Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Sensuki]

Josh PE related instagram

steve is currently creating skeleton armies with chanters in pillars of eternity and turning it into incredible undead journey

 

[Ivan]

Elliott Smith. Depressed/suicidal companion confirmed. Hopefully a bard.

 

[Mangoose]

Haven't they? Global cooldowns can be just as artificial as per-ability ones. It really depends on the context. For example, two completely unrelated abilities that for some reason prevent each other from being used.

I've never complained about arbitrariness.

The problem with single ability cooldowns is that it's banal shit boring. You find the 2-3 best abilities and spam them over and over with their cooldown being the only reason you don't just use a single one.

Only because every RPG with a cooldown has shitty design.

Okay I'll finally be serious here. There is a difference between short cooldown abilities and long cooldown abilities (a la per-encounter or daily). In a way, IE having limited spells you can memorize has somewhat of a cooldown in that the cooldown is 'reset' when you rest (so, similar to 'per day'). The main distinguishment is that you can stack the same spell so you can, say, cast 3 fireballs per day instead of limited to each spell being only cast once per day. Really, this is more of a design preference choice.

With short cooldowns, you get abilities that refresh every 4 seconds, and usually to maximize DPS or maximize aggro or whatever new school shit, you have to keep activating said ability every 4 seconds. Which is just really annoying if you control more than one character.

The thing about MOBAs is that while there are short cooldown spells, the main emphasis is on timing your one-or-so-minute Ultimate cooldowns, so that instead of trying to be efficient with your short cooldown spells, being strategic and timing your Ultimate in a situational manner is much more important. Moreover, the short cooldown spells also drain mana really fast, and mana does not regenerate fast without spending resources on potions, so even those spells are rendered situational rather than "spam spell to maximize DPS."

Thinking about it now, DA:O (and Aarklash) is not only plagued by short cooldown abilities, but also that it's even more spammy due to its conjunction with quick-ish mana/energy regen. It plays more like an MMO with the annoyance of controlling a party of 4 MMO players on your lonesome, rather than the situational usage of abilities/spells only when you need to.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah I enjoy playing DotA/DotA 2. It has both very good tactical and strategical factors to be taken into consideration in hero build, item choice and ability use. While some heroes are kind of similar, the overall range is wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide.

Agreed about DA:O and Aarklash playing like an MMO with multiple characters.

The difference between a timed cooldown and per 'day' stuff is that the player has control over the 'per day' stuff limited by the environment. The IE games allowed you to abuse it, but I generally play pretty fairly. I only ever rest when I am literally out of resources. I also enjoy trying to get through encounters with limited spells/health left.

 

[Dagobert]

If someone photoshops the hat away/the guy eating the hat, I swar I will switch avatar if PoE comes out before Jan 01

We will see

 

[Makagulfazel]

Awww, Fallout fanboys get put out as annoying cunts because of Flying Dingus and the likes. GOOD JOB, TURDS.
I just want some character(s) I can customize, a decent story with lots of C&C and a dash of humor. Who fuckin' cares that much about combat mechanics in these cRPGs? Buck up; beggars can't shouldn't be choosers.

The amount of popularity MOBAs have gained is ridiculous. I like to imagine most of its popularity is driven by the allure of "making it big" rather than people enjoying the mechanics. Awaiting the wave of failed MOBA games to come.

 

[Krash]

I like to imagine most of its popularity is driven by the allure of "making it big" rather than people enjoying the mechanics.

That's just what you want to be true. In fact they're popular because they provide highly competitive teamplay and the biggest ones are well designed overall (but not LoL though, it's for babies).

 

[Mangoose]

Awww, Fallout fanboys get put out as annoying cunts because of Flying Dingus and the likes. GOOD JOB, TURDS.
I just want some character(s) I can customize, a decent story with lots of C&C and a dash of humor. Who fuckin' cares that much about combat mechanics in these cRPGs? Buck up; beggars can't shouldn't be choosers.

If you put in a lot of combat content, then the mechanics better be good. If you don't have good combat mechanics, then don't put me in combat situations. It's really that simple.

You can want what you want, but PoE is intended to cater to all of IE fans, not just PS:T. If you don't like that, then you're in the wrong thread.

 

[Sensuki]

I like to imagine most of its popularity is driven by the allure of "making it big" rather than people enjoying the mechanics.

