DigitalCrack

I think I'm seeing a pattern here. I get the feeling that some of you really don't like that it's actually impossible, or very difficult, to gimp your character at chargen by picking the 'wrong' attributes. And, conversely, that it's impossible, or very difficult, to make your character objectively much more powerful by picking the 'right' ones. Is this in the ballpark? If so, then yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be changed as it goes against Josh's prime directive of "no trash choices." And yes, that is always going to make minmaxers unhappy. Hit the nail on the head.

Wow you really are doom sayer, here to spread the will of the CODEX! All shall be made clean by the cleansing light of it's infallible opinion!

I guess I will hop on this train so many other have ridden. Its a beta... they have betas to find imbalances like "no stat/character diversity" and FIX them. YES it is FIXABLE stat/character imbalance is not a flaw, it literally exists in EVERY (even the BG series) game before they have a beta to help find and FIX these types of issues. From the actual "welcome to beta" thread "As participants in the Backer Beta, you're free to give feedback on whatever you feel like. However, if you'd like to be extra-helpful, there are a few areas where your thoughts would be especially helpful. Attributes - Do you find any attributes invaluable, such that you would never build a character without emphasizing that attribute? Are there any attributes you consistently dump because they don't seem to have apparent value? Do the attributes seem to skew away or toward different classes?"

Let's not get pedantic here. I'm merely using it as an alternative catch-all. You're still not being rewarded for exploring no matter what you kill, be it a squirrel or a Gnoll. This is about the dumbest thing I've ever read. Well we have something in common as this is the dumbest thing I've read. Yeah that's dumb... because its not like no one ever is paid/tasked to hunt wildlife that's killing/harming people...crazy talk!

How cute, you only advocate the slaughtering of "wildlife" if you have a "quest" to get from point A to point B. Well that's just TOTALLY justified now Happens in realty. Park rangers are tasked with hunting wildlife if they start killing people and and that does involve killing said wildlife, granted killing is not the solution every time.

Sometimes I feel like it would work better switching health and stamina around and things could still work the same way just instead of dying from loss of overall health you would die from not having the stamina to recover from your wounds. I dunno just a thought, cause that way you could have stamina drain a more equally and slower overall and would make sense when you have to rest cause everyone is getting too tired to recover from battle in general.

Unlike Obsidian as of now; I'm not out to ruin other people's fun. Keep the quest xp in for those who like them. No skin off my back that people wanna play as a pseudo servant. Whats to keep you from slaughtering the countryside? is xp your only motivation? Heck I didn't quest in IE games for years getting no xp for completion and it was still fun. As for random exploration and fighting it was all about finding treasure and sweet items that drove the fun in that not grinding for xp. Point being xp doesn't drive the fun, its fun just playing and xp is a by-product of playing, in which you will still obtain by random exploration in this game just by different means.

His class can be Wizard, his skill non-existent, and he'd still deal more damage with one strike than a buff Fighter who has trained his technique all his life. Or am I missing something here? That's exactly how the system works right now if I'm not mistaken. Of course the Wizard wouldn't be an effective fighter in the long run, but he'd still deal high damage with one strike, and there's nothing about his physique that really explains it. If there was a game that had 2 classes - Knight and Wizard - and one of them was pure melee combat while the other was pure spellcasting - then describing their aptitude in combat with an attribute called Damage or Might is not a problem. But if you have lots of hybrids, and if Wizards can wield weapons if they want to, then the visualization problems appear. Its a david and goliath kind of situation. A battle hardened trained soldier being taken by a shepard boy with a small stone, clearly he had more might than goliath ;-)

I didn't realize in BG I had to go to town and ask an npc to give me xp. Even if this very fallacious argument had any merit; let me ask you this: What if I don't know which npc the said Ogre head is even related to? Should I run around town talking to every npc hoping to get xp. Also; what if I didn't notice the Ogre head or thought it was worthless? How am I supposed to know it's attached to a quest? I could very well end up leaving the cave being none the wiser. These are issues that would/will come up. Not that that would even be the same. Well considering it puts the ogre head in your "quest Items" stash that answers that. You get xp for completing the tasks or different objectives in a quest line, even if you never talk to an npc to close it out or start it.

I do concur here. People associate Might with Strength, but it isn't Strength, it is a reflection of the "force" or "power" of your soul. You could be a 100 pound weakling in Eora and have a 18 or higher Might. Changing it over to Power would be a good idea and fairly simple to implement. But this 100 pound weakling would still wreak havoc with a broadsword. He wouldn't have the right technique maybe, but he'd make tons of damage with each strike. No, I can't really visualize this character. :/ (I can live with Might, but it is a strange attribute for me if we don't go down the Dragonball route where strength equals magic powers.) why because physical strength determines the damage dealt by a swing? I play in a city softball league in which I am by no definition "muscular" yet I out-hit guys twice my size who have muscle to spare... My point being physical strength does not determine physical damage dealt.

