Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

[peacedog]

@Mysterial

It works only if there’s still a good reason to take Might on a caster, just at a lesser quantity. Otherwise it becomes the Diablo 3 problem, where sure there are 3 stats but each class takes one and ignores the others so you might as well just call it “Attack Power” and stop wasting everyone’s time.

Except this isn’t like Diablo 3, where every decision is made in part to increase a specific number because that’s t90% of your damage scaling in a game where the enemy hp is scaling all the time. The stats run [I can’t remember the min value] to 20 (which was only possible with specific class/race combos I think, and also sacrificing other stuff). There’s not a lot of ways to increase them in game. You don’t end PoE with 250 Resolve vs 250 strength, in other words. And you do feel the sacrifices via “classic” things like the frail mage, or longer cooldowns for some skills, etc.

Put yet another way, one isn’t always going to build a mage that has a high resolve for all the damage. There’s multiple styles of mage to play. And while there were before, having all sources damage scale primarily on strength was completely nonsensical (in fact, that’s more like Diablo 3 than this system, although the old system was still not very like Diablo 3).

[ShivaX]

Yeah, decoupling Strength from spell damage wont change a whole lot. All the stats still matter for the most part, it just wont be a requirement for Wizards to be hulks if you want them to do damage to things.

[stusser]

Baldur’s Gate had customizable AI too (albeit without the UI), which made PoE1’s initial complete lack of AI even worse. That was, IMO, PoE1’s largest fault by a huge degree. It rendered the game really tedious to play. Thankfully they fixed it.

[Rock8man]

@Scotch_Lufkin

I can’t think of any reason for such a reaction, unless you believe this stuff will be mandatory. It won’t be!

It also has an effect on the overall design. If they think you’re able to handle very complex situations in real time, they’re free to design the encounters by throwing even more stuff at you and increase the complexity guilt free because they figure you’re using scripts to handle it. They won’t think “well, maybe someone is manually controlling each character”.

I’m on the record several times on the board in saying my favorite iteration of this design of combat is KOTOR and NWN2. In both you could pause at the start of battle, and queue up a bunch of commands, and then hit GO and watch it unfold. That was my favorite way of handling it. I don’t know why they took away that option in Dragon’s Age: Origins, and why they didn’t have that option in FF XII. It’s a much better way of handling this kind of combat.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I do agree that being able to queue up commands would be a welcome addition, but I feel like the way the battle state changes so fluidly you’d constantly be changing up your actions anyway.

And while I see what you mean about them balancing the game around you being able to customize your AI, I don’t believe they will in practice. For one thing, it’s being implemented pretty late in the design process (if it would affect the difficulty in any meaningful way, it would have been a prominent feature right from the start), and instead seems more like a “nice to have” for the hard core fans that wanted this all along. But regardless, they certainly won’t balance around this on normal difficulties. In fact, the higher the difficulty levels, I imagine the idea is the more manual control the higher end players are expressing, now less manual control.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

Rolled up a new character (an Ice Elf Paladin), I’m eventually going to try every class to see what they are all like at level 6, and I think I’ll give the beta a fair play through with this one just because I want to see how the game feels with the last update and play around with the script/behavior editor. I don’t want to play too much, not this far out from release, but the game feels really good so far and it’s fun to experiment with random characters.

The Paladin tree has some really smart ability chains on it, and an entire line of skills based on the “Paladin Order” you select. I picked the Shieldbearers of St. Elcga, for instance, and as such I can engage one additional enemies when I have a shield equipped (complete with helpful reminder text on all my shields), and my Lay on Hands ability prevents a healed target from being killed for a few seconds. Here is the Greater Lay on Hands ability card - you can see it heals (20 health per 3 seconds base, then modified by the Resolve stat) and prevents death but also grants Robust, a +5 Con, +2 Armor Rating, and 30 total extra health (also modified by Resolve).

