First impressions thread!

[Yonjuro]

 

. 2) Same dungeon, couldn't figure out how to use the rope and grapple even though I had two in my inventory.

This is a bug. I couldn't get the option with my first two characters no matter what I tried. On my third character though, it worked.

 

Not sure yet about lockpicks.

 

 

 

 That's also a bug. When it works, either the door will open or you get a log message telling you why it didn't. When it doesn't work, nothing happens.

[Ink Blot]

 

 That's also a bug. When it works, either the door will open or you get a log message telling you why it didn't. When it doesn't work, nothing happens.

 

Can you elaborate here? I never actually got lockpicks for my character until the third one, when I was able to use the grappling hook. I only found lockpicks after crossing the broken bridge. Ironically, I was able to pick the lock in the door leading to the soul cage, but decided to try the grappling hook instead of going through the door. Ironically, having finally found lockpicks, by the time I got around to the other locked entrance to the soul cage, I had the proper key to unlock the doors.

 

The point of the above ramble is just so you understand why I'm asking for clarity: do you mean lockpicks are bugged and will sometimes work (and is there a message to indicate you have to use them), or that lockpicking in general is buggy and that lockpicks never work? Hope that's clear.

[Savant1021]

Thought I'd post my overall first impressions here. I've only played around with the beta for a few hours so far, and I did run into that nasty bug where journal entries were wiped after loading from in-game (vs the main menu). Restarting was obviously not the most fun.

 

That issue aside, I'm all nostalgic and giddy over how I "feel" playing this game. It's a throwback to those Infinity Engine games in so many good ways, without a lot of the disappointments and frustrations I experienced when trying to play those exact games now. Even the Enhanced Edition of BG2 feels too stale to hold my attention for long. 

 

Looking forward to seeing more of how PoE progresses throughout beta and release.

[Yonjuro]

 

 

 That's also a bug. When it works, either the door will open or you get a log message telling you why it didn't. When it doesn't work, nothing happens.

 

Can you elaborate here? I never actually got lockpicks for my character until the third one, when I was able to use the grappling hook. I only found lockpicks after crossing the broken bridge. Ironically, I was able to pick the lock in the door leading to the soul cage, but decided to try the grappling hook instead of going through the door. Ironically, having finally found lockpicks, by the time I got around to the other locked entrance to the soul cage, I had the proper key to unlock the doors.

 

The point of the above ramble is just so you understand why I'm asking for clarity: do you mean lockpicks are bugged and will sometimes work (and is there a message to indicate you have to use them), or that lockpicking in general is buggy and that lockpicks never work? Hope that's clear.

 

 

 

 Sure - I've had these 4 things happen when I clicked on one of the doors in that dungeon in different games:

 

1. Absolutely nothing.

2. The door opened.

3,4. The door remained closed but I got a message about needing higher mechanics skill or more lockpicks.

 

 I think number 1 was just a case of my game state having gotten corrupted somehow and the correct behaviors are 2, 3 and 4. The door should open or you should get a message about your mechanics skill or number of lockpicks.

 

 In fact, when nothing happened, I think I tried wandering around for a few seconds and clicking again (and again and again about 10 times) and door eventually opened - so, yeah, if the door doesn't open and you don't see a message in the log, then it's a bug. 

[Ink Blot]

 Sure - I've had these 4 things happen when I clicked on one of the doors in that dungeon in different games:

 

1. Absolutely nothing.

2. The door opened.

3,4. The door remained closed but I got a message about needing higher mechanics skill or more lockpicks.

 

 I think number 1 was just a case of my game state having gotten corrupted somehow and the correct behaviors are 2, 3 and 4. The door should open or you should get a message about your mechanics skill or number of lockpicks.

 

 In fact, when nothing happened, I think I tried wandering around for a few seconds and clicking again (and again and again about 10 times) and door eventually opened - so, yeah, if the door doesn't open and you don't see a message in the log, then it's a bug. 

 

Thank you! That clears it up. I've had 1 and 2 happen before, as well as getting a message about not having enough Mechanic skill, but never before had lockpicks in the inventory, so wasn't sure if you'd actually get a message indicating you need them/more of them (when everything's working correctly).

[Monte Carlo]

I don't know where to start with the combat. I've tried a paladin and a rogue so far on normal and hard.

 

Sadly my view is pretty negative. I'll simply bullet point my first impressions:

 

* First, there are relatively few visual or audible clues / feedback for abilities, and it took me a while to figure out what the little green pips mean.

 

* It feels like a strange real-time / phase based system, a sort of constipated turn-based game.

