Things you want PoE 2 to specifically avoid if possible

[blotter]

I'd also like to see them avoid relegating details about monsters (e.g., the tendency of Will O'Wisps to follow travelers, the tendency of shadows to afflict villages with nightmares, the fierce competition for food that's said to occur amongst wurms, finding the occasional victim in spore colonies that's been kept alive for extended feeding, etc.) to bestiary notes. Some of these things seem like good hooks for encounters/quests and others would make for potentially interesting visual perks for stealthy characters to come across.

[Ninjamestari]

 

The godlike problem illustrates perfectly why the godlike race was a bad idea to begin with; obsidian wasn't committed to taking the concept all the way through. Same with ciphers. If you can make choices in your character creation that drastically alter the way that character would approach dialogue, you have to make sure that those classes get the special treatment, otherwise you end up with an experience that detracts from the characters class identity, which detracts from the overall involvement of the player, which leads to an inferior overall experience. The godlike are too different to realistically expect them to be treated the same as any other character, and the cipher's whole ability of reading and influencing the thoughts of others, even in the most mundane of situations, is almost completely absent from the game.

 

Yeah, but we've seen this in other cRPGS as well. It takes resources to develop NPC reactions based on race during conversations, and most times implementation of racial reaction is probably toward the bottom of the priority stack. The godlike are otherwise mostly fine as an alternative race and they provide a lot of color and variety to the setting. However, they are supposed to be rare. There were too many of them present in PoE, I think in large part because of the backer NPC selections. We may see fewer of them in PoE2.

 

 

I think you missed the point. The point is that Obsidian wasn't committed to fully implement the god-like plausibly, and thus they shouldn't have implemented them at all. The godlike would've been fine as and alternative race and they would've provided a lot of color and variety to the setting, if Obsidian had been committed to implementing them properly.

[Enoch]

I wish they would avoid half measures and designs that require more commitment than they're able to invest in them.

 

The godlike problem illustrates perfectly why the godlike race was a bad idea to begin with; obsidian wasn't committed to taking the concept all the way through. Same with ciphers. If you can make choices in your character creation that drastically alter the way that character would approach dialogue, you have to make sure that those classes get the special treatment, otherwise you end up with an experience that detracts from the characters class identity, which detracts from the overall involvement of the player, which leads to an inferior overall experience. The godlike are too different to realistically expect them to be treated the same as any other character, and the cipher's whole ability of reading and influencing the thoughts of others, even in the most mundane of situations, is almost completely absent from the game.

 

Let's have an example of a 'class' that has a special approach to dialogue. If anyone has played Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, you may remember that the Vampire Clan of Lunatics, the Malkavians, had their own special dialogue choices for every single encounter to reflect their madness and even in that game the responses that still had to be mostly tied to the same lines that a 'normal' vampire would get would sometimes produce the feeling that the game didn't properly represent how the world should react to the character. Overall, if you allow the player to have an option that is vastly different, you'll have to be committed to going all the way through, like Troika did. It's one of those situations that demonstrate the stupidity of half-measures.

 

As an important side note to those who have been involved with the whole resting-system discussion; you should notice how the trend that when creating a system, you don't really achieve anything with it if you don't fully commit to it, meaning that you can't get a meaningful resting mechanism unless you make it really hardcore. I'm only bringing up this off-topic issue here in order to illustrate the importance of commitment, and recognizing design choices that require more commitment to make them work. The godlikes and ciphers are one example.

 

So back to the original topic here, I wish they will specifically avoid making design choices they are not fully committed to see through to the end; a half measure is usually a lot worse than no measure at all, so again I stress this point emphatically: avoid designs that require more commitment than you are prepared to invest in them, and avoid half measures.

I'm not sure you can make such clear distinctions between "fully committed" and "half-measure."  Whether one has "seen something through to the end" or not is likely in the eye of the beholder.  

 

That said, the specific examples about Godlike and Ciphers are solid.  The game (and associated worldbuilding) could benefit greatly from better explanation of what it means (in the various cultures) to be Godlike.  And, as to Ciphers, the lore badly needs ret-conning to dramatically reduce the degree to which Ciphery stuff is useful outside of combat.  Keep them balanced for combat, and abilities like divining properties/histories of objects are relatively harmless.  But effortless omnidirectional mind-control as exhibited by the Grieving Mother has got to go.  If more folks could manage what GM did, you'd need to provide justifications as to why they aren't challenging the gods for dominion over Eora. 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Less than 6 party characters. Unfortunately what I'm foreseeing it will be gradually reduced in future to 4. As that's the number that's most "friendly" for multi-platform games. Going to that direction compromises has to be made.

