PoE II at E3 2017.

[Osvir]

- it seemed like a speedrunner was playing the game (understandable in a press situation with little time!)

Just coming back to this quick. After seeing footage with music and voice over, and seeing bits of the interview again, it looks actually really good.

 

I was tired, and I think the combo with fast paced interview talking made it feel as if time moved faster than it actually did xD I recall it going in Fast Forward

[Pope]

omg what happened to my bro Edér's face?

[MaxQuest]

If Obsidian would make use of a mini-feedback, then:

 

Things I liked:

+ nice ui with sleek ability bar

+ animal companion icon; and animated (on-portrait) attack icons

+ awesome character preview + idle animation + aumaua model and face improvement (6:00)

+ interesting level design (9:45 levitating platforms)

+ explosive barrels (it's nice when you can interact with environment)

+ for pre-alpha it looks superb

 

Didn't like:

- eder and pallegina portraits

- unreadable red text in combat log (4:12)

- when you use Empower and mouseover an ability, it's tooltip remains the same (i.e. you can't tell it's effect)

 

So-so: (minor stuff)

~ total gold could be somewhere near <Crafting> button

~ neck slot could be placed under helmet slot

~ inventory/stash grid is a bit OCD-unfriendly

~ swamp running animation

 

---

Interesting stuff:

- Interrupts now seem to happen only on crits

- There are at least 3 Inspirations: Aware Inspiration (Disciplined Barrage); Nimble Inspiration (Wild Sprint); Robust Inspiration (Greater Lay on Hands)

- Elemental spells have associated 'counters'. (example)

- Frightened status effect seems to be substituted by Shaken (see Barbaric Yell)

- There seem to be six quick items available from the start (?)

- Barbaric Blow nerfed (?) Bonus damage / hit-to-crit conversion no longer affects carnage. (tooltip)

- Vielo Vidorio wording is a bit confusing. "and decreases allies recovery time" would better reflect what it does. (tooltip)

- Knockdown and Flames of Devotion costing only 1 power is a sensible update to their dps department

- Knockdown seems to target only Deflection now, compare:

 

PoE2 tooltip:

 

PoE1 tooltip:

 

- Weapons seem to get a faster attack and slower recovery durations:

 

PoE2: 0.4s attack time; 1.0s recovery time

PoE1: 0.666s attack time; 1.111s recovery time (dagger)

 

- Bonus Tooltips:

 

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Lamppost in Winter]

 

- There are at least 3 Inspirations: Aware Inspiration (Disciplined Barrage); Nimble Inspiration (Wild Sprint); Robust Inspiration (Greater Lay on Hands)

 

 There's also Strong, Fit and Quick (from Luminous Essence effect - sidenote: I also like how active effects tooltips also show what effect it has rather than just listing the spell name). Frenzy grants Strong and Fit by default (as Josh mentioned earlier this year), but the Beserker Frenzy replaces them with "Tenacious" and "Hardy". The concealed health bar while Frenzied also seems to be a Berserker thing now instead of default. 

 

Libertating Exhortation also grants "Steadfast" in addition to suppressing afflictions, which I assume means extra defense against incoming afflictions. 

 

I noticed "Concentration" popping up along with "Aware" whenever Eder used Disciplined Barrage. It's not indicated on the DB tooltip so not sure what exactly it is.

[Wormerine]

What's your thought on inventory screen? I looked nice, with a big HD character model, but a small thing which bothers me, is that you can only see one party member inventory at a time. I liked how easy it was to swap items between characters. It will probably still be doable by dragging said item to party members portrait. That said, I do try to remember if swapping inventory items between characters was something I did much in PoE. It was certainly a thing in IE but with stash I am not so sure.

 

Loving the portraits in the conversation screen. They look much better than I expected.

 

As far as the pallegina, Eder portraits go, I will wait till I see them in full definition. To be honest the mini portraits has always looked odd to me.

[Quillon]

 

 

Damn, that dagger is useless to me. I would never bind a dagger to a paladin or a priest. Maybe if a character is some weird multiclass with paladin or priest...

[Sedrefilos]

Nice stuff shown in the video(s) and also nice info given. I can say I loved what I saw and the game looks amazing. Considering this is pre-alpha and already looking that good, can't wait to play the actual game. Hope they stick with their Q1 '18 scedule

[JerekKruger]

I've got to say I agree that the new portraits for the returning companions aren't as good as their old ones. Aloth's is okay, though I prefer his original one, but I really don't like Pallegina's or Eder's. Hopefully they'll give them a rework before release, though it'll probably be very easy to switch back to the originals if not.

 

Other than that it looks great so far. Consider me very excited.

