Kjaamor

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that they are a business, but businesses spend an awful lot of money on branding themselves so that people associate them and their products with certain ideas. "Greed" is rarely a sought-after one. On that level, Obsidian need to balance the books, and if they go into the sequel with a $2 million kickstarter budget in mind and the sequel only gets kickstarted for $300,000, then that is going to be problematic. I'm not saying that they're not already mindful of this, just that it is worth remembering. PoE got the level of kickstarted funding it did because the BG fans thought it would be the new BG, the IWD fans thought it would be the new IWD, and the PS:T fans thought it would be the new PS:T. Of course, it isn't going to be any of those things, and a lot of people who were caught up in their own self-generated hype are likely to be disappointed with the game. That's not Obsidian's fault particularly, but it does mean that the sequel's kickstarter is unlikely to be as successful as the first. That is, unless PoE turns out to be better than all of them, and brings together old and new gamers, but I think that is hopelessly optimistic. Personally, it makes very little difference to me, since I am part of the pre-order/beta crowd rather than a true backer, and am highly unlikely to back the sequel in any case. The only game I have properly backed from the off was The Mandate, just because that looked like a genuinely new and interesting concept, and I felt like it could have potentially been poorly funded. Again, if people want to throw large sums of money at successful developers that is their business.

I was just saying that the limits of "this is what we like, this is what we don't like" leads to similar lack of freedom as "this is what they like, this is what they don't like". Games are more than the sum of their parts, and when the niche fan group starts making demands of developers the same old ideas keep coming back without much consideration as to whether or not they benefit the game. A classic example, for me, is the character appearance customisation of D:OS and PoE. The overwhelming noise from the community was that such customisation is something we love and that this is something that had to be present. So now we can choose between around seven different eye types for our character despite the fact that we're only going to see the top of their heads in-game. As I say, I like crowdfunding for the way it can place a spotlight on the financial clout of niche fan groups, but I think that backers are just as demanding and, in their numbers, just as shortsighted as big publishing houses.

I like the whole kickstarter thing because I think it showcases demand for things. I like the idea of the profit margins of recent kickstarted RPGs getting the interest of successful publishers, and publishers paying money to have these sort of games developed. However the crowdfunding model in and of itself threatens to stifle creativity in exactly the same manner that the AAA conveyor belt has. It leads to by-the-numbers design in the same manner.

I wouldn't say that it would necessarily look bad for Obsidian, but I do share the sentiment that kickstarting the sequel feels a little greedy. My understanding of the initial kickstarted game was that it would provide Obsidian with their own IP and prepared engine for sequels. Of course, people are free to spend their money how they wish, and if someone wants to pay large sums to a kickstarter that's their perogative/problem. Personally, for all I'd been searching for a game like PoE for years, I still find it mind-blowing that some individuals paid over a thousand dollars for an IE retrofest. Practically speaking, I have two concerns for a kickstarted sequel: 1. The initial game does not do nearly as well as anticipated 2. Obsidian count on similar sums of money from the sequel kickstarter as they did for the original, and the actual raised money falls way short of that mark. For all the success of Wasteland 2, Shadowrun and Grimrock, I get the feeling that the present wave of retro rpg successes is likely to be a wave that crashes in the not-too-distant future. As someone who spent the last ten years regularly searching for isometric party-based single player rpgs, having played Wasteland 2 and the recent Shadowrun, these days I feel that either the prescription on my rose-tinted glasses was out, or else that making a retro-style game inspired by good games doesn't necessarily make the game any good.

Rouge was a typo about thirty years ago, and was so hilarious that we're still cracking the joke. I think there are more typos of people accidentally typing "rogue" than "rouge".

Did you recently faction change to promancer? Anything for a cheap laugh.

I agree with all the above points, and share the same concerns. To be honest, for a long time I've wondered whether traps and locks are actually earning their keep in RPGs. I recently completed Wasteland 2, and while I was initially delighted with the skill system, by the end it grew extremely tiresome and didn't really offer gameplay so much as spamming a random number generator. The skill check system offers more than the skill roll, but it still seems like a very tame mechanic, although I acknowledge that Wasteland 2's is particularly bad just because you have such a surplus of points that there is next to no strategic thinking behind skill allocation. I actually found the BGs to be rather better than this, because the question was whether you wanted a full thief or a multi-class. In BG1, the question was whether the multi class could handle traps to the extent you needed. In BG2, the question was whether the thief's other powers were so good as to justify using the single class. In the latter, I personally have never done so, but I appreciate that other people have and that there is a lot of worth to the trapping and detect illusion build. It troubles me that, as Stun says, party composition (beyond needing a fighter) seems to matter so little in PoE, because to my mind that is a core mechanic of any strategy RPG worth its salt. And as a final note; Trap and Lock exp. Wai.

Either that, or they'll cave in and we'll be allowed to sleep in Sagani's bed.

Well, Aloth and Sagani have drawn the decidedly short straws of Wizard and Ranger respectively, so for all I prefer character-driven parties the odds are fairly stacked against them. That said, it depends upon how irritating the competition is. As it stands, I don't look at any of the companions and think "That guy is definitely in my party!". I look at Durance and Eder and tend to think "Yeah, those guys look fairly neutral, so I'll probably take them", which doesn't really say a lot for the appeal of the rest of them. I still intend to go companion party rather than adventurer's hall, because I'm hopeful that the characters will bring life to the game. Main is looking like being a rogue with zero stealth or subtlety and a big hammer to hit things with. Best rogue ever, etc.

