Pillars of Eternity - 3.04 Beta Live

[Aubrielle]

Many of us thought that 3.03 would be the last update for Pillars of Eternity, but Obsidian is releasing at least one more patch, and they're currently looking for beta testers for it.

GameBanshee is curious whether we might also see a crowdfunding effort for a sequel soon...

​

Major Bug Fixes:
(These fixes will be retroactive)

• Brighthollow upstairs will no longer error on transition
• Hiravias and Durance will no longer break party manager in the base game
• Characters put into the stronghold with the Rod of Wind and Thunder will no longer break party manager in base game
• Fighter, Confident Aim doubling on Save/Load

Bug Fixes:

• Engagement is now broken when characters are knocked back
• Personal 'Total Damage Done' no longer comes up as '-Infinity'
• Multiple issues with Glittering Gauntles
• Fixed the Nav around the adra pillar in Elmshore
• Cape of the Cheat will now be rewarded to base and px1 players
• Charming all enemies in a combat will no longer reset combat
• Audio cutting out in the End Slides following the White March
• Skeleton Wizard 'Necrotic Lance' set up as a ray
• VFX that start from character heads (breath weapons, etc..) misaligned
• Korean Loc issue with text getting cut off during Character Creation
• Barbarian, Bash hitting multiple targets with Carnage
• Chanter, Ancient Memory no longer deactivates after casting an Invocation
• Cipher, Phantom Foes flanked debuff being removed when the enemy is engaged
• Cipher, Psychic Backlash hitting the Cipher at the start of combat
• Druid, Fire Stag *Missing gui* in the combat log
• Druid, Infestation of Maggots now does the intended amount of damage per tic
• Monk, Torment's Reach no longer procs off every enemy hit
• Priest, Seal spells no longer activate twice
• Priest, Iconic Projection no longer bypasses DR
• Ranger, Twinned Arrow + Driving Flight accuracy issues
• Ranger, Powder Burns now works as intended with DR Penetration
• Wizard, Wall of Draining no longer increases beneficial spells permanently

Balance Changes:

• Sabre base damage will drop from 13-19 to 11-16 and are given a +20% damage mod. They should still take the 'top damage' slot but this change should lower them enough to encourage other options.

More information.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Engagement is now broken when characters are knocked back

Reads like a big change.

 

[sakichop]

So is it safe to play it now!

 

[Moriendor]

So is it safe to play it now!

I would not risk it. With Obsidian the chances are high that this beta patch is going to break the game more than it was broken all the way back in alpha pre-release .

 

[ElderGnome]

Disappointing that the game is still being "worked" on. These games have one play through for me that I enjoy; with PoE I played the game and beat it when it came out, and then again after I had all the DLC.

There's just no way I would be able to spend any more time in that game, as it is I have dialogue memorized in some portions just from repeating them. I wonder who the audience is for a patch like this, somebody who goes, "Wow, I finished PoE but now that they've made some minor changes I think I'll do it again!"

Or they're just prepping and testing changes to implement in their new game in which case carry on, I suppose. These development cycles of "never done" make me want to go back and play games that were done in an era when things got done.

I'm off to chase children off my lawn now.

 

[forgottenlor]

Disappointing that the game is still being "worked" on. These games have one play through for me that I enjoy; with PoE I played the game and beat it when it came out, and then again after I had all the DLC.

There's just no way I would be able to spend any more time in that game, as it is I have dialogue memorized in some portions just from repeating them. I wonder who the audience is for a patch like this, somebody who goes, "Wow, I finished PoE but now that they've made some minor changes I think I'll do it again!"

Or they're just prepping and testing changes to implement in their new game in which case carry on, I suppose. These development cycles of "never done" make me want to go back and play games that were done in an era when things got done.

I'm off to chase children off my lawn now.

I used to think that way too. Many of the games that continue to be patched are fun for me when they come out though, and since I don't notice any problems with them (POE was like that for me) I could care less that they are still being patched. On the other hand I had to give up Crusader Kings 2 after the last patch. It worked great for me for 20 hours (the earlier version), but since the latest patch it continuously crashed on me.

 

[Pessimeister]

Disappointing that the game is still being "worked" on. These games have one play through for me that I enjoy; with PoE I played the game and beat it when it came out, and then again after I had all the DLC.

