Sabotin

Game mechanics wise, I'd like to see more synergy in the abilities of a class. Replaying BG2 again I am reminded how fun it is to use various combinations of spells that elevate them beyond the sum of their parts. In addition higher level spells are not always replacements, but can often enhance lower level ones to be relevant in higher level play despite their innate weakness.

The removal of FF is potentialy disappointing. It's fun when you have some really strong AoE that's situational because of FF and you're setting up good situations with your team to take advantage. Just because the majority of used skills is party friendly doesn't mean that hostile skills have no place.

Codex getting the scoops even before the news outlets post them xD. So far I'm kinda tentative about the game. I guess the demo was more of a culmination of past choices and will also have further consequences for the story? The combat looks slower than PoE, but still with active skill spam. Writing I can't really judge, though the conversation options don't seem many and the "two anus" joke made me facepalm really hard. So from the gameplay: Battles are smaller (on purpose or cause of the engine?) Abilities are on cooldown instead of per encounter/per rest (think I saw 20ish to 40ish s reuse). Combo abilities are per encounter. No stamina, just health (which regenerates after combat) (Why have rest then?) Abilities seem to do % of weapon damage. (Spells seem to have static damage and healing is always % based) Abilities can be upgraded. Health pots are instant and ignore recovery. Not sure if they're just renamed but there's dodge and parry stats? There's stances which give you passive +/- stats (one was +accuracy and a boost to certain abilities, another one was trading parry/dodge for attack speed and increasing damage dealt as you take damage) Engagement still present or are those arrows just to see who's targeting what? One of the combo abilities is a taunt which forces target, so maybe there's aggro mechanics? Stuff upgrades both when you use it and through conversation. Seems there's hyperlinks in conversations? Not sure if it's a specific companion thing or just general abilities, but that unarmed old guy is holding a quill (and there's even an ability where he throws it)... In general the design has me kinda worried, it reminds me of how DA:O->DA2 went with stylisation.

I'd like a tighter story. Replaying MotB it reminded me how the themes explored should permeate the world and connect it to your personal story. The "big reveal" at the end of PoE seemed kinda flat and unrelated. I enjoyed the conversations with Myrkul and The Founder much more than with Iovara. And I'd also like for the story to be more connected with the gameplay. For example in PS:T your character is built through the story and your deeds as much as through XP. While it need not be present to THAT extent, I do miss the narrative "excuses" for gameplay mechanics that were for example in KOTOR2.

On the other hand I find it bothering that there's many references and modernisms in the game. I was even expecting people to be upset about it like for siege of dragonspear. Overall the expansion was quite enjoyable though, I liked the lower amount of "random stuff" on the map, too. Still I think I prefer hearts of stone, though I'd be hard pressed to point at something as the reason why.

I quite enjoyed the game. I think they struck a nice balance between various rpg aspects. The main themes and story line are present throughout the game, with the side quests not being too far detached. It's grounded enough not to feel like some silly fan fiction, but in keeping with the lighter tone of the world from the BG series. The companions seemed better integrated than in BG1, so more BG2 style conversations happen. They've also added some optional companion meddling in certain quest resolutions which I think is a nice touch. Items seemed prety diverse and interesting with some new effects. Encounters depend on the difficulty, like in PoE, but I can say they are usualy larger in scope than BG1, i.e. more enemies. Graphically I'd prefer the more pixellated, but sharper pictures of the originals. From the screenshots I was expecting the black borders on sprites to bother me, but it turned out not to be a big deal, specialy on the darker backgrounds. I did notice some attention to detail, like dust clouds on dry terrain or fog in damp areas. QoL changes, like the UI or auto search for traps felt more modern, though like everyone else I do have my pet peeve - the neon colored XP bar in the character window looks pretty bad. Bugs I have encountered were... two? The final video didn't fire the first time. And Rasaad refused to auto attack on the "Advanced AI" script.

The whole premise makes me kinda sceptical. Obiously it depends on how exactly the things are gonna work, but on paper it reminds me of a BioWare style binary reputation system. I also wonder how they will portrait people living under an opressive regime. It could be very complicated, but it could also be very romanticised. I'm hoping for lots of depth and exploration there.

