First impressions thread!

[Longknife]

I am stumped.

 

I always assumed (I know, I shouldn't have, but I did, go figure) that peeps playing a beta would first look at all the available options first, key binds, yadda yadda yadda.

 

Apparently not.

 

For combat, I have found the S and D keys to be PARAMOUNT for good tactics.  With these keys (and, of course, the space bar), one can speed up and slow down the movement, actions, etc!  Need some extra time?  Hit S.  Everything instantly S-L-O-W-S down.  Now you can see what is happening, and plan accordingly.  When you are done, hit D for lightspeed mode to finish things up.

 

BTW - if you hit the same key again, it "reverts" back to normal speed.

 

Why are these not being used by those criticizing the combat system?  By using these methods, combat is sooooo easy!  I love it!

 

 

Look at my avatar. I'm not an old school isometric RPG gamer, I got here on the New Vegas boat. I'm fairly unfamiliar with this style (only played Fallouts).

 

I initially didn't realize you could pause and still give commands, but suspected the slow would be used for that purpose. Tried it out, went from dying at the spider queen in seconds to killing it before it could even scratch me.

 

In that sense I can get if someone has the impression of "surely I'm not supposed to use the pause/slow features for that and there's another way," but once that's clear then it's like wtf, combat is pretty solid imo.

[GrinningReaper659]

Well first of all I'd like to say that I'm very pleased with the beta, the general feel of the game is beyond satisfactory. The team did a great job with this and I am beyond excited to be eXPloring the fantasy world that OE has created for us. I do have a few thoughts.

 

User Interface:

-Character record, journal, inventory, etc. should always be one mouse click away from each other, the player shouldn't have to close out of the inventory in order to then open the character record screen. I think that this would be best accomplished with tabs.
-I've never really supported the stash system in general but from what I've seen I can come to terms with it; however it does seem that each character could do with some more inventory spaces.
-It would be nice if double-clicking on the area map would close out the map and jump to the spot where the player clicked (as in BG).
-item description pop-up windows need to have a "close" button or "x" to close out instead of forcing the player to click somewhere outside the window to close it (this applies to some other windows as well).
-When you open the grimoire from inventory, it closes out to main game screen instead of back to inventory.

-The borders/outlines on the visible area indicators while in stealth mode are a bit heavy-handed for my liking, which just led me to think that plentiful feedback options in general would be more than welcome.
 

Combat:
A lot of fun; could probably use better visual options to differentiate between the on-screen models, although to be honest most of my issues subsided after sinking my teeth into the beta for a couple of hours so it may be, at least in part, a simple matter of adjusting to a new system.

 

Difficulty:
I'm apparently at odds with a vocal group of people on the forum on the point, but I don't think the combat is too difficult. I've been playing on easy and will likely play a character on normal or hard tomorrow, but I would strongly suggest to those that are having issues with the difficulty level of the  game that they give the easy setting a try.

 

A summary of my playthough so far, with emphasis on difficulty level (detailed spoilers ahead obviously):

 

I created a human druid with stats of 12 13 12 15 15 16. I stuck with my main as well as the four "BB" party members throughout. Spoke to the first group by the bridge, went to the inn and advised their prey to escape, went back and fought the quest-givers. Combat was hectic and a bit chaotic, but my party emerged victorious with nary an unconscious soul among them.

 

I was then asked to hunt down a pig-stealing ogre and I happily obliged after speaking to everyone in the town (and searching all the nooks and crannies of course, nobody hides a unique quarterstaff from me). Upon entering the wilderness area to the east of town I began to sneak about, engaged a few beetles in combat which proved to be somewhat enjoyable, but hardly challenging. Upon making my way to the southwest corner of the map, I spotted a small group of wolves lurking about, and decided to try out the old "select all" + "left click" strategy. The wolves were quickly dispatched. So, I tried the same when I ran into a couple of widowmaker spiders soon thereafter; the spiders suffered a similar fate. I came upon three wurms and my winning strategy defeated them with ease. I would have begun to get disheartened at this point had I not known that three more difficult settings were available for my enjoyment on future attempts. I rounded a corner and encountered a fellow adventuring party, and my select all and attack strat finally resulted in a party wipe, although I did take out two of their number and injure a third before my demise.

