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

[Ellef]

You really think POE as it stands facilitates a gish character? Precombat buffing is typically the cornerstone of such a build, I don't think it can work here.

 

[LizardWizard]

Muscle/melee mage is definitely viable. Sensuki's DPS > everything argument works only if you're into save scumming and not playing on PoTD and/or perma death Iron Man. If you're extremely glassy you aren't going to survive being ganged on if something slips through. With the right build though, they can do solid damage with a polearm while off-tanking to some degree.

 

[Sensuki]

Have you considered that the DR-raising abilities are actually meant for "melee mage" builds, eg, to facilitate PoE's equivalent of multi-classing? In other words, that they're something that's supposed to top off an already high Deflection score.

You seem to be thinking of them instead as "last minute save" type abilities intended to save your standard weakling mage's ass in case he gets caught out in the open and ambushed.

I am thinking of them from how they were used in BG2. Melee Wizards in PE would just be trash IMO. I haven't actually tried to do one for a while, so maybe I will try later this week or something, but just based on pure numbers alone, it will be horrible. There is one level 1 spell that summons a magic Pike for you to attack with, however you'll probably end up doing more damage just using your Implement with Blast. I wonder if there's something like Tenser's Transformation later on.

You really think POE as it stands facilitates a gish character? Precombat buffing is typically the cornerstone of such a build, I don't think it can work here.

Play a cipher instead.

Sensuki's DPS > everything argument works only if you're into save scumming and not playing on PoTD and/or Iron Man. If you're extremely glassy you aren't going to survive being ganged on if something slips through. With the right build though, they can do solid damage with a polearm while off-tanking to some degree.

I don't play on PotD because playing on PotD is not helpful for testing/tuning. Creature stats are modified. Anything I say based on PotD will simply be discarded by the designers. Tuning of the three standard difficulties all influences the encounters of Path of the Damned.

You are right that a party of glass cannons would get destroyed on PotD because of the amount of extra enemies (and extra engagements) and the increased monster stats. I'm not really concerned about that though because that game mode is simply a by-product of the others.

One problem the Wizard has in melee is that they have 10 less Accuracy than other classes and there is no way to make that up, other than to use the level 1 spell that gives you a magic one at +10 accuracy. They also have 10 less Deflection than other classes.

edit: It's also not pure DPS, but DPS and disable. CC/disables are a far better method of mitigating damage in this game, especially if they come from a per-encounter resource (or a replenishing resource). I imagine that on PotD, high defenses probably don't help you either - you'd rely on Crowd Control.

 

[aeonsim]

Character building is fun, but the actual gameplay has quite a few problems. Regardless, as I said in the SA post - it's a strong foundation to build upon.

Attribute design still needs help/tweaking - but class/ability/talent/gear selection is really good. There's a plethora of combos, and lots of unexplored territory as to what you can actually do with builds.

I dunno, I think attributes are at a much better place than talents and abilities. Taking the wizard for example, something like Arcane Veil that is supposed to be a mage's panic button is utter garbage. And I find most of his spells are useless; there's less than a handful of spells each spell level that are good (making the system of switching out grimoires also superfluous).

And yeah, they nerfed the paladin auras so that you literally have to be standing side by side to them in combat to benefit from them.

So the thing about Wizards in PoE is they are a decent AoE DMG/CC class, with the ability to deal with those OH SHIT moments when you come up against an enemy that is highly resistant to the rest of your party. While they tend to have some really good spells, the less obvious ones are also useful as they target different defences. If the enemy has High Def/Will (so physical attacks and Cipher abilities are out) the Wizard can hit Fort/Reflex and probably with an ability that lowers one of the two high Stats to the point where the rest of the party becomes effective, same thing if it's High Def/Fort or Def/Ref (low Def isn't an issue as every one can hit them). Secondly if the DR is particularly high the wizard is one of the few classes that can easily switch through all the damage types to find ones that work (Crush, Pierce, Slash, Shock, Fire, Corrode, Freeze, (excepting only Raw I think)).
If you use multiple grimore the trick is to build them so they target different combinations of Defences so if you've got nothing effective you can back off a bit slow them down with the rest of the party switch and wait while the cool down ends then reenter the fray with spells that will make it easier for the rest of the party to act. The thing is that a lot of these secondary spells may not be that great by them selves avg-crap damage etc, but when you come up against an enemy where it's needed it's very useful. In the Beta except for on PoD it's not so critical as few enemies are so dangerous except for maybe Elder Bears, and some of the high level Shades/Spirits in the ruins. And thus the party can easily beat most things to death.