 

* Speed - a bit like Mommy bear's porridge, default is too fast and slow-mo too slow. Somewhere in the middle would be just right. Would it be possible to introduce a speed slider, perhaps?

 

* There's a lack of impact - the kinetic ooomph of hitting something. As someone else says, it sounds like a pillow fight.

 

* I haven't a clue what's going on. Seriously. The powaz all look great but there are so many and it's all happening so fast... and is the patchy auto-attack a bug?

 

Put simply, the combat in the beta is virtually unplayable for me. I'm not exaggerating. And I so badly want to like this game.

[Gfted1]

...and it took me a while to figure out what the little green pips mean.

The ones above the characters heads? Please kind sir, tell me what they mean.

[Sarex]

Put simply, the combat in the beta is virtually unplayable for me. I'm not exaggerating. And I so badly want to like this game.

 

That is why I won't touch the beta until it's somewhere near it's end.

[lightblade75]

This is my first beta test and so I have no experience in this. I just backed for  the beta key to see and play the game early. I am 100% sure, that by release the game will not have more bugs than any other AAA title. I am also quite sure that the next build will be much more playable. I guess it takes until the next update - maybe 2nd of September to get a new beta build.

[Spike Spiegel 28]

Alright I am a little late to the party but better late than never. So here are my very first impressions be it the good, the bad or the ugly stuff. Before that so I would like to give my general thoughts on it. Now I started with an original pledge at the 35$ tier by the end of the Kickstarter I was at the normal boxed copy tier with some addons and during the time of the backer updates I got more and more excited of what I saw so I did go 2 more steps up. This did end yesterday with me getting myself the (at least for me it is very much a luxury and big investment) 250 $ signed CE edition. Now the numbers really do not matter all that much here but the fact that they did convince me to upgrade again and again cause of what information they given us does matter a lot. I am not the kinda  guy that gets hyped easyly. In fact this is just the second time a game got me that excited (considering that I have been pretty much a gamer for a bit over 20 years now thats saying something). So to say that my expectations have been as high as they can get would prolly be putting it very mildly. Long story short, I did not regret putting in all the money and hopes for even one second. From the second I was dropped into the demo I got that very calming and reassuring feeling that this game is and will be everything I was hoping and thinking it would be and than some. I can't pinpoint it exactly why I feel like this but it just looks, sounds and feels very right. With that in mind on to the tough stuff.

 

The Bad: - The Combat: The thing that struck and did annoy me right away and the most was that it was just all over the place. I was playing a ranger for my first two tries and so my party did consist of 6 members in total. On the very first encounter with the beetles I had I think 5 Beetles coming at me. The chances of trying to place your own people strategical are very small indeed cause at least I had a hard time trying to get some order in the chaos. Now that might be partially due to the mentioned pathfinding issues but I hardly think that this is the olny reason for it. And of course the difficutly level is way too high now even on normal or easy but that is merely a thing of blancing out a couple of stats.

 

- Zooming in in Battle: While I like the fact that you even can zoom in I also have to admit that it is nowhere near enough. Espcially in combat it is really bothering me. It is chaotic enough as it is anyway (at least in MHO) but when you play on a 1080 p resolution or higher it gets really fiddly to quickly select a char on the field itself which would help a lot when it comes to quickly replacing your chars. Sure you can do it via the your character icons but I think doing it by just clicking the char you want on the field would make things more easy and even a little quicker (even so not by much prolly)

 

- The Ugly: - The Combat: Aside from beeing bad for your tactical play in combat I also think the chaos in fights with more than say 2 or 3 enemies just does not look good. I looks like a very fast moving mass of people that are doing certain actions without really having a visible aim. I know you can slow things down but even than it just does not look all that great.

 

Zooming in in general: As already mentioned beeing able to zoom in further might help with combat at least in some scenarios but it would even more help to make the game look even better than it is. I am playin at a 1080p resolution on a 24 inch screen but even when I zoom in all the way I still have a hard time seeing the faces of the characters or to be more precise the details of the faces (you know those tiny silly things that makes the difference between persons). And I am almost certain that the artists did put a lot of care into those details just like they did with all the other art assets. Now it is not like you cannot see anything at all but you have to look very closely and carefully if you wanna see the small details. For me that is just very sad cause the rest of the game looks amazing and I am sure my char does aswell but at least for the face and the more smaller details on the armor  are very hard to spot from the zoom range you have now in the game IMHO.

 

- Minor things: Some of the icons for certain skills are pretty hard to decipher. I could not for my live of mine tell you what kinda animal it is that the very first ranger icon is trying to depict. Turned out to be an antelope but my guesses have been pretty much ranging from eagle to dear to some sorta strange fantasy creature. Oh and I really hope we do get a lot more charactor icons for the final game to choose from cause at least for me it was rather hard find one that was at least somewhat close to my actual character.

