Luckmann

I think that it runs deeper than that, and trap/lockpick/bestiary experience couldn't possibly account for this big of an experience climb, but I do agree that trap/lockpick/bestiary experience should be killed off. At the very least, it'll alleviate the issue and support the ideals of goal-oriented experience rather that just being.. eh.. no-kill-experience-for-no-obvious-reason-experience.

On that note, this directly ties into the issues of an unlimited stash and infinigold merchants, as well as the fact that the enchanting system is built around the acquisition of bodyparts. Sorry I don't want the hassle of this merchant only having 500 copper for a week, and Inventory Management is something better left for the OCD. I'm certain there's more than 1 or 3 merchants in an entire city, and you could easily sell all the crap you gather upon visiting a city. Just the Devs don't want to dev 100 merchants or dev an entire city. That's beside the point, really. Personally, I'm willing to accept hassle in the name of consistency and game mechanics that interact well, rather than working against eachother. But ultimately, if you want there to be no "hassle", it is not inconceivable that there is some kind of reasonable compromise. I didn't say what I said because I support the idea of merchants with restricted gold (because while I do, ultimately you're right in that in relation to this particular concern, yes, you could most likely just visit a few different merchants) but merely in an attempt to explain the issues and understand them. Ultimately, you could take everything in the IE games and drag it to a vendor by going back and forth 500 times, too, but people still didn't bother to do that. Why? Because it was a hassle. A "hassle" in itself can serve as a restrictive mechanic, and a pretty reasonable one at that.

On that note, this directly ties into the issues of an unlimited stash and infinigold merchants, as well as the fact that the enchanting system is built around the acquisition of bodyparts. Killing kith/humanoid opponents or passing on them would be quite reasonable... if things were like in the IE games, where you wouldn't pick up absolutely everything and cart it off to a merchant. Passing on animal/monster opponents would be quite reasonable... if you didn't need 14 swine snouts for a fire lash, or whatever. They focused so much on the experience that this completely passed them by, but ultimately, I don't think Obsidian even understood the reasoning behind Goal-Oriented Experience vs. Murderhobo Experience, since they did include the Bestiary Experience, Lockpicking Experience and Trap Experience, which runs completely counter to that. I think they did it because it helped them to keep track of the experience in the game... the only thing speaking against that if that was their motivation... well they really dropped the ball, considering how uneven the leveling is in the game.

Why do people say that Constitution is useless? Well, in a nutshell... they don't. It's bad. Terribly bad. But it's not useless. I've yet to see anyone suggest that a tank should dump Constitution. This is not because Constitution is good, but because the penalty isn't worth it. As a tank, you won't need the +End%, but you will suffer severely if you dump on it, simply because as a high-Endurance class (and you will want to be one, as a tank) you will lose much more Endurance than a low-Endurance class would. There are several reasons Constitution is Bad: Tanks do not need it at all, because Tanks will always always be from the high-ish-Endurance classes (Fighter, Paladin, primarily) anyway. It affects High-Endurance classes more than it affects Low-Endurance classes. The High-Endurance classes do not need the extra Endurance and the much smaller gain makes it not worth the investment for Low-Endurance classes. This also means that the penalty suffered by Low-Endurance classes is lower, making it a nice dump state for them. So, in conclusion: Tanks should not dump Constitution. Bad idea. Tanks should not pump Constitution, why would they? Ranged DPS that will never take damage can freely dump Constitution. Melee DPS should not be tanks anyway, and if they're not tanks, they shouldn't be wearing armour, meaning that whether you have a boost to Endurance or not will not save you if you somehow end up in a pickle. Might want to keep the base Constitution anyway. The Attribute bonuses in the game has some very notable issues that have been discussed up and down the boards, and the developers have acknowledged it but also been unwilling to address them, so it is unlikely to be solved. The easiest "fix" that I can see would be to add a flat +/- Endurance modifier to Constitution, which would at least make it more desirable for low-Constitution classes, but the fundamental issue of it being a bit meh won't be fixable due to base functions in the game, favouring heavy specialization in the DPS/Tank department, but those things have other proposed solutions that could make Constitution as an Attribute more desirable in the long term.

8/10 is exactly how I'd rate Pillars of Eternity too, but more to the point, I'd rate D:OS at about 7/10 and the real question is how he could be crazy enough to rate DA:I at 9/10. The context is more important than the score, here, I think. I think that PoE really deserves 8/10, but if he rates both D:OS and DA:I at 9/10, I can see how people are asking him what the hell he's smoking.