Druids can do this to a certain degree but they've only 2/3rds the spells and don't have the full range of damage types and attack types at each spell level. Now even with out a wizard the encounters aren't impossible but they do make things easier, they're the swiss army knife of classes, they may not be the best knife ever but they can pretty much to everything to some degree or another.


With regards to Arcane veil I think it's really designed for the first couple of levels where +20 Def is more useful, for later levels you really need to be taking Hardened Veil as well at which point +45Def is decent, for groups like Merdeth's party it'll switch a level 4 Wizard from can't be missed with a decent number of critical hits to being Missed 40% of the time, can only be hit 25% of the time and it can't be critically hit. That's fairly decent shift in defence, the problem simply is that it's a per-day ability rather than a per Encounter ability fix that and Arcane veil would go from pretty crap to not bad, triggering an ability to be missed or take half damage 75% of the time for 10-20 secs is useful!

 

[Sensuki]

That was my suggestion too. Switch to 1/encounter and Bob's Your Uncle.

 

[aeonsim]

Yeah that'd do nicely.

The difference between BG and PoE wizards was in BG wizards started out crap and by late game (BG2) they were the master of pretty much everything.
In PoE wizards seem to start out as a 'Jack of All Trades and a Master of None' then shift more into a Master of AoE/CC while still remaining a bit of a Jack of all trades.

It's a bit of a shift for those coming from a D&D wizard but ends out working reasonably well, though over all they've probably had one of the biggest powershifts of any classes between PoE and D&D, which can be a pretty massive shock for those expecting a D&D wizard.

 

[Sensuki]

That said, hopefully they will be able to fix that in the future.

 

[Nihiliste]

They have a month of tuning left to do and they're in a better position than inXile was when they had one month left to go.

That really shouldnt be the standard for a company like Obsidian

 

[Roguey]

That really shouldnt be the standard for a company like Obsidian

Absurdian.

They really overestimated the amount of work that would be involved in making one of these things from scratch. After slamming those IWD and Torment dunks they thought they had it all figured out.

 

[Sensuki]

you mean underestimated?

 

[Sensuki]

From the looks of things, given that NCarver has been awol since the new patch and Josh said that "Nick triggered a bunch of disengagement attacks at PDXCon", I gather that he went to Europe with Josh as the game demonstrator ?

TBH I think that guy is gonna rise through the ranks. He's probably the most diplomatic forum poster out of the Obsidian staff, seems very diligent, Josh asks his opinion on design stuff and when you ask him questions or raise issues to him he's clued up and seems to know his stuff. He actually takes the time to give you a good infodump as well "Oh yeah this issue happens because x, related info A and B", whereas other devs might just give you a short one line reply.

Wouldn't be surprised to see him move up in the world on future titles

 

[Duraframe300]

From the looks of things, given that NCarver has been awol since the new patch and Josh said that "Nick triggered a bunch of disengagement attacks at PDXCon", I gather that he went to Europe with Josh as the game demonstrator ?

TBH I think that guy is gonna rise through the ranks. He's probably the most diplomatic forum poster out of the Obsidian staff, seems very diligent, Josh asks his opinion on design stuff and when you ask him questions or raise issues to him he's clued up and seems to know his stuff. He actually takes the time to give you a good infodump as well "Oh yeah this issue happens because x, related info A and B", whereas other devs might just give you a short one line reply.

Wouldn't be surprised to see him move up in the world on future titles

Not that surprising. He's got quite a background and is a indie dev on the side.

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/nick-carver/56/935/202
http://www.coroflot.com/NickCarver/profile

 

[Sensuki]

BTW, Athelas et al. I think we do need to say something about the Combat Only stuff, because even with stuff like some instant pre-buffs like the Fighter's Disciplined Barrage, you have to 'game the system' to be able to use that ability on the first attack of an encounter if you attack from Stealth or attack a neutral NPC.

For instance if you want to hit someone with a Disciplined Barrage boosted Knockdown, you have to attack with another character just so it triggers the combat state, THEN you can attack with your Fighter with those abilities. I also think it's a bit of a *gotcha*.

I remember you did a thread on it a while ago but it didn't have too much impact. I think if we can put some solid cases for that shit to be revisited we can probably get it looked at in a post-release patch. Something to think about down the road, although not super critical ATM. If they untick combat only on some of the passives and the modals it should be better.

