Backer Beta First Impressions

[IndiraLightfoot]

@Gfted1:

I'm all new to this, but resting after combat went like this:

-I often hade one or two characters on normal difficulty with injuries

-After two more, nearly had two or more injuries.

-I decide to rest. Check if I have fish or bread or whatever. I actually found a stash of food with 228 or something rations!

-So, no real shortage of food.

-Still some food didn't heal all injuries out in the field (which resting at an "inn" did). Sometimes, food healed all characters' injruies. I haven't figured out why yet.

-Giving food to your characters feels like a no-brainer right now.

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[DigitalCrack]

for the most part everything else tends to play decently well. Once you figure out how it works ha. penetration changes threw me for a loop at first. Really my biggest complaint is the rigidity of classes if not a genral pool then some talents need to be available in other classes. No reason some of the general weapon talents (like two handed style for example) couldnt be shared by 3-4 classes. Right now single class is unbelievably boring and in some cases literally unplayable. That aside there are a lot of posituve aspects just hard to care about them considering the class system currently undermines all the good..

[DCParry]

I have the giddyness. 

 

Also, dissenting opinion. I am a big fan of the new class system. I think people have to be open to refining how they view classes in terms of multi vs. universal skills. I love the role play flavour but I think some sub classes need some balancing, as my street tough got eaten, and not a little. Although that could be me being a spaz. 

 

I do feel the AI and combat do suffer from some the same problems I had with POE, namely make a tank, grab everyone, and have the rest of the party unload. Wizards are also still made of monster candy. 

 

Overall the look and feel is a huge step forward, but I haven't followed a beta update in a while so I didn't have much of a clue of what was going on. I do know that I have fishmen more than beetles now. 

 

Oh, as for the comment on language, I live in Singapore, and people do in fact talk like this, so take that for what it is worth ;-)

 

 

Other than that, I don't have enough for focused feedback, but I am loving the re-living the experience. 

[Heijoushin]

I see a lot of comments that resting has been trivialized in PoE2, but my understanding is that this was countered by diminishing returns wrt food cost (and maybe something about puking?). How does the Rest system feel when considering the Food system?

 

I like the new rest/food system. I mean, PoE1's resting bonuses were silly. Example: Sleep in a Dragon-themed room? Become superman the next day!

 

I never used food in PoE1, so now for the first time, it feels like food has a point. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Gfted1]

Does the Food system feel like a counterbalance to Rest spam, to you?

[Heijoushin]

Does the Food system feel like a counterbalance to Rest spam, to you?

 

Well... no. I think people will still rest spam. I just like the "atmosphere" of it, you know? Having to pack food and choose a meal before bed makes it feel like you're actually on an adventure/journey. Like old Sam making his soup for Frodo.

[IndiraLightfoot]

@Heijoushin: Indeed, food while resting is adding to the atmosphere.

 

While I'm at it, come to think of it, aren't there too many injuries from combat?

What do you guys think?

Normally, in PoE1, I usually played on the tougher end of the difficulty spectrum, and here I just picked normal, and after meeting some Xaurips with my half-decently equipped party, we constantly get injuries (more than I got in DA:O).

Perhaps this feature should be toned down?

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[morhilane]

- Mages feel a little weak. Or is it just me? The AI can also get pretty aggressive with going after your mage if you open combat with a spell.

Just you... My Mage was a top damage dealer last night.

 

Note that the game doesn't really tell you but you should go do the first quest you are given out of the boat (given by Vektor). The rest of the island you first show up in is higher level than you.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

Note that the game doesn't really tell you but you should go do the first quest you are given out of the boat (given by Vektor). The rest of the island you first show up in is higher level than you.

 

That may explain all my injuries. I took the boat and went to that far-off island with that adra temple, and those fights were hard. Then I wandered around on the Tikiwara-island, and those jungle fights were just as hard.

