Ink Blot

I'd like to see talents that don't focus on combat. How about something like a 'beguiler' that gives you a bonus in convo checks to persuade someone to do something/give info/accept a bribe, etc. Or Dungeoneering, which would give you a bonus at spotting a different way to get over an obstacle/avoid an encounter, or a bonus to spotting hidden doors/traps/loot in dungeons. Or a talent that helps you in caves or wilderness areas. Or a 'whisperer' talent that lets you peacefully bypass wild animals instead of having to slaughter them. Anything to help you create a character that isn't just focused on being a more efficient killer. Hell, with the way the game's set up with regards to gaining XP, let's look at talents/spells/abilities that allow you to solve quests without combat.

Ah, that's probably what it is. Yes, very poorly worded, but now that you pointed it out, this seems obvious.

Couple ways: WARNING SPOILERS for those that don't want to know. 1) You can go across the bridge using a grappling hook. At some point you'll find a key that will open a number of locks down there. 2) You can go to the tanner's and if you go into Stealth/Search mode, you can find a key that will unlock the door behind him (he'll go hostile though). Then you can go down the ladder and follow the pathway around until you find they key mentioned above and then continue on.

Upload the folder to a file hosting site such as upload.ee and post the link here for Obs to grab it.

Tagged as 'Area', although I don't think it's a good fit. Anyway... [DESCRIPTION] Upon going through an area transition, there are a number of times where the party will be facing the 'wrong' way, in that the front party members will be facing the transition with the back ones furthest into the new area. As if they all switched positions when going though. To clarify: Party goes through a transition from area A to area B. Upon entering area b, you'd expect the party to be in their formation with the front guys furthest into area B and the back guys closest to the transition back to area A. [DETAILS] I've noticed this in a couple areas. To reproduce, just go through the transition from the Ogre cave to the body, then back into the Ogre cave. When you get into the cave, your back-row squishies will be furthest in and closest to the danger (spiders). Noticed it as well when transitioning from Dyrford Village to Dyrford Crossing (Once again, your squishies are closest to the beetles when you arrive at Dyrford Crossing). Also noticed it upon transitioning from Dyrford Village to the Gorge area (where the lions are). [EXPECTED BEHAVIOR] I would expect that when the party goes through a transition in a specific group order that they'd be in that order - facing into the new area - when they arrive.

Not grammar per se, but the description for the Girdle of Mortal Protection states: Decrease Critical Hit Damage x1.1 Critical Hit Damage Taken. Now, maybe my math is rusty, but isn't 1.1x the damage taken an increase? Should be x0.9 (or something like that). Might be worthwhile to check and see if it's implemented properly as well.

Just a suggestion on this: If you're (for example) 6 points short and have 6 lockpicks, I assume you'll open the lock. My suggestion though is to make that a choice of whether or not you want to spend that many lockpicks. The player may not want to spend a whole lot of them in one shot, preferring perhaps to see if there's another way into the room or a key to open the chest.

Absolutely. I'll give it some thought and maybe start a thread there. Thanks again for the reply.

Ah, okay. Thanks for the response. Seems odd that you can choose to talk to the NPC with, for example, the BB Wizard (Lore skill of 8 ), which I did, and you still fail the check. Shouldn't the game look at the skills of the character actually addressing the NPC instead of default to the PC's character?

Which would be great if almost every talent/ability/spell wasn't geared towards combat effectiveness. I made a 'pacifist' Rogue earlier this morning to see if you could complete the quests in the beta without combat. Kitted an Orlan Rogue out with Stealth and Mechanics for skills, and pumped Intellect, Resolve, and Perception all to 15. However, every single one of the class abilities I was able to choose from when leveling were combat-oriented. Even the bloody class and race extras at character creation were geared toward combat. Honestly, I don't mind the idea of quest XP only, but for the love of the deities why is every single ability/perk/talent/class special ability/spell all geared toward combat effectiveness?

