Abel

Obvious troll is obvious. And if he isn't, then... wow Once again, i dont think hats is really the whole problem for him here. I believe he's more worried about "what comes next". After all, RPGs have changed a lot over time. I think people here (not everyone, certainly) will agree on the idea that games like Fallout 4, or DA II and III have lost many important things over time. I believe that what he is pointing out to is not just this hat thing, which is basically a detail. But it's a detail that seems to show that Obsidian may go the same route as Bethesda and Bioware in the future. This worries me too. Since before the release of Pillars 1. You can still argue that this feature (and others i pointed out) are just details, and don't necessarily mean that Pillars 4 will be like Fallout 4. You would be right. But still, it worries me. Because when a developer starts including several "convenient" features in a game, then more of them in its sequel, past has proved me that it always end in the same way. Just stop for 3 minutes, and think about this. Whether you like the new health system or not, don't you think that the evolution of this system from IE games to Pillars 1, and now Pillars 2 tend to show some tendencies in the mindset behind the game developement? Maybe you love the new system, and that's ok. But it is not the point of whether we like it or not here. The point is more about "Pillars franchise seem to take some route and evolve in some ways. If things are, as a whole, more mainstreamed in some ways from one game to its sequel, then are you sure you will still like Pillars 4?" Or something like this. I really believe it's too late to point things when they already happened. You can't do anything anymore about the Fallout 4 dialogue system. I just hope that you will try to consider what i am writing. Take some time. And afterwards, you're free to disagree, to say that you love Fallout 4, or that you believe Obsidian would never do that. I just want you to consider how different people see things. If you're standing still watching a building from the NE, you'll have no idea what someone doing the same from the SO is seeing. Unless you take some time to find out by moving to the SO. My point is basically just this.

It's kind of imaginative, and there is some constructive mindset behind this post. This has some kind of Arcanum flavor to it. I love the descriptions in this game so much If it were to appear as a mod sometime, i would gladfully try it, and see for myself if it helps immersion. They should create some kind of lore explanation for the Infinite Stash in the same way, like an item description explaining what it actually is, how you found it, and why despite it looking like a full-sized chest, you will never notice it's there in game. Instead of just throwing it in the game like this, basically saying "yeah, it's there... Just because... well, it's there.", the way crafting was.

Yeah, this. I'm happy about the feature to be able to hide one's hat, and will probably use it. I tend to do so sometimes. But i still understand completely Gizmo's point. I noticed the same kind of things regarding complete different features of Pillars. There are many like this (Infinite Stash is the first coming to mind since everything Gizmo said could apply to it as well). These are what i call the "quality of life improvements", which are really just "let's cater to people's laziness". I probably would not be able to explain it myself, especially since i'm not fluent with english. But i would say this. We did not went from Fallout 1 to Fallout 4 without a slow evolution regarding what is considered as a "good" feature. To me, all the "good" features of Fallout 4 are pretty nasty. Things are evolving on a slippery slope in game design. I personally would have hoped niche games like Iso RPGs to be spared from these tendencies. But still, again, i like the option to be able to hide a hat :D Really hope i won't need it with Pillars 2, though. While i can't really relate to explanations of the likes "It's game man, it's fantasy". It's lazy. It's comparable to "It makes me lose time and it's pointless", "it makes me click 3 times while it could be automatic", or "it forced me to backtrack since i couldn't allow myself to lower the difficulty level". Kind of. That's pretty much the reason we have a nice, convenient, auto heal feature in Pillars 2. You're welcome to assign some kind of greater value to yourself just because you want to do pointless busywork and call it "difficulty." But I'm also welcome to think it's really weird to assign some kind of moral value to pointless busywork and other things that just don't matter. I don't even need to read more than this. I never called anything difficulty. Never spoke of moral value. What you call pointless is just about your own opinion. And finally, you avoid to see our point deliberately, it seems, without even reading. Now, i don't feel obligated to do it either. Have a nice day.

I still fail to understand that. If you had to rest every other fight and backtrack to town, it's probably you used the wrong difficulty mode... I played hard difficulty, and i can't remember using camping supplies more than once or twice in Act 1 + Act 2 + WM1 (and no, i don't min max at all). I never ended up with spells i could not use because endurance was too low. I never had to buy any camping supply the whole time, and the vast majority i found as loot was of no use to me. What you are talking about is no resource management. It sounds like you actually did not manage resources at all, and then, found resource management was bad. Does not make sense. Sorry, the whole "Forcing you to travel back to town is not a good method for resource management" is as nonsensical as always to me.

