Gameplay video: Detailed Response

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

 

@ Sensuki or anyone else who knows

 

Are you sure that the flame effect is knockdown?  If so, it is quite odd.  

I'm pretty sure the flame effect is fire damage from the torch Calwhatsit is wielding.

 

 

Yes, Calisca's torch does inflict a fire DoT when it hits and that's the effect.

[Archaven]

Watched the quick look EX on PoE. Here are my first impressions:

 

1) Visually, they don't look as good as Divinity Original Sins. I thought the whole point of it being 2D that they'll boast the best graphics? But anyhow it doesn't bother me much.

2) It seems that some of the static structures are blocking the slimy ooze? This is one of my gripe that the game is not 3D and not rotatable.

3) Some of the interiors seems out of proportion to me. Noticeably seen in the room after the puzzle of lighted symbols. When characters are moving left, it seems as characters are climbing up.

4) Now onto race like godlike, it looks kind of weird on the design of the godlike especially the head. It looks over exaggerated. I don't mind a slight variation of being different but the head is just too extreme making it look like alien-breed. But on the other hand, they have perfectly human body with humanly pair of hands. I hope the head can be reworked as it looks really bad to me.

5) Now on the UI. It looks awesome to me. I think it's alittle empty on the left after 3 character portraits but i think it'll be fine when we have 5-6 characters. There's no minimap shown yet, but it'll be great if we get a tranparent minimap as well as customizable UI and menus? Where i can move my characters portraits to the left if i wished?

6) Calisca portrait looks nice but my only gripe it was shown the side of it. Can i have portrait that she faces me?

 

Ps. Also the blue circles beneath characters. Do we have an opacity slider? Or can i hide it? Original Sins look great without it. Of course, i'm not objecting to people who wants them. I just like more customizations.

 

Overall, hope to see more improvements on PoE for days to come.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Archaven

[Gromnir]

character creation were odd. perhaps we need watch again, but all we saw were lists w/o explanations.

 

choose race. okie dokie, but what advantages does human have? 

 

choose class. fine, but what are attributes o' a barbarian or fighter?

 

choose ability point spread. nice, but what exactly is perception and how does one point in perception benefit our character? 

 

choose... whatever.

 

also, as already noted by other folks, there were no skills or talents. based on character creation we saw, the functional gameplay customization through character creation were incredible sparse.

 

finally, why have ability minimums? yeah, having such does result in less extreme character builds, but if all abilities is equal useful, then am not seeing a need to provided minimums, particularly if every point is equal useful as well. 

 

we will watch again, but character creation were underwhelming or incomplete.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[teknoman2]

it's called a placeholder... they did not have a portrait for him ready so they put in a random one just for it to be there

probably

i hope

[Doppelschwert]

1) Visually, they don't look as good as Divinity Original Sins. I thought the whole point of it being 2D that they'll boast the best graphics? But anyhow it doesn't bother me much.

 

- snip -

 

Ps. Also the blue circles beneath characters. Do we have an opacity slider? Or can i hide it? Original Sins look great without it. Of course, i'm not objecting to people who wants them. I just like more customizations.

 

I don't get why people are comparing PoE and DOS all the time, as they are clearly designed differently in every aspect and all this stuff is highly subjective. The grafics of DOS are cartoonish and sometimes highly exaggerated compared to the graphic style of PoE and to me this looks hardly as good as the realistic approach here, but this is highly subjective.

 

The cirlces are useful in a real time game while DOS does highlighting on a turn basis anyway, so the intention is completely different.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[Sonntam]

4) Now onto race like godlike, it looks kind of weird on the design of the godlike especially the head. It looks over exaggerated. I don't mind a slight variation of being different but the head is just too extreme making it look like alien-breed. But on the other hand, they have perfectly human body with humanly pair of hands. I hope the head can be reworked as it looks really bad to me.

 

This is only one of the possible heads for Death Godlike. We were shown others during one of the updates and those heads were much smaller. There is still a very alien look to the Death Godlike, but I think that's actually a good thing. Death is meant to look frightening, not just "whelp, I got a bit pale-ish skin and maybe dark eyes". 

[J.E. Sawyer]

character creation were odd. perhaps we need watch again, but all we saw were lists w/o explanations.

 

Programming is currently hooking up all of the description displays in CC.

