392 Discussion

[archangel979]

Is battle music going to be improved?

Compared to BG it is really bad and irritating.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Then just turn it off and play the Baldur's Gate soundtrack in the background?

[Karkarov]

Is battle music going to be improved?

Compared to BG it is really bad and irritating.

hmm thats weird I barely even notice it over the effects and such.

 

Also just to chime in, yes, there are too many freaking beetles.  With these numbers they should just march on Dyrford and take over the whole town.  Hell I made a new save, went straight to crossing, and there are so many freaking beetles it only took 2 pulls to get 100% on stone and wood beetle bestiaries.

[PrimeJunta]

:|

Other than engagement (I know we disagree about that), what else did I get wrong?

 

Played a bit more, this time with a fighter, through to the ogre cave. There were many, many spiders. Then I got a freeze when recruiting an adventurer and had to force quit. And yes, now this is fun, which it wasn't the last build I played. And yes, I like the way engagement works now, and am still having no trouble disengaging when I have to.

 

Also, that first-level oil slick spell seems a leetle overpowered maybe?

[Luckmann]

:|

 

Although I do agree about the voice sets, very sub-par.

 

I'm not going to be happy until we get voice sets performed by David Warner (Irenicus) and Jeff Bennet (Xan). :D

 

Thinking about it, Baldur's Gate/2 had some really crazy good voice-acting.

 

Edit: Come to think of it, I'd commit murder and sacrifice the carcass to the dark gods beyond the veil for a Xan-based voice-set. Xan is best character every year, all years.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Luckmann

[Sensuki]

Other than engagement (I know we disagree about that), what else did I get wrong?

Well having extensively played every build this one is the worst since v257, combat-wise for me. v333 was probably the best in that regard. The imbalance from the armor change and horrible performance just make it unplayable for me, so I won't be doing much combat testing this build, will mostly just be sticking to looking for bugs.

 

I also forgot to say - Ranger is the worst class atm. The shared health mechanic is silly in practice, and other than that they feel really uninspired. Big let down.

 

Some of the ability nerfs this build are pretty laughable too. Tenuous Grasp, which used to be one of the best cipher abilities has copped two duration nerfs recently - first to 10 seconds base, now to 6 seconds base. The spell does no damage, and a graze will now confuse a unit for a grand total of 3 seconds. If the intention was to make people no longer use it - mission accomplished.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

Well huh. I wonder if it really is working that much worse on your machine than mine, or if you're that much more sensitive to framerate issues, 'cuz I honestly didn't notice anything. Panning around is butter-smooth everywhere and I didn't notice anything changing when in combat.

 

Also, what's wrong with the way armor works now?

[Karkarov]

 

Other than engagement (I know we disagree about that), what else did I get wrong?

Well having extensively played every build this one is the worst since v257, combat-wise for me. v333 was probably the best in that regard. The imbalance from the armor change and horrible performance just make it unplayable for me, so I won't be doing much combat testing this build, will mostly just be sticking to looking for bugs.

What is your pc build Sensuki I know mine is like stupidly over the top but I am curious why you are seeing so many performance hits when only a couple other people have mentioned it.

[Karkarov]

Well huh. I wonder if it really is working that much worse on your machine than mine, or if you're that much more sensitive to framerate issues, 'cuz I honestly didn't notice anything. Panning around is butter-smooth everywhere and I didn't notice anything changing when in combat.

 

Also, what's wrong with the way armor works now?

They got rid of DR and changed DT to just be DR which means there are no longer percentage reductions to damage only minuses to raw damage.  So before plate may have given you -20% damage then another -12 on top of that now it just gives -12.

 

Also sorry for double post

Edited December 28, 2014 by Karkarov

[Sensuki]

The removal of percentile DR just hasn't been balanced yet. Everything does too much damage. Many creatures are hitting for 40-80 damage through armor, whereas pretty much all class ability and weapon damage has been nerfed.

 

Some examples of the performance hitcing

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69736-392-poor-combat-performance-microstutter-when-units-and-characters-die/

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69734-392-fps-drops-microstutter-when-selecting-characters/

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69747-392-periodical-game-hitchingfreezing/

 

I have an i7 870, 16GB DDR3 1600 and an AMD HD7970 3GB

Edited December 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[Karkarov]

I have an i7 870, 16GB DDR3 1600 and an AMD HD7970 3GB

Probably the AMD part.  I have seen a lot of games recently come down the pipe not configured well for AMD and AMD not releasing driver updates to compensate.

[PrimeJunta]

@Karkarov yeah, I heard about that. I was wondering how the resulting balance problems manifest. I didn't notice anything drastically wrong with the survivability of my armored front-liners.

 

(I also noticed the damage numbers for the weapons were different than I remembered. And that, apparently, pollaxes still don't work like they're supposed to. At least I wasn't doing any Crush damange on those beetles.)

 

Edit: Thanks, Sensuki. Reading and watching...