Yes, that works. I haven;t tested extensively, but it seems to me this occurs more often if the character that gets stuck was hit by a paralysis type effect while in combat. Anything that prevents them from moving.

Meh. I just tended to accept that my caster would be effectively a level or so behind a non-armored caster and grabbed the Still Spell feat. Re the INT idea, I agree it would tend to make it too valuable. Also, as the game system stands now, there are no penalties for low ability scores, so a complete overhaul would be required so all abilities would give you a penalty for low scores.

You inspired me to build a pacifist and try it out. What I did was build an Orlan Rogue and I pumped up Perception, Intellect, and Resolve to 15 each (I grabbed the background that gives you +1 Resolve to get it to 15). For skills I took Stealth (to make it easier to sneak by mobs) and Mechanics (so I could unlock doors to bypass combat). I was able to solve the Nyfre quest without violence (this required a 14 Resolve check). I was also able to deal peacefully with the Ogre. BUT, I don't think it's possible to sneak into the Ogre cave without fighting the two spiders just outside the cave mouth. One is situated dead center in the choke point of the path leading up to the cave. While it does wander a bit, it's not enough to be able to get past without being spotted. Second spider is a similar situation. Inside the cave, it's possible to sneak by the spiders to get outside to grab the robes, note and key off the corpse (this will allow you to disguise yourself later on in the temple). I sneaked my main over to talk to the Ogre, leaving the rest of the party at the ramp leading out to the corpse. However, there are a couple spiders that wander and I was unable to get the party by them and out of the cave without being spotted. Tried numerous times without success. Anyway, I won't count that, as it may be possible to bypass them. One thing I will note is that yes, it's probably possible to resolve all (or most) quests without resorting to combat. But this is highly unlikely, as you'd need to build your character with high values in specific abilities, as well as likely need a lot of metagame knowledge to be able to bypass many encounters. (If I didn't know where to go in the area where you find the cave, I'd have run afoul of a ton of beetles and/or wolves. So, yeah, my impression is you can probably resolve quests without combat, but it's extremely unlikely.

Not sure if this is a bug, as I'm not certain on how the game is supposed to behave when it comes to skill checks in convos. Anyway: Talking to the Alchemist, Hendyna, in Dyrford village and when trying to find info about the noble's daughter (Aelys), you get a convo option for more info that requires a Lore 4 skill check. My main had no Lore, but both the BB Priest (Lore 5) and BB Wizard (Lore had enough. However, the skill check fails (Convo option line shows [Lore 4] [Requirement Not Met]). I thought the game used the highest value among the party members for skill checks, but is this not the case? If not, it certainly seems it would make companion skills useless. Save File: http://www.upload.ee/files/4229701/88fdf92d55d54e1097342b16c97f00be_DyrfordVillage_7613367.savegame.html

[DESCRIPTION] Opened the character sheet to check on how many XP the party had. Top of the panel (name area) showed BB Wizard as well as his portrait. TABbed through the other characters and while all the info and stats changed to show the correct values (Health, Defences, Ability cores, Skills values, etc.) for each character, the name and portrait remained stuck on BB Wizard. [DETAILS] Not sure what caused it. Haven't seen it before, so don't know how to reproduce. [EXPECTED BEHAVIOR] Would expect name and portrait to change to character whose stats are being viewed. Save game: http://www.upload.ee/files/4229690/88fdf92d55d54e1097342b16c97f00be_DyrfordVillage_7665820.savegame.html Output log attached. output_log.txt

I've never been successful at getting them to believe me. Result is a fight.

I suppose if you do it in a very specific way? Or does it depend on certain stats? I haven't been able to solve all quests peacefully yet. Of course, I've only been able to solve any quest with one character so far, and I've not finished that run so we'll see how things play out.

