Pillars of Eternity

[Jeivar]

Sooo, this game is finally almost upon us.

I'd like to hear from those who have played the backer beta: Are there any big bewares when it comes to character creation? Is there a must-have stat or skill or anything which is largely a waste of points?

[Morty]

I vaguely remember a promise that every attribute is useful to every class. It would be great, if it's true.

[factotum]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

[Nadevoc]

Saying that every attribute is useful to every class doesn't mean they're all EQUALLY useful to every class.

Let's say there's a game with a Willpower stat. Willpower increases how often you can use special attacks and slightly increases resistance to magic. That's useful to everyone. But if there's a Warrior class who concentrates on doing consistent damage by simply repeatedly pummeling an enemy with basic attacks, it's less useful than a Strength stat that increases damage on basic attacks.

A lot of games have every stat useful to every character, but it's still obvious which stats are tertiary for a class.

[Mx.Silver]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

That would only be true if all the stats are useful in the the same way, which they generally aren't. For instance, one stat might be tied to attack damage, another to attack speed, another to ability cool-downs, etc. So a warrior with a strength and toughness focus would play a bit differently from one with a speed and perception focus.

In other words, it's there to allow for variance and customisation, which I always assumed was the point of being able to manually assign stats in the first place. If there's only one viable stat assignment for a class, with other stats being essentially a waste of points, then you might as well just have the attribute point assignment be automatic based on class section.

[Chen]

As long as the mechanics each stat provides are sufficiently transparent it shouldn't be an issue. If I have to dig around to figure out how my defense increases when I raise agility (or whatever) it becomes more annoying.

[Aotrs Commander]

That would only be true if all the stats are useful in the the same way, which they generally aren't. For instance, one stat might be tied to attack damage, another to attack speed, another to ability cool-downs, etc. So a warrior with a strength and toughness focus would play a bit differently from one with a speed and perception focus.

In other words, it's there to allow for variance and customisation, which I always assumed was the point of being able to manually assign stats in the first place. If there's only one viable stat assignment for a class, with other stats being essentially a waste of points, then you might as well just have the attribute point assignment be automatic based on class section.

Which is, funnily enough, exactly what Diablo 3 did. And everyone hated it!

I can see why Blizzard's thinking was, though, which was "right, well, people hated it in D2 where there was no re-spec option and they got stuck in a sub-optimal build, so how do we fix that? If we make a re-spec expensive, then people will moan they have to grind with a suboptimal character until they can afford it, so it sort of has to be a fair cheap option. But... if it's a token fee, why bother making a charge for at at all? I know, we'll just basically make it so that there's no real "build" and you can just change out your options on the fly, so you can basically "re-spec" at any time! Problem solved!"

Trouble is - as usual - what people think they want, and what they ACTUALLY want are frequently two different things (and sometimes contradictory...) If you want "builds" at all - i.e. something where you have to make meaningful decisions about your character class - you have to have choices, and the results of those choices cannot be identical. (And, if there are choices to be made, in reality , they will never be equal: there will always be options that are better, and some that are worse.)

And people want "builds" because they want to be able to play a character differently, so that not all characters (in this case) of the same class play identically (which is what people said was the trouble with D3 was.)

Pillars has apparently the gone the root of no re-spec, but instead trying to make all choices at least viable (though I doubt very much they are in practise equal). Though as usual, the fanbase will inevitably work out what the optimal "builds" are. (So anyone wanting to play an "optimal" build out of the gate will either have to do some experimentation or wait for a FAQ or something!)

We'll see in a couple of days!

[Morty]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

To the contrary - if every class only uses two attributes, then there's no point to having them in the first place. Just bake them into the class and let me skip to the real decisions - skills, talents and all that. But if a class can get different results from different attributes, then it's actually a choice. We'll see how Pillars of Eternity pulls it off.

[Knaight]

I actually disagree there. In a conventional RPG, if I pick, say, Warrior, I know I need to be pumping Strength and Constitution (or whetever the equivalent is)--this gives me a clear idea where to put my limited attribute points. If all of them were equally important then I might as well just assign them randomly, which defeats the purpose of having attributes in the first place, IMHO.