I suppose many people remember Spellhold. Spellhold had varied areas, puzzles, track and backtrack. Since i would not rest in a dungeon (my characters are not up to suicide, especially when Bodhi is on their trail), i would generally end up at the end of the dungeon, meeting Bodhi with an exhausted party. All badly injured, with barely any healing left, or any spell. Oh... boy, she kicked my ass so many times lol. But this is what made the whole thing worthwile. Resource management is extremely important in any game which have dungeon crawling and such. I don't think an other Endless Paths would be any more than a borefest with this auto healing/replenish abilities each encounter crap Pillars 2 gives. I did not dislike Endless Paths. I never finished it (lvl 10 i guess) since i never finished the game. But i did not dislike Endless Paths. The thing that i disliked most regarding it, was that there was basically an army under your Stronghold. The backstory of the place tells you that your stronghold should be invaded and that you have to take care of the problem fast. But truthfully... Once you have opened the paths to the undergrounds, the mobs will just wait in their respective level. Wait for you to come and grind. THIS was stupid. And this is the one thing i really disliked about the whole dungeon. There should have been massive invasions of the Stronghold if you failed to lock the way. There is a specific level of the Endless paths with a locked door leading to levels below. I used it as my excuse to delay further exploration for a long while. Thank god the door existed. But then, you have these shortcuts... :s

Yeah, this. I'm happy about the feature to be able to hide one's hat, and will probably use it. I tend to do so sometimes. But i still understand completely Gizmo's point. I noticed the same kind of things regarding complete different features of Pillars. There are many like this (Infinite Stash is the first coming to mind since everything Gizmo said could apply to it as well). These are what i call the "quality of life improvements", which are really just "let's cater to people's laziness". I probably would not be able to explain it myself, especially since i'm not fluent with english. But i would say this. We did not went from Fallout 1 to Fallout 4 without a slow evolution regarding what is considered as a "good" feature. To me, all the "good" features of Fallout 4 are pretty nasty. Things are evolving on a slippery slope in game design. I personally would have hoped niche games like Iso RPGs to be spared from these tendencies. But still, again, i like the option to be able to hide a hat :D Really hope i won't need it with Pillars 2, though. While i can't really relate to explanations of the likes "It's game man, it's fantasy". It's lazy. It's comparable to "It makes me lose time and it's pointless", "it makes me click 3 times while it could be automatic", or "it forced me to backtrack since i couldn't allow myself to lower the difficulty level". Kind of. That's pretty much the reason we have a nice, convenient, auto heal feature in Pillars 2.

I'm in, if this allows more natural feeling to melee combat and combat as a whole, without these kind of mechanically forced limits your are describing. I guess, this would pretty much achieve the goal of OP and fuflill my personal own tastes. Although, probably, it would be hard to balance, in order to make them interesting, but at the same time, while avoiding players to just spam the same abilities over and over. I already see complaints and threads on these forums in the likes of "X ability is completely useless" :D

It's the cooldown in general that i'm not very fond of. It totally makes sense from a mechanical perspective, but, at times, it feels like it's there because the mechanics need it. and that's it. Though, i completely see your point. You don't even need to bring it up, i agree with this . But now, if you use this 3rd level active that has a cooldown, you can't use it anymore for the next 30 seconds. But you still can use this 5th level one, which looks like it would exert the warrior so much more. It would make more sense if cooldowns for straining physical actives just stacked. But i would agree that making combat feels perfectly natural, AND balanced at the same time is not so easy a feat to achieve. That's why i was ok with DA:O in this regard. Not perfect, but good enough for me.

Yep. Even without many active abilities, i always liked warriors, even in BG. The thing i disliked about warriors in BG was actually the high level active abilities ^^. A simple, straightforward warrior has plenty of flavor to me. It does not need plenty of actives with weird cooldowns and over the top moves. But probably that i would find it fun to have a warrior the way OP described in the few first pages, too. I'm not a huge fan of DA:O, but i still liked how they used seemingly pure warrior skill in weapon and shield handling to actually create active abilities. It feels that they actually improve in pure swordmanship like they should be meant to. The only thing i dislike about this, are the cooldowns, which seem rather unnatural.

