392 Discussion

[Nakia]

There are plenty of good voice actors.  Neither does OE need to spend a bundle on known or famous actors.

[Karkarov]

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.

Your video cards memory means jack all if the game is configured for nvidia cards not AMD and AMD doesn't ever bother releasing drivers that address performance issues on the game.  I was only getting 20 FPS in Lords of the Fallen and my video card blows both yours and sensuki's out of the water as does my PC specs.... strangely a game patch and a driver update later I saw stable 45-50 fps on the same settings.

 

You seriously underestimate how much effect driver updates and proper tuning of games effects performance.

[Lord Wafflebum]

I actually thought there wouldn't be ANY VO work in the game as far as dialogue went. I hope they didn't spend too much on it and it is kept to a minimum throughout the game. It has nothing to do with the quality of the voice acting for me, but I pay more attention to things when I need to read it. The reading helps immerse me more than listening.

[PrimeJunta]

I'm still having fun. Enjoying the combat rather than finding it a chore. Did not notice the stuttering and slowdowns Sensuki has documented in his videos. Either they're not there for me or I'm just blind to them. Playing on an iMac 27", considerably lower-spec than his machine.

 

I'm really enjoying the way they've opened up the builds since the start of the BB. Itching to try a completely self-built, or at least self-developed party. Some of those talents synergize nicely with each other, as do the spells.

 

I played a rogue this time, and made it as pure a damager build as I could. Noticed the nifty new Invisibility talent but didn't take it because I had already invested in Escape; next time maybe. My standard tactic was to use BB Fighter and BB Priest in the front line, BB Priest with shield, and both rogues equipped with pikes stabbing from behind their backs, with BB Wizard hanging back as usual. Priest doesn't fight much but the spells centered on her are much easier to use. I was much more effective against those damn beetles with this setup. Made it to the ogre cave without resting, then cleared the cave after one rest. Although I did abuse that Slicken spell; it really is too powerful as it is. Had to rearrange my party a bit towards the end, switching PC and BB Priest, because BB Priest was running low on health.

 

Difficulty Normal as usual for me on these "harder" builds. Up to my armpits in beetles as it is, I don't really need even more of them.

 

Both the fighter and the rogue have come a looooong way since the first BB. I found the former constraining and the latter dull; now both are fun to play and have way more scope for variation within their class template. Also digging the look of the wizard talents, many of which should support "gish" play rather nicely.

[Ashen Rohk]

Love the talent/skill do-over.

 

No stuttering for me on VO either. Rig: i5, 8GB Ram, GTX760, solid 60fps on Shadowplay.

[Sensuki]

The game doesn't have any 3D Optimization yet, so that's part of the performance issue. I'm hoping that when they do a pass towards the end, I get the same FPS jump as I did in the WL2 beta.

[Namutree]

Also digging the look of the wizard talents, many of which should support "gish" play rather nicely.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, but what is "gish" play?

[Sensuki]

Fighter/Mage style. I suppose it would be more fun if you haven't played for a few months.

 

The new Skill UI is much better hey, I did say it was simply the UI that was encouraging people not to invest in two skills, looks like that was the case afterall.

Edited December 29, 2014 by Sensuki

[Stilpon]

I really like how the game is shaping up in the little time I played the new patch. However, i got an FPS drop since the new patch and the game crashes after approximately 10 mins play time.

[Namutree]

I really like how the game is shaping up in the little time I played the new patch. However, i got an FPS drop since the new patch and the game crashes after approximately 10 mins play time.

It seems like every time they make major changes the game has issues running well; then the next patch is minor, but everything runs smoother.

[PrimeJunta]

More random thoughts I forgot to put in the previous comments:

 

An Invisibility spell would be rad. It ought to be dead easy to implement; just make it behave like the corresponding rogue talent. It would also be entirely in keeping with the IE game precedent. Or is there one in already?

 

Lockpick XP is derp. Won't comment on the other changes to the XP system because I don't want to get into that discussion again.

