Madscientist

Heißen die gegner im Spiel "Quellen der Leiden"? Ich weiß, dass ein Pudding so ähnlich heißt, aber den genauen Namen habe ich nicht im Kopf. "ein Quellen der Leiden" klingt blöd. Wäre es "Quell(e) des Leidens" besser ( "Quellen des Leidens" als Mehrzahl )? Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. ich bin mir nicht sicher ob Quell oder Quelle besser klingt. Wie heißt es denn auf englisch: "Source/well/spring of suffering"?

about the kind wayfarer/beckoner: - Do you need a different summon than the skelletons (+ upgrade) or is strengh in numbers the best option? - I looked at the casting times: skelletons 5 sec and 12 sec duration, other summons 8 sec and 18 sec duration, most other invocations 0,5sec That is one reason why I liked the skald with offensive spells and why I never used summons so far. - I looked at the stats and it looks like the only stat you really need is int ( summon and chant linger duration, paladin aura and chant effect area increase) My paladin in PoE1 had 16 mig, int, res and 10 for the rest here I would go like this ( I do not like dumping stats ) str: 10 ( You use a mode that lowers damage and except FoD you do not have special weapon attacks or weapon damage boosts) con: 10 ( You need to stay alive. With an army of skelletons in front of you it should be easy.) dex: 14 ( reduced casting time is nice. More dex and less res in a min maxed build ) per: 10 ( You need to hit with FoD. Your weapon attacks are the only things that need to hit (except for scrolls maybe)) int: 18 ( Max this out and use items to max it further. Summons and chants should last until you can cast them again. ) res: 16 ( More healing is nice, but this is mostly for RP if it is used in conversations like in PoE1.) The chants look really good. Fire lash is a no brainer. If it lingers long enough I can combine it with something else. ancient memory, resistence to 2 afflictions or damage shield look like good candidates. Damage chants look useless.

I have finished PoE1 with a kind wayfarer and tried to get the best result possible. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/93794-class-build-holy-warrior-of-fire-rp-ddheal-paladin/ He did OK and his stats were nice for talking, but his damage was unimpressive. Eder (dual wielding resolution and bittercut) and Hiravias (shapeshifted) did much more damage by auto attacks. Making a damage monster out of him would feel wrong somehow and I liked my NWN2 priest, so I thought what I could do in PoE2. I want to Eder (swashbuckler), Aloth (pure wizard) and Takehu (Druid) in my party. Last slot could go to Pallagina (paladin/fighter) because I like to have my old party members, but I am not sure about 2 paladins in my party (she could take fighter stances when I use the acc aura.) - How useful are the summons and do they get better with level (if yes, char or power level?) I never used them in the beta, so I do not know their damage, penetration, HP, armor and so on. When I used a chanter, it was a skald and he used the armor breaking invocation in every fight to ensure overpenetration. - If summons block the path, I need to give my other chars a ranged weapon so they can hit the enemy. I want to see my wereshark biting things.

Josh said that players rather play a mad killer than a support char. in NWN2 my best char was a favoured soul who could buff the whole party and be a very good fighter (when buffed) at the same time. So I thought about what char could be good as main char in PoE2, who helps the party a lot but who is also useful by himself. I thought about a combination of paladin, priest or chanter. - paladin + chanter (skald) dual wielding to get crits for skald phrases pro: passive buffs via chants and paladin auras, debuff with chanter invocations ( armor down, paralysed, charmed) con: ? - Chanter (beckoner) + priest (Wael or Eothas for buffs) weapon + shield in the front or ranged weapons from the back row pro: summon your personal army and buff them. and your party like crazy. con: you do little damage yourself - paladin (bleak walker) + priest (magram) (aka the obsessed zealot, like Durance it is somebody who wants to purge the world of all heretics with fire) weapon + shield tank with lots of res pro: you stand in the front line, protect your party and burn enemies with FoD, fan of flames, shining beacon and so on. con: damage with weapons and magic from different stats, I focus on res for magic and tankyness Which one could be the best support char for your party? Or do you have a better idea?

