Josh Sawyer Pillars of Eternity 2 Tease Thread

[limaxophobiacq]

 

* Druids and priests having too many spells and too many redundant spells (especially priests) is a common complaint that we'd like to address.

 

It's will be great if priests gather some spells each level (2 or 3 spells maybe), which allow focus them on differerent tactics, depending of chosen god.
E.g.:
Magrans priest focusing on attack buffs and fire damage
Vael priest focusing on distracting enemies spells
Scaen priest focusing on domination and confusion spells

Eothas priest focusing on defensive spells and buffs
And so on.

 

I'm extremely sceptical to this, primarily because as it currently stands on many spell levels for both priests and druids all but 1 or 2 spells are bad and if they cut the wrong ones some spell levels will have nothing worth casting in them. Druid level 7 spells already have this problem (you'd never actually use any of them in a serious fight and you'd be way better of every time with 4 more castings of level 5 spells) and even druid 8th only has 1 really good spell (Avenging Storm).

 

Wizards OTOH get multiple great spells on every level.

 

Also if you start giving the priests only some of the current priest spells no one in their right mind would play a priest of a god that doesn't get Devotions/Crowns for the Faithfull and the Prayer Against spells but outside of those which are the bread-and-butter of the class there could maybe be more variation between different deities but OTOH thats a lot of work on spells that most people will never see.

Edited November 3, 2016 by limaxophobiacq

[IndiraLightfoot]

Spoilers ahead :D, bottom right is probably poe2

 

Yay! Finally someone who writes "a" like I do in handwriting!

[floredon]

so it sounds like the sequel will take place on islands and feature Amamua....

[SkySlam]

so it sounds like the sequel will take place on islands and feature Amamua....

 

Which is especially appropriate since half the playerbase - me included - still cannot spell the name of that race!

Aumamua for me

 

PS: I'm reading this thread daily, should we expect a big announcement about PoE2 after the release of Tyranny?

One can dream, right? 

[floredon]

 

so it sounds like the sequel will take place on islands and feature Amamua....

 

Which is especially appropriate since half the playerbase - me included - still cannot spell the name of that race!

Aumamua for me

 

PS: I'm reading this thread daily, should we expect a big announcement about PoE2 after the release of Tyranny?

One can dream, right? 

 

I know, I had to look up the spelling myself on a wiki, and I still am not sure of how to spell the imaginary race/species. I also hope for an announcement soon, a release date would be nice. Also hoping modding tools get released at some point...

[Sedrefilos]

What is so difficult about spelling Aumaua? Anyway. I believe we'll have an announcement of Pillars 2 soon (hope before 2017) since there's been so much teasing the last months; and really hope they won't go kickstarter this time. Tyranny looks so nteresting just because of that: the team didn't care about pleasing monolithic old-school gamers to get funds. They took what they theough was good about Pillars and added what they though will make fresh and interesting features. My only objection (and not a strong one) is that they went for classless system. I believe party-based games are better with classes (since you'll end up specializing each member in a "class" anyway); classless is better for single-character rpgs, imho. Hope Pillars 2 will be more open-minded.

[Quillon]

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/796047431360081920

[Sedrefilos]

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/796047431360081920

Yeah, I tried to convince him to release the still image anyway, but, apparently, I've failed

[floredon]

 

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/796047431360081920

Yeah, I tried to convince him to release the still image anyway, but, apparently, I've failed

 

Nice try though. I imagine we will see more info in about a month or so, so they don't conflict with PR for Tyranny.

[Ganrich]

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/796047431360081920

Yeah, I tried to convince him to release the still image anyway, but, apparently, I've failed

Nice try though. I imagine we will see more info in about a month or so, so they don't conflict with PR for Tyranny.

Same. I expect a PoE2 crowdfunding campaign announcement come the New Year. They would be wise to hit the end of February to early March so as to take advantage of US tax returns. TTON did, and I've expected that's why it did so well.

[Sedrefilos]

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/796047431360081920

Yeah, I tried to convince him to release the still image anyway, but, apparently, I've failed

Nice try though. I imagine we will see more info in about a month or so, so they don't conflict with PR for Tyranny.

Same. I expect a PoE2 crowdfunding campaign announcement come the New Year. They would be wise to hit the end of February to early March so as to take advantage of US tax returns. TTON did, and I've expected that's why it did so well.

 

For starters, let's hope they won't go for crowdfunding

Even if they choose to do so, though, they can announce the game (with some pics and maybe a short video ) , say next month, and start the campaign in February.

[AndreaColombo]

Whether or not they go the crowdfunding route, I sure hope there will be boxed collector's editions available packed with high-quality goodies. I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff

[demeisen]

​

​

For starters, let's hope they won't go for crowdfunding

 

​I'm curious about your objections to it, since I've seen a few other folks say that too.

 

​My main issue with the crowdfunding for POE1 was the tombstones, which were silly, although easy enough to ignore.  I wouldn't mind that going away, but it's not an intrinsic property of crowdfunding, so they could just avoid it for subsequent games.  In other respects, I thought Kickstarter worked well enough, and probably enabled the game to exist at all.

​

​

[JerekKruger]

I'd be interested in knowing as well.

