Pillars of Eternity

[Yoroichi]

Hey guys, long time lurker here, have mostly been posting on the 5E forum for the past months, decided to post here to get your opinion.

So, last week i saw the 1hr playthrough of pillars of eternity on twitch and am not sure what rules system they are using. There where 5 basic stats named something like athletics, vitality etc. Also the creatures where renamed,i saw some "guls" instead of "ghouls". I was fairly disappointed that they did not have any d&d stuff in there, despite raising 4million on kickstarter. I mean the basic appeal for games like Baldurs gate was that it basically was d&d.

On the bright side the game seems incredibly polished and seems to have depth.

Has anyone followed this more closely than me? What are your opinions/thoughts?

[Sajiri]

I haven't been following the game too closely, but the rules are not D&D based is all I know. Probably took inspiration from it but it's their own system (I think).

I am looking forward to it, despite not watching too much of it (then I would get hyped up and be impatient and/or disappointed when it's out) but I always liked those style of games, and the little I've seen on their wiki seems interesting with the races and classes.

[Mx.Silver]

So, last week i saw the 1hr playthrough of pillars of eternity on twitch and am not sure what rules system they are using. There where 5 basic stats named something like athletics, vitality etc. Also the creatures where renamed,i saw some "guls" instead of "ghouls". I was fairly disappointed that they did not have any d&d stuff in there, despite raising 4million on kickstarter. I mean the basic appeal for games like Baldurs gate was that it basically was d&d.
They were never going to use the D&D rules, no matter how much it raised. As was stated in the initial kickstarter, they've been building their own ruleset for it.
I'd also disagree with the assessment that D&D was the basic appeal of the infinity engine RPGs. Given a lot of the comments from the devs, I suspect a fair amount of the staff at Obsidian don't see it that way either.

I backed the game during the initial run, and have been following it since (although I was not involved in the public Beta testing). So far, there hasn't been anything there that's given me any cause for worry, and it's looking to be somewhat interesting seeing how the mechanics we've been told about come together (or possibly how they don't, if things go poorly). Obviously, final judgement will be reserved until the game is done, but Obsidian have historically been pretty good at writing games, which is the main area we're currently in the dark about.
The other potential concern is, obviously, bugs. Although given their last couple of games have been reasonably stable and they pushed back the release date for extra polish, hopefully this won't be quite as big a problem as it has been for some of their earlier releases.

[Morty]

At first it looked like yet another old-school RPG, but I've also heard there might be some actual fresh ideas in there, so I'm not writing it off entirely. Apparently, every attribute will be useful for every class. Which would be quite refreshing, if it's true. To me, not having any D&D in it is the exact opposite of a problem.

[factotum]

I'd also disagree with the assessment that D&D was the basic appeal of the infinity engine RPGs.

Case in point: Planescape: Torment is often offered as an example of one of the best RPGs of all time, yet it played so fast and loose with the D&D rules that it might as well have not been using them...

[Yoroichi]

I am not talking about the infinity engine, just Baldur's gate 1 & 2. it's the whole appeal of the D&D environment, i was excited because i was expecting to see the weapons, monsters, classes, spells that i basically known, somewhat extended etc. Especially the character creation screen :smallredface:

I was really bummed out when i saw Guls :(

but your comments do give me hope :P

[Morty]

Case in point: Planescape: Torment is often offered as an example of one of the best RPGs of all time, yet it played so fast and loose with the D&D rules that it might as well have not been using them...

The D&D rules either had little effect on Torment's quality or actively got in the way, yeah.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Personally, seeing something named "Gul" instead of "Ghoul", I think is awesome. Not as awesome as if it were Ghul, which is the modern transliteration of the Arabic word (Ghoul being the old French transliteration, I haven't read any French works translating Arabic dating earlier than the 60s though so it might be modern french).

[Knaight]

So, last week i saw the 1hr playthrough of pillars of eternity on twitch and am not sure what rules system they are using. There where 5 basic stats named something like athletics, vitality etc. Also the creatures where renamed,i saw some "guls" instead of "ghouls". I was fairly disappointed that they did not have any d&d stuff in there, despite raising 4million on kickstarter. I mean the basic appeal for games like Baldurs gate was that it basically was d&d.

I don't see the relation here. Making a fair amount on kickstarter hardly necessitates the use of the D&D rules, and while I personally don't use kickstarter, if I did not using the D&D rules would be a step towards making it more likely to get kickstarted. I'd much rather deal with a new system that is actually built with computerization in mind (given that it's on a computer) than a converted tabletop system, particularly when it's D&D.

[Driderman]

I don't see the relation here. Making a fair amount on kickstarter hardly necessitates the use of the D&D rules, and while I personally don't use kickstarter, if I did not using the D&D rules would be a step towards making it more likely to get kickstarted. I'd much rather deal with a new system that is actually built with computerization in mind (given that it's on a computer) than a converted tabletop system, particularly when it's D&D.

Well they're related in the way that you'd probably have to pay a large amount of money to be allowed to use the D&D rules. Money that could be made from a Kickstarter ;)

[factotum]

Well they're related in the way that you'd probably have to pay a large amount of money to be allowed to use the D&D rules. Money that could be made from a Kickstarter ;)

Pretty sure the basics of the d20 system (as used in D&D 3rd edition--do the newer ones also use it?) were released into the public domain by WotC. It's only stuff they consider to be brand identity, like mind flayers and beholders, that they keep under wraps.

[Knaight]

Pretty sure the basics of the d20 system (as used in D&D 3rd edition--do the newer ones also use it?) were released into the public domain by WotC. It's only stuff they consider to be brand identity, like mind flayers and beholders, that they keep under wraps.

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I could still see a company being hesitant about using the d20 system without pretty express permission from WotC, beyond just the OGL. 4e and 5e aren't OGL, so there's yet more hesitation likely there.

[Avilan the Grey]

Also, there are far better systems if you actually are going to play on a computer; the D&D systems are not... optimal (earlier editions even less so) for CRPGs.

[Aotrs Commander]

Really looking foward to it, personally... More hopeful about it than I've been about a game since... Well, before Mass Effect 2 came out and Bioware's slide from glory.

(It always tickels me a bit when people look at it and say "hey this is an old-school RPG! Why are they making an old-school RPG?" When, with it being a kickstarter, that's exactly what we were asking for. Especially since I have become steadily less fond of the "new school?" would you call it RPGs.)

I'm hoping, between this and Tides of Numenara, we might FINALLY get a contender for Torment's still unsurpassed crown.

(Though if we "only" get Baldur's Gate 2, I shall not be disappointed...)

The fact that it isn't D&D is... irrelevant. In fact, I'd got as far as to say that AD&D was more a hinderance than a help, considering as a set of rules, it was, well... Pretty crap. (I started with Rolemaster, so I have absolutely no mercy-nostalgia for AD&D.)

3.x was better (VASTLY better; I still consider it the best of the rest, even considering the hammer I take to it's numerous flaws when I run it), but without the plethora of splatbook support, the core is... Well. Remember Neverwinter 2?

(As for 4E? Despite the calls that is "like a video game" - which in some ways it is - actually adapting it to one would prove extremely cumbersome. And I know next to nothing about 5E except that everything I have hear convinces me it's not a system that I would appreciate.)

No, I think (licensing aside), not using D&D was the right choice.



That said, if any game designers fancy doing us a Rolemaster-engine CRPG, I will be there!

Serious Note: Rolemaster would also not translate well to computer games.

[factotum]

Serious Note: Rolemaster would also not translate well to computer games.

Especially since you only need to take one E critical, and roll a 66, to be instantly killed in that system. (No, I have no idea why I remember that either...).

[Knaight]

Serious Note: Rolemaster would also not translate well to computer games.

It translates better than it does to tabletop games. A nested table is a non issue in a computer game, it's slowdown at a table.

[Morty]

I just hope they avoid the old cliche of needing a rogue, thief or however you call it to detect and disarm traps and open locks. As I play through BG2 again, it's a chore I could really do without.

[Sajiri]

I never even paid attention to the rules and rolls when I first played Baldur's Gate (of course, I think I was about 9 when I first played it and I thought it was cool to play a thief that used a staff...ah the good old days). Its not like I was actively having to do any of that stuff myself, and since I had no idea what D&D was back then, it wasn't the appeal of the game for me.

I think I prefer video games to use their own systems, makes it more free to do as they want rather than stick to established rules and ideas that might not work for the current game.

[Driderman]

I certainly wouldn't mind more CRPGs using the D20 system now that I think of it. It works quite well in my opinion and with proper explanation/documentation it can provide a good mix between easy to learn and hard to master, so you can fiddle with all sorts of perks and classes like in Neverwinter Nights. Of course, since there's 2.5 editions between D20 and the current D&D edition, not much chance of that happening other than if some 3rd edition Grognards decide to make a game.

Anyway, looking forward to pillars, I'm sure I'm going to enjoy a large RPG that releases around the time where I should be dedicating my free time to my university project work :)

[Aotrs Commander]

It translates better than it does to tabletop games. A nested table is a non issue in a computer game, it's slowdown at a table.

Eh, after you've been playing it for twenty years, finding and using the tables becomes trival. I don't find RM goes much if any slower round the table in practise than typically 3.x or 4E, really, by the time you have to check all the modifiers and such...!

And the criticals make it ALL worthwhile. Let's be brutally honest - it's the crits that MAKE Rolemaster. And that flavour would be lost on transition to anything but a sort of text-based advanture, I think. As it would be difficult to program "uncerimoniously remove foe's face" (Superlarge Slash crit, if I recall correctly, that's always one of my favourites.

[factotum]

I certainly wouldn't mind more CRPGs using the D20 system now that I think of it.

As I recall, KotOR 1 and 2 use a d20 variant--can't remember if I've played any others that do.

[Driderman]

As I recall, KotOR 1 and 2 use a d20 variant--can't remember if I've played any others that do.

They do and it works quite alright. Not as well as Neverwinter Nights but it was certainly a decent system for the games.

[Morty]

I wouldn't say it works alright. KoToR 2 is hilariously unbalanced, and all challenges are eventually swept aside by Force Powers and twinked-out murder-sabres. The D20 skeleton isn't exactly a robust, functional system at the best of times, and the KoToR games try to take it places it wasn't supposed to go. NWN1 is tolerable, but NWN2 turns into a chore at high levels if you have more than one spellcaster in your party.

Video games really are better off using their own rules, especially since the cRPG genre suffers from a disheartening lack of innovation, anyway. Hopefully Pillars of Eternity has some fresh ideas, but I haven't followed it closely, so I don't really know.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Magic items really ruined the Star Wars feel in KotOR. Which was actually partly because the magic items were boring stat boosts, higher damage weapons or nonsensical effect weapons (electric damage lightsaber :smallconfused:) rather than jet packs and utility belts.

But I also hate most magic items in 3rd ed. A belt of giant strength is cool, everyone wearing ability score boosters because that's what someone of that level does just makes me feel like a wimp who needs equipment to do everything for him. Needing 6 magic items just isn't as cool as owning one.

Sorting through a list of all the magic tat you own to work out which gives the best bonuses isn't magic or customisation, its buying car insurance. Any video game that makes me go on a quest for a magic sword and then gives me a better one in a random chest is badly designed from a narrative standpoint.


I just hope they avoid the old cliche of needing a rogue, thief or however you call it to detect and disarm traps and open locks. As I play through BG2 again, it's a chore I could really do without.

Personally I find the whole idea of Rogues as just being damage dealers with backstabs but no actual scouting or utility value to be utterly pointless.

If its just all combat all the time its not a real Dungeon Crawl.



And the criticals make it ALL worthwhile. Let's be brutally honest - it's the crits that MAKE Rolemaster. And that flavour would be lost on transition to anything but a sort of text-based advanture, I think. As it would be difficult to program "uncerimoniously remove foe's face" (Superlarge Slash crit, if I recall correctly, that's always one of my favourites.

There was an FPS that used random critical tables. Crippling zombies in the leg despite consistently aiming for the head was not a experience that enamoured the reviewers.

[Knaight]

Video games really are better off using their own rules, especially since the cRPG genre suffers from a disheartening lack of innovation, anyway. Hopefully Pillars of Eternity has some fresh ideas, but I haven't followed it closely, so I don't really know.

There are some innovative games in there, and I can't say any of them would have been improved by using D&D tropes. Geneforge was innovative enough, and it managed that largely because it had a unique, well thought out setting and not a D&D pastiche, and the system was tied into the setting.

[Aotrs Commander]

There was an FPS that used random critical tables. Crippling zombies in the leg despite consistently aiming for the head was not a experience that enamoured the reviewers.

Exactly. Critical hit tables like Rolemaster are best when the combat system is itself fairly abstract - which modern cRPG games aren't.

[Morty]

Personally I find the whole idea of Rogues as just being damage dealers with backstabs but no actual scouting or utility value to be utterly pointless.

If its just all combat all the time its not a real Dungeon Crawl.

I'm all for scouting and utility. But just clicking on locks and traps to disable them if you have a rogue with enough skill tax paid is neither. At least deckers in Shadowrun Returns have a whole layer of gameplay to themselves.


There are some innovative games in there, and I can't say any of them would have been improved by using D&D tropes. Geneforge was innovative enough, and it managed that largely because it had a unique, well thought out setting and not a D&D pastiche, and the system was tied into the setting.

I played some Geneforge, but not for long. It was indeed fairly original as RPGs go.

[The Glyphstone]

Geneforge was fun, though I enjoyed Exile more.

I'm still getting PoE updates from kickstarter periodically, and glad to see the game isn't vaporware.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Exactly. Critical hit tables like Rolemaster are best when the combat system is itself fairly abstract - which modern cRPG games aren't.

They're nothing like real combat, so they're still abstract. They're just a highly detailed and systematised kind of abstract.

Some of Skyrim's kill moves aren't that different to random criticals.

The real problem is that anything you can save scum is a bad idea in a computer game. I killed a boss in NWN that I wasn't strategically prepared for by quicksaving and quickloading every turn so that their attacks that could kill me in two hits never connected. When a universe is repeatable, they need to be more deterministic. You want to win by changing tactics not getting better luck.

Critical tables would probably work in a Rogue-like where you expect to lose unfairly.

[factotum]

The real problem is that anything you can save scum is a bad idea in a computer game. I killed a boss in NWN that I wasn't strategically prepared for by quicksaving and quickloading every turn so that their attacks that could kill me in two hits never connected. When a universe is repeatable, they need to be more deterministic. You want to win by changing tactics not getting better luck.


Since computers use pseudo-random number generators to produce their random numbers, it's really incredibly easy to make sure that a quicksave/quickload like this doesn't produce a different result than the first time--you just need to save the current random number seed along with the rest of the game state. Therefore, random tables being something you can game isn't actually that much of an issue. I think the aforementioned 66 on an E crit being instant death would be more of an issue, because combat in CRPGs is generally a lot more frequent than it is in pen-and-paper ones and so you'd have a much greater chance of having that happen to you; and instantly dying mid-fight is just not fun in a computer game, no matter how you slice it.

[Aotrs Commander]

Since computers use pseudo-random number generators to produce their random numbers, it's really incredibly easy to make sure that a quicksave/quickload like this doesn't produce a different result than the first time--you just need to save the current random number seed along with the rest of the game state. Therefore, random tables being something you can game isn't actually that much of an issue.

On the other hand, a lot of people (myself included) really don't like being locked into things by what should be random numbers. Though it tends to be much less of an issue in an RPG than a turn-based strat, for example, in the former, your decisions and the result of same are much closer together and in general don't mean you can get into a position whereby a random number generator basically says "nope, write off x number of hours, you lost." (A particulalry egregious example of that sort of thing is in GalCiv 2, where some of the random universe events can completely ruin the game.)

A better option for RPGs is simply to disable saving in combat, which most RPGs do now.

(Or in a system that lets you do it and you don't like save-scumming... just, y'know, don't.)

(Honestly, I find the term "save-scumming" to be borderline offensive... And I'll thank you Certain Famous Developers of Strategy Games not to tell me how to enjoy the game I paid for, thank you very much.)




I think the aforementioned 66 on an E crit being instant death would be more of an issue, because combat in CRPGs is generally a lot more frequent than it is in pen-and-paper ones and so you'd have a much greater chance of having that happen to you; and instantly dying mid-fight is just not fun in a computer game, no matter how you slice it.

Which is why I was being fascetious when I brought Rolemaster up as a good game to convert to cRPG. Even in tabletop, the DM is either rolling behind the screen of awarding lots of Fate points or something, unless you want to spend most of your time rolling up new characters.

If you did, you'd basically HAVE to work on the assumption people were going to save-scam in an RM game and plan accordingly. (Meaning also: do not actively try and punish people who do want to play that way (IF it is a single-player game, of course; multiplayer mandates the players having to be fair, single-player does not), lest you lose players who just say "frack it, this isn't fun, I'll go do something else" when they die for the umpteeth time and have to do [x amount of stuff] again. Or only write the game with the intention that only really hard-core people with considerable patience are going to be your market.

[factotum]

Or only write the game with the intention that only really hard-core people with considerable patience are going to be your market.

Apparently enough of such people exist to make the Demon's/Dark Souls franchise a success, so you never know. :smallsmile:

[ShadowFighter15]

Backed it ages ago, played some of the first two builds of the backer beta and haven't gotten around to it since (keep getting sidetracked by other stuff), but it looks pretty cool so far.

I really like some of the setting elements; souls being an active, tangible thing that can be manipulated, some of the races and cultures, even just how they handled undead (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Undead) by making them different stages in the same general process.

[Aotrs Commander]

Apparently enough of such people exist to make the Demon's/Dark Souls franchise a success, so you never know. :smallsmile:

I'm not debating that there is a significant enough faction to make that a genuine possibilty - indeed, those games were in the back of mind when I made that comment.

