Luckmann

Should make IE "fireball opener" lovers happy then? I mean, massive front-loading before combat even starts is one of the most used cheese tactic in most IE games, usually on par with spam resting. Of course some bosses have crazy magic resistance but still. Cheesers gonna cheese no matter what and since this is a single player cRPG, doesn't affect me one bit (until some designer start putting in artificial limitations that is...I'm looking at you supplies!). Apart from trivial encounters which I can't interpret as anything other than intended to be trivial, I can't think of any encounters in the IE games that were (reliably) over before they began, especially not boss-fights, and especially not decided by a fireball.

THAT would be tactical - Slow Ogre with big hits, require you to micro your guys around so he has to turn around a lot or suffer b1g damage - makes you react to what he's doing I'm sure some people would hate that. I'm not sure if I would want it to require you to do that. I'm not saying it would be necessarily bad if it did, but I'm not sure I'd like it. But gaining a hefty advantage for doing so wouldn't just be interesting, but apt. And that's really want it comes down to for me. Learning tactics, getting better at it, working out what to do. Solving the puzzle as it changes. But by the definition that PoE appears to be using, that would no doubt be an exploit. Not because it breaks the game or trivializes an encounter, but because it even gives you an advantage. It is Sawyeran badwrongfun and you're playing it wrong-ness. Play it the right way, the exact right way and no other way, or you're playing it wrong and deserve to be punished, preferably by invisible instant attacks of undetermined origin. Oh god, I haven't seen this level of strawmanned indignation and windmill-fighting self-importance since that one guy with the wolf avatar that pretended to be a god or whatever.

Oh god, oh god. The sheer autism. It buuuuurns. But Sensuki. That would be an exploit. We cannot have exploits. You cannot possibly use game mechanics in unintended ways in order to win encounters. We better just remove all mechanics that can possibly result in emergent gameplay. That'll show those nasty exploiters. Next time they'll have to use a trainer to cheat. Mwahahahaha. Edit: Seriously thought, that'd actually be great. I'm not a fan of DotA/2 at all, but there's a surprising amount of things you can learn by looking for input in non-standard locations.

That's exactly what I meant with the mechanic actually discouraging from things like Fast Runner. Why move at all? You just don't want to move. Whether it's 5% faster or 10% faster or 30% faster, you don't want to move. You may want to move before or after (although it's doubtful) but mostly you just don't want to move. And if you're not moving, why the hell would you want Fast Runner (or like your example, Wild Sprint)? But this isn't a PnP-based or AD&D-based game. It's a real-time game built from the ground up to be a real-time game with pause. Which is also why it's so jaw-dropping that they wouldn't build it around that fact, and instead try to build it like some pseudo-turn-based thing, like shoehorning turn-based issues into the game that were never a problem (as in, them not being there did not present issues) to begin with. It's.. just.. if you're building a RTwP game, you should build a RTwP game, and try to make that the best possible RTwP game you can make. It's fundamentally backwards to build a real-time game with turn-based gameplay in mind unless you absolutely have to. And the IE games had to. The IE games were great, but that fact did create some oddities. But PoE? PoE doesn't have to. PoE had complete freedom to make a real-time game built to be nothing but a real-time game. By all counts, PoE should therefore be much better than the IE games, because the IE games were merely an interpretation of one thing superimposed upon a different format. But.. yeah. This.