 

I think having Od Nua be an infinite stretch goal was a mistake, since they were then committed to making a fifteen floor dungeon and some of the later floors were pretty bad. Also having it be crowdfunded did lead to quite a lot of arguments on the forums, with some people seemingly wanting something almost identical to the old IE games (and complaining about almost any chance) and others complaining when features from old IE games they didn't like weren't changed. It seemed like everyone and their dog had a different idea of what a spiritual successor to the old IE games should be.

 

That said, those two things were a pretty small price to pay for allowing Obsidian to make a game they otherwise probably wouldn't have been able to, and one which I think is pretty damn good. Don't get me wrong, if they can find funding elsewhere I'd prefer them to use that, but if they do go the crowdfunding route I'll happily back them.

[floredon]

Since crowdfunding gives them a boost to their development, giving them more resources to develop the game, I don't see any problem with using a mix of that and other sources. It's not like you're forced to pledge, you can always buy the game when it's released/when it is available for preorder. I just hope they don't add content like the backer NPCs again...

[Sedrefilos]

Since crowdfunding gives them a boost to their development, giving them more resources to develop the game, I don't see any problem with using a mix of that and other sources. It's not like you're forced to pledge, you can always buy the game when it's released/when it is available for preorder. I just hope they don't add content like the backer NPCs again...

The problem with crowdfunding is not that we're forced to pledge. Is that they're "forced" to please the backers. Obsidian have resources (they're not some indie company) and the collaboration with Paradox. They know what game they want to make. Involving backers again it might not be a good idea.

 

On the other hand, dissapointed backers of the Pillars campaign might not back a sequel, so maybe we're all good

Edited November 10, 2016 by Sedrefilos

[JerekKruger]

Yeah I can see that. I think Obsidian did a pretty good job of sticking to their own creative vision for PoE though, so I have faith that they'd do so again.

 

Also if they decided to seek crowdfunding for PoE2 then I hope people will go into it knowing that the end product is likely to be pretty similar to PoE rather than their own idea of what the spiritual successor to a series of games from (mostly) over fifteen years ago.

[Ganrich]

I see both sides. My fear of not crowdfunding the sequel is that I don't want changes made to the game because obsidian is beholden to a publisher. Of course being beholden to backers is a similar can of worms, but the core game could be mostly the same. Disappointed backers not backing a sequel might be over shadowed by new backers that bought the first game after launch and enjoyed it.

[AndreaColombo]

I would generally prefer backers to a publisher, if they had to be beholden to someone. However, it would be likely for said publisher to be Paradox and they don't strike me as the kind of guys who hinder Obsidian's work by imposing dramatic vision changes (also the IP is 100% Obsidian's, which means they wouldn't have to change it in directions they wouldn't like anyway.)

[floredon]

Some good points made about Paradox publishing the game. That might be a better route if they felt that backers hindered development in any way.

[Sedrefilos]

Well, Tyranny is published under Paradox - it's their property - and the game is anything but casual. Yet, as much as I prefer they go without crowdfunding (because of what I saw in these forums during the production period of PIllars), going without it needs a publisher. And the downside of that (unless they strike a convenient deal) is that they no longer own the game's ip, which means they have not that much saying on the future of Pillars.

[JerekKruger]

Yeah, my guess is Obsidian will want to avoid going with a publisher for PoE2 for that very reason, unless they can hash out a fairly generous agreement with Paradox.

[juanval]

It would be terrible that Obsidian did PoE2 changing the engine or the gameplay style as we could see in Dragon Age2, but I think Obsidian is going to develope PoE2 like BG2. It's what the majority of players want, no matter if there is a publisher or not.

 

Anyway, I prefer crowfunding ;D

Edited November 11, 2016 by juanval

[anameforobsidian]

I don't have a problem with them crowd-funding again, but I'd like to see something like the Shadowrun Hong Kong campaign. As in, we have this much money to make the game, with your money we can add X, Y, Z. I'd be down with more WM2 style wilderness areas, or another town. I hope they never do a city as a stretch goal again.

[nipsen]

 

 

Got more info on the new armor mechanic: http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/150827276636/i-think-it-may-be-better-to-separate-penetration

 

The idea is that each weapon or ability has a Penetration value for the damage types it does.  This is compared to the Armor Ratings of a target for each damage type.  The difference determines if all damage gets through, a portion of damage is absorbed, or the majority of damage is absorbed (e.g. 100%/66%/20% damage).  Of course, a target could still be Immune to a damage type.

 

There are a few potential advantages to such a system.  If Penetration and Damage are unrelated, low Damage, high Pen attacks and high Damage, low Pen attacks can exist (the former could sort of exist with Bypass in PoE, but it’s not necessarily intuitive).

 

With Pen/Armor Rating being compared, it would also be clearer to players when a damage type is great/okay/unsuitable.  Again, you can figure it out in PoE, but it’s less intuitive and mushier.

 

Lastly, it could help curtail Damage inflation.  In PoE, Damage output needed to rise to match both DR and Endurance increases.  If Pen is used to overcome AR, Damage would only need to rise to match Endurance.

 

 

With this system there's not much difference at all between a high damage + low attack rate weapon or a low damage + high attack rate weapon though (assuming this Armor Rating entirely replaces DR). The only stats that would actually matter would be Penetration and DPS.

 

I'd rather have something like the current system but represent improved armor penetration on some attacks as a % modifier or divisor to the targets DR (basically like how G.U.R.P.S. does it with Armor Divisor).

 

 

Oh, look. Deja vu all over again.