Though I think trying to implement something like that RM-style crits without saving/reloading being an option would be making a game more Nintendo-hard than Demon Soul's hard. I'm told (as I am emphatically NOT the target market of aforementioned hard-core gamers with patience1, I have not played it myself) the latter is hard, but more fair about it.



1I play too many games over too long a period to really qualify for "filthy casual" but I'm probably closer to that end of the pool than "hard-core." I essentially play computer games to relax and NOT get frustrated, and where I can cheerfully steamroller over an AI without any concern for hurt feelings if I feel I want to. (I might even argue I don't even play "games" as such, but treat all games more akin to a story and/or a puzzle which is "solved" by the playing. (I am not a fan of sandbox or open-ended stuff.)) I don't get any sort of thrill or feeling of satisfaction out of doing a really difficult thing in a game, other than relief that I can then move onto a more fun bit of the game again.

[Morty]

Reading the game's wiki, it's not terribly inspiring, but could perhaps be solid. And no mention of locks and traps.

[Divayth Fyr]

Reading the game's wiki, it's not terribly inspiring, but could perhaps be solid. And no mention of locks and traps.
Traps and locks can be a problem for even the toughest adventurers, draining their resources and maiming or killing those who are unfortunate enough to trigger an unseen floor plate. The Mechanics skill makes it easier to open locks and find and disable traps. (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Mechanics)

[Morty]

Well, bugger all. Talk about unwarranted optimism on my part. :smallsigh:

[factotum]

Really not sure what you have against skills which help with locks and traps; are those not entirely reasonable things for an RPG to have?

[Ailurus]

Really not sure what you have against skills which help with locks and traps; are those not entirely reasonable things for an RPG to have?

Its not so much that they're unreasonable (at least for me). But, when the options come down to either bring a dedicated trap disarming character or have the whole run fouled up by a door you can't open or a trap which will deplete half your party's HP and summon a bunch of guards, it just becomes an annoying skill tax. Disarming/lockpicking opening up some extra loot or a shortcut, sure! I'm all for that. Disarming/lockpicking being functionally necessary to play the game, no thanks.

[factotum]

How awkward that is depends what type of RPG it is. If it's a party-based one then having one of your multiple characters learn some lockpicking doesn't seem that onerous. It's more of an issue in single-character RPGs, perhaps; but then you have to ask, is any of the stuff behind locked doors really necessary? It certainly isn't in Skyrim, for instance, where you can easily finish the game and achieve max level without picking a single lock.

To my mind, complaining you can't reach somewhere in an RPG due to a locked door is akin to complaining you can't become the Archmage without having to learn some magic spells--it's the same principle; some content which is gated behind a requirement to have a particular skillset.

[Morty]

It's a pointless and arbitrary relic. Either you pay the skill tax or you eat damage from traps or sit around under a locked door. Even though you should be able to just break it down. They don't add anything to the game, other than having to enough put points in the skill. Makes you wonder what the point is.

Skyrim also isn't a good example. It's theoretically optional, sure. If you want to skip half of the loot the game offers.

[Ailurus]

How awkward that is depends what type of RPG it is. If it's a party-based one then having one of your multiple characters learn some lockpicking doesn't seem that onerous. It's more of an issue in single-character RPGs, perhaps; but then you have to ask, is any of the stuff behind locked doors really necessary? It certainly isn't in Skyrim, for instance, where you can easily finish the game and achieve max level without picking a single lock.

To my mind, complaining you can't reach somewhere in an RPG due to a locked door is akin to complaining you can't become the Archmage without having to learn some magic spells--it's the same principle; some content which is gated behind a requirement to have a particular skillset.

Really depends on the system, but there's a big difference between spending a few points and spending an entire character. In 3.5, you're forced to haul a rogue along (barring heavy splatbook usage which most electronic versions don't include) because they're the only class capable of dealing with high level traps since they're the only ones who get the special skill necessary. Similarly, in Dragon Age: Origins you have 9 companions and 3 slots - but one of those slots has to be reserved for Leliana or Zevran since they're the only ones who can access the lockpicking/disarming (Or, if you choose to play a rogue then that spot suddenly frees up and you can include anyone you want). That type of gating makes it very awkward, even if its party-based.

If its just a skill anyone can put points in (like any of wasteland 2's skills, or like how Pillars seems to be since 4 classes get bonus points in the skill) then, agreed, its not that bad. A speed-focused fighter or a mage putting a few points into it to get you past some of the basic obstacles is fine IMO.

Also, as Morty said, there is a lot of suspension of disbelief in terms of alternatives as well. In a tabletop setting, you can break the door down. Or unscrew the hinges. Or break through the wall. Or go find a servant somewhere and 'convince' him to let you through the door. Or even just try knocking on the door or holding a very loud party outside of it to see if anyone comes looking for the source of the noise. Or other examples. In most cRPGs its just "do you have skill? No? Sorry." Suddenly your barbarian who chops the heads off giants or your mage who routinely tells the laws of physics to sit down and shut up is foiled by a wooden slab and little piece of metal.

[Avilan the Grey]

My "Game Buying" instincts started twitching yesterday so I bought another challenger to Baldur's Gate: Divinity-Original Sin. I didn't realize it got so much good press; I haven't really kept up with game reviews in general this (2014) year. Really looking forward to start playing it.

[Seharvepernfan]

I've never had a problem with traps in games like this. Take BG for instance (this game is made by a lot of the same people), you could break down a locked door, if you're strong enough. NPC thieves are as thick as ....thieves. Plenty of doors in fantasy RPGs are huge, stone/metal affairs covered in magic, so it kinda makes sense that your 18 str human can't break one down.

I would be kinda let down if they didn't have them.

[Morty]

And yet, the process of dealing with the traps and locks comes down to two alternatives:

a) You have paid the requisite skill tax. You click and you pass.

b) You have not paid the tax. Eat damage from the trap or hope the lock is optional.

I can't see any value being lost if this is removed.

[Seharvepernfan]

I can't see any value being lost if this is removed.

Yeah, it would be better if the process were more interactive. Bioshock had that, thought it got pretty annoying. Elder scrolls kinda has that, and it is absolutely annoying.

Still, I'm in favor of it being there rather than not.

[Knaight]

And yet, the process of dealing with the traps and locks comes down to two alternatives:

a) You have paid the requisite skill tax. You click and you pass.

b) You have not paid the tax. Eat damage from the trap or hope the lock is optional.

I can't see any value being lost if this is removed.

It depends on implementation. There's also always
c) do things the hard way.

Maybe if you're good at disabling traps, you can just disable some dart trap and be on your way. If you're not, just eating the damage is an option. But maybe the designers consistently put in another method, so you do something like seal the hallway, fill it with water, and let the water pressure trigger the trap for you (or just have the water slow the darts down so much they're not an issue). With locks there's an even easier method, where you can just pick the lock, or you can beat the door down and deal with the resulting combat/chase of whoever came to investigate the noise. If the combat system doesn't suck, it should even be enjoyable.

[Avilan the Grey]

And yet, the process of dealing with the traps and locks comes down to two alternatives:

a) You have paid the requisite skill tax. You click and you pass.

b) You have not paid the tax. Eat damage from the trap or hope the lock is optional.

I can't see any value being lost if this is removed.

So you don't want skills in your games?

[Morty]

It depends on implementation. There's also always
c) do things the hard way.

Maybe if you're good at disabling traps, you can just disable some dart trap and be on your way. If you're not, just eating the damage is an option. But maybe the designers consistently put in another method, so you do something like seal the hallway, fill it with water, and let the water pressure trigger the trap for you (or just have the water slow the darts down so much they're not an issue). With locks there's an even easier method, where you can just pick the lock, or you can beat the door down and deal with the resulting combat/chase of whoever came to investigate the noise. If the combat system doesn't suck, it should even be enjoyable.

That is, indeed, a good way to do it. Unfortunately, it doesn't usually work this way and I have little reason to expect it will in Pillars of Eternity. An example could be Shadowrun Returns, I suppose. You're generally told if you 100% need a certain skillset for a mission - usually it's a decker. Otherwise, it's just different avenues of solving problems. Well, unless not having a decker with you means you get shot in the face by lethal reinforcements, which happened in the mission I'm currently stuck at in Dragonfall.


So you don't want skills in your games?

I want skills that matter, and that I can really pick and choose as I like. If I'm going to have to max out my main character's persuasion or lose 50% of the story, then there's not much point in even giving me a choice. Same if my thief/rogue/whatever will have to max out lockpicking or disarming traps sooner or later.

[Aotrs Commander]

I want skills that matter, and that I can really pick and choose as I like. If I'm going to have to max out my main character's persuasion or lose 50% of the story, then there's not much point in even giving me a choice. Same if my thief/rogue/whatever will have to max out lockpicking or disarming traps sooner or later.

Trouble is, if you have skills where not maxing it it doesn't matter - then you end up with 4E's problem. There's so little differentiation between different skills across different characters, you might as well not bother, because the dice roll makes more difference than the skill level.

Homogenisation of characters is a BAD THING. Every character SHOULDN'T be able to do everything, and you SHOULD be forced to make some sacrifices. (I mean, Pillar have even gone to the effort of making sure if you hate all the NPCs, you can go into the adventurer's guild and make your own characters up to replace them (sans the RPG aspects, of course, but you can probably leave back at the camp or whatever.)) Decision making should be critical to makig a character, or it isn't interesting. (See: failure of Diablo 3 in many regards, precisiely because they took out "builds.")

If you take out rogue skills, and diplomatic skills (and combat skills, since Pillar's skill system is diversed from them deliberately or at least that was their intention in the beginning), what have you got left that matters? Fluff skills that you might use in a handful of times over the course of game? Item creation skills? Is that not going to end up in the same boat, like it did with KotR 2? I dunno. It's not like a tabletop RPG where you can have a big sandbox to do ANTHING you like (you don't even get that in sandbox RPGs). (For the record, mind, I don't like sandbox games anyway, nor do I run freeform on the tabletop.)

A system where all choices are equal is, by definition, superficial, because the choices then don't MATTER. (Witcher 2 had that problem - there were several ways to do some of the quests, but it didn't matter a jot which one you did, because ou got the same result anyway. So it made the more complicated, lengthy options often not worth bothering with.)

[Morty]

That's nice, but I'm afraid none of this follows from anything I've said. I want choice. Real choice, as opposed to an illusory one.

[factotum]

You do have a real choice. You can choose not to take the lockpicking skill and thus be unable to open a few doors--however, the extra points you can then put into combat means you can fight your way past the tough monster guarding the Cave of Treasure. The only time you would be forced to take lockpicking is if it would be literally impossible to complete the game without it, and I really cannot think of a single CRPG that has pulled a move like that (except in the few cases where you can have multiple characters in your party, so having a rogue along isn't so much of an issue).

[Morty]

At which point it comes down to clicking on the rogue and then on the lock or trap, if they invested enough points into it. Remind me again why it's so important to have? Again, it would be one thing if it was just one possible avenue of approach, but I've yet to see a game do it properly. Maybe except Shadowrun Returns. The people behind Mass Effect did figure it out, when they removed the engineering skill between ME1 and ME2. Unfortunately, not everyone did.

[Aotrs Commander]

That's nice, but I'm afraid none of this follows from anything I've said. I want choice. Real choice, as opposed to an illusory one.

You can't have a real choice if all options are equal.

If any character set-up, no matter how ridiculous, can get through to all portions of the game, then it doesn't matter what your character set-up is.

You also can't have a DM-freeform where you can do anything you can dream up in a CRPG. (heck, you often can't have that in a tabletop game.)

If you don't have diplomacy skills, then there is no point in having variable results in dialogue anyway, because then it's just random. Random for the sake of random is BAD. So you may as well just cut out that have dialogue and have it based on "you must be this tall" options based on stats or other fixed values (to be fair, PS:T Torment did this, so ther'es nothing inherently wrong with that at all) But that just means you're still gating options in the same way, because then people moan "but it means I have to have a stat tax to get all the good stuff." Or you just give every choice different words and it all basically leads to the same response anyway (like Monkey Island did from time to time).

One of ME 2 and 3's failings was they took skills out, and it became very nearly a shooter. And it is that explicit thing Pillars of Eternity is NOT trying to do.

If there are traps and you choose not to bring someone along to deal with them, then you get hit by the traps. That's your choice. You chose to focus on something else, so that means you actually have to make sure you are set up to deal with those challenges without it via alternative (and often sub-optimal) methods. (Which, in the case of traps, would mean having a party with healers/tanks, high hit-points whatever.) Or would you rather not have to plan your character/party at all and just pick whatever options you feel are cool at the time, with there being no "bad" choices (and thereofre no "good" choices)?

(Locks, by the by, are less likely to be an issue anyway, since even in the BG games, you could try and force them open (or use Knock) and I'd be a bit surprised if Pillars doesn't deal with it the same way.)

I'm not even sure what you are expecting the problem to be, since Pillars did state (unless it has changes and they haven't said about it) that skills were not something that you traded combat ability for (so it's not like you will be missing out on any combat-related bonuses or anything).

So, genuine questio, then Morty: if you don't want to spending skill points on diplomacy or traps and you can't spend them on combat skills (nor are you going to have any movement-skills like jumping, swimming, climbing or riding very likely because that would require incremental work on animations), what DO you want to be able to spend them on?

[Morty]

You're right. Given that my position has been intentionally misrepresented - or at least simply completely misunderstood - in this thread, including an attempt to push me into discussing skills in general, I'm going to reiterate it. If only to put a stop to it. I think the traditional fantasy RPG challenge of putting locks and traps in the players' path is a false one. It's not engaging and it's not interesting. It just means you need to have a party member that puts enough points into it, and then click. Pillars of Eternity, at the very least, doesn't shoehorn any single class into dealing with it. That's progress.

[Aotrs Commander]

You're right. Given that my position has been intentionally misrepresented - or at least simply completely misunderstood - in this thread, including an attempt to push me into discussing skills in general, I'm going to reiterate it. If only to put a stop to it. I think the traditional fantasy RPG challenge of putting locks and traps in the players' path is a false one. It's not engaging and it's not interesting. It just means you need to have a party member that puts enough points into it, and then click. Pillars of Eternity, at the very least, doesn't shoehorn any single class into dealing with it. That's progress.

Okay, right. So it's not so much trap/lock skills you dislike, as just traps and locks as a mechanic, period, then, yes?

(It was a little muddying when you mentioned not liking the pursuade skills.)

[ShadowFighter15]

You do have a real choice. You can choose not to take the lockpicking skill and thus be unable to open a few doors--however, the extra points you can then put into combat means you can fight your way past the tough monster guarding the Cave of Treasure.

Actually; none of the Skills (none of the ones you actually spend skill points on) affect combat beyond Stealth letting you sneak up and engage on more favourable terms. They use a completely separate set of points from your combat abilities.


Non-combat skills do not use the same resources as combat skills. You don't spend the same stuff for a non-combat skill as you do for combat skills. Some don't use anything at all to use, so you will never find yourself unable to blast an opponent if you get caught sneaking.

[Morty]

Okay, right. So it's not so much trap/lock skills you dislike, as just traps and locks as a mechanic, period, then, yes?

(It was a little muddying when you mentioned not liking the pursuade skills.)

Yes. I shouldn't have got sidetracked by the skills discussion. I do think persuasion skills could stand to work differently than they usually do - Etiquettes from Shadowrun Returns come to mind - but that's a separate thing.

[The Glyphstone]

And we have a release date - March 26, 2015!

[Yoroichi]

And we have a release date - March 26, 2015!

Hey I'm sort of bringing this thread back from the dead, but didn't want to post in a different thread.

Does anyone have word on the localisation? I know which languages are supported, but do you have to download a different copy to get a different language, or will all localisations be included in the same download?

I am asking because i am thinking of refreshing my German -_-

On a side note i have found the game in steam to be 42 € and on some german sites it is at 34 € :smallcool:

[Jeivar]

Sooo, this game is finally almost upon us.

I'd like to hear from those who have played the backer beta: Are there any big bewares when it comes to character creation? Is there a must-have stat or skill or anything which is largely a waste of points?

[Morty]

I vaguely remember a promise that every attribute is useful to every class. It would be great, if it's true.

[factotum]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

[Nadevoc]

Saying that every attribute is useful to every class doesn't mean they're all EQUALLY useful to every class.

Let's say there's a game with a Willpower stat. Willpower increases how often you can use special attacks and slightly increases resistance to magic. That's useful to everyone. But if there's a Warrior class who concentrates on doing consistent damage by simply repeatedly pummeling an enemy with basic attacks, it's less useful than a Strength stat that increases damage on basic attacks.

A lot of games have every stat useful to every character, but it's still obvious which stats are tertiary for a class.

[Mx.Silver]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

That would only be true if all the stats are useful in the the same way, which they generally aren't. For instance, one stat might be tied to attack damage, another to attack speed, another to ability cool-downs, etc. So a warrior with a strength and toughness focus would play a bit differently from one with a speed and perception focus.

In other words, it's there to allow for variance and customisation, which I always assumed was the point of being able to manually assign stats in the first place. If there's only one viable stat assignment for a class, with other stats being essentially a waste of points, then you might as well just have the attribute point assignment be automatic based on class section.

[Chen]

As long as the mechanics each stat provides are sufficiently transparent it shouldn't be an issue. If I have to dig around to figure out how my defense increases when I raise agility (or whatever) it becomes more annoying.

[Aotrs Commander]

That would only be true if all the stats are useful in the the same way, which they generally aren't. For instance, one stat might be tied to attack damage, another to attack speed, another to ability cool-downs, etc. So a warrior with a strength and toughness focus would play a bit differently from one with a speed and perception focus.

In other words, it's there to allow for variance and customisation, which I always assumed was the point of being able to manually assign stats in the first place. If there's only one viable stat assignment for a class, with other stats being essentially a waste of points, then you might as well just have the attribute point assignment be automatic based on class section.

