frapillo80

There's a word that starts with a "b" and ends with "eta" that explains this. Problem is, it requires the kind of changes that go much deeper than just giving the Paladin 5 more or less points of base deflection. Which would be fine if it was a word that starts with a "a" and ends with a "lpha", but as you said, it starts with a "b" and ends with a "eta", which I thonk is what is getting some people worried (myself included).

No, I wasn't referring to your post, I read somewhere that apparently an internal tester or such said that the combat is dull because of poor gear. I'll try to dig it up, hoping I haven't misunderstood. P.S. I went several times through modded Spellhold at max difficulty with fighters wearing no magic trinkets, standard studded leather/chain/splint mail or in some cases nothing (for a while, at least), and a plain spear or halberd in hand, and they are still effective. More importantly, combat is still as fun as before, which is why I'm worried about PoE's combat supposedly being dull because of low gear.

And one more thing I always forget to mention: stealthing past five prides of lions takes 10 seconds, fighting them can take 10 minutes, and all that to end up in a worse situation (less health, consumables, camping gear, more fatigue, more time wasted trekking to the inn, etc). Something has to change.

Which is where the Fighter could get one of his much needed offensive/tactical additions: something like charging past fallen Bob and shouldering a lion a bit further away, with the fighter ending up in the spot between Bob and the lion. Would also make the Guardian ability/talent more tactically relevant.

Again, the problem is no strictly the lack of combat xp: it's that, whitin a RPG's balance between risk and reward, fighting current trash mobs is the high risk, no reward choice, while stealthing is the no brainer choice because it's the no risk one. And this in a game that has one skill governing stealth and dozens of talents/abilities/mechanics geared towards combat. I hear that combat is a mess because of poor gear: this is very worrying, because if it's gear dependant it means that it's not a good system. In BG2 a high level warrior was still effective with a plain sword, which was useful against Protection from Magical Weapons, and it made the modded excape from Spellhold with Bodhi removing your high-level gear, thus forcing you to fight with whatever you found, a great experience. There's Diablo out there for gear dependant combat: I'm not sure I'd like anything even remotely close to that in PoE (just to clarify: I had truckloads of fun with Diablo 2 at the time, eh). Finally, I do want Obs to stick to their vision. I doubt though that answering the backers with lawyer-like nitpicking like "we never used the exact words 'spiritual successor'" and so on is a wise move if you ever want to do a Kickstarter again, and I am sure they are well aware of it. So I don't think justifying them with this specific argument is doing them any favours.

That's exactly what I feared: taking decisions like "only quest xp plus 0 xp trash mobs" to save time balancing, so that the game does not get penalized by reviewers for lack of balance, and then reviewers are even less responsive because "only quest xp plus 0 xp trash mobs" obviously baffles them...

Bestiary could turn out real nice, but I am afraid it would need a significant amount of work in order to be implemented in a way sophisticated enough not to smack of a shameless surrogate of the "get 10 beetle shells to the notice board, receive experience" quests that plagued Dragon Age *shudder*. It would be probably also be exploit-prone, and ironing out all the possible exploits needs time too. I keep getting the impression that the devs are in a rush even for rushing standards..

Of course. That's why I was wishing for the option of "downed characters still targettable by enemies", I'd never wish for every single mob to gang up on poor downed Rocky every time like a pack of starving pitbulls. Maybe, to keep coding simple, it could be linked to intelligence/perception: high int/per, high chance of switching to the next priority; low int/per/frenzied/etc, high chance of keep wailing on poor Rocky for a bit. This way the player as well, as long as he knows enough about the mob, can have a rough idea of what is likely to happen to Rocky's picassian face.

Well, I wouldn't know about RPG's ego-stroking, but for sure those wilderness lions are the reversal of some ego-stroking. I mean, are they there just to make me feel like an idiot if I go and fight them, since I have everything to lose and nothing to gain from doing that?

