Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's new CRPG in the vein of Baldur's Gate
- Thread starter Pyros
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Palum
what Suineg set it to
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I'm RPing that they are all aspects of one spectral superbarbarian. So in the same way that Christianity is monotheistic, 'they' one-shot mobs.
Azrayne
Irenicus did nothing wrong
- 2,161
- 787
There's a huge difference between realtime and turn based, no matter how often you have to pause.
Although given how clunky the combat feels, turn based might have actually smoothed it out. I don't have an inherent problem with turn based RPG's, but I've yet to play one (except for the old Exile games where it wasnt an issue because it was 2d with no animations) where the combat doesn't eventually drag on and bore me to tears because of how slow each turn is. For some reason turn based RPG's seem to insist on making the characters move as slowly as possible and the skills/spells take as long as possible to execute, even when it makes no difference to the gameplay except to drag fights out absurdly and bore the player to tears. Divinity: Original Sin is a recent example - it was a quite a bit better than most (the D&D games last decade like Pool of Radiance and Temple of Elemental Evil were the worst for this - why does a fucking magic missile take 15 seconds to cast and land? throw in the time navigating those stupid dial menus which were trendy at the time and the time swapping turns, and it took 30+ seconds just to execute one spell), but by the time I'd been playing 20 hours or so I just couldn't stand sitting there staring at the screen, doing nothing for a minute while another pack of enemies jogged slowly across the screen one by one before I could act again. At least most turn based strategy games give the option to speed up the animations, simultaneous movement for lined up enemies, etc.
I am 22 hours in to the game. I have yet to encounter a bug in gameplay. I feel like people are making a much bigger deal about the AIDS in this game then it's actual impact. It's like some odd game of telephone where one guy got killed by a shade and it morphs down the line that everyones game crashed every 2 seconds.
Are there bugs? Absolutely. I'm not saying they don't exist. I feel like the impact the bugs have on the game is pretty small.
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 11,741
- 5,577
There are plenty of game-breaking bugs, but most of them are avoidable if you are aware of their existence and what causes them.
Don't double-click to equip, ever.
Don't use Rime & Frost chant, ever. It will fill your savegame with thousands of traps that never go away and then saving/loading takes exponentially longer.
Don't use Drinking Horn of Moderation or Talisman of the Unconquerable (breaks Ciphers permanently, unsure if it's ok on other classes)
Don't save and reload your game on the same map where you recruit a companion, ever.
Don't dismiss companions with any items on them if you want to see those items ever again (doesn't happen 100%, but it does happen often enough to require you to dump their shit into stash to be safe)
The whole Raedric thing is just buggy as shit, and you may have a really hard time completing the quest line, or getting out of the map without crashing the game.
Summons and ranger pets sometimes bug out, can't command them anymore, summons never leave after combat, etc. They can also cause savegame bloat like Rime & Frost above, to a lesser degree.
Don't double-click to equip, ever.
Don't use Rime & Frost chant, ever. It will fill your savegame with thousands of traps that never go away and then saving/loading takes exponentially longer.
Don't use Drinking Horn of Moderation or Talisman of the Unconquerable (breaks Ciphers permanently, unsure if it's ok on other classes)
Don't save and reload your game on the same map where you recruit a companion, ever.
Don't dismiss companions with any items on them if you want to see those items ever again (doesn't happen 100%, but it does happen often enough to require you to dump their shit into stash to be safe)
The whole Raedric thing is just buggy as shit, and you may have a really hard time completing the quest line, or getting out of the map without crashing the game.
Summons and ranger pets sometimes bug out, can't command them anymore, summons never leave after combat, etc. They can also cause savegame bloat like Rime & Frost above, to a lesser degree.
Xequecal
Trump's Staff
- 11,559
- -2,388
A lot of the bugs are subtle and not noticed until you don't have a pre-bug save left and it just ruins your game. The bug where equipping stat boosting items can cause your stats to slowly and randomly increase without limit is the major one here.
