Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Sensuki]

maybe the game Obsidian is trying too hard to catch all possible players

Fixed

Some players:

First attempt (episode 19):

No pre-encounter setup, wastes a lot of real-time by not pausing straight away or issuing commands to her party while paused and she does not use her per-encounters.

Lel. I wonder what it's like to have such active thinking struggles.

 

[Infinitron]

PotD doesn't "modify RNG" - it makes enemy groups larger and increases their defense scores.

The real reason PoE is easy in places is because areas on the critical path have enemies that needed to be a few levels higher, especially in the late game. That this is being addressed is the crucial part of Josh's post.

 

[AwesomeButton]

PotD doesn't "modify RNG" - it makes enemy groups larger and increases their defense scores.

I thought PotD has the mobs from Hard, and modifies their Defences and their Accuracy. Modifying Defences and Accuracy is the same as modifying RNG - they get a flat +20 to every 100d roll. Isn't it?

 

[Infinitron]

You know, I'm not sure if it increases Accuracy as well. Actually, I would really like to see the exact numbers of what PoTD does. For some reason it looks like nobody has ever checked this?

Anyway, if you want to look at it that way then yeah, but when you say "modify RNG" it sounds like you're saying the game cheats with the dice behind the scenes or something.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

You know, I'm not sure if it increases Accuracy as well. Actually, I would really like to see the exact numbers of what PoTD does. For some reason it looks like nobody has ever checked this?

Anyway, if you want to look at it that way then yeah, but when you say "modify RNG" it sounds like you're saying the game cheats with the dice behind the scenes or something.

Doesn't POTD combine mobs from all the difficulty levels, not only Hard?

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, that too.

 

[AwesomeButton]

No, the increasing of mobs numbers must be additive. Otherwise the progression that would result from adding one more enemy for an "Easy" encounter would mindfuck the designer every time So, the way I understand it is: Normal = Easy + some enemies, Hard = Normal + some more enemies, PotD = Hard + Acc and Defences boosts.

 

[Infinitron]

*shrug* Read the original Kickstarter update: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=8473

Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.

As far as I know that's still the case. Perhaps somebody can check.

 

[Infinitron]

Chanter changes planned: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...06905&pagenumber=665&perpage=40#post452822770

For chanters, I'm implementing something that allows their phrases to elapse more quickly (but have the same overall effect duration) so they can use lower level invocations sooner/more frequently and allow the higher level invocations to actually be usable in most fights.

 

[Maculo]

I was planning on another playthrough to hit content that I missed (Sagani's quest, etc). I had hoped part II would release sooner than January.

Are rogues with a blunderbuss still the kings of damage output?

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Copper]

Shouldn't that breakdown be a tooltip you see when equipping stuff though - with the stuff that adds to you stat in green and the stuff that takes away in red? This is basic stuff.

 

[Sensuki]

It should be, yep.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Isn't Josh color-blind though?

 

[Drudkh]

With two months of patching, I'll finally be able to play this a mere year after release.

Some sound logic there, waiting for the whole package before playing. Unless you're into companion scripts/AI though, the overall non combat experience of the game hasn't been changed much since release. Certainly, the game is worth a spin just to romp around the beautifully crafted isometric environments and enjoy the companions of the game, which are the real meat of the game in terms of writing i think.

Instead of sparkling new dungeons/areas, i really wish Obsidian would focus on adding to and cleaning up the main story of the game for the last installment so it actually feels complete. Naturally, that's never gonna happen, but i'd much rather pay to enjoy that than more battles with boring stun and paralyze mobs.

 

[prodigydancer]

Are rogues with a blunderbuss still the kings of damage output?

If you mean total damage output, rogues have never been even close to the crown. For sustained damage you want a barb or a wand-spamming wizard. Rogues have good single-target burst and... nothing else. No AoE, no utility, almost no CC.