RPG are indeed (almost) all about rewards, and especially about the balance between risk and reward. Otherwise, we would be playing a graphic adventure with combat interludes, with no need for xp, level progression or loot, since story and quests would be enough of a reward. Currently, trash mobs are only risk and no reward, therefore, from an RPG perspective, they are a paragon-level fail. More importantly, combat against them is as dull as Anomen's wit.

Every crap trash mob cant be a quest because then you have created the situation that the non-kill XP crowd are whining about. Its degenerative gameplay, now Ill be FORCED to kill everything, me OCD!, immurshun, people will stealth past then go back and kill, etc... I don't see what was fixed by doing this.. Just add Combat XP then adjust quests to counter weight things out so that passive quest rewards give higher bonuses to offset the killing of NPC's, then make the NPC's disappear or worth nothing.. or, you could simply leave things the way they is and you don't need have go through what even indira were admitting is a taxing process o' balancing. have people complete larger objectives or quests or tasks or whatever the hell you want to call it so it don't result in childish bawling, and then give out nice and balanced xp awards that do not discriminate for or against combat... or against any other method o' completion. current method is elegant, balanced and extreme simple. add unnecessary complexity 'cause a handful o' kids need instant gratification from every bug killed or every lock opened is a silly-arsed approach. nevertheless, we see that obsidian is trying to throw folks a bone. give folks something illusory and maybe they will be satisfied. we will observe that such a approach has worked in the past. am guessing it were worth a shot. HA! Good Fun! As I already said, I'm fine with quest xp, but not with the current trash mobs. They are the equivalent of pools of lava you can walk across: yes, you actually do have the option of walking across them, and all you'll get is to get your feet burnt. I'd just get rid of them entirely, but then just imagine the protests about the promised wilderness area being emptier than BG1. No time for integrating them in some more interesting system either. So that's why I grudgingly go for some kind of combat xp or equivalent. But very grudgingly, and yes, it is but a bone. As for the current method being balanced, yes; simple, even too much; elegant, not really. But if my suspension of disbelief can work for adventures improving their combat skills thanks to xp gained through opening locks and viceversa,I guess I could force it to work also for xp being granted only by the pig farmer and not by the killed ogre. Still, harump!

Agree on almost everything (well, to be honest I don't like enemy equipment scaling with my level, always found robbers clad in priceless glass armour a bit ridiculous; and I loved BG2 unique items with their own stories, hated Dragon Age semi-random loot, but that's nitpicking).And I don't want a carbon copy of BG1 or 2 either, but Kickstarter is a foul beast sometimes: you promised wilderness areas and exploration, backers forked money for that promise (among others), and now you can't take it back: only now you don't have time to make every wilderness encounter/mob significant nor for balancing everything, and now we're stuck with 0 xp trash mobs. And so on with the other problems. That's why I try somewhat to be realistic when it comes to possible solutions. Personally, I'd wait until summer if it helped things enough.

