I've seen a fair bit of it. It isn't that different from the first one. Given that everyone has to deal with proficiencies now (for some reason), the devoted thing isn't actually that bad. There are some absurdly good multi class combinations that can be done with that... But it's just a bonus to penetration and +25% critical hit damage. Given there are enemies that are just flat immune to damage types, this is an option that can really fuck you. And the combat path still looks fucked so can easily screw melee only characters.Whipstitch wrote:From what I've heard from backer beta participants Pillars of Eternity 2 sounds like a real turd. They apparently doubled down on 4e style per encounter bullshit and nerfed the ever living shit out of casters. In a further bid to making characters staid and boring as possible the "Devoted" subclass is apparently the strongest thing going and that's just literally a Fighter who gives up all but one proficiency in exchange for a fat bonus.
As for the vancian Spellcasters- I never thought they really fit in the first place. No one else was on that kind of power scheme, and they could utterly trivialize encounters in PoE1. At least for the low level spells, most of the exact same spells are there. Priests still knock people down, Wizards molest people with tentacles (though I think that's a new spell), and Druids still do everything.
The really bad elements for 2 become apparent with a deeper dive, the speciality class options for each class really suck with terrible drawbacks and mediocre benefits. Except... Some few don't, are just combo exploits for system mastery.
The cipher got hit with huge cast times- seriously five or six seconds. Which makes the class useless, except for one of the the aforementioned combo exploits which involves not using spells and just unloading all focus into a melee strike for hundreds of damage.
Conjured weapons also got hit with large cast times, but overall combat time is faster, so there isn't much point.
The biggest loss is the generic feats are gone- either folded into specific classes or removed, so customization is way down. And spells are abilities you select at every level, so character creation is basically min/max clone brigade where you should only ever take the best stuff. And a lot of classes still lack a large selection of info to choose from.
The consequences of the multiclassing system aren't entirely known (because the higher level abilities werent in the backer beta), but it looks like multiclassing is absolutely superior at low to mid level, but may end up fucking you completely at the end game. Sole class characters get a new tier of abilities every 2 levels, multiclassing every 3, but multi gets more points to spend, so have a much larger array of abilities and two resource pools to draw from.
On the other hand, it might well mean that single class is entirely pointless, since the best abilities in PoE1 weren't necessarily the highest level ones. If you can still pile long lasting paralyze effects, and now also take a huge amount of passive damage stacking, fuck high level spells.
The major take away is high system mastery is going to trivialize is game, because the designers are idiots, while people who just take what sounds cool are going to get punched in the dick. Which means more endless tinkering with the game to find a balance point unsatisfactory to everyone.