First impressions thread!

[Astatine]

I've only played around for half an hour or so, but so far...

 

The level art is fabulous!

I agree with the poster above that the inn is a bit wooden-generic...  but the outdoors is inspired.  Baldur's Gate yanked into the present day.  Exactly what I was dreaming of.

Character creation is lovely and deep.  And a bit confusing right now, but that's okay

Equally, the combat dynamic is a little confusing at first, I think it's the characters finishing their turns at different intervals that does it, but I'm sure I'll get used to it just fine.

I'm loving the writing, and those sort of self-scribbling parchment screens that appear at story points.

 

Even though it's supposed to be a non-spoily beta I find myself handling it really tentatively for fear of spoilers...

 

Negatives?  Not a great deal...  a few bugs that I'll write into the bug reports forum...  the character models don't seem quite AAA (but I've been spoiled by MMOs in that regard...)  and what exactly causes Health loss, as opposed to Stamina loss?

 

Oh, and I'm not convinced by the Monk: without an obvious threat/aggro mechanic, getting creatures to hit him and not the other characters seems pretty finicky...

 

But, I'm not regretting my pledge and ever so looking forward to the full thing. :D

[Ratoo]

Like the overall look but I feel like combat is very clustered right now.  Hard to see enemies and party members in the middle of a fight, as well as what they are or were doing.  Biggest change I would like to see is more feedback in combat.  I have a hard time telling when the enemies have done things to me or if they things I did to them worked.

[Longknife]

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.

 

 

And mind you this is the beta and this is first impressions, so I could be COMPLETELY wrong and there could be ways to use skills more frequently and I'm just not seeing it. (maybe someone will chime in here) As I said though, in that sense: yes, it is a tad bit disappointing to have 5 characters with ~3 skills each, but in any given fight you're only accessing 1-2 characters and ~3-4 skills. Basic hotkeys or a slight slowdown to combat speed could remedy this entirely, though of course if combat is balanced around this then that might make things too easy.

 

 

As for people complaining they can't tell when a character is being hit, when they're attacking or when a character is down....lol u blind?

On that note though, the UI is currently a tad unclear to me. My character's all have a green bar and when attacked a red hue builds up over their avatar image. I assume the green bar is stamina and the red hue represents health and they sure did act as though this was the case, I only bring this up because it seems like everyone regenerates to full health after a battle (no red hue) but when I checked my character stats, it showed my character had some health damage and was NOT at full. Odd.

  And a more minor complaint: the feedback from combat in the chat window is basically worthless. In a fight with 6+ units taking and dealing damage, the chat box moves so fast you're not gonna be able to see everyone's damage and how much a skill is doing. I cast a spell, check for it's damage and it quickly gets washed away by a platorea of "BB Rogue hit for 8" messages. Not much they can do to remedy this except provide little filters for it, which again MAY already exist. (again, this is first impressions)

Edited August 19, 2014 by Longknife

[Tartantyco]

Longknife, you need to learn to use pause.

[Waywocket]

On that note though, the UI is currently a tad unclear to me. My character's all have a green bar and when attacked a red hue builds up over their avatar image. I assume the green bar is stamina and the red hue represents health and they sure did act as though this was the case, I only bring this up because it seems like everyone regenerates to full health after a battle (no red hue) but when I checked my character stats, it showed my character had some health damage and was NOT at full. Odd.

I really think health and stamina should be shown the other way around: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67112-staminahealth-display/

[Natusake]

After having played the game for a few hours:

 

The art is fabulous. The graphics are great, especially for a 2D (2.5D?) game. The lighting system is beautiful.

 

As far as gameplay and mechanics goes, it needs polishing, but lack of polish is expected in a beta, as are glitches, which abound. I am disappointed with the portrait selection, and the lack of distinctive item pictures. I think there needs to be a few tweaks with how a few things play out. For instance (Spoilers) the tanner with the shop next to the tower is obviously in league with the cultists, but you can not ask him anything about it, nor are there any triggers which evidence this fact (its mostly just conjecture, but there is good evidence in the dungeon IMO) (end spoilers)

 

Overall, the idea of the game is rather solid, and it seems that it will be rather great once they work out the bugs and the like.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Natusake

[nonemoreblank]

My first reaction was one of minor annoyance. I didn't think I could pan the camera. I mean, I knew we were going old school with this one. I didn't know we were bringing back all the ****ty things about those old games too. My next reaction was one of panic as I realized I'd set the game to hyper speed and gone to plaid. 

