Backer Beta First Impressions

[Lamppost in Winter]

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/931611039833063424

 

Josh did a tweet thread regarding the feedback, including, among other things: lack of talents, combat speed, Afflictions/Inspirations and caster abilities, so our concerns have at least been acknowledged.

Edited November 17, 2017 by Lamppost in Winter

[draego]

 

acknowledgement, acknowledgement!

[Climhazzard]

Finished the beta and thought I'd post again with additional feedback.

 

First, about combat speed.  I'm sure by now there's enough feedback on it being to fast but I'll say it again.  Characters move around the field very fast, leading to an extreme lack of tactical control of the battlefield.  Suggestions: Whatever changes you make, please bring back slow combat option so I have the option to go even slower.  Please also add a way to make characters stand their ground for improved tactical control.  I almost feel like combat speed is bugged right now, like the game goes faster when combat starts...

 

Related to combat speed, is attack/recovery speeds.  I feel like this was going to be your solution to slow combat down.  If you look at the numbers spells usually take around 6 seconds to cast/recover, two handed weapons are around 3.5 seconds....  then 1 handed weapons are at 1 second.  What's with the huge disparity of one handed weapons?  A dual wielder could cut a spell caster to shreds long before he ever casts a spell.  Did they perhaps receive the  wrong numbers for the beta build?  If they did it will highly skew proper feedback.

 

Penetration.  It's bad.  You have no idea if you're properly armored going into combat, might as well just go in naked.  All builds focus around maintaining high penetration.  Suggest reducing the value per point of penetration to something more gradual than a 70% loss in damage.  For example 5% damage for each point of pen over enemy armor and minus 10% damage for each point of pen under enemy armor.

 

Lack of grazing.  This is huge for spell casters, it makes them even more useless than the long cast times.  Perhaps some spells should be auto hit where a failed roll halves the effect.  Or something else, idk, but right now offensive spell casting is bad.  Melee fighters don't feel it so much but if one handed weapons are attacking to fast like I suggested earlier then that's partly why.

 

Talents.  I don't mind the loss of universal talents.  Each class having unique talents makes multi classing more interesting.  However certain classes don't even get passives and other classes get quite boring passives.  Maybe open up your creativity cells here and add in more talents.  For priests/wizards/druids I suggest ways of gaining concentration through passive procs and/or some way to effect spell recovery.  Like a "negate recovery on next spell cast" sort of thing.  In general I feel like you could solve some of the complaints about the current state of spell casting through passive talents.  "Evocation spells now graze instead of miss" for example.  

 

Those are the main points.  Balance is across the board at the moment but there are a lot of broken abilities and game mechanics that are effecting it to much to judge on a per class basis atm.

 

Positive feedback.  Multi classing, awesome.  Sub classes, awesome.  Animations, awesome.  Detailed characters/armors, awesome.  New inventory management, awesome.  UI, very clean, awesome (but please give me a stand your ground button).

 

That's all for now.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Finished the beta and thought I'd post again with additional feedback.

 

First, about combat speed.  I'm sure by now there's enough feedback on it being to fast but I'll say it again.  Characters move around the field very fast, leading to an extreme lack of tactical control of the battlefield.  Suggestions: Whatever changes you make, please bring back slow combat option so I have the option to go even slower.  Please also add a way to make characters stand their ground for improved tactical control.  I almost feel like combat speed is bugged right now, like the game goes faster when combat starts...

 

Related to combat speed, is attack/recovery speeds.  I feel like this was going to be your solution to slow combat down.  If you look at the numbers spells usually take around 6 seconds to cast/recover, two handed weapons are around 3.5 seconds....  then 1 handed weapons are at 1 second.  What's with the huge disparity of one handed weapons?  A dual wielder could cut a spell caster to shreds long before he ever casts a spell.  Did they perhaps receive the  wrong numbers for the beta build?  If they did it will highly skew proper feedback.

 

Penetration.  It's bad.  You have no idea if you're properly armored going into combat, might as well just go in naked.  All builds focus around maintaining high penetration.  Suggest reducing the value per point of penetration to something more gradual than a 70% loss in damage.  For example 5% damage for each point of pen over enemy armor and minus 10% damage for each point of pen under enemy armor.