Which is, funnily enough, exactly what Diablo 3 did. And everyone hated it!

I can see why Blizzard's thinking was, though, which was "right, well, people hated it in D2 where there was no re-spec option and they got stuck in a sub-optimal build, so how do we fix that? If we make a re-spec expensive, then people will moan they have to grind with a suboptimal character until they can afford it, so it sort of has to be a fair cheap option. But... if it's a token fee, why bother making a charge for at at all? I know, we'll just basically make it so that there's no real "build" and you can just change out your options on the fly, so you can basically "re-spec" at any time! Problem solved!"

Trouble is - as usual - what people think they want, and what they ACTUALLY want are frequently two different things (and sometimes contradictory...) If you want "builds" at all - i.e. something where you have to make meaningful decisions about your character class - you have to have choices, and the results of those choices cannot be identical. (And, if there are choices to be made, in reality , they will never be equal: there will always be options that are better, and some that are worse.)

And people want "builds" because they want to be able to play a character differently, so that not all characters (in this case) of the same class play identically (which is what people said was the trouble with D3 was.)

Pillars has apparently the gone the root of no re-spec, but instead trying to make all choices at least viable (though I doubt very much they are in practise equal). Though as usual, the fanbase will inevitably work out what the optimal "builds" are. (So anyone wanting to play an "optimal" build out of the gate will either have to do some experimentation or wait for a FAQ or something!)

We'll see in a couple of days!

[Morty]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

To the contrary - if every class only uses two attributes, then there's no point to having them in the first place. Just bake them into the class and let me skip to the real decisions - skills, talents and all that. But if a class can get different results from different attributes, then it's actually a choice. We'll see how Pillars of Eternity pulls it off.

[Knaight]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

It really depends. I'll use ToME as an example here. If I play an archer, I know that dexterity and strength boost damage. If I'm going for a lots of shots build, this is stupidly important. If I'm going for a fewer, high damage shots build, less so - dexterity remains the primary stat, but whatever. I know that willpower adds to stamina. If I spend a lot on stamina regeneration, that's not a big deal. If I don't, and send skill points to sustained skills that reduce maximum stamina while active, I'm going to need it (it also adds to spell and mental save, so if the items you're getting don't help much with those it's valuable). Constitution does HP. If I'm using the armor track heavily, I can probably afford not to have too much of it. If I'm using the mobility track heavily, same deal. If light armor and minimal mobility is selected to focus on other things? Time to boost HP.

The attributes thus are synergistically useful with different builds for the same class. A heavily armored sharpshooter bowman archer and a skirmishing poison slinger archer play differently and use different stats, and that's fine for me. I then find which I'm better with (the sharpshooter), and focus to it's strengths.

[factotum]

I tend to prefer different playstyles to be catered for by different skillsets rather than tweaks to attributes, though--the latter just brings back memories of WoW-style "this stat gives you 1% bonus to doohickeys!" which was by far the worst part of that game. The example given above of Diablo 2 is a case in point: a Bone Necro and a Summoner Necro would probably have very similar stat requirements but played completely differently.

(It's notable that Skyrim pretty much dumped stats entirely and went with a purely skill-based system, and I loved that game to death!).

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Having read the article explaining how the stats work, I think I've been converted. I think it's pretty brilliant. As they describe it, the stats do the same thing for every class. Increasing Might will always increase your damage. Increasing Intelligence was always increase your AoE range / duration of some things.

So they had the example of the Intelligent Barbarian who focused on huge AoE attacks that decimated low-level lackeys, and they name-dropped examples of other builds that sound weird to our DnD assumptions but make sense in their system: high-Might low-intelligence wizards are straightforward blasters specialized in single targets, whereas the traditional low-might high-intelligence wizards are crowd control and mook-killers. Stuff like that.

Edit: Each class has different skill-sets which will APPLY these attribute bonuses to different things, but the basic bonuses they give you are the same and applicable to every class.

[Morty]

Now that is very interesting. Do you have a link to that article? I won't be buying this game on launch, one way or the other, but I'd like to learn more.

[Sajiri]

So, with the game about to come out (or out now, it's the 26th where I am so *shrug*)

Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.

Sadly my pc is still dead after a few days, and the guy who fixed it for me last time isnt replying to emails and must be on holiday or something. I doubt my crappy laptop will handle any game ):

[Jeivar]

So, with the game about to come out (or out now, it's the 26th where I am so *shrug*)

Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.

Sadly my pc is still dead after a few days, and the guy who fixed it for me last time isnt replying to emails and must be on holiday or something. I doubt my crappy laptop will handle any game ):

I'm going to go with a human paladin, probably from Aedyr. I'll decide the details once I actually have the game.

[Remmirath]

I may well wait to install the game until I get my physical CD, because I'm stubborn and not very fond of digital distribution, but I'm certainly looking forward to playing. That's a bit of an understatement, really; I've been looking forward to it ever since it was announced. I've not been playing the beta, because I didn't feel I had the time to give anything like decent feedback, but from everything I've seen and heard I expect to very much enjoy the game.


Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.


Some manner of fighting type, although I've not decided on exactly which class yet. I'll figure that out when I start playing. I'm considering a paladin, but a straight up fighter is usually a solid choice for me. The other possibility I'm strongly considering is some manner of fighter-mage type, whatever class I feel will work out for that best.

As far as race goes, probably elf, although some of the others interest me as well.

My well-laid plans of 'what character to play' almost never survive first contact with a game, so mostly I'm just planning on experimenting around until I've got a character that seems like what I want to play and then going from there. I'll have plenty of opportunity to experiment with different classes and races regardless of what I pick for my first character, after all, since I'm intending on making heavy use of the Adventurer's Hall.

[Seharvepernfan]

I'm thinking a female wood elf dissident rogue from the dreadfire archipelago. Dexterity > Perception > Intellect > Might > Constitution > Resolve. We'll see how that works.

[Morty]

It's looking increasingly likely that I'll play the game at some point. If or when I do, I'll start with a human fighter (or warrior, or whichever term PoE uses), like I usually do. Focusing on Dexterity and Perception and using two-handed swords. See if that works.

[Mx.Silver]

Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.


I'm also going Godlike as a race choice (probably Death or Moon). As far as classes go I've been wanting to see how the Cipher plays since it was first announced, so I'll probably be going with that, although Chanter and Monk also have me curious, so we'll see

[Jeivar]

I'm thinking of going with these stats:

Might 15, Constitution 12, Dexterity 12, Perception 10, Intellect 13, Resolve 16.

... and I'm a bit torn between a desire to research and optimise, and just going ahead and roleplaying the character I want. And roleplaying-wise I'm thinking a heavily armoured paladin who stands in the thick of battle as an immovable tower, and perseveres through inspiring others and sheer willpower.

[Porthos]

Now that is very interesting. Do you have a link to that article? I won't be buying this game on launch, one way or the other, but I'd like to learn more.

If you haven't seen it yet, it's an article over at Polygon (http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/25/8284763/how-pillars-of-eternity-rewrites-the-rules-for-role-playing).

The upshot is, from what I skimmed, they don't want someone to fall in the classical example of "Huh. I have a trapped door, and no skill monkey. Now what?" What they want you to be able to do is either be able to bypass that door no matter how you built your character(s) (albiet doing it in different ways) or make it easy to go hire someone to unlock it for you for a nominal fee. Basically bypassing the whole problem in the first place.

How well this actually works in practice? I guess we'll find out VERY quickly. Given how patient the internet is about things and all. :smalltongue:

[Morty]

Thanks for the link.

"Pillars of Eternity says yes to players where other CRPGs have always said no."

I'm warming up to this game at an alarming rate.

[Porthos]

*checks about*

Goodness gravy. The review sites are tripping all over themselves in praising this game.

Getting to the point where I hope there isn't Hype Backlash! :smallcool:

[Nadevoc]

It looks like Steam has officially released PoE.

Unfortunately, I'm in the midst of packing and won't be able to try it out for a few days.

[Morty]

According to what I've heard, two-handed weapons in this game swing like through molasses. Oh well. I guess it's unavoidable in a game lauding itself as old-school. I'm going to be paying close attention to people's impressions all the same.

[Porthos]

Even without playing it (have some things to take care of this morning) I can already tell that one of the more interesting things will be their attempt at driving a stake through the concept of what has at times, both tongue in check and not, been called being a murder hobo.

Some have called it "no XP for killing", but that's not quite accurate as near as I can tell:

From one of the many sites devoted to the game:


How do I get XP?[edit]
You will get XP if you complete a quest objective, and for progressively filling up Bestiary entries in you party's Journal. Bestiary XP is rewarded when new entries are unlocked in the Bestiary page in the Journal, and will stop being rewarded if the entry is complete. Additionally, exploration XP is given out when new areas and landmarks are discovered in the world.

Or maybe it is accurate but ultimately it's a po-TAH-to POE-ta-toe thing going on. What I do know is it is at least partially an attempt to do away with the need for level grinding.

And, from what I can tell already, nothing is stopping one from enagaging in some hacking and slashing if one wants. It just wont be required.

[danzibr]

This... is a game I am now excited about.

EDIT: *watches gameplay video* HOLY CRAP it looks just like Baldur's Gate!

Yeah, I have to get this.

[Aotrs Commander]

I'mma installin' now... (I got Gog version, because.)

Not that I will likely get much of a chance to play it in anger for a day or (since wargames tonight, panto party tomorrow night and family dinner Saturday evening), but there we go...

[Morty]

No XP for killing? Nice, very nice. Of course, it's entirely possible that those will be nice details in an otherwise unappealing game. But it still sounds good. I'll have to watch a gameplay video to see how two-handers behave for myself, I suppose.

[factotum]

Welp, Obsidian backer portal seems to be collapsing under the strain of people redeeming their Kickstarter rewards, and it'll take a goodly while to download this on my wet piece of string anyway, so...see yous all at the weekend? :smallsmile:

[Mx.Silver]

Something that has immediately become apparent is that the graphical setting are largely unalterable. Which means that if, say, you have an older machine you may find yourself stuck with sluggishness and frame-rate issues.

[Aotrs Commander]

Thou shalt first make of the reading of thine manual (especially when thou shalt leave for the gaming of war within the half-hour), and thence thou shalt read the world guide, and marvel, yay, for the world does not have a day of twenty-four hours, nor does it have a week of seven days, nor, no, not even a year of 365 days, not twelve months and shall be pleaséd that the ones of Obsidian have not even here been lazy of thought, for 'tis even the little details that count.

And so too shall the Numbers Of What The Stats Do be writ clear in the manual as is right and proper, and not only be found upon be calculations of the sages of the interwebs for the Pages of Wikia inevitable.

And there was much rejoicing.

[Sajiri]

Sigh, been waiting for this for months and my pc is still broken. Seems like the earliest I'll be able to play is...monday, right when I start having to do longer days at work for the next 3 weeks (then again, I might be unemployed after those 3 weeks, so I may have all the time in the world to play after that <_>)

I shall have to amuse myself with reviews and articles and try not to spoil anything for myself

[Avilan the Grey]

Well this is embarassing. I had completely forgot I pre-ordered this in November!

:biggrin:

[Jeivar]

Well, I was going to make a character real quick before going to bed . . . and then I found out the attributes have a "Recommended/highly recommended for CLASS" rating.

So yet again I'm left agonising over character creation. I WAS going to ignore Perception for my Paladin...

[Morty]

Well, supposedly every class is meant to benefit from every attribute, and the goal is to prevent non-standard builds from being doomed to mediocrity, like they are in most of the genre. So I'd just put them wherever you feel appropriate and hope the designers walked their walk.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, I'm a few hours in, the plot has just barely begun to unfold, and I'm hooked.


I should have taken a bigger hint from the Welcome Bear in the Valewood. Obsidian has definitely gone old-school in randomly sticking monsters waaaaaay too strong for your party level around in obscure corners of maps as traps - I was in the Meadows, merrily slaughtering wights and trolls, then ran into a pair of Forest Lurkers who murderized me.

It's the only minor beef I have right now with the mechanics, is the inability to tell how dangerous something is until you engage it - and if a fight goes poorly, you have to reload the game because the monsters are so much faster than you. I'm having to resort to the 5-minute adventuring day, venting all my Wizard's spells on a tough baddy before my Barbarian crumples, then run away with the wizard. retreat to town, rest, go repeat on the next tough baddy in that pack. And this is on 'Easy'. Old-school indeed.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Getting wrecked in a sidequest area. Apparently teleporting monsters love going after your casters. Go figure.

[The Glyphstone]

Getting wrecked in a sidequest area. Apparently teleporting monsters love going after your casters. Go figure.


Yup. That's where I had to hit-and-run. Especially since those Shadows are highly resistant to physical damage, magic is my only way to fight them and my wizard (the obnoxious elf) is limited in spells/day. Took me several in-game days to clear that place, and I still haven't gotten enough beef to kill the skulker king miniboss or whatever its called.

[Aotrs Commander]

Spent far too long completely having no idea what I wanted to play... So many choices (and not quite enough portraits...)

I ended up going with a Legolas-y Cipher, as I really culdn't decide if I wanted a wizard (my typical choice because pyrotechnics) or a rogue or a pries or a fighter or...

So I thought "split differnce a bit maybe?)

I figure I can always hire some new character if I feel the need donw the line, if I really want my own (probably plae elf) wizard or something...

So I milled around in the first area for na bit, did a couple of fights and called it quits for the day/night.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Yup. That's where I had to hit-and-run. Especially since those Shadows are highly resistant to physical damage, magic is my only way to fight them and my wizard (the obnoxious elf) is limited in spells/day. Took me several in-game days to clear that place, and I still haven't gotten enough beef to kill the skulker king miniboss or whatever its called.


I went Cypher, picked up the mage and the fighter you get in the first town, and went in there. Tried to do control effects on them, I guess I'll try using my focus to blast them down.

[factotum]

Well, finally got my backer version registered this morning and was able to read the manual. Ranger sounds like it might be up my alley--ranged attacker with a pet to tank? That or bow rogue is my feeling right now, but will know more when the game is actually installed this evening and I can see the more detailed descriptions offered therein.

[Morty]

I forgot that the game has daily spells. This is hardly ideal, but hopefully it's less annoying than in the AD&D games.

[Aotrs Commander]

Ah, not daily - per rest.

Which I think was another nice little touch in the admission that "per day" has in practice meant "per eight hours rest" largely throughout the history of "per day", table top or otherwise.

Again, it's the little details I like. (And I've barely played yet!)

[Morty]

It's nice that they give it proper appellation, but it changes nothing. At least wizards seem to have a magical auto-attack and don't need to prepare their spells. That should help.

[Ilorin Lorati]

At high levels, Druids and wizards both turn their low level spells into per-encounter, which is nice.

[factotum]

Also, there are different limits for different spells and abilities anyway; some of them are per encounter, some are per rest.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have too many games.

I need to continue my CKII lets play.
I want to restart Shadowrun: Dragonfall.
I haven't even started Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze despite buying it two weeks ago.
I need to continue Lageburg, my Cities Skylines city.
I need to continue my 534634th ME3 playthru.
I need to start my Divinity Original Sin game.
I need to start this game.

[danzibr]

I have too many games.

I need to continue my CKII lets play.
I want to restart Shadowrun: Dragonfall.
I haven't even started Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze despite buying it two weeks ago.
I need to continue Lageburg, my Cities Skylines city.
I need to continue my 534634th ME3 playthru.
I need to start my Divinity Original Sin game.
I need to start this game.
I need to continue Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.
I need to continue Dragon Age: Inquisition.
I need to complete Hyrule Warriors.
I need to continue Resident Evil: Revelations.
I need to finish my 2nd playthrough of Xenoblade.
I need to continue God of War.
I haven't opened Folklore.
I need to continue Batman: Arkham Asylum.
I haven't opened Mario Bros. Wii U.
I need to finish my playthrough of Suikoden, because...
I haven't started the Suikoden II which I downloaded.
I need to finish Ib.
I need to finish several other RPG Maker games I downloaded and tried out and which seemed good.
I need to try out several other RPG Maker games I downloaded because they sounded promising.

And now I want Pillars of Eternity. Or maybe I should just give up video games.

[Avilan the Grey]

And now I want Pillars of Eternity. Or maybe I should just give up video games.

But... Think of the children! You can't give up now, think of the children!

[Ilorin Lorati]

I have 83 games I haven't played on Steam, and a great many more with less than 5 hours into them.

All I end up doing is playing League, FFXIV, and <insert game here> for 5-10 hours.

And browsing GiantITP. :|

[Morty]

My gaming schedule is more or less clear, and I'm uselessly unemployed right now, so I could play this game right away. But since money isn't great (see also unemployed), I'm not willing to spend a fairly hefty sum on a game I might not like (if it turns out it's not as fresh as I hoped). Ironic, isn't it.

[danzibr]

But... Think of the children! You can't give up now, think of the children!
Ahh.... yes, I must teach my children the way of video games :P

(My son, 4, already plays River City Ransom and Super Smash Bros. with me)

I have 83 games I haven't played on Steam, and a great many more with less than 5 hours into them.

All I end up doing is playing League, FFXIV, and <insert game here> for 5-10 hours.

And browsing GiantITP. :|
Dang. 83. Just... dang.

I have several on the NES and a few on the Genesis/32X/3D0/whatever I never managed to beat, but 83...

[Ilorin Lorati]

Dang. 83. Just... dang.

As it turns out, I was wrong.

It's 89. (https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561197975449513/)

This isn't even including all the games I have that aren't registered on Steam.

(To be fair though, a good chunk of these are through bundles like Humble Bundle, where I got 40+ dollars with of games for $1 or $6.)

[Morty]

I have way too much free time right now, and my gaming schedule is fairly clear. But I can't drop a hefty sum on a game I'm still getting mixed signals about. Ironic, isn't it.

