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

[Sensuki]

Accuracy penalty and decreased range with a not so large damage nerf could make it more interesting than just making it so that bow and arbalest have comparable dps.

A graze with an Arbalest still does between ~20-39 base damage (before Might, other bonuses) and before DT.

Guns actually already have an accuracy penalty. They're still bloody powerful though.

 

[Shadenuat]

Next offshoot megathread incoming?

It's not the fact that Might affects guns damage itself that bothers me (okay, it bothers the fuck out of me, but that's not the point), it affecting spells was bad, and simulationist in me somehow did not get heart attack.

Rather the tunneled balance that universal dmg stat can bring for any weapon user. If every point of damage is affected by one stat, and every weapon, then it makes sense to roll 6 barbarians with guns and show monsters pure definition of REKKIT.

 

[MicoSelva]

If every point of damage is affected by one stat, and every weapon, then it makes sense to roll 6 barbarians with guns and show monsters pure defenition of REKKIT.

Why Barbarians? Rogues get the best damage-enhancing abilities.

 

[Shadenuat]

Someone at Obsi said it as a joke some time ago, when asked what party he's going to use first.

 

[Sensuki]

Good thread here about how to avoid some of the game breaking bugs: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67...more-annoying-bugs-in-the-beta-mini-spoilers/

This guy is a good beta tester

 

[Frusciante]

So I got to play some mre finally because I found a way around crashing the game.

Enjoyng the combat a lot more now actualy. Somehow it doesnt feel liek a clusterfuck anymore. Just getting used to it I guess. Still, does someone know if selection circles should be abl+e to crossover? So two characters are standing very cloe to each other. Would make it a lot more easy to see whats going on if monsters- characters etc cannot occupy the same space.

Also, especially the priest has a lot of spells. Maybe a bit too much. Ofcourse normaly you start at level 1 and get to know the spells more gradualy but still.

Graphics and mood are brilliant. Dialogue is well written even though these optional quests arent the most interesting ofcourse.

So based on this I would say that this is going to be a very good, enjoyable game that is a major incline compared to the last 10 years. Combat and character progression (too little chopice) are the major problems. If they can improve those this will be a brilliant game.

 

[bonescraper]

I'm utterly disappointed with this game. I definitely won't back Obsidian's next Kicsktarter if Josh is going to be the lead designer. That means i most likely won't back their next Kicstarter at all, since they didn't (initially) bother to mention their fixation on BALANCE! and "improvments". I backed a IE spiritual successor, not Josh's Frankenstein monster with pretty graphics. Looks like i got the latter.

Character customization and advancement sucks. Passive % attribute bonuses are just the laziest design imaginable. It doesn't matter which stats i focus on becasue BALANCE! But what's better, it doesn't even matter how i distribute points, because their values don't change enough to make a real difference. Oh, yeah, they matter in dialogue skillchecks. Well, i thought i backed a classic cRPG, not a IE inspired adventure game?

I... like IE combat. It's not the best thing since sliced bread, but it works fine. Sure, i would prefer it turn-based, but again, it works fine, is very intuitive and gives me enough control to make good tactical choices. PoE combat is a giant clusterfuck. I can't fucking tell what's going on, who's doing damage, who's taking damage, who uses abilities etc. In a 90% melee party i fight in a giant blob where i can't even tell the characters apart. And there's no kill XP. This is the first RPG where i want to avoid all combat. Not only the game fails to make combat fun, it also makes it completely unrewarding. Please, spare me the "b-but crafting materials" bullshit. I didn't ask for crafting, IE games didn't have crafting. That's something Obsidian introduced in NWN2, they couldn't make it fun or interesting back then, and it doesn't look like it will work this time. I'm pretty sure i'll ignore it altogether.

Moreover, sound design is pretty dull, everythig sounds really... flat? And character models look quite bad against detailed backgrounds.

Unfortunately, Josh Sawyer's giant ego won't allow him to make any significant changes to the game. Larian did a really good job at taking constructive feedback, and their game greatly improved since their first beta release. Hell, even InXile managed to implement some good ideas regarding area and quest design (too bad they didn't do anything with the dull combat). But in this case i'm pretty sure the beta is quite representative of the final protuct. The game will be polished further and bugs will be squashed, but the core mechanics deviate too much from IE design, are bland and simply unfun. I'd rather replay BG2 one more time.

There's a giant difference between Sawyer's and Vincke's design philosophy. Where Swen encourages the player to take advantage of the world and the game's mechanics, Sawyer wants to have everything under control, evenly balanced and predictable. Well, i hope he has a huge input in Obsiadian's tank MMO. That's the right game for him to work on.

