Update #81: The Front Line: Fighters and Barbarians

[J.E. Sawyer]

Can the barbarian's carnage-type attacks damage nearby allies?

 

No.

[Quadrone]

Mmmmh, love what I'm reading about the Barbarian here.

Question: The Death Godlike supposedly does increased damage as his enemies health drops, now would this ability apply to the damage dealt to the extra attacks made from carnage or do these attacks only deal base damage?

 

 

PS: I completely understand why OE don't want the E3 video or any video at this stage of development to be released.

As we know some animations are still choppy and VFX are still at an early stage. Any video realeased now would be circulated by the gaming press and now that the game is supposed to be in beta i can already imagine the Youtube comments deriding the "****ty graphics". Better to wait some more then to muddy some peoples first impression.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Mmmmh, love what I'm reading about the Barbarian here.

Question: The Death Godlike supposedly does increased damage as his enemies health drops, now would this ability apply to the damage dealt to the extra attacks made from carnage

 

Yes, all attacks, though Carnage attacks are reduced damage to begin with.

[IndiraLightfoot]

IIRC, even areas of effect can cause crit damage, so let's say the party gets hit by a huge fireball, will the Critical Defense ability still absorb crit damage, or is it just a melee damage-specific ability?

 

Boox: I agree! The more I hear about these classes, I just know that I gotta play them all!

 

Both the portrait with the lady fighter and that barbarian Amauan (courtesy of Polina) are fantastic creations! Yum!!

Edited June 25, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Pidesco]

How does Carnage work animation wise? Is it a sweeping sort of attack animation? I suppose you don't see the barbarian, individually attack each enemy. Hypothetically, how many enemies can be hit by carnage at the same time? Can the successful attacks interrupt enemy actions?

[Mannock]

A very nice update. I like all the class info we have got so far. I think you are on the right track with all the classes. So much in fact, it is hard to chose which class to start with. At first I was going with paladin, but since Pallegina is paladin, I will pick something else.

 

It would be great to know the classes of all the joinable NPCs before the game is released. I would like to pick a class that isn't covered by the joinable NPCs.

 

And the portrait is just awesome. Is it a portrait of a NPC or a portrait we can chose for our PC?

[Sensuki]

When Carnage "hits" enemies that weren't the main target, will there be an animation or something that plays on the Barbarian's weapon?

 

Something like what you see from Axe in Dota 2 would be cool, even if it's just an arc attack with some blur or ghosts of the weapon.

 

[TheisEjsing]

Love the update. I have never seen the reason to play a barbarian in the IE games, but the wild sprint in particular seems like an amazing tool. Gotta kill those mages fast! Great job as always! Btw is the portrait a backer or npc?

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

IIRC, even areas of effect can cause crit damage, so let's say the party gets hit by a huge fireball, will the Critical Defense ability still absorb crit damage, or is it just a melee damage-specific ability?

 

Yes, Critical Defense would still apply.

 

How does Carnage work animation wise? Is it a sweeping sort of attack animation? I suppose you don't see the barbarian, individually attack each enemy. Hypothetically, how many enemies can be hit by carnage at the same time? Can the successful attacks interrupt enemy actions?

 

Carnage doesn't use special animations, just the standard attacks.  It would be too expensive to animate special Carnage variants for all weapon types.  The number of enemies that can be affected by Carnage depends on how close together they are and how high the barbarian's Int is.  Carnage hits can cause Interrupts, yes.  However, because barbarians have a lower base Accuracy than other melee classes, and Interrupt chance is influenced by Grazes and Crits, they will tend to cause Interrupts less often per hit compared to a fighter, rogue, or paladin with equivalent gear/attributes/level.

[Chilloutman]

Still cant take a grip on how iteligence of barbarian affect how many targets he hits by AoE. Well, I will have to live with it

[Pidesco]

Are there situations where Carnage won't activate at all? Like, say, if the barbarian's int is low enough?

[Sensuki]

Is it just me or does that portrait seem a bit inconsistent with the other ones?

 

Kaz

 

 

Polina

 

 

New one

 

 

Polina has a lot bolder outlining and sort of a "pencilly" look to some parts, Kaz has more of a painterly look. The new one has really soft outlining and is kind of "blurry" in the hair and the armor/cape (although that might partly be the jpeg compression).

 

Looks like a different artist, although the darker lines on the cape and chin look a bit like Polina's "style".

 

Interesting anyway.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Sensuki

[LordCrash]

Hm, tbh I'm neither interested in fighters nor in barbarians. IIRC I didn't have any of them in my favorite BG2 party. But maybe I have to in PoE since classes seem to be even more specialised than in D&D.

 

Thanks for the update but I'm still waiting for that gameplay footage.

Edited June 25, 2014 by LordCrash

[redneckdevil]

<wades through misguided selfentitlement outrage that people believe they have a right for>

 

<grabs towel drys self off and wrings the tears of outrage off into a bottle to lap up later>

 

Fantastic update! One thing i thought that is brilliant and was surprised to see in my home games was the barbarians health being disabled from seeing when in rage. That is gonna be awesome lol. I love seeing that both can fill the job of the "tank" of a party but will noticeable differences. One will be the "rock" thats dependable and likely to survive and one is a bonfire that is more likely to engulf and burn the enemies to a cinder before being snuffed out. Great tactics already in my head, if one encounter needs be ran like a marathon to finish u woukd go for the fighter. If an encounter is a burst damage before u are burst damaged down, u would go with the barbarian.

