Marceror

Pretty sure the Dyrford music is the Dyrford music. It was announced as such several Kickstarter updates ago, and the theme is named after the town. Not sure why you're saying that theme will be replaced later. @Sensuki with all the hours you're putting into the beta I'm not surprised that you're growing weary of the combat music.

Yeah, a Game withoud Sound, like Baldurs Gate 20 Years before.... Some Games have it that way, and i deinstalled them 5 Times,, only installed them because anybody said they were epic... Which i think they are not. Ok.... Good RPGs will come back somtime.. Im sure I just have to wait once more There is this ancient and all but forgotten art form known as reading. It's not so bad. You should give it a try. And if that's not for you, play Dragon Age 3. I hear even the main characters will be fully voiced this time. Just like playing a movie. But that's not what people who love the IE games and PoE are generally going for. Big budget crapola? No thanks.

I can have just as much fun playing turn based as real-time. I see PoE as being closer to turn based than real time (hence the designation of pause with real time), and I'm finding that's not particularly reducing the fun factor.

I wouldn't say that I'm struggling with any of the fights, to be honest. Pausing just seems to be the most effective gameplay style. I haven't really challenged myself to pause less, because I see no compelling reason to do so. Perhaps if I was posting gameplay videos on Youtube I would, because I'd want them to be as exciting as possible. But that's not really my thing, so that's not a consideration for me.

Hmm... Slo-mo-with-pause? I haven't used slow motion much. For me it's preferable to consider my tactics, issue my commands, and then watch them play out at their intended speed. But it goes to show that there are a few options on how to tackle the game.

I could imagine that the underground water area is much larger than shown, eventually leading to the temple, but yeah, that's not how it is presented. Perhaps a transition in that area that requires 4 hours to reach the temple proper could fix things.

Pause-With-Real-Timetm This is a phrase that I coined (to my knowledge) shortly after the backer beta was released. What does it mean? It means that combat seems to be designed such that far more time in combat is spent paused than not. What about PoE supports Pause with real-time? Consistently difficult combat that requires a lot more micromanagement than simply selecting your party and attacking an enemy (note: that some of the higher level, boss fights in the IE games were similar to this, but in PoE this is the rule rather than the exception). A large number of selectable abilities for each class, which are pretty much required to close the gap on the above mentioned difficulty level. Particularly "per encounter" abilities promote the idea that these abilities are meant to be selected in all but perhaps the most trivial of combats (of which there doesn't seem to be any in the backer beta). Timing the abilities - point 2 is only compounded by the fact that there are a fair number of those abilities that rely on proper timing to be used effectively. The rogue's finishing blow, for example. Use it too early on an enemy and it does little. To use it effectively you need to pay extra attention to find that "right" moment. Chanters invocations are similar, since you have to wait until you've completed the correct number of chants to use them. Even some of the fighter's abilities fall into this. Which foes do you want to knockdown, and when, for example? Positioning - In this game we have flanking. We have the engagement mechanics. It's not simply enough to attack an enemy, it's about where you attack them from. And by extension, where the enemy attacks you from (though this is somewhat less relevant as the AI is still a WIP). Those are the primary factors that come to mind. The effect is something that is much more of a hybrid between the Infinity Engine's Real-time with pause mechanics and full blown turn-based combat. If Obsidian Entertainment is reading, and feels so inclined to chime in, is this what you were going for? So is this a failure, a great innovation, or something else? This is the more subjective part of the conversation. I've said from the beginning that I felt that PoE's combat mechanics were better suited to a turn-based system. While I still feel that way I must confess that the PoE combat system is growing on me. I should preface that I prefer more complex combat systems to simplified systems that require little thought to master. Obsidian promised a game with combat that is tactically interesting, and I feel that PoE is poised to "outdo" the Infinity Engine games in this regard -- though there's still plenty of polish needed. I'm now closing in on some 20 hours with the backer beta, and I'm thinking that I'm good with pause with real-time combat -- more so than I expected to be. Once the systems are better polished, I might even come to love it. I'm concerned though that many will be resistant or even completely put off by the combat mechanics since they are so different than what the I.E. had. How do the rest of you feel?

My point isn't that playing in ironman mode is more fun than not. My point is not loading any save games avoids a lot of bugs, thus allowing a player to make their way more productively through the backer beta.

VERY much looking forward to the final release of WL2! A similar video would be nice for PoE, but in reality, it's not nearly as necessary as it is for WL2. PoE has the no bad builds concept to protect players, whereas you can definitely go wrong in WL2 when creating your party. You need to make sure that you have a healthy list of skills included somewhere in that group, and in order to get all of those you need to make sure that you're investing enough points in intellect to ensure that you can invest those points. WL2 feels very old school in this regard. I love that about the game.

1 to 2 weeks from the current one, or that is their plan at least. I would put my money on closer to two weeks.