 

After reloading, I employed a bit of brain power and took out the dirty brigands that didn't want to share their loot, took out a couple of woodland beasts that looked a bit like shambling mounds (from bg) and headed toward the mouth of the ominous ogre cave. Although the health of my party members was relatively well-off, my rpg eXPerience has instilled in me a certainty that every cave is actually just an entrance to a system of caves many miles deep, and so I headed back to the inn to rest up at this point before returning to the cave.

 

Once inside, my party snuck past some spiders and approached the ogre. Ultimately, once satisfied that he was not in posession of any noblewomen, we convinced the big oaf to move along peacefully. Following this, we went through the cave and killed all the spiders, all in a hard day's work for any band of adventuring exterminators. Back in town, the farmer was quite unsated in his bloodlust as he had been quite set on using the poor ogre's head as some sort of horrid decoration, and so he proceeded to throw a bit of a tantrum. Anyway, we took pity on him and gave him some coin to shut him up, and were rewarded with an incredible blunderbuss. We were not, however, rewarded with any XP from this whole eXPerience as far as I could tell (I'm assuming that this was due to a bug).

After some extensive inventory management and a trip to the merchant, and perhaps another night of exorbitant luxory at the inn, we were off to confront the man that had made some bold claims about a young lady's interest in him before sending us off to acuse an ogre of having kidnapped her. Well the confrontation ended violently as such things so often do, and by that point the plot of an insidious cult residing in the ruins beneath the town was becoming clear. So down into the ruins we went, and "select all" + "left clicked" the crap out of those cultists and even blundered our way through a series of traps before finally coming to find the leader of the cult. We snapped the poor girl's neck, putting her out of her misery before she went and did a bunch of awful stuff against her will, and needless to say the cult leader was, displeased, with our having snapped the neck of his puppet. An enjoyable battle ensued which required some thought. Eventually, the cult leader and his minions were dead. Once back in town, I approached the noble, niece-molesting nincompoop and he met with a well-deserved "accident" which ended his life. I'm not sure that I received any XP for any of this ruins and cult business either but, again, this could be attributable to a bug.

 

I would say that if I had been careful and employed some tactics consistently I could probably have entirely skipped the three times that I rested. I'm very much looking forward to playing on a higher difficulty setting as I am thoroughly enjoying the combat system. I urge those who are having considerable trouble to give yourself some time to get used to the system, consider the effects that certain bugs are having on your particular difficulties, and if all else fails try out the "easy" setting if you haven't already.

 

XP System:

Apart from what I assume are bugs essentially depriving me of gaining any XP, I have no problem with the system as it is. I don't feel that the lack of per-kill XP took any of the fun out of combat for me and I engaged in it as much as I would have had I been being rewarded for each kill. The only difference is that I wasn't "encouraged" to kill everything for non-rp reasons by having per-kill XP make up the majority of the XP in the game. I know this is an incendiary issue on the forums at the moment and a lot of people are upset about the lack of per-kill XP, but I personally don't have any problems and prefer the system as is. The encouragement to dispatch foes is as it ever was: they are in the way of your goals, and as such they must be dispatched in one fashion or another, and you really are being rewarded for those kills once you get your XP for finishing the quest (if killing those in your way was how you chose to finish it). The real difference with this system compared to some others is that the players who sneak past enemies to avoid combat or use diplomacy to be persuasive or who complete their objectives in whatever way they choose aren't punished for doing so, all the paths are acceptable, which seems pretty logical to me. I wouldn't object (pun intended) to more objective-based XP as some people on the forums are asking for, suggesting that objectives such as "clearing the road of beetles" should be rewarded with XP, but I also don't think that a change is really necessary, and I would certainly be disappointed to see per-kill XP added. I guess we'll see once the bugs are worked out but as far as I can tell this system is fine with me.