(Warning: longish post) First of all: I don't want to come across ungenerous towards the devs: I think they are doing a good job, and this is still a Beta. That said, I cannot help having the feeling that all this mess on 'only quest-xp' and 'no quest staggering' has its roots in one fact: that these two choices simply save a huge amount of time that otherwise ought to be spent in balancing the difficulty of encounters and quests against the variables represented by the different level the player might be at when facing each quest/encounter combined with each of the five difficulty settings. Let's take IWD: most of xp are from the main quest, and almost all of the sections of the main quest have to be faced in a strictly predetermined order. In other words, a lot of time saved in balancing the encounters, since the only variable is the difficulty setting (having less party members is balanced by leveling up quicker: I am not sure I remember correctly, but I think there was no xxxx experience points to each party member like in BG2). IW2 has all these characteristics, plus the dynamic invisible wall of 0 kill xp as a further safety net: in case the devs had not taken something in consideration when balancing, the xp proportional to level took care of it. Makes sense, since afair both games were quite rushed (I think the second even more so). Now, the opposite extreme, BG2: the fabulous Chapter 2 likely made necessary a huge effort in balancing the entire game, since they had to take into account the five (I think) difficulty settings combined with anything that ranged between the player who only leveled up with the xp from the main quest and still had to be able to face Spellhold and all the rest, and the completist who milked every drop of xp from Chapter 2 and could not feel underwhelmed by the Underdark or Ust Natha, for example. I think it was a great success, especially considering the magnitude of the task. Now, to PoE: I think the devs don't have enough time for balancing properly according to all the variables, and both the "only quest-xp" and the "no quest staggering" (especially if quests will really be compartmentalized by chapters, that is, more or less by player level), will allow them to avoid spending a huge amount of time they don't currently gave balancing everything. Plus, PoE difficulty settings also change the composition of enemy groups, which I think is why the difficulty cannot be changed in-game: this further complicates things for the devs, since they don't even have the safety net of the player self-balancing things by changing the difficulty on the fly. So, if the reasons really are the ones I've stated, I totally understand, but at the same time they also create misunderstandings and frustration among many backers. Now: I'm not a backer, so I have no right to ask for anything, and I could very well be completely wrong about the whole thing. And even if I am more or less right, I don't even know if this would be productive or even feasible, but maybe the devs might just announce: "Sorry folks, but we really don't have time for proper difficulty balancing, so you'll get it in future patches a few months into 2015." I think 95% of the backers would reply with a resounding "no worries!" Of course, unbalance difficulty might cost the game a few points in the reviews, which is no small matter, and I understand it perfectly: but what if I am right about only quest-xp and compartmentalized quests being functional to save time on balancing, only to cost even more points because they might baffle the reviewers. Ok, I'll shut up now, and I am almost sure that I am simply overanalyzing things.

Every crap trash mob cant be a quest because then you have created the situation that the non-kill XP crowd are whining about. Its degenerative gameplay, now Ill be FORCED to kill everything, me OCD!, immurshun, people will stealth past then go back and kill, etc... I said I don't like trash mobs merely seven or eight times within a couple of pages. I also stated clearly that if I could choose I would only want tactical, well designed fights integrated into the quests. Sigh...

Not necessarily, a frenzied barbarian would probably not, and a lion even less so.

Now that's something I agree with. Quality, not quantity, Obsidian. I'll rather have a couple of complex and tactically advanced fights per map than a dozen of easy and forgettable ones.Yes, I think that after all we are of the same idea. To me, kill-xp is plan B, getting rid of trash mobs altogether is plan C, and integrating all fights into quests/making them diversified and challenging plan A. With plan A, I don't care that much about kill-xp. But I'm also trying to be realistic about it, and I think at this point there is no chance for plan A. And the devs will never go for plan C, because it will leave the wilderness areas emptier than in BG1, and I guess PoE is supposed to improve that aspect, not make it worse. That's why I'd settle for plan B: it's not much, but kill-xp would at least chase away part of the sense of frustration and pointlessness currently conveyed by non-quest fights. If you integrate all fights into quests, then you have just created kill XP under a different name. Yes. And then, any quest you have to solve by killing, or any quest you can solve by killing AND you decide to solve by killing is kill XP under a different name. I fail to see the problem. Should we eliminate any killing from quests? And why?

Now that's something I agree with. Quality, not quantity, Obsidian. I'll rather have a couple of complex and tactically advanced fights per map than a dozen of easy and forgettable ones.Yes, I think that after all we are of the same idea. To me, kill-xp is plan B, getting rid of trash mobs altogether is plan C, and integrating all fights into quests/making them diversified and challenging plan A. With plan A, I don't care that much about kill-xp. But I'm also trying to be realistic about it, and I think at this point there is no chance for plan A. And the devs will never go for plan C, because it will leave the wilderness areas emptier than in BG1, and I guess PoE is supposed to improve that aspect, not make it worse. That's why I'd settle for plan B: it's not much, but kill-xp would at least chase away part of the sense of frustration and pointlessness currently conveyed by non-quest fights.

