Pillars of Eternity Thread [Pre-Expansion]

[Xenich]

The genre won't flourish if people get excited over half baked shit that is shoveled out to them due to their nostalgic teenage boy band fanatic fandom. Things get better when people stop accepting shit.

yeah, the 'dex is really known for accepting shit.

Come the fuck on. There are reasons why PoE might not be to some people's tastes, but it is at the very least a very solid RPG done in the style of the IE games (which themselves had plenty of flaws). If there is a way the genre will flower, this is it, even if PoE isn't perfect. Did you even touch the game yet?

The"'dex" isn't an appeal to authority, to demand so is to dishonor what this site is. Don't be a fucking lemming.

???

not sure if trolling at this point, but this has nothing to do with what I said. PoE can be flawed, how much so depends on your tastes, but it isn't unfair at all to compare it to BG. You implied people (the 'dex included) were getting excited over a bad game due to nostalgia without ever playing it. Somehow you decided the game was "shit" without so much as playing it, in the face of the consensus, and then post as if you're certain it is.

I don't understand the point of what you're doing.

There are some serious problems with this game. Serious as in design directions that are obvious mainstream thought and implementations. Now I am fine with people saying "The game missed its mark, but has some good things...", but that is not what I am seeing here. I am seeing over excited knee jerk defensiveness common of fan boys aggressively circling the food bowl. This game "so far" from what I have been reading has A LOT of problems and it took several pages of having to deal with people getting mad at Roshan's comments before some begrudgingly admitted he was correct on the points I was asking about.

My point here... is that people are loosing their focus just because there are some games coming out that claim to be bringing back the old days. So far (and this includes ALL games released), while some companies have brought innovations, some nice features, etc... many have missed the overall mark and I would say have barely competed with games of old. This is a time where this site needs to be critical so that developers keep trying as if they don't all we will get is half baked mainstream features wrapped in an old school game wrapper.

There is nothing wrong with liking some aspects of the game, but this circling of the wagons here for PoE is fucking pathetic and something I would expect from fad sites.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

The combat is just really really fucking bad. I miss the Infinity Engine.

- Casting web on enemies barely affects their movement rate. You'd expect to be able to get in maybe a couple of shots against a webbed enemy before it reaches your party, but no.
- There is almost no control over who your characters attack. When a character gets engaged, they switch targets, but when you issue a command to switch back to the original target, nothing happens, they just keep on attacking the enemy you don't want them to fight.
- Combat is totally random due to engagement mechanics. You cannot choose which enemy your characters engage because they move towards you so quickly, and will pick random targets, then you just have to deal with whatever clusterfuck ensues.
- Combat is a really sad state of affairs as their is no scope for maneuvering or positioning your characters once they have been engaged. You just have to watch this ridiculous lump of characters bash at each other until it's over.
- Spells and their effects seem mostly very minor, there is no such thing as a low level spell like Command or Entangle in the IE games which can change the nature of a battle and turn a victory into a loss.
- Weapons and their damage ranges, and the whole miss/graze/hit/crit system is so random that you have to rely on lucky rolls to win as opposed to actual strategy and tactics in the IE games.
- Very buggy engine, characters often do not execute abilities they have been commanded to perform. And since this is a game where half a second late can lead to a random TPK, this is a pretty serious issue.

0/5

Simple overreaction and lies.

1. Character do attack whoever you click on while engaging multiple targets. Maybe you were "disabled" or it was some bug.
2. Combat is NOT random due to engagement. I only engage with fighters while flanking and maneuvering with everyone else - l2p.
3. Spells/Abilities: Daze, Knocking down foes, Stun all do their major part, also early on.
4. LOL at weapon strategy and tactics in BG. You want reliable weapon damage? Observe DR in combat log, switch to different dmg type OR use slower, but hard-hitting weapons.

You seem to encounter some buggy commands in combat, but to say that it's a general state of affairs is a lie. I never had problems with this.

This is just so bad. Fighting a large group of spiders in the Temple of Eotha or something. The enemies all regenerate health at a rapid pace, so your only option as far as targeting is concerned is to focus all attacks on one enemy, and hope that your very random DPS can outmatch the enemy's regeneration rate. Pathfinding is completely screwed up. I order a character to attack an enemy that's right beside her, and she instead decides to run all the way around the whole clusterfuck of enemies, breaking formation at the chokepoint and leading to a TPK literally within seconds. I really wanted to like this but the game is just completely broken.

Yep, pathfinding sometimes screws you up, learn and adapt. True BG experience, by the way. Happens rarely and mostly you see it coming. Enemies regenarating HP, do you play on hard?

