What needs improvement (in next DLC or Pillars2)

[DrakenKin]

Minor improvements (possible in a DLC / Patch)

• Stop AOE damaging spells when combat ends... Lost a couple of characters on iron because they moved (revived on top of) frozen ground after battle ended, and that should not happen. When realism spoils fun, fun should win don't you think? what's the benefit of dying stupidly after combat ends?
• Ability to reorder spells and abilities for wizard, druid, cleric. We usually use 2-3 of each level 80% of the time, being able to reorder them would be better. especially when we work out a battle opening sequence and don't want to dig in the list every time.
• Ability to make the spells icons bigger through an option.. they are tiny on big resolutions
• Somehow half the time we click an ability and it doesn't activate, it is as if the game doesn't register the click... this needs to be solved
• Let characters in party walk through each other... it is sad to see my tank stuck behind wizards when starting a battle... no clipping would be a lazy solution, but better than the current state and a much faster fix than "improving the pathing AI". And yes I do use formations.
• Something needs to be done about wizard casting times / delay. Here is a suggestion, if the caster has been auto attacking and we do a spell, it should go out immediately instead of waiting for the "next action" time, because this RENDERS THE COMBAT TOO SLUGGISH TO BE FUN! If we cast a spell, fine put a delay until we can do the next one, but if the mage has been auto attacking and i ask him for a heal, it should go through immediately. Second reason, if it waits for the next tic, that's a time when the enemy will get another attack through, and possibly a third if the spell has long animation. I never take more than 2 spellcasters in my party because combat feels so sluggish with them! it's not the micro involved because i play other games that are more complex but the interface is very responsive and using it feels smooth, it is how sluggish it feels. Please work on this!
• NO MORE teleporting party in middle of enemies before fight starts (after dialog ends). There are no "taunt" abilities in this game, and casting basic protections is slow, don't do this! The game is mostly good about avoiding this, but there are a couple of spots when this happens and it is very annoying when playing iron mode.

 

Major improvements (probably the next game)

• Do more with the keep. It feels boring... shops have nothing special. Events are too rare. It just doesn't feel "exciting" as some of the other games did with their keep. Look at dragon age 3, keep feels like a live place where things happens... here apart from a talking statue and generic npcs nothing is going on. It is very boring. 
• Do more with the small, what do you call them? text adventures? when you climb a wall or something. I think it can be more interesting with real choices and outcomes based on your abilities, not just "grats you climbed the wall without breaking your face, want a cookie?". Look at the small text adventures in KING ARTHUR if you need inspiration, they did many things wrong but they got the text adventures best of any game i know.
• Delay before looting. Seriously? in 2015? Please program this properly in the next game. A quick fix could be simply NOT blocking looting during combat, seriously why block it and add delay? I see no good reason.
• Ally AI. Instead of having 4 basic settings "aggressive / Etc", let us right click the spells we want our allies to cast automatically. This will be a much more efficient system. If i want my priest to cast will and anti "terrified" buffs all day long, i should be able to. Why not implement it as "if condition then result" like dragon age 2 did? that would also be great. Such as if "ally <35% heal", if "ally is frightened use spell", if "spell reflection expired cast spell reflection on self". At some point we all want some spells to be always on such as spell shield, having to keep watching it instead of focusing on something else is the wrong kind of complexity... please copy the best of old school games not the worst.
• Less loading screens. Please! The game never uses more than 2GB of ram, which is good, but most systems today have 8GB, and gamers especially often have 16GB. At least load the smaller rooms (such as inns or caves, anything that is not a deep dungeon) in the same area at the same time to remove some of the loading screens. It will maybe boost RAM usage to 3GB but it will be so much better, especially for people without SSDs. 
• Please work on writing those skill descriptions better... some of them are really cryptic. We should be checking forums for strategy, not to understand basic game mechanics and skills.
• Reading souls of random NPCs is completely useless. I did it for the first dozen then stopped. If you did this for important NPCS that you deal with regularly, maybe... it would be background information. But doing it for npcs we never interact with? ever? why even bother? why should we care? The stories are not even that interesting (compared to other games such as fallout, which are basicly 1) short 2) INTERESTING 3) STORIES), they offer no twist, humor, story telling, or insight into the world... they are just very descriptive of that specific npc we have NO reason to care about. Please do something better with soul reading in the next game.
• More text adventures! They are used in a couple of spots in the storyline to great effect, such as in the end when you read descriptions and see the small black and white illustration... it can be a great tool for immersion, but we need MORE of them, and we need them to be done better. The interaction with the door on floor 13 of od nua should be the most boring text adventure not the best (limited choices), it could be used more for story telling, letting special moments shine more, and also work great with imagination when regular game engine can't render the situation to its best.