But then they made early game very casual-unfriendly, with every encounter in Valewood destroying a solo newbie and then the temple of Eothas... Even folks with good attribute distribution will start questioning it. That's a rather illogical move. I'm not saying that it's logical. There are many of these little inconsistencies in PoE. Also, I'm really just extrapolating and interpreting here, they haven't said why they did it like that, just that I think that was the idea. The only "official" word we have on it was a minor comment that they thought this was the best Attribute Bonuses yet. This claim was made while Dexterity was still working in reverse and Interrupt was completely broken, so you should take that with a jug full of salt.

But.. buh.. muh hard counters.

Since my paladin stumbled into the Free Palatinate, there has definitely been a rise in inexplicable rapier allergies, acute fireball poisonings, and what we can only assume to be a string of suicides where people stab themselves upwards twelve times with blunt instruments. I guess it's some kind of fad.

The fact that Intelligence was so powerful and also a consolidated caster attribute (both +AoE and +Duration) was pointed out the moment the current Attribute bonuses were introduced during the backer beta. There are many issues with how the Attributes work currently, but they chose to have it this way despite knowing the problems it would cause, so it is definitely intentional. I think it's because it makes the Attributes system more shallow and easier to work with for people that don't want to get into it; the min/max is very clear and doesn't cause any confusion for casuals. Tanks are Res/Per, DPS is Mig/Dex, Intellect is godly for almost anyone and Con is unnecessary.

While the original Attributes suggested that to be true, it's been established that it's simply not true, from a design perspective. When people complained that the Attributes are lopsided and unbalanced, and that the Attribute spread of the CNPC:s suffered because of it, Obsidian changed the Attribute spreads of the CNPC:s to "better" or more "min/maxed" (or at least attempted to; in at least the case of Edér, the decision was.. odd.. to say the least) without any regard for the personalities of the characters. So I really wish that what you said would be true, but it's unfortunately not. Luckmann, I have a hard time not seeing that stats shouldn't be reflected in an NPC's personality. Oh, mind you, I doubt that a difference of a single point in a stat either way probably matters that greatly to an NPC's basic personality. Also, it would seem that the more mental stats, i.e. intelligence, perception, and resolve, would be more important to a character's personality than the more physical stats. Not that the physical stats would be UN-important, just a little less important. For example, a high INT character should have a distinctly different personality from a low INT one. Ditto for Resolve. OTOH, if you looked at two characters having the same INT, PER, and RES, but with different mixes of MGT, CON, and DEX, one might be able to argue that the two characters might have fairly similar personalities. Maybe not, but possibly. Regardless, I don't buy into the OP's opinion on this. NPC's need to have their stats and class choice be a reasonable reflection of their personality. The idea that you could have an NPC with an already fixed background story which almost certainly reflects certain facts about said character and then just let players build that character from scratch seems entirely unreasonable to me. I will say that following my logic, one could make a not unreasonable argument that players could get to pick the NPC's skills, talents, etc. from scratch, since those are probably much less linked to the fixed backstory of the character. Still, I'm not sure that every player would want to stop and do an NPC's skill/talent build from scratch the moment they let them into the party. Some might forget to do so or not even realize that they needed to do so. A better way to deal with it might be to have the NPC's skills/talents fixed as they are now, but allow the player to rebuild an NPC's skill/talent once per NPC. Or possibly at their first level-up while they're in your party. Still, it seems an unnecessary complication to me. Also, NPC's are designed by the game's "dungeon master" whether it's in a pencil and paper environment or a cRPG. And in the case of a cRPG, the DM is the developers. And maybe the players should accept that and worry about their PC, and leave the NPC's to the game's DM's (the devs). I am not disagreeing with you at all. I think that you are entirely correct - for example, Aloth shouldn't have high Resolve, Perceptive characters should have a high Perception, etc, etc. I completely agree with that. I'm saying that this is not true in Pillars of Eternity, by the developer's choice, as I explained. I think it's crazy to change the character's Attributes because the attributes they got saddled with were bad, instead of fixing the issue of those attributes being dead weight for certain classes. They had a great opportunity to show "You can do well with any setup, they just play differently, look at Aloth, he's a wizard with high Perception, high Intellect but low Resolve" or "Check out Durance, he's a tough firebrand of a priest that can weather the storm, when another priest could be a bookish sort straight out of a convent". They decided not to do that, and instead the Attributes are very lopsided and they chose to compromise the attributes as indicatives of character personality instead, to compensate for that; it's why Aloth lost Perception, because Perception was completely dead weight for him, and it's why Durance got Intellect, a must-have consolidated caster attribute, despite him probably being the furthest away from an intellectual in the entire CNPC collection. And that's why the OP:s argument has a quite strong merit to it, because Obsidian themselves have already settled that character attributes have nothing to do with the actual character of the characters. I do not agree with that approach, but in the context of the game and the implied design philosophy, there's no reason not to leave the CNPC:s as a virtual tabula rasa.

