[Let's talk class balance....]

The game is not balanced (and should not be balanced for) around solo. The camping resource system IS LIMITED. It is limited in the same fashion that inventory in the IE games is limited. It is limited in that you can only carry so many resources at one time. You can subvert the limitation, but the price is backtracking, wasting time returning to town at a non-optimal time. Tedium is one of the primary ways you pay for any mistake in gameplay. Repeating a hard encounter multiple times can get tedious, if you're poor at the game but attempting higher difficulties, even relatively simple encounters can become tedious. Tedium is an entirely reasonable punishment for refusing to attempt to avoid it. it is certainly within your capacity to play the game, rest at appropriate intervals and never need to trek back to town to get more supplies. The IE games were arguably worse for a tedious punishment for failure, in that a single character being reduced to 0 hp prior to getting a priest with raise dead/resurrection meant a return back to town to get a priest to raise them, and required you to distribute the character's inventory between party members. The only advantage the IE games had was easy save-scumming to avoid this, if an iron man game mode was instituted. the IE games would be extremely punishing for having a party member die.

 

the fact that its solo is meaningless, it was just a way to more concretely imagine something that is harder, because harder things require more optimization. you could if you wanted also imagine a game that simply gets harder and harder, as it gets harder you would need to make more optimal decisions, one of those would be to rest more often to optimize your power. 

 

your conflation of tedium with failure is also a poor connection, failure is the fundamental mechanic of difficulty, running and seeing bunches of load screens are not. 

[Let's talk class balance....]

The reward is not returning for camping supplies. if you have to return for camping supplies that is the game telling you you are not playing optimally. No, if harder difficulty can be solved by resting more, that's problematic since it removes the actual difficulty achieved by having an attrition based resource system. If you decide to backtrack to get more camping supplies so you can rest whenever your casters run out of spells, and opt to throw as many of your casters per rest abilities per encounter as possible. And perhaps for good measure, don't adequately manage your squishies to prevent them from taking damage, the backtracking is the price you pay to circumvent the intended functionality of limited resources reduced by attrition.

 

but the resource system isnt attrition based because...camping...is...not...limited. and btw people already rest more to do solo potd, which is harder and requires more optimization, other somewhat tedious optimization also happens on potd like eating the a bunch of different types of food buffs before fights which I doubt many groups bother with. you don't pay a price for resting more often, or not a price any good game designed would want you to pay, making you annoyed by tedium.

 

again, for the large #th time. camping....is....not....a....limited....resource.

[Let's talk class balance....]

 

 

Ideally the spells become encounter because they're no longer valuable enough to warrant conservation. As is the spells that become encounter are probably a bit too powerful, but this may be an issue with the early game of the wizard. Further, it does not remove the consideration of conservation of valuable spells any more than the existence of the wizard's arcane assault does. Frankly, even without per encounter spells at 9 and 11 Wizards and Druids are already fairly overpowered by those levels as the amount of resources they have by that point is fairly enormous. This is a balancing problem, but is not really related to limited camping supplies. Which are limited by the way, in order to bypass the limit you spend time returning to town to refresh your supplies, if you ever have to return to town in the middle of completing content, that indicates you are either underleveled for the content, and therefore should come back later, or are playing poorly and need to do a better job conserving your resources.

 

I don't see how you think a wizard, even a single wizard is useless. Once you get to level 5/6 I would argue wizard (and druid for that matter) begin to become by far the most powerful characters, possessing the greatest utility and damage output of any other class. Note, all of my arguments center around PotD, which in a way is both better and worse for Wizards/Druids. More limited supplies is an issue on PotD, but classes like Cipher become much less consistent compared to Wizard/Druid as battles take longer and it becomes more difficult for Cipher to generate resources, also the power of Wizard/Druid's aoes become greater game changers as a Wizard/Druid can pretty consistently wipe a large pack of trash in 1 to 2 spells, something Cipher cannot do consistently (at least until they get access to 6th level spells, at which point the balance of the game kind of drops out of whack anyways).

