DKDArtagnan

complete untrue. there is very little in common between the poe cypher and the paladin. the mechanics o' gameplay is extreme different with cypher's being adept at striking, but also capable at debuffing and having cc capabilities as well while needing to build focus through combat. on the other hand, paladins are a Relative low maintenance support class that is durable enough to fulfill the primary tank role in the party. making both classes balanced so that each is offering roughly equivalent contributions to your party is not diminishing diversity. heck, as this ain't a mmo with pvp, the developers has specific noted that the goal o' balance is other than producing classes with genuine equal power. as hard as this is for some folks to hear, the goal is to make classes and talents equivalent fun. regardless o' power, if it were simple more fun to play as a fighter tank than any other class, then obsidian would effectively be discouraging folks from playing other potential tank classes. so, balance promotes viable choices, and more choice in a crpg is a good thing, yes? and yeah, power is always gonna be a factor in balancing. if in some random game it is clear better to use a two-handed sword 'cause two-handed swords is objective superior damage dealers to all other weapons, then regardless o' the diversity o' weapons available to a player, there will be a tendency to choose the best. even though there is little point in trying to WIN in a single-player crpg designed so that any yutz with a couple firing neurons can complete the game successfully, folks still tend to try and make stronger, rather than weaker, characters. even so, balancing power is not mutual exclusive with diversity. avoiding clear best or worst weapons, talents and classes does not result in reduced diversity. in most cases, balances actual enhances diversity 'cause more talents, weapons and classes is viable... and fun. the notion that balance diminishes diversity or fun is complete bass ackwards. HA! Good Fun! You seem to be under the impression that less diversity means no diversity. If you think something like multiclassing would bring less, not more, diversity - then we'll have to agree to disagree. That statement would make no sense to me. As for balance diminishing diversity - it's inevitable. But it's not a black and white issue, and no one is talking about 100% balance and 0% diversity. That said, a good example of what I'm saying is a game like Chess. In Chess, you have close to 100% balance and 0% diversity. The single potentially unbalanced aspect of the game is who goes first. That's it. ... who are you responding to? pick a single example (chess) and suggest that its balancing is applicable to a non analogous situation is not only bad form but illogical. poe ain't chess. when Gromnir plays poe, he does not line up his character directly across a board from the computer and then try to knock off opposing pieces until we defeat his/her king. heck, as we already noted, poe ain't a mmo with pvp. am not competing with anybody in poe, and there is no need or desire on the behalf o' the developers to make certain that when we play as a priest of eotahs that we should face exact the same challenges faced by a dracozzi paladinin paladin. poe is so complete not like chess. ridiculous. as we noted already, the goal in chess is to win, while in poe, winning is a near forgone cone conclusion. poe is a complete different kinda game from chess with complete different balance requirements. as we didn't address multi-classing, your hypothetical attribution to a stance by Gromnir seems a bit misplaced, but given the initial non-responsive bit 'bout less diversity being different from no diversity, we shouldn't be surprised. btw, simple saying that balance diminishes diversity don't make it true. not by a long shot. we explained how balance actual enhances diversity by making alternative classes, weapons, talents and builds More viable. you didn't respond even if you believe you have. HA! Good Fun! I'm talking to you. My Chess example was to demonstrate what can happen to diversity in a game with complete emphasis on balance. You seem to have ignored the part where I said this isn't a black and white issue like that, and Chess is an extreme example to demonstrate my point - nothing more. The lack of multiclassing is an example of omitting a rich feature for the sake of balance, from where I sit. Do you disagree?

The thing about these builds you're talking about is that there are hundreds of them. There's no "ultimate" build - that's a myth. Some people will claim to have found the one true build - but they can never agree on which it really is. Also, people constantly seem to forget that any new and complex system will take time to exploit. The core of D&D has existed since the 70s. It's hardly a surprise that some powerful combinations have been discovered. But I recommend looking up some build guides available around the web. You'd be surprised at just how many "ultra" builds exist out there. Also, even if there was a single ultra build - why should the designers concern themselves with players going that route? Why did they introduce "Story Time" mode if they don't want players to walk through the combat?

