speed

So being a musician and knowing that I have a II-V-I or a minor II-V-I available where I can induce further modulations via a tritone substitution or mutate the scale from which the V chord has been derived, into a myxolydian or myxo b6 or a Phrygian dominant or a Whole Tone scale or Altered or what not, DOESN'T mean that I just blindly indulge and apply all the music theory I know...the PLOT in itself was pretty simple ( and uninspiring and boring to be honest ) and was made worse by what I felt was overindulgence and use of too much brains and too little heart/soul/spirit...NOW ofcourse I am wrong 'cause I don't know the first thing about writing a plot ( respect and apologies to the narrative team )... But so many months later, I just cannot find any reason to spend anymore time with this beautiful game and finish it. Time to uninstall and move on I guess....but all said and done, this is by far the some of the best graphics and art I've seen in a video game. And all the systems and mechanics are so 'in the zone'. Its absolutely amazing what Obsidian has achieved with the budget they had. It remains my lifelong dream to work and contribute to your games if in any way possible...for free or for very little money...I know I'll never be good enough but........'I LOVE YOU OBSIDIAN'!!!!!

Angry Centaur Gaming's review didn't have great things to say about the story. That, opinions can be subjective, was made clear but I'm a bit disappointed nonetheless. I was really hoping the story would just blow my mind. Still gonna go ahead and buy POE2.

Yes visually the game looks so gud. I just have one concern though. From watching YouTube videos, the 2D backgrounds appear slightly blurred compared to the 3D objects and characters. Hope they put the backgrounds through some kind of sharpening filter.

The anti aliasing on the 3D models appears to be quite poor. Doesn't help when your 2D backgrounds are perfectly smooth (slightly blurred even) and the 3D objects are a jagged mess. Breaks immersion to be honest

From what I've seen in the backer beta videos on youTube, there's a very limited variety of combat animations. Even abilities, for a fighter for example, don't have any unique animations. It's the same default attack animations, accompanied by some sound and VFX. In Pillars 1, monks had some really cool default unarmed attack animations. Even those seem to be missing here. Don't know if Obsidian are gonna add more in the future, but combat, from an animation standpoint, looks pretty boring and monotonous.

Absolutely loved Pillars...what an experience!! Thank u Obsidian...u guys killed it!! Just a few things that bothered me: 1. The 3D character models in lower resolutions don't blend well with the environment. Even in higher resolutions I felt my immersion hampered sometimes 'cause of he lack of proper anti aliasing. Absolutely smooth, almost photo realistic environments against pixelated , jagged character models. Some textures like the kind of grass u find in Valewood, look too smooth and blurred against the 3D models. If the anti aliasing can't be improved, i'd actually prefer the environments to be made less perfect and slightly low res and pixelated. Would help with the blending. 2. Sometimes I feel like the touchups done to the environments in 2D make them look too much like a flat piece of artwork. Again breaks immersion for me. Dyrford village was a location where for some reason i felt this issue stood out. 3. Character lighting especially at night seems to be out of place at times. Certain armor models (Aloth's default boots ) seem to be too brightly lit up. 4. Character shadows don't connect with the feet of the characters always. Make the characters look like they float above the ground. That pretty much sums it up. What a gem of a game...Cheers!

Question....as much as i love the environment art and pretty much everything else about poe, i was wondering, to those who have access to the beta: How do the slightly low poly, low res texture clad 3D models with no anti-aliasing and jagged edges, look against the perfectly smooth, almost photo-realistic backgrounds? Can't make out much from youtube videos, but even with the lighting i always seem to get the impression that there's a slight discrepancy between the way the characters are lit and the ambient lighting applied to the environments. Especially at night, it looks like there are some extra bright lights shining down on the characters, so much so that they appear to be highlighted. I recall reading somewhere that as of version 435, the ambient maps ang lighting have been tweaked? And any kind of anti-aliasing options available for the 3D stuff?

Thanks Shevek for taking the time and doing this....Always thought the engagement system was a great concept and glad to know u think it works well... would love to hear your opinion on the attribute system....is it too streamlined? What i remember about the games from the past, things like damage and accuracy parameters were controlled by different attributes for different classes (not that i remember much, but i think intelligence used to affect the combat effectiveness of a spellcaster the way strength and dexterity would for a melee character) And i believe Deflection is now what thac0 was in the IE games, right? And this is a predetermined value for every class? Does it kind of minimize the scope for customizing your character? Really appreciate the way u assess and analyze the various aspects of this game....cheers!!

I absolutely agree with this suggestion sensuki not sure how things work when combat huds are turned on though. Does the recovery bar deplete first and the character goes idle if the next action is not in the pipeline and the combat hud disappears? I guess that would be a clear indication, at a glance , that a character is idle in combat. Considering the amount of visual clutter that combat huds add, i would definitely like to turn those off...and hence would arise the need for separate combat idle and recovery time animations. I mean i would need to know when to issue a command if a character is idle Would really appreciate some clarification on this matter guys....really been a while since i've played any of the IE games and i'm really just imagining what it would be like playing POE the way current state of affairs stand

Thank u guys....great being aboard. @Cantousent - yep, true. I guess 'MIGHT' is being used figuratively here.

hello there...i have been quietly following pretty much everything thats been goin on, out here, on the forum and with pillars of eternity in general, the past few months....not a hardcore gamer and being from india , its just by chance that i somehow discovered this much awaited spiritual successor to the infinity engine games...but in retrospect, those days whn i would spend countless hours being absolutely enthralled and captivated by really good, deep, well written, story driven games like baldur's gate, icewind dale, planescape torment, kotor, neverwinter nights, were absolutely golden and priceless. So before anything else - OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT, u have my heartfelt thanks and respect....and really sorry i haven't backed the game or even pre-ordered a copy for myself...will do so soon Don't know much about the technicalities of how dnd mechanics go on to contribute to the enjoyment factor of a game but whatever little time i have spent playing such games, no matter how convoluted or complicated those rules seem, they kind of had their charm - which i've grown to love over the years, What i have gathered from the backer beta feedback and kind of imagining myself playing the game, the ATTRIBUTE system just doesn't seem to make sense to me. Ofcourse, its a new system and it might just be a case of getting used to it... but i just find myself having to FORCE myself to accept it the way it is and surrendering to the fact that this is how i'll have to play and enjoy the game. AGAIN i haven't playd the beta and just might be jumping to conclusions but i would like to take the liberty to voice some of my concerns here:- 1. MIGHT affecting both physical and magical damage is something i'm having a hard time wrapping my head around (just my first instinct and i am absolutely willing to spend a 100 hours with the developers if they can get me to grow a liking towards it) 2. I am not sure having NON-UNIVERSAL DUMP STATS is such a bad thing - sure i went several hours into let's say baldur's gate and realised i was playing a fighter and so and so stat was absolutely no use to me and and something else was more important.....i think something like that is FABULOUS 'cause it emphasizes class utility 3. COMBAT FEEDBACK: I think something sensuki has stressed on is of utmost importance here - having dfferent recovery and combat idle animations. Haven't even played the beta and i can imagine how essential that is ( AND PLEASE PLEASE have more than one attack animation per weapon) 4, PATHFINDING - Its obvious 5. GRAPHICS - what i have seen from images and videos, i feel character shadows need to be more prominent especially AROUND THEIR FEET. they seem to be floating above the ground more often than not. Not sure, maybe looks better in-game All things said and done, i'm really happy and excited OE has taken the initiative to do this. Really want this to be a fantastic experience.... there will be certain things a lot of us are not going to be too happy about but we'll sure as hell have a great time playin this game. CHEERS!!!