RedKnight

Yeah, I am not going waste my time on a person who has already demonstrated numerous times complete intellectual dishonesty. I mean lol... just look at the padantic crap you are grasping at in your last post, so you can kindly piss off. I'm very simple to please when it comes to loot. As long as the numbers keep going up and I keep getting better and better loot every few hours, I am happy. PoE2 fails at that miserably, since I was getting better and better loot only 1/3 of the game. Once I reached max level, I only managed to find an occasional item here and there that improved my character. Considering that I still had over 100 hours of content to burn through, what I got was very disappointing. And again, that might just be the pacing issue and perhaps slowing down the leveling could maybe make for a more enjoyable experience. Still, the fact that instead of getting +10 strength or 200% damage or some crazy **** like that, Sawyer came up with "if you sacrifice your party memeber, you'll get 20% chance to score a crit" or whatever... yeah... I just don't like that approach very much. Sorry, but I would rather take a simple +1, +2, +3, with an occoasional 5-6 burn, acid or magic damage from Dungeon's and Dragons any time of the day than this - even if PoE2 items are more powerful according to some Excel sheet. Just a personal preference.

Utter nonsense! Every single sentence you wrote, other than recognizing the name of that shielf. Not going to even bother debunking that piece of factually incorrect logically fallcious debauchery this time around. And no, PoE1 has much better loot. Billion times better in fact! Nonsense! I've been playing RPGs even before they appeared on computers. And even if you don't count all those, I can count at least a 100 computer roleplaying games that I played and finished, not to mention those that I played only half way through. Hell, just my list of favorite video game RPGs counts at least 50 of them and by my calculation there were at least 3 times as many that I didn't like as much. Here is that list in no particular order just from my memory(not even going to be counting the expansions btw - even though some expansions I played are actually seperate games. And since this is from my memory, I probably missed a few as well). 1. Baldur's Gate 2. Baldur's Gate 2 3. Icewind Dale 4. Icewind Dale 2 5. Planescape Torment 6. Pillars of Eternity 7. Pillars of Eternity 2 8. Torment: Tides of Numenera 9. Wasteland 10. Wasteland 2 11. Vampire the Masquarade 12. Vampite the Masquarade: Bloodlines 13. Ultima 3 14. Ultima 4 15. Ultima 5 16. Ultima 6 17. Ultima 7 18. Ultima 9 19. Fallout 20. Fallout 2 21. Wizardry 6 22. Wizardry 7 23. Wizardry 8 24. Might and Magic 3 25. Might and Magic 4 26. Might and Magic 5 27. Might and Magic 6 28. Might and Magic 7 29. Might and Magic X 30. TES II: Daggerfall 31: TES III: Morrowind (I don't like Oblivion and Skyrim) 32. Kotor 33. Kotor 2 34. Neverwinter Nights 35. Neverwinter Nights 2 36. Final Fantasy 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 12. (You can count all those as 1 game) 37. Chrono Trigger 38. Chrono Cross 39. Arcanum 40. Ultima: Savage Empire 41. World of Warcraft 42. LotR Online 43. Eye of Beholder 44. Eye of Beholder 2 45. Eye of Beholder 3 46. Divine Divinity 45. Divinity: Original Sin 2 (played the first one, didn't like it as much) 46. Dungeon Hack 47. Ultima Underwold (didn't like the second one so much) 48. Kingdom Come 49. Betreyal at Krondor 50. Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession 51. Diablo series 52. Titan Quest 53. Dungeon Siege series 54. Thunderscape 55. Shadowrun: Dragonfall (I played all, but only liked Dragonfall) ... Look, I can go on for hours. Now, you may argue that some of these are not really RPGs, but I don't care if you don't consider Diablo or Final Fantasy or WOW an RPG. All of them have loot, numbers and RPG system, which is the only thing relevant for this discussion. Rememeber, I said that I played hundreds of RPGs in the context of loot. Hell, I know there are at least 20 (maybe even 30 or more) MMORPGs I played quite extensively.

