Gameplay video: Detailed Response

[IndiraLightfoot]

Hey! Dirty Fighting is in! I always loved that term, heh. Also, those Skuldr seems to be tough buggers. One whelp did a stun scream on the party, and with hears ringing the affected party members stand there...and heave and barf??? I reckon that stunned-by-horrible-sound need to be changed into something more less cringworthy, if possible.

[Karkarov]

ROFL.

 

I wonder if they'll touch up his portrait and give him red hair as well. They'll probably just change the description of Odema in the dialogue.

Because it isn't his real portrait.  Calisca and Odema are both just using generic PC character portraits in the demo, Josh even said as much in one of the E3 threads because I asked.  The only "final" portrait is supposedly Heodan's. 

 

 

Just add more presets then. There's only 32, whereas the IE games had 36, and a crap tonne more if you edited them via Shadowkeeper.

 

Another concern I have is there aren't very many enemies in the opening level, but I assume that is because of the difficulty setting. Looks like the game will probably need Hard or perhaps even Path of the Damned to have an IE like experience.

 

That is one massive as hell assumption right there.  It is the first 15 minutes of the game and blatantly meant as a tutorial.  Did you honestly expect a Balor pit fiend?  A full on raid by an army of Bandit's?  A Tarrasque maybe?  Let's wait for the actual beta before we start making guesses as to how challenging the game is or is not.

[PrimeJunta]

Come to think of it, I don't think the first ten minutes of any of the IE games or their successors was hard at any difficulty, except maybe TOEE if you beeline for the moathouse instead of running errands in Hommlet to get you to level 2.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Come to think of it, I don't think the first ten minutes of any of the IE games or their successors was hard at any difficulty, except maybe TOEE if you beeline for the moathouse instead of running errands in Hommlet to get you to level 2.

BG can be if you rush out of Candlekeep at level 1.

[Monte Carlo]

BG1 can be brutal. The ogre destroyed my first party quite easily.

 

Of course, that's awesomely old-skool I hope PoE is like that. For the record, I avoided the ogre, got Jaheira, entangled it then shot it with a hasted archer. And about a dozen different ways with other methods and characters. This is also awesomely old-skool.

[Malekith]

 

It would be an enormous amount of work to up-res all of the character models for a marginal gain in image quality on two screens in the game.  At the beginning of the project, I did say that we were going to be keeping the view of the characters relatively limited on these screens because it would be prohibitively expensive to model and texture them all at a high level of detail.  We have six races and two sexes that can equip dozens of different suits of armor/clothing with dozens of different weapons and shields.  The only way we could author all of these models with our budget was to limit the mesh density and texture size.  Sorry.

 

I also find the low-res model jarring because everything else looks so wonderful. I would've preferred a drawn paperdoll with worn items represented as boxes containing the inventory icons.

Agree. That would look better, and would fit better with the rest of the game. Also a solution would be to have your toon image on character creation and inventory be as small as in the gameworld,and viewed from the same angle, like in IWD2 the inventory paperdoll was.

The way it is now it just draws attention to it and stands out as bad because the rest of the game is beautiful

Edited July 26, 2014 by Malekith

[PrimeJunta]

I wouldn't count BG1 since Candlekeep is the obvious place to start exploring. With TOEE you're pointed directly towards the moathouse after you meet with your contact, so you'll end up straight there if you're just following the breadcrumb trail rather than explore Hommlet and talk to everybody. Which is what I did on my first attempt. It did not end well.

 

I did get roflstomped when I first left Candlekeep, but that was at least a half an hour into the game.

[Lasweetlife]

 

 

 

 

It would be an enormous amount of work to up-res all of the character models for a marginal gain in image quality on two screens in the game. At the beginning of the project, I did say that we were going to be keeping the view of the characters relatively limited on these screens because it would be prohibitively expensive to model and texture them all at a high level of detail. We have six races and two sexes that can equip dozens of different suits of armor/clothing with dozens of different weapons and shields. The only way we could author all of these models with our budget was to limit the mesh density and texture size. Sorry.

I also find the low-res model jarring because everything else looks so wonderful. I would've preferred a drawn paperdoll with worn items represented as boxes containing the inventory icons.

Agree. That would look better, and would fit better with the rest of the game. Also a solution would be to have your toon image on character creation and inventory be as small as in the gameworld,and viewed from the same angle, like in IWD2 the inventory paperdoll was.

