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

[Abu Antar]

I won't disappoint Joshua. I will ignore these items.

 

[Seari]

Totally forgot that you can have pets. Now all that's left is to add mounts in the expansion, and we'll have a proper IE successor.

 

[Duraframe300]

Update is today according to Adam.

 

[Grunker]

I won't disappoint Joshua. I will ignore these items.

You can savely use the pig. It has no gameplay effect. The Sawyer will not look down upon you with hate for its use.

 

[Duraframe300]

Badler:

QA is doing the final parts of their checks. There are a few wonky issues that have crept in, but nothing too horrible. Once I get the okay from QA I will toss everything up for you guys. I still need to compile the patch notes (I have been out of the office since late last week), so those will likely come later on tonight.



We are also hoping to put up a new Mac beta build. We are currently running through it to see if it is feasible.

 

[hemtae]

Sorry, guys. Not happening tonight. There were a few really strange issues that we didn't want to release in the beta. We just finished building out a new build but there isn't enough time to run a full QA cycle tonight. Good news is that we can probably release pretty early tomorrow if the fixes worked.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69201-update-on-the-update/page-5#entry1539877

Yay Obsidian.

 

[Sensuki]

Found one PE voice actress

https://twitter.com/elspetheastman

https://twitter.com/elspetheastman/status/532941224198430721

http://elspetheastman.com/

 

[Abu Antar]

Found one PE voice actress

https://twitter.com/elspetheastman

https://twitter.com/elspetheastman/status/532941224198430721

http://elspetheastman.com/

Wasn't she already know? I think I remember seeing you post about here some time ago. (I say this because I recognize her voice samples.)

 

[Duraframe300]

Found one PE voice actress

https://twitter.com/elspetheastman

https://twitter.com/elspetheastman/status/532941224198430721

http://elspetheastman.com/

Wasn't she already know? I think I remember seeing you post about here some time ago. (I say this because I recognize her voice samples.)

Yes

I've known before at least. Thats why I didn't post about that tweet.

 

[Duraframe300]

And I'm correct. I mentioned her July 2nd

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...o-the-new-thread.75947/page-1222#post-3363159

 

[Sensuki]

I'm guessing she finished her recording recently.

 

[Sensuki]

QA Team playtesting the new build now

QA is still giving the beta a full run. Once I get the report back from them I will know whether it will be okay for distribution.

Probably know in a few hours I guess.

 

[Duraframe300]

Its live

 

[Abu Antar]

It finished downloading whiteout me even knowing. I didn't try out the previous update, so I will probably give this a try. Might save it for tomorrow.

 

[Infinitron]

So, is there ever going to be another Kickstarter update?

 

[Duraframe300]

A new Windows Backer Beta update has been distributed through Steam. We have made a lot of fixes and some changes since the last update. In addition to general fixes, the team has been hard at work making some changes based on a play week that we did a couple of weeks back. You may even see a few new Abilities for classes based on the team's feedback.



You will also notice that many of the icons are now in place and we have even started to get some VO in place.



We have not been able to get an updated Mac build, but we are hoping to put one out sometime in the next couple of weeks. One good bit of news for Mac users, though, is that the build should be able to run directly from Steam now.


Here are some of the issues that have been fixed and some that are still on the list for fixes.


Fixed

Save/Load/Persistence

• Fog of War does now persists on Save/Load and transitions. - Thread Link
• BB Fighter will no longer become invisible after Save/Load. - Thread Link
• Uninstalling the game should now remove all files that the game created. - Thread Link

Area Design

• Hendyna no longer wanders off to the forest at times. - Thread Link

Spells/Abilities/Classes/Gameplay

• Medreth's Boar Companion no longer follows the party from scene to scene, causing combat issues. - Thread Link
• Hazard spells (Slicken, Web, Chill Fog, etc...) are no longer attaching themselves to affected targets. - Thread Link
• Creatures should now properly play death animations and drop loot. - Thread Link
• Fighter Passive Armored Grace has had its description updated to reflect its recovery modification. - Thread Link
• Paladin Auras, Zealous Focus, Zealous Charge, and Zealous Endurance no longer deactivate immediately when clicked. - Thread Link
• Fan of Flames level 1 Wizard spell, no longer plays a VFX with improper textures. - Thread Link
• Charmed/Dominated creatures no longer attack themselves. - Thread Link
• Crystal Eater Spiders, Crystal Eater Spiderlings, and Widowmaker Spiders are no longer bypassing 10 DT.
• Missed attacks in combat are still causing hit reactions and hit SFX. - Thread Link

