Looking for opinions on current state of the game.

[Stoner]

Finished WM1 quite some time ago with few bugs, nothing gamebreaking but still a little annoying. Looking foward to get into WM2 at last, so how is it right now? Is it worth waiting a bit more or it's rather polished atm? I mean, any major/minor updates planned any time soon worth waiting for or is it a good time to dive in right now?

[Maydawn]

I'm not sure how the game was in WM1 release, but I'd like to direct you to several things that might provide you more information:

 

1. A short video by the devs on some features that were implemented in 3.0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDzAtWt7Ssg

I highly recommend you watch it, as some of the things listed here are very important

 

2. Complete patch notes for 3.0 - https://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-190-update-notes-300/

I don't know about any future plans for major updates. Maybe there are, I just don't know

 

3. Patch notes for 3.01 - https://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-191-update-notes-301/

 

And as someone who finished a first playthrough on release, and picked it up again several days ago, I think the game is in a really good shape. Playing on POTD, Monk as main character, and I'm loving every second of it. Some bugs still exist, but game is very playable and polished.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Maydawn

[Aron Times]

This is an Obsidian game. Expect wonderful storytelling, roleplaying, characterization, and core gameplay, but also horrible technical issues. Kind of like Bethesda.

 

Obsdian Fortress: Crashing is Fun.

 

Disclaimer: I haven't experienced any crashes post-WM2, just game-breaking bugs like in that video I posted yesterday.

[Srex]

I've noticed a couple minor things in 3.0/3.01, but nothing serious.  I think the game's in a pretty good place.  They do have version 3.02 in the works, and probably more after that.

[kvaak]

In its current state I'd say there's still a decent amount of polishing to do although whether that happens is another matter. Anyway, having just finished a full WM2 game from scratch (on hard, with a PC Barb and no custom adventurers)...

 

1) Performance issues are still there. Not as bad as initially but every unnecessary loading screen will still make you grumble. As an example I had a bounty in the tower in Heritage Hill. Great. So I walk out of the Warden's Lodge. Loading screen.

Enter World Map, travel to Heritage Hill. Second loading screen.

Enter ground floor of tower, third loading screen.

Well the roof is spacey and all that so I guess that's where I'll look. Fourth loading screen.

Oh, nope, better check the second floor. Fifth loading screen.

Bounty hunting intensifies. Time to get out of here. Sixth loading screen.

How'd I end up on the roof? Well at least it gives me an option to skip to... the ground floor. Seventh loading screen.

Exit tower, enter Heritage Hill. Eighth loading screen.

...and finally I'm free to grab my reward from the Warden after two more loading screens. Actually I'll just do the other bounties first just so I can minimize the number of loading screens.

 

Big, open areas tend to have FPS drops, god forbid you have multiple druids spamming lightning.

 

2) Difficulty scaling. So they added the expansion in the middle of the game which means there's plenty of more experience when you interrupt your hunt for Thaos. Got a raised level cap too which is nice and all but the total amount of available exp also gets a huge spike which means the main storyline is completely trivial even if you enable high-level scaling.

I entered WM1 as soon as I got the opportunity to do so yet I was still told I'm overleveled. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyway they gave me an option to scale the difficulty for a higher level party - sounds good, right?

 

Pre-Caed Nua was as nightmarish as always.

 

Act 2 didn't feel too difficult since you finally get a full roster. At some point in Defiance Bay I finally got the message about WM1 being available. Okay they said Crägholdt is for... more experienced parties, I got murdered.

 

Time to enter WM1. Well, for the most parts the fights seem fairly simple - I got obliterated a few times but that was pretty much always due to overconfidence and/or lack of preparation. Apart from the optional big boss - who obliterated me again and again until I just gave up - I can't recall a single fight in WM1 that felt genuinely difficult. Meanwhile it keeps pooping crazy equipment at me. Okay, WM1 done.

 

Guess I'll do act 3 for now. Another high-level pop up and... wow. Everything is completely trivial. I could probably have Aloth solo most encounters with no spells. Finished the Endless Paths of Od Nua. I remember how the final (optional) boss completely obliterated my party back in vanilla. Not a single time did I get even close. Not this time, the fight was completely trivial. The poor thing got obliterated. Same goes for the last set of bounties, those were terrifying previously, now they weren't remotely challenging.

 

Mostly done with the main storyline so I guess I'll head to WM2 and... what? I'm overleveled again? Well there's the high-level scaling option again. Hopefully it actually does something this time. Well, this is surprising, these enemies are actively going for my weakest chars. The fights actually offer some challenge and HOLY CRAP this boss is brutal. Ended with five guys down and Watcher at 20hp or something but the final blow strikes true. Damn, everyone just kept going down despite crazy buffs and revive-on-death effects. Got it on the first try but damn, that was intense.

Next couple of fights are far and few between (unless you hate sneaking), hard to say anything conclusive. Finally looks like it's another bossfight and... well, I'd say this is the single hardest encounter in the game. Won't spoil more.

Time to head for the last area. Chaff hits fairly hard, encounters here aren't completely trivial but far from overwhelming. More chaff, more chaff... I think it's the final boss! Oh wow he went down quick.