Edited August 20, 2014 by GrinningReaper659

[Semelle]

So, now to the negatives :

 

As has been criticized, the inventory is a horror.  It is just sooo clunky, unwieldly, and horrid.  I don't know what is what, everything is very small, and there are limited spaces (besides the Loot chest) to put stuff.  I soon lose track of everything.  I have no idea which weapons are better than the others, and only a bit of info for armor.  It is very difficult for me to tell which armor is what, being that the icon is so small, meaning I have to constantly right click to see what stats it has.  No comparison function, no "equip best" or any other type of helpful stuff.  I can't even sort according to condition X (or type or whatever).  It is painful drag-n-click, again and again.

 

Don't even get me started with accessories,  trading, etc.  The whole inventory system is negative IMHO.  I would suggest scrapping it and going with something else.

 

Doing spellcasting in combat is very confusing for me at the moment (perhaps this will change?).  I do not know what most of the spells do (familiarity, but also pretty much a total lack of description on how magic works, etc).  Damage spells seem pretty self-explanitory, but some of the status stuff, and special abilities are like...WHA?!

 

There is as mentioned very little in the way of informative feedback in combat (I see some graphic effects, I see some red, etc, but I don't really know what it MEANS).  What I would prefer are indicators that immediately inform me of what is happening (did I hit, miss, or what?  That strange graphic effect on my peeps, what is it doing?  Is it good, bad, what?).  I do like the little blue dots (HPs, I think) that reduce when taking damage, but they are really small.  Thankfully I can slow things down with the S key to see them.

 

Looting (picking stuff up) seems to have a problem near Icons (like doors, map edges, etc).  It is impossible (for me, anyway) to pick stuff up that falls in such places!  Either I end up closing/opening the doors, or exiting/entering a map area!  The same problem with targeting enemies by such icons - it is impossible!  I once had a Wolf attacking my party that I could not directly target because it was at a map edge under the icon.  I had to move the entire party away (and take hits) so that it would follow to a place where I could target it.

 

 

I haven't played a lot yet. Just creating a character and discovering a lil' bit the city. But I'd like to highlight those negatives part as they are pretty easy to catch at a first try (at least from my experience). 

I felt the same about all these negatives. 

 

I'm gonna check the bug trackers but I saw some weird stuff in the option section (first thing I've done before even start the character's creation). 

 

The overall experience is still great. It feels good to be back on a familiar IE-like game and to see also few things that show we're not in the past but living also with our time. 

The music is a gem too. And I can't wait to read more of the lore, the quests and so on. I'm kindly into that type of things and the small amount I saw just excited me as hell. 

 

 

A little question though (I might put this somewhere else, maybe?). 

As a curious tester, I decide to see what happen when you dedice to kill a merchant. So I killed the armor/weapon guy and nothing happened. 

How the guards (if guards there are) should react? How is the assassination system working? And the honnor/reputation of my team? Any reaction from my party members according to their faith/moral?

 

 

I definitely love how it looks like and I'm sure it's gonna be an awesome adventure when the game will be released! 

Keep up the good work! 

Happy to be part of this! 

[MIK0]

Graphics:

- The lack of antialiasing options make the not so good 3d model look even worse.

 

Gameplay:

- Conversation with npc took always the main character as reference for stats and skills checks, regardless which character is actually taking part in the conversation.

[intro42]

Have played a couple of hours now and started a second character, here are a couple more observations:

 

1- Fog of War is a bit hit and miss for displaying correctly, sometimes is there and sometimes is not.

2 - An explanation of a "rest area" would be handy since there seems to be many restrictions on inventory changes related to being in one.

3- In the inventory screen the armour and accessories do not display correctly on the character image, sometimes a shield will be at ground level, cloaks will float above the characters head. It looks like the item is displaying as though associated with a different body shape/size is expected.