 

EDIT: looking at it a bit more, Pallegina's isn't too bad either. It's just the straight on angle I don't like.

Edited June 16, 2017 by JerekKruger

[Sedrefilos]

Considering new portraits, I liked the old ones better too. Especially Pallegina. It's annoying, the new one, tbh
Eder I think is ok.

 

Also very inmpressed with the character screen. Super huge and very detailed model! Way to go!

[Skie Nightfall]

That video looks amazing overall. Can't wait to play a good RPG again!! <3

[Karkarov]

Looks great, can't wait to get hands on with the game!  That said, this is honestly hilarious to, I actually think the "smaller" watercolor portraits looks universally better for everyone.  Even Maia, Aloth, and the Watcher, whose normal portraits looked fine.

Eder does look a little worse, but it is still okay.  Pallegina is a much worse portrait over what existed before, which is really odd.

 

Combat looked much improved over all, and the effects in general were stellar.

[Quillon]

The golem we've seen in the Fig update before. Its death seemed rather unspectactular, compared to the description in the fig update. Maybe the effects haven't been applied yet?

Maybe we could see the same golem on the way out since it didn't seem physically damaged, powered by a much powerful/different soul energy, much tougher to beat; which then when we kill it, it'll burst into flames and such like in the fig concept. Could be pretty cool

[MortyTheGobbo]

Was there already pickpocketing in Pillars 1, like we see on the video? I never used it, if so, and I can't remember a game where it actually worked.

[draego]

Was there already pickpocketing in Pillars 1, like we see on the video? I never used it, if so, and I can't remember a game where it actually worked.

 Nope

[DigitalCrack]

Was there already pickpocketing in Pillars 1, like we see on the video? I never used it, if so, and I can't remember a game where it actually worked.

For sure I feel like most other games with pickpocketing require a huge investment to even get to a point where it is feasible to accomplish. 

Edited June 16, 2017 by DigitalCrack

[smjjames]

Was there already pickpocketing in Pillars 1, like we see on the video? I never used it, if so, and I can't remember a game where it actually worked.

 

Pretty sure that feature doesn't exist in PoE1. It certainly does make the whole stealth thing more interesting and would make high stealth characters more useful. Theres also been mention of using stealth to eavesdrop on NPCs and there was also a mention of pickpocketing an NPC while they are on their 'smoke break'.

 

Since lockpicking already exists, I'm gonna take a stab at an explaination that they could treat it like containers. The lockpickable container mechanic already exists, it's just a matter of figuring out how to apply it to NPCs.

 

Also, I don't entirely get the complaints about the old companions new portraits. Palleginas face on portrait is just different, Eder just looks a bit older and with more beard, Aloth just shows his personality changes since and now he grew as a character. Sounds like you guys just want the old portraits back.

 

 

 

Was there already pickpocketing in Pillars 1, like we see on the video? I never used it, if so, and I can't remember a game where it actually worked.

For sure I feel like most other games with pickpocketing require a huge investment to even get to point where it is feasible to accomplish. 

 

 

Would be nice to know how much stealth skill the character used there has. Given that the character is a barbarian, it probably isn't all that high.

Edited June 16, 2017 by smjjames

[rjshae]

I didn't see any character get injured during that demo. The party seemed to walk away from each battle unscathed.

[MortyTheGobbo]

The character who did the actual pickpocketing and lockpicking seemed to have been a ranger. There's no reason a barbarian can't have high stealth, mind you. They don't get a bonus, but they can still put points there.

 

Pickpocketing does tend to have a very high requirement for actually working, but more importantly, it encourages, or outright requires save-scumming. If it doesn't work, the NPC gets angry, but you can just reload and try again. So I suspect it'll work like actual locks, in that every NPC will have a set difficulty. Of course, in that case, what's to stop the player from clearing out everyone they meet, if they have enough Mechanics?

Edited June 16, 2017 by MortyTheGobbo

[draego]

The character who did the actual pickpocketing and lockpicking seemed to have been a ranger. There's no reason a barbarian can't have high stealth, mind you. They don't get a bonus, but they can still put points there.

 

Pickpocketing does tend to have a very high requirement for actually working, but more importantly, it encourages, or outright requires save-scumming. If it doesn't work, the NPC gets angry, but you can just reload and try again. So I suspect it'll work like actual locks, in that every NPC will have a set difficulty. Of course, in that case, what's to stop the player from clearing out everyone they meet, if they have enough Mechanics?

 

The only thing to stop pick-pocketing would be role playing. Maybe you dont steal in general or you dont steal from your allies but your enemies. I try to come to games like this with that in mind. Its basically the same question of if i am god like why dont i just massacre everyone. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you have to. As long as they dont do what divinity did where the economy was so jacked up that its seemed stealing was practically necessary to play the game then its fine.

