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

[Dorateen]

We hear people say that they like dwarves, they like the dwarves in the world, everyone seems to be like, "Yeah, fantasy dwarves." But they don't make them.

The hell is he talking about

 

[Lacrymas]

I was going to make a male statuesque Bleak Walker Paladin at one point, but I'm going to make her a female dwarf now, in Josh's honor. When I was young and stupid and still played WoW, I played a female dwarf priest. There's also the fact that dwarven racials aren't that good in PoE.

The gulf between the skill of players in PoE is actually wider than in the IE games just because there is no pre-buffing and that places the weight on tactical decisions, rather than pre-combat preparation. Coupled with the fact that most people don't take the miniscule amount of time to understand the system and just blindly rush the mobs, this will inevitably lead to different players playing through the game in a vastly different way depending on their skill. And I think Josh knows this, he isn't stupid, that's why they created 5 difficulty levels.

If PoE2's combat system is implemented well, this will lead to even more of a gulf because all the changes they've made make the combat more difficult. Less spells and 1 less party member means less tactical options, it doesn't mean "streamlined". This is the irony of this game, by trying to streamline PoE's combat for the normies, they actually made it more challenging to penetrate for them. Grognards will know which spells are useful and pick those, but normies won't, so they won't even have the chance to bash their head against the wall until something sticks.

 

[santino27]

Lot of builds on their official forums suggesting Boreal dwarves. Not as many as hearth orlans or pale elves, but still... I'm surprised so few actually play them.

 

[Krzysiek]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Lacrymas]

The casting time isn't the problem. Even if the casting times were instant, casters won't reign supreme, at least not in the damage department.

 

[Lacrymas]

I have explained why at least 3 times, Infinitron, it's not my problem you keep insisting on the cast times.

 

[Infinitron]

I have explained why at least 3 times, Infinitron, it's not my problem you keep insisting on the cast times.

Empowered spells = more DPS, Empowered spells that cast quickly = even more DPS, can you into math

https://forums.somethingawful.com/s...=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=10#post481306595

 

[Lacrymas]

This isn't an MMO where you have a rotation, Infinitron, I don't know if you've noticed that. When you have 1, maximum 2, casts of Fireball per encounter, you can't empower spam it. You do it once, then go cower in the corner while the melee do the real DPS. If you don't empower it, it does nothing, at least on PotD.

 

[Background Character]

The more I read about wizards in PoE2 the sadder I get

Spoiler

 

[Lacrymas]

Ciphers, apart from Soulblade, are worse, though.

 

[Jenkem]

wtf the first time I played POE I used a wizard and when I replayed with the DLC I used a cipher are you telling me they now suck wtf

what classes aren't shit now?

 

[Ulfhednar]

wtf the first time I played POE I used a wizard and when I replayed with the DLC I used a cipher are you telling me they now suck wtf

what classes aren't shit now?

MC Fighter/x, Monk/x, Barb/x, Paladin/x - take your pick.

 

[Jenkem]

how about FUCK MELEE CLASSES

 

[Lacrymas]

All kinds of melee aren't shit. Obs' insistence that casters are actually face-meltingly great makes me think, though - what if we just don't know how to play them right or don't understand their design? Are they designed only around the Empower mechanic? If so, why have Empower at all, just bake it into the spells? I mean in a damage-dealing capacity, debuffs are another matter in which they can't compete at all. Like I've said before, they do fine damage only with Empowered spells, but again, why have that liability when melee can do what they can but more consistently? They really have to figure what Empower is actually doing in the context of these mechanics.

Or they aren't playing on PotD, where nothing of this matters.

 

[Ulfhednar]

If I'm playing them wrong, I honestly don't know what I could change - wizards and priests have no passive talents, so the only thing I could do differently is choose different spells.

 

[Lacrymas]

Empower spam their spells, that's all I can think of. Go into battle -> Empower all the damage-dealing spells you can -> rest -> repeat. That's what I mean by why have Empower at all if that's what they are designed around, it's obvious they can't compete without that crutch, if they can even with it. I'm still on two minds about the debuffs, the debuffs applied by spells are usually AoE, while melee ones are generally single-target, but are instant. I have to test which one is more desirable.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Sensuki]

All kinds of melee aren't shit. Obs' insistence that casters are actually face-meltingly great makes me think, though - what if we just don't know how to play them right or don't understand their design?

They are testing at normal or lower most likely. Try playtesting on that difficulty and see if that is the case.

 

[Lacrymas]

Normal is kind of irrelevant, though, I can make a party that shreds the mobs before any caster can finish casting their spell on that difficulty. It's ...complicated. The mobs on PotD have much more health than on lower difficulties, making casters weaker because they have no sustainability, the limited amount of damage they can dish out performs proportionally worse in that context. There are many issues that bleed into each other and are interconnected that work to keep casters down. On lower than PotD difficulty, they perform worse because of the cast times, making them "unfun" for normies because they are comparatively shittier than melee in purely speed, rather than damage. They perform worse on PotD because of lack of sustainability (among other things, which are also important, like Penetration), making them non-viable for grognards because they are comparatively shittier than melee in damage dealing, utility and survivability.

Those are two distinct issues that can't be fixed with one global swoop. I predict that Infinitron's ...unsubtle manipulation of Empowered spells being instant will fix the problem for normies and lower difficulties, but will do nothing on PotD.

 

[Ulfhednar]

I'm thinking they should drop the empower thing, and grant bonus power levels for concentration in addition to the interrupt shield. The more concentration you stack, the more powerful your spell casts.

 

[badler]

The interesting part is Badler is the GD for DLCs, wasn't he the only producer on PoE1? Is he a designer too? And he wasn't even involved with Deadfire(base game) AFAIK...

