110 replies to this topic

[Cdiaz]

Hello Backer Beta players! I'm in the area looking for some best and worst experiences so far with the lastest patch and anything else you feel like commenting. I know I've talked with a good amount of you on some of these things already, but I want to get a good feeling for where we stand after giving it some time to marinate. 

 

Have at 'em!

[the_dog_days]

(I hope this doesn't come off as snarky or overly upset, because I still intend on playing the game and I still think I will like it even despite these problems.)

 

Worsts

 

1) I suspect that you've already fixed in your in-house build: the Transcendent Suffering bug. I didn't even know this was a bug until I saw someone mention it in another thread. Everyone kept talking about how great monks were I didn't say anything because I was reasonably sure one of the many number crunchers in the forum knew what was going on more than I did, but this had me confused for the longest time.

 

2) This next bit kinda hurts to say, but everything about spell casting time/interrupt/concentration/Might/Strength/Resolve. I can't point out any one of these things individually because they're a ball of twine and all work together. Making spells per encounter + buffing them up meant that there has to be a means of countering that. Enter the long casting times, interrupt, and concentration. The new way Resolve (first beta build) worked meant it became a dumpstat for casters. Separating spell damage and weapon damage, renaming Might to Strength, and assigning spell damage to Resolve was the purposed fix for that but now 'tweener builds suffer. You can still make a tank healer, but if you want what I call a Moses build (someone leading the charge and parting the Red Sea, as it were) you've got an uphill battle on your hand because anything you can do within that role with a druid, mage, or priest a barbarian, monk, or even fighter can do better.

 

3) Armor and penetration: penetration is a hidden godstat. Its not hidden in the sense that I can't see it, but hidden in the sense that you have to dig into the mechanics to buff it. The way that you need penetration and armor to have success makes combat actually feel more rote than POE 1.

 

My best experience is with the new mechanics within the scripted interactions.

Edited by the_dog_days, 15 February 2018 - 04:21 PM.

[Wormerine]

I have expressed my likes/dislikes regarding ship systems before so I won’t repeat myself. I didnt test melee combat much outside boarding, I am not even sure if anything changed. Yesterday stream with Josh clarified a lot of mechanics of ship combat, but those need to be communicated better ingame - how your positioning affects your stats (evasion, defence, chance of “crit”) + what are the chances of doing damage to specific part of a ship (haul, sails, crew) in addition to general hit chance. “Special events” like gunpowder explosion or loose cargo could use a better “alert” - something to communicate that an event is taking place, not just flavour text.

[dukeisaac]

My worst: 

 

Optimization. True, my rig isn't that great and we're still in beta, but I'm worried that I'll have to upgrade my computer to get a performance similar to POE (no lag, no jankiness, etc), despite promises of similar technical requirements.

 

I'm also not a huge fan of character building as is : too few talents (seemingly changing), no general ones, hard to navigate builder, lack of info about how skills work, etc.

 

Not a huge fan of the proficiencies and the associated modals either. I feel there is a Battle Brothers influence behind them (great game), but I'm not interested in having to be proficient in many weapons, give me choice to specialize or go wide.

 

Spellcasting is... well, you know. Too slow, too weak, its all been said.

 

Finally, transparency. What does an empower do this specific spell/ability ? How do power levels work and what do they affect ? What stacks and what doesn't ?

 

My best :

 

Art and environment/encounter design. Everything is beautiful and I like the encounters I've seen, they seem to hit the mark of WM1&2.

 

I really like the stealth mechanic and I like the multiclass/subclass combo.

 

I think I will like ships a lot, but I wont be able to judge before a boarding option is available from the get go and I'm allowed to advance my ship more than once per round

 

Just realised that most of this isn't exclusively from the latest patch, but what the heck

Edited by dukeisaac, 15 February 2018 - 06:09 PM.

[Boeroer]

Bad:

Offensive spell casting with Druid/Priest/Cipher/Wizard in general, especially casting speed.

Summoning weapons is way too slow. I played a mod with 1.5 secs and that is fine.

The morale of my crew goes down even if I serve them Rum + roasted Duck al'Orange with 3 Michelin stars.

Average PEN is always one or two points below enemies' average AR.

Spells' PEN is generally too low. Either passives with boost PEN or a buff of spells' PEN is needed.

