DigitalCrack

looking at the pic again he is definitely not a dwarf... Same height as eder and built like an amaua

Well soulblade/ghost heart going to be my first playthrough. Melee cipher was my first PoE1 character so should love it.

It may seem like a little thing but once these elements start to become very simplistic it starts to make the game feel arcadish which destroys immersion. everything needs at least some level of depth to it.

No it doesn't, because the two aren't mutually exclusive. You can create a game that has well specified mechanics for the different kinds of characters people want to create; this benefits both groups since strongly specified mechanics firmly rooted in reality and fantasy rather than being there for convenient gearing and easy stat distribution will not only make the game more interesting, but it will provide a stronger context for those 'silly' builds people are so fond of and why they're weaker in some aspect and useful in certain other ways. Like has been said, there already are lower difficulty options for those interested purely on the make-believe, let game-mechanics have some actual meaning for the rest of us. Yet based off what both sides are currently saying they are (at least here anyway.) For me personally I would love to keep the statistics, at face value, the same but just let them have more of an impact on your character. Of everything thats been said, thats the one thing I can get behind is the bonuses need to be greater per point for each stat. The whole "might shouldnt represent all damage" which seems to be a hot button issue, is small potatos compared to stats needing to make more of an impact.

So in other words: you don't want to play a game, you want to play make-believe. You can do that if you want, but don't expect others to take your views on character building seriously if that is your aim.There has to be a balance reached between the two. Average player (aka majority) is gonna fall in the middle on this. they want to role play and play a character ideal but still want to be effective, gameplay wise, without having to get too deep into (or worry about) the math and mechanics. My point being, what would be some acceptable middle ground changes that arent pure role play or pure power gaming? Thats where I have a hard time thinking what could be changed to make it better overall.

Agreed. I think whats really the issue in PoE is when you have end game items that are the only magic varient for that weapon type that exist or the only other magic variant. Like hatchets for example there is only one to be found until you get to the last act...

concerning weapons I believe they are moving all that out of talents and actually adding something like prroficiencies for weapons. I am interested to see that plus the revamped skill system, so I am sure they have changes planned with stats. Interested to see what thats going to look like. Who knows maybe we will actually get an update that highlights their ideas for these things soon.

Yeah, I'm not saying to scrap it. I think it has plenty of potential, it just needs some polish and tuning. Like half of the systems in the game, really. Like you said, it's a first iteration and Obsidian was definitely already stretched thin trying to get out what a massive game Pillars turned out to be. Balance was probably on the least concern list, and that was the correct decision. Skills are the solution to dump stats. Additionally, there should be dump stats for given classes because this is a team based game - you want a team of specialists, not a team of generalists.Except this is counter to the design philosophy of character building for pillars which was "all builds are viable." Whats the benefit of forcing people to min max? why should that be the only viable way to fix the current "issues" with stats? How is tying skills to attributes min-maxing? Have you never played D&D or Pathfinder? saying that there "should be dump stats" is what I was referring to. That was one thing that always drove me nuts in BG games was having to dump stats.. you could never have generalists that were effective. Pillars is at least close to having all builds be decent and going for a more d&d approach would be a step back imo. Not to say I disagree with everything you propose, just that dumping should be neccessary.

Skills are the solution to dump stats. Additionally, there should be dump stats for given classes because this is a team based game - you want a team of specialists, not a team of generalists. Except this is counter to the design philosophy of character building for pillars which was "all builds are viable." Whats the benefit of forcing people to min max? why should that be the only viable way to fix the current "issues" with stats?

That's a great idea. Or something like Cladhaileth, only instead of different enchantments on one weapon type it can become different weapon types but with the same enchantment. "lets talk merchants" thread brought up wanting something like the adventurer's mart from BG2 but with a changing stock of items based on your exploits and alliegences.

Truth. A better statement for things like the morningstars and hatchets would be "don't have the ONLY good magic versions at the end of the game". Yeah its annoying to go with a weapon type likes clubs for example only to find out that there is only a single magic club pre-endgame....

my only gripe with it was that magic axes and hatchets were very sparse until you got to twin elms in which the game was practically over by then..

It wasnt as bad as the BG series but some weapon types had way more magic versions than other types. like halberds were basically non existent and you really only had 2 of them but yet I always found myself swimming in magic greatswords like Scrooge Mcduck...

They get a ton of modal options and lots of passives and that to me was a huge miss. (no melee aside) there are all kinds of trap related abilities or even actives a ranger could have had and is a ranger-y skillset. Or even simply taking half the modals and make them actives instead would have enhanced the fun factor in PoE1. So for deadfire really hoping they are one class that really gets work put into revamping it at a base level. Most the other classes can be taken care of with addition of subclasses but rangers need some fundemental changes to really "fix" the issues I have with them anyway.