I saw the interview video where Josh and the other guy did ship combat. There I have learned what ships are missing now: SNIPER CANNONS

Regarding races, I select my char because of stats and skills. I did use a dwarf as main char ( lots of might + acc bonus against 2 enemy types ). I can understand that many players want to be a char who beats the hell out of enemies instead of being a supporter for other chars. You are the main character after all. While the NWN2 char I have posted before does support the party a lot, she was also a very powerful fighter herself. At least after a minute of buffing with persistent spells (or those who have a long duration by themselves).

I think it is good that they reduced pre buffing. In the IE games and NWN1+2 sometimes this took longer than the fight itself. This was my favourite main char in NWN2: http://nwn2db.com/build/?180624 At higher levels you enter a dungeon and than you cast tons of spells (persistent bless, divine favour, mass aid, prayer, haste (by your wizard) and stone skin (not persistent, but it lasts long), maybe some other spells. Then I could clear the whole dungeon without problems. My first char was a fighter/berserker/weapon master with a huge weapon and tons of str and con, but he was much weaker than my "priest" because I did not know the advantages of eternal pre buffing. Now you have some opportunity cost. In combat, should I deal damage right away or should I cast some buffs while enemies attack me. At least in theory. In practice the chars used their instant self buffs (disciplined strikes, thunderous blows, mirror image type spells and so on, the priest cast dire blessing on the party and then everybody bashes the enemy like crazy. At the moment I have no good idea how to balance this.

So all companions/sidekicks (except one) cannot have subclasses and the one exception must be a subclass. Not sure if I like this, at least it increases the chance of using a single class char. All base classes are useful while some sub classes shine when they are combined with something else (e.g. soul blade + melee class, skald + melee class) If I use single class or multi class for my chars (main char and companions) depends on the final version of the talent tree. What are the top abilities only single classes can get and when do multi classes which ability. I will definitely use a party with main char + 4 companions. I never played with hirelings in PoE1. I used an aumaua paladin from the deadfire as main char in PoE1 and I want to continue in PoE2 with him. Maybe I multi class him, lets wait for the final talent trees. I will definitely have Eder (likely as swashbuckler) and Aloth (likely pure wizard) in my party. These chars compete for the other slots: pallagine ( I like to have a party with all old companions, but I am already a paladin), Maia, Takehu and Xoti (If priests are as useful as in PoE1 I almost must take her unless my main char is priest)

Many of you play a berserker/something else. How do you deal with confusion of the berserker? Supress affliction of a priest does not last very long, and it takes some time until a berserker/paladin can get resistance to intelligence ( not sure if a multiclass can have it without cheating in the beta right now).

I have played the beta on classic because I guess the game will be balanced around this. In PoE1, the difference between difficulty levels was which enemies are in an encounter and how many of them you face. Only PotD increased their stats and you had all enemies from all lower difficulties together. Is it the same in PoE2 or did they change what the difficulty level does?

Sorry, but I do not think it goes story vs exploration as Gromnir just said. I liked BG1 almost more than BG2 in that regard, because in BG1 you explored an open Map and there you could find interesting places such as Durlags Tower. I liked the concept of BG2 or PoE1 less and I am happy over the world map exploration in PoE2. Just to be sure, I did like BG2 and PoE1 a lots, its only that I like BG1 or PoE2 more in terms of world map design. This is also true within a dungeon. Durlags tower is a great example. You explore a dungeon and while exploring you discover the story behind the events. I think the best state is not exploration vs story, the best case is that you discover the story through exploring ( as opposed to the story is thrown at you as a wall of text with some exploration between these large story pieces, e.g the dialogue with Iovara in the final dungeon of PoE was such a "lore dump".) I can understand where you come from though. At the moment I play legend of heroes: Trails of cold Steel ( playing part 1 again before starting part 2 for the first time). This is a linear RPG with a great story but close to no choice at all. The story focusses on the developement of the characters and it must be told the way it is done, else it makes no sense. The opposite end of the spectrum are open world games like the elder scrolls. You can walk around forever, finding dungeons, quests and tons of other stuff along the way. But the main story is nothing special and it is easy to forget it entirely. Games like BG1+2 or PoE are somewhere in between these extrems. For me, a good story is very importent. I like JRPGs, while in games like the elder scrolls I became bored fast from running around without a clear goal and doing similar quests and dungeons again and again. In the IE games I loved PST, I liked BG1+2 and I never finished IWD because I became bored. PoE1 was a very good game, but I finished it only 3 or 4 times and sometimes I had to force myself to continue when fighting hordes of trash mobs to find the next piece of story. My favourite games: PST (find out who you are and why instead of saving the world again), KotoR2 ( Kreia is one of the best characters ever), MotB (while the soul eater mechanic was annoying for me it did involve you a lot in the story) and the Trails series (played sky 1,2,3, and cs1 so far). OK, unlike the stuff I wrote in the first sentence of this post, some balance between exploration and story has to be done. But I do not think that the sum of both is constant. Some games have lots of one thing and little of the other, others are bad in both things but the best games are good in both things. Once again, i think Durlags tower is one of the best examples of a dungeon that combines exploration with story telling.

