough for your shifted druid to kill him.

Well the storm durations are extremely short. I think they used to be a lot longer. Never got to play those. The druid shapeshift is strong because it gives you the abilities of a rogue? Are you seriously saying that? I haven't been particularly impressed with rogue abilities in this game, but I've never played one. Are they really that impressive that 15 seconds of being one is so great?

Classes are way stronger than on release and much more interesting too.

That's the first time I've heard that. Can you give an example?

Keep in mind people soloed the game on PotD with most classes, the power level is still stacked in the player's favour.

I just hope those people aren't using cheesy tactics like many I've read about. Anyway it's not like I'm saying the game is too hard. Yeah it can be soloed.

I have fun even in minor encounters because there is a lot more to micromanage, but I'm also an RTS fan.

You mean playing as a druid?

I didn't say that other classes were not powerful, but that they are that much weaker than wizards that it's a chore to even keep them alive. I enjoy Kensai thief the most myself, but it's joke next to Kensage.

I really didn't find them to be a joke compared to kensai mages. They were still quite useful if not playing with SCS, but yes the strongest party was mage heavy. Particularly with SCS which if anything buffed mages instead of nerfing them a bit.

It is much closer in Pillars since martial classes were given a lot of tools to compete. If you never buy camping supplies I'd even say they have a slight edge over the vancian casters.

Well the melee classes are certainly more powerful and interesting in Pillars because they gave them caster-like abilities. Actually the Monk class is the most interesting melee class I've ever played. Obsidian did a great job with some of their classes like the Chanter and Monk. Too bad they were so obsessed with balance. They really could have been a lot more fun to play.

A cipher with 24 INT can chain cast Amplified Wave for a 13 sec AoE disable + 100 damage every second, knocking down every enemy in the group perpetually. They are considered one of the weaker classes.

I can see why they are considered one of the weaker classes. On paper they seem to suck except for puppetmaster. I already looked into amplified wave and didn't find it that impressive, but I'll take another look. I do plan to take Grieving Mother for a while if only to read some of Avellones dialogue and try out Puppet Master with its massive (for Pillars) 30 second duration. What was Obsidian thinking? Such an oversight! 30 seconds! That's an eternity in this game. They may as well list the duration of that spell as 'until the end of time'.

You created custom chars and set them all defensively, that's why everything seems so slow for you.

It doesn't seem slow. Disable/cc/summon spells just seem too short. Maybe the play testers never tried playing with a party that dumped DEX.

Unlike BG2, attributes in pillars matter a lot. Try dumping con and resolve on one set of your casters and see just how much more dangerous combat is for both sides. Or play with the default NPCs, they are pretty cool.

Attributes in Pillars do matter a lot. More than in any game I've ever played. Far more. There really are no dump stats. I choose to generally dump DEX and RES because it seemed to cause the least harm, but it still has a major affect on combat. I do like that 'you can't win' design decision. If they thought it would discourage min-maxing...well they should have been right. I have tried dumping CON on wizard builds and it seems to play ok. I might try to go with a high DEX low CON wizard, but I've finally found strategies and tactics that allow me to actually get some enjoyment out of a game that I initially hated. Hated. On release I hated this game utterly. The combat just seemed tedious and pointless and I still think the story so far is shit but I haven't gotten very far.

The phantom can stunlock an enemy no problem. It's a LEVEL 1 invocation, compare it to Summon Monster 1.

I've never seen an enemy even close to being stunlocked from the phantom summons I was spamming. So that's news to me.

I should have read this sooner, I would have realised you were an obvious troll. Yes, hail the might DnD level 1 casters, with their one magic missile of doom.

Fuck you. You obviously dislike DnD. So you are clearly the target market for this game. I backed it with great reluctance because I could see that Sawyer was probably going to fuck things up badly. I guess it could have been worse though. I've finally after many many hours of study managed to find a way to enjoy the game, but it's not easy. Figuring out how to get enjoyment out of this game is in itself a significant accomplishment I think. I was hoping for a BG3 but what we got was more like a WoW2. Definitely more fun that WoW though, but it reminds me of it. Obviously most of you in this thread were not hoping for a BG3.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

A wizard who starts shitty but becomes a galactic cock destroyer in the late game is practically a trope at this point. The design of spellcasters in PoE1, while more balanced, simply goes against the fanbase expectations.

 

[Lacrymas]

A wizard who starts shitty but becomes a galactic cock destroyer in the late game is practically a trope at this point. The design of spellcasters in PoE1, while more balanced, simply goes against the fanbase expectations.

