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

[sser]

That Dwarf paperdoll gave me flashbacks to Realms of Arkania 3D.

 

[Nihiliste]

Just watched the videos. The game looks great - I'm amazed at how well they've captured the IE feel. Can't wait to play it and I really hope they keep it coming with a bigger Eternity sequel and a Pathfinder isometric RPG.

 

[Sensuki]

seeing a lot of TPKs at the #pillarsofeternity booth on the show floor #yikes

That said, auto attack is not working properly, so if you don't micro manage literally every action, you're in trouble.

 

[MicoSelva]

After watching the streams I have the feeling that constant microing all party in every encounter could be a huge pain in the ass.

I do not mean auto-attack not working, but having to use class abilities of ALL party members all the time (some of them through drop-down lists no less), even against basic opponents. In IE games fighters were very easy and fast to manage 95% of the time, as you just clicked who they were supposed to attack, here you will have to babysit everyone, just like in Dragon Age: Origins.

Since I enjoy such gameplay, this will only cause me to play slower, because my OCD will force me to go optimally through every fight, but I think this might be a deal-breaker for more casual players like my wife and and my sister, who both loved the first Baldur's Gate and enjoyed the second one (although the added complexity of high-level D&D was almost a deal-breaker for them and I had to help them in some encounters).

In the end, Obsidian might be surprised that this game does not attract the same crowd as BG did, although there are many more gamers out there right now, so the sales numbers might still be good.

 

[RK47]

Yeah man, playing a game is so troublesome.

*sigh*

 

[Invictus]

So far everything I have seen is encouraging and they must have learned a bit from the Wasteland 2 beta to release such a seemingly fine tuned product at this stage; almost all the "core" systems are in place from UI, screens, character advancement etc.
It is kind of weird there is no "Auto AI" perhaps they didn't add that in yet as to make things more tweakable; since you get to command all orders they can see what is working and what needs rebalancing for all classes regardless of which is the player char.
I don't use that Steam Pos and since we are getting new key anyway after the beta I could give my key to anybody that is ineterested

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

So far everything I have seen is encouraging and they must have learned a bit from the Wasteland 2 beta to release such a seemingly fine tuned product at this stage; almost all the "core" systems are in place from UI, screens, character advancement etc.
It is kind of weird there is no "Auto AI" perhaps they didn't add that in yet as to make things more tweakable; since you get to command all orders they can see what is working and what needs rebalancing for all classes regardless of which is the player char.
I don't use that Steam Pos and since we are getting new key anyway after the beta I could give my key to anybody that is ineterested

About autoAI - Brandon Adler said that it's a bug.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

After watching the streams I have the feeling that constant microing all party in every encounter could be a huge pain in the ass.

I do not mean auto-attack not working, but having to use class abilities of ALL party members all the time (some of them through drop-down lists no less), even against basic opponents. In IE games fighters were very easy and fast to manage 95% of the time, as you just clicked who they were supposed to attack, here you will have to babysit everyone, just like in Dragon Age: Origins.

Since I enjoy such gameplay, this will only cause me to play slower, because my OCD will force me to go optimally through every fight, but I think this might be a deal-breaker for more casual players like my wife and and my sister, who both loved the first Baldur's Gate and enjoyed the second one (although the added complexity of high-level D&D was almost a deal-breaker for them and I had to help them in some encounters).

There are workarounds for that, using smaller party size (I'm guessing there's some XP gain advantage to it though nowhere near as drastic as it was in IE games sans IWD2 I imagine), lowering the difficulty, using adventure hall to make a party consisting only of low maintenance classes etc. Besides the beta is pretty far into the game as I understand, I doubt you'll have that many abilities at the start, also not all of them are per encounter so it's not like you'll be spamming all of them all the time (unless resting resources are plenty I guess).

Personally I see all this as an improvement over auto-attack IE fighters (with a caveat that their abilities don't make them play like a low level mage or something, every class has to feel distinct), don't mind the extra micromangement. Of course there's a fine line between having more options in combat and being drowned by them but from what I've seen Obsidian's doing a good job so far.

In the end, Obsidian might be surprised that this game does not attract the same crowd as BG did, although there are many more gamers out there right now, so the sales numbers might still be good.

Meh, you'd be surprised for how many players the actual gameplay/combat mechanics come last, even for "old school" fans of BG. Having beautiful 2d isometric graphics, 6 members party size, a dozen of classes and being set in a Forgotten Realms/high fantasy like setting will be more than enough to attract a good chunk of BG crowd (probably even a few of those who aren't into games anymore). Banking on nostalgia man.

 

[Perkel]

they should put game on white 17'CRTs with shitty old dirty k+m for ultimate IE experience

 

[Sensuki]

going to be showing the druid in today's #pillarsofeternity playthroughs because they're insanely op

Fuck's sake, I was going to play a Druid in my Let's Play too. Can't do that now lol.

 

[RK47]

After watching the streams I have the feeling that constant microing all party in every encounter could be a huge pain in the ass.

Bro this is 'THE' game of RTWP games.
I can only recall 'getting busy' is the only time when I actually play the game, aside from pondering some dialogue choices in IE games.
When things go smoothly you just group all, auto-attack - win.
Not attacking your statement per se, just saying - if it looks busy, it meant the combat had some kind of depth (could be UI issue, but not really)
Have a little of faith fanbois.
I still am not buying it tho.
Bundle Fodder. :tophat:

 

[Sensuki]

steve fixed the auto-attack bug in #pillarsofeternity btw. not sure if it will be in the initial backer beta release but it will be soonish.

 

[Athelas]

There is no frequent monitoring of characters' cooldown timers here, so I don't think it'll play like DA:O.

