Pillars of Eternity has lots of abilities, but will we truly need to use them?

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

 

did you mean can only beaten by a few people on the development team? i was a little unclear.

 

 

Yes.

 

 

The difficulty level issue is going to be less about how you manage your resources fight-to-fight and more about figuring out how to get through fights, period.  Some of the optional fights we have in right now can only be beaten by a few people on the team, and that's with a mostly-fresh party.

 

our problem is - will u save this level of challenge in release version?

 

Yes.

[Sarex]

I am getting all tingly for the Path of The Damned mode.

[Bryy]

It will not be as hard as IWD2 but should be in the IWD/BG2 range. 

Thank God, that game was a nightmare.

[Cubiq]

 

It will not be as hard as IWD2 but should be in the IWD/BG2 range. 

Thank God, that game was a nightmare.

 

This is very strange

 

I found BG2 a lot more difficult than than IWD2, on core rules.

In fact i found IWD2 to be the easiest of all IE games because of the buff stacking that 3rd rule set introduced.

Once my melee were fully buffed by a mage and a cleric they were virtually unstoppable.

Not only that, a lot of the buffs lasted for a long time so you usually only needed to rebuff after a rest.

The stoneskin and mage armor spell made them barely take damage + spells like bull's str, Bear's endurance etc. combined with spells like bless and prayer cast in the battle made them killing war machines.

I even killed the last antagonists on first try.

[Sherr]

 

 

It will not be as hard as IWD2 but should be in the IWD/BG2 range. 

Thank God, that game was a nightmare.

 

This is very strange

 

I found BG2 a lot more difficult than than IWD2, on core rules.

In fact i found IWD2 to be the easiest of all IE games because of the buff stacking that 3rd rule set introduced.

Once my melee were fully buffed by a mage and a cleric they were virtually unstoppable.

Not only that, a lot of the buffs lasted for a long time so you usually only needed to rebuff after a rest.

The stoneskin and mage armor spell made them barely take damage + spells like bull's str, Bear's endurance etc. combined with spells like bless and prayer cast in the battle made them killing war machines.

I even killed the last antagonists on first try.

 

 

i dont see how bg2 was more difficult according to your description. Same buff stacking, same stoneskin/mage armor. Its not like u need more then one try in BG2 last encounters.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

IWD2 was a bit of a cakewalk. At the start it was challenging because you're low level, but as you levelled up, it got easier. In terms of combat, I rate it second lowest after Planescape Torment and that's not a good thing being marketed as a combat focussed game. Even the dragons were no challenge. One tactic I'll give it is the ambushing spawning monsters behind your party and you were trapped in the middle which BG2 didn't really do (except for thieves), but that wasn't hard to overcome. The end battle was challenging but overall underwhelming and the way it ends really disappointed me. I won't say anymore due to spoilers. It's the least favourite of the IE games for me. BG2 had vampires, mind flayers, Balors, Liches and difficult high level encounters. Some are easy now once you know the easy way to kill them. But even now I sometimes get level drained in BG2.

[Bryy]

IWD2 was a bit of a cakewalk. 

My Ice Trolls.

 

Let me show you them.

[Jarmo]

But will we need to use the abilities of companions as well?

 

Will the companions have the same kind of AI as the enemies?

Can they handle themselves and their abilities in (an easy) fight without handholding?

 

As compared to NWN2, the AI wasn't super clever but they did do some stuff.

But in puppet mode they did nothing at all unless told to, that was a real pain, I used the mode a few times in the worst fights.

 

I'd love some behaviour triggers, like go wild with per-battle abilities, but don't use per-rest ones unless told to.

[Hassat Hunter]

Why should the AI self-act?

This isn't some 3D adventure like KOTOR or NWN where your team is hard to use, but BG2 style, where your party is about as easy to control as... ehm... BG2.

 

A lot of people fitted on Dungeon Siege 1 "playing itself"... and now you want that to happen to PoE?

There's absolute no need for an AI doing your teammates in Baldur's Gate kind of games. If you do, play Dragon Age: Origins, and tell me how fun it's combat is...

