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Let's say I want to play a fighter/mage sort of character. I'm thinking I'll probably play on Hard (maybe Normal, I dunno--I'm not super experienced with Infinity Engine games but I want the game to actually expect me to learn and use the mechanics.) Is a melee Cipher any good? Are there other options for a spellcaster who fights in melee?
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Apr 16, 2015 04:23
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Ravenfood posted:I'm playing one on Hard and she's currently #1 for number of hits and crits, highest damage total, and highest single hit. She's also highest for number of times downed. You want more resolve than another Cipher, other than that they're the same (Dex/Might/Int). Handle the melee combat like you would a rogue and use Mental Binding very liberally: you'll lower their deflection a lot which means more crits which means more focus which means more spells. Other really, really good spells for a melee cipher include Ectopsychic Echo, Mind Wave, Soul Shock, and the DR steal and Accuracy/Deflection steal spells, though realistically I rarely cast those in favor of spamming more Amplified Waves/Mental Bindings. Mind Lance is also really good, especially if you go for flanks. A Mind Lance will rip a line of enemies apart, then you can move the Cipher around a little bit further and set up a really, really good Ectopsychic Echo. Nice, that sounds really promising. What kind of weapons and armor are you using? Thanks for the advice.
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Apr 16, 2015 04:48
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Let's say I'm fairly new to Infinity Engine-style games but I'm open to learning how to effectively micromanage and I don't want the game to be something I can just halfway pay attention to as I play. Is starting on Hard for a first playthrough a bad idea?
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Apr 16, 2015 14:00
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sassassin posted:No. Just get a decent sized party when you reach the first inn. Sounds like exactly what I want. Thanks.
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Apr 16, 2015 14:06
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A question about character building: Is Pillars of Eternity the kind of game where your character is going to end up specializing in a specific weapon type? I'm waffling between making a melee Cipher rocking an estoc or a ranged Cipher with a blunderbuss. Is the melee vs. ranged thing a hard choice--like, there are specialization talents you're eventually going to need to take, or the stat builds are different enough that you can't really make a build that's good for both--or is it more like "pick one to be your main approach and one to be backup?"
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Apr 16, 2015 15:48
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Ah, I didn't realize that weapon focus talents were weapon groups, not specific weapons. That's pretty cool. Thanks for the advice! I'm guessing I'll have time to play around with both melee and ranged weapons before it becomes imperative that I pick up a weapon focus talent.
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Apr 16, 2015 16:29
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I am so amazingly bad at real time with pause combat, oh man. I'm not much past the beginning but the drat Shades in the basement of the Temple of Eothas are eating me alive. I should probably get more party members than Eder, Durance, Aloth, and a hired Rogue, but y'know.
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Apr 19, 2015 02:34
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i am harry posted:I think I'm pausing when I'm actually unpausing so I end up hitting space bar about 10 times in quick succession just to be sure. Go look for the dude you're meant to fine next and come back to it. FRINGE posted:Those are the most difficult thing in the entire beginning of the game. Skip them if they get too annoying. Its an optional area you can come back to. Yeah, I was just being stubborn when I kept banging my head against them. The first floor was a cakewalk (I'm playing on Hard, but I might turn it down if I don't end up getting the hang of it soon), and then the second floor was nasty as hell. I'll go do something else and come back with a full party/more ways to actually hurt those things.
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Apr 19, 2015 03:00
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Fhqwhgads posted:I'm in the typical RPG mindset of More Enemies per encounter = More Experience per encounter. Which I'm learning this game doesn't do. Yeah, no experience from killing enemies at all, which is one thing I kind of like. Makes me keep trying to get through without fighting if I don't have to (which is not particularly easy, given how the stealth system seems to work).
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Apr 19, 2015 14:36
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Stole Kana's arquebus. I am now a gun psychic. Things are going much better.
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Apr 19, 2015 21:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I threw a blunderbuss cipher guide on the official forums because I didn't see a good one by anyone else (other good ones might exist but I hadn't seen them, possibly because I don't watch video guides). I'm actually considering starting over to better min-max my Cipher's stats (not just because of your guide, but a lot of other things I've read). I started out with higher Constitution and Resolve than I probably needed because I was expecting to want to go melee Cipher, but I really quickly figured out ranged felt better, so now my Intelligence and Might are lower than I'd like and I know I'm not really going to get a chance to fix that. (I also took Draining Whip over Biting Whip and that was real dumb, in retrospect.) Harrow fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Apr 20, 2015 |
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Apr 20, 2015 14:37
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Pellisworth posted:Eder Who's a good off-tank among the story NPCs? I just got to Caed Nua, so I'm really early on, but my party is currently: Ranged Cipher main character Eder Kana (serving as "off-tank" right now because he's tougher and more melee capable than anyone else other than Eder) Aloth Durance Hired Rogue NPC Mechanics monkey I'll probably drop the Rogue and level someone else's Mechanics up in favor of a better off-tank, because I'm already really enjoying Kana's buffs and spells, unless the Rogue's damage is good enough to justify dropping someone else.