I'm really bad with remembering names, so I'm afraid I can't just give you that information. But I was very thorough. It took me 180 hours to finish the game and I left no stone unturned. I visited all the islands and did pretty much all the quests. Either way, I had 4 or 5 rows of unique weapons in my inventory stash, so you can do the math yourself. I think it's fair to say that I found pretty much every unique weapon and armor in the game. Of course, since I don't follow any guides, I might have missed a few. I do remember someone mentioning Voidwheel as beeing this amazing super weapon on these forums and I remember I definitely had that one. I even fully upgraded and tried it for a few encounters only to put it away after not finding much use for it. Similar experience with every other piece of equipment I found in the game. In PoE1 every few hours I found a new piece of equipment that just brough a smile to my face. Here, after reaching max level (which I managed to do very early on), most items were just... "eh"... or "hmm... maybe..." or "meh"... or "well that would be cool if I had that skill"... or..."Hell no! Am not goona carry an injury for that bonus"... or "completely useless in comparison to what I already have". Again, the only RPG that ever left me feeling that way and I played hundreds of RPGs through my life. I guess the only way they could have screwed it more is if the loot was auto-scaling to your level like in Skyrim or Divinity Original sin. But even there, at least the numbers are constantly going up, instead of loot just ending up in your stash, because you didn't find any use for it.

Well, if that was Sawyer's reasoning, then no wonder the loot feels so crappy. 1. If you can't find a rapier that is half as good as the axe, then the solution is to create a rapier that is good as the axe or at least close to it. The solution is not to create conditionals on pretty much every item and thus multiplying "Oh ****, I am not a paldin" moments. Case and point, finding a shield in PoE2 that is great only if you have a high athletics skill, thus creating "Oh ****, I don't have a high athletics skill" moment and forcing you to respec, which I already explained why is anthithetical to the RPG genre. 2. It is not clear to me that balance is something that players are really concerned about. These types of games have never been balanced and there were always classes and items that were just better then everything else. Considering the amount of variations and possible builds, that is unavoidable, I'm afraid. Even in PoE2 there are numerous builds/combinations that are just objectively better than others, so if he thinks he achieved balance - well he didn't. He just ruined the loot system. 3. Whether catering to powergamers was a side effect or the main goal is irrelevant. That is the actual result of his design philosophy and I think it does a lot more harm than good for the genre.

Exactly how PoE2 loot system made me feel. I'd also like to add that the whole metagameplay, testing and tinkering seems to be completely at odds with a roleplaying game as a concept. Namely, if I had to narrow down the core principles of the RPG genre (although this is debatable), I would say that they are the characters, choices and consequences. Now whether you agree with this classification or not, you still have to ask yourself where are your characters when you can just throw some gold to the innkeeper and magically transform your nerdy alchemist to an athletic jock? Where are the choices when if you want to get the benefits of that shield for your warrior, he has to have high athletics instead of what you imagined him when you created him? And lastly, where are the consequences to your choices when you are constantly loading/reloading various builds so that you can test them extensively? If there were true consequences, once you spend those 60000 gold to upgrade your weapon, that gold would be gone forever! You wouldn't be able to just reload and try another item. Also, how much of a choice is it really to build your characters from a guide or an excel-sheet instead of doing it by your gut and sticking with your choices even if you make a few mistakes down the line? As I said in the beginning, whoever made these design decisions when it comes to PoE2 loot seemed to have had only one type of person in their mind - the kind that likes to play around with various builds and tinker with the numbers, which is why I hope that was an interesting experiment on their part and not a conscious design philosophy. Because if it is the latter, I really hope that person stays as far away from loot and RPGs as possible.

Very nice post. Actually I think you are stretching it a bit. Namely, as I said multiple times I do love the game, so I really fail to see how you reached the conclusion that the game is not for me. I genuinly think it's one of the best RPGs I ever played. There are huge issues however in regards to loot and unbalanced difficulty, since the game is generally waaaaaaay too easy. I also think that you gain levels way too fast and I really don't like the new floaty mechanics in combat where both the enemies and your own allies can push your characters away just by running into you - thus screwing up your initial formation. I also wish the areas were a bit bigger, especially when it comes to dungeons. And I really think Obsidian should patch the game already to fix some of the bugs that have been out since the game came out. In regards to story, immersion, exploration, choices and consequences, story-book parts, NPC reactivity, quest design, puzzles and roleplaying options, I truly think this is one of the best RPGs ever made. With that being said, you are absolutely right that I come with a completely different mindset from the sophistry spin-doctor guy - as I pointed out on numerous occasions already and which he decided to interpret in the most uncharitable way possible.