I'm not sure if you're actually this dense, or if you're just trolling. And at this point I'm afraid to ask. However, I'd like to rephrase something. It's not useless. It's meaningless. Subtle but important difference. That's just it - it's NOT meaningless - it's an option that works and what is ridiculous is to keep telling people that your only options are full plate or naked when that is clearly not so! Except it is. Well, meaningful options, anyway. Everyone that's gone through the thread, a thread that wasn't even intended for discussing this specific issue (the thread on Defenses is better), knows this. There is zero incentive to use anything between the two extremes, and you've yet to come up with any other argument than "I like it". Throughout the entirety of two full threads, that remains your main argument against rebalancing the armour system or reworking the mechanics. And I don't think anyone can take that seriously. DR only really matters for characters built for defence, popularly known as tanks. Everyone is objectively better off supporting the tank by violently murdering the enemy before they can cause any further damage. And because tanks in general will be doing such abysmal damage in relation to the defences they gain, you will be objectively worse off for each tank beyond the first, or for every character not contributing towards damage to the best of their ability. The fact that you can make it through the game virtually any way you want, whether it's soloing, drinking the piss of Bear Grylls or dressed like the clown from IT, doesn't change this. Yes you can use the in-betweens. But why would you? Other than "I want to". And while "I want to" is a perfectly valid personal fashion statement, one should at least be honest enough and knowledgeable enough to realize that one is gimping oneself. And we're just saying that you shouldn't have to gimp yourself. The armour system should work in such a way as to promote the use of all armours by their own right. It's just math really. Multipliers are applied before DR calculation, so DR just doesn't scale proper because of it, which is exacerbated with crits. It's also just math that low DEF characters (usually your backliners) will get crit hit more often. As a note, doesn't matter if you play on easy, normal, hard, ACC/DEF values are the same. Easy just 1/2 all damage taken while normal reduces it to 75% of normal, afaik. You just have more (harder) mobs on hard is all. And don't get me wrong, I play with most armor options also and on Path of the Damned (where this problem is even more apparent, since mobs get +15 ACC so non tank get crit hit all the time), but I realize that it's far from optimal See? Mutonizer gets it. It's fine to play that way, no-one is saying it is badwrongfun. The game is playable. But the fundamental armour mechanics aren't good just because they don't set your house on fire and kill your dog. Wearing a medium armour won't make your teenage daughter pregnant with an african tribe or make her birth a redhead. But it's still a needless decision to gimp oneself, not to mention all those that will not be aware of these issues at all. Just because one can say (like Mutonizer and myself) that "Eh, I'll use it in spite of the issues", doesn't mean that there are no issues, or that those issues shouldn't be examined or recognized, and, if possible, fixed. If not now, then in the future.

Nothing. Ranged DPS is objectively better than Melee DPS and the only thing you want to have in armoured plate is the tank. Classes are balanced independent of the various mechanics in the game, which is great for build variety, but it also assumes that those various mechanics work well together. And.. they don't, really. So where one game would go with the assumption that Paladins will be wearing plate and therefore be gimped when doing damage (due to the pre-existing issues of the armour system itself), they could up the Paladin's damage to have him remain competitive despite his core concept, but PoE makes no such assumption about the Paladin, and he is free to wear anything from Clothes (which is not the same thing as robes, for unclear reasons) to Full Plate. I do not consider that in and of itself a flaw (I in fact consider one of the very best features of PoE) but it does mean that the mechanics, as it stands, is all kinds of messed up in relation to presented concepts and pretty basic assumptions. For example, in PoE, Barbarians does amazingly with Intellect, and if you want to play a damage-dealing Paladin (instead of a tank), you not only will do terribly with Resolve (which you'd otherwise assume to be a prime attribute for Paladins) but you will also be objectively better off dressed in regular clothes than in full plate. But there's threads flying around that can fill you in a lot on that, let's try to not derail this one.

The length of time it takes people to find something really doesn't matter at all. If I was stealing money from you for years but it was such a small amount it took you all that time before you realized does that mean anything at all? Of course not. There's a lot of godawful arguments going on in here and ad hominems. This "I didn't notice it argument" is not a reason to keep it. If anything it is a reason to get rid of it. It's not doing anything except slightly screwing players in a way they may not even notice.... Great mechanic? It's OK if I key your car as long as you don't notice. Right?

I'm not sure if you're actually this dense, or if you're just trolling. And at this point I'm afraid to ask. However, I'd like to rephrase something. It's not useless. It's meaningless. Subtle but important difference.

Well that explains that bug, at least. That's hilarious. And sad. But mostly hilarious.

