Pillars of Eternity 2 Wish List and Suggestions

[Rostere]

 

• All the talents need to be revamped...no more useless talents or talents that don't noticeably change gameplay. In summary get rid of trash talents 

 

• Developers need to play and tune the game on the highest PoTD difficulty. This is to ensure no challenges are impossible to overcome. (I could not kill Adra Dragon on PoTD)

 

• No more random addition of immunities that unbalance the game. If you are going to give immunities please balance the other talents in the game to accommodate them,

 

• Per rest attribute bonuses are immersion breaking and frustrating. No one should have to trace their way out of a dungeon to reinstate attribute bonuses

 

• Let us customize companions from the start of the game. Do not give us random stat distribution NPCs to salvage from their miserable attributes (Sorry Pallegina...)

 

• Take advantage of Amazon's free game engine to give us some better graphics. I want to see the armor I put on my toon, heck I want to see their face

 

• All classes should have natural regeneration of health, even if some classes have more than others. Natural regeneration should be upgrade-able with talents

 

• Players should be rewarded for designing good character builds. Remove the over dependence of classes on gear to be viable. (Forgemaster Gloves I am looking at you)

 

Hi,

 

Obsidian devs: Please don't listen to any of the wishes in the quote above. My wishlist consists of ignoring the above wishes. In particular, PotD is too easy and should be made harder.

[AndreaColombo]

^ harder via smarter A.I. and encounter design that is. Not via cheese unavailable to players and gratuitous inflation of monster stats and damage.

[Elric Galad]

Adra Dragon is poorly balanced. Her breath can one shot a few party members. But with a few Hold Beast cast, the fight is incredibly easy. But PotD is not very hard.

 

My mechanic wishlist :

 

1 - Better multiclass (or secondary class). In particular, one should be able full sets of low level spell through multiclassing. Multiclass could be done by extending current talents (series of talent). But Multiclass shall be commiting, one should not be able to select a Multiclass option without loosing other possibilities.

 

2 - More companions, all companions should be unique like Pellagina and Devil are. Companions should always have reasons why to choose them instead of henchman.

 

3 - Reduce dependancy to priests. Druids support spells were a good start. Multiclassing options could address the problem.

 

4 - Priests for all divinities. And a few more class kits (Paladin, Druids, Rangers and Priests can be expended too).

 

And I think that's all.

 

So basically, just expand the content.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Also the per rest/per encounter system bothers me. Per rest is ok for me, at least for casters, maybe because of Bg nostslgia. And casters have plenty of per rest so using them is not a problem (evef if it makes casters MVPs for boss battle). As many players, I don't like per rest abilities for non-casters.

 

However, I'd like to see per encounter abilities to be replaced by cooldown. This would give an edge to non casters during battles of attrition. 2/encounter could be like 1/15s and 1/encounter could be 1/mn for example.

 

This would be really good for paladin FoD because it would give them much more reliable DPS (though less spike damage), which is what many players wish for paladin !

Edited May 18, 2016 by Elric Galad

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Ugh. Epic levels? No thanks.

 

 

Yeah, the kind of gonzo insanity commonly associated with epic levels just doesn't fit the very grounded style of Pillars. The writing was always at its weakest when it came to the handling of world-changing revelations, really.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I mean, large parts of the backstory for PoE1 involved a dude who had to be killed with a massive superbomb because he threw lasers from his eyes, so I don't see why people think epic levels are out of the question.

[Starwars]

-A big, thriving city, with lots of content! Athkatla could manage it back in the day, it should not be impossible today.

 

-Bigger areas with more content (doesn't need to be quests, just... interesting things). White March was a good step forward in this area.

 

-Less combat overall, but tougher and more interesting encounters. Not gonna happen, but...

 

-More interesting ways to solve quests. PoE will probably always be a combat-heavy type of game which is fine, but more options is always nice.

 

-Personally I think difficulties above Normal could stand to be buffed up a bit.

 

-Companions with an edge. Have them leave us, challenge us, attack us, attack other party members, etc, if there is a serious clash of beliefs. More DRAMA amongst the companions.

 

-More of the really deep quests, that span different areas, have different entry/exit points, many ways to solve them.

