prodigydancer

Why would I reload to get Xzar back? Besides, wolves didn't have ranged attacks so you could kite them forever without getting hit. To make things less binary you need to balance HP and damage output. Make sure a single crit isn't usually lethal even at level 1. In BG it was impossible because ADnD was balanced differently and BioWare had to follow ADnD ruleset. And if you don't have enough HP, grazes don't even get you closer to solving the problem because eating an unlucky crit still kills your character outright.

will sooner or later hit things pretty hard. Not necessarily during every 6-seconds round though. You problem is that you want instant gratification.

In fact, grazes would be OK if they happened much less often. Make 80% of misses actual misses and 20% grazes. Problem solved.

Misses are sometimes frustrating. Attrition is always boring. Take your pick.

I'm not a fan of graze mechanic to be honest. Reasons: 1) Attrition fights are always boring. Not only because they're long but also because they're predictable. 2) Always-hit-for-nonzero-damage combat systems lend to favor high HP/deflection but low accuracy parties. Especially if high accuracy is costly or otherwise hard to acquire. 3) Spamming combat log is bad. When people complain about naked ranged characters, I agree. It's wrong and it exposes a poorly balanced combat system. But the opposite - a party of 6 heavily armored off-tanks relying on grazes and occasional crits - isn't any better. I wouldn't want to end up playing something like that.

Well, they used to have great artists though it was long ago.

Upvoted. Obsidian should hire Sensuki and make him the lead designer of their next CRPG project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher

Now that's something I agree with. Quality, not quantity, Obsidian. I'll rather have a couple of complex and tactically advanced fights per map than a dozen of easy and forgettable ones.

Avoid it. Problem solved? You're trying to push XP into the equation but it falls out. XP won't make AI better and it won't make the fight more challenging. The whole encounter (as you described it) is still garbage. And when it's over - and you got your precious XP - you're one step closer to more mandatory garbage encounters further down the road. Feels great, eh?

/sigh /facepalm I give up...

And your point is? Remember, PoE doesn't punish you for killing things (and there are RPGs that do punish you, e.g DX:HR). --- I still don't understand why so many people consider combat such a chore. (And if it's fun then why is it so necessary to get XP for it?) But it's even more puzzling that the same people apparently want to make the chore practically mandatory. Talk about being masochistic... Personally, I think combat is fun. In most games anyway. And when ti's not, XP tends to make it more irritating because you can't opt out. I agree. Just because something was implemented in BG2 doesn't necessarily mean it was good design. Besides BG2 had to use DnD character progression tables but due to the nature of the campaign the party had to gain levels extremely fast (compared to PnP). So awarding XP at ever step was practically inevitable. PoE doesn't have to do that.

Yes, it is. But I'm not a backer so my opinion hardly matters. Although at times it seems I appreciate PoE more than some of the backers which in turn makes me wonder why people give their money to projects they don't like or to people whose point of view they don't share.

Yeah, and all CRPGs should be carbon copies of each other. I have many doubts about various PoE mechanics but I applaud Obsidian and Josh in particular for actually making those tough choices and bravely trying new concepts. Some things most probably won't work as expected but it's OK. If you never try anything new the genre will never evolve. Hey! That's how I played Baldur's Gate.

Indeed. Trying to play on the launch day is like beta testing, only worse. This applies to almost any game and RPGs are affected more than other genres due to complexity. Add KS specific problems (tighter than usual budget, stretch goals) and release build is practically guaranteed to be a mess. D:OS is still being actively patched. And some post-release changes were quite dramatic (e.g. a huge nerf to max resistances).

Yeah disliking boring characters who are only included because Gaider is on SJW crusade makes me a racist. What's next?

It's him, alright. But take one look at the competition. What we have there is EAWare at its worst. Starting with Cassandra (a failure of a character instantly reminding us of what was wrong with DA2) and ending with Cullen (anyone ever cared for that guy?) and some boring-to-tears-background-but-politically-correct-skin-color chicks. And the Qunary who was supposed to be their ace in hole... The Iron Bull... Wha? Wow, are you for real, guys? That nickname belongs in an X-rated movie. Even there it'd be uninspired but at least nobody would give a damn. Cole doesn't look half-bad compared to the rest of the crowd.

What wrong with Cole? If we don't count Morrigan and Leliana, he's the only somewhat interesting entry on the characters page. P.S. And the elves... ugh! I mean, yuck! I mean, they were ugly in in DA2, no doubts here, but... yecch! BioWare just reached a whole new level of ugliness in character model design.

I don't want to start a discussion here that will lead to name calling or worse. So I admit that "Fallout fans" was an unfortunate generalization. Let's say "the less sensible yet more vocal members of the Fallout community", OK? And before I'm misunderstood - I'm actually rooting for WL2 and hope my gut feeling about its fate is wrong.

7.9 critic/7.3 player - that's hardly generous. More like lukewarm.

Wasteland 2 is a very niche game. My prediction is that, unlike D:OS, it'll pass relatively unnoticed by the gaming community. It also won't get high ratings (whether it deserves them or not) because Fallout fans just won't allow that to happen.

SRR project had considerably smaller budget and it was first and foremost about making a powerful game editor for Shadowrun community. There's a lot of UGC modules by now so I'd say mission accomplished.

And the amount of effort you put in it is astonishing. Still, do you think it'll make things more exciting? If every attribute is as valuable as the next one, then choosing carefully is no better than assigning values at random. I see how from a pure RP point of view such ultimately balanced system is welcome because metagame reasons no longer determine stats distribution. But mechanically won't it be a little bit boring?

And with good reason.

Nobody forces you to install any mods that you think affect balance. Truth to be told, I wouldn't care so much. But D:OS certainly put inventory management on my radar and I refuse to play another game where it's such a chore. Unless mods are available that make things tolerable.