Oh yeah, that's true. Either way, Fast Runner adds one movement point I think, the difference will almost always be next to nothing. You would most definitely not pick the ability to offset movement recovery slowing because the benefit you get from it is tiiiiiiny. The only time I've ever chosen Fast Runner was on the character I use to kite enemies when I have the rest with ranged off to the side. I think Naumtree uses it with his kiting chanter build too, either way - it's used to get away, not to offset this. It hurts the characters that make many small movements in combat the most. What they do doesn't really affect me - we are removing it. Simple as that. However I'm angered that this was not broached because these kind of things are a hot potato, they tried to sneak it by us without saying anything. Thinking about it, it actually dissuades you from taking Fast Runner (a Talent that is already not very good, in a Talent group you usually don't really want to spend talents in) simply because you're penalized when moving anyway. Even if the effect was small before, the effect from Fast Runner was at least constant, but now the effect of Fast Runner will only matter when you do something that will actively screw you. And as you say, it will hurt those that take many small movements in combat the most, and I'll argue that most movement in combat consists of small movements. The difference Fast Runner will do in regards to the slowed recovery rate when moving would be abysmal, to say the least. Pay $10 to hit him up in the echo chamber and you might get your reason.

Even if that were the case... The game is very punishing for anyone besides a tank to take damage. If your mage starts getting attacked it doesn't matter what armor he wears... he is going to have a bad time. For example, say your mage/rogue/whatever has ~75 health. The mobs in this game hit hard. Having a DR of 6/8/10 compared to 12 isn't going to do anything to keep you alive. You are far better off just doing as much damage as possible. Actually wouldn't that 6/8/12 be half as good as the 12 and twice as good as 0? And wouldn't the penalty also be less than it is at 12 and more than it is at 0? Oh wait I forgot this is the internet so everything has to either be either awesome or useless with no middle ground anywhere - sorry my bad... It's not that there is no middle ground. It's that the middle ground is useless. When you get struck reliably for 40 damage, it's not going to matter whether you have 6 or 12 DR. What is going to matter is whether you can kill the thing before it kills you or not, or at least do enough damage to it so your next team-mate up for the grinder doesn't die. Or the tank, for that matter. There it is again - awesome or useless - I've been playing the BB on hard for a lot of hours with a lot of different PCs + BB team + adventurer teams and have outfitted all of them in various forms of mostly medium armors (no naked adventuring and virtually no plate either) and I rarely have party wipes and while I might lose a team member or two in battle we win much more often than lose. I have also avoided almost all enchanting because I am more interested in what the basic weapons & armors are going to do and these partyies have for the most part done just fine. So I'm sorry but I just am not seeing the whole "useless" thing. And there it is again - I do X and I'm not instantly murderwiped so everything is clearly balanced. Like I said earlier, you can make it through the game any way you want. It doesn't mean that it's well-balanced or that there's good incentives for you to use X over Y. There is, again, no accounting for taste. But if that is the best argument you can come up with, I think that pretty much just highlights the issue for everyone else. As has been explained in detail, there is no reason to use the middle-ground. If you still do it, well great for you, huzzah, but let's not pretend that you did it due to any reasonable level of cognitive thought on your part. Let's not pretend that you did it because it's a good choice or that it makes sense. Most of us would prefer the game to have a semblance of balance and for our choices to matter, or be able to make choices in style without knowingly gimping ourselves or shooting ourselves in the foot. As of right now, anyone that knows the mechanics of the game lives with the knowledge that unless they go by this false choice, unless they go by this armour dichotomy, they'll be actively working against their character and the party. They will be playing at whatever difficulty +1. Now, many of us can live with this knowledge. Again, just because I see a flaw in the game and point at it, doesn't mean that I'll be min/maxing like some diehard tryhard come release. I have a very specific character in mind, and it's going to happen, whether this is fixed or not. But this doesn't have to be this way. It could be better and it should be better. A bad game mechanic or unbalanced content doesn't suddenly become good just because the computer's harddrive doesn't catch fire and the monitor explode the second you boot the game up. In a nutshell, if you do not adhere to the armour dichotomy as present in the game and you still succeed, and if you still do well, you are doing well in spite of your choices. Not because of them. To me that's like drinking the poison potions in D:OS and say that they're really good potions - no, just as good potions as all the others -, as evidenced by the fact that I still haven't wiped.

