wanderon

Seemingly the same goes for Monday and Tuesday. Speculation seems pointless IMO. Maybe it's going really well and they wanted to finish up some new features they hadn't previously planned on pushing out with this build. Or maybe the hard drive with the latest build caught on fire. There's really no way of knowing. I suspect the pizza and beer delivery hasn't arrived yet - no doubt the delivery boy is busy downloading Wasteland 2...

+1 on exploration and bestiary XP. -1 on trap and lock XP. It would just encourage mindlessly unlocking and untrapping things whether it makes sense or not. Finer-grained objective XP would help a lot too. Context: I would prefer to have XP doled out frequently and in small doses rather than rarely in large doses, but I like the incentive structure of quest/objective XP. The bestiary XP would, I think, go a long way to creating the "feel" of IE game combat XP without screwing up the incentives. The XP system is not among my top five priorities for the game though ATM, and I could certainly live with coarser-grained quest XP as well. I'm confused - exactly what locks or traps are likely to be in the game that it would NOT make sense to open mindlessly or otherwise? As long as the rewards are reasonable amounts based on difficulty/skills needed I think this is a fine idea.

@ EldritchSong - well you are playing on hard - isn't that supposed to make it....hard? Are you doing anything to mitigate the damage the animal and others are taking or just letting them fight until they die? I am playing on normal since it's the BB and supposedly this would be what the game is more or less balanced for. My BB-p rarely gets a chance to do anything but cast buffs and debuffs and is generally wielding a big gun/crossbow so on the few occasions there is time between casting & he gets a shot off that if it hits it does some significant damage and this also puts him in the second line away from the big damage melee enemy. I haven't found the animals to be all that good at tanking on their own so I generally hold them back until BB-F and/or another warrior type engages first or send them against the enemy casters and when they start to get low on stamina I pull them back. I've been giving my ranger big guns/crossbow types as well recently in favor of the lower damage but faster bows and it's working fairly well for me - at least when they hit it's significant and not a graze for .05 points. I've actually been doing fairly well with the ranger types recently and while it's always going to require some micro-managing (IMO) I'm quite optimistic about the class.

I think they are planning 8 full blown companions - maybe that's where you got that 8 party size from...

I think there's a significant difference between being required to kill 100% of all ogres to get all XP from ogre killing and being required to kill 50% of all ogres. You can skip individual ogres, groups of ogres, named ogres on quests, and still gain all of the XP. Sorry, I don't understand. What I was trying to say is that by granting "some" kill XP in the form of beastiary XP, then PoE will still be incentivizing killing if for nothing more than maxing out the beastiary XP, which seems to go against one of your design goals. Whether we kill 50% or 100% to get the XP, you have reintroduced "killing just for XP". Well technically it's not just killing for XP it's killing to learn more about the creature (and gain boni if we end up facing them in battle later IIRC)

Never mind....

Not a fan of the Drizzt wanna-be build myself but to each their own - maybe that's why they gave the ranger such dismal melee ability Definately needs work on the animal companion - it's a real PITA in the BBeta - if you play a ranger you can't add an adventurer - (you can but you can't get control over him outside the inn) You apparently can't hire a ranger adventurer either whether you are playing a ranger or not - or at least my last attempt (barbarian) ended with the ranger's stag stuck in the door of the inn making it impossible to continue. I was looking forward to some Barbarian plus stag carnage!

Really hard to do that. You need a number that's low enough to prevent kamikaze style playing, but not that low so people playing regularly end up with no recruits to replenish their potential loses(especially on high difficulties). I never understood why people care. I wouldn't play this way but I just don't see the rage that comes from players when they think that someone miles away who they will never see or talk to does such a thing. Limitations can be a good thing, such as in sports where it's competitive against each other, but this is a *little* different. I'd also think that most players willing to play in such a lame fashion are probably going to abuse or mod everything that they can to "destroy" the "experience". Do you really need to extend so much effort to control such players? I think it's because people assume that as long as the game allows you to do something then it follows that the game expects you to do so and thus from a design standpoint if you leave all these options wide open - it is assumed that you intentionally designed the game to played this way - thus as a designer you close as many loopholes in your design as possible to allow the final game to be played primarily in the manner you chose to design it to play. Which in my opinion, is a horrible way to make your design decisions, especially in a game that's meant to be ROLE PLAYED in a noncompetitive environment. I view that there's a difference between allowing you to "max out party size" vs allowing things such as unlimited gold upon a whim. Does that make sense? Games like Baldurs Gate were great because it had such freedom in party formation, I could run a solo group or 6 from the start or wait to gather up companions but the ultimate decision was in my hands. Hell, in BG, you could import characters in over and over and suicide them if you wanted...but I never once did. Freedom of choice works for some aspects of gameplay while it doesn't for others...I find it very unfortunate that games are leaning towards limiting EVERYTHING because of a few compulsive min/max powergamers/potential "degenerate" gameplay. Again...there are some things that *should* be limited...but I don't think it's the best decision in every instance. Agree or disagree the design decisions get to made by the designer and I for the most part am glad that's the case as I doubt I would enjoy any game in which the design was decided upon by game forum posts and polls

Or Archer with Animal Companion? Or Bowhunter with Animal Companion? Woodsman with Animal Companion? Sharpshooter with One Animal Circus? Ranger seems to roll off the tongue a bit better while mostly eliminating the need to qualify why the character comes with an animal companion I think...