 

Good one. You guys got me. 

 

Started over, changed my key bindings, walked into the first building and the game crashed. Hrmm... OK. It is a beta. Fair enough. 

 

Start again. Repeat scenario one. Discover my new key bindings did not survive the crash. 

 

Good one. You guys got me. Will wait for final to jump back in. 

 

Still love you guys, but please don't ship this game with WASD mapped as anything but camera panning. 

[ubiquityxx]

Love it! One tasty detail are the storytelling popups that have the branching interactions. The woodcut illustrations are tasty - such a brilliant way to communicate a story moment. Can't wait for more.

 

Issues

Pathfinding (in and out of combat - characters getting stuck)

Selecting party shortcut would be nice as CTRL-A

Audio (character and fx are lost intermittently)

Combat spellcasting. Multiple times wizard or priest got stuck when casting a spell before combat engaged. e.g. casting fireball to hit a mob BEFORE engaging.

Interactions aren't obvious or detailed on items in the world. e.g. plants you pickup, or looted items.

Freezing on loading a new area (e.g. spider lair)

Please include a way to report bug in-game.

 

I'll report more as I discover.

[siril_dana]

More observations and thoughts, most of all gameplay suggestions. This is what I think should be done they are all minor things but I think the game would benefic from most of them.

 

Inmersion:

• Enemys should walk when patrolling, not run.
• I think that the enemy information should be place in the top center part of the screen. It's already hard to see what's happening in any given battle.
• Cavern floor looks flat.
• It would be nice if dead bodies stay longer before they desapear.

 

Sounds and FX:

• Sound is incosistent, specially in combat (playing with headphones).
• I can't hear footsteps most of the time.

 

Gameplay: 

• Lets us attack doors and chest for a chance to open them!
• I'm not into the scripted text events.
• Stash needs to be bigger and an organice button to arrange items by categorys would be nice.
• Party formation is broken.
• [important] Stealth should be individual and not affect the group if you select one character, also please do something about those proximity circles. Walk should remain after a fight if you where walking before.

 

Interface and keyboard functions:

• Right click on character portraits to open de inventory.
• The mouse-changing cursors to travel to the next map and to enter a house as seen in Baldur's Gate are nicer than the floating circles use here.
• [important] Double tap the number of your character should center the screen on that character. Also if you hold the number the camera could follow the selected character.
• Buff icons need to be bigger I can barely see them.
• In the character creation and lvl up, the next or done button should be replace the finish button that is shown in the lower right corner.
• When you press A to atack and then click an enemy, the attack icon should change to move icon, as a way to confirm the action taken.

 

Minor stuff:

• Text in items descriptions should be justified.
• Other text such as the options to choose the trial and expert mode option should be centered.

 

Bonus:

 

• I need Dual class!

[Acridine Orange]

Aside from the initial character creation and menus, my first impression was rather humorous.  After having spent as much time as possible exploring all of the character options and reading every detail about all of the races and classes, I step foot into the world...and immediately received numerous axe and sword blows about the head and neck from none other than my very own party members!  Haha, I was confused, I had no idea what was going on and I died rather quickly.  I guess my party members didn't like the character I created and decided to dispose of it.

 

The next character I created was much more acceptable apparently as I wasn't immediately attacked upon opening my eyes.  I haven't been able to play it much yet but it is looking/feeling great.  Lots of bugs of course, but that is expected, the only thing I would like to see different is the character models and more portraits.

[Corivar]

 

but the knockdown sound effect is a bit excessive

 

That noise is super annoying, and I really hoped its replaced with something less irritating.

[Stun]

But the weapon stats are visible in the descriptions. It shouldn't be all that hard to figure out. How is this different from figuring out which buff, debuff, or counter to use in various situations in BG2?

The weapon descriptions only tell you

 

1) the damage threshold

2) the damage type.

 

They don't tell you whether Crushing damage will be useless against Spiders. Or whether slashing is the best damage to do against beetles.

 

And BG2 is a sequel. Anyone who played Bg1 will not have much of a learning curve to overcome with BG2.

[Tartantyco]

They don't tell you whether Crushing damage will be useless against Spiders. Or whether slashing is the best damage to do against beetles.

