Pillars of Eternity - Thoughts & Impressions

[wolfing]

26 hours in (level 5 party of 6 now) and so much to do :-S Loving the game, but some comments on the less enjoyable aspects so far:

1) I'm having great difficulty judging combat encounter level. E.g. I marched through a dungeon, killing all in my way (seemed level appropriate)…got to a cut-scene, which auto-frogmarched my party (I thought they'd stopped doing that!?) right next to this guy, his cipher, priests etc - fight opens, I loose all my queued attacks (they seemed to have been cancelled) and then they drop "hell" on my pary, paralyzing/stunning most people etc etc. Things went downhill from there. Some wanring text/banter from a pary member would have been a good way of signalling you were about to bite off my than you could chew

This does happen. Against beasts, if you have fought them earlier, you can check in your journal, under 'Bestiary' and it will tell you what you have learned from your previous encounters, including level, resistances, etc. But against non-mosters, no such luck.

2) …not being able to "pre-buff" (or even drink a poton!?) really means you're screwed in some cases, even if you know whats coming and want to be able to prepare (why can't I scout ahead, determine the threat and take precautions? Did that plenty in BG1/2…I really don't like that design decision). At least I can drop a fireball on people outside of combat.

You can prebuff. Not with spells like in D&D, but with food (and one of the Inn resting options buffs combat too).

3) XPs….I killed an enemy party, and seemed to get no XPs? That makes me sad. Exploring XPs are insignificant, and everything is driven by story XPs - so to level up you need to follow the main story (I assume). I didn't like this decision, and I stil don't.

I actually like this. You still get benefits, like extra loot that can either improve what you have, or be components for upgrades for your armor or crafting potions, etc. Or can be sold.

4) Damage reduction - I don't understand the numbers. Everyone/thing seems to have way too much. E.g.
"DR: 15
crush: 10, fire 8"
How do I read that? Do you take 15 off physical damage only? and how then does that affect crush? Is it an additional 10 that comes off on top of the 15? Or only 10? And fire? Neither the manual or in-game cyclopedia explain it clearly (To me at least)

You read it: DR: 15 except for: crust: 10, fire: 8.

5) Fighter seem very boring (and not very 'tank'y'). I'm using the default fighter you meet (Eider). He's only good to knock down opponents, and otherwise does poor daamge (I have tried varoius weapons, qualities etc). As a fighter he should have a general DR penetration feat from early or something to increase his damage output.

Fighters are boring, but to me that's par for the course. They are VERY tanky though, enable their defensive stance and they can hold several enemies engaged and, with their shield plus their constant stamina regen, they'll be the last one to die.

6) Immersion breaking design decisions:
I think the camping supplies is a good limit - but being able to "camp" anywhere (even outside a room full of baddies) is immersion destroying. Also, crafting has been simplified too much and being able to do it on the trot at any time is again immersion breaking. Ditto for "stash"…an infinite stash for loot? How? Yeah, its convenient, but still not what I would have chosen.

You can disable that option so you can only access your stash in a town. As for being able to 'camp' anywhere, it's just an abstraction. Just as nobody reacting to half the keep soldiers disappearing. Same for crafting, just an abstraction, besides you're not really crafting weapons or armors, you're just enchanting what you have.

7) Questoon: how do you find traps? I have a high perception character with good stealth (well, reasoably) and now I'm setting of traps in "search" mode all the time. What stats/skills determine this? Mechanics/stealth? I have no rogue.

Mechanics

For those complaining about Rogues sneak attacks being useless... Wow. I start the fights with my stealthed rogue and an arballest... more than half the times it's insta-kill.

 

[txa1265]

If a game with battles every 20ft has weak combat mechanics, that's going to be a serious concern for many people. It has nothing to do with "never being happy."

There are an unsurprising number of people with blind adulation.

Actually I have no issue with expressing concerns and constructive criticism - and the debate around the Rogue class is such a debate.

But when people are calling the game 'broken' and 'unplayable' ... um, no. Are there issues? Yes, even though I haven't tripped over them, I ackowledge that they are there. But I think that keeping scale and proportion in check is also important.

 

[ChaosTheory]

Combat so far is… kind of a mess for me since I can't hold aggro with my fighters and all the enemies seem pre-programmed to head right for my mage.

I'm beginning to think a party of 5 high Will fighters and a healer would do pretty well. Everything else is too squishy or takes too long to contribute much in battles.

 

[Morrandir]

I was finding that the concensus was that there were a surprising number of people who will never be happy with any game … they will hold up current games against mythical standards, without realizing that had they been around when THOSE games came out they would have done the exact same thing …

Well, I am happy with PoE (only ~ 10 hours in though), but that doesn't mean that for me every feature is perfect.
So it's not a contradiction to be happy with a game and criticise some of its features.