Or maybe it was...

Really hard to do that. You need a number that's low enough to prevent kamikaze style playing, but not that low so people playing regularly end up with no recruits to replenish their potential loses(especially on high difficulties). I never understood why people care. I wouldn't play this way but I just don't see the rage that comes from players when they think that someone miles away who they will never see or talk to does such a thing. Limitations can be a good thing, such as in sports where it's competitive against each other, but this is a *little* different. I'd also think that most players willing to play in such a lame fashion are probably going to abuse or mod everything that they can to "destroy" the "experience". Do you really need to extend so much effort to control such players? I think it's because people assume that as long as the game allows you to do something then it follows that the game expects you to do so and thus from a design standpoint if you leave all these options wide open - it is assumed that you intentionally designed the game to played this way - thus as a designer you close as many loopholes in your design as possible to allow the final game to be played primarily in the manner you chose to design it to play.

I'm thinking this is just a beta and the number of portraits and options for different looks are minimal by design and have no bearing on the numbers that will be available in the final game.

Christmas decorations?

You don't get to pick the animal ones they just get certain ones at certain levels (I assume) - I've only seen this once. Edit: well there are ranger abilities that effect the animals but this is not one of them

Pretty sure it already is - the one I got was a sort of knockdown - forget what they called it but your animal doesn't have a portrait so when you click on the animal itself their ability shows up above the ranger portrait - by itself - the ranger abilities do not show. Now if you have the whole party selected and you mouse over the ranger then I think the animal ability shows up ABOVE the ranger abilities so it's obvious it's separate - in fact I think that was my first clue it was there.

I just played through the fights in Dyrwood - some beetles, wolves, some spiders and the Ogre with a ranger and found with some work they can be effective - the combo of the rangers attacks plus the animal attacks is certainly more effective than the ranger would be on it's own - I chose the the antelope this time and it would crit for decent damage (unless the target was protected from piercing) The animals DO get some abilities - one showed up when we leveled at the ogre cave - I forget what it was but it pops up over the ranger when you select the animal. I gave the ranger the Arquebus when we got it - it was slow but often did good damage (he's in padded armor) and I took Peasant weapon prof and plan to give him the Blunderbuss now that we have it - when the animal was getting low on stamina I just kept it out of the fight and the ranger in the back row. I think this class is going to end up being fine once they finish tweaking it. You would have to expect it to be getting some love since one of the companions is a ranger.

Jury is still out for me - leaning towards a druid but I might consider a ranger depending on how much love they get between now and then - I too plan to hunt down NPCs to join but may leave some behind if they don't fit my PCs personality (and thus save them for a future playthrough).

Wasn't it a goal to make the powers easier to understand than the IE games? Because right now it's harder since the game hides information from us. I was concerned about this "hiding" too - in the last BB build they removed the "effects" info from vegies, meat etc - then it occured to me that this may be by design simply because they are still tweaking all that stuff??? Sure, but that would be a good reason NOT to hide the information - if anything, the tweaking/input period is when allowing people to see exactly what's under the hood is most important, since they can't give real feedback if they don't know what's happening. I was thinking more along the lines that they may be currently a work in progress and the original values were being tossed but new values had not yet been decided on - but I may be over thinking this - or under thinking - or all of the above - or none of the above -

Put me down for a no as well - frankly I see no reason why going back to town to rest/heal/resupply/ is degenerative gameplay from an RP perspective - you fight you get hurt you take a tactical retreat and decide your next moves - maybe buy some additional supplies now that you have determined the types of enemies you may be facing in the latest area.

Wasn't it a goal to make the powers easier to understand than the IE games? Because right now it's harder since the game hides information from us. I was concerned about this "hiding" too - in the last BB build they removed the "effects" info from vegies, meat etc - then it occured to me that this may be by design simply because they are still tweaking all that stuff???

Of course they are! I really should not post so early in the day while my brain is still mostly on stand-by Carry on!

If the weapon sets were on the UI (like IWD2) I might agree but I don't see much point in it if they remain on the inventory screen - nor am I certain that I would like changing weapon sets to always put me in attack mode either

Item slots are good - not sure why some folks seem to think the world as we know it will end if they give us one more - personally I think it's a reasonable suggestion made in a reasonable manner (unlike many "suggestions" made on this board) It has a good beat and you can dance to it - I give it an 8!

I played a gazillion hours in IE games and the thing I disliked the most was the mage battles in BG2 what with the buffs and strips and buffs and strips and save or die I just did not find it fun at all. Fortunately I was a chronic restarter and could have fun in the early to middle game then restart with my next concept party or character before we got to them...

What if you could pin a brooch on your cloak? (Says the guy that sells jewelry)