[Are Paladins really that bad?]

 

it's not weaker. it's different.  you saying that the paladin is bad doesn't make it so.  the buffs can stack (though not universal) where spells do not and they do not require lengthy casting times.  the paladin is more durable and has better defenses than the other support classes, particular compared to the priest.  the paladin can use its buffs and debuffs and cleanses when necessary rather than relying on possibly ill-timed chants.  the paladin is different.

 

and am not telling people that they are playing the paladin wrong.  people can play the paladin however they wish.  its a role-play game. am telling folks that demanding the developers make the paladin a better striker or tank is peculiar and even wrong when the developers made it clear that the paladin is a freaking support class.  if you don't like the paladin as a support class, then lobby to make it a better support class.  like it or not, poe is a class-based system.  play however you want , but trying get the developers to make the paladin a better tank or striker is exhibiting a fundamental lack o' comprehension o' the paladin's role in a Class-Based system.

 

That's a lot of words to basically give no explanation.

 

 

Spent your next level points on Reading skill? Original post made complete sense to me.

[Are Paladins really that bad?]

Paladins are slightly sub-par Fighters with passive group-buff abilities. They're nice to balance out a group. Oh, and the shield that only Paladins can use that gives +5 Defenses to EVERYONE in the party. 

[Regarding why 2D CRPGs died out in the first place]

I`m hoping someone ends up making a good SciFi RPG game someday soon. It´s been ages since we got anything from that front (Mass Effect franchise ended up as a space soap opera shooters).

 

XCom revival and Xenonauts at least brought tactical scifi games back, but where is the RPG part and why nobody is taking on it? It´s been mostly procedural games these days... I do like them, but it would be nice to have a story to go with all that content too once in a while.

 

Don't get me started on the new XCOM. I was so disappointed. I still play the original XCOM: UFO Defense. 

[Regarding why 2D CRPGs died out in the first place]

 

 

"NWN graphics was a massive downgrade compared to previous IE games."

 

No.

Seriously?

The graphics were so rudimentary and the aesthetic so regular, geometric, rigid and sterile that everything felt dead boring or simply goofy and lame.

 

 

I agree with this.

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

 

Not allowing pre-buffing in PoE does nothing to force us to make harder choices. 

 

 

Yes. And that's a GOOD thing.

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

 

 

 

It forces players to make harder choices about buffs (and character actions in general)

 

Not really. Not allowing pre-buffing in PoE does nothing to force us to make harder choices. Using pre-buffs in PoE would mean you get less out of them. That's not meaningless as the wizard can only cast so many spells per day, and the duration in PoE are very short. Taking away that option adds nothing. Although it does serve to help make playing a wizard feel more constrained.

 

 

You can't pre-buff => You have to cast buffs during battle => You have limited amount of buffs to choose from in a given time => Your choice in buffs affects the outcome of the battle 

 

vs

 

You can pre-buff => You don't have to cast your (same) buffs during battle => You have no pressure to chose/cast buffs during battle => Your choice of buffs during battle has less impact

 

 

Having to choose buffs during battle clearly and obviously forces harder choices on the player. If this chain of logic does not make sense to you, please go take a course in basic logic and return.

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

What I find interesting about PoE in general is that it is heavily focused toward group buffing. A Priest, a Chanter and a Paladin in your group will massively increase your effectiveness. Even just one will provide substantial group bonuses. This feels very different from IE-era stuff to me. (That's a good thing.) Buffs may be far shorter and you can't pre-buff, but those buffs are REALLY useful during actual combat.

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

Yeah, in this game it is like a double whammy!  Really short buffs and no pre-buffing combined.  So super conserve stuff...until along comes Cipher!

 

Cipher!  Cipher!

 

Cast, cast, cast away!  Sort of totally breaks the "conserve yer spells laddy" thing, doesn't it?

 

Same goes with Chanter.  Chant, chant, chant away!  Then summon!  Then summon some more!  Use figurine for even more!

 

But don't you DARE let those evah Whizzahs ta pre-buff!  Nossirie bob!

 

Good grief!

 

To be fair, Chanter buffs are more limited in choice than Priest buffs (and the few Wizard buffs), and they take longer to build up to an Invocation. 

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

 

 

[...]

 

Although pre-buffing does make games tedious, the reason for that is that it removes tactical choices from the heat of combat. That is the issue.

 

[...]

How? Why? I can see no reason as to why that statement would be true.

 

 

 

 

PeE buffing is - at least with regards to my playstyle and skill - a bit different. Instead of picking the generally best buffs which I know will be fine against almost all encounters, I now wait for the encounter to begin before deciding the optimal buffs, based on that particular encounter. However, due to time constraints, there's much fewer buffs to chose from. But, since I actually know who and how many I am fighting, I can chose the optimal buffs for that particular situation, which is - again - different from encounter to encounter. This - depending on what we mean by the term - seems much more tactically engaging.

 

 

 

 

This is exactly the reason I like the PoE combat-only buff better. It forces players to make harder choices about buffs (and character actions in general), given limited options and time. It's more strategic. I can understand how this does not appeal to players of IE-era games who got used to regular pre-buffing.

[Call me a nitpicker, but this really breaks immersion for me (pseudo-Middle English)]

Oh look, another person who finds [insert trivial reason] that their immersion is destroyed.

 

Just play the f-ing game already. It will never be 100% perfect for 100% of the people. 