Here is what I set up for his custom script. It’s a blending of the (Cautious) and (Aggressive) script that pre-exists, but I put everything in one single script (healing stuff on top, attack stuff on bottom as I assume that’s the priority order these scripts fire off) and it contains only abilities my character can do (the default scripts are like “every possible ability a beta character could have” type of deal, which works fine but I like the “streamlined” aspect of a hand-made script.

Thanks to putting a lot of points in Athletics, I have a strong Second Wind buff (1 user/combat) that I put on top of the “heal self” section I created. This way I hopefully preserve my Lay on Hands and Greater Lay on Hands for my allies. I also preserve Greater Lay on Hands for my allies over myself, as I have a high armor rating already (and gain +2 more armor when I am damaged for 10 seconds, thanks to a passive I picked at level up) so granting bonus armor from Greater Lay on Hands to an ally seems smart.

Then I have an attack condition to initiate a Flames of Devotion against the enemy most likely to get hit by it (lowest deflection stat), and if I get swarmed I pop Glorious Beacon, which blinds enemies in melee range. Actually, looking this over I should probably swap my Attack AoE script with the Attack one, so the Beacon is going off first. Hmn.

Anyway, I’ll drop back in and play around a bit, and report back with my continued thoughts!

[Scotch_Lufkin]

Here is something I never know. You can hold SHIFT when you hover over an attack/damage result to get some excellent details.

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Keep it up @Scotch_Lufkin.

[Greadle]

@Scotch_Lufkin

You can hold SHIFT when you hover over an attack/damage result to get some excellent details.

Wow, did this also work in the original? If so, I didn’t know. Definitely makes parsing the complicated mechanics a whole lot easier! :-)

[Scotch_Lufkin]

My thoughts exactly. I don’t believe it was a feature in the first game, but if it was I’m going to be kind of mad I never noticed it. :) There has been a lot of work done on the log in this new game, including being able to filter by character (which is super handy) so I suspect it’s a new feature.

@BloodyBattleBrain Thanks BBB, will do… right now, in fact.

The combat feels better now than it did when I first played the backer beta. Some of that is the recent changes to cool down times and some of it is me being more versed in how the mechanics work and what skills actually do (read your tool tips, kids). I still want a half-speed mode, which is listed on the UI but does not work (fast mode does work though, which is good for moving through areas/towns you’ve already been to). I assume at some point slow/half mode will return, not sure why we don’t have it now. Maybe they want to make sure everyone can enjoy the game’s normal pace (they do keep making tweaks to that, after all) before granting slow mode to us? For now pausing and reviewing the log when you face a new opponent is a good idea, they seem to have lots of fun tricks/abilities up their sleeves and the new log makes that stuff very easy to do.

I’ve made more progress by far than I have before (to be hones that’s not saying much), finally leaving the initial island and completing both the quests I found there (and leveling up for my trouble). I’ve faced off a few very challenging battles, encountered some really neat little encounters that I was (mostly) up to the task for with how my characters skills were set up, and found a few details I hadn’t noticed before such as potions being pretty useful, as while they aren’t instant like in Tyranny they are very fast and create a small 1s cool down, less than a weapon attack would, so it’s worth chugging them as needed now. It won’t completely feel like a waste of an “action”.

There are some broken UI elements now and then, sometimes my ability icons will jitter for a bit until I right click on something, which seems to stabilize things. Every so often you’ll get a “missing string 1” or similar in a tool tip, and very rarely you’ll find two words overlap one another. Stuff like that is pretty minor, and thankfully infrequent. There was one strange bug where after defeating a very challenging fight that had me using consumables just to survive, after the fight was over we wouldn’t leave the combat animation (so no looting/saving/recharging of combat actions) and suddenly a wave of enemies from off screen came rampaging at me. Odd, and they slaughtered us as they were challenging enemies on their own and were were weakened and depleted from the previous (current?) battle.

