Pillars of Eternity 3.04 Beta Feedback Contest (Conversation Thread)

[Fionavar]

Announcement

[Reent]

Dear Developers,

i have finished one vanilla group run (PotD ToI), about 2 solo PotD ToI vanilla runs and one PotD solo run (non ToI) with wm1+2, but with a naked chanter - maybe you can see something - i played a few hundred hours ToI but only finished 4 runs, i love to change builds and test some things and don't mind if i don't finish the game. I like the game, I really do! But there were quite some points...
a) The first day! I was hyped, i am living in germany and i only knew the date i could play... i didn't know at what time i could play but i was ready - and i planned to not sleep that night. At 17? 18? o'clock i could finally play, i started a druid and stopped before finishing the prologue - i wanted to play a shapeshifter, you can't play that without any informations, the game told you that shapeshifting was 1/rest and no timelimit, i thought it was a bug that it stopped! So i switched to wizard - loving the melee caster - i think you know what happened, i lost my grimoire in gilded vale... and started again, this time with a ranger! That one was the one bug i think almost no one knows, i don't know if its fixed or not but i can't test it, i forgot the most integral part of it: i took a bear and named it after a name often used in books, that name made the game bug, if the bear initiated a fight the name for "fight start" was something like *unknown name*... so when i killed the leader the fight never ended... i tried 3 times with the same name for the bear before seeing the *unknown name*, after that i could finally create a ranger who could finish the prologue... only to have raedrics castle loading endlessly, that was the moment - around midnight when i went to sleep knowing that next day i could start a new run! One bug - sure, but that was 1) a game mechanic changed without changing the informations 2) a bug 3) a bug 4) a bug, sure, 3 bugs within 6h isn't that much, but the game mechanic change without thinking it through... i think you did that one with quite some things (i am looking at you, petrify)
b) The enemies have no strategy! Spells are used randomly, the targeting can be abused, they are one dimensional and don't dodge anything. In Baldurs Gate the mages used about one strategy but that wasn't as easy to beat as the pillars casters are - think about the spells they use, give them a few priorities (like consegrated ground at the beginning of the fight, not after a few died). In the beginning it was enough to tank with 2-3 characters even in open areas, now you have to do a bit more since they shout "LEEROY JENKINS" and run to the squishies - even if they don't see them... that made me drop party play, you get more and more ways to deal with stuff, the enemies get more abilities but use them too bad.
c) The companion stories are interesting enough to almost read the stories... but they don't care about what you do (maybe a few comments...) ... you can kill the whole world and no one leaves the party? I want them to do a bit more... feel a little more "alive". Aloth can be funny enough, but compare that to Minsc... heck,  minsc... spellhold NUFF SAID
d) fight/non fight... good idea, makes for a better balancing - but its a real pain for me as a solo player (and it affected one of my not finished party runs because it got to "last one standing just got withdrawn from the 2nd one standing), good that one part should be done (fight ending if every enemy is charmed) but what about the other parts? I was fighting a priest or wizard or something - i wanted to cast a spell, he wanted to cast a spell - heck, both of us tried it 4 times in a row, everytime the fight ended before the spell was done! Good Job!
Why should withdraw end if enemies still have DoTs on them and the priest isnt at full endurance?


1. How have we been at communicating with you guys?
I created a thread for fight ending prematurely (at first only about charm but fast changing to more parts) and it wasn't answered for month despite beeing a very big problem. I don't mind it that much that my thread about "damage done" wasn't answered since its not "that" necessary, it would simply be nice to know how much damage a chanter does in one run. I would prefere faster and better Patchnotes (not the patches, just the informations itself, somethings don't get mentioned at all)
But as long as i don't mind your "you don't need to bump" and ignore that (sorry but that part... you failed) you can get answers to most things and its really good! Maybe you should try to keep track of threads that don't get much love more and get your Patchnotes in order - than i'd say: perfect communication!
2. What did you like about us?
I like that you created the game at all! I love the genre.
3. What kind of things would you like to see us improve on?
Less bugs at release. Ai behaviour.
4. What would you like to hear from us in the future?
Pillars 2 where you can load your endsafe from Pillars 1 and the companions are in it too - depending on what you did with them.
5. Additional thoughts?
Fix a few more bugs, fix a few deeper problems (if you can't fix things like: "enemy doing something non aggressive - same for me, fight ending" for this game) for the next game and i will buy every game you create for this genre!

Combat:
I didn't fight the wm1/2 fights outside the main story line - so no dragons and no archmages (waiting for runs where i play seriously, want a few more things fixed), so for me the vanilla game is the only one where i had any hard fights.
The hardest fight would be the fights in Act 1 where i simply wasn't prepared for what i would face - shades so early? such a group with Raedric? And act 3 adragans. The on hit petrify spiders before the petrify nerf in the endless path...
I was ready for the Adra dragon, wasn't hard with preparation. Thaos was a really nice fight but its neither hard for a solo chanter nor for a party (i liked the spells he used and that you couldn't focus him down, the spells hit so hard it was fun). The bossfights i haven't done yet look like fun.
The adra dragon is a bit slow, makes it really easy to ignore her and simply kite her to death. The kraken needs a buff really hard.
 
