Suggestions for PoE From here on in

[Captain Shrek]

It's not okay, and do you really think that I am going to live with it ? Feel free to eat the bowl of turd handed to you and relunctantly ask for seconds, I'm ordering something else.

 

 

I am the last person who can be accused of this Sensuki. You should know better.

[Namutree]

I'd definitely prefer to see engagement removed, but considering OE has already stated they'll be working on it even more in the future. I get the feeling it isn't going anywhere.

 

Sensuki; maybe you should start a thread about your mod. It warrants discussion since it will require reworking certain abilities to be balanced.

[Sensuki]

They fixed one bug with it in their internal playthrough (the one where you can hit people with disengagement attacks from across the map), which was a really simple thing to fix (CanEngageEnemy just needed to check for isMoving) but they missed other issues with it.

 

The fact that they have overlooked the functional errors with it is a bit disheartening, UI is not the problem with Engagement. I'm not sure why they seem to think that obtuse UI elements will solve all their problems. Seems to be a common fallback for them when they're having a mechanical or animation problem.

 

So yes, that thread will be coming sometime soon I guess.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[Doppelschwert]

With enough people clamoring for a real look into a clearly broken system, josh will have to take a second look and a closer look. People crapped their pants about wizards, etc and josh took time out to read their thoughts.

 

He read their thoughts, explained what he fought about it for the whole time and did not change a thing because there are proper reasons why he decided that way in the first place. Thats a great example how people crapped their pants and it changed absolutely nothing, which was a good call in my opinion.

I think his time is better spent on working on the game and that people could be so polite as to leave constructive threads alone with their whining. There is enough threads in the forums to vent your anger.

[Shevek]

I could almost understand this incessant complaining (though not agree with it) when many people took issue with the combat. Now that its playing so well and numerous folks have recounted how much they are enjoying the game, this is just being obtuse and obstructionist.

 

I have no doubt that the feedback from their internal testers, who are not working towards their own agenda, is overwhelmingly positive at this point. The dev team itself noted that combat is feeling pretty good.

 

When things are working and feeling good, the last thing you do is start ripping out core systems with 6 months left to release.

[Sensuki]

It's not a core system, it's a side system. It's presence is not integral to the game like the class system, or the attack resolution system. It can be removed by deleting one method in the code, and the sky does not fall. It's clearer, actually.

 

You guys are the ones being obtuse and obstructionist, just a loud noise trying to prevent actual progress.

[GrinningReaper659]

This is a thread for giving suggestions to tweak, change or improve stuff that within reason can indeed be tweaked, changed or improved until the game will be released in spring 2015.

 

Therefore, I propose to set aside perhaps the biggest controversy in the beta forums, namely this:

 

 

 

 

"...add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale" -- I'd say it's pretty fair to state that this isn't the case at the moment. The fact that people find the current combat fun does not fulfill this promise, because they promised "the fun, intense combat ... of Icewind Dale." This is much more specific than just promising fun, intense combat. Those saying that it's okay that the combat feels more like DA combat or NWN2 combat are missing the point that while it may be fun for you, it's not acceptable in that it doesn't fulfill this specific promise.

 

In essence, plenty of backers - thousands of them - will interpret that Kickstarter like GrinningReaper659 did: PoE will have the combat of IWD.

As much as I'd love to have a new game made with that very combat, it isn't going to happen in PoE, and most likely not in its expansion either.

Also, if I play the devil's advocate for a sec, it only says "the intense combat of IWD", which certainly emphasizes the intensity of combat, and not the combat mechanics, per se. I and hordes of others will have to wait until a game with BG/IWD-like combat will appear - perhaps Serpent of the Staglands will be the first? 

 

I don't see my interpretation as a minority intepretation, and I don't think that expecting them to follow through on this promise should be abandoned. So, in your mind, they might as well have said "the fun, intense combat of Neverwinter Nights" or "the fun, intense combat of World of Warcraft" as name-dropping Icewind Dale apparently can be completely divorced from the promise? Is this not a problem in your eyes Indira? I mean, I think that you like the combat (which is fine), but that doesn't make it okay to just give a pass on not coming through with what they said...

 

If "of Icewind Dale" means absolutely nothing and could have been replaced with "of [insert any game with combat here]" or removed altogether, then it shouldn't have been said in the first place. I'm all about mixing things up and trying to improve on the IE experience, I was a vocal supporter of the removal of combat XP as I didn't feel that removing it took anything away from that experience (and they certainly never promised combat XP during the KS campaign, in fact they essentially stated it wouldn't be in during the campaign); but this is different specifically because they said it would be included. The only ambiguous part of this is defining what exactly constitutes IWD combat, but it's certainly a more narrow definition than "any combat that could be considered tactical," right?

