kat7ra

Beastiary xp wouldn't make this ideal, once an entry is full you don't get combat xp. Also, humans never give combat xp. But they should. At a reduced rate after the bestiary entry is complete, maybe 50% or whatever, but they definitely should give XP all the way so killing stuff doesn't feel as pointless as it does now. If it needs to be rationalized, I'm sure you can still learn something about fighting wolves even after you've killed a dozen of them. This is an example of how some people profoundly do not understand why there isn't combat XP. Let me explain - the reason there isn't combat XP, per se, is so that people who avoid combat and try and find rational, safe, clever solutions to problems do not get penalized for not just murdering everything and everyone in sight. Pillars is a good game in that it rewards play that isn't a total mindless slaughter, unlike a lot of CRPGs, especially older ones. Changing it so combat always rewards XP would be completely missing the point, and would turn the game back into that sort of ridiculous "Even peasants are worth 15XP!" butchery. It promotes the sort of idiotic and immersion-breaking play where you're more rewarded for solving a quest the clever way (avoiding combat etc.) AND THEN going back and slaughtering everyone mindlessly for no reason (something common in older CRPGs), than for actually just being successful. While I totally agree with what you're saying here, I don't know if they've managed to do it. Some places it works really well, you can sneak through most of it, but then at the end there is only the "kill" option left, or join in some cases. One instance I found actually made it viable to not fight at all and still get progress, which was great! (Even though I killed em all anyway) But unless the whole game gives this kind of options it will make the "talkative" players feel left out when they are forced into a lot of fights, and the "fighting" players annoyed that they don't get any xp from all the fighting they're doing. I like a balance myself, but a lot of players want to either talk or fight most of the time. and this system of a middle ground kinda works as a way of annoying 2 major RP groups I think.

One can't really compare the direct level cap between games, as the level cap in BG was somewhere around 6-8 but took as long or longer to reach iirc, so stating "most games have 20" doesn't make sense. I do get what you're saying though about losing some interest after the level cap. But as I stated in a previous thread, it's VERY hard to make sure you don't make a game where you FORCE the player to do OPTIONAL content. And if the level cap is higher then they would have to make sure the later parts of the game was harder, which then would force other players to do optional content or complain about the game being to difficult. On the other side not changing the difficulty of the later parts of the game would make other players complain about it being too easy. My best advice would be to turn off the level cap if you don't mind making the game too easy.

Yeah, I believe I read someone saying it's directly related to tasks/quest completion. Do a quest/task and you get progression/new events.

One of the things I've been missing the most from the 2D painted games. One of the reasons why I love skyboxes as well, beautiful art <3

Hey, we have mods and console commands to do this don't we? Asking that all NPCs be fully changeable (except class and race) just seems wrong for me. It's an RPG, part of the charm is who you meet on the road. Being able to mold them into whatever you want seems to me to be a bit weird, you're not hiring a specialized combat wizard, you met a guy names Aloth and decided to travel together for a while. If his competence in battle isn't up to your standards and that's more important to you than his friendship than swap him out. If you're interested enough in his personal story then you'll carry some extra weight on your shoulders, and if you're not able to do that then maybe you'll have to make a hard choice. Choices and consequences is what makes or breaks good RP for me, and the more you allow toe player to directly change the world around him instead of adapting, the worse the RP aspect in my book. Now if a side characters is badly designed of course one can complain, but this is not the solution that I would like to see in an RPG, fits other genres better imo.

Heal heal and heal. That's how you keep your health up.

Tbh as other ppl have stated, this is something that these old school rpgs have always had trouble with. If you make a huge amount of side content and give no reward, ppl will complain that there is no reward, if you DO give them rewards, and someone DO complete everything they'll become way to strong. The strength level can vary from game to game, but I do remember the difference in killing Sarevok the first time when I was level 4ish maybe some were 5 playing the game without even knowing enough English to understand it, and one of the later times when he was killed by 2 out of my 6 man party before he reached my group. There is almost no way to balance XP in these kind of games so that everyone will be happy.

And for talking, it's ALWAYS the main char doing it, says so in some loading tips ^^

Oh no, there are enemy monsters in my dungeon crawling RPG... Wha? Also, how does stats/items not matter?

1. Why wouldn't a fighter, wizard barbarian "scout" before engaging in combat, it makes PERFECT sense, it doesn't mean you can sneak up on people with a barbarian, but it does mean he won't yell and sing and knock casseroles together when he's exploring a dangerous new area. It's only an immersion breaker if you think of it as normal rogue stealth, which it isn't. 2. While there is an argument to made for a search mode and a scout mode, instead of just a scout mode, having a "search" function which requires you to take some time (almost nothing to be fair) looking for hidden doors and items makes perfect sense in a roleplaying game. Have some patience, and if you can't be bothered then I'm wondering how you can be a completionist (No offense meant, but as one myself I know that patience is the key factor to being one)

Hah! Good (Wayfarer) Paladin Rogue companion (didn't realize until later that mechanics skill can go on anyone, my old habits of having a rogue I guess) Welcome to the party! And don't let all the negativity on the forum drag you down, we just like to discuss and pick stuff apart, most ppl here really like the game ^^

I would say parts of it was indeed AMAZING, but other parts of it was a bit tedious and very very boring on a second playthrough. If they'd cut some of the non story things in Irenicus dungeon, it would actually have been better imo. Haven't done that many dungeons here yet, I will admit that the first parts of the endless paths was a bit boring compared to Watchers keep or Durlag's Tower, but I'm not all the way down yet, and maybe it'll have some more interesting interactions further down.

In these kind of games I do not care about having all the classes be as strong as all the other classes, there is no MP so it doesn't really matter. Some balance is needed true, but come on. I've been playing paladin as MC on hard and I do not feel like it sucks. Maybe it doesn't min/max as well as other classes, but it's in no way unplayable or horrible.

