Luckmann

Literally no-one said that. As someone that hasn't even been able to be a backer, I can emphasize, but the point isn't that exclusiveness is good, but rather that those that do not participate in the discussions cannot be expected to be given a voice by proxy, and using the silent majority as an argument, without even knowing whether or not any part of that silent majority supports that argument or not, is not a valid argument. It is not one, but two argumentative fallacies at once. By all means, argue over what you know of the game to the best of your ability, no-one is stopping you. But if you are part of that silent majority, you should actually be more than a little annoyed that someone is using you as a bat on issues you may not even know anything about. I certainly voiced a positive support towards the Engagement System at first, and the fact that I hadn't played the beta didn't make the concept unappealing to me. Even now when I have borrowed a beta, I am positive to the concept just not the current implementation. Being silent is a choice, but when someone uses that voice because you don't, that's nothing short of force.

I thought we'd take some time to look at the Priest, and I wanted to share some preliminary thoughts of my own. First, I want to make it clear that I have very little play experience with the Priest, and my assertions may be faulty to some degree or another. There may also be outstanding issues that merits discussion, that I know nothing about. Please raise those issues or point them out so they can be looked at. In particular, I have no problem with saying that I know jack squat about the quality of the spell selection, for example. I've come to think of two issues that I consider notable: First, the Priest has a number of "Dead" levelups. Going through the levels: Creation. Here, the Priest get's it's First-Level spells and gets to pick a Deity. Notable to me is that even though a Deity should be a major choice for a Priest and - roleplaying wise - it may be, it has no immediate or noticeable effect. It affects what unique Talent you can pick (although odds are that there's really no point). Many other classes either get to pick an Ability out of a minimum of two, pick spells for their spellbook, or choose chants. The Priest gets to tick a deity that may give you access to a Talent that may or may not appeal to you. You spend Skill Points and pick a Talent. Alright. You spend Skill Points and you gain access to Second-Level spells. That's it. While that sounds significant (and probably is) it is done practically without input from the player. There is no choice, you don't pick Abilities or choose what to add to your Spell Book, you get Second-Level Spells, full access no choices. The only single thing you do on this level is spend Skill Points. You spend Skill Points and you gain a Talent. Fair enough. You spend Skill Points and... Third-Level spells. Again. Done. From a player input, character build and levelup perspective, this is again a dead level. Again, Skill Points and Talent. Note that by now you'll probably be hoarding Skill Points for next level, so you'll probably not spend any anyway. Again, Skill Points, Fourth-Level spells and no input. Again, Skill Points and Talent. Aside from the notable emphasis on every-other-level resulting in a wide swing in potential power (the access to new Spells at a New Level is easily a "high point" in power increase compared to a single new Talent), this is actually terrible. Every levelup should be meaningful to some degree and include input from the player. While Talents can have a fair degree of effect on how a character plays, odds are that any two Priests will be very similar, bar choices that aren't actually associated with builds mechanically (such as your choice of weapon, what armour you wear, etc). This is very late in development, so I realize that it is unlikely that the Priest will get any overhaul in these regards to a meaninful degree, but possible solutions would be to grant a Deity-specific power or Ability to emphasize that different Priests are different, and to give the player more of a sense of meaning already in creation, in their choice of Deity. Another possibility would be to add Deity-specific spells for each level, that may have to be chosen when gaining a new Spell-Level. Second, the optional Deity-specific Talents are notably lackluster in some regards. Let's review them: Berath, The Palid Hand: Accuracy bonus with Mace and Great Sword, can cast a form of Concelhaunt's Corrosive Siphon. Magran, Inspired Flame: Accuracy bonus with Sword and Arquebus, can cast a form of Burst of Summer Flame. Ondra, Hope Eternal: Accuracy bonus with Flail and Morning Star, can cast a special healing spell that shortens the effects of Frightened and Terrified. Skaen, Prey on the Weak: Accuracy bonus for Stiletto and Club, and grants Minor Sneak Attack (similar to the Rogue). Wael, Incomprehensible Revelation: Accuracy bonus with Quarterstaff and Rod, and can cast a form of Arkemyr's Dazzling. Now, knowing so little about the select spells themselves, it is entirely possible that those are wildly underpowered or overpowered, but my primary concern isn't first and foremost that, but rather that there's a pretty wide discrepancy in who gets what. Skaen gets an interesting Passive, that may actually influence how the character plays. Ondra actually gets a special spell, not just a modified or baby version of a pre-existing spell, even though it's somewhat lackluster, being a "simple" Healing Spell, it is still unique. Several get at least some good options in terms of weapons, such as Berath and Ondra (although it's arguable that Flail and Morning Star are too similar), while Wael gets... Quarterstaff and Rod? Also, Magran gets Sword and Arquebus, but not Pistol and Blunderbuss? While mechanically appropriate (everyone gets 2) it is very conceptually questionable. The Priest does not have the same Accuracy as, for example, a Paladin, and I don't think it should have. But at the same time, it is a Talent that needs to be spent (and you can pick very few talents), that gives you added accuracy in two weapons. Personally, I would see nothing wrong with extending it to four weapons each, if one chooses to become a warrior of the Faith, with each deity-talent being centered around a theme (which should be obvious; Sword, Arquebus, Pistols and Blunderbuss for Magran, Stiletto, Club, Daggers and Hatchets for Skaen, etc). Additionally, each one of them should give an effect or ability that is functionally unique in some way, not simply lesser versions of pre-existing powers. Just some thoughts.

