Some [constructive?] criticism

[Mayama]

Ah, the old "it's not us, it's you" argument.

 

Thing is, my rough calculation is that 85% of the forum 'don't want to learn' and find the pacing / experience of combat a bind.

 

Maybee its you because usually games have a learning curve and the interesting setting, story or gameplay make you endure through it. Thats something not present in the beta especially because they throw a complete lvl 3 party at you.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

You can create a full party in BG2. Just start in multiplayer mode.

 

Wow, i never even knew that. And i'm still playing BG2 from time to time, too, but i'd never even think of doing something like that. Mostly because, you know, there's a whole Icewind Dale franchise created exactly for this + there's ToEE, it's spiritual successor, + there's a million other games when you can just walk around in a fantasy world killing monsters. This is not what made BG2 so memorable to me.

Now i know that apparently there are some people that are willing to turn a game with great story, great set of characters and great atmosphere into a hack'n'slash fest just because they love battle encounters and/or how AD&D combat system is represented there. Are these guys Obsidian's target audience now? If they are, then i wish i'd known that before backing PoE, because i had in my head that a game representing the "legacy of the Golden Age of computer role-playing" should be oriented towards, well, the whole role-playing part, instead of butt-kicking for goodness. 

 

You gotta love late awakenings...

[Monte Carlo]

 

You can create a full party in BG2. Just start in multiplayer mode.

 

Wow, i never even knew that. And i'm still playing BG2 from time to time, too, but i'd never even think of doing something like that. Mostly because, you know, there's a whole Icewind Dale franchise created exactly for this + there's ToEE, it's spiritual successor, + there's a million other games when you can just walk around in a fantasy world killing monsters. This is not what made BG2 so memorable to me.

Now i know that apparently there are some people that are willing to turn a game with great story, great set of characters and great atmosphere into a hack'n'slash fest just because they love battle encounters and/or how AD&D combat system is represented there. Are these guys Obsidian's target audience now? If they are, then i wish i'd known that before backing PoE, because i had in my head that a game representing the "legacy of the Golden Age of computer role-playing" should be oriented towards, well, the whole role-playing part, instead of butt-kicking for goodness. 

 

 

Is it chilly up there on that high horse? Dude, I've played the game to bits with every NPC. Part of it's longevity is playing it a different way. It's not high art, it's not Hemingway, it's just a really, really good game.

[ZaZu]

Is it chilly up there on that high horse? Dude, I've played the game to bits with every NPC. Part of it's longevity is playing it a different way. It's not high art, it's not Hemingway, it's just a really, really good game.

 

And just what in my post contradicts this?

[PrimeJunta]

Wow, i never even knew that. And i'm still playing BG2 from time to time, too, but i'd never even think of doing something like that. Mostly because, you know, there's a whole Icewind Dale franchise created exactly for this + there's ToEE, it's spiritual successor, + there's a million other games when you can just walk around in a fantasy world killing monsters. This is not what made BG2 so memorable to me.

Now i know that apparently there are some people that are willing to turn a game with great story, great set of characters and great atmosphere into a hack'n'slash fest just because they love battle encounters and/or how AD&D combat system is represented there. Are these guys Obsidian's target audience now? If they are, then i wish i'd known that before backing PoE, because i had in my head that a game representing the "legacy of the Golden Age of computer role-playing" should be oriented towards, well, the whole role-playing part, instead of butt-kicking for goodness. 

 

I played BG2 the first couple of times the 'normal' way. Then I played a couple times with hand-crafted gimmick parties. Try it with a full party of kensai/mages. You'll roflstomp over everything. It's fun because ridiculous. Also the story and companions in it isn't really all that great; it's OK by porn standards I suppose but not so good I'd want to play it a second time for the story. The variety in combat encounters, tactics, and party composition OTOH does make for massive replayability. I.e. on subsequent playthroughs I did pretty much click through the story to get to the fighting.

 

In any case Obsidian's trademark is their writing, which you can already see in the BB -- I swear there was more interesting writing there than in all of BW's games since BG2 put together. 