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added 20.10
 
Since i tested the unlabored blade just now i remembered something that ended a build i tried... and that made me write a feedback about the gamemechanics about monk, while writing it i remembered that i had a point about chanters i dislike too, so i thought i'd think about each class if there is something i'd like to say about it:
 
Barbarian:
I really like carnage, i am playing with barb as MC at the moment and its amazing.
Frenzy could use a shorter cast time, it has such a short duration... that combined with the long cast time - you either can't position as fast or you loose a few attacks to cast it, sure, its still okay, but not really that "good" (if i could get a normal talent instead of frenzy i'd take it, if i could get a different barb talent (not a shout) there aren't many i wouldn't take), i use the armor for Deleterious Alacrity of Motion 1/rest... and i have to say, frenzy feels very bad (and if i would use a plate armor i'd take the one with frenzy on crit, so i don't have the cast time)
 
Chanter:

 

I love Chanter, i played 80+% of my time solo chanter - there are the bugs i mentioned in the bug part, however there is one more point - the duration of the chants... there is a "duration" part and a "linger" part, thats nice - however the system got changed and the information were scarce - i looked it up the first time i tried chanter and i simply found no informations how it really worked, the page i found said "linger duration is affected by resolve"... jeah, right...
So... the "duration" is the duration you chant, the linger part is the "real duration", only the "linger part" is affected by int and grazes/crits (thats why i say "real duration", look it up, ingame:"A Graze reduces damage and duration by 50%" seriously, don't use the word "duration" for the base duration in chants, it's misleading without further information) - that sounds easy enough, what it means: in the beginning the linger part is 50% of the "duration" part, so int only affects 33% of the real duration, grazes/crits are kinda "irrelevant", the difference should be 50% - 150% duration, so a crit should be 3 times as long as a graze, but its not even twice as long because the "duration part doesn't get touched", that could be a real interesting system if the "duration" part would be something but "base duration", - something "real" maybe something like: "while chanting and in range" part: as long as you are chanting - everyone who gets in range gets hit and the "full duration" is: "remaining duration (so if he gets in range 2 secs after you started the chant, the remaining duration is "duration"-2 secs)"+"linger" - and if you stop the chant (cast an invocation, change the chant, get CC'd) or go out of range - the "full duration" is reduced by "remaining duration"
That way crits/grazes would be meaningful - staying in range would be meaningful, CC'ing the chanter would be meaningful (okay, now CC'ing a chanter is meaningful, but before... if it wasn't perma CC or long duration CC it was useless) - it would be an interactive system where "while you chant (duration)" would be more than the joke it is now - now you have to be in range just the right moment else the whole chant is useless - hey, thats just like a spell automatically cast every X secs with you as the centre - so why not let it graze/crit just like spells?
Because:
Go and try a lvl 1 chanter, look at come come soft wind - try a 3 int chanter vs 20 int chanter, a graze does 5.1 damage over 4.7 secs, vs 5.7 damage over 5.5 secs - hey, thats 5 damage vs 6 damage... with hits its 6 to 7 damage and with crits it should be (sorry, with 28 acc i don't wanna search a target) 6 damage to 8 damage... so a 3 int chanter that grazes does 5 damage and a 20 int chanter that crits does 8 damage - guys guys guys! That's amazing! And now think about how i felt after hours and hours of looking for informations how to get the most out of my damage chants - i learned that dmg+talents don't work, acc+things don't work either, duration is useless and crits don't really matter - that's one hell of a system.
(now think about what my change would mean: if you get CC'd right after starting your chant, a graze would be 50% of the linger duration (affected by int), a crit would be 150% of the linger duration (affected by int), that would be roundabout 1 damage for 3 int chanter graze, up to 4 damage for a 20 int chanter crit - heck, it would make the chanter more than "for damage, max might" character)
(thats for lvl 1 chanter, the higher your level, the less "basetime damage" you deal, so at the start its roundabout 4 for come come soft wind, at the end it should be 2 damage, so it should be 3 damage for a graze with 3 int vs 6 damage for a 20 int crit - thats 100% more damage - sounds significant? You can graze with a result 16 above the defense, you can crit with a result 101 above the defense, thats 85 difference, so... take off the shield and use only 1h weapon, thats up to 20 acc, use a +10 perception buff, use 24 perception vs 3 perception... damn, only 51 acc difference - use eldritch aim potion too - that's 66...
i think you understand what i am getting at, if you manage to crit, you should deal significant more damage, if you have much more int you should deal significant more damage... if you manage to crit and have quite some int, why not deal a significant amount of damage?
With grazes it's the other way around, if you only manage to graze you shouldn't deal almost as much damage - but if you do, there should be a better reason than this "duration and linger" phase!!!!!!!!!!

 

(quite long; short version: for chants affecting enemies, grazes/crits should affect the "duration" and linger phase, not just the linger phase)
 
Druid:
Druid needs a timer for Spiritshift - abilities that change the playstyle of a character (caster vs melee) need a timer.
 
