List of Prios to Fix until the Early 2015 Release

[Seari]

How significant is this chanter healing aura?

 

@morhilane woodskin+nature's balm+moonwell+garden of life, sounds good to me. I don't like these AoE buffs in this game anyways.

[Elerond]

Wizards are somewhat good in 301, but I think they need bit faster casting or their spells need their power tuned up little bit. Of course we don't currently see one of wizards major advantages in BB, which is versatility in their spell list and ability to switch grimoires in middle of battle to get access spell that are better suited on your needs.

[Elerond]

How significant is this chanter healing aura?

 

@morhilane woodskin+nature's balm+moonwell+garden of life, sounds good to me. I don't like these AoE buffs in this game anyways.

 

It is minor

[curryinahurry]

Wizards are

 

 

 

Have you tried Wall of Fire?  With spells now critting, wizards can kick some serious tail.  They need more crowd control...but a lot of the problem with the class is the fact that a lot of their AoE is useless because of the current enemy AI (everything running/combat becoming a scrum).   I think the class will be fine by release...just not quadratic like some people want.

[morhilane]

How significant is this chanter healing aura?

 

@morhilane woodskin+nature's balm+moonwell+garden of life, sounds good to me. I don't like these AoE buffs in this game anyways.

 

I barely see people taking damage while I'm playing a Chanter, but I never really looked at the number and I still have to retry one in v301.

 

edit: There is a icon+tooltip now in v301. With Might 11 on my Chanter: 0.204 endurance per 3 seconds + 2.04 is what is written in it. 

 

The Druid's problem is more that you won't be healing anyone until you are level 5 when you get access to nature's balm, before that level  the druid is a mid-range damage/debuffer class.

Edited October 3, 2014 by morhilane

[swordofthesith]

I'd like to see a list from Obsidian on some of the major issues they're trying to fix and possibly get feedback on those issues. Have an open two way dialogue on some of the major issues and concerns that Obsidian have and get our feedback on possible changes and improvements.

 

At the moment, we have no idea what major issues there are. What are the major issues and what would be deemed as minor issues. And suggestions from people like Sensuki may be small issues that they're putting aside while they're tackling bigger issues. And that to me comes across as a little futile for some people who are giving great suggestions if those suggestions are being put aside and put into the small issue tray and then forgotten under the piles of other issues that come in.

 

I could list a whole heap of suggestions that I think are important but in the eyes of Obsidian, they may see it as small things.

 

Voted up for goodness. Great insight Hiro. Would be very helpful to hear from the team what they want the Backers to hone in on. 

[Matt516]

Gotta agree with all of your point OP, except the last one which I'm completely ambivalent about (don't care either way).

[Cantousent]

I don't want this to come off as nasty. Sensuki has done a lot of work. Matt has also.  In fact, a lot of people have.  I'm guess I'm responding to Hiro, and I agree with much that he posts.  However, I didn't pony for a game made by Sensuki, Matt, or Hiro.  I think their feedback is valuable and I hope they keep giving it, but I would be incredibly discouraged if Obsidz fawned over posts in the forums.

 

I think everyone should keep pushing for things they want to see in the game.  If they can articulate their desires convincingly, even better.  If they can provide a design framework like Sensuki or crunch the numbers like Matt, that's best.  However, Obsidz should forge ahead with the team's creative vision.  ...And, if they take even a tiny portion of what any of you suggest and make it part of the game, that's still quite impressive.

 

I figure that some folks will take this personally, but it's not meant to be.  If those who have done yeoman's work want to forge ahead with a viable game design, they can create their own startup.  With low cost retail options, increased ability to spread the word, and even opportunity for creative funding, indy games are in a golden age.

 

EDIT: And reading further into the thread, I see what Hiro really wants is for Obsidian to give us an idea of what kind of feedback would be useful for them, in which case I *completely* agree.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Cantousent

[Seari]

Obsidian asked for feedback, and they(we) are giving it. I don't see your point.