 

The ranger's and pet's shared health/endurance pool isn't working. Been trying to think of things to try that might work better, but have nothing I'm really happy with. Clearly the difficulty is that having a "free" extra melee unit in the party is OP. (Try playing SoZ with a party of druids for laughs. You will steamroll.) So something needs to be done to balance that out. Such as:

 

* Make Endurance separate, but Health shared. You can sacrifice Mr. Bear in a pinch without dropping out of the fight yourself, but still have an incentive not to consistently use him as a disposable meat shield. (Still gimmicky. Not sure if less un-fun. Might still try it.)

* Drop the shared health pool. However, if Mr. Bear goes down, Mr. Ranger receives a Wounded status (like you'd get from a CYOA interlude gone wrong).

 

The Mac version (at least) is a little unstable. Getting occasional freezes and crashes. Will start paying attention if I can reproduce them consistently to report them. At least loading from a savegame works as it should now.

[Luckmann]

[...]

 

Lockpick XP is derp. Won't comment on the other changes to the XP system because I don't want to get into that discussion again.

 

[...]

I wonder what they were thinking when they put in Lockpick XP since they don't seem to have XP for any other skill in the same manner, and specifically do not have experience for killing opponents. If they want to get away from the whole "grinding-XP", which it seems they want to, they really oughta can that again.

 

What other changes has there been to the XP system?

Edited December 29, 2014 by Luckmann

[Nakia]

I think they did it because lock picking is useful whether you take the non-combat path or the combat path.

[Sensuki]

They could just do obstacle based XP.

Edited December 29, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

Moar impressions.

Playing with a druid this time. Her crowd control spells are extremely effective too. Entangle isn't quite as powerful as the wizard's Slicken, but it still turns tough-ish fights into cakewalks. I like the spell selection a lot; nice mix of CC and AoE damage. The class feels a bit too powerful though, at least next to the slightly anemic BB Wizard. Will try rolling my own at some point to see if it's just because BB Wizard isn't built very well. Wiz and Druid spells synergize really well; Entangle debuffs Reflex, which most of wiz's AoE damage spells target. Crowds go down fast with those one-two punches. As with the rogue and fighter, difficulty on Normal feels about right to me, I do have to pay attention and, y'know, play the game to get anywhere, but when I do I get through most battles fairly nicely.

 

Length of the adventuring day feels about right too. I don't feel like I'm camping or running back to the inn all the time, and when I do I feel OK about it.

Murdered finished everything in Dyrford and am now in Pwglwn or whatever that syllable-soup dungeon is called (or, well, was fairly deep in it before it crashed again and I quit), and hit level 8. That (optional) climactic battle in the Dyrford ruins was cool but went pretty easily. 

 

The Mac build is crashy, though. I'm getting freezes and CTD's pretty often, especially on map transitions. No performance problems. The fighter's weapon focus/specialization/mastery UI (or the mechanic itself) is a little wonky though; I don't think I'm seeing everything I ought to be on the character sheet. I've somehow gotten Weapon Focus: Knight but Weapon mastery: Adventurer for BB Fighter. Dunno how that works. I also can't find what, exactly, any of those do, mechanically speaking.

 

This is the first build that I find is actually fun to play, even with the crashing. Will probably switch to the Windows build next to see if that's stabler (and if Sensuki's performance problems manifest).

 

Perhaps more controversially, at this point it feels to me like an IE game successor. It responds similarly, plays similarly, has similar scope for variation in tactics, builds, and party composition. It does have an IWD-ey feel in combat, but a BG2-ey feel in quests, the writing is not as wild and possibly not quite as deep and personal as PS:T but it's a sight better than any of the others, and the range and breadth of abilities, perks, spells, and items is broad enough to easily pass BG and nip at the heels of the later games in the series, which is pretty remarkable for a system built from scratch.

 

So, yay. I'm sure there's still balancing to do, not to mention a lot of bugfixing and optimization, but as far as I'm concerned this is over the hump. I'm having fun, and I'm having fun in much the same way I have fun playing the IE ones... with a good deal less of the stuff I disliked about them.

