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

[Sensuki]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66950-combat-feels-activeness-speed-and-pace/

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Playing on Hard difficulty, since I noticed that PoD enemies have +50% stats (no thanks, with the sub-par BB party).

So, do all of the difficulties have stat modifiers like that or just PoD? And does PoD modify encounters outside of that bonus?

 

[Sensuki]

Just Path of the Damned. The others are all based on monster placement and resting supplies.

Path of the Damned also enables ALL monsters. So the Dyrford crossing map would literally be crawling with beetles that have +50% stats. Probably nearly unbeatable with the current BB Party, unless you're maybe a Chanter or Druid (OP).

 

[roshan]

On top of that, enemy units (and player units) move very fast in combat, whereas only hasted units moved quickly in the IE games. Due to this "run" feature, positioning is all over the place. Especially considering how small some of the maps are.

I had complained before that running and over-animating would not be able to reproduce the tactical positioning that IE games had. In the IE games, movement was abstracted, not simulated.

 

[Sensuki]

Indeed.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Got the hang of it now as well. Maybe I've gotten used to it but now I can tell what is going on after a few more battles, and can get by on Hard, perhaps switching in a Godlike Druid helped. Once they get the sliding / bugs / feedback / etc sorted this is going to be delicious - IE D&D but better.

Couple of infuriating bugs like erroneous 'party is dead' shit, but the basics seem very solidly built in. Currently in the Ruins fighting cultists.

If your main character gets killed, it's over. The death screen erroneously shows party wipe.

 

[Rivmusique]

Is anyone elses Fighter just freezing up? After fights and occasionally during, the fighter (the one in the party, not one I created) will become completely unresponsive. And my first character Ranger seemed to have some issues, once the pet's stamina became unlinked from the Ranger, and at another point they both seemed to sit around 3/4 stamina instead of it filling. The few fights I did are quite fun on hard. Made the mistake of activating autopause on weapon ineffective, it pauses all the time and I end up unpausing it accidentally . Will disable it next time I play.

 

[J_C]

How did this thread reach 8 pages in just 8 hours?

 

[J_C]

Is that Disneyland in the background?

Jesus Christ, are you american by any chance? /facepalm

 

[Sensuki]

Is anyone elses Fighter just freezing up? After fights and occasionally during, the fighter (the one in the party, not one I created) will become completely unresponsive. And my first character Ranger seemed to have some issues, once the pet's stamina became unlinked from the Ranger, and at another point they both seemed to sit around 3/4 stamina instead of it filling. The few fights I did are quite fun on hard. Made the mistake of activating autopause on weapon ineffective, it pauses all the time and I end up unpausing it accidentally . Will disable it next time I play.

It's not just the Fighter, it's every character. There's a bug with issuing actions, and auto attack. You need to re-issue commands to units quite often.

 

[Tigranes]

More annoying for me is quests breaking, or at least, sometimes they break, sometimes I can't tell if they broke. I'm pretty sure something else is supposed to happen when I reach the daughter and

Spoiler

agree to go ahead with the 'justice' plot - the daughter herself is nowhere to be found in the room, so I have nothing to do but to exit by the back end of the ruins, coming out onto the tower/shop in the village, but I can't unlock the door due to insufficient Mechanic... edit: actually, I do have 6 mechanic, but I still can't open the door.

 

[Rivmusique]

Oh yeah I noticed that too of course, but I mean he becomes completely unusable until I reload. Just stands in place, can not be moved and won't attack anything in range. Modal abilities can be deactivated but not activated again.

 

[Sensuki]

All of my character sounds broke before as well.

 

[Cyberarmy]

A Roguey free PoE thread is even better news then the beta

I was only able to play a bit before going to work but I'm impressed. Soundtrack is really nice, character creation is good too. Graphics are glorious even for someone like me who never care for any graphic. Combat felt a bit wonky because of pathfinding and random action canceling.
Probably play with all classes today for better feedback.

 

[Ramireza]

I didnt like how the combat sounds, hard to explain, also the combat animations look terrible.

Maybe i have played the Infinity Games to much, but i must say : Combat there feels better to me. PoE combat looks and feels like NWN2.

 

[Sensuki]

Yes, it's not quite right. It doesn't have the fluidity, syncronization or impact.

 

[Volourn]

Gonna be interetsing to see how they can get thinsg done in 3 months. I see postponent, buggy game, or LOTS of overtime. :p And, that's just actual bugs not certain 'features' that seem broken. <>

Still, there is lots to like as well... And, got to remember it is just a beta so some of this is expected..

 

[Kaldurenik]

Combat issues:¨
*So far the game is hard but its mainly due to the problems with the combat rather then the combat itself.
*Characters get stuck on eachother or on objects in the world while fighting,
*The lack of feedback as to whats happening where and with what character. - This is even worse if you fight behind something, might also be a problem with sound and animations?
*Some times the characters dont react to commands at all and are just standing around doing nothing. I guess its possible the animation for knocked down is broken but this happens to character not even close to combat at times either.


