Pillars of Eternity Beta Thread

[azarhal]

I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that I suspected skill gain being coupled with talent gain, but that it didn't say so anywhere (in fact, the whole role of skills is mysterious in this beta).

edit: btw, changing languages doesn't work. It always gets fired up in German. And there's a problem with that - am I right that if you get a dialogue option involving a skill, you have to click right on that line? Because that doesn't work.

I don't think skills affect what kind of talents you can pick up. Class, level, race and cultures do.

 

[Sacred_Path]

I don't think skills affect what kind of talents you can pick up. Class, level, race and cultures do.

uhm, in that case our observation that there are few talents would be correct, innit?

 

[azarhal]

uhm, in that case our observation that there are few talents would be correct, innit?

I'm not sure I'm following you exactly. Between 7 and 10 talents available at level 3 is not enough?

 

[Hexprone]

C'mon, it's Obsidian. Of course it's a mess four months before release.

Yes, having talents still mostly not implemented is a big gap, but while it makes sense to judge their production schedule on that basis, I'm not sure it makes sense to judge the game.

Personally I'm enjoying it, save-annihilating bugs aside.

 

[Sacred_Path]

I'm not sure I'm following you exactly. Between 7 and 10 talents available at level 3 is not enough?

is that without class specific talents and without talents with prerequisites? And how many talents max can you have at level 3 anyway? IME it's not like you get presented with a heap of choices on the first three levels.

 

[azarhal]

is that without class specific talents and without talents with prerequisites? And how many talents max can you have at level 3 anyway? IME it's not like you get presented with a heap of choices on the first three levels.

7-10 include only the available talents for a level 3 character. It include class-specific ones, but exclude those with prerequisites. Level 3 is the first time you get to pick a talent. You gain them at the rate of 1 per 3 levels, this mean a total of 4 for the entire game because the level cap is 12.

If you want to count all the talents presently in the BB, from what I've seen:

1. There is 12 weapon related ones (6 weapon group focus + 6 weapon group specialization),
2. There should be 3x11 class talents (less or more, some classes seems to have less right now and Wizard, Chanter, Cipher are bugged),
3. There is "hold the line"

Apparently, there will be more. Sawyer talked about weapon style talent (dual-wielding, two-handed, ranged, etc), but they don't seem to be in the BB right now.

 

[Thrasher]

That's very similar to 3rd edition D&D rules, which I love. Of course 3rd edition has a bewildering number of feats to pick from. Many useless except for roleplaying. But I like that kind of bewildering, even if leads to gross imbalancing. A well-balanced small talent set is much less interesting to me than gigantic number of possibly unbalanced talents.

 

[Deleted User]

A well-balanced small talent set is much less interesting to me than gigantic number of possibly unbalanced talents.

I agree. The more, the better, IMO, even if some of them aren't great or whatever.

I personally prefer a huge amount to select from with some really creative ones in the mix.

 

[Sacred_Path]

7-10 include only the available talents for a level 3 character. It include class-specific ones, but exclude those with prerequisites. Level 3 is the first time you get to pick a talent. You gain them at the rate of 1 per 3 levels, this mean a total of 4 for the entire game because the level cap is 12.

If you want to count all the talents presently in the BB, from what I've seen:

1. There is 12 weapon related ones (6 weapon group focus + 6 weapon group specialization),
2. There should be 3x11 class talents (less or more, some classes seems to have less right now and Wizard, Chanter, Cipher are bugged),
3. There is "hold the line"

Apparently, there will be more. Sawyer talked about weapon style talent (dual-wielding, two-handed, ranged, etc), but they don't seem to be in the BB right now.

without delving into the beta again to test it, do you gain class specific talents alongside chosen talents? Do you have to decide between several class talents?

At least, PoE's feats seem universally useful; whereas in D&D 3E, no matter if it was streamlined for video games, a lot of feats seem borderline useless for CRPG battles where you're swarmed by 20 bugbears. Wasting a turn knocking down one of them doesn't really cut it.

 

[JDR13]

I finally got a chance to play this for a little while today. Explored the village, talked to everyone, and got my ass kicked by some giant beetles.

It's definitely Baldur's Gate 2.5 which isn't a bad thing. There certainly isn't much about it that's innovative in though. I'll definitely be purchasing this when it's finished simply because I loved the IE games. That said, I'm not a big fan of the Unity Engine, and I wish they could have used something else.