[Quillon]

I mean, large parts of the backstory for PoE1 involved a dude who had to be killed with a massive superbomb

 

 

 

And in the end he was... literally:

 

 

: P

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2016 by Quillon

[White Phoenix]

Wishes of mine:

 

1. NO Backer NPCs! Not in that way as they are! They're huge immersion breakers and ignore Eternity's lore!

2. More reactivity for races and classes (White March did it right). Maybe one simple quest for every class?

3. Better story. Yes, story was interesting but told badly. But White March (again) did it great.

4. Possible Watcher PC needs their potential to be fully developed (again White March tried to do it right)

5. Same with companions. They should be tied more with story. Their number should be reduced --> NWN2: Mask of Betrayer example

6. One big city with content. Factions should be more tied into story.

7. Thaos was so poor (from Third Act). Villain needs to bond with PC character like Irenicus to Bhaalspawn (has their motives to each other). I would like to see female antagonist.

8. Combat, engagement system maybe as a talent? I mean when someone gives you damage as you want to change your position on the battlefield (it was annoying).

10. Soulbound weapons! 

11. Scripted interactions as in the White March

12. Soulbound armor

 

13. Ghost of St. Waidwen 

Edited May 18, 2016 by White Phoenix

[Indiphilo]

-A big, thriving city, with lots of content! Athkatla could manage it back in the day, it should not be impossible today.

 

-Bigger areas with more content (doesn't need to be quests, just... interesting things). White March was a good step forward in this area.

 

-Less combat overall, but tougher and more interesting encounters. Not gonna happen, but...

 

-More interesting ways to solve quests. PoE will probably always be a combat-heavy type of game which is fine, but more options is always nice.

 

-Personally I think difficulties above Normal could stand to be buffed up a bit.

 

-Companions with an edge. Have them leave us, challenge us, attack us, attack other party members, etc, if there is a serious clash of beliefs. More DRAMA amongst the companions.

 

-More of the really deep quests, that span different areas, have different entry/exit points, many ways to solve them.

 

This. Many times this.

 

Your wish list mirrors my own, especially regarding the companions and combat.

 

- The party should feel more like a group, with deeper interactions between the companions and evolving relationships.

 

- Personally, I'd also prefer fewer but better designed combat scenarios.

 

- Allow the PC to be a more interesting character. It feels weird when almost every NPC spouts out wordy monologues about their predicaments and ideals, while the PC is often stuck with lines like "Who are you?", "What are you doing?", "I see your point" and "Farewell". In other words; please try to make the dialogues feel more like actual dialogues between real people (White March was a step forward in this regard IMO).

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I mean, large parts of the backstory for PoE1 involved a dude who had to be killed with a massive superbomb because he threw lasers from his eyes, so I don't see why people think epic levels are out of the question.

 

Because every single time his peers appeared on screen, the writing and storytelling took a nosedive?

[Elric Galad]

Creating an awesome antagonist is tricky. For example, Irenicus was not very original. He is basically a power hungry evil genius like seen thousands of time. But execution is perfect, and he has some depth.

 

Thaos has an interesting backstory, but he's far from being charismatic. And he has too few time on screen.

 

But I have some hope for PoE2. IWD had a completely uninteresting antagonist, meanwhile IWDII had the twins. (The twins might have been the best IE villains if only they had more time on screen...) I hope they could reach the same level of improvement.

[Yosharian]

My thoughts are that I want more of the same that PoE gave, but with a few caveats:

 

1) I don't like the NPC companions.  I think they're stale.  I think Obsi tried too hard to make them cerebral.  My favourite character, personality-wise, is Eder.  He's funny.  That said I don't have anything against cerebral personalities - I just don't like any of the ones you guys wrote.  That's probably not helpful feedback.  Sorry.  The only other thing I could say is that I like more morally-ambiguous characters, like Viconia, Korgan, Edwin, etc.

 

2) Personality traits need to be more focused and less spread about.  They just seemed spread too thin to properly feed back to the player what kind of person he was role-playing.  Maybe keep them, but feed them back to the player in a different way rather than just a bunch of stats.

 

 

 

Here is my wish list for PoE 2.  (It will be re-posted on PoE 2 official forums when the game is officially announced)

 

 

• All the talents need to be revamped...no more useless talents or talents that don't noticeably change gameplay. In summary get rid of trash talents 

 

• Developers need to play and tune the game on the highest PoTD difficulty. This is to ensure no challenges are impossible to overcome. (I could not kill Adra Dragon on PoTD)

 

• No more random addition of immunities that unbalance the game. If you are going to give immunities please balance the other talents in the game to accommodate them,

 

• Reduce the number of party members to four

 

• Per rest attribute bonuses are immersion breaking and frustrating. No one should have to trace their way out of a dungeon to reinstate attribute bonuses

 

• Let us customize companions from the start of the game. Do not give us random stat distribution NPCs to salvage from their miserable attributes (Sorry Pallegina...)

