Teioh_White

I am sad they nerfed it, used to be one of my Barbarians stand-bys, to let him attack 3 different defenses. It is sort of funny how all the quircks of Carnage that made Barbarian's one othe strong classes at launch have been nerfed, firmly taking them out of the power range. Not that it's a bad thing, just curious they zoomed in on it so much.

I'd rather the engagment systyem have some real meat too it. Right now, it's mostly up to the mob's AI if they want to pretend like it matters or not. Be nice if the frontline could have more influence on things. Kiting's still plenty a thing, if the mob is melee only and you have the space. Normally not the best tactic, but I don't use it not because it's not a valid option, but because I can do better things than micro one person in a circle with 3 guys following him. Also, they should put at least a quick tip for new players letting them know how the 'aggro' system works. As for Dragon Age games, the second didn't have a really an effective taunt, so you had to use other methods by and large to keep things under control, in a game where it frequently would spawn crap ontop of your backline. Well, until the patch nerfed Nightmare, anyways (I mean, you had taunt, but it was more like it handled one pack of mobs in a game about multiple packs spawning in different locations.) Agree on Origins though, which didn't have a ton of depth. But that was a game where you actively had to try not to snap the balance in half. And three veered so far away it's not really close to the IE genre at all anymore. Even then, past midway point was just spamming a class's 1-2 'I-win' buttons.

I didn't get special snow-flake syndrome (or lack of) being much of an issue with the game. More just the story in general is told very poorly overall. Individual bits are fine, the dialogue, lore, even the plot, but it's all connected with a haphazard presentation with little weight or drama attached to anything. I'm not sure why, maybe too many cooks in the kitchen, kept trying to switch or add things as time went on, just caring more about getting a rough system in place first, or something else. But it all comes off for a very unsatisfying experience, so if the gameplays not clicking for someone, can make it hard to soldier on.

Well, the thing about this game is that everyone can wear the same gear and take the same general talents. Even internal stat differences between classes are very minor, normally at worse than +-10 deflection/acc, and +-2 HP per level. So, just need to look at what a class does better than another if you put the exact some gear/stats/talents on them. And tha's where Fighter's issue comes in. It's class passive, generally a class's trademark ability, is junk. The stuff it can take on level up? Not much better. This treads covered in great detail why Defender is pretty junk. The rest of Fighter's abilites fall into some pretty underwhelming categories. There are the per encounter or even per rest attacks, which for almost all of the physical classes end up being horribly underwhelming on PotD. They also have a number of self buffs, that are terrible because they don't stack with better spell versions of the buffs, and force the fighter to actually have INT, which the ability to tank INT is one of few saving graces the class has, so those are out. (And they're a very small loss.) That pretty much leaves it with a few decent passives as it's claim to fame. It can get a +.25 mod, -16% armor penalty (worth about 3-4 dex), +20% graze-to-hit (worth about +.035 mod), -10 % hit->graze (worth about -.025 incoming mod) and a free Second Chance. It's not a terribly exciting list, and it's pretty much the entire bonus one gets for chosing a fightinger. Most everyother non casting class can just toss on the same gear/talents/spells, and get better results doing the same thing.

I pretty much do what KD does now, and just skip Defender, and go with 3-4 melee up front, instead of the 1-2 I used to do. With 3-4 guys in plate who don't mind getting hit, no real need for extra engagements, and damage mostly spreads itself around. Fighter's are actually pretty bad at this, like they're pretty bad at everything. I still use Eder though, mostly because I don't hit WM up till endgame to replace him, but he doesn't do a whole ton special. And if you don't mind micro'n, you want care about engagements, as 3-4 casters can keep an entire fight on lockdown easily enough. So, yeah, I don't see a ton of use for new Defender, and old Defender's massive deflection bonus was really Fighter's only trick. It wasn't even a particularly good trick, either.

The only thing I really hate about dragons is they use directional based attacks as their main mechanic. Which is fine, but an IE engine isn't super well desigend for that, so sometimes the dragon will take a weird step when switching which dork up front it's engaged too, end up turning halfway, then attempting to correct its direction. But in the middle of that stutter step, it's breath comes up in the queue, and now i've got a cooked backline. Or some similar nonense when i''ve got folks melee'n on the side, it'll take a wide spin, face a direction no one's standing in, and Spike Flail them dead. It's not like it happens every time, but it happens enough I can't trust a non cheese strategy on ToI, and just have to stun lock them dead.

