knownastherat

Figurines are OP? I think I asked before but: What do they do? Summon 5 min/max companions? People are playing the game, apparently the way the game was meant to be played, with 5 companions. While utter joke, difficulty wise, I do not see anyone saying that its OP. People even respec their companions because .. their stat and talent distribution sucks .. lol? Talk about cheap or cheese. But no .. figurines are OP so are scrolls. This is just ridiculous. Wake up and get real please.

[info] Essential Phantom + Spellbind Items - https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78361-info-essential-phantom-spellbind-items/ --- Project Image was good enough. The biggest problem was counter with some kind of detect invisibility/dispel but it could be taken care of by cloak or buff iirc. Simulacrum was level higher and on that level there were better picks at least for Sorcerer. Wisdom 18 ~ Wish .. instant rest .. summon deva whatever .. OP. Everything was OP there.

Wizard can utilize quite few itmes via Duplicate so that is one approach. Though with enough spells, rings/talents, its not as appealing.

I mean both. Tested with Stealth 5, sneaking through "Dungeons" with spiders on 1 level included, not sure about lower. Inside: Sneak close to door to activate dialogue and start combat, activate figurine and move away from combat. --- edit: yeah Barbarian has it tough due to starting stats. Cipher can do it level 3 solo, Barb probably needs to do more running around to get to level 4. Then again, Barb should win the fights needed to get there. I have not played Barb, was waiting for OSA fix, may try it now though.

A few likely reasons. First, as a personal point of pride. Balance Man took it upon himself to build a system from scratch because, among other reasons, he thought that "most other games get it wrong," with a title like BG2 set aside for criticism because of its over-the-top elements (much of which is just vintage 2e, to be fair). He also thinks mages (AKA casters) in D&D are too flexible and powerful and wanted to bring them closer to other classes in power level for PoE, a goal reminiscent of what was attempted in 4e. Well, most of these goals are not where they should be. Each patch is inching toward it, but it's not there yet. Another reason is that PoE is a work in progress. Assuming all the planned content gets developed, we've only seen a small portion of the overall work. With a larger pool of testers compared to the backer beta and all content now at those testers' disposal, the feedback for JSaw to use in rebalancing the game and putting it on a stronger footing for future content is better. Balance Man made a comment during development to the effect that "a fun game would be even more fun if it had a better system," implying that to him at least, coherence and balance within game systems leads to more fun, possibly by way of increased challenge or a larger variety of "viable" build options. You're free to disagree with that approach. I'm interested to see where the dev team goes with it. Fair enough. I guess I picked up some animosity from comments about alleged "cheese" which I took personally and cant let go now What I liked about BG, regardless of imbalances, was that I had this thick printed manual I studied thoroughly and there I could learn everything about the game especially about game mechanics. And it worked as described, according to the rules. I never pondered "why something works like that?" nor was having thoughts "It should not work like that!" as I took the game as it was given to me and was content with it.

IF Caed Nua is point where solo run breaks for some classes THEN the solution is to avoid the fight. It is not compulsory, I just tested with latest patch to be sure. It can be "sneaked away/from" just like many other fights in game and nowhere it is written it cannot or should not be skipped. Actually, there is none sense in fighting them solo. There is no reward and there is little skill involved in the fight. Even after it was repeatedly posted on this board how to avoid the fight, the possibility to avoid it is still present in game which leads to essentially two options: a) dev dunno wtf is going on b) its intended. IF its a) well .. lol get some testers Obsidian and if its b) ... don't fight them. The purpose is not necessarily to kill everything but to progress in story to the final encounter. btw in my experience Rogue is excellent for this purpose - to beat the game solo. Pacifist or not.

Sure. 'Course the game is already a commercial success with hundreds of thousands sold just on Steam, 90 Metacritic, etc. If the game flopped expansions would not already be in production. A couple of surly forum posters complaining about how their favorite OP builds got nerfed (and will continue to be nerfed) will affect nothing. Well, that begs the question: What is the purpose of the so-called balancing if the game was good enough at release? There are indeed couple of posters here - the same few dozens posting - while another few dozens who used to post here left as they got their achievements already. As I said before, I do not remember BG, for example, being constantly rebalanced and if I am to understand balance the way its presented here by players like you then BG had zero balance. Yet its legend, its standard for this genre. In other words, its not balance what makes a game "good" or "popular" let alone "fun". By the time the alleged Balance Man, in the woods lol, will be done balancing there will be few playing the game as players move to other games. The game does not have "solid mechanical foundation" like D&D for example. If the balancing going on here will achieve the said foundation is yet to be seen. Still, people play games because they are fun not because they are balanced. PS You never saw me complaining about something being "unbalanced" or about nerfs/buffs, well, except my remark on Wiz Veil because that is lol. I do not really care about that. I am just wasting my time here questioning the purpose of the holy grail balance seems to represent for some.