 

• Take advantage of Amazon's free game engine to give us some better graphics. I want to see the armor I put on my toon, heck I want to see their face

 

• Please figure out how I can spend my money as it accumulates. 200,000 pands and nothing to spend it on is insane. 

 

• All classes should have natural regeneration of health, even if some classes have more than others. Natural regeneration should be upgrade-able with talents

 

• Be brave...let us experience some Divine level or epic gameplay. (Motb did just fine)

 

• Plan for expansions from the start including the maximum level cap and talents. Scaling an area up because the player's level is too high  breaks the flow of the game and really is an odd way to implement an expansion

 

• Players should be rewarded for designing good character builds. Remove the over dependence of classes on gear to be viable. (Forgemaster Gloves I am looking at you)

 

• After a trap is detected, there is no reason for companions to run into them. Bonus against traps should increase upon detection

 

Talents revamped: I agree that more interesting talents would be good, however I don't massively dislike PoE's current talent system overall: rather I feel that some classes are just crap, e.g. the Barbarian.  That's down to more than just talents, though.

 

Tune PotD: I don't think this is an issue.  You basically seem to be saying 'make the game easier'.  Disagree with that.

 

Don't randomly add immunities: yes I agree, however I must say that I do like immunities and think that some creatures should definitely have them.  Like you say: classes need to be better tuned around these (hello again useless Barbarian skills).

 

Max party size 4: no

 

Per rest attributes: I don't have a problem with rest attributes.  I have a love-hate relationship with resting though.  I think it's good for keeping powerful abilities in check.  I do, however, despise being forced to backtrack in order to rest: this is not an 'interesting' game decision to me.  PoE seems to be saying: 'you can blow these abilities and then be forced to rest, or you can conserve them.  Interesting gameplay choice, right?!'  To which I say: **** you PoE.  I'd much rather the game balanced powerful abilities around cooldowns.  (e.g. a 30 min cooldown for an extremely powerful high-level ability.)

 

True respec to allow customization of NPC companions: oh god please yes.  Do your worst in the name of 'role-playing', but don't force that **** on me if I want to able to fully respec.  That's just arrogance.

 

Graphics: I think PoE's graphics are wonderful.  I think the only problem are the slowdown bugs that affect mid-range PCs currently (I recently upgraded but on my old PC I sometimes experienced horrid slowdowns, especially in WM1).

 

More options for spending currency lategame: agree, but not a huge priority in my mind.

 

Natural HP regen: ugh no.

 

Divine/Epic gameplay: too early in the PoE series career to try this IMO.  Obsi needs to focus on perfecting the core PoE experience.  Maybe as an optional expansion for PoE2.  Admittedly MotB is one of my all-time favourite RPG games.

 

Level-scaling is awkward: yes I agree.  Not sure there are many simple solutions though (your solution sounds quite complex/challenging).

 

Reward good character builds: I think PoE already does this.  I agree that some items are ridiculous though (Forgemaster Gloves are quite problematic, available so early on and are so bloody powerful.)  That said I like ridiculous items, just not ones that are cheese-tier-easy-to-get like the FG.

 

Traps: I think traps should be even more powerful and dangerous.  Auto-pause on trap discovery already does the job of 'don't walk into this newly-discovered trap you idiot'.  I'd like to see more traps and more dangerous ones, and more complicated ones too - ones that require puzzle-solving to disarm, etc.

[LuccA]

Oh, sh*t. What I feared the most has already started, so close to development announcement... Please, don't ask them to remake Baldur's Gate 2, in any feature.

 

That's my only suggestion, and it goes for the future Kickstarter campaign: please don't compromise with megalomaniac or nostalgia-driven Stretch Goals. Concentrate on improving Eora's lore and giving us a meaningful, original story and we'll all be fine.

Edited May 18, 2016 by LuccA

[DreamWayfarer]

Less vessel filled dungeons and monster filled temperate forests, please. At least put more ruins at ground level, and move somewhere warmer or more open.