A huge amount of replay value. Just to be clear: I'd love to have more randomized elements in general, not just loot. I want quests with varying elements, even if they were just some NPCs that change location in each playthrough. I'd certainly like to have more randomization in combat encounters, so that I don't always know that there's a lurker lurking behind that one particular tree. All that would make exploration much more meaningful and worthwhile in subsequent playthroughs, but even just procedural loot would be a huge step in the right direction. Hmm, can't say I can recall a game where RNG loot has given me any worthwhile replay value, let alone huge. I've found deep gameplay systems that allow for multiple ways of accomplishing the same goal, that are satisfying to execute, give replay value. The chance to get different gear than I got last time? I can't see that making me want to play through something again. Maybe it could be nice -in addition- to the above, depending on game design in certain genres. But by itself, no chance of saving a game from an uninstall after completion. On the other hand, it's easy to see how RNG in a game based on class/party builds, significant RNG in loot just spoils the whole thing. (Like really, not getting your Holy Avenger in BG2 when you wanted to be a pally? That'd be terribe). RNG in fights would help a ton in a game like this, where most fights aren't really 'designed' encounters, more just some random mobs standing around. Would spice if up to have some different mobs standing around, though not a great deal. (Idealy solution is less trash fights and more designed encounters, but that starts pushing towards a different genre). I prefer limitations and choices on what one can do in a single playthrough myself, to encourage replay value. It's not terribly hard to do, but most RPG's tend to go the way of letting you get almost everything in a single run. Constraints breed creativity and all that.

The thing about tanking dex leading to a bad Reflex Save means you'll have that much higher a Fort or Will save. Which is actually better, the really nasty stuff you'll want to try to get only miss/grazes on are Fort/Will stuff. Most things that target Reflex save aren't a big deal, and while a lot of damage effects use Reflex, your DT can absorb a good deal of that so long as it's not critting. And as mentioned, SnS style goes a decent ways towards getting even a crappy Reflex save off the crit table. Even better for Plds, because with the free +22 to all saves, and the extra +5 from the shield, by tanking the Reflex save and taking some talents, they're pretty much the only class that has a good chance of just shrugging off all those extremely annoying CC's that mobs like to toss around later.

No, Wizards especially don't use staves (or really any weapon, to be honest). A wizard will want a small shield+hatchet combo to have on when casting spells for free deflection, and an implament of some kind to use when conserving spells at range (until you get high enough you can win encounters soley with per encounter spells). Beyond that, they can burn a level 3 spell slot on a great implament, or a level 5 slot on a great pike. Both are pretty amazing weapons, largely better than what a non-wizard could be using, anyways. I think it's sorta an issue with Q.Staves in general, since everyone can use everything in this game, I don't know if Q.Staves really have a niche. I guess reach weapon with +1 engament? That's about the only unique thing I think they can do. I've never actaully personally tested reach+engament, normally just using a pike to poke behind the tanks, rather than actually tanking.

There seems to be some idea that the issue is that -casters- are out of whack, and that's problem. Class balance isn't even the problem itself, just zooming in on what example of troublesome gameplay design. It doesn't matter where the imbalance in gameplay is, it has a negative impact on the game, and leads to less tuned and challenging gamplay. To a degre the player can self mitigate this, but it gets bad when the player has to constantly attempt to house rule themselves, rather than focusing instead on how to better work the system. It's more stimulating for the player to tune strategy to get the most out of a system, than it is to find things to prune off it. It's particularly annoying when a game actually has really solid core gameplay, but it's just let down by the balance. Of course, they'll always be people saying some variation of it's fine, it's a single player game, play it as you want. Or who even enjoy the overpowered aspect, and that's what makes it fun for them. Plenty of games show balance and tuned gameplay isn't very important to players, even in genre. And it really shouldn't be a large concern for devs, as for the vast majority of players, they'll never even finish the game once, let alone multiple times. And balance isn't a big deal playing a game for a short period of time.

Till 13 and Twin Arrows, I just had Execpetional Guns+Swift Aim on everyone. By 13, I had the Godagh Bounty warbow (Sup, Speed+lash), , Cloudpiercer Warbow (Ex, Rend, JT proc, +lash), Lenas Er hunting bow (Sup, Rend, Disoerting,+lash), Persistance hunting bow (Sup, Reliable, Wounding+lash), the Sabra warbow (EX, Anni, Confuse on crit) and of course, the Stormcaller. Not all are amazing, of course. The Borrisene is a good bow for more stunning, but I was on 2.0 and it's broken to give an insane attack boost, so that was out. Godagh is great, of course. Cloudpiercer is solid, but can't be made Superb, Longer the fight, the worse it gets as you only get one JT. Lenas Er doesn't do the most damage, but gives the entire team +5 Acc, and since a hunting bow and shoots faster, it gets there in time on my combat log for the war bows. Persitence I use my sky dragon eyes on to make Superb, and while it's personal damage is unimpressive, it's used to turn on all the pets +.5 damage mod.Stormcaller is amazing, of course. The Sabra comes basically at the end of the game, where the rest you can have before you hit up Endless Paths+White March to finish the game. So, one person likely to have to slum for a bit till you kill Alpine Dragon. (Who due to the tighter arena, was much more a pain to kill for me than Adra Dragon.) On stormcaller fun fact for it,, if on 2.0, you can just go to Twin Elms and murder all those druids in I think...Elmsong? To turn it on and max it out quick. tl;dr Only 2 Superb Hunting Bow +1 Superb Warbow +1 Unique Hunting Bow to upgrade to Superb. Last two rangers get Unique EX Warbows.

