The Only "Serious" Problem I Have With PoE

[Itasko]

I love PoE, but there is one thing that always annoys me. It's the lack of either transparency or camera rotation. There are just too many trees, crates, doors, walls, roofs, explosions, flashing lights, and AoE spells to tell what's going on during battle about 60 percent of the time. I hate fighting beside a long wall that hides everybody. It's not like I can run away and find a better spot because of disengagement attacks. I'm sure camera rotation is probably out of the question, but some sort of auto-transparency that occurs if a piece of scenery is in front of a character would be most appreciated. Just something to think about. At any rate, great game. Keep it up.

[Drow37]

and cloaks! please, obsidian, give us no enchant cloak slot

[Justinian]

Yea, the visibility in combat is generally pretty poor once spells start flying. It's been raised many times with the devs so hopefully they tone down the effects in the next couple patches.

[Itasko]

Yea, the visibility in combat is generally pretty poor once spells start flying. It's been raised many times with the devs so hopefully they tone down the effects in the next couple patches.

Good to know I'm not the only one. It's entirely possible to play using only visible circles, but it takes away from the fun and makes it a bit more tedious finding people.

 

Also, it would be nice to see an improved selection notification. As of now, the party member you've selected just has light a green circle that flashes white compared to the normal green circles of everyone else. Hard to spot at times. Something a little more noticeable would be helpful.

[Rafkos]

 

 

'm sure camera rotation is probably out of the question

Indeed, it's 2D image actually. I agree with you about transparency, should look like in Fallout 1-2 imho.

[k1rage]

Yeah ive had issues with this as well, kinda annoying

[Monte Carlo]

I don't think you can have a rotating camera with 2D hand-painted backgrounds.

[Creslin321]

Yeah you can't have rotation because everything is pre-rendered.  BUT transparency should definitely be possible, and its absence is a big issue.

 

Anytime I get in a fight behind a tree I feel like I'm screwed because I have no clue what is happening.

 

As for solving the issues caused by lack of rotation, which is mainly when your allies or other enemies occlude something you need to see, I think that transparency could solve these as well.  Just put in different "vision modes" that make allies or enemies transparent and unclickable so you can click on the character you want to click on.

[kylania]

I had an entire battle behind some trees last night.  Super annoying.  I had no idea what I was clicking on!  Seemed to work out though.

[Justinian]

 

Yea, the visibility in combat is generally pretty poor once spells start flying. It's been raised many times with the devs so hopefully they tone down the effects in the next couple patches.

Good to know I'm not the only one. It's entirely possible to play using only visible circles, but it takes away from the fun and makes it a bit more tedious finding people.

 

Also, it would be nice to see an improved selection notification. As of now, the party member you've selected just has light a green circle that flashes white compared to the normal green circles of everyone else. Hard to spot at times. Something a little more noticeable would be helpful.

 

 

Agree completely. The flashing circle is just not visible enough when mousing over units in a messy battle. They need to give the circle an obvious and continuous bounce when mousing over. It's also hard to see the circles when there are bright white or green spells going off. To combat this, perhaps giving the circles a black outline might be a good idea. Funnily enough, during the beta, mousing over characters or enemies would make them flash green, which was very helpful. Not sure why they got rid of that...

 

Also, on selected characters, the current thicker green circle is just way too subtle. They need to significantly thicken the circle or add a second circle like in the IE games.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Justinian

[VahnXIII]

BG had a dither option. 2D = no rotating camera. Dithering would be nice to at least see where your characters are behind objects while things go boom.

[Bayzent]

Totally agree. For a game about bottlenecking enemies in doorways, it  adds to the annoyances that combat has already.

[UtherOrange]

Somebody , HAVE THE GUTS TO BUMP THIS UP HIGH AND KEEP IT THERE:  THIS IS THE GAME BREAKER: NO TRANSPARENCY and NO CAMERA TURNING!

 

MODERATOR, please don't kill  this! I'm on YOUR side. I want this game to succeed like no game before it. This is all truth and its important to YOU and your job.  I'm yelling "The emperor has no clothes".  But everyone CAN see it and it's NOT too late to fix!

 

I thought it was ME at first. I've played all of  the older RPG's with fixed orthogonal view, where you can move camera forward,back,left right......but can't turn camera at all.  All of these game seemed to make this work by using "smart transparency", where you could really see who was who, and who's circle was who's.  

