The Insane Beta Battles @ Crossing

[Karkarov]

They should act like the other status effects. Once durations are tuned, just lower the damage.

 

Poison in IE was 1 hp / sec ... and worst case 3 hp / sec - Poison i PE is 97.5 / 15 which is 6.5 damage / sec

According to the combat log poison as it stands now is 7 damage a second.  I think they round up ;\  It is basically enough to take some characters from full stam to downed by itself.  That doesn't bother me in all honesty cause it still takes 15 seconds, I can get a heal in, pop a once an encounter ability, I can do something.  There is nothing I can do about the 26-27 (possibly higher) health damage I just took though.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Karkarov

[archangel979]

Well poison in IE was also really tough. Yea it did 1 or 3 damage per round but it lasted a long time and everyone had less HP and that damage could also kill you. But in IE, they had to hit you and misses were more common, you had to fail a save then (which you have a decent chance of succeeding) and you could stop it by easily accessible Slow Poison or Health potions or Antidote Potions. Or you could endure it through regular healing or healing potions. And there was not stamina/health system to screw you when combined with poison.

[Sensuki]

Second Episode is processing now, 720p and 1080p should be done in a few minutes:

 

 

I used the Pillar Karkarov I couldn't find it at a glance because it was blue. Off-putting because blue in the IWD/NWN games was a friendly only spell.

[Karkarov]

Well poison in IE was also really tough. Yea it did 1 or 3 damage per round but it lasted a long time and everyone had less HP and that damage could also kill you. But in IE, they had to hit you and misses were more common, you had to fail a save then (which you have a decent chance of succeeding) and you could stop it by easily accessible Slow Poison or Health potions or Antidote Potions. Or you could endure it through regular healing or healing potions. And there was not stamina/health system to screw you when combined with poison.

Very true.  The key issue is that just like with the stamina damage from poison in Eternity you could "do something" about all of that.  There is nothing you can to about the health damage in Eternity.  I think Sensuki uses the one spell to slow status effects in that most recent video to great effect though, it is obvious the fighter took much less health damage.  I would have loved to have seen a tooltip hover to find out exactly how much was taken though.

 

 

I used the Pillar Karkarov I couldn't find it at a glance because it was blue. Off-putting because blue in the IWD/NWN games was a friendly only spell.

Yeap!  It is actually a pretty solid spell.  I have gotten lots of use out of it.  The spell effect for it now is much improved as well and looks really cool too.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Karkarov

[Uomoz]

Damn, I didn't notice how cool the pillar spell looked before. Gotta try it again myself :D.

[swordofthesith]

@ Sens.

 

I noticed that several of your BB party members were running around in their birthday suits. Obviously to increase the attack/spell casting speed. So I booted up 278, stripped everyone except for the frontline BB fighter and just went to town on the first encounters most ass naked and PWNED the mobs without breaking a sweat. 

 

The way the AI is setup currently, there is no need for anyone else except the tank to wear any kind of armor. As long as you make sure the the BB fighter draws aggro, they will never ever chase down your naked magical/ranged backup party. You're much better of running butt nekkid. Hopefully Josh and crew start slowly cranking up the enemy AI to FORCE us to keep our party clothed. 

 

Pillars of Eternity 278. The nudist build! 

Edited September 4, 2014 by swordofthesith

[Sensuki]

That is my thoughts as well. It's completely pointless for any ranged characters to wear armor.

[Karkarov]

I found a picture of Sensuki's adventuring party.  They are in town though so the fighter is clearly in his casual wear at the center of the group.

 

Click at your own risk.

 

http://i.imgur.com/EE0smoW.jpg

[vril]

Just skip the combat, it is completely optional anyway.

 

Makes sense for a final release playthrough but one of the important things we are doing here is playtesting the combat.

[swordofthesith]

I found a picture of Sensuki's adventuring party.  They are in town though so the fighter is clearly in his casual wear at the center of the group.

 

Click at your own risk.

 

http://i.imgur.com/EE0smoW.jpg

 

 

Someone has to turn that into a poster for the current PoE combat mechanics. <3 Josh & Co. 

[Sensuki]

Try to remove degenerate gameplay and create degenerate gameplay with your solution!

[Ink Blot]

I found a picture of Sensuki's adventuring party.  They are in town though so the fighter is clearly in his casual wear at the center of the group.

 

Click at your own risk.

 

http://i.imgur.com/EE0smoW.jpg

Nice one! That looks like it's at AniRevo in Vancouver...

[Karkarov]

Nice one! That looks like it's at AniRevo in Vancouver...

I think they were at Fanime actually.

[MasterPrudent]

The placement of that lone beetle by the river is really odd. There's never any danger of pulling it into a larger fight and, as Sensuki demonstrated, it only takes a few seconds to get rid of it. It seems kind of pointless.

[mutonizer]

Makes sense for a final release playthrough but one of the important things we are doing here is playtesting the combat.

If that concept doesn't make you go "wtf", not sure what does

[Fiebras]

Id like to see how a party fares without the fighter there to tank. No class should be a "must have" in party composition.

 

There should be enough loot around the town or in stormwall to get enough money for a level 4 or 5 party member that can be in the front lines and with your own PC you have a second frontline fighter.