Art

• Hendyna's home has a visual shaking effect when entered and zoomed in. - Thread Link
• Morning Stars (of the non-Fine Quality) are transparent in game and character creation. - Thread Link

User Interface

• Targeting reticles persist after death if the creature is killed while moused over. - Thread Link
• Winfrith and Tenfrith's shops do not have name and values listed for items in the shop UI. - Thread Link
• Savage Endurance tooltip is showing too many decimals. - Thread Link
• Character Creation buttons can have a significant delay when clicked.
• Opening and closing the Area Map shifts 2D UI elements (Including character circles). - Thread Link
• Temp Status icons are sometimes appearing during combat (White Squares with Green Circles).

Known Issues

Save/Load/Persistence

• Save/Load causes the inventory paperdoll not to show weapons and shields until another character is selected. - Thread Link
• Save/Load causes character shadows to disappear on the East and West sides of Dyrford Village. - Thread Link
• Saving a paused game, closing and reopening the client, then loading that game via the Continue causes the game to load in paused. - Thread Link
• Memory usage increases after loading the game (closing the client and opening it resets this). - Thread Link
• Memory usage increases after transitions (closing the client and opening it resets this). - Thread Link
• Enchanted mods disappear after loading the game.
• Memory usage increases by 300-800MB after 1-2 Save/Loads or Transitions, this does not appear to worsen further.
• Save files can become unreadable if PC loses power supply while the game is running.

Area Design

• The Water Wheel in Dyrford Village seems to be rotating in the wrong direction. - Thread Link
• The Temple Skaen entrance is visible on the area map without first moving the statue. - Thread Link
• Boar companion is left behind when Medreth leaves. - Thread Link
• Dengler's Store cannot be accessed after returning to the Dracogen Inn.

Spells/Abilities/Classes/Gameplay

• Trap Triggered and other similar bark texts persist for too long. - Thread Link
• Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit Ranges are off by 1 value. - Thread Link
• The Goldpact Paladin talent Enduring Flames is causing Flames of Devotion to apply a permanent DoT effect. - Thread Link
• Best of Weapons are not showing the proper damage type in the combat log. - Thread Link
• Talents Resilient Companion, Faithful Companion, and Painful Interdiction are not working properly.
• Some new class abilities have been added for the druid, fighter, paladin, and wizard. These abilities have missing strings and temp icons.
• If the Ranger or their Companion are knocked out near an enemy while the other is far away, they will repeatedly fall unconscious.
• If you hire an adventurer when you have a full party, the adventurer will be made with no items.
• On death load doesn't function if a entire party is knocked out while one party member is dominated.
• Changing difficulty level in-game doesn't scale the number of opponents correctly.

Art

• The Health bar indicators feel somewhat unpolished and appear to overlap the portrait. - Thread Link

Items

• Cape/Cloak items do not align with character's shoulders and clip through character models. - Thread Link
• The Sabre will sometimes strike for 0.0 damage negating the attack entirely. - Thread Link

User Interface

• Assigned Action Bar Hotkeys are duplicating ability UI and not unassigning previously assigned keys. - Thread Link
• UI screen borders are shifted offscreen in higher resolutions causing quest updates etc to become clipped. - Thread Link
• The level up button in the character sheet appears available even if you cannot level up. - Thread Link
• "Best of" weapons do not display their change in damage type in the combat log when the alternate type is used. - Thread Link
• Paladin's description is missing the word "Health" after the health multiplier. - Thread Link
• Accuracy shown in the Inventory and Character sheet do not reflect the bonus for single 1 Handed weapons and Enchant/Mod accuracy effects.
• Character Creation attribute allocation arrows continue to make SFX sounds if clicked after they have disappeared. - Thread Link
• White damage values in the combat log only display whole numbers and not decimal values (Makes DoT effects misleading).
• Time stamp font is small in when viewing saved games. - Thread Link
• Traps and Hidden Secrets change the mouse cursor when hovered over (before they are discovered). - Thread Link
• Saved games are not ordering properly and are sometimes resetting their play time.
• Stash access in the Shop UI needs to be switched to page format.
• Item tooltips often appear behind the inventory and loot UI.

Audio

• Combat Music is no longer playing.

 

[Zed]

So, is there ever going to be another Kickstarter update?

yeah, probably within a couple of hours.