 

Lack of grazing.  This is huge for spell casters, it makes them even more useless than the long cast times.  Perhaps some spells should be auto hit where a failed roll halves the effect.  Or something else, idk, but right now offensive spell casting is bad.  Melee fighters don't feel it so much but if one handed weapons are attacking to fast like I suggested earlier then that's partly why.

 

Talents.  I don't mind the loss of universal talents.  Each class having unique talents makes multi classing more interesting.  However certain classes don't even get passives and other classes get quite boring passives.  Maybe open up your creativity cells here and add in more talents.  For priests/wizards/druids I suggest ways of gaining concentration through passive procs and/or some way to effect spell recovery.  Like a "negate recovery on next spell cast" sort of thing.  In general I feel like you could solve some of the complaints about the current state of spell casting through passive talents.  "Evocation spells now graze instead of miss" for example.  

 

Those are the main points.  Balance is across the board at the moment but there are a lot of broken abilities and game mechanics that are effecting it to much to judge on a per class basis atm.

 

Positive feedback.  Multi classing, awesome.  Sub classes, awesome.  Animations, awesome.  Detailed characters/armors, awesome.  New inventory management, awesome.  UI, very clean, awesome (but please give me a stand your ground button).

 

That's all for now.

I really like your ideas. I'd like to add the idea that some spells get cast nearly instantly (like Priest heal spells), on top of being "auto-hittish", this way casters could make a difference as things stand now. I mean, the spells have been created most lovingly - the basic premise/goal should be that we get to see them work in game reasonably realibly, no? No more whiff and fizzle fest, please.

Edited November 17, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Lamppost in Winter]

I have to agree some spells shouldn't have a Miss range - it's very odd aiming a Fireball into a crowd and somehow "missing" them. That being said, I guess it would be hard to balance all the big AoE damage spells not being able to miss.

[cheesevillain]

I have to agree some spells shouldn't have a Miss range - it's very odd aiming a Fireball into a crowd and somehow "missing" them. That being said, I guess it would be hard to balance all the big AoE damage spells not being able to miss.

 

 

They're already balanced around that, because (a) you're wizard only gets to cast spells a few times per combat, (b) they take a long damn time to cast, and © they're easy to interrupt during that long casting time, even with the reduction of interrupting in the game. In exchange for that, wizards should be hitting reliably and hitting hard.

 

AOE spells also have the drawback that they can hit your own team if you're not careful, so making them more powerful contains a hidden drawback.

Edited November 18, 2017 by cheesevillain

[spartacus]

Hi all, I'm new to the forums, but really enjoyed POE 1 and was excited to back Deadfire. I haven't finished the beta yet, but I thought I would contribute because I am so jazzed about this game. I also think I may have slightly different opinions than some others on the board here, so I thought it might be good for Obsidian to see some different opinions.

 

The game is just gorgeous. Everything feels alive. When I got to the waterfall area and saw the parallax from looking off the cliff I swooned. I have never seen anything like that in an IE style game before - just incredible. I also love the resting/idle animations. I think most would agree that the graphics are improved around the board.

 

A couple of things that I was nervous about but ending up really enjoying:

1. 5-person party. With the number of active skills in the game, 5 characters feels like enough, and certainly keeps me occupied giving orders in combat.

2. Wound system. When POE1 came out, I was also worried that the health/endurance mechanic wouldn't work well, but I ended up really liking it. When I saw that you regain health after every combat, I was worried about Deadfire. My primary concern was that it would feel too gamey, and that getting knocked out in a fight wouldn't matter and would reduce the tactical necessity of each encounter. And yet, because the wounds are so devastating, it really makes it worth it to keep every member conscious for every fight! So far I really enjoy this, and it kind of raises the stakes when sending my already squishy rogue into an encounter with 2 wounds.

3. Per-encounter spells/ abilities. I was a bit nervous about this, because casting spells can start to feel really spammy when you get them back after every encounter. However, with the longer cast times, I felt like I needed to be more strategic with my spell choices, and I wasn't simply spamming my Arcane Blast + 1st level spell every single fight (looking at you, POE1).