 

Or make the entire game be set in a single enormous and ancient city and a few areas around it. That would be awesome, and would make it easier to make things less linear without messing up with the flow of the story.

[omgFIREBALLS]

to be srs this time then, three things

 

1) Debuff (and sometimes buff) stacking mechanics not requiring you to take a basic degree of quantum rocket surgery to grasp.

2) Positioning - if I tell five melee characters to attack one target, they should surround it without needing to be microd. Right now it's more like three attack it and two can't decide which way to walk around those three. Also sidestepping while maintaining engagement distance shouldn't provoke disengagement attacks. Not sure that one's still in.

3) Dispositions should not be some weird combination of personality and reputation. See http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85842-deceptive/

 

And I gotta mention some things I luv, just in case anyone's thinking not to bother keeping them. It's pistols at dawn, really. Fast mode and slow mode - so simple yet so useful. Instant trap/secret detection - I can't stand waiting for it in IE games after having played PoE, I just trigger the traps rather than combing the area. For a third I'll simply say story, it's nuanced and engaging without the game being so heavy on it that I don't get to gut my daily share of dragons.

[Jarmo]

1.) Separate slots for necklaces and cloaks.

[Anaeme]

More added to the wishlist

 

A single attribute like Resolve should not dominate when it comes to dialog options. A resolve of 18 in PoE was enough to get the PC through most of the dialog options. Dialog options should be distributed better among the attributes

 

 

The bounties seemed 'tacked on' to me. the XP gain for those missions did not match overall game balance

 

 

I would like the level cap removed...but that's just my opinion

 

 

There should be more opportunities for people to gain attribute points through questing. The three in PoE (heritage hill, Council of Stars, Skaen Temple) were not enough

 

 

I personally like min maxing. i like to see what I can squeeze out of a build. There are those who do not like to play that way and that is fine as well. PoE 2 should pay off for both types of play style

[Elric Galad]

Resolve only slightly dominate dialogue option. And anyway, it makes senses.

 

Res > Per > Int > the rest.

 

But that's not too bad especially if scripted events are taken into account. Resolve is not so useful when a burning roof falls on your face.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Elric Galad

[omgFIREBALLS]

A single attribute like Resolve should not dominate when it comes to dialog options. A resolve of 18 in PoE was enough to get the PC through most of the dialog options. Dialog options should be distributed better among the attributes

I don't know that resolve is so much better, or even better at all, than intelligence or perception really. Certainly might sees less use and con/dex very little, but in scripted interactions the tables turn I'd say. Since you can send whoever you want at those, however, it's not much of a counterbalance.

 

I'm not sure how you could weave physical checks into conversations as readily as any of the mental ones.

 

[Might 18] I'm right because big sword.

[Constitution 18] I disagree with you, sir. Let's settle the matter with a drinking contest.

[Dexterity 18] Those are very good points that you'll all take back if you want the contents of your pockets back.

[Rajaat the Warbringer]

 

 

• All the talents need to be revamped...no more useless talents or talents that don't noticeably change gameplay. In summary get rid of trash talents 

 

• Developers need to play and tune the game on the highest PoTD difficulty. This is to ensure no challenges are impossible to overcome. (I could not kill Adra Dragon on PoTD)

 

• No more random addition of immunities that unbalance the game. If you are going to give immunities please balance the other talents in the game to accommodate them,

 

• Per rest attribute bonuses are immersion breaking and frustrating. No one should have to trace their way out of a dungeon to reinstate attribute bonuses

 

• Let us customize companions from the start of the game. Do not give us random stat distribution NPCs to salvage from their miserable attributes (Sorry Pallegina...)

 

• Take advantage of Amazon's free game engine to give us some better graphics. I want to see the armor I put on my toon, heck I want to see their face

 

• All classes should have natural regeneration of health, even if some classes have more than others. Natural regeneration should be upgrade-able with talents

 

• Players should be rewarded for designing good character builds. Remove the over dependence of classes on gear to be viable. (Forgemaster Gloves I am looking at you)

 

Hi,

 

Obsidian devs: Please don't listen to any of the wishes in the quote above. My wishlist consists of ignoring the above wishes. In particular, PotD is too easy and should be made harder.

 

 

I second this.

[Loren Tyr]

More of the same but even better, would be the short version .

