mutonizer

Again, note sure if already reported, sorry if so. Location: Lle a Rhemen, Spiderlings trap after going down the hole in the ground. Bug: Trap doing 200+ damage to enemies only puts them on injured status instead of instantly killing them. Note: And included comments about really bad encounter design as well, just because I didn't have a GM to punch in the face, so you'll do

One thing that would be kinda nice though is various Circle sizes for pets. Bear/Stag with bigger circles, Lion with normal character like sizes and Wolf/Antelopes with small circles.

Could you explain why exactly? I really fail to see what is the point of doing anything against kiting. It has 0 effect on my playstyle, 0 effect on anything whatsoever for anyone BUT the one who do kite. Why would you want to punish players for that in a single player non competitive cRPG. The amount of effort (and most likely completely artificial limitations) required to prevent/reduce kiting is just not worth it. Nope because unlike the AI, Players are not stupid and nobody's going to benny hill after a speed runner with a bow

15 AOE bonus (worst offender against tanks and usually comes with status effects) and later on bonus against ranged DPS (which REALLY ****s up your tanks due to raw damage, way more than melee unless it's poison and the like). Tanks cannot kill anything, which means that while your tank is tanking 2 or 3 guys, he'll still be tanking 2 or 3 guys at the end of the battle when your DPS comes around after mopping up the enemies DPSers (casters, ranged, etc). Ranger tanks CAN and WILL kill stuff. Flank with pet (-10 DEF), use pet bond (20 ACC boost) and you'll actually be cleaning up what you're tanking. That means in rough fights when end of the battle leaves you without resources and whatnot, you won't be left with a couple crazy high DEF/DR enemies that mops up your team. Their CC abilities later on are very, very good. You can root for crazy long and send the pet around to KD, unlike fighter who can only KD at close range (pretty much useless really). You can also send the pet to assist on DPS while the ranger is tanking, providing flanking options (and pretty good damage really) for other DPS. So sure, they are slightly worse than pure fighter/paladin tanks but they can tank AND dps. I'm not saying they are the end all of tanks and the lack of multiple engagement possibilities (unlike Fighters) can be an issue sometimes, but it brings a very viable and pretty good tank to the tanking pool.

Oh, and to answer the OP. Pet management is a bit of an issue. You cannot colorize pets, so multiple rangers with same kind of pet will make it very hard to sort them out, forcing you to mouse hover to check for names all the time. Would be nice to be able to change the pet color a bit. That said, you can click directly on their portrait within the ranger portrait (though they're a bit small) but above all, you can just CTRL+# and bind them (or group bind them, with ranger for example) to a specific number and call them from that. From all the pets I've tested, only wolf, bear and lion seemed worthwhile. Wolf has 10 default stats in everything but (though you can't check the math behind it) has slight boost to disengagement DEF and damage. Bear has great MIGHT/CON stats and slight DR boost, making it the best imho. Lion is very nice for the per encounter Frightened roar (which is nice for it's -10ACC on all affected enemies). Rest is very subpar in my book and Antelope DEF bonus isn't worth it to me. To each his own though. If you have a barbarian, chanter or other easy access Frightened state in the group, I'd say go Bear or Wolf. If not, go Lion. No matter the spec, they are very sub-par if you do not use their synergy with their pet bonds and that's something you might need to get used to. Sadly, pets create clutter and in tight corridors/choke-points, you won't be able to use the pet properly or it might be very risky, which will make the ranger lose some of it's potential. DPS rangers losing their pets are pretty much useless. The 20 ACC penalty that comes with it and inability to pet bond really screws them up. At that point, just send the ranger to sponge damage and don't waste any resources on them because they're just expendable. Tank rangers losing their pets remain very good tanks, hence my love for them. With pet they can dish out and take damage like champs (a huge issue otherwise for tanks). Without pets, they still keep 100% of their tanking potential, though the small WILL def penalty might hurt so you need to keep an eye on spells/effects for that. Pets do not really use Health, only Endurance. This makes them pretty awesome "oh ****, oh ****" off tanks and really good "raw damage sponge" if you need it. If they die, unlike your characters, their Health will still be maxed out, therefore never risking total death or forcing rest. They all have pretty decent Endurance as well and overall "off tank" like most other melee DPS such as paladins and barbarians. Ranger dying before pet still keeps the pet around though with some penalty as well but that means they just can't DPS anymore, but can still off tank in a pinch. Hope that answers some of the questions. Overall, don't be afraid to try one out after release but realize that the link between the ranger and his/her pet REALLY matters, so that's added complexity you don't have with other classes.