 

Also I found both BG's and IWD's pretty difficult. Of course I didn't rest spam, or haste each fight and such similar "strategies" I sometimes see used when the old IE-games got discussed.

[Jarmo]

Why should the AI self-act?

 

Because it's a real-time game and I only have one character.

The rest are teammates, not brainless zombies.

I don't mind controlling the whole party in ToEE, but that's turn-based.

 

Lot's of things happening simultaneously, I can just see the gameplay being

*pause*

give lots of orders

*unpause*

watch the battle progress for a second

*pause*

repeat

 

And yeah, Dragon Age: Origins is a lot better game than BG2 in terms of gameplay,

plot or characters, actually in any terms I can think of right now.

[PrimeJunta]

And yeah, Dragon Age: Origins is a lot better game than BG2 in terms of gameplay,

plot or characters, actually in any terms I can think of right now.

Burn the heretic.

Edited February 10, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Sarex]

IWD2 was a bit of a cakewalk. At the start it was challenging because you're low level, but as you levelled up, it got easier. In terms of combat, I rate it second lowest after Planescape Torment and that's not a good thing being marketed as a combat focussed game. Even the dragons were no challenge. One tactic I'll give it is the ambushing spawning monsters behind your party and you were trapped in the middle which BG2 didn't really do (except for thieves), but that wasn't hard to overcome. The end battle was challenging but overall underwhelming and the way it ends really disappointed me. I won't say anymore due to spoilers. It's the least favourite of the IE games for me. BG2 had vampires, mind flayers, Balors, Liches and difficult high level encounters. Some are easy now once you know the easy way to kill them. But even now I sometimes get level drained in BG2.

 

IWD2 was the best game, in the IE series, gameplay wise. You should have played it on "heart of fury" mode, that is where the game really shines.

[Cubiq]

i dont see how bg2 was more difficult according to your description. Same buff stacking, same stoneskin/mage armor.

You could only use stoneskin on melee if you were using the mage/fighter multiclass which was clearly overpowered compared to the rest of the classes and you wouldn't know about it on your first playthrough.

In IWD2 you didn't need to resort to such a cheese build because your mage could buff your whole party with stoneskin and mage armor since it was normally castable on others. Also Mage armor could stack with your normal body armor and if i remember correctly Haste gave you another +4 to armor class, while in bg2 that wasn't the case.

Also spells like Bless and Payer had a duration increased with level so they lasted a lot longer than in bg2, plus you had stat increasing buffs that you didn't have in bg2 like Bull's strength, Cat's grace and Bear's endurance.

 

I forget what other buffs i used but the buff system worked a lot better in your favor than it did in bg2.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Cubiq

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

And yeah, Dragon Age: Origins is a lot better game than BG2 in terms of gameplay,

plot or characters, actually in any terms I can think of right now.

Burn the heretic.

[Sir Chaox]

 

 

And yeah, Dragon Age: Origins is a lot better game than BG2 in terms of gameplay,

plot or characters, actually in any terms I can think of right now.

Burn the heretic.

 

[tajerio]

I'll give the poor "heretic" this: for my part, I enjoy DA:O's characters more than I enjoy BG2's characters by a long shot.  Totally subjective of course, but most of BG2's characters bore me to tears, especially since I'm spending about a hundred hours running around with them.   

Edited February 10, 2014 by tajerio

[Sir Chaox]

Honestly, I don't mind him saying the gameplay and characters were better. What gets me is the story. DA:O's story was essentially "Kill the dargon"; maybe the universe and subplots were more interesting, but it never became anything bigger than that. BG isn't amazing either, but it has an epic-style personal story that escalates into a highlander scenario: a little more interesting to me than DA:O. Not exactly comparing games with great stories here but whatever! It's all opinion anyway.

 

Just wanted to also add, I did not dislike either game's story. Much better than most RPGs anyway. But DA:O was sort of disappointing, it could have been more. It really felt like an introduction to the DA world than anything else.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Sir Chaox

[tajerio]

Honestly, I don't mind him saying the gameplay and characters were better. What gets me is the story. DA:O's story was essentially "Kill the dargon"; maybe the universe and subplots were more interesting, but it never became anything bigger than that. BG isn't amazing either, but it has an epic-style personal story that escalates into a highlander scenario: a little more interesting to me than DA:O. Not exactly comparing games with great stories here but whatever! It's all opinion anyway.

