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Pillars of Eternity Gamescom footage
- Thread starter Lime
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Pyros_Eien
Member
I think the complaint about Easy mode being hard is a valid one. Not one I personally adhere to in the sense that I don't play games on easy, but if you have the option in your game, then easy should be easy. It shouldn't be challenging, the whole point of the easy setting is that it's NOT challenging. Normal should be challenging and hard should require thought, planning and still challenge you. This is the entire point of having a scaling difficulty system, if easy is challenging, then you have an issue and while I wouldn't mind if hard was like really hard, I still wouldn't agree it's good design.
Some people enjoy just going through a game for the story, character building and progression and stuff like that and don't care about the combat being challenging, and that's fine in my opinion. You can design your game to not accomodate these people and that's also perfectly fine, but having a difficulty setting means you are trying to, so you should do it.
That said, it's obviously an early beta phase so balance is probably not the greatest, plus we don't even know if the characters for example had good gear, were speced correctly and stuff like that. Maybe the NPCs for your team weren't set properly leading to issues in balance compared to playing the game normally up to this point.
Some people enjoy just going through a game for the story, character building and progression and stuff like that and don't care about the combat being challenging, and that's fine in my opinion. You can design your game to not accomodate these people and that's also perfectly fine, but having a difficulty setting means you are trying to, so you should do it.
That said, it's obviously an early beta phase so balance is probably not the greatest, plus we don't even know if the characters for example had good gear, were speced correctly and stuff like that. Maybe the NPCs for your team weren't set properly leading to issues in balance compared to playing the game normally up to this point.
I'd say I agree with you regarding the difficulty settings, but I also believe that a lot of great moments in the gaming experience come from overcoming these obstacles that seemed impossible at first. That's why games like Dark Souls end up being so memorable (among many other things, of course) - I was stuck on the second boss (Taurus Demon) of that game for a MONTH. Everytime I tried to kill the bastard, I failed. I died and I died and I died over and over and over again, until one day I got him by the skin of my teeth (and proceeded to die later anyway).
During my second playthrough with a very different character, I breezed through that part. It took me less than 30 minutes from the start of the game to defeat that boss. Now, I'm definitely no master at Dark Souls (and, actually, still get my ass kicked every once in a while if I'm careless), but the point is... a certain amount of challenge is good. So good that, IMHO, enhances the whole thing - because you feel and you know how you/your character is actually learning how to tackle different situations and is adapting to survive and overcome. A game without a challenge ends up feeling like an interactive novel, for me.
Now, you can say "well, in your Dark Souls example you said you got over that part easily during your SECOND playthrough, how is this relevant if we're talking about a really difficult part early in the game?" and that's kinda my point too. If you get to one of these parts early and you get #rekt, then you analyze the situation from a different point of view, or you try to realize what it is that you did wrong, and maybe you check if that part is actually doable at the early stage you're in or maybe it's an optional sidequest/encounter meant to be realized at a later stage. And if it's doable at that stage and you actually manage to do it, then congrats! Now you know HOW to tackle the same kind of encounters later in the game, maybe even later in the same area.
That's the beauty of it, I guess. Even though I have been certainly frustrated with some things in my BG2 playthrough that make me reconsider
[BG2 early spoilers?]
During my second playthrough with a very different character, I breezed through that part. It took me less than 30 minutes from the start of the game to defeat that boss. Now, I'm definitely no master at Dark Souls (and, actually, still get my ass kicked every once in a while if I'm careless), but the point is... a certain amount of challenge is good. So good that, IMHO, enhances the whole thing - because you feel and you know how you/your character is actually learning how to tackle different situations and is adapting to survive and overcome. A game without a challenge ends up feeling like an interactive novel, for me.
Now, you can say "well, in your Dark Souls example you said you got over that part easily during your SECOND playthrough, how is this relevant if we're talking about a really difficult part early in the game?" and that's kinda my point too. If you get to one of these parts early and you get #rekt, then you analyze the situation from a different point of view, or you try to realize what it is that you did wrong, and maybe you check if that part is actually doable at the early stage you're in or maybe it's an optional sidequest/encounter meant to be realized at a later stage. And if it's doable at that stage and you actually manage to do it, then congrats! Now you know HOW to tackle the same kind of encounters later in the game, maybe even later in the same area.
That's the beauty of it, I guess. Even though I have been certainly frustrated with some things in my BG2 playthrough that make me reconsider
[BG2 early spoilers?]
during the Windspear Hills quest, fucking Samia and her party of goddamn fuckers attacking me after looting the tomb... I tried multiple times, different strategies, summoning monsters and all that kind of stuff and I still died. I got very frustrated and ALMOST rage-quit, but I decided to avoid the encounter by taking the "easy" way: I killed her before looting the tomb. I got far less EXP and missed out on looting all of her companion's corpses but... hey, one less headache for me.
It's a successor to the IE games, and challenging encounters where one of their staples. The person who wrote that either didn't play the IE games or didn't know what they were backing.
