Sensuki

This happens to me as well.

I would also like to add that you can actually cheat yourself out of a buff by targeting a unit (which begins the combat state, which allows buffs to be cast), cast a buff and then have that character cancel their action ... perhaps not deliberately, such as change to a movement action instead and the spell is cast but the buff is not applied due to the combat state having ended.

I agree that the variation of enemies in the Backer Beta is not good enough. Many of the fights are long slogs of attrition as Mr. Magniloquent and nipsen have said, and some of them are best dealt with (likely due to DoT bugs) hard-countering, such as the spider poison. There aren't really many ranged enemies. There are not many casters and there are not many enemies with AoEs. The Wolves in the Dyrford Crossing is the worst encounter in the game, it literally feels pointless.

We already have a solution for that, check the BB forum on Friday or so for our paper.

I also would like to see at least the die roll without having to mouse over.

I noticed that when you guys got to work on Monday you started replying to the bug reports from Monday and kept going forward, there are in fact bug reports that haven't been checked going all the way back to September 3, from the last date that cRichards responded to bug reports. You may already know that/is probably obvious but I just wanted to make sure that those bug reports were not missed.

Range doesn't need to be tied to attributes, but some spells such as Crackling Bolt need a much longer cast range, because it's a useless spell having to run into melee range to cast a Lightning Bolt.

For the people who are struggling I believe this is because of a few problems: 1. Unfamiliarity with the System: You do not know how to use the abilities, spells and items properly whereas you do in the IE games 2. Your characters are underpowered: Characters in the BB (especially the PC) come with crappy gear and they would be better equipped at that stage in the full game. 3. Combat is more active overall than all of the Infinity Engine games: More classes have more active abilities to use, so you are required to micromanage more characters 4. Combat Feedback, High Movemement speed and high monster damage gives you the feeling that combat is too 'fast'. Improving your familiarity with the system will help you feel less stressed out, but Obsidian also need to immensely improve the combat feedback, as well as tune combat movement speed, damage and health damage better so that you can face more encounters per adventuring day. Try reading some of the wiki as that has pretty accurate information about the game. Prometheus is a diligent referencer. I also have some combat videos against the beetles on hard, if you watch through you will see I improve my understanding of the system each video, however when I start doing more there should be a huge jump in combat efficacy because I have also learned some new things about Priest and Wizard spells that should help me in the future. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68242-the-insane-beta-battles-crossing/

I actually don't drink alcohol BUT I do know that the best local brew in the summer here is Red Hill Pilsner. I bought some for my mates for Australia day based on some research and they all agreed it was the best Pilsner they had ever tried.

I just think Monks would be better suited to being the guys that draw aggro as their class mechanics demand it, whereas Fighters having the ability to put out reliable consistent damage with either melee or ranged weapons would be nice.

In case you skimmed over my earlier post. Currently 1H Fast and 1H normal melee weapons are also underpowered, it's not just bows. The fact is that due to DT, slower weapons that deal more per hit damage are far stronger than faster lower damage weapons if they deal roughly the same DPS at 0 DT. This can all be fixed if the damage ranges are changed so that there is a quadratic effect of efficacy where the lower damage weapons outshine the others vs 0 DT and low DT, where middle range speed weapons have the highest DPS vs medium armor and slower, high damage weapons are the best vs high DT. I think this is how it was intended to be, but the ranges were made for DT 0, not taking armor into account.

No worries, mate.

When the AI is improved that won't be the case, and even now they are a trap choice compared to the other weapons except in the specific use cases of applying debuffs or a Bow Ranger that focuses on Interrupt when specifically using the high damage Bear Companion. I believe you are making an incorrect statement about Bows and if people listened to you and bows were not made viable, Bows would remain an underpowered and uncompelling choice for characters from a powergaming perspective. Perhaps your problem is more with me specifically than the argument you are trying to make.

Bows fire slower than melee weapons do, and you will also note if you read my post earlier in the thread replying to Josh that 1H fast and 1H normal weapons are also an inferior choice at the moment against any armor (except Stilettos and Maces) compared to 2H weapons. Ignorance is bliss I guess. What I am saying to you is that the DPS reduction you are inflicting on the enemy (0.5 seconds every interrupt) is not worth as much as the DPS you gain from a point in Might, a point in Dexterity or the extra duration length you get from buffs in Intellect. Your Bow and Bear ranger is one of the only use cases where Interrupts are kinda useful. Shadenuat also managed to have good results with his Dual Stiletto wielding Barbarian. I have to ask, does your Ranger also have a good Dexterity ? edit: oh yeah I don't think Interrupt rolls are shown in the combat log at the moment.

