Game News Pillars of Eternity available for pre-order, gets new trailer

[Gentle Player]

- it's not realistic

It's sad that there are actually many people who genuinely, in all sincerity, actually use this particular argument. The correct response isn't even anger. It's pity.

 

[Athelas]

That's certainly ironic considering most of PoE's criticism has been about the unrealistic attribute system.

 

[Cazzeris]

More seriously, when a game has been in development for over two years, has been in beta (which is generally a feature-complete stage) for several months, and when release is another several months down the line, expecting significant and game-changing alterations to stuff like combat has proven time and again to be the stuff delusions are made of.

Wasteland 2 went through huge changes from its "gold master" beta to shipped release. From a "I only died once and it was because someone threw a grenade at me" affair to "challenging enough" (for some people).

A lot of time passed between the release of WL2's "beta" and the actual release, while PoE will only have 6 months (more or less).

Also, RTwP sucks.

 

[tuluse]

See:

If you make your RTwP game so involved that you're constantly pausing, you'd probably have had a better "flow" with a TB game.

I don't want to comment further as I've not played PoE beta, but if it's the case that there is constant pausing, even in regular battles, in order to micromanage each and every one of your unit's abilities, then why not just make it TB?

In IE games there wasn't constant pausing. In regular fights it was enough to just haste your fighters and let them go to work, which isn't exactly compelling gameplay either, but that's neither here nor there. In the more challenging fights, there was pausing to manage spell usage, while melee could be left alone unless they needed to be re-positioned or ordered to attack another target. So there was a good balance there. My understanding of PoE based on complaints (do correct me if I'm wrong) is that each class, even fighter, has active abilities that are required even in normal fights. And so, if one has to pause constantly, one really should be asking why the game isn't just TB.

Simultaneous resolution.

 

[Gentle Player]

That's certainly ironic considering most of PoE's criticism has been about the unrealistic attribute system.

Not from me; again, I don't know much about it. But if it's the whole Int being an important stat for barbarians because it increases their attack range , as I seem to remember from the other thread, then un-intuitiveness and, well, "blandness" would be more sensible criticisms than realism or lack thereof.

 

[Infinitron]

A lot of time passed between the release of WL2's "beta" and the actual release, while PoE will only have 6 months (more or less).

Wasteland 2 was in beta for nine months (December to September). Pillars seems like it will get seven, possibly more (August to March?).

Not necessarily a significant difference accounting for the Obsidian team's greater experience.

 

[Cazzeris]

A lot of time passed between the release of WL2's "beta" and the actual release, while PoE will only have 6 months (more or less).

Wasteland 2 was in beta for nine months (December to September). Pillars seems like it will get seven, possibly more (August to March?).

Not necessarily a significant difference accounting for the Obsidian team's greater experience.

IIRC WL2 got a bit better with every update, but people here doesn't appear to be satisfied with PoE's development progress. Also, inXile seems to be much more open to feedback; since half of the game was heavily influenced from it (unlike Obsidian's game).

 

[Infinitron]

IIRC WL2 got a bit better with every update

Tell that to the people who screamed that it was going to be garbage until the very end.

I'll say it again - Early Access players are a lot like modders; they have a large "craziness factor". Their opinion on things, while not to be discounted, absolutely can not be taken as representative.

 

[tuluse]

Tell that to the people who screamed that it was going to be garbage until the very end.

I'll say it again - Early Access players are a lot like modders; they have a large "craziness factor". Their opinion on things, while not to be discounted, absolutely can not be taken as representative.

Well the people that didn't like the design still don't like it, but I think felipepepe would agree that WL2 showed improvement. Just not enough and/or not the right areas.

 

[felipepepe]

It became kind of "good for what it is", but still a big waste of potential, at least the first half. There are some things that just scream "russian shovelware", like I'm playing The Fall or whatever.... I still keep most of my opinions about it.

I'm almost reaching the second half, will comment on it later.

 

[Infinitron]

Tell that to the people who screamed that it was going to be garbage until the very end.

I'll say it again - Early Access players are a lot like modders; they have a large "craziness factor". Their opinion on things, while not to be discounted, absolutely can not be taken as representative.

Well the people that didn't like the design still don't like it, but I think felipepepe would agree that WL2 showed improvement. Just not enough and/or not the right areas.

Sure he did, but this is a matter of perception. The general pattern is that the Early Access game never seems to improves faster than its angry players can find more reasons they don't like it. That's why it seems to outside observers like these games are an ongoing trainwreck.

 

[Tigranes]

See:

If you make your RTwP game so involved that you're constantly pausing, you'd probably have had a better "flow" with a TB game.

I don't want to comment further as I've not played PoE beta, but if it's the case that there is constant pausing, even in regular battles, in order to micromanage each and every one of your unit's abilities, then why not just make it TB?

