bigsun123

I used the default scripts that would auto attack and fight back if being hit, and the thief trap detection scripts. I understand that the traps thing is no longer necessary, but the basic combat scripts were useful enough so you don't have someone standing there getting wailed on. Is this default, or will your party literally stand there getting attacked if you don't give them any commands? It seems like if the enemies are getting AI it wouldn't be too hard to have some sort of basic AI for the player characters, but I'm not a programmer.

Not a beta backer, but if BAdler is reading this it might be helpful on this last release to know what can still be changed at this point? I'm assuming all mechanics, skills, spells, talents will be final, barring simple balance tweaks. Should people bother continuing with balance or feel threads or is it going to be strictly bug reporting?

I'd like to see some writing spells and managing of multiple grimores for a wizard, unless someone has already shown that and I've missed it.

That's actually exactly why you would change strategies, though. Faster weapons do less damage per hit, so switch to a slower weapon that does more per hit. It wouldn't make sense to change to an even faster, weaker weapon would it? If you include % reduction it becomes a little harder to calculate on the fly.

I like this as well, if you've played Fallout New Vegas it basically had weapons that were rapid fire and did less damage per hit but more per second, and weapons that did lots of damage but had a slow rate of fire. You could change your weapons accordingly to fit the enemies. Pretty simple to understand and I could see it applying to the 1h 2h weapons here. I haven't played the beta though, but I feel like the mix of % and integer reduction would be confusing without going to excel sheets, which I'm not really a fan of.

Whoa, is the balding guy supposed to be Aumaua? He just looks..bad. Like a gas station manager who slathered some sunscreen partially on his face and fell asleep bad. The last portrait I really like, as I get a BG2 Minsc vibe from it. The model face looks hilariously surprised compared to it though. I feel like if they just made the eyes smaller it would fit the faces and larger statures of the Aumaua better.

Link doesn't work for me by the way. I would agree though, it would be nice to have a variety for each race and gender. I think if the Aumaua are supposed to be semiaquatic, hence the shark like characteristics. As far as I've seen, the only reference to them being an orc-like race is that they are bigger and stronger than people, without the other traits I generally associate with orcs in other realms (darker skin, evil, uncivilized, cave dwelling, etc.)

Ahh okay, this was going to be my question, I realize most of the people playing this will be white, but black people are in the story so it would be nice to see them represented in the character creation. As far as I'm aware there aren't any East Asian or South Asian races right? It would be nice to see them represented too.

Hey all, I don't have access to the beta. Would someone be awesome enough to post the new portraits and models? Thanks.

Gotta go with dual wielding shields. I don't care if the game only give me experience for reciting sonnets to lusty Aedyrian maids, is filled with giant spiders the size of islands, and deletes my save every time I click on an odd numberd pixel, this would make it hilarious.

I like Part 1, it seems to make sense and could reduce the affect of Might as a stat, which may still be an issue. Part 2 seems good as well, I remember in BG I hated Khalid so much for his cowardly behavior and appreciated Minsc becoming more enraged as they broke morale, it seemed to really flesh out their personalities. Part 3 people have mentioned as possibly being more complicated and harder to implement, and I'd have to agree. This is a very good point. In a more simulation-like approach, I'd be very wary of shooting at something that was engaged with one of my allies if I wasn't sure about possible friendly fire. So because of this, I thought of a suggestion: Could ranged weapons be balanced by having them function like beam spells rather than automatically hitting enemies even through your allies? Ease of implementation - As far as I'm aware there are already wizard spells that function like this, such as the Ray of Fire and Creating Necrotic Lance (level 2). Thus a new mechanic would not need to be coded, but simply adapted to trigger for a standard attack instead of a spell. Keep Ranged Damage at a Significant Level - Instead of simply reducing the damage of ranged weapons so you get the invincible fly scenario, you can keep a large chunk of damage but make it more strategic to use ranged attacks. You would have to spend more time moving into a good position, and essentially flanking opponents being engaged in order to minimize your chances of hitting an ally for significant damage. This means you can't get as many high damage attacks in except for in the start of battle, or if you are very well positioned. Encourage more Melee or Spells - By making it harder to land a clean shot, you make it more advantageous for pure ranged characters to need to move in to close range, so they will have to consider using armor and not dumping Constitution. Or, they will have to focus on spells and other abilities which can somehow magically avoid hitting your allies. Hunting enemies running scared halfway across the map was never any fun when it happened in IE, no enemies running away please it's too annoying. This actually wouldn't be so bad, seeing as the kill xp option has been pretty much finalized I'd count enemies running away as a win, as they'd no longer be damaging my party for no benefit. You have just as much reason to chase down a giant beetle as it does to keep attacking you after it's entire colony has been chopped to bits. I'd actually like this a lot as it would seem to be more in character, unless you're playing the Terminex man.

