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mireigi

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Everything posted by mireigi

  1. 5. So, why should the player get an advantage going into combat, which is what you get if you scout your enemy and fully buff up before combat. Shouldn't all the enemies sit around buffing and resting to refresh spells constantly so that they're all fully buffed up too? I don't like having spells locked for combat only since that's kind of goofy, but, it's a game mechanic for balance, and I can accept that. The enemies probably don't like that our parties recharge endurance to full in a few seconds after fights or that we can freely/safely rest anywhere in their domain. Give and take. Because the enemies are usually found in a place that they themselves have chosen and deemed safe. You, the player, are invading their home or turf, and as such it is natural that you are preparing as best you can to match up against whatever the enemy has in store for you. Meanwhile the enemies are slaving away at whatever mundane tasks make up their daily lives. Or do you sit around in your home with a loaded gun on the table, nervously waiting for the burglar you know will come at some point? No, you don't. It is your home, you feel safe there. You may have a gun somewhere in the house, and it might be loaded, but you're not having it at the ready 24/7. Enemies in a dungeon are no different. BG wasn't really tactical no. There was the overall strategy of kill dangerous targets first, then mop up the rest, although later on it was usually just a slaughter. In PoE, moreso than BG, party composition is important. Sure, you can build a party that focuses primarily on damage, with one or two characters tanking everything. However, such isn't fun for everyone. Some prefer to rely on a more balanced party where the fights take longer, and there is more micromanagement, as you are attempting to outlast the enemies rather than burn them down in seconds. From my experience with PoE so far the game isn't balanced too well towards the latter of the above. This becomes evident when pre-buffing isn't possible, and monsters are omnipotent.
  2. I haven't tried using traps yet so I can't speak to your whole post, but I am strongly in support of Obsidian's design decision on out of combat buffing. Each character in the party can set exactly one trap. That means six traps in total. However, most of those traps are going to be extremely weak due to low or complete lack of a Mechanics skills on some of those characters. I've encountered traps that did 100+ damage to everyone within range, effectively knocking my entire party out. However, despite me being able to disarm such a trap due to a high enough Mechanics skill, thus adding said trap to my inventory, the most damage I have been able to do so far with a single trap is a Mechanics 8 Arrow Trap for 22 - 28 Piercing AoE damage in a 2.5 meter radius or the equivelant of hitting three targets clumped together. Traps represent a major strategic advantage. If you can lure your enemy to the traps, you can usually turn the fight in your favor despite having the odds stacked against you. At least that's what traps are supposed to do. Currently the best trap I've used (see above) took ~20% health away from three enemies at once, and I haven't seen any traps that immobilize enemies or help control the battlefield. In short if you want to use buffs you need to forego tactical planning. What? No. Exactly the opposite. If you want to make effective use of buffs, you are REQUIRED to use them tactically. You are forced to consider the tradeoffs of casting that spell, versus adopting a spread out formation or casting an offensive spell. That tradeoff isn't really paying off though. At least not when you can place a character out of line of sight of the enemy, behind a giant boulder, half a screen away, only to have two of the five enemies go straight for that character when combat starts rather than the much more visible guy with a mace and shield standing out in the open. Rogues, Wizards, Rangers, Priests, and Chanters are all rather soft targets, some more than others. Tactical positioning of said classes is vital to any strategy, so if you have to clump together for the initial 3 - 4 seconds of the fight to ensure that they all get a nice buff to their survivability, before they move out to their intended positions, you are not only wasting valuable time in getting to said positions, but you are also risking the enemies getting so close that any movement done by your characters trigger Disengagement attacks, not to mention receiving a god-awful spell to the face that either cripple several of them, or deal damage to them thus putting stress on your healer. There is simply too much reliance on buffs to help you through combat. Due to the other issues that I mentioned (Stealth, Traps, and Omnipotence) you are at a strategic disadvantage. If those issues were addressed, however, the reliance on buffs would be significantly less, and it would present much more interesting tactics.
  3. Why is it a "blunder"? "some fights would be less painful to deal with if spells such as Armor of Faith, or Circle of Protection, could be cast prior to combat." Yep, that certainly would make the game much easier. Spell durations are short in this game, and the number of spells per rest is limited, as it should be. Being unable to use spells to increase survivability and/or damage for the initial 15-20 seconds of any fight while you get it under control, is usually a sound tactic. With that tactic no longer available, you have to spend precious time casting supportive spells after the fight has already started. It doesn't help that most spells have a short radius, forcing your party to clump together rather than get into good positions. There is also the whole logical side to it, which, as I initially wrote, I won't get into since we are dealing with magic.
  4. By now I've logged roughly 30 hours of gameplay, with a restart after about 10 hours, which by no means make me an expert on the game, but I've noticed a few issues that, although they might be by intent, are severely lowering my experience of the game, and I think for a lot of others too. Before I present my issues, I will admit that I am playing on Hard difficulty as a Rogue. My party consist of my own character, and four others: Fighter, Wizard, Priest, and Chanter. If someone have some insights into any of the below I would be grateful to hear from you. In particular if you can point out where I am wrong. First issue - Trap strength I am not sure who thought it was a great idea to limit number of traps to just one per character, but it seems a strange decision. Maybe the number of traps per character increases later on as a result of higher class level, Mechanics level, talents, or class abilities, but currently, as a 5th level Rogue with 8 in Mechanics, my character is able to place down one trap. One. It could be that I am missing something, but one trap doesn't do a lot of damage, and most of the time it will only hit two enemies since they tend to go after the party in a single file column. At my current level and ranks in Mechanics traps feel more like a gimmic that is good for taking care of cannon fodder that pose no real threat anyway, rather than something to turn the odds of a fight. Placing down a second trap with the same character will also make the first trap go away. Normally your own traps can be recovered if they are not triggered, but not here. Place down a second trap and the first one is gone with no way of getting it back. I am sure this is a bug. I am by no means looking for traps to be as broken as they were in BG2, but a small upgrade would be nice. Second issue - Trap placement I am certain that some of you have tried to place down two traps with two characters, one from each. If so you have likely encountered the same issue that I have, where placing a trap too close to an existing one will make the first one disappear. This behavior would be fine if placing a trap on top of another trap, but when they are placed apart from eachother, yet obviously still too close, it becomes an issue. The spell Warding Seal, and likely others like it that I haven't seen yet, also do this. On the positive side, Warding Seal isn't removed by a trap placed close to it, or even on top of it. Although placing a trap on top of a Seal makes little sense. Third issue - Stealth This has already been addressed in another thread, so I won't go into too much detail, except to point out that I agree the mechanic seems counter-intuitive. Stealth, as far as I am concerned, should be an individual action, not something for the whole party. The ability to properly position a character on the battlefield is important, sadly, with the way Stealth is currently working, this is not possible. Some of you may wonder why it isn't possible, and the answer to that is simple: Stealth breaks when combat starts - for all characters, not just the one being spotted. Fourth issue - Enemy omnipotence Enemies seem to be omnipotent in this game. At least that is the only reason that can explain how they are able to charge directly at a character hiding behind a rock formation with no clear line of sight between the two. Just like with the Stealth issue, this is a major hinderance to tactics in battle. Fifth issue - Pre-combat spells Otherwise known as buffing. Again I am uncertain who had the brilliant idea to disable pre-combat buffs, but oh boy is it a blunder. Now, since we are talking about magic, I won't go into a logical debate as to whether or not it makes sense for spells to be locked out of a caster's arsenal unless threatened. Instead I can only point out that some fights would be less painful to deal with if spells such as Armor of Faith, or Circle of Protection, could be cast prior to combat.
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