 

@Monte Carlo IMO it's too early to tell if the combat is too fast; the main problem is the lack of feedback and critical bugs that turn it into soup. If it is fast I think the main problem is with movement speed, not with attack or casting speed. I'd rather have them clean up the pathfinding, AI, and character freeze bugs first and, if possible, add some better feedback, then see if it still feels too fast.

[Mayama]

Also the story and companions in it isn't really all that great; it's OK by porn standards I suppose but not so good I'd want to play it a second time for the story. The variety in combat encounters, tactics, and party composition OTOH does make for massive replayability. I.e. on subsequent playthroughs I did pretty much click through the story to get to the fighting.

Jan Jansen was cool, maybee a comic relief but cool nonetheless

[ZaZu]

It's fun because ridiculous.

 

 

 

Thanks, but i think i'll just stick to Goat Simulator for that.

 

Also the story and companions in it isn't really all that great; it's OK by porn standards I suppose but not so good I'd want to play it a second time for the story. 

The variety in combat encounters, tactics, and party composition OTOH does make for massive replayability. I.e. on subsequent playthroughs I did pretty much click through the story to get to the fighting.

 

I never imagined that fans of BG2, my favorite game of all time, would be like this. I feel like somebody's rule-34-ing Aerie before my eyes right now. Sorry, but i gotta go get my antidepressants 

Edited August 26, 2014 by ZaZu

[PrimeJunta]

 

Then try it with some other gimmick party composition. Seriously, there's a ton of variety to be had in the BG2 encounters, not least because so many of them are accessible in any order. Much more replayable than IWD.

[ZaZu]

Well i've been doing this too, just using different companions, different MC and while trying to role-play this a bit, too. Like making an eeeevil party with Korgan, Viconia and Edwin, or by mixing them with some do-gooders and seeing if they would lash out at each other. Don't get me wrong, battles were great in BG2, but frankly, they were great in many other games, too. I think that so many parts of the game were balanced and enjoyable is what makes BG2 such a great game. So great, in fact, that different people can enjoy replaying it for different reasons.

 

Probably i'm too harsh in my quest for what i see as pure role-playing experience. I'll just hope that there wouldn't be much dumb stuff in PoE    

Edited August 26, 2014 by ZaZu

[constantine]

 

Races

• So we have your totally ordinary humans, dwarves, elves, halflings (Orlans) and half-orcs (Aumaua). And then there's one "extreme" race (Godlike). Feels balanced enough, if not too creative. I feel the races should have more bonuses/penalties to make them more interesting to play. Also it would be nice for them have to some racial skills and abilities too. Like if the Aumaua are an aquatic race, why does nothing about their abilities suggest so? Why not give them at least some water-related stuff? 
• Actually, Aumaua design is by far the one i dislike the most. First, they look like a mix between the Na'vi from Avatar and the Qunari from Dragon Age. Second, again, their racial bonuses (+2 Might and improved defense or speed) have nothing to do with them being an aquatic race! I mean, they're obviously just half-orcs with funny faces! And finally, why would a race whose civilisations are "based on naval dominance" be like that? Naval civs are made of traders and colonists, not of 2m-tall powerhouses! Unless they behave like vikings or something, they should be a slender, delicate race, worshipping the gods of Sea, using some kind of water-related magic and such. Sorry, but otherwise they're just blue orcs with ships.
•  

 

 

You are very unfair regarding the Aumaua, maybe because you have in mind the Zora people from 'The Legend of Zelda'. Zoras are inspired by sea creatures such as dolphins, however other sea creatures include deadly great white sharks or killer whales.

 

And we know how Josh likes his were-shark people  

[constantine]

 

Wow, i never even knew that. And i'm still playing BG2 from time to time, too, but i'd never even think of doing something like that. Mostly because, you know, there's a whole Icewind Dale franchise created exactly for this + there's ToEE, it's spiritual successor, + there's a million other games when you can just walk around in a fantasy world killing monsters. This is not what made BG2 so memorable to me.