complete untrue. there is very little in common between the poe cypher and the paladin. the mechanics o' gameplay is extreme different with cypher's being adept at striking, but also capable at debuffing and having cc capabilities as well while needing to build focus through combat. on the other hand, paladins are a Relative low maintenance support class that is durable enough to fulfill the primary tank role in the party. making both classes balanced so that each is offering roughly equivalent contributions to your party is not diminishing diversity. heck, as this ain't a mmo with pvp, the developers has specific noted that the goal o' balance is other than producing classes with genuine equal power. as hard as this is for some folks to hear, the goal is to make classes and talents equivalent fun. regardless o' power, if it were simple more fun to play as a fighter tank than any other class, then obsidian would effectively be discouraging folks from playing other potential tank classes. so, balance promotes viable choices, and more choice in a crpg is a good thing, yes? and yeah, power is always gonna be a factor in balancing. if in some random game it is clear better to use a two-handed sword 'cause two-handed swords is objective superior damage dealers to all other weapons, then regardless o' the diversity o' weapons available to a player, there will be a tendency to choose the best. even though there is little point in trying to WIN in a single-player crpg designed so that any yutz with a couple firing neurons can complete the game successfully, folks still tend to try and make stronger, rather than weaker, characters. even so, balancing power is not mutual exclusive with diversity. avoiding clear best or worst weapons, talents and classes does not result in reduced diversity. in most cases, balances actual enhances diversity 'cause more talents, weapons and classes is viable... and fun. the notion that balance diminishes diversity or fun is complete bass ackwards. HA! Good Fun! You seem to be under the impression that less diversity means no diversity. If you think something like multiclassing would bring less, not more, diversity - then we'll have to agree to disagree. That statement would make no sense to me. As for balance diminishing diversity - it's inevitable. But it's not a black and white issue, and no one is talking about 100% balance and 0% diversity. That said, a good example of what I'm saying is a game like Chess. In Chess, you have close to 100% balance and 0% diversity. The single potentially unbalanced aspect of the game is who goes first. That's it.

Overly balanced means too much balance and too little diversity. The thing about "broken" builds is that they take time to find - and the journey can be great fun. It's rarely about the destination. Some of us enjoy the strategy of developing a strong combination of classes and race, with the right stats, feats, gear and skills. To me, it's rich flavor on top of all the other good things in a solid RPG. I think some people forget that D&D is a very, very old and established system. Any system of sufficient complexity will end up exploited and "broken" - but it takes time to find the holes. I don't have to bring up Cipher and Monk in PoE, do I? The difference is that finding a perfect multiclass build in 3.0 and 3.5 is much harder and a lot more fun. Building a powerful character in PoE is pretty straightforward in comparison. Personally, I love coming up with unique builds in my RPGs - and the more the better. The fact that some builds end up being too powerful is of no concern to me, because I either enjoy it or find another build. The story, puzzles, NPCs and quests don't go away because I have a powerful character.

The thing about balance is that you can't have perfect balance between classes and enemies without utterly sacrificing diversity. There's simply no way around the fact that more balance means less diversity. It's logically inevitable. However, balance != fun and diversity != fun. It's the right combination for the right person that's fun. To me, PoE went too far trying to maintain balance - especially considering the entirely singleplayer nature of the game. However, that's not really about the patches or fixes. It's more about the core mechanics and systems that simply don't support what I consider a sufficiently rich playing field.

I should probably point out that I don't think pathfinding in BG was ever good - far from it. Navigating complex dungeons was a nightmare. I, however, am talking about combat AI AND pathfinding together. In BG - pathfinding during combat was a non-issue because it was happening on one screen with few or no obstacles - and BG wasn't rigid with its collision boxes. Also, BG didn't have engagement rules because D&D doesn't have them. Actually, I really like the engagement system in theory - it's just that it's not executed very well. Reason being a combination of bad combat AI, lack of scripting, sloppy collision detection and poor UI feedback. I know that PoE is fully playable if you micromanage every fight and autopause constantly to compensate for bad AI decisions. Some people enjoy that kind of gameplay - but I don't. Also, if you focus almost entirely on long range combat - it's much less of an issue. But, really? It's a good thing that you feel forced towards a very specific tactical setup to avoid frustration? I enjoy micromanaging when the fight is interesting and challenging - but I do NOT like endless trash encounters where I feel compelled towards tedium to avoid catastrophe. To me, that's a bad design.

