Valorian

Love is so popular! These threads reach abnormal lengths everywhere. And I just lost my Obsiromance-thread virginity too. <3

Corrected for you. I want to have that capability; you don't have to use it. If you're unable to do it yourself, that's a good thing to have, I agree. More power to ya and the AI! Perhaps you should also ask for a feature that enables AI to neatly prioritize targets instead of you, after calculating the threat order.

There are a few things that make swapping less required: 1) Combat/fighting style talents. If you specialize in dual-wielding you likely won't swap between DW and a two-handed weapon. Unfortunately, combat style talents are not implemented (yet). 2) Nontrivial penalty for changing weapons in combat. 3) Weapon specializations to an extent. I don't think that AI should take care of our tactical decisions, rjshae.

You don't understand, Sensuki. It is v-e-r-y simple. There's no need to dump all damage into one attribute and all accuracy in another to make a balanced system without dump attributes. "Because it's IE/D&D-like" is clearly not the guiding light of PoE's combat mechanics and that's all right. On the contrary, I think that concentration is more useful for classes that are supposed to be in the front, basically classes that are most exposed to hits. You'll keep your casters in the back, right? You can interrupt with spells.

Actually I think that no dump stats is the main reason. The way Josh is doing the 'balancing' is (in his own words) limiting the number of inputs into a system. That's like saying that the main reason you don't watch TV is to not have bad teeth. You can watch TV and have good teeth. Differentiating inputs is not the same thing as overloading a stat with inputs. I like the interrupt thing. I also kind of support deflection being taken away from attributes. As much as I like putting almost everything into AC/deflection via attributes, I'm aware that it can screw attribute balance if there's such an option. I was talking specifically about pre-enchanted weapons found in the world. Players enchanting items is another thing. You can enchant your burning dagger (13-20 slash damage + 2-4 burn damage) with +20% corrode damage (and +X-Y corrode damage would be added, like in the example). I don't see a problem.

Oh. It doesn't seem to me that there's anything about PoE's combat mechanics that's difficult, or time consuming, to understand. Every mechanical detail (that's been discussed so far) is available on the wiki. Of course, I don't think it's outrageous to ask for a detailed manual. That's always cool. The weapons/armor thing is fine, more or less, now that's gone through two iterations. It'll be really valuable to swap your damage type sometimes (to benefit from the 40% vulnerability, e.g.) and I don't think weapon specializations (+15% damage) have enough impact to make the player not swap. Yes yes, specializations cover all damage types. What I'd like to see is a nontrivial cost/penalty for swapping weapons in combat, so that swapping isn't simply a no-brainer. They, sometimes, even go out of their way to make combat-related stuff easy to grasp with strict categorizations, I think. An example is attributes. I asked myself... why would they make all damage be affected by 1 attribute and all types of accuracy also by 1 attribute? The answer isn't "no dump stats", because I'm sure they're smart and know that this type of categorization isn't necessary to achieve the "no dump stats" goal. Also, people, 'coz soulpower' could be used to answer everything, but it really isn't a good answer. The answer is: to not confuse players, especially those who don't bother to read the basic rules. Let's say player Maria wants her wizard to deal massive damage, she quickly scans over attribute descriptions wanting to immerse herself in the story as fast as possible, and sees the word "damage" next to Might/Strength so she pumps it. She, sadly, didn't read that it doesn't affect damage with spells. Of course, might would be beneficial for her wizard in other ways, but she's sad nonetheless. Perhaps they want to avoid this? Josh basically asked me why would they want to differentiate it. A: For the same reason they differentiated reflexes and fortitude. Another example is the excessive use of percentages. Now let's analyze where it's needed and where it isn't: Might: fine. If it was a flat number, fast weapons would benefit from it disproportionately more. Sneak attacks: iffy. I don't think it would be wrong to let this one class gravitate more towards light/fast weapons. If a non-percentage sneak attack damage bonus isn't abnormally high, there would still be instances where the rogue would benefit from switching to a heavy two-handed weapon with massive damage to overcome an exceptionally high DT. Some enemies are harder to land sneak attacks on, too. Also, I don't advocate categories of enemies with sneak attack immunity, but it would be nice if there are enemies who are resistant to sneak attacks (suffering, say, only half the bonus damage). Weapon bonus elemental damage as percentage: not needed. If you find a weapon in the world, why would this bonus damage be expressed as a percentage? There's no reason. I like most of the stuff that I've read about combat mechanics, but there's room for improvement.