[Toastkart]

Really enjoying the game so far. I also went cipher. Really enjoyed the depth of character customization, although I thought choosing your culture should have come closer to the race/subrace/background stage instead of after you assigned stats. I have also run into a couple of really annoying bugs. The first is a repeating sound issue which was luckily fixed on restart. The second was an odd kind of partial freeze. I was able to navigate the game menus and such, but could not interact with the map or character in real time. That was fixed on reloading an earlier save and hasn't happened since.

One thing I really enjoy, weapons and armor don't seem to be restricted by class. Each has their own uses, strengths, and weaknesses and I like that. My cipher started with rapier and stiletto and mail armor, but it was pretty clear from character creation that I could have started with other gear. I'm thinking of making a more range oriented cipher using a crossbow, but that might have to wait until I get a slightly bigger party. Also, really glad that I don't have to keep track of ammo.





Something that has immediately become apparent is that the graphical setting are largely unalterable. Which means that if, say, you have an older machine you may find yourself stuck with sluggishness and frame-rate issues.

Yeah, kinda disappointed about this. My pc has a good graphics card, but a pretty mediocre processor, and while I mostly don't have any issues, I do see some framerate dips during cutscenes with a lot of effects. Would like to tweak things for better performance.


Well, I'm a few hours in, the plot has just barely begun to unfold, and I'm hooked.


I should have taken a bigger hint from the Welcome Bear in the Valewood. Obsidian has definitely gone old-school in randomly sticking monsters waaaaaay too strong for your party level around in obscure corners of maps as traps - I was in the Meadows, merrily slaughtering wights and trolls, then ran into a pair of Forest Lurkers who murderized me.

It's the only minor beef I have right now with the mechanics, is the inability to tell how dangerous something is until you engage it - and if a fight goes poorly, you have to reload the game because the monsters are so much faster than you. I'm having to resort to the 5-minute adventuring day, venting all my Wizard's spells on a tough baddy before my Barbarian crumples, then run away with the wizard. retreat to town, rest, go repeat on the next tough baddy in that pack. And this is on 'Easy'. Old-school indeed.


Yeah, that can get pretty annoying, especially with the lack of a quicksave feature. On the one hand, I appreciate the difficulty, on the other, it's annoying not being able to judge whether I have a chance to win through smart play. I'm starting to think it would have been a good idea to hire a fourth party member when I had the opportunity in town.

[The Glyphstone]

Really enjoying the game so far. I also went cipher. Really enjoyed the depth of character customization, although I thought choosing your culture should have come closer to the race/subrace/background stage instead of after you assigned stats. I have also run into a couple of really annoying bugs. The first is a repeating sound issue which was luckily fixed on restart. The second was an odd kind of partial freeze. I was able to navigate the game menus and such, but could not interact with the map or character in real time. That was fixed on reloading an earlier save and hasn't happened since.

One thing I really enjoy, weapons and armor don't seem to be restricted by class. Each has their own uses, strengths, and weaknesses and I like that. My cipher started with rapier and stiletto and mail armor, but it was pretty clear from character creation that I could have started with other gear. I'm thinking of making a more range oriented cipher using a crossbow, but that might have to wait until I get a slightly bigger party. Also, really glad that I don't have to keep track of ammo.








Yeah, kinda disappointed about this. My pc has a good graphics card, but a pretty mediocre processor, and while I mostly don't have any issues, I do see some framerate dips during cutscenes with a lot of effects. Would like to tweak things for better performance.



Yeah, that can get pretty annoying, especially with the lack of a quicksave feature. On the one hand, I appreciate the difficulty, on the other, it's annoying not being able to judge whether I have a chance to win through smart play. I'm starting to think it would have been a good idea to hire a fourth party member when I had the opportunity in town.

Quicksave is F5. Quickload is F8. I went specifically looking for that and eventually found it.

[danzibr]

If (well, more like when) I ever play this game, I'll probably go a big beefy rogue. Any experience with such a build? From what I've read it should be viable...

[Aotrs Commander]

Yeah, that can get pretty annoying, especially with the lack of a quicksave feature.


Quicksave is F5. Quickload is F8. I went specifically looking for that and eventually found it.

We didn't read our manual first then, gentlemen...?

'Cos it is in the list of keyboard commands in said manual...

(Yes, yes, *sigh*, I know, I am in the minority of people that actually practises RTFM...!)

It's actually the first thing I look for in hot keys and make a point of finding before I start.

('Course, most games now can't be bothered to print physical manuals - even the ones thta bother ot havea physical release, sadly: gone are the days I could get all hyper for my game on the bus home by reading the manual. And the Infinity Engines always had such NICE weighty manuals, too. Granted, I only had a digital copy of PoE - I felt paying the postage from the US would have been silly, in the end - but I DID appreciate the PoE game manual is pretty bare-bones aethetically, showing they Obsidian, at least, appreciate that occasionalyl some people (though I am not among them) may want to PRINT (or put on kidle or something) their game manual, and thus do not want it in a) overly flashy colours (esp. coloured background or b) greyscale, dervived from same, when they knew perfectly well it was only ever going to have been a .pdf...)




If (well, more like when) I ever play this game, I'll probably go a big beefy rogue. Any experience with such a build? From what I've read it should be viable...

Depends what you meand by "beefy." Might has replaces Strength and basically just adds to damage, so it's a pretty good thing for any class to invest in, so it isn't really the same equivilent of a high-Str rogue in D&D. (Since every class would like to have high Might.) Otherwise, I suppose "beefy" might translate to a "high con" equilient, wich means more hitpoints, which is awlays a good thing.

In general, they've made it so that investment in any stat in useful to most characters. Meaning you can ahve some initially odd (compared to traditional standards) character builds. (Examples, high Int, lower Might Barbarian, low-Int, high Might wizard...)

[Mx.Silver]

Yeah, kinda disappointed about this. My pc has a good graphics card, but a pretty mediocre processor, and while I mostly don't have any issues, I do see some framerate dips during cutscenes with a lot of effects. Would like to tweak things for better performance.


I can't really run it at satisfactory level at all (even after turning-off the anti-aliasing, which requires bringing up the console), as it turns out my PC is just below minimum system spec requirements. Which means it's joining The Witcher 2 in my 'games I own but won't be able to play unless I get a better PC' pile.

Can't say I was expecting this when I backed the Kickstarter (although I should probably have been tipped-off back when the 'dynamic lighting' features were being talked about), so it's a bit disappointing. Still, not much as can be done about it now.

[warty goblin]

I have way too much free time right now, and my gaming schedule is fairly clear. But I can't drop a hefty sum on a game I'm still getting mixed signals about. Ironic, isn't it.

From what I know of your likes and dislikes when it comes to tactical RPG thingies, I'd say you're pretty safe skipping this for right now. The melee combat is, at least low levels, fairly bleh. Dudes stand next to each other, taking a swing at each other every couple of seconds, and the game doesn't even make an effort to fake something more dynamic. They literally just stand there, there's no parry animation or anything. Armor, two handed weapons and shields all slow down a combatant even more; so have fun waiting even longer for anything to happen. Oh, and you start with one activated ability that can be used maybe twice per fight, so that's super dynamic. I haven't messed about with magic much yet, but it seems entirely uninspired. Here's a bazillion spells with wonky names, you can cast some number of them per rest, they require no further investment or base statistics, and they always work. Compared to the elegance of the Dark Eye games (at least those that are faithful to the rules) that tie spellcasting to specific attributes and treat each spell as a skill to be advanced, it's an extremely bleh system.

I can't say I'm particularly enamored of the attribute system either. It feels both inconsequential and extremely gamey. Like, why does the same thing make a person cut deeper with a sword and cast a more damaging fireball? Admittedly I'm no expert on fireballs, but I know some things about delivering a better cut, and it's not exactly a mystical process. And why does this also correspond to being able to push over stone walls? And how much of a difference does raising this statistic actually make? From what I've read about the number-crunching, it turns out exceedingly little, which I guess is one way to ensure that most point allocations result in viable builds.

The talents are nice though; a decently sized list most of which actually seem to do things and which you can invest in freely. And the racial variety is nice, the graphics are really quite attractive, and the writing's mostly decent. Weiss and Hickman on a good day sorts of stuff, which when it comes to fantasy cRPGs is fairly close to as good as you're gonna get.

Now if you're looking for a recent game that's a bit cheaper, and are willing to go totally out of the genre, you should get Star Ruler 2. It's freaking awesome. You can build space dreadnaughts with internal compartmentalization to contain damage, and strap giant engines to planets.

[StabbityRabbit]

If (well, more like when) I ever play this game, I'll probably go a big beefy rogue. Any experience with such a build? From what I've read it should be viable...

In a similar note I think I'm going to make an orlan fighter focused on dexterity.

I originally wasn't very interested in this game, but after seeing reviewers continuously praising it to high heavens it seems like a "must-buy". That and I'll finally get to have an idea of what Bioware was like back in the day.

[huttj509]

In a similar note I think I'm going to make an orlan fighter focused on dexterity.

I originally wasn't very interested in this game, but after seeing reviewers continuously praising it to high heavens it seems like a "must-buy". That and I'll finally get to have an idea of what Bioware was like back in the day.

I made a Dwarf Wizard "sneaky might-mage." Some lore, because sure, and I'll poke more in as needed as I get scrolls, but focus is on stealth and mechanics, base Int, so looking towards non-aoe/duration spells, while my muscle makes my spells do 40% more damage. Merchant-tinkerer who'll punch you in the face with magic missiles.

[StabbityRabbit]

I made a Dwarf Wizard "sneaky might-mage." Some lore, because sure, and I'll poke more in as needed as I get scrolls, but focus is on stealth and mechanics, base Int, so looking towards non-aoe/duration spells, while my muscle makes my spells do 40% more damage. Merchant-tinkerer who'll punch you in the face with magic missiles.

That's...that's...I...wha..."sneaky might-mage"?

How...with muscles...my brain...is having some...trouble............I'm going to bed.

[smuchmuch]

So uh going to ask from the people who bought it, I see lots of discusion about mecanics, but far so what about the writting ? Is it any good ?

Because that's generaly the strong-ish point of Obsidian games and the one think that would relly interst me to buy it. (It's alo what disapointed with me my latest cRPG purchasse of Divinity:origins (it's not bad, i'm sjut not a fan of the style))

[factotum]

And how much of a difference does raising this statistic actually make?

That's another thing it tells you in the manual. Page 69/70, there's a table showing what raising each stat actually does. In the case of Might, each extra point in it increases your damage by 2% from base, so if you have 30 Might you get a 60% bonus. Frankly, that doesn't seem like enough to make it worth pumping the stat to my mind, so I fear they might have gone down the path of making all stats matter by making *none* of them matter; will know more when I actually get to play the game later today.

I also agree that it's really, really gamey to make the same stat that determines how hard you hit with a sword increase the power of your fireballs.

[ICN]

I also agree that it's really, really gamey to make the same stat that determines how hard you hit with a sword increase the power of your fireballs.

I dunno, it makes sense to me. Magic in the setting comes from the soul, which is a reflection of the person. If you're a big beefy person you've got a big beefy soul that can throw big beefy spells.

[Cespenar]

I also agree that it's really, really gamey to make the same stat that determines how hard you hit with a sword increase the power of your fireballs.

Eh. At least they try a new thing.

[Aotrs Commander]

I also agree that it's really, really gamey to make the same stat that determines how hard you hit with a sword increase the power of your fireballs.

The alternative is to have dump stats again, though. And it means that every wizard will have high Int, every barbarian will have high Str etc etc - like in D&D.

Let's be honest: "strength" is a staple of RPGs because it is what was created in D&D originally. Rather like wargames rules, fantasy roleplaying rules have a tendancy to use things because they've always been used, not because there is always a good reason for it. "Strength" has a somewhat undeserved sacred cow status among rules because "well, everyone has it." (BOTH tend to do it with range bands, for example.)

If you want to be realistic, being strong doesn't, in fact, make you hit people more easily, nor does, in practise, it necessarily make you a better fighter; despite what superhero comics and RPGs (and steriotypical manly men) would have us believe. Yes, it means you can exert more force, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can hit harder. A cow is stronger than a human, but that doesn't mean a cow can always beat a human armed with weapons (like they can in D&D...) There's more to "damaging" people than just having muscles.

By making Might an ABSTRACT stat, instead of trying to pretend "strength" in reality isn't one, it means you can can refluff it on a per character basis. (And, let's be very clear here - like D&D upon which it is based, PoE is a heavily abstracted combat engine. You want realisitic? Well, you can't have it in this sort of engine, because you just can't model it, because to do so means you have, well, baically have a combat system like the Witcher or something. (As my Dad also observes (equally true for gaming rules and aerospace engineering - all simulations and gaming models are wrong. Some simulations and gaming models are useful.) So as you're already on an abstracted system, you may as well USE the abstraction to your advantage.)

As my Dad pointed out, you could model Cohen the Barbarian much better with this system... His "damage" is horrendous, not because he's strong or fast, but because his sword is always in the right place. Something that you couldn't model properly with the traditional "strength" model.



I think PoE's stat system is actually really clever, since they really have made all the stats of use to every character class, which means making the decisions is meaningful. They went back to first principles, rather than just reguritating the same thesaurus-only-variations that most systems use.

[Avilan the Grey]

I am trying to resist spoiling myself, but I have watched a few let's plays now up past the tutorial and... I'm home. The green circles. The art style. The character creation...

...This is like watching Baldur's gate for the first time back then. :smallbiggrin:


ALso: "Spacer Pig, Spacer Pig, does whatever a Spacer Pig does" (Singing)

[factotum]

The alternative is to have dump stats again, though. And it means that every wizard will have high Int, every barbarian will have high Str etc etc - like in D&D.

I'm still struggling to see why this is a bad thing, though. As I said earlier, I prefer pure skill-based systems anyway, so if you're going to have attributes at all, I don't think it matters that some are more useful than others for the particular class you chose to play. (And in an ideal world there wouldn't be classes either, but we'll leave that particular argument for another time).

When it comes right down to it, if stats are present, I think they should have a more direct affect on gameplay than just modifying skills or damage slightly. For instance, in the original Fallout games, if you chose to lower the intelligence of your character below 4, you would only be able to speak in baby talk, which would massively affect your ability to interact with other people. In addition, apart from a few things like carry weight and skill points at level-up, your stats only affected the starting values of your skills--you could be a powerful melee combatant with some brass knuckles and a strength of 1 if you wanted to be!

[warty goblin]

The alternative is to have dump stats again, though. And it means that every wizard will have high Int, every barbarian will have high Str etc etc - like in D&D.

Let's be honest: "strength" is a staple of RPGs because it is what was created in D&D originally. Rather like wargames rules, fantasy roleplaying rules have a tendancy to use things because they've always been used, not because there is always a good reason for it. "Strength" has a somewhat undeserved sacred cow status among rules because "well, everyone has it." (BOTH tend to do it with range bands, for example.)

If you want to be realistic, being strong doesn't, in fact, make you hit people more easily, nor does, in practise, it necessarily make you a better fighter; despite what superhero comics and RPGs (and steriotypical manly men) would have us believe. Yes, it means you can exert more force, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can hit harder. A cow is stronger than a human, but that doesn't mean a cow can always beat a human armed with weapons (like they can in D&D...) There's more to "damaging" people than just having muscles.

By making Might an ABSTRACT stat, instead of trying to pretend "strength" in reality isn't one, it means you can can refluff it on a per character basis. (And, let's be very clear here - like D&D upon which it is based, PoE is a heavily abstracted combat engine. You want realisitic? Well, you can't have it in this sort of engine, because you just can't model it, because to do so means you have, well, baically have a combat system like the Witcher or something. (As my Dad also observes (equally true for gaming rules and aerospace engineering - all simulations and gaming models are wrong. Some simulations and gaming models are useful.) So as you're already on an abstracted system, you may as well USE the abstraction to your advantage.)

As my Dad pointed out, you could model Cohen the Barbarian much better with this system... His "damage" is horrendous, not because he's strong or fast, but because his sword is always in the right place. Something that you couldn't model properly with the traditional "strength" model.
What makes a person more damaging with a sword is primarily skill with the sword; which is a matter of training and practice. This is something that an RPG is extremely well suited to model, on account of having a skill system. Games with per-weapon or per-spell skill systems for instance do exactly this; a person who is strong and fast and tough starts out with an advantage in physical combat, but the real determining factor is their skill point investment. This also allows the game to let characters gain enhanced abilities with weapons as they invest further skill points; so a master swordswoman will not only hit more often and do more damage than she did at level 1, but simply be able to do things that were not possible to her before. But this requires a substantially greater step away from the traditions of D&D than simply lumping the key damage stat for everything together and calling it 'might.' Which in PoE is still very clearly at least highly colinear with physical strength.

(Consider for example the Dark Eye rules, where combat is a roll-under your score system. Your score is the average of your character's strength, agility and courage, but you can modify your roll by your skill in a given weapon. Weapon skills are advanced from the same pool of points as attributes - and attributes are fiendishly expensive to advance after character creation - so if you want to be better with a sword, you're better off raising your Swords skill. TDE also forces spellcasters to care at least slightly about multiple attributes by requiring three ordered tests against different attributes, modified by skill in the spell.)

What I'm getting at here is that you can solve these problems just fine by increasing the resolution and specificity of your model.



I think PoE's stat system is actually really clever, since they really have made all the stats of use to every character class, which means making the decisions is meaningful. They went back to first principles, rather than just reguritating the same thesaurus-only-variations that most systems use.
All the stats being useful for each class is fine. If you look at the numbers though (which are in fact shown in game, I hadn't remembered that), the benefits are extremely small.

[Aotrs Commander]

All the stats being useful for each class is fine. If you look at the numbers though (which are in fact shown in game, I hadn't remembered that), the benefits are extremely small.

