OK, so I've engaged the Beta and played for a few hours on and off today. So far, the game looks promising from the story line, character development and graphics perspectives. The game's feel reminds me a little of Neverwinter Nights due to the prominent ocean side, port and island settings. The HUD and Inventory are pretty much a duplicate of the first Pillars of Eternity as are the action keys. The graphics feel more refined and give options to run 4K resolutions.
While still technically turn-based, combat speed has been increased. It's hard to do a comparison to PoE 1, because the Dev's are still working to optimize the frame rates, so lag is pretty rampant during graphically challenging scenes and also after playing for about an hour or so. From information presented in the video for this posting's thread-starter, they have reduced recovery times to only a few seconds depending on the type of attack. Fear not though, there is a difficulty setting that allows for the traditional space bar pause feature and they again offer the ability for the action to automatically pause at the start of combat. Those that prefer a more fluid combat experience will be able to tweak their party members with the new custom, party AI behavior features, so you can concentrate on your own foe rather than having to constantly manage the party's attacks and heals.
For now, I'm using a 6+ year old i7 system upgraded a couple years ago with a GeForce GTX960 powering a large screen 4k TV as a monitor. So far, the lower frame rates and general game lag that I've run into appears to be an issue related to the aforementioned refinements and optimizations that the Developers are still working through. From what little I've read on the forums, people have been successfully playing the first Pillars of Eternity on laptops with 900 series vid cards without much of an issue - not sure if that will carry through to Deadfire. Here are the initial specs needed for the game:
Minimum:
Windows Vista 64-bit or newer
Intel Core i3-2100T @ 2.50 GHz / AMD Phenom II X3 B73
4 GB Memory
ATI Radeon HD 4850 or NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
14 GB Disk Space
DirectX Compatible Sound Card or similar built in sound
Recommended:
Windows Vista 64-bit or newer
Intel Core i5-2400 @ 3.10 GHz / AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (or better)
8 GB of Memory
Radeon HD 7700 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (or better)
14 GB Disk Space
DirectX Compatible Sound Card or similar built in sound
These are preliminary, they may change after the Beta is completed. It seems like there are more weather, smoke, fire and glitzy magic effects in this game than the first, which might slow things a bit for older machines.
While playing through a Beta is always a bit of a grind, I'm still enjoying the feel of this RPG. Obsidian is definitely staying true to the course of their particular style of RPG. I'll be making more time to play over the weekend and will report back anything interesting I come across, sans spoilers.
TM
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