Worst:

I don't like all the ship stuff. It's distracting and also unintuitive and gets boring and tedious pretty soon. But I guess that's only me. It would be great if one could just turn that whole thing off with a switch in the game options menue. That's the worst part for me I have to admit.

Long recovery times make the combat feel sluggish.


Good:
Multiclassing is still a lot of fun.

 

Casters' self buffs are generally good (with a few exceptions).

Best: Beguiler getting more focus back than he spend when using Deceptive AoE spells in certain situations. It's really nice and not too powerful.

Edited by Boeroer, 15 February 2018 - 11:28 PM.

[vanyel54]

The Bad:

• Weapon proficiency

1.  Almost all of them a really bad (too much penalty)
2. You're force to take them !!! Each time is see this screen, i want to hit something

• Lack of abilities

       Character leveling should be a reward. Actually some classes have nothing exciting to choose. By the way, we should be warned when in multiclass we choose abilities that will not stack

• State of the casters

1. You're slow as hell (ex: slicken was really good in POE1, here due to slowness it's useless)
2. You have fewer spells than in POE1 => It means that for each level, the best spells will always be no-brainer choice (should i choose "Devotions for the Faithful" or "Barring Death's Door" ? So hard to choose )
3. Per Encounter means that you could do your best a each fight. Ok. Then you will use the same tactics at each fight. I love in POE1 when i have to use other strategy because i have no more "Ninagauth's Shadowflame" / "Relentless storm" / ....
4. Lets not talk about the cipher. Poor guy abandoned by all.

• State of the combat system (recovery time, stacking issue, empower not clear, movement speed etc...)
• No slow mode. Ok seems it will came back. Can't wait because actually i just cant test the beta correctly.
• Ship : As Boerer said, it must be skip-able
• Common Inventory. I greatly prefer the POE1 system. I can't imagine all the stuff you will have on the screen at the end of the game. Or do another stash separate (ex: team stash and a global stash)

The Good

• Environment, graphics.
• Multi-class.

After reflection, I still do not understand why you needed to destroy the foundation to rebuild the house...

[LampStaple]

Good:

First thing, the game is so ****ing phenomenally beautiful. Like, if pillars 1 was a raw potato, deadfire is something really fancy and french. Spellcasting especially looks a lot better, which goes a long way to fulfilling the fantasy feeling. 

 

Mutliclassing weapon-based classes is tons of fun. All the unique effects of specialization/class specific skills means that unlike in pillars 1, martial characters can have some really interesting builds. 

 

Bad:

 

Spellcasting. Other than the fact that spellcasting is weak (I have faith that it'll be balanced), per-encounter spellcasting fundamentally doesn't feel as good.

 

Casters in dnd-style games are usually resource-management types of characters, and that's what makes them so damn fun to play - rationing the gadgets you have in your toolbelt, gauging encounters, saving your resources and going all-out in a boss fight...the per-rest spells make "easy" encounters mentally engaging when you try to figure out the most efficient use of your spells, and it makes boss fights or otherwise difficult fights feel amazing when you go all-out and empty your spellbook. That was by far my favorite experience in pillars 1. 

 

Martial classes, on the other hand, are about consistent power - don't need resources to swing a sword. This differentiates the playstyles of casters and martial classes - obviously there are middle grounds like chanters and ciphers who can constantly generate resource, but the playstyle feels very different. 

 

Homogenizing the playstyles feels almost like undoing the versatility that multiclassing provides.

 

That's my main complaint - I love playing casters and casters are just unfun. Unloading your strongest spells every encounter feels bad. 

Imagine if at the end of pillars 1 you just cast storm of holy fire every time you met a beetle. You wouldn't feel as badass casting storm of holy fire on Thaos.

[Nail]

Bad experience:

 

1. Pretty much everything that is bugged at the moment.

 

2. Recovery timers are too much, divide them by 2, so fights will be more dynamic - what's the point of waiting for such long action cooldown?

 

3. Empower ability uncertainty.

 

4. Combat disengagement system needs improvements.

 

5. State of casters, spells are slow and feeling ineffective.

 

6. New grimoire system.

 

7. Ship fights are too plain, just rotate 180° and fire both sides kinda the most effective way, no point to board other ship.

 

8. Character faces, cloak animation. It's not very important, but if decision was make to make them 3d - do it good or what's the point?