And that's how it should be, imo. At the very least because the other classes should be viable choices, too, not only something you play because you are bored of wizards (which I am, so so much). The other reason being that your enemies should also challenge you, not only be footnotes in your omnipotent existence. Basically everyone remembers mage duels in BG2 (and maybe Demogorgon and some dragons?) and nothing else, and that's because everything else is a pushover who is nowhere close to the power wizards have.

 

[FreeKaner]

Muh wizards

 

[jewboy]

Huh? So you're only around level 2, but you're sure that the wizard summons - which you don't even start to get until level 7 - are worthless? You're sure that the druid storm spells - which you don't even start to get until level 5, and you need a druid in your party (which you don't have) - are worthless?

The hell am I reading?

You aren't reading. I never said that Wizard summons are worthless. I haven't tried them, but their duration is needlessly limited to 30 second base IIRC. Another duration based nerf that reduces tactical possibilities and makes the game less fun. Making the game less fun is Obsidian's favorite way to balance though. In other games your summons would often get killed before they expired. Not in Pillars unless maybe you're fighting a dragon.

As far as the druid storm spells I just looked at the effects and durations and they seem absurdly weak. There was a huge amount of complaining on the forums about the storm spells being overpowered before. Are you saying they are still OP? Because I just don't get it. How?

Relentless Storm for instance does 9-12 damage (less than most daggers) and stuns for uh...2 seconds. Yeah that 2 second stun will be real useful. What is the point of a 2 second stun anyway? I think a fighters knockdown ability lasts longer than that. It's a fifth level spell which at best might be able to compete with the first level wizard spell Chill Fog. Was Relentless Storm always this weak or did Obsidian maybe make some changes?

Returning Storm does 20-30 damage but only lasts 3 seconds? WTF? That doesn't strike anyone else as a short duration? Seriously? Is it maybe just a typo? Does it really last 30 seconds or something?

 

[Parabalus]

Relentless Storm for instance does 9-12 damage (less than most daggers) and stuns for uh...2 seconds. Yeah that 2 second stun will be real useful. What is the point of a 2 second stun anyway? I think a fighters knockdown ability lasts longer than that. It's a third level spell which at best might be able to compete with the first level wizard spell Chill Fog. Was Relentless Storm always this weak or did Obsidian maybe make some changes?

The storm also ticks every 2 seconds, basically permastunning everything in an AoE for it's duration. A 2 second stun is more than enough to kill an enemy, PoE is much faster than the IE games. You are high on drugs mate.

The total duration of relentless storm stun is higher than a fighters knockdown on just ONE target, and it's AoE in a huge radius.

 

[Lacrymas]

Storms are very powerful actually, and yes, they do continuously tick.

 

[jewboy]

Well that is interesting about Relentless Storm being a permastun effect due to the 2 second tics aligning with the stun duration. That part isn't mentioned in the description of course. What is the duration of the spell itself? It also isn't mentioned in the spell description on the wiki (as is frustratingly often the case--as if spell durations are irrelevant).

The druid is a good example of a class that could be fun if someone sensible went in and unnerfed it. I'd start by massively increasing the shapeshift duration or maybe eliminating the duration entirely and turning it into an at will or maybe 3 times per encounter ability and of course at least double or triple the cc/disable spell durations. I know that at least some spell durations were HALVED in recent patches. A pretty major change that is like saying, "We massively fucked up before, but now we are fixing it." Uhuh. The world was upside down before and now it is right side up. Ok.

 

[FreeKaner]

Well that is interesting about Relentless Storm being a permastun effect due to the 2 second tics aligning with the stun duration. That part isn't mentioned in the description of course. What is the duration of the spell itself? It also isn't mentioned in the spell description on the wiki (as is frustratingly often the case--as if spell durations are irrelevant).

The druid is a good example of a class that could be fun if someone sensible went in and unnerfed it. I'd start by massively increasing the shapeshift duration or maybe eliminating the duration entirely and turning it into an at will or maybe 3 times per encounter ability and of course at least double or triple the cc/disable spell durations. I know that at least some spell durations were HALVED in recent patches. A pretty major change that is like saying, "We massively fucked up before, but now we are fixing it." Uhuh. The world was upside down before and now it is right side up. Ok.

The only such massive change I remember is higher level cipher spells being increased in cost massively but also buffed to compensate but not as much so, so it was an overall nerf but impact of spells themselves were increased.

 

[jewboy]

Well the chanter summons used to be a lot longer I think. In fact I thought I read that there was a time when they lasted until they died. Amazing. People were complaining about all the cheesy things it allowed them to do. But lots of wizards spells had their durations shortened I think. Has anyone actually bothered to keep track of all these balance changes, both nerfs and buffs since release?