I've done Ranger just fine. It's not the most powerful, but might win best ratio of power/micro, as very little to do except sometimes click on a caster in the back row to focus fire down. I did have to use some scrolls though for tough fights. Revive is great to sue on Pets, as it gets them up with close to full HP, with no worries of burning through Health.

Ooy, I was honestly thinking about specificlaly mentioning the Boots of Evasion, just incase someone would miss the point by going too narrow this time, but really wanted to give more credit than that. I was speaking about RNG in how it negatively relates to building a character in IE games. The Boots of Evasion drop is just a small example of that in play. The Boots are part of the 'random' chests in Pillars, which are the only RNG aspects of character building in Pillars. Just because a poor decison has a small enough impact to be neglible doesn't make it not a poor design issue. As for the Boots in particular, they can cost the player a Gauntlents of Accuracy, or a Blunting Belt, something you only get one of each in the game. If you wanted you wanted your tanks up front to be focused on stacking DR, or counting on the Acc from the hands slot, you can be out of luck. It's alright to not have that belt or gloves, but that should be something the player knows up front, not part way through a 70 hour+ game. But again, it's not about the boots, they're just a small example of it in play in Pillars. A worse example is the stronghold merchant, who has unique items that can change a build which you can easily never see. Just because the game building isn't significantly undermined by RNG doesn't mean the instances it does have are negatives, not positives.

It's not really an issue about how tabletop handles it, or immersion in non magic boots, just the impact gamplay. and IE games are largely about your bringing character/team build through a fixed campaign, often one that's very long. That's what gives them that replay value, so you can try out different builds, and get different game play. RNG is terrible in this system, you don't want the player unable to do the build he wants, because 10 hours into the 70 game, that key peice didn't come. RNG in combat is an entirely different thing, not relevent to the issue, and isn't even the same form of RNG. Half the point of the builds in this game is to influence those outcomes, to make them not so RNG. But you don't want people investing horus into a build that can't work because the game is randomly dolling out abilites.

I normally try to knock off everything in the Gilded Vale region before moving onto towards Defiance Bay, which puts me at level 4 or so for that fight. Generally one of the hard in the games, as I'll only have Durnance, Eder, and Aloth with me. Folks mentioned lots of ways to make it easier. Can come back later, if you wish. Around level 6 with a full team it'll be cake. Could hire NPC's, even though they'll only be level 3, two extra bodies should be enough to swing it. Can agree with him, and go kill Kolsc. Same general reward, but easier fight. Or agree to kill Kolsc, then position your team on the other side, so his casters will get smooshed by the time his paladins make it to your frontline, and have your casters behind the line.

Pretty much the only ones i've found useful are the paladin one, as you mentioned, and the rogue one. If using casters, by end game it's pretty trivial to have some sort sneak attack enabler up on the mobs, and it gives a nice .15 mod to all attacks. Most classes, especially the casters, don't get a ton of damage mods, so that extra .15 is pretty dang nice. Goes double if you don't like to make the entire team, as the story npc's often don't even get good mods out of their might. The rest though I've found to be pretty worthless. I suppose Chanter, Fighter, and Cipher one are okay very early on, but something that should be respecc'd out of fairly quickly if you're okay doing that.

I loved both of these on a first play through, was some of the few times the writing was showing brief flashes of life. I didn't mind pacing those morsels across the game. But OP is right, it does take a long time, so it becomes a lot more tiresome when you already know what they're going to say and where this is going. So, on every repeat playthrough i've done, I just skip them and miss out on their 'good' ending slide.

I mean, of course you can beat POTD without a priest, they aren't even the most broken class. They can do plenty of broken things, of course, and a single priest can pretty easily lock a dragon down long enough to kill it. But other classes can do broken stuff as well, and anyone can use Scrolls, which can be spammed to beat most anything. I've cleared the game on PotD/ToI, so no save scumming, with 5x Ranger, 1x Chanter, and it wasn't particularly hard. I did resort to Pet summons/Scroll spamming if a fight looked like it might go sour though. Would've likely had to play much more careful if I wasn't using those. (I hadn't ever really used scrolls before that playthrough, and I won't use them past that; just too good).