 

Guess I'll pay that optional WM1 boss a visit. Huh, he's a wimp. One fairly damaging attack but he only got it off once or twice and Eder soaked most of it.

 

So what's left, Crägholdt Bluffs? I got absolutely mutilated last time. Eh, nothing special. Chaff, chaff, more chaff. Another optional boss, supposedly this one is on par with the dragons and... did my rogue just eat half his HP with a single crossbow crit?

 

Crägholdt Bluffs has a continuation of sorts, it boasts another optional bossfight which might be nasty but stuff just isn't resistant enough - priest-buffed Aloth could more or less permaparalyze everything with shadowflame. Much more notable was the fact that for some reason trash mobs in the last optional area have absurd amounts of HP. Like, "did someone append an extra 0 or something" level of absurd. Their offense and defense (apart from HP) are still pathetic so while the fights last forever they're still trivial.

 

Act 4 also had a high-level scaling pop-up which I'm fairly sure did nothing. I actually ran through most of it with punch Aloth. It was that pathetic.

 

TL;DR:

 

Good: Setting, dialogue, atmosphere

Bad: Performance issues (especially load times, and I'm using an SSD), massive XP bloat that high-level content scaling fails to address. If you try to do stuff in a logical order you'll eventually be permanently overleveled unless you deliberately avoid leveling or exp. If you have the slightest idea what you're doing I'd just recommend avoiding difficulties other than PotD. Yes it's ridiculously unfair early but I'd argue that's preferable to the latter half or so of the game being a complete steamroll. That's what it definitely was on hard, with a highly unoptimized Barb PC and default companions (Durance + Aloth + whoever I felt like)

 

There's a decent amount of bugs as well but they aren't gamebreaking for the most part. Although I do wonder how exactly can Bob crit for anything less than 48 as I saw her landing sub-40 crits all the time. Pre-DR.

Edited February 28, 2016 by kvaak

[Stoner]

Thanks everyone for responses.

 

Now, to make few things clear:

Pillars is one of the most bug free and almost perfect product from technical point of view compared to 90% of games I have played past these few years, that said my first playthrough was on full released version without any patches. Game didn't crash ONCE, loading screens aren't bugging me one bit. Than there were multiple playthroughs on different versions and patches, and last one was on initial WM1 (no patches). Performance of this game along with visuals is clearly fantastic, no complaints here.

 

Throughout the game I've noticed only few partially broken skills/abilities or working incorrectly, funny NPC behaviour and stuff, been lucky to never encounter anything that may prevent me from getting past some points to finish the game and complete any quest. I'm more than fine with PoTD difficulty and mostly I know what I'm doing, hehe.

 

I'm not looking for anything perfect in all aspects, game mechanics are rather complex and there always would be minor bugs here and there, really good to know about 3.02 being in works, any ETA would be VERY helpful if possible. I was really asking if something major is coming and seems like I got all I needed to know, thanks again.

 

On a side note, I'm really happy for tech state of PoE, it's amazing how Obs achieved this, that being said Beth holds world record on bugginess and broken games in my book, don't think PoE could even go down this level, even if they mess this up completely lol.

[kvaak]

I really wish I could agree - I genuinely do. PoE has it all - it has a captivating setting, it has interesting characters, it has brilliant dialogue, it has the single greatest NPC ever seen in a CRPG (Durance), it has a unique combat system (miss/graze/hit/crit is quite possibly one of the best I've ever seen), but it just isn't polished enough to make it the single best thing ever since Baldur's Gate and the original XCOM.

 

• I have to spend way too much time staring at loading screens.
• I'm rewarded for wasting time in a completely pointless secret system that encourages you to sneak around literally everywhere, repeatedly. Who knows whether I missed something the first or 5th time because my mechanics was one level too low? (Tidefall, I'm looking at you.)
• I have to babysit characters in combat constantly since they might just decide to act on their own if they get interrupted in any manner - yet the game doesn't give clear feedback on this. I have to constantly, manually mouse over a dozen (de)buffs to see whether Aloth finished quaffing that potion, or if he decided to just wand stuff instead.
• I'm encouraged to constantly swap equipment on my main character so he's optimally equipped for both combat and stat checks in dialogue (in WM2 you can get e.g. a total of +8 resolve (possibly more) from resting and swappable equipment, plus 3 from food which is a limited resource).
• Combat difficulty doesn't scale properly (WM is mostly to blame) for a good portion of the game.
• Items/abilities/spells are needlessly hidden behind quirky/messy submenus (again, WM is to blame).
• Every now and then small bugs pop up. A character turns permanently invisible. Another character refuses to enter stealth mode. Text overlaps on soulbound items. Buttons disappear. Stronghold UI gives false or misleading feedback.

Et cetera. PoE has/had potential - a metric ton of it. Even in its current state it's easily one of the best RPGs I've played in the last decade* or so. But the constant, minor quirks and the knowledge how much better PoE could be if it was just a bit more polished is just... infuriating. A lot of these things sound powergame-y but IMHO things like swapping equipment to pass one-time stat checks are just bad design. Maybe I'm just traumatized by ToME.