Always took rangers as barbarians with pets personally but never really bothered trying them out that much. Their true power comes from sneak attacking pets ontop of easy flanking ability and crazy ACC boost pet bond though. That combo is just crazy, no other character in my group even came close to 100ish ACC by level 8. That 2hd wielding one I tried simply annihilated any other melee DPS build of any other class I tried in seconds: crit crit crit crit, with pet itself doing 20-30 damage a pop. Even melee spec though, they can pull back and shoot from range quite nicely. Swift aim works both for melee and ranged attacks and pets can really roam around to grant that bond bonus. DPS ranger suck balls though without pet, while tank ranger are still awesome tanks, they just REALLY can't hit **** (but between hitting nothing and really hitting nothing, who cares).

Hmmm, gotta chime in here since I've been doing runs with rangers lately, as usual, on PotD... At first, was just to goof around and ended up with some 1hd stiletto wielding (not dual wield, 1hd), hide wearing crazy woman and her wolf....and they were doing a pretty good job on their own moving around and cleaning up isolated backliners. After that, I tested with adding another ranger, replacing my 2hd barbarian with the crazy magic sword. And that one just annihilated ANYTHING in sight, landing crits after crits and insane damage. Figured "hmmm, them got really nice ACC and that pet is damn nice". Then a flash....The ranger...TANK. Ah oh man, do they own! Apart from a low Endurance (36 compared to 42 with fighter and 2 less per level) and 5 less base DEF, Ranger have very good base stats for tanking. With pet bonds, you can get ACC bonus AND damage and flanking options and potential quick off tank (the pet) if needed. Not being to do damage is the big problem with tanks usually but not for Rangers, these guys are great at both as long as the pet is alive and if the pet dies, well, you're just left with another normal tank at worst. They get very nice AOE and Range specific DEF bonus later on. Their CC abilities are really cool AND usable at range, which to me is the main problem on other tanks. Root is long duration and great on engagement, KD is on the pet, which means you can send him around to KD that caster. To be honest, at this point, I'm close to just make 2 ranger tanks and 2 ranger melee dps and call it a day but inability to colorize pets would make it a nightmare. I'll make a ranger tank main though, that's for sure now. Might seem gimmicky but try them out, they're really, really good when you use them proper and they're quite epic as tanks.

From what I gather they want 1hd to be the thing that "hit", so reduction to graze range is on par with that. How much is fine tuning and easy to change, before and after release. If you really focus on a build that takes advantage of them hits/crits and ACC boost it's really quite decent. My 1hd test ranger's closing 100ish ACC at level 7 (or 8 can't remember) when pet is on same target and together they kill stuff quite fast, way faster than my 2hd estoc paladin, and can down high DEF enemies pretty easy (which was otherwise a pain because on Path of the Damned these guys DEF is just like your own tanks so that takes a while). That said, nothing even comes close to 2hd ranger with knockdown 2hd sword from merchant tag teaming with wolf pet. Geeesh these guys just maw down everything.

Yea, sadly that's one of the biggest drawback I see as well. Been true for a lot of RPGs with weapon enchant system.

Why would even try, apart from it being a derivative of other mechanics or overall AI improvement (which won't solve everything either, encounter design is very important). You CANNOT fight against people who just want to cheese everything, nor should you. This isn't a competitive game, it's a single player cRPG. If it's a bug, then yea, fix it, but if someone wants to make a team of fast running gun wielding one shotting rogues, let them! If they want to run with 6 druids and insta gib everything then run back to the inn after every fight, let them. They'll have fun doing it and it won't affect people who don't want to do it. The only thing they should focus on is doing what they want as part of their overall vision for the game, the way they want to do it (and fix bug obviously), not trying to prevent people from finding abuses in their system. Yea, we can go wild with that. I'd go for simple walk/run stance modal personally. Walking is slow but doesn't trigger engagement or bring any penalty whatsoever (can keep swinging, shooting, etc as well) while Running brings heavy ACC/DEF penalties (and maybe REF boost) for a time (but you can keep swinging and shooting, just really hard to hit), which will slowly disappear after you stop Running for a couple seconds.

