amazeing4art

I don't mind at all if the weapon artwork is unique for the soulbound and unique weapons, even glowing or with auras. What I do really hate are GIANT WEAPONS that look so huge they belong in kids cartoons... for example, St. Yedwins Redeemer the PoE great sword... it looked awesome, except it was too huge, which kind of spoiled it a bit. It didn't look like anyone could easily wield it, it was too large. Would have been better to give it that unique artwork but keep it the same size as other great swords. Same with Nightshroud... the metal ball at the end of that mace would have weighed 200lbs... the unique artwork was fine, but it was too large. It's almost like the artists/developers felt like they needed to make these items artwork over the top to convince people the weapons were good or something. But there was no need for that, in my opinion anyway.

I think an injury system as proposed could be great... but I would recommend that the injuries not be "all or nothing" things that have really bad penalties right from the beginning. So what I mean by that is, for example, there ought to be different levels of 'burn'... mild burn, burn, strong burn, severe burn... with progressive penalties. Same with sprained ankle, or concussion, etc... And there should be lots of different types of injuries, many more than exist currently. It might be interesting if different weapons and creatures were more likely to cause different injuries too... so a xaurip wielding a dagger, or an enemy archer, ought to be very unlikely to cause a concussion, but maybe very likely to cause a slashing or piercing wound. And actually, what I would LOVE to see is that simply resting in an inn or around a fire for 8 hours is not enough to fully heal and cure all characters of all their incredibly severe wounds. I always thought this was pretty silly, most games do it but it's silly and just too easy to implement I think. Maybe you have to rest several days, or visit a temple or healer, and drop off a badly injured character there for a few days so they can heal up. If you want to continue without them, or substitute some other companion for them for several days, or wait for them to get better, that would be up to you. But I would really like to see that... especially because the idea of you and your band of characters and companions limping into town after spending a week in the wilderness and delving in ancient ruins, everyone all injured, and needing to rest up is really appealing to me.

I have no interest in this game including PvP, and I think it would be a mistake for developers to include this and devote resources to it. With multiclassing and 10 classes that is really something like (Sigma) 1-10 or in other words 1+2+3+4 ... +9+10 which is a total of 55 possible class choices (like Paladin/Wizard or Rogue/Barbarian or plain Chanter). Trying to balance PVP so that all of these class choice possibilities are viable, if played correctly, against every other correctly played combo would be a nightmare. Either it would take enormous time and resources (if done right), or it would lead to a real dumbing down of builds and spell/ability combat mechanics if done the "quick way". Neither way would likely ever work well. And this is not even taking into account character levels, do we want it to also be balanced so that every level 10 build (if played correctly) has an equal chance against every other level 10 build? That would add another whole dimension of complexity. The only way to do PvP in a game like this would be to ignore class balance and say things like... so what if every Wizard, Druid or Wizard/Druid can always kick every ranger's and rogue's ass with ease, every time? But then, what is the point of PvP? it would really not be much fun for the rangers and rogues, or the Ranger/Rogues, ever. So that's a very strong No vote from me.

Yes, a Naga companion fun! Upvote.

I agree the in-game descriptions of many spells and talents in POE1 left a lot to be desired. When the description for something like Ironskin is so vague and misleading, it leads to players making bad decisions about whether or when to cast it. Because the description made it sound so weak... "+8 DR until hit..." which basically would mean... since you are incredibly unlikely to get any benefit from the extra +8 DR for grazes at all to begin with... that it gets applied only once when you actually need it, and then disappears. So for the longest time I totally avoided that spell, assuming the description was accurate. Most spell and talent mechanics won't be too complicated and can be fully explained in a tooltip. But if the description of mechanics is too complicated for the casual gamer, it should still be available ... the hardcore min-max players interested in mechanics can click a "more details" link or something. This would be infinitely preferable to dumbing down the actual mechanics of all these interesting spells and talents, I think that would be a huge loss and mistake. Don't oversimplify spells and talents just so they can be explained in a single brief sentence... keep the mechanics deep, interesting and well-thought out... like Ironskin probably is, in reality. So many other things needed better explanation too... weapon lashes and whether they benefit from abilities like Secrets of Rime, and especially how the effect is reduced by enemy elemental DR... I still have no idea and I've been playing this game for a year, off and on. On the face of it since most enemies have enough elemental DR to absorb 25% of almost any total weapon hit (that's the strength of the elemental lash) it would seem than the lash damage would always be less than the enemy elemental DR and thus, the lash is generally kind of useless. But this is not how it works I think. But where do you learn how it works in game? I don't think you can.