 

[Athelas]

Why the fuck isn't Tim Cain doing a kicksterter for a toee successor?

I don't think you can develop a decent RPG with just a few hundred thousand dollars.

Underrail disapporves.

Sure, but nobody (outside the Codex) would back a game with Underrail's graphics that would take 5-10 years development time to make. I was obviously exaggerating when I said a ToEE successor would only raise a few hundred k, but it wouldn't have raised nearly as much as an IE successor, since ToEE is not exactly a game many people remember fondly.

 

[Rivmusique]

The fight at the end of the under-the-statue/town dungeon had some weird shit going on. Something called "Deep Wounds" was being applied by some of them, and it would tick for 13 damage 2+ times a second, absolutely murdered people. I assume no ability is meant to be that strong, and it did not appear as a debuff, could only see it in the log. It also seemed to tick on them occasionally, I guess they were attacking themselves . Ended up beating the fight by running to a door, opening it to let one through then closing it as the AI apparently can't use doors . Infinity Engine lives on!

Edit:

On ranged: It feels like there is no reason for melee except on the fighter you want taking the hits. I just throw a ranged weapon on everyone, let the fighter be the first spotted (they seem to lock on to first target, only in 4+ packs will any of them bother going around and taking out the ranged) and then let loose. Melee just seems too dangerous as all but the fighter can get dropped fairly quickly. There's not only the risk of an enemy wising up and deciding the non-fighter is a better target, but also moving between enemies when switching targets risks disengagement attacks. I hope melee vs ranged is a less clear choice in the end. And the slow-reloading-hard-hitting ranged weapons are indeed ridiculous atm, only reason I'd use a bow is because activating weapon-based abilities (like crippling strike) with crossbows etc. is quite weird, you have to use it right after the reload and before it shoots but that is just a bug. I suppose those faster weapons will let you get off those types of abilities faster, but you don't have access to many of them so not much of an advantage.

 

[Duraframe300]

I'm utterly disappointed with this game. I definitely won't back Obsidian's next Kicsktarter if Josh is going to be the lead designer. That means i most likely won't back their next Kicstarter at all, since they didn't (initially) bother to mention their fixation on BALANCE! and "improvments". I backed a IE spiritual successor, not Josh's Frankenstein monster with pretty graphics. Looks like i got the latter.

Character customization and advancement sucks. Passive % attribute bonuses are just the laziest design imaginable. It doesn't matter which stats i focus on becasue BALANCE! But what's better, it doesn't even matter how i distribute points, because their values don't change enough to make a real difference. Oh, yeah, they matter in dialogue skillchecks. Well, i thought i backed a classic cRPG, not a IE inspired adventure game?

I... like IE combat. It's not the best thing since sliced bread, but it works fine. Sure, i would prefer it turn-based, but again, it works fine, is very intuitive and gives me enough control to make good tactical choices. PoE combat is a giant clusterfuck. I can't fucking tell what's going on, who's doing damage, who's taking damage, who uses abilities etc. In a 90% melee party i fight in a giant blob where i can't even tell the characters apart. And there's no kill XP. This is the first RPG where i want to avoid all combat. Not only the game fails to make combat fun, it also makes it completely unrewarding. Please, spare me the "b-but crafting materials" bullshit. I didn't ask for crafting, IE games didn't have crafting. That's something Obsidian introduced in NWN2, they couldn't make it fun or interesting back then, and it doesn't look like it will work this time. I'm pretty sure i'll ignore it altogether.

Moreover, sound design is pretty dull, everythig sounds really... flat? And character models look quite bad against detailed backgrounds.

Unfortunately, Josh Sawyer's giant ego won't allow him to make any significant changes to the game. Larian did a really good job at taking constructive feedback, and their game greatly improved since their first beta release. Hell, even InXile managed to implement some good ideas regarding area and quest design (too bad they didn't do anything with the dull combat). But in this case i'm pretty sure the beta is quite representative of the final protuct. The game will be polished further and bugs will be squashed, but the core mechanics deviate too much from IE design, are bland and simply unfun. I'd rather replay BG2 one more time.

There's a giant difference between Sawyer's and Vincke's design philosophy. Where Swen encourages the player to take advantage of the world and the game's mechanics, Sawyer wants to have everything under control, evenly balanced and predictable. Well, i hope he has a huge input in Obsiadian's tank MMO. That's the right game for him to work on.

Spoiler

 

[Athelas]

You should post that on the Obsidian forums to generate maximum butthurt.

 

[Black]

What about writing and atmosphere?

