Pillars of Eternity - Majority of Content Optional

Couchpotato

Part-Time News-bot
Joined
October 1, 2010
Messages
36,184
Location
Spudlandia
Matthew Reynolds posted information on digitalspy about how the majority of content in Pillars of Eternity will be optional for every player according to Obsidians Josh Sawyer.

Lead designer Josh Sawyer said the role-playing game, which was funded through Kickstarter back in 2012, will strike a better balance of critical and side content than Infinity Engine games such as Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate.

"I'd say about two thirds to three quarters of the game's content is completely optional," he told Digital Spy and other journalists at this year's Paradox Convention.

"It's very important, I think, for the sense of exploration that you feel you do not have to go to that many places. There are lots of places you can go to whenever you want, at your own pace."
More information.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,184
Location
Spudlandia
Great, I like that. :)
 
Joined
May 6, 2013
Messages
4,968
Location
Germany
Exactly the way it should be :)

Still pissed about their RTwP implementation, but I'll adjust. I'm hoping some modder will add custom scripts, somehow - or something.
 
I'll do all of it, regardless :p

Yeah, me too. However I just F*****G LOVE it, when the game designers give players freedom - that's why Skyrim is still so popular.
 
Joined
Oct 27, 2012
Messages
154
Exactly the way it should be :)

Still pissed about their RTwP implementation, but I'll adjust. I'm hoping some modder will add custom scripts, somehow - or something.

Haven't been following the game.

What's wrong with the scripts?
 
Haven't been following the game.

What's wrong with the scripts?

They're not custom, meaning your characters don't do what you expect or want them to do. It's also very primitive, as in they don't seem to do anything class specific from what I've seen.

Maybe there's a hidden option or something - but I've been unable to find it anywhere.
 
They're not custom, meaning your characters don't do what you expect or want them to do. It's also very primitive, as in they don't seem to do anything class specific from what I've seen.

Maybe there's a hidden option or something - but I've been unable to find it anywhere.

There is no scripts outside of basic things (you can queue actions though). They didn't have the time (or money) to make them, so it was bumped to the expansion/PoE2.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
There is no scripts outside of basic things (you can queue actions though). They didn't have the time (or money) to make them, so it was bumped to the expansion/PoE2.

I figured as much.

But, as I said, the problems associated with no custom scripts will depend on each individual player.

Overall, I really like what I've played and seen of PoE - and I'm happy with my purchase.

But I think combat is a major problem, and it will absolutely bring my overall experience down quite a bit. Mostly because there's a lot of dungeons where the clunky pathfinding and lack of AI will annoy the hell out of me. Not unlike BG - but at least that one allowed me to setup most classes to work with minimal input.

Pathfinding is better in PoE, but still highly problematic - but the actual AI behavior is way too primitive and requires constant handholding.

I've played on Normal only, FWIW. I can imagine Hard and beyond being even worse.

I fear Obsidian is underestimating what this means for a lot of players, but I could be wrong.
 
There is no scripts outside of basic things (you can queue actions though). They didn't have the time (or money) to make them, so it was bumped to the expansion/PoE2.

It's been a long while since I played a BG game. When you talk about scripts, I assume you mean the AI behaviors you could set for each team member - things like "attack on sight with ranged weapons", or "defend this character". Are these missing for PoE?
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
They're not custom, meaning your characters don't do what you expect or want them to do. It's also very primitive, as in they don't seem to do anything class specific from what I've seen.

Maybe there's a hidden option or something - but I've been unable to find it anywhere.

Hmm, not sure how I fell about that, will have to see it in action.

I spent a lot of time on scripts in BG but ultimately I would end up playing 80% of the game with AI disabled. So it probably didn't matter much.

I assume you can disable AI in POE?

I'm kind of a min/ max micromanaging player.
 
Hmm, not sure how I fell about that, will have to see it in action.

I spent a lot of time on scripts in BG but ultimately I would end up playing 80% of the game with AI disabled. So it probably didn't matter much.

I assume you can disable AI in POE?

I'm kind of a min/ max micromanaging player.