Like a few others may have posted already, I think it might be quite effective and interesting if armor types had a default bonus or penalty to stealthing. Like shields do with accuracy; equipping a large shield reduces your accuracy by 8 and that is just part of what it does. Every kind of armor, from clothing to leather, chainmail to breastplates and up to plate mail, could have a default standard effect on stealth. If you want your whole party to be stealthy, equipping everyone in plate mail might severely detract from their ability to do that. Optionally weapon types could have this property too -- having a two handed sword in one of your weapon slots (whether selected as the active weapon or not) might just automatically reduce a characters stealth by some amount. This would probably be easy to implement actually; each weapon type would have this as a property; and there are not a lot of weapon types really. In POE 1 some special items already did this by adding to stealth skills. If it worked this way it might be an interesting trade off, a game mechanic like shield size and accuracy that players get to try to optimize, either for their standard armor set or for specific missions. The problem to deal with in implementing either weapon or armor effects on stealth would be how to prevent players from stealthing in leather with daggers, but then pausing the game right before breaking stealth to attack, and instead equipping plate mail and large shields. Solving this problem would require a carefully thought out game mechanic.

Yes ... and the Great Unification seems to happen around when the game developer makes a post about how we are focusing on multiplayer now and how great it will be to play against your friends in the really great combat arena, but before we do that we are rebalancing all 12 character classes so every class is equal to every other because of... you know... the needs of Multiplayer Awesomeness.

I'd like to write about NPC reactions to the player characters actions (especially stealing or aggressive actions), and how in a lot of even really good games the dynamics of this have been disappointing to me. And give some suggestions and hear other peoples thoughts. First, I often find it frustrating and amateurish when all NPC's of a certain faction immediately attack you when you do something too aggressive. Even in amazing games like BG2 this happens; to me it seems in some degree laziness on the part of developers. Or lack of time to implement something more interesting. For example, this is bad design to me: when you fail a pickpocket check against an overweight, old merchant NPC in a large town, and he turns red and immediately attacks your party of amazingly well-armed adventurers in full plate mail. He just suicides. His friends suicide too! And all the women and children in the room run at you to impale themselves on your spears as well. All unarmed and wearing colorful shirts. A little better would be the merchant shouting... "help, guards! thieves!" and then you have to run away before the guards arrive. If the guards catch up to you (i.e. get close enough) then they say "come with us, you are under arrest!" and then you have to decide... kill the guards and really have that whole faction hate you, or agree to be arrested and be transported before some official. Where you must pay a fine, or be imprisoned for a day, or who knows what interesting situations might arise. It could all be done with cut-scenes and a generic small "courtroom" that is used for this purpose no matter where in the game world you are (other than wilderness areas of course). Stealing could affect your reputation generally with that town/faction, and specifically that merchant might not ever sell to you again. Perhaps even better would be: If you fail to steal or pickpocket, or do something too extreme in general... you don't always get caught immediately. First, maybe usually (if pickpocketing, say) you just don't get the item and can't try again for some time. But to avoid the "reload game" response to failures in pickpocketing, stealing, or any other aggression... you could find that even after you successfully pull something off, maybe three days later suddenly guards accost you the next time you enter that area, "you are under arrest, we have 3 witnesses who saw you steal from that merchant!" Then you have to decide what to do and how to handle it. If you want to reload you really can't do so easily, because too much game time has gone by, so now you have to deal with the consequences. The same could occur if you publicly kill some innocent NPC. Rather than guards coming to get you immediately, or the entire town turning red and attacking you, maybe 3 days later you find yourself in trouble with the town guard; the forces of lord so-and-so whose merchant you just killed. Ten well armed guards say "come with us now!". Reload would not work so well there, you have to deal with the consequences. If you steal from someone in the wilderness or far away from a city, they should only attack you as a last resort, and only if they think they can beat you (and have a chance). Otherwise they should run away, or stop talking to you after accusing you, etc. I know all this is extra work but it might make stealing, pickpocketing and other "aggressions" actually work. In BG2 for example, pickpocketing was a joke, if you succeeded it was free loot, if you failed, you just reloaded and tried again, because the consequences were so severe and immediate, and not nuanced at all. Also, unrelated to stealing... I would love to see only armed guards or competent people rush to attack you, no matter what you do to some other NPC. The way a lot of games work it would be like, six guys walk into a bar with swords and kill someone, and then everyone who is unarmed at the bar just instantly and collectively decides to rush the swords rather than run for the exits. Most people run for the exits unless they are well armed and well trained, id like to see most NPCs and even some creatures (xaurips working in a mine, for example) behave this way too. It would make killing more realistic and would also mean a lot less meaningless slaughtering of weak NPCs.