4. Empower ability. I was concerned that this wouldn't feel impactful, but I think it turned out really neat. I was in a life-or death situation with my rogue and needed to get the killing blow on a Lagufaeth, so I empowered my next ability and managed to eke out a victory. Very satisfying.

 

Regarding universal talents: I'm currently playing a single class Rogue (Assassin) and it feels good. Sure, I kind of wanted the dual wielding feat (because my rogue has always had a dual wielding feat, since playing D&D when I was young) but at the same time, he didn't feel under-powered without it. So, in general I think the passive abilities being unique is really good, although it's obvious there needs to be some tuning (such as the Stalker sub-class).

 

There is some other great feedback regarding combat speed, armor penetration, etc, which I think are valid concerns.

 

Anyway, that's all for now - gonna head over to Poko Kohara!

[Katarack21]

 

I have to agree some spells shouldn't have a Miss range - it's very odd aiming a Fireball into a crowd and somehow "missing" them. That being said, I guess it would be hard to balance all the big AoE damage spells not being able to miss.

 

 

They're already balanced around that, because (a) you're wizard only gets to cast spells a few times per combat, (b) they take a long damn time to cast, and © they're easy to interrupt during that long casting time, even with the reduction of interrupting in the game. In exchange for that, wizards should be hitting reliably and hitting hard.

 

AOE spells also have the drawback that they can hit your own team if you're not careful, so making them more powerful contains a hidden drawback.

 

That last one isn't quite as big a deal in PoE as it is in other games, with that "extended range" that Intelligence grants where it hurts them but not you.

[brankel]

Wanted to mention sneak mode feels better now. Those visual range circles make thievery much more palatable than in PoE1, and stealth attacks/play much more manageable as well. 

[gac]

Hi there. Just got to put a few hours into the beta today and I wanted to give some thoughts.

 

1. Multiclassing feels good: One of my issues with Pillars 1 is that some classes were just so braindead compared to others. Paladins, fighters, and chanters were so incredibly passive compared to, say, wizards or priests. With multiclassing we now have the opportunity to liven up playstyles while also having the opportunity to more specialize our roles. I first started with a witch (cipher/barbarian), and I loved how the barbarian accuracy and damage buffs synergized with my cipher. It felt a little overpowered, but I also didn't have Ectopsychic Echo accessible even at level 6.

 

2. Mouseover tooltips in dialogue are appreciated: I actually have to disagree with a lot of the other opinions in raised here. It is absolutely true that it is not normal for bilingual speakers to weave individual native words into otherwise foreign speech at the sentence level; it's usually more so a "mode switch" between the two. But while video games are primarily a visual space, there are certain limitations in presentation. Especially if an NPC is unvoiced, these foreign words sprinkled into otherwise common speech is the only real signifier that we have of where they're from. It may not make sense linguistically, and it's absolutely contrived, but so are many elements to game design and narrative storytelling that we manage to overlook. That dialogue flavor is essential when world-building through written text, and I hope Obsidian keeps that stuff in the game.

 

3. Sound effects are incredible: I love what we've heard so far, and I think the sound design is the single-biggest improvement from Pillars 1 to Pillars 2. Hearing the Lagafaeth gargle while charging at the party and in the middle of combat gives them a lot more character. Spell effects also sound much cleaner in combat than they did in the original. Antipathetic Field, for example, sounds like a legitimate laser ray being channeled from your cipher's body. It makes each class a little more distinct from one another, and it also helps you have a much better comprehension of what's going on in a fight when you can literally hear how it's going. More of this, please!

 

4. "Pooled" dialogue checks and skill challenges make a much more robust party experience: It was awful in Pillars 1 where it felt like you had to develop your Watcher a specific way to get the most out of conversation checks, and your party members had little input in conversations. I'm sure primary stats still matter to some extent, but I am relieved to see that passive skills are a significant component to dialogue checks and skill checks. It's especially nice to see that there's some element to a shared pool, as well. In a way, it gives party members more identity than just combat and skill challenge helpers, and it encourages you to put some thought into their passive skill development whereas in PoE 1 you basically just dumped everything into Lore/Athletics outside of your lock picker.

 

I'll try to be a bit more constructively critical in my next post. I just wanted to mention some of the stuff that I felt is working super well for me.

