Pillars of Eternity II - Going Turn Based January 24th

If people wants to see someone playing the TB version, CohhCarnage did a stream yesterday.

azarhal said:

If people wants to see someone playing the TB version, CohhCarnage did a stream yesterday.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link azarhal. Looks better then the beta footage from the leaked patch. I just might try it after I finish a RTwP campaign first as I just started the game.

duerer said:

Yup, aware of that. Sorry, I've just started thinking on the reasons behind the PR stunt.
I mean: Deadfire bombed, Obsidian sold to MS -- so what is the business logic behind this risky development?
A farewell gift to the indie community? A lingering obligation to one of their biz partners?
Dunno.

Click to expand...

Probably both a gift and an experiment for future games.

duerer said:

Yup, aware of that. Sorry, I've just started thinking on the reasons behind the PR stunt.
I mean: Deadfire bombed, Obsidian sold to MS -- so what is the business logic behind this risky development?
A farewell gift to the indie community? A lingering obligation to one of their biz partners?
Dunno.

Click to expand...

It hasn't released on consoles yet. Maybe they think it will give them a sales boost on release.

Pongo said:

It hasn't released on consoles yet. Maybe they think it will give them a sales boost on release.

Click to expand...

Question is though how many buy these type of games on consoles?

I know Original Sin 1&2 sold well on consoles but Pillars of Eternity sold a lot less. It probably has to do with one game being Co-op, and the other game isn't.

azarhal said:

If people wants to see someone playing the TB version, CohhCarnage did a stream yesterday.

Click to expand...

Judging by the video, there's no attacks of opportunity in turn-based? Kind of a big deal.

Overall, it looks interesting enough. But, even if I wasn't already in the middle of a normal playthrough, I don't think I'd want to commit myself to an entire turn-based playthrough - it would be soooo overly long and tedious! The ability to turn it on only for particularly difficult fights would be much more appealing.

Drithius said:

Judging by the video, there's no attacks of opportunity in turn-based? Kind of a big deal.

Click to expand...

In Deadfire, the engagement system was changed, you need to be a Fighter to get it access to it at level 1 and it's for one enemy unless you use the defensive stance.

I didn't get that far in POE so if the turn based mode is anywhere halfway decent I'll probably start a new run to try it. The chaos of combat was always one of my least favorite parts about the series.

The only part I'd really dread is re-exploring the main city again. My need to explore every region of it when I got there just dragged the main story to a grinding halt for hours and hours. I would have greatly preferred if they could have split it up somehow, either with more smaller cities, or by gating the city so some areas were closed off to start.

azarhal said:

In Deadfire, the engagement system was changed, you need to be a Fighter to get it access to it at level 1 and it's for one enemy unless you use the defensive stance.

Click to expand...

You mean in the turn-based system I assume? Because everyone gets engagement/disengagement in the normal RTwP game.

Drithius said:

You mean in the turn-based system I assume? Because everyone gets engagement/disengagement in the normal RTwP game.

Click to expand...

No, that is how it works in the game in RTwP mode.

fadedc said:

The only part I'd really dread is re-exploring the main city again. My need to explore every region of it when I got there just dragged the main story to a grinding halt for hours and hours. I would have greatly preferred if they could have split it up somehow, either with more smaller cities, or by gating the city so some areas were closed off to start.

Click to expand...

Yes, Neketaka was too big for its own good. Meanwhile, most other "cities" are little more than one or two buildings with which you can interact on a small map. Bad design.

Archangel said:

No, that is how it works in the game in RTwP mode.

Click to expand...

That's what I said?

Drithius said:

That's what I said?

Click to expand...

No, you said that in PoE2 everyone gets ability to engage enemies. They don't. Only fighters and certain enemies.

Anyone with a shield (and melee weapon) can engage an enemy. Among other items/spells.

If anyone is playing the turn-based beta, feel free to chime in on whether enemy Attack of Opportunity is a thing - the video is inconclusive since only one of his combatants could engage in the fights that I saw.

I'm thinking that turn-based PoE2 will be better for players that like character builds with a lot of modal options and/or enjoy higher difficulties where fine-tuned tactics really matter; RTwP is more optimal for non-modal abilities and normal difficulty. Thus, turn-based is more optimal for replays, once the player has adjusted to the system. In that sense it adds to the replay value.

rjshae said:

I'm thinking that turn-based PoE2 will be better for players that like character builds with a lot of modal options and/or enjoy higher difficulties where fine-tuned tactics really matter; RTwP is more optimal for non-modal abilities and normal difficulty. Thus, turn-based is more optimal for replays, once the player has adjusted to the system. In that sense it adds to the replay value.

Click to expand...

Well, I never replay and always go full challenge right on. But I agree that turn based is generally better for challenging combat.

For replaying...well, if you replay for the story, you surely don't want to struggle through the combats again, in that case rtwp would be better actually.

Drithius said:

Anyone with a shield (and melee weapon) can engage an enemy. Among other items/spells.

If anyone is playing the turn-based beta, feel free to chime in on whether enemy Attack of Opportunity is a thing - the video is inconclusive since only one of his combatants could engage in the fights that I saw.

Click to expand...

Shield grants +1 engagement, true. Did you saw a lots of characters with them in the TB gameplay posted that had enemies move away from them while still engaged?

Kordanor said:

Well, I never replay and always go full challenge right on. But I agree that turn based is generally better for challenging combat.

For replaying…well, if you replay for the story, you surely don't want to struggle through the combats again, in that case rtwp would be better actually.

Click to expand...

I suppose if you aren't paying attention the first time through you might need to play it again for the story. But that's what Story mode is for.

I don't see how turn-based is better for challenging combat. I'd say that's completely subjective and depends on the game.

If you mean better as in making it easier then yeah.

rjshae said:

I suppose if you aren't paying attention the first time through you might need to play it again for the story. But that's what Story mode is for.

Click to expand...

Ah, yeah. Maybe that was badly worded. What I meant was different decisions and outcomes.

JDR13 said:

I don't see how turn-based is better for challenging combat. I'd say that's completely subjective and depends on the game.

If you mean better as in making it easier then yeah.

Click to expand...

I actually meant that it's better to do challenging combats.
The issue with RTwP is always (well, in over 90% of all cases) that you can easen the game by pressing pause.
If you do a hard fight and you do not press pause at all -> incredibly hard
If you do the same time and you press pause 10 times -> easier
If you do the same time and you press pause 100 times -> even more easier

And this goes down in most games to pressing pause about 3 times per real time second. At that time additional pauses have such a diminishing returns that they are not worth it.

So if you compare difficulties of the two combat modes you need to basically compare turn based with RTwP including max amount of pauses.
And besides of the game flow being worse than turn based at that rate, and probably only a small section of players using the pause option to its maximum, the developers also need to balance the game around that.
So with pressing pause more often than it's anticipated by the developer you are making the game easier than intended, and by not pressing pause as often you make it harder.
This is not a factor in turn based, which should make it easier for developers to balance around it.
And as games are probably not balanced ardound pausing 3 times per second, this also means that if you use your maximum capabilities the game will be harder in turn based if TB=Hard is equivalent to RTwP with 1p/1s = Hard

Well yeah, no one is going to argue that pausing more often isn't necessary for harder encounters. The difference is that RTwP at least gives you some control over the pace of combat while TB doesn't.