I would like to add my 15 cents here too: I'd love to see stealth be more realistic. Although I know this is a lot of work and complicated to implement. I find it quite silly, and kind of frustrating to immersion into a game world, when your whole party in full plate mail, carrying giant glowing swords, can walk down the middle of an open road in full sunlight right up to a bunch of enemies and surprise them at close range. It just makes the game world seem a little lame and extra-artificial. Stealth should be hard, it should require rogue-like training, get bonuses from light or leather armor, and yes huge penalties for carrying giant 6 foot long glowing broadswords. It should be easier to stealth at night, easier to stealth when near other objects in the game world (trees, bushes, crates, structures, etc). Sight-cones are good too, or hearing and sound checks from enemies. If all this means the rewards for stealthing (better sneak attacks, access to rooms or buildings others can't easily get to, etc.) have to be stronger, because fewer characters can stealth easily, that would be ok with me.

I have to reply again as it seems some people are really fixated on "I need six characters to play this game!" Or "every party needs two frontline melee and a priest and wizard always"... or, etc. 1) You didn't need six characters to play POE1, even on POTD. The first time I played POTD yes I used all six slots. But the most fun I've had is later playthroughs all the way through with just two characters, killing every encounter but the dual Llengrath dragons. It's fun and not even too hard ( for example) to go with just a paladin and wizard, or a paladin and chanter, all the way through POTD. You sometimes actually want to use potions and scrolls and food too 2) I think some of the people who say they need six have nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and BG2 and want to re-experience the Awsomeness that was BG in new games. Heck I do too, BG2 is the gold standard. But thats no rational reason to be inflexible about everything. 3) Anyone saying stuff like... "I must have 6 because encounters demand two tanks and one melee dps and oh, a priest and wizard and that only leaves one slot"... you don't know what you are talking about at the moment because POE2 does not exist yet When it does it will be balanced around five and will succeed or fail based on how good a job they do creating encounters for five characters. Until the beta comes out or the game is released, there is nothing to worry about in my opinion. trust the devs they created an amazing first game let them do it again.

Deep breaths everyone. I think you will be ok with 5 multiclass level 20 characters. Every argument here that "5 sucks we need six!" could just as well be applied to 6 characters if PoE 1 had originally allowed seven. Would you be now clamoring that "6 sucks we need 7" in that case? Or 8, or 9... or maybe we need 10, one for every class? Five will be fine... and the new game will be designed around it so the encounters will be balanced for it. Deep breaths.

If animancer is a class background like 'Merchant' then maybe it should be Mechanics +2. This would be a really valuable bonus so there could be some sort of downside to being an animancer too... maybe certain people in the game world react negatively to you.

Personally I would like to see more randomization of the special enchants on the unique and powerful items. I think this would reduce the tendency to metagame a character around a single late game item in repeat playthroughs. I.e. If you didn't know whether the 'Axe of Awsomeness' that drops at a certain level 16 location will have legendary accuracy, stunning, extra corrode damage, or spell stealing you couldn't really plan a whole build around it. Maybe the axe is always in that pirate chest on every playthrough... but you still don't know exactly what it will be enchanted with. If I recall there was some such randomization in Pillars and White March, I think? Tidefall I thought was slightly different on playthroughs... speed vs wounding and such. I suspect valid arguments against enchant randomization exist too maybe some people want to metagame... perhaps that could be addressed by making sure that all the different major types of awesome enchants are represented on late game weapons... you just didn't know which weapon would get which enchant. So, in the example above... if the Axe of Awsomeness didn't get legendary accuracy (it got something else), the loot tables would ensure that legendary acccuracy was placed on one of the other late game one handed melee weapons. Could be implemented by simply making tables of late-game powerful weapons and enchants (by type... one handed, two handed, ranged, etc) and then shifting the enchant column up or down randomly. All the types of enchants would be represented on an appropriate weapon for your metagame character build in game... you just wouldn't know where they would appear.

Boeroer, I agree totally with your thoughts. My disappointment at the Blade of the Endless Paths was helped by WM 1 and 2 with the presence of soulbound weapons and the other interesting unique weapons. I agree, make the rare and hard to find items (soulbound or not) come with unusual enchants that are powerful and interesting, and the problem Is solved. White March made great strides in that direction.

I take your point that people are mostly using unique items, but actually that doesn't negate or contradict what I wrote about being disappointed that I could enchant my own crappy weapon to be almost as good. People would probably use unique weapons rather than their own enchanted ones if the unique weapons were just 1% better, or even the same probably. Since you find a unique weapon for free, and have to pay for your own enchant. But in any case, my feeling of disappointment when I realized the Blade of the Endless Paths was nothing very special compared to what I could enchant myself is just what it is. You can't really argue against someone's feelings, or tell them they shouldn't feel that way! I like rare and magical weapons to be something special... particularly ones you have find in pieces and have to bring to blacksmiths. Otherwise where is the fun or mystery? Where is the lore and story? What if Bilbo had found Sting in the Troll barrows and everyone in the party just said... "oh thats an ancient Elven shortsword, made in Gondolin during the First Age... but it's nothing too special! Bifur can craft a sword 85% as good as that right by the campfire tonight with some berries and gems!" Er... no thanks I won't be reading more of that story.