IndiraLightfoot

New stretch goal at 2.6M: Receive Berath's Blessing! Start a new game with gifted bonuses. Err, is this some kind of New Game+?

This thread and the replies here made my day. Thank you! I'm literally in tears of giggles, and can't stop chuckling.

Someone's been smoking in here, and it's not Edér...

Yeah, I reckon this feels very refreshing. I don't want to see this feature getting dropped. I might go as far as saying that it's one of my ten favourite features in PoE!

Boeroer: I couldn't agree more. Those weapons have been one of the most fun things since they were introduced. Sad to see them disappear.

Apparently, I'm not alone in thinking that combat in PoE needs more clarity. Josh said the following in the MMORG interview published yesterday: MMORPG: On the flip side of that, what part of the game would you award the “Most Improved” prize to? Josh Sawyer: On the gameplay side, we're focusing on improving the clarity and pace of combat We have fewer "trash" mob fights, combat is much easier to follow, and the players' build options are a lot wider. We're making a number of significant changes to combat to improve clarity and pacing and increase tactical decision making within fights. We've changed how we build and render our visual effects to reduce noise, we've slightly slowed down the overall speed of combat, spaced the characters out more. Additionally, we've tried to make the system cleaner, especially when it comes to the Affliction system and what tools the player has available to counter them. Our stacking rules have been cleaned up (there aren't any limitations for equipment) and player feedback has been improved overall. Read more at http://www.mmorpg.com/interviews/pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire-new-info-including-release-window-1000011527#XbDfzIyKuRhpZPBe.99 This sounds very promising.

As you should have garnered just by looking at my portrait, I'm a RPG vet, and a CRPG vet at that. I soloed PotD within days of the release of PoE. I'm a math major too, so please, cut your snarky interwebz attitude. So, yeah, I can crunch some numbers and I can play PoE, but I'm still annoyed by these decimal numbers and overlapping timers, since it's not an intuitive system and it's hardly inviting or very user-friendly. Using non-decimal units in some kind of round/turn-based system presented to the player wouldn't diminish the quality of the system in any way. It's a matter of readability. Personally, I don't need rounding stuff like this, like you do, but imagine players who are new to this type of game. They may get overwhelmed by juggling six characters, all with abilities etc. on different timers with decimal precision, used against critters on, once again, different timers with decimal precision. Obviously, this isn't a matter of "getting rid of decimals". They will always be there, you know. But like in programming, this should be under the hood, in the woodwork.

Yeah, this very good news!

Wow! And here I thought I knew the game after several playthroughs... I'm glad there's a decent workaround, and hopefully some of these issues will be solved with PoE2. Thank you for the pro tip!

A pretty big gameplay stumbling block that I'd like to see sorted concerns all the cases when the party is in stealth mode and then they interact with an object, gets thrown into a cut scene, almost any sort of trigger, really, and then what happens? ​ The stealth mode goes away and they all stand up again. Disregarding the issue whether it's realistic or not that they'd manage to keep the stealth going (which they would in most cases), this getting thrown out of stealth is really a huge hassle for the PoE player, and I've misclicked or made plenty ofmistakes because of it. So, please, makeit so that the game retains party stealth in all these situs. Perhaps use an all-party stealth modal setting which keeps track of this? The game is already capable of keeping stealthy parties in stealth, for instance, when they pass certain area transitions.

