Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Bubbles]

So their lead narrative designer doesn't know the difference between "lay" and "lie". Well, it is a combat focused game.

 

[Kaldurenik]

Some more bugs:
*Chanters firesword (i think) buff cause the game to drop down to 3fps. It looks like the fire effect is all over the place even floating around far away from the combat.
*Sleeping at the inn drains camping supply - either that or it happens randomly.
*If a character other then the main character picks up gold then it will enters his inventory instead of the party gold pool.
*Items some times when you pick them up and then equip them dont give bonuses.
*Ranged dont work at all?
*Some spells and abilities are very vague on what they do and what effects they give.
*I might have missed something but it would be nice if some abilities had a target cone / circle. Some do but a lot of abilities and spells dont.
*If you go in and out of a area (the town) the water in the river will become a black goo :D well the model will disappear.
*The [Name] use the [ability] repeat 50 times in combat log X_X

 

[Grunker]

BUT I MUST TRY THIS

/slap
SNAP OUT OF IT, MAN!

Plz enter coupon code #YARRMEHEARTIES to proceed?

Once again, doesn't seem to be an option atm.

 

[Bubbles]

BUT I MUST TRY THIS

/slap
SNAP OUT OF IT, MAN!

Plz enter coupon code #YARRMEHEARTIES to proceed?

Once again, doesn't seem to be an option atm.

Once again J.E. Sawyer takes away an option that virtually every other single player RPG offers as a matter of course.

 

[SuicideBunny]

has anybody been able to complete item based quests like the ogre or egg? i've got them in my quest inventory and can't turn in.

 

[Volourn]

Do yopu have the quests in your journal. They vanish potentially when saving/loading like equipment. I mean, the ogre ehad literally disseappeared the moment I picked up.

 

[Ulminati]

has anybody been able to complete item based quests like the ogre or egg? i've got them in my quest inventory and can't turn in.

Loading the game has caused quests to drop on the streams I watched earlier. They also caused some of the party members armor to disappear if you didn't unequip it before saving. In one case, the BB Rogue vanished entirely. She'd show up on the party portraits list and make sounds in combat. But she had no character in-game and did no damage.

 

[SuicideBunny]

i had to load so i could move again, but the missing daughter quest completed just fine afterwards (even if i couldn't talk to the girl after cleansing her). it's just the item quests that are affected, and the items are translucent in the quest items chest.

 

[Jezal_k23]

For me, depending on which character I used to pick the items, he/she would lose it. So I looted random shit a few times with a specific character (the dwarf), and I verified that he never lost his items. So I'm using him to carry the quest stuff.

But it's extremely disappointing to see that the instant my own character touches anything, he somehow lets it slip away into oblivion.

I did not raise him to be incompetent like this.

 

[Maculo]

Just finished the lord's quest on hard with my priest.

• Character/stat screen is all types of screwed up.
  
• I have a lot of gold (20,000+) and that does not take into account the things I have not sold or alternate currency that keeps filling my bag.
  
• I could not find/buy much camping supplies, which made things interesting.
  
• I do not know if the difficulty reset, but combat became much easier in the Skaen worshiper dungeon.

That being said, I enjoy the game so far, even with the kinks. I also noticed on the character screen (that was not gibberish) that I had ratings from various factions similar to NV, which is nice.

edit: I know that this may be out of place, but I am getting a Morrowind vibe from some of the music.

 

[Hormalakh]

So their lead narrative designer doesn't know the difference between "lay" and "lie". Well, it is a combat focused game.

I had to look this up: seems like you're right. It should be lie. Mentioned it on the Obsidian forums.

 

[Volourn]

All that habaollo over Steam/beats and whatnot all wasted. I'm gonna have to wait to dive in. Bugs alone (which were expected) make it impossibel to do much. Vansihing items is cute. Had start a new character hoping the bug wouldn't hit me but the mage lost his book and half the characters lost their equipment. R00fles!

\There's a good game hiding there but it's not ready yet. 4 months is gonna be interesting to see if they can get it ready.

 

[tuluse]

Careful about promising to many classes, Obsidian. Considering the scope and budget of this project, too many classes will end up limiting design space and thus have a negative impact on design diversity rather than the positive impact multiple classes and choices is supposed to have. In other words, if you're so busy designing different classes, won't the depth of options in each class be severely limited?

I almost feel like putting on my Roguey-robe and wizard hat and declaring myself the Cassandra of our time. But then I'm not an obnoxious know-it-all and I realize that my explanation still might be incorrect. Maybe Sawyer just likes keeping customizability low. Who knows. I think your explanation is right though, and by extend, so is mine.

This is now my biggest concern about the game.

6 classes with interesting choices, and maybe a couple subclasses each or multi-classing sounds way better than what we're getting.