They're larger than you get in D&D.


That's another thing it tells you in the manual. Page 69/70, there's a table showing what raising each stat actually does. In the case of Might, each extra point in it increases your damage by 2% from base, so if you have 30 Might you get a 60% bonus. Frankly, that doesn't seem like enough to make it worth pumping the stat to my mind, so I fear they might have gone down the path of making all stats matter by making *none* of them matter; will know more when I actually get to play the game later today.

It's 3% per point... Which is 1% better (and more granularity) than you get out of the difference you get in 3.x or 4E for the same stat. (Which is, of course, +5% per TWO points). (Which means an 18 in PoE is giving you practically the same percentage bonus to whatever that you'd get out of a 20 stat in 3.5/4E: 24% verses 25%.)




I'm still struggling to see why this is a bad thing, though. As I said earlier, I prefer pure skill-based systems anyway, so if you're going to have attributes at all, I don't think it matters that some are more useful than others for the particular class you chose to play. (And in an ideal world there wouldn't be classes either, but we'll leave that particular argument for another time).

Because it basically pushes people into a certain way to build their characters - and moreover, is a trap for people who are not ancient veterans of RPGs. (The explicit thing Obsidian were AVOIDING, people having to have a 3.5-optimisation level to get the most out of their characters). You don't have a high-strength beefy wizard in 3.5 without having an absurdly good set of stats so you have the spare, or hamstringing yourself.

Dump stats are NOT a desirable thing from a game-design perspective, for all that 3.x (and before and beyond) has them1.

Nor do I think a purely skill-based system is a good idea either: even systems like Rolemaster where there ARE only skills, your stats are vitally important, since they not only increases your skills, they tell you how many skills you can have. (Actually, I can't think of a system that DOESN'T have stats and only had skills.) That way lies to what Rolemaster nearly has, the "must have skill to enter" syndrome. At the very least in the practical sense, since you will either get difficulty of tasks where skills don't really matter, since a high "roll" from an unskilled (or possibly appropriately leveled character if you give all characters a 4E like level bonus) can succeed, or that, in order to make skills matter, the difference between "skilled" and "not skilled" is sufficiently wide that the "not skilled" may as well not bother trying anyway.



Put it this way: you can do a credible Gandalf-wizard in PoE. You can't do Gandalf in D&D. (Not without a massive amount of rules mastery, anyway.)


When it comes right down to it, if stats are present, I think they should have a more direct affect on gameplay than just modifying skills or damage slightly. For instance, in the original Fallout games, if you chose to lower the intelligence of your character below 4, you would only be able to speak in baby talk, which would massively affect your ability to interact with other people.

Which is silly, because in practise, someone like that would not be in a position to go adventuring - because Intelligence Does Not Work Like That, so anyone with those sort of mental problems is going to have a host of other problems. Basically, people only want that option so they can be all "me Grimlock talk funny", (or to min-max for combat) rather than because they actually want to play someone who is mental challenged: nor could you sensibly roleplay someone like that without a ridiculous expectations out of a computer game. The game designers would have to double or more the amount of dialogue, just so that some people can talk cartoonish stupid (because it IS only cartoon-stupidity that people talk that way - I am VERY sure that a character that functioned as if they were really mentally disabled would make people as uncomfortable as it unfortunately does in real life). Frankly, they have better things they could be doing with their time.

Long story short, that is something that shouldn't have been related to a game statistic, anyway - if you even bothered to implement it at all.



On top of that, there are plenty of conversation options related to stats in PoE that do more add numbers - I've run into a dozen or so already, and I've only got as far as the first village.




In addition, apart from a few things like carry weight and skill points at level-up, your stats only affected the starting values of your skills--you could be a powerful melee combatant with some brass knuckles and a strength of 1 if you wanted to be!

Again, that sounds rather more like allowing people to be a bit silly for the sake of allowing people to be a bit silly, rather than a sign of a properly put-together set of rules. At the very least it says they didn't bother making the stats ultimately mean anything, which is bad game design.

(And, at the risk of offending all the people who played the earlier Fallout games - I hate to say, it but all I've heard about suggested that, like AD&D, it does not sound like it was a particularly well-game-designed engine. That does not speak either way to the quality of the game overall, I will hasten to add. AD&D was a fairly crap set of rules when you get down to it, but Baldur's 2 and PS:T both used that and the aha, fallout of that is why we are here. The games were good, sometimes in spite of their underlying rules system.)

We now live and unlive in times where the fundementals of HOW to make rules are much better understood than in the past (because there is now enough stuff that has been built upon to be able to "ah, no that doesn't really work.") (Unfortunately, a lot of people who make up RPG and wargames rules think the same as people think about writing or drawing: "this is easy, anyone can do it." Because of course, not "anyone" can do it WELL.)


What makes a person more damaging with a sword is primarily skill with the sword; which is a matter of training and practice. This is something that an RPG is extremely well suited to model, on account of having a skill system. Games with per-weapon or per-spell skill systems for instance do exactly this; a person who is strong and fast and tough starts out with an advantage in physical combat, but the real determining factor is their skill point investment. This also allows the game to let characters gain enhanced abilities with weapons as they invest further skill points; so a master swordswoman will not only hit more often and do more damage than she did at level 1, but simply be able to do things that were not possible to her before. But this requires a substantially greater step away from the traditions of D&D than simply lumping the key damage stat for everything together and calling it 'might.' Which in PoE is still very clearly at least highly colinear with physical strength.

(Consider for example the Dark Eye rules, where combat is a roll-under your score system. Your score is the average of your character's strength, agility and courage, but you can modify your roll by your skill in a given weapon. Weapon skills are advanced from the same pool of points as attributes - and attributes are fiendishly expensive to advance after character creation - so if you want to be better with a sword, you're better off raising your Swords skill. TDE also forces spellcasters to care at least slightly about multiple attributes by requiring three ordered tests against different attributes, modified by skill in the spell.)

What I'm getting at here is that you can solve these problems just fine by increasing the resolution and specificity of your model.

And that leads to the Rolemaster model where it says "you will only ever be able to use one or two weapons, because you have to invest your skill points in being good at those weapons." Which is fine for the table top, where you have a DM who may alter the loot... But in a CRPG, you get the problem you had in Baldur's where the effectiveness of your choice of weapon will be determined by what loot is found. So if you pick an unpopular weapons type... (Or you end up having to have a loot generator like Diablo 1/2/3, which means either endlessly respawning enemies, or putting your weapon choices down to the vagaries of random chance.)

(And even on the tabletop, I have had to go back for my Rolemaster/Spacemaster parties and OPEN OUT the weapon skill trees to be more like D&Ds, when I realised the PCs had an armory full of guns they would never use (and nor would selling them get them any "better" weapons of the same type they already had, like you can sort of do in 3.x2.)

So, yes, that method might be more "realistic" (except it isn't, because as noted, all simulations are wrong) - but is it better suited to the purpose at hand (wherein Looting Gear is important)? (So is it a "useful" simulation?)

I'm not convinced that for the paradigm in question, it IS a useful one.

Or, come to that, whether "increasing the resolution and specificity of your model" in the first place is actually necessary or desirable for said paradigm: you can't "add realism" to an abstract system, because to "add realism" you have to stop making it be an abtracted system. Without changing completely away from the "attack roll/damage roll" (and at that point meaning it can no longer be "click to attack" - or expecting a truly ridiculous amount of programming and processing power for you to do that) the numbers will remain the same numbers - maybe the magnitude of the numbers will change slightly, but they'll still be the numbers. You can't have a "detailed abstract system" - the two goals are mutally exclusive.



1As time has gone on, in 3.Aotrs, I have increasing pushed up the amount of stats I dole out to my PCs, since increasing the quantity of stats doesn't make them any worse than the already were (because in the optimisation area, they were already maxed-out), but does allow them to have some "space" to have a few more roleplay-values, as I don't believe anyone should have to be sacrificing optimisation for roleplaying: e.g. the fighter shouldn't have to suffer on his ability to fight just so he can have higher mental stats.

2But not 4E, since selling/residiuuming anything gives you such a ridiculously small return, you may as well not bother.

[Ilorin Lorati]

All this really makes me want to do is play a PoE TTRPG.



Edit:

Me, I really like the way the stats are setup. I don't think it would work quite as well conceptually in a game you could multiclass, because if you were a wizard with high might and suddenly took levels in fighter the definition of what Might means to you changes.


It's 3% per point... Which is 1% better (and more granularity) than you get out of the difference you get in 3.x or 4E for the same stat. (Which is, of course, +5% per TWO points). (Which means an 18 in PoE is giving you practically the same percentage bonus to whatever that you'd get out of a 20 stat in 3.5/4E: 24% verses 25%.)

This is incorrect. In D&D, Strength gets you the 5% per two points because of the hit bonus and some other percent of damage ranging from 25% per two points to 7.5% per two points assuming you're playing a medium character with a medium weapon. Minor nitpick though.

[Cyber Punk]

I'm more attracted to the game because of the emphasis on player choice that their games tend to have.

[Morty]

From what I know of your likes and dislikes when it comes to tactical RPG thingies, I'd say you're pretty safe skipping this for right now. The melee combat is, at least low levels, fairly bleh. Dudes stand next to each other, taking a swing at each other every couple of seconds, and the game doesn't even make an effort to fake something more dynamic. They literally just stand there, there's no parry animation or anything. Armor, two handed weapons and shields all slow down a combatant even more; so have fun waiting even longer for anything to happen. Oh, and you start with one activated ability that can be used maybe twice per fight, so that's super dynamic. I haven't messed about with magic much yet, but it seems entirely uninspired. Here's a bazillion spells with wonky names, you can cast some number of them per rest, they require no further investment or base statistics, and they always work. Compared to the elegance of the Dark Eye games (at least those that are faithful to the rules) that tie spellcasting to specific attributes and treat each spell as a skill to be advanced, it's an extremely bleh system.


That's not terribly encouraging. I knew that two-handed weapons swing like molasses, of course. I know better than to expect realistic two-handed swords in a game advertising itself as old-school. Maybe investing heavily in Dexterity will help offset that?

The attribute system is one of the main draws I have to this game, though. Making them abstract and "gamey" is a move in the right direction, I think, especially in a class-based game. Really, if you have classes, I think attribute scores could be cut entirely. But making them useful for every class is good too.

[warty goblin]

They're larger than you get in D&D.

It's 3% per point... Which is 1% better (and more granularity) than you get out of the difference you get in 3.x or 4E for the same stat. (Which is, of course, +5% per TWO points). (Which means an 18 in PoE is giving you practically the same percentage bonus to whatever that you'd get out of a 20 stat in 3.5/4E: 24% verses 25%.)

So, um, woo I guess?



And that leads to the Rolemaster model where it says "you will only ever be able to use one or two weapons, because you have to invest your skill points in being good at those weapons." Which is fine for the table top, where you have a DM who may alter the loot... But in a CRPG, you get the problem you had in Baldur's where the effectiveness of your choice of weapon will be determined by what loot is found. So if you pick an unpopular weapons type... (Or you end up having to have a loot generator like Diablo 1/2/3, which means either endlessly respawning enemies, or putting your weapon choices down to the vagaries of random chance.)
Not necessary. If you allow for a weapon to be used under a related weapon's skill at a slight penalty, or have a relatively small number of very broad weapon classes. Or the advancement costs are highly nonlinear, and weapons are differentiated enough that it's a disadvantage to only ever show up with the same thing in hand. Like happens for instance if you've got an armor system with any complexity or depth to it at all. Or the game isn't particularly geared around looting ever-better weapons.


So, yes, that method might be more "realistic" (except it isn't, because as noted, all simulations are wrong) - but is it better suited to the purpose at hand (wherein Looting Gear is important)? (So is it a "useful" simulation?)

Or, come to that, whether "increasing the resolution and specificity of your model" in the first place is actually necessary or desirable for said paradigm: you can't "add realism" to an abstract system, because to "add realism" you have to stop making it be an abtracted system. Without changing completely away from the "attack roll/damage roll" (and at that point meaning it can no longer be "click to attack" - or expecting a truly ridiculous amount of programming and processing power for you to do that) the numbers will remain the same numbers - maybe the magnitude of the numbers will change slightly, but they'll still be the numbers. You can't have a "detailed abstract system" - the two goals are mutally exclusive.

Here's the thing, I'm a statistician. I literally earn my bread making extremely abstract probability models to capture aspects of reality. And pretty much everything you're saying here is wrong. The meaning of the quote 'all models are wrong' is that any model you personally fit to a problem will not be the full physical reality, but will be an abstraction or approximation of that reality. This in no way implies that all abstractions are equal; you absolutely can add realism to them, and better models (as assessed by their measured correspondence with reality) are often - not always - more complex. Complex abstractions are in fact entirely a thing, I deal with them every single day. Wrong in a modeling context is measured on a continuum; it's not being wrong that matters, it's how wrong and whether one is wrong in a systematic way. In other words the second half of the qoute (actually due to George Box) that some models are useful.


That's not terribly encouraging. I knew that two-handed weapons swing like molasses, of course. I know better than to expect realistic two-handed swords in a game advertising itself as old-school. Maybe investing heavily in Dexterity will help offset that?

The attribute system is one of the main draws I have to this game, though. Making them abstract and "gamey" is a move in the right direction, I think, especially in a class-based game. Really, if you have classes, I think attribute scores could be cut entirely. But making them useful for every class is good too.

So I started a third character last night, going two-handed with a very high dexterity. It's somewhat better, I've got around a 20% bonus to attack speed (which is then entirely subsumed by even a half-decent armor), so it works out that they actually do something every now and again in combat. It's also a lot better once you get a few more party members - I highly recommend making an adventurer companion as soon as possible - and get out of the really boring tutorial area. The lack of abilities for a melee character is still very much in effect though; one or two abilities useable once or twice a fight, and mostly things like + attack - defense or vice versa. Woo. Drakensang: The River of Time remains much better in the swordperson department.

(You can knock people over, but this then proceeds to miss The Witcher's great leap forwards in RPG combat, namely getting to impale stunned and knocked over people on the spot. So instead you knock a guy over, and then everybody stands around kinda gormlessly for a couple seconds. )

[huttj509]

(You can knock people over, but this then proceeds to miss The Witcher's great leap forwards in RPG combat, namely getting to impale stunned and knocked over people on the spot. So instead you knock a guy over, and then everybody stands around kinda gormlessly for a couple seconds. )

Though if you combine it with a speedy dual wield rogue, sneakattacksneakattacksneakattack.

[Gamerlord]

So I recently got the game, and started it on Normal, and I seem to be doing something very wrong that I can't figure out. Started out as a Druid, nothing seems wrong in the tutorial area, then once I hit Gilded Vale even minor encounters seem to TPK me.
I grabbed the wizard, and hired a fighter, but he goes down in a few hits from even the Sporelings and then we soon follow. Trying to go into the underground temple in town get everyone killed on the first fight. Were there some more followers I was supposed to grab before going out? Looked around town, did that one task with the mill. and couldn't find anyone else.

[Toastkart]

Quicksave is F5. Quickload is F8. I went specifically looking for that and eventually found it.


We didn't read our manual first then, gentlemen...?

My mistake. I somehow missed it when going through the keybinds in the options screen. I also tend not to read manuals even if they are available. Not only do I learn better by doing, but too often they're not updated when the game is and readily fall behind.


So uh going to ask from the people who bought it, I see lots of discusion about mecanics, but far so what about the writting ? Is it any good ?

Because that's generaly the strong-ish point of Obsidian games and the one think that would relly interst me to buy it. (It's alo what disapointed with me my latest cRPG purchasse of Divinity:origins (it's not bad, i'm sjut not a fan of the style))

I'm only a few hours into the game, but I've got no complaints so far. The character vignettes are a little meh for me, if only because you can't interact with them in any meaningful way, and the stories themselves (the ones I've seen so far, anyway) range from mildly interesting to poorly written. I hear that they've got something to do with the kickstarter, but I didn't really follow it so I couldn't say for sure.

I hear you about D:O, I wanted to like that game, too, but I rather quickly grew tired of the 'you can build anything you want' number of options and the 'laying down magic fields and exploding them with magic finishers trumps everything else' results. I'll probably go back to it eventually. Maybe.



The alternative is to have dump stats again, though. And it means that every wizard will have high Int, every barbarian will have high Str etc etc - like in D&D.

Let's be honest: "strength" is a staple of RPGs because it is what was created in D&D originally. Rather like wargames rules, fantasy roleplaying rules have a tendancy to use things because they've always been used, not because there is always a good reason for it. "Strength" has a somewhat undeserved sacred cow status among rules because "well, everyone has it." (BOTH tend to do it with range bands, for example.)

Exactly. My thinking is, if you have stats that are only useful for certain classes, then why have stats at all? Why not just bake the math into the class design? Why have customizable design space if the results are such that no one would choose to allocate resources to anything but their class's main stat?


I'm still struggling to see why this is a bad thing, though. As I said earlier, I prefer pure skill-based systems anyway, so if you're going to have attributes at all, I don't think it matters that some are more useful than others for the particular class you chose to play. (And in an ideal world there wouldn't be classes either, but we'll leave that particular argument for another time).

When it comes right down to it, if stats are present, I think they should have a more direct affect on gameplay than just modifying skills or damage slightly.

I agree, your stats should have a more direct affect on gameplay, and in PoE they can. I've seen plenty of conversation options that could be resolved by one stat or another, possibly in different ways. There have been a few environmental obstacles that were passed with a particular stat, or ones where I had to go and get the tools to proceed.

Particularly in light of that, I don't see why stats wouldn't be equally useful to every character, regardless of class.



That's not terribly encouraging. I knew that two-handed weapons swing like molasses, of course. I know better than to expect realistic two-handed swords in a game advertising itself as old-school. Maybe investing heavily in Dexterity will help offset that?