Monk:

 

And its the class that made me wanna write a bit more... have you ever tried to make iron wheel work? No? You should, i tried a Fire Godlike Monk with turning wheel and iron wheel... and the only reason i stopped the project is the wound system, wound duration scaling with int... the whole build doesn't need int outside of the wound system... so i tried it with high int and low int, but both had the same problem: you get to 10 wounds and they don't renew...
so if you get burst for 80/100 damage you have 10 wounds, if you don't use them they fall off at the same moment, lets say after 10 secs... even if you get damaged after the burst the wounds don't get renewed (makes no sense!!!)
So you start using them (make place for new wounds so they don't fall off at the same time) lets say you use one wound per 2 secs and get one wound every 2 secs after the initial burst - that should make you keep a few wounds shouldn't it? Since you have the initial 10 wounds and you refresh them actively... however that's not the case, you use one wound, you get one wound, you use one wound - that wound is the newest one, the one with 10 sec duration left, so 10 secs after the initial burst 9 wounds fall off and you have 0/1 wound... that's a system that's not dependable, the amount of work you have to put into the wound management to make iron wheel/turning wheel worthwhile even after the first wounds are over (etc etc, it would be a 5 pages post if i gave you every example why the current system is bad and for "RPG" wrong) is tremendously, sure, you can use them in builds that want to finish the fight as fast as possible, since in those cases the duration doesn't matter (and it doesn't matter if the newest or oldest wound gets used), but if you don't you have so few wounds it's not fun to use (iron wheel and turning wheel)

 

 

(not as long, but in short: you should get new wounds even with 10 wounds, however the oldest wound should end (=max 10 wounds, but timer refreshing), you should use the oldest wounds, not the newest for abilities)

 

 

 

imagine a fight: enemy has a "stun on crit" shotgun, he crits - deals 100 damage, you have 10 wounds - he reloads, your stun ends, you run to him - he shoots you in the face- crit, 100 damage (you have still 1 endurance left), you resist the stun - the last step, now you just have to use force of anguish AAAND you are not wounded! Who knew, a shotgun in your face can heal you!

(jeah, this example is impossible, but the way it is now the example is quite suitable)

 

 

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Top Bugs i want fixed:
0) Loadtimes getting much too long.
1) Chants getting no +ACC with survival bonus etc (made a thread about that and a few more things about chants, they should be in the system, looks like it was not on any prio list, but for me its high on my list because it makes builds much more interesting and thats what i am waiting for before i do my full clear run (or runs))
2) DMG+ Talents not affecting DoTs
3) Interrupts stopping the activity altogether (its not fun to spam the potion because interrupt=normal attack if you don't plate+2 dex... if it happens once you are done for)
4) Withdraw not stopping raw damage
5) some DoTs (wounding) dealing the same damage no matter how much int

Not a Bug but...
Druids should have a timer for spiritshift


And here are a few things i'd love to see to make the game harder:
Expert mode not showing what the enemies are casting.
Better AI Pathing
Better Spellusage - make priests that position for buff/healspells, not in a way they can attack in melee, make them cast something like Consecrated Grounds at the beginning, not when damaged.
Make Enemies dodge some spells and leave something like Chillfog
Give Enemies OP spells too, we have the tools - let them have it too (like Dragon Chant for enemy chanters)
Give melee enemies a ranged attack so they can attack when they can't get to the party.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Reent

[AndreaColombo]

Since the Wael's boon thing has been confirmed to be working as intended, enter this bug in my priority list:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83930-v300929-px1-steam-interdiction-and-painful-interdiction-have-different-accuracy-no-emowered/

[limaxophobiacq]

Since the Wael's boon thing has been confirmed to be working as intended

 

What? Can you get it now, or did they intentionally code a talent that you can't get?

 

Edit: Nevermind, found it.

Edited October 15, 2016 by limaxophobiacq

[Sking]

Since the Wael's boon thing has been confirmed to be working as intended, enter this bug in my priority list:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83930-v300929-px1-steam-interdiction-and-painful-interdiction-have-different-accuracy-no-emowered/

I'm not getting this issue. I've tried to reproduce with Eyestrike and Painful Interdiction. Our fix in 3.00 seems to stand. Can anyone give me anymore information on this issue?

 

- Sking

[Silvaren]

It appears to be survey season. First off, thank you guys very much for helping us out with the survey that was sent out with the last backer update. Secondly, one of our partners is running a survey, and they would also love your feedback. This isn’t affiliated with Pillars of Eternity but helps them learn more about what kind of games you’d like to see. If you would like to participate in this survey as well, you can find it here: (Survey Link)

 

- Sking

After so many questions about Pillars of Eternity and possibility of a Pathfinder isometric cRPG or other games with interesting, rare type of settings... Future may be beautiful.

[Dr <3]

1. How have we been at communicating with you guys?
I didn't join the beta,  i just commented into the forum after the official release of the game. I was and am very happy with the communication, is the first time in my gamer "career" in wich i found easy and helpful communicate with the developers, and much more importatly, that the developers actually hear the crowd of fans.
 
2. What did you like about us?
- Communication and feedbacks

- Your ability to make great games
 
3. What you like about Pillars of Eternity?

In pseudo-random order

- The ambientation of the story is awesome, i like that the word is a bit "poorer" than most of other fantasy games where everything is epic and/or majestic. In Eora a lot of people just struggle to stay alive, some of the quest are just about everyday life (Mothers pledge, the dragon egg, the march steel dagger for the boy, the death boy in Ondra's Gift), and magic is not clearly overpowered (no infinite resurrections, no time manipulation). The grim athmosphere and the dark humor are a big plus for me.