[IndiraLightfoot]

just so far from dinking around a bit:

 

1) the buttons need better highlighting; they go from like brass colored to gold colored and it's not clear ; for example, after my first levelup I wasn't clear if I'd finished levelling up or not

 

2) the pause menu needs a pause on ENEMY cast button, as it is if you switch all on you'll pause every time a guard in town enters the screen and casts their stance

 

3) Sure this is on the platter but the game needs to show racial bonus traits in character creation not just in game

 

4) Yowza wood elves and moon godlikes got nerfed

 

5) The skill selection is a lot more constricted than before which isn't necessarily bad just different

 

6) dissident background should get explosives skill

 

Otherwise still learning how it all fits together. The penetration system seems kinda brutal but I may just need to learn it better. Lagufaeth are the new Beetles.

Nice feedback! Especially 1, 2, 3.

[Sylvus_Moonbow]

While on a recent adventure rolling up a thief in Pillars of Eternity, I realized an option I would enjoy to see in Deadfire, are random names that can be generated based on your sub-race selection during character creation. Ocean Folk may have different sounding names compared to that of Meadow Folk, and so forth.

I'm not sure if it's worth the time to put into, to have some 25 or so names available per race like in Neverwinter Nights series during character creation, but I always find such an option helps introduce me to how such a character of that race would be named within the world.

[Frusciante]

My impressions after playing for just one hour:

 

++ the world map, great idea and improves the feel of exploration

++ the integration of scripted interactions on the world map, adds a feeling of proper adventuring, consequences of scripted interactions (leading to encounters or not etc) seem stronger

++ multiclassing, makes thinking about character builds a lot of fun

++ dialogue UI and watercolor portraits; looks and feels good, non-intrusive and portraits add nice flavour

 

+ art is nice as always

+ personally I prefer the streamlining of health/endurance and per encounter abilities. This allows better tailoring of encounters. The tactical aspect of combat will likely improve at the expense of the strategic aspects of managing combat resources. It's personal preference what you prefer.

+ stealth system 

+ dialogue reactivity and skill checks

 

- removal of ''neutral'' (for all classes) talents. It makes character building a bit too streamlined, especially for single class characters. I'f you're playing a pure rogue or ranger, leveling up doest seem too interesting.

- a bit heavy use of the fictional languages makes the dialogue sometimes feel unrealistic

- world map can use some more work to make it feel more interesting, diverse (islands now look a bit the same) and alive

- icons on world map (for scripted interactions and player character) are not very interesting or nice to look at

 

-- some sounds play wat too often, especially in combat but also when sailing around. the slider for this doesn't seem to work. 

-- combat still seems a bit chaotic and it can still be hard to see what is going on, I guess this is something that cannot be prevented completely but nevertheless something that I think can be looked at again

 

--- biggest thing I would hope is improved is the feel of combat. I can see animations are better and sounds are nice. but for me it's way too fast. I would prefer to have both the speed at normal reduced and to have a slowmotion option back. Enemies seem to move very fast so positioning your party is very difficult. Also since casting takes a long time, the fight can be half over before I've had the chance to cast 1-2 spells. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Frusciante

[anfoglia]

I played through character creation and ~15 minutes of village exploration today. My initial thoughts are:

 

1. The abilities previews in character creation and at level-up are a great addition.

 

2. I'm ambivalent about the transparent dialogue window. It works well enough indoors, but against the lighter/busier backdrop of the village, it's a little distracting.

 

3. I do not like the little icons standing in for various reputations/skills being called into play. It's clearer to have the word [rational]. The dialogue window is cluttered enough without another thing for the player to hover her mouse over.

 

4. This is not really mechanics or UI feedback, but I am not crazy about the number of foreign-word tooltips. It's great to have foreign words to represent genuinely alien concepts or to help signal cultural background (in a game where the mix of cultures is an important part of the setting and story). But the second kind of signaling doesn't really require exposition (you can do it with translation, syntax, or foreign words that are clear enough in context), and the first practically demands a dialogue option for players to ask what the word means.

 

To give a few examples:

 

 

In this screenshot, the meaning of "prize-share" is relatively clear from context. But to the extent the concept is either a little stranger than the player might think or one the PC wouldn't recognize, there's a dialogue option to ask about it! There is no reason to add what is effectively a footnote explaining the term.

