Jump to content

Antless

Members
  • Posts

    27
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Antless

  1. In other words it's pretty good if you don't nit-pick it? If you are a dying of thirst in the desert, you won't complain too much about the taste of the water that is offered to you. Pointing out that it tastes like something died in it recently isn't nit-picking.
  2. No, you don't demand agreement with the devs, but with you. You just use the devs as an excuse as to why your opinion is right and everyone disagreeing is "ranting", despite them painstakingly spelling out their reasoning for having the opinion you disagree with.
  3. Maybe he just doesn't agree with you that it is a good mechanic or doesn't serve to achieve whatever it is supposed to achieve, despite it working as intended on a technical level? There is a game called Victory 2. In it, there are capitalists, who do little more then every now and then building random factories in random provinces. They are so terrible at placing them that these factories will often shut down immediately because they cannot make a profit, yet they are continuously built anyways. They are supposed to simulate free market growth, which they do, I suppose, if Alfred Krupp had been a monkey with a dart board. Now, they serve their purpose well enough (since they operate in every country everyone is on equal footing) and they are also working as intended, as far as I can tell. Are they a good or bad mechanic?
  4. So, just because a mechanic is intended to work the way it does, it can't be criticized for working the way it does?
  5. So, what you are saying is that the reviewer was right and the bonus are miniscule and underwhelming? Gosh, if only he had written that. It is almost like the reviewer, instead of ranting, deconstructed the attribute system and came to a conclusion, evaluated that conclusion and then stated his opinion in the review. No, I am sure that http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78279-rpgcodex-review-1-h%C5%B5rpa-dwrp/?p=1670748 with his clear cut analysis consisting of "I DONT LIKE THIS THEREFORE IT IS WRONG AND BAD" is actually right and the review doesn't have anything going for it.
  6. I don't doubt it. Just to clear that up for you: just because someone say something you don't want to hear, doesn't make what they are saying a rant, or misinformation for that matter. He also never called attributes meaningless, but rather underwhelming, miniscule and overshadowed by level bonuses and armor penalties.
  7. That is not a fix for dump stats, or at least not more then disallowing lowering stats below 10 would be. Obsidians "fix" was to make all stats affect all classes in a roughly equal manner, at which they succeeded (with the exception of maybe INT). However, they then went back and created such a large gaping chasm between the different roles characters (even of the same class) could take by devising a system that above all else promoted stacking boni as high as possible, that the dump stats immediately sprung into existence again, just now not between classes, but roles.
  8. It's a nice game if you don't look to closely at any of it's components. There is however probably not a part of the game that doesn't need some serious work done. One only can hope that Obsidian will try and improve on it, rather then releasing the same thing again with possible expansions and sequels.
  9. But a middle-ground chr. by definition can't be be both a great tank or great dps in one chr, whether all the time or just "most of the time," nor should they be. That's why they're middle-of-the-road. What is "overall" supposed to mean, outside of "they can tank fairly well and at least do enough dmg. to eventually bring something down?" Middle ground PoE already can do this. All I was saying is that personal preferences doesn't mean there's an actual imbalance. To me, middle ground would simply mean that two of these characters would deal about as much damage and be about as hard to kill as one tank (targeted first) and one DPS. This could of course only ever be a guideline, but as has been pointed out, the systems in PoE actively work against that.
  10. Some people don't care if they're "suboptimal." eg, you can still win even if you're not. And to some, that's even more fun. That isn't a reason why it should be that way. What's "optimal"? 90% of encounters in PoE are trash mobs, and the quicker you clean them the more optimal you are in my opinion. If a tank can help with that and hold mobs long enough he is optimal. And if that's not enough, equip Hatchet, largest shield and drink Llengrath's potion - bam, you're optimal for everything but Adra dragon. I have a potd group currently on level 5 (other saves are stored away and I'm lazy) with the following stats: Durance about 5k damage done (he only has about half the time in combat from the rest, so I doubled the damage for comparison). Pallegina and Kana, both 2h + plate armor: both about 6k. Mother: 7k (doesn't have a blunderbuss yet + mostly supports the PC with mental binding/phantom foes). Sagani at 10k (which to me is a reasonable difference to "tanks" that are also supporters, considering she is also an offtank with her fox). PC reach-rogue: bordering 30k. If I replaced one or both of my tanks with a big rock with a sign saying "hit me" on it, I honestly doubt that the difference in killing speed would be noticeable.
  11. As if not dumping might would do anything to improve the damage output. Oh, there's a definite impact. My 18 Might Fighter did twice as much damage as my 2 Might Paladin in my PotD run. Of course, that Fighter was still doing only a quarter of the damage of my actual DPS specialists, so it's certainly not anything magnificent. But isn't that exactly what the whole thread is about? "Tanks" in IE games were useful damage dealers in their own right, in PoE they aren't.
  12. Don't get me wrong, I understand where you are coming from. I myself finished the game on hard with only Pallegina in plate with a Estoc in the front line and my current PotD game has a front line of Pallegina, Kana (both plate/2h) and Itumak. But just because your "tanks" can tingle the enemy slightly ever so often doesn't bring them anywhere near one of their counterparts in DnD.
