Preview Pillars of Eternity Gameplay Video, Previews and Interviews

[Jasede]

holla, at least with /tg/ and most RPG communities, at least for AD&D and 3.0 and 3.5 of D&D, the consensus is that levels 2-8 or so are the best. High enough not to die to random things, low enough to consistently be challenged and to keep horrible abominations suitably horrible.

holla, the difference in your "can't see the difference" thing I attribute more to this being some beta demo, the general attitude to make games easy in the beginning these days and, well, Obsidian's mechanical incompetence (bite me!) / bad encounter / monster design. I don't think it's a flaw of the system, just the system not being used well. Can't tell from this short demo which one it is.

 

[Shadenuat]

Well I'm sure there are ways to achieve that sense of danger and progression without mind blowing details like negative attack rating and armor, and make wizards a bit better than guys who only win half of fights with house cats, but I always thought that math model behind D&D, however weird it might be, actually delivered what it designers wanted to aka

to consistently be challenged and to keep horrible abominations suitably horrible

, and that showed in IE games p. well.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Their combat was /garbage/ but they made up for it by great encounters that really squeezed a lot of fun out of an inherently terrible system.

If after running through computer system ends up in a combat fun enough to make half a dozen of games and then kickstart more, it can't be garbage. AD&D is unintuitive and has a lot of concepts that might seem alien today, but in the end everything many modern games did wrong IE games did right - system worked without bloated HPs or level scaling and level scaled equipment, arms and armor mattered, low level spells did not get obsolete, when you got hit you really felt like you get hit, enemies did what you'd expect them to do (18/00 ogre behaved like you'd expect and was always dangerous) and so on.

Even best system in the world would feel like garbage if you design poor encounters (bugbears from ToEE wave to us).

I think I must be one of the few people who prefers low level combat in RPG's and especially D&D.

I always found low level adventuring in IWD1 the most solid gameplay in IE games. Seeing your party growing taking baby steps felt so good. Non-casters could have used more abilities of course, which was solved somewhat in IWD2 by adapting 3d edition.
I think IWD1 with kits from BG2 improved to complement characters through their whole career starting level 1 would have been even more solid.

I agree...for me the low level play in the icewind dale series was the best IE experience I had. I liked the combat better in ToEE, but the art, music and world of Icewind dale was much more interesting to me. I also really liked the itemization in the icewind dale series, especially compared to things like Divinity Original Sin.

PoE is shaping up to be right up my ally, although I expect the high level play will bother me somewhat no matter what, but I accept I am sort of in the minority when it comes to some of these positions so I don't really expect any game to fully cater to my specific preferences throughout the entire thing. If it happened I would be pleasantly surprised, but I think many people would complain about a whole game designed in the style I prefer.

Very much looking forward to PoE

 

[Cadmus]

The graphics look gorgeous, if only D:OS looked like this!
However, the minute I saw the combat I realized how fucking boring RTwP is. Great looking game, I just wish they had gone turn based.

 

[Suicidal]

Don't understand how people are saying the combat looks worse than the IE games - it looks exactly as shitty as lvl 1 combat with 2-3 fighter type characters in an IE game would be - just click on the enemy and pick nose till they are done, since you don't have many other options anyway, reload if your MC gets a 15 hp crit from a random hamster. I will agree with the statements that the combat looks less challenging because everything has too much HP/dies too slowly but keep in mind 2 things:

1. They are probably playing on easy/normal to avoid reloading 38 times on the first 2 wolves MCA style. There is going to be a hard difficulty, and I believe a harder than hard difficulty, as well as many additional difficulty sliders and options.
2. This is essentially a tutorial area with a few tutorial fights to get you into the feel of the game. This is the equivalent of the "I HAVE A BLEEEEEEDE WITH YOUR NEEEEEEME ON EEET" faggot assassin you find in some cellar in BG1 that dies in one hit and never seems to hit you, except here it's several small battles instead of one + some basic dungeoneering.

I'm not expecting the combat to be better than D:OS (in fact it will definitely be much worse), but I'm pretty sure the difficulty, variety and fun factor of encounters will pick up as the game progresses. At least I hope it will.

 

[Sensuki]

Guys, I'm pretty sure this is easy or normal (aka push over difficulty) they've said that if you want an IE level of challenge you will need to play on Hard (or Path of the Damned).

This will likely add more enemies to all of the encounters seen in the beta. It's looking to me like Path of the Damned is the way to go.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Yep. A decade of crap rulesets ftmp.