 

At that point in time I won't be buying the game in full price but probably during dirt cheap bargain sales.

Yep... it sucks - I don't want multiplayer.

[ArnoldRimmer]

Romances

As long as they aren't Bromances

[ArnoldRimmer]

 

 

 

 

Boring companions - Sagani and GV... -, bows being extremely better than guns - for the 16th century that don't make any sense -, simplified combat, few portraits - PoE 1 had a huge problem with portraits -, big shields and trash mobs being stronger than bosses - it was just me or those monks on WM II were stronger than the Kraken?

Bows were better than guns in the 16th century.

Tercio Pike and Shot tactics would beg to differ.

 

Hmm, are we comparing weapons or battlefield tactics? The minimum practice range for longbows was 220 yards. Muskets could barely hit anything at 100 yds. Longbow could penetrate plate armor, so muskets didn't have an advantage there. The English longbow rate of fire was typically six per minute so as not to exhaust the supply. Under optimal conditions, muskets could fire 2-3 rounds in the same time span.

 

The main advantage of muskets was that it didn't need anywhere near the same amount of training. Hence you could train a bunch of peasants to shoot in a few weeks, and group them into large formations. Longbows took years of training.

 

 

I would add that large battlefield tactics won't do much in a 5-6 man party with skirmishes.  However, those ranges you bring up would also be irrelevant.  Where fire rate and accuracy would definitely be a consideration still.  Some archers were able to fire much faster. 

 

 

Sorry for the robot narrator, but just watch the first minute or two.  Even the slower archers can fire a slew of arrows before an Arquebus could be reloaded for a second shot.  I believe at the end of the video Lars Anderson fires 11 arrows with a longbow before his first arrow touches ground, but it might be a different video.  Either way, during the period of tech that PoE occurs in Bows are most definitely still superior in many ways.   Training was the big deciding factor, but later when guns gained accuracy and reload speed bows become completely irrelevant. 

 

Lars anderson style is bollocks ... all show

 

[molotov.]

My favourite aspect of PoE1 was the lore, I spent about 10 hours just reading all of the books I could find the entire bestiary and talking with Kana. The lore was impressive, Obsidian really created an astonishing world, quite a number of reviews pointed that out but they did point one negative aspect of the game in common. The lack of exploration of this lore, it was a missing opportunity, I can bet that some people that played throught the game would wanted to just drop the main quest and become a cipher agent and play as a detective or join some of the expeditions of the dozens.
When I was doing the main quest it felt like I was exploring something boring compared to the rest of the world "oh... why I have to go to the bloody sewers? I like being a watcher, just let me clear some levels of Caed Nua already!".
One of my favourite quests is "The Wailing Banshee", it was just amazing discovering all of the lore behind Ondra's gift, the banter with Kana, the legend behind the tower, the war... just impressive and the ending was so good, if your character had perception you could see the ink in the Banshee's fingers, ah! So good!

[Ninjamestari]

I'm not sure you can make such clear distinctions between "fully committed" and "half-measure."  Whether one has "seen something through to the end" or not is likely in the eye of the beholder.  

 

The distinction may not be completely clear, but certain cases are. That is why half-measures are so dangerous and why you must commit to go all in for these sorts of things; if you don't, then in all likelihood you'll end up with a half-assed feature.

 

EDIT: what I'm trying to say is, the line is hazy if lets say you have powerful special circumstances and the game recognizes them say half the time when it would be appropriate, but the distinction isn't hazy when the game recognizes the special circumstances almost all the time or almost never. Ciphers and the God-like both fall into the latter category, Malkavians in VtMB fall somewhere in the middle while leaning towards the better end. The Malkavian case is debatable (I'd be leaning towards 'good enough'), Ciphers and God-like are not, as you have already recognized.

 

The point is that a choice in character creation for the PC that allows for powerful special circumstances are not desirable in a game where you simply don't have the resources, or even the inclination, to pursue to the end; considering the way god-like and ciphers ended up, they shouldn't have even been in the game as options for the PC.

 

I hope I'm making more sense this time.

 

EDIT EDIT: damn I'm tired, but just one more attempt to explain: When you're making a game like this, dialogue, storytelling and all, and you come up with concepts for classes and races, the idea of a class that can read and dominate minds should instantly raise red flags of "well, the powers of that class raise some serious implications for dialogue if the player chooses to play it, I don't think we have the time to implement that properly" or a race that looks like a supernatural monster should instantly receive the "hmm, this concept art looks really out of this world, this would certainly invoke incredibly strong reactions from every person this character meets, I don't think we have the time to go through all the implications and special circumstances this would put the player in to represent the fantasy properly" - criticisms.