This is what I was doing with my first couple characters (using 'Take All' button as well as loading saves from in-game). I couldn't turn in any quests, nor could I get the grappling hook to work (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll probably find it later). Anyway, on my latest character I manually dragged every loot item into the inventory - never used 'Take All' - and loaded saves from the main menu only. I was able to turn in quests and use the grappling hook. Try it that way and see if it makes a difference. (You'll have to start a new run though).

You know, reading through more of this thread and thinking about this a bit more, I'm kind of torn about this. On the one hand, if there are truly 'no bad builds', this means there's not going to be a situation where a player is thinking "Wow, I'd really like to play a Corpsewalker, but they suck. Guess I'll settle for a Floorsweeper instead". The game is more 'accessible' (I think this is a bad word though...) On the other hand, I tend to think: Look, as long as there is documentation available to the player (i.e. a decent frickin' manual) where they can read about the classes, races, abilities, talents, and spells (and game mechanics) so they can make informed choices, then tough s**t if they end up making a bad build. They had the opportunity to inform themselves. If they couldn't even take the time to figure the game basics out, then too bad. More 'hardcore', I guess (a word I'm growing to immensely dislike as well). But that's why many of us backed this project in the first place, no? The idea that the game was going to be like the old IE games, where you had to either know something about the game system, or learn it pretty damned quickly or you'd end up with your ass handed to you. Repeatedly. But it remains to be seen how this will play out. I do believe it's possible to build a 'balanced' system where there are no 'bad builds' per se, but in order for it not to end up completely vanilla and bland, I think it by necessity will mean there are some builds that are... less-than-optimal, shall we say?

Vengeful, most of these are covered in the sticky threads. I can understand not having the time or ambition to search out each issue to see if there are threads about them individually, but the stickies do have lists of known issues, as well as missing strings, which cover many of the bugs you found. At any rate, if you can, you should also provide more info on your system (video card, amount of RAM, CPU, and video driver version number). This can help the devs a lot.

I'll see if I can make it clearer then. Note, first of all, that I don't have a big issue with the XP awards being only for completing tasks or quests. Paramount to me is whether or not the game is fun to play (and so far I'm having fun with the beta despite its bugs and issues). Note second of all that I never said a reward was 'necessary' (interesting that a few posts later you complain about someone putting words into your mouth). What I mean is it seems very odd to me that the bulk of abilities/talents/spells you choose for your character are oriented towards being effective in combat/killing opponents. So you play through the game, building your character and choosing all these abilities to add to them which serves to make them more efficient killers. Level after level of abilities - acquired through leveling up that is only accomplished by gaining XPs - that are useful only for combat (many of which can't even be used except in combat). Yet you get no XP reward for being successful in combat. The game dishes out encounter after encounter where you end up having to fight (yes, you can avoid some, but judging from the beta, you're going to spend a whole lot of time in combat - and Zeits even stated it's the 'core activity of the game'). Yet you get no reward for investing all these abilities/talents/spells and for completing the 'core activity of the game'. To me, this just doesn't make a lot of sense. Why have the character talents/abilities/spells geared towards an activity that gives no XP reward to the player? Why have no XP reward for the 'core activity of the game'?

Yeah, this is exactly the way you gain XP, as NCarver noted.There are several threads in the backer beta discussion and I believe the general discussion forum dealing with... differing points of view on this.

Well, I can assure you they aren't. My first two characters had no lockpicks and unlocked several doors/items with no issues.

Not sure if they're actually working as intended, but my understanding is they only kick in if you're close to the target value, but not quite there. I don't know the actual values, but for illustration purposes, let's assume your character has a Mechanic skill of 8 and you need a 10 to open the lock. Lockpicks give you a +2 boost (again, just pulling numbers out of my ass for this example). So if you try to open the lock and you have a lockpick in your inventory, it kicks in. If you only have a Mechanics skill of 7, they don't kick in (there's not even a check or a message about them).

Ugh, sorry for not updating my post. I actually discovered last night that it went into the crafting inventory. You're 100% correct in that this is what was occurring. So no bug. Apologies.