List of Prios to Fix until the Early 2015 Release

[PrimeJunta]

I have high standards and high attention to detail, but I think that's a good thing in this case.

 

It is, especially for those of us with somewhat sloppier standards. :salute:

 

The tragedy is that you're certain to be disappointed.

[Sensuki]

Probably ...

 

But I can make mods

Edited October 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Karkarov]

Same with the Dyrford Crossing really. There's a couple of okay encounters but for the most part less interesting than a half decent Baldur's Gate 1 area.

Considering most Baldur's Gate 1 areas were empty woods with nothing but a bunch of random enemies and sometimes 1 or 2 npc encounters I am not sure I can agree with this assessment.

 

As for what they do with the extra time?  I would hope they spend it primarily fixing bugs, improve the attribute system, continue to improve on combat feedback and feel, and work on the over all game balance.  Beyond that some UI options would be okay, but that's about it.  New features?  I see no point in new features until what you have now is as close to perfect as it can get.

[Kjaamor]

Personally, I'd like them to focus upon ironing out the bugs and incomplete/unimplemented mechanics that they wanted in the game. I feel that there is already a superb RPG in PoE that just needs ironing out in terms of what it is, rather than wholescale upheaval. I respect people (Sensuki) for posting all these suggestions and I agree with many of them individually, but I think that chasing such individually good suggestions runs the risk of both design by committee and (consequently?) playing whack-a-mole with the existing bugs and broken mechanics.

 

For example, I'm more than happy with the majority of the class (im)balance at present, the only exception being the Ciphers because charm skills as they currently work mean that the party does not have to fight. Even insta-gib Rogue and insta-wipe Ranger don't bother me because at the end of the day PoE will be a companion experience first-hand and if people want to run 1xFighter 5xRogue on their experimental playthroughs that's fine.

 

-Performance

-General Saving/Loading/Sight/Pathfinding Bugs

-Unimplemented pre-planned mechanics

-Nerfing the Cipher's Charm skills

[PrimeJunta]

@Karkarov yeah, that.

 

About BG1... again, just coming from an almost-completed playthrough (headed towards Durlag's Tower)... yeah, most of it really is nothing that special. There are cool maps and cool encounters there, but most of the maps are fairly empty, most encounters consist of select all, target, attack, repeat until dead, with occasional replenishing of arrows, and most dungeons are frankly really, really bad. Remember those cramped labyrinths full of kobolds around Firewine Bridge? I must've aged ten years navigating those with the fabulous IE pathfinding; the kobolds and traps were more of a distraction compared to that.

 

From where I'm at the BB map compares extremely favorably to most areas in BG1. There are better ones there, for sure, but then I'm pretty certain the BB maps don't represent the best of what P:E has to offer.

[Sensuki]

Considering most Baldur's Gate 1 areas were empty woods with nothing but a bunch of random enemies and sometimes 1 or 2 npc encounters I am not sure I can agree with this assessment.

Not quite true. It depends on the area.

 

Here is a map, I have circled all of the Wilderness areas I thought had good encounter design

 

 

From top left to bottom right

 

Cloakwood Wyvern Area

 

Static Encounters Baby Wyverns, Hamadryad, Wyverns

Random Encounters: Black Bears, Cave Bears, Giant Spiders, Guards, Huge Spiders, Phase Spiders, Sword Spiders, Tasloi, Wolves, Worgs, Wraith Spiders

 

This is the first time you encounter wyverns in the game, and it also has it's own area movie. The exterior encounters in the area are fine. Even the Druid area on the left had okay encounters. If you choose to attack the Druids. There's also Peter of the North in the cave with his baby Wyverns that the Druids ask you to get rid of.

 

Peldvale

 

This area depends on the stage of the game that you enter it. At night time it is filled to the brim with Black Talon Elites, and if you get a big spawn of them you have to be careful because they can drop weak party members in a single volley.

 

Cloakwood Nest

 

Good amount of Huge, Giant, Phase, Wraith, Sword Spiders and Ettercaps in the exterior. Have to be careful of Web traps. The interior encounter is alright too.

 

Spider Wood

 

All sorts of spiders and ettercaps and the Red Wizard encounter

 

Mutamin's Garden

 

Mutamin the Gnome Wizard and his Basilisks, more Basilisk, Flind/Gnoll groups and a nice enemy adventurer party encounter to the south. Sure you can cheese the basilisks, but you can cheese anything if you really try. I usually go in with a single Protection from Petrification spell and have that character draw aggro and have the others come in afterwards, rather than using Khorax or other things.

