Path of the Damned Video [435]

[aeonsim]

If your interested in seeing what PoD looks like in the Beta compared to the easier difficulties, but don't want to try playing it here is about 1.5hrs of video showing it. Path of the Damned has the full enemy group sizes and all enemies have better statistics (might be a level or two higher).

 

I take out Medreth's party, two groups of Beatles, the Wolves, Drakes, Bandit party, half the Spiders & the Ogre + his Bears.

 

Party is:

PC Wizard

Custom Cipher

Custom Druid

BB Fighter

BB Priest

BB Rogue

 

The video has had a few bits cut out where I tried someone more experimental tactics (and plain failed a couple of times, bloody Adra beatle), but there is still a party wipe or two in there. Note I pause a lot on PoD so don't expect particularly fluid combat.

 

In general I'm not finding PoD too hard, some of the bigger fights can result in a couple of party wipes but it's fairly fun, at least for a party with a lot of spell casters.

 

I'd be interested to see the same thing done by people who play with more melee or less magic focused parties, so if you do please stick up a video so I can see how it compares.

 

Note the description has Jump points to allow you to skip to each of the fights.

 

Edited February 7, 2015 by aeonsim

[TrueMenace]

2 hours is a bit too long, but I would enjoy if you edited some commentary for the battles? How about that?

Edited February 7, 2015 by TrueMenace

[Falkon Swiftblade]

will there be a 1080p version? watching now.

[aeonsim]

Maybe if I've got time this weekend, in the meantime I'd recommend skimming or jumping it's pretty clear when the fights start.

The Ogre + Bears fight is up separately:

[aeonsim]

will there be a 1080p version? watching now.

 

Unfortunately the transcoding software only supported 720P.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

ok, its still good enough.

[aeonsim]

2 hours is a bit too long, but I would enjoy if you edited some commentary for the battles? How about that?

 

I'll add Jump points for the different fights check the video description.

[Sensuki]

That looks like it would be a lot more fun if you didn't run out of spells after 2 enounters.

 

In contrast, classes with replenishing resources - Cipher, Chanter, Monk seem like they would scale very well into PotD.

 

The spell limitations of Wizards, Priests and Druids kind of holds you back a bit.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Sensuki

[aeonsim]

That looks like it would be a lot more fun if you didn't run out of spells after 2 enounters.

 

In contrast, classes with replenishing resources - Cipher, Chanter, Monk seem like they would scale very well into PotD.

 

The spell limitations of Wizards, Priests and Druids kind of holds you back a bit.

 

True to a degree I don't always need to rest so often, I could have gone through the beatles, wolves, outdoors spiders, and both lots of Drakes with out resting if I wanted. I'd need to build the party differently though to do more than that Chanter, Cipher, Paladin, Monk, Fighter, Rogue might work.

[aeonsim]

2 hours is a bit too long, but I would enjoy if you edited some commentary for the battles? How about that?

 

Check out the description on you tube it's got jump points to each fight now.

[Sensuki]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Wizards and Druids have some great spells (Wizards also have quite a few duds), but the vancian-style magic system doesn't really scale that well for PotD.

 

I will probably play the game on PotD eventually but since the difficulty level is simply a byproduct of the others, I don't really see the point in me testing on it personally, as any changes made to Easy/Normal/Hard will influence PotD.

 

If you're playing for fun though - sure, why not.

 

You should maybe give a Barbarian a crack too, on this build in particular with the broken Interrupt - go like Max Intellect, Max Perception and interrupt every enemy within a fairly large AoE - it's pretty lafs.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Sensuki

[aeonsim]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Wizards and Druids have some great spells (Wizards also have quite a few duds), but the vancian-style magic system doesn't really scale that well for PotD.

 

I will probably play the game on PotD eventually but since the difficulty level is simply a byproduct of the others, I don't really see the point in me testing on it personally, as any changes made to Easy/Normal/Hard will influence PotD.

 

If you're playing for fun though - sure, why not.

 

You should maybe give a Barbarian a crack too, on this build in particular with the broken Interrupt - go like Max Intellect, Max Perception and interrupt every enemy within a fairly large AoE - it's pretty lafs.

 

Yeah I've tried Barbarians before they were all right when they came in after the fighter engaged, but with this version they should be a lot better for the reasons you've mentioned.

Note there are something like 10 encounters in the video and I rest 3 times, which isn't terrible. I could easily have cleaned out the rest of the spiders in the cave (except for the queen) with out needing another rest or gone down into the temple it's pretty easy to fight your way through half that dungeon with out using spells even on PoD and I had enough health after the Ogre to do so.

