Voss

But you do have to worry about being killed over and over again by encounters you can't handle because the class design is terrible. I'm not sure where 'raid guilds' enter into anything. Terrible game design is quite feasible (and evident) in single player games.

Having lived there, there are no wrong turns at Albuquerque. All of them lead further away from Albuquerque, which is a vast improvement in any situation. Not at all. FO4 is barely announced, and who knows when it will come out. You really ought to be more hyped for a game coming out in 3 weeks than a game that is coming out... maybe next year? Though I'll admit to surprise for the love for New Vegas on this thread. Granted it did more than try to just shoehorn every single thing that had popped up in fallout games so far into the Capitol Wasteland, but it felt really empty and pointless to me. With an infuriatingly bad (and completely out of place) boss fight at the end.

Bear in mind... advice such as this may not hold true for the final game. I would say that if you're playing the current beta build, definitely don't go with class X for reason Y. But, avoiding a class at the game's release wouldn't be very prudent, since the class could very well be "fixed" at that point in time. Enitrely disagree. Best way to operate is based on available evidence, and not fantastical hope that an entire class was rebuilt in crunch time. (especially after lasting this long).

And by virtue of class issues, one of those probably isn't worth taking, though admittedly is another is almost an auto-include for the same reason.

Not having one. Having a good class with a terrible class feature is still better than just a worthless class, though obviously both are design problems.

Leaders, in terms of MMOs and 4th edition D&D are buffers/healers. Sometimes debuffers as well. PoE seems to be using this model, along with damager dealers/DPS; Tanks and Crowd Control, though as is often the case, CC is mixed with Damage to some degree (as always, more on the spellcaster side than non-spellcasters, because mundanes can't have nice things).

I disagree, although I do see your point. I remember Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn fondly mainly because characters had their own agendas, their own beliefs and were willing to stand up to them. The point where they left a team after you took too long to help them complete their goals or did something they couldn't "live with". Many of them weren't even trying to be nice to you. It made me think of them like they were human beings real and thus I cared more than I would otherwise. What you're saying can be true, but in the context of old dungeon crawlers or hack'n'slashes, where story and characters play a minor role and combat is the most important part. You can play IE games the way you describe, but that's one way to do it and I'd argue not the best, because the focus understanding of RPGs shifted from traditional dungeon crawling to role playing as the most important aspect of RPG genre. That's how I approach it. Wait, lets break down the IE games, then, both because you're calling them out for being playable as something other than simple dungeon crawls, and because PoE is riding the IE games as inspiration/format from start to finish. BG: Romance? nope. Interaction? Not much, certainly not with your party. After a false start, you're dragged into an interesting regional conspiracy, and then you're dragged back to the Chosen One bollocks B-plot at the very end. Interaction is pretty much limited to questioning people before you kill them or just killing them and reading their copious notes. BG2: Romance? Yes, and awful to boot. Interaction? A little. Mostly an arbitrary number gets too low/high depending on alignment. Frankly, most characters don't leave if you take too long, and once you do their thing (which you're going to do anyway, since you want the XP and loot), they shut up and never bother you again. Thats... pretty minimal, and certainly doesn't involve agendas, just flags and timers, and you can stretch most of them to an utterly ridiculous degree. Nalia is a good posterchild for how utterly fake this is as the scenario is her home is literally currently under attack, but the situation is utterly static and it makes no difference if you do it immediately, months later or honestly never. Daddy will always be dead, horrible aunt will always be alive, and she wants to whore herself out to you as an adventurer or simply accept a unwanted marriage based solely on the last bit of dialogue (Recruit Y/N?) and not whether you delayed, came immediately or even brutally murdered her aunt. Tormnet: Definitely the one that minimizes combat and emphasizes interaction, but unfortunately helps paint the (false) picture that they need to be mutually exclusive, as the combat takes a turn for the terrible, and the emphasis is on the oddities. Romance kinda-sorta exists, but generally not the kind of thing most romance fanatics want, for a lot of reasons. IWD: Romance: Ha Interaction? Barely any of that. IWD2: Still no. Bit more interaction, but really, these games are as close to pure dungeon crawls as you can get. Sadly they both have terrible stories to boot, which cements them in my opinion as pretty terrible games. Honestly, I'll happily argue that BG1 is the best of the lot, simply because it has the best story (if you ignore Gorion and Sarevok). The Iron Crisis/Iron Throne gives a credible reason to be adventuring, completely divorced from any chosen one nonsense, and feels more like an actual D&D campaign than any other game under the IE tag. The enemy organization has a reasonable motive (screw with the market and regional politics to make money), level appropriate, credible foes, and it unfolds to the player in a reasonable way. (with the exception of 'go hook up with my old adventuring companions at the Inn who are inexplicably low level'; it definitely needs a better hook) By comparison, BG2 inexplicably tries to motivate the player solely on the back of Imoen. Really, who thought this was a good idea? Then it goes a step further and inflicts Jaheira on the player again as well, and adds an insult to injury romance days after her husband dies.. Minsc, I can understand, even if I don't really like him. The villain is inexplicable, and once finally explained, makes even less sense, especially to anyone familiar with D&D/FR lore. Does he have some good lines? Sure, but really everything good in the game happens independently of the railroad-plot begininng and the increasingly erratic villain. I actually find Sawyer's comments that Chapter 2 is overcrowded with content to be pretty inexplicable, because to me, that is the game. All the rubbish about gods and souls is ridiculous, the fun is in the adventuring. Which... frankly, is a little worrying about PoE. I'm concerned they're going to copy the weakest parts of the BG games (the navel gazing nonsense about being a chosen one), and fill it in with the terribly designed filler encounters of the IWD games.