Now i know that apparently there are some people that are willing to turn a game with great story, great set of characters and great atmosphere into a hack'n'slash fest just because they love battle encounters and/or how AD&D combat system is represented there. Are these guys Obsidian's target audience now? If they are, then i wish i'd known that before backing PoE, because i had in my head that a game representing the "legacy of the Golden Age of computer role-playing" should be oriented towards, well, the whole role-playing part, instead of butt-kicking for goodness. 

 

I played BG2 the first couple of times the 'normal' way. Then I played a couple times with hand-crafted gimmick parties. Try it with a full party of kensai/mages. You'll roflstomp over everything. It's fun because ridiculous. Also the story and companions in it isn't really all that great; it's OK by porn standards I suppose but not so good I'd want to play it a second time for the story. The variety in combat encounters, tactics, and party composition OTOH does make for massive replayability. I.e. on subsequent playthroughs I did pretty much click through the story to get to the fighting.

 

In any case Obsidian's trademark is their writing, which you can already see in the BB -- I swear there was more interesting writing there than in all of BW's games since BG2 put together. 

 

 

 

 

 

Say it man. I am a huge fan of the BG Series, but it's about time we stop idolizing those games. And I'm happy Obsidian's got the courage to stand up to those 'legends' with their game.

[WebShaman]

It's really hard to get a grasp of the health/stamina thing since it's never actually explained to player. Also, i'm not sure i like this whole concept at all. Currently it just looks like complicating things without proper reason - do we really need a second health bar? Most rpgs are doing fine with just one.

It's a backer beta; not the full game so you don't get niceties like a tutorial or a manual. I assume that the full game will have one of those in order to explain the mechanic.

 

The reason for the split is that it turns stamina/health into a tactical and a strategic resource that introduces new (and fun!) layers of decision making. Healing a character during an individual encounter now comes with both risk and reward as giving the character more stamina in an encounter is likely going to result in further draining their health. I dig it.

 

Absence of a "roll" feature during character creation just makes attributes feel even more lifeless and mechanical. You end up just distributing points, making a generic "average adventurer" with some equally average abilities. That's not fun.

If you really think rolling dice is fun than get out your dice and roll; no one's going to stop you. In any case most implementations of dice rolling in CRPGs have resulted in players clicking a button until they get the largest number of points to spend so I'm not sure what their is to recommend this feature. Perhaps you imagine a system where you roll for each ind attribute? I imagine that could be fun but for the most part I like to plan out my character concepts.

 

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with "average adventurers". Even with the current, relatively minor, boosts that attributes give I've messed around with a few different character concepts. For example I've built both a high int/low might cypher that focuses on spells with debuffs/status effects.

 

Only 5 skills and no perks, really? After ToEE and NWN2 it just feels incredibly shallow, there should be a lot of more options here or else every character of the same class will just feel, well, the same.

Josh Sawyer has said that more talents are coming but they're waiting on beta feedback to help them design/implement ones that feel useful to players.

 

It surely feels like PoE is following IE games quite closely here, and unfortunarely that means that caster classes (priest, wizard, druid etc) are just far more entertaining than fighter classes (fighter, barbarian, rogue, paladin). They were dull in BG and IW, and they're still incredibly dull in PoE. There should be much more options for these guys, more unique skills and perks for them to become an interesting choice for your main character. You know, it's not much fun just being able to knockdown someone, while the guy next to you can breathe fire and shoot lightnings from his eyes.

They've intentionally kept the number of active abilities some classes have to a minimum because they don't want to overwhelm the player by requiring them to micromanage a party of six characters with large numbers of active abilities. Given that combat still feels a little hectic I think they made the right decision. YMMV

 

Speaking of unique characters: do we really need the Adventurer system? Not only can't i imagine why would anyone prefer a generic custom adventurer to a real character with a backstory and personality, the system just doesn't make sense as it is!

Many players find there's a character whose personality they loathe but whose class they want in their party. Many other players just want to experiment with crazy party set-ups (six gish party, whoo!). This system accommodates those people without requiring the designers to create loads of additional content.