Edited February 7, 2015 by aeonsim

[Sensuki]

Well, if you're talking about how many encounters you get out of a rest in comparison to the Infinity Engine games (without rest spamming) even on higher difficulties such as Insane/SCS Mod then it's still a bit low IMO.

 

I'm finding that the amount of encounters you get out of a rest on Hard is a bit low too, so perhaps character health values could be a bit higher to facilitate longer adventuring days.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Sensuki

[Bazy]

It made me sad when you left the inn without an inn buff. 

Edited February 7, 2015 by Bazy

[Anaeme]

If your interested in seeing what PoD looks like in the Beta compared to the easier difficulties, but don't want to try playing it here is about 1.5hrs of video showing it. Path of the Damned has the full enemy group sizes and all enemies have better statistics (might be a level or two higher).

 

I take out Medreth's party, two groups of Beatles, the Wolves, Drakes, Bandit party, half the Spiders & the Ogre + his Bears.

 

Party is:

PC Wizard

Custom Cipher

Custom Druid

BB Fighter

BB Priest

BB Rogue

 

The video has had a few bits cut out where I tried someone more experimental tactics (and plain failed a couple of times, bloody Adra beatle), but there is still a party wipe or two in there. Note I pause a lot on PoD so don't expect particularly fluid combat.

 

In general I'm not finding PoD too hard, some of the bigger fights can result in a couple of party wipes but it's fairly fun, at least for a party with a lot of spell casters.

 

I'd be interested to see the same thing done by people who play with more melee or less magic focused parties, so if you do please stick up a video so I can see how it compares.

 

Note the description has Jump points to allow you to skip to each of the fights.

 

 

Damn...game cant be fun if you have to pause this much

[aeonsim]

Damn...game cant be fun if you have to pause this much

 

 

I still enjoy it as I said I pause like crazy and you don't really need to pause that much you can instead slow the game down. This is also Path of the Damned the hardest possibly difficulty on the easier difficulties you don't need to pause nearly as much.

 

Also I'm uploading a video where I play with a melee focused party Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Chanter & Ranger, they've got a lot less active abilities and require a lot less pausing to manage.

[aeonsim]

Right had a go with a melee focused party this time using:

PC Paladin

BB Fighter

Monk

Barbarian

Chanter

Ranger

 

It's interesting how it changes things some fights become a lot easier the beetles and the party fights aren't even a challenge, while the Ogre & bears are a lot harder. With this sort of party you don't need to rest as much as well. Surprisingly the lack of healing (no priest) wasn't much of an issue between the Chanters constant endurance and the larger amounts of endurance/health the classes have and there better defences you don't need to heal anywhere near as much. Apart from the Ogre all the other fights are much easier and quicker.

 

This ones in 1080P, and there are links to jump to each of the fights in the description of the video.

[aeonsim]

So I've been trying to see exactly what the difference is for each difficulty level, to get a better idea of what is happening in the game.

So as the devs described it going from Easy > Normal > Hard has little effect on the enemy stats.
If we take for an example a wood beetle at all these difficult levels they have a Deflection of 33 and Accuracy of 51.
However the number of enemies changes from level to level.
So if we look at the area south of the road at Dyrford Crossing before it curves up this is what happens:
Easy: 1 Stone Beetle (SB), 4 Wood Beetles (WB)
Normal: 3 SB, 4 WB
Hard: 1 Adra Beetle (AB), 2 SB, 4 WB

Now if we change to Path of the Damned the numbers increase again, but also the stats increase the wood beetles which were 33DEF, 51ACC -> 48DEF, 66ACC for a 45% increase in DEF & 30% increase in ACC.
Secondly the numbers change again:
PoD: 1 AB, 3 SB, 4 WB

It seem they get the max number of each enemy type that has been present in the previous difficulties, the result is each enemy is harder to hit, finds it easier to hit you and there are slightly more of them .
For the various enemies I've looked at the range of Def increases is 20-50% and the ACC improvement in the range of 25-40%

Other examples:
Inside the Caves all Spiders up to Korgraks area:
Easy, 7 total: 1 Ivory Spinner (IS), 1 Ivory Spinner Spiderling (ISS), 3 WidowMakers (WM), 2 WidowMaker Spiderlings (WMS)
Normal, 22 total: 6 IS, 3 ISL, 4 WM, 9 WMS
Hard, 29 total: 8 IS, 6 ISL, 6 WM, 9 WMS
PoD, 31 total: 8 IS, 6 ISL, 8 MW, 9 WMS
With each individual having about 40% more Def and ACC

Krograk:
Easy: Krograk
Normal: Krograk, 3 Bears (B)
Hard: Krograk, 2 Elder Bears (EB)
PoD: Krograk, 2 EB, 3 B
With each individual gaining about 30% additional Def and ACC, the elder Bears end up going from 87 ACC to 106 ACC.