Eh. Its a genre staple in a game deliberately designed to be copying the roots of the genre. It seems... unavoidable. When you kill people and take their stuff, you naturally accumulate stuff.

I can't actually reconcile these statements. On par with something poor, better than something better than the first, much better than something rather similar to the first, and more similar to something vastly better than any of them. Though having watched some of the PoE beta stuff in action, the only one it really seems at all similar to is the second.

the raison d'être o' all storytellers is to get folks to care and to feel. engage the audience is their job-- it is their only job. yes, the obstacles for the crpg writer is different than those faced by the novelist or poet, but am gonna needs otherwise disagree with you. if the poe writers can't get us to care or feel deep about their characters, then they has already failed, regardless o' inclusion or exclusion o' romances. HA! Good Fun! I disagree, especially for a dungeon crawl game. The story is there to keep people engaged in killing more stuff, not for cares and feels. I'll go watch My Little Pony if I want that. [seriously, that isn't a dig, if I want warm fuzzies, I go watch MLP.] And given obsidian's track record (of published games), trying to write characters that are even vaguely interesting is a challenge for them, let alone one (or more) worth caring about. PoE will be successful if stabbing fools in the face and taking their stuff is fun, and if the story keeps players engaged enough to keep doing that. Getting people to care about their characters only matters if there is an urgent need for bad fanfics or new wanking material. Either way, I'd be obliged if anyone who wants that keeps it to themselves.

No, no you're a "fan of this genre" yet. Son, your penitence is: Go play Ultima 4 (it's free!). Until you discover what makes it a classic RPG, you're not allowed to call yourself a fan. Cruel. It was revolutionary for taking the cRPG genre beyond just murder-porn (though there is still a lot of that), but the game mechanics were pretty dreadful, even for the time.

Like I said, I hope it is sarcasm, indicating his disdain for cRPG romance. I'm not entirely convinced, however. As for your other ideas... eh. The game would have to have a really long and incredibly detailed timeframe to make me care. I've had too many games (and BG2 is a big sinner here, as is the Jedi Counsellor story from the Old Republic MMO) try to tell me I give a flying fig about an NPC, when they're either just really annoying or only on screen for a couple minutes (or both), and I have no investment at all in what happens to them. The latter made me actively angry with the game, because I wanted to stop interacting with that pathetic joke of a character in any way at all and whether light side or dark side, I really wanted an option of 'death is a perfectly natural end.' Which of course is also a reason why cRPG romances don't work well. Forcing people to actually care without knowing how much or how little they're going to be engaged with the character is easily a waste of resources. Expectations are all over the place, tastes are all over the place, and the amount of work that needs to go into them so they aren't just 'Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Butts! Endgame!' is pretty high (and to my knowledge, no one has ever put that work in). Instead we get cheap cut out archetypes: the Woobie, the... female dog..., the ****, the Pompous Jerk, the Indifferent and the Gay Stereotype. And that (should) satisfy no one with any sense of taste or standards. As for the other... a deep and moving tale involving... self-stimulation? I guess its worth a chuckle as concept, but I'd openly mock anyone who stuck it into a story.

He seems much more interested in mechanics, not mouse clicks and hotkeys. The under the hood processes, not UI.

