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

[FreeKaner]

They really need to bring back priests and druids getting a set of spells on level up too. I guess it just conflicted with Josh's vision of multi-classing but attaching it to class level should solve the problem.

 

[Prime Junta]

question to the beta players: how weird does it feel the 5-man party limitation from 6-man ?

I barely even noticed it.

(Okay yeah I did notice it, but mostly because a 5-dude party has one guy at point, not that nice arrangement of d6 pips. But in terms of gameplay, makes little practical difference.)

 

[Prime Junta]

- viability of casters can be increased by tweaking the number of spells they get, tweaking the spells themselves (cast time) and by lowering combat speed

That would mitigate the problem with them but IMO a bigger overhaul would be needed to actually fix it. I.e. bring back a separate mechanical system for spells: either full-on Vancian memorise-spells-on-rest (because why not, they've gone towards AD&D in other respects?) or by going with the P1 semi-Vancian thing.

 

[Elex]

However priests have to pick their spells on level-up so their selection is much more limited.

WHY?

 

[Infinitron]

However priests have to pick their spells on level-up so their selection is much more limited.

WHY?

Because some people (hi Adam Brennecke) found getting a fuckton of spells all at once overwhelming.

Getting just one spell per level seems like an overcorrection, though.

 

[cannondwarf]

Why the fuck does Transmutation, the only truly well-rounded spell school, get a special ability that only benefits gishes?

 

[Kaivokz]

I'm yelling about this stuff on the Obsidian forums; who knows, perhaps they will listen... but I'm not too optimistic about that because this beta feels so much more finished than the P1 one. That was so obviously rough that there was much more space to be heard.

Anyway at this point it's not really worth to play a pure caster. As multiclasses they can complement builds nicely (e.g. add some arcane oomph to a fighter) but unless they make some fairly drastic changes, the classic D&D wizard and priest are DOA.

Fighting the good fight.

Sad to hear this—even though pillars Wizards are 3/4ths D&D Sorcerer and 1/4th Wizard, they’re still the closest CRPG representation of a vancian mage that I have experienced in many years. The new “magic” system sounds like pure decline.

In the meantime... I suppose I’ll consider alternatives to the Wizard. Maybe Nalpazca monk? Depending on how powerful drugs are, they might have more interesting/impactful choices to make in combat. Anyone tried it yet?

 

[FreeKaner]

However priests have to pick their spells on level-up so their selection is much more limited.

WHY?

Because some people (hi Adam Brennecke) found getting a fuckton of spells all at once overwhelming.

Getting just one spell per level seems like an overcorrection, though.

Jesus fucking Christ.

 

[Prime Junta]

In the meantime... I suppose I’ll consider alternatives to the Wizard. Maybe Nalpazca monk? Depending on how powerful drugs are, they might have more interesting/impactful choices to make in combat. Anyone tried it yet?

Haven't tried it but the martial classes overall are more fun. I would even say some are somewhat improved over P1, except for the more restricted development.

 

[Infinitron]

Hey Prime Junta, what are your thoughts on the Penetration mechanic?

 

[Prime Junta]

Hey Prime Junta, what are your thoughts on the Penetration mechanic?

Oh that? It's fine. Main problem RN is that the combat tooltip that pops up when you don't have enough Pen vanishes too quickly so you have to go to the combat log to see what's going on, but that's a known issue. (Also it pops up sometimes when it shouldn't, e.g. if you've got Consecrated Ground hitting characters already at max health.)

While it's cruder than the scalar system they had in P1 the crudeness doesn't have much gameplay impact and it does make penetration more goon-friendly. So it's a net win I guess, grogs lose nothing and goons have a slightly easier time.

 

[Prime Junta]

BTW one thing that is worth mentioning is encounter density. It's much better. There are plenty of fights but there's also space between them, not every map is stuffed full of trash mobs.

 

[Jimmious]

Is there a reaction from Obsidian's part to the criticism so far? Do they for example agree that combat is fast or that wizards get too few spells ?

 

[anvi]

Me: Finally, a trader.

NPC: I suppose introductions are in order. Aloth Corfiser, at your service. I'm a wizard by training and an adventurer by necessity. I was born in the Cythwood, part of the mainland of the Aedyr Empire. Both of my parents served the nobility, which afforded me an education for which I'm grateful. However, there were no open positions in those houses, and so I decided to seek new means in a new land.

Me: *Frantically uninstalls*

 

[Prime Junta]

Is there a reaction from Obsidian's part to the criticism so far? Do they for example agree that combat is fast or that wizards get too few spells ?

If there has been I haven't seen it. They usually don't post reactions like that though, instead they deliberate a bit and ask follow-up questions and propose solutions (and just ignore complaints they think aren't legit).