Most definitely, if you do White March first, the rest of the game will provide zero challenge. Even before White March, a common complaint was how much easier the game got towards the end, as the team got full of shiny magic items and hit the level cap. The rest of the game will stay at the same level that was pretty low before, except now you'll have even more levels and even more pretty shineys. Until you get to level scale'd point of no return, you'll just steam roll things. On the hand, you are right. It's pretty easy to shoot yourself in the foot on those Soul Bound weapons and not have enough stuff to kill, and if you like the new companions, you'll basically just get to use them for two areas only. Small grace is that outside the bow, the weapons aren't -that- good, and if you only care about the best stuff, it shouldn't be a big deal that you miss out on the Soulbound Weapons. My personal take is to do everything up to the point of no return, then back out and hit up White March. You'll hit the new max fairly soon into it, but it's pretty combat heavy compared to the main area, so you get a lot of fights to see exactly what your guys can do at max strength.

Yeah, I'm surpised by how....tolerant...the mods are on this forum, heh. I can't say I read his rants though, so not sure what the point about ME2 was, but I don't think much overlap of any kind exists between it and pillars. (Which is reasonable; they're pretty far apart from one another as they can be, and still be in a similar genre). ME2's defense layer was mostly you had to use certain attacks to strip the defense (armor/shields/barrier), and once they got down to health, you had finish attacks they would take them out. Not super complex, but enjoyable. Pillars has lots of stuff going on, but none of that really fits that peg (nor does it need too, of course).

The only large change since release has been the addition of some minor AI for the player, and the expansion giving some fights to use all those cool skills at once you get max level. So, unless your complaints before were that the game had just a little bit too much micro, or that there wasn't enough combat heavy areas to flex your max level stuff at, I don't think you'll find the game any more enjoyable. I had 5 friends I talked into Kickstarting game, and not a one actually played the game to completion at launch. None of their deal breaker issues have been (or really can be) resolved, so I don't try to get them to give the game another shot. They're sore at me enough as is on the subject, heh.

I've actually thought that myself about PoE. If you don't want to use the Cheese, the game requires a ton of micro, almost the the point where I was thinking this could have tighter and less annoying gameplay if it just bit the bullet and went turn based. Or at least, maybe try a good version of Acarnum(arcanum didn't exactly do it well, but idea's there), which had both turn and real time. Real time existing mostly for clean up duty/ utter trash pulls, if trash pulls have to be something in the game. Not a request for a change or anything, it's too late at this point, only thing to do with the gameplay at this point is just some minor balance changes. As for D:OS, can't speak to it myself, haven't given it a shot since the very beginning, where it was clear that hadn't really tried out how the various abilites would actually play out, and balance was hilarious out of whack.

Well, unlike the Fire Godlike's racial, Nature's isn't so special I would devote any really effort to making and keeping it active. Just have fun hitting things and having some tree for a mommy.

Yeah, i'm still not seeing any great argument in support of the situation here, at least not from a 'better gameplay standpoint.' As to keeping a resting system in the game, and balancing around that, the only way I can think of it's treat it like a Wizardry game or something. You have to clear the place without refreshing, but it's easy enough to exit if you're not making it. Just have everything reset, and try again. And again, I would never want that for a default. As I've said before, I'm a much bigger fan of the Dragon Age/Mass Effect 2 system of the highest difficulty changing some key mechanics, so you can have an easy mode for folks who just want to read a story, the normal and hard modes for folks who want the gameplay, but don't want to have to understand the combat system entirely, and the hardest mode for those of us who devote too much time to an individual game. (Again, few enough of us it's probably not worth doing this option, but if we're just talking abstract making better gameplay). Also really agree wtih fighters not even being good dumb meat shields. The way the leveling and gear system works in this game, where every largely gets the same boost every level and can all wear the same gear, damn near anything can be close enough to how a fighter meat tanks if they have the same gear/stats. Often better (oh, hey there Wizard).

I didn't really get any Dragon Age vibes off of Pillars. Well, unless you mean, 'fantasy take on a real world's historical culture.' In which case, yeah, Dryford is clearly colonial America, cept the Native's kinda kicked ass back making an uneasy truce. Dragon Age hasn't really hit on that in it's various takes on fantasy broadstrokes of different nations. While I've always been in a huge minority in this, for modern RPG's, I've always really enjoyed Dragon Age 2's combat. Not the most in depth system, but a good execution of how the mechanics that are there play out. Most folks just lost it at the fact it wasn't Origins system, and combined with the clearly rushed launch, game never got much of a chance. I do like Origins too, just filled with so many ways to break the game open. It's honestly harder in that game to -not- break the combat system in half than it is to play fair. The new Shadowrun games have a core system I like, but the games themselves haven't really tried to both balance the combat, and design challenging encounters yet, so it's not all good there.