Lol. I wanted to react quite a lot while reading this thread. Although i'm not bothered this much by your specific problem, i fully understand your point. And i'm baffed to see how, 3 pages long in this thread, posters would act like if they did their absolute best no to understand your point, and then throwed their unfathomable logic, except, regarding something that, indeed, has nothing to do with the reason you posted in the first place. They answered, obviously, without even trying to consider what you were saying. It happened to me in the past too. Specifically, i was talking about how crafting in Pillars 1 is just about a mechanic and a dumb UI, while nothing ever makes crafting a thing in the lore. No shop, no pro crafters, no pro enchanters, nothing related to it anywhere in the game. For some odd, arbitrary reason, every enchantment needs... money? Wut? Just an obvious money sink? Last problem was: everyone could enchant anything, all it took to be able to know how to craft superb items was farming to lvl up. No skills, no training, no need to learn anything from a master, or find receipt in the game world. No need for a Cromwell either. And i was discussing, too, my problem with the Might attribute. Which is to me the worst thing about Pillars. And some other immersion breaking feats of the game (infinite stash and stuff). As a whole, i think Pillars is all about gameplay mechanics. Not about any sort of Roleplaying Game ruleset, and these mechanics and attribute system do never care to tell anything about who your character is. Worse, they actually make it confusing. It could be better, in future games using Eora as a background, to just get rid of the whole class system to create a "do it to learn it" system. Even if no character sheet means various sad things, including no cool perk acquired from quests resolution or plot checkpoints. Which is still a shame. I guess your problem, OP, is that Obs pretty much took example on Blizzard's Diablo III. I will make somewhat a caricature here, and forgive me, but basically, in short... In order to make things fancy, they did the same as Jerry Bruckeimer: "Let's create fancy effects everywhere, boom boom, not care about anything else, and everyone will be like "Whooooa, I'll pay, gimme more boom boom stuff"". Effects are really cool in Pillars. But they need to have some kind of deep purpose to them. Abilities which do not NEED fancy visual effect should not have them, and wizards, on the other hand, should be able to fully display their nature as wizards in a showy manner. And regarding abilities, there are much more class-specific options than just use glorified "spell-like" tricks for every class. Or at least,i t his is how i understand your point, in a caricatured but easy to grab way. I would understand why you feel that your wizard has nothing special anymore, as a wizard. Well, Pillars now have quite something of a glorified hack n slash in some ways. Some even talked about the trash mobs in this very thread. Which is another aspect of it. Over the top, fancy moves with fancy out of place effects, mechanics over rulest, and so much more. I said it numerous times before, but i still can't find a way to play a flimsy female priestess with very high faith and conviction. Because Might is confusing for the sole purpose of being practical regarding game mechanics. Which is not forgivable in a Roleplaying Game, to me. So yeah, Obs did probably not care much about the fact that they were developping a RPG when it came to anything but the writing, with actual character spreadsheet. And if they did, i really feel it translates poorly into the game itself. Many players tend to play this game the way they would play IWD (both IWD are crappy in my opinion. Especially IWD II). I don't particularly have a problem with this, except when these people dismiss the very fact that some don't play it the same way, while, at the same, accusing OP to do the exact same thing they do themselves. Some posters made interesting points though. Whatever their personal point of view. It kinds of makes up for those who did not read OP before writing. PS: only read first 5 pages. Too damn long

Well, yeah... Still with low Might, the amounts of damage are ridiculous (often 2-5). That's why i tried to improve things with high dex and the shield with tattered veil proc. While using ''halt'' first thing, then trying to stun lock the target with the flail and high dexterity, in order to chain crit with both the weapon and the shield's spell. Still, it's a bit far fetched, and not always effective.

Accessibility? I think that the franchise is already badly gimped by the things done for accessibility sake. I'm with wRAR on this one.

If it's just a test, then, it's a test that deserves its proper in-game implementation. I kind of like how it feels bad-ass and historically accurate at the same time.

