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

FreeKaner

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Armour & penetration can work if they can balance it but that doesn't seem easy.
Speaking of which, was it ever explained why they decided to implement the whole penetration thing? What's wrong with DR?

Only DR penalizes fast attacks and becomes hard to balance late game.

This is kinda like how Underrail has DR/DT, but JES decided that the only way to balance that is to be able to pierce enemy % DR. Also does something to differentiate weapons/abilities I guess, but looks like he ended up with a convoluted mess.

There is nothing convoluted about it, it's the opposite, it's too simplistic and abstracted. It lacks the asymmetric response of DR. It can be balanced, but it requires a lot of numbers adjustment and a lot of support from other systems, is that really worth it?

I also think that armour existing as a rating and penetration being a bypass in numbers would work best. For example a weapon with 7 penetration will be doing minimum 7 damage regardless, irrelevant of armour rating and if that is higher than armour rating it will instead do full damage. This way you can have fast weapons with low penetration that still does good on DPS against armoured targets just by penetration alone while also having slow weapons with high penetration as well that will just full penetrate for big hits.
 

IHaveHugeNick

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then in a point-buy system you'll always minmax
and what exactly is the problem with this?

You'll never make stats relevant to all classes. Min-maxing is still prevalent in PoE despite being designed against min-maxers.

If you hate min-maxers so much that you're willing to shit out a garbage stat system then just remove stats, items, rolls, and turn it into a visual novel where you pick dialogue choices.

That's exactly the point though. You could literally just remove the attribute system from IE games and nothing of value would be lost. Min-maxing in a system with dump stats is just not a compelling process. It's not a process at all, you just roll with the same set of attributes and that's it.

Meanwhile, I've beaten PoE 3 times by now and attempted to make several more characters just to fuck around, and even after all this, the character creation still takes a good bit of time.
 

fantadomat

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PoE does have really nonsensical attribute system. Strength giving damage to all attacks,perception not giving damage bonus to range attacks or intellect for magic attacks,is retarded and i don't see a reason why they would change it. It won't be something major if they make the damage boost in three times. The game will play the same way,more or less. In their crusade against dump stats,they made it so every class have the same dump stats,strength and dexterity. Also the only two stats that make sense are dex and end.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
and what exactly is the problem with this?

The problem is that it's rote and boring and there's no informed choice involved. 18 18 18 3 3 3 all the time, every time.

You'll never make stats relevant to all classes. Min-maxing is still prevalent in PoE despite being designed against min-maxers.

Minmaxing itself is not the problem. Rote minmaxing with no meaningful choice is the problem. In (A)D&D there's only way one sensible way to minmax your fighter. In Pillars, there are many.

If you hate min-maxers so much that you're willing to shit out a garbage stat system then just remove stats, items, rolls, and turn it into a visual novel where you pick dialogue choices.

:retarded:
 

Sensuki

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On the flip side, while choosing attributes on character creation in the BGs/IWDs may be generally pointing to a particular attribute array for most classes, at least the actual gameplay offered various different ways to approach combat.

Pillars tries to standardize (maybe half intentionally and half collateral damage) the manner in which the player undertakes combat and choice takes a backseat here in favor of different ways to build characters. In turn the gameplay becomes quite rote ... I think in large part due to the mass homogenization of systems and class mechanics

I prefer the latter to the former (if I have to choose between both). I don't really care about attributes that much, you set them at the start of the game and forget about them, for the most part. You can still choose the gear and abilities/etc that you want to use and play how you want to play.
 
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Delterius

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maxresdefault.jpg
 

AwesomeButton

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Pillars tries to standardize (maybe half intentionally and half collateral damage) the manner in which the player undertakes combat and choice takes a backseat here in favor of different ways to build characters.
"Build characters differently, then play combat the same!" :lol:

you set them at the start of the game and forget about them, for the most part.
Attributes fluctuate a lot in PoE though, due to items' effects and afflictions.

I find this to be a source of additional confusion at times. Some affliction which both applies a penalty to Accuracy and also reduces your Perception, leading to an additional loss of one Accuracy per point, instead of flatly telling you how much accuracy and reflex you lose. Who needs that? Overengineered again.
 
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Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Attributes fluctuate a lot in PoE though, due to items' effects and afflictions.

I find this to be a source of additional confusion at times. Some affliction which both applies a penalty to Accuracy and also reduces your Perception, leading to an additional loss of one Accuracy per point, instead of flatly telling you how much accuracy and reflex you lose. Who needs that? Overengineered again.

It's a valid excuse to stack those effects though. Anyway, the new buff/affliction system in PoE2 should be more transparent.
 

