Update #42 - The Backer Beta is Live!

Discussion in 'News Comments' started by Dark Elf, Nov 16, 2017.

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  1. Dark Elf

    Dark Elf Administrator Staff Member

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    Greetings, everyone. In this latest update, we are very happy to announce that the Backer Beta is now live! If you pledged at a tier that included the Backer Beta, or purchased it as an add-on during the Fig campaign, you can get your key for either Steam or GOG in the Products Page of your Account Profile. Then head on over to our forums for instructions on how to get the beta set up. We know you're excited to play, so go ahead and get to it! It's okay. We'll continue on when you're installing the Backer Beta.

    Installing? Great!

    Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Producer Katrina Garsten, sat down with Design Director Josh Sawyer, to ask him about the Backer Beta and what players can expect, so let's check out what they have for us!



    Excited about the Backer Beta? So are we! We're looking forward to getting all of your feedback to help make Deadfire the premier RPG. If you didn't get the Backer Beta during the campaign, you are still able to add it to your existing pledge now!

    But Wait, There's More!

    Today also marks the release of Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition. This complete collection of Pillars of Eternity comes with everything from the Royal Edition as well as both of the White Marchexpansions. Not only that, but we're also releasing a new free DLC for Pillars of Eternity called the "Deadfire Pack" that will get you some new Deadfire inspired items! You can get the Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition now on Steam or GOG.

    And one more thing...

    The Coming Soon page for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is now live on Steam and GOG complete with a new trailer and new screenshots!



    That's all for this update. We'll be back before the end of the year and take a look back on how far Deadfire has come since the launch of the campaign back in January (along with a few fun surprises). See you all then!

    If you missed the last update, be sure to check it out!
     
  2. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

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    I've been going through the older updates, and I think the multiclassing system along with subclassing will add a lot to the sequel in terms of replayability and being able to produce really specific builds. I'm thinking the sequel will be quite a lot better than the original, or at the very least they can't make the bug fixes and support process much worse than what they did for the first game.

    I was also thinking about the first game some more, and I think I finally settled on a good description of it. I'd have to say it's my least-favourite favourite RPG. While I would say it's in my favourites category, so many things make it a bit rough around the edges and the patching process was so dire that it's definitely right at the bottom of the pile of my favourites. Hopefully the sequel will redress the balance.
     
  3. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

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    Double posting for the fun of it, if any of you were finding it hard to keep track of what has and hasn't been announced in the updates (also by JE Sawyer elsewhere), someone over on the Deadfire forums collated it all - see here. I know I hadn't been following it too closely, and have forgotten a lot of the details I read all along.

    Something people keep griping about is the new armour mechanic. Essentially every weapon will have a certain penetration (I presume these are like the old damage types, so a warhammer will have a crush/pierce penetration value) and enemies now have an armor rating for that damage type. If you're penetration is even a point less than their AR, you'll do only 30% damage. If it's equal you do 100%, and if it's double you do 130%.

    Hopefully this is something that set straight in the beta, as it seems like a punitive system. I suppose it's a two way street, and if you're tanky then enemies will do similar nerfed damage to you - but I don't think armoring up so you take only 30% will feel particularly thrilling either.
     
  4. Zanza

    Zanza Well-Known Member

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    How dare you double post. A crazy fanfic writer of gay alchemists doing it on their work benches poured a lot of time and angst into the forum rules only for you to ignore it!
     
  5. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

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    Caity's rules were sacrosanct Zanza, and no amount of unholy text-based tournament matches which may or may not have caused her to leave can reverse the sacred covenant she made in binding those rules to forum.

    Seems like Obsidian flubbed their "last patch" for PoE anyway, at least for mac and linux users, rendering the game playable but not in expansion areas because there's massive pink splotches all over because they haven't managed to somehow sort the unpacking of their texture directories in their installers out. You'd really think if this patch was supposedly meant to correspond to a definitive edition, someone might actually try to really, really not fuck this patch up - but apparently not.

    I think one of my worst internet deeds to date was there was some bright, bushy-tailed dev (or someone designated as an Obsidian dev on their forums, I guess he was more likely a community liaison) who used to sign off every forum post (as in not a signature, a typed - or at least copy-and-pasted - sign off) with, "I've got your back."

    Anyway, there was still one low level Fighter more or less core ability (as in, because it was low level it's pretty hard to avoid as your options are limited) that was fairly broken in v3.02 or so, and people - myself included - we're saying that this was okay so long as they eventually patched it. However, after building hype Obsidian released a new patch, addressing very few of the issues, and simultaneously saying this was their final patch - with a dancing Eder gif in the tweet celebrating the "joy" and I guess give themselves a pat on the back.

    Suffice to say the dev was on the forum trying to address what was going on, but still signing off with, "I've got your back." I essentially went into classic mean Jojobobo mode and told said that basically the devs didn't care enough to see the game through without bugs, that we'd been telling them about some of these bugs for months and then they'd hyped the release of a final patch only not to address any of this issues - finishing with, "So how exactly do you, 'Have our back'?"

    He's never used that sign off since, so I likely made him slightly more unhappy in facing his job every day. I guess you can think of me as spreading the disillusionment around, one post at a time.

    On the plus also started doing more patches and said the tweet was "an error" (as all tweets with custom dancing gifs obviously are), and eventually fixed the issue - so I guess that's "something" (you know, that a company because of backlash wouldn't leave a bug in their game for a core class ability, despite having months of forewarning before their "final" patch - hoorah for them).

    However I guess it didn't make so much of a splash if they can't release a "definitive version" patch without having to make a hotfix a couple of days later (or you know, probably a week later, by their usual time schedules). Good grief.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2017
  6. Zanza

    Zanza Well-Known Member

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    You saved gaming. No question about it. Someone should tell Kotaku to change their stance on games journalism. Jojobobo has revived gamers. They can no longer write articles inferring gamers are dead.
     
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  7. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

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    Well, I did always suspect my influence was profound and far reaching. Thanks for confirming my suspicions, Zanza.

    No it was more of a team effort that got Obsidian to change their stance, as there were several of us that were similarly outraged. I think what I was shooting for in this particular episode of drunken story time with Jojobobo was that I'd probably made someone permanently less satisfied at their job, which isn't such a great claim to fame to have.

    I was also broadly contextualising that I think Obsidian's track record for the patching and support of their games has been dubious of late, and the new patch for their "definitive version" seems to underscore that as it is again seriously buggy. If there's a time not to mess up, it's when you put attach "definitive" to a title. I guess its just a warning to moderate your expectations going into Deadfire even more if they can't get DLC essentially posed as advertising for the game right, though why I want to spread around my pessimistic attitude in general I couldn't say for sure.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2017
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