I wouldn't necessarily advocate for cooldowns (though if a class was designed from the ground up to deal with it, it wouldn't necessarily be bad), but I definitely think the wizard, priest and druid should have been re-designed to match the finalized combat system and healing/endurance mechanic in much the same way as the cipher and chanter (even though they approach it from opposite directions). As is they (and per rest abilities) feel like anachronisms simply left over from D&D because it was easier/there wasn't time. Deliberate imitation has led to a lot of design flaws, and they are pretty jarring when the interact with other aspects of design. Particularly per rest abilities/spells that are wasted because buffs/debuffs/summons were declared to be combat only. That decision had a lot of knock-on effects, and it doesn't seem like enough effort was put in to deal with the consequences of it. If a bonus is only going to last seconds, I have no idea how treating it as a per rest resource is even vaguely justified, especially when the two classes standing over there get free recharge on everything, every fight.

Hah, story time. I was just poking about (again) with BG, and at the first area transition, I got a random encounter: 8 bandits in a semicircle. Poor imoen died more or less instantly, and I booked it for the map edge. Dumped her corpse from the party for a sense of realism, but I can see a lot of people tossing the keyboard in disgust if that sort of thing happened on their first playthrough. Bad respawning: Dragon Age Inquisition was hellishly guilty of this. Hinterlands, some idiots cabin, and outfront there are a bunch of demons. Kill the, circle around the cabin for 30 seconds to check for more boxes in the epic saga of Box Rummager 2014. Came back around the corner, and in the exact same spot, 4 more enemies, and a brand new wagon and camp site had suddenly materialized. In literally under 30 seconds. As to the original post... I'm afraid I don't get it. The random encounters and rest-encounters didn't yield appreciable resources. And least not compared to selling the boatloads of magic junk that simply accrue in the course of the adventure proper. If anything they were a waste of spell slots, ammunition and potions. (and time/effort). If you're hurting for resources such that 100gp is going to make a difference, my reaction is you're doing something wrong. Money tends to be tight in early game stages, adequate in the middle and a flood that often isn't even worth picking up towards the end. Given that this game is intentionally trying to recreate Ye Olde Skool, I'd expect much of the same thing, which makes it a non-issue.

The crazy fringe is completely appropriate to judge by, as those are the people who insist on making noise at every opportunity. Moderates just get on with their lives, and aren't particularly pro or con anything. For a game like this (a dungeoncrawler where one stabs large numbers of monsters in the face and steals their stuff), there isn't a good place to jam in romance, especially in terms of the current 'cRPG genre', where romance = harassing someone until they give in and a bad cutscene ensues where a pixelated butt gets touched. Usually before the 'climatic battle,' if Bioware is in any way involved. On another note, I found his answer painful for other reasons. My relationships are successive trainwrecks of failure, and my viewpoint of romance isn't that twisted. I'm hoping its sarcasm, otherwise it's legitimate padded celled territory. @Stun- Ruin is a little far. Completely pointless self indulgence seems more par for the course.

No, not it isn't. It is quite easy to tag at least two of the incarnations (three with the original) you're made aware of as utter scumbags, entirely deserving of hellish torments. As for not being a 'chosen one' trope... uh, OK. Not sure how you'd define the special protagonist-only ability of immortality and being the only person anywhere in the multiverse with the ability defeat the 'villain.'

Those are specifics. The saying "only 9 (or 10, or 12) plots" refers to the basic overreaching plot, not the minute details of how they're brought about. It's just one of those sayings, with many grains of truth but not necessarily to be taken super literally... Anyway, games having similar plots is no different than the 1000's of films and TV shows with the same basic plots/premises. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie where the plot itself (not the details or how's, but the plot) wasn't something I've seen before. Video games haven't been around as long...but they are still going to be influenced heavily by whatever the developers of a game have read, watched, or played themselves. I can't really think of a specific game that reminds me another game story wise, because to me they're all largely the same to begin with if that make sense - the details can make them either more or less interesting, but it still all feels familiar. Oh yea? Try to find one single element in any game that is similar to PS:T. Some games are better and more original than others. You're kidding, right? The amnesiac chosen one on a journey of self discovery, and finding out that his past self is a bad person? That is 100% cliche. The 'weird' elements aren't a function of the computer game, but the D&D setting. Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but the (lack of) originality isn't the reason why.