 

The Good: - The Graphics: I just love them. They look amazing. The sheer amount and attention to all the little details are just phenomenal. And from what I seen sofar everything seem to fit perfectly in the world you are playing in. You never did get that odd feeling after having looked at an item or anything that it somehow does just not fit in with the rest of it and the world in general. Now for some that might be nitpicking but I think those little things are exactly what can make how much you can immerse yourself into the world or not. Now of course that Demo gives olny a small part of the world to see but somehow I cannot imagine that if they put that much attention and love to detail "just a small meaningless village" that will not do the same thing with the big important loactions aswell.

 

- The Audio: Again it ties in perfectly with what you see on the screen and sets the mood in just the right way. Be it the music or just the sound effects. Even in combat most of the skills I tried that already had a sound effect felt great for almost all of them (very few did lack a little bit omph to make the impact feel well but sofar those have been few far and between). Again adding greatly to the immersion of the game.

 

- The Writing: Now I am playing the german language version so I can olny report on that one so I would imagine that the english one beeing their natural language is as least as good if not better. The writing sofar feels like it just fits with the various chars. The working class folks talking a bit more straight forward and a little more vulgar at times, while the upperclass (like Lord Harond) is talking more sophisticated but also more snobbish when talking about the working class. While all of that might sound rather cliche in the first place it still fits the chars because in the middle ages most people actually been like that. Also I like how their emotions that they feeling at the time when you talk to them seem to be pretty good reflected in the dialogue.

 

- The Combat and Minor things: Again while the combat needs  a lot of work I think what they already did figure out for most part is how the skills do feel like. Now mind you not all of them but at least for me it seems the majority of skills we can use now are done pretty well. I also like that you can or will not have certain choices on the dialogue depending on your stats. That does make things feel more realistic (even so I would hope that there is an option to turn off the skills that are shown behind the dialogue options).Also I really like the music and sound effect on the character creation screen and when you start the game (the olny thing that bugs me there is the constant bird chirping) as it gets me in a good mood for some reason.

 

Well so that was my 2 cents for the very first impressions I did get from playing the beta for the first time. Again I know I am a little late but yeah I still wanted to give them. I am sure I will come up with more feedback when I been playing the game a little more but overall like I already said at the start I am very happy with what I seen sofar.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Spike Spiegel 28

[Tazzasaurus]

Honestly I am very happy with the game visually.  I think it nails the old school feel with new school type 3d graphics (in a retro way if that makes sense)

 

It's buggy but who thought it would be perfect in alpha stages?  Having some weird issues with my bb warrior getting stuck and not being able to move, not sure what is causing it yet. 

 

I find the game very difficult at first, very hard game to learn which is good and bad.  Very old school feel in difficulty standpoint.  All the abilities are kind of overwhelming and learning what everything does since it doesn't follow ADnD ruleset and such which I am so accustomed to in these types of RPGs.

 

Overall, great game thus far, looks like it could be a good one

[Marceror]

 

It's buggy but who thought it would be perfect in alpha stages?

Game is supposed to be beyond alpha, hence the backer "beta".

[Ashen Rohk]

Holy hell, druid is incredible.

 

Damage, conditions, shapeshift...unf.

[Nomadmerc]

Holy hell, druid is incredible.

 

Damage, conditions, shapeshift...unf.

 

Also excited about the druid. Even more so if the shapeshifting has dramatic effect on playstyle (i.e., rogue, warrior abilities to a degree).

Edited August 28, 2014 by Nomadmerc

[Metabot]

Ok so I just did some combat and I both agree and disagree with some of the criticisms voiced.

 

 

For those not in the beta:

 

Basically imagine that you've got a party of five and each of those five has skills with various effects. Slow a target, knock it down, paralyze it, deal extra damage, heal, etc etc. However, combat is not turn-based, but rather it's real time and each unit basically gets one of those little cooldown bars to show how long they need to wait between attacks.

  Unless I'm missing something, actually using any skill beyond a basic attack means you need some slight menu navigation. AKA you click the character's face, you open their skill bar, select the one you want and then select the target you want. The amount of time it takes to do this basically consume a good "turn" (how long it takes for the average character to do a basic attack) meaning you're hardly capable of using all the skills you have. In short, you have maybe 12 skills total belonging to your party, but in any given fight you'll utilize 3 tops. In that sense it sort of feels a little defeating to have so many skills when the basic speed and flow of the game drastically downplays how frequently they'll be used. The combat works, it's just a little disappointing to get all these various CC skills for my wizard and find myself spamming his singular attack spell solely on the grounds I don't have time for anything else.

