mutonizer

Fact that nobody noticed it for that long and it took you of all people (because you really do hardcore testing I mean) to see it clearly after all that time indicate that it's anything but a hot potato, and even an issue whatsoever. I mean I clocked 5 full Path of the Damned playthroughs since 480 release, with lots of melee characters and ranged needing to move (chanter bowman) and that didn't stick out like a sore thumb at any point whatsoever.

Oh..please..not that clown again. Ever seen an army composed on knife jugglers and trick-shot artists? Yea, me neither Yea...fun isn't a valid reason though, not in anything. There are more than 6 billions kind of "fun" on the planet so not sure how you want to do anything based on that. All I care about is: Does it make sense within the context: Think it does, they clearly want to make the battlefields more stable overall. I like it personally since I like the concept of "battle lines", be it in tabletop or cRPGs as I feel it's more "realistic" (within the context that is). You might not like it, that's cool too. Does it add an interesting mechanic: Makes you moving around an actual choice with consequences, which I think is interesting. Does it feel artificial: Not really, on the contrary. Moving at full speed while a battle is going on should have consequences, the degree of which is of course up to debate. I've played with 480 a lot and while I never directly asked myself the actual question, it didn't stand out as an issue, which is good enough for me since I do move around when required (and only then). That's you though. Personally I think that's actually the worse thing. If I wanted to play DOTA or LOL, I'd go play DOTA or LOL. That's very personal though of course so as usual, to each his own.

You can't include moving as a cost when it's used as a benefit. Unless you're forced to move (because of incoming AE, etc), then it's your tactical choice, therefore a benefit. And it's hard to understand because it doesn't make any lick of sense to be able to reload and swing without penalties when you're running around at full speed. If you're (you as a generic you, not you, you) gonna min/max anyway, you'll always go for the most abusing system you can find so if it's not that, it's gonna be something else, forever and ever. Can't design a rule system around that kind of playstyle nor even take it into consideration. You go with an idea within your vision for most "reasonable" situations, try to polish the extremes according to feedback, and see what comes out. Because if you're a tank surrounded with critters with nasty raw damage poison on hit, and you need to re-position to prevent an ally from getting gibbed, you want to make damn sure you don't get hit by everything on the way. My ranged dudes are the ones moving around the most usually. Caster getting into conal position, healer getting in there, bow chanter coming in close to cast invocation. Any delay for these situations can be critical so that makes positioning more important. For melees, doesn't matter much because half a second delay in attack is not that big deal usually, unless you want to land a stun/interrupt or something.

Hmm... While I agree that total recovery lock-down while moving was bad, some kind of recovery penalty kinda makes sense to me. I mean, running around like a madman while there's a fight going on should come, I think, with some drawbacks. I'm critical enough when they make change that makes no sense and feel completely artificial but gotta say, this one's kinda logical (whatever that means): fast re-positioning is a tactical choice and to be a choice, there needs to be benefits and costs. Heck I'd go even further personally, with DEF penalties added on top (though maybe a REF bonus as well) but that's just me Of course, all that could be solved with a walking stance that wouldn't carry drawbacks (but you move slower of course), but heh, apparently people like being able to run around at full speed in battle for some reason.

No! You have a low Attribute #5! I'm telling you, forget the names and meaning or you'll go completely insane. Make sure to hide all dialog "hints" too, will lower your frustration.

First, **** balance. Second, look'n feel is easily one of the most important aspect in these games, as long as it has a decent enough core system. PoE system takes a while to get into, but once you get it, you can play around with it a bit. This is also a new system without the decades of feedback and experience that DnD has and probably very little tabletop practice. They'll learn from this release and will most likely tweak things around for add-on and sequels as well as expand possibilities, builds, etc. Really odd though that they ended up with this, which I agree promotes min/maxing like nothing I've seen before, while they wanted the opposite. But with difficulty settings being total cakewalks, that's probably how they achieved their goal: Pick whatever, click click click. Almost gave up and cancelled my pre-order when I saw Josh demo the game on hard, it looked like a game made for one-handed paraplegic retards. Glad I finally came back around couple weeks ago and tried Path of the Damned though, totally changed it for and now I'm supra high on the hype train...can't wait for release.

