Pillars of Eternity - Ready for Release & Expansion

i've never played BG1 or 2 like that, my friends have. To me, finding companions is a lot of fun, more fun that designing my own characters to make the best possible party..

Edit: wasnt this possible in BG1 too?
 
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I'm enjoying the combat so far. I find it satisfying and very similar and true to the original Baldur's Gate games, which is a good thing in my book!

It's not a micromanaging hell, whatever that means. You barely have to pause it at all in the easier encounters, but I like how the game pauses when combat starts (simulating a turn-based game), and then allows me to choose who I'd like to attack to start the fight. Then, it's pretty much watch and see how the battle unfolds in real-time, although tougher fights will obviously require a bit more pausing, which is also a great thing in my book, because it adds more strategic layers to the battle system, and also stays true to the feel of Baldur's Gate.

I thought we all loved Baldur's Gate here. o_O Anyone who loves BG will adore PoE. They are very similar games, which is exactly what Obsidian was going for. They largely succeeded in that aspect.
 
Fluent said:
Then, it's pretty much watch and see how the battle unfolds in real-time
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But what about active skills and spells? From what I've heard you need to trigger all of them yourself?

On a seconds thought... I don't know why I'm asking these questions. I'm a backer and will try the game on realease, no matter what all of you say about it. ;)
 
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Morrandir said:
But what about skills and spells? From what I've heard you need to trigger all of them yourself?
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You do, Morrandir, just like Baldur's Gate. Did you ever play BG? It's the same way there.

That's the beauty of the combat system. You control everything - when the skills are used, which spells are used, the positioning of your fighters, etc. But it's beautiful, not hell. It's basically the opposite of hell. :)
 
You beat me to it Thrasher :) You also had scripts which handled basic behaviours of your party.
 
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Thrasher said:
Except, BG1 and 2 had AI that would activate skills. Apparently, PoE does not? So it would not be exactly the same?
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I really don't remember ever using that AI in BG1 or 2. o_O I always just fully controlled my party, cast the spells I wanted when I wanted, controlled my positioning, etc. Maybe I'm one of the few who played it that way?

I can see what people are saying about not having that sort of AI in PoE, but I haven't ran into any issues yet. I play as a Ranger with a bow, a bear companion (tank), and other characters in my party. The main aspects of combat thus far have been choosing which enemies to attack, controlling the battlefield via positioning, and activating the odd skill or spell here or there. It's actually a nice balance of managing every move and letting the battle play out a bit.

Don't take my word for it, though. Just play the game and you will see. It's a fun little combat system and I feel right at home with the game, as if I'm playing BG3 in HD. :)
 
Fluent said:
You do, Morrandir, just like Baldur's Gate. Did you ever play BG?
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Remember this topic? And… erm… I even gave you BG2EE as a gift. ;)

But don't you contradict yourself? You've said
Then, it's pretty much watch and see how the battle unfolds in real-time
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Then you've said that you need to trigger all the skills and spells. That's a contradiction imho.
When talking about "micromanaging hell" I'm thinking about having to do too much of these actions (plus positioning etc.) even in alleged easy battles.
 
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Fluent said:
I really don't remember ever using that AI in BG1 or 2. o_O I always just fully controlled my party, cast the spells I wanted when I wanted, controlled my positioning, etc. Maybe I'm one of the few who played it that way?
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Well, I've used the scripts for
  • just attacking the next target if the current one dies
  • ranged fighters to stay out of melee (if the ranged fighter was attacked in melee, he would simply run away)
  • rogues going in stealth mode and backstabbing
  • healers patching up the wounded
Of course the tougher the battles were, the more you needed to take care of things yourself.

I somehow can't imagine that these simple mechanics aren't implemented in PoE. I mean... the opponents must act on some kind of AI too. Shouldn't be too difficult to apply the same behaviour to the player's party.
 
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Morrandir, the easy battles are easy. You barely have to pause for them. I just use the first auto-pause when an enemy shows up, choose who I want to attack, perhaps mark the enemy to take it down quicker, and bam, end of micromanaging.

If there are multiple enemies, you will pause another time or 2 during the battle to focus your attacks on who you want to attack. It's simple.