Hmm... interesting. I didn't know this. So... 1 talent every 3 levels? That's it? So with an exp cap of 12th level, we'll only be able to choose 4 talents. Ok, unless these talents are super powerful, I don't quite see how a player can use them to make their characters much different from their base class roles. Yes, only 5 talents total I think (without the quest talents); 1st 3rd 6th lvl etc. If they insist on maintaining the absolute dominance of abilities, I'd much rather they weaken talents a bit and let us pick one every other level. It's better because it would allow many more combinations. Another quote. Josh (17 September 2013): "You also gain Talents at about 1/3 the rate that you gain Abilities, so they comprise much less of your character's makeup." @forgottenlor I quoted J.E. Sawyer and commented the quote.

One point in dexterity increases accuracy by 2 and the reflex defense. Five points in accuracy is the equivalent of +1 AB in D&D.

Here's what we know about talents: Josh (21 January 2013): "Talents are our equivalent of feats. In addition to gaining them through leveling (currently every three levels), you can also gain talents (often unique) from quests and story/NPC interactions." I don't know if it's still only 1 talent every 3 levels, but I'd prefer to be able to pick talents more often than that. Abilities are class specific, gained every level, and I don't know if we'll be allowed to select any (apart from spells perhaps).

I disagree. It's neat that some classes, like fighters and barbarians, are predominantly made of passive abilities. After all, you can have up to 6 characters in your party and that's a lot of micromanaging. Yes, I think that most people tend to have a (strong) preference for one of the four fighting styles and having talents to support this choice would be a good thing. Frankly, it seems a bit odd to me that other optional talents have pushed fighting styles into 'if there's time' territory. Regarding shields. In most party-based rpgs, a substantial bonus to defense for your front-liner is invaluable. While, and if, this one character holds the line, you can attack your opponents with 5 other people. For this reason, not giving giant bonuses to shields (like + 5 AC / +25 deflection) would be preferable, IMO.

We do not currently have "style" specializations, but it's something we'd like to do if there's time. If so, it would be implemented as a Talent that a variety of characters could take. Shields don't inherently have special abilities beyond boosting the wielder's Deflection and slowing their overall weapon attack rate. Oh, too bad. I hope there's time to implement it. Fighting style talents are great and I thought that was in. http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/60414213542/with-different-damage-types-and-weapon-specialisation If it's 1 talent per 3 levels (not counting quest talents etc.), I want them to be awesome™.

Yes, but 1000 is so below your potential. Please, make it 2000 and send it via PM for approval.

It all boils down to the fact that (many/most?) players today seek instant gratification and have also developed an immunity to logical re/actions. They expect the world to be connected to their level with an umbilical cord. If this cord ever gets detached for a moment, a temper tantrum ensues. This encounter is too hard? I quit! Too easy? I quit! Fortunately, they have a variety of tools at their disposal to alleviate 'too hard' and 'too easy' syndromes. A few simple solutions: Too easy? Adjust the difficulty. Roleplay like you actually care about defeating the BIG BAD in a timely manner and don't rest every time you kill a bunch of rats. Roleplay an asocial person and have less than 5 people traveling with you. Limit the number of times you're allowed to reload. Too hard? Adjust the difficulty. Try a different path. Explore. Some of you will probably need to use the cheat console. But don't worry, nobody will scold you for it, it's a single player game. *** Also. "But then it isn't optional!" I prefer to call it side content. Ignoring ALL of it is not necessarily an option (because perhaps you also need to practice your combat skills somewhere other than the crit-path), but it is detached from the main story. It's entirely possible that your character cares more about a particular side story than the whole critical plot. Side content injects life into a game, that's why I rarely choose to ignore it. I just want it to be non-linear.