It reduces the tactical depth because it makes moving increasingly disadvantageous. And it's already incredibly disadvantageous, due to the current Engagement mechanics. The game is already 90% positioning before combat starts, and there's very little reactivity or adaptation going on. While I can understand the sentiment that "it's another variable to consider", that assumes that there will be situations where you will want to move. But in the current game, even without this, you really, really don't want to move. This just adds to that to really cement the static combat. In order for there to be a tradeoff, there first has to be something to trade. And there just isn't. You properly position yourself in Stealth, BLITZKRIEG, and then you lump all your melee and all the enemy melee together in a large, static, unmoving blob, and then you all stand there until the encounter is over or until you *have* to move (such as when all other opponents are dead and you're taking down the stragglers in the back). In the IE games, there were lots of movement going on, and you had to take decisions based on what happened, what the enemies did, "Oh crap they ran past me up and they're wailing on Imoen all of a sudden", and so on. That just doesn't happen in PoE. I'm not lauding the IE games for an amazing tactical depth here, I'm just using it as an example as something that was objectively better in this instance. You already depend so much on pre-battle positioning in PoE and you already have so little incentive to even consider moving. The combat is already incredibly static and the melee almost completely immobile. And there's already way too little reactivity. I think that Sensuki's frustration isn't necessarily with this one mechanic, but rather that it just detracts even further on tactical play, especially when taking the other pre-existing mechanics (which are already detracting from tactical depth in other or similar ways). I think it's flabbergasting that the IE games, a series actually molded after turn-based PnP, in many ways outclasses and outperforms a stand-alone title made, with it's rules custom-tailored, for the expressed purpose of playing in real-time. I'm not saying that the IE games were necessary better in all ways, when push comes to shove, but as you say, here we have something that has the chance to be entirely designed around the benefits of the style, having those potential benefits be thrown to the wind in order to make something play more like a turn-based game. It's very strange. I really like turn-based. I really do. Always have. But let's not pretend that there's not some really big wonkyness going on that can't be rectified with the turn-based format. And now there's a chance to make something that is actually reactive, tactical and strategical in ways turn-based just can't really do, and it's forced into a very odd mould. This decision is just bizarre. It's not the first decision that's bizarre and it's not the first decision to be bad, and many other decisions are at least explainable by "We didn't have time to make it right, maybe in a sequel or expansion". Honestly much of that is just life. But this decision is certainly the most bizarre that I've seen yet, I think.

My computer is bloody crashalicious and it's ancient by now, but I've had exactly zero crashes in the betas I've tried (the last three). It's entirely possible that it's an isolated problem with his rig and the game. Now, I'm not saying that it is, because I've had often been met with "Hurr my game works fine so it must be you" when I've gone to Support Boards and there's apparently people that played Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines without running into a single bug. I'm just saying that one guy saying that it crashes a lot on what essentially is a pre-release copy (why even do those things in this day and age, where development is on all the way up to release day, goddamn...) does not a pattern make. So cool your jets. I would be incredibly surprised if anyone that could run the beta just fine would suddenly have major issues with crashing, and I haven't heard anything about it being a major issue in the recent betas. To sum up that post; "It could be anything". But yeah, if we're taking bets, I'd say something that has something to do with optimization.

...I'm not sure how that's "about Dex", but yes, that is correct.

I really, really, really hope that Sawyer is taken off as lead for any expansion or sequel, and replaced with someone that actually wants to make a RTwP game. I've been a bit harsh in my critique of Sawyer before, for several reasons, but I think a lot of issues really just boil down to that he really wants to do a turn-based game, which he's very quick to mention at any given chance, and after playing Divinity: Original Sin, I'd love to see what can be done with a turn-based game of this or that style (I've always considered Jagged Alliance 2 the epitome of turn-based gameplay, but D:OS has a completely different approach that also works, while I have an incredibly low opinion of most other turn-based games, at least when it comes to that aspect of the gameplay). I think both we and Sawyer would all be a lot happier if he got to do a turn-based game and they got someone that wants to work with real-time tactical games to work on the Pillars series. Because this **** clearly isn't working out.

What is it with the war on dynamic combat in this game? I just don't see why Sawyer would think that it's a good idea to look down combat in every possible way. What is it that makes these mechanics fun to play with, or even realistic in the context of the game or universe? What is it that is interesting about a static, immobile battlefield where you are instantly penalized for making any tactical adjustments whatsoever? I'm just not seeing it.