 

Inherently, when you run out of camping supplies, your health is getting low and your spells are getting low, if you are not near a point where return to town would be normal without camping supplies, or you find more supplies (there are quite a few of them scattered about, enough that I've often went ahead and nuked a few nearby fights and then ran back to grab the supplies because I had too many to pick them up when I found them) then you've made or have been making mistakes. Now, admittedly you may not realize you're playing suboptimally initially because the feedback isn't necessarily as strong as the feedback given by the gameover screen, but once you get an idea of the game's pacing and when you can expect to see more supplies, then if at that point you're still having trouble managing resources it's purely an issue of your capability at managing resources.

 

 

you still labor under the idea camping is a limited resource, it is not. you also labor under the idea that going "longer" w/o camping is somehow "optimal" that is also false. I will confess that if you continue to believe things that are simply not true then your argument is much stronger.

 

Exactly how is it false? I have yet to have to return to town because I needed camping supplies. Either your argument is it's not limited because it's already effectively free, in which case the solution would be to make it more scarce, or you believe it's impossible to optimally utilize resources such that you don't need to camp constantly, in which case you're just wrong. Or you think that the game should be balanced around single encounters rather than attrition in which case you disagree with the direction they took the game. Going longer without camping is optimal to the point where you are only need more supplies at points where you find more supplies, or when you would return to town for other reasons, optimal is reaching a point where your usage of resources precisely equates to the most optimal division of your time, which is that you never want to return to town in the middle of a dungeon (thus requiring backtracking) or otherwise need to turn back in order to continue onward.

 

 

there is nothing in the games mechanics that rewards resting fewer times besides possibly paying less for camping supplies, which is trivial. you may feel better that you rested fewer times, but thats more or less you imposing things. if you are concerned with not resting then just run ciphers, they have no rest mechanic outside of health(or some other classes).

 

you keep implying that resting fewer times is optimal, you are just wrong. I doubt we are going to come to agreement on this, but imagine if you will a game that gets increasingly harder, you would rest more often, the reason you would rest more often in a harder game is because resting more often is optimal and you would be forced to make a more optimal decision because the game is harder. 

[Let's talk class balance....]

Ideally the spells become encounter because they're no longer valuable enough to warrant conservation. As is the spells that become encounter are probably a bit too powerful, but this may be an issue with the early game of the wizard. Further, it does not remove the consideration of conservation of valuable spells any more than the existence of the wizard's arcane assault does. Frankly, even without per encounter spells at 9 and 11 Wizards and Druids are already fairly overpowered by those levels as the amount of resources they have by that point is fairly enormous. This is a balancing problem, but is not really related to limited camping supplies. Which are limited by the way, in order to bypass the limit you spend time returning to town to refresh your supplies, if you ever have to return to town in the middle of completing content, that indicates you are either underleveled for the content, and therefore should come back later, or are playing poorly and need to do a better job conserving your resources.

 

I don't see how you think a wizard, even a single wizard is useless. Once you get to level 5/6 I would argue wizard (and druid for that matter) begin to become by far the most powerful characters, possessing the greatest utility and damage output of any other class. Note, all of my arguments center around PotD, which in a way is both better and worse for Wizards/Druids. More limited supplies is an issue on PotD, but classes like Cipher become much less consistent compared to Wizard/Druid as battles take longer and it becomes more difficult for Cipher to generate resources, also the power of Wizard/Druid's aoes become greater game changers as a Wizard/Druid can pretty consistently wipe a large pack of trash in 1 to 2 spells, something Cipher cannot do consistently (at least until they get access to 6th level spells, at which point the balance of the game kind of drops out of whack anyways).

 

Inherently, when you run out of camping supplies, your health is getting low and your spells are getting low, if you are not near a point where return to town would be normal without camping supplies, or you find more supplies (there are quite a few of them scattered about, enough that I've often went ahead and nuked a few nearby fights and then ran back to grab the supplies because I had too many to pick them up when I found them) then you've made or have been making mistakes. Now, admittedly you may not realize you're playing suboptimally initially because the feedback isn't necessarily as strong as the feedback given by the gameover screen, but once you get an idea of the game's pacing and when you can expect to see more supplies, then if at that point you're still having trouble managing resources it's purely an issue of your capability at managing resources.

 

 

you still labor under the idea camping is a limited resource, it is not. you also labor under the idea that going "longer" w/o camping is somehow "optimal" that is also false. I will confess that if you continue to believe things that are simply not true then your argument is much stronger.

