Awful tree talents.

[dunehunter]

Yo. Im not really interested in some forum holy-wars or kinda of that things. I just want one of my favorite games to shine properly.

I didnt mention at the first message about casters talents. That is even more funny. For example in older DnD games you could always affect of modify your spells, take some other offensive or def talents and choose your spells. In new PoE2 casters dont even have talents. Their perks is 70% are spells from previous game and some bonuses like +10mental#reflex def. That is even more funny than melee and ranged specs.

You had a great spell ideas in Tyranny with all that runes and spell modifications. Why PoE2 is so badly desined? I dont get it.

Good post, spells need more synergy from talents.

[Wormerine]

True.

 

It really ruined some things, now Obsidian is scattered so close at launch. For me, it's kinda painful to see, as a backer. I'm praying for a miracle that all will turn out well but given Obsidian's past hiccups upon release, this just might be their messiest one yet (sadly).

 

I just wanted the best for the game and for Obsidian make it the best that it can be. When I backed the game, I saw a focused vision, a steady goal and a sure plan to get ther. Josh and the team seemd so confident, but I never imagined the road to be so... rocky? Perhaps this is the common shortcomings of developing such games of magnitude in the industry, I don't know but launch date strikes the match a little closer and closer every day. While we twiddle our thumbs and wait for a what could be rushed product... or maybe it will actually be okay.

 

Things that make you go... "Hmmmm"

Just to be clear when I say "madhouse" I mean fans, not Obsidian. 

 

As it is, I feel its fine. Passives aren't too exciting, but I didn't feel like the game needed those. Addition of an extra talent for a single class, means that if something seems essencial to my build I can pick it without too much regret. Overall I enjoy system and combat a lot. If on May 8th performance will be stable, and current bugs with missing keywords will be fixed it should be just fine. At least I have seen much much worse. 

 

When listening to many dev stories some really big changes are often made up to the very release. Its not like passives were rushed - they have been worked on since beta1 feedback. 

[theBalthazar]

Well well well, so I'm not the only one to think that.  : ) ...

 

In fact, one can consider that is OK. A Poor passives tree ability is completely assumed choice.

 

In Divinity OS 1 for example, you have poor choice of active abilities, it is not a real problem !

 

The only difference is that here, talents/active/passives are not particurlarly tactical (Sadly or not, this is not the question). So for me, the pleasure isn't to cast FoD at the good time for example, contrary to OS 1 where you must rapture, soul sap, battering ram etc etc at the good moment (and all are useful !...). Here with pillars saga, this is more like NWN 2 and others game of BUILDING numbers.

 

So, in this situation, number of associations is important. Look at the number of feat in Neverwinter nights 2 and you have your answer. NWN2 is not an example for everything, but honestly, there is a big big choice. Often not balancing at all, casting pre-buff before battle when this is 6s by level is awful, but this game is diversified and fun.

 

Pillars if far better for a great amount of thing, but not his tree. Tyranny for example was interresting but extremely linear and limited (Even if there was perhaps more choice each line than POE2 actually for one class...). And in exchange you can create your spell. THIS idea save literally the game. The feeling of choice is incredible.

 

So, if in POE2, there is "divinity side" (tactical), OK, a poor choice is not very problematic. But honestly, pillars stay pillars. Too much on the D&D model to change his prerogatives (beta 1 to 4 give general same "feeling" than POE1).

 

in this type of game, people must to have fun with the combinations. So :

- Soften Stacking rules.

- Always offer more unique abilities per line. I mean look at line 1 of Fighter. Seriously... ?

 

This gives the impression to the player that he did not choose "forcibly".

Edited April 5, 2018 by theBalthazar

[MortyTheGobbo]

 

It is a firm belief that any rpg player should be able to play how they want, where they want, when they want. Then again, Pillars games are more restricted and more casual then other rpg's which allow more freedoms to the given player. Divinity: OS2 is a perfect example which allows for players to play how they want, and it's comparable to Pillars games because the same guidelines were applied. It's just a matter of some games doing it better than others is all.