[Boeroer]

I swapped the initial wizard with a Bleak Walker/Shattered Pillar and now the game is a lot easier. Offensive casting needs some tweaks. Casting times are too long when compared to the high melee attack speed and misses occur too often. Remember we start with lvl 6 characters, not lvl 1. Casting for 6 secs (wit the high risk of getting interrupted) and then missing all enemies is really bad. In 6 secs I sometimes kill 3 enemies with FoD + Lightning Strikes... Also Zealous Endurance as passive buff combined with thick armor feels very powerful. The numbers of the penetration system have to get tweaked. 30% is too low it seems. The powergamer in me combined high DR with DR buffs with a lot of healing and guess what happens.

[Boeroer]

I have to say the new trap implementation so far is really nice. They are dangerous and you can lure enemies into traps that are not your own. And they're really helpful to win fights now (which seem to be harder now). Causing an injury on a tough foe is very satisfying and helpful. Thumbs up!

 

I also like that most of them are visible now. Makes you really watch out in dungeons which makes my nerves tickle.

 

Also thumbs up for the new grimoires. Now please make Deep Pockets accessible for single class wizards.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Boeroer

[Gromnir]

quick initial observations:

 

am gonna leave specific build feedback for another time/place.

 

the hold-shift feature is... groovy.  somebody deserves a christmas card from Gromnir.  makes combat blessed transparent.  much thanks.

 

the overall implementation of multiclass has been excellent.  so many new customization choices are now available to us in deadfire. am certain we won't be able to explore all such combinations before the game is actual released, but am having fun experimenting.  'course am thinking it is obvious the "no bad builds" goal o' poe will not be achievable in deadfire. is simple far too many ways for a player to achieve fubar results by multiclassing.

 

while streamlining and narrowing the role o' single-classes has met with community resistance, am hopeful obsidian does not cave to the mob. earlier we used bioware's nerfing o' bg grandmastery for bg2 as an example o' how the fans may grouse and grumble when a powerful feature is removed or nerfed, even when such a change is obvious needed. yes, a few classes could use additional branches to their talent trees as there is current negligible customization beyond subclass choice for a few classes. even so, am believing obsidian should wait before making any decision 'bout changing the current scheme.  if now you give folks new talents, you will only further enrage folks if it becomes apparent such a grant were premature or ill-advised.  let folks play with the system a couple of weeks... at least. 

 

penetration is too vital.  this may be a product of relative weak gear. dunno. regardless, at the moment, our primary combat concern is penetration. weapons which damage or bypass armour is seeming the no-brainer choices... which should not be the case.  spells and abilities which reduce or bypass armour are no-brainer choices... which should not be the case. am not minding the threshold nature of penetration per se, but the penetration mechanic has functional narrowed our viable choices for customization, and not just by a small amount.  too much penetration.

 

afflictions and inspirations is a good pnp mechanic, but am not certain it will have poe fan appeal. is the kinda mechanic which works great in a pnp setting wherein the typical gamer folks appreciate voluminous rulebooks which may (or may not) explain a mechanic. crpgs need be more intuitive. if ain't intuitive and if it resists a learn-by-doing approach, the mechanic is likely to provide more frustration than applause. as an aside, all the wonky ui glitches frequent make it difficult for us to identify just what afflictions we is suffering. your tutorial portion better be fantastic as you got hurdles to overcome.

 

the game is aesthetic impressive. such stuff isn't a priority for Gromnir, but the level o' visual detail in deadfire is improved noticeable over poe. compare the skaen temple from the poe beta to the analogous "dungeon" in deadfire's beta.  have made impressive improvements to all visual aspects, from spell effects to character animations. good job.

 

lotta technical issues.  we typical need force close the program to get outta deadfire after we try and exit. in addition to missing or busted features (e.g. devoted multi-class fail) there is a plethora o' technical issues, from performance slow downs to flickering ui, to misrepresented health or focus being displayed on character portraits in the ui. however, such stuff is to be expected and am not particular bothered by bugs at this early stage. 

 

the lack of a deadfire merchant with a full range o' weapons seems like an obvious oversight. yeah, we can create items via the console, but is not as if we have item codes memorized. 

 

got more, but is getting late... even for us.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 

the hold-shift feature is... groovy. 