Initially I was on the side of separating the two, because as many have stated, it is a bit unintuitive, but after reading through all of J.E. Sawyers responses here (yes, I did not have a lot to do today, I admit) I found one were he mentioned how Might can be scaled to allow it to reduce the variation in damage. Wizard with high Might (Strength) and Dexterity: His fireballs will disintegrate enemies as they deal exceptional damage and are very accurate. He will also be good at walking on suspended ropes and moving large rocks. Wizard with high Intellect and Perception: "Hey look, I have huuge fireballs (sadly I need a few of them to kill a rat), but I *am* able to interrupt the rat's attack pretty often!" Please look at the character sheet in this update. The listed character has a 13 Might, granting +26% to Damage. Let's assume you're Pro Mighty and have an 18 Might. That's +36%. Or you're an Ordinary Joe with a 10 Might, which is +20%. Let's say a normal Fireball does 5-30 damage. Pro Mighty does 6.8-40.8. Ordinary Joe does 6-36. Ordinary Joe does not need multiple fireballs to kill a rat because his average damage is 21 vs. 23.8. Of course, these aren't the final values for the attribute modifiers, but proportion of advantage is important. This seems to be what most of us are concerned with, that damage will be scaled significantly based on the might stat. However, in his example, the difference can be minimized. After all, in BG1 and 2, wizards don't have any modifiers to their spell damage. If the affect is minimal, I don't think it will be overpowering. Because of this I think I'll be okay with the general concepts of the stats. I think balance will be key, but the system is tweakable. I think one of the main focuses of the developers (also in the 20 pages of posts) was that in this setup, by and large all the stats are useful for all classes, which I do like. He mentions how the inherent class bonuses will, when properly balanced, still make Sheldon the intelligent, but small barbarian hit harder with a melee weapon than Swoledemort the hulking wizard, which I also like. I still like Fearrabbits improvements to the other stats (particularly improving perception with ranged accuracy, and crits, seems intuitive and solves the issue of usefulness) because it seems both the players and developers agree that they need more carrots. Intellect can be balanced as it is, by making durations and areas significantly longer/larger as needed. Again, I haven't played the game for myself but after reading through Josh's rationale I can understand how it will be fun and allow for variety when properly balanced, albeit different.

Whoa lots of text, gonna put it in the quote.

Potential Muscle Wizard Names: Swolomon Elemuscler Gandelts Biggestby Merlatissimus Dorsi Mystrapezius Swoldemort Brothezar Raistlin Majacked Swollanon Morgan le Fitness Abracadiesel

Of course it doesn't. But it sure encouarages it. No, I don't actually kill everything in sight, but having the abstract incentive there does make me consider the violent solution "superior" to other solutions. The game is basically telling me that killing is good even when there is no other reason for it. In PoE, killing isn't particularly good. The game only gives you an incentive to solve problems. What will you use the xp for though? As far as I'm aware, the only thing leveling up does is make you better at killing things and not being killed. All of the speech options and such are based on your background, previous speech interactions, and stats. If you play in a style that avoids this it shouldn't affect you. If you play in a style that encourages this you should be rewarded for it, even if it's small compared to quests and progressing the story. The current path very strongly encourages avoiding combat which some people don't prefer. Adding in xp for battles shouldn't affect the story if it is properly balanced.