I respectfully disagree. I think it's pretty disingenuous really to complain when a developer is actively trying to improve their product. I'm happy that Obsidian is still tweaking and refining. Further; the game has enough choices and party configuration options to merit the replays.

My only minor irritation with Pillars of Eternity was the slightly awkward manner in which content was staggered out with the release of the White March. As while I've completed the game twice, I'm still yet to play the White March part two. Absence makes the heart grow fonder as they say, so I'll simply wait awhile before getting back into it.

 

[rjshae]

To me it's a big plus that they are working to balance and polish up a system that will presumably be used for the successor game(s). By then it should be nicely refined, and they can focus on other aspects of the release.

 

[Moriendor]

I respectfully disagree. I think it's pretty disingenuous really to complain when a developer is actively trying to improve their product. I'm happy that Obsidian is still tweaking and refining.

I'm happy about that, too, because I have not played the game yet but I can also fully understand where ye olde gnome is coming from .

How long should a developer take to "fix" their game? PoE was released a looong time ago (March 2015) and, in spite of what some people are saying, it did and does have glaring issues (I mean simply check out the patch notes for the previous 13(!) patches or the official forums which have a fair amount of threads dealing with blatant bugs).
I'm glad for anyone who managed to avoid the issues but they are/were there or these patches would not be necessary, right?

Another repeating pattern is that people complain about the vanilla game being front-loaded but the second half being pretty mediocre. This makes me wonder if the time "wasted" on the second half of the game to make it more "epic", with what many people apparently consider filler crap, would not have been better spent on a shorter but more polished (= more "complete") experience.

I do not think it is too much to ask for more focus on a quality release version. They really need to up their QA big time and provide a much better user experience from the start in my worthless opinion.
But all that people like the gnome and me can do is to vote with our wallets.
I, for one, will not be backing an Obsidian game ever again. That much is certain. I might buy Tyranny or PoE 2 whenever they release the final patch for those games (in case the reviews are decent) but I'm done pledging/buying and then playing the waiting game for all eternity (pardon the pun ).

 

[KaosWarMonk]

As stated before I haven't played a game at release for a very long time - I saw too many train wrecks in the early days. It's usually a year or two after release that I get around to it. I do this mainly to wait for all extra content that gets tacked on but also to allow the devs (or sometimes the community) to fix whatever bugs come up. So this sort of thing is fine with the likes of me.

 

[CelticFrost]

I did a complete play through on release and only had one major bug that was fixed within 24 hours. The biggest complaint I was how the games story tapered off in the last third of the game, which they fixed in a huge way with the release of the White March one and two.

I did a complete replay of the game after they were both released.

 

[you]

The release game was very play-able and I can think it is only a positive that they continue to support.

 

[Couchpotato]

The release game was very play-able and I can think it is only a positive that they continue to support.

I agree as I didn't run into any game breaking bugs since POE was first released, and a developer supporting a game years after it's release is a bonus nowadays.

 

[CelticFrost]

I agree as I didn't run into any game breaking bugs since POE was first released, and a developer supporting a game years after it's release is a bonus nowadays.

There was one at Raedric's Hold for a lot of people like myself. Though it was fixed right away.

 

[Stingray]

I played PoE once, after the last DLC came out (as I commonly do). At the time, the current version was 3.02. Ran into a game-breaking bug. Found that it was already being discussed on the official forum, and we were told by an Obsidian employee that it would be fixed in 3.03. Asked when it would be released, no answer. I ended up using cheats to get past the problematic area. Good thing, too, because that 3.03 version with the fix didn't end up being released until 4 months later. Unbelievable really that you would have to wait that long for a major bug to be fixed in a game that had already been out for a year.

If it had been Larian, they probably would have asked me to email my savegame in and they would have fixed it for me within 24 hrs.

 

[TomRon]

I actually didn't encounter a single bug in my playthrough right after release, not as far as I can recall anyway. I understand people get angry of their game breaks halfway through though, that's inexcusable and hotfixes should be made ASAP.

My biggest and only gripe with the game was that all the classes felt samish and most abilities were lackluster. That might just be me not having the same understanding of the mechanics as I do when playing games like BG though.

I will undoubtedly back their next game too though. Obsidian, Inxile and Larian are no-brainers for me and will have my support as long as they keep delivering what I want.