Clean&Clear

"Though your inventory size is limited and follows a traditional grid-based system, extra items you pick up while adventuring won’t need to just be left behind. Instead you’ll have the option of throwing items in your “stash,” which is a bottomless bit of inventory space you can only access in towns and at camp sites." This is a part of the the Gamecrate article that made me worry a lot. I recall Josh talking about this mechanic in some of the videos/interviews or somewhere, but I dunno where exactly. As I understand it, the characters will each have their own standard inventory, but apart from that, when inventories of your characters are full, you can still collect items into some kind of "stash", which is accessible from EVERY town or camp site. I don't know if I get it absolutely right, but if I do, I really don't like this concept. How is it explained in-game? Are we just able to teleport items around the world? I think part of the role-playing concept is that your character and the world the story takes place in feels "real", even though it's a fantasy. Magic and thinks like that, all is somehow explained and makes the setting a fantasy world, but this feels just as a simplification to the game rules, but without the effect of adding fun, actually just the opposite, because it just doesn't fit in a game like this. Maybe going back to already done locations just to grab items you didn't have place for in the inventory isn't the most exciting part of the game, but for me this part of role-playing, that's what makes me feel more like I'm playing a "real" character. The concept I feel would be right is having infinite storage space in your stronghold, but naturally, you would have to travel there to store or take out items. Anyone having the same feeling about it? (the original article: http://gamecrate.newegg.com/10-pillars-of-eternity-details-we-picked-up-during-our-tour-of-obsidian-entertainment/ )

Actually, i think the overhead camera view in the video is the exact angle we will see things at in the finished game, so you can guess from the video how will the character's movement really look like in-game. And yeah, zombie's (or ghoul's, whatever) static hips look akward, even from the isometric angle. The whole movement animation of the zombie seem to be strangely tearing and shaking, I mean it's not fluid. And it's attack animation could be better aswell, imo. On the other hand, I really like the cat and troll animations, especially the cat looks great and really agile, which is the point of this druid form I guess. Good work!

Thanks for the answers, sounds great!

Just to be safe, I'll probably be playing on Hard anyways. I'd rather have a slightly (or even significantly) painful playthrough, difficulty-wise, than a cakewalk. Well yeah, I just had in mind the situation when normal would be too easy to even considerate playing it, but I trust the devs that my fears are exaggerated.

I know it's not the original topic but I have the same concern. In modern games the "normal" difficulty is often almost an insult to a decent player, because the game is simply no challenge at all on this difficulty. In old IE games, even the normal difficulty provided a decent challenge for the first few playthroughs. I think the level of difficulty in PoE should be roughly the same. If someone feels it's too hard for him, he can always go for easy difficulty, but it would be a shame if fans of old IE games (which i guess are most of the backers) would be forced to play on hard even on the first playthrough because otherwise the game would not provide enough challenge. And on top of that, I think the nature of the game itself (lot of dialogue options, complex world and possibilities, character development etc.) aims more on "classic" players who like to be challanged, so there's no real reason for the game normal difficulty to be set for casual players.