- Class builds balance. This is by far the most important thing in the game imho. Is the first time i'm able to build every single class in so many different ways. Every class can build in at least 3 or 4 "official" variants, plus a unlimited number of "gimmick" builds. The variety of items helps a lot in this. But really the balance overall is very good, for sure you center the target to make many builds "viable", even if not "optimal".  Is also true that a lot of players putted their effort and fantasy at hard work to find some (i'm looking at you Boeroer), but the simple fact that a wizard can be build as a nuke wizard, or a cc wizard, or melee with summoned weapons, or range with implements, or armored tank, ... IS AWESOME.

- Class system. I like the sense of appartenance that "be something" gives you. I like class system and separated "trees" based on lvls more than a total open ability system.

- The fact that you must not "find" recipes  for enchant or food around the word

- the stash

- The possibility of solo play. Is the game "mode" i prefer most. Actually i started play that way just because with a fulll party the game started to lag terribly from the second half of the game. But i really enjoyed that. Was really difficult at the beginning, but after some "exercise" i was able to finish the game on Potd with most classes.
 
4. What kind of things would you like to see us improve on?
- Your  stronghold. After the with march part 2 update with the arrive of stronghold adventures and visitors it became much better anyway. But i still wish for more adventures and maybe some building or adventure linked to your choices or reputations (es: if you have at least cruel 3 you could be able to build an additional torture room in the dungeon, or something like that)

- NPCs adventures: some of them were awesome (Eder, Durance, Zahua), some a bith meh, in particular Devil of Caroc.

- More "uniqness" of the items: most of times they just give you an ability there is already in the game or is from another class.

- An enchant system that permits more variety of enchants, beside the lashes and slaying

- The load times between areas. Often just go to a tavern or finish a quest where you have to speak with people in different location was a total pain.

- Tha game often "lags" in the second half if you play a full 6 man party even on fairly good PC (mine for example)

- Some features dedicated for "solo" players (es: you should be able to pay someone to finish the caed nua adventures, so you can get some of the reward items)
 
5. Pillars of Eternity missing features.
- see above
 
6. Combat:
The hardest fights:

+++ fights involving huge dragons: Adra Dragon, Alpine Dragon, Llengrath

+ shades in caed nua, the 4 guys outside ondra gift if you are in solo and underleveled, radiant spore, some of the bounties (upsacaled Nalrend for the massive quantity of ogres, upscaled last pirate bounty of WM2) , the monks of the abbey, the eyless ambush in iron flail fort

comment:

-what i like about dragons is that you really have to play totally different from the standard encounter, same goes for the monks of the abbey

- i also like the fact that there are around some monsters that are way stronger than other, so often you have to come back (es: bear cave act 1)

- unespected fights are fun (es eyless ambush in iron flail fort, the death godlike that appears in megran fork)
 
The easiest fights: Thaos, Kraken.

comment: is ok that the game should be beatable also by a "non completionist", but that fights were really too easy for a "final boss".
 
7. Balance issue.

i think that overall the game is very well balanced, i will addd just a couple of things:

- something for high lvl shapeshift druid (es 1 more shapeshift per encounter after lvl 10, or at least more use of the per rest shifter ability --> 2 or 3 cat flurry per rest)

- give the damn chiper a way to buff himself or to cast some spells also in solo (mind shock, amplified thrust, amplified wave, pain attuenement). I did a proper thread asking people for opinion, there was some discussion but in the end the majority thought that it would have been a good idea.

- the sabre nerf is a really good thing, no more "sabre only" rogues

 
8. Bugs.
- Good job about all the "charmed enemies ending combat" thing. Now is much better.

- There was really tons of bug during the development of the game, and much worse bug that come back or new bugs after pach realease, that maybe need more attention. But after all the work actually the game is quite bug-free, what remains is quite minor

 

9. Others:
- Combine "per rest" and "per encounter"  skills.  I mean : you should be able to use the "per rest" abilityes just once per encounter anyway. It have no sense to limit the use of 2 per rest, but you could cast both in the same fight. If the ability is so strong to need a limitation (per rest), so should have limited also per encounter. Spells are outside this argoument of course.

-Sking demostrete a love for this games and the fan so deep that is impossible to not pay him much more

- Reclutate Loren Tyr as a paid beta tester and Andrea Colombo as "fashion approver" for clothes, armour, helms and accessoires.
 

 

[AndreaColombo]

^ I'll do the fashion thing for free but won't say no if money is thrown my way. Just saying.

[Sking]

- Reclutate Loren Tyr as a paid beta tester and Andrea Colombo as "fashion approver" for clothes, armour, helms and accessoires.

 

http://www.obsidian.net/jobs/open-positions

[Boeroer]

I nearly applied for the position as "build engineer".

[AndreaColombo]

What stopped you?

[Silvaren]

I nearly applied for the position as "build engineer".

 

What stopped you?

I would guess - Atlantic Ocean :D

[Boeroer]

What stopped you?