 

EDIT EDIT EDIT: What I'm trying to say that both Ciphers and the God-like were obvious problem-childs even when they were just concepts, and anyone who invested more than two seconds of thought to them could see that, and I wish they would avoid things like that. Some cases may very well be a bit ambiguous, but for the love of god, please, at least avoid the obvious ones.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[rjshae]

 

 

The godlike problem illustrates perfectly why the godlike race was a bad idea to begin with; obsidian wasn't committed to taking the concept all the way through. Same with ciphers. If you can make choices in your character creation that drastically alter the way that character would approach dialogue, you have to make sure that those classes get the special treatment, otherwise you end up with an experience that detracts from the characters class identity, which detracts from the overall involvement of the player, which leads to an inferior overall experience. The godlike are too different to realistically expect them to be treated the same as any other character, and the cipher's whole ability of reading and influencing the thoughts of others, even in the most mundane of situations, is almost completely absent from the game.

 

Yeah, but we've seen this in other cRPGS as well. It takes resources to develop NPC reactions based on race during conversations, and most times implementation of racial reaction is probably toward the bottom of the priority stack. The godlike are otherwise mostly fine as an alternative race and they provide a lot of color and variety to the setting. However, they are supposed to be rare. There were too many of them present in PoE, I think in large part because of the backer NPC selections. We may see fewer of them in PoE2.

 

I think you missed the point. The point is that Obsidian wasn't committed to fully implement the god-like plausibly, and thus they shouldn't have implemented them at all. The godlike would've been fine as and alternative race and they would've provided a lot of color and variety to the setting, if Obsidian had been committed to implementing them properly.

 

I didn't miss the point. Your concern just seems pretty minor to me. I've seen D&D cRPGs that allow Drow PCs. Players think that's pretty cool and go play it, even though it's completely ridiculous for a Drow to be strolling around in civilized lands. Do the NPCs respond to it? Not really, but people play them anyway.

 

If you don't like the god-like characters, don't play them.

Edited March 10, 2017 by rjshae

[Ninjamestari]

Bah, don't get me started on the damn Drow.

[RPG Fan]

I have enjoyed pillars of eternity for the most part, however I wish some things were changed for pillars of eternity 2.

 

Better overall balancing in regard to abilities for each of the classes is needed in pillars of eternity (some character abilities and combinations simply were useless) and would not like pillars of eternity 2 to repeat the same mistake. For example, some classes were simply too underpowered to really work in pillars of eternity (chanter comes to mind), also your main character needed certain high attributes (perception for example) to successfully pass certain script trigger checks during gameplay.

 

This might go against the build you are trying to play , but you are almost forced to allocate some points into specific attributes or you will never pass the script checks during gameplay, I felt that left little room to the freedom of choice for the players.

 

Finally, overall classes should make sense in terms of weapons and abilities. In pillars of eternity, wizard class was more powerful as a melee combat based wizard rather than going to the control or damage dealing wizard, which I feel did not felt right. It might make sense with the dual class being developed but overall each class should be biased toward a reasonable play style.

 

[Sokatos]

Making us choose between wearing a warming cape or a trinket around the neck.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Sokatos

[draego]

I have enjoyed pillars of eternity for the most part, however I wish some things were changed for pillars of eternity 2.

 

Better overall balancing in regard to abilities for each of the classes is needed in pillars of eternity (some character abilities and combinations simply were useless) and would not like pillars of eternity 2 to repeat the same mistake. For example, some classes were simply too underpowered to really work in pillars of eternity (chanter comes to mind), also your main character needed certain high attributes (perception for example) to successfully pass certain script trigger checks during gameplay.

 

This might go against the build you are trying to play , but you are almost forced to allocate some points into specific attributes or you will never pass the script checks during gameplay, I felt that left little room to the freedom of choice for the players.

 

Finally, overall classes should make sense in terms of weapons and abilities. In pillars of eternity, wizard class was more powerful as a melee combat based wizard rather than going to the control or damage dealing wizard, which I feel did not felt right. It might make sense with the dual class being developed but overall each class should be biased toward a reasonable play style.

 

chanter are beast. they can solo the game well others can to but they are not weak. You may not find them fun some did some didnt but they are not weak.