 

If they do it like lock picks where it warns you you dont have enough skill to succeed then you wouldnt need save scrumming.  

Edited June 16, 2017 by draego

[smjjames]

I didn't see any character get injured during that demo. The party seemed to walk away from each battle unscathed.

 

WIP maybe? I don't see the health bars though. I think they said they were doing something different with the health bars?

 

 

 

 

Damn, that dagger is useless to me. I would never bind a dagger to a paladin or a priest. Maybe if a character is some weird multiclass with paladin or priest...

 

 

Yeah, that, seems rather dumb, and possibly overspecialized to a multiclass combo.

[MortyTheGobbo]

 

The character who did the actual pickpocketing and lockpicking seemed to have been a ranger. There's no reason a barbarian can't have high stealth, mind you. They don't get a bonus, but they can still put points there.

 

Pickpocketing does tend to have a very high requirement for actually working, but more importantly, it encourages, or outright requires save-scumming. If it doesn't work, the NPC gets angry, but you can just reload and try again. So I suspect it'll work like actual locks, in that every NPC will have a set difficulty. Of course, in that case, what's to stop the player from clearing out everyone they meet, if they have enough Mechanics?

 

The only thing to stop pick-pocketing would be role playing. Maybe you dont steal in general or you dont steal from your allies but your enemies. I try to come to games like this with that in mind. If they do it like lock picks where it warns you you dont have enough skill to succeed then you wouldnt need save scrumming.  

 

 

"Well, maybe the players won't use it" is a very bad way to balance a mechanic. If it exists, it will be used. Treating pockets as locks would prevent save-scumming, indeed, but it opens up a new problem. Maybe only some NPCs will have stuff worth taking? So it becomes a possible solution to a quest step.

 

As for a dagger that binds with paladins and priests... I see nothing wrong with it, although I am curious as to what its story will be. An artifact of Skaen, maybe? A sacrificial dagger?

[draego]

 

 

The character who did the actual pickpocketing and lockpicking seemed to have been a ranger. There's no reason a barbarian can't have high stealth, mind you. They don't get a bonus, but they can still put points there.

 

Pickpocketing does tend to have a very high requirement for actually working, but more importantly, it encourages, or outright requires save-scumming. If it doesn't work, the NPC gets angry, but you can just reload and try again. So I suspect it'll work like actual locks, in that every NPC will have a set difficulty. Of course, in that case, what's to stop the player from clearing out everyone they meet, if they have enough Mechanics?

 

The only thing to stop pick-pocketing would be role playing. Maybe you dont steal in general or you dont steal from your allies but your enemies. I try to come to games like this with that in mind. If they do it like lock picks where it warns you you dont have enough skill to succeed then you wouldnt need save scrumming.  

 

 

"Well, maybe the players won't use it" is a very bad way to balance a mechanic. If it exists, it will be used. Treating pockets as locks would prevent save-scumming, indeed, but it opens up a new problem. Maybe only some NPCs will have stuff worth taking? So it becomes a possible solution to a quest step.

 

As for a dagger that binds with paladins and priests... I see nothing wrong with it, although I am curious as to what its story will be. An artifact of Skaen, maybe? A sacrificial dagger?

 

 

Ye that would help if they didnt have crazy gear on every character. 

[smjjames]

@Morty: In the fig update, it sort of sounded like they wanted to add more non-violent ways of solving quests or just more options in general. Limiting it to quest related stuff might be a good way to balance it, but then again, lock picking isn't limited to quest related stuff.

 

Hopefully the pickpocketing is limited to sensible stuff and not things that border on the absurd like removing a piece of armor without the victim noticing (unless maybe REALLY drunk). Stealth is a tough thing to balance in any game.

[Katarack21]

I didn't see any character get injured during that demo. The party seemed to walk away from each battle unscathed.

Watch again. Plenty of characters got damaged. You get to *watch* health *regenerate* after combat.

 

Which, new fact: regenerating health after combat, bros.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Katarack21

[smjjames]

 

I didn't see any character get injured during that demo. The party seemed to walk away from each battle unscathed.

Watch again. Plenty of characters got damaged. You get to *watch* health *regenerate*.

 

Which, new fact: regenerating health, bros.

 

 

I think he might have meant wounds as in no wound icons or damage to the long term health bar which you need to rest in order to regenerate, at least none that are obvious. I do see that one character comes VERY close to knockout, and theres some icons that come up after the battle or during, but again, it's not clear to us that they are wound icons.

 

edit: Actually, no, the icons I saw were there earlier.

 

I know they were changing something about the health/endurance system from PoE1, but not sure what they were doing.

Edited June 16, 2017 by smjjames