Besides, we don't really know how combat will play out when giving orders efficiently and when auto-attack is in place. In the Gamescom footage, he could've mitigated the lack of auto-attack with some simple marquee select all > attack commands, but he didn't even do that.

 

[Sensuki]

Can someone reply to Josh's twitter and ask them to show off the Solid UI bar? I don't have twitter

MicoSelva, Crooked Bee, Zed

 

[tuluse]

After watching the streams I have the feeling that constant microing all party in every encounter could be a huge pain in the ass.

I do not mean auto-attack not working, but having to use class abilities of ALL party members all the time (some of them through drop-down lists no less), even against basic opponents. In IE games fighters were very easy and fast to manage 95% of the time, as you just clicked who they were supposed to attack, here you will have to babysit everyone, just like in Dragon Age: Origins.

Since I enjoy such gameplay, this will only cause me to play slower, because my OCD will force me to go optimally through every fight, but I think this might be a deal-breaker for more casual players like my wife and and my sister, who both loved the first Baldur's Gate and enjoyed the second one (although the added complexity of high-level D&D was almost a deal-breaker for them and I had to help them in some encounters).

In the end, Obsidian might be surprised that this game does not attract the same crowd as BG did, although there are many more gamers out there right now, so the sales numbers might still be good.

You can take abilities for fighters that make them more passive.

 

[Zed]

Can someone reply to Josh's twitter and ask them to show off the Solid UI bar? I don't have twitter

MicoSelva, Crooked Bee, Zed

done

btw fights all seem so long, even against beetles. I think I will always favor passive abilities over active ones...

 

[MicoSelva]

Can someone reply to Josh's twitter and ask them to show off the Solid UI bar? I don't have twitter

MicoSelva, Crooked Bee, Zed

Done.

EDIT:
NinjaZeded.

 

[Sensuki]

[QUOTE="Sensuki, post: 3435838, member: 15843"
btw fights all seem so long, even against beetles. I think I will always favor passive abilities over active ones...

HP Bloat and probably average-low accuracy

I was hoping they'd stick to sub 100 HP numbers personally.

 

[catfood]

they should put game on white 17'CRTs with shitty old dirty k+m for ultimate IE experience

17' ? What's this popamole crap?

 

[Frusciante]

http://paul-kirsch.com/ wrote a new blog post about his experience writing for eternity. Not very long or informative but it is something.

 

[Roguey]

I was hoping they'd stick to sub 100 HP numbers personally.

HP's just a number, it's all about ratios.

Short fights aren't really all that tactical. Not much an enemy can do to your group if you can wipe them all out in seconds.

This seems like a learned behavior thing, "Beetles and spiders are supposed to be trash fights but these clearly aren't, my brain is confused."

 

[Azrael the cat]

After watching the streams I have the feeling that constant microing all party in every encounter could be a huge pain in the ass.

I do not mean auto-attack not working, but having to use class abilities of ALL party members all the time (some of them through drop-down lists no less), even against basic opponents. In IE games fighters were very easy and fast to manage 95% of the time, as you just clicked who they were supposed to attack, here you will have to babysit everyone, just like in Dragon Age: Origins.

Since I enjoy such gameplay, this will only cause me to play slower, because my OCD will force me to go optimally through every fight, but I think this might be a deal-breaker for more casual players like my wife and and my sister, who both loved the first Baldur's Gate and enjoyed the second one (although the added complexity of high-level D&D was almost a deal-breaker for them and I had to help them in some encounters).

In the end, Obsidian might be surprised that this game does not attract the same crowd as BG did, although there are many more gamers out there right now, so the sales numbers might still be good.

I'm faintly worried that Josh, and quite a few others, have forgotten that in a single player crpg, you're playing the party, not any one character. The comment that followed yours is a good example (i.e. that constant micro-ing is just 'playing a game'). You're still playing a game, and active at all times, so long as there's at least one character ability that you're using - you don't need to be choosing 6 all at once. Obviously there's greater scope for tactics if you're using multiple abilities simultaneously (which is what having multiple characters act amounts to), but you need to balance that against the micro'g hassle to get a happy medium.

Having said that, my impression was that there's plenty of classes that can be built largely around passive abilities. This reassures me greatly. I think that a major part of party building will be working out your own balance of passive v active party members, so that you've got enough versatility and tactical interest for it to be fun, without getting carpal tunnel on trash mobs.

Unfortunately that sounds like precisely the kind of thing that most gamers will not be able to get their heads around. Choosing your balance of micro-hassle v tactical control isn't something that players are familiar with - even oldschool players were never asked to work out their custom micro tolerance themselves. Don't get me wrong, customising your level of micro is a neat idea; it just sounds like something that could cause a game to flop badly, which could be disastrous if it happens to PoE (if PoE flops, that really could be the death-knell for any hope of traditional crpgs getting publisher funding).

 

[Rake]

Unfortunately that sounds like precisely the kind of thing that most gamers will not be able to get their heads around. Choosing your balance of micro-hassle v tactical control isn't something that players are familiar with - even oldschool players were never asked to work out their custom micro tolerance themselves. Don't get me wrong, customising your level of micro is a neat idea; it just sounds like something that could cause a game to flop badly, which could be disastrous if it happens to PoE (if PoE flops, that really could be the death-knell for any hope of traditional crpgs getting publisher funding).

I refuse to believe that someone can be so stupid to not understand that if he finds that the game has too much micromanagment, it would be a good idea to select passive abilities in level ups.

But who am i kidding, you are propably right

 

[Infinitron]

Azrael the cat We are living in an age of MOBAs. New players can deal with micro. Probably more than lots of oldschool RPGers can.

 

[Ninjerk]

Azrael the cat We are living in an age of MOBAs. New players can deal with micro. Probably more than lots of oldschool RPGers can.

I'd wager most MOBAs don't have much micro at all.