Edited September 28, 2015 by DrakenKin

[Night Stalker]

<p>

 

• Reading souls of random NPCs is completely useless. I did it for the first dozen then stopped. If you did this for important NPCS that you deal with regularly, maybe... it would be background information. But doing it for npcs we never interact with? ever? why even bother? why should we care? The stories are not even that interesting (compared to other games such as fallout, which are basicly 1) short 2) INTERESTING 3) STORIES), they offer no twist, humor, story telling, or insight into the world... they are just very descriptive of that specific npc we have NO reason to care about. Please do something better with soul reading in the next game.

The NPCs that you can read are Kickstarter backer rewards. That is also why so many of them are Godlikes, and why descriptions are of ~*awesome cool people*~.

[pi2repsion]

A number of good points, but there's one of your points I must take strong objection to:

 

Something needs to be done about wizard casting times / delay. Here is a suggestion, if the caster has been auto attacking and we do a spell, it should go out immediately instead of waiting for the "next action" time, because this RENDERS THE COMBAT TOO SLUGGISH TO BE FUN! If we cast a spell, fine put a delay until we can do the next one, but if the mage has been auto attacking and i ask him for a heal, it should go through immediately. Second reason, if it waits for the next tic, that's a time when the enemy will get another attack through, and possibly a third if the spell has long animation. I never take more than 2 spellcasters in my party because combat feels so sluggish with them! it's not the micro involved because i play other games that are more complex but the interface is very responsive and using it feels smooth, it is how sluggish it feels. Please work on this!

The recovery from previous actions affect everybody. Allowing wizards, or casters in general, to ignore recovery when they want to cast spells would not only violate a fundamental game mechanic, it would also render the recovery penalty of armour irrelevant for casters, meaning that casters would always be better off wearing the heaviest armour available.

 

The current setup rewards the player for wearing less encumbering armour, having high dexterity, and high attack speed (e.g. Deleterious Alacrity of Motion since you were mentioning Wizards) to cut down recovery times after all actions. It also rewards the player for playing tactically - if you want to be ready to cast important spells on immediate notice, don't bloody autoattack!; If you don't, do.

 

The first is a strategic choice with tactical implications, the second a tactical one. Such choices are good.

 

---------------

 

 

Personally, I have one deep-felt wish for changes in POE2:

 

 

Seeing an action queue when shift-queing up actions.

 

 

E.g. if I queue up Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, Merciless Gaze, and then two Fireballs with a character, then when that character is selected I should see a queue of four icons indication that that's what the character is doing next.

 

---------------

 

 

With regards to the soul-read NPCs (in case Obsidian decides a kickstarter for POE2 and want to use this marketing gimmick again), I'd dearly love an option to either toggle them off entirely or to at least toggle their nameplates off, making them non-interactable if the player so desires and, more importantly, not having their usually entirely inappropriate names lighting up the game. Unlike the graveyards, these NPCs blur the line between which things have meaning in the game or not, by destroying the old CRPG convention - that is also followed everywhere else in the game - that characters with names are important.

 

Have the options to see them and their names enabled at start, but.. give us the option to push the intrusive elements out of sight.

Edited September 28, 2015 by pi2repsion

[TMZuk]

Get rid of crafting. For me, crafting takes so much joy out of the game. Magic items, shops and loot is utterly boring.

 

Get rid of the silly castle simulator.

 

A bit more humour, please. PoE is serious with serious on. It becomes rather to higstrung, often.

 

A magic system, where my characters can buff up before a fight. Magic in PoE is annoying and stressing as ....!