Anyway it makes for a very substantial increase in difficulty going from Hard to PoD, as well as a more interesting difficulty scale rather than just having all the enemies attribute adjusted by 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0x for Easy, Normal, Hard and PoD. In general as you increase the difficulty you need to use new tactics as the number and types of enemies change, while once you get to PoD you've got that plus all the enemies get stronger so you've got to change the tactics and play much more efficiently to survive the stronger enemies. Also strategically you've got less resting resources so you'll need to make more efficient use of all your abilities, and consumables or spend a a lot of time running back to town.

[Aramintai]

 

If your interested in seeing what PoD looks like in the Beta compared to the easier difficulties, but don't want to try playing it here is about 1.5hrs of video showing it. Path of the Damned has the full enemy group sizes and all enemies have better statistics (might be a level or two higher).

 

I take out Medreth's party, two groups of Beatles, the Wolves, Drakes, Bandit party, half the Spiders & the Ogre + his Bears.

 

Party is:

PC Wizard

Custom Cipher

Custom Druid

BB Fighter

BB Priest

BB Rogue

 

The video has had a few bits cut out where I tried someone more experimental tactics (and plain failed a couple of times, bloody Adra beatle), but there is still a party wipe or two in there. Note I pause a lot on PoD so don't expect particularly fluid combat.

 

In general I'm not finding PoD too hard, some of the bigger fights can result in a couple of party wipes but it's fairly fun, at least for a party with a lot of spell casters.

 

I'd be interested to see the same thing done by people who play with more melee or less magic focused parties, so if you do please stick up a video so I can see how it compares.

 

Note the description has Jump points to allow you to skip to each of the fights.

 

 

Damn...game cant be fun if you have to pause this much

 

I agree. Can't even see one spell animation complete without several pauses. From the side it looks like the guy's playing a game that severly stutters, lol. This should have been a turn based game...sigh.

I guess if I ever try it out it'll be on the easiest mode cuz I want the game to be closer to IE games, meaning - much less pausing.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Aramintai

[Sensuki]

Pillars of Eternity is faster than the Infinity Engine games on 30 FPS, that's for sure.

[aeonsim]

 

Damn...game cant be fun if you have to pause this much

 

I agree. Can't even see one spell animation complete without several pauses. From the side it looks like the guy's playing a game that severly stutters, lol. This should have been a turn based game...sigh.

I guess if I ever try it out it'll be on the easiest mode cuz I want the game to be closer to IE games, meaning - much less pausing.

 

 

Or try playing with the combat in slow mode, that makes things easier but i often forget to use it. If you've looked at the second video with the melee party I use it a bit and there is a lot less pausing.

[lordkim]

Havent they made the "slow" faster ? Think i saw where it was really slow... I liked that better.. or is it adjustable ?

[Clean&Clear]

PoE combat is definitely faster than in IE games. I didn't use slow mode throughout the beta, because i was used to normal speed and pausing from the IE games. But after I was watching the latest Josh's stream where he used it a lot, I decided to give it a try. And I must say, it worked really well for me! The fights actually look great in slow mode, you have time to enjoy watching the combat, and you don't have to pause nearly as much because you are able to use many abilities in realtime without screwing up. I almost think fights in the game, at least the harder ones, are meant to be played in slow mode.

The only drawback is that if you quit slow mode in the middle of combat, it suddenly feels like fast forward speed, not normal.

 

Personally I could do with overall slower combat, but whatever.

[Gfted1]

I guess if I ever try it out it'll be on the easiest mode cuz I want the game to be closer to IE games, meaning - much less pausing.

I pause that much on Easy.

[Sock]

PoE combat is definitely faster than in IE games. I didn't use slow mode throughout the beta, because i was used to normal speed and pausing from the IE games. But after I was watching the latest Josh's stream where he used it a lot, I decided to give it a try. And I must say, it worked really well for me! The fights actually look great in slow mode, you have time to enjoy watching the combat, and you don't have to pause nearly as much because you are able to use many abilities in realtime without screwing up. I almost think fights in the game, at least the harder ones, are meant to be played in slow mode.

The only drawback is that if you quit slow mode in the middle of combat, it suddenly feels like fast forward speed, not normal.

 

Personally I could do with overall slower combat, but whatever.

 

I haven't checked, but is there an option to set it to auto-slow-mode for combat? I run through the beta in fast mode, since I've seen it all already and want to get to the next level as quickly as I can, but I would not mind an auto-slow-mode when combat begins.