 

[morrow1nd]

Well yeah, that's because of "save or die" effects, of which Pillars of Eternity is not supposed to include. For me the per-hit damage of everything is too high because pretty much every attack is a hit and characters in particular just do not have the health to withstand long when getting pounded on by anything, even in Plate Armor. It's also kinda dumb that you can do 3 damage on a graze but 40 on a crit with the same weapon, I really do not enjoy the feel of that. That type of swinginess did not exist in the Infinity Engine games.

 

^ That paragraf should be taken seriously. Somethings just seem better on paper*

 

Not happy with the change to party member tooltips. When you mouse over the characters it no longer shows them above the characters, but above the portraits.

 

In v257, it used to always show above the characters only, even when you moused over the portraits.

 

in v278, it was changed (by request) to be split so that when you moused over the portrait it showed the character name, health and stamina there and when you moused over the selection circle it showed it above the character.

 

Now in v392, for party members it only shows above the portrait. Why is this change necessary? It makes no sense from a UX perspective because when you mouse over a character's selection circle you have to move your view to the bottom left to read the tooltip. I understand that a tooltip may obscure some of the screen in combat, but it disappears when you move your mouse away from the selection circle, and by default only shows if you leave the cursor over the selection circle for 1 second - and it's now transparent.

 

Every patch there is a string of unnecessary UI changes that make interacting with the game worse. I request this to be reverted back.

 

 

 

^ I disaggree it seems more manageble right now.

 

 

Damn, I wish PoE looked like this.

 

^ No i dont. PoE is the new meta.. u dig it..

 

I agree with Sock, those beetles are nasty and the size makes them look the part.  They come in different sizes too depending on the specie.

 

^ If you gonna play PoE you should learn to respect the Beetle Squadron!

 

How would it look like if the Beetles were like... you know... beetles. They are HUGE in Pillars of Eternity, magically radiated. Like Molerats in Fallout, mutated, big.

 

What if the beetles were like... small. Like beetles. Maybe not authentic sized beetles but, "bigger than feet"-beetles. Same thing with Spiders imo. Some times there doesn't have to be a "Special Spider"+"Big Spider"+"Some smaller spiders" in an encounter, some times something simple like "Lots of small spiders" can be an interesting and fun encounter in itself.

 

I'd like to see smaller ones that are weak, but they come in a pack. Harmless one by one. No Adra or Wood Beetles in the composition, only like 10-15 "smaller than gibberlings" beetles that charge at you.

 

Then again... in real life, the smaller the insect/animal, the more poisonous it can be (one of the deadliest poisonous snakes, tiny. Poison Spider? Tiny. Poison Frog? Tiny etc.)

 

EDIT: Small doesn't have to mean "This thing is harmless" is what I'm saying. 1 Small Wood Beetle could be extremely poisonous, it dies in 1 successful Hit, or 2-3 grazes, but if it hits you you'll be poisoned hard.

 

^ May be instead of QQ'in we should learn to adabt the hard encounters.. No oldschooler  afraids of challanges even when it comes from insects!

 

 

If I saw characters named Sensuki and Shevek arguing in a tavern in-game I would laugh so hard I would pee all of my pants. 

 

^ I WOULD JUST FIREBALL THE SCENE.

 

Both Sensuki and Shevek have made major contributions to the game and forum in my opinion.  Even their disagreements are productive and thought provoking.  I suspect they look at the game and gaming in different ways.  High level contributors get their rewards so why shouldn't a couple of guys who have added so much of interest be rewarded?  Who would even realize that they had been except those of us active on the forum?  Of course it is Obsidian's call.

 

^ Dear Nakia, for once write something less sensible...  !1!!..

 

I don't know, this build seems pretty good.  UI is generally better, leveling up is vastly improved, I am not having any performance issues (but that proves nothing considering my pc specs), challenge is maybe ever so slightly harder than it should be, and there are still some weird bugs/balance issues.  For the most part it is a step in the right direction though and a big improvement over the last couple builds.