Have you tried not posting spoilers in the non-spoiler forum?

But they're discussing builds, not classes. Also, this isn't entirely true; Edér was conceptually a rogue for a very long time, and the developers have already made it clear that Attribute distribution has nothing to do with the character personalities. But that's patently false under the current system. I think you are correct, however, in that the developers were operating under that assumption all the way up until release, at which point they noticed that hey, wait, maybe the backer beta testers weren't lying, maybe there's really some issues with the Attribute system, I mean, suddenly there's a wave of people complaining about attribute distribution of the CNPC:s, what do we do? Do we fix the Attributes? Naw, let's just change the CNPC Attributes into something better that isn't objectively terrible.

While the original Attributes suggested that to be true, it's been established that it's simply not true, from a design perspective. When people complained that the Attributes are lopsided and unbalanced, and that the Attribute spread of the CNPC:s suffered because of it, Obsidian changed the Attribute spreads of the CNPC:s to "better" or more "min/maxed" (or at least attempted to; in at least the case of Edér, the decision was.. odd.. to say the least) without any regard for the personalities of the characters. So I really wish that what you said would be true, but it's unfortunately not.

You realize that putting it in was a conscious decision on their part? Many concious decisions on their part have been less than stellar, and many have been rehashed and changed over time.

Loading Screen to Caed Nua. Loading Screen to Brighthollow. Loading Screen to Second Floor. Sleep. Repeat in reverse. Yeah, no, this might not be an issue for people with a top of the line computer and an SSD, but this is pretty damn annoying to the rest of us. I never go to Caed Nua to rest because of it. I'm not sure I would, even if this was "fixed", but that's somewhat beside the point. The way every single area in PoE has a major loading screen is pretty annoying, actually. In the IE games, interior locales loaded instantly, save for a few cases.

Just like D&D Depends on the version of D&D, but; Generally, yes, and that's not a good thing, just because of how it worked in D&D.

The system is pretty whack, though, because the way it interacts with the base mechanics of the game means that the wizard will become *exponentially* more powerful, especially if we start adding more levels to it. There's going to be some really considerable balance issues in the future if they keep it. I think a better solution would be to allow select spells to become Per Encounter, instead of blanket levels, but even that could be iffy, especially if they really start getting rid of the "Combat Only" states (which I honestly believe they aren't genuine in their supposed intent to do, but w/e).

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/75811-no-buffing-outside-of-combat-why/ Let's not go through this again, please?

These two things are not mutually exclusive, though. Except, to be real for a second, we saw it happen. In real time. And we have also seen, in the very same context, that this did nothing to lessen the perceived insult to the perpetually offended.

"The dose makes the poison." Assuming there are not special immunities in play, an ogre should definitely be more resistant to poison than a dwarf. Just like a rhinoceros is more resistant than a sheep. Pretty much this, but as to what constitutes "sparingly" is highly debatable. I prefer "when it makes sense"; immunities as a whole, I have no problem with if it makes sense and if it crops up all the friggin' time, as long as it's not the same immunity. As for the "true to a degree", the issues is that while you consider paying attention to defences to be worthwhile, I really don't. You are correct in that it's beneficial, for sure, yes, but if I'm in an encounter, I'm going to win or lose that completely independently of whether I pay attention to their defences or not. I haven't played Path of the Damned, where these things are played up a little bit, but still only by a little, and it is across the board; the actual differences aren't increased, they're all increased by the same percentage. But in Hard, I have yet to ever see any relevance in switching weapons or tactics. Nada. Zero. Zilch. My high-RES high-PER cloth-clad duelist Paladin deathlike has been using a rapier and except for a short while when I decided that the Longsword I found was just too much better, I haven't used any other weapon. The only exception to this was when I started plowing through the phantoms and such with fire spells in the Temple of Eothas, but once I had more appropriate gear (when I once again ran into the same type of enemies at Caed Nua) it really no longer mattered. The game should be littered with (various) immunities and all defences/vulnerabilities played up, especially the defences.

