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

[Bleed the Man]

That's why I love the codex. In no other forum would you find a discussion that sapwns through 3 pages about the renaming of a gameplay element.

And I'm not saying this sarcastically. The amount of detail put into discussing anything mechanics related is astonishing, and I learned -and keep learning- a lot from them.

As an aside, I urge you to change your avatar. Every time I see a post by you I'm thinking, sgc_meltdown just started posting again! Then I realize it's just some 2013 spaniard and get disappointed.

That's like the 4th/5th time somebody said that to me.

Happy now?

 

[Sensuki]

https://twitter.com/adam_brennecke/status/545665642821472256

No patch yet, someone wanna reply to that see what he says?

 

[Sensuki]

Persistence is Futile?

No go for tonight. Sorry folks.

Right before Brandon was going to push the build to steam, QA ran into yet another save/load issue that would make characters lose weapons. The leads thought we should resolve it before pushing. It has been resolved, but now we are having issues with the build process. Just so you understand why the turnaround is so slow, a full build takes five hours to make for windows, and extra hour for OSX. After every build we run it through a QA checklist process which can take a few hours. The whole thing can be upwards to a full work day -- I apologize, and I'm disappointed that we can't get a build out today. Roby and I are looking into the build issues, and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and we can all enjoy a new BB build.

Unfortunate, but still a day left in the working week.

 

[Sensuki]

All melee attacks now have at least two animation variants

I believe all melee attack types have at least one alternate now.

 

[Hormalakh]

Persistence is Futile?

No go for tonight. Sorry folks.

Right before Brandon was going to push the build to steam, QA ran into yet another save/load issue that would make characters lose weapons. The leads thought we should resolve it before pushing. It has been resolved, but now we are having issues with the build process. Just so you understand why the turnaround is so slow, a full build takes five hours to make for windows, and extra hour for OSX. After every build we run it through a QA checklist process which can take a few hours. The whole thing can be upwards to a full work day -- I apologize, and I'm disappointed that we can't get a build out today. Roby and I are looking into the build issues, and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and we can all enjoy a new BB build.

Unfortunate, but still a day left in the working week.

Finally, some answers as to their build process. I figured this was how it was working. The programmers always pretty much stay late and work and then let their code compile overnight. Then in the morning the QA dudes come in and run the QA checklist before OKing a push.

Which is a fine way of doing it. However, I believe their workflow is a little bit inefficient. The inefficiency occurs when the bug that is causing the issue is found quick enough (and the change in the code is made fast enough) that by halfway through the workday they can finish the code compilation. However, what can likely happen is that by the second compilation, another bug will be found that is game-breaking and a whole day is lost because it's too late for the QA to run their checklist.

What I think would help with their work process is having an extra layer of QA during code compile - if they don't have this already. One of the QA leads or a programmer should be going over major changes in the code (which should be annotated somewhere already) and verifying that the code isn't missing something obvious. In other words, someone should be looking into that "black box." This way, while the code is being compiled and before QA has to run a checklist, obvious issues will be found and they save hours or at the very least find bugs in the code they wouldn't have otherwise found. This way a whole code-compile/QA checklist run (literally a whole workday) doesn't always have to occur before it's back to programming again (saving literal hours in the process). It's an arduous task with such a behemoth (a whole game) but if code review is broken down into small chunks (at the very least reviewing the code of the major three parts that were changed in the newest BB), this can be very helpful.

It might also help with their bugsidian reputation.

 

[Copper]

Copper My way of thinking about this is thus:

I play through RPGs. I kill their monsters, do their quests and enjoy their stories. As I play them, my characters tend to level up once in a while. I don't particularly care about the details.

Fair enough, I dare say that's the majority play style.

 

[Sensuki]

If people didn't care about details then there would be no reason to make good RPGs

 

[Infinitron]

I don't particularly care about the details.

Aren't you endlessly arguing with Sensuki re: mechanics?

If people didn't care about details then there would be no reason to make good RPGs

HELLO, context. I was talking about experience points and levelling up. Something which Sensuki has said he doesn't give a shit about either, btw.

 

[Sensuki]

Leveling pace is important, to a point. Also depends on the game. But yeah besides that, I'm not averse to different XP methodologies.