 

[Sensuki]

I'm utterly disappointed with this game. I definitely won't back Obsidian's next Kicsktarter if Josh is going to be the lead designer. That means i most likely won't back their next Kicstarter at all, since they didn't (initially) bother to mention their fixation on BALANCE! and "improvments". I backed a IE spiritual successor, not Josh's Frankenstein monster with pretty graphics. Looks like i got the latter.

Character customization and advancement sucks. Passive % attribute bonuses are just the laziest design imaginable. It doesn't matter which stats i focus on becasue BALANCE! But what's better, it doesn't even matter how i distribute points, because their values don't change enough to make a real difference. Oh, yeah, they matter in dialogue skillchecks. Well, i thought i backed a classic cRPG, not a IE inspired adventure game?

I... like IE combat. It's not the best thing since sliced bread, but it works fine. Sure, i would prefer it turn-based, but again, it works fine, is very intuitive and gives me enough control to make good tactical choices. PoE combat is a giant clusterfuck. I can't fucking tell what's going on, who's doing damage, who's taking damage, who uses abilities etc. In a 90% melee party i fight in a giant blob where i can't even tell the characters apart. And there's no kill XP. This is the first RPG where i want to avoid all combat. Not only the game fails to make combat fun, it also makes it completely unrewarding. Please, spare me the "b-but crafting materials" bullshit. I didn't ask for crafting, IE games didn't have crafting. That's something Obsidian introduced in NWN2, they couldn't make it fun or interesting back then, and it doesn't look like it will work this time. I'm pretty sure i'll ignore it altogether.

Moreover, sound design is pretty dull, everythig sounds really... flat? And character models look quite bad against detailed backgrounds.

Unfortunately, Josh Sawyer's giant ego won't allow him to make any significant changes to the game. Larian did a really good job at taking constructive feedback, and their game greatly improved since their first beta release. Hell, even InXile managed to implement some good ideas regarding area and quest design (too bad they didn't do anything with the dull combat). But in this case i'm pretty sure the beta is quite representative of the final protuct. The game will be polished further and bugs will be squashed, but the core mechanics deviate too much from IE design, are bland and simply unfun. I'd rather replay BG2 one more time.

There's a giant difference between Sawyer's and Vincke's design philosophy. Where Swen encourages the player to take advantage of the world and the game's mechanics, Sawyer wants to have everything under control, evenly balanced and predictable. Well, i hope he has a huge input in Obsiadian's tank MMO. That's the right game for him to work on.

I agree with a lot of your points but there are some things that aren't quite true. Advancement in the IE games for a lot of classes had no choice at all until HLA Tables in BG2. IWD2 had a bit of choice. PE has about the same/just a bit less choice than IWD2.

IE combat is way better than PE combat at the moment. One thing that PE does a little bit better is gives all classes more things to do. When the issues are fixed up it will be easier to weigh them against each other, but the IE games do a much better job at abstraction in many cases (funny considering Josh prefers gamism to simulation).

I don't have anything against Josh but I think some of his design principles for this game *may* be working against some of the goals. At least they are creating problems that weren't existent in the IE games, and need a new solution to solve. Unifying the attributes for instance. The Percentile Might bonus is b11111111g on large damage weapons, such as Arbalests, Arquebuses etc but almost not worth taking if you're using lower damage weapons - whereas the flat values that D&D used scaled well always.

 

[felipepepe]

I hate % increments, I just hope it isn't as boring as the last Avernum... "hey you found a better armor, it gives you 2% more defense. Aren't you happy with such an epic upgrade? Aren't you fucking excited to try that on?"

How's the itemization anyway? BG2 had IMHO the best itemization in any RPG ever, and I that should be taken into account when making a IE successor...

 

[Sensuki]

Percentile increases are the bread and butter of GOOD SHIT (tm) in ARPGs.

In Pillars of Eternity it's currently a problem for damage at least:

I put 15 points into Might for 30% increase in damage.

I decide to use a Hunting Bow that does 11-19 damage per hit. I now do 14.3 - 24.7 damage per hit. The same bonus on an Arbalest brings the default value of ~43-79 damage to 55.9 - 102.7 damage per hit.

dat balance

 

[bussinrounds]

Just avoid taking any Arbalests.

Spoiler

(If it were to stay this way)

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Percentile increases are the bread and butter of GOOD SHIT (tm) in ARPGs.

In Pillars of Eternity it's currently a problem for damage at least:

I put 15 points into Might for 30% increase in damage.