No.

Since we are on the topic, I want to add that Hiravias makes references to you being what you are before he's even experienced it. This was.. odd as hell. He joined us, I started talking to him, and he knows a lot of things he couldn't possibly reasonably know yet. I also experienced Pallegina referencing the thousand-yard-stare (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, you all know what I'm talking about) before she's even seen me doing it yet. That was also odd. Finally, I want to add that it's quite annoying that you cannot pick up Pallegina without starting Act II, while also having certain world states tied to the Acts. Had there been more CNPC:s and had those CNPC:s been spread out more evenly across the game and introduced at appropriate junctions, this would be less jarring, but as of now Pallegina appears to be the only one of the bunch.

That's just your assumption unless you can source it to a developer saying so. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66073-new-pc-gamer-interview-with-josh/ There's a little vindictive **** of a gnome inside of me that giggles every time someone rolls their eyes and asks for a source, and then someone slaps them with one. That said, though, Sawyer's using the same flawed reasoning as is being used in this thread. The Combat Only ability state was a bad idea from theory to practice, and while he talks about choices in combat, PoE in general is not reactive at all - the buffs you use are the same you're going to use the next battle, and the next, and so on and so forth. He also caps it off with the mention of choice, the choice to cast a buff instead of a fireball, or a lightning bolt. Which is one of the primary arguments that is being used in favour of abolishing the "Combat Only" state, and allow pre-buffing (along with solving a lot of related issues, not the last the discussion as to what constitutes a "buff" in the context of the game; Zealous Charge does, but not Zealous Focus; Faith & Conviction? Why? The Rogue's Invisbility Talent Ability? Why?). Which is the fact that when you choose to use a buff before the start of combat, you are expending a finite amount of time, effort, and a limited resource. To me, that's the very definition of a meaningful choice. Do I use this now, or later? Do I initiate combat with this, or that? Should I save X or Y until later? Will I need this effect now, and is it worth one of my offensive spells? And so on and so forth. Same tired argument that has been addressed twice. Just because the IE games (and the NWN games, because they're based largely on the same ruleset) did something bad, does not mean that this is bad in all games. To me, this is basically like saying that Arcanum had bad combat, so combat in games is bad. Or if you want to get more granular, Arcanum's turn-based system was questionable, so turn-based as a system is bad. Necromancy was a terrible school in BG2, so Necromancy was terrible in Mask of the Betrayer. No. Like Volourn says, most buffs last (I would say much) shorter than 1 minute (I have a hard time even thinking of one that is that long). So saying that you don't want to spend 2 minutes pre-buffing.. well, if you would spend 2 minutes (or even 1 minute, honestly) pre-buffing in PoE, you're an idiot and deserve to walk back to the inn in shame to rest and re-buy camping supplies every hour. And that's right now, today, before we've even considered rebalancing buffing based on the fact that you can pre-buff. If you would remove the restrictions this second, these arguments would be valid; now, if we instead assume this as a basic part of the system, and balance the spells with this in mind, what then?

It does, actually since it proves that pre-buffing is quite possible within the system, and not some sort of magically unsolvable programming problem. Well we already knew that. There's much more "obvious" buffs than this one. The "programming limitation" and the "Unity issue" was never true. Or maybe it was true at some point in the Alpha or the early Beta, and then just repeated ad infinitum, but either way it has no bearing on reality as it stands. Resting bonuses persists through savegames. Auras persists through savegames (hilariously, Zealous Charge is Combat Only, but not Zealous Focus, because apparently consistency is not a big thing in PoE), Food buffs persists through savegames, etc, etc, etc. Faith & Conviction being Combat Only is likely just a needless artifact from back when pretty much everything was Combat Only on principle. Now only some things are Combat Only because lolrandum ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and badwrongfun buffing.

You should make a bug report of that. It was requested already in the beta and submitted as an issue (practically a bug report, except it's not actually a bug). So.. yeah. The system being obtuse is by design. It is the same issue as damage and protection working in fractions yet only displaying a rounded number which can be incredibly deceptive because of modifiers. It is a known "issue" and "working as designed".