 

9. Weapon modals seems a bad idea, why not baldur's gate weapon proficiency or something like that?

 

 

Good experience:

 

1. Exploration Feeling

 

2. Quests.

 

3. Storyline.

 

4. Better visuals

Edited by Nail, 16 February 2018 - 01:28 AM.

[Paxicon]

The forums keep eating my fast-replies. 

 

I may be new to the beta but:

 

BAD: casting/recovery simply MUST change. The game is just not FUN for a caster-type right now. Everyone is saying it and I must repeat that it has to go.

 

Good: As ever with Obsidian, the writing is amazingly good. And multiclassing is awesome!

Edited by Paxicon, 16 February 2018 - 01:34 AM.

[KDubya]

Worst - 

• The Monk unarmed damage getting reset after a save load
• Multiclassing breaking all sorts of game balance
• Sabres are again the best weapon choice by far
• Island Aumaua being made worthless. Their old racial ability was great and added lots of flexibility. The new one is some sort of joke.
• Changing Might to Strength. In PoE the stats set the game apart from DnD and that was good. Now it just makes for another clone. If you had a vision for Might being soul power or whatever, better to have stuck to your vision and made sure that the writing in game reflected that rather than bowing to vocal complainers and changing a major cornerstone of the stat system for what appears to be a wily nily reason.
• Having so many dialogue skills, is there really a use for having diplomacy, intimidate and bluff? Is the writing such that all can be applied to most conversations?
• Making Vancian per rest casters into per encounter spamming the best spell everytime forever. Should have totally redone the whole system into something like a Cipher or Chanter where you built up something to let you cast off bigger spells rather than just getting two casts per level which'll get you like 18 spells per encounter by the end which is just idiotic. You're going to end up casting the biggest damage nuke from stealth Every. Single. Time.
• Stacking rules for buffs that are obtuse at best
• Game mechanics that require some serious deconstruction by people on the forum to figure out what the damage and speed formulas are. Just spell it out in complete detail in the in game wiki or whatever.
• Developers responding on third party sites like Something Awful instead of here on the official boards. Sort of makes it seem like all of our comments and observations from the various  Beta releases have been a waste of all of our time.

Best

• Multiclassing making for some really cool builds
• The artwork looks great as does spell effects.

 

The armor and penetration mechanics should probably have gotten a complete re-design of all the weapons, spells and armor rather than just importing the same values from PoE and tacking on the armor and penetration system. Currently there looks to be no use for light armor ever and it'll be either go super heavy or go naked. If you are ahead of the armor curve combat is pretty easy while if you lag behind you'll be crushed, hence the popularity of Skalds, Berserkers and Devoted.

 

So many game mechanics have changed from PoE that it is more a new game set in the same world rather than any sort of sequel. How this gets balanced into something both challenging and fun will have to be seen to be believed.

[Madscientist]

Bad:

- Ship combat is the most terrible part of the game. It takes forever, you repeat the same things again and again while praying to the god of random numbers that your cannons hit more often than the enemy.

- Ship exploration feels also punishing. Your resources drop fast and its hard to explore even this small part of the world map entirely without your morale dropping constantly.

- We need a better explaination of game mechanics in game. If you look in the in game encyclopedia you should see things like damage and speed formulas with some comment, stacking rules, rules for dots and lashes, and so on. Players should not need to read this forum to see how MaxQuest finds out those mechanics. Remember that the IE games were sold together with a thick rule book full of text and tables. Nobody should be forced to read this, but I would really like to see such info in the game.

- Pure cipher caster are bad at the moment. The damage separation between strengh and resolve made things worse. In PoE1 the advantage of ciphers was that they could cast infinite spells during combat ( at least in theory) when they build up focus while other casters had to rest. Now the other casters can throw their most powerful spells at once and have them back the next fight while ciphers need lots of auto attacks between their spells, plus cipher spells seem rather slow even compared to other casters.

