Soulbound Weapons (Remove/replace the kill x enemy)

[sapientNode]

So I have found 3 of the Soulbound weapons and the kill X amount of enemy aspect is really tiresome.

 

I used Od Nua for my Redeemer so when I got my Greenstone staff I only had a a few left in Od Nua that were easier to kill.

 

In order to properly achieve the kill counts I pretty much have to use my tank to block a doorway while whoever is trying for kill counts beats on the enemy.  It can be potentially expedited by others attacking the enemies and leaving at near death but that rarely works out exactly as I plan.  In addition if I have anything that counter attacks on crits I have to remove that just in case the counter attack kills the enemy before my character with the soulbound weapon does.  And now with Greenstone I can summon blights which can kill steal my enemy.

 

With a finite set of enemies and with the overall design of the game this force character X to kill enemy is an arduous task.  And there is no way to refine it or make it precise.  On PoTD you have to rely on finding low level enemies to solo fight or use choke hold and have your meat shield just get beat down while you take the kills.  Also AI for the entire team has to be turned off to make sure they do not kill steal.

 

Kill X amount of enemies only makes sense when you can either face random encounters or enemies are not finite.

Some of the other requirements are cool and the straight do x damage makes sense but the kill x enemies does not work well with the overall design.

You either have to know where certain enemies are and ignore them on maps to plan for getting the Soulbound or you have to cheese it and use choke hold tank style.  The latter just takes forever.

[Kriber22]

I absolutely agree with this one. The whole "kill x enemies"-mechanic isn't really well-suited to a party-based game. Micromanaging the team to ensure that the right character gets the kill is an incredible pain in the behind. I vastly prefer the riddle-solving mechanic of the Grey Sleeper and the location-based end stage of Stormcaller.

[Elzarath]

I don't mind the kill mechanic. I think a small tweak to include all kills (by spell or creature summon or soul bound weapon) by whoever is wielding it should count. I'm not about to enter melee with a wizard.

[Oralaina]

Yah, this is something that's really pretty annoying for me too.  Even if I grit out getting the soulbound weapons WAY too early, I still have a problem with "filling" the kill list....

[Ymarsakar]

This is what happens when Obsidian tries to copy ideas off World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings.

 

This isn't an MMO and it wasn't supposed to be designed like one either.

 

Want to know how Planescape Torment leveled up unique items? You did dialogue puzzles and advanced the plot, then they would upgrade.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[Oralaina]

This is what happens when Obsidian tries to copy ideas off World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings.

 

This isn't an MMO and it wasn't supposed to be designed like one either.

 

I dunno about LotR.... but BOY do I know about wow.  8 years there.... and if blizz hadn't done the idiocy that is wod and no flying in current content, I'd probably still be paying them.  But yeah, your point is well taken.

 

If your game (talking to the devs here) provides a limited (as in non-respawning) number of mobs, you simply shouldn't make soulbound weapons which require a given (fairly large, and/or smaller but REALLY SPECIFIC) number of kills which are no longer available to those who have not micromanaged the setup.  Yeah, I CAN (and do/did) micro the setup - but I've been playing these games since the mid-80s so I can figure it out before getting into a situation where there's no really good result.  Lots of people don't have decades of experience to rely on with stuff like this.

 

[And.... I'd really have much preferred that I didn't have to overthink this - but you (the devs) left me no choice.]

Edited October 6, 2015 by Oralaina

[Ymarsakar]

 

This is what happens when Obsidian tries to copy ideas off World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings.

 

This isn't an MMO and it wasn't supposed to be designed like one either.

 

I dunno about LotR.... but BOY do I know about wow.  8 years there.... and if blizz hadn't done the idiocy that is wod and no flying in current content, I'd probably still be paying them.  But yeah, your point is well taken.

 

If your game (talking to the devs here) provides a limited (as in non-respawning) number of mobs, you simply shouldn't make soulbound weapons which require a given (fairly large, and/or smaller but REALLY SPECIFIC) number of kills which are no longer available to those who have not micromanaged the setup.  Yeah, I CAN (and do/did) micro the setup - but I've been playing these games since the mid-80s so I can figure it out before getting into a situation where there's no really good result.  Lots of people don't have decades of experience to rely on with stuff like this.

 

[And.... I'd really have much preferred that I didn't have to overthink this - but you (the devs) left me no choice.]

