Crucis

There's really no reason for this to be the case. Rangers are perfectly capable of being solid in melee. I suspect the problem your ranger is having is that you've got him wearing the least amount of armor possible (perhaps even no armor) to enhance his RoF. If so, you might want to reconsider how much armor you have your Ranger wear, and consider accepting a reduction in his RoF to provide him with at least some protection for those times when he can't avoid melee.

Sorry, I didn't understand your question. Could you eleborate? POE2 won't have any connections to BG except it's RPG and maybe some easter eggs. Importing POE character could be possbility. Depends of the timeline and story of POE2. In english "do a" means "to emulate". Veynn was effectively saying "Will POE2 have an import feature similar to how BG2 allowed you to import BG1 games?". Except that Veynn should have said "I wonder if they're going TO do a Baldur's Gate ..."

This description reminds me of someone quite a lot Not a bad observation. Not bad at all. While there are some differences due to class worldviews, I think that these two have more commonalities than differences.

I just happened to notice this Companion's portrait in the companions' portrait folder, with the name "Maneha". Also, this portrait was part of the update 2.03 download, given the date on the file. Interesting.

OK, so you propose to trade party-survivability (which Defender actually is) talents with damage-dealing talents. And how good suggested tanking build will behave on the maximum difficulty? How long such tank will live while taking damage from 3-5 mobs simultaneously? Besides, it wasn't the question about how to play or how to build your party. Generally I'm talking about the disengagement mechanic related to the available tanking abilities. What it sounds like to me, having read the posts, is that you don' t like that your old "tank" character isn't as effective as he used to be at being a tanking frontliner, and, instead of adapting to the changes that came with the recent patches, you want the devs to go back to the way things used to be, in so many words. KDubya is suggesting how you can adapt to those changes, while you seem to want to refuse to adapt and would prefer things be the way they were. Frankly, I doubt that the devs are going to fall back to the way things were, because the old way seemed a little too boring and predictable. I mean seriously .... tanks were nothing but giant aggro magnets and the enemies they attracted were utterly mindless and dumb in how they dealt with that aggro magnet. I strongly suggest that you look at these changes as a challenge. Learn to adapt to them. Come up with new tactics for dealing with bad guys who disengage, rather than complain that your old aggro magnet tank just doesn't cut it any longer.

You clearly don't understand how hideously expensive voice acting is. I don't know the actual numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if the cost to 100% voice act PoE would have been enough to have doubled the size of the actual game without voice acting. As for allowing the core fan base to turn it off ... what would get turned off *IS* the core fan base!!! IMO, they'd be seriously ticked off that Obsidian wasted all those perfectly good resources on something as useless as voice acting, when they could have been used to add new content .... more areas, more NPC's, more spells, more whatever!!! So you are making a statement about something that you dont know about. Ok. Nice talk. Just because I don't know the actual numbers does NOT mean that I don't know what I'm talking about. You can go stuff your snotty retorts where the sun don't shine.

And this, gentlemen, is good balancing! Sorry to burst your bubble, Eisen, but in my case it's more that I haven't played PoE since before White March was released, meaning that I haven't had a chance to get a feel for whether they're OP or UP. Side note: Much as I have always love playing rangers, I don't particularly like PoE's version of them, in very large part because I seriously dislike being forced to have an animal companion. But that's neither here nor there regarding whether they're UP or OP as a class.

I do have a problem when choosing ranger talents. But not because there's nothing to my taste, quite the contrary - there's too much stuff i'd like to have. But again, i'm a boring passive player. People who want many active abilities may not find much appeal in Ranger class. I too find the ranger has too many options that I would like to have rather than too few or the ridiculous idea that there are NO useful abilities to choose from - I think the ranger is now in excellent shape and not underpowered at all. I don't know whether Rangers are OP or UP at this point. All I know is that I don't like playing rangers with animal companions, no matter how good the AC's are. I wish that there was an option to NOT have an AC. Also, while I probably do prefer the theme of ranger as ranged combatant (mostly as an archer), I'm not entirely fond of the idea that PoE's Rangers are forced into this box due to their class talents being focused entirely on their AC's and ranged combat. I know that one could take general talents that were more melee oriented to create a more balanced ranger, but to me that's avoiding the issue.