- I put this under bad because I think its a balance issue: Its not that casters are weak but instead a combination of 2 melee classes plus dual wielding is too strong. Any combination of fighter, paladin, monk, rogue, soul blade and even ranger feels strong while pure casters and even single class chars have problems to compete.

suggestion: all class talents should scale with power level, like

rogue sneak attack, paladin FoD and defense bonus,barbarian carnage damage + area, ciphers soul whip, rangers wounding shot, spell effects, shapeshifted damage, and so on increase by x% per power level. I am not sure if it works (because I cannot test it), but at the moment combinations of paladin, ranger and rogue have lots of full attacks with extra damage or penetration right from the start, rogue + soulblade has permanent +90%damage (sneak + biting whip) multiplied with strengh + annihilation skill, fighter + anything gives permanent +50%graze to hit, hit to crit and speed (dual wielding style)

- Tons of game breaking bugs that were present in the first beta are still there, like infinite crits with the monk ability (swift strikes? I mean the upgrade to the attack speed bonus), fighters cleaving stance, citadels spirit lance causes status effects on all targets, monk fist lost on loading, . . .

- profiency system with useless weapon modals

 

good:

- I like world map exploration. In another thread we have said that could be more interactive, similar to the way the world map travel was in Storm of Zehir.

- I like how multi classing is implemented in general, though some balancing still needs to be done. (see above)

- I like the setting in general. Polynesia and colonisation are rarely presented in games. I also like that the places look brighter than in PoE1. There the world seemed very depressive with soulless children as the main topic, a tree full of bodies is the main attraction of the first town and obscure sects plotting in the darkness. While I like dark settings (Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was great) this can be quite depressing if you have it all the time.

- I hope that chosing between factions has a bigger effect on the story than PoE1 (2 quests, a talent and a shop plus it is mentioned in one ending slide)

- I am looking forward to the more reactive relationship with party members, between each other and between them and the player.

 

neutral:

- The better graphics should be mentioned as good, but I do not play games for the graphics, but for story, exploration and game mechanics (such as combat). I still like to play the IE games, I think that many SNES games (e.g. Crono Trigger) are still much better than most new games and I also support new pixel art games.

- I do not understand why you changed lots of game mechanics that worked well in PoE1 (e.g. DR vs penetration), but I have the feeling the game improved over the different beta versions and maybe it can become good, we will see.

[Madscientist]

KDubya daid:

Developers responding on third party sites like Something Awful instead of here on the official boards. Sort of makes it seem like all of our comments and observations from the various  Beta releases have been a waste of all of our time.

 

I have to agree. I can understand if a very small group of people who makes a game at home and who cannot run such a big forum uses social media as main source to spread information about their game.

But Obsidian is a rather big company and you have an official forum ( that works quite well compared to some others I know), so this would be the best place to spread information about your game. Now I need to go to the other thread where forum users collect all kind of post from all kind of sources to be informed what the devs think about their game.

Did Josh ever post in this forum or is it only that I do not know his user name.

[ghostwriter]

Liking a lot of what I've seen so far... I do think ship combat mechanics need to be a bit clearer and better explained though.

 

Also, a minor complaint, but I would like to have the option of no voice set at character creation.

[IndiraLightfoot]

The Bad:

• Weapon proficiency

1.  Almost all of them a really bad (too much penalty)
2. You're force to take them !!! Each time is see this screen, i want to hit something

 

• Empower      

         Almost entirely redundant, and it rarely affects anything in combat, since it's over by the time you use something that may be worthwhile empowering.

• Lack of abilities

       Character leveling should be a reward. Actually some classes have nothing exciting to choose. By the way, we should be warned when in multiclass we choose abilities that will not stack

 

       I want to see many more general talents for all classes, including spell casters. Many times when I level up, it feels like I'm forced to take a pick that I don't want. I wish I could save talent points for higher power level stuff sometimes. Multi-classing feels like a ruse, since the amount of options is less than in PoE1.

 

 

•       Lack of combat UI feedback and overly complex numbers and damage/stacking/whatever calculations

                   

• State of the casters

1. You're slow as hell (ex: slicken was really good in POE1, here due to slowness it's useless)
2. You have fewer spells than in POE1 => It means that for each level, the best spells will always be no-brainer choice (should i choose "Devotions for the Faithful" or "Barring Death's Door" ? So hard to choose )
3. Per Encounter means that you could do your best a each fight. Ok. Then you will use the same tactics at each fight. I love in POE1 when i have to use other strategy because i have no more "Ninagauth's Shadowflame" / "Relentless storm" / ....
4. Lets not talk about the cipher. Poor guy abandoned by all.
5. Enemies move too fast during combat, and targeting with spells is hell. Re-targeting doesn't help one bit!