1. Your criticism was not constructive. Read your inital post - it's right there. It's cursory, hyperbolic, provokative and presents false examples. And surely you attacked the devs. They guy/gal who designed the loot and according to you should step away from it? Remember that one? She/he's a dev, too. 2. You did start with insults. And you keep insulting. Where I compared my mom to a headless chicken (but only when it comes to driving a car) just to give an example that doing something for a long time doesn't make you an expert, you choose to call me Berpissor. Which is not only quite unimaginative (would be lame even for five-year-olds I guess but I'm no expert) but also a direct insult that adds up to the scatology you were using and is not suited to make your posts any more constructive. 3. You may thing the loot is utter crap compared to PoE - but as I tried to show you that's because you didn't understand it yet - because you jumped to conclusions. You jumped to conclusions because you didn't know a lot about how the loot works because its features can be somewhat hidden and you didn't test it enough. Example: stats bonuses are lower compared to PoE because in Deadfire they all stack while in PoE they didn't. It's a totally forgivable jump but a jump nonetheless. 4. We are not the ones who talked about "smelling our own farts" multiple times or tried to construct insults out of harmless comparisons or anologies. The only one who shows no manners and really destroys the opportunity for a rational discussion is you. Utter nonsense and this is my final attempt to explain why! 1. Hiding your insults behind cleverly constructed analogies is still an insult. You are just being sneaky about it. Look, I can do it too. You are like my friend who likes to talk a lot, but when he speaks it's all just some extremely dull and unintelligable sound that resembles fart noises. I am not insulting you. I am making an anology about my friend combined with a colorful metaphor about how talking a lot and speaking in a sphisticated manner doesn't mean you are making good arguments. After all, what you are doing here is pure sophistry in its lowest form. 2. To say that I dont understand the system when I am steamrolling everything I come across makes absolutely no sense. Sure, I may not know every nook and cranny like you do, but to reduce my expertise and experience to a 5 year old headless chicken who is jumping to conclusions is beyond absurd! 3. I am well aware of how the vast majority of items work. I just don't find that approach very enticing and rewarding. You can disagree, which is fine btw, but dont tell me I am jumping to conclusions when you yourself have confiirmed pretty much every design decision I criticized. It's not my fault that your head is too deep in your ass that you don't notice it. Case and point, I said on multiple occasions that I never do metagameplay, and that I avoid guides and excel sheets like a plague - yet your whole argument why the gear is TEH BEST EVAH boils down to meta knowledge. Now, this is a personal preference and if you love meta-gameplay, that's great for you. I still think it's **** and antithetical to RPG genre - which should also be fine. 4. Scatology is the only way to explain what is dripping from your brain, unfortunately. Unlike you, at least I am being brutally honest and am not hiding my insults behind cleverly constructed sophist analogies. Again, just my own personal preference how I approach people who I find intellectually dishonest.

1. I wasn't slinging **** at the devs. I said that I am generally positively inclined towards the game. Read my initial post - it's right there. Why some of you are reading your own fabrications into my text is really not my problem, you know? What is happening here is that you and a few others are acting like a bunch of fanboys who cant handle constructive criticism and are doing everything in your power to derail the conversation. I actually find it genuinly funny. 2. I didn't start with insults. It's Berpissor or what's his name that started with the insults by calling me a headless chicken and a 5-year old who is jumping to conclusions and who is not reading the descriptions and is not testing the items (all of which he is just assuming and pulling out of his ass). And here you are (yet another one of his lackeys), sniffing his farts and calling me an ****. So when I respond in kind, people will say I am being rude. Well, yeah.. I am being rude to rude people. Sorry, but not sorry about that at all 3. I am not frustrated at all with the game. I love the game. I just think the loot is utter crap - especially in comparison to the first game. A lot of people made valid observations how it could be due to leveling too fast, or just loot being way too balanced or depending too heavily on metagameplay etc... and those responses I accepted without an issue. Hell, there is even some wisdom in Berdungor's comments here an there and I acknowledged that, but most of it is just pure sophistry unfortunately. 4. And you don't get to teach me manners when you and your master have shown nothing but utter contempt for a rational discussion.

