I've been away from PoE and off-board since the end of November, and I'm hoping you folks can give me a hand at catching up with any significant news or easy-to-miss changes from the last two months. If anyone can help out, I'd be much obliged. Thanks.

No, read the forums.

Quick summary: 

 

1. New -- and last -- BB build is expected this week. The current one is already a bit stale.
2. Attribute system has been revamped.
3. Class builds have been opened up. You can now build a viable (even good!) ranged fighter or rogue for example.
4. Armor has been revamped. There is now only DT (now called DR). Unfortunately some of the beasts weren't properly rebalanced after the change, and in BB392 the beetles and lions in particular bite unreasonably hard.
5. Pathfinding and general flow of combat has come together. The game is actually playable and -- IMO at least -- fun in BB392 (at Normal difficulty, Hard is currently out of whack due to point (4) above).
6. Lots more talents and general polish added.
7. Release on March 26.

You should be good to go, just jump in with the next backer beta release if you have access to it.  Like Junta said official release is march 26th 2015 and it isn't getting pushed back again.  Once the final Backer Beta hits though tons of basically final info should be available.  I know I will do a final stats analysis vid myself and possibly more. 

 

Main points class wise to be aware of....

 

Druids/Chanters are OP, Rangers suck, and Barbarians are mediocre plus despite being tanks aren't all that good at it.  Everyone else is varying degrees of okay and or pretty much where they should be. 

 

Fair warning the forums as expected have turned mostly negative and not very many consistent long term posters actually have tons nice to say about the game and mostly spend their time bitching about things they want changed even though they know the game is pretty much done now and nothing of any significance is getting altered from here to release.  There are some good threads on mods though that you may want to take a look at just be wary of possible spoilers.

 

Here are some links to them.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69199-possible-spoilers-modding-thread-a-simple-mod-and-console-commands/

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69964-the-pe-ie-mod-thread-draggable-ui-now-available/

 

Also not to took my own horn but if you care about how to make a custom portrait check out the sticky threads.  Also the stickies are probably your safest way to achieve a general "catch up".

 

Final thing.....  Ignore anything Nipsen posts.  Just trust me on that one.

Edited January 26, 201511 yr by Karkarov

I could also use help getting up the courage to go on a date. Girls are scary. 

I could also use help getting up the courage to go on a date. Girls are scary. 

 

 Dude, just be yourself. Unless you're ugly or annoying. In that case, find someone better and copy them in every way.

Final thing.....  Ignore anything Nipsen posts.  Just trust me on that one.

 

All this has done is create an intense urge to find and read everything this person has written.

Edited January 31, 201510 yr by Dr. Explosion

Too bad for the bitching, for the game has turned out amazing. It will be an instant classic and as I see it, it is one (or more) step forward than the games that inspired it, a true evolution.

 

And this comes from a person who has those old games on top.

 

Pillars has much polish for a kickstarter project and high production values. All that remains is for the game to prove itself with an engaging story, since we have the fun gameplay part covered.

 

But the despite the bitching, I am certain Pillars will receive recognition all-around, unlike Wasteland 2 that allienated young gamers with outdated mechanics (and lack of polish)- don't get me wrong there, I am currently playing W2 and enjoy it tons, being a huge fan of classic Fallouts (1,2) I think W2 is a true successor, but I can understand that not many gamers of nowadays will find pleasure playing that kind of game.

Too bad for the bitching, for the game has turned out amazing. It will be an instant classic and as I see it, it is one (or more) step forward than the games that inspired it, a true evolution.

 

And this comes from a person who has those old games on top.

 

Pillars has much polish for a kickstarter project and high production values. All that remains is for the game to prove itself with an engaging story, since we have the fun gameplay part covered.

 

But the despite the bitching, I am certain Pillars will receive recognition all-around, unlike Wasteland 2 that allienated young gamers with outdated mechanics (and lack of polish)- don't get me wrong there, I am currently playing W2 and enjoy it tons, being a huge fan of classic Fallouts (1,2) I think W2 is a true successor, but I can understand that not many gamers of nowadays will find pleasure playing that kind of game.

 

Quality > Mass Appeal.

 

 

Screw the noobs. Give the sods a Happy Meal and roll them into the ball pit at McDonalds, they'll be just as happy, probably happier, than they would be at the Nobel dinner.

 

Edited January 31, 201510 yr by Luckmann

Regarding Quality and Mass Appeal I would like to remind that we backers funded the game (or at least most of it) by paying money way in advance when nobody else would (same for those that backed Wasteland 2 or bought it at least way before official release).

 

So I think it only fair that the backers' interests would have more weight than appeasing the gamer mass market. Games that do the latter only get bought as GOTY version with all DLC at half price sale, as far as I am concerned. 

 

In my opinion PoE seems to turn out really nice, I cannot wait to finally play it, and so far I consider my money well-spent.   

Edited January 31, 201510 yr by cmergler

So I think it only fair that the backers' interests would have more weight than appeasing the gamer mass market.

If you find anyone on this forum honestly claiming this game is being catered to the mass market and being designed for broad appeal I want you to tell me who it is.  Cause whatever they are smoking must be some real good stuff.

 

Suffice it to say this game has stuck to it's original design goals just fine and it is about as far as you can get from a "mass market" game.

All this has done is create an intense urge to find and read everything this person has written.

That turned out okay for me. Reading last four pages of this thread was pretty amusing. Reminded me of an old puzzle for primary school students: "Two crocodiles fly in the sky, one is yellow, the other heads northward. Question: how old I am? Answer (coming from one of the students): 24. Because when I start to talk gibberish, dad blandly calls me 'half of an imbecile', and I'm 12 years old"

If you find anyone on this forum honestly claiming this game is being catered to the mass market and being designed for broad appeal I want you to tell me who it is. Cause whatever they are smoking must be some real good stuff.

 

Suffice it to say this game has stuck to it's original design goals just fine and it is about as far as you can get from a "mass market" game.

It's not for the masses, but it will certaintly have more appeal to newcomers in the genre than Wasteland 2. Being that mmorpg-like combat mechanics and attributes, togglable options to address breast-feeding gameplay or the fact that the game actually looks good for a crpg, I believe it has potential to strike a note to them.

 

And that's what I like about PoE the most, it shows no fear to modernize a few, so far in ways that haven't been an issue to me.

 

One can say the complete opposite for W2- the game reveres the old gods piously, a fact I like, but then I wouldn't mind an attempt at modern adaptation like PoE does.

@Karkarov: Seems we have a misunderstanding here. My comment was more because of Constantine's mention of Wasteland 2 with regard to newcomers, and I felt motivated to point out what I did with regard to crowdfunded games. As I wrote, PoE is fine. I do not consider it having a mass-market focus.

@Karkarov: Seems we have a misunderstanding here. My comment was more because of Constantine's mention of Wasteland 2 with regard to newcomers, and I felt motivated to point out what I did with regard to crowdfunded games. As I wrote, PoE is fine. I do not consider it having a mass-market focus.

Oh don't worry I was merely throwing it out there.  I don't mean Constantine specifically but there are a lot of die hards on this forum that thought any deviation, and I do mean ANY, from Baldur's Gate 2 or Icewind Dale 2 was basically committing a cardinal sin and they try to portray Eternity as if it is some kind of MMO or something or has simple mechanics.  I played D&D for years and I can tell you straight up the mechanics of Eternity are not what I would call simple, if anything they are more complicated.

 

If you want the closest approximation Eternity is basically D&D 4th edition with more complex math tagged on.

Edited February 1, 201510 yr by Karkarov