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Pillars of Eternity SeriesA Lot to Like but Far from Greatness(45 posts)(45 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 20, 2015
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Hickory: I already have told you why it doesn't work
You said that the AI is coded in such a way that it tried to close you down, and ... That's all you said, really. The way I would envision a tankless party would be to bring members with abilities heavy on knockdown/movement reduction (there's loads of these) so this doesn't happen and to engage enemies in areas where movement is restricted - easy in dungeons, difficult outdoors (not impossible, altho I'm not sure what the aggro distance is.) Does that not work? I was not kidding when I was asking for your party composition.

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Hickory: you won't prove me wrong, you will simply keep pushing your view.
Lighten up, here I am kidding ;-) It might shock you, but I'm having these discussions because I'm going out of my way to find as much as possible that's wrong with the game - personally, I can see very little, but I already understood why would some people prefer to get experience per encounter, why do some people dislike the writing or why are some people opposed to how attributes work. I would not be wasting my time with such arguments if I wasn't getting anything out of it, of course, I sort of presume that the other side wants to discuss the game in other terms than "I agree with everything you just said!" Do note that I never said either that you or your view is wrong and at the time I said you may be playing this particular game wrong I have promptly added that limiting player too much is also a negative (question is how much it limits the player - it is a tactical RPG after all, not every combination ever should work, only those which make sense.)
Post edited April 20, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted April 20, 2015
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Sirandar888: From the OP

Sorry for the spoilers

IMO this games needs the player avatar needs to have a text or voice options outside of combat. Otherwise the game is just too flat to be interesting.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&a mp;g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Spoiler Starts

1) For example, your avatar just left the ruins and both companions are savagely killed by the storm but you are not. You have a strange affliction.

Surely this deserves some self reflection, soul searching, asking yourself questions, reflecting on the death of your friends. Your avatar has a dialog with themselves and this illuminates the nature of the character you play and effects the outcome of the whole game AND offers with the right stats the chance to proactively figure things out. Also this sort of self reflection could immersively make it clear that that your first 2 companions cannot be saved.

This is the only way IMO to make this game fly. I was a huge missed opportunity.

2) After the 1.04 patch the 2 spells that could allow you to pin down the bear long enough to kill it were nerfed badly and the blunderbuss removed. I don't see how a level 2 wizard could ever beat the bear in 1.04. It is faster and it one shots the player. Actually the whole encounter would be fine if the quest giver didn't say they were packing up and leaving right away (because they just murdered someone I guess) . It is an easy fix. Just have the quest giver say they would like to leave but the rain doesn't allow this. Then the player will know they can leave the quest until later.

3) I think the devs also got stuck a little bit in the mindset that hard equals good. Hard does not equal good. Interesting, thought provoking, diverse and empowering = good. I think the Witcher 3 devs understood this and adjusted their thinking to make a game balanced between hard and the above.

Mask of the Betrayer was a classic example of Interesting, thought provoking, diverse and empowering = good. You started the game a full strength and were given all sorts of options to use that in a compelling way. There were places where your strength didn't help you and even worked against you. You were given interesting new options because of your strength. I am hoping hoping hoping that in Witcher 3 Gerault doesn't have to start from level one AGAIN. I may not play the game in that case even though I already bought it.

I would dearly like to play PoE but I just can't. I don't mind that I blew 44 bucks on it especially if it is the same people who made MofB ..... they probably didn't get the recognition and $$$ they deserved for that game. It was a 1/2 finished masterpiece. I can still remember standing in front of the black door wondering what was behind it and the encounter with the God of Death .... I can still remember the lines.
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kmh12177: 2. I assume one of the spells you refer to is the oil slick spell. I have not updated to 1.04 yet, I'm still in 1.03 (and unless they nerfed again, from what I've read the nerf happened in 1.03). Like I said above, it took a bunch of tries, but my lone wizard eventually DID beat the bear (although it was super close). The oil slick spell didn't work at all sometimes, sometimes it did but the bear only fell once, the time I finally won the bear fell initially, got up, fell again, and I fan of flamed the hell outta it. Why would a wizard use the blunderbus when you have fan of flames?

Maybe it is how you created your wizard. I maxed MIG (18, fan of flames is strong), INT (18, my range is far), and DEX (20, due to creation choices). The high DEX is arguably the most important as it allows you to cast spells faster. I dropped CON to 3 to allow for the points I needed, and wore clothes (no armor) so that my action speed was as fast as possible. Of course this means I have to get lucky with the roll for the oil slick to work, and I need to cast as many fan of flames as possible as its nearing me. With the high INT I can start casting with the bear at a longer range = more time before it reaches me. I KNOW it can be done as I've done it. I'm not saying it's easy. But maybe you are giving up too easy.
Playing the same part over and over isn't fun IMO. The spells I chose only ,"barely injured" the bear. It would take at least 10 hits with the spell I had to kill the bear. The bear one shots my character.