Well, obviously you are not...? Don't know. If I look at the likes of every post (don't have another indicator other than the several posts that call you out) it seems that most people who read this thread didn't really get it. Nananana *plugs ears like a five year old* - you mean like that? I wonder why I don't write about farts. I guess I left my anal phase without noticing... like 40 years ago... Those are analogies, not metaphors. You have to interpret them accordingly. Reading the manual translates to testing out the loot. Not reading the manual does not translate to not reading the descriptions. Not hitting with the gun means you can't see the point of the loot items. Steamrolling through the game proves as much as picking your nose in this case: where we talk about the quality of the loot and the ability to discover its power. You can choose to victimize yourself over and over. Does it help selling your points? I don't think so. So - your analogies actually all happened? Phew - that limits the variatey of analogies you can pull off, doesn't it? Or it speaks of a really weird life... We'll see about that... Pure sophistry!

Exactly! In your example we would have a guy who has 20 years of experience with guns (we can't know if he was good at it because he didn't say. He just said that he was shooting with guns for 20 years - maybe he shot himself in the foot several times, maybe he's a master marksman - we don't know) but then he picked up a new gun named "The Deadfirerer" with has a new kind of optic - looks all slick - but he can't hit the target with it. Instead of asking around like "Do you guys also have problems with this Deadfirerer gun? I can't hit anything with it. What's the matter?" (which would have been too reasonalble for him) he goes off to an internet forum and rambles: "The Deadfirerer kind of sucks! I have 20 years of experience with certain firearms but this gun leaves me literally depressed because when I look through the optics and fire I can't hit anything with it. It's crap! It's like the manufacturer is sitting in his office and goes like 'Oh, I bet you wish to hit anything with this gun but hehehe we build it crooked so that you miss all the time'. Seriously who designed this gun should step away from guns completely". Then somebody else comes around. Kind of an expert with that Deadfirerer. He reads the thread title that seems to have been posted by a frustrated 5-year-old, then reads through that other ramblings and rolls his eyes. Like a lot. All around they go several times. Then he pulls himself together and tries to be somewhat reasonable despite the provocative and immature tone of the post and says: "Nope dude. That's nonsense. It does not suck. You have to switch on the optic to see that red dot which indicates where you have to aim. I presume you didn't read the manual but just fired a couple of shots and then jumped to conclusions. Because if you would have read the manual that tells you to switch on the optic you would have had the chance to experience one of the most accurate guns I know of. The penetration isn't too good and the damage is mediocre. But it's superaccurate. Shooting different guns for 20 years doesn't necessarily make you an expert with this gun - especially if you don't pay attention to the details. So you maybe don't want to bring that argument here. Also - correct - the manual is kind of obscure and not well written because it was translated from Mandarin to English using Google Translator from 2010 - but once you know what to do it's a very good gun and does not suck". And then the first guy goes on like: "Yeah I read the manual completely! Actually I did read it kind of. But I didn't read all of it! Also I'm not a headless chicken! How dare you calling your mom a headless chicken which directly translates to me being a headless chicken? You sneaky insulter! Smell your own fart! Smell your own fart I said!". And the second guy's like: "Jeez the five year olds theses days wth their 20 years of gun experience..." Like I said, I am done with you. It should be obvious to anyone who followed this conversation that you are only interested in smelling your own farts and are completely ignoring everything I write. Case and point, in your new analogy, it seems I haven't even read the item descriptions now... That's really funny. A few posts ago you were saying that I actually did do that. You also are claiming that I cant hit anything with the new weapon, yet... funny enough I steam roll through the game. Either way... cool story, dude. Too bad it exists only in your immagination. Cheers!