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 11,741
- 5,577
The patch should be today, or tomorrow at the latest. They said this week, and apparently most of the backer-beta patches were done on Thursdays so there's hope for most of the really nasty stuff to be fixed soon. I assume it's taking longer than people would have liked because they want to fix existing saves instead of making people affected by those bugs start over.
This is a good list.
I've stayed away from chanters specifically so I don't get their bugs, and I have personally experienced the problems with the number 6 crashes. Loving the game so far though, my main is a ranger and I hired a ranger because they are really good, thinking of hiring a 3rd even. Rest are story characters just to see their dialogue, but I can't wait to get rid of Aloth, he gets raped so easily.
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
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- 12,613
Sat down and played a bit. hit level 3, got mage, priest, fighter companions and just toppled the local lord... for reasons?
Here's some of my thoughts. some in response to posts, some just straight from the game.
Did not play wasteland2, not a fan of the setting. did of course play D:OS.
I wouldn't use grimdark for the setting. I'd call it apocalyptic fantasy. Grimdark is generally dark for the sake of darkness. This and many others is more of a trend of taking the post-apocalypse idea, and placing it into a fantasy world. its not really new, but does seem to be taking predominance. Dishonored, world of darkness, sunless sea, darkest dungeon, grimdawn(any game based on soloman kane, or lovecraft in general obviously.) dark souls, Dragonage, Rift, etc, etc. The world is sick or dead, and you are living in the ruined remains. its oppressive, and harsh, and thus more dramatic. If its Berzerks fault, or just lovecraft becoming popular dunno.
The issues I had with post Infinity engine stealth, dialogue as I talked about before. are absolutely still here.
Good news. main character rogue, does not get teleported up to dialogue npcs. Bad. stealth is party based.
stealth and mechanics and party formation. this whole deal is... weird. Stealth and mechanics are character localized for detection. but stealth is party based for breaking.
Meaning, you need to put your high mech and/or stealth in the lead. A high mechanics char in the back of formation, will not see any traps until its too late. the aoe of search checking is a bit too small imho. this is applies when walking around searching in general. often the high search char, just won't be standing in the right spot to detect.
Walking around everywhere in stealth I find an obvious terrible design element. Searching should not be passive. searching should be more like camping. walk to a location, hit search and you search that area. and then you can have hints, etc to search specific areas. both visual(dirt mounds, cracks in walls, broken floorboards), and via notes/dialogue.
This is a bit weird really, and sortof learned backwards. my wizard goes first in formation. Stealths everywhere, on detect. Either lays down a large aoe nuke from stealth, or backs out, and I send the tank in to block/distract, as the wizards set up positions to nuke.
Lore is handled wrong. hate when games do this. I have a high lore main char, but they are apparently a giant autist or something, with only a select set of knowledge. "whats a paladin?"
My wizard with 6? starting lore, ought to have known what a Baelwic is. The UI needs to change to reflect this.
Weapons, gear, skills, etc all have UI functionality where highlighting a word brings up the help tip, and encyclopedia for what a stat does.
Why does this not extend to lore and bestiary? Even better if its tied to lore level, and bestiary unlocking. When someone mentions a God, I should be able to highlight over the name, and read the Gods entry in the encyclopedia, so I can remember who that is. And same with monsters in combat. right click example on a monster to bring up their entry.
Main char does all the talking is lame as I also noted. Eder is standing right there, yet every time a Eotha's dialogue option pops up. He never interjects with his insight.
In fact in general, the lack of companion opinions on things is eh.... Like toppling the local lord, and his animancer. I would have REALLY liked to have been able to step back and discuss with the party, what they think we should do.
The game does give a bit of a comment on this, with the priest. its really hard to "roleplay". we have no real concept of what it would be like to live in this world. Specifically, life and death is utterly different. Like many writers, youtubers have commented on the tree. But in that world, that tree would mean a heck of a lot less to anyone. the preist even explains it. They know for a FACT there is life after death in this world. And souls are reborn. Death is a mercy. its damaging SOULS that is a big deal. (of course his opinions on that do branch off too. hes ok with damaging souls of those he disagrees with.)