Animal companions have 5 DR bypass on their own. It was mentioned as one of the ranger boosts on the somethingawful forum by Sawyer.

Not sure if this counts but I don't use any kind of limited use consumables. Also I only enchant named gear.

I've always thought the minimum damage is the (MIN) you do sometimes due to DR on the target.

Is it by design that it affects radius and not the actual area? E.g. 19 Int gives a "+54% Area of Effect" but in reality a circular AoE has a 54% larger radius, thus increasing the area itself by 137%.

This seems a weird change. Did anyone test out focus gain for any secret buffs to that?

What if Eothas is actually Woedica? The queen got exiled and depowered by Magran, but the god of rebirth was born from it. Since the plan to conquer the Dyrwood didn't work, the Leaden Key had to use a different plan to gather the souls.

Oh you reminded me, I'd also like to see some scaling effects on crowd controls, for example stun on hit/crit, daze on graze and so on.

Everyone has their 2c about the game mechanics, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to share my brainstorms and pet peeves: Weapons: I think they could use some standardization and changes to their extra properties. Certain weapons just seem objectively better than others. - Stilettos and Estocs, 1 less dr penetration, so you have a nice 2,3,4 progression. I think these 2 weapons stand out from their counterparts. - Daggers changed to have dual damage, like swords and greatswords. Seems to fit. - Sabres changed to standard damage and given +5 accuracy, half taking the role of daggers. - Axes (Hatchets, Battle Axes, Pollaxes) changed to have their own thing; An increased max damage of 2, 3 or 4 damage. Taking the role of sabres in a more tame way. The idea is to have the more high might/damage oriented classes use them, particualrly barbarians, since they'd just fit the stereotype. Currently the battle axe seems a bit inferior due to the effect coming in play only at high accuracies and even then they are outshined by sabres with their high damage. - Clubs and Quarterstaves would take on the deflection bonus of 5 and 6. I could see these weapons being used for defense more easily than others. My country even has a legend how a guy defeated some great warrior with a soft wooden club used as defense, maybe the idea is from there, hehe. The staff would I think fit to someone that would want to combine the high damage of 2h weapons and the def bonus of a shield, namely the monk. - Firearms. Instead of having an innate dr reduction, how about differentiating them by having them target reflex instead of deflection. It wouldn't really affect tanks since they have s&s style and you also wouldn't need special effects for arcane veils and the like to exclude firearms. - Ranged weapons. I think they should carry some penalty for melee use. It could have something like -10 def/acc and +10 acc vs distant targets, to cancel the penalty out against ranged targets? - Spears and Pikes. Why not give them both reach? Reach could also be changed to be more interesting. The engagement circle would become an engagement ring, so that melee attackers are not ingaged. But his would also means free disengagements attacks, both as a defense and offense. Maybe give them a deflection penalty to offset the op of free attacks. Spear and shield would then be an interesting combination. - Shields could automaticaly give def/ref, without the talent. The latter could be buffed with something like "lowers min dmg to 10% from 20%". My interest with this would be to make more defensive party compositions better, or at least make it less of an investment. - Implements could have some increased ability accuracy (+5?) innate instead of dual damage type. Classes: Fighter Could use some more flexibility in their roles. I'd look at the "mode" abilities/talents and offer upgrades to them for the fighter. They'd also be mutualy exclusive, so you can only have one of them up at a time. - Savage Attack upgrade would increase attack speed (10%). Just something standard here, the talent is good on its own already. - Vulnerable Attack upgrade would increase accuracy/deflection(+7) against targets you are currently engaging. An attempt at encouraging duelist type fighters - Wary Defender. Instead of a bonus to defenses, enemies engaged are distracted, thus "mostly" unable to engage others. I think this would help a lot with the tanking aspect, providing a somewhat free escape for the squishies. A somewhat-but-not-really aggro holding if you will. - Guardian. I'd make it scale somewhat. Affected allies would instead of a flat 10 get that or half the fighter's shield bonus, whichever is higher. Boosting the ability to hold a front line, without everyone being a tank. - Critical defence should instead just plainly lower critical hits by 12%, so it's a 1.33 bonus instead of 1.5. A fit to those triggers-on-crit