It really depends. I'll use ToME as an example here. If I play an archer, I know that dexterity and strength boost damage. If I'm going for a lots of shots build, this is stupidly important. If I'm going for a fewer, high damage shots build, less so - dexterity remains the primary stat, but whatever. I know that willpower adds to stamina. If I spend a lot on stamina regeneration, that's not a big deal. If I don't, and send skill points to sustained skills that reduce maximum stamina while active, I'm going to need it (it also adds to spell and mental save, so if the items you're getting don't help much with those it's valuable). Constitution does HP. If I'm using the armor track heavily, I can probably afford not to have too much of it. If I'm using the mobility track heavily, same deal. If light armor and minimal mobility is selected to focus on other things? Time to boost HP.

The attributes thus are synergistically useful with different builds for the same class. A heavily armored sharpshooter bowman archer and a skirmishing poison slinger archer play differently and use different stats, and that's fine for me. I then find which I'm better with (the sharpshooter), and focus to it's strengths.

[factotum]

I tend to prefer different playstyles to be catered for by different skillsets rather than tweaks to attributes, though--the latter just brings back memories of WoW-style "this stat gives you 1% bonus to doohickeys!" which was by far the worst part of that game. The example given above of Diablo 2 is a case in point: a Bone Necro and a Summoner Necro would probably have very similar stat requirements but played completely differently.

(It's notable that Skyrim pretty much dumped stats entirely and went with a purely skill-based system, and I loved that game to death!).

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Having read the article explaining how the stats work, I think I've been converted. I think it's pretty brilliant. As they describe it, the stats do the same thing for every class. Increasing Might will always increase your damage. Increasing Intelligence was always increase your AoE range / duration of some things.

So they had the example of the Intelligent Barbarian who focused on huge AoE attacks that decimated low-level lackeys, and they name-dropped examples of other builds that sound weird to our DnD assumptions but make sense in their system: high-Might low-intelligence wizards are straightforward blasters specialized in single targets, whereas the traditional low-might high-intelligence wizards are crowd control and mook-killers. Stuff like that.

Edit: Each class has different skill-sets which will APPLY these attribute bonuses to different things, but the basic bonuses they give you are the same and applicable to every class.

[Morty]

Now that is very interesting. Do you have a link to that article? I won't be buying this game on launch, one way or the other, but I'd like to learn more.

[Sajiri]

So, with the game about to come out (or out now, it's the 26th where I am so *shrug*)

Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.

Sadly my pc is still dead after a few days, and the guy who fixed it for me last time isnt replying to emails and must be on holiday or something. I doubt my crappy laptop will handle any game ):

[Jeivar]

So, with the game about to come out (or out now, it's the 26th where I am so *shrug*)

Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.

Sadly my pc is still dead after a few days, and the guy who fixed it for me last time isnt replying to emails and must be on holiday or something. I doubt my crappy laptop will handle any game ):

I'm going to go with a human paladin, probably from Aedyr. I'll decide the details once I actually have the game.

[Remmirath]

I may well wait to install the game until I get my physical CD, because I'm stubborn and not very fond of digital distribution, but I'm certainly looking forward to playing. That's a bit of an understatement, really; I've been looking forward to it ever since it was announced. I've not been playing the beta, because I didn't feel I had the time to give anything like decent feedback, but from everything I've seen and heard I expect to very much enjoy the game.

Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.

Some manner of fighting type, although I've not decided on exactly which class yet. I'll figure that out when I start playing. I'm considering a paladin, but a straight up fighter is usually a solid choice for me. The other possibility I'm strongly considering is some manner of fighter-mage type, whatever class I feel will work out for that best.

As far as race goes, probably elf, although some of the others interest me as well.

My well-laid plans of 'what character to play' almost never survive first contact with a game, so mostly I'm just planning on experimenting around until I've got a character that seems like what I want to play and then going from there. I'll have plenty of opportunity to experiment with different classes and races regardless of what I pick for my first character, after all, since I'm intending on making heavy use of the Adventurer's Hall.

[Seharvepernfan]

I'm thinking a female wood elf dissident rogue from the dreadfire archipelago. Dexterity > Perception > Intellect > Might > Constitution > Resolve. We'll see how that works.

