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

Ulfhednar

Savant
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Messages
809
Location
Valhalla
It's interesting how easy it is to break the game by using specific subclasses or multi-class combinations. There is not even a semblance of balance between classes or even subclasses within the same class. Evoker is the only usable Wizard subclass or there is no reason not to be Devoted if one of your classes is Fighter, etc.
Honestly, I wish they would scrap the subclasses and the weapon proficiencies, dump them all back into a class talent pool or a general talent pool, and then let you pick and choose from both of your class trees and the general pool. It would fit a lot better with the mechanics from the first game.

Some of the subclasses are just mechanically bad. The Mage Slayer (desc.: Gains spell resistance and can disrupt enemy spells, but cannot use potions or scrolls and beneficial spells have shorter durations) has a situational advantage that comes with a generalized cost. The black jacket loses constant recovery for reduced recovery on weapon switching and an extra proficiency slot - not bad if you want to make a gun specialist, but constant recovery is kind of a big deal.

Devoted is bugged right now, so they get their advantage with all proficient weapons, not just one. But honestly, how many new players will switch weapons to match the enemy weakness anyway? And what is the point of eventually giving the player 7(!) proficiencies, other than to clutter up the UI with modal icons. It made sense in the IE games when pips were cumulative, but no character will ever use 7 different weapons. You don't even have that many equipment slots.

Multiclassing has made characters much stronger, or at least has introduced a much wider power range for characters, but the system itself is much less flexible than it was in the first game. You end up picking a lot of the same talents over and over because you don't have nearly as many options in how to spend that talent/ability point.
 

Ent

Savant
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
540
There is no reason to not subclass as a cipher. You either take beguiler to get better CC or you choose soulblade to get one of the best single target nukes in the game.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,427
mage slayer is not bad. When you consider this is not baldurs gate 2 and basically every class with an ability is a mage.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,010
Pathfinder: Wrath
Honestly, I wish they would scrap the subclasses and the weapon proficiencies, dump them all back into a class talent pool or a general talent pool, and then let you pick and choose from both of your class trees and the general pool. It would fit a lot better with the mechanics from the first game.

That's what I've been saying since the beginning, drop the subclasses and put their effects into the passive trees of the classes. Give even more effects and feats.

Some of the subclasses are just mechanically bad. The Mage Slayer (desc.: Gains spell resistance and can disrupt enemy spells, but cannot use potions or scrolls and beneficial spells have shorter durations) has a situational advantage that comes with a generalized cost. The black jacket loses constant recovery for reduced recovery on weapon switching and an extra proficiency slot - not bad if you want to make a gun specialist, but constant recovery is kind of a big deal.

Yes, like I said, there is zero balance between classes and subclasses. With some of them, there's no reason to not pick a subclass, while others (Wizard) only have one usable subclass. There are also arbitrary limitations to some things, like Shifts not using your gear bonuses, so you might as well go naked and give that gear to others. This entire system is a mess, tbh, and will continue to be a mess for a while.
Devoted is bugged right now, so they get their advantage with all proficient weapons, not just one. But honestly, how many new players will switch weapons to match the enemy weakness anyway? And what is the point of eventually giving the player 7(!) proficiencies, other than to clutter up the UI with modal icons. It made sense in the IE games when pips were cumulative, but no character will ever use 7 different weapons. You don't even have that many equipment slots.

There really is no reason to switch weapon types. This makes some subclasses pointless and others overpowered (Devoted). I switched between weapons a lot in P1 (two sets of stilettos, a lot of types of guns, all because they have a useful on-hit ability), and I'll probably do it again in 2 if I can get some benefit out of it. There is no problem with Devoted bonuses, you'll just switch between the same types of enchanted weapons, like I did with my Priest in 1. Proficiencies are pointless as it stands now, too much of a malus, too little bonus to be worthwhile.
Multiclassing has made characters much stronger, or at least has introduced a much wider power range for characters, but the system itself is much less flexible than it was in the first game. You end up picking a lot of the same talents over and over because you don't have nearly as many options in how to spend that talent/ability point.
I'd say you'll constantly pick the same talents and abilities for each class. Many, many, many abilities (be they passive or active) are useless or at least bad compared to others. This was kind of a problem in P1, where you were still using a very limited amount of abilities because they were just more useful, but this game exacerbates the issue. There is not enough variety in character building choices for a lot of classes, at least not in the beta.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,566
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Can't someone ask Josh about level scaling and how the more open ended nature of the game will be handled?
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,445
Yes, like I said, there is zero balance between classes and subclasses. With some of them, there's no reason to not pick a subclass, while others (Wizard) only have one usable subclass. There are also arbitrary limitations to some things, like Shifts not using your gear bonuses, so you might as well go naked and give that gear to others. This entire system is a mess, tbh, and will continue to be a mess for a while.