 

[Jimmious]

Me: Finally, a trader.

NPC: I suppose introductions are in order. Aloth Corfiser, at your service. I'm a wizard by training and an adventurer by necessity. I was born in the Cythwood, part of the mainland of the Aedyr Empire. Both of my parents served the nobility, which afforded me an education for which I'm grateful. However, there were no open positions in those houses, and so I decided to seek new means in a new land.

Me: *Frantically uninstalls*

You saw a guy fighting outside an inn and you thought "finally a trader" ? Not the brightest tool in the shed?

 

[Mazisky]

About wizards complains:

Aren't those suppose to get many spells by looting grimories in poe2?

 

[Prime Junta]

About wizards complains:

Aren't those suppose to get many spells by looting grimories in poe2?

Grimoires should mitigate the problem for wizards, but priests and druids have no such recourse. Even so grimoires ought to be craftable to really fill the gap.

 

[Mazisky]

About wizards complains:

Aren't those suppose to get many spells by looting grimories in poe2?

Grimoires should mitigate the problem for wizards, but priests and druids have no such recourse. Even so grimoires ought to be craftable to really fill the gap.

Druids and priest getting shitton of spells early game felt exagerated for me in poe1.

They should have few options at firsts levels and ending by having lot of skills at max lvl. Imho

 

[Jimmious]

Yeah I also found the amount of priest spells a bit too much per level. But that's probably because 50% of them were not really useful in comparison

 

[Maculo]

However priests have to pick their spells on level-up so their selection is much more limited.

WHY?

Priests needed a nerf somehow. Whether this was the best way is arguable, but Priests had a well rounded toolkit of spells to the point of absurdity. Priests had anti-affliction spells that practically bypassed certain encounters, great heals, fantastic might/perception buffs, and good if not great dps spells (stacking shining beacons, abusing cleansing flame and envenomed strike, etc). Early game Priest was like playing Dani Devito, but late game Priest was like the Predator/Dr. Manhattan. Personally, I prefer choosing spells, but I had hoped that the strength of each individual spell would increase.

I agree with Prime Junta that pure casters feel anemic. In the PotD fights, I cannot tell to what extent, if any, they contribute relative to multi-class or martial class characters.

What surprises me is that Paladins have a "passive feat" tree in addition to the ability tree. It seems Obsidian could just tweak each class to have an abilities tree, a class specific passive tree, and a general feats tree. The system already exists in game.

Lacrymas I forgot to upload the screen shot, but Priests of Skaen get sneak attack as their subclass feat.

Provided magic gets worked out, you could have a very fluffy Eothas build with summoned weapons, as you get Firebrand (fire sword) and summon weapon (weapon associated with faith) early on. It sounds neat on paper, but so far my parties are getting slammed on PotD.

 

[FreeKaner]

Druids needed no such nerf. I agree that some of the spells were rather useless, I'd say 1-3 would simply not make it past the opportunity cost per tier but that's no reason to remove the system altogether, making spells more varied and useful in different situations was.

 

[Prime Junta]

I agree with Prime Junta that pure casters feel anemic. In the PotD fights, I cannot tell to what extent, if any, they contribute relative to multi-class or martial class characters.

Yup. When the fights drag on casters become fairly useless -- they don't have that many casts, those casts aren't as impactful as they used to be, and once spent they're sitting there with their thumb up their ass plinking away with whatever weapon they have. Since cross-class martial skills are now gone, they're always going to be pretty bad at that. Martial classes OTOH just keep on truckin'.

-------> multiclass casters are much better, because they have access to their other class's martial skills. With the casting times and risk of interrupt though, even they're better off fighting rather than casting a lot of the time.

 

[CptMace]

Every time I go on Obsidian forums and I see posts from Gromnir and I feel like sticking a hot pineapple in his ass.

I have nobody on ignore here at the Codex.

I do have Gromnir on ignore.

Oh yeah, the guy who larps on forums...

AH! GOOD FUN!

 

[Grunker]

I agree with Prime Junta that pure casters feel anemic. In the PotD fights, I cannot tell to what extent, if any, they contribute relative to multi-class or martial class characters.

Yup. When the fights drag on casters become fairly useless -- they don't have that many casts, those casts aren't as impactful as they used to be, and once spent they're sitting there with their thumb up their ass plinking away with whatever weapon they have. Since cross-class martial skills are now gone, they're always going to be pretty bad at that. Martial classes OTOH just keep on truckin'.

-------> multiclass casters are much better, because they have access to their other class's martial skills. With the casting times and risk of interrupt though, even they're better off fighting rather than casting a lot of the time.

This doesn't matter much to me, I was going to be multiclassing everyone anyway - much more so now that they removed genitals

EDIT: dat auto-correct