[Gromnir]

 

character creation were odd. perhaps we need watch again, but all we saw were lists w/o explanations.

 

Programming is currently hooking up all of the description displays in CC.

 

good to know.

 

is there an obsidian rationale regarding stat minimums? we won't ask josh personal pov as we has already heard regarding various games and developments and we promise not to bludgeon you with past comments. if you explain, we will take explanation graciously and forgo a response. assuming abilities is balanced, we is always perplexed by minimums, but am genuine curious 'bout the PoE reasoning.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Enoch]

 

Death is meant to look frightening, not just "whelp, I got a bit pale-ish skin and maybe dark eyes". 

The precise appearance of anthropomorphised embodiments of the concept of Death seems to me to be a culturally determined thing.  I don't know if you can say much about what it "should" or "shouldn't" look like without a pretty strong background in the surrounding culture. 

[Sonntam]

 

 

Death is meant to look frightening, not just "whelp, I got a bit pale-ish skin and maybe dark eyes". 

The precise appearance of anthropomorphised embodiments of the concept of Death seems to me to be a culturally determined thing.  I don't know if you can say much about what it "should" or "shouldn't" look like without a pretty strong background in the surrounding culture. 

 

Well, if you are talking about real world, then there are quuuuuite few cultures were death is considered to be something you should look forward too. It's scary, even if an important part of the reality. And design of Death Godlike encorporates that quite well, if you ask me!

 

If you are talking about the world of Eora, then culture does not have a lot of meaning for the apperance. Death Godlike look pretty similar, no matter what culture they are born in. There is one death god and as such the appearance of those blessed by the god is out of anyone's hand. Perhaps it shows partly what Death god may look like? And since death is an all encompassing phenomen that does not only concern humans, but everything that lives, it makes sense that Death Godlike's face does not even look very human.

 

If there is anything one could argue for is to make Godlikes even stranger with effects on their appearance spreading to the body, but I think the problem here would be resources... and of course that it would be difficult not to get an uncanny valley effect if one goes overboard with the changes, or making them too subtle that with armor you will notice nothing of it.

[J.E. Sawyer]

is there an obsidian rationale regarding stat minimums? we won't ask josh personal pov as we has already heard regarding various games and developments and we promise not to bludgeon you with past comments. if you explain, we will take explanation graciously and forgo a response. assuming abilities is balanced, we is always perplexed by minimums, but am genuine curious 'bout the PoE reasoning.

 

No real rationale, actually.  They've just been set to those values for a while.  I'll ask Roby to set the minimums lower for the backer beta.

[Stun]

Josh, just to be clear on something that's been eating at me... in the IGN video, there was a point where you decided to switch weapons, and then you made a comment to the interviewer... something to the effect of: "well I guess I won't be using my axes for this next fight"

 

Is there a cooldown effect when you switch between weapon sets?

Edited July 25, 2014 by Stun

[J.E. Sawyer]

I don't remember that exact circumstance, but there is not currently a recovery time in place when weapons are switched.

[Gromnir]

 

 

Death is meant to look frightening, not just "whelp, I got a bit pale-ish skin and maybe dark eyes". 

The precise appearance of anthropomorphised embodiments of the concept of Death seems to me to be a culturally determined thing.  I don't know if you can say much about what it "should" or "shouldn't" look like without a pretty strong background in the surrounding culture. 

 

is even more varied. am a big fan o' neil gaiman, but his death from sandman were looking like a perky goth girl. he were using largely judeo-christian mythology to arrive at this?

 

 

most folks liked it, so what do we know?

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps thanks to josh for the reply on stat minimums

Edited July 25, 2014 by Gromnir

[Elerond]

Josh, just to be clear on something that's been eating at me... in the IGN video, there was a point where you decided to switch weapons, and then you made a comment to the interviewer... something to the effect of: "well I guess I won't be using my axes for this next fight"

 

Is there a cooldown effect when you switch between weapon sets?

 

He said in the video that "probably should switched battle axes for maximal carnage,'muhhahhaaha', he is gone, but now the battle axes are out for the next fight".

[Leferd]

Wasn't it referencing that in the next scripted interaction, the PC will be throwing his axe at the antagonist who obstructs the rogue party member? Thus, he won't be able to use the axe afterwards.