 

To sum it up: More Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2!

 

P.S. And get ~rid~ of crafting!

Edited September 28, 2015 by TMZuk

[Lord_Mord]

I hate the game, it is so boring. I hate fantasy settings. Please fix the setting. And magic, I dont want magic in the game. I want more titties in Poe2. Dwarves suck. Please fix them, I want them to be hamsters. Japanese hamsters. But no chinese hamsters. Chinese hamsters are ridiculous. I want more dragons and less dragons. I dont want to play the game with the mouse. Mouse controlled gaming is not up to todays standards. I understand that this is some kind of retro game, but mouse control? Are you serious. My **** is small. Please fix that. And remove the enemies from the game. Everytime, I start to walk around, they attack my and I get killed. Why do you do that? Are you stupid? You all suck. I want the game to play itself and I want my money back, you suckers. You are all retarded. Make another game, but a better one you idiots.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Lord_Mord

[the_dog_days]

I hate the game, it is so boring. I hate fantasy settings. Please fix the setting. And magic, I dont want magic in the game. I want more titties in Poe2. Dwarves suck. Please fix them, I want them to be hamsters. Japanese hamsters. But no chinese hamsters. Chinese hamsters are ridiculous. I want more dragons and less dragons. I dont want to play the game with the mouse. Mouse controlled gaming is not up to todays standards. I understand that this is some kind of retro game, but mouse control? Are you serious. My **** is small. Please fix that. And remove the enemies from the game. Everytime, I start to walk around, they attack my and I get killed. Why do you do that? Are you stupid? You all suck. I want the game to play itself and I want my money back, you suckers. You are all retarded. Make another game, but a better one you idiots.

The sarcasm is strong in this one.

[junki]

FPS. When Battlefield 4 runs at a smooth 60-120 FPS with a 780 GTX, and this game runs at 30-50 FPS, there is something seriously wrong with the engineering over there at Obsidian.

[Guest 4ward]

i hope that if Obs decides to make PoE2 i will actualy be looking up the combat log. I've turned off most of the visual helpers to have that IE feeling and i have not once felt the need to read the combat log. While i'm just nearing level 5, what i basically do in combat is trying to 'outdamage' the enemies at the start of battle - and that's it. Hardly any tactics during battle, reactional combat - nope, can't turn the tides in battle. A xaurip priest casting something - who cares. Eder being stunned - who cares, why should i counter that if the shadows stun him on hit? Chars charmed - who cares. My wizard engaged - who cares, until Eder reached him (if he actually succeeds to get free) the wizard is already twoshot. Just playing the game for the visuals, great job by the artists is what keeps me exploring, that and the side quests, i wouldn't mind raedric actually being the main story, that thing my char has - why shoiuld i look for a cure? I hope that Obs will have the leisure of time for PoE2 and make a truly great game. Not saying that the game will pick up later maybe on higher levels but am not really expecting it.

[Alexander1]

FPS. When Battlefield 4 runs at a smooth 60-120 FPS with a 780 GTX, and this game runs at 30-50 FPS, there is something seriously wrong with the engineering over there at Obsidian.

 

That is true.  My loading times for Skyrim are shorter than the loading time for Pillars, and that takes a whole lot more resources.  Truth is, while Pillars shouldn't take much more power than Baldur's Gate II it's a largely independent project -- doesn't have nearly the budget those more complex games have.  It's kind of a Catch 22 because it can't always afford the extra people it needs to ensure the programming runs more smoothly, but it needs higher profits to be able to do that.

[sapientNode]

Get rid of crafting. For me, crafting takes so much joy out of the game. Magic items, shops and loot is utterly boring.

 

Get rid of the silly castle simulator.

 

A bit more humour, please. PoE is serious with serious on. It becomes rather to higstrung, often.

 

A magic system, where my characters can buff up before a fight. Magic in PoE is annoying and stressing as ....!

 

To sum it up: More Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2!

 

P.S. And get ~rid~ of crafting!

 

what is with this issue with crafting exactly?

You can add fine superb and exceptional as well as a bane and a lash (only elemental).