 

Freedom of choice is a great thing, but being able to make pointless decisions has nothing to do with it.

You hate fun. I get it.

 

Combat controls feel unresponsive. In IE games when you give an order to someone, even during the pause, you immediately get a response from him, both visually and in sound. In PoE you never can tell whether the guy is going to do what you've told him or not. Many times did i tell a wizard to cast some spell before switching to another character, just to find a minute later that he never did it.

This is a known bug. It'll be fixed.

 

There should be some other way of presenting combat information about enemies. The box that pops up when you hover your cursor over an enemy is overburdened and should really only tell you his health and status effects. For everything else i suggest an "inspect" button or something like that.

This box only comes up when you mouse over AND hit tab, right? It's pretty much already an inspect button. Frankly I don't know what I'd do without it. I love being able to clearly see which defence I'm attacking and which defence I should be attacking.

 

Dialogue system should be thoroughly explained to player, as currently there's no way to tell what do all these "Clever-Minor" things mean.

Again dude, this is a beta. You get your fancy documentation and tutes when you get the full game. I suggest that until then you watch one of the many demos obsidian did with the starting area and the beta area; both explain the concept fairly well.

 

The spells/abilities icons are somewhat too small and look too much alike, it's really hard to find a spell you need (especially when you're a priest).

Size is a legit complaint but when it comes to style you should know that they're currently using place holders from IWD2.

 

It takes way too much effort to choose a specific character instead of the whole party.

Agreed, I'd prefer a single click to the current double click.

 

This has got to be one of the most depressing "responses" that I have ever witnessed!

 

I agree 100% with @ZaZu

 

Just soo...man.  I don't want to appear negative here, but I really don't know what else I should say.

 

Spot on ZaZu!

[Stun]

The whole "combat is to fast" argument has alot to do with lack of training, I made 3 playthroughs and the game gets easier to manage if you have some experience with it. Its not really fast, most of your party members do one action every 6 seconds if not interupted, the rogue hits every 4 seconds. You have usually more than one seconds for every character which is quite long if you know what you are doing andyour fighters do not need to use a ability every second. Right now when I jump into the game to try stuf out combat feels really slow.

 

If feels like a lot of those "combat is to hectic" complains come from people that do not want to learn and adapt to the system. When I played BG for the first time it was overwhelming and I had to pause constantly. Same thing here.

 

A quality of life additon would be adding hotkeys for your party members like 1-6 and hotkeys for the skills. Thats basicaly everything you need.

 I suspect that the truth of the matter lies somewhere in between "combat is way, way too hectically fast" - and - "you just need to get used to it!"

 

Playing the demo for 1 week straight will probably result in:

1) One getting used to carrying out a 5-person-party's second by second actions against several enemies

2) One being able to glean more info-per-second from the blindly fast-scrolling combat log that must keep up with the equally fast combat action.

 

But it will not change stuff like:

1)The battlefield movement speed of enemies

2)The opinions of people who want slower combat anyway.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Stun

[Mayama]

 

The whole "combat is to fast" argument has alot to do with lack of training, I made 3 playthroughs and the game gets easier to manage if you have some experience with it. Its not really fast, most of your party members do one action every 6 seconds if not interupted, the rogue hits every 4 seconds. You have usually more than one seconds for every character which is quite long if you know what you are doing andyour fighters do not need to use a ability every second. Right now when I jump into the game to try stuf out combat feels really slow.

 

If feels like a lot of those "combat is to hectic" complains come from people that do not want to learn and adapt to the system. When I played BG for the first time it was overwhelming and I had to pause constantly. Same thing here.

 

A quality of life additon would be adding hotkeys for your party members like 1-6 and hotkeys for the skills. Thats basicaly everything you need.

 I suspect that the truth of the matter lies somewhere in between "combat is way, way too hectically fast" - and - "you just need to learn it!"

 

Playing the demo for 1 week straight will probably result in:

1) you getting used to carrying out your party's second by second actions

2) you being able to glean more info-per-second from the blindly fast-scrolling combat log.