Turned out it wasn't about character builds.

[demeisen]

​

In Eora a lot of people just struggle to stay alive, some of the quest are just about everyday life (Mothers pledge, the dragon egg, the march steel dagger for the boy, the death boy in Ondra's Gift),

​

​This is a great observation.

 

I also felt that the Pillars story telling was at its best when it was dealing with small, intimate human level details.  The Ondra's Gift boy ("Brave Derrin") was particularly poignant and well realized in the game.  A lesser game might have gone for the happily-ever-after Hollywood conclusion, but Pillars had the courage to let this play out as it might in real life between a young boy and several murderous thugs.  It has a deeper impact in the way they wrote it, and is more believable for the player.  It made you appreciate what the boy did, even in the face of insurmountable odds.

[Reent]

Added a bit about some classes and the mechanics they use.

thats what i added:

 

 

Since i tested the unlabored blade just now i remembered something that ended a build i tried... and that made me write a feedback about the gamemechanics about monk, while writing it i remembered that i had a point about chanters i dislike too, so i thought i'd think about each class if there is something i'd like to say about it:
 
Barbarian:
I really like carnage, i am playing with barb as MC at the moment and its amazing.
Frenzy could use a shorter cast time, it has such a short duration... that combined with the long cast time - you either can't position as fast or you loose a few attacks to cast it, sure, its still okay, but not really that "good" (if i could get a normal talent instead of frenzy i'd take it, if i could get a different barb talent (not a shout) there aren't many i wouldn't take), i use the armor for Deleterious Alacrity of Motion 1/rest... and i have to say, frenzy feels very bad (and if i would use a plate armor i'd take the one with frenzy on crit, so i don't have the cast time)
 
Chanter:

 

I love Chanter, i played 80+% of my time solo chanter - there are the bugs i mentioned in the bug part, however there is one more point - the duration of the chants... there is a "duration" part and a "linger" part, thats nice - however the system got changed and the information were scarce - i looked it up the first time i tried chanter and i simply found no informations how it really worked, the page i found said "linger duration is affected by resolve"... jeah, right...
So... the "duration" is the duration you chant, the linger part is the "real duration", only the "linger part" is affected by int and grazes/crits (thats why i say "real duration", look it up, ingame:"A Graze reduces damage and duration by 50%" seriously, don't use the word "duration" for the base duration in chants, it's misleading without further information) - that sounds easy enough, what it means: in the beginning the linger part is 50% of the "duration" part, so int only affects 33% of the real duration, grazes/crits are kinda "irrelevant", the difference should be 50% - 150% duration, so a crit should be 3 times as long as a graze, but its not even twice as long because the "duration part doesn't get touched", that could be a real interesting system if the "duration" part would be something but "base duration", - something "real" maybe something like: "while chanting and in range" part: as long as you are chanting - everyone who gets in range gets hit and the "full duration" is: "remaining duration (so if he gets in range 2 secs after you started the chant, the remaining duration is "duration"-2 secs)"+"linger" - and if you stop the chant (cast an invocation, change the chant, get CC'd) or go out of range - the "full duration" is reduced by "remaining duration"
That way crits/grazes would be meaningful - staying in range would be meaningful, CC'ing the chanter would be meaningful (okay, now CC'ing a chanter is meaningful, but before... if it wasn't perma CC or long duration CC it was useless) - it would be an interactive system where "while you chant (duration)" would be more than the joke it is now - now you have to be in range just the right moment else the whole chant is useless - hey, thats just like a spell automatically cast every X secs with you as the centre - so why not let it graze/crit just like spells?
Because:
Go and try a lvl 1 chanter, look at come come soft wind - try a 3 int chanter vs 20 int chanter, a graze does 5.1 damage over 4.7 secs, vs 5.7 damage over 5.5 secs - hey, thats 5 damage vs 6 damage... with hits its 6 to 7 damage and with crits it should be (sorry, with 28 acc i don't wanna search a target) 6 damage to 8 damage... so a 3 int chanter that grazes does 5 damage and a 20 int chanter that crits does 8 damage - guys guys guys! That's amazing! And now think about how i felt after hours and hours of looking for informations how to get the most out of my damage chants - i learned that dmg+talents don't work, acc+things don't work either, duration is useless and crits don't really matter - that's one hell of a system.
(now think about what my change would mean: if you get CC'd right after starting your chant, a graze would be 50% of the linger duration (affected by int), a crit would be 150% of the linger duration (affected by int), that would be roundabout 1 damage for 3 int chanter graze, up to 4 damage for a 20 int chanter crit - heck, it would make the chanter more than "for damage, max might" character)
(thats for lvl 1 chanter, the higher your level, the less "basetime damage" you deal, so at the start its roundabout 4 for come come soft wind, at the end it should be 2 damage, so it should be 3 damage for a graze with 3 int vs 6 damage for a 20 int crit - thats 100% more damage - sounds significant? You can graze with a result 16 above the defense, you can crit with a result 101 above the defense, thats 85 difference, so... take off the shield and use only 1h weapon, thats up to 20 acc, use a +10 perception buff, use 24 perception vs 3 perception... damn, only 51 acc difference - use eldritch aim potion too - that's 66...
i think you understand what i am getting at, if you manage to crit, you should deal significant more damage, if you have much more int you should deal significant more damage... if you manage to crit and have quite some int, why not deal a significant amount of damage?
With grazes it's the other way around, if you only manage to graze you shouldn't deal almost as much damage - but if you do, there should be a better reason than this "duration and linger" phase!!!!!!!!!!