Can't speak for everyone but my big gripes were lack of melee anything by design (you can but not intended) and the "sit and forget" approach to the rangers abilities and talents basically made him a snooze fest to play outside of a few unique melee builds and even then...

"Leg of The Bastard" 100% chance to hobble enemy on hit for duration of the encounter. An obsidian club forged from the peg leg of the original Bastard of the Black Ilse...(insert cool origin story) edit: When the Bastard failed to out run a lava flow due to his peg leg he cursed it unwittingly binding his malice to the leg. When his crew attempted to recover his body all they were able to recover was his leg, encased in obsidian, imbued with a curse that would ensure that anyone struck by it would suffer the same fate of the peg leg impaired...

I think the Ghost Heart can offer a opportunity to have your cake and eat it too. At least for the people who want a more "Strider" type Ranger, but also like the pet concept (e.g. me). As far as I know from the lore, the souls of Ranger and his/her Companion share a symbiotic bond. Perhaps that's why the Companion can still be summoned by the Ranger, as it cannot truly "move on" while its master is still alive? Anyway, you can easily justify, based on the existing lore, that the pair can utilize this bond even after one of them dies (hence the summoning mechanic). But then it can also be used in reverse - instead of allowing the Companion to help directly, the Ranger can draw upon its soul power to strengthen himself. Such Ranger would be considerably more powerful than his peers who haven't lost their animal friends, but would naturally lose this edge if he decides to summon his ghostly pet (because all that soulpower is spend on maintaining the summon). From mechanics perspective this would translate into additional effects for the Companion upgrade talents/abilities. These would improve both the Ranger and the Companion, with Companion side being a bit weaker than its living counterpart. The catch is that the Ranger buffs would be suppressed while the ghostly Companion is up ad about. Additionally, the Ranger part of the talents would not just mirror the Companion's, but be their own thing with emphasis on more active effects (hopefully). The end result would be a flexible Ranger that is much more powerful on their own, but has the option to summon his Companion when the situation requires less raw power and more numbers. The latter however, would not be on par with vanilla Ranger and his permanent ally, for obvious balance reasons (hence why slightly reduced buffs for the ghost pet). As a side note, this also solves a minor inconsistency regarding the petless Ranger's power source (i.e. why is it called Bond if there is no pet, alive or otherwise). Anyway, they can take this subclass in many different directions, which is awesome. thats actually a pretty cool idea to have abilities the Ghost Heart can use when the pet isnt summoned, like he feeds off its ghost powers while it isnt materialized but then he can summon and opt to forgo those powers (temporarily) to have a numbers advantage.

Its surprising to me that so many people have issues with the godlike. I like them and just wished they would have spent more time on their reactivity in the world. for the most part npc's seem indifferent to you when you play as one.

The simplest way to deal with this would be to implement a Pathfinder-like system of touch AC, and have certain spells and attacks target touch AC rather than total AC. (Well, it'd be Deflection here, but you get the idea.) This is a balancing factor for a lot of things, though it can be silly at times (a pistol resolves against a great wyrm dragon's godawful touch AC rather than its formidable total AC.) Because touch AC is derived from, among other things, a character's Dexterity bonus to AC, this tends to mean that light and nimble characters have a relatively high touch AC while the Fighter stomping around in full plate probably has a rather low touch AC. This just ties into Pillars being perhaps a little too simplified, though. I'm not intimately familiar with 5E, but maybe they did something there as well. I know 5E is said to be a lot more accessible than other editions. I like this and its a similar Idea to what many are wanting in this thread. A way to have heavy armor keep its relevance but give light armor users a better chance in melee. General idea being light armor users may not get hit as often as a heavy armor user but when they do its business as normal and your gonna take appropriate damage for light armor deflection. A touch deflection or similar idea is the perfect way to go.

Cipher's being so different is exactly what made them so fun to play. Its why my first play through ended up being with a Cipher.. Not to say some things couldnt be explained a little better but loved how they played as a class.

with the whole sailing and explorative element I bet it will feel bigger even if its the same relative size.