 

But it will not change stuff like:

1)The speed of enemies

2)the opinions of people who want slower combat anyway

 

 

A good way to enable you to do things faster would be giving the player quick slots which he can fill with skills/spells etc. 

Afaik almost nobody uses the middle part of the UI anyway so why not replace it with 10-20 empty slots. You could put your most

used skills/spells of your party their so you only have to select an enemy and click a quicksloted ability to command it. Its 4 times faster

than clicking your hero, selecting the spell level, selecting the spell and selecting the enemy. It would remove alot of pause button action.

Let the player bind hot keys to those slots would be even better.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Mayama

[constantine]

 

 

Character creation

 

 

• Absence of a "roll" feature during character creation just makes attributes feel even more lifeless and mechanical. You end up just distributing points, making a generic "average adventurer" with some equally average abilities. That's not fun.
•  

 

 

Oh enough with the goddamn roll for character. For those who don't know (and I guess they are many) Dungeons&Dragons character creation proposed many different ways to create a character, the point-buy system was always one of them. 

 

Just b/c Baldur's Gate chose to have us roll the abilities there's no need to recreate that. Especially when BG character abilities had little point and only two to three of them tops had meaning depending on your class.

 

PoE wants to have ALL 6 attributes have importance, so they *need* a point-buy system.

[WebShaman]

Look, we all know that combat in PoE will not give experience, right?

 

Right.

 

So, combat is CLEARLY NOT meant to be an important part of the game. 

 

I mean, talking to both the straight RPGists and the Power Gamers here, either the story (complete fed ex mission for XP) and the PGers (complete the best possible fed ex mission outcome for most XPs) is going to be the "drive" of the game here, obviously.

 

Items aside (and we still do not know how the recipies for the enchantments are going to be distributed), any and all PGers here will be looking to actually avoid combat UNLESS it actually provides a bonus - and with the lack of XP, only items or plot advancements (that lead to XPs, of course) will excite here.  Otherwise, avoidence will become paramount to preserve resources.

 

To the PRG crowd, this will open up opportunities that we have not often seen in most IE games (especially when there is no XP for combat). 

 

Both crowds should by now be realizing that the post from ZaZu makes a lot of sense, if you consider it from that viewpoint.

 

What matter combat builds, if combat is really a side-endeavor?

 

I mean, I basically have optimized combat in PoE in a short amount of time now.  At least for the Beta.  Tanks up front, ranged in the back.  Scout way up front, hit the enemy, bring it within range of the Magic Wielders, hit it hard, then engage the ranged weapons, and let whatever is left face the tanks, with buffs from Support Classes.

 

It is child's play, regardless of the difficulty in the PoE beta.

 

Equip firearms for ranged, and you really don't need the Magic Wielders, because although slow (hey, get a Chanter!!!), they hit so hard, nothing survives the Front Line!!!!

 

I have found, that I am more into optimizing my character for DIALOG than for Combat!!!!  One gets more XP for completed quests.

 

I hear alot about Might, Int, and so forth - typical combat stats.  But one gets XP mostly from completing quests in PoE!  I have been toying around with other builds, and it has been far more rewarding for the PGer in me!

 

Just sayin'.

[IndiraLightfoot]

WebShaman: I love the paradox you've captured. Right now, PoE doesn't fit PGers nor RPGists, since its systems, its gameplay and its incentives/progress are almost all about combat, whereas the only way to get the machine moving is like you say: stick to one single convo-heavy build and avoid combat. And then! When you've done that, seemingly as a good RPGist, you have in essence become a PGer, and your rewards will all be delivered in the form of combat perks.    

[Matt516]

Maybe they want to play an Orlan who is carrying out some sort of Nigerian Prince scam.

 

I'm stealing this.

[Matt516]

 

 

Uhm, i thought in BG2 you could only create one character. Maybe you're talking about IWD2 instead?

 

You can create a full party in BG2. Just start in multiplayer mode.