 

Man cannot wait to play the game, i am feigning for this lol.

 

Keep doing what ur doing and remember, we know these updates and whatnot are candy for us backers that u dont have to do or are under no moral oigation to do so. Most backers know when tbey gave u money the only thing u are required to give us is a great game. Everything else u have been doing is just sweets u didnt have to give us. Thank you for the updates and all the stuff u have shown so far.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Are there situations where Carnage won't activate at all? Like, say, if the barbarian's int is low enough?

 

Attributes are purely additive, so you can't get a 0/negative area, but you could certainly have circumstances where the same group of enemies could be Carnage'd by an 18 Int barbarian but not by a 6 Int barbarian.

[nikolokolus]

As a fan of barbarian archetypes in fantasy, but generally not a fan of the way they have been translated into RPGs/CRPGs over the years, I am somewhat hopeful after reading this update that somebody finally got it right. Still have to see how it plays hands-on, but the aesthetic seems spot on so far.

 

Thank you!

[BAdler]

Looks like a different artist, although the darker lines on the cape and chin look a bit like Polina's "style".

 

Interesting anyway.

 

The portrait was done by an artist we hired and not by our in-house team.

[Gfted1]

Still cant take a grip on how iteligence of barbarian affect how many targets he hits by AoE. Well, I will have to live with it

 

I think its just a flat rule for all AoE. Iirc, spells with an AoE component work the same way, even going so far as to be adjustable in size (unless that has changed).

[Sensuki]

 

Looks like a different artist, although the darker lines on the cape and chin look a bit like Polina's "style".

 

Interesting anyway.

 

The portrait was done by an artist we hired and not by our in-house team.

 

There you go.

 

Thanks

[Zed]

The picture hides half the face which makes it a pretty poor portrait. Looking at something in an angle could reflect personailty, but not in this case. It just obscures. The quality is great tho.

 

But is it even a portrait? Could be concept art, or something else?

Edited June 25, 2014 by Zed

[Mannock]

The picture hides half the face which makes it a pretty poor portrait. Looking at something in an angle could reflect personailty, but not in this case. It just obscures. The quality is great tho.

 

But is it even a portrait? Could be concept art, or something else?

 

The picture is named "portrait female human". So one would assume it's a portrait.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Mannock

[Solviulnir the Soulbinder]

Very nice update. One thing that caught my attention - you have only mentioned weapon specialisations... Is there an option (like in the AD&D/IE games) to choose a weapon *and shield* specialisation? Or do the fighters automatically gain the ability to use one-handed weapon(s) together with shield without specialisation? Are there any special uses for the shields in PoE? Can you perform attacks with them?

 

Also - Nonek was right about the fighter(?) lady portrait. It's a great artwork but the face seems a bit skewed. That's because the lips are too wide, try to cover the corner of her lip with your mouse cursor and the face proportions will look more natural.

Thanks for the update!
 

[Elerond]

 

 

 

 

Hmm, I was keeping back on that footage disscusion running around forums, but in couple of months we should see complete game, not footage. This is disturbing.

 

No... in a couple of months we may have a beta. Did you miss the late December release date announcement?

 

2-3 month before release can not be called beta anymore. It is like what EA does with stuff like Battlefield. It is a public Demo nothing else.

 

 

Define "beta" for us, Darji.

 

 

Beta is something they work constantly on. They polish things change things in terms of  interface, dialogues and so on.  Beta is something you should constantly feedback about balance and through their changes. That will normally take many month if they do it for real.  Wasteland 2 for example had a Beta,  Divinity had a Alpha and Beta and there was a constantly change in these ones. If you give people the beta  2-3 month before release that means 1-2 month before everything should be finished  than you will not get the needed feedback.

 

 

As they said before. They are already in a Beta status in their studios. And this is the moment Beta testers or backers in this case should be involved. 

 

 

A EA beta or Demo is something you only do balancing stuff through data they collect  from players.  

 

 

Beta is state where software is before it is after alpha state and before release candidate state. But there is no definite definitions for those states, but they are defined by developers themselves so that they themselves know that how ready software is and what kind work it still needs. Software is usually considered to be in beta state when it has all features and content that release version needs are done at least such level that testing and polishing of whole product can start, but this isn't always the case, as such definition don't always work with development process that developing team uses.

 

So beta is meaningless term if you don't know definition for it that developers of software in question use for it.

 

And from previous update you can see that Obsidian uses alpha and beta states to determine how ready each of their teams are addition to overall state of game. And they use beta to define state where all content and features are done, but not necessary on such level that game is actually playable from start to finish, let alone that it is enjoyable to play or that it ready enough to give for beta testers to play in their opinion. 

 

Softwares especially games can be months in beta state without actually being in state where they are actually usable on level that even resembles final product, which is state that most non-developer beta access backers probably excepts to get their hands on.

[talharbash]

Please reconsider your stance on a couple of months before any new footage is released to the backers/public.

 

Thank you.

[NWN_babaYaga]

thank you for the update guys. Fighter classes are what i play the most so this was appreciated ... but now i sit here not having the game ... uahhhh i want my video footage.... :D

 

Nah, joke aside. I´m happy to wait until it is ready and since i´m not the "evil"... publisher why should i start to act like them... anyone?

 

So thanks again for you jumping in here answering questions

 

I realy want to play the game... damn!

 

PS:

and no one can define when a game is in beta except the people / devs involved so any discussion about when how and what why not is just hot air!

Edited June 25, 2014 by NWN_babaYaga