Would you like all weapons to have an in-built disengagement capability? All ranged weapons? Just firearms? Do you think they'd need to adjust damage and attack speed accordingly? Do you think it would strongly favor this category of weapons, regardless? Would you like to be able to smack an enemy with your firearm more than once per combat encounter? Do you think it devalues class abilities that do the same thing? Please elaborate. :grins and peeks into Lephysland:

Why would there be? Breaking melee engagement is covered by class abilities (and possibly talents). Many classes already have this ability, and I see no reason to buff a (already powerful) category of weapons with this valuable ability.

Not if it uses the same encounter scaling system for both, which is what Infinitron is referring to. I would say it's more of an issue for players playing on Hard than anything else. People who play on easy just want to relax and aren't really concerned with challenge. People who play on normal just want the standard game difficulty and People who play on Hard want a challenge. Crit path encounters not taking into account side content should be a feature of normal difficulty and Hard should at least assume that a fair amount of side content has been done IMO. I know what he's referring to. I was pointing out the difference between what activates the scaling, not the result.

We all already know you want everything to be "easy", that's why you are so opposed to any kind of scaling for game to be more challenging. But your ineptness aside, there have to be a way to play a game on any difficulty and the game to maintain the challenge for both completionists and story line only players. Crit-path scaling encounters is the way to do it. The absence of level scaling makes everything easy... you got it. Your demand to absolutely be able to ram through the critical path on any difficulty level, without ever touching optional content, was duly noted and passed along to the closest waste container.

No sweety, a specific emptiness doesn't let you figure out how changing the difficulty setting is not resolving the issue of being unable to pass a certain encounters at main story line without leveling up on OPTIONAL content. I entirely support your desire to be able to ram through the main story on 'easy', regardless of your specific emptiness.

It's basically the same thing in that the encounters are scaled in the same way; by removing or adding enemies, not by decreasing or increasing the power level of individual enemies. Encounter scaling, not level scaling: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60889-level-scaling-dont-scale-individual-enemies-scale-encounters/ I'm aware of the effects of changing the difficulty in PoE. However, scaling encounters based on your level and scaling enc. based on a difficulty slider is not "basically the same thing". In fact, these are very different things.

LOL! "Are you underleveled? Change difficulty setting!" I suppose a specific emptiness doesn't let you figure out how turning down the difficulty makes encounters easier, even if you're "underleveled". It's funny that you say that, because in Pillars of Eternity, turning the difficulty down and scaling the encounters down is basically the same thing. So one of way solving the problem without having to design additional encounters ala BG2 would be to force the easier version of the encounter on people who are under-levelled. Oh, it's not basically the same thing. You working on a site that has "doesn't scale to your level" as its slogan, I had assumed you understand the difference between changing encounters with a difficulty slider and changing encounters with your level.

In other words, minimize the rewards for people who take the time to do everything. No thanks. There's already a level cap. They should just design end-game battles to be challenging for those who've reached the cap, and very difficult for those who haven't. And that's it. No need to scale anything. and screw the non-completionists. Why would they be screwed if the possibility to turn down difficulty exists? I expect 'easy' to be relatively easy even for "non-completionists".

Of course not.

Don't do EA.

Your hypothesis is wrong. I wouldn't mind putting dwarves and elves "upside down"; changing their lore, names and appearance.. and I don't like (widespread) firearms in a fantasy setting, even if their inclusion is meant to denote technical progress. I usually don't enjoy a setting where mostly everything is put upside down for the sake of making everything yunik&speshul. Thankfully, PoE doesn't do that. Then again, "general conservatism in taste regarding fantasy" is such an absurdly broad classification.

Beautiful as usual. I'm trying to avoid looking at all the maps, models and other visual stuff too much, but it's not easy. I'd like everything to be a surprise when I finally play this game (well, except the systems and combat mechanics).