I haven't really checked, but I'd say the AI is so primitive that micromanaging is the way to go, unless you're vastly overpowered.

I think my main problem is the combination of bad pathfinding and AI - because it means you have to really go step-by-step through dungeons, to avoid encountering enemies with a bad formation (or missing party members) - and it sort of inspires you to cheese it by luring enemies back to your party with a single nimble character, so you avoid unintentional bad moves. That makes clearing dungeons a grind and a pain, or at least that's been my experience.

Truly, I'm not a big fan of how it works.
 
I haven't really checked, but I'd say the AI is so primitive that micromanaging is the way to go, unless you're vastly overpowered.

I think my main problem is the combination of bad pathfinding and AI - because it means you have to really go step-by-step through dungeons, to avoid encountering enemies with a bad formation (or missing party members) - and it sort of inspires you to cheese it by luring enemies back to your party with a single nimble character, so you avoid unintentional bad moves. That makes clearing dungeons a grind and a pain, or at least that's been my experience.

Truly, I'm not a big fan of how it works.

Yeah I agree I always do a lot of luring in BG.

I wonder if good path finding just isn't possible with RTWP.

Even DAI with its huge budget has poor path finding. I'm always stopping my guys from endlessly chasing enemies, taking a long way around and inexplicably walking right in to Mage spell traps.

I guess the only solution is to have the ability to set waypoints but that could get tedious and wouldn't work as well in real time as it does in turn based games like Xcom.
 
It's been a long while since I played a BG game. When you talk about scripts, I assume you mean the AI behaviors you could set for each team member - things like "attack on sight with ranged weapons", or "defend this character". Are these missing for PoE?

There is no way to customize the AI of your party members in PoE. They have basic AI that allow them to kill their current target, move to the nearest one, fight back if attacked and deal with "engagement" but any active talents needs to be activated by the player right now.

Saying that you, the player, decide how much micro-management your party is going to require. It's all based on how you build your party and if you focus on actives or passives abilities at level up.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
Matthew Reynolds posted information on digitalspy about how the majority of content in Pillars of Eternity will be optional for every player according to Obsidians Josh Sawyer.

My only concern with that (and it's not a biggie) is that if I skip a lot of the optional material, will my party be able to take on greater challenges? Conversely, if I do all the side material, will my party be able to face-roll through the last battles?
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2009
Messages
90
TBH I never used the more advanced AI settings in the IE engine. For trash mob battles, "auto-attack nearest" was usually sufficient and for the more complex set piece battles I would never trust the AI to cast the right buffs or target the right enemies anyways.

As long as the auto-pause options are similar to IE (I haven't played the beta so I don't know) I'll be happy.
 
Joined
Sep 15, 2014
Messages
612
I see it being compared to skyrim in the comments here. Although open world and freedom is a great thing there is also a reason why most players, including myself, never finished the main story of Skyrim. It's boring and poorly written cuz they focused too much on the open world. I still consider Skyrim a good game though, but I'm hoping that in this case there will be a good story to follow and a reason to complete it.
 
Joined
Jan 8, 2014
Messages
474
Location
in a figment of my imagination
TBH I never used the more advanced AI settings in the IE engine. For trash mob battles, "auto-attack nearest" was usually sufficient and for the more complex set piece battles I would never trust the AI to cast the right buffs or target the right enemies anyways.

As long as the auto-pause options are similar to IE (I haven't played the beta so I don't know) I'll be happy.

This. I mostly used the "pause on target death"
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2006
Messages
2,013
TBH I never used the more advanced AI settings in the IE engine. For trash mob battles, "auto-attack nearest" was usually sufficient and for the more complex set piece battles I would never trust the AI to cast the right buffs or target the right enemies anyways.

As long as the auto-pause options are similar to IE (I haven't played the beta so I don't know) I'll be happy.

Well, I really like the "auto-detect traps" on my thief in BG. And I like how I can set my ranged characters to engage with their ranged weapons automatically.
I can't imagine not having that, it eliminates a lot of micro-management, especially on encounters with thrash mobs.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,377
Location
Leuven, BE
Back
Top Bottom