Quickfire Systemic Criticism that contributes to banality of gameplay

[Night Goat]

banalce

 

[Volrath]

I don't think it has anything to do with playstyle, but many or most of these issues may or may not matter to a lot of people because there are people out there that put much more emphasis on role playing, character building and planning/strategy than the diversity of moment to moment gameplay, changing it up or tactical diversity. The design for Pillars of Eternity definitely caters to this crowd more than the latter. The game definitely supports a wide variety of character concepts, and making a character is one of the best systemic things about the game - there's lots of choice, however the way in which the things that facilitate this variety have been designed or implemented has negative impacts on the moment to moment gameplay when compared to the moment to moment gameplay or BG1/2 or IWD1/2 that quite frankly makes it not very fun to play for me.

But this was already obvious from the beta, you should have known this better than anyone after having spent months of your life on this shit. What the fuck did you think was going to happen?

 

[Sensuki]

I spent most of my time testing the game, and Josh said that the beta content was lackluster compared to the rest of the game, so I was hoping that the encounter design and writing would would save it, but they both flopped hard. I also wanted to judge issues with the systems in the context of the full game, of which the issues only got worse.

 

[rezaf]

That was a pretty large rant...

I agree with most points, though they didn't bother me as much.

Here's a thing I wonder how you guys feel about it:

However, it makes one wonder if simply removing per-encounters and making everything per-rest wouldn't solve the issue as that would indeed remove the roteness of using such abilities and add the deliberation about when to use them, because there would now be a strategical consideration to consider (and it would also help fill the void of the lack of resource management that the game has in general).

I'm not sure the issues commonly related to rest-spamming can be solved without souring the game for some types of players in the process. If you're a number crunching min-maxer, your party might survive five encounters without having to rest. A badly designed party by a more casual player might only survive two encounters - this can even be because he tags along sub-optimal chars for flavour/questing reasons. So what?
In a system that tries to fix the rest-spam issue and where he still has to rest, he'll have to backtrack. This always sucks.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I loved how D:OS approached spells and skills - you'd always use all the arrows in your quiver (when it comes to skills and spells), because there was no mana which could run out or "per rest" abilities that had to be replenished, you just used the abilities you had unless the enemy was immune to (or even healed by) it. The only concern that would occasionally pop up would be which ability to use first.
I'm a hoarder and will always "sit on" stuff (this includes per rest abilities in PoE) when in doubt, because what if there's another battle around the corner where I need this more? D:OS fixed this being a concern. That was great.

 

[DeepOcean]

One thing that I just find ironic is that for a game where you supposed to build any build you want and be viable, for some reason, deflection and DR are the only ways for a melee fighter to protect himself but high deflection mean using shields (big accuracy penalty) an selecting defensive talents (what means not selecting offensive talents.) and high DR means recovery time penalties, all this together mean your defensive fighter won't hit for shit. With the way deflection works, you want all of it or nothing of it, a well balanced fighter is just a shitty fighter.

Spoiler

PotD?

 

[Sensuki]

I'm not sure the issues commonly related to rest-spamming can be solved without souring the game for some types of players in the process. If you're a number crunching min-maxer, your party might survive five encounters without having to rest. A badly designed party by a more casual player might only survive two encounters - this can even be because he tags along sub-optimal chars for flavour/questing reasons. So what?
In a system that tries to fix the rest-spam issue and where he still has to rest, he'll have to backtrack. This always sucks.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I loved how D:OS approached spells and skills - you'd always use all the arrows in your quiver (when it comes to skills and spells), because there was no mana which could run out or "per rest" abilities that had to be replenished, you just used the abilities you had unless the enemy was immune to (or even healed by) it. The only concern that would occasionally pop up would be which ability to use first.
I'm a hoarder and will always "sit on" stuff (this includes per rest abilities in PoE) when in doubt, because what if there's another battle around the corner where I need this more? D:OS fixed this being a concern. That was great.