So its weird at times to be making choices, without really the backing to understand them. And your allies are noticeably quiet in helping you make choices.
Playing normal, started wizard. have not felt especially weak.
I can't say how it goes to level 12. but, particularly when paired with the other wizard, my basic encounters seem fine. The 2 use per encounter ability is a moderate sized aoe. deals weak-moderate raw damage. so its damage value is fairly low. but its also raw, so it ignores all DR. allowing it to deal full damage to everything. Alone this would be mediocre probably. but 4 every encounter with 2 wizards seems to kill just most things.. wrecked the guards, shadows, etc. in addition to this, class traits. I don't really know what the "best" are. but, wizards can buff their wand/sceptor/rod attacks with "blast" which adds aoe raw damage to them. so their auto attacks become aoe ranged attacks. And an upgrade to that, adds 5DR to it as well.
I have never really felt as though my wizards per encounter power is weak. or that I was saving my "good stuff". I don't need my "good spells" for every encounter. only periodically. And then a single rest before the boss, or every few areas/10 encounters. using the Lord example. fought through sewers, and halfway through the main hall. rested in one of the dinning halls, then did 3-4 more encounters and the lord without another rest.
Healing mechanics I find meh.
The health/end/fatigue UI is not super helpful. took me awhile to understand that. ha. the green bar is health, portrait+number is endurance, and fatigue appears as a status debuff/buff on the side.
And with that. I dont know, I never need to heal endurance, yet. its always health I have to rest for. Possibly consequence of the 2 wizard party. if they are taking damage, they go down in like 2 hits. while the fighter self heals endurance. and doesnt take damage due to DR/avoidance.
Its a neat idea. but some elements. how do you heal health? the triage/first aid traits, and resting alone? Is there no bandages in this game? and why not?
Add bandages in addition to camping? 6/rest? heals one target x health.
More of a question on rogues.
I see people saying rogues suck without backstab, due to stealth mechanics..
But the tooltip says backstabs is only any stunned, prone, dazed, etc, as well as simply flanking... are you not getting backstabs, like all the time?
Here's some of my thoughts. some in response to posts, some just straight from the game.
Did not play wasteland2, not a fan of the setting. did of course play D:OS.
I wouldn't use grimdark for the setting. I'd call it apocalyptic fantasy. Grimdark is generally dark for the sake of darkness. This and many others is more of a trend of taking the post-apocalypse idea, and placing it into a fantasy world. its not really new, but does seem to be taking predominance. Dishonored, world of darkness, sunless sea, darkest dungeon, grimdawn(any game based on soloman kane, or lovecraft in general obviously.) dark souls, Dragonage, Rift, etc, etc. The world is sick or dead, and you are living in the ruined remains. its oppressive, and harsh, and thus more dramatic. If its Berzerks fault, or just lovecraft becoming popular dunno.
The issues I had with post Infinity engine stealth, dialogue as I talked about before. are absolutely still here.
Good news. main character rogue, does not get teleported up to dialogue npcs. Bad. stealth is party based.
stealth and mechanics and party formation. this whole deal is... weird. Stealth and mechanics are character localized for detection. but stealth is party based for breaking.
Meaning, you need to put your high mech and/or stealth in the lead. A high mechanics char in the back of formation, will not see any traps until its too late. the aoe of search checking is a bit too small imho. this is applies when walking around searching in general. often the high search char, just won't be standing in the right spot to detect.
Walking around everywhere in stealth I find an obvious terrible design element. Searching should not be passive. searching should be more like camping. walk to a location, hit search and you search that area. and then you can have hints, etc to search specific areas. both visual(dirt mounds, cracks in walls, broken floorboards), and via notes/dialogue.
This is a bit weird really, and sortof learned backwards. my wizard goes first in formation. Stealths everywhere, on detect. Either lays down a large aoe nuke from stealth, or backs out, and I send the tank in to block/distract, as the wizards set up positions to nuke.
Lore is handled wrong. hate when games do this. I have a high lore main char, but they are apparently a giant autist or something, with only a select set of knowledge. "whats a paladin?"