Excellent analysis Sensuki. And as we discussed in another thread recently, if you never load a save game (i.e. you play the backer beta in a single sitting) this issue will not occur. Repeating here in case it proves helpful to the devs.

That sounds right. I remember when Total War Rome 2 launched, after promises if the most advance AI yet, and the AI appeared to be the most inept yet. In many cases it wasn't the AI that was truly the problem. It was pathing and other systems that weren't playing well with the AI. It's probably not nearly as complex of an issue in PoE as in R2TW, but the point rings true.

Really? I've played a lot of games and this has not been my experience at all. Further, unless you're playing a short demo like the PoE backer beta it's generally not possible to play a computer game in a single sitting. So I have no idea where you're coming from with your post. To me your statement is... utterly wrong.

I think the OP is talking about how to play the Beta without most bugs. Not about enjoying the game. There is no reason why someone should suffer through the process, if the pain can be minimized. Very astute.

Well, I'm doing that too as a matter of fact, but this time I chose a Planescape Torment run through.

Yep, for sure. I only ever see that happen after a reload. The shield in the middle of certain rooms is not reload related though.

@Matt516 I guess where I'm coming from is that while you may be right that it's not incredibly complicated, I worry that the sheer volume of stuff that still needs to get done will render even not super complicated stuff impossible to polish in a 3 month timeframe. And of course, almost nothing goes as smoothly as you expect. You end up running into unanticipated challenges that turn your 40 hours of projected work into 80. That's probably happening all over the place right now at OE, and causing programmers to have to spend more time on the more critical issues, leaving this sort of polish type stuff lower on the priority list. We'll see of course. As I said, I think I'm finding a sweet spot that is working okay for me in the game, so I just do what I have to do until things are a lot more polished.

If the pet takes damage, your ranger takes damage, and vice versa. I know, but I'm saying in this new build my ranger seems to have lower hp altogether. Maybe I'm wrong. He does. In the previous build all classes were getting the same amount of hit points. That was a bug which has now been corrected.

If the pet takes damage, your ranger takes damage, and vice versa.

The secret is simple. ... NEVER reload your game. Ever. The game is pretty damn stable (though still far from perfect, mind you) if you never load a save. Things start bugging out left and right as soon as you do so. So if you want the best experience with BB v278, play it when you can set aside a good 3 - 4 hours, and play the whole thing in a single sitting. It's actually not bad like this. Another observation is don't play a ranger, because their pets can get you stuck. In fact, don't summon any creatures. The Chanters skeletons are right out!

<--------- The hopeless cynic hopes you're right.

And as was pointed out, there really isn't any reason why "naked" ranged characters shouldn't be viable in many encounters. Yeah, Josh pointed that out, but it doesn't mean he's right. He's not a god, last time I checked (though I guess he has god-like influence over the game). At any rate, I'm not a fan personally of the idea a character needs to be unarmored to optimize their attacks. This is just way too "gamey" for my taste. It depends on what you mean by "optimize". If an archer wants to fire arrows as fast as possible in real life, then technically the best way to do that would be not to wear armor. That said, there are 2 reasons why this isn't the best strategy in real life. Namely, the danger of being shot and/or stabbed. Also, the fact that wearing armor (light armor in particular) probably only slows you down a little bit - maybe 5-10% in total firing speed. Note that neither of these reasons for archers wearing armor is perfectly reflected in PoE at the moment. Once the AI is fixed and the speed penalties are tuned, they will be and the problem will go away. That is - going naked into battle will still give archers a slight speed advantage (as it should), but will come with the disadvantage of being more vulnerable. Just tuning issues. Yeah, and I guess I'm generally good with that. My main point is that I don't expect the game to be tuned to that level for a while yet, certainly a good while after the scheduled release. So I expect we'll be seeing a lot of this for a while to come yet. Personally, I've opted to play the game on normal difficulty, and keep all of my characters in armor of some form. The game isn't overly difficulty like this, so I'm playing the game the way that I prefer -- even if I'm not using what is currently the "optimal" tactic.

And as was pointed out, there really isn't any reason why "naked" ranged characters shouldn't be viable in many encounters. Yeah, Josh pointed that out, but it doesn't mean he's right. He's not a god, last time I checked (though I guess he has god-like influence over the game). At any rate, I'm not a fan personally of the idea a character needs to be unarmored to optimize their attacks. This is just way too "gamey" for my taste.

The backers managed to fund 8, and we are promised that they will all be well developed, fully fleshed out companions. Personally, I'd rather have fewer well developed companions than a ton of undeveloped companions like in Baldur's Gate 1. Most likely we'll get some more companions in the impending expansion. I'm perfectly happy with the number, for my part.

I disagree. 4th edition is the worst system for any videogame with party. I'll mention but one game in this context: Daggerdale. I knew that one as a loser the moment it was announced.