Zwiebelchen

They usually close it after 30 pages. We're still on page 28.

Yes... and this is basicly why BG2 is so awesome. I'm not saying BG2 is bad for having all those immunities and hard counters. Due to the variety of encounters, there's always a challenge. However, some of the encounters are so severely hard-balanced, that they literally become easier than any "every day" encounter along the road once you figured them out. And this is just wrong. Prime example: Fights against trolls (especially the spirit troll packs... holy ****!). Those are always challenging. Firkraag is still challenging even if you have enough fire resistance and prepared well. Great encounter design! But Kangaxx otoh is just a puzzle, not an actual fight. Beholders are just broken. Even on high level, there is almost no way to beat a large Beholder group without cheesing it with summons or Balduran's Shield. This is just bad encounter design.

True but there's sooooo much variety in the encounters that (1) it'll take you a very long time to learn the "solutions" to all of them, and that process is a lot of fun, and (2) the cheesy solutions will often require particular abilities or items which you may or may not have, which means that some of the cheesy tactics won't be available for you even if you know them. You can't berserker-rage Kangaxx to death if you're not a berserker or don't have Korgan in the party f.ex. Kangaxx is kind of an exception and imho a bad example of good hard-counter design. Basicly, Kangaxx only consists of three problems to solve: imprison, weapon immunity and a death spell. He doesn't deal any damage. One problem is solved easy here: wail of the banshee. Just pop immunity to death spells and you're fine. In fact, you don't even need that as you can simply outrange the spell once he casts it. The second problem is imprison, which requires some meta-game knowledge to beat (as there is no other enemy in the game that uses this spell, there is no way to "learn" properly how to properly counter it without doing some research.). Berserker Rage is probably the go-to solution for most players, as it clearly states immunity vs imprison. However, there's also a less obvious solution, which is spell immunity: abjuration. The third problem is the crux of this encounter: it requires +4 or +5 weapons. The idea behind this is pretty clear: the designers don't want Kangaxx to be killed by lowlevel parties. However, it's also the biggest problem of the encounter: there are some +4 and +5 weapons available early in the game (like the +4 staff or the vs. undead blade from the city gates ... summoned elementals also have +4 weapons and melfs magic meteor counts as a +4). As Kangaxx deals absolutely no damage and thus is no threat once you "solved" all three problems, the encounter is virtually only about collecting enough +4 gear to kill him before your imprison immunity runs out. And with more than one spell immunity memorized, you literally have all the time in the world. Bioware failed to give Kangaxx an additional "basic threat" by adding some sustainable weapon damage to him or giving him enough health regen to allow him to outlast a single character having a +4 weapon or the constant pokes with melfs meteor or biting arrows. This creates the weird dynamic that you can kill Kangaxx way before the intended encounter level. And a dynamic that makes the pre-encounter against the Lich form of Kangaxx harder than the demilich form.

As I scientist, I won't deny climate change, but I'd say that the progressing polution of the oceans is actually far more severe than the climate change. After all, we know how to stop climate change already (renewable energy sources; reduction of cattle). But we haven't found an effective way to clean the oceans yet. I agree with you but I am pretty sure the life there will adapt to the pollution eventually (extinction is a natural part of evolution). But we might get extinct in the process. I highly doubt that the required amount of evolution will happen as fast as the progression of pollution. Only a few very unpleasant species will survive on the long run. In fact, this "unnatural selection" across the oceans has already started: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/14/jellyfish-blooms http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120405-blooming-jellyfish-problems

If PoE had the level of battle AI and pathing algorithms that SC2 has, the problem wouldn't exist in the first place. You can say about SC2 whatever you want: the pathing algorithm of SC2 is hands down the smoothest and best pathing algorithm ever created for games. It's so good that Blizzard should seriously think about licencing and distributing it. This is some serious next level **** that I think should be in every game.