4 - Randomly a single letter in a word will be in a much larger font (3 or 4 times the size of the rest of the word). When this happened the first time I thought it was a random letter appearing on the screen the text was so distorted.

5 - The walking speed of characters seems a little unpredictable, sometimes the party will move at what seems normal speed and other times everyone is slower, I've checked and it isn't that I've hit S by accident.

6 - Occasionally loading between areas fails and the loading screen remains. the curser changes as it is moved around the screen as if it is finding context to react to but nothing happens when the buttons are clicked. It is possible to use Esc to bring up the menu and try loading a save.

 

I am still enjoying testing and have to say that it is nice to get some mature adult content in a game through the story and dialogues, the seriousness of what is going on in the world makes for a very engaging story, I often skip dialogues in RPG by so far I have read and been interested in everything the NPCs are saying.

[Waywocket]

 

- An autopause feature where the game pauses when one of your characters has finished casting a spell

Is that not already in the options?

 

No. Rather oddly, you can auto-pause when an enemy finishes casting, but not when one of your players does.

[Mrakvampire]

Actually I'm not happy with the game at all right now. Yes, it looks like old IE games, but it doesn't feel like old IE games.

My main complains:

 

1. Messy RPG system with Strength that applies to Wizard fireballs. 

2. Tiresome combat. Not interesting, but tiresome. So many abilities that I need to manually activate? And this should be done in nearly every fight.

3. Inventory looks like it has been torn from casual console game. No weight for items? 

4. Lack of feedback from game overall. Creating a wizard? No explanation for spells and their exact effects. 

[Wombat]

Whatsoever was it internally called, it could have been better if it had been introduced as alpha to the public.  The video presentations seem to have given wrong impression to some people and there appear to be even a common marketing ploy where some devs call more polished products as beta and release them under Steam Early Access.

 

To me, I'm basically happy with the way this project is shaping up as usual.  It's nice of PoE team to let the backers experience the feel of the actual game-play by choosing relatively spoiler-free areas, minimizing the risk of diminishing the enjoyment by the finished product.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Wombat

[Tartantyco]

Stun, could you stop abusing terms? RPS means a circular system where A defeats B, B defeats C, and C defeats A(And can grow exponentially larger). Certain enemies being weak to A, or A and B, or C, or being resistant or practically immune to A and B, or to C, does not make it RPS.

 

1. Messy RPG system with Strength that applies to Wizard fireballs.

 

 

It's not strength, it's might.

[Mrakvampire]

It's not strength, it's might.

 

Oh, okay. It's Might, not Strength. Now it changed everything! 

[Ahvz]

Oh, okay. It's Might, not Strength. Now it changed everything! 

 

Actually, the change of term did change everything. Might is an entirely separate concept from strength, in that it also refers to your force of soul/magic/whatever. Might affecting all damage makes sense in context. You want a nuke wizard? It's essential to have enough strength of soul to pull it off. 

 

I like it. There were so many dump stats I didn't care about, playing a mage in the IE games. This system goes a long way to eliminating that (though it's not perfect yet - perception/resolve). 

[Gfted1]

I installed last night and played for a bit before I hit a bug and quit for the night. Rolled a human Mage playing on Easy. I brought all attributes to 10 then maxed out Might to 19 and Int to 18. I dropped the last point into Con. Gathered the quests and the dialog is fine if a little glitchy (sometimes it would just state which skill check could be used but not the actual line of dialog). Left town to go to the Ogre area and that's when Beetlepalooza started. Those first three trash mobs are less than 100 yards from each other and I think mook placement needs a rethink. The fighting is a little frantic imo and on the third mob my BB Priest got "stuck" on a pile of loot and entered some endless loop animation. I couldn't move her from that spot either by selecting the entire party or her individually so I quit for the evening. Also, the mage I rolled could not display his 2nd or 3rd level spells. I click on the spell level icons and just an empty area appeared. Strangely this was not a problem when I took control of BB Wizard. The spell descriptions leave a lot to be desired and I couldn't find any way to see the damage range of the spells. The skills seem very limited at only 6 choices and none of them seemed great for my Mage so I just dumped everything into lore for lack of a better choice.