I won't bother talking about things that have already been addressed, but I'll add some impressions of my own…

• Visually, it looks great imo, but why is there a load screen just to enter houses or to go up/down floors? I'm guessing it's a limitation of the Unity Engine?
  
  
• Why can I see terrain and buildings through the fog of war in areas I haven't explored yet?
  
  
• I noticed it's not possible to select just one character to enter a building like you could in Baldur's Gate. Apparently everyone in your party always has to be on the same screen in this game. Another limitation of the Unity Engine?
  
  
• I like the music, but I'm not sure if it really fits the setting. It sounds like it was ripped straight out of Morrowind.
  
  
• It's definitely not a casual game. I played on Normal difficulty and got stomped by the very first enemies I encountered. That's not a complaint though, and I hope the devs don't nerf it for the crybabies.
  
  
• It runs fine for me, but my CPU and GPU fans sound like I'm playing Watch Dogs on Ultra settings. There's obviously no reason for that with a game as modest as this. Have I mentioned I don't like the Unity Engine?

 

[Hexprone]

Why can I see terrain and buildings through the fog of war in areas I haven't explored yet?

Known bug.

I don't notice the strain on my cpu, but yeah the load times are a bit much for a 2D title.

I think as you play a bit more, you'll find there's more that's new about the game system -- combat is just a little more flexible, active and interesting than the BG version of D&D (In fact the beta forums have some people yelling "Why isn't this exactly like Baldur's Gate? I've been lied to!")

 

[JDR13]

I haven't experienced enough combat yet to evaluate the system. Everything else seems pretty cliche though. Setting, characters, quests, etc. Even the unique races are underwhelming to me.

I definitely don't like the timers above their heads during battle though. I'm assuming that can be toggled off?

 

[azarhal]

without delving into the beta again to test it, do you gain class specific talents alongside chosen talents? Do you have to decide between several class talents?

There is class abilities which is something auto-granted each couple of levels. Some have option depending on the class.

What the game call talents are pretty much D&D 3E feats and comes in class-neutral and class-only variety, but it's the same "pool" when you get to select one. You pretty much have to select between getting better with a weapon group or improving an already owned class ability/feature.

I definitely don't like the timers above their heads during battle though. I'm assuming that can be toggled off?

It can be toggled off, it's the "combat tooltip" option. There are a couple of bugged options toggle though. Unless I pick expert mode, most of them seems to not get saved for me on reload.

 

[sakichop]

[*]I noticed it's not possible to select just one character to enter a building like you could in Baldur's Gate. Apparently everyone in your party always has to be on the same screen in this game. Another limitation of the Unity Engine?


[/LIST]

Please tell me your mistaken about this. I love scouting ahead with my thief. Not having that ability would be a major negative for me.

Kind of like the whole monk wounding thing. Grrr.

I'm going to need to fire up my beta copy when I get some time this weekend.

 

[purpleblob]

@JDR:

What is it you don't like about Unity Engine compared to IE engine? No sarcasm, I'm just really curious.

 

[JDR13]

@JDR:

What is it you don't like about Unity Engine compared to IE engine? No sarcasm, I'm just really curious.

The main thing is that it has much higher system requirements than it should for an engine that is far from impressive, and many games are still sluggish even when exceeding the recommended requirements. Shadowrun and Might & Magic X are both good examples.

Although I can't say for sure that it's the engine and not developer incompetence, it would be a hell of a coincidence that so many Unity made games run like shit while taxing the hell out of your system.

The other thing is the need to load an area every time you enter/exit a new building, etc, regardless of how small it might be. No seamless transitions like the Infinity Engine had.

 

[JDR13]

Please tell me your mistaken about this. I love scouting ahead with my thief. Not having that ability would be a major negative for me.

Kind of like the whole monk wounding thing. Grrr.

Yeah, it's a major bummer for me as well. I loved breaking into houses and sneaking around solo in BG while the rest of my party waited outside.

You can still scout ahead with your thief here, but you can't enter a separate screen.

What's that about Monks and wounding?

 

[Sacred_Path]

It's definitely Baldur's Gate 2.5 which isn't a bad thing. There certainly isn't much about it that's innovative in though.

No kill XP isn't innovative for CRPG's you say

 

[Corwin]

It has been done before!!

 

[Sacred_Path]

Care to name some examples? I only have CRPG's installed on my machine right now and every single one of them uses kill XP.