Reverb. It says much about my Baldur's Gate II playstyle that so many of those are burned so crisply in my mind, and yet I look at Divination and Enchantment and have absolutely no recollection of them. It may well not be the most efficient or exciting playstyle, but god damn if the "Ignore anything that isn't evocation" style doesn't get results.

It really isn't. If Obsidian create something that works well then I have no objections, but I think the position of this idea on the "How difficult is it to make it work well?"/"How much will this improve the game?" axis makes it a non-attractive use of resources for me. EDIT: ... ..."non-attractive"... ... *left in as a monument to my idiocy*

Try and imagine how annoying this has the potential to be.

It's been said before, but I definitely believe that Sensuki deserves not only his own "Thanks!" thread, but some form of in-game tribute as well. Although I have disagreed with quite a few of his mechanics suggestions and rationale for those, there is little question that no-one here has contributed more in terms of not only finding bugs but clearly identifying them so that they may be addressed. Props to him.

Fallout 2, and absolutely none of the other Fallouts.

As long as the combat log is to the left or centre, I really don't feel that there's a need to be able shift around the various elements. With the log in place, I'd ideally like something that is solid and aesthetically pleasing rather than something cruder that enables the switching around of parts. To be frank, I always viewed the ability to shift things around as being part of the rationale for the "floating" gui, and to accommodate shifting seems to me like it would serve to make the "solid" gui more of a halfway house between truly solid and floating. Of course, that all sits on the positioning of the log in the "solid" version. More importantly, however, what the hell is the party doing in that Golem battle? Don't they realise that there's a deeply strategic and tactical doorway they should be stood behind?

From the second it was mentioned all those months (years?) ago, the importance Obsidian placed on DT in PoE left me shifting uncomfortably in my seat. It always seemed to me that making it a core part of the mechanics of every fight both unnecessarily complicated balance and also led to anti-strategic gameplay (One option to win, another to lose). I hadn't even considered the impact of critical hits on this. I think I would have agreed with Sensuki that DR was the way to go. Obsidian could have continued their desire to explore different weapons for different armour by having damage types reduce (or increase) the percent DR accordingly. However, I'm an armchair critic and not a game designer, so I shall have the good grace to assume that the decision to balance around DT was not taken flippantly, and that there may have been good reasons for it. Pre-order, in this case, not cancelled.

I'm currently replaying IWD with HoW installed and recently did that section. For the record, whether this be better or not, helpful or not, Icewind Dale enemies' AI comes in two different flavours: "Heat Seekers" (which as soon as they get a lock will always know your position and will track down your party), and "Return to Senders" (who return to their starting spot if they lose sight of you). Return to Senders are desperately vulnerable to ranged attacks/Hide while Heat Seekers display a level of clairvoyance bordering upon omniscience. Occasionally they get stuck, but not so frequently as to be particularly noteworthy. Again, for the record, Yxunomei is a Heat Seeker, and since I don't mind a bit of door warfare I tried the doors trick and all of them were either locked shut or locked open. In the end, I defeated her using a kitchen table.

Apologies, misread. It's all up there.

Although I continue to roll eyes at some of the non-UI features of the mod (cap adjustment, engagement removal), there is little doubt that this is a fine piece of work. Bravo, Bester! I, like Sensuki, would have preferred a skeuomorphic UI, and it is a shame that in playing that it looks unlikely that I'll be able to put the log somewhere more convenient. Has their either been a mod or is there much chance of one in the future that doesn't contain the gameplay adjustments?

Good concept for a thread. Alas...

o/

I can't - not really. I'm not trying to provoke or attack or anything, but could You elaborate? If the assumption is that most people who pick up and play Pillars of Eternity will not have studied the details of the mechanics (which is not an unreasonable assumption), then you want people's experience of the beta to reflect that. It is what Sensuki referred to in his original post as "innocent" testing; playing through the beta as a game rather than following changes. Advertising the mechanic changes encourages exploration of those mechanics, and is less likely to replicate the "natural" playthrough of a virgin PoE player, which will be most of players come release (no pun intended). It runs of the risk of 'Not seeing the wood for the trees', which, frankly, has already become endemic in this sub-forum. Obsidian have made it clear from the start that the main thing they hope to gain from the beta is people's thoughts on balance and their gameplay experience. That Sensuki and others have spent so much time ironing out bugs is both of help and to their credit, but that was not the primary stated goal of the beta. Sensuki found out the last changes from Josh on his tumblr, and points out that these details were made available on RPG-Codex (from his words I took it that this information did not, in this instance, come from Sensuki himself). People like Sensuki tend to find out the information by asking those in the know, and they then swiftly disseminate the knowledge. The time between the patch coming out and the information being widespread, despite the holiday season, is testament to this. It is not regression testing. Single-player beta patch notes have a totally different target audience and goal to released competitive multiplayer patch notes, particularly if the latter is subscription based.

Time and Effort to Do So + Benefits of "Innocent" Feedback = Current Situation I can understand why people like Sensuki, who test the game in the manner in which they do, would desperately want to get their hands on some more comprehensive patch notes. I can also see why making all of the details, particularly those pertaining to balance, clear to beta players might not be desirable. Since Sensuki, and I assume others, seem able to get the specifics with a little bit of digging, doesn't that provide a solution for both testing groups? Separate issue, but I don't think that the DotA comparison is even remotely fair. The PoE beta is not a released competitive PvP game.

Is it bad that I would love to see something similar to what they did with Lanfear?

To be fair, for all the extensive options, this was pretty much the case with crpg D&D 3.5, albeit worded slightly differently. 28 sub-optimal feats and 2 ones that significantly improved your chances because they worked with your class.