[Let's talk class balance....]

Costing them time = having to run back. How much time you waste is entirely dependent on how well you play. Playing on PotD, if anything I felt the resting system was too lenient, and I could easily get away with nova-ing in fights where it wasn't necessary and I would either find more camping supplies or finish the questlines in an area and need to return to town anyways. There are occasions where access to camping supplies feels strictly less consistent than it perhaps should be but thats to be expected. In order to have strategic resources, limited resting is a requirement, otherwise the game has to be balanced around a strictly pure encounter basis, which means any encounter less than the most challenging is functionally pointless as it has no actual effect on your gameplay beyond the context of that encounter. Within a per rest system, encounters can be more flexible and meaningful, as long as rests are meaningfully limited in some fashion, as it means even minor encounters can soften the players party up over time, which requires a player to manage attrition as well as large scale single encounters.

 

 

first of all it should be noted, resting is not limited. this is important...resting...is...not...limited. I also dislike how much groups are able to power spike for "tough encounters" but lets stick to one discussion at a time, and certainly other bad mechanics shouldn't justify this bad mechanic.

 

costing time is not an equivalent thing, which appears to be the divergence in our perspectives. for me dying involves a question of how I could have not died, and a failure of some amount. in ironman the failure is absolute in non-ironman its more a small failure, but the important aspect isn't time, its failure. having to run back is not a failure, it is in fact a smart decision, its just a boring and tedious decision.

 

it might be said that the game designers would like you to treat resting as a limited resource, that is probably the implication being handed out, but it is not limited. and because of this raw fact the actual game mechanics encourage a very boring and tedious play design.

[Let's talk class balance....]

Camping Supplies are an abstraction which serve to fulfill an important role, that of insuring per rest is a meaningful mechanic and that classes can be allowed the option of going nova at the cost of relying on a smaller portion of resources in later encounters. People who complain that it's easy to circumvent through busy work ignore the point, virtually any mechanic that intends to punish players for poor play, and thus reward good play, punishes players through time. From game overs to repair on death mechanics to the limited resting mechanic in PoE. almost all of these systems are fundamentally just time sinks that can be avoided with good play.

 

With the current limited resting system, a balance can be constructed where players are encouraged to move forward until they run out of resources and to conserve resource. In the old IE games you could rest almost anywhere, and there was little incentive to not simply nova all of your spells and then rest immediately, thus trivializing all but the most difficult encounters. The IE games made use of a random encounter system when you rested which could be avoided very easily via save scumming. In my opinion, game designers should work to make sure that a player fully utilizing all available systems, that are accessible normally (without cheats/mods) will receive a properly balanced game experience. Limited rests mean that players must accommodate limited rests, either by maximizing the efficiency of their rest limited resources (health, spells, etc) or by spending the time to go find/purchase camping supplies.

 

The tradeoff given here insures that it is viable, and indeed ideal, to focus on the efficient and best usage of resources, rather than being able to spend all of the resources immediately, thus in effect reducing all per rest resources to per encounter. In order to balance a system where all resources are per encounter, on average every fight has to be more difficult and carry serious risk of game over, otherwise encounters become trivial and the difference between a player who adeptly manages their resources and wins fights by large margins is not being rewarded any more than the player who doesn't take care to manage their party properly and allows their party members to spend all of their resources and lose massive amounts of health, and indeed the more aggressive player is likely being rewarded with encounters that go faster because they don't take the time to micro each character to maintain resources.

 

punishing a player by having them die and thus costing them time is NOT the same as punishing them by having them run really long distances repeatedly. it is also wrong to say that running back often is poor play, it is plainly not poor play, in many ways it is ideal play, just boring play.

 

after those two things are wrong most of the rest of your argument is shambles.

[Let's talk class balance....]

so the idea of limited resting is not bad, it adds tension and a "survival" aspect to the game, but once u realize its not actually limited resting, then it just adds tedium. I assume they couldn't actually make it limited because that would cause some people to become "stuck" where they could win a fight but not in their unrested state.

[Let's talk class balance....]

 

thats the problem though is that the game is NEVER easier by taking resting out, it is just less cumbersome, you can always just run back for more camping. you seem to be missing like...the main complaint here.