I have to disagree with you here. First, clearly have have a problem with ranged warrior type characters, so any opinion you have on them is, IMO, worthless. You essentially think that sitting on the outskirts of a battle, using a ranged weapon, and avoiding taking hits makes the character "gloriously suck". Frankly, I'd say that that's why your opinions on such characters "gloriously suck".

You clearly don't understand how hideously expensive voice acting is. I don't know the actual numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if the cost to 100% voice act PoE would have been enough to have doubled the size of the actual game without voice acting. As for allowing the core fan base to turn it off ... what would get turned off *IS* the core fan base!!! IMO, they'd be seriously ticked off that Obsidian wasted all those perfectly good resources on something as useless as voice acting, when they could have been used to add new content .... more areas, more NPC's, more spells, more whatever!!!

I've completed the game 3 times thus far. I think that the basic combat system is fine. However, I do think that the game is lacking in well designed set piece battles. Take IWD2 as an example. There were a number of very interesting and challenging set piece battles in IWD2. OTOH, there are very few, if any, similar battles in PoE. The battles in PoE can generally be described as the enemies are over there and the good guys are over here, they meet and they fight. Let me give you some examples of the set piece battles in IWD2 for those who aren't familiar with that game. (I'm doing this from memory since it's been many years since I played it.) There was one battle where the entire map are was one long, giant running battle from the moment you entered the area. (I.E. The battle that ended part 2 of the game, at the bridge.) Come to think of it, there was a second battle that could be described this way as well, the ending battle of part 1, where you had to defend the town where your party first starts the game. And there as a battle in an underground tunnel against some sort of monsters that would suddenly appear from nowhere and you'd be constantly attacked from both the front and back. You didn't put your warriors up front to hide the casters. You had to have warriors both front and back, with the casters in the middle of the party and hope for the best. (Often the best tactic in this instance was to summon some allies to serve as cannon fodder on the front lines to support your warriors.) What it came down to was that IWD2's battles were more interesting, even though the basic combat was the same as PoE, because those battles presented different challenges from time to time. And often you needed to go beyond your personal basic strategy a little. Not so much because the set piece battles were countering you, but probably more because your basic tactic was so honed in on the generic battle format that when you ran up against a set piece battle that had the baddies doing stuff beyond the norm, you had to adjust on the fly (at least the first time you saw that battle). I realize that it might be too much to ask at this point, but it would be nice if in WM2, the devs would make some changes in how some of the battles in the game are set up so that every battle wasn't "good guys encounter bad guys. the two teams charge at each other and fight". This isn't an issue of the bad guys's combat AI. It's how the battles are set up.

Everyone except those who will miss the actual game improvements that could have been done with the money wasted on more voice acting. Exactly. Excessive voice acting is money wasted that could have gone towards adding new content, improving the existing game, and so many other things. OTOH, voice acting adds nothing but some audio for those who are too lazy to read.

I don't think you understand what deflection represents. It's your character's ability to deflect blows, generally through your shield or armor. Unless your point is that we should be able to create our own weapon groups, I do not understand your argument, no. A system with specializations for each weapon would still require you to spend two talents to create your concept. They're not artificial. They have an in-world logic as to what the people the group they're named after would fight with. A. Read the suggestion I made earlier about how to change to a more rational and less limiting model. B. They damned well ARE artificial. The so-called adventurer's group is pure, unadulterated BS. The noble group is as well. Any so-called noble that was going to be a combatant would be a knight. You people have no friggin' imaginations if you can't see how limiting and how artificial these weapons groups are. They may be the single worst thing about this otherwise pretty darned good game. How can you not see that even if the 6 (?) weapons groups were perfect (and they're not) for the types of characters they're linked to, that's only 6 (?) different character types!!!! THAT IS THE LIMITATION!!!! If you're not an "adventurer", a noble, a knight, a soldier, a ruffian, or a peasant, then too bad for you. No weapon groups that fit the concept of your character. You're not allowed to think outside of those 6 little boxes. Nope. No imagination allowed here. Quite literally no outside the box character concepts allowed in this game.