 

(quite long; short version: for chants affecting enemies, grazes/crits should affect the "duration" and linger phase, not just the linger phase)
 
Druid:
Druid needs a timer for Spiritshift - abilities that change the playstyle of a character (caster vs melee) need a timer.
 
Monk:

 

And its the class that made me wanna write a bit more... have you ever tried to make iron wheel work? No? You should, i tried a Fire Godlike Monk with turning wheel and iron wheel... and the only reason i stopped the project is the wound system, wound duration scaling with int... the whole build doesn't need int outside of the wound system... so i tried it with high int and low int, but both had the same problem: you get to 10 wounds and they don't renew...
so if you get burst for 80/100 damage you have 10 wounds, if you don't use them they fall off at the same moment, lets say after 10 secs... even if you get damaged after the burst the wounds don't get renewed (makes no sense!!!)
So you start using them (make place for new wounds so they don't fall off at the same time) lets say you use one wound per 2 secs and get one wound every 2 secs after the initial burst - that should make you keep a few wounds shouldn't it? Since you have the initial 10 wounds and you refresh them actively... however that's not the case, you use one wound, you get one wound, you use one wound - that wound is the newest one, the one with 10 sec duration left, so 10 secs after the initial burst 9 wounds fall off and you have 0/1 wound... that's a system that's not dependable, the amount of work you have to put into the wound management to make iron wheel/turning wheel worthwhile even after the first wounds are over (etc etc, it would be a 5 pages post if i gave you every example why the current system is bad and for "RPG" wrong) is tremendously, sure, you can use them in builds that want to finish the fight as fast as possible, since in those cases the duration doesn't matter (and it doesn't matter if the newest or oldest wound gets used), but if you don't you have so few wounds it's not fun to use (iron wheel and turning wheel)

 

 

(not as long, but in short: you should get new wounds even with 10 wounds, however the oldest wound should end (=max 10 wounds, but timer refreshing), you should use the oldest wounds, not the newest for abilities)

 

 

 

imagine a fight: enemy has a "stun on crit" shotgun, he crits - deals 100 damage, you have 10 wounds - he reloads, your stun ends, you run to him - he shoots you in the face- crit, 100 damage (you have still 1 endurance left), you resist the stun - the last step, now you just have to use force of anguish AAAND you are not wounded! Who knew, a shotgun in your face can heal you!

(jeah, this example is impossible, but the way it is now the example is quite suitable)

 

 

 

 

[Ninsianna]

I had a quick check back at the game now.

 

Three things I've noticed:

a) had a massive performance issue during combat with a lot of flashy things going on. Didn't have that in earlier versions.

b) what I found annoying is that in the Journal, collapsed paragraphs (like a finished "White March I") don't stay that way during the game (has been like this before the patch)

c) when I put a companion out of my group and back in he or she looses their AI settings (has been like this before the patch as well)

[Silvaren]

I encountered an issue today. Probably it's not a bug but something with enemy AI:

 

Bounty: The Gleaming Society

After a fight and after I looted corpses I noticed that one member of the Gleaming Society didn't join the fight when others spotted me. He stood behind field of view in fog of war and attacked me after the big fight when I came close enough - I didn't even know that he was there, I thought that entire group was wiped out. He was one of the Gleaming Society Paladins.

Edited October 28, 2016 by Silvaren

[Aarik D]

Hey Everyone!

 

Thank you guys so so much for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire and participate in this Beta contest! Everyone gave some amazing feedback and we are extremely grateful for it!

 

We will now be closing the contest and reviewing everyone's submissions and we will announce the winners soon! Really, awesome work guys!

 

Thanks a bunch! 

[Yerude]

I hope this will be the most honest of all critics. I will try to stay fair. This wont be a feedback only for the beta patch so i hope you will still think about it, even if i didnt answer to your questions directly.

 

preface:

First i would like to clarify i only would like to give feedback to the game itself, not to your community work.

In my opinion i realy like you want to communicate with us, this is not mandatory for every developer.

But there is little to say about because so many things are kind of obvious and i dont want to waste your reading time.

I am one of the older players who waited ages for another game like Baldurs Gate and i expected very much.

 

story:

The plot is realy great. I enjoyed every quest and the art the game implemented the story. It was fascinating and in most quests the atmosphere was believable. In my opinion the story was great but the influence i have on the story was little. But thats okay. I know people expect more of an old fashioned RPG but in my opinion this doesnt need to be. There is only one thing which disappointed. I realy disliked the end of the game. It was sudden, not epic enough, even the big hall didnt change the atmosphere. The fight and the end wasnt very satisfying and the end felt like an open end. Was it ment to be so? I dont know. It was way to sudden. Way to many open questions at the end. The Addons didnt continue the main story so i am still wainting how to fill the emptiness of the end.