builds. Ranger - Marked prey would give dr penetration for the ranger and pet, something high, like 10. Taking a page from the rogue book, to be able to eliminate key targets quickly. Plus it favors bows over other ranged weapons. - Defensive bond/Arrow sense merged. The ranger and companion gain +15 to all defenses when they're next to eachother instead of against AoE/Ranged attacks. A survivability option that's a bit more in control of the player and not enemy ai. Barbarian - Some cool frenzy upgrades are missing. How about one that increases carnage AoE(30%) or one that increaseds DR(4). - Vengeful defeat should just trigger at maybe 10% stamina instead of unconcious. It would encourage higher health and micromanaging of said health for maximum vengeance. I think it's silly that an offensive ability has such a narrow use. Or maybe have that as an upgrade. Rogue - Reckless assault bugs me, because it's just a buff. Why not have it increase damage but disable sneak attacking/deathblows. And have it not stack with other types of toggles, so it's not an auto pick. - Rogues have a bunch of blows/stabs with different effects. How about having them share a resource pool, so that's it's not about always mashing everything possible every batle. Similar to a wizards in playstyle but with per encounter stuff. The idea is that rogues adapt their skill use to what debuffs enemies already have, putting some thought into getting 2 things on for deathblows for example. - Backstab should honestly also trigger against blind or paralized enemies. I realise it combos well with shadowing beyond, but I think it could use some extra use beyond that twice per rest. - Riposte. Have it always trigger the attack on a miss. Rogues generaly don't get missed that often for 20% to be viable. Or if they are they're foregoing a lot of offense for it. Paladin - Some either/or ability would fit I think. For example an abiltiy that would shorten exhortations duration by half but make them have a small aoe. Monk - Mortification of the soul. Change it to be a mode where the monk just takes some raw damage(4?) every attack he makes. It can give something in return, like an accuracy bonus or even DR, to improve a bit the stereotypical naked monks perhaps. Chanter - Make the chants infinite and cap how many the chanter can have up at a time based on level. Using a shout resets the chants. So you have a build-your-own-buff thing going where you're in control of when the buffs are applied beforehand, instead of just having either 1-2 on all the time or be dependant on luck/meta knowledge that the right chant will be up at the right time. This way you can also decide if it's worth using a shout or keeping the buffs up instead. Cipher - Give some kind of bonus for having full focus. For example at full focus the next ability cast has +15 accuracy. This would encourage some delay before unloading everything, rather than restrict alpha strikes. Wizard - Metamagic would be a cool addition. Implemented via a per rest buff that increases the effect of the next spell cast. Thus you trade casting time with increased spell power. Priests and Druids I haven't really player experimented that much with, but from what I hear they're pretty good anyway xD . Other stuff - Defense talents could also use some extra -1s or something duration for those afflictions they're supposed to increase resistance to. - Interrupting blows. Change it to a toggle that in exchange for reduced attack speed calls interrupts on enganged targets when they try to use an ability. To automate a bit the micromangaging, thus making interrupts more attractive. - Lengthen the attack animations and shorten the recovery time. Lower movement speed of most stuff. Combat is too fast both in attack speed and movement speed sense. - The miss/graze/hit/crit would I think work better in a nonlinear progression. Or at the least the ranges should be different. I find the game more enjoyable with PotD stat increases, at least in the early game. - Make paralyse/petrify interrupt an action instead of pausing it. It makes for some glitchy behavior when attacks resolve when the target has already moved away etc. - Engagement. Make it slow run speed and only trigger disengagement attacks on actualy leaving the engagement area. - The innate ability accuracy bonus based on level. This should be removed or differently implemented. For spellcasters I'd put a cap on it based on spell level. So the accuracy bonus would be equal to character level, but not higher than twice the spell level being cast. This would nerf a bit the low level spells at higher level of play, hopefuly leading to less spam of lower level spells over using higher level ones. For the martial classes I think the accuracy bonus could be implemented as a flat bonus on the skills themselves, like casters have on their spells. I reserve the right to add more stuff later or change my mind at any time :D .