It's a double edged sword, really. I liked the different ways of dealing with iron golems, for example (tanking with a stoneskin mage with immunity to poison/acid; reducing magic resistance, etc.), as golems remained a challenge no matter how you dealt with them. But some encounters simply became trivial when you found out the "right" tactic (mind flayer cheesing with chaotic commands). I never did that. I would summon skeletons or mordekain sword, haste them and send them to fight Illithids and I bet there are more ways to do it. So, what were you saying about right way to play it? So you basicly only replaced one cheesy tactic (chaotic commands making you immune against mind flayer spells) with another (mordenkain sword and skeletons being immune against mind flayer spells). I don't really see the difference here. It doesn't change the fact that it basicly removes all the challenge of fighting mindflayers. How does that make my point invalid? See my Iron Golem example: it's exactly how hard-counter balancing should be done. Iron Golems are still a significant challenge even if you found a way to deal with the massive damage output or found a way to deal with their magic resistance. Stone skin won't last long against an iron golem and reduced magic resistance will only allow you to kill them somewhat faster. In addition, you have to deal with the slow effect from the clay golems aswell. It's awesome encounter design. You have basicly 3 problems to solve at the same time: a stacking slow effect making your armor and attack speed drop the longer it takes, high damage resistances and immunities making them harder to kill and a huge damage output and attack speed. It's not hard to find solutions to any of these problems in isolation, but making them work together and lasting long enough to kill the golems is an awesome experience. Also, I love how the map designers always build a chokepoint next to golem encounters to allow you to retreat safely if you messed things up. This basicly creates a dynamic in which players have the opportunity to try out different tactics without always having to reload if an attempt failed. It's engaging and fun. The only downside was that golems weren't immune to missile weapons +4 or +5, allowing you to kill them from safe distance if you had access to such weapons... (but then again, if you really had such weapons, chances are you outleveled the encounter anyway).

As I scientist, I won't deny climate change, but I'd say that the progressing polution of the oceans is actually far more severe than the climate change. After all, we know how to stop climate change already (renewable energy sources; reduction of cattle). But we haven't found an effective way to clean the oceans yet.

No they appear at several stages throughout the game and the most dangerous I've found is probably the De'Arnise Hold hidden area where Tor'Gal is. That can be a pain in the ass. Usually I just run in with my Kensai and close the door, he usually gets Confused but will still attack the Umber Hulks, then I come in a bit later with Minsc equipped with Lilarcor who I think is immune to Confusion because of Lilarcor (can't remember) and spank them. One thing I should probably try is sending in Minsc first instead, but that tactic has worked for me since I started doing it. Sometimes I think I used a Potion of Mind Focusing or something against the confusion, don't remember. It can be problematic because once the Umber Hulks are dead, my Kensai will still be confused, so I'll have to lock him in the room until it wears off. Then again you could also do it the way it was intended by using the dog meat to attract the umber hulks to the other room.

I love how this thread turned out to be about science and climate change. Basicly rendered this topic 10000% more interesting. But also significantly less funny.

I'm perfectly okay with just a slight deflection penalty on heavy armors. I think we can all agree that it would make a lot of sense... I'm also fine with deflection on shields... after all, I usually regard shield blocking as basicly the same mechanic as evading an attack. As you already mentioned: my suggestion pretty much works the same as if heavy armors would just give a deflection penalty. In fact, now that I think about it, I like the idea of a deflection penalty more than a deflection "reward" on lighter armors because it's more intuitive and the effect would be the same. So yeah, deflection penalty on heavy armor would be fine (if combined with constitution reducing recovery penalty, so that heavy armors are worth wearing). Even with my suggestions for a flat base deflection score for all classes the individual deflection scores between tanks and non-tanks would still be different due to talents and abilities alone (defense posture, etc.). The point I'm trying to make here is: there is literally no reason why classes should have different base deflection scores if the class abilities alone already provide a significant difference in deflection scores. Why pigeonhole classes into the tanking role and DPS role and the opposite? This is MMO-thinking. Why not allow me to create some unusual hybrids due to my talent and armor choices? I'd love to build a tanky wizard that uses defensive spells only. But I am already severely punished in base deflection just for selecting the wizard class alone. On top of that, I even get punished on top of that for wearing a shield and armor with no way to counter it. Not even talking about the low endurance and health. This is just bad design. If a wizard could reach the same deflection scores as a fighter given the right equipment, then at least it could be a viable consideration. On a side note: the complete lack of talents that allow unconventional tank builds is disturbing. Why is there no talent that improves my deflection score if I only use a 1H-weapon without a shield? This is basic cRPG 101! Even D&D had such talents! Why is there no selectable talent that improves deflection when wearing light armor? I'm already punished hard for not having armor DR, why add even more punishment? Not even talking about the obvious lack of monk cloth-armor tankiness. It's a double edged sword, really. I liked the different ways of dealing with iron golems, for example (tanking with a stoneskin mage with immunity to poison/acid; reducing magic resistance, etc.), as golems remained a challenge no matter how you dealt with them. But some encounters simply became trivial when you found out the "right" tactic (mind flayer cheesing with chaotic commands).