That's a weak solution, but certainly better than not having the option. Personally, I love challenging combat - but I dislike having to micromanage everything in every single trash encounter, because I don't want to have to run back and restock. The ideal solution would be functional combat AI, decent pathfinding and stronger custom scripts. People who're not looking for a decent challenge can just pick a lower difficulty level. But people who, like myself, DO want a decent challenge don't really have a choice except to suck it up and drown in tedium. I dont get what you mean at all. I'm saying that having an option in place to lessen the impact of a poorly thought out feature - is not the ideal solution. But also that it's better than nothing. Personally, I'm a big fan of letting developers go with their vision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with everything they do and that I should stay silent about it. I'm just trying to explain why I think camping supplies don't quite support an entertaining experience, from my point of view. In fact I don't think they really do what the designers intended for them to do, but I could be wrong. I think they intended for camping supplies to give the game a sense of realism and enforce caution - both to make the game more fun. I don't think it worked, because the end result is that if you run out of supplies - you simply quick travel to someplace that sells more. In "reality" - you would never - EVER - bring supplies for only 2 days on a journey like this. Beyond that, you would NEVER stay hurt because you didn't have wood for a fire. It makes no sense at all. It's a design crutch that's poorly thought out as a response to rest spamming. In my own personal opinion, a much better solution would be to implement what certain campaigns did in NWN - to restrict resting to "peaceful" areas. That's really all that's needed to make the game feel more realistic. This solution is just another of many examples in PoE of over-design and feature-bloat. I'm sorry, but that's how I feel about it and many other features in other Obsidian games. These guys are great at certain things - and their heart is in the right place. But they don't seem to have self-discipline when it comes to omitting features they've grown attached to for one reason or another. As a result, the game is full of great ideas - but unfortunately many of them should have been changed and some dropped altogether. Don't get me started on polish and refinement

That's a weak solution, but certainly better than not having the option. Personally, I love challenging combat - but I dislike having to micromanage everything in every single trash encounter, because I don't want to have to run back and restock. The ideal solution would be functional combat AI, decent pathfinding and stronger custom scripts. People who're not looking for a decent challenge can just pick a lower difficulty level. But people who, like myself, DO want a decent challenge don't really have a choice except to suck it up and drown in tedium.

…and continually chugging potions that restore hit points and/or reconnect severed limbs is? The health plus fatigue system is one of the more believable damage mechanisms I've encountered in RPGs yet it's still fun to play. As of v3 the party no longer gets fatigued by travel so we can assume the *camping* supplies are actually the extraordinary stuff that allow rapid health recovery rather than basic food and fire making kit. I don't know about you, but I never felt drinking a health potion when needed was "tedium". In any case, tedium means different things to different people. Personally, I find the camping supplies system tedious - and mostly because I'm forced into restocking due to a clunky combat system with bad AI and pathfinding. That's the thing when you're expecting people to invest in the experience. First, you have to make that experience worthwhile. Usually, people have fun investing when they feel they're rewarded for their efforts.

I love multiclassing in 3.0 and 3.5 - but I don't think the current designers would want to provide that kind of fun. Seems to me PoE was largely designed around taking most of the fun away from D&D and turning it into an overly balanced and needlessly fiddly system.

Personally, I'd simply prefer the game was less rigid when blocking movement. Just a little flexibility would go a long way to make the whole thing more playable.

I'm not a fan of the mechanic myself. Then again, I never felt the need to have a designer tell me whether or not I should be rest-spamming. I like to believe I'm fully capable of deciding if I want to "exploit" the rest system or not. In that same way, I enjoy the ability to quick load and quick save. I don't enjoy games that enforce check point saving or constant caution even through trivial/trash encounters. That said, if the combat AI and pathfinding weren't both quite atrocious - and the UI/sound feedback was a lot better, then it wouldn't be as big of an annoyance. But since you're usually in need of supplies because the game is working against you, rather than because you've wasted them by bad decision-making - the issue of this designers-as-your-parents mechanic is worsened. I wouldn't mind being punished for making bad decisions - but being punished because my characters run back and forth instead of acting due to absurdly rigid engagement rules and invisible blockers - or because my vulnerable characters decided it was time to break a very clear formation to walk 5 feet and suddenly engage enemies as frontline fighters, it gets frustrating to run back and restock. Maybe that's just me, however.

Oh well, I guess I'll refrain from trying this again then. Thanks

Is the combat pathfinding improved? I've lost countless trivial battles because my guys would go back and forth forever as they couldn't reach an enemy despite having a huge space to move through. It's due to the glitchy engagement rules that are otherwise a nice idea - they just don't work too well in practice. In the patch notes, it says AI will be smarter about this. Well, it sounds like it could be about this.