 

I have a feeling, this tip is of major importance. Thanks!

 

 

penetration is too vital.  this may be a product of relative weak gear. dunno. regardless, at the moment, our primary combat concern is penetration. weapons which damage or bypass armour is seeming the no-brainer choices... which should not be the case.  spells and abilities which reduce or bypass armour are no-brainer choices... which should not be the case. am not minding the threshold nature of penetration per se, but the penetration mechanic has functional narrowed our viable choices for customization, and not just by a small amount.  too much penetration.

 

Indeed, and this is the only thing Josh didn't address in his latest tweets. I haven't anything against penetration being the thing you need to overcome, but it must be a clever, sliding and gradual threshold, and need to be paired to a similarly adaptive armour threshold. Weird description, but you get my drift.

 

afflictions and inspirations is a good pnp mechanic, but am not certain it will have poe fan appeal. is the kinda mechanic which works great in a pnp setting wherein the typical gamer folks appreciate voluminous rulebooks which may (or may not) explain a mechanic. crpgs need be more intuitive. if ain't intuitive and if it resists a learn-by-doing approach, the mechanic is likely to provide more frustration than applause.

 

Agreed. Sometimes, simplicity is the best and the easiest.

 

 

 

Yet another thing I haven't seen anybody mention is the six options of UI interfaces under options. I have only tried two of them, but they are great. The only ones missing are vertical ones on the left and the right side.

[Katarack21]

Related to combat speed, is attack/recovery speeds.  I feel like this was going to be your solution to slow combat down.  If you look at the numbers spells usually take around 6 seconds to cast/recover, two handed weapons are around 3.5 seconds....  then 1 handed weapons are at 1 second.  What's with the huge disparity of one handed weapons?  A dual wielder could cut a spell caster to shreds long before he ever casts a spell.  Did they perhaps receive the  wrong numbers for the beta build?  If they did it will highly skew proper feedback.

 

 

upload high quality photos

[Frog Man]

I swapped the initial wizard with a Bleak Walker/Shattered Pillar and now the game is a lot easier. Offensive casting needs some tweaks. Casting times are too long when compared to the high melee attack speed and misses occur too often. Remember we start with lvl 6 characters, not lvl 1. Casting for 6 secs (wit the high risk of getting interrupted) and then missing all enemies is really bad. In 6 secs I sometimes kill 3 enemies with FoD + Lightning Strikes... Also Zealous Endurance as passive buff combined with thick armor feels very powerful. The numbers of the penetration system have to get tweaked. 30% is too low it seems. The powergamer in me combined high DR with DR buffs with a lot of healing and guess what happens.

Guys Boeroer is BACK and he’s making crazy builds again!!

[fiddlesticks]

 

upload high quality photos

 

 

It wouldn't be a proper PoE beta without some really silly bugs.

[DexGames]

Good Stuff :

 

+ Everything that makes POE be POE !

+ The look & feel is back & better than ever !

+ Dimitri made incredible Hair Styles !

+ World Map ! (Can't visit the Defiant in the Beta ?)

 

Not so Good Stuff :

 

- Stars for Recommended Stats are easily missable

- Culture Point isn't added/removed in Character Creation (at the Bottom Résumé)

- You have to click on + ou - to get a description, (can't click on Wisdom or others), I know "Mouseover" works but I'm clicking as a reflex.

- Shadows are kinda Pixel Art (no offense, probably WIP)

- Lots of Tool Tips doesn't show up

- When Leveling up : Do I have points to spent ? If so, how much ? Where do they appear ? (On Active Abilities screen, not clear.)

- Druid : Lvl 2 Spells doesn't show up In Game (UI doesn't deploy itself for that Spell Lvl)

 

- EMPOWERED : What does it Empower ? How am I supposed to know ? It is not clear (need description /w Stats). Should I empowered this over this over myself ?

- Recovery (but it has been adressed)

 

Just a round of stuff I've noticed ! I'm enjoying it !

Edited November 18, 2017 by DexGames

[Katarack21]

+ World Map ! (Can't visit the Defiant in the Beta ?)

Yes, you can. Click on the icon near the ship at the end of the pier in the starting village. In fact, one of your starting quests finishes on another island in the area.