 

 

They're basically working blind at this point. With PoE, they received a lot of votes and community feedback. White March was released entirely without that kind of feedback system. So when they think they have the systems done, and then make a new one like soulbound "legendary" weapons, they don't have it done as much as they think they do in the concept stage. Once it gets out of the concept stage and players play it, they can't change it any more except by using more resources in 3 months. Oops.

 

The reason is because they need to have the pre alpha concepts down before production begins. Meaning pre production needs to be iron tight, and after that is done, the production pipeline for making content for legendary weapons can begin. But it cannot be easily interrupted if the concept needs a rework or is completely broken, without expending many more months of time which they don't have for expansions 1 and 2. Which is why getting a gamer's point of view before production starts, during pre production, makes for better feedback on systems. What usually happens is that people release a slightly working, slightly broken system, then 50,000 complaints come in and the developers find 90% of it to be incomprehensible, washing out the rest that is beneficial.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[Oralaina]

They're basically working blind at this point. With PoE, they received a lot of votes and community feedback. White March was released entirely without that kind of feedback system. So when they think they have the systems done, and then make a new one like soulbound "legendary" weapons, they don't have it done as much as they think they do in the concept stage. Once it gets out of the concept stage and players play it, they can't change it any more except by using more resources in 3 months. Oops.

 

 

Oy.  If true, that's really ugly.

[Ymarsakar]

You're responding faster than I can edit my posts with more info. Ora, heh.

 

But that's been gaming industry for awhile now. One reason why Elder Scrolls is so popular is because with easy user mods, people tend to "fix" certain issues before the developer is even aware a certain player base wants it changed.

 

With Kickstarter system starting with Pillars during pre production, Obsidian punched out a few ideas, they had threads about new classes, old classes, nostalgia classes and game mechanics. That's where the most good comes from criticism and feedback. Later on, when the production pipeline is up already, there's not much anyone can do about changing fundamentally broken or inefficient systems any more. Well they could, but it's like the ranger rebuild and rebalance from 1.0. It took several months.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[LaSpeakeasi]

I would think 'being revived 5 times' is much worse. Am I supposed to have my people die on purpose?

Edited October 6, 2015 by LaSpeakeasi

[sapientNode]

 

 

This is what happens when Obsidian tries to copy ideas off World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings.

 

This isn't an MMO and it wasn't supposed to be designed like one either.

 

I dunno about LotR.... but BOY do I know about wow.  8 years there.... and if blizz hadn't done the idiocy that is wod and no flying in current content, I'd probably still be paying them.  But yeah, your point is well taken.

 

If your game (talking to the devs here) provides a limited (as in non-respawning) number of mobs, you simply shouldn't make soulbound weapons which require a given (fairly large, and/or smaller but REALLY SPECIFIC) number of kills which are no longer available to those who have not micromanaged the setup.  Yeah, I CAN (and do/did) micro the setup - but I've been playing these games since the mid-80s so I can figure it out before getting into a situation where there's no really good result.  Lots of people don't have decades of experience to rely on with stuff like this.

 

[And.... I'd really have much preferred that I didn't have to overthink this - but you (the devs) left me no choice.]

 

 

They're basically working blind at this point. With PoE, they received a lot of votes and community feedback. White March was released entirely without that kind of feedback system. So when they think they have the systems done, and then make a new one like soulbound "legendary" weapons, they don't have it done as much as they think they do in the concept stage. Once it gets out of the concept stage and players play it, they can't change it any more except by using more resources in 3 months. Oops.

 

The reason is because they need to have the pre alpha concepts down before production begins. Meaning pre production needs to be iron tight, and after that is done, the production pipeline for making content for legendary weapons can begin. But it cannot be easily interrupted if the concept needs a rework or is completely broken, without expending many more months of time which they don't have for expansions 1 and 2. Which is why getting a gamer's point of view before production starts, during pre production, makes for better feedback on systems. What usually happens is that people release a slightly working, slightly broken system, then 50,000 complaints come in and the developers find 90% of it to be incomprehensible, washing out the rest that is beneficial.

 

 

One of the things I have found so far with a lot of this game is an inordinate amount of micro managing.

thinking ahead for companions to make sure I can get some of their banter and their stories.

Thinking ahead for exp gain so I do not over-level my characters.

Thinking ahead for soul-bound weapons now.

Thinking ahead for the optimal use of the keep.

