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Pillars of Eternity Beta - Torment: Tides of the Beetles

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Polygon 'How PoE Rewrites the rules for Role-Playing'

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/25/82...t=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

You shouldn't have to put in hours of study to roll up a great character, and games shouldn't hinge on your ability to guess what combination of skills designers thought make the most powerful archetypes. The team behind Pillars of Eternity knew they could do better. So they threw out the rules, and built their game from the ground up to be something better.

The first time I hit a dead end in a role-playing game came while playing the original Fallout. I forget where exactly, but it was after dozens of hours of play that my party ended up in the bowels of a dilapidated building somewhere in the wasteland trying to bust through a locked door.

It was at that moment, in that dirty digital basement, that I realized no one in my party had the right mix of stats or skills to move on. There was literally nothing I could do to get the damned door open, and my story just stopped. My only option was to grind that party for four or five whole levels, dumping all of my earned experience fighting radscorpions and bandits into lock picking.

Rather than bury all that time (and bottle caps) into potentially over-leveling my characters for that one door, I just started over.

But that character, that party that I left behind? There was nothing wrong with them. They were interesting. They were valuable. The game simply led them — led me — astray.

Anyone who's played a computer role-playing game is familiar with the pitfall of "trap builds" as they're called. So when the team at Obsidian Entertainment sat down to plan the design of Pillars of Eternity, one of their goals was to avoid just this kind of situation.

It wasn't easy, Obsidian's Josh Sawyer told Polygon, but the next generation of computer role-playing games deserved better. The result, Sawyer said, is a wholly unique and dynamic character stat and creation system. And it's out tomorrow.
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superdeluxe said:
Polygon 'How PoE Rewrites the rules for Role-Playing'

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/25/82...t=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Click to expand...

Not finished the article yet, but my current kneejerk reaction is, "building a viable character, rather than just a character, is an important part of these old games." Unless Obsidian's done a wonderful job, they might have abstracted character attributes to the point that they're truly meaningless at representing a character's... attributes.

Edit: Yeah. That remains my stance on this.
 
GordonHalfman said:
Everyone can have two weapon sets equipped and there are also talents you can take that increase this to three or four, one is an Aumaua racial talent and one everyone can take.

There is some loot that's randomised, mostly junk from chests, but there should be lots of hand placed artifacts like BG also.
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Excellent, I much prefer BG`s set items over random loot. I had convinced myself I would hold off on this game to give it time to be patched but reading this thread has dragged me in.
 
Has there bee any impressions or mention about acquired Talents through quests and events in the game? I'm curious to how rare, or not rare, they are and what they entail, do they come from the same pool that we can choose from at even level ups or are they unique talents crafted to the specific circumstances you acquire them or some other metric like your class? Do they differ based on your actions in said quest or event? Like if you're more diplomatic or "good" you get a Talent that reflects that where as if you're more aggressive or "bad" you get a different flavor that reflects that.
 
Llyranor said:
Do we know what George Ziets has worked on in the game? Any companions?
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There's actually an interview recently where he described his work on Pillars of Eternity

You have been a Pillars of Eternity stretch goal ‒ however, we feel you haven’t had too many chances to introduce your work on the project. We remember you writing interesting stuff about Woedica, one of Eora’s deities. Could you elaborate a bit on your work on PoE?

I was involved in the early narrative and world-building work on PoE, when the team only consisted of Josh and a few other people. It was a fun phase of the project – I love world-building, and Eora (which didn’t even have a name at the time) was almost a blank slate, except for the player races, the map, the focus on souls, and a few lore elements that Josh wrote during the Kickstarter campaign.

First I came up with a bunch of deities, which made good sense to me as an initial step. (It seems like a society would use gods to represent things that are important to them, so defining the deities was a good way to get to know the people of the Dyrwood and their neighbors.) Then I wrote a lot of lore about cities, dungeons, prominent people, organizations, and important places in the region, including a detailed breakdown of Defiance Bay. I think the team has expanded the city a lot since I worked on it, but some of my neighborhoods are still present (e.g., Brackenbury, Ondra’s Gift), and it sounds like they’ve retained some of the other lore too.

In appx. March of 2013, when more people started to roll onto the project, a number of us (Josh, Chris Avellone, Eric Fenstermaker, Jorge Salgado, me) wrote up ideas for a main storyline. Then Eric and I spent a couple weeks on Skype (he was in California, I was in Ohio) synthesizing many of those ideas into an initial draft. During that time, I also assisted with some writing on their vertical slice (Dyrford), though I don’t know if any of my dialogue is still in the game.