Sound issues
*Random sounds at times
*Repeating sounds at times.

Pathfinding issues:
*The path finding while outside the combat is also strange. Some characters move faster then others, creating very strange situations where they get stuck on eachother or where you have a character running far infront of everyone else. I would rather see some kind of auto increase / decrease run speed so that the formation is kept (somewhat better) while moving around on the map.
*I guess the combat pathfinding issues could be posted here also from above. When in combat you some times get set stuck on things that you would not get stuck on outside combat. Also If a enemy/friendly is in the way your character will get stuck.

Other issues:
*items randomly disappear leaving your characters fighting with their fists, Wizards cant cast spells.
*Some objects dont have any transparency when you are behind them... Its possible no object have it. But in either case it need to be fixed.
*If you have a character away from the rest and the others get downed then they will instantly revive with 1 stamina and die again (over and over again).
*The game at times randomly get memory leaks and i cant find why. Its not that bad for me because i have enough memory to go around so it takes a long time before you notice the effects.
*Broken items / event strings / conversation strings.
*It would be nice with more clear and informative characters circles so you know who is fighting or targeting something.



-Other comments:
It will be hard to talk about the overall balance until the items / character / pathfinding / lack of feedback of combat is fixed. As right now the most complicated thing is the fact that no character do what one would think. You dont know if the character is going to do the ability you tried to use. Or if (s)he is just going to stand around.

Is the game fun? Yes. I love it! :D
Sound is great, the attention to detail is great, the number of skills and abilities are great and it feel like im playing a IE game... with some problems

Thanks

 

[Ramireza]

Yes, it's not quite right. It doesn't have the fluidity, syncronization or impact.

Impact is the word i have missed! The Animations are way to fast and the delay to the next attack is way to long for an level 5 character.

 

[MicoSelva]

Humanoid enemies are not dropping their gear, just shitty gp. I feel cheated!

Of all the stuff mentioned in this thread so far, this one worries me the most, because it seems like a conscious decision and not a bug that will get fixed.

Overall, jelly for rich people. Will LP for food beta key.

 

[Duraframe300]

Got the hang of it now as well. Maybe I've gotten used to it but now I can tell what is going on after a few more battles, and can get by on Hard, perhaps switching in a Godlike Druid helped. Once they get the sliding / bugs / feedback / etc sorted this is going to be delicious - IE D&D but better.

Couple of infuriating bugs like erroneous 'party is dead' shit, but the basics seem very solidly built in. Currently in the Ruins fighting cultists.

Agree

Though I also agree that combat lacks feedback/impact at the moment. Mechanically, I very much like it.

 

[Rivmusique]

Had another go, this time with a rogue PC. Gave him the fighters arbalest, I think the freeze up issue is related to that for me. If I swap between that and a melee weapon I either get a looping animation or it becomes fully unresponsive until I save and load. Having those two rogues sneak attack together lets me blow through some of those enemies, quite powerful. My wizard lost his grimoire but I just played on and had him sit out fights.

I'm pretty much sneaking everywhere so I can get a good look at encounters, don't want to accidently pull two packs, shit is deadly. The speed up function is nice here, stops the slow movement while stealthed from becoming tedious. I'd like an option to set what % the slow-mo/speed up go to though, I do like using the slow-mo but I would like it slightly faster. I also found that using the stealth I can cause one part of a pack to search for me, pull them out far enough then take them one at a time. I'd think it was very un-Sawyer to let us do that.

Fix it .

 

[Zed]

I've already scribbled down a lot of notes, but I can't play any more now, too damn tired. I'll play a lot more tomorrow. Top of the list from just an hour of playing are these three points:

I accidentally hit some hotkey to halve the speed of the game, and the 'default speed key' doesn't work (you'll have to bind it first, too - still doesn't work). So game over if you hit that.

The state of AI and pathing makes the gameplay flow very badly. Hopefully they fix this soon so people can play it properly.

As with most game nowadays, one of my major gripes from the get-go is the camera. In this case, the zoom is useless. Have it zoomed in, and the game looks nice but feels cramped. Zoom out, and the game looks a lot worse and the characters become tiny, but you can see a much better distance in relation to the FoW.

S is the hotkey for slow and speed up is something like D or A

yeah but the default speed key doesn't work.
the key binding is horrible.
there should be a slider instead.
actually there shouldn't even be an option to change speed. if the player feels the movement speed is too slow, then it's badly tuned.

 

[SuicideBunny]

yeah but the default speed key doesn't work.

there's a default speed key? just press the slow or fast button again to go back to default.

 

[Echo Mirage]

God damn journal bug !

I made it all the way to the cultists hideout before it kicked in along with my main character getting stuck on the spot.