Thinking ahead because I can not overwrite enchantments and their costs are absurd.  (So I better know what armor suit I am going to stick with until end game)

 

It is an interesting exercise in management.

However amidst all this management is a really awesomely done story and some really fantastically done characters.  As well as well thought out lore.

All this micro managing has put way too much emphasis on organization and similar constructs in the game.

 

If they wanted to have soulbound as they are they need to when the weapon is found spawn encounters throughout the world that are easy to medium to deal with in order to level the weapon.

 

As far as the working blind.  These are developers that have been in the game industry for many many many years.  They should absolutely know how the inter-connectivity is going to work out with something like soulbound weapons.  Some of the aspects of them are cool like camping in a certain Dragon's lair.  But the kill x is as pointed out way too bloody reminiscent of fetch quests in mmos.

 

As posted above as well the best thing about Elder Scrolls which has the most mods probably out there and the most active long time modders is that it allows for ease of modding.  This should just be standard with games today.  Communities can respond to problems immediately and they can fix them in very creative ways.  And the more options on the table the better.  Sitting and waiting for a developer to get wind of some forum posts is a difficult thing to accomplish.  And their methodology for game creation is distinctly different than a modder who can respond much more directly to the community and who is not leashed by producers or directors.

 

I really wish PoE would open up to more modding with some accessible free toolkit.

 

If not I hope they can rethink the kill X/fetch quest system for soulbound weapons.

 

As it is with the Greenstone Staff it binds to Wizard Druid and Monk.  Both Wizard and Druid are most often squishy types and so they would rely on more easier enemies to fill those requirements of killing.  Which instead should be something like cast X amount of a certain spell.  Or critically hit enemy X times.  Or Shapeshift X times. 

 

Or they could of made the soulbound weapons characters with their own stories similar to Planescape and by fulfilling their quests they would unlock.

[sapientNode]

I would think 'being revived 5 times' is much worse. Am I supposed to have my people die on purpose?

 

Sorry double post but I had to respond to this.  Yah I hated that one as well but I put the Ring of Wonder on my character and had her get face smashed then I rested and rinse repeat.

It was just another task of micro managing and was not very fun.

[LaSpeakeasi]

But that's been gaming industry for awhile now. One reason why Elder Scrolls is so popular is because with easy user mods, people tend to "fix" certain issues before the developer is even aware a certain player base wants it changed.

 

With Kickstarter system starting with Pillars during pre production, Obsidian punched out a few ideas, they had threads about new classes, old classes, nostalgia classes and game mechanics. That's where the most good comes from criticism and feedback. Later on, when the production pipeline is up already, there's not much anyone can do about changing fundamentally broken or inefficient systems any more. Well they could, but it's like the ranger rebuild and rebalance from 1.0. It took several months.

Skyrim has a huge fan base. I imagine it would be hard to keep track of every opinion, or do anything about most feedback without upsetting others.

 

OBS on the other hand, just comes across as lazy TBH. Their devs don't even seem to read this official forum. There's not a lot of activities here. It's not that hard to read most if not every thread posted. But they obviously don't. Even the bug report threads sometimes get left unresponded for weeks, even months, if at all.

 

There are even smaller studios that do this community involvement thing much better. HBS comes to mind. Even OBS' buddies over at Skyshine. Bedlam may be a mediocre game but they were so quick to acknowledge it.

 

Being on Kickstarter doesn't automatically make you an indie favorite, ya know. OBS still behaves very much like a stuck-up major studio.

Edited October 6, 2015 by LaSpeakeasi

[Ymarsakar]

"I really wish PoE would open up to more modding with some accessible free toolkit."

 

They need to upgrade the engine of unity to the new one that has externalized assets. Meaning stuff like CKII's engine provides. But that is why they are doing the expansions now with the old unity engine, and working on the upgrade for Pillars 2. That pacing was pretty much set in stone once they decided to do the sequel at least.

 

The IE Mod and the various templates there have done pretty powerful things, given the limitations.

 

"Their devs don't even seem to read this official forum."

 

They read the beta forums. And I'm sure they check the content of the forums every once in awhile to see how people react to different systems.

 

But it's a passive approach, meaning they do not intercede or state an opinion one way or another. That's the job of their PR and forum managers, and also bug compilers.