[Cantousent]

Part of me feels like to create a couple of threads, give some really good feedback but then I think, is this really important to Obsidian? Do they have bigger problems to tackle and see my suggestion as something small. Look at Sensuki's suggestions, the amount of threads he's created, the extraordinary feedback he's given, the mock-ups of U.I. design, so much stuff that a lot of the backers like and would like to see in the game. Then look at how many of Sensuki\s suggestions have been implemented. And I'm not suggesting everything Sensuki has suggested should be in the game. But there's a lot that I like. And it's not just Sensuki. There's been a lot of good suggestions from a lot of people.

 

When I read this, I thought the point was that people who have done a lot of work on the game haven't seen a lot of it implemented.  Yes, Obsidz asked for feedback.  Yes, people should give it.  No, folks shouldn't act like Obsidian is wrong not to act on the feedback.  They should act on feedback they find most useful.  I also owned that I had a different view of reading Hiro's later post.  However, while I might edit for clarity or to change a confusing typo, I'm not going to pretend I didn't say what I said, so I left my original post and edited a comment showing where I misunderstood.  *shrug* So, if complaining about my post help with feedback, I'd say go for it.  For the record, I still believe in what I said in my original post.  I think I misunderstood what Hiro was saying.

[morhilane]

Obsidian asked for feedback, and they(we) are giving it. I don't see your point.

 

I think the point is to know where to put efforts to give feedbacks has opposed to giving feedbacks without much focus on what the dev priorities are.

 

Although, that deviated a lot from the opening posts, which was more of a "your top 10 things that need fixing/added before release".

[StrangeCat]

I want to say stuff about music but naa.  (I give respect to anyone in the industry)

 

I would like to see better models, more animations, and darker atmosphere, dark and gritty...More adult. 

Dungeons are scary, it's damn scary to run into some spiders in a dark cave etc!

I want to see limbs fly from creatures, more creature animations.

 

I think the UI lacks charm.   Your artist could add a lot to it nstead of just having some boxes.  Add Charm that is part of the world.

 

Make the world come alive make your villages towns come alive. 

 

Make people want to be in the world and lose themselves in it.

 

Foley sounds need be to top notch.

 

Create another stretch goal to add more animations to the 2d art , like tree tops moving in the wind or the grass moving.

more detail to your world and vision.

 

Better icons of your weapons, there just to plain looking as they are. 

[Captain Shrek]

Bring spell UI back from NWN2. NOW. FFS. 

[Seari]

I would pay to see item sketches.

[Sensuki]

I didn't pony for a game made by Sensuki, Matt, or Hiro.  I think their feedback is valuable and I hope they keep giving it, but I would be incredibly discouraged if Obsidz fawned over posts in the forums.

Does it really matter who gives the feedback? Try to see past the poster and look at the post itself, and see whether you agree or disagree with the suggestions/points.

 

Some people can't get past that.

 

If I started a new account and bought a beta key and started doing the same thing in an unrecognizable style, people would be going "wow great job!" rather than "oh no not another sensuki thread".

Edited October 4, 2014 by Sensuki

[Uomoz]

Not really bro, it's simply that by sheer amount of posts it's easier for you (and others) to fall in the category "I don't like at least 3 things this guy said". It also doesn't help that you seldom use the words "y needs to be x" when you could use "x is better than y because z", implying that the design decisions are completely wrong, while most of the time the current existing features have (often quite obvious) reasons to be like they are. You do sound a bit rough while giving honest feedback, so its easier for you to attract both hostility and favouritism. my 2 cents

[Matt516]

(to Cantouset) Eh. I think I see what you're trying to say, and I don't take offense. I agree that Obs should create a game with their own creative vision intact, and that a patchwork game made from random disparate feedback would be pretty much the worst.