The way it is now it just draws attention to it and stands out as bad because the rest of the game is beautiful

I don't really see the CC model being that big of an issue. It gets the job done and, over the course of a 50 hour game, you'll be looking at it for 15 minutes. Given the amount of work it would take to up-res the textures for all combinations of race/sub-race/class/sex/culture, I think it would be a waste of time and money for very little payoff. Furthermore, any switch to a handrawn image or a paperdoll or a tiny model would all be regressions. At least any such switch should leave the option to keep the current system as shown in the demo.

[ashtonw]

It would be an enormous amount of work to up-res all of the character models for a marginal gain in image quality on two screens in the game.  At the beginning of the project, I did say that we were going to be keeping the view of the characters relatively limited on these screens because it would be prohibitively expensive to model and texture them all at a high level of detail.  We have six races and two sexes that can equip dozens of different suits of armor/clothing with dozens of different weapons and shields.  The only way we could author all of these models with our budget was to limit the mesh density and texture size.  Sorry.

 

am I the only one that liked the models? Maybe I'm weird but I love the low-res look.

[Crapsody]

 

It would be an enormous amount of work to up-res all of the character models for a marginal gain in image quality on two screens in the game.  At the beginning of the project, I did say that we were going to be keeping the view of the characters relatively limited on these screens because it would be prohibitively expensive to model and texture them all at a high level of detail.  We have six races and two sexes that can equip dozens of different suits of armor/clothing with dozens of different weapons and shields.  The only way we could author all of these models with our budget was to limit the mesh density and texture size.  Sorry.

 

am I the only one that liked the models? Maybe I'm weird but I love the low-res look.

 

 

During the charactercreation i was worried about how the graphic of the character would fit into this beautiful and detailed backgrounds.

But when the demo starts my worries were flown away. I think the detaillevel of the characters are enough, it fits very well.

[bronzepoem]

Hey! Dirty Fighting is in! I always loved that term, heh. Also, those Skuldr seems to be tough buggers. One whelp did a stun scream on the party, and with hears ringing the affected party members stand there...and heave and barf??? I reckon that stunned-by-horrible-sound need to be changed into something more less cringworthy, if possible.

No，not necessary to change.The team of PC are just level 1. When the level get up, Skuldr ability will be nothing to PC.At early game,such ability improve the challenging and support great fun in combat.

Fun is most important, second is balance.

[IndiraLightfoot]

bronzepoem: You misunderstood. I love the stun scream, but I don't find their overly panting and flabbergasted-after-ten-pints-of-ale-stance very fitting.

[Malekith]

 

I don't really see the CC model being that big of an issue. It gets the job done and, over the course of a 50 hour game, you'll be looking at it for 15 minutes. Given the amount of work it would take to up-res the textures for all combinations of race/sub-race/class/sex/culture, I think it would be a waste of time and money for very little payoff.

Agree.

 

 

Furthermore, any switch to a handrawn image or a paperdoll or a tiny model would all be regressions. At least any such switch should leave the option to keep the current system as shown in the demo.

 

How so?  Unless you consider 2D instead of 3D and the Scripted Interactions instead of cutsceens to be regressions as well, i fail to see the logic. It would look way better, without needing much resources. But the option to keep it as it is should be easy to have. Just have the option to look at our model as it appears in the gameworld(tiny, from a far out, isometric viewpoint), and allow the current view to everyone that want it.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Malekith

[Leferd]

http://m.pcgamer.com/2014/07/25/the-pc-gamer-show-episode-2-pillars-of-eternity-fallout-new-vegas-divinity-original-sin/

 

Haven't seen this posted yet, but PC GAMER interview with Sawyer. Talks about New Vegas and Eternity, and Josh's feedback with this board's regulars. Other stuff w/o Josh where they try to rank and define RPGs and a play through of Divinity.

[Monte Carlo]

Yeah Josh said he's been talking to us all for fifteen years.

 

LOL it's why he's going grey. He thinks we're all mad.

[Sarex]

Damn you guys are old farts. :D

[lychee26]

You know after thinking about it a bit, does anyone find it strange that there are oozes, skuldr and spiders all lurking around in that one dungeon? Its probably only a minor thing, but I was just thinking about how within the first half hour of the game you encounter 5 different enemy types (with the men and the wolves), which seems like quite a few for an introduction. I know variety is good and all, but I was just wondering whether it actually makes sense. Surely one of those species would have driven the others out, especially when they're that close to each other and they're all predators of around the same size (Does an ooze count as a predator?).

