Second impressions thread! [Build 278 version]

[PrimeJunta]

Am working so can't check yet... anyone see if Soul Ignition is still way OP? I have a hunch the overly-deadly poison may be related. If DoT is generally bugged, then your DoT effects will be as murderous as theirs.

If that's the worst thing wrong with the new build though they aren't doing too badly. So I guess for now... just enjoy the extra challenge, no?

 

 

DoTs are bugged man, Poison applies the damage way too quick and there's no "Slow Poison" to remove it AFAIK.

 

There is a "slow poison" I believe -- don't remember the name, but it's a priest spell that temporarily suppresses hostile status effects. Don't remember if I tried that against poison in the previous build though.

Edited September 4, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Sensuki]

BB Fighter down to 8 Health after 2 encounters, and only one Heal cast on him xD

 

dat adventuring day (ftr, that's with 3 characters front line)

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sensuki

[ctdavids]

Wood beetles are definitely the devil and spikey. Sometimes they apply that poison... sometimes not.  That said, I've got it down playing on path of the damned.  Basically send in BBFighter first and start off with his super defence move, likely also with the priest casting a defensive buff while everyone nukes wood beetles.  If BBFighter actually gets hit, I'll usually use my Paladin hire's ability that remove hostile effects for a period of time.  Note that if you actually get out of combat before that expires, the poison goes away and BBFighter gets to live.

 

Soul Ignition is no longer OP.  Its base damage has been ~ halved, it is affected by DT, and now has a chance to miss (none of which I believe was true before).  It now did something like 9 damage total in that first fight with the theives instead of their entire life pool.  So some DoTs at least aren't ludicrous anymore.

[Headbomb]

Poison and Petrify way, way, too overpowered. I'm playing on easy and these two constantly destroy me. It's not unusual for 3 party members to go down from crystal spider + 1 small widowmaker. If it's that way on easy, I can't imagine how hard it would be on hard.

 

(Which is why I'm playing it on easy till they balance the game better, implement better pathfinding, etc... That Medreth fight took me well over 25 minutes to finish, with 20 minutes spent on killing that stupid dwarf with grazing hits.)

 

Overall the game is much more enjoyable now that we can move around without fearing the game crapping out on us with disappearing items and worry about save/load issues. Now we can start to get a feel of how things handle. Many of Sensuki's suggestion for things like combat circles were implemented. Spell icons being updated to not use the same art is great. Saving keybinding settings and autopause settings so you don't have to reconfigure it everytime is great. Continue loading the most recent save is great.

 

Still lots of assets missing. Noticed several little tiny tweaks in lootable containers. A few were added (e.g. Winfrith shop). Several other lootable plants seem to have been added in environment as well. XP awards are also a lot more consistently awarded (I will maul the first who tries to make this into yet another XP debate).

 

Iteration is the MO here. The previous built felt like a dysfunctional alpha that was rushed for a deadline. Probably not super far off from truth here. This feels like a proper beta, one a lot more suitable to give feedback on systems / UI / general feel / etc... without running into frustrations that would make Gandhi go postal.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Headbomb

[Sensuki]

Yeah I got destroyed on Hard by that first spider group in the last patch, my PC went down to Petrify almost instantly, and game over.

[Volourn]

I'm just that awesome, I guess.

 

I play on normal, btw. I always play on normal first time through since that is the base balanced level as per usual game design. Still, don't know why poison/petrify is so dangerous for you guys.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Volourn

[Razsius]

I'm doing much, much better now.  Enemy AI or Crippling Strike is bugged or something as i'm pretty sure Hobble is a slow but it roots.  So I have my Rogue (with crossbow) root at least one target throw down a Warding Seal (AoE knockdown) or Electricity Seal and go to town (after pulling with BB Fighter).  Still... some of those spider pulls are no joke.  Think I just had a 8 or 9 pull. 

 

Poison and Petrify are no joke but you can suppress the poison with the lvl 2 Priest spell.  BB Wizard has an AoE dot that's pretty gnarly too.

 

And I don't want to hear it from those not playing on Hard .  Beetles and spiders are a joke when they come in groups of like 2.

