Polanski

Haven't been following this topic ('cause there is so many similar ones), but looking at the pool, why would implementing combat exp mean the game would be delayed? It doesn't seem like such a big implementation, both from a programming and balancing point of view. It is not because od resources there is no combat xp, it is purely a design choice. That being said, I was playing the beta and with my almost dead party I was trying to conserve resources and not rest in the cave I was currently exploring. Still my couriousity was running wild and I had my rogue sneak and explore the cave, when all of a sudden this Giant ogre sees her. He demands to know what I am doing there and I hope her 'I'll be leaving now' will be enough to satisfy him, but unfortunately. The ogre attacks and the entire party runs to get out of the cave. Almost out of the cave we hear fighting in the background, sneaking back we notice that the Ogre has caught a fight with some spiders, that the party was too scared/hurt to face. 'no better time than now' the party quickly agrees and starts bombarding the Ogre with mainly AoE's, so the spiders get some pain as well. The ogres kills the spiders, but is put down, before he can reach the party. great gameplay tbh. I just thought about that episode because in the BG days, my thoughts would almost instantly be going to getting the xp for the ogre and spiders, but in this situation I didn't and just focused on the rp and survival of my characters, not that they would be crippled (as they in essence would) if they didn't get the kill xp from that giant ogre and those juicy spiders.

If you go back and read the 1500 posts on this topic that are all in the threads that got locked.. I mentioned like 5 ways to get around this abuse.. one of them is close to what your saying. Yeah, I'm not surprised. I've heard a lot from people who want Kill XP and next to nothing from people who don't. Do these people actually exist? In the end, as Polanski said, the devs likely are already well enough aware of the pros and cons, I suppose all that's left is to show them our preference while there's still (possibly) a window of opportunity for such a big change to gameplay. Actually, I'm not sure that they could even make such a big change at this point without delaying the game... I definitely think they could be able to make such a change within a reasonable timeframe. Surely within the time limits of the beta period. The thing with this is that it just ends up being a very fundamental discussion, where it is easy to see and understand each side of the discussion, but alot harder to understand the actual mechanical and gameplay differences there would be to not-having-combat-xp, as none of us have actually played an entire IE game without it. For me there is as well a very philosophical aspect to it, as it is very hard to make up the self-evolving aspect of actually taking a life, and doing so on a regular basis. It makes a lot of sense if something like that would be avoided and not just end up with a 'ding' as you put your sword through the mother-dragon. That same kind of argumentation could still be used on quest-xp of course. XP in general is just an abstract concept and the choice is dependant on what is the most fun, and makes for the best and least degenerate gameplay. Without the combat xp the alternative gameplay routes has to be similarly as fullfilling and fun. My point being that I think Josh & co. knows of all these options and the feelings of the Beta backers right now. They are probably discussing them, and they will come up with the right choice, or test something else in the next beta version. So people should maybe focus on feedback on talents and the classes and other important things (BUGS!).

What kind of constructive discussion of the beta is actually going on in this thread? I think the devs already understand the pros and cons about the current beta's xp system and are able to try something else or not based on that. This is going to be a long process. Let's discuss the problems that are current and solveable and needs to be shed light on.

I actually really hope there's something like this in the final build... There's a talent in the Beta to reduce the negative effect of not following the Creed of your chosen Faith/Conviction on Priests and Paladins. I would rather like one that increases the effect. I think this would be even more interesting if it also had the effect of increasing the penalty for going against your cause/deity/order. That was very much the idea. But that would almost never be relevant, as only the ones who actually roleplay the character to follow the path, would take this trait anyway. It would only serve to punish those that take the talent by mistake/misunderstanding.