 

 

^ This is the good summary of 392-bb..

 

 

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.

 

 

^ I have to disaggree to that. Place your beast at more tactical position. It's not a fighter or paladin that can carry the burden of heavy combat. Use it more cauitously.. be defensive or be more selective at targeting.. And for the Ranger damage i would say after picking some reasonbale talents/points..  its just ZOMG..i've tried it 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2014 by morrow1nd

[Sensuki]

^ I have to disaggree to that. Place your beast at more tactical position. It's not a fighter or paladin that can carry the burden of heavy combat. Use it more cauitously.. be defensive or be more selective at targeting.. And for the Ranger damage i would say after picking some reasonbale talents/points..  its just ZOMG..i've tried it 

You misunderstand. It's an even larger problem for enemy Rangers than it is for PC Rangers. The issue is that you should NEVER EVER target the enemy Ranger's Animal Companion, because it dies when the Ranger dies. The Ranger will usually have lower DT and always have worse Defenses than their animal companion, so it's easier to just target them and ignore the animal companion instead.

 

That's what makes the mechanic silly.

[Sensuki]

I have a larger piece to say about why the combat isn't fun and doesn't feel like an Infinity Engine game besides the camera/controls and art style, but I don't have time to write it now. More on that later.

[PrimeJunta]

I have a larger piece to say about why the combat isn't fun and doesn't feel like an Infinity Engine game besides the camera/controls and art style, but I don't have time to write it now. More on that later.

 

I find it interesting how our experience of the BB has diverged over its course. In the earlier builds, I didn't like it for much the same reasons you didn't like it and thought your videos and written analysis described the underlying reasons brilliantly. By now, I'm really digging it and you seem to be as unhappy with it as ever (and as I mentioned elsewhere, I think it's nailed the IE "feel" down pat, even, perhaps especially in combat, only with material improvements).

 

Would it be worth exploring what we're doing or experiencing differently in more detail?

[Ashen Rohk]

Made a video about the new/restored talent and skill system and a touch of the UI updates:

 

[Killyox]

I have a larger piece to say about why the combat isn't fun and doesn't feel like an Infinity Engine game besides the camera/controls and art style, but I don't have time to write it now. More on that later.

Feelings are subjective.

 

To me POE feels very IE in regards to art. Obviously updated and higher fidelity. Bit different angle but the feel is there. Combat still needs work but I entirely disagree on the feel of art.

[Doppelschwert]

 

I have a larger piece to say about why the combat isn't fun and doesn't feel like an Infinity Engine game besides the camera/controls and art style, but I don't have time to write it now. More on that later.

Feelings are subjective.

 

To me POE feels very IE in regards to art. Obviously updated and higher fidelity. Bit different angle but the feel is there. Combat still needs work but I entirely disagree on the feel of art.

 

 

That's actually what he said as well. He disagrees on combat and agrees on camera/controls/art.

[lordkim]

so if this is a beta and all sort of bugs are in here... just wondering, whats sort of bugs there is comming in the full game... THe beta is not a big part of the full game, but the kind of bugs im seeing people is  finding in the beta is not just system/combat etc etc related... its actually graphics and other sorts of bugs. there cant  be fixed in the org. game..

im curious to see the end result

[PrimeJunta]

Most of the BB bugs are actually systemic. Problems with animations, FX, things like trapped chests not working like they're supposed to, and so on. The content -- quests etc. -- is mostly all good, and has been from the start.

[archangel979]

so if this is a beta and all sort of bugs are in here... just wondering, whats sort of bugs there is comming in the full game... THe beta is not a big part of the full game, but the kind of bugs im seeing people is  finding in the beta is not just system/combat etc etc related... its actually graphics and other sorts of bugs. there cant  be fixed in the org. game..

 

im curious to see the end result

The mechanics of the beta are same as in full game. Any bugs found and fixed for beta are also fixed for full game.