Wormerine

Why to have skill point at all, if we were to pass all the checks on all the skills? You pick two or three per character and focus on them. None of these are mandatory, but rather open new paths, just like high diplomacy or metaphysics skill. Tying skills point just to inteligence seems like a terrible idea, as int is already a strong stat. Trying them to stats seem bad anyway. The way of getting ahead is already there, and its done via character backgrounds.

Sorry but won’t happen. It is still very much IE style game - combat is very much a focus and stats like intelligence or perception are still crucial for combat. There is no “skill based” way to play as it was in Fallout1&2. In fact, Deadfire even made a special effort to separate “interaction skills” with “utility skills” to not have a clash between gameplay and role play. Skills points are fine as they are, though as person who gravitates toward “skill based” characters in other types of RPGs as well, I understand the frustration. For Deadfire it works as it is, though.

Fair enough. Post apocalyptic setting often present people settlements as tribal, therefore similarities in structure and society. However, this is colonisation era tech, so no automated weaponary. Every weapon needs to be manually reloaded. I am sure you can buy blundrebuss somewhere. In PoE2 we have access to same guns, + granades, but weapons have unique modals giving them a bit more character.

As we haven’t seen crafting system yet, it’s very much a speculation, but I think it would be cool if one could craft customised grimoires. Those wouldn’t be cheap to make possibly requiring high level alchemy and a copy of each scroll spell you want to integrate + cost would increase with amount and lvls of spells you would want to include. More of a late game optimisation idea for wizards, rather than early game “make ideal grimoire” thing.

My fight certainly tend to go for longer. I use empower often enough on my priest, not to boost spells, but replenish spellpools. I like using empower on knockdown, when I really want to hit enemy. I don’t think it’s horrible, but i didn’t find it to great either.

I feel don’t want us to clear encounters by spamming fireballs. Those big AOE spells seem to be designed to target large mobs of weaker enemies, while those tougher ones will shrug AOE due to high penetration. Some of the single target spells hit harder. Maybe it’s very much intentional, rather than a flaw? I don’t find casting time that bad now when weapons got slowed down.

That... would make sense. To be honest “second wind” seems like the best sustain ability, with high level athletics giving you pretty much second life in combat. Considering I found It almost mandatory for everyone to have at least a bit invested in athletics (even west level second wind can mean a difference between surviving and being knocked out) giving everyone second wind and scaling it based on constitution seems like a solid idea to me.

As a person so far liking change to strength/resolve I won’t argue there was clarity and elegance in “might” stat. But I would also like to see more disctinction to weapons, though luckily modals make up the fact that all of them pretty much play the same.

... Can we at least get lootboxes? Marketplace? Anything? PoE is so 90s.

I am not necessarily assuming that player is a dummy, but I do assume he/she is not familiar with RPG conventions. And if it’s assumed that you will keep every shiny item and drop common items:1) why limit you carry weight at all if you need to have enough space anyway to carry all the shiny stuff. 2) why drop common items if you are expected to not pick them up. In the end PoE doesn’t have “strategic layer” which would benefit from restrictions on what you can carry with you. In one of the other threads I made a statement I am really proud of, so I will repeat it here: A failure, perma death or permanent loss in a game is a good thing only if it’s leads to interesting gameplay, rather than cut interesting gameplay from the game. Does limiting how much you can carrry lead to meaningful and engaging decision making, or does it limit amount of customization/builds you can do or just add extra dead time between realising you should change strategy (aka. Swap equipment) and being able to do it (jog to the keep and back again). :-D it is THE game of my childhood. Tried to give it ago a while go and “wow!” My tolerance for insta death traps you couldn’t possibly see coming is much lower than it was when I was 5ve. I hope you won’t run out of alcohol before beating it;-)

Failing is only powerful, if the decision was made knowing full well risks and rewards. The example I gave wasn’t exciting it was frustrating. Playing without walkthrough should be more exciting, not frustrating. I might be scarred for life by playing Rick Dangerous as a kid on Comodore 64. You want to have a bad time, because you didn’t know what’s ahead of you? Give this a go: http://www.arcadedivision.com/classicgame27/platform/rick-dangerous.html First run through is the real experience. It’s like saying a level design isn’t confusing if you know how to beat it. You shouldn’t encourage players to replay your game by sabotageing their first experience, rather make it interesting enough and give it depth so they want experience it again/try different approach.