On a different note, I quite liked this:
In fact, I would love a bestiary/encyclopedia en Baldur's Gate 2 to help me check the monsters' stats and even a bit of lore. I like the fact they're putting that in PoE: it helps the players and also gives the game world a bit more detail.
In fact, I would love a bestiary/encyclopedia en Baldur's Gate 2 to help me check the monsters' stats and even a bit of lore. I like the fact they're putting that in PoE: it helps the players and also gives the game world a bit more detail.
Murder. She Wrote
Member
Does that grass look weird to anyone else? The animations/spell effects don't look too hot but even if they don't fix that by release I won't be too mad.
Vlodril
Member
Yes the encyclopedia is great. I like how it gets updated the more you actually encounter the creatures.
PoE definitely feels like a game that will have a lot of nice little features that you might not get with a larger game that has a big dev team. The Beastiary and the story slides art are prime examples of this I think, same for the Almanac being written from the perspective of a cult in the game. It's a really nice little touch and novel way to add in some different story telling elements into the game.
that's a great touch that prevents it from becoming "HERE'S HOW TO DEFEAT YOUR ENEMIES" instantly.
oh, I didn't know that - sounds damn good, to be honest.
Obsidian is still crowdfunding Pillars of Eternity until August 22, so you can 'pre-order' at a reduced price or even pledge for other rewards.
https://eternity.obsidian.net/buy
From evdk at RPGcodex:
Haha!
I hope the GAF inn ends up being pretty useful in the game.
I wouldn't worry too much about the difficulty balance in a press demo being representative of the final product. Testing out our game's demo for Gamescom was amazingly easy and it won't be tuned that way for the final game.
But this video could be cause for thinking that producers are bad at games.
I wouldn't worry too much about the difficulty balance in a press demo being representative of the final product. Testing out our game's demo for Gamescom was amazingly easy and it won't be tuned that way for the final game.
But this video could be cause for thinking that producers are bad at games.
LOL, brilliant
Most like BG and Icewind Dale. Though they are all Real Time with Pausing, well except Arcanum, that had a fucked up turn based or realtime combat, still amazing game though.
I agree, that's a really nice feature which I will probably use a lot.
lol, well done.From evdk at RPGcodex:
I love that. It reminds me of the Witcher 2, where you could learn more about monsters by either fighting more of them, or reading books in the world about them.
Buggy Loop
Member
Wow the game is gonna be incredible. It reminds me so much of BGII. The graphics are gorgeous. It hypes me a lot for the other RPG im more excited about that uses the same engine, Torment.
A much better video. It clearly shows off the mechanics involved, especially the Ogre fight.
A new demo presentation or is it just playing the archived footage?
The same demo but maybe he can beat the beetles this time.
Is it me or it's just as beautiful as Baldur's Gate 2 ?
I mean there are 10y+ between the two games and I can't see any major difference on screenshots. I suppose lighting is more dynamic and spells FX are to today's standards.
But still... I don't know. Is there a better video ?
Also, is that Vancian magic ? That's what I missed most since BG2.
I mean there are 10y+ between the two games and I can't see any major difference on screenshots. I suppose lighting is more dynamic and spells FX are to today's standards.
But still... I don't know. Is there a better video ?
Also, is that Vancian magic ? That's what I missed most since BG2.
In screenshots perhaps so, but you should have another look at BG2 characters/enemies in motion. Hint: it ain't pretty.
I was hoping for more like neverwinter nights as I have yet to play baldurs gate 2 properly as I didn't enjoy the combat system. And I really want to play this game, looks amazing.
Lord Phol
Member
The game is beauitful I don't know what some people are on about, it's way better looking than the old infinity engine games. Combat looks fun and strategic, overall I'm getting alot of BG2 vibes (never played icewind dale and planescape unfortunetly) which is a good thing. Really looking forward to playing this!
Well, the vids on Twitch and YT are not good quality so it's really hard to judge if it's actually beautiful.
The screenshots are not mindblowing.. if you have anything to share, feel free to do so.
Lord Phol
Member
I'm judging mainly from the Twitch footage which to me looks great even though the stream quality isn't the best. To me it's clear as day that the visuals are better than the old games, watching some BA2 footage on youtube makes it even more obvious IMO.
Wiktor
Member
Well..there's a lot mor animated elements on maps too, the pre-rendered stuff is more detailed and most of all characters look a lot bettter. Their animations are still rough, but even in this state they're leagues beyod anything BG2 did.
probably not in screenshots, but you compare both games in motion and you can see PoE is far, far more fluid and "fast". BG2 is cumbersome and stiff. I still think it looks great, though - and playing it with the widescreen mod lets the backdrops shine!
Re: the new twitch stream - I missed, any way to watch it again? Is there a stream archive?
The encyclopedia and interactive vignettes are going to be magic, with the classic descriptive prose and that beautiful hand-drawn art. Really looking forward to experiencing those along with the companion conversations in the full game.
And as anyone should have expected, combat also makes for a notably better presentation once out of the low-level doldrums. Should be fun giving it a workout in the beta.
And as anyone should have expected, combat also makes for a notably better presentation once out of the low-level doldrums. Should be fun giving it a workout in the beta.