Actually you did. Quite explicitly. Here is your direct quote: "That comparison was made to show that doing X for and extended amount of time doesn't necessarily mean that you are good at the game or understood how it works." Again... I never claimed that I was good at the game. I certainly am more than willing to admit that unlike you, I don't have every single name and number memorized in my brain or an excel sheet. I was only claiming that my RPG experience alone is enough to show that I wasn't completely incompetent to be worthy of the comparisson to a headless chicken that is jumping to conclusions. Someone who has played these types of games countless times should be more than able to distinguish between an extremely powerful item and a completely useless item just by reading the description and trying the item out for a while. If such a person has a really hard time distingishing the two even after reading the description and trying the item out, I mantain that there is an objective problem here - regardless if the said item is actually powerful under more scrutiny. And this is where you are again creating an equivocation fallacy. Namely, there is a huge difference between just "doing something a lot" and having relevant experience. What you are doing here is similar to talking to a guy who has 20 years of experience with guns who continually manages to hit the target exactly where he wants to, but then he notices an issue with how one of the guns behaves, and then you dismissing his observation by saying: "Just because you've been shooting guns a lot, that doesn't mean you are good at it." While your statement is technicaly true from a purely epistemological point, it would be beyond silly to just call such an individual a headless chicken who is jumping to conclusions. And it would be even more silly to just dismiss his observations, because according to your excel sheet the gun handles just right in X,Y and Z situations, whereas the guy is talking about A, B and C situations. The actual issue in our conversation here is that you seem to be a guy that is so heavily invested into every single number of every single item in this game that you seem to be unable to see a forest hidden behind a tree because of it. This is obvious since you seem to know every name, every number, every single and double digit about these items, yet cant seem to grasp a very simple point that I am making. Either way, I am just an experienced roleplayer that has played some very complex roleplaying games with a lot of success without ever resorting to guides, exploits or excel sheets and I never had such a horrible experience with loot. I mantain that if you have to be an expert of your caliber to distinguish a good item from a worthless item, then there is a problem here, especially when a seasoned roleplayer finds it very hard to do so. How about you stop smelling your own farts just for a minute? Dude, you are twisting my words. I tried every one of these items. Ok, some items I just put away, because I didnt specialize in the necessary skills to make use of it or the description just made it sound utterly useless (like the one where it gives you a boost only if your party members are knocked out). Again, there I had no clue that you can sacrifice your summons instead, so there's your explanation why I didn't try that one out. But every item that seemed even a bit useful or in the same ballpark of what I was already carrying I did try out. I just didn't do it for hours on end. I tried a couple of battles and after noticing that my party was performing worse than before, I reverted back to what I had before disappointed that another quest has passed and I am still carrying items that I had 100 hours ago. You mean the power that comes with certain conditionals that most of the times was either not practical or conducive to my playstyle? For example: I found a really nice shield (don't remember it's name or exact stats), but I know it grew in power the higher my ?metaphysics? skill was (cant remember). Now, yeah... brilliant item! The problem is, to me it was completely useless, because the character that had that skill maxed out just happened to be speced out for ranged combat and dual wielding. Do you see the problem? Of course you do, but you'll just pretend to be dumb and argue with your own strawman while quoting things out of your excel sheet. And before you tell me to respec, I NEVER respec in RPGs, because that goes against the core principal of what I think RPGs should strive for. Namely, I dont believe that you should be able to just spend some money and turn yourself from one type of character to a completely different type of character. Yeah, I think we're done here. I can only repeat 5 or 6 times that I did test out the items, before I just have to admit that I am dealing with a hopeless person here. Enjoy arguing with your own strawmen and equivocation fallacies.

