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

Infinitron

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Given the choice I think people who play on harder difficulties will build around combat, and sacrifice skills.

Well, they're still getting skills, right? Just maybe not the skills they would have preferred. And aren't all Talents supposed to be useful for combat?

It seems like before, you could fight however you wanted, and ALSO have whatever skills you wanted. Now those two frameworks are attached, intertwined - if you want to have a particular choice of skills, you might have to have fight in a certain way. And if you want to fight in a certain way, you might have to limit yourself to a certain selection of skills.

People who like min-maxing and archetypes can derive some satisfaction from this change.
 

Sensuki

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That's a complete 180 of their original design goals. You could already min/max - people who cannot into gamist style builds are a bunch of cry babies. I'll play with the changes, but I'm probably going to campaign against them. Something Awful doesn't seem to like the changes either.

On the other hand, the new recovery time rules have been changed to something that I suggested a while ago. Recovery time is no longer paused while moving, but ranged weapons suffer a recovery time movement penalty, and there are feats to reduce it. I'm not sure that was really necessary anymore because non-firearm type weapons are rubbish anyway, but whatever. It seems to have been implemented exactly as I suggested on the forums a while ago.
 

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That's a complete 180 of their original design goals.

I wouldn't say 180. Sawyer isn't above removing some choice - that's how he explained why it was fine for the Might attribute to affect all damage, despite that removing the choice to build a character who is only "Mighty" at magic but not melee etc.

It's clear that he likes the concept of "character development as archetype selection". All those perks in FO:NV like "Grunt" and "The Professional" and "Sneering Imperialist" etc. So this move isn't a complete surprise.

Anyway, now that there are a bunch of Talents in the game, what about their originally intended function? Do they allow you to customize your characters to be more passive or active?
 

Sensuki

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No, the talents don't affect your character in that way at all except for the new health healing talents which are a 1/rest active. You now get a choice of abilities upon level up (there are no new ones, you can just now choose the order within a certain range). For the Fighter - you can choose Knock Down or Armored Grace first. Eventually you might pick Knock Down, but you can ignore it for as long as you like.
 

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No, the talents don't affect your character in that way at all

I see. Might want to ask if they've decided that the ability to choose abilities on level-up has superseded talents in providing that functionality. Because AFAIK Sawyer never stopped saying "That's what the talents will do, that's what the talents will do".
 

Sensuki

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The number of talents which give you something "new" are very limited. It's all D&D style stuff that passively improves things you already have.
 

Sensuki

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There are actually some new actives. There's one called Envenomed Strike which adds poison damage to a weapon attack @ 3/rest. Dangerous Implements (Wizard) makes Implement attacks better at the cost of your own Health (Modal).

I don't know whether I'd take these though because the passive ones seem way better. Here guys - you can be a better character 3 times per day, or all the time - your choice!
 

Zed

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I think it's good that they embedded skills into talents. Another way would be to tie skills to class. You know, like in a certain series of predecessors.
But this could be alright.

I'm getting a little worried with just how god damn buggy everything is tho. Every time they fix something, twice the amount resurfaces.
 

Sensuki

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I think I've figured out how to do it, re-installing Visual Studio 2010 now, will test it out shortly.

edit: yep, it's gone. Removed the code from the EngageEnemy method.
 
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ZagorTeNej

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And the talents giving skills is really gay.

Eh depends on how much you liked separated combat and non-combat skill point pools in the first place. Skills being the consequence of your character build (via picking talents) seems like a more interesting system to me (and a more logical one).

This way atleast you (presumably) won't have builds like a dumb barbarian who only picked "Hulk smash" talents but also happens to be a loremaster or something (because you have to spend non-combat skill points on something).

I think that it's a nice way to include some roleplaying flavour.
 

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All skills are "non-combat". This isn't Fallout.

Before this, the skills were a minor, disconnected, auxiliary system. Now they feel like they're integrated into character development. That's good.

It would be nice if you could pick a talent more frequently, though, or else the skills will only go up in large leaps once every three levels, instead of more gradually. Or can you now?
 

Sensuki

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OMGZ the game is SO MUCH BETTER without Melee Engagement, if the AI actually had IE targeting clauses ... it would feel like playing an IE game again almost (despite the retardedly fast combat speed).
 

Athelas

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How long would it take you to make a 20-page dissertation arguing for removing melee engagement?
 

Sensuki

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I can use videos instead. Cubiq will probably help me because he hates it too.

I tried to kite a beetle around before, they all have faster move speed than the party, they can always catch up to you, although same as the IE games, if you're running in a straight line, they can't stop to attack you.

Pretty much everything has faster ms than the party.
 

Infinitron

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Probably done deliberately to prevent kiting.

Uh, except enemy NPCs which are typically the toughest enemies you'll meet in these games, therefore most likely to be kited.

I don't think so - I think they made "beast" enemies fast, because realism or whatever.
 

Sensuki

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Kiting does seem to personally offend some of their devs or something. Even enemies which are supposed to be slow - Oozes, move waaaay faster than the party.
 

Frusciante

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Good things about new build:

- Dont know why but combat clarity is much better in this build, maybe because of targeting indicators
- New skill icons are nice
- Many new feats which is nice
- Combat speed seems fine for me. Especially when they add adjustable slowmo speeds
- Some new art and environmental effects
- Queuing actions is a nice addition to manage the micromanagement

Bad:
- Skills in feats sucks
- Pathfinding is worse: they actualy did what Sensuki asked in one of his videos. The party is now placed much closer together, pathfinding system cannot handle this.
- Still so many bugs

Is the problem with the melee engagement system in the execution or in the idea? I though most people (including you Sensuki) like the idea on paper.
 

Sensuki

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I don't think it suits real time combat.

Obsidian has fixed some of the AI targeting clauses in this patch, however it seems they have deliberately left some in ... and now I see why. The most notable one left in is on engagement. When a character is engaged, they cancel their current action and auto attack their engager. I distinctly recall Josh Sawyer using the word 'snag' in the Melee Engagement video, or in one of his posts describing Melee Engagement ... this must be what he means.

If you place your Fighter somewhere with Defender mode on, he will 'snag' up to three enemies and force them to attack him. Unfortunately the reverse is true for party members. When party members are engaged, they will begin auto attacking enemies and cancel their current attack and move commands (I don't think they cancel ability use anymore). If the BB Rogue opens up with an Arbalest attack, all enemies in the vicinity will begin targeting the BB Rogue. Depending on the script they have, they will fulfill other clauses such as Lowest DT, Lowest Deflection, EngagedBy, Who's doing most damage to them ... etc but the Engagement clause overrides everything else. I think the auto attack on engagement for party members is probably there to 'protect' people from Disengagement attacks or something, but holy fucking shit it's annoying. This makes combat feel somewhat uncontrollable, particularly in Melee.

I removed Engagement in a mod I made today and *cha-ching*, combat feels a step closer to the Infinity Engine games. A recovery time animation, changes to the movement speed, general combat pace and AI targeting clauses would probably bring it into line.
 

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