 

Just wanted to also add, I did not dislike either game's story. Much better than most RPGs anyway. But DA:O was sort of disappointing, it could have been more. It really felt like an introduction to the DA world than anything else.

 

I think that's really fair.  Having a story that winds up being "kill the ancient evil" without any subversion or nuance doesn't work that well.  DA:O tried to mitigate it by having Loghain as another antagonist, but Loghain kinda goes over the moral event horizon right at the beginning of the game by not supporting his king and countrymen against the obviously evil giant horde.  If there's gonna be that kind of "save the world" quest, there needs to be some doubt concerning either a) what/whom should I actually be saving the world from? or b) am I really saving the world?

 

I don't think that's a worry for PoE, thankfully.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

IWD2 was the best game, in the IE series, gameplay wise. You should have played it on "heart of fury" mode, that is where the game really shines.

 

I preferred IWD1 in every way than IWD2. Story, atmosphere, pacing, characters, gameplay, movies, combat. Even the ending was more satisfying.

 

Some problems I had with IWD2 from the top of my head.

 

 

 

 

It was easier to power game with the 3E rules compared to 2E. If you take a Rogue in your party, you multi-class that Rogue at Level 1 into something else like a Mage because all you need for the entire game is a Level 1 Rogue to open all the locks and find all the traps. And a Rogue(1)/Mage(x) is better due to spells being more important in combat than a Rogue levelling up. Also, while levelling up your Mage, you could still pick thieving skills + Mage skills, even though you're still a level 1 Rogue. So why bother levelling up the Rogue? You don't.

 

Ranged combat sucks with ranged weapons. I can post screen shots and you'll see even my sorcerers used melee weapons over ranged weapons. And having a Fighter/Barbarian, two priests and three Wizards (Mage, 2 Sorcerers) with so much spell power did make it easy. Priests were OP imo. Melee combat and spells were king and once you changed your tactics to this, it was relatively easy. Forget about ranged weapons, sometimes it was just easy to send in 6 characters using melee weapons and I'll save my spells for later.

 

Fell Wood. What a mess. This is what you don't do to players.

 

The Time Loop. It seemed to never end. I just wanted to get it over with and it didn't make sense to the rest of the story. I still don't understand what that was all about.

 

The Fell Wood and Time Loop would probably be very cool in a pnp game but was poorly executed in this game.

 

The loot wasn't that great. It was abysmal for most of the game until you get to the Underdark. When I got to Kuldaher, there was a lot of loot from the Merchants and I had enough money to clean out all the merchants. But then I have characters that have half their slots unfilled at the end of the game. And a lot of stuff they do have I never used. eg. Items that can cast a level 1 spell Shield? Really? This is one of the best items I can find for one of my characters?

 

I'm nearing the end of the game and about to enter the Severed Hand and then I go back to the Ice Temple from near the start of the game? It's like the dev's forgot about Nickademus near the end of the game development and said, 'oh crap. we need to send the players back because we forgot to tie up this quest'. The pacing was terrible and this loose end should have been tied up earlier.

 

The ending. You eventually find Orrick the Grey in the Severed Hand who remains neutral for all this time, since you've been playing the game from the start and he still refuses to help. So you go off to fight Isair and Madae and once you're about to kill them (or at least one of them), he decides to step in and tell you to run away while he kills them. Not only do you not have the satisfaction of killing at least one of them, Orrick tells you to run for an exit while he kill steals and blows up the Tower with the villains inside. I run away like a coward letting a NPC that I haven't seen for the vast majority of the game take care of the end boss. I just battled through this entire game for a wizard to come along and blow up the Servered Hand when he could have done it anytime, since he was in the Tower from the very beginning. ugh.

 

It was like if Elminster in BG1 had stepped in at the end fight when Sarevok is at near death and telling you to run for the exit and he killed Sarevok by blowing up the temple.

 

Commoner: So are you the adventurers that killed Isair and Madae and saved us all?