 

 

I only play BG2 nowadays with a custom-built party. Sadly, I doubt I'll be playing PoE thirteen years after release.

 

 

Well that's a bit unfair. The game isn't out yet.

[Matt516]

 

Wow, i never even knew that. And i'm still playing BG2 from time to time, too, but i'd never even think of doing something like that. Mostly because, you know, there's a whole Icewind Dale franchise created exactly for this + there's ToEE, it's spiritual successor, + there's a million other games when you can just walk around in a fantasy world killing monsters. This is not what made BG2 so memorable to me.

Now i know that apparently there are some people that are willing to turn a game with great story, great set of characters and great atmosphere into a hack'n'slash fest just because they love battle encounters and/or how AD&D combat system is represented there. Are these guys Obsidian's target audience now? If they are, then i wish i'd known that before backing PoE, because i had in my head that a game representing the "legacy of the Golden Age of computer role-playing" should be oriented towards, well, the whole role-playing part, instead of butt-kicking for goodness. 

 

I played BG2 the first couple of times the 'normal' way. Then I played a couple times with hand-crafted gimmick parties. Try it with a full party of kensai/mages. You'll roflstomp over everything. It's fun because ridiculous. Also the story and companions in it isn't really all that great; it's OK by porn standards I suppose but not so good I'd want to play it a second time for the story. The variety in combat encounters, tactics, and party composition OTOH does make for massive replayability. I.e. on subsequent playthroughs I did pretty much click through the story to get to the fighting.

 

In any case Obsidian's trademark is their writing, which you can already see in the BB -- I swear there was more interesting writing there than in all of BW's games since BG2 put together. 

 

@Monte Carlo IMO it's too early to tell if the combat is too fast; the main problem is the lack of feedback and critical bugs that turn it into soup. If it is fast I think the main problem is with movement speed, not with attack or casting speed. I'd rather have them clean up the pathfinding, AI, and character freeze bugs first and, if possible, add some better feedback, then see if it still feels too fast.

 

 

Yeah.. Baldur's Gate's story was never very good. I mean, it wasn't bad. But the draw was the exploration, the loot, the combat, and the characters. Not the story.

 

Planescape:Torment was the IE game with the story...

[Utukka]

Well i've been doing this too, just using different companions, different MC and while trying to role-play this a bit, too. Like making an eeeevil party with Korgan, Viconia and Edwin, or by mixing them with some do-gooders and seeing if they would lash out at each other. Don't get me wrong, battles were great in BG2, but frankly, they were great in many other games, too. I think that so many parts of the game were balanced and enjoyable is what makes BG2 such a great game. So great, in fact, that different people can enjoy replaying it for different reasons.

 

Probably i'm too harsh in my quest for what i see as pure role-playing experience. I'll just hope that there wouldn't be much dumb stuff in PoE    

Trust, I had many different playthroughs with varied compositions of the many companions available. There's not a 1 that I didn't use at some point in that game. The great part about that game was that it was able to provide an exceedingly good experience for multiple ways of play.

 

I'll say again...the 6 man random custom party is incredibly fun. It creates such a diverse party that makes you play the game in ways that you never could have even imagined. I remember rolling groups where I would get stuck with a fighter who had like 6 str, 9 con, 18 wis, 11 dex, 14 int, and 16 charisma without any other tanks and I'd have to come up with whatever other whacky solutions were available to me via the other random members. I even remember a few where I had 0 mages.....

 

Keep in mind..I played this way on the highest possible difficulty...I even had some of the more popular mods that made the game more difficult. I love a challenge.

 

I can't wait to play through pillars with their companions and explore every inch of the maps.

 

I also can't wait to play through with a 100% random party on hard with expert mode, trial of iron, and path of the damned on. The carnage will be great. By the way...I can role play to a degree in the way that I go about handling quests....I can choose to be "good" "evil" or somewhere in between. Don't have to power game it and turn into a butcher. Hell..I can even roll a dice for how I'm going to role play through the game...imagine having to try to be a diplomat with an entire party whos resolve intellect and perception are potentially all less than 8.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Utukka