Other than that one bug and some minor UI glitches/inconsistencies, everything seems to be working as planned. The art and tech on display here is gorgeous, special shout out to the lightning and shadows. I liked PoE’s aesthetic choices quite a lot, it’s one of my favorite looking games (I’m a sucker for dat isometric view) but they have taken everything up a few notches here. While also making it more readable - many abilities animate very quickly when they fire off, making the overall feel of combat not quite as chaotic as it could get in PoE. And while some static effects can linger (like pools of corrosion or a wall of fire) the battle field seems to be pretty easy to navigate at a glance. It’s an impressive feat, so far at least.

I’ve also already found a few items that are far more interesting than anything I found playing 25 hours of Grim Dawn - not a super fair comparison given the genre blending, I’ll grant you, but in many ways a big RPG like this is only as fun as the loot you find. And there has been some really cool loot-type items that had neat ideas. I’m eager to see what other hidden goodies might be found deeper in the beta.

Currently, my game is saved on what looks to be a massive exploration map. My party is well-rested (thanks to finding a shrine that my Paladin could decipher with his Religion skill we got a resting bonus when we camped there - though if I’d been a Monk the rewards would have been ever greater, which is a cool touch I can never get enough of - and there is a LOT of skill/class/previous decision/background/etc. type checks/dialog options so far, at every turn) and are enjoying a +2 Resolve boost. I’m well armed (near as I can tell), and have a good handle on how to utilize the members of my party, in particular my Paladin which has been a specific joy to play around with thus far. Next up, time to explore. I may record a video of this exploration, now that I think of it. I can’t see a reason why not.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

As promised (threatened?) here is said video.

[John_Reynolds]

Watching it now, thanks Scott.

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Indeed. Thanks Scott.

[John_Reynolds]

@Scotch_Lufkin You said in the video you don’t think the game will be out for a year. What makes you say that? Asking since I thought Deadfire was a 1H 2018 game.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I suspect they are hoping for mid-2018 and then it will be delayed until closer to Oct/Nov 2018. Just a theory based on my experience anticipating large, sprawling RPG’s like this. You almost never hit that first release date. I don’t think it even has a proper release date yet, really.

Now, that said, I just checked and have to admit I’m shocked they are showing in the original FIG campaign an “estimated arrival” for the backer rewards (like, the game itself) as Q1 2018. I’d LOOOOOVE to be wrong, and it certainly feels like the game is in great shape right now, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

[inactive_user]

That new combat log tooltip or whatever is filling my UX fibers with Juffo-Wup.

[John_Reynolds]

Beat the beta on easy difficulty. Was hoping to hit level 8 so I could play with the skills a bit more. Combat was too, cough, easy, but I wanted to to be able to focus on learning the new mechanics.

I think the default movement is too low, and the fast has you zipping across the maps.

The retarget option is nice, and useful since some of the spells are veeeery slow to cast (fireballs feels like it takes a good 5s to cast).

I’d posted back in Nov that I didn’t like the UI, but it grew on me. I still don’t care for the character sheet all that much, though it does give more info than the first game’s. The inventory screen is an improved design though.

Lots of little UI bugs encountered. The itemization appears like it could be too boring again. The introduction of the soulbound weapons in the PoE expansions was a nice addition, but I almost hate if that’s late-game content in the sequel.

Hopefully a future beta update lets us play with the ship upgrades and options.

Still can’t believe I’ve thrown over $200 at this game.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

@John_Reynolds

The itemization appears like it could be too boring again.

I guess I’m curious what you want in your items? I found several very cool weapons that had lots of abilities and boons attached to them, and even a very interesting soulbound dagger. I found gauntlets that converted my hits to crits, and I found a cloak that granted a decent deflection bonus but glowed like the sun when it was worn. I found the items to be very interesting!

[Bateau]

This dagger might as well be a generic rare, going by those stats. BG2 itemization this is not.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I have yet to bind it when I took this picture, let alone level it up.

Souldbound items have unique abilities each time you meet certain requirements, and the abilities provided change depending on the bound class.