 

[Duraframe300]

There is nothing wrong with liking some aspects of the game, but this circling of the wagons here for PoE is fucking pathetic and something I would expect from fad sites.

LOL

You lack codex experience my friend. I mean your on a site that calls a developer Lord MCA. If you actually think the codex doesn't get overexcited for things and honeymoon phases you're kinda misreading this sites community.

 

[Ellef]

This is just so bad. Fighting a large group of spiders in the Temple of Eotha or something. The enemies all regenerate health at a rapid pace, so your only option as far as targeting is concerned is to focus all attacks on one enemy, and hope that your very random DPS can outmatch the enemy's regeneration rate. Pathfinding is completely screwed up. I order a character to attack an enemy that's right beside her, and she instead decides to run all the way around the whole clusterfuck of enemies, breaking formation at the chokepoint and leading to a TPK literally within seconds. I really wanted to like this but the game is just completely broken.

The pathfinding is shit but the rest of your problems are basically L2P.

 

[Angthoron]

Hmm, got a companion question - just got to the keep and it seems Edér might be bugged as his quest didn't update - and of course the nearest manual save I did is like ages ago. Does his "Bring Edér to speak to Maerwald" quest update later, or is it supposed to happen at the spot?

 

[uaciaut]

Stop caring about dialog options then? Or be consistent in your choices?
I mean either you play your character and apparently you chose to have a mostly Benevolent, but also reasonable character. Or you just want to meta, then just activate the "show reputation" in the option, and meta. It's really up to you man.

My point is that I think it is a bad, poorly designed system and I do not like it.

It has its flaws but i think rewarding the player for being consistent in dialogue choices is a pretty neat idea.

Think of it this way - if you chose to go fighter/mage/thief in an ad&d game you become a jack of all trades and master of none, why shouldn't dialogue be designed in the same manner where you get rewarded for staying closer to a single thread of activity.

You're focusing too much on thinking that you HAVE to choose one thing to get more dialogue, this isn't an "insert coin get prize" type of game like ME to begin with, as long as you have a good idea of what kind of char you want to make you'll generally get all the available interactions with said type of char, if you're gonna be all over the place, not so much. Nothing wrong with that imo.

 

[Semper]

Does his "Bring Edér to speak to Maerwald" quest update later, or is it supposed to happen at the spot?

i am at the same spot, and imo it should happen later. if you expand the quest it shows that something was updated. a talk with edér doesn't reveal anything.

My point is that I think it is a bad, poorly designed system and I do not like crpgs.

fixed.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Hmm, got a companion question - just got to the keep and it seems Edér might be bugged as his quest didn't update - and of course the nearest manual save I did is like ages ago. Does his "Bring Edér to speak to Maerwald" quest update later, or is it supposed to happen at the spot?

Did you talk to him after? They have got that dialog icon on their had a bit after such moments. (probably after going out)

 

[Angthoron]

Does his "Bring Edér to speak to Maerwald" quest update later, or is it supposed to happen at the spot?

i am at the same spot, and imo it should happen later. if you expand the quest it shows that something was updated. a talk with edér doesn't reveal anything.

Ah, right you are. I even managed to dig up a version restore to the same exact effect, so it must be that way.

Did you talk to him after? They have got that dialog icon on their had a bit after such moments. (probably after going out)

Nah, he doesn't want to talk about it, which's what threw me off, since Kana certainly had things to say.

Edit: Yeah, he will talk once you're heading out of the zone.

 

[Haba]

Lol, the fights after the temple of herpaderpadurp are trivially easy. And I didn't even level up or gain gear that'd make the difference. I'm killing fully armed knights left and right at the tyrant's keep.

A friendly tip for boss fights: Ignore the banter, just shoot them in the face.

 

[Unbeliever]

Is Esternwood area really without any kind of quests or I just miss something? On every other wilderness map I found one or more quests. That graveyard there is just for backer tombstones, nothing else?

 

[Xenich]

Out of genuine curiosity - do you think that character development is intrinsically tied to the combat? Is it possible to have a good character creation/development system in a cRPG in the absence of a well-designed combat system?