 

[Athelas]

BTW, Athelas et al. I think we do need to say something about the Combat Only stuff, because even with stuff like some instant pre-buffs like the Fighter's Disciplined Barrage, you have to 'game the system' to be able to use that ability on the first attack of an encounter if you attack from Stealth or attack a neutral NPC.

For instance if you want to hit someone with a Disciplined Barrage boosted Knockdown, you have to attack with another character just so it triggers the combat state, THEN you can attack with your Fighter with those abilities. I also think it's a bit of a *gotcha*.

I remember you did a thread on it a while ago but it didn't have too much impact. I think if we can put some solid cases for that shit to be revisited we can probably get it looked at in a post-release patch. Something to think about down the road, although not super critical ATM. If they untick combat only on some of the passives and the modals it should be better.

I'd say it's pretty critical, as exhibit A demonstrates: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ta-release-thread.93694/page-280#post-3663151

The combat state appears to be a programming shortcut to prevent lots of bugs and polish issues (I believe they said as much), but it might also be motivated by the desire to split up the combat into bite-sized chunks that are easier to 'consume'.

 

[Sensuki]

Dunno if this has been posted yet or not (probably tho)

EDIT: from neogaf

Unsure if this has been mentioned yet, but the embargo for POI impressions from those who attended PDXCON ends on the 20th of Feb. Expect a bunch of preview content and personal thoughts from press and Youtubers to go up on Friday, 1500 CET

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

It will be pretty hard to convince me to buy any of these super special digital editions that go for 190+ potatoes it he basic edition looks so good.

 

[Athelas]

Perhaps they should have reconsidered the idea to depict a person's soul/essence with the color pink.

I can't believe they're still using that old artwork (which I believe someone made during the Kickstarter campaign?). Cadegund is even still in it.

 

[Bleed the Man]

I can't believe they're still using that old artwork (which I believe someone made during the Kickstarter campaign?) Cadegund is even still in it.

Yep. I'm not complaining because the artwork is really good, but I find a bit silly to have as the cover of your game several companions that don't exist anymore/have been redesigned.

 

[Athelas]

Eh, it's not that good and it doesn't really tell you much about the game either.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I can't believe they're still using that old artwork (which I believe someone made during the Kickstarter campaign?) Cadegund is even still in it.

Yep. I'm not complaining because the artwork is really good, but I find a bit silly to have as the cover of your game several companions that don't exist anymore/have been redesigned.

Maybe they'll dd them back as a DLC.

 

[Apexeon]

Maybe they are "lazy" with the art. Can't waste any money this is a business after all.

Perhaps they should have reconsidered the idea to depict a person's soul/essence with the color pink.

I can't believe they're still using that old artwork (which I believe someone made during the Kickstarter campaign?). Cadegund is even still in it.

Can't waste any money this is a business after all. So they use all the art (even make up stuff to sell floating rocks after a major art stuff up).
Art = money.

 

[Infinitron]

I can't believe they're still using that old artwork (which I believe someone made during the Kickstarter campaign?) Cadegund is even still in it.

Yep. I'm not complaining because the artwork is really good, but I find a bit silly to have as the cover of your game several companions that don't exist anymore/have been redesigned.

Funnily, a lot of games seem to do stuff like this. The KOTOR box has a weird-looking Bastila. And that robed chick on Dragon Age's box, who's that?

 

[Bleed the Man]

I can't believe they're still using that old artwork (which I believe someone made during the Kickstarter campaign?) Cadegund is even still in it.

Yep. I'm not complaining because the artwork is really good, but I find a bit silly to have as the cover of your game several companions that don't exist anymore/have been redesigned.

Funnily, a lot of games seem to do stuff like this. The KOTOR box has a weird-looking Bastila. And that robed chick on Dragon Age's box, who's that?

The Dragon Age chick is Morrigan, just with the hood from her early designs (the rest is almost identical to the character from the actual game).

 

[Surf Solar]

It's flashy and stands out in retail stores more.
I too would have loves the classic BG style art more like they have on the almanach, but how are those moms buying stuff for their kids supposed to know what those pillars are? Architecture simulator?

Doesnt really matter much to me since I'll be buying it on steam anyway.

 

[Roguey]

So does that ad mean they managed to get this to fit on one disc, that's impressive considering Wasteland 2 needed two.