Nah thanks it's cool, don't really care about it really as I said.. Either they change it, or they don't. Only way to notice would be to micro so much that you notice your guys doing something half a second/second before they would otherwise, which I don't care about nor want to care about.

Yea I know, just saying that's why I don't mind much, especially since it fits with the rest of what I think they're trying to do. But either way's fine with me, just hoping it won't make things too easy is all. Yea, I know, and I want to be a BG/IWD like game, not an Infinity Engine like game. To "[..]pay homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past" can be taken differently by different people. I take it for look'n feel but really don't want the same combat mechanics, you take it differently and want that RTS feeling you described before in combat. And I didn't say it wasn't valid and totally respect what you want and like, just saying that because you're very vocal about what you want and that I'm not (I mean I comment but don't campaign), it's something worrying (well, somewhat) as I kinda like the way it is now as a whole and would not enjoy it as much if they reverted to what you want. I mean, I'm having kind of blast with combat in BB480.

While I'm not sure about the math itself and how it balances out with other styles once you start crunching numbers, I've tried out a couple of 1hd/crit/crit multipliers builds and they seemed to hold their own with dual/2hd builds overall, no better, no worse. You'll want to focus on low DEF/low DR opponent though. Something I tried out recently that worked very nicely is a 1hd spec ranger with pet bond to add accuracy when hitting same target. Worked really well and with rangers having decent base DEF and Health (low END sadly however), that makes a decent off tanking combo that's still able to kill something fairly fast.

Well, mostly because mobility is very powerful as it allows quick re-positioning, going around the backline, escape, out maneuver and whatnot. A second delay for your next action after sprinting across the entire battlefield to get to that damn mage is not, in my book, that big a price to pay. It's also not designed to punish mobile characters, but to make moving a choice with consequences/cost. Mobile characters are still mobile, that doesn't change. I said before, you cannot include moving as a price to pay for moving. You move because it matters and being able to do it faster/better than others is still a very good thing. And I'm sorry but this is not LOL, DOTA2 or Warcraft 2 either, so we'll have to find some common ground. The difference is that I'm not pushing for anything, just looking at what they do and based on that, see if I like it or not. You seem to WANT to make it your way, which is a bit worrying to me if they start listening too much (other than bug reports of course) though that's of course personal preferences (and a bit late in dev. cycle). I'm not a backer though, so don't feel entitled whatsoever and can understand if you do, if you are a backer I don't want anything though I do like stable combat more than IE style crazyness (big difference with Sensuki obviously). I'm just saying that this feels logical within what they're trying to do with combat. I don't care if they remove it or not though if they remove it, it might make combat too easy somehow even on PotD difficulty (no idea really). Really think this little issue has been blown out of proportion...

You test bugs, I play and playing with lots of mobile characters, I didn't have any problem with it, nor felt it was a problem at any point whatsoever without knowing about it, nor feel that it's a problem now that I know about it. There is no doubt that it hurts mobile characters, but that's fine with me, because mobility should come at a hefty cost in my book because you should only be moving around for big rewards. No need to make videos really.

Good to hear, nice one.

Well he did say "more difficult", not impossible. Having to take talents and whatnot is their definition of "more difficult" I suppose. That said, I agree that it's ridiculous to try to fight against people who want to kite mobs. The extremes you'll have to reach to achieve that will ruin the experience for everyone else. So it's not big deal with people who kite, and it's no big deal for people who don't. What was the problem again?