My Party: No, it was some Wizard I never met during most of my travels and he came in at the end and blew up the Tower with them inside. I'm not really sure why I needed to go to the Tower to be honest, since he was already there in the first place.

 

That's how I felt in the end.

 

 

 

The game was overly long, parts of the story didn't make sense, the pacing was off, some areas were tedious, and the ending was unsatisfying. Compare that to IWD1, and it's chalk and cheese.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Jarmo]

If someone wants to open up a discussion thread on game plots and gameplay, I'll add something there about DA:O and BG and more. But it's a bit offtopic in this thread.

 

As far as abilities, D&D system obviously has more ways to go than DA:O, but I really liked how all the DA classes had several valid ways to build them up. Not enough for endless fun, but more than enough to keep a normal player happy for several playthroughs.

 

And I really liked how fighters and rogues had both active and passive abilities, meaning playing a fighter was more involved than just clicking at a target and waiting for it to die. But not crazy involved like ME2 or Jade Empire.

 

And then to add some more fuel to my pyre, having regenerating mana pool made playing a wizard/cleric/whatever fun for me, the way it was never fun in IE games. Sure, having a wizard in party was always necessary and useful, but in a resource kind of way, not in a hero way.

 

BTW, I just remembered one thing where DA:O was real not fun at all compared to IE games.

The stats system. Doesn't matter at all what you pick in the beginning, when you get 200 points more during the game.

And there weren't many ways to make valid characters, just pick a way and then pool points accordingly.

 

And the second thing was the equipment/loot level system, where everybody begins with weapons made of cow dung and then goes on to see every street punk carrying mithril by the endgame.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'll give the poor "heretic" this: for my part, I enjoy DA:O's characters more than I enjoy BG2's characters by a long shot.  Totally subjective of course, but most of BG2's characters bore me to tears, especially since I'm spending about a hundred hours running around with them.

I'll admit to disliking most of BG2's cast. Just shows how bad VA can ruin a perfectly enjoyable experience.

[Oneiromancer]

 

I'll give the poor "heretic" this: for my part, I enjoy DA:O's characters more than I enjoy BG2's characters by a long shot.  Totally subjective of course, but most of BG2's characters bore me to tears, especially since I'm spending about a hundred hours running around with them.

I'll admit to disliking most of BG2's cast. Just shows how bad VA can ruin a perfectly enjoyable experience.

 

 

I don't think it was a VA problem but mainly the fact that most of them were either extremely vanilla fantasy tropes, one dimensional characters with a "gimmick" or simply underdeveloped probably due to time costraints. There was a few exceptions but if anything those made the other characters look even more inadequate. Then again back when I played BG2 I was more interested in exploring a fantasy land and kick goblin asses with my adventuring party than being the group personal therapist.

 

Also I don't think DAO fared much better considering you had far less npcs to choose from... and it had one of probably my most disliked npcs in a rpg in years: Alistair.

[Fatback]

 

 

Why should the AI self-act?

Because it's a real-time game and I only have one character.

The rest are teammates, not brainless zombies.

I don't mind controlling the whole party in ToEE, but that's turn-based.

 

Lot's of things happening simultaneously, I can just see the gameplay being

*pause*

give lots of orders

*unpause*

watch the battle progress for a second

*pause*

repeat

 

And yeah, Dragon Age: Origins is a lot better game than BG2 in terms of gameplay,

plot or characters, actually in any terms I can think of right now.

That's why party based RPGs with this many skills is better suited to turn based. Pause, give orders unpause, wait for round to end, pause, get board and just watch auto attack do the rest.

 

Why play a party based game with the ability to make own companions if you are just gonna have ai do all the work

 

That's why I'm hoping this combat slow thing they talked about is still in, and key binds let me key bind everything I have great dexterity. That would be fun combat

[J.E. Sawyer]

Yes, the slow combat toggle is still in.

[Fatback]

How slow are we talking will I be able to see a fireball coming at me and scatter my party in time with a custom scattered formation?

 

And will the casting animations be diverse enough for me to judge what's coming before hand?

 

 

3rd edit thank you josh

Edited February 21, 2014 by Fatback