Well, I think it's one of those things where the issue can be solved for both types of players simply by not solving it. If you could rest anywhere, then the people who can't help rest spamming will rest spam and the people that place their own personal restrictions (me) are free to do so. Also track the rests in the player stats

I do like KotC's approach though with the campsite system.

 

[Svartalf]

track the rests in the player stats

Elapsed Time is an indication, I think, of how much you've set camp. I finished my game in 4 months, which I guess is a bit too long.

 

[Aenra]

they've improved for the most part many of the RPG systems in the game at the cost of the actual moment to moment combat gameplay.

Am i the only one noticing the irony here?

 

[rezaf]

Well, I think it's one of those things where the issue can be solved for both types of players simply by not solving it. If you could rest anywhere, then the people who can't help rest spamming will rest spam and the people that place their own personal restrictions (me) are free to do so. Also track the rests in the player stats

I totally agree ... but they kinda did this with the stash (you can opt for limited stash), but people still bitch and moan about how this breaks the game economy.

The hoarder in me appreciated the opportunity to just collect all kinds of trash therein with not having to run back and forth to some storage chest with limited space.
Of course, in the end, the joke was still on me, since hardly anything in PoE is actually worth "collecting"...

 

[Sensuki]

they've improved for the most part many of the RPG systems in the game at the cost of the actual moment to moment combat gameplay.

Am i the only one noticing the irony here?

I mean the "non-gameplay stuff". There's more character creation choice, it's easier to role play your character in dialogue via reputation system etc. There's not really any gear/skill/etc restrictions. The content for those systems (reputation/disposition checks, imbalanced character creation choices etc) is not great / could use a lot of work but the base systems are pretty good.

However, the Infinity Engine games were more about the actual gameplay for me, which I find far less enjoyable here.

I totally agree ... but they kinda did this with the stash (you can opt for limited stash), but people still bitch and moan about how this breaks the game economy.

The hoarder in me appreciated the opportunity to just collect all kinds of trash therein with not having to run back and forth to some storage chest with limited space.
Of course, in the end, the joke was still on me, since hardly anything in PoE is actually worth "collecting"...

Of the two choices in the game, I like access stash anywhere because it's fucking dumb to have a bottomless stash that you can't open but you can craft an item anywhere. Personally I think they fucked up their economy by including the stash.

I prefer limited inventories and returning to town to sell gear because your inventory is full. It breaks up the adventuring pace and it means you don't pick up mundane items. In Pillars of Eternity you pick up everything because there's no limit to what you can carry.

 

[Azeot]

most points I agree, not the one about armor though.
Having armor that only raises AC has always been one of the major downsides of D&D. A lot of other systems have damage reduction for heavy armor with some kind of downside to it, and that is for the best. It is more diverse, fun and, for those who care (me) realistic.
That they didn't handle it very well is another matter. While I don't have any particular issues with the system as it is now (in fact, atm I'm using a wide variety of armors with my chars and doing very well), I can see why it could use improvements in the future. But it is not worse than D&D, no way.

 

[Mastermind]

One thing that I just find ironic is that for a game where you supposed to build any build you want and be viable, for some reason, deflection and DR are the only ways for a melee fighter to protect himself but high deflection mean using shields (big accuracy penalty) an selecting defensive talents (what means not selecting offensive talents.) and high DR means recovery time penalties, all this together mean your defensive fighter won't hit for shit.

Man you guys have no imagination whatsoever.

 

[Rake]

I take it that's just your way of saying TL;DR - if anything, they've improved for the most part many of the RPG systems in the game at the cost of the actual moment to moment combat gameplay.

I don't think Josh would consider this a compliment. And from a PoE defender no less. I hope he reads it.

