First Impressions (v364)

[Razsius]

Finally! A new build that gives me hope again.  I have to say I was less than pleased with the last build.  A ton of noticeable polish this time around.  Stats finally have some oomph.  Weapon damage has been normalized (which means might matters even more).  Accuracy is (sometimes much) higher due to added talents to BB chars and Perception giving +2 per point.  Slight damage boost to some spells (i believe) + new Might value...

 

Yea i'm a lot happier.

 

There are a few significant problems i'm noticing though.

 

- Combat can feel like trash or complete awesome depending on your accuracy values.  The swing between graze and crit damage is just absurd.  The attack resolution system fixed basically nothing compared to the IE games.  I'd actually say combat felt far less swingy in the IE games if you built your characters right.

 

- I pump Perception first then Might second on basically every character I create now.  Every other stat on any character takes a back seat to these 2 (Might is even more important now).  There are only a few minor exceptions.

 

- Game is a hell of a lot more relaxing WITHOUT the music.  I've never said that about any game... ever.

[ctn2003]

The sounds seem to be gone i guess their geting ready to ad the voices and rain? but so far i love this build of the game a lot more than the last :D

[Gairnulf]

I love the way they've added combat xp - killing a large enough number of a certain enemy type gives you one-time xp. I wonder if there are tiers, and more xp can be gained from reaching some further numbers of killed enemies of a certain type.

[Justinian]

The combat in the game feels much better than any previous build. My major beef with the visual pop of the characters still stands. While it's definately been improved from the first build, I think they need to do something drastic to fix this issue once and for all.

[Razsius]

Of course I say this and right after I notice a zone is completely missing and the other one I can't load into without a black screen.  I'm trying here Obsidian.. I really am but I seriously wonder wth your QA guys do.

 

 

Edit: Looks like black screen can be worked around by not saving and loading *cringes*.  But you definitely forgot to load the crossing in this build .  Oh there it is!  But seriously... why the heck couldn't I unlock it on the northeastern corner exit?  Well whatever i totally knew it had to be unlocked...

 

 

Edited November 27, 2014 by Razsius

[Sensuki]

The Dyrford Loading Screen has been fixed up, it no longer looks bad.

 

The eyes of various races have been slightly improved.

 

Wild Orlan Head 3 now looks pretty good.

 

Female Aumaua Head 1 has been beautified a bit.

 

Fantastic, character highlighting has been removed (possibly out of combat, when I get into combat I'll check,. because I don't even want it in combat) ... but they've done something strange with selection circles that doesn't look very good.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

Improvements have been made to the loading of 3D models in the inventory, it now appears to be instant, even though there's still a performance hitch when equipping, it no longer stutters. The LOD in the inventory also appears to have been corrected.

 

Portraits highlight a lot brighter, don't really care for that too much though.

 

Fine, Exceptional, Superb weapon damage ranges have been reduced. Fine used to be x1.25 damage, now it's x1.15 damage.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

This version appears to be a lot easier than the last, I killed Medreth without even an ounce of effort. Likely due to the stat changes.

[Sensuki]

Targeting reticles have been changed ... don't like them, even though they look elaborate. Messy interaction with the selection circles and doesn't feel that Infinity Engine.

 

I don't know how you can make two changes to how selection works that looks worse *shrug*, good thing we kept the source code from the other patches.

 

Woohoo my Barbarian suggestion made it in. Carnage now level 1 and a choice between Frenzy and Barbaric Yell

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

Lord Harond now has a voice over

[Sensuki]

The new targeting looks okay on larger selection circles, but not very good on smaller ones (like characters).

 

Adra beetle ranged attacks now fire properly (can actually see the VFX), and the hit reactions when you hit beetles and stuff play properly too.

 

Hey auto attack is in! Not entirely working correctly, but it's in.

 

The hidden weapon has been removed from the Dyrford Crossing tower ruins.

 

GUD VFX LAWL

 

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

I don't think monsters have per-encounter limits on their abilities, they just spam them over and over.

 

- Combat can feel like trash or complete awesome depending on your accuracy values.  The swing between graze and crit damage is just absurd.  The attack resolution system fixed basically nothing compared to the IE games.  I'd actually say combat felt far less swingy in the IE games if you built your characters right.

I agree, I really don't like it now.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Justinian]

The new targeting looks okay on larger selection circles, but not very good on smaller ones (like characters).

 

Adra beetle ranged attacks now fire properly (can actually see the VFX), and the hit reactions when you hit beetles and stuff play properly too.

 

Hey auto attack is in! Not entirely working correctly, but it's in.