It would have all been OK if the quest giver didn't say they they were leaving right away.... If that was true I would have took one look at the bear and saved the quest for later. Attacking a grizzly at level 2 should be suicide. I am not complaining about the bear I am complaining because the quest givers conversation made it seem like you had to solve the quest immediately .... I thought there was some trick
Posted April 20, 2015
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kmh12177: 2. I assume one of the spells you refer to is the oil slick spell. I have not updated to 1.04 yet, I'm still in 1.03 (and unless they nerfed again, from what I've read the nerf happened in 1.03). Like I said above, it took a bunch of tries, but my lone wizard eventually DID beat the bear (although it was super close). The oil slick spell didn't work at all sometimes, sometimes it did but the bear only fell once, the time I finally won the bear fell initially, got up, fell again, and I fan of flamed the hell outta it. Why would a wizard use the blunderbus when you have fan of flames?

Maybe it is how you created your wizard. I maxed MIG (18, fan of flames is strong), INT (18, my range is far), and DEX (20, due to creation choices). The high DEX is arguably the most important as it allows you to cast spells faster. I dropped CON to 3 to allow for the points I needed, and wore clothes (no armor) so that my action speed was as fast as possible. Of course this means I have to get lucky with the roll for the oil slick to work, and I need to cast as many fan of flames as possible as its nearing me. With the high INT I can start casting with the bear at a longer range = more time before it reaches me. I KNOW it can be done as I've done it. I'm not saying it's easy. But maybe you are giving up too easy.
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Sirandar888: Playing the same part over and over isn't fun IMO. The spells I chose only ,"barely injured" the bear. It would take at least 10 hits with the spell I had to kill the bear. The bear one shots my character.

It would have all been OK if the quest giver didn't say they they were leaving right away.... If that was true I would have took one look at the bear and saved the quest for later. Attacking a grizzly at level 2 should be suicide. I am not complaining about the bear I am complaining because the quest givers conversation made it seem like you had to solve the quest immediately .... I thought there was some trick
Well, I think I get it now.

You must be new to these types of games - he said HE was leaving right away, not the bear in the cave. I have no idea how someone who is familiar with these types of games wouldn't realize the quest would stay open.

And you say " Playing the same part over and over isn't fun IMO" leads me to believe you are younger and used to the games they make these days where anybody can breeze right through them. You would have hated the 8-bit days. This game isn't even close to as difficult as most of those games were. You HAD to repeat some of those games a hundred times if you wanted to beat them. And it was satisfying when you finally did.
Posted April 20, 2015
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Fenixp: Why? As far as I'm concerned, the engagement system solved many gripes I've had so far with party-based tactical RPGs (mainly that it tends to be damn difficult to keep your tanks actually tanking without enemies ignoring them.)
I'll give just a couple reasons why I don't like it (there are more):

1) the dominant and generally best strategy is to send in your tank to grab aggro, then fall back to a doorway/chokepoint or into a corner, thus blocking access to your backline, who then proceed to pew pew with ranged weapons/spells. Yes, there are exceptions to this, such as shadows, but for the vast majority of encounters this is the most viable strategy. For a game that was supposedly designed to eliminate 'degenerative' gameplay, it seems to be promoting it with this system.

2) on the occasions where you aren't blocking a doorway/chokepoint with your tank, try to have your tank/damage dealer pull back from the engaged enemies to run back to help out your poor cipher or mage that's getting the shit kicked out of them. Even if you're more than willing to eat the disengagement attacks, you're immediately caught and stuck as soon as you pass by a mob which engages your character and he stops moving. Disengage, try to move, and get stuck again. And again. By the time you get that character moved to a position to help your squishy, the squishy is dirtnapping.
Posted April 20, 2015
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Fenixp: That's not the point - point is that the game mechanics can force you to play in certain manner, and force some fixed party compositions on you. I don't know if that's the case - I'm only doing my first playtrough now.
That's not unusual at all, though. For instance, In Might & Magic 6-10, if you don't start the game with ranged bow capability in at least three of your party (preferably *all* of them), then just staying alive to level up to strength becomes an order of magnitude more difficult and less probable.