I want party pathfinding that's smart enough to walk around spotted floor traps. It gets monstrously tedious to have to sup-micro-micro-micro-manage every character in the party to walk around SPOTTED floor traps.

Meh. For me the distinction between a ranged specialist and a melee specialist is better achieved through the talents and modals you choose that effect AFFECT one weapon type or the other. How can weapon groups with a selection of weapons in them be straight-jackets? I fail to see the difference between taking two weapon groups and taking two specializations in specific weapons. Oh wait, I can see one : in the former, your character will be able to wield efficiently more weapon types rather than be gimped by AD&D-style hyper-specialization! Which was especially ridiculous for warriors, supposedly the greatest master at arms, but who had to specialize in one kind of weapon! Also, on a side-note : f*** this fancy quote system, f*** it time a-million! At least give us back the readable BBCode, not that gimped version that can't even get to a new line when it no longer has room in the box! In reverse, I 10000% agree about this quoting system. It's a massive pain. On to the rest. Are all you people's imaginations so freakin' limited that you can't see how weapons groups are as limiting as a strait jacket? It should be as obvious as a nuclear explosion, for crying out loud!!!!! Let me try to explain for the effing umpteenth time! If I want to come up with a character who wants to use a warbow and saber, with the effing weapon groups model, he has to take 2 different weapons groups because those weapons are in 2 different groups. THAT is limiting. Why can you not SEE the OBVIOUS??? I do NOT want to be tied into the groupings that the devs came up with!!! They're artificial! And they're limiting to anyone who actually HAS an imagination, and doesn't want to be stuck in this tiny, narrow minded buckets called weapons groups!!!

Gods no. The weapons group model is HORRIBLE. Absolutely horrible! I like coming up with concept characters, and the weapons group model keeps making it nearly impossible to develop any concept that isn't a perfect fit for one of the existing weaps groups. And the number of character concepts that are perfect fits a exceedingly small. Right now, I'd like to play another character, but I can't come up with a good one because the weapon groups are a damned straight jacket!!! That's your opinion, my opinion is that it's good. I don't see how they are a strait jacket, at least no more than specialising in a single weapon (which by the way IS limiting), if you really can't choose then don't pick one, or just go with whatever one has the weapon you want to use and consider the others a bonus your character can use. I'm not seeing your issue... If you're not seeing my issue, it's because you're refusing to think about it. Regardless, there's a vast difference between weapons groups being limiting and specializing in a single weapon. One of them is a self imposed limit. The other is forced on you by ridiculously artificial rules. And choosing not to pick a weapons group is punishing. You're wrong on all counts. If I want to create a character, who is a Ranger who specializes in bows, why should he have to pick two different weapons groups, one of which (the adventurer's group) is blatantly stupid in its weapons mix? This is why weapons groups are artificial, punishing, and just plain unfair. The only characters who benefit from the weapons groups are those who fit into the little cookie cutter molds that the groups create. Wanna be a stereotypical monk? The peasant group is probably a good fit. Want to be a thug with a bit of a pirate background? Then the Ruffian group is a good fit. Want to be a firearms specialist? You're boned. Want to be a bowmaster? Boned again. Specialist in crossbows? Boned yet again. The weapons groups are just plain dumb. And they limit the ability of players to come up with different sorts of characters that are outside of the weapons groups little cookie cutter molds.

No to pre-buffs. If they allow pre-buffs, then people will start pre-buffing for every frickin' encounter, and then the game would have to be balanced under the assumption of everyone constantly pre-buffing. And that screws over anyone who is perfectly content not pre-buffing. No, pre-buffing was a terrible thing in the BG and IWD games. And PoE is vastly better without it. Limit pre-buffing to food and potions.

Gods no. The weapons group model is HORRIBLE. Absolutely horrible! I like coming up with concept characters, and the weapons group model keeps making it nearly impossible to develop any concept that isn't a perfect fit for one of the existing weaps groups. And the number of character concepts that are perfect fits a exceedingly small. Right now, I'd like to play another character, but I can't come up with a good one because the weapon groups are a damned straight jacket!!!