[morhilane]

I swapped the initial wizard with a Bleak Walker/Shattered Pillar and now the game is a lot easier. Offensive casting needs some tweaks. Casting times are too long when compared to the high melee attack speed and misses occur too often. Remember we start with lvl 6 characters, not lvl 1. Casting for 6 secs (wit the high risk of getting interrupted) and then missing all enemies is really bad. In 6 secs I sometimes kill 3 enemies with FoD + Lightning Strikes... Also Zealous Endurance as passive buff combined with thick armor feels very powerful. The numbers of the penetration system have to get tweaked. 30% is too low it seems. The powergamer in me combined high DR with DR buffs with a lot of healing and guess what happens.

 

I wasted my entire Evoker * spells on two sand worms last night and didn't kill either of them, melee characters did that. I did more damage to my Rogue (she walked through Ray of Fire....the only thing that spell hit during its duration). The only thing that hit anything were the always-hit spells: the 2 missiles spells and Trust of the Tattered Veils. I had an easier time with a melee Conjurer using Parasitic Staff and buff spells.

 

One of the thing though, outside the Delemgan armies, everything else seems level 7+ so they have higher defenses than your party is going to have accuracy, aka miss chance is higher than 50%.

 

I think Wizard's spell (and other casters I guess) accuracy is too low though. First, you gain +1 level accuracy based on the ability level (from what I saw). That means low level spells will always have an harder time to hit than higher level ones (why?). Next, there is a + Wizard Power level accuracy bonus, but it is only 1 despite being power level 3 though. My highest spell accuracy is 39, when my fine weapon with 0 buff gives me 40 (52 if it was one-handed). Mobs are 50+ defenses unless you are lucky and catch one with low defense to something. With a lot less spells, it is much harder to play "rock-paper-scissor" defense.

 

*Missiles, Fireball, Ray of Fire, Rolling Flame, etc

[Helt]

The default priest and wizard can bearly hit anything With offensive spells in PotD difficulty, and additionally with the increased cast ducation on some of the spells make them pretty useless. I also miss the option to slow time in combat, and some other minor stuff, but so far i really like what i see. Getting high hopes for the final game.

[Starwars]

Still not finished with the beta but some random thoughts.

 

 

-To start with, it feels a lot more polished than the PoE1 beta which bodes well overall.

 

-Graphically it's really nice and feels more alive overall. The change in tone is welcome.

 

-The world map will be a great addition to the game.

 

-Some of the added usability is just really nice. For example, the possibility of tweaking where your fireball will end up. Especially with the increased casting times.

 

-All the stealth stuff is a lot better. From just stealthing, to the ability to pickpocket, to setting up traps... all that stuff is great and very welcome.

 

-Combat encounters feel a lot better. I do feel that if you bump up the difficulty to Hard, then some encounters feel a bit... well, like they're too many enemies really. It feels like it's "swarming" or clustering the map a bit too much. But yeah, they feel a lot more individual and interesting.

 

-I like the switching of consuming food to the resting UI.

 

-I am not a fan at all of the transparent dialogue UI (or the fact that I just can't scroll the conversation without clicking the thing). Much prefer the old, solid style.

 

-Combat still feels chaotic to me. I'm someone who always uses the slow mode, even in Tyranny (which feels a lot slower overall). just to get a clearer sense of what's going on, who's moving where etc. I have a hard time getting a smooth playing experience in this. And I don't understand the logic of removing the slow mode, even if the game is slowed down overall. I mean, it's a pretty nice option to have is it. Even for people who typically play faster, it would never hurt to have the option to slow things down more if things get really chaotic right?

 

-The penetration mechanic feels *really* important in this which can make for... well, rather frustrating moments sometimes. Haven't played with it enough yet and it's something that may feel a bit hard to get a grasp of since you're getting dropped into an area with just basic gear and stuff.

 

-Re-structuring of per-rest to per-encounter and all the stuff that "comes with it" has been a net negative for me. Just "feels-wise", I'm much more on the side of having to at least think about the long-term using of spells and abilities. Now it's just the Empower thing which... feels like a boring thing to manage honestly. Definitely not saying that PoE handled it perfectly, oh no, but it's an area where I feel Deadfire has just moved in the opposite direction of where I would want it personally.