I was personally very worried about allowing streaming before launch, but only because I didn't want the story to get spoiled for folks. The team has taken a lot of steps to reduce the number of spoilers that get out. But, times are a changin' and streaming before launch is where it's at now. We do have an embargo on streaming anything past getting your stronghold so that should preserve a good amount of the story. Man, I must say that I'm a big disappointed that the streams are allowed all the way up to the Stronghold, which according to Obsidian (that's you) is anywhere from 1/3 to 2/4 of the entire game, and that it's allowed so many days before the game is even released. It's going to be hard as all hell to dodge all of that, for anyone taking an interest in PoE but that may not want to be spoiled. And I think that accounts for most of the fans. It's only 3 days till release from the day streaming is allowed. One would hope someone who avoids spoilers would be capable of avoiding all Pillars of Eternity related websites. Eh. I sincerely doubt that. That's three full days where you can't even set foot anywhere related to PoE. For anyone frequenting this forum daily.. yeah, that's not necessarily that easy.

I was personally very worried about allowing streaming before launch, but only because I didn't want the story to get spoiled for folks. The team has taken a lot of steps to reduce the number of spoilers that get out. But, times are a changin' and streaming before launch is where it's at now. We do have an embargo on streaming anything past getting your stronghold so that should preserve a good amount of the story. Man, I must say that I'm a bit disappointed that the streams are allowed all the way up to the Stronghold, which according to Obsidian (that's you) is anywhere from 1/3 to 2/4 of the entire game, and that it's allowed so many days before the game is even released. I would have expected "the prologue" or something, but not that much. It's going to be hard as all hell to dodge all of that, for anyone taking an interest in PoE but that may not want to be spoiled. And I think that accounts for most of the fans.

Technically I backed the product before I came back to Obsidian. So, yeah! I may be biased. But only maybe.

I don't think it's "excitement" as much as it "Hahaha, oh wow, look at those heads, that's hilarious". While indeed hilarious, I don't think many will actually play with it.

Even if that were the case... The game is very punishing for anyone besides a tank to take damage. If your mage starts getting attacked it doesn't matter what armor he wears... he is going to have a bad time. For example, say your mage/rogue/whatever has ~75 health. The mobs in this game hit hard. Having a DR of 6/8/10 compared to 12 isn't going to do anything to keep you alive. You are far better off just doing as much damage as possible. Actually wouldn't that 6/8/12 be half as good as the 12 and twice as good as 0? And wouldn't the penalty also be less than it is at 12 and more than it is at 0? Oh wait I forgot this is the internet so everything has to either be either awesome or useless with no middle ground anywhere - sorry my bad... It's not that there is no middle ground. It's that the middle ground is useless. When you get struck reliably for 40 damage, it's not going to matter whether you have 6 or 12 DR. What is going to matter is whether you can kill the thing before it kills you or not, or at least do enough damage to it so your next team-mate up for the grinder doesn't die. Or the tank, for that matter.

So there is also a ranger talent called Fast Aim which reduces reload time by 50% if you combine that with Gunner you've got a reload time reduction of 70% plus a faster attack rate. Man, I might have to port that Talent over to another class. Not a fan of the Ranger, but playing a gunman with 20 Dexterity, Fast Aim and Gunner is looking pretty appealing.

I was honestly shocked when I tried to theorycraft a half-orc pugilist together using Pathfinder. The idea was that I wanted to fight like a monk using gauntlets while dressed in armour. Not necessarily using the base Monk class, mind you, but still. I could not find a way to do that. Like. At all. It felt weird as hell, because I knew that 3.5 had this odd discrepancy between Unarmed and Armed and Natural Weapons and I thought that'd be a thing Pathfinder would fix. But nope, still the same deal. All of my whats in the world.

I really, really, honest-to-god, have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Thanks for bringing up the exploit of Algernon's cloak to prove my point about how people only cared to the extent they used it to get crazy crap off NPCs. And then the PS:T quest based uses which PoE can still have as I have pointed out multiple times now. You don't need a pickpocket skill to have opportunities to steal in the game. That's what is perhaps getting lost in the knee jerk reactions. Like in PS:T you didn't need a break necks skill to kill some Dustmen. If it turns out there will be no opportunities via quests/dialogues etc. for larceny then that is a valid complaint I can get behind. Core: a basic, essential or enduring part (as of an individual, a class or an entity) Now you're probably going to say it was a basic part of the rogue class and that is fair enough but I never said it wasn't a big part of the rogue shtick. I said as a whole free, roam pickpocketing was not an essential part of the IE games. I would consider the rogue experience to be a core part of the IE games.