 

 

 

You're not really supposed to be using every single ability every encounter. You use what you need to use when you need it.

[Helm]

 

 

It's buggy but who thought it would be perfect in alpha stages?

Game is supposed to be beyond alpha, hence the backer "beta".

 

The game isn't beta simply by definition, because there are many assets missing.

 

But this strategy isn't new, Larian and Inxile did the same thing.

[Helm]

* It feels like a strange real-time / phase based system, a sort of constipated turn-based game.e.

 

Cool analogy. But yeah, it's Arcanum all over again.

[Ashen Rohk]

Couple more first impressions on class building:

 

 

[Gladiuss8@gmail.com]

Lately I found out that my friend got the PoE beta, so I asked him to let me play, here is my impression:

 

- The biggest let down for me, which I also saw in gamescon and few other gameplays, is that everything in game seems too fast. Character are going way too fast, there are too little space between them, doing so that fights are going into melee in mere seconds, or even less. I can't cast ANY aoe spells before enemies are withing melee range. This is not how it supposed to be. Baldurs gate2 combat worked like something between turn based combat, and real time hack&slash experience. PoE is currently more into that real time diablo experience rather than BG2 experience. In the current state of beta, I played on normal, and I literally just went through all enemies just clicking one at a time, killing it with all my party members, and so on. I didn't even use spells, because it seemed like too big of a deal, when I could just kill enemies almost like in hack&slash game.

 

- in BG2 and IWD2, after you finished dialog, there was something like 1 second delay, before all enemies went into fight. It was really cool, because you could always turn pause on, before anyone moved. In PoE I experienced that enemies were sometimes almost instantly right before my characters, after I closed the dialog. I couldn't even pause in between. The reason is, like I mentioned before, too little space between characters, kinda little maps, and character moving too fast.

Solution could be making character size a little smaller. It could solve the first two problems, the other is making everything a bit slower. Keep in mind that Tides of Numenera decided to pick the slowest of all possible choises - the turn based combat system, so try to make it more that way, rather than doind hack&slash experience.

 

- The second biggest thing for me are graphics. While 2d beautiful backgrounds are well done, like in the old games, 3d characters are currently making game hard to look at. I mean, after 12 years from the release of IWD2, looking at both IWD2 and PoE, I would prefer to watch IWD2... The thing is, currently 3d characters are making everything too blurry. During a fight I really can't tell who is attacking who, hit receiving animations are often hard to catch, and even written desription of a fight are kinda out of sync, giving information even after the fight already ended. I have no idea how graphic problem could be resolved, and it propably won't. 

 

- I won't even discuss the xp reward thing. All I can say I was really depressed when I realized I got completely no reward from killing all these beetles, except some crafting stuff...

 

Overall, Those are huge gamebreaking aspects, that will be a nightmare to resolve. I'm really dissapointed by the current state of the game, and I really hope that someone will decide to not release it in December, so that they could give it a few more months to improve.

[Gladiuss8@gmail.com]

Lately I found out that my friend got the PoE beta, so I asked him to let me play, here is my impression:

 

- The biggest let down for me, which I also saw in gamescon and few other gameplays, is that everything in game seems too fast. Character are going way too fast, there are too little space between them, doing so that fights are going into melee in mere seconds, or even less. I can't cast ANY aoe spells before enemies are withing melee range. This is not how it supposed to be. Baldurs gate2 combat worked like something between turn based combat, and real time hack&slash experience. PoE is currently more into that real time diablo experience rather than BG2 experience. In the current state of beta, I played on normal, and I literally just went through all enemies just clicking one at a time, killing it with all my party members, and so on. I didn't even use spells, because it seemed like too big of a deal, when I could just kill enemies almost like in hack&slash game.

 

- in BG2 and IWD2, after you finished dialog, there was something like 1 second delay, before all enemies went into fight. It was really cool, because you could always turn pause on, before anyone moved. In PoE I experienced that enemies were sometimes almost instantly right before my characters, after I closed the dialog. I couldn't even pause in between. The reason is, like I mentioned before, too little space between characters, kinda little maps, and character moving too fast.

Solution could be making character size a little smaller. It could solve the first two problems, the other is making everything a bit slower. Keep in mind that Tides of Numenera decided to pick the slowest of all possible choises - the turn based combat system, so try to make it more that way, rather than doind hack&slash experience.