 

-Similarily, not a fan of the removal of health/endurance in favor of the injuries. I liked that, even if you didn't die in PoE1, your health still went down as you went on and took damage. It felt like a logical "spiral" to me and also kinda enforced the feeling of putting up a camp and resting. The injuries in Deadfire feel rather... stark in how your character can barely survive an encounter but still come out completely fresh. But if you took 1 more HP in that encounter and got knocked out, then it's probably resting time.

I guess I like the feeling of "attrition" (not the right word I think, but...) in PoE. I've always disliked the feeling of having your "full arsenal" at the ready again as soon as you complete an encounter like we see in Deadfire (except the Empower mechanic).

 

-As much as I love the world map, as well as the encounters on it (I hope there will be encounters that just pop up as well and are not "plopped" on the world map), I think the looting on it feels a bit lackluster and just... well, it feels like vacuuming the map. In Storm of Zehir, looting on the world map felt pretty cool because things popped up depending on your skills and stuff so it was always a surprise and stuff was going on constantly. 

In short I hope the world map will feel a bit more dynamic and "exciting" all in all.

[Gromnir]

 

 

upload high quality photos

 

 

It wouldn't be a beta without some really silly bugs.

 

 

fixed.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gfted1]

Generally speaking, when considering casting time, are casters behind melee in the average number of attacks per battle?

 

EDIT: Is this summary accurate?

[MaxQuest]

Max - why aren't you playing the beta? I assumed you'd be pulling all-nighters testing out builds!

* is thinking too keep it short or give an elaborated answer *

 

Ok, I'll expand a bit. There are several soft reasons:

• Conceptual reason. I find it a bit weird to pay someone in order to get the right/access to make an extra effort for them. Usually it's the other way around. But since there is passion for the game at hand plus respect for the devs "who deliver", it's a status quo. (have to note: I really liked how Dota 2 has handled their closed beta access). 
• Cost reason. Even through I'm doing quite well compared to my country economy, going from $29 to $99 pledge was still kinda costly. To put it in perspective: that's ~ 17 tickets to the cinema.
• Health reason. I have reduced the "free time spent at home PC" during weekdays almost to zero, due to temporary neck pains. The strain from sitting in front of the monitor for 8h at work and xh at home, kinda tends to accumulate. So it's mostly weekends now.

P.S. I've noticed that Aarik mentioned it's still possible to get beta access as addon via backer's portal. It's tempting and I'm in doubts now. But gonna check what I want to get during Black Friday first.

 

 

---

And in order to stay on topic, here's my set of first impressions:

Note: feedback below is based on observation rather than direct experience.

 

UI:

• The start screen looks splendid. The sunset brings a nice warm feel. I love it.
• The new difficulty names are good. Actually even great. They are easy to understand, and choosing 'relaxing' won't make players feel uncomfortable for slacking from challenge.
• Liking the new textures for views and windows.
• Character Creation needs work though:
  • Navigation is clunky. Once you have arrived to class selection, you can't go back to the sex/race views. The 'shield' icons from the bottom navbar can't be used as shortcuts. Class and subclass selection could be combined into a single view, with subclasses choices being expanded in accordion style (this would help with constant Prev/Next navigation). Etc.
  • Racials are missing.
  • UI controls require extra polishing. The green art for labels; chevrons/textures on select/preview buttons just don't look good/slick enough.
  • The spells/talents/abilities selection screen looks like made by a programmer. It's ok for beta. But a release ready version is asking for a touch from UX designer.
  • There are missing buttons/links to Cyclopedia articles, especially to: List of Inspirations, List of Status Effects, Attack Resolution, Damage Calculation, Armor Penetration and Power Level system explanations and related stacking rules.

• Tooltips:
  • They were intended to be more transparent and intuitive than in PoE1, not less.
  • They look a big fuggly. The closing "X" is just snapped over. And the content behind open tooltips is catching mouseover events.