 

 

Here, the whole point of this line of dialogue is to give the players a feel for the terms in a relatively natural way. If this were a fantasy book, you would not drop three footnotes in this single sentence. You would trust that the player gets the caste hierarchy here and will pick up further details from other characters. For example, one of the characters near the beach expands on the role of the Mataru.

 

I understand that Pillars 1 got some criticism for bombarding players with exposition. Players don't always want nine dialogue options giving a full rundown on a culture each time they meet a new character. But these tooltips strike me as an inartful workaround. They were useful in Tyranny, where the PC had to know an awful lot more than the player. I think they need to be used much more sparingly here.

Edited November 16, 2017 by anfoglia

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

- Mages feel a little weak. Or is it just me? The AI can also get pretty aggressive with going after your mage if you open combat with a spell.

Just you... My Mage was a top damage dealer last night.

 

Note that the game doesn't really tell you but you should go do the first quest you are given out of the boat (given by Vektor). The rest of the island you first show up in is higher level than you.

 

 

 

Ahhhhhhh ha

 

So are those Lagufaeth *supposed* to be the new Stone Beetles or are they just high level?  It felt like there must be a "trick" of some kind to that fight but I couldn't figure out what it was apart from "take high penetration weapon at character creation."

[IndiraLightfoot]

@anfoglia: Very nice feedback. I wish I had made that point, and I do agree with you. I really like the tooltip info functionality, but from other perspectives, it poses a few problems:

-The legibility of the text becomes hampered and skewed. Your eyes are drawn to these words displayed in another colour.

-The highlighting of foreign words in that hut (I talk to these NPCs myself), made it worse, since my eyes almost only focussed on these new words. Remember, as RL persons, we have no idea what most of them will mean, and in many NPC dialogues, they start or end the sentences, replacing stuff like "Excuse me", "heh?", "I beg to differ" and what not. The result is that the meaning of the sentence gets washed our or lost, as the focus clearly resides on a few novel terms or words.

 

One solution could be to remove the different colour, and just have the same for all the words. But if you press "Z" or backspace, as it were, the key that highlights stuff, then those colours pop and thus the tooltip with links as well.

 

Obviously, there will be room for a toggle in options to turn this functionality off completely as well.

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[daven]

'It's personal preference what you prefer.'

 

 

WELL SAID GOOD SIR!

[anfoglia]

-The legibility of the text becomes hampered and skewed. Your eyes are drawn to these words displayed in another colour.

-The highlighting of foreign words in that hut (I talk to these NPCs myself), made it worse, since my eyes almost only focussed on these new words. Remember, as RL persons, we have no idea what most of them will mean, and in many NPC dialogues, they start or end the sentences, replacing stuff like "Excuse me", "heh?", "I beg to differ" and what not. The result is that the meaning of the sentence gets washed our or lost, as the focus clearly resides on a few novel terms or words.

 

One solution could be to remove the different colour, and just have the same for all the words. But if you press "Z" or backspace, as it were, the key that highlights stuff, then those colours pop and thus the tooltip with links as well.

 

Obviously, there will be room for a toggle in options to turn this functionality off completely as well.

 

I appreciate your points about legibility and focus. I wasn't sure I could explain why I found the tooltips not just unnecessary but distracting.

 

I think a highlighting toggle would probably work. You replace the current effect, which is like reading a paragraph with an excess of italicized and footnoted words, with something more like an option for the player to call up the glossary. You just have to hope Obsidian didn't write and edit dialogue around the idea that players would rely on the tooltips...

[Ryz009]

Single class feels very weak compared to multi-classing and removing universal talents seems like it's going to kill creativity in builds.

 

Yeah I like playing pure mages so I went wizard and it just felt awful. Also did they nerf the spells because I felt like i was tickling the enemies.

[Peter Bazooka]

I'm not a fan of the transparent dialogue box and I feel the size is too small. I've got text size set to 130 but I'd still like it to be bigger. Not being able to go back and see previous dialogue anymore sucks. I've got a terrible memory and I need to go back and re-read stuff, especially for PoE with all it's fantasy words and languages.