 

 

I think the resting mechanic is basically good. The way it's implemented necessitates there being a very time-consuming way to undermine it available. The encounters/areas/difficulty obviously aren't balanced around people resting at will. Your position seems to be that because it's *possible* to undermine the resting mechanic to force through tough areas if you cba with it, doing that should be effortless to reduce busywork.

 

I think you'd have a very different (and worse) game with all abilities being de facto per encounter, so I like the system as is where it is technically possible so players can't get completely stuck but it's discouraged from being a thing that's used all the time.

 

 

its not like undermining it requires some game bug, undermining it is literally "damn I used some spells and i'm outta camps, guess I'll run back." 

 

and yes its bad design if the "difficulty" of a game is tedium and not actual thought and skill. 

[Let's talk class balance....]

If resting system annoys munchkins to no end but leaves normal players alone, I say it's a GOOD system !

 

yah you do come across as a pretty spiteful person.

[Let's talk class balance....]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What he said. I found Ciphers OP in party, but solo... not at all. There are other classes which are much more powerful in what they are capable of dish out.

 

Imo Cipher is not a problem. Imo other classes are worse in design. For example the whole camping supply system (which I stoped using thanks to IE mod long time ago) is totally out of place with per rest spell system for casters. Paladin auras buffs and radius are so small that it sucks. Rouges are not rouges really- no backstabing, hit and run smooth fun. Druids shapeshifts are underwhelming unless you download mods that boost them a little and make them last full fight duration. Etc. etc.

 

Seems like many ideas were cool but they lost some time in process and didn't execute them well. That is of course my opinion.

 

 

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD.  I don't know what they were thinking.  It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to.  It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part.

 

 

I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me.

 

 Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense?  Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty.  And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all).  You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? 

 

"Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!".

 

There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight.  No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that.  He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish.

 

You misunderstand me. I think the camping system is a soft way to indicate to the player when they're underlevelled while attempting an area. If I need a separate rest for, say, every two encounters on level 8 of the Endless Paths, I realise I should come back later with bigger swords rather than brute-forcing it by eating a couple of wipes, save/loading a ton and hoping my Dominate spell gets the Fampyrs eaten by their friends. I personally tend to find that my tanks run out of health about as quickly as my casters run out of spells, it's only really secondary backrow casters and archers that I don't have that problem with, and even then, only if the engagements are going perfectly.

 

If you take these mechanics out, you have a binary THE FIGHT IS TOO HARD TO PROCEED/THE FIGHT IS NOT TOO HARD TO PROCEED system of feedback for the player, in addition to which you cut out any sense of attrition and make the game somewhat easier. That said, I would support an option to have infinite camping supplies for people who want to play the game like that or anyone doing interesting caster solo shenanigans.

 

 

there's a perfectly reasonable way to indicate an area is marginal in terms of clearing it, that a bunch of ur dudes are getting knocked out. u don't need a camping system to indicate difficulty. its really, like a lot of the bad things in this game, a 20 year old legacy that they may have felt obligated to include because of the promise of making this "baldurs gate 3"

 

You take the resting out, you get rid of the persistence from encounters, make the game rather easier, especially making it easier to cheese encounters by fighting them piecemeal. It would also make encounters more monotonous because you'd have identical resources for all of them. Same difference as regenerating health in shooters, really.

 

It's not even a BG legacy, really, just a decision on whether you want encounters to have any relationship with each other.

 

 

thats the problem though is that the game is NEVER easier by taking resting out, it is just less cumbersome, you can always just run back for more camping. you seem to be missing like...the main complaint here.

[Let's talk class balance....]

 

 

 

 

 

What he said. I found Ciphers OP in party, but solo... not at all. There are other classes which are much more powerful in what they are capable of dish out.

 

Imo Cipher is not a problem. Imo other classes are worse in design. For example the whole camping supply system (which I stoped using thanks to IE mod long time ago) is totally out of place with per rest spell system for casters. Paladin auras buffs and radius are so small that it sucks. Rouges are not rouges really- no backstabing, hit and run smooth fun. Druids shapeshifts are underwhelming unless you download mods that boost them a little and make them last full fight duration. Etc. etc.