1. I wasn't making an argument that I am good at the game to begin with nor did I say that I understand how every item works, so thanks for proving that you missed the point yet again! 2. Since your headless chicken comparison is completely off the mark, I don't see any other reason for its inclusion here other than to berate me. And just because you are sneakily hiding your insults behind weasily constructed analogies, doesn't mean that I don't see what you're doing. 3. The reason why even brought up my RPG experience into the argument in the first place, was because you accused me of jumping to conclusions without testing the equipment - which was not only false, but also incredibly silly thing to say considering my RPG portfolio. The point being that someone with decades of RPG games behind his belt should be able to figure things out without too much hassle, so there might be some problem with how the information is presented even if you are 100% right and PoE2 has the best loot ever made in any game ever! You know, just something to consider... Case and point, you mentioned how you can stack bonuses by sacrificing your summons instead of party members for one of the items I mentioned, yet nowhere in the description of the item does it say that. So basically, you have to extensively test how the item works to figure it out - or just stumble upon it by accident - none of which should be a requirement to recognize a truly remarkable item for what it is (at least not in my book). 4. And yet again, you avoid my my point, which is not about me being good at the game, it is not about there not being any good gear (because I wouldn't be able to steamroll everything if there wasn't)... it's ABOUT HOW AND WHEN YOU GET CERTAIN GEAR AND HOW MUCH (NOT) BETTER THE END-GAME GEAR IS IN COMPARISSON TO WHAT YOU CAN GET IN THE FIRST 30 HOURS. With that being said, yes there probably are some items that I classified as worthless, but which are actually very powerful. But if I wrongly evaluated such items, it's only because the game does a poor job at explaining what the item actually does, which is still a problem. Case and point, nowhere does it say that you can sacrifice summons instead of your party members, which I didn't know and I see no way how I could have known about it without extensive testing.

So, the guy can call me a headless chicken and I'm supposed to just take it, because you happen to agree with his opinion? How about you guys stop smelling each other's farts?

You seem to be completely missing the point. I am well aware that the game has numerous stuff with which you can create some crazy combinations. Hell, I've seen players beat world bosses on PotD naked. However being able to do some crazy **** with crappy gear does not refute my points in the slightest. I'm sure there are people who can beat Durodugan while at L1 with a toothpick on PotD, but that wouldn't make the said toothpick a good weapon, nor would such an attempt be a fun experience, now would it? Also your mom analogy is completely stupid. I did finish the game and steamrolled pretty much every encounter with no problems - not to mention all other RPGs - so obviously I am not going through these types of games as a headless chicken. And if you think that this is an irrelevant piece of information, the only headless chicken here is you, mate. Furthermore, I am not arguing for gear that would make you play the game in God mode. Ffs, did you even read a single word of what I wrote? I said three times already that I steamrolled almost every encounter. My issue is with how you can go through 90% of content and only marginally improve your characters. Now, as the other guy validly pointed out, this could be an issue with the pacing and not gear itself. Could be. Maybe... The fact of the matter is that on my playthrough most of my characters didn't switch much of their gear. For example I equipped Xoti with Miscreant's Leathers that I got in the first 2 hours, and she kept that armor to the very last minute of the game. So, it's not that there is no good armor in the game. It's more about when you get it and what you use 180 hours later and how much is that other gear better in comparison to what you already have. And yes, immunity to engagement was completely useless to me, because I never had any problems with breaking off from enemies due to engagement. I think one of my charcters died only once due to engagement and it was mostly because I was just too lazy to heal him before disengaging. I maintain that the loot should scale up accordingly to keep you engaged. It's not fun when you are still fighting in the same gear as you had 100 hours ago. You maintain that there is no problem here, because X,Y and Z are examples of great loot and since you can beat Durodugan solo on PotD, that means I'm just playing the game as a headless chicken. I swear, your post is an epitome of having your head stuck so deep into your own farts that you can't even hear what the other person is saying.

Valid point. I think that might have played into why I felt the loot was so weak. I also got a death-knight's heavy plate armor early on that I used for the rest of the game. Every other armor felt incredibly weak in comparison. I also repaired my old sword from Caed Nua early on and used it for the vast majority of the game. Only Aeldy's sword was better, but I got that in the last 10-20 hours. So basically, my character was pretty much decked out early on. Imagine going through 100 hours of content and only finding 1 sword that is only marginally better than what you already have. That sucks, but it could be just due to the pacing of the game.