This would be my complaint as well. I'm really tired of games, or even media in general, going with the tired cliche of two handed weapons being slow but powerful. I mean, it's right up there with fighters being tanks and raging barbarians being damage dealers. Or how shields just sit there and give static bonuses/penalties. Or how wearing armor is actually detrimental to your ability to fight.

I am pretty tired of games thinking that the end all be all of fighting is attacking over and over again, while all of the cool (or at least interesting) design space goes to the casters. It irks me, especially when it's attached to an otherwise enjoyable game. That is to say, I find myself irked a lot by these sorts of games, but there's very few alternatives out there.

[warty goblin]

I'm only a few hours into the game, but I've got no complaints so far. The character vignettes are a little meh for me, if only because you can't interact with them in any meaningful way, and the stories themselves (the ones I've seen so far, anyway) range from mildly interesting to poorly written. I hear that they've got something to do with the kickstarter, but I didn't really follow it so I couldn't say for sure.

I stopped reading them once I figured it was random people's RPG character fan fiction. Fortunately they're very easy to ignore.


This would be my complaint as well. I'm really tired of games, or even media in general, going with the tired cliche of two handed weapons being slow but powerful. I mean, it's right up there with fighters being tanks and raging barbarians being damage dealers. Or how shields just sit there and give static bonuses/penalties. Or how wearing armor is actually detrimental to your ability to fight.

I am pretty tired of games thinking that the end all be all of fighting is attacking over and over again, while all of the cool (or at least interesting) design space goes to the casters. It irks me, especially when it's attached to an otherwise enjoyable game. That is to say, I find myself irked a lot by these sorts of games, but there's very few alternatives out there.
I suspect it mostly comes from games thinking that they need to make lots of viable builds, while sticking to the click to attack school of melee combat design. So because running around in your shirt sleeves with a rapier has to be viable, various penalties have to be stuck onto armor and two handed weapons and shields, lest we arrive at the apparently unforgivable situation where a dude in half plate with a partisan is just plain better at killing things than a dude in a leather shirt with a rapier.

[Morty]

At least it gives me a reason to do a Geralt impersonation and use a two-handed sword while in light armour. While waiting for a game other than the Witcher series that lets me use a longsword.

And I really doubt the only way to balance two-handed weapons and heavy armour with the civilian duelling style is to have the latter be made of concrete. It's just the one designers tend to default to.

[StabbityRabbit]

On the whole "gameyness" of the stats issue, I'd rather have "gamey" stats and fun gameplay rather than realistic stats that get in the way of the game. Personally I think they could've tried harder to have might make sense in the game world. Like maybe might is how powerful your soul is and every class is tapping into the magic of the soul just in different ways. So barbarians use their primal brutishness to tap into their soul and bring out even greater ferocity. While, say, a wizard would use their soul to power a complex algorithm which allows them to fling fire.

From what I understand they sort of already do this, but not quite. Making it so that casters tap into the soul, but martials don't. If that is incorrect please, correct me.

Anyway I do prefer the stats that they have to D&D stats even if it creates oddballs like, Sneakybeard: The Muscle Wizard.

[warty goblin]

At least it gives me a reason to do a Geralt impersonation and use a two-handed sword while in light armour. While waiting for a game other than the Witcher series that lets me use a longsword.

And I really doubt the only way to balance two-handed weapons and heavy armour with the civilian duelling style is to have the latter be made of concrete. It's just the one designers tend to default to.
I don't think there's really a way to balance the two without dropping some serious penalties on guys fighting in armor with military grade weaponry, simply because in reality the two aren't balanced in terms of killing power and survivability. It's like saying there should be a way to balance Bob down the street who has a 9mm pistol and a Grateful Dead T-shirt against a guy in a rifle vest with an M4 in terms of combat power.

There are certainly ways to make going around in heavy armor with two handed swords and poleaxes less viable, mind. But they'd be things like social penalties or getting arrested, or else have a much more vigorous fatigue system. However nobody really wants to do that in a game like this, so we're left with slow motion sword fights.

[Morty]

I guess I wouldn't mind it if using a rapier without any armour on was reserved for magicians, thieves and whatnot, while actual warriors were expected to wear some metal between their internal organs and enemy weapons/appendages - even if just a mail shirt - and use real weapons.

[huttj509]

I guess I wouldn't mind it if using a rapier without any armour on was reserved for magicians, thieves and whatnot, while actual warriors were expected to wear some metal between their internal organs and enemy weapons/appendages - even if just a mail shirt - and use real weapons.

Personally I rather like "what you do" being separated from "how you do it."

Hmmm, does Barbarian's aoe apply to ranged attacks? Crossbarian?


I love being able to have my main character be my scout/detrapper without needing to be a rogue-type class.

As to conversation options, I found it kinda gleeful when I got an opening in a hostage situation using Lore. That conversation felt fun.

[thracian]

So I recently got the game, and started it on Normal, and I seem to be doing something very wrong that I can't figure out. Started out as a Druid, nothing seems wrong in the tutorial area, then once I hit Gilded Vale even minor encounters seem to TPK me.
I grabbed the wizard, and hired a fighter, but he goes down in a few hits from even the Sporelings and then we soon follow. Trying to go into the underground temple in town get everyone killed on the first fight. Were there some more followers I was supposed to grab before going out? Looked around town, did that one task with the mill. and couldn't find anyone else.

Leave town and go to Magran's Fork to the south. Along the path is a Priest. Learn to love that sucker (or hire a priest of your own, whichever). You can come back to town after that and do those quests, after all, and the buffs/heals from the priest have been fairly essential so far. Hell, I'm still doing sidequests in town, but I've got a 4-dude party (all named, non hired).

Also, I found great success with having a dedicated tank fighter just stack Constitution and whatever stat gives deflection, I don't remember. Grab a Hatchet and the biggest shield I could find for more deflection. Hugest armour you can get, too. Penalties to recovery and acc from armour and shield don't matter, you dumped strength anyway because you exist to tank things.
Grab the stance that lets you engage 3 dudes at once as soon as possible, and fight in chokes whenever possible. I equipped all my damage-dealing dudes (at that point it was the wizard, the named fighter by the hanging tree and priest) and made sure they all had ranged/reach weapons (Rod, Pike and Quarterstaff, respectively) so they could get hits in past my tank. Between priest heals and stat buffs and wizard debuffs my tank never seemed to really get hurt and almost all encounters went down pretty easily.

Don't be afraid to use scout mode with your tank and leave everyone else set up by a doorway and aggro someone with the tank using a ranged weapon. Just run back to the doorway and fight there.

Being engaged as a non-tank SUCKS. If an enemy gets close to one of your dudes, he'll engage it (little red/green lines going between your circles). If you break an engage by moving (certain skills avoid this, but we'll assume you don't have them this early) you take a free hit from the enemy (they get bonus damage/acc) and you stop in place for a second (giving the enemy time, if he wants and none of your guys engage HIM, to walk up and reengage). Avoid letting melee brawlers get close to defenseless dudes at all costs. Enemies don't seem to willingly break engages, so if all enemies are engaged with your dudes you can often move mages to get good flanks/AoEs down.

The first sporelings I ran into were at The Compass to the south, and man that was a nasty fight. With 4 people, enchanted/fine gear and at level 4 I still had someone go down to those guys. Makes sense you're losing guys if you've got a less polished routine and are fighting them earlier than I am.

[Morty]

Personally I rather like "what you do" being separated from "how you do it."

Eh, it was a general observation, not anything specific I'd want done. I'll get behind anything as long as it lets me use a two-handed sword with reasonable speed and precision, especially if the difference between a longsword and a greatsword is acknowledged.

[Avilan the Grey]

I must say that in a proper old school RPG (that emulates a pen and paper / tabletop experience) I need stats. Seriously. Shepard doesn't need stats, because all physical skills are the player's. She only shoots as good as you aim with the mouse. She only dodges when you manages to reach cover. Which, to be frank, is not an RPG mechanic. To me ME passess as an RPG purely on being able to customize the main character + dialogue. The game mechanics, otherwise, has nothing to do with RPGs.

But yes, a proper old school RPG, like Shadowrun Returns, Baldur's Gate, Fallout (yes even NV and 3) and this game, need stats.
The TES are different because the stats are there, but are not visible. You still picks what you want to increase though.



...Speaking of Shadowrun: The one thing I HATE with that, Baldur's Gate and Pillars (without playing it) is the choice to go with portraits instead of an avatar from the actual well... character.
Because it is virtually impossible to get a portraits that looks like your character. And that sucks!

[StabbityRabbit]

*snip*

...Speaking of Shadowrun: The one thing I HATE with that, Baldur's Gate and Pillars (without playing it) is the choice to go with portraits instead of an avatar from the actual well... character.
Because it is virtually impossible to get a portraits that looks like your character. And that sucks!

As I haven't actually played the game yet I read this and thought, "Surely it couldn't be that bad."

So I went to go take a look a the portraits available to female orlans (as this is what I intend to play) and found that there is a grand total of three portraits for them. Seeing this I decided to expand my search to all orlan portraits, which in turn caused the number to increase to five.

I feel so spoiled for choice.

[Hatu]

As I haven't actually played the game yet I read this and thought, "Surely it couldn't be that bad."

So I went to go take a look a the portraits available to female orlans (as this is what I intend to play) and found that there is a grand total of three portraits for them. Seeing this I decided to expand my search to all orlan portraits, which in turn caused the number to increase to five.

I feel so spoiled for choice.

I've barely begun, but I noticed the whole portrait thing, too.

Given this was supposed to be the 'spiritual successor' to the Infinity Engine games, I was fine with having hand-drawn portraits. Given that, I really don't get why they ALSO spent the resources to develop a 3D character builder for your character. But I am utterly amazed that, given that they were determined to do both, they couldn't be bothered to make the portraits look anything like the 3D models.

And as you say, there are very few portrait choices for any given build. To cover up that fact, the game lets you pick any portrait, regardless of race or gender if you want. But even that is a mixed blessing, since the only way to select a portrait is to scroll through them one by one.

Honestly, I'm getting the distinct impression that resource allocation on this project was not well handled.

-H

[Avilan the Grey]

As I haven't actually played the game yet I read this and thought, "Surely it couldn't be that bad."

So I went to go take a look a the portraits available to female orlans (as this is what I intend to play) and found that there is a grand total of three portraits for them. Seeing this I decided to expand my search to all orlan portraits, which in turn caused the number to increase to five.

I feel so spoiled for choice.

Admittedly it is a bigger issue for me in Shadowrun since the game puts the portraits center stage in conversations. Makes it harder to pick something and then mostly ignore it...
My Female Elf Street Samurai with a pink Flock Of Seagulls haircut want a picture dammit.

But yes i feel your pain. I scrolled thru the portraits and the selection is very narrow. Are there portrait mods out yet?

[factotum]

You'd think they could use the Wasteland 2 approach, where you could build your character to look the way you wanted and then take a snapshot of them that would be used as their in-game picture.

@thracian: Having a tank or two is all very well, but the Shadows in the Gilded Vale temple have an annoying habit of teleporting to attack your casters even if your tanks have them engaged. They're also hard to damage and hit like trucks, which is odd considering they're level 1 mobs! I have less problems dealing with level 5 wolves and forest trolls than I do dealing with those guys...

[Avilan the Grey]

You'd think they could use the Wasteland 2 approach, where you could build your character to look the way you wanted and then take a snapshot of them that would be used as their in-game picture.

Hell Dragon Age Origins did that.

[Driderman]

You'd think they could use the Wasteland 2 approach, where you could build your character to look the way you wanted and then take a snapshot of them that would be used as their in-game picture.

@thracian: Having a tank or two is all very well, but the Shadows in the Gilded Vale temple have an annoying habit of teleporting to attack your casters even if your tanks have them engaged. They're also hard to damage and hit like trucks, which is odd considering they're level 1 mobs! I have less problems dealing with level 5 wolves and forest trolls than I do dealing with those guys...

Shadows and Phantoms are horrible because they pretty much cancel any sort of tactical advantage you can create. Best tactic is probably just to have one draw them out and try and make a wall around your mage because they will try to eviscerate him/her the moment they see him and there's nothing you can do to prevent it.
I guess having that one, early enemy type that is a real pain to deal with is an CRPG staple. Like Allips in Neverwinter Nights, IIRC.

[Aotrs Commander]

I actually suspect that Obsidian were expecting people to be creating/using - or re-using from older games - custom portraits. There's already a thread on it on the PoE forums, and people are already compiling packs. I'll get back to your in a bit when I see how easy it is to get them working in game.

[Avilan the Grey]

I don't know what to play like! Dammit!
Too Many Choices!

[Driderman]

I don't know what to play like! Dammit!
Too Many Choices!

I had 5 or 6 false starts before I settled on a Fire Godlike Darcozzi Paladini. I think, for roleplaying purposes, playing either a Priest or a Paladin, both who get bonuses from practicing their associated dispositions, works really well as it gives you a framework for how you can play, or not play, your character.
Personally I felt the Cipher class, which people seemed to advertize, seemed lackluster and the class features were generally unnecessarily complicated and not really particularly useful in the game's combat style. The Cipher seems to be built for being a close-range glass cannon, but since it has abysmal Health and Endurance, and not a lot of tricks to utilize, it just becomes a hit, then cast sort of class that gets wiped after initial contact. At least, at the first couple of levels. You might as well go for one of the more traditional spellcaster classes, or the Chanter, which looks like fun if you want to be ranged support/control.

Does anyone know if the Druid animal forms affect stats? As far as I can tell they don't, but I was considering if building a Druid whose primary combat mode is animal form melee is even viable.

[Avilan the Grey]

Well I have decided what to play in my next two playthroughs. This first one is tougher.

Next time will be a Death Godlike Pale Paladin. Seems to all... go together so nicely.
The one after that I will go slightly off the rails and pick and Orlan Bearshifter, because why not? "Look, she's so small... and HOLYMOTHEROFWHATEVERIBELIEVIN!!!"

This time? Nature Godlike. But as what? Barbarian? Paladin? Figher? Wizard?
That's where I am right now.

Also I love the default Death Godlike portrait, it matches the default Death Godlike to perfection and manages to make her look disgusting and very beautfiful at once.
The Nature Godlike? A deranged cow (literary) furry with Flowerpower issues.

[Driderman]

Nature Godlike Ranger?

[Avilan the Grey]

Nature Godlike Ranger?

Maybe. I like to hit things over the head most of the time, although i tend to favor ranged in most modern and sci fi settings...

Is it a fun class? Anyone played it? I was rather underwhelmed by it in the BG games.

[Driderman]

Maybe. I like to hit things over the head most of the time, although i tend to favor ranged in most modern and sci fi settings...

Is it a fun class? Anyone played it? I was rather underwhelmed by it in the BG games.

I like hitting things over the head as well, which is why I've avoided it so far. The Paladin is definitely a solid choice. Good derivative stats, extra defenses and gets some interesting abilities for even more staying power on the field.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I tried to play an Orlan Cipher (Because psychics), but I just couldn't get into it. The mechanics were so awkward ("I need to attack people with my weapon to cast spells!") that I felt like I had to watch it like a hawk to the detriment of managing the other characters. I've now gotten 6+ hours into the game on a Moon Godlike Chanter. I'm not sure I like it too much either since many combats I can just go through not doing anything with her but attacking, but since I have a Wizard and a Priest in the party I don't mind a relatively passive character much.

[Morty]

If I get this game, I already know that the first character I create will be a two-handed fighter maxing dexterity and keeping light armour to make his attack speed faster than a lead bar through molasses. Then, an Orlan Rogue with a crossbow. Let's see how PoE treats those.

[warty goblin]

If I get this game, I already know that the first character I create will be a two-handed fighter maxing dexterity and keeping light armour to make his attack speed faster than a lead bar through molasses. Then, an Orlan Rogue with a crossbow. Let's see how PoE treats those.

So once you get a bit into the game and acquire an actual party, the low attack speed thing becomes much less of an issue. Then you've got six schmucks all acting at the speed of mud, so it works out to being pretty much manageable, and there's much fewer bits where everybody's just standing around looking awkwardly at each other like it's the bad kind of social mixer.

In other news I'm looking forwards to being able to offload my wizard at the first possible opportunity, who is mostly worthless. Trying to sling spells without incinerating my own party is just not worth the bother, particularly since aside from the priest (who is useful), he's the only party member running on per-rest abilities. This means most of the time he's sitting around using those plinky little staff attacks, and getting his face ripped off yet again. Another ranger would bring two warm bodies to the proceedings, and do more consistent single-target ranged damage. I'd be missing out on the wizard's AoE stuff, but as noted that's a PITA to actually use, whereas a second barbarian can deliver non-ally killing AoEs from right at the front line without needing babysat lest they get a booboo. In short I'm finding the case for fireballs uncompelling, a fact of which I heartily approve.

Plus that means another me-designed party member, which means one less whiny NPC schmuck to listen to yammering all the time.

[factotum]

Maybe. I like to hit things over the head most of the time, although i tend to favor ranged in most modern and sci fi settings...

Is it a fun class? Anyone played it? I was rather underwhelmed by it in the BG games.

I'm playing a ranger right now. The bear does tend to die rather easily, unfortunately, but an arbalest does an enormous amount of damage; and if you really want to hit stuff over the head you have six characters under your control, so you can hire a fighter to itch that scratch.

[Ilorin Lorati]

In other news I'm looking forwards to being able to offload my wizard at the first possible opportunity, who is mostly worthless. Trying to sling spells without incinerating my own party is just not worth the bother, particularly since aside from the priest (who is useful), he's the only party member running on per-rest abilities.

