Pillars of Eternity - Another Gameplay Trailer

Concerns:
1. Perhaps I missed something in the vid, but I would like to see more skills and choices while leveling.
2. Tooltips for spells and abilities in combat. No way I'm going to remember what all the little icons signify. I hope for detailed tooltips, a la D:OS.

I think your #1 concern has been a lot of peoples concern judging by the forums. Lack of skills & "streamlining" of character options.
 
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I think your #1 concern has been a lot of peoples concern judging by the forums. Lack of skills & "streamlining" of character options.

If that's the case, that's truly unfortunate. Maybe one of you beta backers here can elaborate for us all tomorrow...
 
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I'm probably in the minority, but I like that it has a narrowed group of skills. As much as I love NWN2, I got absolutely overwhelmed by the number of skills and feats available when you leveled up. Since I had no real D&D experience outside of the IE games, it was completely foreign to me and frankly I wasn't going to spend half an hour reading the description of each one when I leveled up to make the best decision. I just kind of guess and hoped for the best.
 
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The game looks good to me. I'm liking the spell effects and the interactive storyboards the most from the presentation. Pretty much everything is impressive however, hyped!
 
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Well, if you ask Sacred_Path, the skill system is quite elaborate and easily on par with NWN2 :)

I can't see it, personally, but he can probably explain it in detail.
 
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Well, if you ask Sacred_Path, the skill system is quite elaborate and easily on par with NWN2 :)

harhar

being on par with NWN2 shouldn't be hard though. What skills beside crafting were usable anywhere, anytime in NWN2? We also know that PoE will have D&D stables like lockpicking and disabling of traps.

In Ob's own words the game is about exploration, tactical combat and meaningful choices though. It's not about a spreadsheet-y accumulation of skills that may or may not do something useful for you in the long run.
 
harhar

being on par with NWN2 shouldn't be hard though. What skills beside crafting were usable anywhere, anytime in NWN2? We also know that PoE will have D&D stables like lockpicking and disabling of traps.

People aren't bitching about skills alone - that's just the general way of talking about the options available. They're also talking about a lack of enough stuff like feats and the multiclassing I've already mentioned - that you dismissed as insignificant.

I'm not sure why you're talking about skills being usable anywhere, anytime. That's not the issue. It's the amount of skills and the lack of complexity that's the result.

NWN and NWN2 both had plenty of active skills, though, like Search, Set traps, UMD, Parry and so on.

In Ob's own words the game is about exploration, tactical combat and meaningful choices though. It's not about a spreadsheet-y accumulation of skills that may or may not do something useful for you in the long run.

Which is probably why people are complaining it doesn't seem very rich in that way.

People who enjoy learning systems appreciate that not everything is spelled out in such a way that a child could be effective without having to read anything. A lot of people consider developing a strong strategy for their characters consists of a series of meaningful choices.

Such if the way in which we all differ.
 
People aren't bitching about skills alone - that's just the general way of talking about the options available. They're also talking about a lack of stuff like feats and the multiclassing I've already mentioned - that you dismissed as insignificant.

I don't know who these 'people' are - there's certainly no outcry on the official forums about the lack of feats. Possibly because there are feats in the game. Besides the modal abilities that are class intrinsic , there will be active abilities that you can pick & choose from. And criticizing a game because it doesn't have multiclassing is really borderline 'tarded, especially considering multiclassing has always been the worst of two worlds between class and classless systems.

I'm not sure why you're talking about skills being usable anywhere, anytime. That's not the issue. It's the amount of skills and the lack of complexity that's the result.

No, that IS the issue. Having a crapload of skills that you can dump points into on every levelup that can be used a handful of times over the course of the game (like dialogue skills in NWN2) is the cheapest way of feigning complexity when there isn't any. My other point is that it's very hard to gauge the usefulness of a skill when there are myriads of them. It's almost impossible to estimate how useful it's going to be to spend a fixed amount of points on, say, Outdoorsman on every levelup, at least until you've played with such builds several times. PoE will have broader skill categories than Fallout or even Baldur's Gate, and I'm not sure what people think they are missing out on when their character is proficient with crossbows and bows by pushing the same skill. There are anal retentive skill systems out there, but that's not the road this game is going down.