What, you can't see difference between BG1 (walk out of the city, engage wolf, get crit for 10 hp, your fighter has 10 hp, rekked lol), and this - get out of caravan, left click 2 wolves (that are more of a size of a horse), kill 2 bandits (including an archer who just shot arrow after arrow into the backside of 1st level char - "glance! 0.5 hp damage"), kill more bandits, kill whole enemy party 3 on 3, kill oozes, more oozes, kill giant spiders...
All with suboptimal party of 2, then 3 characters - hurrah for regenerating hpstamina.
In IE trying to kill a bunch of enemies like that straight on with just 2-3 characters is death sentence, you had to use entangle/sleep/heal/bows/pots/oil of speed... use somethin

This is valid.

I think I must be one of the few people who prefers low level combat in RPG's and especially D&D.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I like low level combat too. I just think BG's version of low level (again 1, 2 and maybe 3 - after that it does get better) combat is so random in whether or not you'll live or die, it's boring. Not to mention that your choice of tactics is extremely limited. In D:OS for example there are many options for all low level characters. There are different approaches to each battle you can take, regardless of your build. In BG, a low level fighter can only click the wolf and hope for the best. That's boring. The addition of multiple party members solves this somewhat though.

It's not about wielding flaming swords, fireballs using deflector shields, it's about doing something more than just clicking and keeping your fingers crossed.

yeah I get what you are saying about BG1 because of how you begin the game alone and I agree that makes the low level combat pretty bland. This is I why I prefer the Icewind Dale series to BG series i think.

 

[Dr Schultz]

I always found low level adventuring in IWD1 the most solid gameplay in IE games. Seeing your party growing taking baby steps felt so good. Non-casters could have used more abilities of course, which was solved somewhat in IWD2 by adapting 3d edition.
I think IWD1 with kits from BG2 improved to complement characters through their whole career starting level 1 would have been even more solid.

Actually is a well known fact that D&D becomes increasingly more unbalanced, unreasonable and boring as character's levels go up. So, no wonder D&D powered games work in the same way.

PS: Anyway, no: Low-level spells become shit definitely too soon if you consider how far a character can go HP-wise. Generally speaking, D&D doesn't scale well after a certain level

 

[Invictus]

The best level for D&D adventures for me was always the 6 to 12 range; characters were powerful enough, magic users had a good range of spells and the most interesting "core" monsters and creatures like liches, drow or beholders were balanced to that level...it usualy went downhill from there

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

PS: Anyway, no: Low-level spells become shit definitely too soon if you consider how far a character can go HP-wise. Generally speaking, D&D doesn't scale well after a certain level

Agree about high-level D&D in general, but on the specific point of low level spells there were some that stayed useful for a long time eg: chromatic orb starts pretty pathetic and becomes more and more powerful.

 

[Shadenuat]

Also Entangle, Blind, Charm, Doom, Spook, Protection from Petrification & Evil, Shield, Armor of Faith, Command, Remove Fear, Sanctuary to name a few.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

The best level for D&D adventures for me was always the 6 to 12 range; characters were powerful enough, magic users had a good range of spells and the most interesting "core" monsters and creatures like liches, drow or beholders were balanced to that level...it usualy went downhill from there

To its credit the BG series handled higher level combat better than other D&D games did - looking at you, NWN series. Battles became truly epic with enemies that could easily shred armies of low level characters and situations that would have been difficult to impossible for a level 12 party. Fighting your way out of a drow city, facing a sorcerer on the verge of turning himself into a god, battling mind flayer armies, beholder hives, dragons, demi-liches, other high-level bhaalspawn and even demogorgon himself. It may have gone uber munchkin, but at least it was both justified plot-wise and fun.

 

[Shannow]

Video looks good enough overall. But I agree with many criticisms:
Char creation: Show us what classes/attributes/races/backrounds do in a gameplay sense. There's enough room on the right side (which otherwise looks very empty). A barbarian? Ok, what actual skills does he get? How does his progression look like? 14 int on a barbarian? Well, by how much are his AoEs increased by those 4 points? 10%, 40%, XX%? Any other benefits? Are they worth getting as opposed to whatever benefits the other attributes would have given? Etc., etc...
Paperdolls: Yuk. As ugly as NWN2's. Of course no biggy in the grand scheme, but needlessly ugly nonetheless.
UI: Random buttons opening up...Weird. Stamina red over the portraits and HP a green line next to them. Really?
Pacing: If you're kicking butt and chewing gum right from the start how will you get any sense of progression?
Pathing: This was one of the biggest issues next to character creation. Pathfinding needs some serious work. The pathing was too stupid to move a mm around the other party-member to engage the enemy...
Textadventure parts: They look great. The only gripe I have, is that they suddenly teleport you around...
Knitpicking: I'd prefer a more zoomed out view.