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Apr 21, 2015 16:23
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A Steampunk Gent posted:Durance starts with a decent mechanics skill and it synergies really well with his 'trap' spells, his level 2 knockdown seal is sick with some stat investment Yeah, I've been leveling his Mechanics skill, so that'll be useful. And yeah, that knockdown seal is wonderful. I've always loved trap spells in this kind of game. derra posted:If you're looking for someone that can take attacks and do decent damage, Pallagina and Kana most naturally fit that role. Personally I like to armor up Durance and flank / hold the line with him as Priest spells are amazing but situational, so it's a constructive use for him in the meantime. precision posted:Pallegina is pretty good if you have a nice Estoc or other big weapon to give her. She's laying down some good damage for me and her always-on Aura buffs are great. Kana's been doing fairly well for me as a front-liner so far, but I don't know much about what Chanters have to do to remain viable there on Hard. I know people have made really good Chanter tanks, but it seems like it might require heavy investment in things that aren't "buffing the hell out of the party," so I might take Kana in a more buff-oriented route and use Pallegina, then. (Once I get her. How far after Caed Nua is she available?)
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Apr 21, 2015 16:51
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I like this game a lot, but also the Infinity Engine games never clicked for me back when they were new and I've never really gone back to revisit them now that I'm a grown up, so maybe I'm just never going to see eye-to-eye with the RPG Codex reviewer.
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Apr 22, 2015 22:07
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Disco Infiva posted:So you're saying that PoE has ruined IE games? Sounds like some good click bait. I'd click it.
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Apr 22, 2015 22:26
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Oasx posted:I think there is a large group over at RPGCodex that wanted a direct copy of Baldur's Gate 2, but with turn based combat. I actually think I would've liked turn-based combat better than real time with pause, really. RTwP and I just don't get along.
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Apr 23, 2015 15:00
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Taear posted:Meanwhile I really dislike turn based because I'm impatient and waiting ages for loads of enemies who can't kill you (think Divinity end game) to take their go is really annoying! I'll readily admit my dislike of RTwP is probably because I'm really, really bad at it. Like, just outright terrible. Also, I haven't actually played Divinity: OS to the end, so I never had to experience that, but that sounds more like a failure to balance (and a failure to implement quality-of-life features like letting you speed up enemy turns) than a problem specifically with turn-based combat. But yeah, that can absolutely happen.
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Apr 23, 2015 15:47
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a slim pixie posted:The BG2 superfans consider those the best parts, so there are some irreconcilable differences of opinion here. Pellisworth posted:Yeah, BG2 was a great game but it gets some serious rose-tinting from all the nostalgia. The magic/spell system was a buggy, opaque, and confusing mess. Once you know the handful of good spells for dealing with magical defenses and the ones you can exploit to break the game over your knee, combat becomes an exercise in recasting party buffs, engaging, and stripping magic defenses in the right order. Caster supremacy is a sacred cow in old-school D&D crowds. After all, it requires "expertise" to know which spells are the best, and you should be rewarded for your expertise! Also, "expertise" means "Google it or ask a forum."
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Apr 23, 2015 19:52
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Astfgl posted:Health/Endurance I can't speak to much of this, but this part seems directly contradictory. Maybe it's different in context, but this reads like the author is complaining that damage in combat lacks long-term consequences, but also that it's too easy to take long-term damage.
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Apr 23, 2015 22:24
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Will I regret dumping Resolve? I'm making a ranged Cipher. I obviously want high Might and Perception for my ranged attacks, and high Intelligence for my AoE spells. Doing that without sacrificing Constitution (low Endurance seems bad) or Dexterity (low action time seems bad) means I'm going to have to dump Resolve, which seems wrong to me. I'll get interrupted very easily if enemies somehow get near, and the roleplayer in me hates the idea that I'm going to miss out on that many conversation options. Not sure if there's a better way to go, though!
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Jan 11, 2016 01:09
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Cool, thanks. One last thing: I started as a human and got to the Gilded Vale, but I just saw the Wood Elf bonus and it seems crazy good for a ranged Cipher. Worth restarting for it or is it small enough not to be a big deal?