There's more than enough spells that only target foes in the wizard repertoire that I have yet to run into this problem. I turned off the flame breath thing as soon as I could. I'm still getting rid of said wizard though, since they're bloody annoying and their skills are already handled since my party has a chanter with a massive Lore score anyways.

I've been hoping to get a rogue after the first one died, but I haven't found one yet. I just entered Defiance Bay - has anyone seen any others on the path?


I'm playing a ranger right now. The bear does tend to die rather easily, unfortunately, but an arbalest does an enormous amount of damage; and if you really want to hit stuff over the head you have six characters under your control, so you can hire a fighter to itch that scratch.

Edér, whom you meet on the main storyline, is a recruitable fighter. You get him early enough that the choice of tank/DPS hasn't been made for him yet, as well.

[Avilan the Grey]

There's more than enough spells that only target foes in the wizard repertoire that I have yet to run into this problem. I turned off the flame breath thing as soon as I could. I'm still getting rid of said wizard though, since they're bloody annoying and their skills are already handled since my party has a chanter with a massive Lore score anyways.

I've been hoping to get a rogue after the first one died, but I haven't found one yet. I just entered Defiance Bay - has anyone seen any others on the path?



Edér, whom you meet on the main storyline, is a recruitable fighter. You get him early enough that the choice of tank/DPS hasn't been made for him yet, as well.

The point is that I want to hit people over the head. Party members... don't count.

[Morty]

So once you get a bit into the game and acquire an actual party, the low attack speed thing becomes much less of an issue. Then you've got six schmucks all acting at the speed of mud, so it works out to being pretty much manageable, and there's much fewer bits where everybody's just standing around looking awkwardly at each other like it's the bad kind of social mixer.

Ah, so everyone anaemically swings every couple of seconds, the two-handers just do it even slower?

[warty goblin]

Ah, so everyone anaemically swings every couple of seconds, the two-handers just do it even slower?

More or less, although some of the combat animations are pretty decent. The estoc* animation for instance is (more or less) a thrust to the face from plow right. I mean it doesn't exactly happen very often, but it's actually a relatively decent looking attack. Fortunately with six essentially brainless people to manage, plus the occasional evolutionary reject wolf or other animal companion, this actually works out OK. Which is to say you don't end up sitting around waiting for at least one somebody to do something.



*On the one hand, the game has estocs, which is cool. On the other, I cannot find any reason to ever use one over a greatsword of equivalent enhancement, since they've got the same base damage, but the greatsword does best of slashing and piercing, while the estoc only does piercing. It looses out to the pike as well, since that also has better reach, which leaves a person wondering why exactly it exists in the first place.

[huttj509]

*On the one hand, the game has estocs, which is cool. On the other, I cannot find any reason to ever use one over a greatsword of equivalent enhancement, since they've got the same base damage, but the greatsword does best of slashing and piercing, while the estoc only does piercing. It looses out to the pike as well, since that also has better reach, which leaves a person wondering why exactly it exists in the first place.

Estoc ignores some DR, making it more useful against high armor targets.

[Avilan the Grey]

Ah, so everyone anaemically swings every couple of seconds, the two-handers just do it even slower?

If the combat is anything like Baldur's Gate... "Swing speed" and "realistic looking combat" really isn't an issue that is relevant. It's like asking why turn based games won't let you shoot at the same time the enemy does...

[Morty]

More or less, although some of the combat animations are pretty decent. The estoc* animation for instance is (more or less) a thrust to the face from plow right. I mean it doesn't exactly happen very often, but it's actually a relatively decent looking attack. Fortunately with six essentially brainless people to manage, plus the occasional evolutionary reject wolf or other animal companion, this actually works out OK. Which is to say you don't end up sitting around waiting for at least one somebody to do something.

I suppose I can live with that.


If the combat is anything like Baldur's Gate... "Swing speed" and "realistic looking combat" really isn't an issue that is relevant. It's like asking why turn based games won't let you shoot at the same time the enemy does...

As far as I'm concerned, there's a big difference between turn-based combat and real-time combat where everyone attacks as if they haven't had enough to eat in a month.

[Flickerdart]

I was considering getting this, but reviews seem split between "omg it's Baldur's Gate 3" and "it's a boring buggy slogfest and micromanaging your dudes will make you want to kill yourself." I'm guessing that the truth is somewhere in between. What are your guys' thoughts?

[Driderman]

So far I think it's pretty good. It hasn't passed into "great" just yet, but I definitely don't regret backing it. Better than Wasteland 2, that's for sure.

[Mx.Silver]

I was considering getting this, but reviews seem split between "omg it's Baldur's Gate 3" and "it's a boring buggy slogfest and micromanaging your dudes will make you want to kill yourself." I'm guessing that the truth is somewhere in between. What are your guys' thoughts?

It's worth noting that few people in the former camp are likely to consider heavy micro-management requirements as being a bad thing. Success in BG relied on you doing a lot of micro-management. It's why the games have a pause system.
In other words, aside from bug complaints, these positions look to be rather like: 'it's like BG3 and I love that' versus 'it's like BG3 and I hate that'.

[Ilorin Lorati]

On one hand, it is pretty buggy. On the other hand, anyone that thinks Obsidian product out of the gate won't be buggy has either never heard of Obsidian before or has never considered purchasing an Obsidian product before it's 6 months old and on sale for 33% off on Steam. Me, I'm fine with some bugs. As a programmer myself, I know how hard it can be to find and crush them all; the game has thus far been worth the money even considering said bugs.

Other than that, I agree with Mr. Silver. If you liked Baldur's Gate, I think you'll like this game. If you hated it, give this a pass.

[Narkis]

I was considering getting this, but reviews seem split between "omg it's Baldur's Gate 3" and "it's a boring buggy slogfest and micromanaging your dudes will make you want to kill yourself." I'm guessing that the truth is somewhere in between. What are your guys' thoughts?

My thoughts can be very accurately be summarised as "omg, it's Baldur's Gate 3!". I cannot imagine someone liking the old games and not liking this one.

[Aotrs Commander]

Well I am now suitable far in I can say...

Yes, this is basically EXACTLY what I wanted. Combat I am finding interesting - I am finding myself relying more on my per encounter powers and sparingly using my per rest ones (usually), except for boss fights, when I nova.

Fortunately, this is relatively easy, because my Elven Cipher is HILARIOUS murderous. He personally has, like 80% of the party's kills (and I hired in two mooks this morning1). He's tanking around with a Fine arbalest at the moment (which I upgraded to be on fire...) and the amount of damage I put out is simply hysterical. His damage output is EIGHT TIMES that of the next highest (the NPC wizard) and his damage is about twice the next one.

Mind Blades are just stupendously awesome (he's taken out whole encounters of enemies with one attack), and currently his damage is something like between 50-70 (best shot was about 90-something), meaning he's been nearly one-shotting most beast enemies. (I'm level 4 now, and I can do that twice in a combat without even having to do anything, and usually one good hit with my arbalest, and I'm good to go again!)

REALLY not regreting my somewhat arbitary choice to play Cipher.

Having to set the autopause up to go much more often is something I've had to get used to, if for no other reason than the characters not auto-targeting enemies when one dies (and it's not right next to them).



All in all, this game is shaping up VERY nicely. Definitely on-target for a "BG 2 level." (Whether it will make "PS:T" remains to be seen.)

(I think the only bits I'm less fond are the grave titles, because, while there are a few funny ones, a lot of them are a bit imersion breaking. Still, if a thing I could entirely ignore if it really bothered me because other people playing for the priviledge is what got us the game, I can't really complain. The other kickstarter NPCs are interesting, but it's bit of a shame that's all the interaction is limited to.

Oh, and inevitably in a game with this much wordage (that's not always easy for the people to find and check), the typos in the text that occasionally show up.)

But, yes, this is EXACTLY the game for my preferences (so, as I have said before, anybody who doesn't like bits of it can blame me, personally, since this is apparently made for me like they could nearly read my mind!)



1Dead esy to custom portraits in - all you appear to have to do is have and .PNG (other types might work, but that's what the ones I downloaded were) at the right size and job's a good 'un.)

[warty goblin]

If the combat is anything like Baldur's Gate... "Swing speed" and "realistic looking combat" really isn't an issue that is relevant. It's like asking why turn based games won't let you shoot at the same time the enemy does...
Frankly I think that's an entirely valid question to ask about a turn based game, if the best strategy is to walk into a room full of armed enemies pointing their guns at the door, shotgun three of them, then step back behind the wall without anybody being able to do anything.

I rather suppose this depends on one's opinions of what a fighter should be able to do. My view is basically that there's an enormous number of things a person can do in a fight, which interact in complex ways, and modelling all of these by random number plus constant is about as satisfying as reducing magic to 'congratulations, you can now cast the level 2 spell' and there being exactly one level two spell, which is really the same as the level one spell but with a bigger number somewhere.




I was considering getting this, but reviews seem split between "omg it's Baldur's Gate 3" and "it's a boring buggy slogfest and micromanaging your dudes will make you want to kill yourself." I'm guessing that the truth is somewhere in between. What are your guys' thoughts?
So I'm not in general an enormous fan of this particular genre, but PoE is really pretty good.

[tonberrian]

So what bugs are there?

[Driderman]

So what bugs are there?

Beetles and spiders, so far :smalltongue:

[Ilorin Lorati]

So what bugs are there?

Just scroll through a few pages and take your pick. (http://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/)

[The Glyphstone]

Question about Sagani's questline, for anyone who can answer it:

Where is the 'Adra Arch'? I didn't have enough Lore on my main PC, a Barbarian, to know personally.

[Nadevoc]

This game has been great so far in that it manages to hit the nostalgia of the Baldur's Gate games (via interface, art style, etc) without being a game I've already played. And it brings in some "game-y" improvements to the system - for example, the Endurance + Health system, which allows for characters to be defeated in combats without actually dying.

I also like how magic is handled with most spells being per rest (a la old school D&D, except with Wizard and Sorceror being neatly mixed together) with a bit of per encounter thrown in there. Though I'll admit I'd love a bit more in the per encounter part - something like a choice between 2-4 encounter abilities, and then a second one picked up around level five (which I suppose might be in the game, since I haven't reached level 5 yet, but I get the feeling it's not). I know some folks here don't like the for rest system, but I definitely do. I'm not sure what people prefer. Mana systems? Never cared for them as much. And while I remember someone here called the Dark Eye magic system 'elegant', in my eyes it's anything but.


I've ended up going with a Ranger for my first playthrough. The Stag companion is a nice additional meat shield. It doesn't really do any significant damage and is a bit more fragile than the fighter in my party, but it's still nice for tying folks up while I shoot them in the face.


EDIT: Do helms do anything? None of the helms/hoods I have so far list any stats, but I'm not sure if they do anything. For example, in some of the old games, they would negate critical hits (though I don't remember whether they actually said they did)

[factotum]

As far as I can tell, the only reason helms exist is as a decorative item--they don't seem to make any difference to durability. As for bugs in the game, I don't recall encountering any yet.

I'm a little unsure about the whole "fighting stuff doesn't earn XP" mechanic. I know the game is supposed to be about exploration, but it does feel a bit of a downer to finally get through a difficult fight only to find that there is no meaningful reward in the room you just cleared; at least if you'd earned XP for the fight that would be *something*.

Just got the stronghold, and am interested to see how that goes--I'm going to need to scrape together a lot more cash if I'm to maximise it, though!

Quick question for anyone who's got as far as the lord of Gilded Vale:


If you chose to attack and kill him, what level were you when you succeeded? My 6 level 4 characters got comprehensively owned, and while that may well be because I suck, I'd be interested in the comparison with others.

[Nadevoc]

I agree that getting no XP for many combats feels a bit odd/disappointing. I could understand if it gave the same XP for combat and non-combat methods of dealing with an enemy. For example, dealing with the not-a-kobold early on by either killing it or feeding it meet from the other creature nearby that you can kill. But simply saying "getting through an encounter is worth nothing!" is a let down.


If helms are indeed an aesthetic choice, I'd prefer it at least implied that somewhere, and that they were worth much less. Them selling for a bit of cash and costing even more implies that they're good for something.

[Gamerlord]

As far as I can tell, the only reason helms exist is as a decorative item--they don't seem to make any difference to durability. As for bugs in the game, I don't recall encountering any yet.

I'm a little unsure about the whole "fighting stuff doesn't earn XP" mechanic. I know the game is supposed to be about exploration, but it does feel a bit of a downer to finally get through a difficult fight only to find that there is no meaningful reward in the room you just cleared; at least if you'd earned XP for the fight that would be *something*.

Just got the stronghold, and am interested to see how that goes--I'm going to need to scrape together a lot more cash if I'm to maximise it, though!

Quick question for anyone who's got as far as the lord of Gilded Vale:


If you chose to attack and kill him, what level were you when you succeeded? My 6 level 4 characters got comprehensively owned, and while that may well be because I suck, I'd be interested in the comparison with others.

My party was 5 people roughly lvl 3-4, but I cheesed the fight by kiting them all into the small room to the left, jamming it shut with my tanks, and then unloading AoEs on them.

[Tehnar]

First playthrough, playing a barbarian on path of the damned and got to the first town and the crossroads after.

A couple of questions:

Is it possible to respec abilities/talents?
Can you find stat boosting items (I dumped Int and Per on creation and would love to up them up a bit)?

[factotum]

Pretty sure respec isn't possible, but there are definitely stat boosting items--in fact, if you right-click any item in your inventory and click on the "Enchant" button at the bottom, you can see all the enchantments and upgrades you can make to that item, and stat boosts are among them. In fact, the only enchant I actually have the materials to make at the moment is a +1 Int booster.

@Nadevoc: Yeah, having you earn the same XP through different methods seems fair. In Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader sneaking past a mob would earn you up to 75% of the XP you'd have got by defeating that mob, which seemed fair. (If you later changed your mind and decided to kill it anyway, you'd only earn the additional 25% you missed by sneaking in the first place).

[warty goblin]

EDIT: Do helms do anything? None of the helms/hoods I have so far list any stats, but I'm not sure if they do anything. For example, in some of the old games, they would negate critical hits (though I don't remember whether they actually said they did)
I found one with stats, so it can happen. I think you can also enchant them, but haven't tried yet.


(Of course the one I found with stats clashes with my armor. I've never really been a fan of great helms, and I'd much rather a bassinet to go with my coat of plates.)

[Morty]

I do wish more games would give you experience for exploration and moving the story forward, so I'm glad to hear Path of Exile does it. Giving XP for each defeated enemy should've been buried a while ago.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I found one with stats, so it can happen. I think you can also enchant them, but haven't tried yet.

Helms, even pre-enchanted ones, don't have an enchant button.

[Comet]

How demanding is this game performance wise?

I recently lost half of my RAM, so I'm currently running with only 2gb. The game's system requirements state that you need 4gb minimum. This strikes me as a bit odd, since the game doesn't look super demanding graphically or otherwise.

I've been playing Shadowrun Returns, Grimrock 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 recently and my PC is doing fine with those. Can you estimate how much tougher Eternity is compared to some of those games?

[Mx.Silver]

How demanding is this game performance wise?

I recently lost half of my RAM, so I'm currently running with only 2gb. The game's system requirements state that you need 4gb minimum. This strikes me as a bit odd, since the game doesn't look super demanding graphically or otherwise.

I've been playing Shadowrun Returns, Grimrock 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 recently and my PC is doing fine with those. Can you estimate how much tougher Eternity is compared to some of those games?

Compared to Shadowrun Returns and NWN2 (never tried Grimrock) it's very demanding. As in, my 2gb machine can run both of those on high settings without issue, but can't run Pillars comfortably. There is also next to nothing that you can turn off to improve performance either.

[warty goblin]

I suspect Pillars is not gonna run at all well with insufficient RAM, what with all those super-high resolution 2D backgrounds.

[factotum]

I suspect Pillars is not gonna run at all well with insufficient RAM, what with all those super-high resolution 2D backgrounds.

The backgrounds in PoE aren't 2D, are they? It might be inspired by the old Infinity Engine games, but that doesn't mean it uses the same technique!

[Mx.Silver]

The backgrounds in PoE aren't 2D, are they?
They are. There are some animations and effects on top, but the backgrounds themselves are 2d digital paintings.

[Aotrs Commander]

The backgrounds in PoE aren't 2D, are they? It might be inspired by the old Infinity Engine games, but that doesn't mean it uses the same technique!

Yes, they are.

(That was the entire point, actually.) They look 3D, but they are actually basically just a complicated projection of 2D art.

3D environments take so much more effort to make (and why things like NWN looked fairly crap after a while). Doing it this way means you can get much more differentiated artwork since you only have to draw it, not make a 3D model of it. That's why therre's no camera angle options - because if you moved the camera, you'd see that what you're looking it is basically a beautifuly constructed optical illusion...!

[tonberrian]

So, after fiddling around a bit and looking at the mechanics, I've decided on a Wood Elf Cypher, though I still haven't decided on a proper stat spread yet. Do I get more attribute points as I level up? I'm only level 2.

[Morty]

Are the talent, ability etc. lists on this (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Pillars_of_Eternity_Wiki) wiki comprehensive? They haven't changed since before release, but the game was just released, so maybe people just haven't had time.

[The Glyphstone]

So, after fiddling around a bit and looking at the mechanics, I've decided on a Wood Elf Cypher, though I still haven't decided on a proper stat spread yet. Do I get more attribute points as I level up? I'm only level 2.

I'm up to level 9, and have gotten no attribute increases, so it looks like No.

[tonberrian]

So far Wood Elf Cipher is pretty cool. I don't know if I'm happy with the stats I chose at the beginning, though. Mind Blades and Mental Binding are amazing.

[Avilan the Grey]

I think I'll give the Nature Godlike Ranger a go. People are hating pretty much on the ranger on the official forums, but we'll see...

[factotum]

I think I'll give the Nature Godlike Ranger a go. People are hating pretty much on the ranger on the official forums, but we'll see...