 

[Morrandir]

Just a heads up: there's apparently a rather nasty bug in the game, but you can avoid it by not double clicking to equip party members.

Thanks for letting us know.
I'm afraid that this might have happened to me without me noticing. Need to check at home.

 

[Caddy]

I don't want to spoil this but Dumbledore dies in the end.

 

[Thrasher]

Anyone else getting the endless SFX repeating bug? Sounds like the tooltip opening sound, repeating endlessly. I tried the suggested fix (reloading) and it stops for a while, then starts up again no matter what I do. I can turn off sound effects but that's it… not a great option.

Can't believe they didn't catch this bug.

Some people are having this problem. Not all. Not me. It's probably based on your PC hardware and software configuration. It's easy to miss bugs like that when you're testing.

 

[Thrasher]

Damage output has nothing to do with class or stats and all to do with weapon they are using. If you want big damage, go with a big weapon. Eder has a one handed + shield setup. He is limited to one handed weapon damage and suffers accuracy penalty on top of it because of shields. Accuracy penalty means he will more often graze or miss so that means even less damage.

There are some one handers that turn grazes into hits, so equip those for him and that helps.

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

There are some one handers that turn grazes into hits, so equip those for him and that helps.

There's also a fighter talent that ups damage in general and turns grazes into hits.

 

[Thrasher]

Yes. Not sure if that's worthwhile use of a talent if you are trying to create a defensive tank. There are lots of good defensive talents that may not be available through weapons.

 

[you]

I hope they port to unity 5. Also can you annotate maps ?

 

[yllaettaevaet]

I enjoy it very much, but am only just like 2h into the game. Just entered the town with that biiig tree with all those ***** hanging there. Maps have been very small yet I think, but I guess I am at the very beginning. Slow gaming pace. Have not really studied combat yet, as in normal difficulty first encounters all were doable.
Haha HiddenX, you obviously couldn't resist playing this. As I expected

In combat I experienced I often have to manually place my guys, one often gets stuck in a nervous animation behind others.

 

[Pladio]

It seems (to my surprise) that mechanics determine if yuo find hidden objects/traps. I made a rogue as my main (which I seem to do in a lot of games). At first I was going to restart as I'm unhappy with the rogue fighting ability (but I mostly been focusing on using him with a bow). Anyways he has very high mechanics and I find a *lot* of hidden items/traps. One thing I have not done is try to use traps to my advantage.

I have tried it in one combat and they work pretty well in weakening opponents before they can get to you....

Shame I don't have any more traps.

 

[Thrasher]

Need to try this out. Tend to hoard the traps until I need them for a hard encounter.

 

[Sacred_Path]

I can't say I love this game, but I enjoy it very, very much.

The amount of micro management near the beginning is just about right for my tastes - you have to stay involved, and there are very few trash mobs (playing on Hard). In fact, in this game, you're happy about trash mobs.

The only thing about the interface/ controls that bugs me is the lack of shortcuts for my bear companion. It hangs around at the rear end of the group when it's supposed to be up front, tanking. Sort of tiresome, but far from something major.

The conversations are excellent, in length, tone, and options. The reactivity is great and will make me replay this game many times. There aren't tons of branches, of course - not with the amount of writing, overall, that went into this game.

I enjoy the character building and can't relate to people claiming it's 'bland' (some trolling on the forums going on). It's certainly far above Infinity Engine games (no feat). I'm very curious if my party is going to work out well.

As has been said before, the game takes itself seriously - but not too much. I think Sawyer made good on the promise of 'mature' themes and setting. Take note, Witcher & co.:

mature writing =/= cussing dwarves + grimdark setting + copious amounts of elf boobies.

Overall, I enjoy the vision behind this game... though... if I had my wish granted, the next project would be headed by Tim Cain, and he would be given free reign to realize his wacky ideas (Arcanum) and visions of an adventure (Temple of Elemental Evil) with Josh just on the team to... bring balance to all things.

 

[Pladio]

I found the spirit writing a bit long to be honest, but it didn't bother me too much.

It was very good at first, but after reading 10 spirits talk, I got bored.

 

[Deleted User]

So stop reading the spirit talks for awhile, and if you get bored and want to start reading them again, do it then. Problem solved.

That's why I love that aspect actually. You can read them when you like. Same with monuments with backer comments on them. They are just optional.

I just want to say that I think Josh Sawyer is a supergenius for this game. That is all.

 

[Aubrielle]

Re: negativity...

I read something once that said that nothing will ever surpass what came out when you were twelve. What came out when you were twelve is the pinnacle of achievement.

 

[Morrandir]

Not reading them anymore after reading that they have no impact on the story.

 

[Sacred_Path]

I read something once that said that nothing will ever surpass what came out when you were twelve. What came out when you were twelve is the pinnacle of achievement.

I do like Ultima VII...