Not "combat" exactly, I don't think that would be a completely accurate word for it. Conflict? Conflict doesn't have to be of a traditional sword and board style of interaction. It can be dialogue interaction as well. That is, you could have a game where a weapon is never drawn and all of the character development features are related to dialogue such as... maybe skills in all kinds of various social abilities and interactions. For instance, rather than simple charm, you could have a slew of skills and abilties concerning that which could be applied to a situation of conflict to find resolution over a given obstacle. So when I say character development being the center of the game play, I am talking about that development being the key tools to resolve conflicts within the game. The "story" is a vehicle for the game play, not the point. Story is important, don't get me wrong, it is the difference between the game being a board game and that of a flowing experience. That is, a well written story can add meaning to the application of the system and I think that is why those who are big on story can tolerate a statistical heavy game (ie strong character development centered) because there is meaning and purpose to them concerning its use. While someone like me will certainly enjoy a game with a meaningful story but doesn't require it for the enjoyment of the cRPG.

I'm just trying to figure out what the source of the appeal is. My experience with table-top RPGs is pretty limited so maybe its an in-born bias that comes from only using the computer version, but I think of the character generation system as primarily an adjunct to the combat system because that's generally where all the skills and statistics find their application. It seems like every once in a while you run into a well-designed cRPG that gives you unique dialog options based on your stats, but those are rather the exception rather than the norm. As a result, it's hard for me to understand critiquing the character generation system in isolation of the combat system - it feels a little like judging a car by its blueprints as opposed to how it drives on the road. Like, you could pile a million stats into the character-gen screen but if the combat system is a total clusterfuck, would it not render the whole thing moot?

Or is there some piece that I'm not getting - that sculpting a character's stats prior to the game somehow makes them yours in way, somehow it enhances the immersion?

No, why would a slew of statistical character features break immersion? That would be like saying that having puzzles in a game too complex would break immersion because people would have to think too much. Don't get me wrong, people who want all story with very little character development really need to accept that they don't want an RPG, rather they want an adventure game as I said. This way, that can play as the protagonist and experience the story making decisions through the story branches so they can feel some attachment or control to it. A choose your own adventure book game so to speak. as for RPG systems...

See, what should have been a snowballing progression of gaming systems feeding each other and evolving to ever more complex ones heading off into new realms of systems was harmed by the "commercialized" take over of gaming. I would love to see a detective game where all you had were a slew of social skills, science skills, observation, deduction, etc... where the game played like heavy story driven adventure game, but was strongly centered on character development making it an "investigation RPG" game. No real combat, just conflict after conflict that requires careful planning and selection of your characters development to overcome obstacles. There have been games in the past that have "attempted" to touch on such approach, but at a certain point complex systems became "cumbersome" and more simplistic systems became the norm. Which is odd though, because the continued progression to "Story" based cRPGs with very light character development systems is really just a progression to an adventure game, a genre that has all but disappeared over the years (though there has been some coming back). I think this is impart due to the "dumbing down" of adventure games in the past (ie the need to move to point/click types) which removed a lot of the capability of player interaction which I think would have fit the "story cRPG" crowd far better than the traditional cRPG systems of play. I mean, why shouldn't both types have their cake and eat it to? Why should you and I have to compete with each other over a game? I really think that this industry would be best served to have a developer convention of all the studios and fans where they a hammered out a classification system to which then would better fit developer focus and player expectations. That is, if I said "we are making an Adventure Story game", then you would know the main focus playing a character in a story based game where the player makes decisions as to the interaction and direction. This way we don't have the problem of one side fighting with the other and developers essentially being jack of all trades.

Part of the reason why I tend to blow past the character creation screen is because I don't know what any of this stuff does. It always struck me as weird, particularly in a new system like PoE, that the game asks me to decide on my core stats before I have any way of understanding the impact they have on the game world. How do I know if I want 15 Might or 16 Might until I've seen what that actually means? So I just kinda shrug and eyeball it, hope I don't screw up too much, and then once I've figured it all out I'm too far into the game to back and start over again.

Sorry all, it's not my intent to derail a discussion with a digression into the abstracts of RPG mechanics, but like I said before I've always found the diffusion of perspectives on RPGs really fascinating and I never get the chance to quiz people in real life about it.

That is because as I said, you aren't interested in playing a cRPG as much as you are an adventure game. Nothing wrong with that, I think adventure games rock, but they can't provide me the systems I seek that a cRPG can. Now if you look back to the cRPGs of old, you will see the manuals were like massive tomes of information. It was expected that a player before they even started the game, to go through this massive manual and learn all the systems to the game before they played. That is, you always read the rule book before you play a game right and a cRPG is a game is it not? So being confused about character creation is natural if you didn't take the time to learn the systems before playing. Most games these days have opted for extremely simplistic systems for this very reason. Having the player read through a manual before playing the game would only be done by a certain select few (ie the people who used to play games before they became mainstream) and so the idea was that a simple system would allow players to get "up and running" quickly. Problem with that though is... well... a simple system has an effect on game play. Too simple a system and the "game play" also becomes simplistic, which becomes a problem if you are making a cRPG as the systems, the character development is kind of the point (like I said, if story was the point, an adventure game would be better suited).