 

 

That's what the cyclopedia is for...

Edited August 20, 2014 by Tartantyco

[Longknife]

Longknife, you need to learn to use pause.

 

 

You mean I can pause the game and still manage/assign skills with the pause screen up?

Kk thanks.

[resonancecascade]

My first impression: the large number of area of effect spells is going to take some getting used to -- especially the ones that damage everyone (not just hostiles). There were certainly a lot of these spells in BG/Icewind Dale, but so far PoE seems to have really taken it up a notch or five.

 

Anyway, that's neither a negative nor a positive so far, just something I noticed. Definitely gives combat a different dynamic than the IE games had.

[ctn2003]

I pray 5 months is enough for all this buggynes. they still have a long way to go.

[PrimeJunta]

The weapon descriptions only tell you

1) the damage threshold

2) the damage type.

 

They don't tell you whether Crushing damage will be useless against Spiders. Or whether slashing is the best damage to do against beetles.

 

And BG2 is a sequel. Anyone who played Bg1 will not have much of a learning curve to overcome with BG2.

 

Do you think the game should just flat out tell  you to use weapon X against enemy Y? Seriously, Stun?

 

Should BG (or BG2) just flat out tell  you to use blunt weapons against golems? Like in the mace description -- "Good against golems?"

 

I don't even... wow, Stun, for someone going on about how obvious everything is in the BG's, you sure seem to have a hard time figuring out a system that isn't AD&D as implemented in the Infinity Engine.

[Stun]

Do you think the game should just flat out tell  you to use weapon X against enemy Y? Seriously, Stun?

That's kinda missing point. Josh promised us it wouldn't be Rock-paper-scissors. But that's exactly what it is.

[PrimeJunta]

Well, fine, I guess, although personally I don't mind rock paper scissors if it's a good game of rock paper scissors.

 

What I still don't get is why you find it offensive in P:E when the IE games were chock full of rock paper scissors. What was combat against golems, beholders, illithids, or high-level undead if not a game of rock paper scissors?

[kozzy]

Ok, played about 8 hours so far now, here are some updated thoughts.

 

The Good

- Art Design

- Music

- Background sounds

- Game world

- Dialogue

- Characters

- Immersive

 

Needs Improvement

- Needs more portraits and more options for character creation in general

- Sometimes it is hard to see you're characters 100%, maybe making them stick out a tad more would be good

- The combat is a tad fast, not way to fast like some are saying, but still needs a bit of work. I like how it works but needs polish

- Bugs/Optimization - This is a beta so I am sure there will be improvements in this before the final game

 

Not sure On Yet

- AI

- UI

 

Keep up the good work, it is honestly about what I was expecting. A question, will this beta get any updates or will we get newer versions at a later time (before release)?

Edited August 20, 2014 by kozzy

[sparklecat]

I think one of the biggest problems with combat right now (well, for me, at least) is simply being dropped into an unfamiliar system at mid-level with five party members to manage.  If I were starting out at level 1 and it was just my PC, I could see this going a lot better (though I think it is still just plain too fast).

 

As a result, I'm actually a bit concerned that balancing combat for our experience with it at present is going to end in it being too easy.

[Sammael]

There's not much I can say that hasn't been said already. But I'll say this: the game (as shown) needs at least another 6-7 months of development. I sincerely hope that Obsidian will abandon the currently projected release date and focus on completing the game and making it as bug-free as possible. 

[kozzy]

There's not much I can say that hasn't been said already. But I'll say this: the game (as shown) needs at least another 6-7 months of development. I sincerely hope that Obsidian will abandon the currently projected release date and focus on completing the game and making it as bug-free as possible. 

True, but there is alot of time for bugs and polish to be honest, that is usually alot of what beta stage is about. Wasteland 2 I had crap performance and now a few weeks before release I am getting great performance and not big bugs, we shall see.

[Sammael]

This is not really in beta stage. This is alpha, or somewhere between alpha and beta (at best). 

[C2B]

This is not really in beta stage. This is alpha, or somewhere between alpha and beta (at best).

 

Uhm.

 

No? Its beta. Early beta, but Beta.

 

Also how the hell would you make an accurate guess on how much time the game still needs?

 

Edit: Not saying they couldn't take some more time to add some things(like for more art) but, eh.

Edited August 20, 2014 by C2B