I totally agree to the OP. In PoE1 the WM2 mines, Durgans Battery and some others were nice, but many (including the endless path) were quite boring. I think that a dungeon should also tell a story and have some puzzles (in a broader sense), it not just an area were you can kill lots of enemies and at the end you kill a boss. I remember and liked Durgans Battery in BG and the watching tower in Bg2. I also liked Zelda like games ( I played Zelda for SNES and N64, Alundra 1 for Ps1 and Okami for PS2/PC, to name some good examples. But it might be hard to put some mechanics from those games into a party based RPG without causing many problems. I also liked Realms of Arcadia 3 (my first big computer RPG), especially the mage tower and the dwarf mines. You had to find clues to solve a puzzle, there were several traps (not just a piece of ground that damaged you) and sometimes you had to split the party to continue.

@DexGames: Did Obsidian ever say that they want to make a hardcore game? They want to sell lots of copies which means they have to attract new players. If they make it too hardcore (whatever that means) they will scare away many new players. If they make it more user friendly ( whatever that means) they might get more players and only a few hardcore players might get angry. PoE1+2 is quite complex (because it is a large party based RPG) and I would not call PoE2 to be "dumbed down" (whatever that means). The most importent thing for me is that I enjoy playing the game. I do enjoy PoE2, even though some things need to be improved. Different people have different things they enjoy or not. When you mean hardcore, what do you want? A game like Age of Decadence? I finished it twice as pacifist but I have no chance as fighter. Everything can kill you and you need an optimized build, perfect strategy and the correct use of items to stand a chance? I respect the devs of AoD for making such a game, but I do not want every game to be like that. If you want to play it hardcore then go for the ultimate achievement if you like. You have the option to make the game as hard as you like.

Hallo Kirschrose. Spielst du das Spiel oder liest du die den ganzen Tag die Textdateien durch? Ich habe alle Fehler gepostet, die ich beim Spielen entdeckt habe, aber ich fand nicht mal ansatzweise so viele Sachen wie du.

I am uncertain about this: In a system without per rest restriction and restricted resting, players will always spam their best abilities every fight. In a system with strong restictions, some players might never use limited resources and try to do everything with auto attacks and per encounter abilities, while having powerfull abilities that they never see. I admit that I am guilty of doing this too. At the end of almost every RPG I have tons of unused items such as potions or scrolls. When I use a potion in a fight I almost feel bad for doing so ( My thoughts then: "crap, I am sure I could make it without. Should I reload?") These words are being written by an idiot who has never beaten the alpine dragon or LLengrath fight on hard. (but I managed all other fights)

As good thing I have forgotten to mention the AI menu. It is great that you can define the behaviour of your chars, so that some buffs can be used automatically and easier fights can be done on "auto pilot" while chars act in a way that makes sense. It would be nice to add the option "auto attacks only". At the moment you cannot unselect an AI setting. Another good thing (but not only related to PoE2) is the bug forum. It is good that there is a thread for every bug and we often get an answer like: "We have confirmed this bug and it will be fixed in the next update." (my favourite answer), "We could not reproduce it, please send us a file with the bug." or "This is not a bug. We talked about it and we decided it is intended that way." I really like this kind of feedback. Keep up the good work. regarding combat speed: I do not think the game is too slow at the moment. I pause the game a lot and over a whole battle the time where I have paused the game is longer than the real time part. OK, I am somebody who plays lots of turn based games ( Trails of cold Steel at the moment ) and I am bad in action games. If you add a speed slider in the future, this "problem" will be solved. Regarding the the whole balance/casting stuff: I do not think that casters are too weak, I think that multi classed dual wielders are too strong. Any system without per rest limits and restricted resting will lead to fights where chars use the same strongest attacks every fight. If you call the changes from the IE games to PoE2 "dumping down" or "making it more friendly to new players" is up to you. regarding posting info everywhere but not here: I can understand that devs post info in all kinds of media so that new people learn about the game. This forum is only used by people who already know the game and of course the devs want to adress as many people as possible. They can post as much as they want on twitter, facebook, . . . whatever as they want. But it would be great if all relevant information are posted here too, so you have one place to see the importent stuff. With importent stuff I mean things like: - feature x will be added to the next update of the game - we are aware that x is a problem/unbalanced/buggy and we are working on it - the interview video from Josh with the other guy where they did ship combat was very interesting, but I knew this only because another user was posting it.