So, to answer your question, you either have to read the manual to determine these systems or read the tooltips in the game. If they didn't document these systems well, then that is a massive failure on the developers (I blame Agile development /snicker).

 

[Owlish]

My point is that I think it is a bad, poorly designed system and I do not like crpgs.

fixed.

That would be witty if this system was common in CRPGs.

Fallout, Arcanum, Planescape have this system? It's been a while since I've played them but I'm pretty sure they don't.

Your character's character reputation preceding itself could be better executed than how it is in this game. Jackass.

 

[Blaine]

Just curious if anyone can defend the game design decisions that went into ghost-type enemies constantly teleporting, en masse, to the wizard's location to Engage and instagib him... even if I leave him halfway across the map and creep him up mid-battle. As soon as he starts to do something useful, he dies.

Not that I can't finish encounters, but I'm tired of resting constantly due to there being absolutely no way to counter this behavior, other than leaving the wizard in another room.

 

[Xenich]

There is nothing wrong with liking some aspects of the game, but this circling of the wagons here for PoE is fucking pathetic and something I would expect from fad sites.

LOL

You lack codex experience my friend. I mean your on a site that calls a developer Lord MCA. If you actually think the codex doesn't get overexcited for things and honeymoon phases you're kinda misreading this sites community.

Maybe so, but man... It makes me raise an eyebrow when I see people go all pretentious about games and then turn around and act like a petulant child on release day when their favored game is released. I mean, it gives me a picture of developers laughing while firing into a barrel with shot guns.

 

[Duraframe300]

There is nothing wrong with liking some aspects of the game, but this circling of the wagons here for PoE is fucking pathetic and something I would expect from fad sites.

LOL

You lack codex experience my friend. I mean your on a site that calls a developer Lord MCA. If you actually think the codex doesn't get overexcited for things and honeymoon phases you're kinda misreading this sites community.

Maybe so, but man... It makes me raise an eyebrow when I see people go all pretentious about games and then turn around and act like a petulant child on release day when their favored game is released. I mean, it gives me a picture of developers laughing while firing into a barrel with shot guns.

Eh

You're going yourself on a crusade about a game you haven't even played because you get upset at internet people.

You know, step back for a moment, take a deep breath and look at what you're doing. Helps me a lot too when I get too invested (Happened often).

Don't let em' bother you. All groovy.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

Just curious if anyone can defend the game design decisions that went into ghost-type enemies constantly teleporting, en masse, to the wizard's location to Engage and instagib him... even if I leave him halfway across the map and creep him up mid-battle. As soon as he starts to do something useful, he dies.

Not that I can't finish encounters, but I'm tired of resting constantly due to their being absolutely no way to counter this behavior, other than leaving the wizard in another room.

josh 's parents were killed by a gang of wizards high on prebuffs, so the answer is: i have no fucking idea and would also like to know.

edit: i can' wait for the mod that puts fighters, druids and other low lives in their place. that place being beneath a wizards faggy fist.

 

[Grinolf]

You killed Calisca ? LOL..

? I didn't loose her until the point, where she die because of lack of plot armor. And she is alive at screenshot. More so I avoid injury on rogue, so I couldn't loose her. Maybe she still could be killed in combat, but one need deliberately make this to happen.

Spoiler

And I killed everyone cause I hate choosing between 2 bad decisions.
I am going to vanga it now - the ending slide would be "You left everything in KhaaOssS why u no choose between 2 realistic bad choices?".
Cause I duhwanna. I want to solve the mystery, understand what is that curse, how is Roedric family tied to it, and understand motivations of priest and animancer. You don't allow me so I will just grab all loot

You mean choosing between supporting Priest or Animancer? Because it is purely optional choice for the sake of ignoring few enemy encounters and could be entirely ignored. More so, it isn't even described in player biography, so it could be absent in the end credits entirely.
Main choice between Lord and claimant is pretty black and white even despite some implications that claimant motivation isn't that noble, as at least he isn't presented as completely crazy.

Animancer and priest motivations are pretty clear. Priest support current lord because later is a religious nutjob that give church big amount of money. Still he has a pretty good relations with the claimant, so wouldn't be against him taking the throne should something happen to the current ruler. Animancer supports ruler because he give her money on her research, but still pissed that Church get more money than her. She also don't support coup, because new ruler would likely not approve her experiments and kick her out. What more do you need?