This argument appears over and over again, and I really don’t get it. I imagine that when you create a multiclass character you want his skills to supplement each other, not overlap. You won’t create a mage/fighter, who will focus on DPSing with weapon while DPSing with spells, rather one who locks enenemies down with fighter abilities to DPS with spells, or CC with spells to DPS with weapons, or cast magic weapons/buff yourself to DPS with weapons etc.

I am pretty sure it was confirmed that importing save will still rewuire character creation - your choices will be imported, not the character. Whenever changes are for good or bad, I wouldn’t accept “but it was like that in the first game” as a valid point. It’s different game, what was in the first game is only relevant as a point of reference. I don’t think there is something like “mechanic’s lore”.

There is a virtue in inventory management, but in BG2 you also always have access to unlimited stash. You just need to walk for a bit to get to it (or get a hold on holding bag, which is a clunky stash). The game would need to be redesigned to support inventory management (aka, Darkest Dungeon - what do you take, how much you can carry, what to do you leave behind) or admit that the whole system is a smokescreen and cut the fat out of the experience. PoE went for the second approach. do you think that the second approach is better? We‘re not designing games so we‘re just speculating, but if you were a designer about to create an rpg with stash inventory would your priority be to create quality over quantity for loot? I would imagine that James Ohlen&team did have to take the limited inventory into consideration when they created BG2. How do i design monsters, encounters? Think of the many enemies that don‘t drop weapons at all since their fighting with e.g. claws or whatever like umber hulks, vampires, mummies, ghouls, trolls, beholders, and so on. In Nalia‘s castle the guys who drop loot are the Yuan-ti fighters but everyone else afaik doesn‘t drop anything. It‘s mostly when you fight humanoid parties that you get the special loot. You simply don‘t fight that many enemies of the same kind and composition in BG2 as in similar rpgs. So i‘d assume with stash it‘s easier for the designer, surrounding the player with lots of enemies of the same kind isn‘t that much of an issue for the designer since it‘s ‚put it in the stash and let the player deal with hundreds of identical items‘.I don’t think second approach to be “better”. It certainly doesn’t make for a better inventory management. It does, however, what it’s supposed to do - give you access to weapons you found that your current and future companions might want to use. PoE had overall issue with providing a huge amount of dull, recreatable weapons. I enjoyed Soulbound weapons much more. The amount of trash items was a minor issue for me, mostly because I would loot everything without paying attention, often missing the good stuff. You are right, the way BG provided loot was more sparsely. The way you built you party was different as well. Quite often I would quickly decided who will be in my party for the entire game making keeping/ditching weapons easier as I knew who might use what. In PoE you meet companions later and you don’t really know what might be of use. I am not against revamping inventory management and item system. I am also a big fan of inventory Tetris (one thing I loved about NWN1 was how it’s inventory worked). But I believe that slapping weight restriction or removing stash without making sweeping changes to the current design would only make for a poorer experience. I don’t believe BG was much better as far as inventory goes (weapon design was). In the end you were given your stashes in a form of bag of holding and other containers to get around inventory management. I liked some minor stuff, like limited arrows - I count them among “original xcom clip ammo” mechanics: insignificant annoyances, easy to surpass and not meaningful game mechanics, which fulfill certain fantasy. However, those mechanics will be frustrating or acceptable on a very subjective level, because they are not good, interesting mechanics. Just a busywork, which you might be willing to do or not. So either make it nutritious or cut the fat out, I say.

I wasn’t trying to say that you can’t have unique items and real inventory management with tangible consequences for leaving stuff behind. However, how game is and works would work well if items could be lost permanently. After all, even when you sell them they remain in merchants inventory for later possible use. Let’s say you see a nice battleaxe of drake slaying. Nice stuff, but no one in your party specialises in axes and there are no drakes nearby. So you leave it and it disappears forever. But then you meet Jimmy the Barbarian Dwarf and he loves his axes. You also venture into the cave of drakes. You could really use this axe now. But it was one of a kind, handcrafted and now completely lost to you. Of course, you could make every weapon craftable/buyable, which would mean leaving stuff behind would have consequences but wouldn’t be that crashing. Or you could choose your companions at the start of the game, decided what they will use and not add new companions throughout the game making decision making on what to leave behind easier. Both would work for me, and probably there are more ways to do it. But PoE doesnt care about inventory as it’s not its focus. It does, what it needs to do and does it well, without enhancing or sabotaging core game.