As I said, all attributes are misnamed. Do NOT read them as Might, Dexterity, Perception and whatnot. Read them as Attribute #1, Attribute #2, Attribute #3 and ONLY go with the bonus they give you. Trying to understand the relationship between the attribute names and their effect will just put you straight into an asylum.

Because it's up to you, that's the point I was trying to make. Depending on how you approach these games, you'll have vastly different experiences and that's a good deal why they're cool in my book. You cannot fight (nor is it in any way a good idea, I mean, they do whatever they want) against players who will just try to "beat the game", they will always look for the next advantage they can get because that's how they play and it's fine. If this was a competitive game, then sure, go ahead and really limit how people can play it, balance everything and whatnot, but this isn't, so why bother. It's 100% single player so the game is defined by how YOU play it, as long as it has decent base mechanics of course, which I think, PoE now has (didn't before they pushed release though, not to me at least). Same argument came up with rest-spamming, which brought us supplies. What does that changed? Nothing whatsoever. People who rest-spammed before, will rest-spammed now, only find it more tedious and either will stop playing, or just mod/cheat it. It however affects people like me, who never rest-spam, by adding some completely useless mechanic that wastes my time (running back and forth) and is completely devoid of any interesting potential (no ambushing etc) for the slightest mistakes. That'll be the first thing I do before booting the game: mod it out. On the other hand we now got unlimited stash, but how you use it is 100% up to YOU. Heck, they now even have an option for "access anywhere", that really shows that how you play PoE is up to you. Personally, I'll limit myself to never use stash to store/grab anything while I'm "adventuring", and only use it as some kind of chest in the Stronghold (and tavern before that maybe). That'll put, to me at least, an interesting pressure on the money available, force me to choose what I loot, and bring back some of the inventory managements mechanics that I like. But that's just my way. You might choose to just auto loot everything, down to every little piece of cheese hiding in the corner. To each his own. BUT if you start reducing the value of everything because you assume everyone will loot everything anyway, I'm screwed. I rather you just accept that some people will get INSANE cash and don't get bothered by it nor try to fix it. Now for armour. Personally, since I really delved into it, I think anything below Path of the Damned is just "whatever man" as you said, so not even gonna bother because I don't want to spend 30+ hours just roflstomping everything like Josh did in all his demos. Now, Path of the Damned is another story entirely. Sure you can still cheese it, bring 4 druids 2 tanks and rest-spam, but if you don't, you'll want to put some armour on everyone because there are a LOT of dudes to fight and your one or two tanks won't hold them all up and if one of them gets a hit on your naked caster, it'll be a one shot. That said, and it comes back to my issue with Critical hits and DR, I do agree that since you're back liners WILL be critted (low def) and because DR means **** when you get critted, armour as a whole is, indeed, a go max or go min thing. But, to me, THAT's the problem with armour, not what you described. Exactly and it comes down, in the end, to the way YOU (as a player) play the game, not the game itself. That excludes competitive games of course, where min/maxing is the actual goal.

Errr, no it's not? Pretty sure everything's linked to mechanic, not Perception (outside of dialog that is) Perception is misnamed really, should be called "Statistic #4" but then again, they are all misnamed

So you're min/maxing and complaining that things are being min/maxed? Nobody forces you to do anything. That's like saying the game economy sucks because you loot everything there ever was. I always use variety of armours, usually heavy for front liners, medium for skirmishers and light for back liners and find the current system decent enough. Added onto that are look and feel of course, which are quite important to me as well. The only thing I really wish they'd change (though maybe they did for release or something) regarding armour/DR system is to handle crits differently so they don't scale completely off the chart, which would help a lot in making heavier armour more viable for non pure tanks (lower spikes that one shot you). It'll get modded I'm sure though. Otherwise, seems just fine to me.

Cheers, wasn't sure.