 

This game is beautiful, and I'm crying over it right now...And I've fought with only 2 characters so far, and it seems that I get myself stuck endlessly with the enemy's back to me, and my 1.2 party members DIRECTLY behind him, even when nothing's in front. and if you're behind a big tree, well, its time to make popcorn! 

 

I've had really really high hopes for this game. I've read every word in the gigantic Prima Guide, the whole User Manual, the GamePressure massive game site, the Official Pillars of Eternity WIKI, and you know what?????

 

NONE of it matters at all if the combat mechanics are such that you can't see and control 2 PC's, much less 6 hidden behind trees or whatever.... For the GODS' sake, even Diablo did transparency right. 

 

I feel sick. I've spent weeks planning out my PC and the avaliable 8 NPC's that you can pick for good in your party. I'm seriously deeply invested in this game now. 

 

Obsidian, how could you have MISSED this OBVIOUS, terrible combat killer, especially when there and so many characters to manage and micro-manage through combat.  I'm dumbstruck. Truly!

 

Ok, so now i'm ready to be flamed, and its ok, because you ALL KNOW I'M RIGHT. I'm sitting here crying because I can't imagine how to handle 2,3,4,5,6 characters intricately in combat.   No "smart object transparency, no transparency at all", No ability to "turn the camera" at ALL, EVER.    This game will die because of  this, and I'm sitting here crying my eyes out over it. 

 

I''m 58, a woman, and I've played every RPG (and shooter) released since 1990;. Yes, I HAVE seen it all. And I'm a professional programmer.... What can you do to FIX THIS????

We need you, Obsidian! This game is far too complex to play without "smart transparency" and/or camera turning.  Just can't be done with this many characters that mostly have to micro-managed.

 

Help me out here, oldtimers who've played all the other games. Tell Obsidian what it feels like to fight something behind a tree when you can't see EITHER combatant characters, or their stats, or their circles.....at ALL.

 

My heart is broken, and I backed this game. I'm hurting. bad.

 

Laurel Swearengen

zathrus@zathrus.net

 

I don't want to throw this game away. I want to play the best RPG I've ever DREAMED ABOUT in the oldschool way! But it has to have the visual "requirements" to make it playable, Obsidian. I love you Obsidian. I've played all you games. ALL OF THEM. What happened here? Fess up and fix it. We're all waiting . Please help us.

[sparklecat]

Perhaps for the time being if you're unable to see the fights well enough behind trees, you should avoid getting into fights behind trees rather than throwing the game away entirely.  It's an annoyance, sure, but it's not unplayable.

[PrimeJunta]

Apart from the overly-shiny spell effects, the problem is that the camera angle is too low, so characters and objects occlude each other more.

 

Also some map designs which put your party in awkward places. The IE games had some of these too, e.g. attacking from north to south on a constrained map with doors was annoying.

 

It's still less annoying than NWN2 though.

[fced]

I love PoE, but there is one thing that always annoys me. It's the lack of either transparency or camera rotation. There are just too many trees, crates, doors, walls, roofs, explosions, flashing lights, and AoE spells to tell what's going on during battle about 60 percent of the time. I hate fighting beside a long wall that hides everybody. It's not like I can run away and find a better spot because of disengagement attacks. I'm sure camera rotation is probably out of the question, but some sort of auto-transparency that occurs if a piece of scenery is in front of a character would be most appreciated. Just something to think about. At any rate, great game. Keep it up.

 

Agreed it is a huge problem, and strange it haven't been fixed since all that time.

Most of the time, when I fight, I can't even see my party, or my character, hidden by trees or hidden by the others...

Really, it should have been fixed...

Another problem is the AI and the lack of personalization of our party, I remember Dragon Age Origins (released in 2009) and in that game, it was possible to set each party follower to execute action or spell/abilities depending the context (example : launch an elite spell only if it is an elite enemy, use X spell if enemy life > 50%, make the tank protect the wizard or rogue in case they would be attacked, set the wizard to heal a party member life < 25%/50% or use AOE heal spell if more than 2 party members life =<50%)...

Anyway, that game could really be improved, because even If I appreciate it the old school RPG, sometime it can be very very frustrating, and by the way, an RPG can be Old school and have the benefit of a 2010+ gameplay .