Once Goldpack Palladin's shiny effect wears off, the Palladin't becomes cloaked:

The problem is: in majority of RPGs (especially story driven RPGs) weight limit doesn't add depth but rather is a time waster and that is precisely why it was removed. As Josh explained there is nothing stopping you from carrying absolutely everything from Dungeons and stashing it/selling it, so removing stash or restricting carry limit only adds more wasted time between looting&selling rather than adding any depth. Some depth of choice could be added if items would disappear once you leave the level, but it creates an issue with game design - unique weapons can be easily permanently lost. If that was the case, people might feel even more obliged to carry what they can, then run back to keep and stash their goods before moving on. So yes, carry limit adds a bit of "immersion", but lately it really did become and annoyance rather than a boon (Elder Scrolls/Witcher3) as it takes your time&attention from doing fun things rather than adding any depth. Perhaps there should be? Perhaps items you leave on the ground should disappear during area transitions? I mean, it would make sense that all sorts of scavengers would pick the bandit camp clean of everything even remotely valuable after the player party has removed the dangerous bandits from the picture. No, it "shouldn't" be but it "could" be. It is not that it is a bad idea, but does mesh with the "unique" and "pre designed" item philosophy. The way items are dropped and designed would have to be redesigned. But as PoE and IE games main focus is story and worldbuilding, I imagine devs saw unique handcrafted items as a more important feature than inventory management. Sometime two equally good ideas go against with each other and you have to let one go.

Have been playing with the system a bit (not much mind you), and while I still support the change my initial impression is that many classes don't benefit enough from both strengh and resolve. I find myself quite restricted regarding perks I can get depending if I have a high strenght or resolve build. I have been playing so far purely with single class characters. It might be better if we go multiclass and have a wider choice of skills to choose from.

The problem is: in majority of RPGs (especially story driven RPGs) weight limit doesn't add depth but rather is a time waster and that is precisely why it was removed. As Josh explained there is nothing stopping you from carrying absolutely everything from Dungeons and stashing it/selling it, so removing stash or restricting carry limit only adds more wasted time between looting&selling rather than adding any depth. Some depth of choice could be added if items would disappear once you leave the level, but it creates an issue with game design - unique weapons can be easily permanently lost. If that was the case, people might feel even more obliged to carry what they can, then run back to keep and stash their goods before moving on. So yes, carry limit adds a bit of "immersion", but lately it really did become and annoyance rather than a boon (Elder Scrolls/Witcher3) as it takes your time&attention from doing fun things rather than adding any depth.

Yeah, I am super confused by afflictions right now. I am playing buffing/debuffing cipher right now, and spells don’t seem to do, what I expect them to do. Need to do some digging into mechanics.

The flaw of BG2 system was that whatever cool item you didn’t carry with you, you left it in your keep (aka. Stash). When my friend modded Witcher3 to unrestricted carrying limit I frowned upon his casualness. However, what I ended up doing is running back and forth between points of interest on a map and a merchant carrying and selling everything I could. Essentially I did the same thing my friend did but he saved butload of time. There is a virtue in inventory management, but in BG2 you also always have access to unlimited stash. You just need to walk for a bit to get to it (or get a hold on holding bag, which is a clunky stash). The game would need to be redesigned to support inventory management (aka, Darkest Dungeon - what do you take, how much you can carry, what to do you leave behind) or admit that the whole system is a smokescreen and cut the fat out of the experience. PoE went for the second approach.

Yeah, I would like to see firearms become stable damage dealers, maybe not the most efficient weapon for someone with massive strength, but a good option for someone with mediocre strength. Or at least I would like to see different weapon “schools” being influenced by different attributes. But I don’t think that is what attributes were designed to accommodate.

To me it doesn't have much to do with complexity or difficulty but with engagement. If there isn't much decision making in combat and little variety in enemies than encounters start blending with each other. In tyranny you have limited amount of skills, which are on cooldowns. Even if your attacks target undesirable defences, there is no reason not to sit on them, so you cast all the skills, all the time on all enemies. It is more of a clicker than a tactical game. And so combat becomes boring, and everytime encounter stats you just click until its over.

I have saved in the world map and reloaded resulting in UIs from the worldmap and exploration overlapping: In addition, the main character's portrait is a wrong one, even those in the options it is still recognizing the previous one. FIxed itself once I entered a location:

I didn’t enjoy Tyranny combat but it wasn’t purely tied to the limit of 4 characters. More because of it being a decision devoided spammfest.