No idea if been reported but this split my ears apart all the time in 480. Can't reproduce it 100% of the time but happens often enough. Have music at 0%. Zone. Go to Otorhinolaryngologist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbNPWxOlk6c&t=2m38s

Yea but remember that us players have an additional win condition for each fight: resource management. Of course staying alive is key but if you're gonna handle every single fight with "bomb them", you'll be doing trips back to the inn all the time. If you're going with this mindset, might as well play on easy really, save you some running time... To each his own of course, but I always said supplies were a moronic idea to artificially try and counter rest-spamming since people who rest-spammed in BG/IWD would always find a way to do it here anyway, supplies or not. Meanwhile, people who didn't, find themselves with an artificial limitation tied to difficulty setting for some reason. Cheesies are gonna cheese anyway, we all have our own way to play these games so it's hard to compare experiences. Yea, early on's the hardest but I think that's BB related because you're just dumped in there. It's true though that melees become more "stable" with levels however, at least in beta. But personally I just finished my last PotD test runs, see which party composition I'll be going on release, and have to say it was really, really good fun. It was only on that run that I fully grasped the "mobs don't give xp" concept and ran with it. Was on that run as well that I realized that you could do a RP low-meta party/no cheese on PotD and that it was, to me, the only difficulty setting worth playing, at least as far as beta was concerned, if you wanted a good combat challenge ontop of a good story (potentially). For..I don't know, information sake, I decided to record the run at the last minute (really not equipped for this but there's very little PotD stuff out there, and all of it it 100% cheese). Can find it here if you want. First couple videos are just build up, then adventuring. Microphone didn't work before part 2 and sucks.

You do NOT want the AI to play like you (not you you, you as generic) play...really. Like I play, yea that'd be cool because I really try to avoid cheesing, go with theme and alignment, enjoy look above meta. But most people cheese out in these games like there is no tomorrow and if the AI started doing it to THEM...lol. I mean, wtf you gonna do if suddenly all ranged mobs started focus firing on your ranged dudes, with priority orders, or started CCing properly, then massive focus fire. Mobs do NOT have resource management to handle, which is what makes these fights difficult in the first place. Mobs do NOT need to think about story, roles, balanced party, they are just here to ruin your day and be loot fillers. Mobs only have to fight ONE of you, you have to fight DOZENS of them. Mobs win by killing you. You win by killing them, while using as little resources as possible. Overall, "Good AI" doesn't mean jack ****, what matters is mostly mob design but above all: Encounter design. That's the key in tabletop, that's the key here, to me at least. Not enough things go "oh ****", especially when fighting deep in an enemy temple. There should be call for backup, patrols coming from behind you, archers setting up barricades or things on fire or even better, using arrowslits, attack dogs that ignore engagement and go straight on other ranged units, not to kill, but to disrupt (low damage, fast attack dogs, etc). Should be TONS of people, maybe in barracks somewhere on the map, that represent a "pool" of bad guys that can reinforce position if you go crazy in there: Be careful and you won't freak them out, go swords blazing and you'll have a fun HUGE fight on your hands. Get out of the frikkin door, monsters, treasure mentality! For animals, they should have engage/disengage/circle patterns, WAY more numbers (since when a couple wolves attack 6 dudes in platemail wielding super menacing weapons?) and whatnot. I think you'd reconsider the risk/reward of fighting a 30+ pack of wolves (if they don't get stuck in pathfinding that is). Flyers should be able to swooooosh across the battlefield almost instantly, making your "front line", your "back line" in a second. Things like drakes should be able to grab your characters and drop them somewhere a bit away, possible aggroing another pack in the process. And AMBUSHES! During rest, during travel, in towns, in the wild! Anything to disrupt your pretty little line. Nothing ****ed my parties up like 10 enemies (especially with range) encircling the group in BG! That was awesome And you need to be able to run away...why can't we run away, this makes no sense whatsoever and actually promote complete cheesing. It's one damn line of code to alter, just do it. To be honest, Path of the Damned is the only difficulty worth playing anyway if you're looking for a good combat challenge ontop of a good story. Anything else is a total clickfest so ranged, melee, naked, armored and whatnot don't matter whatsoever so might as well play on easy and enjoy the story.

Hey, Has there been any official comments regarding Path of the Damned and it's state in the beta compared to release? In short, is the beta a somewhat accurate (all things considered) representation of the difficulty for release? Cheers for info if you have.

Been using that way of mapping my mouse buttons since BB 393 I think and been working flawlessly for me so far but yea, on a (hard to find, from 2010!) post about the whole mouse buttons 4+ problem, couple Unity devs indicated that only 3 buttons are supposed to work on everything, with everything, rest being OS, component dependent and...that's that. For info: Windows 7 64x and some random Gigabyte mouse (M6800) with some generic drivers.