I've been playing DotA since 2004. It does have awesome mechanics, but I'm not a fan of many of the balancing decisions that have been made over time.

 

[RK47]

The thing about MOBAs is that while there are short cooldown spells, the main emphasis is on timing your one-or-so-minute Ultimate cooldowns, so that instead of trying to be efficient with your short cooldown spells, being strategic and timing your Ultimate in a situational manner is much more important. Moreover, the short cooldown spells also drain mana really fast, and mana does not regenerate fast without spending resources on potions, so even those spells are rendered situational rather than "spam spell to maximize DPS."

Thinking about it now, DA:O (and Aarklash) is not only plagued by short cooldown abilities, but also that it's even more spammy due to its conjunction with quick-ish mana/energy regen. It plays more like an MMO with the annoyance of controlling a party of 4 MMO players on your lonesome, rather than the situational usage of abilities/spells only when you need to.

What Mangoose said pretty much summed up why most RTwP RPG encounters didn't feel challenging.
You don''t need timing. All you need is a good instinct to 'pause' and make decisions at your leisure.
This isn't the case for competitive MOBA or RTS. They have to deal with limited resources, time and opponents who do not stand still and await being attacked.
In RPGs, most encounters are static and waits the player to trigger - who are probably prepared to engage with full health and mana bar at all times - what's worse, there is no sense of urgency. You can take your time post-combat - healing, recovering all your lost HP and resources.

Such things are a luxury in MOBA. While you rest, the enemy is out there, killing more things, getting stronger.

 

[throwaway]

The target showing where your characters are going being the exact same was a bit much though, I thought.

It's baffling how Obsidian is, for lack of a better word, sperging about certain inane details of the IE games like this or the number and range of attributes.

Isn't PoE supposed to be more like IWD/2 than BG/2?

Again isn't PoE supposed to be an IWD-like.

All the, likely unintentional since Josh is only answering questions, exposure to mechanics we've gotten has certainly give that vibe but that's far from what their pitch video presented. After all until recently Obsidian's best RPGs (MotB, KotOR2) have been more Torment-esque than anything else.

they only have TWO 2D artists on the Project and they are stretched to the absolute MAX

WTF is wrong with them?

 

[Grunker]

Hey Sensuki, Roguey and Infinitron: how do you feel about ability creep? I'm replaying BG2 atm, and one of the things that strike me is how obnoxious it is to micromanage low-impact abilities. Pausing to cast impactful spells and stuff like that is no issue, but pausing to use Kensai Kai, or a 3-round Haste ability from an object or whatever, that's pretty dull. Are you at all afraid that since we're going to have complex abilities on all six party charaters now, no matter what, this will be a problem in Pillars of Eternity?

Part of me is starting to think Sawyer should have divided classes into Active Ability classes and Passive Ability classes or something.

 

[Kem0sabe]

The use of the text adventure bits in PoE goes a long way to validate AoD's use of the mechanic (not that Iron Tower needs vindication of their work). For a long time rpg's have ignored this storytelling method much to the detriment of the genre.

Although in PoE's case, some better writing would go a ways to improve the text adventure's they have shown.

Spoiler

 

[Mangoose]

I'm replaying BG2 atm, and one of the things that strike me is how obnoxious it is to micromanage low-impact abilities.

What are you talking about dude, that's tactics mang.

 

[Sensuki]

Hey Sensuki, Roguey and Infinitron: how do you feel about ability creep? I'm replaying BG2 atm, and one of the things that strike me is how obnoxious it is to micromanage low-impact abilities. Pausing to cast impactful spells and stuff like that is no issue, but pausing to use Kensai Kai, or a 3-round Haste ability from an object or whatever, that's pretty dull. Are you at all afraid that since we're going to have complex abilities on all six party charaters now, no matter what, this will be a problem in Pillars of Eternity?

Part of me is starting to think Sawyer should have divided classes into Active Ability classes and Passive Ability classes or something.

Played BG2 last week, had absolutely no issue with any of the combat controls. I only played on Core Rules with a few mods that alter encounters and AI (not any of the huge ones) and tbh I rarely even used Kai at all, lol.

edit: reason being that it takes time to cast, rather than being instant, and IMO that time is better spent getting to the front / going after the priority targets to interrupt opening attacks/spells. Interrupting ability/spell use at the start of combat is huge in BG2.

 

[Shadenuat]

Part of me is starting to think Sawyer should have divided classes into Active Ability classes and Passive Ability classes or something.