• State of the combat system (recovery time, stacking issue, empower not clear, movement speed etc...)
• No slow mode. Ok seems it will came back. Can't wait because actually i just cant test the beta correctly.
• Ship : As Boeroer said, it must be skip-able, or at least easy to retreat or just escape such encounters.
• Common Inventory. I greatly prefer the POE1 system. I can't imagine all the stuff you will have on the screen at the end of the game. Or do another stash separate (ex: team stash and a global stash)

The Good

• Environment, graphics.
• Multi-class.
• The music
• The SFX
• The upcoming combat speed slider

After reflection, I still do not understand why you needed to destroy the foundation to rebuild the house...

I agree with everything above, and I've added some of my own pet peeves and praises.

Edited by IndiraLightfoot, 16 February 2018 - 07:51 AM.

[Wormerine]

Did Josh ever post in this forum or is it only that I do not know his user name.

From what I gathered he used to be active here, and than decided against it. It’s an anecdotal knowledge, I myself didn’t join the forum until Deadfire crowdfunding.

[MaxQuest]

Best:
- graphics upgrade
- substantially better character models, textures and animations (but!) need more good face presets
- the idea of multi-class
- the idea of subclasses
- exploration and setting

Worst:
- (by far) missing, confusing, innacurate or even lying tooltips
- erratic/chaotic combat
- unbalanced state between single-class and multi-class, between phys dps and spell dps, between dps and cc, between melee and ranged
- underpowered crowd control
- mushy power level
- the occasional frustration from "if only I had 1 more AR right now" and "oops, these two don't stack"
- lack of versatility. It's ok to have really limited spell-usages, but the amount of spells and powers you can learn is a bit overlimited.

Unsure:
- the game often makes me wonder: why exactly those formulas are used

TL.DR:
+ setting and atmosphere
- lack of balance and transparency

Edited by MaxQuest, 16 February 2018 - 03:21 AM.

[theBalthazar]

BEST EXPERIENCES

 

+ Multiclasses/Subclasses : To create cool associations. Always a good thing.

 

+ Rest food : I like the idea, works at the moment.

 

+ Per encounter spells : Better feel of liberty. I like this choice (even if it seems obvious that I am an exception among hardcore gamers)

 

+ Concept of Empower : If there is a debate for me with an eventual additionnal empower for single class (per encounter) This concept is globally satisfaying.

 

 

WORST EXPERIENCES

 

- Battleship : Ashamed right now. Not interesting, the most disappointing thing currently. I hope it will not be mandatory with exploration... Actually only a scrolling text...

Solution : Add a tactical/strategic element. Passive/active abilities for each members of crew and for Watcher.

 

- Stacking rules : Potentially a game killer, a bad pendant of the choice of multiclass. If the pleasure of association is stopped = end of the pleasure, and replayability dies.

Solution : All stack, except containers (like Tenacious etc.)

 

- Casters Cast time : Still problematic... 5s... 8s...  don't work with that system. Most fights end too quickly for that. Even with recent double boost of two last successives Beta...

Solution : 5s for instant AoE damage (fire ball) with increased damages. 4s Cast time for AoE buff/invocations, MAX. 3s for instant damage for one target spells, or AoE overtime damage. 2s MAX for chanters/cipher spells and one target buff. (Actually, for Priest : 5s for a one target buff/counter WTF)

 

- Proficiency : Here, it is more because I see a HUGE potential for this and... it is only... like that now. It is a waste. And honestly bonus and malus are too gross.

Solution : 3 pts of evolution per proficiency. 1 acquisition. 2. Increase the bonus. 3. down the malus. Like that, as much proficiency (points in our case) becomes useful.

 

- Single class : Actually no interrest to pick up this solution. Indeed, you don't SEE level 10-20 (and specifically 16-20 for the last uniques level to single classes). OK. But generally in a RPG, the crucial part is the start. So actually, everybody will take multiclass...

Solution : Better use of power  level for single classes (e.g. FoD : 20 accuracy +50 % fire damage for single class, against 30 % fire damage for multiclass) and +1 empower per encounter ? (Single class essence : PERFECT control of ONE class...)

Edited by theBalthazar, 16 February 2018 - 07:36 AM.