Actually my dumbass wizard probably never studied a single book; he's a steroid-pumped gym-monster through and though, and is probably too stupid to even tell different letters apart, let alone read or write. I really don't see a problem with this. *shrug* Also, I seriously doubt that assertion that if Aloth is the main DPS character, the rest must suck, would hold up to actual scrutiny. This was the original argument, you merely extended that to tanking by stating that you can make a non min-max tank that is viable, Pallegina for example. I tried to explain to you that this wasn't the case being discussed, as we were making comparisons, not assessing viability. I obviously forgot who had said what, and you obviously were not the problem child here. That honor goes to this guy: So you want proof that a wizard with 12 perception and 12 might deals less damage than a wizard with 18 in both? You need proof that a character that can engage two enemies and has lower deflection (Pallegina) cannot tank as effectively as a charcter that can engage 4 enemies and has higher deflection (Eder)? Or that either of those could even hold a candle to a properly min-maxed fighter tank build? I mean seriously?high probability does not equal concrete truth only that it may be more likely true than not. It remains as such unitl observable evidence is presented to take it out of the realm of probability. Yes cause I totally and specifically mentioned Aloth and dps.... you were being d*ck plain and simple and totally disregarding everyone elses opinion on the basis that your build philosphy was undeniable "because reasons" and then got all over people for not providing proof of their opinion. mine was an argument of process and nothing to do with the arguement itself which actually had nothing to do with Aloth being a dps god... Which was what I have been trying to get across more than once. anyway, over it think the topic has derailed enough.

Perhaps you should go back to school so you can learn to use terms like "high probability" in a proper context. A wizard with 18 might and 18 perception does better damage than wizard with 12/12. I really don't appreciate your dishonest arguments. No one every was arguing this but you. So i dont why you keep saying this stuff. Once again you made up something i never posted about aloth. And once again i a sorry you misunderstood my post. ^this

This was a bigger problem in BG2, where players would select companions based on their stats rather than their interactions. With PoE, that is less of an issue. Most discussions seem to focus on the persona of the companion. I'd say that's a win for the PoE approach.I agree here. I don't have a problem with characters having "realistic" stats rather than optimized ones, so long as they can still perform their role. Stats being generally less important in Pillars (for better or for worse) does make it easier to fit most any NPC into any party, but I never had a problem with characters with questionable stat distribution (Aerie, freaking Khalid, etc) in the BG games, either. Maybe because it was a lot easier to 'fix' their stats with items and long-term buffs. So you want proof that a wizard with 12 perception and 12 might deals less damage than a wizard with 18 in both? You need proof that a character that can engage two enemies and has lower deflection (Pallegina) cannot tank as effectively as a charcter that can engage 4 enemies and has higher deflection (Eder)? Or that either of those could even hold a candle to a properly min-maxed fighter tank build? I mean seriously?high probability does not equal concrete truth only that it may be more likely true than not. It remains as such unitl observable evidence is presented to take it out of the realm of probability.Dude... come on. Do you really need someone to run the math for you why a character with 18 Might and 18 Perception is going to deal more direct damage than a character with 12 Might and 12 Perception?No I dont, it was more making a point about him asking the same kind of ridiculousness from others on something that its value is totally subjective in the first place. He was assigning concrete value to his opinions as being fact without presenting any evidence but then requiring others to provide evidence for their claims and that their lack of(or unwillingness to provide) evidence was proof of his own opinion as fact. You don't need to present supporting evidence if your argument makes logical sense. A character with higher accuracy and a higher bonus to damage is naturally going to deal more damage than a character with low accuracy and low bonus to damage. If your going to state it as undeniable fact without evidence and dimiss anyone elses opinion then yes you better regardless of a high probability of being right. but thats neither here nor there and wasnt what I was getting at either.

This was a bigger problem in BG2, where players would select companions based on their stats rather than their interactions. With PoE, that is less of an issue. Most discussions seem to focus on the persona of the companion. I'd say that's a win for the PoE approach. I agree here. I don't have a problem with characters having "realistic" stats rather than optimized ones, so long as they can still perform their role. Stats being generally less important in Pillars (for better or for worse) does make it easier to fit most any NPC into any party, but I never had a problem with characters with questionable stat distribution (Aerie, freaking Khalid, etc) in the BG games, either. Maybe because it was a lot easier to 'fix' their stats with items and long-term buffs. So you want proof that a wizard with 12 perception and 12 might deals less damage than a wizard with 18 in both? You need proof that a character that can engage two enemies and has lower deflection (Pallegina) cannot tank as effectively as a charcter that can engage 4 enemies and has higher deflection (Eder)? Or that either of those could even hold a candle to a properly min-maxed fighter tank build? I mean seriously?high probability does not equal concrete truth only that it may be more likely true than not. It remains as such unitl observable evidence is presented to take it out of the realm of probability. Dude... come on. Do you really need someone to run the math for you why a character with 18 Might and 18 Perception is going to deal more direct damage than a character with 12 Might and 12 Perception? No I dont, it was more making a point about him asking the same kind of ridiculousness from others on something that its value is totally subjective in the first place. He was assigning concrete value to his opinions as being fact without presenting any evidence but then requiring others to provide evidence for their claims and that their lack of(or unwillingness to provide) evidence was proof of his own opinion as fact.