Did not play the game yet, but reading you, we are from the same school This, especially. Can't even tell how much i agree with that. Without any resources to manage over time, dungeon crawling becomes hack n slash. No one could find a way to solve the rest abuse problem, so they just avoided the whole point. Players who love to actually manage their resources pools, and never abused rest spam, by avoiding resting more than once/day are the big losers here. Hard difficulty was just right in Pillars 1 in order to play like this with no min-maxing. This, too. It would definitely break my desire to even play, as it did in Pillars 1. It's not the exact same thing, but i still experienced nonsensical things like that in Pillars 1, because of the Might Attribute. My biggest gripe regarding Pillars 1 (with the auto heal system after a nap). I strongly agree with this, too. I really dislike games that make sure their players can't lose. But, sadly, nowadays, it seems it's the way to go. And Obsidian, at the difference from inXile, really tries to cater to everyone in my opinion, while trying their best not to offend their core supporters at the same time. I already said this after Pillars 1's release, but i really think Obs is on a slippery slope. I loved to see the ''Game Over'' screen while playing Wasteland 2. The whole Nuke thing in the basement is actually pretty hilarious. The way it's done, you can't help but push the button, even though you know it's silly

I heard in France you try to avoid the english language as much as possible. I wonder how you did it in the Pirates of the Carribean movies. In Germany most of the terms (Like "Black Pearl" for example) were kept in english language, with a few exceptions. How's it in France? I seem to vaguely remember "Black Pearl" was kept in english in France. Which i think is actually a good thing. Unless the story took place in France and it would just seem wrong.

Like i said previously, i don't personally really care much about perfect balance. As long as the game is not broken like first 2 Fallout or Arcanum were. If we can at last forget about PotD or difficulty as a whole, it's a good thing, since we can get back to the core topic (it was pretty much my point actually, since i see people arguing about difficulty quite often, while the core problem was balance between classes and subclasses, and the fact that the patch hindered some character concepts mid-game). But well... while i hear and understand what you say (Manuvera, Mirandel, and others) and even agree to some point, i can't help but think that for the game to be memorable even in years to come, the balance process will be of much importance. Because for once, the balance mistakes of the old RPGs will not be forgiven anymore, and because many people who play several different playthoughs over the time, will want to test many different builds. It they are utterly unbalanced over the board, this will kind of ruin things for many here. -Are patches that change how some build play mid game an hindrance? Yep, probably. -Should the game have been better balanced during the beta? Yep, probably. Although i'm not sure how much can be accomplished in this regard for such a complex game in the beta. -Will doing this convince some people to buy the game in 2 years with all DLCs for cheaper? Yep, probably -Will some players drop the game and wait, only to never return to the game? Yep, probably. But... On the other hand... -Should the game stay like this? I think not. -Should the patches be limited to DLCs? I think not. Because you can't fine tune things without going through the whole process. Fact is: the game is out now, the beta is in the past. It can't be helped anymore, and there is no point discussing about the ''If only..." -Should Obsidian care about the reputation of their only owned IP for years to come? I think so. Even if some players will hate this process of balancing, my belief is that in 3 years, most who will have played the game by then will be grateful for the refined, finished game that will be Pillars 2. Like we are regarding Pillars 1, way better now than it was when it was released. And it got countless balancing patches over the time. Am i an Obsidian or Sawyer fan ? (well, this word is so overused by US people that it does not bear any sense anymore i guess.) -No. I find much potential in both Obsidian and Sawyer. But i dislike quite a few things about how they approach RPGs nowadays. So, i'm not here as a fanboy. In the end. I don't plan to dismiss valid arguments. Because well... they bear some truth. It's pointless for me to deny this very fact. But, at the same time, if i consider the whole picture, i can't help but think this patches are a necessary potential bad thing. Both for the game itself, and for the future of the IP. And here, i have to balance by myself pros and cons. And not everyone will reach the same conclusion as me. But i think that dismissing these patches as only a bad thing is too much, whatever your personal point of view is.