[Leferd]

Yeah Josh said he's been talking to us all for fifteen years.

 

LOL it's why he's going grey. He thinks we're all mad.

15 years ago since Bishop.

[Sensuki]

Yes, the goblins in Targos's docks are very representative of IWD2's combat difficulty. *rolls eyes*

 

Man, we've only seen the first 10-15 minutes of a 40+ hour game. In this sequence the main goal is to inflict the "main quest" on the protagonist, and difficult combat detracts from that.

 

As far as I can remember, you can very well loose both companions during the prologue if you make bad choices. If additionally you don't play a combat class but a wizard or something with limited spells, I think the enemy count is fine as it is.

It's no surprise that it seems easy if the game is balanced around the worst case scenario and you are playing the best case scenario. Also, I feel like the wolves are strong enough when they murder your companion half way at the beginning.

 

Or because it's the beginning of the game and you're a 1st level character who has not yet acquired a party of 6? Bg1 did it the same way. Once Imoen is handed to you, and you're in that first wilderness map, what do you face? Same single enemy simplicity. One wolf. And then one diseased gibberling (possibly 2), and if you scour the edges of the map, you might find....one black bear.

 

That is one massive as hell assumption right there.  It is the first 15 minutes of the game and blatantly meant as a tutorial.  Did you honestly expect a Balor pit fiend?  A full on raid by an army of Bandit's?  A Tarrasque maybe?  Let's wait for the actual beta before we start making guesses as to how challenging the game is or is not.

 

I'm surprised at how many people spazzed out over that comment.

 

Another concern I have is there aren't very many enemies in the opening level, but I assume that is because of the difficulty setting. Looks like the game will probably need Hard or perhaps even Path of the Damned to have an IE like experience.

 

This demo was likely played at Easy or Normal setting. The number of enemies/challenge of the encounters is absolutely fine for those difficulty settings. I will not be playing Easy or Normal though. I will be playing on Hard or Path of the Damned. In multiple replies, Josh has said that Hard and Path of the Damned will feel more like IWD2/BG2 difficulty level.

 

At the start of Icewind Dale, you face a band of like 8 Goblins, followed by two Wolves and then a dungeon with like 30 Orcs/Orc Archers/Shamans and an Ogre. In one of those rooms you are taking on like 12 enemies. The combat was also a lot more lethal. Granted you could have six party members, but in this demo, the max enemies was the spider group of 5. This seems a bit less than "IE level" and I'd hope that on Hard and PoD that there's a few more.

 

 

 

Another nitpick: I noticed that the Glanfathan archer kept using his/her bow even when the player and Calisca engaged him in melee. I was kinda hoping it would be like in the BG games where archer enemies switched to a melee weapon as soon as you came close. Though that brings up another question: does attacking with a ranged weapon in melee result in an attack penalty, as was the case in the IE games?

 

I agree. There seems to be some unfinished AI, or that character was simply not equipped with a secondary weapon. I also noticed that none of the Glanfathans or anything drop any loot ... this goes against what the devs have previously said that all units will drop what they are carrying, but I'm just going to assume that hasn't been set up yet.

 

@ 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.

 

Well the knockdown FX from the Wolf version of the Knockdown is exactly the same as Calisca's knockdown, torch or no.

 

 

There's clearly a flame effect and a large amount of blur (which is more visible in the video). My opinion is that the existence of the flame effect and the amount of blur are way over the top for the mundaneness of the ability, YMMV.

 

(Hey look I found a bug! See in the combat log it says Prone heals Calisca for 1 stamina, rather than the ability name)

 

It would be an enormous amount of work to up-res all of the character models for a marginal gain in image quality on two screens in the game.  At the beginning of the project, I did say that we were going to be keeping the view of the characters relatively limited on these screens because it would be prohibitively expensive to model and texture them all at a high level of detail.  We have six races and two sexes that can equip dozens of different suits of armor/clothing with dozens of different weapons and shields.  The only way we could author all of these models with our budget was to limit the mesh density and texture size.  Sorry.

 

Unlike everyone else, I don't have an issue with the 3D character model in character creation. Have none of you guys played an old game recently? Here's a screenshot of Titan Quest which came out in 2006.