I think in general Talents that come with a trade-off is fun, and can help to focus a character in a certain direction. Chanter - A talent that greatly increases the bonuses/maluses of the Chants, but doubles the required amount of chants before casting an invocation. - Several necromancer talents, that increases the Power and Duration of summons. - A talent that increases the beneficial effects for allies. - A talent that increases the detrimental effects on enemies. - An talent that adds the ability to instead of chanting the Chanter make use a silent no effect-chant. If the chanter (only) used these then the following invocation would be a lot more powerful (maybe only damage increase). Maybe this would also require the chanter to stand still and be unable to do anything else. So the Chanter would be a sort of nuclear bomb building up silent chants and then booom! - Talents that increases the fighting capabilities of Chanters, focusing more on the low-maintenance aspect of the class. Just singing and fighting Wizard Enchanter - the wizard increases the duration of effects, but decreases the dmg of spells. Spellsword - THe wizard increases his accuracy with melee weapons High Lvl talent - The wizard has tatoo'd the magic symbols on his own body (or just memorized them). The wizard doesn't need the grimoire anymore, but can cast a limited amount of spells. All the spells are now pr. encounter. (makes the wizard play more as a sorcerer) - A talent that increases the appropriate dmg of the character for a short time after taking dmg of that type. - a Talent that gives the wizard the ability to always have one buff of a certain lvl (or maybe just selected between certain buffs) active on himself. He is then unable to cast that buff on anyone. Priest Zealot - a talent that increases the bonus of following the way of their belief. - A talent that increases the priests damage against mechanical/undead creatures. - A talent that makes the priest able to control mechanical/undead creatures. Not possible with the abovementioned talent. Martyr - A talent that makes other partymembers regain stamina when the character loses stamina Leech - A talent that makes the character gain stamina, when enemies/allies loses it Syphon soul - The Priest is able to make a character lose all stamina, to restore health to another character. Monk Martyr - A talent that makes other partymembers regain stamina when the character loses stamina Leech - A talent that makes the character gain stamina, when enemies/allies loses it Cipher - A talent that doubles/increases the cipher focus build, but the cipher is not able to use abilities on enemies, that isn't being attacked by the Cipher. (modal perhaps?) - A talent that increases the cipher defences, the more focus the cipher has build up. - Talent that increases/removes the maximum for build up focus. Druid - A talent that increases the appropriate dmg of the character for a short time after taking dmg of that type. - The druid completely becomes their spirit animal. They are now able to cast spells in spiritform, but are always in that form. (would maybe be a problem with dialog, requiring reactivity, maybe the change would only happen at night, and then they would be unable to talk to characters, when in spiritform) - A talent where the druid loses the ability to shapeshift, and instead increases the power/dmg of the Druid's spells. - If the Druid would lose all stamina while in spiritform, the spirit of the Druid would continue to fight. In essence summoning a spirit wolf/bear/lion... . - a talent that allows the druid to take control of on animal. That will follow and protect the druid untill it is dead. Paladin Zealot - a talent that increases the bonus of following the way of their belief. Martyr - A talent that makes other partymembers regain stamina when the character loses stamina Leech - A talent that makes the character gain stamina, when partymembers/allies loses it Rogue Skilled - increases the amount of skill points gained - Whenever you crit an enemy, allies attacking this enemy attack instantly (their recovery time is set to 0). - If the rogue is the only character attacking an enemy, she receives a quicker recovery time and/or higher deflection.

Overall a very nice critique, were I can recognize almost everything. But I don't share the experience of the Cipher working mechanically as it should. My experience was, that it was very clunky, and hard to play/understand. The Cipher also seems very clunky to play, very similar to a wizard, and you don't feel the element of always attacking a soul. The Focus building feel more like an enforcement than fun and sticks out a lot in this game as something that don't belong. The focus is saved between fights, which seems strange. The ranged accauracy of the Cipher is higher than it's melee acc. which also doesn't fit the image I have of it. In general I think a lot of the classes should have the same amount of ranged and melee accuracy, and only very specialized classes like Monk, Barbarian and ranger should have heterogen values.

I agree with this suggestion completely. I also suggested it in the general suggestions thread.

agreed

no portrait for pale elves. no point in discussing this before all the portraits have been added. And then there is no point in discussing it, because all the portraits have been added. We really just have to hope that they plan to make several portraits for all the different races, and then hope that they are good. I think both will come true. Otherwise; import!

no

I don't think Queues are the answer, but they could be implemented and some people would like it, while the reactionaries would hate it like the plague. I think the missing AI for our team, along with missing and confusing feedback and UI, is what makes the Combat experience very messy right now. I'm certain that these things will be fixed in the coming beta updates, which will make it a lot easier to discuss the combat mechanics and the feel of the pace / micromanagement.

Also it seems strange that the Cipher has higher ranged accuracy, than melee accuracy. These should be equal in my opion.