 

- The second biggest thing for me are graphics. While 2d beautiful backgrounds are well done, like in the old games, 3d characters are currently making game hard to look at. I mean, after 12 years from the release of IWD2, looking at both IWD2 and PoE, I would prefer to watch IWD2... The thing is, currently 3d characters are making everything too blurry. During a fight I really can't tell who is attacking who, hit receiving animations are often hard to catch, and even written desription of a fight are kinda out of sync, giving information even after the fight already ended. I have no idea how graphic problem could be resolved, and it propably won't. 

 

- I won't even discuss the xp reward thing. All I can say I was really depressed when I realized I got completely no reward from killing all these beetles, except some crafting stuff...

 

Overall, Those are huge gamebreaking aspects, that will be a nightmare to resolve. I'm really dissapointed by the current state of the game, and I really hope that someone will decide to not release it in December, so that they could give it a few more months to improve.

[Uomoz]

Why doubleposting?

[nerevar]

ok, started playing today with a cipher character for a copule of hours. no need to mention bugs that everyone already talking about.

 

for me;

- combat is too fast and i cant tell who attacks who or does what!

- environment looks cool but again in combat if hostiles or my characters stand behind a tree or alike, i cant see them; no character highlight at all or transparency...

- and the attributes, it seems confusing. how these attributes effects my ciphers abilities? if i choose the exact same attributes for a paladin or cipher, what will be the difference between these two characters?

[Gladiuss8@gmail.com]

Sorry, I kinda thought that my attempt to create this topic got denied.

[Ashen Rohk]

Holy ass rogue is boring. Considering how vibrant and wonderful the other classes are it's real let down.

[Lord Wafflebum]

I have only gotten through about half the content of the beta, but I figured I should finally get around to adding my impressions so far to the mix as far as what the devs are especially keen on:

 

Classes

Pleased for the most part. The Paladin thus far is by far and large my favorite. It takes the rather bland fighter and gives it some enjoyable abilities. I also enjoy not having to necessarily follow a "Lawful Good" path. I like my morality to be a bit on the grey side.

 

I found the wizard and cleric tough to use to their full potential. I have yet to take the time to fully explore all the spells, and I'm sure I'm alone in the thought that there are just too many spells to wrap my head around. Once I spend more time with those classes I'm sure I'll come to appreciate them more. I had the same issues with the BG series when it came to wizards and clerics so I'm hoping it will just take more time to get used to them.

 

I wanted to mention the rogue specifically. I found myself disappointed with this class. There's a good chance I'm missing something, but there seemed to be little advantage to playing as one. I'd love to see an ability that really gives the rogue a unique advantage over other classes. Otherwise, I'm pleased with how the classes are laid out.

 

Races

Races look good. They seem distinct and fitting for their lore. The only race I do not like the look of is the death godlike. I like the back story, but i just think their "death-helms" are too exaggerated in scale. I'd be thrilled if they were scaled back some. 

 

As far as bonuses and abilities go, I have to echo many of the folks on the forums that they do not seem to practically affect very much. It is hard to tell from how the beta is set up, but my impression is as it stands any bonuses will only offer a mild advantage early on in the full game. Is that the intent?

 

Attributes

I've noticed a lot has been said on this already. Honestly it is difficult for me to fully understand how much impact attributes are actually having in combat. Combat needs to be cleaned up before I'll be able to get a good feel for attributes. Their usage in conversation is good. Keep doing that!

 

Equipment

So far so good. I didn't think I would like the introduction of firearms, but so far I think I'm a fan. They are a bit OP right now, but adds a fantastic gameplay element. I'm pumped for more loot gathering!

 

Craft & Enchant

I did not use this. I'll explore it more when things stop disappearing from my inventory.

 

Convo & Quest

Looks and feels exactly how I wanted and expected.

 

Combat

Oh boy. I feel like you guys probably already know... 

 

UI

It feels... bulky. I like my UI trim and lean personally. The log also feels like it's in the wrong place. Maybe I'm just used to it being centered, but I think it would also be better served being aligned to the left of the screen. I know it sounds picky, but there's something about it being aligned to the right that just seems grating. 

 

I do not care for the inventory system. The personal inventory seems too small, and the unlimited stash or whatever it is supposed to be seems to defeat the purpose of limited personal inventory. I should not be able to carry everything out of a dungeon. Unfortunately I'm not sure what I want to see instead, but I thought I'd mention it anyway...

 

Conclusion

Overall I like what I see. Overwhelmingly this looks like what I wanted when I backed this project. I, among others, am skeptical about this being completed by the end of the year, but I base that on absolutely zero knowledge of game production. I'd just like to mention that I'd much rather see this game delayed than released with issues. I understand there are budgets and such to take into account as far as delays, but I'm supportive of you guys taking all the time you need to work on the game that fits in your budgets and projections. I'll be eagerly awaiting the next update!