PoE is great and I most certainly don't regret pre-ordering it or buying the expansions, Steam says I have 222 hours clocked in. I certainly hope we'll get a sequel. But most of all I wish they'd iron out the little things.

 

* = I can't really think of a younger title than SW:KOTOR (released 2003/2004) that I'd definitely rate higher than PoE.

Edited February 28, 2016 by kvaak

[Katarack21]

This is an Obsidian game. Expect wonderful storytelling, roleplaying, characterization, and core gameplay, but also horrible technical issues. Kind of like Bethesda.

 

Obsdian Fortress: Crashing is Fun.

 

Disclaimer: I haven't experienced any crashes post-WM2, just game-breaking bugs like in that video I posted yesterday.

Untrue. This is by far the least buggy game Obsidian has released. I've finished the game three times and never encountered any game-breaking bugs since patch 1.5. Hell, I've encountered more bugs in the new Fallout. By far the biggest problem I had was the issue with increasing loading times over the course of gameplay, and that issue appears to have been resolved.

[Stoner]

@kvaak

Heh, funny, since for me Durance is absolutely worst and most annoyng-foolish character I've ever seen in any cRPG or even aRPGs I've played.

On game mechanics I quite agree with most you say, but thing I can't get over is how attributes affect character, mainly how Might affects damage from all sources like magic and gun combined plus in dialogue... *shrug*

Now, on the list:

- As said before, doesn't bug me for some reason at all.

- As most of this stuff is trash and I hardly found any equipment from those secrets that was essential, it also doesn't bug me. And most important equipment I'd need is unmissable IIRC, dunno, maybe this changed in WM2.

- I really enjoyed combat even before Auto system was introduced, it makes each encounter very exciting, especially on PoTD, since most fight are lightning fast. Yeah, agree on how they sometimes ignore orders but hey, it's still fun, challenge! Now with Auto (which I turn off for each non-trash combat) fights became really relaxing. Kudos to devs for this.

- There are two reasons why I don't view it important, 1: if you truly roleplay, you won't do this, because you would lean on basic attributes for checks. 2: checks aren't mandatory, you still are able to resolve situations but other way around. There are two other problems I see here 1: Resolve attribute is overrated in many conversations, and not so demanded among some builds, personally non of my chars have high Resolve. 2: Gear +attributes shouldn't be counted towards checks in dialogues, they should only affect combat stats, this would fix gear swapping completely, no idea why not done yet, but still, doesn't feel like a real issue.

- Agreed, but only way to resolve this I see is to make foes scale to your level, since you're free to go in any location most of the time. This has a bright side: you can level and blitz through previously hard encounter or torture yourself looking for challenge to go in hard location with weak party. Everyone is happy in my book heh, though it may only be a problem for the first timer, game doesn't tell you where to go and where not to.

- Hmm, have no idea about this, navigating UI always was very easy and intuitive for me.

- Jeez, never had any of this thankfully, sorry that you had =/

 

There's some more stuff that I would've done differently, but all in all, game may not be absolutely perfect, but very decent in all aspects combined IMO.

[kvaak]

Well, if there's one thing PoE's weird attribute system did it at least spawned a completely new archetype: The smartbarian.

(after all, muscle wizard does need a counterpart, right!?)

And yeah, the obvious solution to equipment swapping would be to use base stats for dialogue. If you try to draw the line somewhere in the middle you have to justify why stat bonuses from gear don't qualify but resting and food do, or the other way around.

It's possible I'm exaggerating this since it's a major issue in Tales of Maj'Eyal which I've sunk a good couple of hours into. First you put on lightweight strength-boosting equipment, then you use that strength boost to put on heavier equipment that provides a higher strength bonus and eventually with your current and base strength of 10 you're wearing constitution-boosting equipment with a requirement of 50 strength to boost your base constitution of 10 to 50 so you can take a level in a skill that requires 50 constitution. Then you remove it all and put on your +magic gear, some of which might require strength boosts to equip. Finally you swap the last strength boosts from stuff like rings which have no requirement to +magic rings.

 

All that so with your current and base constitution of 10 you could have a fifth level of thick skin which grants 3% global damage reduction and requires 50 constitution. You're very, very heavily encouraged to do this.

 

PoE isn't quite that bad but when you allow renewable, temporary boosts to bypass one-time stat checks this is the kind of horrible mess you can end up in. I wish PoE didn't reward this since while role-playing isn't something I consciously pursue kicking a kitten holding a gold piece in its mouth on a character known for honest and benevolent behaviour just doesn't sit right with me.

 

Of course if the character aims to become a Sith lord not only do I kick the kitten but I also force throw it over the railing because for some reason CRPGs tend to confuse "evil" with "complete ****" as far as player characters go.

Edited February 29, 2016 by kvaak

[Gs11]

For me WM2/3.0 made a lot of improvements, but ON BIG failure is: no longer console commands works with attributes for companions, basically it's change my whole team and put an  end to it.That's why I start this https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84825-devs-pls-reanable-option-to-customize-companions-attributes-via-console-commands-again-poll/

 

little disadavantage is also hidden shortcuts in bag icon

Edited February 29, 2016 by Gs11