[Minor 'bug': Stronghold log should be in reverse order]

Anyone else find it odd (and annoying) that the activity log for the Stronghold is in linear chronological order, not reverse order? Any time you want to see the newest entries, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom.

 

A simple reversal of entries would stop the always-scroll-to-bottom behavior.

[Loading times! This is becoming the single biggest hindrance to enjoyment of game.]

Good news! The 1.04 patch notes has a line about optimized save/load times. Let's hope it's a big improvement....

[Where's the "Dynamism" (aka moving grass, trees, water etc.)?]

I can't comment on any promises made in the Kickstarter, but I find the graphics to be a great mix of BG2-era nostalgia with higher quality. I'm 95% satisfied with it. My only gripe is that placement of some objects (eg. large trees) makes it sometimes difficult to figure out where your characters are supposed to go. That's a pretty minor complaint.

[Humor. Do we have humor?]

The game is somewhat over the top, I guess I want some over-the-top humor.

 

Hell, Fallout 3 had a side mission in which you had to collect Naughty Nightware for a guy; and Fallout:NV had stuff like Fantastic, who had some great lines:

 

Fantastic: No, man. I know exactly what I'm doing. I just don't know what effect it's going to have.

Fantastic: "They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I told them I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard."

Fantastic: "Well, see, we're getting power because the guy running this place is Fantastic."

Fantastic: "Got the whole NCR suckling my teats, and it feels so good."

Fantastic: "...the mirrors outside aren't aimed right, so we're running at one percent efficiency. And I guess that just isn't good enough for some ****."

[Racial Villification, did you feel any?]

To those of you advocating for more racial reactions/tension in the game, have you actually experienced real racism against your perceived race in real life? 

 

Bro, this isn't real life. It's a video game. Which also has prostitution, murder for hire, drug use, and torture. So I am 100% ok with the game having more racial tension in order to add to story value.

[Drugs! Do you use them?]

Svef, Whiteleaf, Carrow, etc.

 

I've never actually used these because the side effects seem to hurt more than the buff. Is there a useful situation for any of these? How do *you* use them, if at all?

[Friendly Fire spells - am I *meant* to hit my own people?]

Crowd management is definitely the way to go here. Open with spells/abilities that prone, cause stuck, or otherwise hinder movement. Move front line into position. Use ranged casters to put down AoE on then with the red area only touching the bad guys. For bolt-type spells, you either need to move your caster, or tank the caster (hooray wizards in plate mail).

[Humor. Do we have humor?]

Aside from the backer epitaphs (love it, by the way) I'm noticing a general lack of humor in the game. Maybe it's just not my type of humor?

 

The NPC banters are enjoyable and sometimes mildly humorous. I just haven't hit any serious laugh-out-loud moments. Where's my "GO FOR THE EYES BOO!" situation? 

 

Aside from that, I find the storyline to be extremely well written.

[Loading times! This is becoming the single biggest hindrance to enjoyment of game.]

No, I mean with actual game performance. The longer you play in a session the lower the framerate goes. Really annoying since after a while, even perfectly smooth areas become stuttery.

 

Yes, I've noticed this too. After a few hours I start to get audio stutter, particularly on NPC banter.

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

 

In IWD 1 and 2.. you pretty much had to keep your characters buffed at all times. 

Nope.

 

 

I have to agree with the OP, IWD/IWD2 play usually meant heavy pre-buffing - at least on the hard modes. 

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

Just to be clear, I was posting /in favor/ of combat-only buffs. I find it makes the game far more interesting.

[No buffing outside of combat, why?]

The main issue is because a lot of people think it's bad for game balance.

 

In short: if you allow prebuffing, then you either A) balance everything with that in mind, punishing all those who don't want to go trought the tedious (and rather brainless) routine of prebuffing before every fight, or B) balance everything as if it didn't exist, which would make fights trivially easy when you do prebuff.

 ^ this, exactly. BG/BG2 fights were "cast all prebuff spells, attack, move to next encounter, repeat"

[Teen Modification - Swearing Discussion]

 

I'd agree that a lot of the content is indeed "mature" in the sense that the topics can be disturbing and has sexual content.  I'd like to point out that so does BG2 (teen rating) and lots of other things.   Will I let my kids play this game?  Probably when they're late teens.   A show that does a good job of *modifying*  their swearing is Battlestar Galactica ( frac what? ).  To me, this made the show more enjoyable... it also had a lot of sexuality and death etc..

 

 

I have to ask, if the f-bomb and frak *mean the same thing* and sound almost the same, what's the point in changing it? Are you trying not to expose your kids to the f-bomb because you're afraid they'll use it? 

 

I see this huge irony where parents start having kids use 'frak' instead of f-bomb and then kids start using 'frak', and 60 years later all the parents are trying to get 'frak' censored.

[Teen Modification - Swearing Discussion]

Given the content of the game, swear removal/replacement is sort of like putting chrome spinners on your rusty '68 Chevy Vega.

 

Could you see Fallout having swears removed? Good luck with that.

[Racial Villification, did you feel any?]

Playing as a Death Godlike, I was hoping that someone would have had something to say about it in Defiance Bay and beyond. Guess not.

 

Also, thought it was weird that some NPCs made reference to my character's eyes despite them not being visible.

Nice catch there. I wonder if we can get that patched.