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Jan 11, 2016 01:20
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2house2fly posted:I'm agonising in the same way over what the stats will be for my melee wizard. I need high Might to do good damage with my melee weapons and high Constitution so I'm not too fragile to take a blow, and high perception to give my spells the best chance of landing, high Dexterity to attack quickly, high Intellect because I'm pretty sure that'll make my summoned weapons stay with me longer, and high Resolve so I don't get interrupted all the time. What do I dump I really just hate having to dump stats, though I recognize the necessity in games like these. It's always so difficult for me to drop anything down to minimum. I'm playing on Normal so it's probably fine if I don't have perfect stats, but I still want to make this as smooth as possible for myself because real-time-with-pause combat is pretty foreign to me. (I'm also compelled to casually min-max whenever I can because I'm just wired that way, so I do get a certain amount of satisfaction from building my character "right.") The ability to respec is welcome, at least. I'll be curious to see how your melee Wizard goes. That's usually the kind of character I gravitate towards. This time around, being a gun-psychic seems cool enough that I was tempted away from battlemage. Plus Cipher seems to synergize very well with the game's main plot.
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Jan 11, 2016 03:01
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I mean, if I dropped my Might from 17 to 10, I'd be able to raise my Resolve to 10. Is that worth the damage loss, especially when damage is how I get my main resource? (Honest question here, being able to use abilities that rely on Resolve would open up my options quite a bit.) Also, is it worth hiring two NPCs in the Gilded Vale to fill out my four-person party, or will I get two more named party members soon enough? I'm thinking another tank and a rogue would be good.
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Jan 11, 2016 03:17
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Should I be using created NPCs in my party, or entirely named NPCs? I noticed that I don't think you get a Rogue without an expansion, if I'm not mistaken, so if nothing else should I make a Rogue? Or does it not really matter?
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Jan 11, 2016 03:35
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2house2fly posted:Standard companions are fine, and I'd certainly recommend making sure you take all the in-game companions with you to the endgame for the Story Content, but otherwise make all the custom characters you want- you can fill out the Barbarian, Monk and Rogue shaped holes in the roster or make a wizard or fighter with better stats than the ones the game gives you since they're really not optimised. Is there any sort of experience catch-up mechanic, by chance? Like, if I take a custom Wizard along instead of Aloth for a while, will Aloth end up super under-leveled?
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Jan 11, 2016 03:46
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Just looked up melee Wizards in this and now I have this crazy urge to drop my nascent Cipher run and do a melee Wizard. I had no idea that it wasn't just some crazy build someone made but, in fact, totally supported by the class, with powerful summoned weapons and everything. Nope. Just going to do it next run. The next patch has new features for Wizards, right? I think I read that somewhere. Either way if I don't just keep going with this Cipher I'm just going to keep restarting over and over like I always do 
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Jan 11, 2016 15:23
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Taliesyn posted:Hell, some developers consider that gameplay. Look at Verant Interactive and the design decisions they made for Everquest. Eh, a lot of Everquest wasn't necessarily designed intentionally for tedium. It was just, well, How Things Are Done at the time. Everquest was very much just a graphical MUD and so inherited a lot of what people expected of MUDs at the time. Its sin wasn't necessarily intentional tedium, but just not questioning why things are the way they are and just going with it. I'd never claim that Everquest was (or is) a good game, just that I can understand why it is how it is. And at the time it released, it really did seem impossibly epic to my little high school mind. GlyphGryph posted:So I guess the real problem is that some RPG developers seem to somehow confuse tedium and frustration for difficulty? I love games upping the challenge. That is... not what the thieve's warren does. Well, I mean those skeleton warriors are pretty tough so maybe it does that too, but that's not the problem I have with it. FF9 was the exception there because that was story bullshit that made me quit rather than dungeon bullshit. I like Necron 
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Jan 11, 2016 16:36
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Taliesyn posted:Oh, I loved EQ at the time, but let's face it, it set a whole new bar for 'grinding'. A lot of that came from the 'Vision' - they were ADAMANT that dungeons would NEVER be instanced (although that changed...eventually), and that in order to control leveling and gear drops, spawn rates had to be slow - usually in the 15-30 minute range. And then there's the whole 'common drop, 5% rare drop' BS with the occasional 'ultra-rare drop', coupled with 'rare spawn' vs 'common spawn'. And ask any Vanilla or Kunark monk player about Raster. Yeah, you're 100% right about the design mistakes they made. I wonder how much of this is a disconnect between how the designers intended on the game being played and how players responded to their design. Like you say, they intended for people to "clear" dungeons, not camp, but due to their own failures to design it that way, that isn't what happened. They probably intended on super-rare drops being cool treats for lucky players, too, and not things that people felt like they absolutely had to camp for--and yet, because of how competitive even the PvE stuff was, people did feel compelled to camp like crazy, which isn't even close to what compelling gameplay looks like. And a lot of this is just a holdover from how MUDs worked (and, really, still work, in many cases) and Verant just never asked whether it could be done better. I actually kind of miss non-instanced dungeons in MMOs--I loved the idea that dungeons were just as much a part of the game world as the overworld was, and I think the fact that dungeons in games like WoW and GW2 have stories and scenarios baked into them makes repeating them feel even more awkward than it already would. But doing something like that would require a whole design paradigm shift, I think, away from loot progression and requiring people to camp for rare drops, and it's just not something that I ever foresee happening. (I also probably wouldn't play anyway. I just can't do MMOs anymore, even the casual ones.)