I think he did. Classes like Fighters supposed to have more passives in PoE than casters.

 

[Infinitron]

Hey Sensuki, Roguey and Infinitron: how do you feel about ability creep? I'm replaying BG2 atm, and one of the things that strike me is how obnoxious it is to micromanage low-impact abilities. Pausing to cast impactful spells and stuff like that is no issue, but pausing to use Kensai Kai, or a 3-round Haste ability from an object or whatever, that's pretty dull. Are you at all afraid that since we're going to have complex abilities on all six party charaters now, no matter what, this will be a problem in Pillars of Eternity?

Part of me is starting to think Sawyer should have divided classes into Active Ability classes and Passive Ability classes or something.

I've considered it. I think it might just be something you need to get used to. You usually DON'T need to use minor active abilities in the IE games, so on the rare occasions that you do it feels weird.

Anyway, at least some classes (Fighters) are being designed so you can use them purely passively if you want, even though they also have active abilities. You'd need to build them correctly etc of course.

 

[Lilura]

Kai's casting time is 2, which is pretty much instant. You're getting maxed weapon dmg roll for 10 secs or so, how isn't that worth clicking? lol

 

[Sensuki]

I simply don't need to. If you're playing one of those Tactics mods on WTFPWN settings, it's probably worth doing.

 

[Mangoose]

Hey Sensuki, Roguey and Infinitron: how do you feel about ability creep? I'm replaying BG2 atm, and one of the things that strike me is how obnoxious it is to micromanage low-impact abilities. Pausing to cast impactful spells and stuff like that is no issue, but pausing to use Kensai Kai, or a 3-round Haste ability from an object or whatever, that's pretty dull. Are you at all afraid that since we're going to have complex abilities on all six party charaters now, no matter what, this will be a problem in Pillars of Eternity?

Part of me is starting to think Sawyer should have divided classes into Active Ability classes and Passive Ability classes or something.

I've considered it. I think it might just be something you need to get used to. You usually DON'T need to use minor active abilities in the IE games, so on the rare occasions that you do it feels weird.

Anyway, at least some classes (Fighters) are being designed so you can use them purely passively if you want, even though they also have active abilities. You'd need to build them correctly etc of course.

IMO best is to have activateable 'stances' (which I think the modal abilities are going to be), and situational active abilities like Wild Sprint that you won't be using all the time.

 

[Grunker]

tbh I rarely even used Kai at all, lol.

Can you guess what my point is by quoting this bit?

I've considered it. I think it might just be something you need to get used to. You usually DON'T need to use minor active abilities in the IE games, so on the rare occasions that you do it feels weird.

Feels less weird and more obnoxious. I'm hoping it is simply because the abilities are low impact.

Part of me is starting to think Sawyer should have divided classes into Active Ability classes and Passive Ability classes or something.

I think he did. Classes like Fighters supposed to have more passives in PoE than casters.

Cool, that's nice to hear

 

[Grunker]

Oh, I forgot: I'm playing SCSII with most difficulty settings cranked to max, so all "free" abilities are welcome in my arsenal, and I need to use most.

 

[Sensuki]

Can you guess what my point is by quoting this bit?

I can, but the issues with *some* of BG2's abilities like that are engine limitation related and some janky P&P to Computer game conversion issues.

I don't really like the idea of all passive and all ability classes. I think degrees of one or the other are more interesting. I've got no issue micro managing six characters. I'm used to playing RTS games and DotA 2 heroes with summons (NP, Lone Druid, Chen, Enchantress, using Necronomicon/HoD).

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I mostly used Kai when I'm playing a dual classed Kensai/Thief to deliver the maximum backstab damage possible, for a plain Kensai yeah, there isn't much incentive to use it. Still some of the class abilities in BG2 are pretty powerful, such as Inquisitor's mega Dispel Magic and Blade's offensive spin for example, I used those a lot.

Anyway, personally I like micromanagement in IE games (I know, I know) and one of the ways PoE improves upon IE games for me is Fighters (and fighter types such as Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin etc.) and Thieves (or rogues if you prefer) having more stuff to do during combat instead of their options boiling down to auto-attack and hide & backstab (not that I propose you turn them into mage variants by having a dozen of just differently named spell-like abilities but there has to be a middle ground here).

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah I think the Ranger's animal mechanic is a great idea. I also like the strategical resource pools of Monks and Ciphers.