 

[asper]

During the kickstarter I kept whining they should've goteen Justin Sweet to do the portraits...

Otherwise, the game looks fantastic!

 

[Shannow]

The best level for D&D adventures for me was always the 6 to 12 range; characters were powerful enough, magic users had a good range of spells and the most interesting "core" monsters and creatures like liches, drow or beholders were balanced to that level...it usualy went downhill from there

To its credit the BG series handled higher level combat better than other D&D games did - looking at you, NWN series. Battles became truly epic with enemies that could easily shred armies of low level characters and situations that would have been difficult to impossible for a level 12 party. Fighting your way out of a drow city, facing a sorcerer on the verge of turning himself into a god, battling mind flayer armies, beholder hives, dragons, demi-liches, other high-level bhaalspawn and even demogorgon himself. It may have gone uber munchkin, but at least it was both justified plot-wise and fun.

You also have an encounter where you roflstomp an army of "normal" high-level, well-equipped soldiers. I think this is even more important for a sense of progression than defeating an adamantium golem, beholders, dragons, drow, etc...

 

[Shadenuat]

The fight on a way to Amkertram. A bit of a bitch for solo chars because a volley from half a hundred medium level archers blow away your stone skins like shit and so on. I had to use Storm of Vengeance when I was soloing it with druid.

 

[Dr Schultz]

Also Entangle, Blind, Charm, Doom, Spook, Protection from Petrification & Evil, Shield, Armor of Faith, Command, Remove Fear, Sanctuary to name a few.

And I could name MANY others that become pretty pathetic very soon.

Indeed, there are spells that remain useful throughout the entire leveling curve, but taken as a system, D&D spells don't scale well. Nothing in D&D scales well after a certain level.

 

[Minttunator]

God DAMN this game looks awesome!

 

[nihil]

The combat feels too unthreatening. I don't think you should easily win fights where you're outnumbered like that. If you later in the game slaughter a group of amatuer raiders, that would be fine, but early in the game, an armed human of any kind should feel more dangerous.

My other worry is that combat seemed completely robbed of tactics, but that is hopefully (and probably) because it's the first 10 minutes of the game.

Overall, though, it looks really cool.

 

[sbb]

I think your entire post can be answered with this:

because it's the first 10 minutes of the game.

 

[Arkeus]

I...didn't think the combat looked too easy in the giantbomb thing. By the end of it one character was on the point of maimed/dying, and multiple time it was touch-and-go for knocked down. Given it was a 'presentation', they also probably played it on easy with geared character.

Oh, and am i the only one who laughed at the first encounter being wolves? Avellone probably made sure they weren't too scary :V

 

[imweasel]

Pathing: This was one of the biggest issues next to character creation. Pathfinding needs some serious work. The pathing was too stupid to move a mm around the other party-member to engage the enemy...

Pathfinding in PoE seem to be even more retarded than in the IE games. On a modern computer.

Combat looks fucking terrible, boring and easy, and not at all like the Infinity Engine.

Don't worry bro, you can skip almost all of the combat unless the enemies are blocking your path or have good loot.

 

[Roguey]

Haha, figures grognards itf would actually like utterly terrible, utterly chaotic low-level D&D combat.

I think your frame of reference might be off. These are the first 20 minutes of the game. I bet by this time in DAO you aren't doing anything else besides rightclicking whatever is there to rightclick in a given origin.

Playing the city elf origin as a rogue, the second fight wrecked me. The third fight too.

Adler's playing sucked, he made numerous bad/suboptimal decisions and the worst he had to show for it was his almost-dead fighter at the end.

Or do you mean the mistake is that they zoomed in? I guess they thought doing it like in Icewind Dale 2 would be weird. Which it is.

A small view of your character like in ToEE would still be better than what they went with.

Obsidian said they were making a game just like the old IE games. What were you expecting? Temple of Elemental Evil awesome turn based combat?

ToEE was untactical shit.

 

[MicoSelva]

Bros, should I watch these gameplay videos? Are there many spoilers? I am trying to avoid as much info from the actual game as possible.

 

[nihil]

I think your entire post can be answered with this:

because it's the first 10 minutes of the game.

Not really. Even if the fights required more tactics, you're still outnumbered several times and winning. Not a big problem, but I would prefer if at level 1, an armed human was more of a threat.

Bros, should I watch these gameplay videos? ... I am trying to avoid as much info from the actual game as possible.

I think you answered your own question. No serious spoilers, though. It's the opening of the game.