CHARACTER MODELS:

• Amazing. It's a huge step forward compared to PoE1. I can finally start considering other races besides human or elf for the MC.
• No really, they are amazing. Whoever did it - my hats off to you.
• Posses and attribute annotations (like clumsy/average/agile/graceful) is a nice touch. I like it.
• More hairstyles is always good. Even though am more into mechanics department, hairstyles are important to me.
• There is a lack of head models - but as I understood they are already being worked on.
• Ability to choose eye color would be a nice one to have.

CLASSES:

• Hell yea! Multi-classing! There gonna be so many variants to build a character! Optimal variants.
• Some possibilities look to be cut off. I am speaking of talents accessible to all classes. And imho this is not good. Imagine a PoE1 player. He hears multi-classing, and he's excited, imagining the current spectre of possibilities plus multi-classing on top. Then he realizes that he cannot make this build or that build. Concrete example: troubadour priest with Inspiring Radiance, Painful Interdiction, 1H&Shield Style, Superior Deflection, Scion of Flame and the rest dumped in Racial Slayer talents. I don't want to multi-class into fighter to make my character tanky. I want to take two specific spellcasters, because exactly this combination will fill a niche in my party; and I am intending to make him tanky enough via general talents.
• Unnecessary nerfs feel unnecessary. Why did Knockdown become Primary Attack? Why did Torment's Reach became Primary Attack as well? Why was Wounding Shot nerfed and now require 2 ability points? Why did Ancient Memory became a Phrase, instead of the passive it was? (and again it's tooltip doesn't even mention how much does it heal). Why many powers got nerfed in damage? (and if they scale with Power Level, their tooltips don't mention it).
• Where are elemental damage talents?
• Some classes seem to be not like the others. The idea is that there is incentive to multi-class in all of them. Now try to imagine how many builds would gain from multi-classing in ranger, compared to multi-classing in fighter.
• Spellcasters start with way too few spells/powers. It detriments their flexibility.

RACIALS:

• They gonna be confusing for new players.
• Resistance to Might/Dexterity/etc Afflictions is absolutely non-intuitive. First of all we don't have the list of afflictions linked. And second: "resistance"" is something relative; it has to be accompanied with a percentage or a flat number + limits. If you meant something binary, there is "immunity" for that.
• Fire Godlikes having lower AR bonus against fire than Pale Elves looks a bit strange.
• The "Near Death" effects seem to be overestimated. In practice they are never as good, because characters and enemies do not usually linger near death for more than an instant. They are either dead, or heal up.

CONVERSATIONS:

• The watercolor portraits in conversation screen look better than expected. That's nice.
• Too frequent inclusion of words from another "languages" feels a bit unnatural.
• Some character and especially location names are quite hard-memorable. Usually it ends up in something like: TakiWhatever

SYSTEMS:

• Inspirations. From one point I understand that instead of having two spells that give let's say +5 MIG bonus, and then having to explain to players how they stack, you decided to go with these inspiration boons. But you know what? It's not intuitive enough, and you still have to explain if do they stack completely, refresh duration or add to duration. Additionally UI does not clarify their interaction with afflictions. And until it's done, personally I view Inspirations in a rather bad light, as the intention was likely intended to add extra transparency to status effects, and not obfuscation which it currently does.
• Armor Penetration. As expected it's all or nothing. The threshold is too abrupt. Trying to force players to permanently switch their weapons is not really going to work. We will just memorize the AR ratings of most enemies and will find the most optimal 1-2 weapons for each party member (with highest dps, but just enough Pen in order to not suffer from x0.3 malus)
• Injuries. -25% of max HP per wound looks too harsh. 15% is the highest limit here imho, because at 3 wounds you should suffer from enough defence maluses anyway.
• Power Level. Can't objectively comment on this yet. It seems the initial idea has quite shifted, and it's no longer used as universal scaler for character's impact.
• Attack Resolution. The removal of grazes from basic resolution was quite a surprise. I'd like to hear the reasoning behind this, besides the 'grazes were causing extra spam in the combat log'. But to tell is it good or is it a bad change, one will have to test it in practice.

OVERALL:

• The general impression is a positive one. With it's UP being more related to the graphical and character model department. And it's DOWN to the lack of clear tooltips and some systems appearing as questionable on the first sight.

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P.S. Ehh. Screw it, I'm jumping in. Beta is currently downloading in background.

Edited November 18, 2017 by MaxQuest