Its just a system people haven't really had the chance to learn yet. Which some people really dislike that when they are already familiar/comfortable with a different system. Also we haven't had near enough time playing with the current system for anyone to have a solid argument against it, especially knowing we haven't had any beta updates to fix things that make it kind of unplayable at the moment. Or at least playable enough to properly judge any of its systems.

And it still will, because you have to explore to find and complete quests. So you're telling me: Since while exploring I'll get a quest; so I can stop exploring, and do the quest. That is the same as leveling while exploring. BS. What I want is the same effect. How it's achieved is a detail. I used exploring in BG to level without doing quests. That's what I want. Xp without a requirement for quests. BG's exploration let you do that. My only issue with the current xp system is that I cannot get xp from exploring without a quest involved. I DON'T LIKE DOING ERRANDS FOR XP! you do realize in the beta if you just go out and explore the cave and kill the ogre or rescue the noble's daughter as a result of random exploration instead of a quests prompting it still gives you xp. Random exploration resulting in xp gained=same result as BG

Er... don't race already have racial abilities in addition to stat bonuses? Like Moon Godlike having healing weaves as they reach certain Stamina thresholds? And Fire ones doing heat damage on being hit once getting 50% or less Stamina? I read the thread and everybody seems to talk just about stats. The culture stat bonus seems quite a generalization about each area. The background of each character would seem a better place to place an extra stat bonus. Yeah people are talking too much about stat bonuses. Ideally I liked whoever mentioned only cultures giving stat bonuses and then do something more with subraces not stat related.

People seem to have too much of a D&D mindset on some of the stats. I have noticed in multiple threads people equating might to strength when that is not at all the equivalent. Might is simply in reference to the power of your attack (no matter the type) not a reflection of literal muscle strength. Not sure if people realize the system is set up so you can roll (for example) a wizard with max con and res giving you a hard to interrupt front liner wizard if you want. Its hard to get out of that D&D comparison in our heads but if you do you'll see the potential.

Making them feel unique is the key. Cause they don't right now.

I think its pretty crappy of people to assume an xp system, that's barely been tested by masses at this point, is garbage and obviously not as good. We've had years of playing similar games where you get xp from kills so of course people will be inclined to favor what they are comfortable with. How can something be deemed a bad idea until its been given a fair chance. 2 and 1/2 days is hardly enough time to pass judgement especially when the beta is almost unplayable right now. Wait till there has been some patches and more time to get an accurate feel from it.

Not sure why this is such a big deal? Exploration and the possibility of sweet Items/treasure is what has always driven me to fight in these kinds of games, not XP.

They are meant to look Alien and intimidating, especially the Death godlikes, which get a bad rap from almost everyone. Yes alien as in different or exotic not literally an alien from outer space, which is how they look now.

Totally agree with your statement. To add to what you said, I wish the fire and moon godlike had semi solid wispy etheral hair than weird glowing alien aura thats not that cool.

I don't feel like racial bonuses are as significant or meaningful as they could be. I guess something a bit more juicy for each sub race would be awesome. A bonus that actually makes it a tough choice on what race to play cause they are all meaningful instead of a few stat differences. It would be an added bonus if cultures had a little more meat to their bonuses as well.

Agreed most the godlike portraits look way cooler than the, oversized, oddly alien heads available.

I can't imagine Obsidian including these awesome portraits without the option to create a character that truly looks like that. Please Obsidian, give us Godlike hair! I 100% agree, if the characters in the creator looked like this I'd certainly play them or at least certainly have these companions on my party. These are attractive portraits but character models are nothing like them. Could it be a suggestion to have lovely 2D paper dolls in character/inventory screen... I think this would solve quite a few problems. I can understand the headaches blowing up the 3D in-game model is causing to appearance in the character screen. This is however easily avoidable. I think I'd actually prefer a 2D character/inventory screen. It would give it a more vintage feeling. Yeah the godlike portraits, especially, look way better in portraits than the character model. Fire and moon have weird glowing alien looking aura for hair and oversized horns that just aren't cool and don't feel like they fit with how the (much more epic) portraits portray them.

Love how different each of the weapons feels and plays.

I have always loved bard type classes and its nice to see that the chanter is tougher overall then the typical bard like class. Always felt like bards were unnecessarily fragile in other games. Although kind of stinks in the known issue list chanters are said to be OP. Hopefully thats in reference to their abilities and not base stats (stamina/life, base weapon accuracies, deflection, etc...)

Honestly if all they did was take away the glowy aura and instead have hair with a slight etheral quality that would go a long way to changing that perception. If you look at the portrait for the moon godlike (male and Female) they have way more of a ghostly/etheral vibe, wispy white hair and pale features... no glowing...