[CottonWolf]

Best

 

Character options through multiclassing and subclassing - you can build some really cool stuff

Setting - tropical archipelago's are great and pretty unusual in CRPGs

Graphics - it looks so much better than the first game (also, cloaks on mac!)

The encounter design - especially at the higher difficulty levels

The new stealth system - stealth feels like a more integrated option now

 

Neutral

 

The mechanics changes generally - most things that shifted don't seem better or worse, and generally I'm pretty positive about the mechanical changes (which feed into things like multiclassing), but not so much that it makes it into the "best" section

The sailing/ship combat mechanic - currently seems underbaked, but we know big changes are coming, so I'm withholding judgement

 

Worst

 

Inconsistent stacking rules - it seems unclear on what abilities suppress what, and currently it's very easy to take passives where one suppresses the other if you're multiclassing. At the very least, suppression rules should be documented and the game should stop you from being able to take a passives that's suppressed by one you already have.

Inconsistent application of power level - it's also unclear what power level actually does in a lot of cases. Does it affect melee abilities? Why don't summoned weapons scale with power level? Why do ranger pets not scale with power level but monk's fist damage does? What will empowering grant me if I use it on this ability? Some of this would be solved by better documentation, but other things, like multiclasses getting the full bonus of both classes unique abilities (e.g. carnage + sneak attack) without them being moderated by power level seems to be contributing to the vast gulf between multiclassed and single classed characters.

 

Edit: I've also fallen into the trap of talking generally and not specifically about the last patch, but this is here now, and I can't be bothered to rewrite it.

Edited by CottonWolf, 16 February 2018 - 07:38 AM.

[OlleDenStore]

- Proficiency : Here, it is more because I see a HUGE potential for this and... it is only... like that now. It is a waste. And honestly bonus and malus are too gross.

Solution : 3 pts of evolution per proficiency. 1 acquisition. 2. Increase the bonus. 3. down the malus. Like that, as much proficiency (points in our case) becomes useful.

 

I really like this idea!

[Kirschkern]

The good stuff:

 

• Exploration is fun and lets you have a little bit of "create your own adventure".
• The little text events are an excellent way to bring some roleplay encounters into a pc game.
• Multiclasses offer so much variety, very good for the replayability of the game!
• Crafting! specifically poisons and drugs. I feel those two always fall short in most rpgs.
• The idea of managing your own ship as a home base.
• Judging from the backer beta you guys put A LOT of different skills/backgrounds checks into dialog options. If a conversation only has one option it can feel very disappointing when you don't have the necessary stat.

 

 

The 'meh' stuff:

 

• Losing your spell when you abort a cast is not a lot of fun. Retargeting is nice but more often you need to change your position because:
• Battles feel very chaotic, enemies run all over the place. Engagement range seems to be a tad too short. I would like to feel like my unbroken fighter actually exerts a zone of control.
• I guess we only have a very rudimentary version of the ship combat in the beta right now, but it feels pretty repetitive. Tons of buttons to press with not much choice or actual influence of the outcome.
• Penetration seems like a mini-game. I know the system is a little nuanced but right now all I'm looking at is: Can I beat the exact armor value? Feels very binary.
• I would actually prefer a few more generic talents for every class to steer them in unusual builds (but I think you guys are already working on that?).
• Caster spell variety: Priests and mages. The extra spells they gain from various mechanics are a step in the right direction. I still feel only having the choice of 2 spells per tier when you put ALL your points into the class is very limiting. It becomes even worse when you consider multiclassing or the new generic talents for the next update?

 

What (imho) needs to be fixed before release:

 

• Caster spell variety: Cyphers and druids.
• Cyphers have a few side talents that eat into their already very limited selection. When you consider their casting resource and therefor affinity for multiclassing into physical classes its even worse.
• Druids are even worse in this aspect because they don't even get to cast their limited spells over and over. It gets even worse when you consider druids are often split between healing & offensive spells. Selecting spells very quickly boils down to: chose the heal spell per tier and get one! other spell. That leads to very stale gameplay because the druids really lacks options in fights. And that is not even considering the points spent in any shapeshifting stuff.
• Weapon Talents: Getting to chose and spent pretty limited points on them makes them feel very important but the drawbacks are so massive (at least for most of them) that it most often boils down to choosing the least limiting option.