Stupid kickstarter goals. I hope Obsidian learns from this and leaves themselves more leeway with the next one.

 

[Infinitron]

Careful about promising to many classes, Obsidian. Considering the scope and budget of this project, too many classes will end up limiting design space and thus have a negative impact on design diversity rather than the positive impact multiple classes and choices is supposed to have. In other words, if you're so busy designing different classes, won't the depth of options in each class be severely limited?

I almost feel like putting on my Roguey-robe and wizard hat and declaring myself the Cassandra of our time. But then I'm not an obnoxious know-it-all and I realize that my explanation still might be incorrect. Maybe Sawyer just likes keeping customizability low. Who knows. I think your explanation is right though, and by extend, so is mine.

This is now my biggest concern about the game.

6 classes with interesting choices, and maybe a couple subclasses each or multi-classing sounds way better than what we're getting.

Stupid kickstarter goals. I hope Obsidian learns from this and leaves themselves more leeway with the next one.

I don't see that big a problem with the character development if it's on-par or slightly less involved than 3rd Edition D&D in terms of customizability. By the way, the latter is actually what Sawyer specifically promised at some point early in development. He said character development would have a less overwhelming array of choices compared with 3rd Edition D&D. (It was a really long time ago and I can't be arsed to find the quote, but feel free to ask Roguey)

In other news: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67304-infinity-engine-continuum/?p=1484779

So there is no confusion, let me make it clear that in the final game there is a personal story for the player character and there are fully fleshed-out companions, each with their own developmental arc (and names!). As others have mentioned, these were deliberate omissions from the backer beta because we didn't want the prospect of spoilers to discourage anyone from participating in the beta. And frankly the writing of the companions is ongoing - they're generally one of the last things we implement, and aren't yet ready to be tested.

Where we actually fall on the continuum is between BG2 and PS:T in this department, which is to say mostly like PS:T but with more flexibility in terms of the identity of the protagonist.

 

[Blaine]

In one case, the BB Rogue vanished entirely. She'd show up on the party portraits list and make sounds in combat. But she had no character in-game and did no damage.

Maybe she's just a really good rogue.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Quite a few obs employees are present in the backer beta forums, replying to bug reports and such. If anything I think in this sense they have been doing pretty well.

Although I think it would have helped them quite a bit if they had created a number of subforums for bug reports. Like, "gameplay bugs", "visual bugs", "typos/missing strings/incorrect information", "performance issues", "character creation issues" and so on.

 

[Volourn]

Yeah, but they tend to avoid actual important threads and just talk about obvious bugs and other shit that aren't controversial.

And, define 'quite a few'. L0L

 

[Jezal_k23]

Well, 2 or 3 guys I suppose, seem to be answering some stuff.

 

[Blaine]

Jesus Christ. Not thirty seconds into the beta, and I already have a suggestion to post on the Obsidian forums.

 

[tuluse]

I don't see that big a problem with the character development if it's on-par or slightly less involved than 3rd Edition D&D in terms of customizability. By the way, the latter is actually what Sawyer specifically promised at some point early in development. He said character development would have a less overwhelming array of choices compared with 3rd Edition D&D. (It was a really long time ago and I can't be arsed to find the quote, but feel free to ask Roguey)

Well the talent pool is supposed to increase, so that should help. Do you pick new spells to learn with casters? Wizards get quite a bit of customizability in D&D.

 

[Volourn]

Yeah, spell progression mostly seems very DnD . Nothing wrong with that. Biggest issues with spells is theya re 100% geared to combat (so far).

 

[Sensuki]

RPGCodex Grammar Police re-writing starting class ability descriptions:

 

[lurker3000]

I can't be bothered to read this whole thread but I just gave it a try and your first quest in the beta is to track down a baby killer? How GRIMDARKMATURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler

I quite after getting the quest so maybe its more COMPLICATED than that but still.

 

[Sensuki]

The default sex and ethnicity of the first character that appears in the game appears to be randomized - cool.

 

[Blaine]

Biggest issues with spells is theya re 100% geared to combat (so far).

That's to be expected given what we know about PoE. It's combat-centric, and there are a grand total of five utility skills; each class receives a bonus in two of them. All five also confer combat benefits. That's in comparison to many dozens of combat- and class-exclusive abilities and talents.

In fairness, this isn't much different than any of the past Infinity Engine games; there wasn't a whole lot to do outside of combat other than pick locks, disarm traps, etc. What's most important in my view are optional dialogue trees, skill checks thereof, etc. The dialog/disposition system in PoE is shaping up to be fairly complex, so that's a good sign.

It still does irk me that the player need not (and cannot) specialize in any way in order to accrue more utility skill points or to have a particular knack for dialog manipulation. Every class gets the same amount of utility skill points and an equal opportunity to manipulate the dialog system in some way or another, all part of Josh's BALANCE! doctrine.