How does that even compare to an exceptional crit multiplying non elemental lash with extended reach? (Example from in game)

 

If anything the crafting system should be a supplement to the current system.  So instead of allowing crafting of just the base properties it instead enhances the properties already on a weapon.  Together this keeps the system of finding and then enhancing both parallel and not in competition.  In addition the method of crafting should not be stand click button throw copper coins in and a Xaurip tongue and walla magick item enhanced.  We should have work benches and a much more refined drop rate of enchant ingredients.

 

[Alexander1]

 

• Let characters in party walk through each other... it is sad to see my tank stuck behind wizards when starting a battle... no clipping would be a lazy solution, but better than the current state and a much faster fix than "improving the pathing AI". And yes I do use formations.

 

 

I'm sorry but I actually like the fact that there's collision detection -- it affects strategy.  One of the things that frustrates me in most RPG's is that enemies can't affectively be bottle-necked or that enemies can just get around my defenses. 

 

And no AI is perfect -- I can't tell you how many games I've played where I've given a character a simple command only to have them run around to the front lines and get hurt in a place where they shouldn't even be. 

 

One thing I love about PoE is that I can put two big fighters in a narrow doorway and literally keep both my enemies and my companions from crossing that threshold -- I have Eder and my dwarf barbarian plant themselves right there and literally nothing can get past them -- Aloth and Sagani shoot from behind them while Durance heals everybody and my forces carry the day.  If there were no collision detection, my heavy fighters wouldn't have nearly that kind of tactical advantage or capability -- and wizards are already powerful enough. 

Edited September 28, 2015 by Alexander1

[Zaret Voruta]

That is true.  My loading times for Skyrim are shorter than the loading time for Pillars, and that takes a whole lot more resources.  Truth is, while Pillars shouldn't take much more power than Baldur's Gate II it's a largely independent project -- doesn't have nearly the budget those more complex games have.  It's kind of a Catch 22 because it can't always afford the extra people it needs to ensure the programming runs more smoothly, but it needs higher profits to be able to do that.

 

If PoE take the same amount of resources like ie games it would look exactly pixelated like Baldur's Gate1or 2 and played with max 800x600 resolution.

[Cottonmouth]

True but performance is an issue. The White March areas are close to the breaking point for me, combat sometimes brings FPS down to 10-15. By contrast I have no problem with games like Witcher 2, Dishonored, Dragon Age 3, Wlfenstein the new order, etc. The graphic quality options don't change FPS at all, though they do make things look worse. 

 

If PoE2 will have lower avg FPS for the same hardware, I won't be getting it.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Cottonmouth

[TMZuk]

 

Get rid of crafting. For me, crafting takes so much joy out of the game. Magic items, shops and loot is utterly boring.

 

Get rid of the silly castle simulator.

 

A bit more humour, please. PoE is serious with serious on. It becomes rather to higstrung, often.

 

A magic system, where my characters can buff up before a fight. Magic in PoE is annoying and stressing as ....!

 

To sum it up: More Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2!

 

P.S. And get ~rid~ of crafting!

 

what is with this issue with crafting exactly?

You can add fine superb and exceptional as well as a bane and a lash (only elemental).

How does that even compare to an exceptional crit multiplying non elemental lash with extended reach? (Example from in game)

 

If anything the crafting system should be a supplement to the current system.  So instead of allowing crafting of just the base properties it instead enhances the properties already on a weapon.  Together this keeps the system of finding and then enhancing both parallel and not in competition.  In addition the method of crafting should not be stand click button throw copper coins in and a Xaurip tongue and walla magick item enhanced.  We should have work benches and a much more refined drop rate of enchant ingredients.

 

 

The issue with crafting is first and formost that I am unable to suspend my disbelief.

 

It's a horrible MMO mechanic, which developers for some reason see the need to incorporate in SP games as well, despite the fact that the very idea is so toe-cringingly bad to begin with.

 

In general it is bad, simply because my character is a wandering adventurer (wizard/cleric/warrior/whatever). He or she is NOT a master craftsman, and certainbly not a miner/smelter/blacksmith/weaponsmith. If he or she needs a quality weapon, buy it from someone who are dedicated to make quality weapons, rather than adventuring. That is why you have master craftsmen. And miners. And blacksmiths. And all the other professions, my character gave up, to follow a life of adventure. In game terms, it works as a money-sink, and it makes shopping and looting interesting. In PoE those things are as dull as a grey autumn-day.