 

No you dont need certain attributes. this is a roleplaying game you dont get to pass every check yourself. there are checks for every attribute so you cant possibly have them all high (unless you meta game i suppose but thats not the point) you find a role for your character and play it out. That is the definition of choice you can have x attribute high or y attribute high so choose one. I hope they stress this more in the next game and i think they will with all the new skills they are adding. Its good you dont get to unlock every piece of content in a roleplaying game. It means there are actual choices to be made on how you build your character.

 

That wizards are clearly better as melee is not true either. I have had dps leading wizards with wands or scepters. And they are monsters at cc.

 

I am sorry your experience was off but balance wasn't one of the issues of pillars in fact there are whole threads devoted to hating on josh for too much balance which I don't agree with fyi.

Edited March 11, 2017 by draego

[dragubaba]

I just have a general fear that PoE2 will be casualized in order to appeal to a larger crowd. It always leads to those of lesser means to hate the game anyway and existing fans to feel they've lost something important.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

A THE endgame weapon for the PC. I don't mean end game weapons shouldn't exist, I mean there shouldn't be something like The Silver Sword of Gith that's clearly supposed to be the PC's best weapon.

[HooAmEye]

I'm pretty worried about about the general plot for the game. Despite it having a very strong hook, PoE1 weak story has me a bit worried.  It's not that I don't believe that Obsidian can write a fantastic offering, far from it. Rather, I have a bit of apprehension regarding the previous outing. That said, it does seem that Obsidian seems to have recognized that narrative missteps, and are working to rectify them in the sequel

[Quillon]

My only real fear is that they'll find some way to **** up a good thing.

 

Dragon Age Origins was a great game but boy howdy did they **** up the sequel, almost entirely via bad encounter design.

 

So far 95% of what I'm hearing about PoE 2 has me really excited, but a few things (health changes, enchanting caps) make me nervous that they're going to screw up the things they did right in the first game.

 

It wasn't so "good" IMO. Reviewers were really generous. Otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with all these changes & engine upgrades & adding other stuff and PoE1 would have had sold 2M instead of 1M by now.

 

There is ZERO chance for there to be a [fundamental]difference between PoE1&2 as there were between DAO&DA2, neither with party downsize nor with The Great Unification. Its delusional or exaggerated talk. 

 

In the hands of the same guys&gals with additional support and that mouth watering feature list, it will only get better. 

 

Imagine the new features&changes Deadfire will have were already in PoE 1 and Obs announced that they'll remove them in the sequel for 1 additional party slot & vancian casting. Imagine it

[JerekKruger]

For example, some classes were simply too underpowered to really work in pillars of eternity (chanter comes to mind)...

 

Chanters are really powerful, I'm not sure where you get the idea that they're not.

 

This might go against the build you are trying to play , but you are almost forced to allocate some points into specific attributes or you will never pass the script checks during gameplay, I felt that left little room to the freedom of choice for the players.

 

The whole point is that each build will only be able to unlock some of script checks, not all of them. If you decide that unlocking them all is important to you then that's your choice, but you are definitely not forced to do so (I don't think about them at all when creating characters any more).

 

In case you're worried, you really don't miss out on much by not being able to select attribute locked dialogue options. Usually you get a single extra line of dialogue and nothing more; sometimes they provide you with an alternative way of completing a quest; very rarely they'll get you a better reward, but not one that actually matters in the long run (gold stops being scarce about halfway through the game, and none of the best items are locked in this way).

 

Making us choose between wearing a warming cape or a trinket around the neck.

 

Good news, they're allowing both in Deadfire.

Edited March 11, 2017 by JerekKruger

[RPG Fan]

 

I have enjoyed pillars of eternity for the most part, however I wish some things were changed for pillars of eternity 2.

 

Better overall balancing in regard to abilities for each of the classes is needed in pillars of eternity (some character abilities and combinations simply were useless) and would not like pillars of eternity 2 to repeat the same mistake. For example, some classes were simply too underpowered to really work in pillars of eternity (chanter comes to mind), also your main character needed certain high attributes (perception for example) to successfully pass certain script trigger checks during gameplay.

 

This might go against the build you are trying to play , but you are almost forced to allocate some points into specific attributes or you will never pass the script checks during gameplay, I felt that left little room to the freedom of choice for the players.

 

Finally, overall classes should make sense in terms of weapons and abilities. In pillars of eternity, wizard class was more powerful as a melee combat based wizard rather than going to the control or damage dealing wizard, which I feel did not felt right. It might make sense with the dual class being developed but overall each class should be biased toward a reasonable play style.

 

chanter are beast. they can solo the game well others can to but they are not weak. You may not find them fun some did some didnt but they are not weak.