 

Purely speculative, but because Obsidian was able to hire new people, I get the impression that there's some kind of de synchronization between some of the White March content and the old base Pillars content. They've gone rather opaque since the launch of the gone gold 1.0 Pillars, compared to the kickstarter and beta days, so it's hard to say what they are doing. Which is part of the issue. Without transparency, even if people wanted to give them advice or feedback on systems early on, there's just no information there to make a judgment on. When did people hear about the details of Soulbound weapons? When they finished the content for them already in dev blogs? What is the point of getting feedback when it's too late to fix a broken system?

 

A pretty infamous example of what happens when developers get too into the zone of their own experience and viewpoint, is Mass Effect 3's ending. But that thing is so "special" that it probably biases people too much one way. There is also Eve Online, but most people won't know the stories about that or how the CSM helped block off a lot of bad/wrong features. The bigger the organization, the harder it is for the managers to know all the details, which is why a different pov can be very effective if information is transparent enough to allow that. Star Citizen is another example of what happens when the funding is so sky high that there are no external or internal limitations. If everybody is just going along with the flow, it doesn't make for good ideas. Or to put it another way, having good ideas doesn't mean executing them well, but with unlimited funding people tend to just creatively cross from one idea to another new one. Star Wars 4-6 was made on a budget because the production guys kept telling Lucas that he should tone it down, that it wasn't possible to do this or that. Then Lucas got mega funded and made Star Wars 1-3.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[LaSpeakeasi]

 

They read the beta forums. And I'm sure they check the content of the forums every once in awhile to see how people react to different systems.

 

Evidently they don't. Because the beta and official patch were virtually the same. off the top of my head I could think of 1-2 bugs reported during beta that ended up fixed in official release. The vast majority were just left there. It's hard to imagine them being so unprofessional as to having read the beta reaction still decided to go ahead with the official release. In fact, one of my 2.02 beta ticket just got an acknowledgement today. It was posted weeks ago.

 

“Once in a while" may be acceptable for your typical B-listed studio. But for the indie-mongol OBS is trying to position themselves as these days, that is sorely inadequate.

 

I was pretty active on Bioware's forum around the ME2~ME3 interval. David Gaider may not have taken player suggestions. But he was there. His posting frequency was on par with the most active OBS dev on this forum. Before the ME3 controversy man-children used to bitch to him all the time for including gay romance in his games. He would address them, sometimes flat out told them off.

 

And I gotta give him credit for that, even though I hated ME3's ending myself. Not because of it being what it was, but because of the promise specifically made to players that we'll get to shape the story's outcome. Then Bioware broke it.

 

I always thought the reason was they envisioned ME as a trilogy but by ME3 they knew they needed to make more games. So they weren't able to leave the ending open-ended as promised.

[Ymarsakar]

"The vast majority were just left there. "

 

I don't know what you are talking about, because there are a lot more than two bugs that were corrected. Melee engagement video by one beta tester and various stat rebuilds along with dexterity working/unworking were just 3 of them near the end.

 

If you're referring to the White march patch betas, then we're talking about different things. I mean the pre 1.0 beta Pillars game, before the release. The steam beta patches are just hotfixes they release sooner than the code build is finalized. An actual beta build would be to use Steam's beta feature to upload an entirely new feature list that isn't released, and test the content before finalizing it. A lot of people who prolong their game's alpha stage via fund as they go early releases, tend to be like that.

 

"Not because of it being what it was, but because of the promise specifically made to players that we'll get to shape the story's outcome. Then Bioware broke it."

 

Gaider was working on another project at the time and had handed creative control to the lead writer. Then the lead writer decides to go "high level" as sources reported, and rewrote the ending without the usual feedback from the Bioware writing team. That turned out well. I think "high level" when the universe was created by another writer entirely, might need a period of adjustment first.

Edited October 7, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[maglalosus]

I would just like to see them all opened up to ANY class

 

At the moment my rogue uses a bow, and I have no two handed weapon party members, no monk and Wizard uses a wand.

 

So for me - they're all useless !!

[sapientNode]

I would just like to see them all opened up to ANY class

 

At the moment my rogue uses a bow, and I have no two handed weapon party members, no monk and Wizard uses a wand.

 

So for me - they're all useless !!

 

I agree.

I tried opening them up with an editor and can not find the tags for specific classes.

I suppose potentially we could force bind them with a console command but then it wouldn't know which path to upgrade the weapon.

The restrictions on classes are horrible considering they potentially do not get used.

[Oralaina]

I would just like to see them all opened up to ANY class

 

At the moment my rogue uses a bow, and I have no two handed weapon party members, no monk and Wizard uses a wand.