 

Beregost Temple

 

This is sort of but sort of not a Wilderness Area. The Hobgoblin band to the south and the Vampiric Wolf encounter to the north are good for the stage of the game that you enter the area (usually 1st or 2nd Level)

 

Shipwreck's Coast

 

Shoal the Nymph and her Ogre Mage, Ogre Berserkers, Ogres, Ogrillons, Sirines - pretty good

 

The Lighthouse

 

Sirines, Dread Wolves, Dire Wolves, Carrion Crawlers, Hobgoblin Elites (not including the cool Flesh Golem cave)

 

Red Canyons

 

Has a large mix of Bandits, Black Bears, Cave Bears, Dread Wolves, Ghasts, Ghouls, Gibberlings, Hobgoblins, Hobgoblin Elite, Skeletons, Wolves, Worgs, Zombies. Also has the Bassilus Encounter and the Named Hobgoblins. This area is fun at low level.

 

Lonely Peaks

 

Black Bears, Brown Bears, Cave Bears, Dire Wolves, Dread Wolves, Half-Ogres, Hobgoblin Elite, Kobolds, Kobold Commandos, Ogres, Ogre Berserkers, Ogre Mages, Ogrillons, Wolves, Xvarts

 

Also has a named group of Half Ogres, and a named Bandit group.

 

Firewine Bridge

 

The exterior isn't that exciting, moreso the interior and how you have to manage your party against the respawning Kobold Commandos, but the fight against Kahrk is good, and the Mellium fight can be okay if you come here at low level.

 

Bear River

 

Black Bears, Brown Bears, Cave Bears, Gibberlings, Hobgoblins, Hobgoblin Elite, Ogres, Ogre Beserkers, Ogrillons, Wild Dogs, War Dogs

 

Named group of Bandits, and the Ogre Berserker/Ogre/Hobgoblin Elite fight at the bridge is fun

 

Valley of the Tombs

 

Ankhegs, Flinds, Gibberlings, Gnolls, Kobolds, Ogre Berserkers, Ogrillons, Skeletons, War Dogs, Wild Dogs

Also has Narcillicus and his Mustard Jellies and the Ghasts inside the tombs.

 

Fire Leaf Forest

 

I enjoy this area mostly for the fights against Sendai and Vax & Zal, I think there's a Cave Bear as well and you can choose to fight Albert the Ogre Mage as well.

 

-----

 

Now keep in mind that Baldur's Gate is very open and you can enter any of these areas as early as you like, so nothing is really that taxing. The combat in the game is relatively low maintenance as well, but especially when I was new to the game, all of these areas were great fun. The problem in Baldur's Gate is NOT the encounters it is the lack of QUESTS. Most of the quest design is really, really, really, really simple - something which they improved tenfold in BG2.

 

BG1 with Black Isle quest design would have been amazing.

 

From where I'm at the BB map compares extremely favorably to most areas in BG1. There are better ones there, for sure, but then I'm pretty certain the BB maps don't represent the best of what P:E has to offer.

We only have three (exterior) maps to critique and there's a legion of backers playing these maps. TBH if after all the feedback they don't improve these areas then there's a problem. I don't think "they're the first areas we created so they should be the worst" is acceptable.

 

Unfortunately inXile took this approach with the WL2 beta, they flat out said that the content in Arizona won't be good compared to LA.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Kjaamor]

*Don Rose-Tinted Glasses*

 

*Examine Baldur's Gate*

 

*Remove Rose-Tinted Glasses and don Grey-Tinted Glasses*

 

*Examine Pillars of Eternity*

 

*Ask for much more from Pillars of Eternity*

[Sensuki]

I don't have rose-tinted glasses. I replay Baldur's Gate every year, and god damn right I .............
 

 

In the current patch, encounters in PE are laughably easy. Some of the Dyrford Crossing encounters need to be spruced up a bit and enemies need to be rebalanced.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Kjaamor]

In the current patch, encounters in PE are laughably easy. Some of the Dyrford Crossing encounters need to be spruced up a bit and enemies need to be rebalanced.

