swordofthesith

I would imagine the poll is a good indication of how closely divided the Quest XP feature is among the Beta Backers. And honestly, I thought nothing of it while playing through the Beta demo until the Trolls came out and started a constant drumbeat about it on the general forum.

New approaches are always going to met with some resistance. Rest assured Bradly & Josh that a sizable amount of your Beta Backers/Kickstarters are behind you with the XP system you have implemented for Pillars of Eternity. Don't let the incessant Trolls on that thread derail what you're trying to do with PoE. <3

Seriously. This class rocks hard. Great ST powers, great AoE powers, great Curses & Buffs. It doesn't feel overpowered either, just well designed! Anyone else out there have some experience with a Druid in the Beta care to share their impressions?

I love the Baldur's Gate series. I played those games when they came out years ago and more recently played through the Enhanced Editions by Overhaul. They still weren't as fascinating or engrossing as Planescape: Torment. It stands head and shoulders above the rest of the IE games in terms of both story and design.

RE the KS Goals for Pillars of Eternity and fidelity to those goals: +1

Great work on spotting those clipping issues Sens!

CIPHER Soul Shock - Vastly underpowered, does almost no damage. Please increase the potency of this power. Phantom Foes - The in-game description makes it seem as if this power only affects enemies. This is not true, when cast this power affects friends and foes alike, diminishing the utility of the spell.

Hi testers! Any additional issues with spells that you may have noticed during your testing sessions?

Thank you Team PoE!

No. But the advantage of fighting with two medium sized weapons gives you the ability to mix damage types (slashing, crushing, piercing) while with you're 2 handed weapon you're stuck to whatever damage type the weapon has. And mobs are vulnerable to certain types of damage. Example: The beetles in Dryford Crossing are extremely vulnerable to weapons with crushing damage. You're two hander might still be hitting for decent damage but that BB Priest will rip/stomp/WTF stuff up with his starting mace.

I rolled Paladin a few days ago to give it a test run and tried to use Flames of Devotion but wasn't so sure if I hit. I will try and test it out again today and see what kind of damage it can do.

Brill! Thanks for sharing this TtrueMenace!

Beta Backers! Time to find out how we're all kicking ass in the beta! My go-to character is a Death God-like Cipher with INT maxed at 20, DEX at 19, MIG at 18 and the remaining points are dumped into PER at 15. I usually open combat by sending my BB Fighter to draw the aggro of the mob and then slam them with my Cipher's Mental Binding power. I then focus fire on one mob at a time till the group has been destroyed. I use lots of single target spells from my BB Wizard along with the BB Priest's Divine Mark and Repulsing Seal. I'm also ready to stack the BB Priest's Circle of Protection and Blessing to increase the survivability of the BB Fighter.The rogue is pretty damn useless. He's usually on the Reckless Assault modal, auto attacking with the occasional. How about you? What strategies do you use to PWN the Backer Beta?

Stun, you are not my son (thank the Gods) but you are strong in the ways of the Troll Side of the force. As a master of the Dork Side, you have my respect. And with that, I'll leave you to your constant trolling of this dead horse issue.

Attempting to separate nostalgia from the equation suggests you weren't around for even one day of the kickstarter. They sold this project on Nostalgia. It wouldn't have generated half its funding without it. If you really only backed this project for the purposes of getting "something new" (which is a Bullsh*t claim and everyone here knows it), then one wonders why you didn't just throw your money at any of the several dozen super-high publisher funded titles coming out this year and next year. They'll be doing "New" a wee bit better than any $4 million project ever will. They must. It's the main focus of their $50 million+ budgets. Hi there! I will give you a cookie if f you can find anything in the original Kickstarter manifesto that promised you (and I do mean just you) a pixel for pixel, code for code port or emulation of the IE engine. The keyword here is SPIRITUAL successor, not CARBON COPY. Pillars of Eternity was always going to echo the style of the IE engine but it would not be AD&D 2nd edition come again. It was disingenuous of you or anyone else to expect the Josh Sawyer and the rest of the Obsidian to do the same exact thing all over again. Besides, apart from the lack of combat XP there is a truck ton of tribute to the spirit of the IE games in Pillars of Eternity. Just look at the classes & races, presentation of the game world and the way we players interact with that game world. That's all IE all the way buckeroo. And I don't understand why you're so hysterical about kill XP. You can still kill away to your hearts content in the game. They haven't removed the monsters and turned Pillars of Eternity into storytelling time. You still have monsters, they don't give XP but they still give out valuable drops in the way of items and crafting material. And as you pointed out yourself, if you really, really need that l33t kill XP kick there is an armada of RPGs that have been released or will be released that will satisfy that kink of yours. I have been playing computer RPGs since Shadows of Yserbius and like you I have lived in a "Kill things to get XP" worrld but I am pretty cool with the no XP deal. There is still lots of combat but it has taken away the pressure to grind XP from random mobs. Instead this game places an emphasis on creative problem solving. Some players will solve their problems with combat and others will find other ways around some of the avoidable obstacles in the game. Rock! This, buckoo: And I think I have a demonstrated commitment to play it straight, so I might be wrong, but it's not a partisan moment when I tell you I sincerely believe that this poll is actually quite *bad* news for the combat XP crowd... Frankly, I don't think it would matter if you'd won the day by 40 or 50%, but to have a spread of about 5% is not what you want to further your case.