 

[AN4RCHID]

I'm playing through again on Hard and purposefully not using any extremely light or extremely heavy armor. The claim that the armor system forces a tank/squishy dichotomy is BS. Having a full party of 'middle path' characters slows the fights down a little, but I'm finding it overall a funner and more consistently successful strategy. My casters don't get KO'd as soon as a monster gets past Eder and they have more versatility in terms of touch and short range spells.

 

[sser]

Shannow those are bugged stats. The 291 damage is probably a crit from scroll use.

A Zone of Control system should be pretty much mandatory in any game like this.

I vehemently disagree with that. WL2 is also a turn-based game with a grid movement system and an action point system that is shared across non-movement and movement actions and has no relation to a real-time with pause system that doesnt.

Of course it has relation. They're both combat-focused games where melee and ranged attacks are happening. Real-time or turn-based should have no affect on whether or not Zones of Control exist, the concept is fundamentally the same either way and largely is whether you're playing Chess or American football.

There is a battle in PilloE where one of the Big Bad's AI is programmed to attack your weakest party member - that's usually your spellcaster. Now, without a Zone of Control this dude could walk right up to your spellcaster and bash their face in. Actually, he kind of already does that, because it's fairly difficult to nail people down even with the Engagement system. But what I'm trying to tell you is that the ZoC protects the mages in a system that does not allow them to pre-cast spells. You can't have a system where your mages have to cast everything in-battle, and then also leave them wholly unprotected while they do it. Zone of Control is the tool you use to protect these mages. In BGII, ZoC didn't exist, but your mages could protect themselves well before a battle ever got started. So the real apples and oranges here isn't the Engagement system, but the ability to cast spells whenever you want. In PilloE, mages are weaklings, in BGII they're walking terminators.

 

[tdphys]

I try not to strategize my fights so I'm forced to be reactive, you can use a lot of different powers to manage engagement problems. I ran with a cipher (main), monk, fighter(eder), mage(aloth), priest(durance), ranger(sagani) party. The combat is more fun when I'm cursing my own silly mistakes for running headfirst into a bunch of shades or drakes.

I also didn't do Raedric's hold and a bunch of other quests so as not to get overpowered by the end game.

I actually think that as long as you are in the appropriate range of ACC vs the enemies DEF, then in combat buffing is nearly essential, and for avoiding alot of charm/petrification. Getting out of that high percentage graze range is pretty important. The problem is, the rate at which you gain acc/def (other defenses) per level makes balancing a fine act, it's easy to get out of range. If you're balanced or OP then yeah, buffing is pointless, and the debuffs coming at you aren't all that bad. If you're underpowered, then buffing is essential, and debuffs are almost a hard counter.

Items should stick to an unchangeable quality and have more enchantement slots as you go up in quality. That way you can get excited about crafting the new awesome thing you found in loot, rather then not caring about loot, and just crafting the stiletto you got once upon a time.

As for armor, there should be a talent system for progressively removing higher and higher amounts of reaction penalty time, so that you can invest in DR, and making midtier armors actually worth while.

I still think that crit and miss ranges should be pegged at 10% and modified only by perception or intellect, and some weapons should get basic damage crit bonuses.

 

[rezaf]

Personally I think they fucked up their economy by including the stash.

I prefer limited inventories and returning to town to sell gear because your inventory is full. It breaks up the adventuring pace and it means you don't pick up mundane items. In Pillars of Eternity you pick up everything because there's no limit to what you can carry.

But where's the difference to rest anywhere? All you have to do is to not pick up mundane items. I totally don't get it. If you play with unlimited stash and loot everything and then bitch and moan about it, the problem is with you, not with the game offering that option.

Besides, even with picking up all mundane crap you can find, I can't imagine it'll make it significantly easier to purchase too many of the magic items from the various sellers, not at the insane rates they're charging and the pittances you get for selling stuff.

Of course, the itemization is fairly crappy and indeed broken and you can easily afford to craft your own items on the cheap, but that's not really the point here.