 

 

The PE models look better than the Titan Quest models, even if the proportions of characters probably aren't 100% final yet. No one complained about these.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

I also agree about the hide armor not looking fantastic and could be slightly more detailed. The Brigandine from the Ixamitl Plains outfit was awesome though.

[Monte Carlo]

The UI and graphics look exactly as I imagined. The cursor is an IE cursor and the icons are a classic amalgam of BG and IWD-style.

 

Someone had put a shed-load of thought into this. I for one am grateful. Look at the little feed-back window and the day / night cycle window. It's very, very sweet.

[talharbash]

 

I can tell you Wasteland 2's "beta" started with low res character models and players complained. I have no idea how many man hours it takes but don't expect your players to overlook it.

 

Your game looks beautiful. This will stand out like a sore.

Wasteland 2's models were WAYYYYYYYY more primitive than what we're seeing in here. Just for the record.

 

 

I agree. I think these models aren't as bad and overall the entire art direction is better than WL2 in my opinion. I think it's a shame that such a great looking game can't get the last mile done right with a close up paper dolls looking good, though. I think most of us will overlook it and enjoy the game just fine but folks who don't usually play isometric RPGs are going to find it jarring.

 

Maybe it's something they can put time into post release.

[Sonntam]

This whole discussion made me actually go back to the video and rewatch it. It didn't help, though, I'm still confused.

 

Is there something wrong with my eyes or what exactly is everyone's problem with the models? Godlike looks stunning with darkness oozing out of the head. Its charred limbs are equally wonderful. The human looks very nice too, pretty face, good shadows, body proportions are realistic and well done. Barbarian clothing looks pretty okay too. The only bit I didn't like was the plate armor, because I feel the it reflects light "wrong", but that will likely be non-issue in game. 

[Darkpriest]

I have no idea what are people's problems with the 3d models... To me they look good enough... I mean... it's not a SIM creation for Sims4, but what's the issue? you will be seeing those assets from quite far away and more concentrated on gameplay, combat animations and their feedback of effects on your character + environmental effects... I'd concentrate on the combat ones, since they will probably be most important ones for the player to get smooth, visually clear and providing decent feedback at mere glance and appearance of the effect.

[wolfstriked]

Some things I found in video that I feel detract from the experience and I don't wanna come across as a troll when I just mean to give my opinion.

 

Firstly the models are not highly detailed and so they do not look good when zoomed in so I agree with some posters here that its jarring and doesn't fit with the game.Please Obsidian give us an option to choose something different.As posted a smaller character which is as large as the character in game at full zoom is good and I also would take just equipment slots with no character model at all.The first thing that jumped out at me in demo video was the character creation screen and how un pleasant the model looked.If it was small like in game I would of not had that feeling.

 

Second is that I really feel that the devs should not focus on making things so easy.I was watching a video if Wasteland2 and saw that when you loot a fallen enemy you have a circle of looting pop up and everything inside this circle can be looted at once when having to go to each fallen enemy one at a time grounds you into feeling that the world is more believable.Its just a small thing that just removes the gamey aspect.The player in the W2 video was clicking on a body and then spam clicking to just take it all.What would make a dev think that is good for gameplay,to speed up the player so they get into a speedrun mentality?Also,please dont turn dead bodies into a loot pile with coins and a sword sticking out of it.Just leave the body as is and we can click on it to loot...PLZ.

 

Next is my pet peeve of all RPG's and that has to do with lighting.A simple way to make a game world feel like its uninhabited is to remove all light sources.Stalker games has firepits lit all over the place and fantasy RPG's have either lit torches or glowing stones littered thruout dungeons.The demo video has ALL the traits of an RPG with glowing rocks and lit torches everywhere.What about having some dungeons in complete darkness and force the player to need torches to see.Just imagine how atmospheric it would look as you forge deeper and deeper into a sealed off dungeon.When I was playing D&D yrs back my DM foced us to carry torches for non dark vision characters which we could drop if in combat and then pick them up again to carry on.

 

Finally I again agree with some posters that some of the animations look wonky.The stun effect with all thre characters standing in place and twirling their heads around stood out to me.The running animations also to me are a distraction.Please,a few different animations for the different types of bodies and races would really add to the game.Right now they all move exactly the same.

 

Other than that I am really anticipating alot of good play thrus with this one.