 

The current patch has made the difficulty laughably easy, I agree, and that needs work and will get it, but to imply that the maps themselves are the problem is patently false and to suggest that BG's maps and encounters were somehow wonderful is laughable because almost all of their encounters fit either into the "So easy it requires no thought" or "So difficult that implied party approaches don't work and you're encouraged to either summon spam or off-screen glitch them".

[Seari]

As much as I love the Baldur's Gate series, BG1 is just mediocre at best.

[archangel979]

In the current patch, encounters in PE are laughably easy. Some of the Dyrford Crossing encounters need to be spruced up a bit and enemies need to be rebalanced.

Didn't we ask for easy map encounters like in BG games? Because they don't give us XP, people asked that they should also not use up much of party resources?!

[Sensuki]

The current patch has made the difficulty laughably easy, I agree, and that needs work and will get it, but to imply that the maps themselves are the problem is patently false

Except that I did not do that. Your opinion here probably takes one of the statements (likely the one I made in this thread above) out of context with the rest of my posts on the subject.

 

BG's maps and encounters were somehow wonderful is laughable

Also not what I said, that's likely just what you imagined I said. Read the words in my post again.

 

"So easy it requires no thought"

The trash mob encounters are like this, yep.

 

"So difficult that implied party approaches don't work and you're encouraged to either summon spam or off-screen glitch them".

Absolutely not the case, although the inclusion of hard counters makes Basilisks useless enemies. What encounters other than Basilisks are so difficult that standard approaches do not work? I can't think of any.

 

Let's take a look at what I said again

 

Same with the Dyrford Crossing really. There's a couple of okay encounters but for the most part less interesting than a half decent Baldur's Gate 1 area.

This was in reply to the statement that the top half of the Stormwall Gorge map sucks. There are two encounters in the Dyrford Crossing exterior that are decent - the Wurm Hunters and the Menpwgra/Forest Lurkers (just Forest Lurkers for anyone not playing on Hard difficulty).

 

The first beetle encounter and anything with an Adra beetle used to be pretty good in v278 but now they're terrible and now that beetle mobs are fewer in number they will be absolutely banal encounters because the difficulty was coming from Wood Beetle poison which is not really an issue now, and Adra Beetles being really tough while also dealing out high damage.

 

It is not the difficulty alone that needs tweaking, the encounter makeups (on Hard difficulty, I am speaking solely as a player who plays on Hard) need some shuffling around.

 

The Wolf Encounter is now better, but it could still be improved further.

 

That is Area Design, not just balancing of enemies.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[DCParry]

I have no idea what exactly they intend to do with this extra time. If the listen to all the suggestions, they will redesign/over-design systems which they had already finished (at least conceptually). If they mismanaged their timetable to such an extent so far, I don't see what good is truly going to emerge at the end of listening to players tread over the exact. same. ground. for an additional 3-6 months (unless they delay it again, which at this point doesn't seem unlikely).

 

My impression of the backer beta (built partly on Obsidian's rationale for its design) is that it is such a minuscule slice that it can barely be called representative of the game. I fail to see how arguing about beetle encounters ad naseum is truly going to help. 

[archangel979]

I have no idea what exactly they intend to do with this extra time. If the listen to all the suggestions, they will redesign/over-design systems which they had already finished (at least conceptually). If they mismanaged their timetable to such an extent so far, I don't see what good is truly going to emerge at the end of listening to players tread over the exact. same. ground. for an additional 3-6 months (unless they delay it again, which at this point doesn't seem unlikely).

 

My impression of the backer beta (built partly on Obsidian's rationale for its design) is that it is such a minuscule slice that it can barely be called representative of the game. I fail to see how arguing about beetle encounters ad naseum is truly going to help. 

Well there is one big thing that can be implemented and needs more time to do and balance.

A toggle that lets you get combat XP or Not while playing the game. Something they mentioned as a only real option to solve the big divide in this community but one that takes a lot of time and effort (which they were not prepared to do so they were thinking of giving bestiary entries XP rewards instead). 

[Uomoz]

I do agree with DCParry about the bettle encounter thingie: ideally this beta should focus the feedback around the general systems (inventory, UI, leveling, stats, etc), not content (area design) since the actual content we have in the beta is very limited, while the general systems are identical for the whole game.

[Sensuki]

I don't understand why they shouldn't try to improve the encounters in the content that we have access to. Sure for some people it might not be a priority - okay fair enough but I think it's ridiculous to say "don't improve this content".