 

The hidden weapon has been removed from the Dyrford Crossing tower ruins.

 

GUD VFX LAWL

 

 

Something DRASTIC needs to be done about visibility in this game.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Justinian

[Sensuki]

Look at this lmao

 

[Sensuki]

Who honestly thought this was a good idea?

 

 

If I am targeting six different enemies and vice versa that **** protrudes out from the selection circles of everyone it's only going to add to the visual clutter of the screen, which is already a severe problem for this game.

 

Just leave it as it was in v333 and stop making bad changes.

 

Also character highlighting has been changed to combat only - still not good enough for me, I want to disable it.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

Good luck to anyone who actually gets to Kograk on Hard hahah, there's a lot of spiders, and they patrol. Attacking them aggro's nearby groups.

[Sensuki]

 

More colors

[Shevek]

Weird, I didnt see the big crystal eaters when I went into the spider cavern. They must be in a group I didn't run into (I didnt bother with the Queen). I know it was on hard too. Spiders are easy if you don't bum rush in. The Ogre has 2 bear companions on hard but you can solo pull him and then down the bears.

[Justinian]

In terms of visibility, something drastic needs to be done in certain areas. Just look at the situation below:

 

 

Terrible unit visibility is caused by:

• Oversaturated and overcontrasted background. The contrast is so high the shadowed areas are almost entirely black!
• Grass being far too detailed. There is too much variation between light and dark blades, creating visual noise
• Grass overlapping units adds more confusion and noise

It truly feels like the background was rendered with NO consideration to gameplay at all. You're not rendering photorealistic paintings here, you're making a game that needs to support gameplay!

What needs to happen:

• Re-render grass to be shorter and less visually noisy
• Reduce saturation and contrast levels of background
• Implement clearer unit shading and rim-lighting, increase unit contrast

Now let's compare to a game where sensible decisions were made to the art to support clarity and gameplay:

 

 

I had high hopes for this game but seeing how Obsidian are neglecting the most basic considerations of gameplay this late in development depresses me.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Justinian

[Flow]

Good luck to anyone who actually gets to Kograk on Hard hahah, there's a lot of spiders, and they patrol. Attacking them aggro's nearby groups.

 

Even on normal, there's a comical number of spiders in the cave now. Good fun.

 

I actually like the targeting arrows they put in last build, but this new circle of arrows around targets is a bit silly. Hopefully they stop short of flashing overhead markers.

[Sensuki]

snip

To be honest the Pillars of Eternity picture looks much better than the D:OS one, however the bad thing is that everything blends into the grass - which looks really, really bad.

 

The D:OS version has terrible post-processing effects and looks washed out, but at least you can see everything clearly.

 

I actually like the targeting arrows they put in last build, but this new circle of arrows around targets is a bit silly. Hopefully they stop short of flashing overhead markers.

Yeah same there was nothing wrong with them, and they've wasted art time changing it.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

As far as recovery time changes go, it doesn't feel much different. My characters act a bit slower, which reduces incentive to wear any armor even further for anyone that isn't the Fighter.

 

I have an idea about how to combat this problem, but I'll probably make a separate thread about it.

 

Even on normal, there's a comical number of spiders in the cave now. Good fun.

Something I am going to talk about in my Codex preview is pathfinding, large creature size and small area size. And the increase in number of spiders will make a perfectly hilarious screenshot for it hahah.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

Weird, I didnt see the big crystal eaters when I went into the spider cavern. They must be in a group I didn't run into (I didnt bother with the Queen). I know it was on hard too. Spiders are easy if you don't bum rush in. The Ogre has 2 bear companions on hard but you can solo pull him and then down the bears.

Yeah I just made it through the bottom way easily enough, the top way is crawling with creatures.

 

Hahaha, dat balance

 

 

That actually shouldn't have been a critical either, because of the Graze and Crit range bug.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Justinian]

 

snip

To be honest the Pillars of Eternity picture looks much better than the D:OS one, however the bad thing is that everything blends into the grass - which looks really, really bad.

 

The D:OS version has terrible post-processing effects and looks washed out, but at least you can see everything clearly.

 

 

Yes, the D:OS art style is different and some people may dislike it, but it doesn't change the fact that the game was designed with visual clarity in mind, as every game should be.

It's not just grass either, it's Obsidian's entire approach to rendering their game.

 

What on earth is going on here? All I can see at a glance is some pillars, some rocks and a mess of visual noise.

 

Edited November 27, 2014 by Justinian

[Sensuki]

The Container in Korgrak's grass bed was removed in v333 or something hey? I recall there being one there in v278 or v301.