Mmm, yeah. TBH you should post about those in the beta forum, I would support inclusion or changing of some of those weapon groups. Rod for instance is not a very useful weapon if you're not a Wizard. I've actually been thinking about starting a thread for the Paladin and one for the Priest, but I haven't gotten around to it because I just don't feel the issues are big enough. This and PrimaJunta's post in the other thread made me re-examing that and if no-one else does, I'll do it later today or tomorrow.

...so many roleplaying ideas that no CRPG will ever accomodate comes to mind...

I was being sarcastic, because the whole "Combat Only"-ability use thing is supposedly a balancing factor to deal with certain issues that then got expanded to.. a lot of of powers and abilities, and I find it incredibly annoying, so I'm a bit bitter about the whole thing. Of course you should be able to Spiritshift outside of combat. If a druid is to Spiritshift, why would he wait until the enemies are coming for him?

Immunities and Blanket-use: Boring. Counters: Fun.

OP may be correct in that the posts on hte Obsidian Forums aren't truly representative of the majority of the Kickstarter backers of the game. What the members of the forum is representative of though, is the people that take an active interest in the quality of Pillars of Eternity and wants to help it become as good as it can possibly be. This is what always annoyed me quite a lot about the "X does not truly represent Y" argument; it doesn't matter. The members of the forum isn't here to represent the Kickstarter backers. We're not here to fulfill some obligation or do a job. I'm not even a Backer. We're here because we're interested and want to take a look at the game, poke it, argue over it, and give feedback on just about everything. The "silent majority" doesn't matter, because they choose to not matter. For the longest time, I was out of the loop, but I'd never go back to one of the old threads, dig it up, and say that someone's argument misrepresented me, because I, as part of the then-silent majority, don't have a say, nor was it their intent or job to represent me. And this is completely beside the point that the number of people for this or that matters even less. Arguments do. And "10 people want this!" or "It is conceivably possible that some amount of people want this or that" aren't actual arguments, they're literally fallacies. So not only is it argumentum ad populum, it is argumentum ad populum ad ignorantiam; not only does it assert that an argument is correct because a lot of people support it (or oppose it) but it's impossible to assert whether someone does or doesn't, because for the sake of the argument, they don't exist. This is an issue that is generally true in practically all fields. But it makes sense. As long as things are working as intended, there is no reason to bring it up. However, it can also lead to a false perception of how things are, because of the assumption that if there's no comments on it, it works like it should. The Chanter thread that popped up recently is a good example. The Chanter wasn't really getting any truly meaningful feedback because the Chanter works very well. Compare the Chanter discussion to the Ranger discussion. But at the same time, this assumption leads to certain aspects not being examined. I think the Paladin suffers a bit from a lack of options in combat and per level, and the Priest even has "dead" levels where he gets nothing but Skill Points and - yes - a bucketload of spells, but the fact that there's no input from the player on level gain (possibly zero, in case he needs to hoard his skill points) is problematic. So it's a good point that we shouldn't just focus on the big problems, we should also examine those things that work, but could work much better. The stuff that gets forgotten because it's not a cheese-grater in the face like the Combat-Only Abilities.

No, because, uhm, that'd be overpowered when soloing.. or.. umm.. something. Using Abilities for initiating combat? Don't be daft! It wouldn't make sense at all that a Druid would spiritshift before charging people in a planned attack.

Yeah, I actually noted the annoyingness of not being able to unselect all party members before I changed my post. There's really no need for the RMB-functionality for adding to selection outside of the UI. I don't see it ever getting used, I think it's just going to be confusing to have multiple ways to do the exact same thing, assuming that this is the intended functionality (it's hard to tell, because.. it's.. not working).