Around May of 2013, I shifted my focus over to Torment during a lull in my PoE work, but my role on Torment quickly expanded, and InXile ultimately offered me a full-time position. That turned out to be a good fit – the only downside is that I never had a chance to do any additional work on PoE.
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LurkerPrime said:
Giant Bomb's Quick Look of Pillars of Eternity is now live! (Length: 49:01; Hosted by Rorie & Brad)

Interesting fact: Matt Rorie used to work for Obsidian Entertainment, in their NWN2-Alpha Protocol years. And, yes, call him Rorie.
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Yeah, on the latest Bombcast he said New Vegas was the last game he worked on.

The Technomancer said:
Still no idea what class I want to go with. I'm leaning heavily towards monk, but ciphers seem so cooooool man
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Same here. I'm leaning towards Ranger or Cipher. Guides won't really help me, I need to get a feel for both classes myself. Probably gonna start over a few times, like any good RPG.
 
The Technomancer said:
Still no idea what class I want to go with. I'm leaning heavily towards monk, but ciphers seem so cooooool man
Click to expand...

If it makes a difference, there is a cipher companion in the game, but no monk companion.
 
LurkerPrime said:
Not finished the article yet, but my current kneejerk reaction is, "building a viable character, rather than just a character, is an important part of these old games." Unless Obsidian's done a wonderful job, they might have abstracted character attributes to the point that they're truly meaningless at representing a character's... attributes.

Edit: Yeah. That remains my stance on this.
Click to expand...

I like Jeff Vogel's take on it. When talking about overhauling the character creation and progression for his games specifically he said
You start out with a ton of skill points, so that you can majorly customize your character from the beginning. You can use skill points to increase base attributes or regular skills, but the base attributes are expensive. However, it could break the system if a player put a huge amount of skill points in certain skills. To limit this, I made increasing a skill cost more skill points the higher you trained it. At high levels, you might have to save up for two or three levels to get enough skill points to raise a major skill one point.

Think about this. It's a system where the more you play and learn about the challenges facing you, the less you can do to customize your characters. You have to make most of the big changes at low level, when skills are cheap. Worse, it was necessary to increase the base attributes to survive (especially Endurance, which increases health), but they were so expensive that doing so required careful planning. As a result of this mess, many players had problems with getting halfway through the game and finding that they were not strong enough to proceed. These players got angry at me, and justifiably so.

There was also a traits system. Traits are special character qualities, some positive, some negative, that affected your characters. They could make you better at spells, more vulnerable to disease, and so on. Good traits came with a penalty to experience earned. Bad traits gave you a bonus. You could have at most two traits.

And here's the awesome part. You could only pick these traits at the beginning of the game, and you couldn't change them. Major decisions that affect how you play the entire game, and you make them before you've even fought one monster. It's very hardcore and old school. By which I mean that it's mean-spirited and unnecessarily punitive.
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Fantastapotamus said:
Same here. I'm leaning towards Ranger or Cipher. Guides won't really help me, I need to get a feel for both classes myself. Probably gonna start over a few times, like any good RPG.
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Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Feels weird, but its true

I restarted Divinity after six hours after realizing that game really wasn't balanced around having two of the same class in a party and that my two custom characters had just so happened to have the same roles as two of the three recruitable companions. Seriously, there was no way to make double Rangers work in that game
 
Sinatar said:
I like the magical fantasy scenario he paints for Fallout (which he clearly didn't play) explaining a scenario that is impossible to encounter. Go Polygon go.
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Right? I'm trying really hard but I can't remember an impassable door. It's been some time though, going back to Fallout 1 is rough.

Man, I'm not a huge graphics guy but looking at some of the screens I'm relieved the character models look infinitely better than in Wasteland 2. Love that game but every time they showed a character it looked rough as hell.
 
Please be good... Please be good... Please be good... Been on a blackout on this game for months.

Feels like it's been ages since i played an RPG with good writing and mechanics. Should probably not be nervous though since this is Obsidian we are talking about. Their games might suffer from glitches but they always nail the writing and mechanics part.
 
Does my choice of class have any effect outside of combat?
Is there anything a Cipher can do that a Barbarian can't that's dictated by the class and not the stats?
 
The Technomancer said:
Is the GiantBomb player broken in every browser on Mac for anyone else lately? The play button straight up doesn't show up in Chrome and in Safari and Firefox I get a "please use a Flash or HTML5 compatible browser" message
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It was working for me as of the weekend on my mac. I have everything up to date though, including OS / safari/ flash.