 

[Infinitron]

So, is there ever going to be another Kickstarter update?

yeah, probably within a couple of hours.

You sound sure. They haven't released KS updates for beta updates before.

 

[Zed]

So, is there ever going to be another Kickstarter update?

yeah, probably within a couple of hours.

You sound sure. They haven't released KS updates for beta updates before.

from forums:

And the kickstarter update from last wed ???

We have an update that we are holding off on posting until the beta goes live. Once the beta goes live the update should go out that day (today or tomorrow) or the next.

 

[Abu Antar]

Cool. I hope we get some new info not related directly to the beta. Some art or music. or maybe stronghold mechanics.

 

[Duraframe300]

Update by Josh Sawyer, Project Director



Hello, all. The Pillars of Eternity team has been putting a lot of time into playing and fixing the game. In addition to the feedback that beta testers have given on our boards, we also conducted an internal play week so the developers could get a good feeling for how the game felt from start to finish (or at least as far as they could get).



We learned a lot from the play week. Most notably:

• Pillars of Eternity is a big game. Only two of our developers managed to finish. One was a designer who developed a lot of the crit path and sprinted straight for the end. The other found an early ending and decided to wrap his story up there. About half of the developers had not yet made it to Defiance Bay (the first big city).
• Most of the devs had a lot of fun playing the game. The players ranged from hardened IE veterans to fresh newcomers. There was enough challenge for the old guard but none of the new players were so overwhelmed that they couldn't learn as they went along.
• Even so, tutorial tips and the Glossary can go a long way. While some of the players picked things up quickly, most found the learning curve to be difficult. We're addressing the major points with tutorial messages, clearer and more descriptive Glossary entries, and refinements to the UI.
• Despite our bug fixes to animation and Recovery times, combat was still too fast. We increased the Recovery of most creatures and tuned the global Recovery factor to slow down combat overall. Movement speed was also tuned down for a large number of creatures (specifically, spiders, beetles, many spirits, and other creatures).
• Melee Engagement needs to be communicated more clearly. The arrows we currently use are really a secondary piece of information, who is Engaging whom. We will be modifying the selection circle itself when someone is Engaged to make the state very obvious at a glance. Additionally, we still need a visual effect to indicate when a Disengagement Attack is occurring.
• We also found that the standard casting and Recovery times were too long. People felt that they could not respond to threats quickly enough. The standard casting time was adjusted down to make casting feel less sluggish.
• Hiring adventurers, buying items, crafting, and enchanting were all much too expensive. These have all been made more affordable, especially crafting and enchanting.
• All classes need a per encounter ability to use at 1st level. Early in the game, it's easy to run completely out of per rest abilities and you may have few or no companions. Per encounter abilities ensure that every class has something to do other than auto-attack at low levels.

In addition to all of this testing and bugfixing, we've also been recording and integrating all of our voice overs for dialogue and character voice sets. The recording process is complete and we're now hooking them all up into the game. The audio folks have also been hard at work creating more varied combat sounds to better communicate what's going on in battle. Here's a sample of some of our companion VO:

• Companion voice over sample.

Performance optimizations are ongoing, but we've already made great progress in the past few weeks. Adam and Roby were able to reduce memory overhead and loads times by a huge margin. Many of these optimizations were achieved by how data is packaged in our builds and loaded in when the game loads. Today, backers who are in the Backer Beta will notice that we have a Mac build available for download and testing. We are continuing work on the Linux build, but are still trying to resolve some resource management issues.



There are a lot of items in Pillars of Eternity and the artists have been working their way through the list. Here is a sampling of the new icons that have been going in for various treasure and quest items:

We also have some new portraits for Ocean Folk and Pale Elf characters. More are still coming!

That's all for this week. Let us know your thoughts on our forums. As always, thank you for your continued support.

 

[Infinitron]

Ahhh yes, new build, new portraits.

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[Abu Antar]

Josh:

It's my fault the strings don't appear for some of the new abilities. Here are the appropriate descriptions in case you want to use them:

Nature's Vigor (1st level druid spell)
Draws on the invigorating power of nature, creating a mild regeneration effect and raising Max Endurance on party members.

Disciplined Barrage (3rd level fighter ability)
The fighter intensely focuses on his or her training, significantly raising Accuracy for a short amount of time.

Deprive the Unworthy (7th level paladin ability)
The paladin temporarily snuffs out all active beneficial effects on a single foe. The effects resume once Deprive the Unworthy ends.