Sensuki

The PE beta came with a test voice set of one of the animators performing Pallegina's lines. It's very similar to the Icewind Dale games, if not exactly the same.

PE uses .ogg files for music/sfx and .wav files for dialogue? IIRC

I don't think characters should have a busy state where you can't interrupt their conversations - such as with Dengler and Lord Harond. I'd prefer if you were just able to initiate dialogue and override the conversation rather than having to wait.

Bug was present in v301 and hasn't been fixed yet, no way around it yet. In v333 there's a random boar companion at the Dyrford Crossing Tower Ruins ... Rangers/Animal Companions have been severely buggy in every beta version so far. They are currently the class that needs the most work, just so they are playable.

Credit to Hiro Protagonist II for the screenshot

Yeah that happens to me too, I haven't yet made a bug report for it yet, but if you already haven't I will now

You need Unity Pro for some of the features, such as re-importing edited assets into the game.

Still exists v333

The v333 Dyrford Crossing area map appears to have the Statue at the River Crossing Highlighted in blue, revealing that it's interactable. This was not the case in v301 IIRC. It's almost as if the area maps are made from a high zoom screenshot with a hidden mouse cursor, and the person who took it was mousing over the statue

The people who think it's okay are probably using auto-pause and/or slowmo. I know a few people who only play combat in slow mo. There's also the people who don't really care about the combat and play the game for the story/dialogue. There's plenty of those people on the RPGCodex but all of them have been put off by the combat so far. I'm not sure how familiar QA is with the IE games. Matt Sheets the QA Lead is a Watcher backer, so I think he must have played them before. The other guys are all younger than I am so it's a toss up. Personally if I was doing it, I'd have the IE games installed and be doing hot swap comparisons - however their work schedule may not allow that. So doing that kind of stuff is probably up to us. I probably need to install Icewind Dale 2, but I've got BG1, BG2, and IWD1:HoW installed on my PC ready to go and I think my recent LP of IWD was really, really helpful in grounding myself in the IE experience after spending 2 months playing nothing but PE.

He didn't say that. I also think (from his other comments on SA) that the new system is not working out how he wanted.

It doesn't matter. If your character isn't about to die, you usually have time to cast heal, or use a potion but if there's no saving yourself - recovery time cooldowns on Priest and your character, then you can't micro that character back in PE because of Disengagement. I removed Engagement from the game in a mod and it feels great. Can play just like the IE games, although the enemy AI targeting is p. dumb This was Cubiq's reaction

That won't make much of a difference for me as the major time when I want to disengage is when a character is about to die. In my IWD LP I experienced that situation many times and by moving the character away from combat, blocking the enemies with other characters and healing, I was able to save the situation. When one of my characters get's KO'd in PE I just reload the game.

Obsidian writes the player responses really really dry, almost as if they have no personality when they speak - not a huge fan of it myself.

Did you read my previous posts in the thread? The Enemy AI is completely manipulable. If you have two characters guarding a corridor and there is a gap, no enemy is going to get through because they will attack your characters at the front of the corridor due to the AI targeting clauses. You need to PAY ATTENTION to who the enemies are targeting. Here is a glorious mspaint demonstration I have to ask you, when was the last time you played an Infinity Engine game? What do you do when your melee characters are nearly killed for whatever reason - let's say they got Held and nearly killed from automatic hits, your Cleric cast Remove Paralysis and they are now not stunned, but on a few HP - what do you do? You have two choices - let them die, or move them away. In the IE games, you micro them away from the enemies and make them quaff a potion, or get the Priest to queue up another healing spell etc etc In Pillars of Eternity you can't move a character away from melee combat when they are on the brink of death - they will die from a disengagement attack. Disengagement attacks eliminate something which is the bread and butter of in-combat unit movement in any game with RTS style gameplay whether that be an Infinity Engine RPG, an RTS game, or even a MOBA. In fact, not only does it make trying to move your character away from combat a bad choice, but it also makes the fact that you cast Remove Paralysis a bad choice, because they can't move away from combat anyway - that is a load of garbage in my opinion. This doesn't make sense. Enemies won't disengage ever, the only disengagement attacks you will ever score will be from your own spells causing enemies to disengage. You already have 'the power to engage' without engagement due to the way the AI targeting clauses work. All the Engagement system does is give the player a penalty from trying to move characters in melee away from melee combat. That is literally it. It's supposed to be a no brainer, that is what you are supposed to do when your characters get low - move them away from combat. It is up to the enemy AI to try and stop you from doing it, such as casting disables and crowd control spells making it difficult. Enemy Fighters could be scripted to cast their Knock Down spell when a character they are attacking is reduced below 25% health - that would make it tough to get away, providing they hit. There is no need for some retarded automatic system to punish you for making the best tactical decision. Like wtf is that? In that case it seems like you're arguing just for the sake of it. You wouldn't play any differently whether or not there was an engagement system. edit: I also play games the way that is fun for me. I don't rest spam or do anything insanely cheesy when I play the Infinity Engine games, and I have a whole Icewind Dale LP to prove it. But I do understand how the enemy targeting works and use that information to position and move my characters optimally in combat. You might believe it, but I don't think it would be true, especially considering your last statement. I honestly don't think it would affect how you play the game - especially if you never thought to micro characters back before.