The entire *point* of making characters with mixed skills available in a game is so that you find a proper mix--I don't think many games support, for instance, an all-mage party or an all-fighter/melee party. Besides not sounding like much fun at all, that seems to me a case of trying to bend a game to fit an artificially imposed style of play whether or not the given game supports it. All games have rules, in other words. If you don't wish to learn or abide by the rules then chances are you will not find the game enjoyable--if you want it to become something it was never designed to be, etc. Lots of people get hung up on game rules (which they generally are slow to understand are, if not rules, then highly emphasized modes of play the particular game is built around.)

Decent RPGs, however, allow the player to make mistakes, not only in combat but also in party composition. And mistakes are sometimes fatal. But imo the decent games insist that you *learn* from those mistakes...;) And that you don't keep insisting on a party the game isn't geared for, and keep getting killed over and over until you quit the game in frustration. (Whereas if you learn from your mistakes in the game world then fairly soon you'll get underway and start making progress.) That's how I see it, for what it's worth...;)

I also understand that the words "tank" and "tanking" are a part of the genre vocabulary, but still...Every time I hear them I wince because those words lend a WWI/WWII patina to what is a high-fantasy game like PoE. Is "strong melee character" really so much harder to write than "tank"...? Ugh...;) My gut reaction is to immediately think that anyone using the word "tank" in a high-fantasy setting probably knows very little about RPGs in general. I'm sure that is not the case, but it is always my reflex on seeing those particular words employed so casually. They just detract from the context of the game, imo.
Post edited April 20, 2015 by waltc
Posted April 20, 2015
The bear quest is fine. IMHO it's good that there are places you can't beat straight away and have to return to them. And TBH the game could be a bit harder (I'm playing hard), with more such places.


SPOILER:

Also, the "quest giver" (Nonton) is returning to Gilded Vale, obviously. So what's the rush? He can be found in Ingroed's House, which is even marked on the map IIRC.

As for rest of the OP's points, it looks like my experience with the game is different (as someone wrote before). Though I agree with point 6, it's kinda strange.
Posted April 20, 2015
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Fenixp: Why? As far as I'm concerned, the engagement system solved many gripes I've had so far with party-based tactical RPGs (mainly that it tends to be damn difficult to keep your tanks actually tanking without enemies ignoring them.)
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Coelocanth: I'll give just a couple reasons why I don't like it (there are more):

1) the dominant and generally best strategy is to send in your tank to grab aggro, then fall back to a doorway/chokepoint or into a corner, thus blocking access to your backline, who then proceed to pew pew with ranged weapons/spells. Yes, there are exceptions to this, such as shadows, but for the vast majority of encounters this is the most viable strategy. For a game that was supposedly designed to eliminate 'degenerative' gameplay, it seems to be promoting it with this system.

2) on the occasions where you aren't blocking a doorway/chokepoint with your tank, try to have your tank/damage dealer pull back from the engaged enemies to run back to help out your poor cipher or mage that's getting the shit kicked out of them. Even if you're more than willing to eat the disengagement attacks, you're immediately caught and stuck as soon as you pass by a mob which engages your character and he stops moving. Disengage, try to move, and get stuck again. And again. By the time you get that character moved to a position to help your squishy, the squishy is dirtnapping.
I think that number is the normal way, that is why rouges and ciphers have special abilities that let them to jump/swap places with others. I don't remember but I think wizards have something similar.
Posted April 20, 2015
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waltc: That's how I see it, for what it's worth...;)
And I agree, not every combination you can devise should be viable - however, you should still get a lot of options in the combinations you are allowed to create. There is a fine line between setting a challenge in creating a functional party and limiting the player too much. Does PoE cross it? Dunno, I didn't play enough of it to know.

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waltc: I also understand that the words "tank" and "tanking" are a part of the genre vocabulary, but still...Every time I hear them I wince because those words lend a WWI/WWII patina to what is a high-fantasy game like PoE. Is "strong melee character" really so much harder to write than "tank"...? Ugh...;) My gut reaction is to immediately think that anyone using the word "tank" in a high-fantasy setting probably knows very little about RPGs in general. I'm sure that is not the case, but it is always my reflex on seeing those particular words employed so casually. They just detract from the context of the game, imo.
It's just terminology, I've never seen these terms actually being used within a fantasy game itself. And yes, "Strong meele character" is significantly more difficult to write than "tank" - "defender" would probably be better, and work better in the context in which the word "tank" is being used (tank is actually not a strong meele character, it's a meele character which can take a lot of damage before dying). No matter - "tank" is the kind of term which is seeing widespread usage, so just saying that saves you from explaining what exactly do you mean, it's very well established.

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Coelocanth: I'll give just a couple reasons why I don't like it (there are more)
Do carry on please, the 1) actually sounds constructive, with the second one ... Well, Belsirk said it. And thank you.