[Morty]

It's looking increasingly likely that I'll play the game at some point. If or when I do, I'll start with a human fighter (or warrior, or whichever term PoE uses), like I usually do. Focusing on Dexterity and Perception and using two-handed swords. See if that works.

[Mx.Silver]

Out of curiosity what class/race is everything thinking of trying? I'm thinking godlike for me (probably nature or moon), class I'm not sure on yet. Likely ranger because I love pets.

I'm also going Godlike as a race choice (probably Death or Moon). As far as classes go I've been wanting to see how the Cipher plays since it was first announced, so I'll probably be going with that, although Chanter and Monk also have me curious, so we'll see

[Jeivar]

I'm thinking of going with these stats:

Might 15, Constitution 12, Dexterity 12, Perception 10, Intellect 13, Resolve 16.

... and I'm a bit torn between a desire to research and optimise, and just going ahead and roleplaying the character I want. And roleplaying-wise I'm thinking a heavily armoured paladin who stands in the thick of battle as an immovable tower, and perseveres through inspiring others and sheer willpower.

[Porthos]

Now that is very interesting. Do you have a link to that article? I won't be buying this game on launch, one way or the other, but I'd like to learn more.

If you haven't seen it yet, it's an article over at Polygon.

The upshot is, from what I skimmed, they don't want someone to fall in the classical example of "Huh. I have a trapped door, and no skill monkey. Now what?" What they want you to be able to do is either be able to bypass that door no matter how you built your character(s) (albiet doing it in different ways) or make it easy to go hire someone to unlock it for you for a nominal fee. Basically bypassing the whole problem in the first place.

How well this actually works in practice? I guess we'll find out VERY quickly. Given how patient the internet is about things and all.

[Morty]

Thanks for the link.

"Pillars of Eternity says yes to players where other CRPGs have always said no."

I'm warming up to this game at an alarming rate.

[Porthos]

*checks about*

Goodness gravy. The review sites are tripping all over themselves in praising this game.

Getting to the point where I hope there isn't Hype Backlash!

[Nadevoc]

It looks like Steam has officially released PoE.

Unfortunately, I'm in the midst of packing and won't be able to try it out for a few days.

[Morty]

According to what I've heard, two-handed weapons in this game swing like through molasses. Oh well. I guess it's unavoidable in a game lauding itself as old-school. I'm going to be paying close attention to people's impressions all the same.

[Porthos]

Even without playing it (have some things to take care of this morning) I can already tell that one of the more interesting things will be their attempt at driving a stake through the concept of what has at times, both tongue in check and not, been called being a murder hobo.

Some have called it "no XP for killing", but that's not quite accurate as near as I can tell:

From one of the many sites devoted to the game:

How do I get XP?[edit]
You will get XP if you complete a quest objective, and for progressively filling up Bestiary entries in you party's Journal. Bestiary XP is rewarded when new entries are unlocked in the Bestiary page in the Journal, and will stop being rewarded if the entry is complete. Additionally, exploration XP is given out when new areas and landmarks are discovered in the world.

Or maybe it is accurate but ultimately it's a po-TAH-to POE-ta-toe thing going on. What I do know is it is at least partially an attempt to do away with the need for level grinding.

And, from what I can tell already, nothing is stopping one from enagaging in some hacking and slashing if one wants. It just wont be required.

[danzibr]

This... is a game I am now excited about.

EDIT: *watches gameplay video* HOLY CRAP it looks just like Baldur's Gate!

Yeah, I have to get this.

[Aotrs Commander]

I'mma installin' now... (I got Gog version, because.)

Not that I will likely get much of a chance to play it in anger for a day or (since wargames tonight, panto party tomorrow night and family dinner Saturday evening), but there we go...

[Morty]

No XP for killing? Nice, very nice. Of course, it's entirely possible that those will be nice details in an otherwise unappealing game. But it still sounds good. I'll have to watch a gameplay video to see how two-handers behave for myself, I suppose.

[factotum]

Welp, Obsidian backer portal seems to be collapsing under the strain of people redeeming their Kickstarter rewards, and it'll take a goodly while to download this on my wet piece of string anyway, so...see yous all at the weekend?

[Mx.Silver]

Something that has immediately become apparent is that the graphical setting are largely unalterable. Which means that if, say, you have an older machine you may find yourself stuck with sluggishness and frame-rate issues.