[Elerond]

Wasn't it referencing that in the next scripted interaction, the PC will be throwing his axe at the antagonist who obstructs the rogue party member? Thus, he won't be able to use the axe afterwards.

 

In that part he explained that he will equip sword for the barbarian to replace lost axe because he don't want hit enemies with fist and axe.  

[Valorian]

I'm surprised that there's no recovery time or another penalty for switching weapon sets in combat. It would be more interesting if more factors were involved in making the decision about swapping weapons apart from 'this weapon hits this armor harder'.   

 

 

Attribute minimums.

Nothing wrong with that. Playable races are not the only living beings in Eora, other creatures also have attributes. OE will simply decide that a value of 8 or 7 or 5 is the minimum for a given player character to function properly (without having considerable trouble with moving or thinking). The average intellect of a kitty in Eora could be 3, for example. They don't need to provide you with the option to play a human with the mental capacity of a kitty.

 

 

 

 

One jarring element of combat animation to me is the combat idle animation that playable races have.  The default IE animation from Baldur's Gate has the characters holding their weapons at the ready, and pulsing up and down to likely simulate breathing 

I personally prefer the BG style where the characters hold their weapons with a higher/more active guard 

 

 

 

A higher guard could be okay. Although, I'd like to point out that when combat animations that simulate breathing and other 'being alive and emotional' stuff are also applied to certain other creatures that use a humanoid skeleton (e.g. skeleton warriors, zombies) it looks even more jarring.

[Mannock]

I don't remember that exact circumstance, but there is not currently a recovery time in place when weapons are switched.

 

I find this odd.

 

Switching weapons mid combat is a tactical decision and it should, in my opinion, come with some sort of a cost.

 

Wasn't there a recovery time for wizards switching grimoire's by the way?

[Sarex]

Don't make things complicated when they don't need to be.

[Valorian]

Don't make things complicated when they don't need to be.

 

Complexity tends to be hard to understand (at first), or complicated, if you will.

Complexity is good.

Interesting tactical choices in games with brilliant combat systems tend to be complex.

 

Pong is an example of a game that doesn't need to be complicated.

[redneckdevil]

 

 

I don't remember that exact circumstance, but there is not currently a recovery time in place when weapons are switched.

Very good question. I cant watch the video right now but i wouldnt mind if it was like fallout where if u had the weapons equiped it didnt cost anything to switch between them but it did cost action points to switch to a weapon or item that wasnt equiped.

i cant watch the video right now but does anyone know what governs our actions? Is it like table top where u have a move action, standard action, fullround action, etc etc or is it more like fallout where u have so many points to spend on doing things?

 

I find this odd.

 

Switching weapons mid combat is a tactical decision and it should, in my opinion, come with some sort of a cost.

 

Wasn't there a recovery time for wizards switching grimoire's by the way?

[J.E. Sawyer]

I find this odd.

 

Switching weapons mid combat is a tactical decision and it should, in my opinion, come with some sort of a cost.

 

Wasn't there a recovery time for wizards switching grimoire's by the way?

 

Yes, sort of.  Wizards do not have a recovery time/penalty, but their spells are locked out for a while after they switch.  Tim is going to add a recovery time (2 seconds to start with) when any character switches weapons (PC or AI).

[redneckdevil]

Also i have a suggestion, IF u do raise the atribute point amount to spend, please please give us the option to not spend them all. This will please alot of people in we have the freedom to chose how many atribute points we want. In the past like fallout with special, we are forced to spend all our points even if we felt it was overkill or didnt fit the character.

if u point down somewhere how many points there are and give us the option to NOT spend them all, people will have the freedom to do 10pt builds, 15 pt builds, 20 pt builds, etc etc if they so chose to. It would be a way everyone could have and eat their cake too. Also it goes without saying that if we chose not tobuse said points at beginning to have them gone forever so when/if we do gain atribute points when leveling up we wont mistakenly think we are gaining 5 or 10 etc etc.

this somwthing ive thought of that would please alot of people with little work involved and even add replayablity to said game to make it more challenging without having to change settings.

like i said it could please people like me who like low point builds and please people who like high point builds.

just a suggestion.

[J.E. Sawyer]

That's actually the way it works right now, though Roby is putting in a pop-up to warn people that they have unspent points.