 

They've already altered them once and made the individual encounters worse, but the map feel a bit better to explore. How the hell are you supposed to test properly with underwhelming content?

 

In the actual game, your party will be much better equipped at this stage of the game and you will just l0l0l0l0l0l0l through every encounter here.

 

And @DCParry - how many things have I given feedback on in the beta? Expressing displeasure about less interesting beetle encounters was one of many. If you don't like my feedback or the manner in which I express it, feel free to use the ignore button.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeHydra]

I'm sure they know what their priorities are. I'm just excited they are being flexible on the release date, so that the game doesn't get released before it's done. That tells me they care about getting it right.

Edited October 3, 2014 by PrimeHydra

[curryinahurry]

I have no idea what exactly they intend to do with this extra time. If the listen to all the suggestions, they will redesign/over-design systems which they had already finished (at least conceptually). If they mismanaged their timetable to such an extent so far, I don't see what good is truly going to emerge at the end of listening to players tread over the exact. same. ground. for an additional 3-6 months (unless they delay it again, which at this point doesn't seem unlikely).

 

My impression of the backer beta (built partly on Obsidian's rationale for its design) is that it is such a minuscule slice that it can barely be called representative of the game. I fail to see how arguing about beetle encounters ad naseum is truly going to help. 

 

They just changed the attribute system, for the better in my opinion, and that sort of adjustment is bound to have a major ripple effect throughout the game leading to some serious re-balancing, tweaks to classes, talents, spells, etc.  We saw how much it changed the 301 beta (of course some encounters were nerfed), and that is just a small piece of the overall game.  

 

Personally, I don't think much more in the way of machanics needs changing at this point.  Most of the issues moving forward, after accounting for changes necessitated by the attribute system change, should be in adjusting class balance, encounter speed, and improving feedback.  A delay is disappointing...I am definitely not a fan of this news, but I also think that from the recent changes they just implemented, a month or two is not wildly out of order.

[IndiraLightfoot]

A couple of months is huge for the SFX department: I really do hope they get to sneak in alt sounds for the bows, the crossbows, the guns, as well as all the swords, maces and stilettos, and the various armour clinks and thuds. Please, let this happen!

Edited October 3, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Seari]

I have to say that the classes need a lot of work. I really hate per encounter abilities, esp. interdiction.

1. Paladin - the only class that feels right
2. Fighter - not bad, but don't go overboard with the actives
3. Cipher - a lot of potential
4. Monk, Barbarian - could be good
5. Rogue - too many actives, kind of a mess right now
6. Wizard - a butchered class
7. Priest - I really hate them right now, everything's AoE
8. Ranger - meh

No clue about Druids and Chanters. I might just make a druid PC, just so I don't have to take a priest.

[morhilane]

I have to say that the classes need a lot of work. I really hate per encounter abilities, esp. interdiction.

1. Paladin - the only class that feels right
2. Fighter - not bad, but don't go overboard with the actives
3. Cipher - a lot of potential
4. Monk, Barbarian - could be good
5. Rogue - too many actives, kind of a mess right now
6. Wizard - a butchered class
7. Priest - I really hate them right now, everything's AoE
8. Ranger - meh

No clue about Druids and Chanters. I might just make a druid PC, just so I don't have to take a priest.

 

Druid do not replace Priest, Chanter replace Priest (aka leaders of the band).

 

Druids are more like Elementalists who can shapeshift.

[Seari]

From what I've heard druids get a few healing spells and chanters don't have any? I was thinking of having a druid+paladin in the party to replace the healing of a priest.

 

edit: typo

Edited October 3, 2014 by Seari

[Sensuki]

Wizards are

[Elerond]

From what I've heard druids get a few healing spells and chanters don't have any? I was thinking of having a druid+paladin in the party to replace the healing of a priest.

 

edit: typo

 

Chanters have healing aura that constantly heals your party

[morhilane]

From what I've heard druids get a few healing spells and chanters don't have any? I was thinking of having a druid+paladin in the party to replace the healing of a priest.

 

edit: typo

 

The Chanters have Ancient Memory which grant a low level endurance regeneration to the whole party while in combat. They also get chants to buff/debuff everyone.

 

Druids gets their first healing spell at spell level 3 and almost no support spells right now.