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Belsirk: I think that number is the normal way, that is why rouges and ciphers have special abilities that let them to jump/swap places with others. I don't remember but I think wizards have something similar.
Pretty much, yeah - or you get another character to engage the other meelist and only suffer disengagement attack once. Or you grab abilities which allow for stun / knockdown, preventing enemy from both following and attacking. Or use one of the switch positions abilities.
Post edited April 20, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted April 20, 2015
^ Mages have spells that can help get weaker melee fighters disengaged without penalty.

I'm playing a mage, nearing the end of the game, and still haven't tried all the spells yet - though I'm just starting to realize that some of the spell descriptions that don't sound too great are actually pretty amazing. Since this is all new lore (not d&d) it will take some time to find out what all the really great spells are, and what circumstances to use them in.
Posted April 20, 2015
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kmh12177: ^ Mages have spells that can help get weaker melee fighters disengaged without penalty.

I'm playing a mage, nearing the end of the game, and still haven't tried all the spells yet - though I'm just starting to realize that some of the spell descriptions that don't sound too great are actually pretty amazing. Since this is all new lore (not d&d) it will take some time to find out what all the really great spells are, and what circumstances to use them in.
With the way the game is currently set up it's AoE debuffs > AoE damage (ideally targetting reflex) > anything else. Since lowered enemy defenses automatically mean much more damage done against them - less grazes, more crits, especially PETRIFY from Gaze of the Adragan wich removes ALL defenses - it's always a pretty good idea to open a fight with all sorts of effects that strongly debuff enemies.

With an enemy horde stuck, paralyzed and petrified you already have pretty much won already and can kick their asses at leisure. Druids have some frighteningly strong damage spells.

Also, low level spells like Chill Fog or the Cipher's 2nd level spell Mental Binding don't become irrelevant at the endgame, unlike seen in many other cRPGs. :)
Posted April 20, 2015
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Fenixp: Do carry on please, the 1) actually sounds constructive, with the second one ... Well, Belsirk said it. And thank you.
Problem with Belsirk's suggestion is it assumes you have a Rogue or Cipher in your party (admittedly not an unreasonable assumption that you'd likely have at least one of them), but it doesn't help at all if your character doesn't have that ability yet (or you didn't select it when leveling).

Another issue with the engagement system as well re squishies is they're pretty much screwed once they're engaged. They'll likely suffer a knockout or be damned close to it if they try to disengage, and if you've ever tried this, you'll know that they'll chase you down, engaging you again almost immediately which means 'stuck', stop moving, take the hit and die.
Posted April 21, 2015
Priests have a nice level 1 spell: Withdraw. It makes the target invincible for 20 seconds and regenerates endurance. It also has the downside of making the target unable to act for the duration, so you need to assess the situation to see if it is worth it (20 seconds is a LONG time and longer than many encounters last).
Posted April 21, 2015
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ghosterl: Priests have a nice level 1 spell: Withdraw. It makes the target invincible for 20 seconds and regenerates endurance.
And druids have a stone armor thing, disabling the target, but making it invincible. A little different from withdraw, but can be used for similar results.

The game really does offer a ton of options.
Post edited April 21, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted April 21, 2015
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Fenixp: Do carry on please, the 1) actually sounds constructive, with the second one ... Well, Belsirk said it. And thank you.
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Coelocanth: Problem with Belsirk's suggestion is it assumes you have a Rogue or Cipher in your party (admittedly not an unreasonable assumption that you'd likely have at least one of them), but it doesn't help at all if your character doesn't have that ability yet (or you didn't select it when leveling).

Another issue with the engagement system as well re squishies is they're pretty much screwed once they're engaged. They'll likely suffer a knockout or be damned close to it if they try to disengage, and if you've ever tried this, you'll know that they'll chase you down, engaging you again almost immediately which means 'stuck', stop moving, take the hit and die.
In sum, with the priest and druid spells, the engagement system is well planed, the melee warriors can trap the one that is coming to the ranger users, and all the other classes have one or more way to protect themselves or other from it .

Though those two spells I saved until the NPC is already low in health, but are useful once the poor character is already surrounded and the melee are already in their limit.

There are combos and you can choice the one you like it, everyone can have certain resistance to it, or just some of them.
Posted April 21, 2015
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Sirandar888: Playing the same part over and over isn't fun IMO.
Don't ever play a Souls game (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne). Repetition is the only method of survival. Being forearmed with knowledge is the only way to proceed.
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Pillars of Eternity SeriesA Lot to Like but Far from Greatness(45 posts)(45 posts)
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