For the sake of staying on topic I'll avoid the kill xp thing here. I don't know if everyone does or not, but it seems to me that the people that wouldn't want these features simply wouldn't use them, as long as the game provided other options that were rewarding and fun. Based on the poll of what people think here it seems like a large number of people that care enough to respond think differently. I agree that we can't really speak for the majority of those that don't respond, but the developers can't really base any decision off them either. I hope they do.

Traditionally yes. What's the point of releasing a beta and specifically asking for feedback though if they're not going to listen? I thought the point of backing the game was that however small, the people buying the game would have a voice as to how it was directed. We all specifically put in money into a game that we haven't played yet, but we hoped that it would be like our expectations. Our expectations are based on games that we've played that the developers literally said this game would be the spiritual successor to. I like some of the innovations they've tried to put in, specifically removing kiting as a reliable strategy feels much more realistic to me, but if people are insistent on a small change like xp for kills why should the developers draw a line in the sand?

I don't have access to the beta yet but this sounds much more intuitive and makes sense to me. I particularly like how you reclassified might and separated the melee and ranged accuracy. I agree that Dexterity was usually overpowered in the IE games, you pretty much had to max it in order to hit anything and also to survive with the AC bonuses. The whole play any build for any class thing I think is being overemphasized by the developers. Playing as a smart barbarian or a muscle wizard should be possible, I agree, but striving to make it as optimized as any other more traditional build makes all the stats meaningless. It should be harder to step outside of the norm, but more rewarding as a result. Overall I think your system strikes a good balance between allowing for variation in the same class and allowing for different classes to trend toward different stat builds. Again, not having played the beta, but it sounds like you're giving more weight to perception and resolve and taking away from might and dexterity, which seems to be the consensus among the testers and even developers. I think the balancing part will come down to the percentages like you mentioned, but that will take more time and testing.

Your adventure awaits Lord Xzibit.

I'm glad to see intelligent backers for this noble cause. In addition, I don't think it would be too hard to code, if dual wielding pointy things means they can be put in the shield slot, shields should be easily grasped in the weapon slot. Hopefully the developers won't be too defensive about letting us stay on the defensive.

I agree, it was more of a humorous post for sure. One of the biggest things I treasured about the BG and BG2 games were the comical portions, and I feel like a lighthearted feature here or there really would make the game more fun.

I also found it useful for thieving, I recall there's a quest in BG1 where you have to steal from a house and it's a whole lot easier to move one thief without getting caught than an entire party, especially before the Flaming Fist arrives to kill everything because you looked at a bookshelf.

I looked through the topics briefly but if this has been covered let me know. I know that dual wielding is possible, and shields exist and increase deflection, but would it be possible to have a dual wielding shield guy run around and just block the entire game? Hear me out here: This would mitigate the issue of fighters losing health faster because who's going to be able to hit a guy deflecting with 2 shields? You'd need at least 3 arms! (watch out for spiders) No need to worry about accuracy penalty! You're not going to be hitting anything! Simply wear out the opponent after an hour or so of hitting a wall and have the squishy wizard in the back throw books or something at the guy until he drops. Not only are two shields imposing, if someone tries to break engagement you can always switch to another weapon really quick and get them with a disengagement attack! They'll be forced to pound away for Eternity! May I suggest weapons like: edge of shield, front of shield, shield with pointy spike on it. This is just an idea, but possibly have some sort of ability that would make enemies attack you, like a taunt? (hey man, your mom smells worse than an ogre, I bet you can't get through these shields!) It's possible the sight of a stoic warrior carrying two massive shields could be too imposing, as they could be mistaken as a castle, mountain, or glacier moving at slower than normal speeds. This could also be an ability for crowd control and striking fear into enemies. Maybe dual shields can be used in conversation to end conflicts peacefully, or via a scripted interaction. Certainly offers another route for most quests and events, great for replay value. I hope that this capability will be considered by the developers, it could always be nerfed if it's too powerful or game breaking. Too long have RPG characters been left to fend for themselves in a world with too many swords and weapons. I think it's silly how these scantily clad, bloodthirsty characters nearly always have the ability to swing around two giant swords the size of lampposts but can never consider the trusty shield to be so nice to have twice.