Current PE implementation does need improvement though. Their non-combat XP rewards outside of quests are rather slapdash. Quite literally feels like a "Shut the fuck up XP complainers - here's some XP" implementation rather than something actually well thought out.

 

[Abu Antar]

BAdler says:

There was a problem with the build that was built last night, but there is a fix in for it. I have fired off a build and in a couple of hours we will know if it passes QA.

 

[Copper]

Exactly - Infinitron isn't just channeling John Walker when he says they did it to shut up the man-babies - he's also stating cold hard news-truths.

On XP - ultimately, you end with Gaider if you put too much emphasis on narrative rewards without being critical. Self-important, empty, senseless drivel about giving the player the illusion of choice.

 

[Duraframe300]

Regarding Linux

There is a Unity update that fixes our Linux problems. Normally, we wouldn't update our engine this late in development, but we don't have much of a choice (without completely rewriting large portions of code). We typically have the programmers run on any new updates for a few weeks to make sure there aren't major issues. Adam is currently doing this. If everything checks out we might be able to upgrade the team soon.

 

[Duraframe300]

http://instagram.com/p/wzsllgpxyR/

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/546094951243591680

 

[Ninjerk]

 

[Bester]

Regarding Linux
There is a Unity update that fixes our Linux problems. Normally, we wouldn't update our engine this late in development, but we don't have much of a choice (without completely rewriting large portions of code). We typically have the programmers run on any new updates for a few weeks to make sure there aren't major issues. Adam is currently doing this. If everything checks out we might be able to upgrade the team soon.

That means an upgrade to unity 4.6, which will allow creating custom UI in mods with much more ease. Pretty cool.

 

[Sensuki]

Oh snap

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news everyone. We can't push the build out. We are noticing that some NPCs are not being killed.

Unfortunately, next week is pretty dodgy since many people will be on break in and around Christmas. I wouldn't expect that a new backer beta build will come out until the week after Christmas.

Apologies, guys. I know how excited you are for a new build, but I want to make sure that we don't put out a backer beta with a major bug if we can avoid it

The game has a mind of it's own and does not want to be updated in less than a month

 

[Shevek]

Man, what a kick in the nuts. I really wanted to try the new build over my vacation.

 

[Shevek]

On the plus side...

There is a Unity update that fixes our Linux problems. Normally, we wouldn't update our engine this late in development, but we don't have much of a choice (without completely rewriting large portions of code). We typically have the programmers run on any new updates for a few weeks to make sure there aren't major issues. Adam is currently doing this. If everything checks out we might be able to upgrade the team soon.

Cool, engine update.

 

[Duraframe300]

Hopefully it works out okay.

 

[Athelas]

I don't know why they even these announce these things. The amount of times they've announced an update only to delay it by a week or two due to a last-minute bug creeping in is absurd.

If it gets updated before Christmas, it will be a true Miracle on 34th Street.

 

[Starwars]

For anyone in the know about Unity, are there any other "general" perks to the engine upgrade? Hopefully it won't mess things up too bad but with the way the backer beta updates have been going, I'm sure it will screw up plenty.

Seriously, I'm all for a "flexible" schedule when it comes to getting the public beta updates because things *do* go wrong in development but I think it's pretty weak if they can't manage to push one out before the holidays. Perhaps they should just push out new updates those (seemingly rare) times when the build actually *is* somewhat stable. This planning thing clearly doesn't seem to be working very well.

 

[Duraframe300]

I don't know why they even these announce these things. The amount of times they've announced an update only to delay it by a week or two due to a last-minute bug creeping in is absurd.

If it gets updated before Christmas, it will be a true Miracle on 34th Street.

Because people would complain that Obsidian doesn't care to provide updates.

 

[Shevek]

For anyone in the know about Unity, are there any other "general" perks to the engine upgrade?

If they are going to Unity 4.6, the biggest change appears to be a new UI system (according to Google).
http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-4.6
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/05/28/overview-of-the-new-ui-system/

 

[Athelas]

Good, now I have another reason to hate Linux users.

 

[Hormalakh]

i guess nobody decided to look at the character sheet josh posted more closely. that's the new one. I see they've gone with icons to provide info. hammer for crushing, etc.