392 Discussion

[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

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

 

Ok thx for the answer.. but i just think there have bin a lot of errors in this beta that have bin graphich errors...

[PrimeJunta]

Sure, but the graphics errors are mostly systemic in nature, not related to particular content. I can recall a few relatively minor clipping issues related to specific items like helmets, cloaks, and such, but mostly that's all fine.

[lordkim]

Ok thx Prime

happy new year btw !

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Played this for about an hour last night.

 

Probably the least enjoyable build so far. Creatures are insane compared to the party, who seemed to get a down grade, and I'm getting a lot of frame rate issues when I encounter them. Not sure how many more tweaks classes are going to get, but they need a lot of work.

[Ashen Rohk]

Everything to me looks crisper and more defined, not played extensively but a lot of the mesiness from v364 has gone, but haven't left the village as of yet.

 

I need to fiddle with the Ranger to see what the problem is but I did feel it was the least satisfying class all the way back in 257.

[Nakia]

They seem to have made normal and easy difficulty easier but made hard harder.

[PrimeJunta]

Just noticed they made the Stash available everywhere. Joy!

 

@KaineParker Which difficulty are you playing on?

[Luckmann]

Just noticed they made the Stash available everywhere. Joy!

 

@KaineParker Which difficulty are you playing on?

 

I think I saw that in a video, and it's just.. odd, to me. The fact that the party has access to a shared stash at-will that appears infinite is.. what's the rationale? A booming Bag of Holding trade?

[PrimeJunta]

I think the rationale is that inventory management is a drag, and more people want to be rid of it than enjoy it. I certainly fall into that camp.

 

The quick items plus weapon sets are enough inventory planning for my blood. I really don't enjoy shunting things back and forth between the inventory and the stash. I know there are people who consider that sort of thing an important part of the old-skool RPG experience, but I ain't one of them. I hate inventory Tetris in all of its forms and always did.

 

Either give me unlimited, self-sorting inventory, or limit it to only items I could realistically carry.

[Luridis]

That video was hysterical... but good info, I'm probably going to fire up my beta again. Huge number of changes since my last play.

 

During the video he walked right up and opened the chest and my thought was, "Is he really gonna... yep, you'll regret that sort of thing fairly quickly."

[Luridis]

Finding myself with the exact same frustration I had initially: Rangers aren't very good. To be honest, I'm not sure how they expect us to play them, I mean as in how we're supposed to be using them. Nothing but the bear appears to be viable. All pets engage in the front line but can't handle front line damage, except maybe the bear.

 

I don't know, perhaps I am doing it wrong. If there was at least some indication: Use this like a rogue, use this like a warrior... and well there are no ranged ones. I'll go back to a druid later, I had no trouble figuring out what to do with them.

[Sensuki]

It's just that there's not much to it beyond the concept itself. The idea is that the Ranger and the Companion share health so it's not just a free extra party member, and you're supposed to attack the same enemy for bonuses. There's not much thought into it beyond that, other than copy pasting of a few things from D&D, unfortunately. And yeah it doesn't translate very well into this game.

 

There's not much that can be done about it either. They will probably change the shared Health mechanic before release, but I highly doubt we'll see anything else. They pretty much ignored all the good suggestions on the board to make the Ranger better, so I think it's safe to say they'll be the worst class in the final game.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Sensuki

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

@KaineParker Which difficulty are you playing on?

Hard.

[Nakia]

I think the rationale is that inventory management is a drag, and more people want to be rid of it than enjoy it. I certainly fall into that camp.

 

The quick items plus weapon sets are enough inventory planning for my blood. I really don't enjoy shunting things back and forth between the inventory and the stash. I know there are people who consider that sort of thing an important part of the old-skool RPG experience, but I ain't one of them. I hate inventory Tetris in all of its forms and always did.

 

Either give me unlimited, self-sorting inventory, or limit it to only items I could realistically carry.

I am  also one of those who dislikes inventory management and appreciates have it  a shared thing.

[Lord Wafflebum]

The only thing I take any real issue with in 392 so far is stability, but that's obviously going to get fixed so I'm pretty ok with the build.

 

Tried monks out for the first time in this build, and now I'm uncertain if my first playthrough of the full release will be as monk or paladin. I'm having a lot of fun with that class. My only complaint is that my character looks weird in robes. They're much too big for his body.

 

I'm getting a much clearer picture of how engagement is working now. I've found my ability to control combat is significantly greater, but now that I understand the mechanic well I'm concerned it is a bit too easy to control combat flow. I'm gonna bump up the difficulty I think and see if that feels better. I think I might have just gotten used to this game enough that Easy isn't enough for me anymore...