Edited December 28, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Sensuki]

It's not, I have an NVIDIA card as a backup (560 TI), I switched it over and I get even worse FPS (because it's a worse card)

[Falkon Swiftblade]

Is battle music going to be improved?

Compared to BG it is really bad and irritating.

 

 

Is it still that really irritating repetitive dadda da dadda da dadda da horn sound and over the top percussion that was in the first beta? I saw a 30 min video of this build but they turned off the music so I couldn't tell. 

 

 

:|

 

Although I do agree about the voice sets, very sub-par.

 

 

I did notice the audio as a whole hasn't been normalized so you had people with indoor voices and outdoor voices like someone with Tourette syndrome and it comes off a wee bit obnoxious sometimes, and yes the voices seem pretty uninspired and inconsistent, like some sound like they were done in a dry environment, while others sound like they were done over google hangouts. They probably did everything in one or two takes, instead of nailing it. They raised a lot of money for audio, other than a live orchestra which can be costly, I don't know where the budget has gone. Likely they got a couple A lister's that we haven't heard yet, but I'm hoping they'll have some better combat music in there too.

[Gladiuss8@gmail.com]

Voice acting in current state is horrible, they need to mix it some other way. 

 

When it comes to music 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CVVSJKod-I

 

I doubt if PoE or new Torment will ever come close.

[Karkarov]

I did notice the audio as a whole hasn't been normalized so you had people with indoor voices and outdoor voices like someone with Tourette syndrome and it comes off a wee bit obnoxious sometimes, and yes the voices seem pretty uninspired and inconsistent, like some sound like they were done in a dry environment, while others sound like they were done over google hangouts. They probably did everything in one or two takes, instead of nailing it. They raised a lot of money for audio, other than a live orchestra which can be costly, I don't know where the budget has gone. Likely they got a couple A lister's that we haven't heard yet, but I'm hoping they'll have some better combat music in there too.

All you hear for the most part is the PC voices which despite being more filled out still aren't "done".  I am sure most of the audio work went into sound effects, background music, and the companions not the PC voice sets.

[archangel979]

Then just turn it off and play the Baldur's Gate soundtrack in the background?

Only battle music is bad. And if it stays like that, I guess I will have to. And it will be -1 for any user review I will do. Edited December 28, 2014 by archangel979

[NegativeEdge]

 

I have an i7 870, 16GB DDR3 1600 and an AMD HD7970 3GB

Probably the AMD part.  I have seen a lot of games recently come down the pipe not configured well for AMD and AMD not releasing driver updates to compensate.

 

 

 

The AMD part is a 3 gig video card come on, this isn't a driver issue. For the record I have a 2 GB 6950 slightly OCed and won't be doing any testing this version because the performance is unplayable, stuttering, frame hitches, glitchy music and sfx.

I don't mind so much because hey it's a beta so whatever but there certainly are huge performance problems this build and it's not AMDs fault.

Edited December 28, 2014 by NegativeEdge

[Starwars]

 

Then just turn it off and play the Baldur's Gate soundtrack in the background?

Only battle music is bad. And if it stays like that, I guess I will have to. And it will be -1 for any user review I will do.

 

Ah, internet...

[Quantics]

I also forgot to say - Ranger is the worst class atm. The shared health mechanic is silly in practice, and other than that they feel really uninspired. Big let down.

Totally agree with you sensuki. Shared health pool makes absolutely no sense. I'm really not enjoying that class.

[Luckmann]

I have absolutely no idea how it plays in practice, but I must say that shared Health sounds odd as all hell.

Not just thematically - because I can't see that happening without some major mumbo-jumbo and literal, magical blood-bonds - but also mechanically; doesn't it lead to the situation where, say, Bears and Foxes will have the same Health, but also making it preferable to have something that is really beefy so it can take more punches, because if it doesn't, you die twice as fast?

[PrimeJunta]

I have absolutely no idea how it plays in practice, but I must say that shared Health sounds odd as all hell.

 

Not just thematically - because I can't see that happening without some major mumbo-jumbo and literal, magical blood-bonds - but also mechanically; doesn't it lead to the situation where, say, Bears and Foxes will have the same Health, but also making it preferable to have something that is really beefy so it can take more punches, because if it doesn't, you die twice as fast?

Yes, that is exactly the problem.

 

The less beefy animal companions have some special abilities that are supposed to compensate but IMO they really don't.

 

You could always tweak the numbers to even things out, but IMO that particular mechanic is fundamentally flawed. The whole concept doesn't feel right, or fun. I would consider dropping it altogether and finding some less conspicuous way to balance out the inherent advantage of having another toon in the party.

[Nakia]

I have an AMD radeon card  Model no.R7-260X-CD and have no problem with the game.

[Namutree]

I like the way talents are handled now. Much improved over the old system.

[Yonjuro]

 

Edit: Come to think of it, I'd commit murder and sacrifice the carcass to the dark gods beyond the veil for a Xan-based voice-set. Xan is best character every year, all years.

 

 

 You're asking for that in vain! What's the point? (Sigh) We're all doomed.