Barbarians, Monks, Paladins, Ranger Animal Companions should be able to fill the front line role in teams of two (albeit not as efficiently as the fighter) without the need of a fighter.

Id try it myself but I wont be at my PC until much later today.

[Sensuki]

Sensuki vs The Beatles Episode 3 - Chanter

featuring surfing on a Heater Shield and not_very_good Chanter playing
 

[Oerwinde]

I'm on easy and most battles kill me. Especially now that they made the mages wand an AOE attack, my party is wiped out within a few rounds by my mage's basic attack.

 

To be fair, I'm playing the same way I played the IE games, and I cheated like mad with those to make combat super easy since combat is my least favorite part of anyRPG and I just want it over quickly. So I just focus everyones attacks o one guy until he's dead then move to the next. Worked in the IE games, results in dead party for every encounter except single enemies in PoE.

[Karkarov]

Id like to see how a party fares without the fighter there to tank. No class should be a "must have" in party composition.

 

There should be enough loot around the town or in stormwall to get enough money for a level 4 or 5 party member that can be in the front lines and with your own PC you have a second frontline fighter.

Barbarians, Monks, Paladins, Ranger Animal Companions should be able to fill the front line role in teams of two (albeit not as efficiently as the fighter) without the need of a fighter.

Id try it myself but I wont be at my PC until much later today.

Just to throw this out there but Barbarians and Monks are also tanks.  There is no must have class, being able to clear the game with any party makeup you want is one of the core tenants of the game design.

[Monte Carlo]

I never think tank = fighter. A tank is any character configured to pull aggro / absorb damage so the others can do their thing to help the battle.

 

Typically, in a six-character party, I would never go with less than two and usually three such characters. In games like BG2 these would be any fighter-class, multi-class and sometimes even monks.

 

Am not sure about PoE yet, but the paladin, monk, barbarian and even druid look like they can be configured to step up and take their place in lieu of fighters.

[Fiebras]

 

Id like to see how a party fares without the fighter there to tank. No class should be a "must have" in party composition.

 

There should be enough loot around the town or in stormwall to get enough money for a level 4 or 5 party member that can be in the front lines and with your own PC you have a second frontline fighter.

Barbarians, Monks, Paladins, Ranger Animal Companions should be able to fill the front line role in teams of two (albeit not as efficiently as the fighter) without the need of a fighter.

Id try it myself but I wont be at my PC until much later today.

Just to throw this out there but Barbarians and Monks are also tanks.  There is no must have class, being able to clear the game with any party makeup you want is one of the core tenants of the game design.

 

I agree that Monks and Barbarians have the tools to "tank" (wounds, and self heal+stam/health ratio respectively) but Id argue that the fighter´s design is the one best geared towards "standing there absorbing all the hits and attention" and in fact all his abilities are geared towards this. Not so much for the Monk and Barbarian who have more options available to them.

 

But what Im saying here is that everyone has a Fighter in their team atm and we dont know how it is without one. Maybe the other "front line" classes are woefully unable to hold the line? Maybe having two frontliners is even better than having a fighter? Maybe the party does more DPS without the Fighter?

 

Maybe spreading the damage out effectively as oposed to focusing it significantly extends the adventuring day? Thats what im wondering here.

[Cantousent]

I made up my new character last night and I'm thinking about including a paladin just for tanking.  I figure I'll use him as my primary tank and see how he fares.  A lot times (resists temptation to cite MMORPGs) you really have to experiment with a class to get a good feel.  I agree with Fiebras that the fighter has the most intuitive feel right now, but shouldn't that naturally be the case?  The trick is to figure out great ways to use other classes to tank and ways to make your fighter pull some good DPS.  ...And, with a new system, it will require a good deal of experimentation to back up theory and number crunching.  Plus, I agree with Monte that having two tanks, at least one healer, and a variety of dps makes for the easiest way to play the game.  We'll get into ways to finesse the game without standard compositions as we play.

 

EDIT:  Sadly, I won't get to play the new character until tonight, but I'm looking forward to comparing my results to what I've read here.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Cantousent

[ctdavids]

So normally I have only a little trouble with the beetles and, when I do, it has to do with the wood beetle poison.  But I just had a really weird experience.  There was one lone Adra beetle left over from a pull that I'd missed and I came back with 6 chars at full health and with the +2 room bonuses.  I attacked and, I'll admit, wasn't being super concerned (despite playing on PoD which I always do) and didn't cast any priest buffs.  Then, the Adra beetle wiped the floor with my entire party. All 6 of them.  It was hitting BB fighter for 40 points per attack and obviously more on the others.

 

I'm not sure if it was something completely unusual or if it had to do with my trying to use the fine brigandine instead of the plate armour he normally starts with (the brigandine has a higher charsheet DT, but maybe plate mail isn't piereced by piercing damage?).  I don't know.  But it was weird.

 

Sadly I was playing on Trial of Iron this time around to see if that would avoid some of the weirdness in stats, etc. so I can't just repeat the fight.

 

That was one buff beetle.

[mutonizer]

Can't wait for the "The Insane Beta Battles @ Spider Cave"

[Qiushui]

Been TPW'ed by the Crystal Spider twice already on hard.