I had a good long LOL when I saw the Camping Supplies were 100x the cost of almost everything else for sale from the innkeeper. Im also a little confused about the synergy between the bottomless stash and the merchants. They put in the bottomless stash to counter the "degenerative gameplay" of walking back and forth to get all the loot. This creates a problem of becoming too rich too soon by selling everything you just looted. So they had to put purchase limits on the merchants. So whats the point of being able to loot everything if you cant sell it?

[AdaMusic]

I installed last night and played for a bit before I hit a bug and quit for the night. Rolled a human Mage playing on Easy. I brought all attributes to 10 then maxed out Might to 19 and Int to 18. I dropped the last point into Con. Gathered the quests and the dialog is fine if a little glitchy (sometimes it would just state which skill check could be used but not the actual line of dialog). Left town to go to the Ogre area and that's when Beetlepalooza started. Those first three trash mobs are less than 100 yards from each other and I think mook placement needs a rethink. The fighting is a little frantic imo and on the third mob my BB Priest got "stuck" on a pile of loot and entered some endless loop animation. I couldn't move her from that spot either by selecting the entire party or her individually so I quit for the evening. Also, the mage I rolled could not display his 2nd or 3rd level spells. I click on the spell level icons and just an empty area appeared. Strangely this was not a problem when I took control of BB Wizard. The spell descriptions leave a lot to be desired and I couldn't find any way to see the damage range of the spells.

 

I had a good long LOL when I saw the Camping Supplies were 100x the cost of almost everything else for sale from the innkeeper. Im also a little confused about the synergy between the bottomless stash and the merchants. They put in the bottomless stash to counter the "degenerative gameplay" of walking back and forth to get all the loot. This creates a problem of problem of becoming too rich too soon by selling everything you just looted. So they had to put purchase limits on the merchants. So whats the point of being able to loot everything if you cant sell it?

 

Haha. XD

 

Yea.. the stash inventory system seems to be a failure.

[Mrakvampire]

 

Oh, okay. It's Might, not Strength. Now it changed everything! 

 

Actually, the change of term did change everything. Might is an entirely separate concept from strength, in that it also refers to your force of soul/magic/whatever. Might affecting all damage makes sense in context. You want a nuke wizard? It's essential to have enough strength of soul to pull it off. 

 

I like it. There were so many dump stats I didn't care about, playing a mage in the IE games. This system goes a long way to eliminating that (though it's not perfect yet - perception/resolve). 

 

 

It makes no sense. I can imagine character with high Strength - it's human with a lot of muscle, like Conan. I can't imagine this purely metagaming stat that you are referring to.

[jpdavis53]

I installed last night and played for a bit before I hit a bug and quit for the night. Rolled a human Mage playing on Easy. I brought all attributes to 10 then maxed out Might to 19 and Int to 18. I dropped the last point into Con. Gathered the quests and the dialog is fine if a little glitchy (sometimes it would just state which skill check could be used but not the actual line of dialog). Left town to go to the Ogre area and that's when Beetlepalooza started. Those first three trash mobs are less than 100 yards from each other and I think mook placement needs a rethink. The fighting is a little frantic imo and on the third mob my BB Priest got "stuck" on a pile of loot and entered some endless loop animation. I couldn't move her from that spot either by selecting the entire party or her individually so I quit for the evening. Also, the mage I rolled could not display his 2nd or 3rd level spells. I click on the spell level icons and just an empty area appeared. Strangely this was not a problem when I took control of BB Wizard. The spell descriptions leave a lot to be desired and I couldn't find any way to see the damage range of the spells. The skills seem very limited at only 6 choices and none of them seemed great for my Mage so I just dumped everything into lore for lack of a better choice.