[Sensuki]

Yeah slowly improving. I found out that Binding Web doesn't trigger enemy AI targeting so that allows you to get a whole ranged volley in. Also swapped some party gear around - gave the BB Fighter the Morningstar, gave the Priest the War Hammer / Shield and removed the armor from the BB Wizard (screw plate mail) and the Rogue.

 

Still had two party members drop to poison, but an improvement anyway. Also had some issues where Stone Beetles are permanently stuck in burrow mode, and never reappear at all. You can still target them, but since I was playing with Combat HUDs off, I didn't know the beetle was still there until I pressed tab.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sensuki

[Qiushui]

I just killed the beetles on Hard too.

 

The only thing that is actually dangerous is poison, which is so bugged it's not even funny. Wood Beetle 1-shot insta-killed my 18 CON Barb. No chance to even use an ability or heal.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Qiushui

[Monte Carlo]

Like others have said, combat is better-paced and far more playable. Encouraging.

[Sensuki]

I think recovery times are too slow. It's better than before, but to me it feels like playing the IE games at half speed - unless of course you mean Icewind Dale 2, which had less overall actions per character and (IMO) was way less fun.

 

They said they were aiming for the sweet spot at mid-level IE game pace, which IMO is good - but they should aim for AD&D 2E Pace, not IWD2 Pace.

 

Archers had ~ 3 attacks per round at around that level. Melee Fighters were the same. You could cast more than one Wizard spell per round ... etc

 

The Stock Wizard with Plate is absolutely terrible, he's so much better wearing no armor at all.

 

One thing that is probably confounding the issue is the weapon style speed penalties. -50% Speed for using 1H no shield, 1H Shield or 2H

 

I think it should be no speed penalty, +15 Acc for 1H single and half recovery for TWF ... prob also means recovery time would need to be reduced after ability use as well. 

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sensuki

[Helm]

Less bugs, slightly improved combat...

 

Game is still terrible for exactly the same reasons.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I found out that Binding Web doesn't trigger enemy AI targeting so that allows you to get a whole ranged volley in.

 

Fireball triggers but Blinding Web doesn't? Might be a bug with Blinding Web. Nerf bat incoming for Blinding Web?

[Guest 4ward]

I get hit by the beetles all the time. None of characetr usually die quickly. I lost to them once b/c I was being sloppy and trying to rush and spread my guys too far apart. Otherwise, they are challenge but easily doable. A little harder than the spider (though that crystal spider does good damage). And, the ogre is a joke. What a loser.

I think this is because the oger is part of a quest. These kind of encounters will always be easier since there's other ways than combat to handle it.

[Razsius]

I think recovery times are too slow. It's better than before, but to me it feels like playing the IE games at half speed - unless of course you mean Icewind Dale 2, which had less overall actions per character and (IMO) was way less fun.

 

They said they were aiming for the sweet spot at mid-level IE game pace, which IMO is good - but they should aim for AD&D 2E Pace, not IWD2 Pace.

 

Archers had ~ 3 attacks per round at around that level. Melee Fighters were the same. You could cast more than one Wizard spell per round ... etc

 

The Stock Wizard with Plate is absolutely terrible, he's so much better wearing no armor at all.

 

One thing that is probably confounding the issue is the weapon style speed penalties. -50% Speed for using 1H no shield, 1H Shield or 2H

 

I think it should be no speed penalty, +15 Acc for 1H single and half recovery for TWF ... prob also means recovery time would need to be reduced after ability use as well. 

 

I agree some of the recovery times are pretty ridiculous.  The worst one i've found is the weapon swap.  Switch BB Fighter to a bow, fire an arrow then swap to sword and board and wait till the next century before you can throw up his defense buff.  When you have an adra beetle, a stone beetle and a couple wood beetles beating on him this isn't going to cut it.  Also crossbow and gun reload animations seem to screw up ability imputs sometimes.  My BB Rogue can get locked into an idle animation if I tell her to use Crippling Strike when she's reloading.  When I realize she's idle and move her she still has to do the reload animation all over again before she'll even fire.

[PrimeJunta]

I took a very quick spin before work and... is it me, or did they also slow down run speed a hair?