1. Not all of them ARE from a past life, of course I'm not going to punish someone for mistakes they did in past lives, but hey, maybe I see a possibility to make some who used to live a life of good and fighting crime get back to that path in this life, or they did a noble act and I feel Karma owes them something in return, and as a watcher I can do that. 2. This game works with souls and resurrection in a way that blaming someone for what they did in a previous life is NOT irrational at all it seems, it's something along the line of blaming someone for what their ancestors did, which happens in the real world as well, all the time. WHAT people want to do isn't the issue, the issue is they're represented as people, but have no interaction other than being murdered.

I really want to do this, because I can feel how the options are affecting how I play, but I JUST DON'T DARE TO. Because: It is SO often issues like the ones mentioned in the thread show up, where a choice you're making sounds nothing like what you'd consider, for example, rational. There's so many Cruel options that are more Aggressive than Cruel, and at other times when you really want to twist the knife ("Hey, you deserve your fate because of what you did.") is suddenly rational. It's like they got stuck in the good option/bad option and evil option/nice option dichotomy, despite the system giving them the perfect chance to get away from it. Without the indicators, I have no idea what tone some things are. There have been several times I've seen options that I would not consider aggressive, but which have the Aggressive disposition. You can't read the intonations and meanings of many dialogue options. Like I said in another thread, something as simple as "You better give the macguffin to me" are two completely different options based on whether it has the Aggressive or the Benevolent disposition. This is also where I voice my disappointment in that Bleak Walkers became Blackguards after all, despite their initial descriptions suggesting the contrary. They should've been Favoured: Aggressive/Rational and Opposed: Diplomatic/Passionate. Their current setup could've worked, if not for the fact that the various Dispositions are either very tied to good vs. evil or so loosly defined that they seemingly make no sense a lot of the time. I get you man, I really do. For me though, the heavy influence seeing the options would have on me outweigh not taking the "right* choice all the time. Thrashmyego said something that might make sense though. as it's maybe not what YOU consider rational, but what THEY consider rational. Some people might see a compassionate act as rational, while someone else might see it as passionate, heck if we go Kotor2 some might see it as cruel So maybe we're min/maxing where we shouldn't, you can do your best to get a reputation you want, but sometimes an act you do will be misjudged by other people, and that's part of roleplaying.

Thanks a lot for this Obsidian! Awesome list! And for those complaining about wizard spells and how fan of flames don't ever work. Fan of flames work fine, it's just a mid-game spell, instead of an opener/kill everything in sight. After you've engaged the enemy and have them locked down, then is when you sneak up behind them and get of two or more fan of flames, that can WRECK entire packs of enemies. Is it easy to use? Not super easy no. But the people keeping on saying that mobility is impossible in PoE is doing something wrong, I'm able to use mobility as long as I plan ahead in any fight (that doesn't include teleporting shadows, cause eff them!)

+1 What are you going to do? "I've looked into your soul and NOW I WILL PUNISH YOU because I totally know you're guilty"? I suppose Durance would approve. Well, I do have to agree that I really like the guiltless freedom of always knowing what is evil and what is good But no I wouldn't just walk around and smiting random people, but I would like to invite some of them to my Keep because they've had a hard life, or donate some money (I'm Mr. moneybags after all) And for the Evil ones, how about some detective work? find out where he/she lives and search their place for clues. All I'm saying is this: When adding NPCs with a story to the game, and then having the player not being able to interact with them make for some bad immersion, if they were dead souls on the other hand, it would have been a lot more flavourfull.

Well rational could be "whatever is best for you in the current situation" While thinking for yourself would often be passionate I'm guessing. Just a thought about what the devs could have meant. As long as it's not the modern type dialogue where you get to see a "synopsis" of the dialogue which turns out to be something COMPLETELY different then what you actually wanted to say, (ME, DA, etc.) I won't have much problems with this myself. It kinda comes down to what you yourself feel is passionate/rational/cruel etc, and that is VERY hard to get 100 % perfect for 100 % of the people all the time.

Turn off the visual that shows what dialogue option is what. It helps.

My main problem with them is that I can't interact with them, which breaks immersion for me. Oh, you're a killer that was never caught? Never mind, I'm just going to ignore that. That might work for some people but not for me. If it was a "dead soul" or a book or whatever, no problem, but I dislike the no further interaction.

Yeaaah, you NEED to have a mechanic for those traps on hard imo. Haven't used any potions or scrolls and such yet so can't comment on that. I never use them unless I get forced into a corner and I need a power-up to win.

I knew it was getting here later, and I have a copy of the game anyhow. Can't say I got shafted yet, since I don't have the box in front of me to inspect.

+1 would read again.

Easy isn't "impossible to fail at" you still need to try. In my book easy means something along the lines of "You don't need to give it your all to succeed" And as I posted in the beginning, you still need to play the game, and you still need to give some thought to what you're doing. Basically this is not a game where you can play it for just the story, it's very gameplay related and if that's not relaxing for you, it's the wrong game for relaxing m8 ^^ P.S I also use NPCs, and I also have an unoptimized character, with skills and stats a bit here and a bit there for "RP" reasons, which makes the game VERY difficult at certain times (Hard) but I wouldn't want the game to lay down and let me walk over it, I have to adapt to the game, not the game to me.

Which allowed for a VERY varied party, depending on the player, and that is a good thing. 25 is a lot, but 8 seems to be a tad bit little. and so far I can't say I've met anyone that I can consider as good as Edwin, Imoen, Viconia, Sarevok, Jaheira and Khalid or Minsc yet. And those characters managed to seem stronger and deeper even with their extremely limited dialog.