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Jan 11, 2016 17:35
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Furism posted:Previously in the thread somebody smarter than me explained that each point of Might is +3% damage - quite negligible compared to the % gain you get from enchants, spells and potions, unless you go all out to 20 Might. Also Might isn't factored in crit damage calculation apparently (I'm just quoting, I haven't checked). Dex is great because it's the only way to reduce the attack animation (Attack Speed bonuses only increase recovery time). All this stuff about Might is interesting because so many Cipher builds seem to insist on 17+ Might no matter what. Part of me is tempted to respec my Might down to 12-ish and put the remainder in either Dexterity (for action speed, though that won't help when I'm using a pistol or blunderbuss) or Resolve (for concentration + some conversation stuff), but at the same time, I really do want to be able to nuke as hard as I can. Antipathetic Field is melting things right now. I've got 17 Might, 18 Perception, 18 Intelligence, and then dumped Resolve to rock bottom. For future reference: what stats would people recommend for a melee Wizard?
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Jan 11, 2016 18:48
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Harrow posted:All this stuff about Might is interesting because so many Cipher builds seem to insist on 17+ Might no matter what. Part of me is tempted to respec my Might down to 12-ish and put the remainder in either Dexterity (for action speed, though that won't help when I'm using a pistol or blunderbuss) or Resolve (for concentration + some conversation stuff), but at the same time, I really do want to be able to nuke as hard as I can. Antipathetic Field is melting things right now. I've got 17 Might, 18 Perception, 18 Intelligence, and then dumped Resolve to rock bottom. Quoting myself from the previous page because I'm hungry for min-max stat advice nonsense.
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Jan 11, 2016 18:55
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Furism posted:Might is still fairly important for Ciphers, I feel, because it's really the only way to increase their spell damage. So if you build a more DPS-oriented Cipher, I'd say it can be pretty important. But in that case, go for 20 Might directly and dump something else. On the other hand, Antipathetic Field (and Ectopsychic Echo even more) build so much base damage that I honestly never felt I needed to bump it even more. I like my Cipher to be somewhat versatile so I don't usually dump any stat on them. I typically bump Dex and Perception to improve the cast times and accuracy. But that's on PotD so on lower difficulties it might not be necessary to bump Perception in the ~18 range. Yeah, I'm a sucker for versatility, which is why dumping Resolve down to 3 feels so odd to me. Granted, I'm only playing on Normal, so maybe the 18 Perception I have isn't strictly necessary, or 10 Constitution, but I really don't know yet. At least I can respec if I want to. Having more Resolve for longer cast-time powers and controlling seems useful.
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Jan 11, 2016 23:07
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How do you successfully use tanks? I'm pretty bad at real time with pause combat overall, though I'm trying to get better. One thing I'm having a tough time figuring out is how to best use tanks--how to position them well, make sure they grab and hold aggro, etc. This also includes reach weapons. I've seen a lot of guides talking about reach weapons letting your characters stay out of melee, but it always seems like they end up engaged with enemies anyway. Positioning is hard, is what I'm saying. So far I'm not having a ton of difficulty, but I'd love to keep my non-tank melee attackers from getting focused down so often.