The easiest fix would be to allow both PC and NPCs to ignore collision while walking. Basicly, make it work like it works in WoW: Enemies have disabled collision while walking, but as soon as they are attacking, they'll do a number of sidesteps in order to seperate all enemies and allow them to be targetted properly. This fixes two problems at the same time: 1) chokepoint abuse 2) the bad pathing algorithm Then again, why would we want to remove chokepoint strategy at all? Chokepoint fighting is a valid war strategy and has a long documented history of success, even in Hollywood movies. "300" is basicly an entire movie about chokepoint fighting. If we want to remove chokepoint fighting from the game, just design encounters in a fashion that makes it harder to execute. Either by removing chokepoints within battle areas or by giving enemies abilities that will mess you up badly if you fight in chokepoints without the possibility to move away (stationary AoEs, cone attacks). Or if you want a very unconventional and absolutely not obvious solution: just give enemies long range weapons that they can switch to if they aren't able to reach the target. Seriously, especially when fighting human parties it makes no sense that they don't also have a pike or bow equipped that they can use...

Wir sollten aufpassen nicht zuviel zu frei zu übersetzen. Bei Dialogen und Beschreibungstexten ist das ja noch okay, aber bei systemrelevanten strings wird damit die Analogie zur englischen Version zerstört, beispielsweise wenn wir uns jetzt für die ganzen Item stats eigene Namen ausdenken nur um die doppelte Auflistung zu vermeiden: Spieler lesen u.U. englische Tutorial, Komplettlösungen oder Strategieguides und werden dann von den eingeführten deutschen Eigenheiten verwirrt. Ich sage ja nicht, dass das grundsätzlich schlecht ist, aber ich glaube bei solchen Systemmeldungen sollten wir möglichst eine gewisse Kompatibilität erhalten...

20 years of RPG gaming, and the debate between WYSIWYG and WYSINWYG is still going strong...

The problem is that the game is very limited in class choice for possible offtanks. If you take Pallegina, basicly, you take a full-fledged tank class. In the IE games, anyone with a plate armor would be a viable offtank. You weren't restricted to class choices here. This is what I'm talking about and why I feel the current system requires a change: due to the talents being totally overpowered and the default deflection scores of certain classes, it is next to impossible to make for example a priest that is able to do some significant offtanking without gimping it entirely. Changing the AI won't really help. It doesn't take long to find new ways to exploit the AI even if it doesn't hard-target the first in sight. It just changes the ruleset. The easiest way to fix the tank & spank battles is simply to make the strategy less viable by making the tank more vulnerable (and making the party members that aren't tanks more durable so it's okay for them to offtank). Again, imho the best solution would be to change deflection and DR to equipment-based stats (with deflection being accessable by talents aswell, but at a smaller degrees to make the gap between real tanks and offtanks less rigid). An inverse stat spread of deflection and DR could serve wonders for the game balance, especially as it makes "light armored evasion tanks" viable. Only three classes in AD&D 2E could wear plate... not seeing that as a huge difference from only three classes being effective off-tanks here. Can you explain? Let's see: Fighter Ranger Paladin Cleric Barbarian (is limited to mail armor, but the increased HP makes up for that) Monk (can not wear plate, but is hands down the most tanky class in the book due to the armor-per-level mechanic) That is 6 basic character classes out of 10 available (leaving only thief, bard, druid and mage/sorcerer). Not to mention all the popular class combinations that unlock plate armor, like Fighter/Thief [for those who rather chuck potions of invisibility] and warrior/druid. Note that all of those choices have absolutely no penalty to tanking at all. They can all equip the same gear (except for the barbarian who can't wear plate, but gets the HP bonus to make up for it) and reach the same armor class scores. In case of a Fighter/Druid, the class combination of Druid isn't even penalized in spell casting capability when equipping plate. There was more to my suggestion than just the inverse deflection vs DR spread ... it was more about equalizing tanking potential across the classes and making tanking more dependant on gear so that the gap between tanks and non-tanks gets smaller. Obviously, the DR and deflection scores can be tweaked, this was just a rough estimate what could get us in the ballpark. Trading DR for deflection imho makes a lot of sense. I'd rather stack more DR than deflection on a character as it's way more reliable and also affects spells. The problem is: the game doesn't let me. Having both DR and high deflection also makes zero sense from a logical point of view, as deflection is basicly an evasion-type stat (reducing the chance for enemies to hit) ... which obviously should be increased with lower armor, not decreased. Currently, there is no way I can build a cunning, evasion based tank with agile armor choice. This is just plain bad design, no matter how you take it, especially with a monk class in the game. About the engagement debate: I think engagement is an overall good mechanic. If the game would play with it more. Engagement is only fun if both sides make use of it. Currently, it's extremely one-sided: your guys will get disengagement attacks whenever you want to tactically withdraw a character or whenever the bad pathfinding makes your character spazz one pixel just to hit an enemy that can clearly hit you(?), whereas enemies will almost never disengage and sometimes even won't get hit by disengagement attacks even when they move. The disengagement attacks are a buggy mess and we all agree on that I think. What we don't all agree on imho, is that engagement has to go in general. I think it's a good mechanic, it just needs some tweaking and a helluva lot of bugfixing. Allow us to walk freely within the attacking range of a creature when engaged! Disengagement should only trigger when you actually move away from the enemy...