 

[uaciaut]

Maybe not the best place to ask, but is there actually a penalty for having low stats in dialogue? I know having stats above average (14, 16 and 18 i think?) gets you more lines at times and then there are race/culture/background/skill checks, but do you get penalized/miss out on dialogue in anyway for having a stat too low?

 

[Xenich]

There is nothing wrong with liking some aspects of the game, but this circling of the wagons here for PoE is fucking pathetic and something I would expect from fad sites.

LOL

You lack codex experience my friend. I mean your on a site that calls a developer Lord MCA. If you actually think the codex doesn't get overexcited for things and honeymoon phases you're kinda misreading this sites community.

Maybe so, but man... It makes me raise an eyebrow when I see people go all pretentious about games and then turn around and act like a petulant child on release day when their favored game is released. I mean, it gives me a picture of developers laughing while firing into a barrel with shot guns.

Eh

You're going yourself on a crusade about a game you haven't even played because you get upset at internet people.

You know, step back for a moment, take a deep breath and look at what you're doing. Helps me a lot too when I get too invested (Happened often).

Don't let em' bother you. All groovy.

I have played enough games to know certain features will cause me to greatly dislike the game. I am not saying it is set in stone, but a game is nothing more than a culmination of features and if a good portion of those features aren't appreciated, then it is safe to assume neither will the game be.

Keep in mind, I REALLY was excited about them making this game. I REALLY want this game to be good, but... well... seeing elements of design to which I hate... I mean really despise, it is likely that this won't happen. I will try it, but I will be damned if I pay that much money to find out I was right. I have hundreds of games from over the decades where I was fooled by developers, I refuse to be the sucker anymore.

Like I said initially in this thread. I will wait until there are enough mods to get rid of all the crap I dislike so far and for the price to come down. Then... I will play it. Chances are, maybe... just maybe, by that time it will be the gem I was hoping for.

 

[Haba]

Maybe not the best place to ask, but is there actually a penalty for having low stats in dialogue? I know having stats above average (14, 16 and 18 i think?) gets you more lines at times and then there are race/culture/background/skill checks, but do you get penalized/miss out on dialogue in anyway for having a stat too low?

Yes, but not massively often as far as I can see.

 

[Xenich]

The genre won't flourish if people get excited over half baked shit that is shoveled out to them due to their nostalgic teenage boy band fanatic fandom. Things get better when people stop accepting shit.

Some good attempts there, some missed marks, and some I think were gimmicks. If that is what you call flourishing, your standards aren't very high. Then again, you once told me your favored games weren't even this genre, so... /shrug

 

[Owlish]

With all these babies being born as vegetables, you'd think these guys would be more mindful of their pull backs. But they keep knocking the bottom out and spawning retard babies. And apparently this world is pretty PC because they don't seem to just kill them off.

 

[uaciaut]

Maybe not the best place to ask, but is there actually a penalty for having low stats in dialogue? I know having stats above average (14, 16 and 18 i think?) gets you more lines at times and then there are race/culture/background/skill checks, but do you get penalized/miss out on dialogue in anyway for having a stat too low?

Yes, but not massively often as far as I can see.

So i get fewer dialogue choices with a 3 int char than with a 10 int char? I've seen somewhere that this isn't the case but i kind of want to make sure.

I can basically sacrifice 2 stats completely to max out the other 4. Almost every stats has some trade-off so there's no clear winner in the "dump stat" dept, but some stats are clearly better than others.

Best way i am thinking of going about it is sacrificing con since i lose out on hp and endurance since the % end loss is relatively small and as long as i'm not a front-liner and manage my char well i don't need that much hp and i highly doubt i'll care much about the CON statl-checks in dialogue and events, at least relative to pretty much every other stat-check.

But after that i have to either entirely sacrifice another stat to max the others or to compromise on a stat (as in bring it to 6-8) to bring the others to 14-16 values.
I'm pretty sure i want to max dex since i want a melee fighter (always go that route on my first runs in rpg's generally). So that means i either have to sacrifice per/int/resolve for the remaining 2 and then go for the class that makes the best use of said stats.

One variant i've seen is having a low-int rogue that's focused on attacks and crits and relies very little on activated abilities/cooldowns (i.e. relies more on his party for cc).

I'm just not sure if i should just completely sacrifice a stat or not wrt how much dialogue i may lose out on.


And i hate myself for being a min-maxing sperg every time a game like this comes out but i just can't help it :<


edit: More on topic but the stat system is way better than that of any old ad&d game and better than nwn2 for sure.

 

[Haba]

You get fewer options, yes. But you get options from being in a certain priestly order, for example. And most of the time those alternative options are just flavour text.