 

atmosphere:

This game is beautiful. It has a lot details, nice plot about the way of magic and souls of people (it is difficult to explain in english because i am german). I realy enjoyed the main idea behind the game. But thre can still be details to mention i missed alot.

With Baldurs Gate it was easy to implement all the atmosphere because DnD has its own tons of material in books and the pen & paper version.

Pillars of Eternity is a completely new universe and every detail needs to be done all by yourself. This is a very big task and very difficult to accomplish. The effort to adapt a dnd similar universe is difficult. You need your own identy while you want to focus on the older clients.

DnD can be summorized it its roots and basics f.e.

- Magic

- Monstermanual <- tons of Monsters, all very "fairytailish"

- Religion/cult/gods

- Adventureing and still every thing is very "classical" there knights, castles, dungeons and dragons of course, typcial races, tons of weapons and armor, typical classes. Dnd is nothing realy "special" itself.

 

But you need to have an own identity. You did very well so far. But in Detail your magic system is not very creative. To be honest, it is realy realy bad. I will explain in detail in gameplay. Also your monsters are neither very creative nor you were able to implement all of the classical types of monsters. So you had to have alot "human" villains. This is sad. Same problem for Dragon Age by the way. To create a dense atmosphere with interresting "Monsters" or "Villains" you could have to think more about different ways. In generall every fairy tail monster you may think about or create yourself could have an human mind, able to speak etc. So not every villains need to be animals or dragons or ghosts...

I wish i would be part of your team, i could do quite a lot creative things :D Probably an own villain race would be great.

Dragon Age did it by implementing the dark breed.

Also your religion and gods are not baked out very well. I missed the temples, i missed the sidequests for priests. I missed the deepness in why or when do certain people certain things depending on their prejudice which is very common in a mediavel fantasy world. That was great about Baldurs Gate, there were always some weird fanatics around any corner doing weird stuff because they realy believed in it.

The Adventuring is quite great but there is always to much reasoning for exploring things. I think more "unknown" locations would be great for our curiosity. In most open world games i play i realy enjoy to travel somewhere unexpected just to look whats going on there. This is why we are adventures. We are curious. The home castle of pillars of eternity is of course very great. i enjoyed it so much. But i missed the epic moments in this game. There is no epic capital city. No epic army. Even the main thread is more "secret" and you feel more like some kind of a "adventuring special ops team" than a team of a bunch of heroes honorized by the world. I didnt have the feeling in this game to feel realy like a great person. Even my charackters destiny felt so weak somehow. Also the most items, even the crafted ones, felt so "regular".I always missed the aspect of items beeing very special or rare. There wasnt a story behind the items itself. There was no "sword of the king forged in the halls of the dwarves with magical steel, in family for 1000 years and epic and mighty" I cant remember ANY item, i was realy proud of. The items have no soul, no identiy. To be honest, i just didnt care less about it...

 

gameplay

I realy enjoyed a classic rpg with pausing and managing tactics. The idea is not new and i realy like you didnt try to reinvent the gameplay itself. Because it is alreay a good genre and i think people who bought pillars of eternity do exactly want this type of gameplay.

But there are very big shots in detail you did honestly bad.

Half of the gameplay is only a comparision of "damage i deal" and "damge the enemy deals" and probably a little bit "how tough am i"

But this game is so weak in tactical gameplay. I tried and experimented so much what is possible what can i get out of this game.

The problem is, the buff system, the very very few crowd controll spells, the useless healing spells...

In the end, only dmg matters. And this sucks. The most spells are damage spells with different values and different shapes. Some Aoe, some not. Some good, and some bad. Thats the problem. We dont need 10 damage spells, if 2 are best and 8 we will never use anyway. I dont need crowd controll or buffs, if i just shoot the hell out of everything. I dont need a knight fighting in the front, if my team of ranged fighters destory anything easily.

I didnt even use controling spells. This is realy bad. I feel like the possible diversity is ruined by its completely uselessnes.

Also there is no realy thinking about what and how to do. It is made for dumb people. There are so many "fake" selection of tactics and skills because it is way to obvious which spells and which tactis are way more better.

But there still is hope. You realy have to rework the whole gameplay, if you care about creating the best rpgs possible. I know the fighting gameplay is not important for many rpg players because they focus on the story. But charackter creation, planing level ups, chosing certain skills, create tactics and ideas is important for all the more intelligent players of rpgs and i think this genre is played by intelligent players alot.

I will just throw in some ideads which could help. I dont want to spend to much time right now but i only what to show a direction:

 

Many different types of elemental enemys with recognizable immunitys to certain types of magic or weapons.

This is important to make the player have a wider repertoire on skills and items.

e.G.

- an Iron Golem completely immune to most types of items and magic. To beat it, you realy think about how to do. Probably some very little hints in the game you can find out. Probably a special tactics ore special wand or magic is necessary.

- diversity in very slow or very fast enemys, you probably need to create an ambush, maybe use traps to slow down very fast monsters.

Maybe you will need crowd control

- area damage MUST damage your team aswell on EVERY diffulcties. This is very important for your tactics. You have a powerfull fireball? Dont throw it on yourself. (would be good vs slow enemys, bad vs fast enemys)

- Invisible and illusional things you need to dispell

- very powerfull buffs you can do very little and need to dispell on enemys.