  13. Both DR and Deflection heavily favor an all-or-nothing approach as both run into the problem that as DR/deflection increase, every additional point reduces overall damage taken more then the one before. For example, if an attack deals 30 damage and your DR is 10, one additional point of DR decreases damage from 20 to 19 by 5%. However, if your DR is 20, one additional point results in a damage reduction from 10 to 9, or 10%. Now, this is true in DnD, but there the classes generally seen as "tanks" did suffer almost no penalty for "optimizing" for tanking compared to classes in PoE, who sacrifice massive amounts of stats, talents, damage, accuracy and attack speed just to be decent at not dying. As a result, for many the best cause of action is simply to make the MMO-tanks or to abuse supporters such as chanters and even priests to suffer as "hindrance" for the active party members to stand behind.
  14. Afaik, they used to be affected.. no? I remember it being discussed extensively during BBv480, and how Dexterity favoured Firearms because the reduction got applied three times; fire, recovery, and reload, while everyone else just got their fire and recovery affected. I may be wrong, simply because I wasn't the one that did the crunching, but I wouldn't expect this to be "fixed". I think they did "fix" it already, into the opposite of what you (and me) wants. You say "omnipresent in the genre", but that's actually extremely far from the truth. Firearms may be somewhat ubiquitous now, but fantasy still usually doesn't include it, and certainly not two decades ago or less. To me, it's all about setting, and PoE pulls that off admirably. The firearms just fits. Whether pikes and full plates ever shared battlefields with firearms in the real world is completely irrelevant. My point is that plate armor (often inches thick and with massive shoulders for flavor) is omnipresent in fantasy, as are late medieval weapons such as pikes, but for some time guns were verbotten despite being used at about the same time. Fanasy has started to include guns, but many settings still ignore them, or just have gunpowder like in Dragon Age. The thing is that weapons such as zweihander and pikes fit very well into a high-medieval setting without seeming out of place, even if they are.
  15. I'd say your choice is between Escape and Dirty Fighting. The damage of Deep Wound is minimal, however not affected by INT (as the debuff is refreshed on hit) and only useful if you have a ranger engaging the same target. Blinding Strike is not much more then addition 25% base damage on a target once per fight, the debuff itself has much more potent sources (wizards, chipers). Generally I'd go with Dirty Fighting, unless you have problems with getting into bad engagements a lot. If you have a chiper in your party supporting your rogue (it sounded that way), those situations should however be fairly rare.
  16. They work ok on rogues because of their high bonus damage. That said, a pike will generally outpeform both bows and guns by a large margin.
  17. Yes, I am sure they did it out of the goodness of their heart. I don't know about you, but I personally don't mind people telling me if the thing I am about to buy is what it's supposed to be.
  18. I agree with basically all criticism raised in the review. The one thing that I found worthy to empathize was that particularly in Act 3, the slew of made-up words that was thrown at your head was absolutely cringeworthy and completely unnecessary. Why can't a soulstorm be a soulstorm and why does it need at least two special characters to spell it out? That said, there is a baby somewhere in the bathwater. The game might be lacking in many areas, but to me it also shows that the concept can work and that this specific type of game is not just a obsolete dinosaur fueled by nostalgia and a lack of budget.
  19. An area has a fixed loot table that is different every (game) day. What is available at a given day is fixed per playthrough, meaning if on day 19 you didn't get what you wanted, you can't reload at day 18 and let the day pass, but have to wait/rest until day 20 for your next chance.
  20. I do not think that helmets should be enchantable and I am pretty happy with the way they work currently, since the only benefits they give are so small that I can justify not wearing them at all. On top of that, you can disable them for specific party members via console without losing achievements. That said, I am unhappy that all enchanted helms (except the deer head) are extremely bland looking and that there are no good looking plate helmets. Some nice unique hats and helmets would have been nice.
  21. Two fighters as tanks is overkill. While having one is OK (the can bind more enemies and deal more damage than other tanks), I'd use a chanter or paladin as second tank. This way, you could free up a back-row slot which you could fill with a single-target nuker, in your setup probably a reach-rogue as you have three characters (priest, wizard, chiper) who are excellent at providing debuffs for sneak attacks (hold person, the foe-aoe blind, mental binding).
  22. Thanks for the answers! I wasn't aware that these gloves existed, but I guess if I haven't found them by now, spending the extra points was the right thing anyways.
  23. The title pretty much says it all. I have a rogue with mechanics 12 and I am wondering if there is any point in spending additional points in the skill. I haven't found a reference to anything requiring mechanics 13, but it would be a shame if I were to "dump" points into some other skill just to later find some traps I can't disarm or chests I can't open.
  24. Rogue is easily my favorite, since the class can be played as the centerpiece of the group in combat (with a reach weapon) and fits in very well with the regular companions, which are good enough to buff and stand in the way of things, but don't tend to be all that good at the murdering bit of combat.
×
×
  • Create New...