This is true, I don't think it's one of the major factors, but it is a factor and it became the debated part of the topic. There are far, far more serious issues. Disagree here, although it depends who's exaggeration you are referring to, and you don't seem to have strong preferences for many things anyway no matter what game you are discussing and often if not always go against the grain during discussions.

How does moving a character away from melee when they are damaged imply "skillful to carry out" ? You pause the game, you select your character that is injured, you click the ground away from combat .... it's not rocket science. No, because moving away gives the character a free attack independent of recovery time. Even in the IE games when damage was pretty well balanced, you keep your characters at the front line until they are in danger, because their job is to tank the damage/keep the units attacking them occupied while your other units do other things. Even if disengagement attacks didn't do huge damage, the fact that they exist makes moving away from melee combat against multiple opponents a non-choice - move away and suffer a serious blow to your character's tactical (Endurance) and Strategical (Health) resources AT NO REAL TIME COST TO THE ENEMY, or stand still and take it. It's not harder to pull off, it's easy to pull off, it's just a bad choice. Refer to above. Are you serious? This is how you beat AI in every single game, you learn their patterns and exploit it. This is also how you beat people at things too. Learn their weaknesses and exploit them. No there won't be. So what? Difficulty does not need to be achieved by adding in un-fun mechanics to hurt/restrict the player because the AI is not a human. Encounter design can bridge the gap.

I agree about Intellect and Resolve (although you already knew that). Action Speed is underpowered at the moment. I think there's a way to make it good, but you are right that attributes don't have anywhere near as much impact on the character build as they should - noting the difference between Armored Grace and Dexterity. Weapon Focus gives you the same Accuracy bonus that you get from 20 in Perception as well.

How close ? And to properly manipulate the AI targeting, you attack the unit that is not going to attack you to change their AI Targeting clause (that's how you can snag enemies in PE at the moment)

NVIDIA Shadowplay is good. I need to edit my videos but I'm only proficient with iMovie ... except I have a PC.

Is that a south-east accent? Atlanta or something ? What video editing software do you use? Hahah @ the simulationist talk about attributes Agility might be a better name for the current version of Dex though

No I'm not. The idea is to retreat from the front line away from your attackers, not two metres back so they can still hit you. Like you can in the IE games.

Incorrect. Strategy is 'how clever you are at planning'. Tactics is what you do in the moment - your reactions to in game events. Wrong. Generally the reason for wanting to disengage combat is because you are on low health, and if you stay in melee, you will die. Disengagement attacks make it almost certain that any attmept to disengage will kill you. By removing options from tactical gameplay, and making it revolve solely around strategy (the decisions you made that determined your initial movements) No, it does not change the amount of planning involved. The amount of planning is the same. It gives the player an extra layer of tactical options to consider, rather than restricting them. It might make the game easier for the player, but that difficulty can be compensated for elsewhere. Not needed - you just move your characters. Like I said, for the player all that is required is for the AI to have the right targeting clauses. Many RPG players are "lazy" and/or do not like tactics that requires them to micromanage and would prefer more emphasis on strategy and planning. The game does not need an aggro mechanic. You are kidding right? Tanks exist to soak up damage. Party tanks can snag enemy AI by running to intercept them just like you do now. This gameplay element does not change whether disengagement attacks exist or not. An enemy tank is a melee character. Enemy tanks will have simple AI, they will most likely attack the closest unit/unit that targets them first as per the current attack clauses. Have you seen my recent Sensuki vs Medreth videos? What do I do? I send my BB Fighter in first to take aggro. He does not take aggro because of the Melee Engagement system, the takes aggro because I ordered him to go in first and he is the closest unit to the enemy mob when combat begins - that is how you get your party members to take aggro. However the BB Fighter will not benefit from Engaging enemies, because none of the enemies will disengage.

That's an attribute and a skill, not a skill and a skill.

Nah, the BB Priest that I have doesn't have any talents. He may have leveled her up or something.