This is not true. Although I agree that it is generally best to translate into your first language, this is by no means a rule. I, for instance, have translated quite a lot of stuff into English, which is not my first language. This may not be true abroad, but in France, in translator studies, it's what you learn. Whether something is true or not does not depend on the country where you are. If this is what is taught in France, it doesn't make it true. It may also be the first rule in professional translation in France, which is fine with me, but even this does not make it true. (I would go so far as to argue that any proper discipline should also encourage its students to question the discipline itself, just to keep themselves from becoming too dogmatic.) It's perfectly sensible to start with the idea that translations should be done into one's native language. But translating into other languages, too, is not only a possibility, it is also something that people do incredibly well. But, I agree, this is slightly off-topic. It's indeed pretty much off-topic. But being french, i would daresay that YES, France is dogmatic and pretty narrow minded in my opinion. While you're taught to think by yourself at school, in the end, it's ok only if you abide by the dogma of the day . And you will be regarded as a weirdo if you dare surprise anyone by saying even a casual line that is not expected. There are much more social, tight up codes that you would think. I guess good tanslators have a price. Be it paying their skill or the time they need to do a proper job. Question is: considering the stretch goals, does it take this much money to get a proper translation? I thought these stretch goals were already costly enough during the campaign.

I would just ask a question: whose responsability is it to give the translators the actual context needed? In Pillars 1, there is a quest in Gilded Vale (I think). If i remember correctly, you have to ring bells in a certain order at some point. In order to do so, you have clues, written in a journal which you have in the inventory (or something like that). In french version (and i bet in others too) this journal did not make any sense. It was confusing and nonsensical. Had to switch to the english version to get things right. I agree with Lord Mord. There are many occurences when sentences do not even make sense. And it's not only in the UI or tooltips. Sometimes, it's the same in raw dialogue text. If Obsidian does not provide their texts with actual notes intented to various translators to help them understand what they are translating is all about, isn't that the responsability of Obs too? Are they really giving just raw text to translators, without giving any effort to help them have a clue of what they are translating? Regarding the UI? it would need screenshots, at least, and notes about how mechanics are working, roughly. So that we don't have this This is unbelievably embarrassing. This makes Obs look like, well, not even a 3rd rate company. Actually, i would translate this by "non armed weapons". But with an atrocious mistake. Since "armes" is a f.noun, "armés" should be written "armées". The nonsensical translation mistake is not even done correctly. You learn how to write correctly the participe passé agreeing to the genre and number of the noun in 2nd and 3rd grade. I know it for sure. I worked 2 years in elementary school. The club is equiped >>> Le gourdin est équipé (because club is masculine) 3 clubs are equiped >>> 3 gourdins sont équipés ("s" is added because there are more than 1) The sword is equiped >>> L'épée est équipée (because sword is a feminine noun, not masculine) 3 swords are equiped >>> 3 épées sont équipées (same, because there are 3 of them >>> +"s") They equiped 3 swords >>> Ils ont équipé 3 épées (because when it is ''avoir'' (ont), to the difference from when it is "etre" (est) like before, participe passé (équipé) does not agree anymore) Here is the sword i equiped >>> Voici l'épée que j'ai équipée (because even if there is "avoir" and not "être", in this sentence "épée" is before "ai" (avoir), not after like before, and thus if the word which answers the question "What is it i have equiped?" is before "avoir", then participe passé (équipée) agree. Well, may be boring, but this is basic french, learnt in grade school. Whoever can't even understand these basic rules should not even pretend to be a translator. Makes me angry. Is the problem Obs is not willing to pay enough for a good translation that would take some more time to finish? Because Obsidian doesn't care and is not willing to provide the translators with the things they need to contextualize the raw text? Because they think that as long as the US version is ok, other people can just go ahead and get ****ed by a camel if they want? Is it because the translators get the text to translate too late to have the time to do a good job? Because of schedule constraints? Because the companies who translate the games are rotten and they will just take the money and don't give a **** anymore? Because tanslators are bad? Because companies like QLOC want to pay their translators as little as possible and would recruit anyone, except actual skilled people who would cost more? I don't know... But here is one guess nonetheless. You can't achieve such an unbelievable mess, unless everyone involved is willing to help out achieving it.