In IE games there wasn't constant pausing. In regular fights it was enough to just haste your fighters and let them go to work, which isn't exactly compelling gameplay either, but that's neither here nor there. In the more challenging fights, there was pausing to manage spell usage, while melee could be left alone unless they needed to be re-positioned or ordered to attack another target. So there was a good balance there. My understanding of PoE based on complaints (do correct me if I'm wrong) is that each class, even fighter, has active abilities that are required even in normal fights. And so, if one has to pause constantly, one really should be asking why the game isn't just TB.

Simultaneous resolution.

That's not 'here or there'. It's pretty clear: If you think POE should have been TB, or TB > RTwP, OK. I love TB too. But that's a separate argument altogether.

If we want to say that RTwP is 'meant to' or works best when it is easy / hands off enough that you don't need to pause very much.... again, why? Why is "you have to micromanage" and other such comments made as if it was negative, without it actually being justified? I mean, don't we like complex combat, combat that offers a lot of choices on what to do, combat which doesn't reward screensaver gameplay? 'You need to think too much in your turn' wouldn't be a valid argument for a TB game.

So let's try and identify possible complaints:

1. People apparently want to 'enjoy watching the action unfold' and do not want to pause all the time because it is a real time game. In that case, why are you playing an RTwP game if you don't like pausing? Why not play a faster paced ARPG if you want to see the action? There are only two options to decrease pausing: make the combat simpler and easier so you don't need to intervene very often, or slow down the pace of the action so that you can make all the necessary interventions without pausing much. The former is obviously poor solution. The latter I don't think is so great either, since now you have to contend with the boredom of watching the action unfold slowly. So what exactly do people want when they want to play RTwP without the wP?

2. People say BG2 or other IE games had a good mix of high-pause difficult battles and low-pause battles. What exactly was this 'good mix'? Are people looking back to kobold battles fondly? Before POE beta everyone talked about how IE games had not enough things to do for fighters etc and it was boring to just watch them hack away and that games like BG1 had too much 'attack all, wait' gameplay. So why the flip flop? Personally, the best parts of IE combat were frenetic high-pause battles, whether achieved in circumstances like the Twisted Rune or with mods like SCS which made the whole game like that. Waiting until the enemies are positioned appropriately then launching a fireball, then getting your thief to hopefully run out of its radius, making sure your guys stand right up to the web but not inside it, trying to dodge the bloody lightning bolt cast by the suicidal enemy mage in a small corridor. All of course with high density pausing.

3. Maybe the complaint is not about high-pause RTwP in general, but the fact that POE beta has too much pointless makework and so you pause a lot but you are not making interesting decisions. I haven't played the beta since the very first version so I can't comment. If that is true, that's certainly a valid complaint. A lot of the time what I see though is a more general 'omg I pause so much it sux I don't want to pause'.

4. Lastly, sometimes it just comes down to 'why not just make it TB.' I think it's obvious that high density pause RTwP, like, say, BG2's Twisted Rune battle, delivers a very different experience compared to TB combat. I for one am glad that we can have, or at least, we can try to have, both fun TB combat and fun RTwP combat. Anyway, pausing is an inherent part of RTwP, so it makes no sense that 'you pause so much just make it TB'. That's like saying your RPG has 6 controllable characters, just make it a RTS...

 

[FeelTheRads]

3. Maybe the complaint is not about high-pause RTwP in general, but the fact that POE beta has too much pointless makework and so you pause a lot but you are not making interesting decisions. I haven't played the beta since the very first version so I can't comment. If that is true, that's certainly a valid complaint. A lot of the time what I see though is a more general 'omg I pause so much it sux I don't want to pause'.

Combat then boils down to queueing up your per encounter abilities until you're out of them and then auto attacking away at the end.

 

[Tigranes]

Exactly...?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Exactly what?

That shows that indeed that is at least one the complaints: nothing interesting to do just pushing awesome buttons.

Great idea those per encounter abilities! They even solved the great problem of rest-spam!

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Those flashy spell effects are really horrible. So ugly, so painful to look at!

 

[Bester]

Also, inXile seems to be much more open to feedback; since half of the game was heavily influenced from it (unlike Obsidian's game).

Yeah, and yet almost in every update they write how they're immensely appreciative of backers' feedback, how excited they are about all the direct interaction with the backers, how "we couldn't have done it without you", etc. Such bullshit.

 

[Tigranes]

I didn't see massive changes in WL2 combat system or other funddamentals from Day 1 Beta to release. They did fuck with the skills / attributes a lot.

 

[tuluse]

I didn't see massive changes in WL2 combat system or other funddamentals from Day 1 Beta to release. They did fuck with the skills / attributes a lot.

On day 1 in WL2 there was no crouching, destructible cover, penalty for an adjacent enemy, or headshots.

 

[Cazzeris]

They did fuck with the skills / attributes a lot.

Do you think that the problem is related to the game's balance? The game is going to receive a big patch soon, so maybe you could provide some feedback.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/balance-feedback.95286/