 

[AwesomeButton]

When characters got badly wounded in combat, I would have them quaff a potion, or move them out of the fray. You don't really do this in Pillars of Eternity either. If that character is engaged - you leave them where they are. Potions do not heal Health, so you don't drink potions unless they're in danger of being KO'd and because being KO'd has no negative impact on the character other than them not being able to take part further in the encounter, whether or not you heal a wounded character is debatable

The absurdity goes even further - healing your character in mid-combat actually increases the danger of him/her being killed permanently. That's because you heal endurance with the potion, but further hits that the character takes will keep deducing from his health as well as endurance. Restore endurance more than twice on a character who is under heavy beating and you might lose him permanently/need to reload the game.

However, it makes one wonder if simply removing per-encounters and making everything per-rest wouldn't solve the issue as that would indeed remove the roteness of using such abilities and add the deliberation about when to use them, because there would now be a strategical consideration to consider (and it would also help fill the void of the lack of resource management that the game has in general).

This would only push more people into rest spamming imo.

One of the problems with the encounter design is that I think the designers went out of their way to 'justify' the existence of creatures in areas, "why does this creature exist in this area, what lore explanation can we come up with for them to exist". Problem with this approach is that it seems to have lead to repetitive encounters and copy-paste encounters. The Skaen Temple has like 70 Skaen Cultists in the level of the same few classes - Fighter, Rogue, Priest and Cipher being the most common, and you fight encounters consisting of these guys over, and over and over and over and over again. The Megadungeon is the same. So are a lot of the Wilderness areas. The issues with the system design already make it not very fun for me to play encounters, and then to put salt in the wound encounters are repetitive and there is a severe lack of unique enemies, named villains or pre-combat banter to spice things up. Unfortunately due to the problems with the system design, there's not much that could be done to make these encounters more fun. Instead of 10 Pwgra, 2 Forest Lurkers and a Menpwgra - changing the encounter to some Ogres, Menpwgra, some Xaurips and a Wizard would probably not make the encounter more fun to play. The only thing that could be done other than adding new systems or changing system design would be to improve encounter flavor - more named enemies, more dialogue, better loot etc.

I couldn't have said it better.

 

[ArchAngel]

most points I agree, not the one about armor though.
Having armor that only raises AC has always been one of the major downsides of D&D. A lot of other systems have damage reduction for heavy armor with some kind of downside to it, and that is for the best. It is more diverse, fun and, for those who care (me) realistic.
That they didn't handle it very well is another matter. While I don't have any particular issues with the system as it is now (in fact, atm I'm using a wide variety of armors with my chars and doing very well), I can see why it could use improvements in the future. But it is not worse than D&D, no way.

There is nothing more realistic about armor absorbing damage in these systems. It is more realistic in system where there are different hit spots on body and where one good stab maims or kills your character like in real life.

For D&D like heroic game armor that reduces chance to hit is as realistic as armor that reduces damage, it is just a math simulation of your heroic character being able to take many blows and keep fighting like nothing happened but unlike D&D in PoE light fast and low damage weapons are crap vs armor as damage reduction which is exact reason why it is not used in D&D. There is a optional rule in D&D of using DR of armors instead of bonus to AC and there it also warns players about this change probably making many weapons useless.

 

[KK1001]

The itemization is irredeemably terrible because most named items are sold by fucking innkeepers and barkeeps. I can't understand what they were thinking. My general sense is that they spent a ton of time dicking around.

The dungeons and encounters aren't very well thought out either, and I think think the cause is the same: No one played through it, saw how the system worked in practice, and built the encounters around it. People spent a ton of time writing dialogue, item descriptions, and side quests and, it seems, jammed them all in.

There's a huge disconnect between a ton of elements in the game.
- there are lots of sidequests, but the item rewards are few and far between and are generally lackluster. You can usually find better items at the innekeeper.
- there are a good amount of dungeons, but they're filled with trash mobs (of the same type) just sitting on the edge of the fog of war. The only reason to do most of them is to solve the quest (yes, there's usually only one) and to advance the plot.
- instead of having interesting encounters along the main quest pathline and having more challenging, optional encounters outside of it, they opted to have pretty much the only interesting encounters be optional.