In my opinion thee Cipher seems very clunky to play, very similar to a wizard, and you don't feel the element of always attacking a soul. The Focus building feel more like an enforcement than fun and sticks out a lot in this game as something that would belong more in an arpg or mmo. It seems strange for the cipher that focus is saved between fights and even rests. That is one focused dude. 2 ideas for changes to the class: - Make the Cipher auto-target his original target / last attacked. Quicker and more intuitive gameplay, where you feel the Cipher attacking and weakening the defences of a character to focus on him and then launching an attack on his very soul. Either to hurt those behind him / around him. This could then mean removing the allied target spells, or just have it work like this for non-allied targetting . - Remove Focus. Instead have the Ciphers abilities be based around a stat of the target derived from the targets resolve, either the resolve itself is attacked by the soul whip or concentration is, or a new "will defence" stat that is related to resolve is attacked. Then the Ciphers abilities could either have a chance to % fail based on how the targets stat is, or it would just have a hard limit of that stat. So that when the stat of the target is at 0 the cipher can cast Puppetmaster. This would of course need feedback as to which abilities are castable. The Cipher could then at the start of battle, almost instantly use some powers on weakminded enemies, whereas tougher souls would need some softening. These changes would make the Ciphers very unique and reminiscent of the elvish and orlan brîshalgwin warriors that cut away the souls of their victims. Also they would be a bit less high maintenance. For me this sounds like a fun gameplay, that could be easier to understand and would fit the Lore more.

In the character sheet, when you mouse over stats (stam. / Hlth. / Acc. / D.T. ...) it should bring up info about the derivations of these numbers, class abilities/stats so on ... E.g. Health 136 should bring up ( + 90: lvl 5 warrior + 10: Ring of Health + 36 % Constitution) I would also suggest that rightclicking a portrait in the inventory should bring up the character sheet.

Suggestions for the character creation: Assign the stats to start at 10 or so. 57 points is lot to divide. If you instead have to remove from a skill to add to another, it will make the trade off in abilities more apparent, instead of just putting everything in one or two stats and dividing the rest. Have the Character Creation randomly pick what is shown as the character, before the player chooses the character. so instead of always having the same Male/Savannah human/Fighter/Aedyr character showing, it will be randomly selected so you have a Female/Pale elf/Chanter/from the living lands or a Male/Island Aumaua/Druid/Rautaui . Just to create atmosphere and serve as inspiration.

A thread for discussing the Cipher class In my opinion thee Cipher seems very clunky to play, very similar to a wizard, and you don't feel the element of always attacking a soul. The Focus building feel more like an enforcement than fun and sticks out a lot in this game as something that would belong more in an arpg or mmo. It seems strange for the cipher that focus is saved between fights and even rests. That is one focused dude. 2 ideas for changes to the class: - Make the Cipher auto-target his original target / last attacked. Quicker and more intuitive gameplay, where you feel the Cipher attacking and weakening the defences of a character to focus on him and then launching an attack on his very soul. Either to hurt those behind him / around him. This could then mean removing the allied target spells, or just have it work like this for non-allied targetting . - Remove Focus. Instead have the Ciphers abilities be based around a stat of the target derived from the targets resolve, either the resolve itself is attacked by the soul whip or concentration is, or a new "will defence" stat that is related to resolve is attacked. Then the Ciphers abilities could either have a chance to % fail based on how the targets stat is, or it would just have a hard limit of that stat. So that when the stat of the target is at 0 the cipher can cast Puppetmaster. This would of course need feedback as to which abilities are castable. The Cipher could then at the start of battle, almost instantly use some powers on weakminded enemies, whereas tougher souls would need some softening. These changes would make the Ciphers very unique and reminiscent of the elvish and orlan brîshalgwin warriors that cut away the souls of their victims. Also they would be a bit less high maintenance. For me this sounds like a fun gameplay, that could be easier to understand and would fit the Lore more.

For me the "no bad builds" philosophy is still a very good idea, a lot of it has to do with balance and that resolve and perception just has too little going for them right now. Right now for me the biggest problem is that Stats (and especially racial and culture bonuses) right now doesn't seem to matter that much. In the IE games the stats would truly define the character, where the current system with (negligible) percentage increases seems a lot less important. It is very apparent with the racial bonuses to stats that really only add to the maximum of the character, and as such and Orlan ranger would often have the exact same stats as an Aumaua.

Just my 2 cents. At first I was very cautious about this change to the original formula with kill xp, but I truly feel that this is another place were josh and co. has taken a courageous step to change things for the better. Xp farming is a problem in a lot of RPGs and I remember a lot of situations were I would do stupid stuff like killing a guy after completing his quest, just because why not. Combat could also become a chore because if you didn't farm every single xp you were in essence degenerating your characters. I used to summon demons in BG2 to kill just for xp, no fun really. I have no doubt about that I will still enjoy the heck out of combat in PoE.

I have dreamt about a pale elven Cipher for some time now. I will probably end up playing that, even though I like their takes on literally all the classes and most of the races.