 

So for me - they're all useless !!

 

Can't rogues use Stormcaller?  Not in game, can't remember what it says....

 

 

 

I agree.

I tried opening them up with an editor and can not find the tags for specific classes.

I suppose potentially we could force bind them with a console command but then it wouldn't know which path to upgrade the weapon.

The restrictions on classes are horrible considering they potentially do not get used.

 

 

IE Mod allows you to force-complete the soulbound "conditions"; don't know if that would help you or not.

Edited October 9, 2015 by Oralaina

[gkathellar]

Stormcaller is for rangers, ciphers, and (bafflingly) chanters.

[sapientNode]

 

I would just like to see them all opened up to ANY class

 

At the moment my rogue uses a bow, and I have no two handed weapon party members, no monk and Wizard uses a wand.

 

So for me - they're all useless !!

 

Can't rogues use Stormcaller?  Not in game, can't remember what it says....

 

 

 

I agree.

I tried opening them up with an editor and can not find the tags for specific classes.

I suppose potentially we could force bind them with a console command but then it wouldn't know which path to upgrade the weapon.

The restrictions on classes are horrible considering they potentially do not get used.

 

 

IE Mod allows you to force-complete the soulbound "conditions"; don't know if that would help you or not.

 

 

I looked for a method to force bind them to a character but was not able to find anything.

And like I said I opened them up in the editor and I can not find the script or variables that lock the weapon to a class.

All these bloody restrictions is a huge pain in the ass.

I wanted Greenstone Staff on my Priest

I want Stormcaller on my Monk or Rogue

Estoc is the only one that can be bound to anyone but its a 2 hander and you cant rebind it again once it is in place.

and the Redeemer at least makes sense since it feels mostly Paladin.

 

Still with the fact they are mostly all 2 handers and that in itself is restrictive why add yet another layer of restriction.

So far the overall design of PoE has an enormous amount of forced mechanics r restrictive ones yet it doesn't feel like they thought out how they would actually play out.

 

Example (Greenstone Staff):

I can bind it my Monk and he then potentially gets a petrify effect 5%.  However he loses his bare fist buffs and his speed.

I can bind it to Druid which hey it says it is green after all and he has to attack melee to get it to proc.  Perhaps he will do that a few times but not often.  He is either shapeshifted or thowing down massive AoE damage spells.  And Spells do not proc the weapon.

I can bind to my Wizard and none of the abilities are very useful at all.  The final is some call spell push back.  And again I have to melee with my Mage to get it to proc off.

So Greenstone is for completionist or someone RolePlaying a gimped Druid or Wizard or Monk.  Feels like the weapons are there just to be there.

 

The only one like I said that makes sense and has been quite potent is Redeemer with the destroy vessel action.  However it overwrites Flames of Devotion and its revive spell still doesnt work when cast.  Nor does the AoE buff take into account intellect or radius buffs it seems.

[Oralaina]

Yeah, I didn't mean IE Mod lets you bind to anyone.  Once you've bound the weapon to someone, however, it allows you to force the upgrade conditions without actually having to kill all the mobs etc.  So if you found a way to bind the staff to your priest, but then it didn't seem to be doing the right "upgrade path", you could do THAT with IE Mod.

 

Good luck with it.  I'm assuming the reason the weapons are class-limited the way they are may have something to do with WM part 2, but that's just a "baseless" assumption on my part probably.

[sapientNode]

Yah potentially it is because of the next expansion.

I might have done a better thing in waiting until part 2 comes out.

[maglalosus]

 

 

Can't rogues use Stormcaller?  Not in game, can't remember what it says....

 

 

 

 

No unfortunately!

My Rogue uses a Hunting Bow, so Stormcaller would have been great...

 

Still say they should just open up all the Soulbound weapons to all classes.

Edited October 10, 2015 by maglalosus

[Teioh_White]

It is a little strange that a game where everyone can use every the exact same gear, choose the exact same stats, have almost the exact same base stats/stat growth, and almost the exact same choice of general talents and skills, would introduce end game gear that is class specific.

 

As to why it might be difficult to make them any class, I know the spell-on-hit proc changes based on what class has it is bound too, so that might be some issue. On the plus side, the weapons are all pretty bleh outside of Stormcaller, and Rogue is really the only notable omission on that, so it shouldn't be a huge roadblock for gameplay.