Hoy Sensuki! How come Josh hasn't picked you up as part for the QA team @ Obsidian yet? We ought to start a campaign. Great, sensible suggestions across the board.

This: And lastly, we backed PoE as a spiritual successor to the IE RPGs, not as a port or emulation of the IE engine. We're in brave new, D&D-less territory and I am fine by that. We have the good folks at Overhaul Games to fulfill that nostalgic scratch for us grizzled dungeoneers. I want to try something new, not a re-hash of the IE games.

Big up to Josh & Co. for this. Myself, I am pretty pumped to tackle the main storyline. I have the feeling they have whipped up something special for us IE enthusiasts.

I agree on what is generally said about the visual problems with PoE, so I decided to take this image and adjust one character to meet the requirements for visibility as well as substance. I only used methods that could be easily implemented in the engine and won't need a lot of work. This is the original character: Rather flat and hardly visible. Add to that some contrast and brightness increase: Already providing more substance. Now add a backdrop, which is basically just a blurred silhouette of the character: Coming along nicely. And for good measure, add a base shadow to the floor, separating the character a bit more from the floor: And for better comparison, a gif switching between the original and the improved visuals: And finally, to add context, the entire image with the updated character: Maybe I'll find the time to do this for all chars in the image to see how it'll look. Let me know what you think. P.S.: This was just a quick shot at it so the floor shadow is a bit dark. Forgot to dial it back... Voted up for developer goodness. +1

Actually I'd be careful with that. I saw a video where the guy's wizard couldn't cast some spells without himself being caught in them because his boost to the AE size of the spell due to his high INT made their radius bigger than the actul max casting range of the spell. One hilarious moment was I think when he tried pulling the spider queen pack with the grease spell and the radius was so big compared to the cast range that the wizard got knock-downed by it right in the middle of it, with all spiders rushing him, forcing the entire team INTO the knockdown areas to save him. Total carnage and hilarious moment. Gotta love them "intelligent" wizards Yes. I noted that in the bugs forum. Wizard spell ranges MUST be boosted a lot. As they are implemented currently, we are more likely to hit our Wizard with our AoE spells than the enemy. Yet another reason, to leave behind the Wizard in favor of a Priest or Cipher at the moment.

Hi Beta Backers! I know that there are existing issues with many spells and so far this is no comprehensive list documenting these existing issues/bugs I thought we could put together a list of known issues with spells from any of the spell casting classes featured in PoE. I'll start us off with a few noticed: CIPHER Soul Ignition - Unlimited range. Can be casted outside of combat and does not trigger MOB aggro. WIZARD Fetid Caress - Very limited range. Wizard would have to run right up to the MOB in order to cast it. And after casting the spell my Wizard would usually get paralyzed by his or her own spell!

This is epic news! Will look forward to testing the next build!

Great point! I'll go ahead and test a maxed out intellect and resolve Wizard build and try and make more use of Web and see how that works out. We definitely could use more snares though!

Hi! Thanks for your class analysis. I agree with a lot of your points. I blew through a lot of my offensive spells on my BB Wizard and found that they really did not do significant enough damage to shape the momentum of combat. They just didn't hit hard enough. They should significantly boost the damage for Wizard spells, especially seeing as how these spells are NOT recovered after an encounter and a player is required to rest in order to restore their spell book. Additionally, I believe Wizard Area of Effect damage spells are some of the most important spells in their arsenal but as right now it is extremely difficult to land these spells. MOBs move into melee range at warp speed and there are no spells or power in any of the classes that can 'ensnare' MOBs as they rush into melee range, leaving them exposed for heavy hitting AoE raw/direct damage spells. I am often reduced to using inefficient single target damage spells or spells that have a beam-like AoEs. As they are current implemented I would most likely switch out a Wizard in my party in favor of another Priest or Cipher. They have much more utility than a Wizard at the moment.

I am absolutely looking forward to giving some critical feedback on the core systems once the bugs with the core systems are fixed! Huzzah Sensuki! That's the spirit! Kudos to you on the incredible feedback you have been providing the Devs through your Vlogs by the way, especially RE the UI design! I hope they consider your recommendations. I myself plan on staying off this general discussion forum and dedicating more of my time to the bug forum when they release the next build!