- more nasty aggro. Archers will try to kill your spellcasters f.e.

- melee fighters need more "practical" ways to fight. They cannot cast "overpowered" spells. So charging, stunning, defending etc must become very tactical. How about a shield able to block an odem of  a dragon. Or a magical barrier absorbing arrows for your team?

- way more crowd control and practical spells.

- more spellcombos. eg freeze an enemy, shutter it with a sledgehammer. Paralyse your foes and strike critical hits with a bow to them. Make them asleep to ambush them with a rogue. Give your cleric an holy spell everytime he strikes with his sword, he will heal the group. Combine it with haste spells, so he will attack faster and heal the group way better. Give your cleric an even faster weapon , or maybe to weapons, so he will break out of classical concepts of regular clerics. Why not? A villain wants to attack you i n a narrow corridor with his spells? Summon a bunch of tough demons in front of him. Who said that it must be, that spells are able to pass through them?

- Use the sorroundings, electrify water, fire an fire arrow on a oil trap you planted for an ambush.

- New threads, poison, sleeplessness, madness and many more

 

I realy missed the preparation of battles in this game. Once i found out an effective playstile, this game was a piece of cake and i hope pillars of eternity 2 will have more atmosphere, deeper universe and more diversity in combat.

 

 

 

[Aarik D]

Hey everyone, 

 

We have selected our winners for the beta feedback challenge! We'd like to thank everyone for taking the time and participating in the beta, it really means a lot to us to have such awesome people in our community. We got a lot of great feedback and suggestion from you all and we will be putting it to very good use! Everyone did a fantastic job! Excellent work! It was really difficult choosing our winners, but after much debating and voting, we have selected the winners of the contest.

 

Now without further adieu, our winners!

 

AndreaColombo 

Dr

Silvaren

 

Congratulations to you all, please PM me your address and we can send you your winnings!

 

Thanks everyone and keep on rocking! 

[Silvaren]

Is there a chance that something will be signed by Chris Avellone too? He was part of the team for a very long time.

 

Thank you Obsidian. And congrats to AndreaColombo and Dr <3.

[Dr <3]

Thanks a lot for making this awesome game in fist place, obviously thanks also for the prize!

 

My congrats to other winners!

[Boeroer]

My congratulations! Well deserved I'd say.

[JulesD66]

Dear developers

I am in no position to test your latest patch : I quit playing this wonderful and unique game. Wanna know why ? Would you keep on playing if the LOADING TIMES where over 1 minute and getting longer each time you discover a new area. I still have 4 areas to discover, but I won't bother.

I don't know if the "mobileobjects" file is the culprit or the fact that the merchants keep every crap object you bring them, but I would love you to look into it. That bug has been mentioned on forum since the beginning and I don't see any improvement, nor an answer on your part.

And, frankly, I don't give a hoot about saber damage when I had to quit playing a game I did love so much.

 

[Gabriel21]

Announcement

1. How have we been at communicating with you guys?

Relativily new to the forum, therefore no comment useful

2. What did you like about us?

Making a good 'oldfashloned' RPG

3. What kind of things would you like to see us improve on?

No further bugs

4. What would you like to hear from us in the future?

How you will forther develop PoE. WM was such a great expansion!

5. Additional thoughts?

Magic such as fireballs are very much too weak, esp. an top level.

Level ending with 16 cuts off all further development.

Large battles such as the battle of Yenwood Field, which was great and such a pity it cannot repeated ...

The fight with the kraken was very much to simple and easy. Horrible!

[waltc]

Dear developers

I am in no position to test your latest patch : I quit playing this wonderful and unique game. Wanna know why ? Would you keep on playing if the LOADING TIMES where over 1 minute and getting longer each time you discover a new area. I still have 4 areas to discover, but I won't bother.

I don't know if the "mobileobjects" file is the culprit or the fact that the merchants keep every crap object you bring them, but I would love you to look into it. That bug has been mentioned on forum since the beginning and I don't see any improvement, nor an answer on your part.

And, frankly, I don't give a hoot about saber damage when I had to quit playing a game I did love so much.

 

I discovered this awhile back...easy way to dramatically cut down on load times is to constantly pare down the size of your save-game folder in terms of the number of games stored.  Create a new subfolder inside your savegame folder you can call OldSaves (or something you like) and move all but your last 5-10 savegames to it.  You will immediately notice a *dramatic* reduction in loading time for saved games.  Keep playing and saving until loading slows too much again, rinse & repeat.  Seems to directly involve the time it takes for the game to parse and order the number of saves you have in the folder--the more saves in the folder the longer it takes.  Give it a whirl!   Also, when you enter a new area a savegame is generated automatically of your last position in case you are surprised by trouble and can't proceed in that direction at the moment--that takes time, too.  I use a mod to manipulate what happens when I move to new areas--can't recall right now if the game allows you to turn off autosaves, etc. 

 

I wish before they say so long to the game that they'd port it to the latest version of the engine they are using, too.  It's not mandatory, but it would be nice!  inXile did that with Wasteland 2 as a nice surprise....Hope this helps as I realize this may be more info than you need...

Edited December 21, 2016 by waltc