Gameplaywise though, especially combat - I felt Divinity to be quite restrictive. It has a “feeling” of choice, because it’s a classless system. Instead of deciding if you are a ranger, or wizard, or priest type character you decide more as you go on. However, within one archetype I found the choices to be quite limited.

 

Plus there's some tactics that are just better than others in terms of dealing with the game's difficulty and scaling.

[rjshae]

My Pillars experience was this:

 

1) take or get access to lots of spells

2) only ever use 4 or 5 of them

3) never use potions or scrolls because they do the exact same thing as spells

 

I don’t think the limited selection is going to sting nearly as much as people think it’s going to. I get that our psychology is such that we really don’t like it when we think things are being taken away, but I actually think this works better

 

The Pareto principle applies here. 80% of the time you'll be mostly happy with the small selection you've taken. The other 20% of the time though, you'll really miss that one spell you can't cast. It makes your character class feel less than optimal.

[Guest]

 

My Pillars experience was this:

 

1) take or get access to lots of spells

2) only ever use 4 or 5 of them

3) never use potions or scrolls because they do the exact same thing as spells

 

I don’t think the limited selection is going to sting nearly as much as people think it’s going to. I get that our psychology is such that we really don’t like it when we think things are being taken away, but I actually think this works better

The Pareto principle applies here. 80% of the time you'll be mostly happy with the small selection you've taken. The other 20% of the time though, you'll really miss that one spell you can't cast. It makes your character class feel less than optimal.

And if those occasions can’t be rectified via a potion, a scroll, or swapping out to another grimoire, I will be similarly concerned

[rjshae]

 

 

My Pillars experience was this:

 

1) take or get access to lots of spells

2) only ever use 4 or 5 of them

3) never use potions or scrolls because they do the exact same thing as spells

 

I don’t think the limited selection is going to sting nearly as much as people think it’s going to. I get that our psychology is such that we really don’t like it when we think things are being taken away, but I actually think this works better

The Pareto principle applies here. 80% of the time you'll be mostly happy with the small selection you've taken. The other 20% of the time though, you'll really miss that one spell you can't cast. It makes your character class feel less than optimal.

And if those occasions can’t be rectified via a potion, a scroll, or swapping out to another grimoire, I will be similarly concerned

 

Yeah, assuming you have time to swap out a grimoire. I suppose you can reload, but I thought we were trying to avoid that.

[Guest]

 

 

 

My Pillars experience was this:

 

1) take or get access to lots of spells

2) only ever use 4 or 5 of them

3) never use potions or scrolls because they do the exact same thing as spells

 

I don’t think the limited selection is going to sting nearly as much as people think it’s going to. I get that our psychology is such that we really don’t like it when we think things are being taken away, but I actually think this works better

The Pareto principle applies here. 80% of the time you'll be mostly happy with the small selection you've taken. The other 20% of the time though, you'll really miss that one spell you can't cast. It makes your character class feel less than optimal.

And if those occasions can’t be rectified via a potion, a scroll, or swapping out to another grimoire, I will be similarly concerned

Yeah, assuming you have time to swap out a grimoire. I suppose you can reload, but I thought we were trying to avoid that.

I haven’t verified, but allegedly wizards can still “hot swap” grimoires that they keep in their quick items. As for potions and scrolls, yeah, it would be nice not to metagame them, but I think at some point we’re expected to look at someone in heavy armor and just kinda know that arrows are a bad idea but shock damage is a good one (for example)

[Yosharian]

How much of game development is always this manic, though?

 

We're just getting a glimpse into development that we don't normally get, because we're backers.

[THCRaven]

How much of game development is always this manic, though?

 

We're just getting a glimpse into development that we don't normally get, because we're backers.

According to the twitch Q&A the current state of the beta is what we will get and this period is mostly dedicated to bug fixing.

[SonicMage117]

How much of game development is always this manic, though?