[jones092201@gmail.com]

 

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 hate that ranger is ALWAYS a dinky ranged class with a dinky meat shield as the major draw. I don't know why crpg developers keep makimg it into this mmo class. Even the d&d class isn't like this.

Think of the rangers in literature- Aragorn, Drizzt, even the way they are portrayed in wasteland and fallout- they are rugged survivalist, more akin to josey wales and obi-wan kenobi than the beastmaster from (you guessed it) beastmaster.

The core concept is that a ragged stranger comes into town, somehow possessing a level of martial skill that seems at odds with their surroundings and apperance.

Now I'm not directing this at OE, the problem is deeply ingrained in modern RPGs (though not infinity engine games, ironically), but I'd really hoped they'd try something different.

And since the class doesn't work as is, and Santa forgot to get me a Ferrari, maybe OE could restructure the class to be more of a skirmisher/off-tank, someone with high mobility in combat, slightly less damaging the a rogue, but with modal tanking?

Truthfully, I know this isn't going to happen, and I don't expect it to, but ranger is my class of choice, and I hate seeing it relegated to unplayable.

[PrimeJunta]

 

@KaineParker Which difficulty are you playing on?

Hard.

 

That explains it. Hard is... unreasonable in this build. I tried it, and while it's not overwhelming it's not much fun; you can't get anywhere much without constant pausing. I've been playing the "harder" builds on Normal, and on Normal, IMO this one feels very good.

[Sensuki]

Hard is not fun not necessarily because of the difficulty/encounters, it's just because it exposes the poor balancing and design of the game more than the easier builds do. Creatures and balance should be tuned FOR Hard difficulty, not for normal.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

@Sensuki Why do you think the game should be tuned for Hard rather than Normal? Naively I'd expect it to be tuned for Normal, since being the default that's what most players will use.

[Luckmann]

@Sensuki Why do you think the game should be tuned for Hard rather than Normal? Naively I'd expect it to be tuned for Normal, since being the default that's what most players will use.

I was thinking the same thing.

 

Because.. y'know.. "Normal" implies.. well. Normal. The default.

 

I realize that it may very well be tuned for Hard and then scaled down, but if things are to work, they absolutely have to work as intended on Normal.

 

And I say this as someone that will definitely be playing on Hard or harder, because.. well, I honestly don't expect Normal to cut it for me.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Luckmann

[PrimeJunta]

This, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that in 392, Hard is out of whack. If you're regularly meeting beasties that entirely ignore armor thereby making it more advantagous to fight them naked, well, that's a problem.

 

TBH I'm a little suprised it's this hard to get armor right. It's not like it's being done the first time.

 

From where I'm at, the problem is that now we're dealing entirely with flat numbers. If armor gives DR 10, any attack which has DR bypass 10 or more will make it 100% useless. If we were combining a flat number + percentage this problem would not arise. You could have armor DR as a flat number (because easy to understand) and DR bypass as a percentage. If those hard-punching beetles had DR bypass 50%, it would reduce the effectiveness of armor by that much but never make it completely pointless.

[Sensuki]

I believe this is from last year.

[Sensuki]

From where I'm at, the problem is that now we're dealing entirely with flat numbers. If armor gives DR 10, any attack which has DR bypass 10 or more will make it 100% useless. If we were combining a flat number + percentage this problem would not arise. You could have armor DR as a flat number (because easy to understand) and DR bypass as a percentage. If those hard-punching beetles had DR bypass 50%, it would reduce the effectiveness of armor by that much but never make it completely pointless.

I don't think it would be an issue if attribute bonuses were in integers, like DT is. The main problem is just general tuning though.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

Yeah, I remember that. I read it differently than you though: I didn't see it as a reference to the difficulty settings, but the overall difficulty.

 

I.e., I assumed that they'd start by making Normal relatively hard, and then adjusting that down near the end. It could be I read it wrong though. It could also be that they've changed their mind somewhere along the line. Be as it may, after trying Hard, I get the very strong impression that nobody's been tuning that. If they have, I worry for their sanity.

 

I usually play these things on Hard or, lately, Very Hard or the equivalent, and Normal on 392 feels more or less like that.

[Sensuki]

Nah there are other quotes that Hard is supposed to be the BG2/IWD2 level. But I think that since Hard is the hardest difficulty without modifying monster stats, all creatures etc should be designed for that difficulty. As they said, then it makes it easy for them to tune encounters down.

 

I believe that since the area designers probably play normal, they're focusing more on normal. I'm not sure how Josh will go about tuning the creatures, I asked about it on SA though.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Sensuki