Path of the Balance

The Balance Man can have any ideas he wants as it will be upto Accouting Man to determine success or failure. But since Balance Man will not work with my money, I am cool with whatever the Balance Man decides. After all I am free not to buy into Balance Man ideas. Well, good luck to the Balance Man, I guess. Lets hope your visions meet expectations.

I tend to believe that as do not have experience with all classes. The part of save & reload which enables me to try different approaches, to what I perceive as puzzle, is the part I probably like most. The game offer lots of tools and as it seems the community has discovered probably all of them by now. It depends. It does not have to be ironman. Depends on reward for winning such fights, time to yield ratio, or alternative non-violent solution in case of quests. Choice and consequence. Solo necessarily revolves around summons, own or figurines. Unless for Chuck Norris character. Apart from items and de/buffs, summons can probably deal with some of the troubling effects. Arcane reflection .. I wonder how widely used it is

Avoid those fights.

Stoic with reach

The spawn is scripted but the script has trigger. Position your party and let one member to trigger?

AoE .. gather them as noted and AoE. That is what most of this game is about .. AoE. If you can kill 1 you can kill 15 in exactly same way. Fire and Fortitude iirc, but check bestiary.

From my experience, and I spent 100s hours in Act I, if you are having problems there you are not doing it right as there is no need to fight any risky battles during Act I. Good job anyway, I would not even attempt ironman.

Promised land of balance with a note. There are probably thousands of people playing this game not ever coming here nor striving to reach the promised land. The vocal minority of players who post here, their ideas about balance .. yes lol, are not representative of majority of players. And if they are it would need some evidence to confirm. tbh I am not sure why devs listen to vocal minority here. Sure, they have nothing else to go by, but it does not guarantee it will make the game any "better".

By going Rogue, with Mechanic 3, disarming traps.

Western side, but that is the way to avoid the stunlocking kobold.

Coming to end game you get higher level spells and also your level 1 and 2 spells become per encounter. In other words the game will only get easier not harder. So you're saying battle mage != tank mage? I'd disagree. The whole point of going melee mage is that you can tank AND deal damage at the same time. Am I? I will repeat it since it seems its not clear to you. Every single talent does not matter Wiz can be played without Veil and low deflection, relying on DR and health leech. I had 34k damage done and 17k damage taken before I quit on level 9 as it was getting too easy. IF "battle mage" - mage swinging something in melee is not as efficient as casting mage no swinging anything, THEN battle mage concept is not working well.

First of all, no every single talent does not matter. I know because I've been there. Played Wiz without Veil and min Per/Res solo PotD. Secondly, if you find use of shield necessary you are doing something wrong. Lastly, battle mage is not concept working well in this game due to the way encounters are designed. Its almost always more efficient to cast something than swing.

Yeah as I said before game which is possible to modify locally talking about cheese, balance, achievements or legit is .. lol I do not remember any IE game being re-balanced continually. Where is that legacy? In dust. Now we have experts on balance and how to play properly. Also .. lol

It looks more like 4e than it does any other D&D system, which is the relevant point. The per encounter/per rest ability split happened in 4e. The strongest push for "aggro management" mechanics happened in 4e. Attempts to bring casters more in line with the power of other classes happened in 4e etc. etc. One more time, but in English. Sure. IF the so-called alleged cheesers help Josh to balance the game, THEN what you help Josh with? Because if its with balance THEN lol

So what Josh have you for? Balance seeing how the game works .. lol? Well, Josh you lost one dedicated cheeser. Hopefully, it will not hamper your efforts at balancing.

How to do early levels before storms? By kiting and bugging up the AI and splitting large groups. Hope this helps.

Wizard Double, for example, was weak. Adding secondary effect on dispel/cast was suggested. As you noted, together with buff to Veil its kind of ridiculous now. Level 4 deflection 149? This seems to trivialize encounters. Before some equilibristic was needed to win the battle in question or avoid it. You told me about Veil and my first Wiz was without it lol Even than you said something like .. I just walk up there. Wiz has on every relevant level deflection buff among other defensive buffs. That seems sufficient for party play. Then again, perhaps being untouchable is indeed intent, in which case, what to say.