 

We're just getting a glimpse into development that we don't normally get, because we're backers.

Very true.

 

The development process is often regarded by the developers as "long" but rarely is it ever regarded to as "hard"...

 

Unless, that is if the developers faced aot of problems (people didagreeing, people coming in and going out, people who are having medical issues, technical issues). None of these things are normal while working on a project - though I can see how some people here may see it as normal, I mean, if a person only follows games where development have only ever been a bad experience for developers, then that's all they will think.

 

Game development in the industry is usually said to be fun. Quality games are only out of love, passion and happiness. Being content with a project is key. Being uncertain and losing vision can break the product and company. Development hell isn't normal, it's sad to hear though.

[Yosharian]

 

How much of game development is always this manic, though?

 

We're just getting a glimpse into development that we don't normally get, because we're backers.

Very true.

 

The development process is often regarded by the developers as "long" but rarely is it ever regarded to as "hard"...

 

Unless, that is if the developers faced aot of problems (people didagreeing, people coming in and going out, people who are having medical issues, technical issues). None of these things are normal while working on a project - though I can see how some people here may see it as normal, I mean, if a person only follows games where development have only ever been a bad experience for developers, then that's all they will think.

 

Game development in the industry is usually said to be fun. Quality games are only out of love, passion and happiness. Being content with a project is key. Being uncertain and losing vision can break the product and company. Development hell isn't normal, it's sad to hear though.

You completely misunderstood my meaning

[SonicMage117]

 

 

How much of game development is always this manic, though?

We're just getting a glimpse into development that we don't normally get, because we're backers.

Very true.

The development process is often regarded by the developers as "long" but rarely is it ever regarded to as "hard"...

Unless, that is if the developers faced aot of problems (people didagreeing, people coming in and going out, people who are having medical issues, technical issues). None of these things are normal while working on a project - though I can see how some people here may see it as normal, I mean, if a person only follows games where development have only ever been a bad experience for developers, then that's all they will think.

Game development in the industry is usually said to be fun. Quality games are only out of love, passion and happiness. Being content with a project is key. Being uncertain and losing vision can break the product and company. Development hell isn't normal, it's sad to hear though.

You completely misunderstood my meaning

Okay.

 

If you don't mind me asking, what did you mean? The point of my wall of text (or as other members might call "babbling") was that Obsidian bit off more than what they could chew. This isn't how things normally go down, even in the development of games we are not let into and we are seeing the struggle in the balancing nw and how they are going about fixing it. This was just a price of the game being too ambitious?

[Yosharian]

 

 

 

How much of game development is always this manic, though?

We're just getting a glimpse into development that we don't normally get, because we're backers.

Very true.

The development process is often regarded by the developers as "long" but rarely is it ever regarded to as "hard"...

Unless, that is if the developers faced aot of problems (people didagreeing, people coming in and going out, people who are having medical issues, technical issues). None of these things are normal while working on a project - though I can see how some people here may see it as normal, I mean, if a person only follows games where development have only ever been a bad experience for developers, then that's all they will think.

Game development in the industry is usually said to be fun. Quality games are only out of love, passion and happiness. Being content with a project is key. Being uncertain and losing vision can break the product and company. Development hell isn't normal, it's sad to hear though.

You completely misunderstood my meaning

Okay.

 

If you don't mind me asking, what did you mean? The point of my wall of text (or as other members might call "babbling") was that Obsidian bit off more than what they could chew. This isn't how things normally go down, even in the development of games we are not let into and we are seeing the struggle in the balancing nw and how they are going about fixing it. This was just a price of the game being too ambitious?

 

 

I meant the opposite to what you thought I meant

[Boeroer]

Oh no! One of two per-thread uses of "Wall of Text" has been wasted.

[SonicMage117]

Oh no! One of two per-thread uses of "Wall of Text" has been wasted.

I know right! Lol

 

Oh well, many more to come

Edited April 7, 2018 by SonicMage117