I left steam preloading the game. I think I'm going to choose rogue... It's the character background/race that I'm struggling with.
 
Fantastapotamus said:
Does my choice of class have any effect outside of combat?
Is there anything a Cipher can do that a Barbarian can't that's dictated by the class and not the stats?
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There are lots and lots of dialogue choices locked behind things like stat walls, class/race choices, character background.
 
I'm gonna be very boring and go with a standard male, human fighter. At least until I get to know the races and classes better.
 
Sinatar said:
I like the magical fantasy scenario he paints for Fallout (which he clearly didn't play) explaining a scenario that is impossible to encounter. Go Polygon go.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that scenario 100% doesn't exist in Fallout. The critical path was planned out very carefully to the point where you could be a maniac and kill all the quest npcs on sight and still complete it, or skip huge sections of the game and complete it, or complete it through diplomacy, etc. etc. You know. While the game systems aren't balanced whatsoever, there's so much in terms of inventive possibility there that would seem very difficult to reconcile with an obsession with balance.
 
Farks! said:
I'm gonna be very boring and go with a standard male, human fighter. At least until I get to know the races and classes better.
Click to expand...

that is funny, considering that
one of the companions is a standard male, human (and I'm just gonna presume) boring fighter
 
V_Arnold said:
I went with Cipher, and I did not regret it.
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Am I right in thinking that Ciphers can only ever know 2 spells from each level? So once I have picked the 2 level 2 spells I will know I will never be able to use all the other level 2 spells with that character for the rest of the game?
 
Farks! said:
I'm gonna be very boring and go with a standard male, human fighter. At least until I get to know the races and classes better.
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There isn't much to fuck up tbh. You get a fighter companion almost straight away too so you might as well try something new!

joshbob1985 said:
Am I right in thinking that Ciphers can only ever know 2 spells from each level? So once I have picked the 2 level 2 spells I will know I will never be able to use all the other level 2 spells with that character for the rest of the game?
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Incorrect, you learn two at a time when you level up. But you can have a billion on the hotbar.
 
Violet_0 said:
gonna roll a 16-18 intellect, perception, resolve chanter. May the gods have mercy with my soul
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This is actually very viable. High intellect is essential for Chanters, as they're hugely AoE-dependent. High Perception and Resolve stack with your already high Deflection, giving you a lot of survivability. You'll end up with sort of have a frontline support tank, not dishing out much direct damage, but able to stay on your feet long enough to provide buffs to your damage-dealers and debuffs to your enemies.

(Your real problem is that you're not going to have much Endurance, but with careful placement/engagement and your high Deflection, you should be able to ride it out.)

joshbob1985 said:
Am I right in thinking that Ciphers can only ever know 2 spells from each level? So once I have picked the 2 level 2 spells I will know I will never be able to use all the other level 2 spells with that character for the rest of the game?
Click to expand...
Afaik, no, you can pick your powers from any level you've previously unlocked.
 
LurkerPrime said:
Not finished the article yet, but my current kneejerk reaction is, "building a viable character, rather than just a character, is an important part of these old games." Unless Obsidian's done a wonderful job, they might have abstracted character attributes to the point that they're truly meaningless at representing a character's... attributes.

Edit: Yeah. That remains my stance on this.
Click to expand...

I disagree with you so bad. Building a viable character should never be the point. Maybe it's because I come from P&P RPGs rather than strictly CRPGs, but I much rather have the freedom to experiment with my character than be constrained by optimality and stat tinkering.
And it's not like min-maxing is irrelevant in their system, there will be many "optimal builds" and ways to break the system - It is IMPOSSIBLE to build an RPG system that is balanced for every type of character. The current system just promotes freedom and role-playing and slightly reduces the importance of configuring your build (though doesn't remove it entirely.)
 
I usually roll a Cleric, so I may give Priest a shot. I haven't heard much about how they play though. It should be interesting since your Holy Radiance is dependent on roleplaying close to your chosen faith. Anyone else going Priest?
 
I think I'm going to end up playing the early part of the game a number of times to see what classes I like. I wasn't in the backer beta, so I don't have any experience with the classes yet.

Monk and Cipher both sound cool and different. I do also like making twinked out fighters in D&D games so I'll probably end up with one of those at some point maybe a future play though. If there is no Monk companion, I would likely lean toward that, but I'd need to try it a bit first and see if I like the game play. Really excited to try this out!
 