NWN and NWN2 both had plenty of active skills, though, like Search, Set traps, UMD, Parry and so on.

Search - bit of a pain in the ass when it's an active skill, isn't it? I expect there to be some form of stat based detection thing in PoE though.

Set Traps - good skill. I think I remember reading something about a Rogue ability in PoE that does the same thing.

Use Magic Device - You can have six party members in PoE, and only two classes out of 10 that are pure spellcasters. I don't think people will actually miss this skill.

Parry - a skill that influences the rules system in a way that wasn't intended (to enable Dex-based tanks). Who is going to miss that when you have attribute, equipment, skill, ability and mode options that can increase your tankiness just as well?

People who enjoy learning systems appreciate that not everything is spelled out in such a way that a child could be effective without having to read anything.

Kinda ironic considering this game is very much about reading - as in, reading lines of dialogue and lore exposition. Not skill descriptions. :p
 
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I don't know who these 'people' are - there's certainly no outcry on the official forums about the lack of feats. Possibly because there are feats in the game. Besides the modal abilities that are class intrinsic , there will be active abilities that you can pick & choose from. And criticizing a game because it doesn't have multiclassing is really borderline 'tarded, especially considering multiclassing has always been the worst of two worlds between class and classless systems.

I said "enough" stuff like that. I don't really know why you'd need to know who the people in question are. I don't know them either, I can simply read without being in denial about what I'm reading.

Your "interesting" opinion about multiclassing and how people are borderline retarded because they don't agree, is noted.

No, that IS the issue. Having a crapload of skills that you can dump points into on every levelup that can be used a handful of times over the course of the game (like dialogue skills in NWN2) is the cheapest way of feigning complexity when there isn't any. My other point is that it's very hard to gauge the usefulness of a skill when there are myriads of them. It's almost impossible to estimate how useful it's going to be to spend a fixed amount of points on, say, Outdoorsman on every levelup, at least until you've played with such builds several times. PoE will have broader skill categories than Fallout or even Baldur's Gate, and I'm not sure what people think they are missing out on when their character is proficient with crossbows and bows by pushing the same skill. There are anal retentive skill systems out there, but that's not the road this game is going down.

It's true that some games have systems that require more of an effort to learn - and that's something you don't seem to have been capable of, or sufficiently interested in.

If anything that adds complexity is bloat - then I can reverse it and call PoE super lean and boring.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle - and I'm sure PoE is enough for you.

Not necessarily for everyone else, though.

Search - bit of a pain in the ass when it's an active skill, isn't it? I expect there to be some form of stat based detection thing in PoE though.

No, actually it's not. It was a nice way of motivating careful exploration of certain areas.

But the implementation would depend on the module - and most modules were shit for exploration.

Set Traps - good skill. I think I remember reading something about a Rogue ability in PoE that does the same thing.

Hope so, sounds good.

Use Magic Device - You can have six party members in PoE, and only two classes out of 10 that are pure spellcasters. I don't think people will actually miss this skill.

Depends on whether people enjoy creating characters that are self-sufficient. I do, on occasion.

Kinda ironic considering this game is very much about reading - as in, reading lines of dialogue and lore exposition. Not skill descriptions. :p

If reading isn't necessary to succeed - then some people consider that a problem.

I'm one of them.
 
If anything that adds complexity is bloat - then I can reverse it and call PoE super lean and boring.

Let's sort this out. Pretend we're going to build a sniper.

At character creation you can customize your attributes - and every attribute will do something useful for every class. Let's assume that strength will increase our physical damage per hit, while dexterity will increase our accuracy. Obviously, accuracy is key for this character, so let's go with dex.

Equipment wise, Sawyer has mentioned the early firearms available in PoE are pretty inaccurate, so our weapon of choice will be the bow or crossbow.

It has been said that there won't be specific combat skills, but skills can give auxiliary bonuses (going by the wiki). Let's assume our character has improved his lore skills concerning humanoid enemies, giving additional bonuses against such characters.