 

But to give my €0.02 on some of the above suggestions:

- Talent design seems quite good as it is (though I want new and exciting additions, of course); no talent (or spell, for that matter) should be complete trash but they hardly need to be equally useful either. Personally, I like flavourful talents that maybe are more situational and less generally useful than others, but are quite satisfying to weave into your character effectively. Suboptimal isn't the same as thrash, after all.

- Please stick to 6 party members, feels like a good number; people can always take fewer if they want to, anyway. 

- Please don't waste too much time on graphical gloss; the game looks fine as is, and I'll take more & better content over better graphics any day

- Not a fan of re-statting the NPCs, I think getting to choose their level progression is enough.

- I would also keep the per rest abilities and spells. I do like the idea of giving (some of) the per encounter abilities a (slow) cooldown. Gives an additional way of balancing abilities. I also don't quite see how per rest abilities would be "immersion breaking" because you have to leave a dungeon to reinstate them; the whole point of those is that you can't use them as often and thus have to be more considerate of when you use them. 

- Please no natural health regeneration, that's what resting is for.

- Yes to separate neck(lace) and cloak slots

 

Some other thoughts:

- Make (setting) traps more useful

- Add some kind of wizard kits/specialization. I always liked the idea of the D&D specialist wizards but it never really came off in the IE games. It would be nice to have real benefits (and drawbacks!) to specializing in certain kinds of magic; not just in a generic +/- accuracy to certain spells or something, but such that playing as different types of mage has a different feel and play style to it (eg. access to certain unique spells, abilities, but at the expense of actually having to focus mostly on your specialization). 

- I'd like to see the personality/dispositions have more of a general influence, for all the classes.

- Add Arcanum-style odd-ball character backgrounds/personality traits you pick at character creation (or maybe also gain during gameplay, based on the dispositions you build up), that give unique bonuses and penalties. 

- Bring back Edér as an NPC. Somehow.

- Give the pets a small influence on the game (I would love to see the little white wurm blow tiny fireballs at the enemy) 

 

But most of all, just make it a good game. Again. 'Cause the world can never have too many good isomorphic RPGs

Edited May 21, 2016 by Loren Tyr

[Elric Galad]

By the way, Food giving a bit of health in addition to their bonus will encourage people using food. I almost don't use food except for dialogue stat checks...

 

Lore-wise is about the same as sleeping restoring Health. It wont be OP at all in my opinion.

 

Yeah Background traits like arcanum would be awesome. I want to play a (balanced) blind monk !

Edited May 21, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Baron Pampa]

Main story fitting the huge, open world and freedom so doing random quests for random people makes sense for the player whole game(Act III anyone?), or world fitting the main story, PS:T style.

[Odd Hermit]

1. Fully customizable NPC builds.

A sensible attack / action speed system.

Better balance and more variation in per rest / per encounter options and active abilities in general - especially if there's lots of "long slog of similar encounters" content.

Less emphasis on accuracy vs. defenses. Stacking stuff is too important and is probably the biggest issue newer players seem to have with combat. (Not being able to hit spirits or whatever)

Hold position toggle, so I can leave AI on without worrying about people moving and getting disengaged when I don't want this.

Engagement system has potential and I like it in theory but it's awkward and silly, needs a cooldown on disengagement attacks, small movements shouldn't trigger them - IE a sidestep or backstep shouldn't = turning around and running, and melee need more interesting penalties for disengagement attacks - like Fighter's Overbearing guard but less extreme and built into the class. Also, facing should matter and it doesn't, enemies can turn their back to their current engager and whack your rogue just fine. Flankers/fragile melee are extremely penalized by engagement system as it is right now.

Separate personality/ dialogue stats from combat / derived stats. They don't really make sense when paired, nor do they add anything other than frustration if your class of choice doesn't pair well with the attributes you want for dialogue.

Conditional/stat based talents (think Combat Expertise, Finesse, Divine Might, etc.). I understand why this was avoided in PoE 1, but if you want to really let people build fun/weird you need to let players pick more benefits for oddball stats that the base class doesn't get enough value from.

If they're dead and nobody saw/heard it happen, it should not influence my reputation. (For example killing Medreth's party in the woods with no witnesses still gets me bad rep with Doemenels).

More conveniently sized player base / multiple bases (I'd love a tavern).

Option to use character models as portraits.

Edited May 22, 2016 by Odd Hermit