1. Gods, NO! IMO, it should be made far simpler. I have no interest in managing a castle and its surrounding lands, and collecting taxes, and so forth and so on. I'd be happier if the "stronghold" was, for example, a room in the Crucible Knights' keep, if you were a fighter, or paladin, etc. Or maybe a townhouse in Defiance Bay, or a simple house in Dyrwood Village.

I'll repeat a suggestion I made 2-3 months ago on this topic. Dump weapons groups, and replace them with the following. Put a LOT more emphasis on fighting styles, i.e. 2 handed weapons, 1 handed weapons, dual wielding, and weapon & shield. And perhaps have Marksman as a 5th style for ranged combatants. (Or for a tiny bit of granularity in ranged weapons, one might split bows from firearms. But Xbows are sort of a cross between bows and firearms, since they are conceptually a spanned weapon that a bow mechanism to propel an "arrow". And yet, they're held, aimed, and fired very similarly to a gun. I don't know where they're properly belong, if there was a split here.) As with weapons groups, have 3 different levels of skill in these groups, but get away from those wretched description terms (except for Mastery, keep that). Come up with some better sounding terms that don't sound like they came out of an IT manual. Maybe Apprentice, Journeyman, and Mastery levels in the styles, as a first suggestions. Regardless, how each level of skill in the styles could be handled similarly or uniquely to each style. Uniquely is probably more interesting. Levels of skill in each melee style could affect accuracy, damage, recovery speed, and so forth, with similar modifiers for skill in ranged style(s). IMO, the advantage of this concept is that you don't have to worry about these bizarre weapons groups, nor do you have to worry about skill levels in each weapon individually. Admittedly, it's not perfect. For example, it's easy to argue that using a quarterstaff is very different from using a greatsword, even though both are 2H weapons. That said, it seems to me at first blush to be a more flexible and elegant way of handling the issue. You're not stuck with some artificial weapons groups that work for a few character concepts but fail miserably for many others. For example, say that you have a character who is a ranged specialist, but may be only barely skilled with melee weapons. He might take 3 levels in Marksman but only a single point (or none at all) in one handed weapons.

You just made what amounts to a single gameplay suggestion. Care to reformat and add 2 more? The point clearly eluded you. My distaste for animal companions is so great that any other second and third suggestions would pale in comparison to the importance I place on dealing with those annoying animal companions. However, here's another suggestion, consider it #11. 11. Get rid of the weapons groups. They're too artificial and too limiting on character creation. Only a very few character concepts work with the weapons groups as is. But IMO, others are incapable of using the weapons groups as is while remaining true to their concept.

1. Get rid of Ranger animal companions. 2. Alternatively, give Rangers the option to not have an animal companion. 3. See #1 and #2.

It's much less "artificial" than pre-buffing before an encounter that you as a player know is about to happen, but that the characters would have no knowledge of.

Same here. I like that the game is balanced around NOT being able to pre-buff. Otherwise, you end up having to spend silly amounts of time pre-buffing before every friggin' significant battle, and that gets really boring, not to mention forces you to rest more ... which to me breaks the immersion of the game. The few times that I've made a major effort to pre-buff with food, etc. I found it incredibly boring to have to spend like 5 minutes going through each party member and drinking or eating each food item or potion and filling up their consumable slots with the potions I wanted them to have in place for the battle. INCREDIBLY BORING!!! I would much rather that the game be balanced (as it is) around NOT having pre-buffing so that one isn't effectively required to pre-buff before nearly every encounter of consequence. Also, it seems much more (pardon the term) "realistic" for there to be no pre-buffing, because while the players may know that there's an encounter around the corner (from multiple run-thru's of the game), the characters themselves probably rarely do.

Just a thought, not having actually seen the details of these cross-class talents. It seems to me that having a ranger take the sneak attack ability could reduce whatever perceived gap there is in offensive firepower between rogues and rangers. This is probably one of the more obvious ideas. I'm sure that there are other less obvious ones.