 

[Mastermind]

most points I agree, not the one about armor though.
Having armor that only raises AC has always been one of the major downsides of D&D. A lot of other systems have damage reduction for heavy armor with some kind of downside to it, and that is for the best. It is more diverse, fun and, for those who care (me) realistic.
That they didn't handle it very well is another matter. While I don't have any particular issues with the system as it is now (in fact, atm I'm using a wide variety of armors with my chars and doing very well), I can see why it could use improvements in the future. But it is not worse than D&D, no way.

There is nothing more realistic about armor absorbing damage in these systems. It is more realistic in system where there are different hit spots on body and where one good stab maims or kills your character like in real life.

For D&D like heroic game armor that reduces chance to hit is as realistic as armor that reduces damage, it is just a math simulation of your heroic character being able to take many blows and keep fighting like nothing happened but unlike D&D in PoE light fast and low damage weapons are crap vs armor as damage reduction which is exact reason why it is not used in D&D. There is a optional rule in D&D of using DR of armors instead of bonus to AC and there it also warns players about this change probably making many weapons useless.

Knives should be useless against plate armor unless the motherfucker is pinned to the ground by two other guys and you're stabbing through his eye holes. I know more leeway is (and should be) given for fantasy games with physical abilities bordering on, if not being well into the supernatural, but there is no need to make that a part of the armor system proper.

 

[Old Hans]

"ughh I cant think of anything. Ill just add some more slimes"

 

[Maculo]

I definitely agree on the deflection and hard counter points. It does not promote variety in terms of tactics.

 

[DeepOcean]

There is something important about hard counters, it is very interesting how the most fun spells to use are very powerful, mind binding, puppet master, fan of flames and slicken (this last one before made useless by patch) are spells that can change a fight dramatically. Most debuffs in this game have very short duration even with high intellect and to add salt to the injury they can graze, what happens pretty frequently on PotD and make them even shorter on duration. What is exciting on casting the curse of blackened sight if it has a ridiculous small AoE and can graze to make the accuracy on the enemies drop by 20 points for incredible 5 seconds? Web was reduced from a powerful spell to something you cast to slightly debuff the reflexes on an area for a fan of flames?

There is the feel of the combat that is very important, like throwing fireball and smilling maniacly thinking "this gonna hurt bitches." or when the enemy does the same and you think "ouch, I'm so fucked." Fireball on this game is just... when Maerwald cast 3 fireballs on my tank and didn't even put him bellow half health or when I casted fireball on a group of enemies to it do glorious 10 of damage for a fucking level 3 spell... You hating powerful spells because it is kinda difficult for a new player on his first playthrough prepare for those spells is one thing, making most spells a joke isn't the solution, Obsidian nerfed the spells so hard that there are people imploring them to not make the few spells that are useful, useless. I think the discussion on hard counters traumatized Sawyer so much that as vengeance he just fucked most of the spells for "LOL, Grognards".

 

[Lord Andre]

I mostly agree with Sensuki's points. Combat sort of becomes an ordeal eventually since you do the same thing over and over - send in tanks, cc and destroy.

The one thing that could sort of save the gameplay (beside reducing the number of copy/paste encounters) would be to give enemies an actual AI.

For example:

- the AI should CC your tank(s) as fast as possible, immediately break engagement and gib the squishes.

- the AI should only send one fighter to lockdown your tank while the others detour around the tank's engagement area to gib the squishes.

- the AI should use spells/abilities optimally.

etc.

Right now the AI is content to crash against your impenetrable tank(s) while getting cc-ed and dps-ed.

Basically the game needs an AI mod, although considering the insane amounts of trash encounters the pace of the game would probably slow to a crawl.