AwesomeButton

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My number one request would be to reduce the numbers inflation (dice 100 is too granular for practical purposes if someone cares about the numbers) and normalize all reload/recovery times, not to make them completely uniform but bring them closer, so combat doesn't overflow the player with the amount of data per second.

In PoE2, as I see it from here, you have to be a psychic and know when exactly you will get hit badly, so that you can take account for your recovery time, and then wait another 3 sec for your Second Wind to get cast :D If such things escape designer scrutiny I fear to think what other, less obvious bugs are remaining.
 

Immortal

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On the flip side, while choosing attributes on character creation in the BGs/IWDs may be generally pointing to a particular attribute array for most classes, at least the actual gameplay offered various different ways to approach combat.

Pillars tries to standardize (maybe half intentionally and half collateral damage) the manner in which the player undertakes combat and choice takes a backseat here in favor of different ways to build characters. In turn the gameplay becomes quite rote ... I think in large part due to the mass homogenization of systems and class mechanics

I prefer the latter to the former (if I have to choose between both). I don't really care about attributes that much, you set them at the start of the game and forget about them, for the most part. You can still choose the gear and abilities/etc that you want to use and play how you want to play.


I actually like attributes being useful for different builds. I think it's a pretty fair criticism of 2E and 3E that your stats are largely determined by your class and anything else is just shit.

However in 3.5E with all the different prc combinations you can play with, stats became way more fun. Some builds around prc's are min / maxed by pumping 3 stats and not being able to dump any or only a few. Like when you get into 3 or 4 multiclass options - your skills and stats become very important for optimal builds.

Example: Maybe my build doesn't need int at all.. but I need just enough skillpoints to hit certain thresholds to mix two prc's together. Or to get enough UMD to offset a missing feature of one build. ect ect.

Where I disagree with the fanboys especially, is that POE 1 is some holy grail of stat heaven. After Josh finished his tinkering, there are about 2 or 3 stats right now that are hugely optimal over everything else. I find myself - no matter what build, pumping the same stats and dumping others.
(AKA Perception is usually a must and Resolve is usually a dump, then depending on class you may fill Dex or Int)

I was hoping PoE 2 would improve on it, not dick around for 2 years then revert everything back to PoE1.. oh well.
 

Mazisky

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I've just read a hands on from GDC , a bit of new content with Raedric's hold vibes:

They had to kill a dude into a keep set on a island of pirates, with 3 ways of approach:

-Kill them all

-Show pirate flag and infiltrate like pirates and kill him while pirate party is going

-Go full stealth
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I actually like attributes being useful for different builds. I think it's a pretty fair criticism of 2E and 3E that your stats are largely determined by your class and anything else is just shit.

However in 3.5E with all the different prc combinations you can play with, stats became way more fun. Some builds around prc's are min / maxed by pumping 3 stats and not being able to dump any or only a few. Like when you get into 3 or 4 multiclass options - your skills and stats become very important for optimal builds.

Example: Maybe my build doesn't need int at all.. but I need just enough skillpoints to hit certain thresholds to mix two prc's together. Or to get enough UMD to offset a missing feature of one build. ect ect.

Where I disagree with the fanboys especially, is that POE 1 is some holy grail of stat heaven. After Josh finished his tinkering, there are about 2 or 3 stats right now that are hugely optimal over everything else. I find myself - no matter what build, pumping the same stats and dumping others.
(AKA Perception is usually a must and Resolve is usually a dump, then depending on class you may fill Dex or Int)

I was hoping PoE 2 would improve on it, not dick around for 2 years then revert everything back to PoE1.. oh well.

I also really like D&D 3.0 and 3.5 and the PrC and multiclassing systems there.

On the other hand, while PoE might not be the holy grail, the attributes there are far more interesting then in most other games available. So even if not perfect, it's still a huge achievement.
 

ArchAngel

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then in a point-buy system you'll always minmax

Min-maxing is still prevalent in PoE despite being designed against min-maxers.

PoE system is more rewarding to minmax (from a player satisfaction standpoint) in than IE because there are actual tradeoffs for dumping stats, instead of autopilot 3 WIS 3 INT 3 CHA or similar.
And Bg is more rewarding to play because everything else. So let see, should be care about 1% of the game or the other 99%.. hmm hmm
 

Prime Junta

Guest
I'm not a fan of D&D 3 with PrCs. The reason is that they remove agency from the player, and give it to whoever designs the PrCs. All that's left for the player to do is to pick the PrC they want to go for and then colour very very carefully inside the lines to make sure he meets all the frankly pretty arbitrary requirements. Any creativity for builds happens accidentally when something falls between the cracks, and there's room to dip into another class for an unexpected synergy.