Would it help if OE color the right, polite answer blue and the bad, wrong answer red? Nonono... it's not bad ... it's renegade. You know... like being da cool pimp vs. the virgin...

I was wondering why some of the companions are spread out so far towards the end of the game... guess that makes for an interesting metagame experience of "collecting your party" early, but it's also very impractical for people that play the game for the first time and don't know the locations of the companions. Just saying, is there a real point in, f.ex. the placement of Sagani so far out? She could have been placed basicly anywhere in the wilderness...

I'd say this is more of a tooltip error than an actual bug. I am almost perfectly sure the ring is supposed to give +10, not +14.

The problem is that the game is very limited in class choice for possible offtanks. If you take Pallegina, basicly, you take a full-fledged tank class. In the IE games, anyone with a plate armor would be a viable offtank. You weren't restricted to class choices here. This is what I'm talking about and why I feel the current system requires a change: due to the talents being totally overpowered and the default deflection scores of certain classes, it is next to impossible to make for example a priest that is able to do some significant offtanking without gimping it entirely. Changing the AI won't really help. It doesn't take long to find new ways to exploit the AI even if it doesn't hard-target the first in sight. It just changes the ruleset. The easiest way to fix the tank & spank battles is simply to make the strategy less viable by making the tank more vulnerable (and making the party members that aren't tanks more durable so it's okay for them to offtank). Again, imho the best solution would be to change deflection and DR to equipment-based stats (with deflection being accessable by talents aswell, but at a smaller degrees to make the gap between real tanks and offtanks less rigid). An inverse stat spread of deflection and DR could serve wonders for the game balance, especially as it makes "light armored evasion tanks" viable.

Partially, yes. I was saying this to get the point across that the group-only scouting mode isn't inherently broken by definition. It just requires some tweaking (like with almost any mechanic in the game the idea is good, it's just the execution that is imperfect). I'd also postulate a name change of the stealth attribute to scouting in general ... because that's basicly what it is: an attribute that makes scouting and preparation easier.

I think an easy solution for the individual stealth problem would be to make stealth and invisibility two different mechanics. Invisibility basicly serving as a per-character stealth that is not bound to the stealth attribute. Then we could give Rogues a class ability that allows them to go invisible (possibly as a per-encounter ability?) to sneak up on enemies regardless of scouting mode. Invisibility obviously can not be detected like regular stealth mechanics (but can by various magical means like a detect invisibility spell) and can trigger backstab. This would solve multiple things at once: 1) the stealth stat wouldn't be a mandatory pump for rogues anymore (note that it would still be useful). 2) backstab would become more useful 3) it makes rogues more unique 4) stealth mechanics can be kept as-is and still allow for individual stealthing 5) new possibilities for cool mage spells (selft-cast invisibility, touch-target-invisibility) as an escape ability or to strike touch or low-range spells in safety ... In order to not break the "no escape from combat" paradigma of the game, invisibility would break just like the attack-protection spell as soon as all friendlies went down.