Sure would be nice if they put it in at some point BUT here's a quick'n dirty solution for now without some keybinder disclaimer: don't screw with you registry, danger, backup, etc. So: open "regedit". browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Obsidian Entertainment\Pillars of Eternity find which keymap you want to rebind change value (before : is 1st option, after is second. Don't remove special character at the end) For reference, mouse buttons range from codes 323 to 329 (left, right, middle, 3rd, 4th, etc).

Why not? That's what the role of the class is. It's a DPS heavy hitter and it's designed that way by the dev's. Quite agree. The class has it stands has a very solid concept for a pure DPS class and lots of various debuffs that can be used as well. My only real beef (aside from all bugs and core mechanics issues) is with it is the name really, mostly because I think it'll generate confusion (and later on frustration) with players lacking experience with PoE mechanics but also because of what the name "Rogue" evokes in an heroic fantasy setting, which as little to do with what the class actually is and does. I proposed Assassin but that was just to make a point really.

Hopefully true and hopefully won't cause them too much monetary issues. More time is what PoE needs right now, unless they can really pull a 180° in just a month or two.

Yea, overall I noticed that things are much more stable with having 2 tag teams (tank/dps, tank/dps) to lower the flanking issues on your main tank (which really screws you over DEF wise) as well as debuff overcharge (especially poison stacking). Instant "Withdrawl" from priest is all you need against Petrification though. Or did you not have any Priest? Think Paladin suppress can work too in a pinch but not 100% sure.

Yep, lots of per encounter, that's why I put it as very high maintenance. You "can" treat it low maintenance but then you're best ignoring RES totally, and handle it like a tag along fighter DPS. Flank status is a bit buggy just now, and some mobs have 3+ and above Flanking threshold, but it works. Cheers. Probably some mistakes in there because, well, beta, but I was doing some kind of class check list on my side so figured might as well put it out there and do some more involved testing. And yea I'll most likely continue even if it doesn't generate much class discussion. Next on the list will be Wizard and that will conclude the 4 "classic" classes. After that, I'll go onto Paladin, Druid, Barbarian, Ranger, Monk and finally Cypher and Chanter, them being the PoE specific classes. Probably one every couple days as it takes some time to try and figure how things work, create the proper testing environment and the beta isn't helping sometimes

Medreth's also wielding an Estoc, one of the best (if not the best) melee weapon currently in the game. My bad, that's the other party dude. Dual fine stiletos will do the trick just fine though As for Deep Wounds, it's automatic indeed and will affect any target the Rogue grazes or better. It's also refreshed automatically (and ticks instantly) on every attack.

Just calling it Assassin would limit the downer feeling that people who love rogues usually in a fantasy setting might get once they select the class. Fits with what they can do and how they behave perfectly. It would also remove the "damn, I need a Rogue" urge one might get in your usual fantasy settings, making it clear that Stealth and Mechanics systems are not linked to any class per se, therefore freeing what I'd call Casuals from the burden of trying to fit a class in their party that they actually do not need, simply because they're used to the concept, which is not valid in PoE. But that's just part of the issue, small part at that

Yea, I keep trying to find small changes that might make the whole combat mechanics less ****ed up because there's not that much time left, but really, if they had time, I'd really push for a complete system revamp. The one we have currently is completely ****ed up. With a "no bad build" philosophy like the one that's being pushed forward, it's really odd that they came up with this and allowed it to continue. I mean, this system WILL screw you over if you don't do it right, unless they plan on keeping mobs a complete cakewalk as they are now, with only bugged out abilities and bull**** graze-effects offering any difficulty on any level. It's also open to so much min-maxing and to such extremes, that the play experiences between a random "look nice" player and a "hmm, what does this do" player will have almost nothing in common; one beating his head against grazes and DT for hours, the other one shotting everything. And if they fix just the mobs, it'll be even worse for the casuals... In itself however, if you "limit yourself" to some weapons and whatnot, the class is quite nice really. The on-graze effect bull**** and multipliers quickly turn him into a death machine no matter what you do but otherwise, it's not bad. It's just not a Rogue though, which I think REALLY suck balls. It's just another nondescript DPS...