KDubya daid: Developers responding on third party sites like Something Awful instead of here on the official boards. Sort of makes it seem like all of our comments and observations from the various Beta releases have been a waste of all of our time. I have to agree. I can understand if a very small group of people who makes a game at home and who cannot run such a big forum uses social media as main source to spread information about their game. But Obsidian is a rather big company and you have an official forum ( that works quite well compared to some others I know), so this would be the best place to spread information about your game. Now I need to go to the other thread where forum users collect all kind of post from all kind of sources to be informed what the devs think about their game. Did Josh ever post in this forum or is it only that I do not know his user name.

Bad: - Ship combat is the most terrible part of the game. It takes forever, you repeat the same things again and again while praying to the god of random numbers that your cannons hit more often than the enemy. - Ship exploration feels also punishing. Your resources drop fast and its hard to explore even this small part of the world map entirely without your morale dropping constantly. - We need a better explaination of game mechanics in game. If you look in the in game encyclopedia you should see things like damage and speed formulas with some comment, stacking rules, rules for dots and lashes, and so on. Players should not need to read this forum to see how MaxQuest finds out those mechanics. Remember that the IE games were sold together with a thick rule book full of text and tables. Nobody should be forced to read this, but I would really like to see such info in the game. - Pure cipher caster are bad at the moment. The damage separation between strengh and resolve made things worse. In PoE1 the advantage of ciphers was that they could cast infinite spells during combat ( at least in theory) when they build up focus while other casters had to rest. Now the other casters can throw their most powerful spells at once and have them back the next fight while ciphers need lots of auto attacks between their spells, plus cipher spells seem rather slow even compared to other casters. - I put this under bad because I think its a balance issue: Its not that casters are weak but instead a combination of 2 melee classes plus dual wielding is too strong. Any combination of fighter, paladin, monk, rogue, soul blade and even ranger feels strong while pure casters and even single class chars have problems to compete. suggestion: all class talents should scale with power level, like rogue sneak attack, paladin FoD and defense bonus,barbarian carnage damage + area, ciphers soul whip, rangers wounding shot, spell effects, shapeshifted damage, and so on increase by x% per power level. I am not sure if it works (because I cannot test it), but at the moment combinations of paladin, ranger and rogue have lots of full attacks with extra damage or penetration right from the start, rogue + soulblade has permanent +90%damage (sneak + biting whip) multiplied with strengh + annihilation skill, fighter + anything gives permanent +50%graze to hit, hit to crit and speed (dual wielding style) - Tons of game breaking bugs that were present in the first beta are still there, like infinite crits with the monk ability (swift strikes? I mean the upgrade to the attack speed bonus), fighters cleaving stance, citadels spirit lance causes status effects on all targets, monk fist lost on loading, . . . - profiency system with useless weapon modals good: - I like world map exploration. In another thread we have said that could be more interactive, similar to the way the world map travel was in Storm of Zehir. - I like how multi classing is implemented in general, though some balancing still needs to be done. (see above) - I like the setting in general. Polynesia and colonisation are rarely presented in games. I also like that the places look brighter than in PoE1. There the world seemed very depressive with soulless children as the main topic, a tree full of bodies is the main attraction of the first town and obscure sects plotting in the darkness. While I like dark settings (Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was great) this can be quite depressing if you have it all the time. - I hope that chosing between factions has a bigger effect on the story than PoE1 (2 quests, a talent and a shop plus it is mentioned in one ending slide) - I am looking forward to the more reactive relationship with party members, between each other and between them and the player. neutral: - The better graphics should be mentioned as good, but I do not play games for the graphics, but for story, exploration and game mechanics (such as combat). I still like to play the IE games, I think that many SNES games (e.g. Crono Trigger) are still much better than most new games and I also support new pixel art games. - I do not understand why you changed lots of game mechanics that worked well in PoE1 (e.g. DR vs penetration), but I have the feeling the game improved over the different beta versions and maybe it can become good, we will see.