Hi! I re-read Gairnulf's personal wishlist, and I found a gem in there, which merits its own topic. In PoE, various durations and other cyclic events in combat was very hard to grasp and in essence non-intuitive: Gairnulf mentions one example: Please let durations/recovery times be based on a more human-readable scale, that easier for mental math. Either a full second or X.5 seconds. Please no more of that 7.3 s.This may seem like a minor thing, but given that all these durations and cyclic events run by their own timer, you got a gazillion timers going at the same time during combat, so even if you pause like crazy, due to interrupts of abilities about to be used, etc., the whole thing gets overwhelming, and I say this as a very seasoned CRPG-player. Imagine how it feels like for beginners. We also have the news that spells will take longer to cast and other empowered abilities being set on timers. PoE2 runs the risk of suffering from overlapping timer overload, not very appetizing at all. So, the systems are being re-worked anyways, and what better way for a computer game, where the player's expected to control five party members, than to simplify and introduce a solid timer foundation with combat rounds/turns or whatever you may call it? Let these be simple units, like 1, 2, etc, no decimals. The same, I reckon, should go for damage dealt. No more "0.7 damage". Sometime simplicity is not only the easiest, but the best thing too.

I am already guilty of doing it in PoE1... Open fight with: - priest casting: Painful Interdiction (Weakened + Dazed) - wizard casting: Aspirant's Mark + per-encounter Ghost Blades (Hobbled) - 2 ciphers start with two Mental Bindings (bigger threats are now Paralyzed, other are Stuck) and two Treasons thrown in enemy backline (Charm) And follow-up with Barbarian + Blasts + Mental Bindings/Wave/Amplified Wave fiesta. Yeah, this will most likely not be affected by the proposed changes. I've been doing stuff like this since the start. I really hope that the encounters in PoE2 will be more varied, and challenge us in different ways, because my parties easily become successful one-trick ponies pretty early in the game.

Hmm, my gut reaction is that I welcome this change, but I need to wait and see how it works with all the other changes coming our way.

I usually have lots of fun with multi-classing in CRPGs, but this statement is very much true.

I already supported this suggestion over at Fig, so yes, please, make it toggable.

Perhaps I'm alone in thinking this: Injuries is a pretty boring mechanic. It's usually nothing more than annoying. I rarely checked what the injury was in PoE, and now I risk facing like four injuries per character, which also will clutter the char portrait UI even more with tiny icons. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but I'd like to see some other mechanic being used.

@Osvir: Hold on to your hat, Osvir, 'cause you're in for a big juicy chunk of ch-ch-ch-changes... [Youtube]

Unlike you, I saw that as an opportunity when I heard about it, and now, after having watched Josh's vid, I at least feel that we go from 11 to 55 classes in one fell swoop. Super-excited about this!

No need, that's a feature. Is that a spoiler? Hmm. If that's in... Hang on! Hey, are tridents in? Please, let me know, or at least give me a hint, heh.

That is excellent news, Bobby! Thank you, sir!

I mean, they are definitely pretty cool, but will they digress too far from the artistic style used so far in PoE1, or is PoE2 generally draped in a more cheerful tone?

@Mygaffer: Indeed. It is possible. You just need to do it right.

Over the last few days, I've been somewhat amazed by the sheer number of changes which are being done to Pillars of Eternity, not only in systems, but also for the UI and more or less everything. Some of them, I may not agree with, others leave me indifferent, but what I'm certain of is that I really admire this. Moreover, I reckon it's quite natural. It's easy to forget that Josh & Co devised Pillars of Eternity from scratch, as a CRPG system. Obviously inspired by all the classics, but it's still a new game. As someone who's been playing D&D since the blue box, and then thoroughly enjoyed most of its reiterations, I can tell you. These changes happen for a reason, often associated with the new game having been played by thousands, and these peeps give feedback in various ways, and for the most part the resulting changes are carefully planned, necessary and quite good. It's also the matter of making the new system accommodate for future expansions of the concept. No, I don't mean that as in expansion pack for a computer game, but as in hotbeds for further growth of the game system and the game world created. So, this deserves praise in its own right, as the long-term ambition of making a RPG legacy adapting to the grinding wheels of time, and to the inevitable wear and tear of endless play sessions. Just my 2 cents.

@Tigranes: Gratz on 10K posts btw. You beat Sensuki by just a few posts. (Said by someone a bit compulsive about even numbers.)

Yeah, regardless of my opinions on the stretch goals, I'm happy for others getting what they want and I do discern restraint on behalf of Obsidian.