Does if you want to make combat more stable and, as you say static. Personally I'm all for it as it allows more control over the battlefield, both for you and the AI. IE combat was (and still is) it's weakest link for me but because I'm just a sucker for D&D cRPGs and really love the overall feels of the games (look'n feel, story, character dev, inventory stuff, etc) they are still the best out there in my book. It's a lot more interesting with mods like Sword Coast Stratagem but I really fail to see how it's otherwise superior in any way to PoE. Now, really had doubts about PoE before they pushed back the release and there are still PLENTY of issues but this latest beta build feels really good and combats are really engaging for me. Of course, that's because of how I play and the fact that I only play on Path of the Damned (other difficulties are still complete clickfests no matter how you play though but that could be because I've ran the beta content too many times, we'll see). Once they learn from that, polish some of the issues, enhance both AI and pathfinding and, above all else encounter design, it has some really good potential. And to be honest, as I watch Sensuzi's IWD playthrough from the corner of my eyes (yea, I do that), I REALLY do not want that in PoE but of course that's just me As for the whole "prevent kiting" thing, really who cares. If it's not that, it'll be some magic rock that screws up pathfinding and people who would otherwise kite nonstop will spend 5 mins dragging mobs to THAT rock to abuse it anyway. If you fix the rock, it'll gun/build combo that one shot everything, and if you fix that, it'll always be something else... STOP trying to prevent/limit from playing single player games people who enjoy abusing flawed systems (or as some would say, find "emergent gameplay"), just follow your vision, fix your bugs and that's it. These guys will ALWAYS find another way because that's how they like playing games, won't play/buy your game if they don't/can't and since this is a single player game, who the hell cares if someone abuses, cheats or whatever! Just do your thing, do it well, marvel at how some folks out there find crazy ways to do something you never thought about, and embrace it.

Or the most fun ever made (told you there were billions kinds of fun) but the whole experience would need to be tailored completely differently and it couldn't be some kind of "you're the one!" story, that's for sure Hardcore low-tech GURPS all the way baby!

The concept? Sure, but other than that not really since they wouldn't have to do it themselves. Now if you HAVE to run around like that to defeat the Ogre in some kind of gimmicky fight, then yea, I'd probably stop playing because this is completely moronic. And if turning speed was to be a factor, as I've said with other things (rest spamming, frontloading, etc), it'd be a huge mistake to try to add some artificial limitations to fight abuses of it. You do NOT need to fight against people who abuse systems, just do your thing the way you want and the best you can, stay coherent and let it go. Trying to limit abuse of these mechanics is a waste of time in non competitive single player games as people will ALWAYS find the "other thing" to keep going and if they don't, they'll cheat or mod it anyway (which is 100% fine, this is a bloody single player game!!)

Should make IE "fireball opener" lovers happy then? I mean, massive front-loading before combat even starts is one of the most used cheese tactic in most IE games, usually on par with spam resting. Of course some bosses have crazy magic resistance but still. Cheesers gonna cheese no matter what and since this is a single player cRPG, doesn't affect me one bit (until some designer start putting in artificial limitations that is...I'm looking at you supplies!).

It's a twitch game first and foremost though. You can have all the tactical mastery you want on paper, fastest twitch will just overwhelm you every time by moving faster, reacting instantly and whatnot. Not saying there isn't a massive dose of tactical play added in and it's sometimes very impressive, but that's by far not the prominent aspect of it, unless all twitch skills are equal among allies/enemies. Love watching pro people play it (like any twitch game really, bit like sport in a way) but I HATE playing twitch games personally And I REALLY don't want PoE to get closer to DOTA and whatnot lol. Personal preference and all that, but the further away from it they can get, the happier I'll be.

It's just math really. Multipliers are applied before DR calculation, so DR just doesn't scale proper because of it, which is exacerbated with crits. It's also just math that low DEF characters (usually your backliners) will get crit hit more often. As a note, doesn't matter if you play on easy, normal, hard, ACC/DEF values are the same. Easy just 1/2 all damage taken while normal reduces it to 75% of normal, afaik. You just have more (harder) mobs on hard is all. And don't get me wrong, I play with most armor options also and on Path of the Damned (where this problem is even more apparent, since mobs get +15 ACC so non tank get crit hit all the time), but I realize that it's far from optimal

Only works as long as you don't get crit hit sadly, then it's mostly irrelevant and the reasoning is that since backliners will have low DEF, they'll get crit hit a lot, therefore on anyone but characters with high DEF, any armor is just not worth it.

Keying cars, stealing money, spitting in coffee... Geesh, you guys REALLY want to move around like maniacs don't you? I mean I don't mind the change but I don't want anyone to go kill themselves because of this or something... ...Damnit, extremists always win! :/