We've come full circle then, since wildly unbalanced (sub)classes are what people romanticize about Bg2. :decline:
 

Ulfhednar

Savant
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Messages
809
Location
Valhalla
Multiclassing strains the number of useful choices since you stay on the same power tier for more levels and there is no general pool to run to if you don't like your class options for that tier.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,010
Pathfinder: Wrath
And not liking the options you get per tier is the usual response when leveling up. Spellcasting classes suffer more from this, because a lot of the spells are useless.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,479
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Can't someone ask Josh about level scaling and how the more open ended nature of the game will be handled?

Level scaling has been mentioned in a few of the Q&A streams:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10527

Are there plans to alter the difficulty settings at all?

JS: Not the difficulty settings so much. We have talked about how we want to handle scaling. We don't think that the way that we did scaling in White March for example was particularly great. We had to hand-script a lot of the scaling stuff. Our thinking is, generally speaking, that people either want scaling or they don't want scaling. And so we're more likely to have something that procedurally scales things across the board and we ask the player if they want to opt into it at the beginning of the game. If someone says "Yeah, I want things to scale"(within a narrow band), they can opt into that. If they don't, then it's not going to do it at all.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10698

Leveling scaling: will there be an option to scale enemies up but not down?

JS: No, there's an option to scale — basically, there's an option to just the crit path, everything, or nothing, and it's always within a specific bounded range. So, it's never going to — I shouldn't say never: there's a range in which things will get scaled; it won't just scale forever in either direction, it will always be capped.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10787

Will level scaling be included in the Backer Beta for the purposes of testing higher level mechanics/gameplay?

JS: Yes. Level scaling as an option — so, when you hit New Game in the Backer Beta(and this is the plan for the main game as well), one of the options that will come up is level scaling, and you can have it be level scaling for everything or level scaling just for the critical path. For our purposes there's one quest that is considered the critical path in the beta.

So, yeah, it's in there, and we'll see how it works or doesn't work and get your feedback on that.
 

Krzysiek

Learned
Joined
Jul 13, 2017
Messages
97
Leveling scaling: will there be an option to scale enemies up but not down?

JS: No, there's an option to scale — basically, there's an option to just the crit path, everything, or nothing, and it's always within a specific bounded range. So, it's never going to — I shouldn't say never: there's a range in which things will get scaled; it won't just scale forever in either direction, it will always be capped.
I can't understand what's the problem for them with having only scaling up.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,182
We went to sail towards the sun
Hi-ho, Hi-ho
The captain dressed up as a nun
Hi-ho, Hi-ho
You see he was really a girl inside
Hi ho, Hi-

~~This broadcast has been interrupted by Ministry of Truth~~
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,010
Pathfinder: Wrath
Btw, the music is kinda meh in the beta. Bad composers usually like using "exotic" instruments a lot to hide musical ineptitude, but this time he didn't even use those while it would've been appropriate.
 

pomenitul

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 8, 2016
Messages
979
Location
μεταβολή
That's too bad. PoE1's musical backdrop was merely serviceable, ever-so-slightly above average at best. Compositional incline will have to wait once again.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,182
Yeah the original soundtrack was meh, it's like he couldn't decide how he wants to score it. Half of it sounds like 1950 TV score and the other half is just orchestral ambient mostly. I was hoping he could improve significantly in 2 given the working conditions he had on the first game, aka, finding some amateur musicians in Obsidian ranks and recording Obsidian's hallways next to broom closet with cleaning ladies swooping around.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,010
Pathfinder: Wrath
It's merely serviceable again, just so you aren't in complete silence. Fantasy vidya gaem composers should really listen to the Heroes of M&M soundtracks. While they aren't super intellectual or on the level of the great masters, they are musical, inventive, have a wealth of timbres and add a lot to the aesthetic.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,182
Pirate theme alone puts more expectations on the music because we're used to seeing it on the big screen accompanied by thrilling soundtracks.
 

FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
Joined
Mar 28, 2015
Messages
6,910
Location
Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye
Music and audio is essential to video games, they are so criminally underutilised and undervalued.

Also I am low key triggered by any early modern period naval activity being strictly attributed to and associated with piracy.
 
Last edited:

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,177
Location
Bulgaria
I am more of a faster music fan.


Anyway it seems that i will be running trough the game on normal,not caring about combat mechanics and shitty dual class system without scaling,hopping that the story is decent.
 

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