You're just arguing for the sake of it. You said maybe Crossbows, Arbalests and guns are too good. Arbalests do 30-50 damage which is a lot less DPS at their fire rate than a 2H weapon such as a Morningstar (which is the second best weapon in the game atm behind the Estoc). I would say that currently the Arbalest is around about where it needs to be. If you nerf the Arbalest and Guns to do less DPS than Bows at DT 0 than armor, then they will not be worth using at all. The Ranger will become a ****ty class, and you'll just use everyone else in melee or spellcasting, and *maybe* you'd switch to range weapons for an opening volley at the start of combat or when fighting a single lone enemy that's slow like the Ogre. Is that how you want ranged combat to be? That's not how I want it to be. Not quite. Interrups are dependent on a number of factors. Firstly you have to score at least a graze to qualify for an interrupt. Interrupt rolls are reduced by 50% on a graze and increased by 50% on a crit, making Interrupts reliant on your Accuracy to be effective. A point in Dexterity will add between 0.5% and 1.5% to your Interrupts over a course of time, whereas a point in Perception will add 3%. However this percentage is relative to the Base Interrupt of the weapon or spell you are using, the Defense score of the enemy and their Concentration so it's really hard to quantify how useful Interrupts are but it's safe to say that a point in Perception is weaker than a point in any other attribute.

If you want all ranged weapons to be absolutely trash sh1tty weapons that are worthless using against armor, sure.

Compared to a Crossbow, Arbalest or Guns - yep. Edit, this is one of the graphs we're using in our paper (made by Matt516) - but the same deal applies. Pretend the red line is a higher damage, slower weapon and that the green line is a lower damage, faster weapon. Assume they have the same DPS. Now this chart only scales to values of +30% damage and +30% speed. A Hunting Bow does 9-16 damage, an Arbalest does 30-50 ... yeah that's a lot more right, over 200% Imagine this chart scaling out to the value of 200% and you would have a somewhat (but not quite) accurate answer assuming that a Hunting Bow and Arbalest are supposed to have the same DPS at 0 DT.

I'll second that.

How do you even set traps in PE? I haven't figured that out yet. Supposedly every character should be able to using the Mechanics skill.

Should be ready by Friday or the weekend. Working on the last section now, just needs to be edited and Matt and I have to go over it and see if we've missed anything. Anyone who reads it will get incredible insight into what they are getting per point in an attribute.

They are terrible damage wise, the mathematics says so. However that Deep Wounds archer guy makes good benefit of his bow - that is quite literally the only reason you would use one. They're not bad for Interrupts either I suppose.

I think I've already posted this on Something Awful but the reason I have said that Fighters (especially) are more flexible in the Infinity Engine games is because they are not required to be the main tank. In Pillars of Eternity, if you are not running your Fighter into the thick of melee to aggro as many enemies as possible you are not playing it properly. His abilities reflect this as well. Your Fighter is likely equipped in the heaviest armor because each hit soaks up the damage that the enemies are doing and reduces their damage by the greatest amount. If as many enemies as possible are attacking your Fighter in his high armor, they are going to be doing less overall DPS to your party because of the damage reduced by DT. In the Infinity Engine games, Fighters were not *required* as much to take this role, you could have the Fighter as an archer, and you could also use him as the guy who beelined through the enemy lines to kill the most important DPSer first - an archer or a Wizard for example, and another class such as the Paladin, Barbarian, Priest (or Minsc) would take the central tanking role. To me it seems like if there's any class that wants to be designed around holding aggro it's probably the Monk due to their reliance on being hit by enemies. I just find the rogue a bit less exciting because 95% of the time he just auto attacks, I expected the Rogue to be a bit more active. I do like the fact that they require tactical positioning.

Interrupt rolls?

Don't worry, we have one coming.

Relative to bows, Arbalests and Guns are awesome. I have mainly used the Arbalest and there's zero reason to use any of the lower damage ranged weapons. This is due to DT. I'm not sure how the damage values have been balanced, but a 20% increase in speed is only the same as a 20% increase in damage at 0 DT, at 1DT, the 20% increase in speed falls off because it is now opposing DT 20% more of the time than the 20% damage is. This formula scales with every point of DT as well, so as DT gets higher and higher, pure damage outshines attack speed assuming their DPS at 0 DT is the same. You said you have reduced the damage of bows, likely due to bows being OP in D&D, well it's having quite a negative effect combined with the DT system. This issue also applies to melee weapons. There is not really a reason to use 1H Normal or 1H Fast weapons except Stilettos and Maces (due to the -5 DT) because the DPS is balanced to be roughly the same against 0 DT. I avoid using anything other than two-handers unless I don't have enough two-handed weapons. You'll probably need to alter the damage ranges for melee weapon categories so that there's a quadratic scale of efficacy for all three groups. If you're interested I have a series of videos fighting the Dyrford Crossing beetles on Hard in this thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68242-the-insane-beta-battles-crossing/ My first video is pretty nooby, but I get better as I go, and in the second video I switch out the Arbalest onto my Rogue.