[Sensuki]

Possibly. Beetles still charge at you at 100 miles an hour in combat though, whereas character move speed is slower.

 

Also when you pause during a Stone Beetle's burrow, they will instantly teleport to their destination upon unpause, therefore making their burrow instant.

[PrimeJunta]

Sounds like the burrow is bugged then. Don't mind fast enemies, as long as they're not all like that actually... looking forward to trying it out this afternoon/evening. 

[Ashen Rohk]

I'll echo the sentiments about poison - ouch.

 

On normal, no one died but my chanter took an absolute beasting and has a smidgen of health left.

[Sensuki]

Sounds like the burrow is bugged then. Don't mind fast enemies, as long as they're not all like that actually... looking forward to trying it out this afternoon/evening.

It's not just the fact that enemies are fast, there's also the issue of the space in the area.

 

So far, most enemies I have encountered have a very large selection circle. Characters are sorta larger than they were relative to the IE games AND areas themselves appear to have a much smaller scale than at least the BG games had - BG games had lots of openness in areas, whereas the IWD areas were more like tunnels.

 

Stormwall Gorge is pretty open, but the Dyrford Crossing is very tunnel like (at least as far as navmesh is concerned) and there are lots of bits of geometry with no navmesh that makes available space for encounters with enemies that have a large selection circle not very large.

 

Currently you can abuse the fact that you can see farther than you are meant to due to the fog of war not being correct and you can pre-position your party members to kinda block the beetles from getting through. Stone Beetles can teleport behind your lines however and if you're fighting in a space that's blocked by some rocks on one side, and a tree on the other, it makes moving through combat an issue which is HUUUUUGELY magnified by the fact that movement pauses recovery time - which I think is an absolutely terrible design decision, rooted from a turn based mindset.

 

Movement should reset/pause gun and crossbow reloads only, IMO.

 

TBH I reckon if they could possibly scale down the beetle size to be smaller - that would be good. Bombardier and Boring beetle size for the Wood Beetles, slightly bigger again for Stone and Adra - they're just too big.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sensuki

[Cluas]

I tried setting the ZoomRange to 1,20 :... It works nicely

And good we can now adjust the screen scroll speed...

[Fiebras]

Things are notably better.

The beetles are more challenging but I play on normal so Ive never had a TPK with them (except the ones underground. tight enclosed corridors with werid shapes kills the party.). The priest has a spell that increases resistances to all damage types as far as I remember. It helps to focus fire the wood beetles and knock them down as much as possible.

 

On Formations and Pathfinding;

I enjoyed seeing the party formation drag adapt to terrain and I was overjoyed at seeing that you can send your whole party somehwere with a click and with the whole party selected click on an NPC to talk to. The party will go to the first location while the party member chosen will go to talk to the NPC. I remember the whole party stopping while the lone party member went to talk to the NPC. If this was already implememnted it sure feels much more fluid and not a hassle.

Though there are still some problems with pathfinding, namely party members bumping into each other causing a bit of a seizure. In the wolf area there is a narrow passage between the ruins and the river. BB Priest and BB Wizard bump-slided into each other for 6 whole seconds as they tried to asume their formations and earlier BB Priest was bumping into BB Fighter as they ran across town. It was rather comical. I think pathfinding neeeds just a bit more work to make it perfect.

Movement in general feels much more fluid.

 

On Targetting:

There seems to be a new bug with targeting though. Cripling Strike´s target cursor never highlights for me when hovering over an enemy and th Wizard´s Fireball and other spells seem to need to target an enemy to highlight the cursor and dont seem to get cast unless targetting an enemy. Was playing on windowed mode though.

Will see how to replicate this bug and keep venturing further into this new version tomorrow.

 

Great job so far Obsidian!

[Sensuki]

Formations still aren't working properly after area transitions though. My BB Wizard moved to the first slot when I entered a building

[archangel979]

Cool and all reading all you bastards having fun playing the game, but can any of you take pity on the rest of us and start live streaming the new beta build?

Edited September 4, 2014 by archangel979

[Sensuki]

I would but I live in Australia, 1mbit upload = no streaming sorry.