In BG2 (the first big RPG I have played) you had tons of spells and it took a long time for me to find out which ones are good or bad. I was happy that my wizard, cleric or druid could learn them all so I can test what they do in combat ( or as pre buffs). On the other hand, in NWN2 I played a favoured soul and the spells she learned were enough for her ( it was more a buffed melee fighter than somebody who casts spells on the enemy). But at that point I already had lots of experience from BG2 and other games. As an "old" player I have little problems with having tons of spells, but I have also little problems to tell which might be good in a certain situation. ( But I am not as good as those who solo the game on higher difficulties, not even close). I do not know how new players feel about this. Are they overwhelmed by a huge number of spells or do they feel limited in their choice by having a small number of spells? People who buy a large RPG should not have a problem with reading lots of text and learning some rules in any case.

- I dislike that you have less spells than in PoE1. If you have a single class char, each char will learn up to 3 spells per spell level. (up to 4 spells per level with the new system, "up to" because if you select a talent that is not a spell you will have less spells.) It is true that most people use only a small number of spells ( citation needed ), but I want to select which spells. Sorcerers and other spontanious caster (= select a few spells to learn at level up, but more spell slots ) were quite powerful in DnD. But selecting which spells to chose was an importent choice in building your char. And they were intresing because you had vacian casters as alternative who could learn all spells but had less spell slots and had to select the spells to be cast when resting. At the moment all casters in PoE2 are like spontanious in DnD. I do not think that they will double the caster classes for PoE2 like it was in NWN2 (wizard vs sorcerer, cleric vs favoured soul, druid vs spirit shaman ) I think I could live with 4 spells per spell level, 2 spells per level (in beta version 1+2) were too little. But if they add more talents, casters might still have less spells. I am not sure what is the best solution, what I write here is just loud thinking. - I like that they want to add more talents. In the previous versions of the beta sometimes it felt like there is nothing useful to pick so I just took anything. While I can understand that some people call PoE1 talents like weapon style, weapon focus or elemental damage boost generic, without them there would have been not much to chose at level up. If the table from MaxQuest is correct and single class chars get more points than before, they will also need useful things to spend their points in. EDIT: One more thing about spells. I dislike that in the current system you have many similar spells at different spell levels, like every wizard spell level has a spell of the mirror image type. You only need one of them, so if you take one of them to get a buff early and later you select the improved version, you will never use the low level version again. Maybe it would be better if the spell effect increases when you level up.

- I totally agree to the long post from Boeroer above. - MaxQuest, where do you have the info about beta version 4 and the new point or spell distribution from. I read your post, than I looked in the other parts of this forum but I did not find a new beta version announcement.

Meh. I still think his wisdom/intelligence was aided by Boo. Boo had enough wisdom and intelligence for both of them. But I totally disagree about stats in PoE. PoE made them matter less for any class. Flattened across the board. Joe Personally I prefer a system where all stats have an effect to some degree (PoE) over a system where you can dump half of the stats without consequences (DnD 2nd edition). Does a fighter or thief have any bonus from int, wis, cha in the IE games? The IE games also strongly encouraged you to maximize the main stats of a char. A wizard without high int cannot learn spells. The next text may be a bit too extreme, but I think it goes in the right direction: - The IE games gave you the illusion of choice. There were many possible ways to spend your points, but only a few of those options were good while most ways to spend your points were bad. After spending your attribute points the only significant choice in character developement was to spend you profiency points (and when to dual class, if you want it). - It is true that the effects of stats in PoE are smaller than DnD. But they do have an effect, there are several ways to spend them for each class and several different choices are useful and you have importent choices at every level up, not just at character creation. I really liked the IE games and I had lots of fun playing them. But today they are old games and PoE is new. The devs learned from those games and tried to keep the good things while they also tried to improve the things they liked not so much. I think they did a good job. about dice rolls vs fixed stat requirements: Thats one difference between PnP and a computer game. In a computer game if you have a random result and you fail, you can simply reload and try again. You can call this cheating if you like, but I did it and I am sure I am not the only one. For example I did it in T:ToN because I did not want to spend efford points, I kept those for combat. I consider it OK to have fixed stat or skill requirements in scripted events, but once again, I have never been a PnP player.