 

Seems like many ideas were cool but they lost some time in process and didn't execute them well. That is of course my opinion.

 

 

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD.  I don't know what they were thinking.  It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to.  It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part.

 

 

I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me.

 

 Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense?  Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty.  And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all).  You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? 

 

"Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!".

 

There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight.  No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that.  He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish.

 

You misunderstand me. I think the camping system is a soft way to indicate to the player when they're underlevelled while attempting an area. If I need a separate rest for, say, every two encounters on level 8 of the Endless Paths, I realise I should come back later with bigger swords rather than brute-forcing it by eating a couple of wipes, save/loading a ton and hoping my Dominate spell gets the Fampyrs eaten by their friends. I personally tend to find that my tanks run out of health about as quickly as my casters run out of spells, it's only really secondary backrow casters and archers that I don't have that problem with, and even then, only if the engagements are going perfectly.

 

If you take these mechanics out, you have a binary THE FIGHT IS TOO HARD TO PROCEED/THE FIGHT IS NOT TOO HARD TO PROCEED system of feedback for the player, in addition to which you cut out any sense of attrition and make the game somewhat easier. That said, I would support an option to have infinite camping supplies for people who want to play the game like that or anyone doing interesting caster solo shenanigans.

 

 

there's a perfectly reasonable way to indicate an area is marginal in terms of clearing it, that a bunch of ur dudes are getting knocked out. u don't need a camping system to indicate difficulty. its really, like a lot of the bad things in this game, a 20 year old legacy that they may have felt obligated to include because of the promise of making this "baldurs gate 3"

[Let's talk class balance....]

 

 

 

 

What he said. I found Ciphers OP in party, but solo... not at all. There are other classes which are much more powerful in what they are capable of dish out.

 

Imo Cipher is not a problem. Imo other classes are worse in design. For example the whole camping supply system (which I stoped using thanks to IE mod long time ago) is totally out of place with per rest spell system for casters. Paladin auras buffs and radius are so small that it sucks. Rouges are not rouges really- no backstabing, hit and run smooth fun. Druids shapeshifts are underwhelming unless you download mods that boost them a little and make them last full fight duration. Etc. etc.

 

Seems like many ideas were cool but they lost some time in process and didn't execute them well. That is of course my opinion.

 

 

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD.  I don't know what they were thinking.  It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to.  It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part.

 

 

I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me.

 

 Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense?  Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty.  And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all).  You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? 

 

"Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!".

 

There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight.  No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that.  He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish.

 

 

 

I agree completely that per rest stuff is badly designed and that it basically only takes up your real life time to run back is obnoxious.

[Understanding the stronghold]

I understand the stronghold perfectly, its where I dump thousands of gold every game to not much noticeable effect and rarely visit.

[Tanks need some kind of overhaul.]

in my ideal world the solution for the super tank issue would actually be better ai and more impactful abilities for enemies. more willingness to bypass tanks, to ignore things that do no damage, more abilities like clear out, teleport, sprints or maybe "dont stand in the fire" aoe. could make battles more chaotic and awesome. obviously this isn't going to happen really, but it'd be cool if it did.

[Tanks need some kind of overhaul.]

 

 

Building a super tank is kind of the novice's approach to the game. Which is fine and all, but when you understand the game and the systems behind it? You don't need to build a super tank. You'd do better making the character you want and then use other available means to control encounters besides having a super tank. There are many, and several of them are more effective.

 

Now put down the shield and get to cutting folk up.

 

 

no, building a super tank is the optimal method, you can get most enemies in most encounters to hit ur tank and ur tank takes probably 5% or less of the damage of your other characters, so it is by a large margin the optimal solution to normal group fights.

 

which is really the problem w/ the tank or with the AI depending on how you look at it. you can build a character that does .8 dmg a hit but takes nearly zero damage and then get the enemy team to attack that character exclusively.

 

 

Scenario A) Your tank takes most of the damage for the group. The group does 5x damage (missing the tank, for all intents and purposes)

 

Scenario B) You control your enemies to mitigate damage your group might otherwise take. The group does 6x damage (the "tank" is a healthy contributor to combat)

 

Both are valid. B), in my opinion, is the superior option because it's generally faster and more fun.