 

 

I could almost understand this incessant complaining (though not agree with it) when many people took issue with the combat. Now that its playing so well and numerous folks have recounted how much they are enjoying the game, this is just being obtuse and obstructionist.

 

I have no doubt that the feedback from their internal testers, who are not working towards their own agenda, is overwhelmingly positive at this point. The dev team itself noted that combat is feeling pretty good.

 

When things are working and feeling good, the last thing you do is start ripping out core systems with 6 months left to release.

 

So, the internal testers don't have the "agenda" of wanting the game to follow through on its promises or they don't have the "agenda" of wanting it to be like the IE games? What agenda are you referring to specifically?

[Sensuki]

Everyone has their own agenda. I want fun combat that feels closer to the Infinity Engine combat experience, while not being the rules of D&D.

 

I too think that Shevek's claims there are a bit rich, for he certainly has his own too.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[Shevek]

@Sensuki

Great, so you decide what systems are central and what progress is right?

 

@Reaper

Nope. None of that crap. They dont read what they want into a single vague sentence uttered by the devs 2 years ago and then rant that the game isnt a carbon copy of some other game. They play, look for bugs and explain whether or not they are having a good time.

[Sensuki]

Are you trying to tell me you don't have an agenda? 

Your vocal statements of "it's fine how it is" suggest otherwise.

 

And you have absolutely no idea about any of the QA guys, what games they like, whether they played the IE games or not and what their agendas are. Everyone has an agenda - everyone. In my experience it's more common for people to not enjoy the games they work on than it is otherwise.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[YunikoYokai5]

Please don't fight everyone, you've had this argument on about 4 other threads already

 

Anyway, I've found out for backgrounds that there is one background that gives +1 athletics and +1 survival, but it depends on your culture and only the Slave gets it. Eh, I still don't like how with some cultures you get double skill pairs available to you (Drifter and Hunter are the same, for example). Hopefully the devs spruce this up a little bit. 

 

I also agree with redoing the level up choose skills/abilities. It is so hard to read for some reason! Maybe update some of the icons to the ability icon (if they affect one). Personally, I'd rather have them separate so I could ram my needed skills and choose my abilities after rather than have them linked. We have a team with us, surely we are going to have some characters that are terrible at detecting traps or don't know a damn thing about anything!

Edited November 28, 2014 by YunikoYokai5

[GrinningReaper659]

@Shevek if all they're looking for is having a good time (presumably this isn't the case) then they're not much use because despite what you wish to be true, Obsidian didn't say in their pitch that they were just gonna make a game that most people would have a good time playing. If they had said that, they would have had entirely different backers (if it had been backed at all). The Kickstarter pitch is relevant because it describes the game that Obsidian promised to create. I get that you don't like that and just want a game that the masses can enjoy, but that's not what this game was pitched as.

 

And the point of my question was exactly what Sensuki has been pointing out, everyone has an agenda when they open their mouth or post something on these forums or report their experiences to the dev team; you're not some sort of mythical exception and neither are the QA testers, myself, Sensuki, or anyone else.

[Shevek]

You are reading a level of specificity into their pitch that simply was not there.

[GrinningReaper659]

You are reading a level of specificity into their pitch that simply was not there.

That may be true, I'm open to a more lax interpretation than mine, but it seems that you and others want to remove altogether a part of the statement, which is just changing the meaning. Either the "of Icewind Dale" part of the statement has no meaning and shouldn't have been included (in which case there's no way around the fact that they're not following through on something here) or it does have some sort of meaning and that meaning needs to be defined. I don't expect or necessarily want a carbon copy of IWD combat (though I wouldn't mind it either). My expectation can be summed up by what Sensuki described as his agenda: "fun combat that feels closer to the Infinity Engine combat experience, while not being the rules of D&D."

[Captain Shrek]

You are reading a level of specificity into their pitch that simply was not there.

 

What do you mean?

[Sensuki]

His statement wasn't related at all to GrinningReaper659's post above, it's just a punchline he's started using. Acting as if the current combat was 'intended' in the Kickstarter pitch.

 

That may be true, I'm open to a more lax interpretation than mine, but it seems that you and others want to remove altogether a part of the statement, which is just changing the meaning. what Sensuki described as his agenda: "fun combat that feels closer to the Infinity Engine combat experience, while not being the rules of D&D."