I decide to use a Hunting Bow that does 11-19 damage per hit. I now do 14.3 - 24.7 damage per hit. The same bonus on an Arbalest brings the default value of ~43-79 damage to 55.9 - 102.7 damage per hit.

dat balance

Assuming damage numbers will be adjusted I think that it's ok as long as hunting bows attack more often than arbalests.

 

[undecaf]

You should post that on the Obsidian forums to generate maximum butthurt.

And Sawyer, or someone else from Obs. might actually see it.

 

[MicoSelva]

Is it really only +2% damage per Might point?

Jesus fucking christ.

 

[Sensuki]

Assuming damage numbers will be adjusted I think that it's ok as long as hunting bows attack more often than arbalests.

Irrelevant. Point here is that Might is sUpEr AwEsOmE for high damage weapons, but average to terrible for low damage weapons. A flat number rather than a percentage gives a higher total damage percentile increase to lower damage weapons than it does to higher damage weapons, but the bonus is just as good across the board.

Using D&D as an example

18 STR guy with a Dagger - 1D4+4. Pretty darn good - increases damage range to 5-9. 18 STR guy with a long sword 1D8+4, also pretty good 5-13.

RTS games all use flat bonuses for damage because it's balanced. I think using % here was a mistake.

 

[Maculo]

Does anyone else feel that the the combat difficulty seems off? After a certain point on hard difficulty, it feels like I was not taking a lot of damage and I could just let my party auto-attack. I do not know whether the game resets difficulties or whether the enemy AI becomes confused by some patterns. Especially in the Dyrford ruins, I would have my fighter and priest line up at a door way, and then have my rogue or mage pull the group. I am starting to think that the enemy AI continues to chase the rogue/mage, but I have not confirmed it.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Assuming damage numbers will be adjusted I think that it's ok as long as hunting bows attack more often than arbalests.

Irrelevant. Point here is that Might is sUpEr AwEsOmE for high damage weapons, but average to terrible for low damage weapons. A flat number rather than a percentage gives a higher total damage percentile increase to lower damage weapons than it does to higher damage weapons, but the bonus is just as good across the board.

Using D&D as an example

18 STR guy with a Dagger - 1D4+4. Pretty darn good - increases damage range to 5-9. 18 STR guy with a long sword 1D8+4, also pretty good 5-13.

RTS games all use flat bonuses for damage because it's balanced. I think using % here was a mistake.

Point taken.

 

[Spockrock]

Sensuki, I don't understand whether you're saying bows are more powerful weapons than guns or that guns shouldn't be in PoE at all.

isn't a bullet's kinetic energy higher than that of an arrow? (it is, just look at how much energy the shooter's body absorbs in the form of recoil)

why is it so strange that firearms deal so much damage? maybe they fragment once they hit the soft tissue, arrows don't do that, there's your increase in damage for one

 

[Liston]

I hate % increments, I just hope it isn't as boring as the last Avernum... "hey you found a better armor, it gives you 2% more defense. Aren't you happy with such an epic upgrade? Aren't you fucking excited to try that on?"

How's the itemization anyway? BG2 had IMHO the best itemization in any RPG ever, and I that should be taken into account when making a IE successor...

Don't you have some kind of irrational hate for percentages? I remember your thread where you claimed how +1 THC0 is cool but +5% chances to hit is awful.

However I do agree with you that BG2 has the best itemization by a log shot. And POE seems to have a problem with attributes, but it is much bigger than simply being expressed in percentages.

edit: found the tread

In practice it's the same shit; if you find a Long Sword +1, you'll get +1 to hit, and that's exactly +5% to hit in a d20.

But still, I HATE % upgrades. To me, they completly destroy the immersion, sense of wonder and progression. They feel empty, and throw in your face how minor, "gamey" and almost irrelevant they really are... 5% is almost nothing, but I was always very happy when I exchanged a regular sword for a magical +1 masterwork sword in Baldur's Gate.

 

[Grunker]

stuff

yeah, claiming that poe has less customization than the IE-games whose choices upon leveling up mainly consisted of clicking "accept" doesn't do much to dispel the sense that your post was brimming with righteous butthurt bro

BG2 had IMHO the best itemization in any RPG ever

It did, and I'm also curious, but we'll have no idea until the game comes out. There's very little itemization in the beta from what I've seen so far. I don't think it's all implemented yet.

Using D&D as an example

18 STR guy with a Dagger - 1D4+4. Pretty darn good - increases damage range to 5-9. 18 STR guy with a long sword 1D8+4, also pretty good 5-13.

RTS games all use flat bonuses for damage because it's balanced. I think using % here was a mistake.

p. much