Really? I'm having fun with mine, and I still have the record for highest damage in a single hit (using a standard Arbalest with no enchants). Helps to have got the chant with the Chanter in the party that increases fire rate and reload speed, though.

Getting a bit annoyed with the whole enchanting thing, though--there are so many possible resources that your chances of getting what you need for any particular enchant are extremely low. Level 5, explored pretty much everywhere up to Defiance Bay, and still only have the materials for that one +1 Int enchant!

Looking back, I see I'm maybe sounding a bit negative about the game. I'm genuinely enjoying it, for the most part--it's just a lot of little niggles that are irritating me slightly.

[Avilan the Grey]

Really? I'm having fun with mine, and I still have the record for highest damage in a single hit (using a standard Arbalest with no enchants). Helps to have got the chant with the Chanter in the party that increases fire rate and reload speed, though.

I am looking forward to create her, I must say.
Unfortunately this means that between Weiss (my charismatic ex-black ops elf ) in Dragonfall (Director's Cut) and this I will have very little time for CK2 and Cities: Skyline... Oh well.

[Cespenar]

So, I guess this game has a lot of "doing the encounters in the right order" stuff. Because my 4-men level 3 party is getting wiped by the shades in the Temple of Eothas. They seem to be spawning smaller, yet not less deadlier shadows without any visible limit. Time to do other quests and return back later, probably.

Though BG2 had similar stuff as well, now that I recall.

[Rising Phoenix]

So, I guess this game has a lot of "doing the encounters in the right order" stuff. Because my 4-men level 3 party is getting wiped by the shades in the Temple of Eothas. They seem to be spawning smaller, yet not less deadlier shadows without any visible limit. Time to do other quests and return back later, probably.

Though BG2 had similar stuff as well, now that I recall.

You SHOULD be able to down it with just yourself and the two other people you have at this stage. Remember that you can tag one enemy at a time by abusing stealth...

---

In other news Druid is op as all hell...It also helps that a glitch in the game has given my character 35 points to Intelligence (going up to 40 if I buff right)...I have no idea how that happened

[Nadevoc]

Has anyone used scrolls at all?

I just noticed that a level two scroll I've got is unusable. It says "Requires Level 2 Lore" in red and putting in a quick slot results in it being grey. This is when my character has 4 Lore, and when I give it to Aloth, who's got 7 Lore.


EDIT: Never mind. Apparently, they only show as usable once you enter combat.

[Cespenar]

You SHOULD be able to down it with just yourself and the two other people you have at this stage. Remember that you can tag one enemy at a time by abusing stealth...

Nah, I don't like to do that pull one guy thingy, as I don't think the encounters are intended that way. I also play in hard, so maybe that adds up as well.

[factotum]

Certainly the shadows in the temple don't spawn additional ones on Normal difficulty, and the devs say that the only difference between difficulties (apart from Path of the Damned) is the number of mobs spawning, not their abilities or stats; however, the shadows, as I said earlier, do have an annoying habit of teleporting to your casters, so it might be that what you think is a shadow dying is actually them teleporting to your back row? In any case, you won't find much easier game around, and since the only way to earn XP and advance is to do quests, you need to be doing that rather than looking for mobs to kill.

[Driderman]

Regarding the equipment bug that people seem to be all pissy about on various forums, I've yet to manage to replicate it even though I've tried. So apparently it's not a consistent bug.

[Narkis]

Same here. Much as I've tried, I've yet to encounter a single bug.

[Chen]

The double-clicking an item to equip it and losing all your passive abilities does happen. I tried it when I started and did lose all my passive abilities. That's the only bug I've seen so far.

The huge stat gain is apparently from equiping stat boost gear. Not sure the exact cause but it results in the stat boost being added each time you load up the save (and it persisting after of course).

[The Glyphstone]

I've hit a few bugs by now - both of them related to cutscene conversations not spawning properly. But I reloaded and they worked fine the second time around.

[Chen]

Oh the Cage Cursor option also resets itself after every cutscene (any type). This is annoying since you need to go into the options, disable it, exit, then go back in a re-enable it.

[Driderman]

The double-clicking an item to equip it and losing all your passive abilities does happen. I tried it when I started and did lose all my passive abilities. That's the only bug I've seen so far.


Well that's the exact bug I can't replicate. My Fire Godlike still has his ability boosts and he still gets extra damage reduction and return damage to attacker when below 50% Endurance. And I've double-clicked to equip armor in all variations I can think of.

[Narkis]

And I can't replicate it either. Neither this, nor the other famous bug that applies again enhancement bonuses to companions if you save and load on the area where you recruited them.

[Rising Phoenix]

I've hit a couple of bugs where insect plague does not end once the fight has concluded and stays on your party until you restart the game.

[Cespenar]

Certainly the shadows in the temple don't spawn additional ones on Normal difficulty, and the devs say that the only difference between difficulties (apart from Path of the Damned) is the number of mobs spawning, not their abilities or stats; however, the shadows, as I said earlier, do have an annoying habit of teleporting to your casters, so it might be that what you think is a shadow dying is actually them teleporting to your back row? In any case, you won't find much easier game around, and since the only way to earn XP and advance is to do quests, you need to be doing that rather than looking for mobs to kill.

Nah, there are two shades and one shadow at one encounter, for example, and then the shades (stronger ones) cast some spell with a purple icon and spawn new shadows. A quick google reveals other people having that as well.

Anyway, I'll be returning there later, as I said. It's better than autoleveling enemies, to be honest.

[VexingFool]

Oh the Cage Cursor option also resets itself after every cutscene (any type). This is annoying since you need to go into the options, disable it, exit, then go back in a re-enable it.
Yeah, I get this one also. If its early enough on a map/dungeon I'll go re-enable it otherwise I'll scroll left using the arrow keys. (My second monitor is to left of my primary)

I've also had one time when the inventory became unresponsive. I could not equip/unequip anything but could do everything else. Restarting the game fixed that one. Also had the bug with the crash to black screen after completing the Raedric Hold quest. Happened only when trying to go to the Chapel, I could go everywhere else. Since I was just wanting to do a final sweep for loot I just moved on.

[Comet]

Compared to Shadowrun Returns and NWN2 (never tried Grimrock) it's very demanding. As in, my 2gb machine can run both of those on high settings without issue, but can't run Pillars comfortably. There is also next to nothing that you can turn off to improve performance either.

I suspect Pillars is not gonna run at all well with insufficient RAM, what with all those super-high resolution 2D backgrounds.

I got stubborn and tried the game out anyway. Turns out it actually runs pretty well. Granted, my PC is decent enough for its age except for the crippled RAM. Still, the given minimun requirement of 4gb seems a bit excessive to me but maybe they were just playing it safe. Loading times are a bit on the long side, fifteen seconds or so, but everything else seems to be running fine with what I have. Got to the first village and visited the inn so far.

[Nadevoc]

Nah, there are two shades and one shadow at one encounter, for example, and then the shades (stronger ones) cast some spell with a purple icon and spawn new shadows. A quick google reveals other people having that as well.

Anyway, I'll be returning there later, as I said. It's better than autoleveling enemies, to be honest.

I ran through the temple using just the three folks I had in Gilded Vale. The spell with the purple icon was the teleport they used to blink towards my back line, not a replicate. I'm on Normal difficulty, too, though.

[Cespenar]

I ran through the temple using just the three folks I had in Gilded Vale. The spell with the purple icon was the teleport they used to blink towards my back line, not a replicate. I'm on Normal difficulty, too, though.

Okay, not the purple spells then. But there's a definite spawning in play, in Hard at least. An encounter starting with 2 Shades and 1 Shadow somehow turn into 2 Shades and 3+ Shadows easily. Sometimes even more, if it stretches long enough.

[factotum]

I think that might be just more distant mobs encountering the fight and joining in? I got a TPK the other day when I was down to my last man and the enemy was an almost dead...whatever those nature spirits you find east of Defiance Bay are called, when another one of those came wandering over to see what the fuss was about. Definitely no teleport or summoning, the thing just walked in from offscreen and killed me! In dungeons that's even worse, because you can't see what's round the corner.

[Tehnar]

No on Path of the Damned Shades create more Shadows. It can happen more then once per fight too. I had to resort to cheesy pulling tactics to clear those two packs with shades.

Then again every harder fight is a bit cheesy on path of the damned. Also naked barbarians are totally a thing.

[Cespenar]

It's funny that (almost) no one wants to believe the stuff.

But yeah, Shades (level 5 critters) summon Shadows (level 1 critters). At least on Hard and higher.

[Rising Phoenix]

So I beat the game.

I won't say much other than that campaign world is excellent and that the characters are overall very well written. Just wish I could interact with them more/perhaps romance them. But friendship is good too.

Oh and one of the outcomes in the ending is a

bird apocalypse.

I found that quite funny if a bit dire.

[tonberrian]

Bleh. I saved my game in Raedric's Hold at the tippy-top, but now when I try to go back inside to get down the game hangs.

Oh well, I wanted to respec some characters anyways.

[Narkis]

And I've encountered my first bug. In the Sanitarium

After I uncovered the infiltrator and killed the flesh golems, I went upstairs to find everyone had turned hostile. Loading a save and doing the whole thing again fixed the issue.

[tonberrian]

Hrmm. I'm torn now, whether Wands or Hunting Bows for my Cipher. Ostensibly Wands have a better attack speed, and thus with the +2 focus/hit talent I'd get to do more casts. On the other hand, Hunting Bows do more damage, but it's limited to only pierce, whereas wands are pierce/crush.

[Cyber Punk]

So I obtained a copy of Pillars Of Eternity. I'm loving the game so far, though combat has me stumped in a few ways. I just realized that my stats allowed me to use a ranged weapon.

I play as a Nature Godlike Wizard lady who is at Level 2. Gotten the wizard man. Where can I find a fighter to help with the front lines?

[The Glyphstone]

There's a premade NPC somewhere in town (I didn't know he was there), or you can go to the Innkeeper at an inn and hire a generic NPC you design yourself.

[huttj509]

There's a premade NPC somewhere in town (I didn't know he was there), or you can go to the Innkeeper at an inn and hire a generic NPC you design yourself.

He's actually easy to miss, sinceyou normally chat with him in a flurry of "ok, most of these guys just have memorytext" and don't realize when something changes.

After you finish the quest to go to the tree in the middle of town, talk to the bloke just south of the tree.

[Cyber Punk]

I've gotten him. Maybe now I can try out Valewood without being TPK'd.

Also, there are no generic NPC hirelings yet.

[The Glyphstone]

I've gotten him. Maybe now I can try out Valewood without being TPK'd.

Also, there are no generic NPC hirelings yet.

If you are level 2 and made it to town (because you have Aloth), you should be able to hire Level 1 Adventurers from the Inn. Is that option greyed out or something?

[Cyber Punk]

I actually didn't level up, so I was still at level 1. After levelling up, I'm now at level 3 and can see the hirelings.

Now, to go hunt for more money.

Even though I'm a wizard, I picked the trait related to ruffians because:
-Backstory says pirate, so why not be able to use that?
-The idea of a blunderbuss-wielding mage sounds cool.

[The Glyphstone]

Money is ridiculously easy to get in this game, if you loot everything and vendor it. I'm sitting at a bit over 100,000 gold at level 10, I am literally making money faster than I can spend it on enchanting mats.

[Ailurus]

He's actually easy to miss, sinceyou normally chat with him in a flurry of "ok, most of these guys just have memorytext" and don't realize when something changes.

After you finish the quest to go to the tree in the middle of town, talk to the bloke just south of the tree.

Actually, he is pretty noticeable. The initial time you talk to him he is just a generic info source. But, after a fairly major plot event in Gilded Vale (which makes him recruitable), you're forced to walk past him and he'll initiate a conversation with you (won't pull you into a conversation, but he will talk as you walk past him)

[Narkis]

He also has a portrait. All the recruitable companions have a portrait when you talk to them.

[Cikomyr]

I just created what i think is a very atypical character, but i like it.

Rogue Dwarf, high Might/resolve, very high perception, very average dexterity.

Shield and Spear weapons. Basically, a battlereader. Slow move, but he will block anything you throw at him, and screw you for every mistakes. Literally.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have been stuck at Character Creation for an hour now.
I can't come up with a name.

It's extra difficult because I don't know the naming conventions in this new world. Normally I have an easy time with names, because I just google a list of fitting names (Celtic, Germanic, etc) and pick one that both sounds good and fits the character. This time I'm flying blind.

[The Glyphstone]

I have been stuck at Character Creation for an hour now.
I can't come up with a name.

It's extra difficult because I don't know the naming conventions in this new world. Normally I have an easy time with names, because I just google a list of fitting names (Celtic, Germanic, etc) and pick one that both sounds good and fits the character. This time I'm flying blind.

*looks at his barbarian Croman with a slightly guilty expression*

[Cespenar]

I have been stuck at Character Creation for an hour now.
I can't come up with a name.

It's extra difficult because I don't know the naming conventions in this new world. Normally I have an easy time with names, because I just google a list of fitting names (Celtic, Germanic, etc) and pick one that both sounds good and fits the character. This time I'm flying blind.

There are a lot of Celtic names in the game, fyi. If you really care, you can look up the nations in the game from the wiki and pick a name according to where your character hails from as well, I guess.

[Tehnar]

I love the game, but I have a fairly major beef with a mechanic, the armor recovery speed. Basically I am at the point that everyone except the tank is walking around naked. While for the barbarian it might be fluffy, it still a too great benefit. And since most of the enemies are melee, and for the few ranged usually just target the tank anyway there is almost no point in anyone else wearing armor.

[Aotrs Commander]

I love the game, but I have a fairly major beef with a mechanic, the armor recovery speed. Basically I am at the point that everyone except the tank is walking around naked. While for the barbarian it might be fluffy, it still a too great benefit. And since most of the enemies are melee, and for the few ranged usually just target the tank anyway there is almost no point in anyone else wearing armor.

I think that sort of says they did it right, in that there is a game in which anyone can wear armour, but the checks and balances mean that it's nt an automatic given that eveyone does. If they made the penalty for armour much less, likely all it would mean is all characters WOULD wear full plate.

Perhaps one might argue it needs some fine tuning, but I think the basic idea actually works.

[Tehnar]

I think that sort of says they did it right, in that there is a game in which anyone can wear armour, but the checks and balances mean that it's nt an automatic given that eveyone does. If they made the penalty for armour much less, likely all it would mean is all characters WOULD wear full plate.

Perhaps one might argue it needs some fine tuning, but I think the basic idea actually works.

I don't agree it is a good mechanic, especially in a computer game. The DR bonus is not that great compared to the damage monsters deal, and the benefit of having no armor is huge. 20 to 50 % increased attack/ability speed is huge, easily enough to counteract the increased damage you take by monsters beating on your tank.

I think it would be much better to restrict armor by classes rather then going this route. It just looks silly that on my most recent fight with Ogres everyone is naked. Since you get KO in 3 hits anyway regardless of DR, even the tank is naked.

[Cyber Punk]

On naming: I just picked a random name. Usually I pick names that fit the character, or I make up names. For instance:
Fallout NV: Crazy B**** (evil karma)
SR Dragonfall: Foxy L (theme)
Pillars Of Eternity: Frul'l (random)

A question: Do I have to rest after each battle just to restore health, or is there another way?

[huttj509]

I don't agree it is a good mechanic, especially in a computer game. The DR bonus is not that great compared to the damage monsters deal, and the benefit of having no armor is huge. 20 to 50 % increased attack/ability speed is huge, easily enough to counteract the increased damage you take by monsters beating on your tank.

I think it would be much better to restrict armor by classes rather then going this route. It just looks silly that on my most recent fight with Ogres everyone is naked. Since you get KO in 3 hits anyway regardless of DR, even the tank is naked.

Does it also affect reload speed for pistol/arbalests?

[Tehnar]

Does it also affect reload speed for pistol/arbalests?

Yes. Kana is much more effective without armor as it also affects his chanting rate and therefore his spellcasting.

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't agree it is a good mechanic, especially in a computer game. The DR bonus is not that great compared to the damage monsters deal, and the benefit of having no armor is huge. 20 to 50 % increased attack/ability speed is huge, easily enough to counteract the increased damage you take by monsters beating on your tank.

I think it would be much better to restrict armor by classes rather then going this route. It just looks silly that on my most recent fight with Ogres everyone is naked. Since you get KO in 3 hits anyway regardless of DR, even the tank is naked.

But if they don't do something like that you get exactly what you get in D&D 3.5 - there are, in practise, only about three armour types, because every class wears the heaviest armour they're allowed (none, leather/chainshirt/full plate maybe breastplate, but there were very few class that were resticted to only medium armour). That was - as stated early on - explicitly NOT what Obsidian wanted or were going to do.

(Point of note - it slows your recovery speed - the time between actions, rather than the speed of your actions. What effect this going to have opractically will depend on what the actual time of what recovery speeds are as to whether this makes a significant difference.)

Like I say, perhaps it needs tweaking, but the inherent idea is slightly more sound than D&D's arbitary restrictions (which always were arbitatary and justified after the fact) - or even Rolemaster's "everyone can wear armour, but spell casters get restricted because... um... because (as if spellcasters in RM didn't suffer enough until really high level) but you have to spend all the development point to learn to do it, meaning that in practise, most character won't.")

Also - from a realism point of view, if we want to look at that - no-one ever wore full plate (or heavy heavy armour) all the time, because exhaustion was a thing. (Plus you had to have a lad come round before the battle with a cup you could wee into.) So everyone walking round in fairly minimal or no armour is more realisitic. (Whether you consider that in and of itself to be a good thing, of course...)

(Come to that, it sort of makes sense for only the tanks to be wearing heavy armour... Meaning you sort of get the sort of thing you see in the movies (and many novels), rather than a straight D&D clone...)