You are honestly overthinking things here. There is no pausing every 0.2 seconds in easy battles, or in any battles I've had thus far in the 2 or 3 hours I've played. It's fun and there's nothing to worry about, man. Honest. :)

It strikes a nice balance. Just play the game and see. :)
 
Morrandir said:
On a seconds thought… I don't know why I'm asking these questions. I'm a backer and will try the game on realease, no matter what all of you say about it. ;)
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I will! :)
 
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P.S. Thank you so much for being kind and gifting me BG2 in the past as well. Enjoy PoE! I hope and think you will. :)

P.S. Party members will attack enemies after the one they were attacking dies. I'm not sure about healers scripts or anything else like that so far.
 
Fluent said:
I really don't remember ever using that AI in BG1 or 2. o_O I always just fully controlled my party, cast the spells I wanted when I wanted, controlled my positioning, etc. Maybe I'm one of the few who played it that way?

I can see what people are saying about not having that sort of AI in PoE, but I haven't ran into any issues yet. I play as a Ranger with a bow, a bear companion (tank), and other characters in my party. The main aspects of combat thus far have been choosing which enemies to attack, controlling the battlefield via positioning, and activating the odd skill or spell here or there. It's actually a nice balance of managing every move and letting the battle play out a bit.

Don't take my word for it, though. Just play the game and you will see. It's a fun little combat system and I feel right at home with the game, as if I'm playing BG3 in HD. :)
Click to expand...

This so much. I thought the AI and scripting in BG 1 and 2 was terrible, so I controlled everything. Micromanaging is tedious when there are too many boring trash mobs (like in DA:I), but hopefully PO:E won't be like that.
 
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Morrandir said:
Well, I've used the scripts for
  • 1.just attacking the next target if the current one dies
  • 2.ranged fighters to stay out of melee (if the ranged fighter was attacked in melee, he would simply run away)
  • 3.rogues going in stealth mode and backstabbing
  • 4.healers patching up the wounded
Of course the tougher the battles were, the more you needed to take care of things yourself.

I somehow can't imagine that these simple mechanics aren't implemented in PoE. I mean… the opponents must act on some kind of AI too. Shouldn't be too difficult to apply the same behaviour to the player's party.
Click to expand...

I added number to make answering easier.

1. This is in, but has a range so if the character is too far away it won't select a next target. There is also a bug I hope they fix before release where ranged character sometimes stop auto-attacking.

2. You don't want to do that in PoE, believe me. Engagement attacks will crunch your ranged character trying to walk away. Also, there is no melee penalty for ranged weapons and there is a nice talent to pick for higher deflection (basically AC) for that particular cases.

3. Doesn't exist, sorta. You can't stealth in combat. Rogue have a per-rest talent that make them invisible usable in combat. Backstabbing is an opening in PoE. Sneak attacks are always on if flanking or attacking a target with specific afflictions though.

4. Probably the only thing missing…unless you play a Chanter (Ancient Memory is always on). There is also a lots of classes that can heals with different abilities: Paladin (single target), Priest/Druids(AoEs), Barbarian/Fighter(self-heal), Chanter (passive always on AoE) and even the Moonlike (their racial passive is a AOE wave of healing when they get down at 25%, 50% and 75% endurance).

And for people who are scared, the Auto-attack (aka the basic AI) can be turned off.
 
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As I play this more, I get the feeling more and more of a modern Baldur's Gate. I don't mean modern in the streamlined, mainstream approach, but rather, the game has modern graphics and what not, yet it still retains the solid core of the Infinity Engine games.

In simple words, it feels so much like Baldur's Gate, that you can literally find yourself forgetting you're playing a new game and not Baldur's Gate itself! Very impressive thus far.

P.S. The combat is extremely similar to BG, too. The same rate of pausing, the same length of battles; it's all incredibly similar and familiar, yet still fresh thanks to the modern coat of paint.

The game is very simple to me. It's Baldur's Gate, except it's called Pillars of Eternity and came out in 2015! :D If you like BG then you should love this one.
 
I hope it doesn't also include one of my main BG1 gameplay elements which was spamming the whole screen full with a skeleton army, making the game into a dia show with 1 frame per couple of seconds until the battle basically resolved itself ;)

That said, I pretty much like what I see so far. Watched probably about 5-10h of gameplay now and have read the major wiki entries up to a point that I am not just asking questions but adding information to topics or youtube videos. ^^
Well, that's probably also because most players (even those who are already playing) normally don't dig really deep into the systems.
 
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I ask for only one thing from BG not to be there: "You must gather your party........" :)
 
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