 

That said, I hope that we can agree that all backers (you, me, Hiro, and Sensuki included) should continue to give feedback on anything we think should be improved - both bug reports (objective) and design (subjective). I wouldn't want them to take everything any backer says and implement it willy nilly, but I don't think they're doing that. If they like an idea, they think about it. If they don't, they don't. Which is as it should be. But backers of all opinions should continue to fight for those opinions IMO. Obs is tough enough to ignore even very popular opinions if they don't think it meshes with their overall design goals. That said, if opinions are indeed very popular in the backer base (as many tend to be - mostly the UI improvement ideas and such), that does probably say something about whether or not they would work well in the game. A lot of other opinions (such as Sensuki and I's attribute redesign) tend to be more controversial, which I'm sure is taken into account by Obs when they're weighing popularity of certain feedback.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Matt516

[Sensuki]

I pretty much always state that whatever suggestion I make is one of multiple possible routes to take - particularly in videos and I usually always give a reason for why I don't like something. I completely understand the reasons why I attract hostility, but I don't really care about thinking about 100% politically correct wording all the time as that would drive me up the wall, personally. I speak plain.

 

Some design decisions I do think are wrong, most of them are on the right track and just need improvement for me to consider them acceptable for release.

[Uomoz]

Also a lot of stuff (after a brief look, even the inventory UI), should be easily moddable once the game is out. So whatever will not taste like some people want, there will probably be mods to change that.

[Sensuki]

I'm not too concerned about stuff that is moddable (such as attributes) but I am concerned about stuff that is in the prefabs - areas, abilities, items and the like because currently those will not be moddable, as they are a Unity file format. Obsidian is storing their TextAsset files in binary format rather than plaintext/XML so they're pretty much unreadable.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Sensuki

[Uomoz]

I do believe that with the right API hooks the stuff will be editable via mods. If they do release an API.

[Sensuki]

Yeah that would probably be the best option, although with a delay into March and then an Expansion ... an API wouldn't come out for a while afterwards I wouldn't think

[Uomoz]

They often add the API in late beta stages, at least for a lot of games I've modded previously. We'll see though, this game being on a tight schedule and all might push the API back indefinitely.

[Gromnir]

 

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.

 

it is good that folks give examples o' what they think is superior to PoE, but the bg examples does effective undercut the argument. if PoE had encounter design similar to the majority of circled bg wilderness maps, we would be extreme disappointed.

 

as to priorities, we haven't played the newest builds, but our main concerns now is same as they were before: endemic bugs & balance. well, actually, combat feedback were seemingly improved already and that were our main gripe. score one for obsidian?

 

no doubt the bugs is being addressed without need of Gromnir to identify each one.

 

balance...  balance issues is more difficult and somewhat subjective. as we has mentioned elsewhere, when we reference balance, am speaking o' balancing usefulness rather than power. sure, when power/powerlessness is so disproportionate it may impact perceived useful. attributes such as might and intellect is getting attention, and that is a good thing. am hopeful we see further balancing o' attributes. class balance would appear to need work. as we said, we haven't played the last couple builds, but as we mentioned elsewhere, the cipher were needing some adjustments. we personally were believing the paladin were kinda pathetic, but we were surprised by a few o' the player polls that identified paladins as a win class for PoE-- go figure. as we noted earlier, balance is subjective. one o' the drawbacks o' the extreme limited nature o' the beta is that we don't know if we is getting a good look at PoE skill use. one would hope that the full/final build has more skill use opportunities, and more meaningful uses o' skills. most o' the balance issues is also well documented, so this will be a matter o' seeing what obsidian does to address such issues.

 

gonna repeat about bugs. am knowing folks has told us that bugs is easy to fix compared to features, but obsidian, fair or not, has a reputation for buggy releases. there is no publisher for obsidian to blame for PoE being rushed, so while we recognize that a bugless release is impossible, we would be extreme disappointed if PoE were released in the same condition as a few o' obsidian's previous titles.

 

if the developers keep working towards completing PoE, we will be satisfied. am hopeful that obsidian does not try and make different game with the time they got remaining. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

Also, the feedback from the beta is gold. Not necessarily the bug reports - those are helpful, but our QA team has identified many of those issues - but we really get a lot out of seeing how people are playing the game. Seeing what people find enjoyable or things that are frustrating is very helpful for us. Keep in mind that, as developers, we don't always get to see the game in the same light as an end user. We try to put ourselves in the shoes of the player, but we have a different perspective on things.

 

 

This is my favourite post atm. What OE really want to see and hear is what we, as beta players, find enjoyable and (obviously more importantly) frustrating. They want our perspectives on things, on the player side, so that they can improve the game the way they see fit.