 

In PoE particularlly, it is made worse by the fact that the enchanted items you ~do~ find, so obviously fits into this dull concept. One look at a sword and you know that it has been enchanted to do this and that, and that takes up a certain numbers of enchantment-slots. It is so boring it makes me yawn. Where are the fun, quirky, weird items? The cursed items? The fun of finding out what an item does? Nowhere.

 

Kill crafting! Kill it with fire. Make it vanish and may it never, ever return again!

Edited September 28, 2015 by TMZuk

[DrakenKin]

I think your problem is not with crafting, but with lack of interesting weapons and effects. I feel that too.

 

Crafting however is good, because it lets you enhance that bow you found at level 2 and make it usable at level 12, keeping the special effects such as prone on crit or extra speed. This I like, being able to update my weapons. However where you are absolutely right is that they need to add new, more interesting and UNIQUE (not craftable) effects.

 

If we get 20 new effects special to every weapon, and a more original than just more speed and dps, i don't see why being able to enhance your weapons as you level up should bother you. If it's role play you worry about, they could simply move crafting to a merchant menu, such a smith... you already pay copper for crafting, it is just like buying the service from a smith or enchanter, except that it is moved to your inventory for convenience.

 

In the same spirit you could complain that you have unlimited inventory accessible from anywhere and that is not logical. But this is one of the things I LOVE in PoE, because in all games I HATE inventory management. It is such a dull ask that only exists because designers got used to adding it to every game, not questioning its value. There are RPGs I LITERALLY stopped playing simply because I was sick of managing inventory, shuffling items, going back and forth to base and merchants and decide what to sell and what could be useful later.

 

There is nothing I hate more in an RPG than being deep in a dungeon, making progress, being immersed in the adventure of getting to the end of it and so on, then oh, look! *facepalm* my inventory is full, i need to go all the way back to a village to sell some of it. I hate that. It breaks immersion and has no reason of being other than misplaced, dull realism. POE does it better. When realism ruins fun or immersion, fun should always win in the end when it comes to game design.

Edited September 28, 2015 by DrakenKin

[iLurk]

Being unable to carry more than you are able to breaks your immershun? But sending infinite items to a bag for no logical reason doesn't?

 

I like crafting a lot, but in PoE its understandable why a lot of people hate it. For me there's just no unique items similar to the ones in BGs so it kills that feeling when you get a bad ass sword or fat loot after a boss. it might be because of crafting or something else but between this system and BGs, I'll choose BGs.

Edited September 28, 2015 by iLurk

[DrakenKin]

Yes it does.

 

Fundamentally, i am going back to town because i ran out of "boxes to put stuff in the UI". There is no emotional connexion or benefit to this. It is just pure, misplaced realism. It makes sens, it is logical, but don't confuse logic with immersion.

 

Would it be fun for you if you got hungry in the middle of a dungeon? needed to pee? Needed to sleep 8 hours every 14 hours? All of these things are realism, yet we don't do them because they are the wrong kind of realism. I place inventory management, especially when you have to empty it every hour of gameplay, the same. You are just emptying your inventory like you would need to empty your bladder... this is not the SIMS.

 

So again, yes it breaks immersion. When someone is telling me a story, any interruption to the story telling better have a damn good reason. Inventory management is not a good reason.

[avari3]

Better main story.  Less trippy hippy dream crap.  I smoked weed to see if the text got cooler and it just got worse.  The worst of it all is when you make me choose memories from a past life I have absolutely no basis from which to choose with.  Experimental writing gone real bad and I say this as a fan of experimental writing.

 

A shame, because the side quests, some of the NPC's and those GEORGOUS hand painted cut scenes showed why these guys are lauded for the writing team.

 

Everything else about this game is freacking awesome!!!!  You sure there's always some tweaks, but man what a foundation for a franchise!