Avoid it. Problem solved? You're trying to push XP into the equation but it falls out. XP won't make AI better and it won't make the fight more challenging. The whole encounter (as you described it) is still garbage. And when it's over - and you got your precious XP - you're one step closer to more mandatory garbage encounters further down the road. Feels great, eh? I said several times in the previous posts that I don't like trash mobs. But, if I must have trash mobs, at least don't make them demotivating and pointlessly time and resource consuming like they are now. Now, to flip your argument over: the trash mobs are still garbage, not challenging and with no AI to speak of. Did taking away the kill-xp solve any of those problems?

And in the first case, it's more fun if there's a -ding- at the end for the level you just gained. Well, that goes without saying! I always try to learn as much as possible from killing fellow adventurers.

Then avoid it. Problem solved? So why padding the game with pointless content that is best to avoid?

And your point is? Remember, PoE doesn't punish you for killing things (and there are RPGs that do punish you, e.g DX:HR). --- I still don't understand why so many people consider combat such a chore. (And if it's fun then why is it so necessary to get XP for it?) But it's even more puzzling that the same people apparently want to make the chore practically mandatory. Talk about being masochistic... Personally, I think combat is fun. In most games anyway. And when ti's not, XP tends to make it more irritating because you can't opt out. Combat against a well assorted and diversified group of adventurers (or something equivalent), with a top notch enemy AI and within a solid combat system is fun by itself even without xp or loot. Combat against lion after lion/beetle after beetle/trash mob after trash mob with no AI to speak of and a single auto-attack (or two, if we count the lions' slam-dunk), with no xp and none or minimal loot, not so much.

I personally like the IWD philosophy on locks and traps as applied to PoE: Locks: you risk nothing, you consume no resources (well, maybe lockpicks, is it when your skill is not high enough? not sure), your reward is the content Traps: there is some risk, but no worse than what would happen if you don't disarm the trap, that is, things can only get better, your reward is passing safe and apparently, if you are good enough, even trap components, which is great Non-quest fights: you take risks (possibly even of losing a companion), you lose health, you consume resources (possibly even very expensive ones), and your reward is ... uhm ... maybe a lion pelt/mane worth 10 gold if you are lucky? Given the risk involved, having to choose, I would be for giving a bit of experience for disarming traps, but no for locks. Although I'm fine with no xp for either.

If downed characters keep taking damage and are targettable by enemies, then perfect. Otherwise, even if excess damage is applied to health with a 1:1 proportion, we can have scenarios like this: Paladin is left with 1 stamina and 75.25 health (for simplicity, let's assume he entered the fight with full health and did not recover any stamina during the fight) He can die in combat only by taking 76.25 damage or more in a single hit (after DT/protections, which means the original damage needs to be even higher). If he takes anything less, he's just effectively SphereofOtiluked safely until the end of the fight. If this is the case, apart from the lack of nail-biting tension, it can even lead to exploits like not healing a character's stamina and letting him go down on purpose and become invulnerable, in order to save more of his health. In BG2, if you have 1 hp left, 11 damage or more and you are permadead already. P.S. Great, I am only now noticing the 'Permadeth' in the topic title. I cannot edit that, can I?

Agreed, although I don't remember doing any xp exploits. My comparison was much more about IWD2's kind of frustration/feeling of a chore that I fear might be present in PoE non-quest fights, although it's a bit early to say, admittedly. P.S. Yes, I'm afraid I was being hyperbolic. It might have been 15 hooked horrors or something. /kidding

I mean like adding out level 1 new characters in order to lower the average level of the party and so getting more experience, then kicking them out, or, as I said, delaying leveling up for 3 or 4 levels in order to avoid the 0 xp wall. Never did either, but when you slog through 20 hardened fire trolls and get 0 xp, the temptation is there.