Imo, the Priest is very much the most Cleric-like. As has been pointed out, there are no specific Weapon/Armour restrictions, but the Priest has (mostly support) spells, chooses a Deity on creation. The Paladin, by comparison, is both very mechanically and conceptually different. The Paladins in the world of PoE belong to Orders that stick to certain dogmas or ideals, ranging from religious to straight-up oathbound mercenaries. They don't get any spells, and they don't actually get that many group buffs and healing abilities (almost zero, actually, depending on how you build your Paladin; you can get as low as 1, you'll always end up with either Lay On Hands or an Aura). Hopefully they'll work some more on the Paladin before release. I can't advice you which you'd like the most, it really depends on what appeals to you the most. A support-built Paladin is easily the tankiest, but they don't get any spells (and I don't think they should) and aren't as versatile. There is nothing preventing you from handing a shield and a hammer to a Priest and go to town, but it isn't specifically geared towards it. Each Deity offers a special Talent (taken as a regular Talent) that gives you an Accuracy Bonus with two given weapons. Sadly, none of them seems to include a hammer at this time, which makes me a sad panda.

Edit: Nvm, I misunderstood and I realized as soon as I went in-game to check it out. I tried to use it a bit, but it's very.. inconsistent. Even just using RMB on the various people in my party (on their selection circles, not portraits, just to be clear) seems to select or unselect almost randomly.

It should probably be underlined as well that movement rate is actually pretty useless, in-combat (and why would you use movement speed for a single character outside of combat?).

Huh, apparently they moved Liberating Exhortation from being learned automatically on lvl 4 to having to be chosen as an ability on lvl 5. If they change it so that Talents are only shown when you meet the prereqs. (which I think they will, because it's inconsistent right now), it's entirely possible to miss out on the fact that you have Order-specific Talents at all; such as being a Shieldbearer that goes for Lay on Hands on lvl 1 and then don't pick Liberating Exhortation. I wonder if it's possible to have different pools of selectable Abilities at different levels. Because if so, I really think that Exhortations should be selectable in their own pools and at slightly earlier levels than right now.

It's funny, because with the current Engagement system, it doesn't really matter how fast your are, you're going to be standing totally still in combat 90% of the time anyway.

I applaud your attempt, though.

Many people do not understand the difference between a forum owned by a public company and one owned by a private citizen. #OPPRESHUN Anywho, back onto V392 discussion, please. There's also a fair bit of difference between lack of moderation and neutrality. We need a new version to bicker about, I think.

Customizable UI? What a revolutionary thought!

I think the best solution is for everyone to simply stay out of Surface Reflection's threads.

You would be correct.

And a founding member whose avatar is an SS officer, and at least one regular who I'm pretty sure is an actual neo-Nazi and is not Cleveland Mark Blakemore who is uncategorizable. Which is clearly all in good fun and not at all in poor taste because hey look, one of the mods is Jewish. Srsly though, I have massive mixed feelings about the Codex. It is a wretched hive of scum and villainy -- really, it is -- but it also has some of the best discussions on RPG's anywhere. But it is like diving for pearls in a pool of pigshït and radioactive waste. I.e., you had better make damn sure your drysuit is entirely 100% impermeable. Highlights mine. And those are, like, the four best things about the RPGCodex. Hell, Sawyer should frequent RPGCodex and take input from there, not the castle of self-importance that is SomethingAwful. This discussion has reminded me that I really should go see if my old RPGCodex account is still floating around... Edit: Well balls, still registered, but don't have the password anymore, and it's registered to an old e-mail that is defunct. Eh, guess I'll contact the admins, like.. sometime.

In PoE, Sawyer resolves design problems by saying you're doing it wrong and then stops you from doing whatever caused the issue. "Nyyaaah, GAWD you guys stop ruining me and my SA friends game, you're PLAYING it WRONG! Don't use powers to initiate combat, IT RUINS THE ENCOUNTER!" Yeah, I'm feeling bitter today.

Pay $10 and catch him on SomethingAwful.

...how could that even be true? It's very basic forum software, and if the forums meant for feedback doesn't work for the Lead Designer, that's a pretty serious issue that they should take a look at. Groups that need to market their "inclusiveness" tend to be the same groups that are as exclusive as they can possibly be, and takes issue with the fact that they don't get enough attention for how exclusive and special they are. They take serious issue with the fact that the most offensive and blunt tend to be the ones that genuinely doesn't give a ****.

Only if you choose Iximatl Plains as your Culture, though.

Again, completely agree with Wafflebum. I think two key points really need to be improved; the ranger needs better support (conceptually and mechanically) for non-ranged builds, whilst also becoming better at ranged.