Just a reminder you're talking to a person that preferred the Neverwinter Nights 2 combat, combat which Josh Sawyer himself has stated that required little to no tactical thought on behalf of the player. So there's an obvious discrepancy here.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[Shevek]

What they promised boils down to "feels." The level to which they reached that is subjective but they cannot be charged with failing to reach those promises in the current implementation since promises were vague

[Shevek]

You liked NWN2 combat Sensuki?

[Naurgalen]

I'm just going to keep harping on about visual clarity since this is an area I think is critical and should get high visibility on these forums (see what I did there?)

 

I've noticed that in effects heavy situations, not only does the visibility plummet, but the framerate does as well. Now it just so happens that the scroll speed of the camera is tied to the framerate. The net effect is just a visually indecipherable, stuttery, unresponsive mess during combat.

 

To kill two birds (performance and readability) with one stone, I believe a very different approach needs to be taken with effects. Instead of the current high fidelity, high realism approach, Obsidian need to go back to the drawing board and recreate these effects in a manner similar to Diablo 3. I.e. visually clean, cheap to render, yet still striking and beautiful. Note the excellent visual clarity despite much more going on than in the above screenshot:

 

The problem is not the "realistic" graphic style: Titan Quest, Path of Exile and many other games have "realistic" graphics and don't have the mess that sometimes I have seen in PoE. Most messy pictures have 2 problems:

 

1) Very high contrast (look at the webs for example, they are almost 100% white instead of a light grey where they have the most light. Other spells could be less whitey too.)

2) High contrast IN complicated textures is the real big problem of that image (reducing the contrast + making the webs thicker would reduce the complexity of the image, letting you see better what you want to see)

3) Little to non transparency (some effects, like the webs could be partially or fully transparent)

4) Very huge "status" effects (the "ensnared in a web" effect covers the whole character instead just some part of it -like for example the bottom half- & that, full body, is too much if you consider that the same character can have other fx that you must "read" applied at the same time. Another example was the blue mage shield in the demo video that they showed us some time ago. It covered almost al the character and had 0 transparency.

5) Most spells effects could also be smaller, and with improved identifiable "shapes"

[Sensuki]

they cannot be charged with failing to reach those promises

They can be held accountable for producing bad combat gameplay, although that is a tradition with Obsidian titles.

 

You liked NWN2 combat Sensuki?

No, but you did.

[Shevek]

Really? I dont recall saying that. I do recall stating that NWN2 combat wasnt the best but that AoOs weren't what detracted from the combat experience in that title.

 

But, hey, if you need to stick words in other posters mouths to make a point, have it. Throw in some childish name calling too. Im sure thatll really highlight your "arguements."

[Sensuki]

Not in the above post, yes-man.

 

Argument is spelled like this btw.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[Shevek]

I am "Yes-Man" and apparently my opinions are "dangerous" because I find the beta enjoyable.

 

Cool.

[generalkorrd]

I'm just going to keep harping on about visual clarity since this is an area I think is critical and should get high visibility on these forums (see what I did there?)

 

I've noticed that in effects heavy situations, not only does the visibility plummet, but the framerate does as well. Now it just so happens that the scroll speed of the camera is tied to the framerate. The net effect is just a visually indecipherable, stuttery, unresponsive mess during combat.

 

 

 

 

To kill two birds (performance and readability) with one stone, I believe a very different approach needs to be taken with effects. Instead of the current high fidelity, high realism approach, Obsidian need to go back to the drawing board and recreate these effects in a manner similar to Diablo 3. I.e. visually clean, cheap to render, yet still striking and beautiful. Note the excellent visual clarity despite much more going on than in the above screenshot:

 

Frame rate issues must be your rig's fault, I have no frame rate drops, and my rig isn't spectacular(anymore). I do agree that something needs to happen, especially with the webs, if they were to make all those effects only cover the feet/lower half, then I think you could still be able to see everything you need to see.

[Captain Shrek]

What they promised boils down to "feels." The level to which they reached that is subjective but they cannot be charged with failing to reach those promises in the current implementation since promises were vague

Sure. But that is nothing short of a copout. So even if it is true (which it only partially is), it is not a nice way to treat the backers. If they really did not mean to create the same or at least similar experience, then it should have been in the pitch.

 

A fair way to put it would have been: "We are taking the storytelling and art from BGs and the combat will be completely new experience". 

Edited November 28, 2014 by Captain Shrek