(This is also why I'm a bit salty about the changes to the character system in P2. Once you've picked your class/subclass/multiclass combination, things are significantly more on rails than in P1. It's still much more flexible than D&D, but from where I'm at a step back from P1.)
 

fantadomat

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No matter what we say,IE games do have better combat and are more challenging. Don't remember a single impressive encounter in PoE,that was fun to fight and figure it out.
 

Immortal

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I actually like attributes being useful for different builds. I think it's a pretty fair criticism of 2E and 3E that your stats are largely determined by your class and anything else is just shit.

However in 3.5E with all the different prc combinations you can play with, stats became way more fun. Some builds around prc's are min / maxed by pumping 3 stats and not being able to dump any or only a few. Like when you get into 3 or 4 multiclass options - your skills and stats become very important for optimal builds.

Example: Maybe my build doesn't need int at all.. but I need just enough skillpoints to hit certain thresholds to mix two prc's together. Or to get enough UMD to offset a missing feature of one build. ect ect.

Where I disagree with the fanboys especially, is that POE 1 is some holy grail of stat heaven. After Josh finished his tinkering, there are about 2 or 3 stats right now that are hugely optimal over everything else. I find myself - no matter what build, pumping the same stats and dumping others.
(AKA Perception is usually a must and Resolve is usually a dump, then depending on class you may fill Dex or Int)

I was hoping PoE 2 would improve on it, not dick around for 2 years then revert everything back to PoE1.. oh well.

I also really like D&D 3.0 and 3.5 and the PrC and multiclassing systems there.

On the other hand, while PoE might not be the holy grail, the attributes there are far more interesting then in most other games available. So even if not perfect, it's still a huge achievement.


Neverwinter Nights 2 really got close to the prc juggling (When you use custom class kits like Kaedrins or for PW's.. They added like 15 - 20 new classes base and prc)
Once you get into classes that offer Arcane or Priest spell casting progression as like.. a bard or something. The way you plan attributes completely affects how your class plays.

It might be the difference between say, level 9 spell casting as a cleric, or epic songs as a bard, or a reserve spell casting feat. Like it becomes very fun to design.


I'm not a fan of D&D 3 with PrCs. The reason is that they remove agency from the player, and give it to whoever designs the PrCs. All that's left for the player to do is to pick the PrC they want to go for and then colour very very carefully inside the lines to make sure he meets all the frankly pretty arbitrary requirements.


This post is really surprising to me because I know your an avid pnp player.. and I couldn't disagree more.

Do you avoid power builds or something? Or just don't play 3.5E that much?
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Don't remember a single impressive encounter in PoE,that was fun to fight and figure it out.

Funny, I can think of several.

TBF almost all of them were in the expansions, and none of them were quite as good as BG2 at its best. Even so, Concelhaut and Llengrath are in the same ballpark as far as I'm concerned. And the one in the unexpectedly big and cool sidequest in the mines in WM2. Plus a few others.
 

frajaq

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I've just read a hands on from GDC , a bit of new content with Raedric's hold vibes:

They had to kill a dude into a keep set on a island of pirates, with 3 ways of approach:

-Kill them all

-Show pirate flag and infiltrate like pirates and kill him while pirate party is going

-Go full stealth

Wait can you expand on this, where did this info come from?

Are you there at GDC and in one of the presentations they used a PoE 2 quest as an example?
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
The PrC requirements are there for balance reasons imo. I tried to make an Undead Shape Shifter/Druid/Weapon Master (scythe) in NWN, but, while possible, it was really feat starved and almost unplayable before 21st level. If it wasn't, however, there would be no reason not to go that combination if going scythe WM. They could've easily just put a character level requirement on PrCs and not "restrict your creativity", but they didn't and I very much doubt it was an arbitrary decision.

Regarding attributes in PoE - eh, I'm kinda ambivalent towards them. Feats are much more important and a lot of the times attributes don't matter much. While there is a difference between 18 MIG and 10, it's eehhh, whatever. INT and DEX seem the most versatile and useful stats.

As we've discussed enough times already, PotD is more challenging than vanilla BG saga, but SCS is even more so. The problem is the general design of the system, you won't be able to get to SCS levels in PoE, even if such a mod was possible.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Regarding attributes in PoE - eh, I'm kinda ambivalent towards them. Feats are much more important and a lot of the times attributes don't matter much. While there is a difference between 18 MIG and 10, it's eehhh, whatever. INT and DEX seem the most versatile and useful stats.

I think attributes are about where they should be in P1. They do make a difference, but not a night-or-day difference, and that's about right. (There are a few exceptions, INT for example makes a pretty ridiculous difference for AoEs.)
 

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