This is an awesome collection you have there... can I ask maybe for you to include the accuracy values of enemies aswell, as that's also an interesting information to know? Pretty please Also, it's weird how almost all enemies have low will-defenses. No wonder why ciphers are so damn OP. And lol, literally the only enemies that have low fortitude defenses are shadows, phantoms and shades. I will definitely remember that for my first Ironman playthrough (and stockpile on scrolls that target fortitude defenses just to **** with those shadows).

See how genius it is? You already pointed out the possibilities that come with this: what if an attack is not based on deflection? As DR affects almost everything (except for the special modifiers on your armor), no matter what defense it targets, it's the better choice if you want to make an overall survivable character. However, stacking deflection is an alternative for characters with a lower health and endurance pool. They will be more likely not to get hit by certain attack types, however, you will mostly not want them to tank heavy-hitters, etc. ... with the mentioned changes, we would basicly create two different types of tanks for different purposes, which absolutely sounds great in my book. You could finally build a "cloth tank", like a monk, attacking with fists. Basicly, it evades a lot better than a plate-equipped fighter, but when it gets hit, it gets hit hard. Suddenly, all those abilities and items that convert hits to graces or crits to hits would be much more valuable aswell.

I agree with every point of Junta maybe except for the going back to the old armor concept. That would imho be too much of a change. Instead, I want to suggest a change of priorities in defenses. Instead of making defenses mostly class-bound, a more equipment-orientated approach could fix a huge amount of problems of the game in just one take: - make all base deflection scores equal for all classes (15 base, 3 per level) - Reduce deflection bonus of shields: small shield = 6 deflection, medium shield = 9 deflection; large shield = 12 deflection - Reduce deflection bonuses of almost all passive talents ... mandatory talent choices are stupid. - Change constitution to also reduce armor recovery penalty by 4% for every point beyond 10 (at 18 points, this equals a 28% reduction). - instead of deflection coming mostly from talent and class choices, armors should provide both deflection and damage resistance, based on the armor type: Cloth: +15 deflection, +5 DR Robes: +12 deflection, +8 DR Light Armor: +9 deflection, +10 DR Medium Armor: +6 deflection, +12 DR Mail Armor: +3 deflection, +14 DR Plate Armor: +16 DR Enchants improve DR and Deflection ratings of armors by 10% per tier (Rounded up to full integers). Basicly, light armor allows you to evade better, whereas heavy armor reduces damage dealt. ... Like it should have been right from the beginning. There's a certain exponential relationship between deflection and DR (lower armors granting more DR than they do now), as DR becomes stronger the more you stack it. The DR values have been upped all across the board to compensate for the loss of base deflection of tank builds. In addition to the above changes: - Change PotD so that the 50% stat increase does not affect accuracy scores. This is to ensure that the change to deflection and DR to be almost completely exclusive to gear does not make PotD impossible to beat. - Increase flanking bonuses depending on the number of enemies: +5 accuracy for everyone attacking the same target, regardless of attacking angle, to encourage players to spread the incoming damage over multiple party members.

When you have difference of opinions, you're going to have opposition. There's been constructive suggestions and criticism over the last 2 years of development and since the beta went live. Everything and anything has been covered, discussed, debated, argued, mud thrown at each, etc. The one thing I have seen in agreement are cosmetic changes like people wandering around your stronghold or cities to make it more lively, selection circles for NPCs a different colour to your own party and other various cosmetic changes, but this doesn't change the core gameplay designs which people are disagreeing on. Hence why the community should finally man up and swallow some of our own personal agendas in favor of the greater good, which is a more enjoyable gameplay experience. I think we already nailed some of the major balancing problems that everyone here can agree on: - 1 tank-to-rule-them-all cheese tactics work too good and should be nerfed to make the game more interesting, either via the flanking bonus or by nerfing some OP enchants and talents - constitution needs a buff, popular suggested idea: putting a reduction to armor recovery penalty on constitution - deflection gap between tanks and non-tanks is too strong, creating a weird situation where every non-tank dies almost instantly, regardless of armor and offtanking is next to impossible 1.05 will come with balancing changes, as has already been announced. It's our chance to be heard and get fixes out to the devs.

Instead of focusing on ... well ... what went wrong in the production process, how about we instead try to be constructive and suggest what could be changed and how it would affect things? Let's not go too fancy on this; imho, the ideal solution should be based on the current mechanics and everything that already works in the game. Changing mechanics like DR is not up to debate imho. I think if we can manage to agree on a single solution within the current game limits, it shouldn't be that hard to convince Obsidian to at least take it into the general direction.