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Jan 12, 2016 00:21
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I started a melee Wizard just to give it a shot and now I am paralyzed with indecision between that and my gun-psychic Cipher dude. That Parasitic Staff spell is already amazing. RPGs are very difficult for me. Not the gameplay. Just having to choose. Harrow fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jan 12, 2016 |
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Jan 12, 2016 03:30
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, sometimes half the fun is just making up a shitload of characters. I feel like the "canonical" PC is a cipher, so I'm sticking with that as my main, but adding a couple crazy-build NPC adventurers adds a lot of fun. This Forgemaster's Gloves Carnage barbarian is a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Yeah, a good part of why I'm playing a Cipher is because it seems to dovetail so well with the whole Watcher thing. That said, I'm not sure I like playing a Cipher as much as I like the (very, very early) melee Wizard--buffing up and going to town with a very powerful summoned weapon is pretty satisfying, and even with 14 Might at level 1 I was seeing damage numbers from Parasitic Staff swings that my level 3 Cipher can't touch except with an arquebus shot. But part of it is that I'm having a tough time using Antipathetic Field to any real effect. Usually I spend so much time maneuvering to be able to use it without nuking my own party members that it ends up having pretty limited effect. Hence my indecision about what to make my main dude! (I heard somewhere that Wizards are getting more quality-of-life improvements in 3.0? Something about an encounter spell slot or something? Maybe I'll do a melee Wizard second playthrough or something.)
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Jan 12, 2016 04:55
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Ciphers really take off once you get Mental Binding and a blunderbuss (preferably the Lead Spitter, which you can theoretically get as early as level 4/5 if you beeline straight for it, though it may take some doing on higher difficulties). Before that it's hard to really go to town. After that you're a one-man psychic William Munny. The arquebus is nice and all but it doesn't compare. Oh yeah, Mental Binding. I just started using that more and suddenly I'm really coming around on Cipher. I also finally got a second spider leg so I could enchant The Disappointer, which is at least faster than the arquebus I stole from Kana. I'll look forward to the blunderbuss, too.
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Jan 12, 2016 05:43
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:edit: my pick for first level powers is eye strike, mind wave, soul shock. Others are too finicky to use or outclassed by other options that do the same thing better. Second tier powers, get Mental Binding and it doesn't matter what else. Third tier powers, puppet master and ectopsychic echo (which is easier to use by far than antipathetic field because you control both endpoints of the chain). It's good to know there'll be something easier to use than Antipathetic Field. It does great damage but it's a huge pain in the rear end not to melt my own poor team with it. drgnvale posted:Throw that gun in the trash, man The Disappointer? When you enchant it, it loses the Terrible modifier and becomes a pretty decent pistol. I think (from what I remember from an aborted playthrough from a few months ago) there's a much better one available as soon as I get Pallegina, though, so I'll probably ditch it then.
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Jan 12, 2016 16:48
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Fishstick posted:Ectopsychic Echo is basically Antipathetic Field 2.0. Bigger damage, but 1) You target an ally instead of an enemy, so it's easier to control and most importantly 2) It's Foe-only, so the beam won't even hurt your teammates. Between Mental Binding and Echo you can dominate a lot of fights very easily. The best news. Until then I'll content myself with being a crowd control monster. 
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Jan 12, 2016 17:05
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I'm weirdly glad that my desktop PC shat the bed right before Dragon's Dogma launched on PC, because it made me check to see if Pillars of Eternity would run on my laptop (it does, on the lowest settings) and then suddenly become obsessed with it. Dunno why it didn't grab me before. Maybe I'm finally figuring out real-time-with-pause combat.
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Jan 12, 2016 22:19
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AriadneThread posted:I don't think Wasteland 2 was... bad, as such, but it did make me feel i made the right decision in passing on the tides of numera kickstarter I was excited for Tides of Numenera, but then seeing the actual Numenera system and the surprising blandness of the setting (given its cool premise) has kind of dampened that. Then I saw that combat scenario gameplay video they put out a while back and it looks like the game is bending over backwards to emulate Numenera's tabletop system, up to and including weighing down every action with the "do you want to spend Effort?" thing and I'm just... I'll pass on that one. Maybe the writing and scenario design will be compelling enough to make me interested again, but not based on the gameplay.
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Jan 14, 2016 01:42
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GlyphGryph posted:Oh. Oh no. You can't be serious? They aren't really trying to do another direct port of a P&P system, are they? Here's the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU-Hi7xHnSk Any time some sort of task that involves a roll comes up, you can spend effort like in the tabletop game, which slows things down a bunch. Plus, it seems to have that weird stats = health thing that Numenera's Cypher system has, where you don't have HP, but rather a Might pool, Intellect pool, and Agility pool, which attacks can damage and which you spend to get bonuses on your rolls (that effort thing I mentioned above).
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Jan 14, 2016 02:13
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