Shake Appeal said:
This is actually very viable. High intellect is essential for Chanters, as they're hugely AoE-dependent. High Perception and Resolve stack with your already high Deflection, giving you a lot of survivability. You'll end up with sort of have a frontline support tank, not dishing out much direct damage, but able to stay on your feet long enough to provide buffs to your damage-dealers and debuffs to your enemies.
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yup, that is my calculation. Chanter doesn't really seem to need might or vitality or dexterity, so I can focus on these three stats and make a talky characters, and besides it's the coolest class anyway. It'll will be sort of like with my character in MotB who was just chilling in combat, playing a few songs and stinging enemies with crossbow bolts while Okku ripped everything to shreds
 
Violet_0 said:
gonna roll a 16-18 intellect, perception, resolve chanter. May the gods have mercy with my soul
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I'm doing this too. I think those stats will be fun in dialogue and I love the idea of the chanter. I -always- play a ranger, but there's too many cool classes to not branch out.
 
It just occurred to me how awesome a six-player party is. I can probably throw a created character or two in there without sacrificing too much of Obsidian's glorious companion writing.
The Technomancer said:
I like Jeff Vogel's take on it. When talking about overhauling the character creation and progression for his games specifically he said
Click to expand...

I can confirm that this is how Jeff designs his games. When he lays it out like that it seems really ridiculous...

The Technomancer said:
Is the GiantBomb player broken in every browser on Mac for anyone else lately? The play button straight up doesn't show up in Chrome and in Safari and Firefox I get a "please use a Flash or HTML5 compatible browser" message
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, Giant Bomb's video player is garbage. And I don't know about Mac, but on PC their player has always had its share of problems.

EviLore said:
Yeah, that scenario 100% doesn't exist in Fallout. The critical path was planned out very carefully to the point where you could be a maniac and kill all the quest npcs on sight and still complete it, or skip huge sections of the game and complete it, or complete it through diplomacy, etc. etc. You know. While the game systems aren't balanced whatsoever, there's so much in terms of inventive possibility there that would seem very difficult to reconcile with an obsession with balance.
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Polygon always rolls a 1.

dude said:
I disagree with you so bad. Building a viable character should never be the point. Maybe it's because I come from P&P RPGs rather than strictly CRPGs, but I much rather have the freedom to experiment with my character than be constrained by optimality and stat tinkering.
And it's not like min-maxing is irrelevant in their system, there will be many "optimal builds" and ways to break the system - It is IMPOSSIBLE to build an RPG system that is balanced for every type of character. The current system just promotes freedom and role-playing and slightly reduces the importance of configuring your build (though doesn't remove it entirely.)
Click to expand...
Well, I mean, I agree with you largely. But when you know, for instance in D&D systems, that high strength is required for accuracy and damage, but deliberately build a low strength character, you can't be surprised that they suck in combat. I guess I mean, when the system gives players the info to build a decent character and they don't there should be no surprise. Of course, in the quoted Jeff Vogel example, that's a bad way to do it.

My real problem with Obsidian's system is that I just don't like how it abstracts the numbers away from the characters the numbers represent. What does a high might character look like? No one knows; perhaps athletics (or maybe both) would probably be a better indicator. And then, when you ask the same question about a high might wizard, everything goes sideways.
 
tringworldso said:
What would be the best stat dump and character class if I want to solve situations through dialog + be able to select all the dialogue choices?
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All attributes apparently have equal spread over dialogue options, each is set to a specific dialogue type such as Might to Aggressive responses. So there is no specific dump stat. Probably similar to classes and skills as well. So pick which ones appeal to you the most. Plus there's the whole reputation system too that builds up based on your choices, so there's not inherent dialogue route in the game. You're going to have to miss out on some stuff.

As well it's also really important to note that these special dialogue options aren't win options. Sometimes they will be objectively worse than the normal options everyone has available. They are often simply alternatives for RPing. So you might choose a response that is available due to high Intellect but that'll just piss off whoever you are talking to and cause you to get in a fight when if you chose an Aggressive or just normal dialogue option they wouldn't have attacked.
 
I'm pretty sure I beat Fallout 1 with an idiot who wasn't able to talk and barley could hold a club (with cheats though, cause I wanted to see how the late game reacts to my idiot).
Maybe that was Fallout 2 though.

MAN remember when making a character with really low INT had an actual effect? Fallout is such a damn cool series (I just hate the battle system)
 
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