 

I had a good long LOL when I saw the Camping Supplies were 100x the cost of almost everything else for sale from the innkeeper. Im also a little confused about the synergy between the bottomless stash and the merchants. They put in the bottomless stash to counter the "degenerative gameplay" of walking back and forth to get all the loot. This creates a problem of becoming too rich too soon by selling everything you just looted. So they had to put purchase limits on the merchants. So whats the point of being able to loot everything if you cant sell it?

 

I am almost positive something is wrong with the prices in the beta.  When I first went to the stores prices were about 10k cp for everything, I entered again later to sell, sold a few items and the prices dropped dramatically.  From 10k cp to below 500 cp.  So I am pretty sure there is an issue somewhere with the item price code.  

 

Menacer

[sparklecat]

 

 

- An autopause feature where the game pauses when one of your characters has finished casting a spell

Is that not already in the options?

 

No. Rather oddly, you can auto-pause when an enemy finishes casting, but not when one of your players does.

 

Wow, you are completely right.  I just saw "spell cast" when going through the list and assumed it meant when you cast without even hovering.

 

That's insane.  I'm reporting it as a bug.

[MIK0]

Gameplay:

- Continue game actually start from the beginning.

- Level up screen cannot be aborted

[Hybridsalmon]

Looking forward to the release when everything is polished a bit. Haven't played much mind you, but I know I'll love it when the combat is completely polished. Because at the moment it's a bit frustrating when you're not sure if your PC will do what you ordered him to do.

[Stun]

Stun, could you stop abusing terms? RPS means a circular system where A defeats B, B defeats C, and C defeats A(And can grow exponentially larger). Certain enemies being weak to A, or A and B, or C, or being resistant or practically immune to A and B, or to C, does not make it RPS.

Take it up with Josh. I'm using HIS definition of Rock-paper-Scissors. As that is how he described situations in the IE games where an enemy is immune to everything but attack form X. Or when an effect can only be countered with Spell Y. Edited August 20, 2014 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

Progress update. Wooh, this is hard work.

 

I haven't been actively trying to get deeper into the beta as much as just try out different characters and tactics on the beetles. Mostly because I tend to hit one of those force-reload bugs and then my inventory evaporates, which is tedious.

 

I did brave it a bit, this time with a paladin. I got as far as the locked doors in the cultist dungeon before the inventory bugs got me. Specifically, the key disappeared and I didn't have any lockpicks so I couldn't progress. No huge loss because all my shields and some of my prime weapons had evaporated by then too. My quests had also already disappeared by then, which probably means I lost out on some XP -- I think I only got one batch when entering the ogre cave in fact.

 

This time the bug that was forcing all the reloads and thereby disappearing inventory was the one where some of my toons completely stop responding to commands. I can select them by dragging on the ground, and I can do stuff like switch weapons, but they don't move, and I can't select them by clicking on the portrait. The unstick with a reload; don't know if there are other ways. That happened a LOT this time around, at least four or five times by then.

 

I've also almost abandoned using melee because of the clusterhug bug. The fights are pretty easy to win with missile weapons and spells, especially once I got some firearms; at most I plonk BB Fighter in front to flypaper them, then blast away; they go down like ninepins. Guns, arbalests, and crossbows feel maybe a little OP  in fact, especially compared to BB Rogue's hunting bow, which hardly ever seems to do double-digit damage. The web equivalent is really good for keeping the opposition in the line of fire a bit longer too.

 

This is an enormously promising game.

[Tartantyco]

This time the bug that was forcing all the reloads and thereby disappearing inventory was the one where some of my toons completely stop responding to commands. I can select them by dragging on the ground, and I can do stuff like switch weapons, but they don't move, and I can't select them by clicking on the portrait. The unstick with a reload; don't know if there are other ways. That happened a LOT this time around, at least four or five times by then.

 

 

This is caused by switching weapon sets during weapon reload. It can be avoided by moving your character before you switch weapon sets.

[PrimeJunta]

Hey, thanks! I'll try to remember to do that next time around.

[Ryladar]

Classes - Do all classes feel distinct and useful? Does the progression of their abilities seem consistent? Do any classes feel too high-maintenance? Do any classes feel too uninvolved?