I guess IWD2 doesn't count as an IE game then. LOL And you're wrong anyway. Rangers could wield and thrive with melee weapons in all the IE games. And mages had spells like phantom blade, black blade of Disaster etc. to get their sword-wielding fix. not to mention spells they could use in tandem with the above to make them good in melee (tensors transformation, haste, improved haste, stoneskin, spirit armor etc.) But really, dismissing the multi-classing/dual-classing argument as something that "doesn't count" or "doesn't hold water", will not make it go away. The ability to dual or multi-class IS there to give the player near unlimited build choice options within the class system, yes. The fact that there are cleric and mage spells specifically designed to enhance specific multiclass combinations is just further proof. The hell it is. If I'm building a melee mage in POE, will the build be flexible enough to hold its own in melee with a warrior? Because you could do that in the IE games. Because everything was less rigid. I can't agree with you Stun. I can't speak about IWD2, cause I haven't played it, but in other IE games with 2nd edition DnD, the classes were totally rigid. For example, when you made a warrior, what could you do with the character? You chose him some weapon profinciencies, defining the weapons he will be using during the game, and that's pretty all. The same with mages. You got defined number of spell slots per level and that's it. The flexibility, as you said, was provided by dual and multi classing. But then, where is the real flexibilty of these classes after you create them? If you choose for example fighter/mage, you get weapon proficiencies of a fighter and spell slots of a mage, and that's it. Nothing more. You can't make your lvl 10 fighter/mage make any different from another lvl 10 fighter/mage, apart from using different weapons and spells (not counting atribute differencies because it's quite a different topic and I'd say we can both agree that PoE will provide greater variability here with each attribute providing at least something). You don't get any choices along the level progression of your character. So in general, if you count every multiclassing possibility as a separate class, you get a lot of classes to choose from, which are on the other hand totally rigid, cause you dont make any choices as the character levels up, it's all set from the beginning. The only choice is to dual class, which is quite similar to multi classing from a chosen level. I'm curious where you see the non-rigidity of this system. In Pillars of Eternity, they're aiming for this: (Josh Sawyer, PC World interview) There are set classes, and then we also allow...our talent system will probably be the last thing that we devise because it’s for filling in the gaps and extending the classes. Much like 4th edition D&D we want to allow people to take talents that can give a character the flavor of another class so they feel like they have those hybrid or blend forms. (recent update) In addition to the abilities listed here, ciphers, rogues, and rangers can gain access to additional class-specific abilities as well as Talents. Some Talents can be taken by any character, but many are class-oriented and can be used to distinguish or emphasize one character from another. One cipher's Talents may emphasize his or her physical attacks while another's makes his or her Focus use more efficient. One rogue may maximize his or her advantage against a specific type of affliction; another may improve the frequency with which his or her offensive abilities can be used. And while rangers can always benefit from improving their marksmanship and special attacks, investing in the durability and abilities of their animal companions can safeguard the ranger against disaster. (me) So, talents will give the possibility to distinguish charcters of the same class by choosing different talents and also substitute multi classing by providing every class a chance to gain some abilities and skills of other classes. This way, if you want fighter/mage, you can choose fighter in the beginning and give him as much magic talents as you can along the way, or take mage and give him fighting abilities. Maybe you won't be able to create a 50/50 fighter/mage, but as long as you can have let's say 65/35 fighter/mage and vice versa, it's totally okay with. Maybe the base class of the character will always dominate a bit, but the fact that you influence the progress of your character will, in my oppinion, make for at least same amount of possibilities as in IE games, but probably more. Btw, no race restrictions on classes will give a bunch of new possibilities as well. And, I think nobody said rangers can't wield melee weapons, but they probably won't be so good with them in direct combat as a fighter would, which is the same as in IE games cause of restricted number of allowed points in proficiencies. Sorry for the lenght of the post and for repeating facts you definitely know, but I didn't want to be misunderstood. And excuse grammar mistakes, not a native speaker.

Great update! The character sheet and environment look awesome. Keep up the good work.

What he's talking about is that Josh has said that you won't be able to cast buffs until combat has started. Thus, gone is all the "pre-buffing" as we know it. It's not that buffs are gone. Just that buffing up before starting combat (pre-buffing) is gone. Where did he say this pls?

And classes good in combat and distinctive from other classes are great starting points. I, personally, don't demand any full recognition of earlier implementations of classes in CRPGs (especially in D&D, even if it's nice with some kind of fuzzy similarity), but I do wish for as much diversity as possible. The new info you just revealed about the rogue makes it a versatile class, it seems. But I simply must ask: Will there be further divisions via choices after a few levels where there are subclasses or prestige classes of these "distincitive classes". And if so, can you give us an example or two? Cheers! I think "personalization" of your characters will hapen mainly through talents, which, as Josh mentioned, are not yet designed. And, of course, through stats, because if the concept of "no dump stats" turns out well (I really hope it does), you will have plenty of posibbilities how to combine them resulting in viable characters. I still wonder whether in time the character gets all of the skills that are listed in the update or the skill pool will be bigger and we'll have to choose some of them over the others. But I guess that will happen with talents and every character will get all the skills listed for his class. Anyway, thanks for the answers Josh, really dispeled my doubts!

As many others have said, I am concerned about the flexibility of the classes. From what we are presented, it seems they are quite bound to their given role and there isn't much room for variability. Hope there will be many more abilities to choose from (like non-combat abilities and such), which we are not presented yet, that will give characters the desired possibility to destinguish from other characters of same class and make room for defining your own playstyle with the class. But not to be just negative, I'm glad the game is taking shape and the artwork looks really great, good work!