My wizard with 6? starting lore, ought to have known what a Baelwic is. The UI needs to change to reflect this.
Weapons, gear, skills, etc all have UI functionality where highlighting a word brings up the help tip, and encyclopedia for what a stat does.
Why does this not extend to lore and bestiary? Even better if its tied to lore level, and bestiary unlocking. When someone mentions a God, I should be able to highlight over the name, and read the Gods entry in the encyclopedia, so I can remember who that is. And same with monsters in combat. right click example on a monster to bring up their entry.
Main char does all the talking is lame as I also noted. Eder is standing right there, yet every time a Eotha's dialogue option pops up. He never interjects with his insight.
In fact in general, the lack of companion opinions on things is eh.... Like toppling the local lord, and his animancer. I would have REALLY liked to have been able to step back and discuss with the party, what they think we should do.
The game does give a bit of a comment on this, with the priest. its really hard to "roleplay". we have no real concept of what it would be like to live in this world. Specifically, life and death is utterly different. Like many writers, youtubers have commented on the tree. But in that world, that tree would mean a heck of a lot less to anyone. the preist even explains it. They know for a FACT there is life after death in this world. And souls are reborn. Death is a mercy. its damaging SOULS that is a big deal. (of course his opinions on that do branch off too. hes ok with damaging souls of those he disagrees with.)
So its weird at times to be making choices, without really the backing to understand them. And your allies are noticeably quiet in helping you make choices.
Playing normal, started wizard. have not felt especially weak.
I can't say how it goes to level 12. but, particularly when paired with the other wizard, my basic encounters seem fine. The 2 use per encounter ability is a moderate sized aoe. deals weak-moderate raw damage. so its damage value is fairly low. but its also raw, so it ignores all DR. allowing it to deal full damage to everything. Alone this would be mediocre probably. but 4 every encounter with 2 wizards seems to kill just most things.. wrecked the guards, shadows, etc. in addition to this, class traits. I don't really know what the "best" are. but, wizards can buff their wand/sceptor/rod attacks with "blast" which adds aoe raw damage to them. so their auto attacks become aoe ranged attacks. And an upgrade to that, adds 5DR to it as well.
I have never really felt as though my wizards per encounter power is weak. or that I was saving my "good stuff". I don't need my "good spells" for every encounter. only periodically. And then a single rest before the boss, or every few areas/10 encounters. using the Lord example. fought through sewers, and halfway through the main hall. rested in one of the dinning halls, then did 3-4 more encounters and the lord without another rest.
Healing mechanics I find meh.
The health/end/fatigue UI is not super helpful. took me awhile to understand that. ha. the green bar is health, portrait+number is endurance, and fatigue appears as a status debuff/buff on the side.
And with that. I dont know, I never need to heal endurance, yet. its always health I have to rest for. Possibly consequence of the 2 wizard party. if they are taking damage, they go down in like 2 hits. while the fighter self heals endurance. and doesnt take damage due to DR/avoidance.
Its a neat idea. but some elements. how do you heal health? the triage/first aid traits, and resting alone? Is there no bandages in this game? and why not?
Add bandages in addition to camping? 6/rest? heals one target x health.
More of a question on rogues.
I see people saying rogues suck without backstab, due to stealth mechanics..
But the tooltip says backstabs is only any stunned, prone, dazed, etc, as well as simply flanking... are you not getting backstabs, like all the time?
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 11,741
- 5,577
Blast is really, really bad. You can't avoid it on Aloth, but the damage from implements is so awful that he should still use a gun instead.
Also, that's normal, pretty much anything goes there and you can win almost every fight with autoattacks if you want. Hard adds a bunch of extra mobs, Damned adds even more and also makes them tougher. And hard drops your camping supply capacity from 6 to 2 as well. Anyone who's ever played BG or anything else in the genre shouldn't consider playing anything less than hard imo.
Path of the Damned I'd save for a second playthrough, since it requires min-max'ing and advance knowledge of what you're going to need to beat the more annoying encounters.