Thank you MaxQuest. This is most interesting. So both casting time and recovery time for spells are much longer in PoE2 (beta version 3) than in PoE1. In PoE2 I used only spells with up to 3sec casting time, else I had the feeling that battle is over before I finish casting.

I agree that the games had many rules and they were well documented. Baldurs gate (DnD), Realm of Arcadia (DSA) and other computer games came together with a rule book that had more than 100 pages full of text and tables. I admit that I was able to finish BG2 without reading everything, but reading it was really helpful. In Realm of Arcadia I gave up the first time and it was years later and after reading all this text that I was able to play and enjoy the game. (side note: The realm of arcadia trilogy is from 1991,1993 and 1995 and it uses the original PnP rules, but they were not able to include all the things from PnP to the computer game. That means 50% to 80% of the skills and spells were mostly or completely useless, from the remaining stuff most things were situational and only a few spells and skills were used ofter) I have never played PnP, so I cannot say if the rules make sense and are easy to understand. For me it took a long time to understand what thcac0, saving throw or "spell x does 2d6 damage for characterlevel/2 rounds" mean. When playing BG2 for the first time I knew nothing and I had to learn most things by lots of reading and trail and error. When playing PoE for the first time I just started and everything felt natural and simple. I did not know all rules in detail but I knew enough to create a useful char, select useful talents and fight enemies with some strategy right from the start. But when starting PoE I was already playing computer or console RPGs for almost 20 years. While the IE games and PoE have different rules, playing the IE games (or similar games) for more than 10 years does help you a lot to understand a different game of the same genre. This means I have no idea how a new players feel where PoE is the first large computer RPG they have ever played. Do you think that they should deliver PoE together with a thick rule book full of text and tables like in the old times and you should spend a week of reading before you can actually start to play?

I think that correct. I think that the IE games or NWN1+2 were good games despite DnD, not because of it. I did not play PnP games, only computer RPGs. The rules for DnD ( or DSA or other PnP) are complicated. You should do lots of reading (or have a friend who knows the rules) before starting to play because there are tons of rules and restrictions for everything and it is very easy to make a bad choice. Many rules that seem strange or complicated in a computer game come from the fact that they were designed for PnP and you have to be able to play it with real dice. For example you can only have these dice numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid (4,6,8,12 or 20 sides, you can use multiple dice and half of the dice value) and you cannot use percents or other more complicated calculations. The game master and the players should not be math experts so its best to keep the numbers small and use only integers. For computer games I prefer game mechanics that have been designed for computers, like PoE or Dragon Age:Origins. It is true that the player cannot calculate the numbers anymore. But he does not need to do it, the computer does it for him. Since the ability to calculate the result is no longer a restriction the devs can focus on creating rules that make sense instead of creating rules that must produce results by rolling real physical dice. The importent thing is that the player can understand how an action influences the result. examples from PoE1: - You need to know that a talent that gives +10%damage has half the effect of a talent that gives +20%damage and that this % is relative to base damage. No need to calculate yourself. - Increasing your acc by X raises your hit chance by x%, increasing a defence by x lowers your chance to get hit by x% - Dex or items with +speed ability make you attack faster. No need to calculate things yourself and no restriction to use x attacks per round. (OK, except dex all things shorten only recovery and the formula is complicated, but using +speed items lowers the time between the attacks so it really does make you attack more often and thats all you need to know.) The computer needs to tell you what each stat does. Based on this knowledge you select your char (stats, talents, equipment, items) and tell your char what to do and the computer does the rest. Assuming the game explains well what each stat does there are only a few things left: - You need to know what of these things stack. This can be complicated, but it is complicated for both PnP and computer games. - You need a math expert like MaxQuest to fully understand the mechanics and calculate the optimized char. But as long as some rules of thumb are enough to create a good char this should not be a problem for most players.