Pillars of Eternity 2 - Systems Designer
Pillars of Eternity - Lead Producer

According to his LinkedIn

I think badler has moonlighted in all sorts of projects over the past few years.

So Brandon, tell us more about these DLCs...and what Josh is going to do instead of working on them.

Can't talk about the DLCs much right now. For those that have asked:

• Do I like D&D?
  • Yes. I grew up on D&D and still play it fairly often. Right now I'm in a campaign being run by Justin Britch (PoE2 Lead Producer).
• What work have I done on the PoE franchise?
  • I was the Lead Producer on PoE1 and have worked as a Systems Designer on PoE 2 at various times.
• What have I been doing lately?
  
  • Between stints on PoE I have worked on Tyranny (Systems Designer) and Pathfinder (Lead Designer). In both of those cases, I was coming kind of late into the process to take over the work of others. Most recently, before moving back onto PoE2, I was focused on creating pitches for the company. I can't tell you if any of the pitches were successful, but I thought some of them were really cool.
• Why am I working as the Game Director on PoE2 DLC?
  • Well, the biggest reason is because I feel I can do a great job with it. I asked for the opportunity and explained what I wanted to do with the DLC. I was lucky enough to be given a shot. I'm very familiar with PoE, D&D, and the IE games. I've also been discussing the possibility of jumping into a Game Director role with Obsidian for a while now. In addition, Josh had mentioned he wanted to hand off direction of the DLC to work on other things, so it was a good time for me to jump in.
• Why not Bobby/Adam/Another Dev?
  • It just as easily could have been someone else, but the timing worked out well for me to do it and the company has confidence in my ability to create cool DLC for them. For those wondering why Bobby or Adam didn't do it, keep in mind that they're knee deep in closing a game down. They are in important roles and can't be easily moved.

Anyway, I don't mind answering any questions that I can, but I probably can't talk about anything DLC specific for a little while.

 

[Maculo]

The interesting part is Badler is the GD for DLCs, wasn't he the only producer on PoE1? Is he a designer too? And he wasn't even involved with Deadfire(base game) AFAIK...

Pillars of Eternity 2 - Systems Designer
Pillars of Eternity - Lead Producer

According to his LinkedIn

I think badler has moonlighted in all sorts of projects over the past few years.

So Brandon, tell us more about these DLCs...and what Josh is going to do instead of working on them.

Can't talk about the DLCs much right now. For those that have asked:

• Do I like D&D?
  • Yes. I grew up on D&D and still play it fairly often. Right now I'm in a campaign being run by Justin Britch (PoE2 Lead Producer).
• What work have I done on the PoE franchise?
  • I was the Lead Producer on PoE1 and have worked as a Systems Designer on PoE 2 at various times.
• What have I been doing lately?
  • Between stints on PoE I have worked on Tyranny (Systems Designer) and Pathfinder (Lead Designer). In both of those cases, I was coming kind of late into the process to take over the work of others. Most recently, before moving back onto PoE2, I was focused on creating pitches for the company. I can't tell you if any of the pitches were successful, but I thought some of them were really cool.
• Why am I working as the Game Director on PoE2 DLC?
  • Well, the biggest reason is because I feel I can do a great job with it. I asked for the opportunity and explained what I wanted to do with the DLC. I was lucky enough to be given a shot. I'm very familiar with PoE, D&D, and the IE games. I've also been discussing the possibility of jumping into a Game Director role with Obsidian for a while now. In addition, Josh had mentioned he wanted to hand off direction of the DLC to work on other things, so it was a good time for me to jump in.
• Why not Bobby/Adam/Another Dev?
  • It just as easily could have been someone else, but the timing worked out well for me to do it and the company has confidence in my ability to create cool DLC for them. For those wondering why Bobby or Adam didn't do it, keep in mind that they're knee deep in closing a game down. They are in important roles and can't be easily moved.

Anyway, I don't mind answering any questions that I can, but I probably can't talk about anything DLC specific for a little while.

I was hoping for a Games of Thrones-esque answer for how you out maneuvered Bobby or Adam for the DLC lead.

Jokes aside, congrats.

Edit: In terms of size, will the DLC be roughly comparable to the White March in size/scope?

 

[Urthor]

badler what project management software does Obsidian actually use out of curiosity?

Always kind of wondering what veteran gamedev uses to plan a ridiculously large and complicated project where getting it right is supremely important, as opposed to regular snobs making an iphone app in a corporate job.

 

[Sensuki]

Normal is kind of irrelevant, though, I can make a party that shreds the mobs before any caster can finish casting their spell on that difficulty. It's ...complicated. The mobs on PotD have much more health than on lower difficulties, making casters weaker because they have no sustainability, the limited amount of damage they can dish out performs proportionally worse in that context. There are many issues that bleed into each other and are interconnected that work to keep casters down. On lower than PotD difficulty, they perform worse because of the cast times, making them "unfun" for normies because they are comparatively shittier than melee in purely speed, rather than damage. They perform worse on PotD because of lack of sustainability (among other things, which are also important, like Penetration), making them non-viable for grognards because they are comparatively shittier than melee in damage dealing, utility and survivability.

Those are two distinct issues that can't be fixed with one global swoop. I predict that Infinitron's ...unsubtle manipulation of Empowered spells being instant will fix the problem for normies and lower difficulties, but will do nothing on PotD.

It is likely that their internal testers are not as efficient at the melee combat as you are, so that makes the casters seem valuable because enemies are still alive when spells go off.

If you want to prove otherwise, merely posting here may not be enough and video evidence always helps. I haven't been reading the OE forums but I haven't really seen many beta vids in this thread or on SA the few times I've skimmed through the most recent pages. PoE beta had heaps of people posting videos quite often.