As for health, just rest when people get really low, or have been maimed. Never waste a talent on triage.
Rogues: You're confusing sneak attack and backstab. Sneak attack is fine, it's simple to flank mobs for 1.5x damage. Backstab is the worthless skill, which is so unusable that you shouldn't take it on a rogue at all. It only works out of stealth (dead rogue 2 seconds later) or invis (can't use it enough to matter).
Also, that's normal, pretty much anything goes there and you can win almost every fight with autoattacks if you want. Hard adds a bunch of extra mobs, Damned adds even more and also makes them tougher. And hard drops your camping supply capacity from 6 to 2 as well. Anyone who's ever played BG or anything else in the genre shouldn't consider playing anything less than hard imo.
Path of the Damned I'd save for a second playthrough, since it requires min-max'ing and advance knowledge of what you're going to need to beat the more annoying encounters.
As for health, just rest when people get really low, or have been maimed. Never waste a talent on triage.
Rogues: You're confusing sneak attack and backstab. Sneak attack is fine, it's simple to flank mobs for 1.5x damage. Backstab is the worthless skill, which is so unusable that you shouldn't take it on a rogue at all. It only works out of stealth (dead rogue 2 seconds later) or invis (can't use it enough to matter).
SorrowsEnd
Trakanon Raider
- 1,485
- 834
I picked this up day one but haven't played yet. Just waiting for the patch to fix issues that should have been dealt with before release.
Evernothing
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
- 4,889
- 9,291
Pickup Durance (preist) in Magran's Fork.
Hire a 6th character from an Inn of your choice. (I took a 2nd priest because I didn't have Durance yet)
Give Kana better armor than he started with and he can melee a little, usually engage 1 mob at a time and he is ok. Otherwise stick to his gun.
Slight spoiler for Caed Nua
there is a sword inside a vase in the right of the main building in Caed Nua that is good against Undead mobs
I did Maerwald and first Caed Nua stuff before Raedric. Raedric fight can be quite hard.
Get Kana to lvl up and take the Phantom summoning invocation. Phantom is bad ass.
Think about purchasing the Bronze Horn Figuring from the Smithy in Gilded Vale, it's a 1 per rest summon of an Animat.
Get Slicken with Aloth, great lvl 1 spell for CCing larger enemy groups.
Raign
Golden Squire
- 627
- 86
Yeah, that sword you mention Evernothing is pretty great, especially if you throw some additional enchantment on it. I have been trying out some different party comps while I finish up Hard to see what I want to use for PoTD -- Warrior/Paladin/Cipher/Chanter/Druid/Cleric is probably the strongest comp I have found without stacking, but Warrior/Warrior/Cipher/Cipher/Chanter/Cleric is the way to go for Ironman I think.
If anyone here is wondering how to really ramp up their damage, try to boost your accuracy as much as possible. It's definitely the most important stat for damage output.
Gilgamel
A Man Chooses....
- 2,869
- 52
My Cipher literally does more damage than the rest of my team combined. It's a joke. I dunno if that's due to the npcs sucking so bad or just how bad ranged dps seems to be in this game or what.
Should add, Cipher is tanky as fuck now. Body Attunement+Borrowed instinct turn you into a melee killing machine who cannot be stopped. Very happy I went melee cipher now. With Blade of the Endless Paths I just annihilate everything.
Should add, Cipher is tanky as fuck now. Body Attunement+Borrowed instinct turn you into a melee killing machine who cannot be stopped. Very happy I went melee cipher now. With Blade of the Endless Paths I just annihilate everything.
iannis
Musty Nester
- 31,351
- 17,660
Cipers do a ton of raw damage, they have friend-or-foe ae's, and they're focus restricted instead of being rest/encounter restricted. Ciper is basically OP as hell.
Considering the plotline, it makes me think that early in the dev process they were going to mandate that the Watcher be a cipher, and no other party members were going to be able to be.
Considering the plotline, it makes me think that early in the dev process they were going to mandate that the Watcher be a cipher, and no other party members were going to be able to be.