 

 

B is not the superior option because its massively less reliable and doing 20% more damage is basically never more desirable than a simple way to reduce the enemies damage by...lets say 95%, though honestly it might be higher.  it should be noted also that you don't even do 20% more damage, since you have to spend resources doing the controlling, but wutever, you can have the 20%.

 

if you have more fun doing things your way then don't let me stop you, but building super tanks is optimal. they are that good.

[Tanks need some kind of overhaul.]

Building a super tank is kind of the novice's approach to the game. Which is fine and all, but when you understand the game and the systems behind it? You don't need to build a super tank. You'd do better making the character you want and then use other available means to control encounters besides having a super tank. There are many, and several of them are more effective.

 

Now put down the shield and get to cutting folk up.

 

 

no, building a super tank is the optimal method, you can get most enemies in most encounters to hit ur tank and ur tank takes probably 5% or less of the damage of your other characters, so it is by a large margin the optimal solution to normal group fights.

 

which is really the problem w/ the tank or with the AI depending on how you look at it. you can build a character that does .8 dmg a hit but takes nearly zero damage and then get the enemy team to attack that character exclusively.

[why is moon godlike so good?]

So a party of 2+ moon godlikes is like being struck by lightning out of the blue. Twice.

 

2+ godlikes in a party --- extreme minmaxing / munchkin.

 

people aren't nearly as tolerant of bad design decisions that are covered up by blaming the player as they use to be. 

[Endless Paths levels 9+ - extremely cheesy encounter design?]

I agree that most hard fights that aren't the silly dragon at the end can be solved by using ur army in a can figurines. 

[why is moon godlike so good?]

A better question is: how do you justify having a party of 6 godlikes ? For all I know there is one (1) godlike character in the game that wasn't created by a backer.

 

Godlikes are just meant to be more powerful by design.

 

seems unlikely since nature and death are more or less ass. fire is cool but usually in a pretty specific build sorta way since it can't beat out orlan for tanking in a party(imo).

 

I mean I know balance isnt that big an issue, but it is a pretty yawning gap to give one race double the endurance every fight, and have it come in the form of an aoe and have that aoe be instant, non-interruptable, and cast during any action.

[why is moon godlike so good?]

on a dps character (high might, middle/low con) it basically doubles ur endurance, every fight. the thing is so good that I've had dps chars w/ 10 con die permanently due to health(from full health) loss just because they were standing around a bunch of other moon godlikes. not that I mind too much because its nice to not use priests, but I mean damn son.

[2 tanks and 3 ranged dps possible?]

I would recommend if you want optimization that you have 1 fighter tank or 2 fighter tanks, but no offtanks and no non-fighter tanks. and mostly the game can be done with 1 tank.

 

right now on triple crown I'm using 1 fighter tank and 5 rangers which is pretty funny.

[Animal Companion comparison (1.03+)]

yah animals get fatigued crazy easily, its obnoxious and probably a design oversight.

 

I dont see much point in taking much other than the bear, companions die easily enough that living a little longer seems to beat most other things, but I often just leave the animal companion in the back anyway.

[Is it too late for a redesign of the encounter/daily system for spellcasters?]

well the spell / rest system seems just fine to me.

 

you have to save your spells and/or your camping kits to avoid going back to the surface every two encounters when you are in the depths of the infinite paths... and also make a decision to continue or not when your party members start to be low on life , short on spells....

you have also the choice to buy items to get bonus spells , or other kind of boost.

all these choice matters, especially if you play ironman mode.

 

on a roleplay side , i dont want my characters to unleash infinite magic power like semi gods or something.

 

 

going back is more a hassle than a strategic decision. which is just one of the many problems w/ per rest abilities. you're not making any real in game tradeoff so much as a real life tradeoff of 5 minutes of ur actual time. 

 

but yah per rest is old and busted and shouldn't have been included in game.

[Is it too late for a redesign of the encounter/daily system for spellcasters?]

I agree that per rest mechanic is a 2 to 3 decade old anachronism in modern rpgs and wish it had gone away. I actually don't use wizards/druids/priests atm just to avoid the mechanic.

[Best merchant to sell to?]

easy answer I think, the guy in the first zone that I always let die:).