[oaktownbrown]

Would it be fun for you if you got hungry in the middle of a dungeon? needed to pee? Needed to sleep 8 hours every 14 hours? All of these things are realism, yet we don't do them because they are the wrong kind of realism. I place inventory management, especially when you have to empty it every hour of gameplay, the same. You are just emptying your inventory like you would need to empty your bladder... this is not the SIMS.

 

So again, yes it breaks immersion. When someone is telling me a story, any interruption to the story telling better have a damn good reason. Inventory management is not a good reason.

 

 

I agree that games don't always have to be realistic and never are in many respects. E.g., I've never seen a cRPG where, if you are injured, you need to rest for at least days and maybe months. Maybe you never recover your previous strength, dexterity, etc. I liked the aspect of Realms of Arkania where you would become sick or, e.g., have a wound get infected and you needed to either have someone in your party who could heal that type of disease/injury or find a doctor in a town, which might take a while to reach especially in winter. And some of the doctors were quacks who could make you sicker.

 

I like mods that require you to eat, drink, sleep, etc. That is fun for me bc it makes the game more challenging, especially in conjunction with weight mods, if needed, so that you need to balance the need to carry food, water, and a bedroll against extra weapons, etc. I almost always use them in Bethesda games, e.g., Fallout: New Vegas, Morrowind, Skyrim. It was weird playing PoE right after FO:NV and getting the fatigue icon. I worried that my characters would die. My PC in FO:NV had just died bc I entered a conversation with mid-level hunger or thirst and was dead by the end of the long conversation. Once I found out that nothing really bad would happen in PoE if my party became fatigued, I generally ignored it. That made gameplay less fun and challenging for me. But I think that things like that should be in mods or else an optional hardcore mode (which I would love, in case any devs are reading).

 

It's fine with me if games don't have those things or if you have, e.g., unlimited inventory, especially like in PoE where you have the option to make the unlimited inventory inaccessible. I think that's a good compromise. You can always not put anything into the "trunk" inventory if you want that type of realism.

Edited September 29, 2015 by oaktownbrown

[KDubya]

If the bag of holding effect of the stash bothers you just use and sell only whatever fits in your characters slots. treat everything in the stash as left behind. If you want you could go back through the area and transfer a few items from your stash into your inventory to simulate going back for stuff you left behind,

 

Easily fixed.

[iLurk]

The autistic way of playing the game?

 

I don't have a problem with the stash, I even like it since I do always add bottomless bags of holdings to IE games. his comment about immersion is off tho.

 

Generally you only need to pick up what you could use and anything that you could sell for a large amount of cash, everything else is ignored. You don't go looting everything and then complain that its an immersion breaking.

 

Anyway I don't want to argue so this will be my last post in this thread. cheers.

Edited September 29, 2015 by iLurk

[DrakenKin]

No and I will tell you why.

 

You find plants, other objects that could serve in crafting. For most games you don't even know if the thing is useful or not. For others, you need to sell a lot of junk to get some money, there is no 10% of items that is worth 20x more as much as all other junk, it is just a bunch of junk that sells for 50 copper each and if you want money you need to ferry it all to town. It is just how most games are built. Not to forget a lot of players start collections... such as getting all the books in skyrim or hell, picking up all the cheese or all the skulls to make a skull or cheese mountain in your home. Who cares why you carry this stuff?

 

PoE did it much better, and i really like not having to deal with the "inventory full" frustration.

[Cottonmouth]

Yeah, two real annoyances that PoE dealt really well with are full inventories and agonizingly long walks.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Cottonmouth

[Malignacious]

• Let characters in party walk through each other... 

People like you make me mad to no end. I hope developers ignore you and don't turn the game into incoherent arcadey gibberish.

[Cantousent]

I agree with Malignacious. I mean, I don't tend to get mad at folks, but I do hope the developers don't take the advice to let characters walk through each other. My reason is simple, your positioning should have consequences. Now, that doesn't mean that I always like the assumption about where my party members are standing. I do appreciate being able to position them, especially in instances where I already *know* there is either the potential or imminent fight. That, and of course make sure characters can path properly and don't end up stuck in walls and whatnot. However, I don't want characters to be allowed access around each other in just about any other circumstance.