Grand_Commander13

But that's Diablo 3. It's kind of like an MMO, in that you're expected to enjoy grinding through battle after battle so your character will get stronger and get better gear to fight stronger enemies. This is Pillars of Eternity, where the story and companions are the big draw. Just because it retains the concepts of loot and level doesn't mean they're anywhere near as central to the player's enjoyment of the game.

Actually, Poster B would probably be more like "Because it's fun? Because it's in the way of somewhere you want to be? Or, if you absolutely must be incentivized to play the game, loot." I think the problem is that you look at people who think they're talking to small children and act like they're explaining why they intend to play the game.

... First off, whether or not the best loot is in the shops, there's still loot. Oddly enough, loot that can be converted into currency and then used at the shops (unlike experience points). Second, I'm pretty sure the people who say kill XP isn't crucial to the game aren't going to be advocating grinding enemies anyway; they view combat as a natural consequence of exploration, which you do because you want a sense of having completed everything. If you think that the loot isn't good enough to really give a sense that it was worth it, that is way easier to fix than rebalancing the experience point gain to allow for kill XP.

I've suggested it before. It sounds like a joke, but I mean it: give decent kill XP for enemies, but take it out of future quest XP rewards. It's just so much easier to do that than go back and calculate how much XP each area is worth in each difficulty level, and necessarily dropping XP awards in higher difficulties so the player doesn't reach a higher level due to all of the extra enemies. Really though, I don't understand why the kill XP crowd feels the game needs kill XP. I'll admit that it makes the game more compelling, but it doesn't make it more fun. It's like the difference between Saints Row 3 and Bully: Saints Row 3 has this constant tick of money every fifteen minutes and the territorial control aspect egging you on to complete it to see that glorious 100%. I'm playing more of it per day than I did of Bully, where I only did missions because they were fun and not because I needed the money, but once I finish it I won't be replaying it again in a hurry: I am compelled, but not entertained. It's the same principle you see in an MMORPG. Saints Row 3 is, to its credit, at least short enough that I'll finish it before the boredom sets in, unlike the indefinite-length MMO. Sure, kill XP might encourage you to play more hours of Pillars of Eternity per day, but unless you're in the target audience for MMORPGs (and I'm going to assume that most here are not) it's not going to have any impact on how much you enjoy the game. You'll replay the game the same amount of times you otherwise would, because the mechanics and the story are what cause you to replay a game. Unless you're assuming that Pillars of Eternity is going to be a mediocre offering that needs to use psychological techniques to make finishing it even once bearable. If that's the case, I'm going to be super-disappointed no matter what, so let's all hope that the kill XP debate is moot.

So the system is broken because the numbers are off. That's what you're saying? Because I'll agree that the per-attribute-point numbers would probably be closer to what they should be if they were doubled (and the bases lowered to compensate), but you seem to be saying that this means that the attribute system is rotten from the core out, rather than being improperly balanced.

You realize that a system that asks you to make yourself bad at the things you'll never do to be good at the things you'll always do isn't particularly cognitively demanding either, right?

A player should never have to tie their hands behind their back to be challenged by the game; that is to say that if resting is spammable, then the game should be balanced on the assumption that you're resting after each fight, and you may as well remove the rest button entirely and simply make health and spells come back after each encounter. I get really annoyed by the people on the Crusader Kings 2 boards who basically, when people say that such-and-such a thing is too strong and makes the game easy, say "well play the game less efficiently, then". Play a strategy game less efficiently if it's too easy for you.

I wonder, how many of the people who are asking for preserving verisimilitude by keeping arrow stacks would also be in favor of archers not being able to shoot past characters (i.e. they can't shoot past the tank line)? Certainly none of them are asking for dual-wielding to be as useless in PoE as it is in real life. Again, this seems to be more of a "I was promised that this would be Baldur's Gate 3" issue, when no such promise was made. They certainly made promises based on what made the old Infinity Engine games fun, but not that the mechanics would be perfectly copied; yet people cannot seem to wait to find fault with the mechanics whenever they are changed in even the smallest way from AD&D and the games based on it.

Well, it's still a money issue: if PoE releases before Obsidian is satisfied with it, it will be because they ran out of cash. It's just that there's no hypothetical publisher for them to go to and say "three more months and we can release a much better product" and be rebuffed by. They don't have that kind of an agreement with Paradox, so they have to come up with the money on their own.

Based on what? Based on the fact that it's what he wants, and therefore his opinion must be in the majority. It's the same reason that people think that everyone will leave in droves if kill XP isn't added, or if D&D stats and the class dependencies on those stats aren't implemented.

Double what they have now would basically be the minimum required. Even four times as much would only give them decent variety. They would need hundreds of portraits for a decently varied selection.

Sounds to me like still another attempt to mandate that mages all be very smart. This isn't Dungeons and Dragons: the game doesn't have to base every little thing on it.

... How is this any better an idea than making so that Intellect drastically increases the duration and area of effect of spells, so a control mage would be more interested in Intellect than Might? In fact, how does this help? It sounds like it's just an attempt to shoehorn in the requirement that mages be smart, without the setting or the system actually requiring it to be so.

What was the original plan with crafting, and how does the current plan differ?

I don't know what's worse: the fact that you think Wizard Slayer was designed to be bad on purpose, or the fact that you applaud them for doing it. Seriously, if you want hardcore challenges, there are three built into the game and you can be as hardcore as you want with mods.

I shooed the Codex crowd a long time ago, when I was following Age of Decadence's development with great interest. The Codex has a very particular opinion of what makes a game good, and an incredibly confrontational attitude that comes with being sure that their opinion is the only valid one.

Hey, has anyone seen the goal posts? I thought they were right here, but someone seems to have moved them.

The people at RPG Codex hate it because they're haters. I mean, look at roshan: he's acting like it's a bad thing for someone designing a game experience to see what players actually do. Imagine that: seeing if the game you've designed does what you want it to.

Today I learned that niche protection is the same thing as diversity. Mind = Blown

Yes, the fact that each class has a lot of abilities that only they can use is imaginary. Someone call Keanu Reeves: he'll know what to do.

I think the casts-per-rest would be better on Resolve. Intelligence is already pretty good, but Resolve is still defensive-only and needs some love.

Good grief will this never end? If you want XP on kills so much, why doesn't Obsidian just give each enemy a kill XP value, then the game quietly deducts the amount of kill XP you've received from future quest XP?

Well I just used the ranger as an example... Healing powers don't appear to be super-duper common.

Giving healing done to other characters to Resolve only helps if healing other characters is something every class might do. Since it probably isn't too likely that your ranger is going to be healing someone, how does this make Resolve any more appealing for a ranger? All it's doing is saying "Mage = Might; Priest = Resolve" rather than "Big spell effects = Might; Big spell durations = Intelligence". You need each attribute to have something that each class might want, not to be specific to a particular class.

You'll be back.