 

No you dont need certain attributes. this is a roleplaying game you dont get to pass every check yourself. there are checks for every attribute so you cant possibly have them all high (unless you meta game i suppose but thats not the point) you find a role for your character and play it out. That is the definition of choice you can have x attribute high or y attribute high so choose one. I hope they stress this more in the next game and i think they will with all the new skills they are adding. Its good you dont get to unlock every piece of content in a roleplaying game. It means there are actual choices to be made on how you build your character.

 

That wizards are clearly better as melee is not true either. I have had dps leading wizards with wands or scepters. And they are monsters at cc.

 

I am sorry your experience was off but balance wasn't one of the issues of pillars in fact there are whole threads devoted to hating on josh for too much balance which I don't agree with fyi.

 

 

Chanters would only become useful if specific either invocations or phrases were carefully selected on each level upgrade, otherwise it was easy to make the build underperform and some of the phrases and even invocations were not very useful at certain levels (this happened on other classes too, but I felt  chanters suffered more of this than other classes).

 

The wizard damage dealing and control build is viable and powerful, but overall the melee wizard I felt was overpowered, level 1 spell of wizard with the staff was simply much more powerful than any other level one spell and remain as such for a long time. Later on the lance weapon spell i think on level 8 or so made the wizard so powerful than the rest of the spell from there on, were really not needed. It felt odd wizards would eventually become almost front line fighters, typically you would expect them to be fragile and third row  damage dealers or crowd control type.

 

Attributes checks, could be handled in another way, which could still give you a chance to pass them, without having to go against the builds you are trying to create, I feel that is still an area of opportunity for obsidian to explore and improve. 

 

I feel balancing is still needed since too many classes had many talents/abilities that underperform while other were too overpowered. Correct balancing is hard to achieve and will most likely also be needed in deadfire, since it is hard to predict how people will mix talents/abilities and now even classes in ways that might make a character too overpowered, or make a class underperfom and therefore rarely used by the users.

 

Finally, I hope we are able to fully customize the story companions, since early on pillars of eternity you had to choose between going for an easier game mode or enjoying you companions and their backstory.

[LordofBones]

A THE endgame weapon for the PC. I don't mean end game weapons shouldn't exist, I mean there shouldn't be something like The Silver Sword of Gith that's clearly supposed to be the PC's best weapon.

 

Which becomes hilarious when you're a wizard with 8 Str who's looted the Staff of the Magi off Koraboros.

[hilfazer]

Attributes checks, could be handled in another way, which could still give you a chance to pass them, without having to go against the builds you are trying to create, I feel that is still an area of opportunity for obsidian to explore and improve.

Care to elaborate?

[IamNOOB]

AVOID bad itemization please. I am not saying that it was bad in PoE just saying that itemization systems are important in all RPGs.

[JerekKruger]

Finally, I hope we are able to fully customize the story companions, since early on pillars of eternity you had to choose between going for an easier game mode or enjoying you companions and their backstory.

 

This was never really true, and is definitely not true now. People put way too much stock into having optimised, min-maxed attributes, but the way PoE's attributes scale it's nowhere near as important as it has been in other CRPGs. Moreover story companions are a level higher than custom ones, and this far outweighs the negatives of having unoptimised attributes, particularly in the early game which is the hardest part of the game.

[RPG Fan]

 

Attributes checks, could be handled in another way, which could still give you a chance to pass them, without having to go against the builds you are trying to create, I feel that is still an area of opportunity for obsidian to explore and improve.

Care to elaborate?

 

 

Maybe by balancing the scripted checks to more attributes instead of being mainly restricted to only a few of them like perception.

[RPG Fan]

 

Finally, I hope we are able to fully customize the story companions, since early on pillars of eternity you had to choose between going for an easier game mode or enjoying you companions and their backstory.

 

This was never really true, and is definitely not true now. People put way too much stock into having optimised, min-maxed attributes, but the way PoE's attributes scale it's nowhere near as important as it has been in other CRPGs. Moreover story companions are a level higher than custom ones, and this far outweighs the negatives of having unoptimised attributes, particularly in the early game which is the hardest part of the game.

 

 

It is not so much now because after some patches we were able to fully respec story companions to fully customize their level progression, but initially this was not possible and thus made the game harder to complete in path of the damn using only story companions. We can now fully respec them, however their initial attributes are set in stone and cannot be changed, which limits the way they can be used as you respec or level progress with them.

 

The game favors min-max attributes, since you can easily compensate for the lack of certain attributes while focusing on other ones which are meaningful to the class and playstyle you seek, that is why you are allowed to leave some of them very low and still have a competent character.