[Starwars]

Agree with the transparent dialogue box. Really prefer the old style with the solid box as well as the ability to scroll the dialogue.

[anfoglia]

I'm not a fan of the transparent dialogue box and I feel the size is too small. I've got text size set to 130 but I'd still like it to be bigger. Not being able to go back and see previous dialogue anymore sucks. I've got a terrible memory and I need to go back and re-read stuff, especially for PoE with all it's fantasy words and languages.

 

You can pop open an extended dialogue window by clicking the little diamond icon at the top center of the dialogue window. I'm not sure whether this is better than simply being able to scroll from the main dialogue window.

[Peter Bazooka]

 

I'm not a fan of the transparent dialogue box and I feel the size is too small. I've got text size set to 130 but I'd still like it to be bigger. Not being able to go back and see previous dialogue anymore sucks. I've got a terrible memory and I need to go back and re-read stuff, especially for PoE with all it's fantasy words and languages.

 

You can pop open an extended dialogue window by clicking the little diamond icon at the top center of the dialogue window. I'm not sure whether this is better than simply being able to scroll from the main dialogue window.

 

Well that solves my issue. I didn't even realize that diamond was there till you pointed it out.

[Quillon]

4. This is not really mechanics or UI feedback, but I am not crazy about the number of foreign-word tooltips. It's great to have foreign words to represent genuinely alien concepts or to help signal cultural background (in a game where the mix of cultures is an important part of the setting and story). But the second kind of signaling doesn't really require exposition (you can do it with translation, syntax, or foreign words that are clear enough in context), and the first practically demands a dialogue option for players to ask what the word means.

 

To give a few examples:

 

 

In this screenshot, the meaning of "prize-share" is relatively clear from context. But to the extent the concept is either a little stranger than the player might think or one the PC wouldn't recognize, there's a dialogue option to ask about it! There is no reason to add what is effectively a footnote explaining the term.

 

 

Here, the whole point of this line of dialogue is to give the players a feel for the terms in a relatively natural way. If this were a fantasy book, you would not drop three footnotes in this single sentence. You would trust that the player gets the caste hierarchy here and will pick up further details from other characters. For example, one of the character near the beach expands on the role of the Mataru.

 

I get that Pillars 1 got some criticism for bombarding players with exposition. Players don't always want nine dialogue options giving a full rundown on a culture each time they meet a new character. But these tooltips strike me as an inartful workaround. They were useful in Tyranny, where the PC had to know an awful lot more than the player. I think they need to be used much more sparingly here.

 

Maybe holding tab should reveal hyperlinks? Otherwise they should stay hidden, only showing up when player needs an explanation for some word :/

Edited November 16, 2017 by Quillon

[IndiraLightfoot]

@Quillon: Yep. like I just suggested...  At least this should be an option under Settings.

 

 

One solution could be to remove the different colour, and just have the same for all the words. But if you press "Z" or backspace, as it were, the key that highlights stuff, then those colours pop and thus the tooltip with links as well.

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Sylvus_Moonbow]

I get that Pillars 1 got some criticism for bombarding players with exposition. Players don't always want nine dialogue options giving a full rundown on a culture each time they meet a new character. But these tooltips strike me as an inartful workaround. They were useful in Tyranny, where the PC had to know an awful lot more than the player. I think they need to be used much more sparingly here.

 

Maybe holding tab should reveal hyperlinks? Otherwise they should stay hidden, only showing up when player needs an explanation for some word :/

 

I feel the high-lighted word would be better as a toggle option, or as a bonus, have it be tied to one's Culture option for an imported Pillars of Eternity character or Deadfire created one.

 

Would a character with The Living Lands or the White That Wends be able to know what "Bazzo" means? I'd rather see the high-lighted words appear based on regional knowledge. Being from the Deadfire Archipelago or Rauatai would clearly mean you understand that you're being called a ****. Would a Wood Elf as another example, know its meaning?

 

Perhaps tie-in high-lighted words to appear based on a certain Lore value? Or by picking a particular Culture, you receive a bonus to know what's being said, and certain words become high-lighted based on that.