  So far, classes seem diverse and unique, haven't progressed far enough to attest to progression.

 

Races - Do the races and their subtypes feel distinct? Do their models and textures appeal to you? Do their bonuses and special abilities seem worthwhile?

  Humans seem a bit generic, no apparent stat change due to region/background. Models/textures are few, assume this is for beta release, but more would be appreciated.

 

Attributes - Do you find any attributes invaluable, such that you would never build a character without emphasizing that attribute? Are there any attributes you consistently dump because they don't seem to have apparent value? Do the attributes seem to skew away or toward different classes?

  Attributes seem adequate, and like most RPG's you need to specialize to be effective, having a weak stat is part of character identity.

 

Equipment - Did you like or dislike the variety of weapons, armor, shields, potions, scrolls, and miscellaneous items? What items did you find invaluable or useless?

  Haven't found much, but appears to have several armor types and weapons. A bit better info on weapons would be useful, there is one that priest carries, that is 2 handed, but does not state as much (won't allow to equip shield, assume 2-hander). Also, many of the items are broken/don't have icons (medium heater = bag). Also other items have interesting names like "string not found" (code not found!).

 

Crafting and Enchanting - How easy were the systems to understand and use? Did you find them worthwhile?

  Haven't tried.

 

Conversations and Quests - Did you enjoy the conversations and quests in the Backer Beta? Were there any aspects of the aesthetics, presentation, or flow of conversations or quests that you didn't enjoy?

  So far so good, like the different options, and like that some are shown, even if you don't have required skills. However, I hope that some responses are hidden unless you are close to having the required skill (increases replay value).

 

Combat - Did you enjoy the overall experience of combat, especially pacing, difficulty, and mechanics? Did the basic attack/defense resolution system (Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit) make sense? Was the relationship between damage and damage threshold clear? Was the relationship between stamina and health clear?

  Combat = currently, much fail. Decision was made to not have turn based combat (cry), and the alternative, is set up trigger events to pause combat. Doing this causes combat to pause every .5 seconds (not really very useful). Game is playable with manual pausing, but the auto-pause is effectively useless. Pathing = none. Target baddie to be attacked by whole party = 2-3 party members seem baffled by the fact that 2 other party members are standing in front of them. It can be i a wide open field, characters will not attempt to move around to close range with target.

 

 

User Interface - Was character creation enjoyable and clear? Did each stage of the process give you all the information you needed to make choices? Was the main game HUD easy to understand and use? Were any portions of it confusing, poorly-positioned, or did they use visual language that was hard to decipher? Were the inventory, character sheet, and journal interfaces clear and easy to understand/use?

  UI for character creation was fine, more portrait/voice/hair options would be nice, but I assume it is stripped down for beta release.

 

Broken: After creating character, getting a few saves and deciding that I need a ranged main character due to insta-gib due to unknown source (final damage reporting could be better, as far as I know I was killed by hand of god), combined with the doggy pile combat technique of party as a whole. After deleting all saves, load new game. Character creation is skipped, and I appear to be now a human barbarian named player (not what I had intended). Verify integrity of Steam files corrected issue.

 

Overall = Very pleased, but much room for improvement!

[dherve10]

They look to be the same icons used in NWN2. As such, I'm seriously hoping they are placeholder. The neon coloring is very abrasive to the eyes and I personally would raise an eyebrow, and perhaps sneer disgustedly, if I found that the devs are actually planning on having NW2 icons in the final release of this game.

[StrangeCat]

I love to give an impression but I think everyone else has done enough where I don't have to say much.

 

Unfortunately when it comes to a Beta the first thing we do is comment with something Negitive.  I am no different.

 

My List would exceed everyones!   Instead I'll wait and see what they can do in a week.   Maybe a lot of things addressed will be fixed and changed.  I see a lot of things that need to changed really there poor designs with good intentions.  

 

I don't  think you can just crank out a new Beta every month and satisfy everyone.   I would try and do it weekly.

 

Carry on!