 

[Maculo]

If you mean total damage output, rogues have never been even close to the crown. For sustained damage you want a barb or a wand-spamming wizard. Rogues have good single-target burst and... nothing else. No AoE, no utility, almost no CC.

Interesting, I had no idea that wand-spam wizards were that good. I will have to look into that. Based on your points, I will start with a Priest and add a custom Barbarian in lieu of a custom rogue.

Thanks.

 

[prodigydancer]

Based on your points

They're not really mine. All credit goes to Pope Amole II and his TWM guides.

 

[Maculo]

They're not really mine. All credit goes to Pope Amole II and his TWM guides.

I definitely will give those a watch. Thanks

 

[Prime Junta]

Yeah rogues are a waste of a slot as it is. The burst damage might be interesting if there were more fights with a single enemy you had to take down fast. As it is, all of the tougher ones are all about CC. Melee rogues are annoyingly fragile and need constant babying, and ranged rogues are pointless because ciphers, rangers, or even chanters do that role as well and bring something else of value to the table.

They would need an ungodly buff to be worth having in the party.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

Mystery solved: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&pagenumber=666#post452879929

It's giving me the shits that Binding Web still has -15 accuracy for no reason. I'd still never use it but how has no-one on the official boards reported something so obvious?

The reason it has low accuracy is because the affliction it causes makes subsequent pulses of the spell much more likely to succeed. If an attack of Binding Web Hits, the next attack will be against someone who has -2 to Dex and -20 to Reflex, so effectively -24 Reflexes, putting the net accuracy at +9. We could adjust it back up a bit, or we could have Binding Web target Fortitude instead of Reflex. That might seem a little strange, but it would solve that problem and it's not that odd considering one way out of A/D&D Web is just using Strength.

e: Binding Web is actually only -5 Accuracy unless I'm missing something. Either way, I'll just make all of the webs have standard Accuracy and switch them over to Fortitude.

Normal spells cast at +10, so -5 is -15 total.

Switching them to fortitude will kill Tanglefoot(and Binding Web if anyone ever actually cast it) on PotD. It's not like hobbled is a powerful effect.

It's not particularly powerful on its own, but it does make targets vulnerable to subsequent Reflex-based attacks and valid targets for Sneak Attack.

The reason why we initially reduced the accuracy wasn't because of player use, but because spiders who cast webs were shutting down the party for entire fights really easily. Both internal testers and beta testers complained about it, so we lowered the accuracy for all web attacks.

 

[Doktor Best]

Are they actually brainstorming that shit? Who gives a crap about all those itzy bitzy details in combat? Man they should be focusing on more important stuff, like actually providing some interesting trash encounters.

 

[Infinitron]

The spider versions actually bind though. The player spells are just hobbled. If I'm using up a whole per rest spell just to give an accuracy boost to certain other spells I want it to definitely work.

Switching Tanglefoot and the already terrible Binding Web to fortitude is an enormous nerf.

That's a fair point. The web and tangle effects are some of our oldest abilities. I'll take a look at them and see if there's a better way to handle them as a whole.

Looking back through the various web attack prefabs, some inflict Stuck and some inflict Hobbled. One of the disadvantages to how the data was structured on PoE is that all spell/attack variants have their own prefabs, so it's easy to miss individual instances when making changes.

To distinguish Tanglefoot and Binding Web, I think leaving Tanglefoot as Hobbled/Reflex and switching Binding Web to Stuck/Fortitude, with both at standard spell accuracy (+10), would be better. Hobbled is not as powerful an effect, but if you hit with it against Reflex, you're more likely to keep the target Hobbled (Tanglefoot already had standard accuracy, and that doesn't seem to be a big issue). Stuck is much more powerful if melee opponents are involved, but attacking Fortitude means that hitting doesn't make subsequent attacks any more likely to keep them Stuck.

Nice, AD&D-style Webs.

 

[Roguey]

Patel unsurprisingly missed her deadline.