I actually wasn't suggesting engine limitations were the issue, but rather design decisions- particularly no lingering buffs or summons. [if they've somehow lost the ability to hire people who can program duration based effects rather than combat only effects, that is just...weird]. But that decision (and the healing model) interacts badly with the traditional D&D model they're deliberately trying to imitate which leaves the cleric, druid and wizard on weird ground where entire playstyles are just destroyed, not from engine limits, but from the knock on effects of design decisions. Meanwhile the chanter and cipher are fine tuned to exploit the living hell out of long and short fights respectively. Which then creates further knock on effects where the small number of companions might have fantastic stories (or not) but be utterly useless classes that don't interact well with design decisions. Or be a fantastic class that doesn't have a companion representing it. Either can severely impact replayability and enjoyment of the game. I don't want to spoil anything, but I can already tell I don't want to take at least two companions because they have crappy classes, and I don't know how many of the remaining six are Jaheiras or Khalids with severe personality problems that I just don't want to deal with. Or how many of the six will be must haves due to placement or sheer usefulness of their classes.

Unfortunately the tiny durations and combat only stuff seems to be a deliberate design decision, so I wouldn't expect things to change. I'm not quite sure of the logic behind pulling from the 4th edition D&D playbook of 'when faced with a design decision, do whatever is easier' for combat/noncombat abilities (otherwise known as 'just say no') when trying to ape older and more complex RPGs, but it is pretty embedded in the game's design now. It is rather a shame, as a lot of otherwise interesting abilities become trap options when they can only be used x/day and in practice will only last a few seconds. The chanter's summons do avoid the x/day trap, but have the problem of build up- by the time you can cast something amazing, there may not be enough combat left to utilize it. By contrast the cipher excels at the combat design presented- the pool resets automagically between combats, so is always ready to go with no limits at all. They can fall apart in long fights with lots of enemies, but the classes that can continually bring their A-game to each and every fight seem a lot more useful than the fire and forget shulbs.

I'm trying and failing to remember the Kotor2 companions. Annoying old woman, stupid gambler.... and... uh. Huh. Someone actually named Disciple? If they ape KotoR 2 might as well throw the whole thing in the bin now.

Which is it now? Or is it still me and this was in relation to another event? Not sure. But it sounds like a screw up on Obsidian's end not Paradox. Hint guys: send a couple folks to Europe and others to whatever the other event is. You don't need the whole team present to monologue for an hour. Or given the technology of the age, need anyone to be physically present.

Then, quite honestly, they should have waited and not committed to a date. This tells me you've never coded in your life and therefore don't understand complexity in fixing bugs. Fact of the matter is that on a PC platform, with its myriad of possible configurations compared to consoles, makes it insanely difficult to stamp out all bugs. There will always be bugs. It can tell you anything you like, a couple of lines on a forum isn't going affect the world one way or another. Obisidian (and Troika before them) pulled the 'publisher push' card on every buggy mess they released (which was essentially all of them). They can't do that this time. But the comment I was responding to wasn't about little bugs. It was about "glaring" bugs and the idea of just accepting a QA team inadequate to the actual needs of the project.

Oh, it certainly could. I made the mistake of picking up wasteland 2 on launch, and even discounting the bugs, the game itself was so horribly lacking that even after multiple 1 gig patches, I'm disinclined to pick it back up. Then, quite honestly, they should have waited and not committed to a date.

Yes, and this is true for the fighter. Move fighter talents to general talents, and everyone can be a fighter, including rogues. Losing limitations, what kind of limitations? This isn't DnD, a rogue can wear any armor and wield any weapon. There are many, many games which offer the "basic three" as class choices, which is fighter, rogue, mage. The latest is Underworld Ascendant. Even System Shock 2 offered a modern-day version of the basic three: soldier, hacker, psi-op. Edit: The "entirely artificial seperation" is called game design. Everything is artificial in a game. Yes, the rogue should be removed, definitely not classless (too easy to break), just better designed classes. Yes, everything is artificial, but it can follow sensible rules of game design (rather than poor ones), and make sense in the context of the setting, a strong thematic sense, believability (if a 12 year old can do it, it isn't worth making a class feature) and desired game mechanics. A rogue class fits none of those criteria. Of the PoE classes, I'd say very few do- definitely the chanter and cipher, probably the paladin and ranger and maybe the monk (though without the wounds system, definitely not). The rest are pretty arbitrary divisions of spell sets and fighting styles, several of which are very redundant (the wizard and druid, and definitely fighter/barbarian/rogue)