What you said makes perfect sense. I would only disagree on this. I believe balance is about fine tuning things. You will change something, look at how it fares for some time, change something else, and go back later to the first one to change it again. I believe balancing such a complex game is not about bringing one, definite solution in a DLC, but more about iterations. That's why it took quite some time to make Pillars 1 better. As a side note, i still fail to understand why people are discussing about PoTD like this. I can't see the point. Unless people assume (once again) that the class/abilities balance changes are only about increasing PotD difficulty. Which would be getting the wrong idea, probably. Obs takes into account the necessary balancing process while reworking PoTD, but they are not doing it BECAUSE of PotD. They probably aim to balance classes in any difficulty level to begin with, PotD or not. I'm pretty sure of that. Why are people complaining that PoTD gets more difficult anyway, granted class/abilties balance has nothing to do with it? The only reason i could see for this is that there are some people here who can't stand not being able to faceroll everything in the highest difficulty mode. If it's not the case, please, consider that the balance changes you are complaining about probably have nothing to do with the increase in difficulty for PotD, and pick another game difficulty to get the appropriate level of challenge for you. And if you can't stand having your character build modified by patches. probably just wait some time until things start to settle balance-wise. In short, please, stop complaining about PoTD when the problems you seem to experience have seemingly nothing to do with it. Besides, i never played PotD (sticking to hard), but i very much understand people who don't want PotD to turn into "Let's go pick Mushrooms in the Forest" difficulty...

Looks like the game would need some hexa edit like the first one, in order to increase significantly the experience needed to lvl up from beginning to end game. 35% / 40% was the way to go for completionists in Pillars 1. Don't remember where the thread about how to edit this in first game is anymore. Should not be very different in Pillars 2?

I'm not sure about that. If you're meaning more risks because the budgets are bigger, then... well yeah. But at the same time, AAA games nowadays are designed since the start in order to be the less risky possible. To cater to everyone, including those who don't like reading, like to faceroll everything, consider choices as a bother, games longer than 10 hours a borefest, and having to think about what to do, an hindrance. That's why everything is dumbed down. Big budgets are actually the harm of games AND cinema in the US. The problem is this ultra liberalism where money governs creativity. And no, i'm not a socialist. And yes, because you're used to things how they are now does not mean they are good, rightful, or normal. Like i said in my previous post. And then, you have the whole DLCs swindles. I tend to check the financial reports of big publishers like EA from time to time (or whatever i can find about it). I can tell you that if several developers' studios closed because of them, they, themselves are still pretty well off... I agree with this, completely. Throne of Bhaal is not really worth it. I'm not sure why Black Hound was cancelled (console market in sight?), but it feels to me like a last ditch effort, the way Van Buren or Torn were. Interplay was already financially sick. The context of the development of these 3 games was completely different from those of Fallout 1, 2, and BG 1, 2. As a side note, for some reason, Brian Fargo deposited some time ago ownership for trademark ''Van Buren''. Not sure what he intends to do, though.

Sounds like some old MMO stuff. Personally, i'm not interested in this kind of thing (and never was). Problem is, if there are lengendaries as a reward, i will probably feel like i have to do it anyway. Which sounds bad to me.

Somewhere deep inside me, i thought it would be like this. From what i understand, Italian is worse than french in Pillars 2. I should check the credits for Pillars 1 now. If it is indeed a french company who translated first game, it actually makes things worse. It means the problem is not just creators don't giving a **** about foreign translations, as i thought, and that i assumed too much. Thanks for the input.

Well, i like continuity, and true, long sagas. I doubt Bioware and Interplay were already sure there would be a BG2 when they were developping BG1. I find leveling is too fast in Pillars. It should take way more time to get better at anything. Rather, i guess the true matter of this problem is exactly like Takkik said. People are not the same than 20 years ago. Even when it comes to gaming, they want everything, immediately. Getting fireball mid game is just too much for most people's patience. Well, can't be helped anymore. One country that was a lighthouse for art and creativity in the 20th century has become the lighthouse of dumbed-down-but-with-big-budget, take-that-in-ya-face art creation. Mickael Bay, without a doubt, for me, is such a criminal. People are now used to this, and humankind knows how to adapt pretty fast. Sometimes, it's for the worse. Cool stuff? Quality of life things? *sigh* Bah... Chacun sa paroisse comme on dit...

Why are you constantly talking about the upper level difficulties when you don't play them? Probably because he assumes that the nerfs of things, done for each and every difficulty level, are solely tied to the increase in difficulty Obs is trying to achieve for Veteran and Path of the Damned, and he is not the only one. Which is an assumption i'm not so sure about. At all. As always, correct me if i'm wrong.