Talents will be limited by class, though not all of them are class specific. Considering that rangers are the designated ranged weapon characters of the game, I think it's safe to say that this is the best choice for sniperish active abilities.

When talking about the Dwarven ranger companion, Sawyer mentioned in passing that there might be called shots in the game. That would be an additional combat option for our high Dex character that you probably wouldn't consider with some firearm-wielding trollop of a fighter.

Now, we will have the choice of different modes. Let's say that there will be a mode that increases accuracy at a decrease of attack speed. This is made more likely by Sawyer saying that D&D's "Rapid Shot" is not a feat in PoE, but a mode.

So, we've built a veritable sniper, even if there is no such thing in the game as a skill that says "PUMP THIS TO BECOME A SNIPER!". For a high damage, high rate of fire ranged DPS character, we'd pick different equipment, abilities, and modes.
 
Search - bit of a pain in the ass when it's an active skill, isn't it? I expect there to be some form of stat based detection thing in PoE though.

Set Traps - good skill. I think I remember reading something about a Rogue ability in PoE that does the same thing.

Use Magic Device - You can have six party members in PoE, and only two classes out of 10 that are pure spellcasters. I don't think people will actually miss this skill.

Parry - a skill that influences the rules system in a way that wasn't intended (to enable Dex-based tanks). Who is going to miss that when you have attribute, equipment, skill, ability and mode options that can increase your tankiness just as well?

Set Trap and Search are under the Mechanics skill (with open lock, disable trap and a bunch of "dialog check" that deals with mechanical stuff). You don't need to be a rogue to use it but they get a bonus to it which means their traps will be stronger (the skill level define the power of the trap). A single trap can be set per character. To search you need to go into scout mode (which is also the toggle for stealth).

Use Magic Device wouldn't have any use in the POE setting the way it is implemented in D&D. Every class has access to "soul magic" and there are no class restrictions on weapons/armors and there is no alignments (we get dispositions in its place).

Pillar of Eternity is not a straight up D20...
 
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Let's sort this out. Pretend we're going to build a sniper.

At character creation you can customize your attributes - and every attribute will do something useful for every class. Let's assume that strength will increase our physical damage per hit, while dexterity will increase our accuracy. Obviously, accuracy is key for this character, so let's go with dex.

Equipment wise, Sawyer has mentioned the early firearms available in PoE are pretty inaccurate, so our weapon of choice will be the bow or crossbow.

It has been said that there won't be specific combat skills, but skills can give auxiliary bonuses (going by the wiki). Let's assume our character has improved his lore skills concerning humanoid enemies, giving additional bonuses against such characters.

Talents will be limited by class, though not all of them are class specific. Considering that rangers are the designated ranged weapon characters of the game, I think it's safe to say that this is the best choice for sniperish active abilities.

When talking about the Dwarven ranger companion, Sawyer mentioned in passing that there might be called shots in the game. That would be an additional combat option for our high Dex character that you probably wouldn't consider with some firearm-wielding trollop of a fighter.

Now, we will have the choice of different modes. Let's say that there will be a mode that increases accuracy at a decrease of attack speed. This is made more likely by Sawyer saying that D&D's "Rapid Shot" is not a feat in PoE, but a mode.

So, we've built a veritable sniper, even if there is no such thing in the game as a skill that says "PUMP THIS TO BECOME A SNIPER!". For a high damage, high rate of fire ranged DPS character, we'd pick different equipment, abilities, and modes.

You're still not getting it - but I don't really want to bog down yet another thread trying to explain what should be extremely simple to understand.

It's not that PoE is bad or wrong - which might be what you think I'm saying, it's that it uses another approach to character building and progression than I and others prefer. At least, that's what it seems like.

But, I'll let the game speak for itself once it's out. Because it's not a discussion that's interesting enough for me to go into what we think we know.

Let's wait until it's out - and then I'll gladly go into specifics about what's missing.

My impression versus what the developers have claimed and your biased interpretation of their words is not a good position from which to exchange useful thoughts.

I'll give the thread back to the rest now ;)
 
Nice says the roleplayer in me. I still do it sometimes in other games, nut there's never a good reason to. I'm also a bit of a pragmatist, and it's hard to just throw away gold.
 
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