Longknife

Not fair to compare short-duration, limited-use buffs (that Accuracy L1 boost, Arcane Veil) with an unbuffed fighter. Also, I'm reporting how it played. So far I've played at least until the ogre fight with, let's see, a barbarian, monk, paladin, chanter (LOL!), ranger, and muscle wizard. Of these only the chanter felt wildly out of line with the others, and Mr. Muscle did not feel dramatically more powerful than BB Wizard. That said, I'm sure the numbers need adjusting. That's what we're here for. Just curious, why are people calling Chanters broken? I played one briefly but my game crashed and that file didn't get saved. It definitely felt like that fire damage buff was leading to some incredibly quick kills, but beyond that I didn't get much of an opportunity to explore anything else; only briefly got a summon out once.

I think someone also suggested taking my idea but applying it to resolve instead, which I've got nothing against. Really - to me - the best way to give stats more meaning without having to drastically change their gain rates comparatively to each other (which I'd imagine would create MORE rebalancing work) is to tack on new dimensions. Someone else suggested adding a crit rate bonus onto Dex I think, and I'm sure others have made some additional attribute effects aswell. All of them should be seriously considered, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted this before but... Take a lesson from Attunement in Dark Souls. Higher INT = More spell casts. So for example a character with 3 INT might get four fireball casts per rest or a Fighter gets two knockdowns per encounter, but having maxed int equals eight fireballs or 4 knockdowns. I don't think this could possibly create any sort of balance issue, but would be an undeniably attractive convenience.

Good to know, now we can use the "you didnt even play X" argument to make all your arguments invalid I should be a boss troll and be like "Yeah! Playing this game makes me wanna go back and play SKYRIM! Such good memories! :D"

All this talk has me doing none of that because I've actually never played any of the classic RPGs this game is based off of. Inb4 crowd gasps and faints.

50% increases would be plenty viable. Come to think of it, a 50% increase is pretty much what you could expect to see with max vs. min in their last major game: New Vegas. (Endurance 5 vs Endurance 10 was 50%, Charisma 1 vs. Charimsa 10 was 50%, think Int 1 vs INT 10 was about 50%, etc etc etc.)

Like I said, he's too OP for the average casual gamer. It'd never work.

I'm not quite sure what exactly I'm supposed to be explaining here. :U You know what an easter egg in a video game is, right?

Dis.

Your lies don't fool Muscle Wizard, Sneaky Paladin!

Multiple ways to solving problems does make a replay more fun, but so do different stat builds. More variety = more fun. Character race, character backround, character culture, character attributes....crank all that **** up to 11. The more drastically diverse, the better imo.

Refer to the poll. Details of the Easter egg would be: -Completely optional encounter with the Muscle Wizard in a random location. Optional because Muscle Wizard is too badass to be required to beat for the average casual gamer -Muscle Wizard appears topless while wearing sweatpants and a wizard hat straight out of Disney's Fantasia -Muscle Wizard attacks with his muscles. The damage log would also read "Muscle Wizard attacks _____ with his muscles for xx damage." -Muscle Wizard can flex his biceps for a rather beefy damage self-buff. -Muscle Wizard prefers to settle fights with his muscles and thus punches opponents or uses wrestling moves on them. Muscle Wizard only uses magic to teleport to enemies and muscle-rize them sooner. -Muscle Wizard has a variety of adrenaline pumping combat taunts, such as "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!!" and "Do u even lift?" -Muscle Wizard has a variety of his own unique combat animations, most of them wrestling moves that cause knockdown effects. -Muscle Wizard is capable of causing Blind effect on all female party members with the sheer glory that is his pecs. -Muscle Wizard's Might stat is Maximum -Concept art: http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_super/13/131668/2581658-9836825171-ryuis.jpg I understand that attribute balancing and bug stomping are also of some degree of importance, but I simply feel we should remind Obsidian what's truly important and what the fundamentals of a good RPG are. Yes, by all means balance the attributes, but Pillars of Eternity simply won't be a good game without a proper Muscle Wizard to kick some reality into unmuscular nerdy wizards. No one with half a brain is going to buy the storyline and lore of PoE if the world is devoid of a Muscle Wizard. A world without one is just absolute nonsense, it just doesn't happen! So yeah, everyone be sure to vote in the poll to let Obsidian know how important this is.

Aren't we supposed to be able to upload profile pictures for characters in the final product? If that's the case every one of my squad members is gonna be the Fonz, ijs.

Lemme put it this way... Too much stat importance = Every class will be forced into the same build and feel the same Too little stat importance = Every class will feel the same regardless of where points are put. We all want a balance of course. I'm simply asking would you rather learn towards a more difficult system that does have some extent of punishment for poorly planned builds (higher stat weight) or a system allowing for experimentation but with less meaning and purpose behind character customization.

This is my squad:

I for one welcome our new Muscle Wizard overlords.

No, it's fairly obvious that you don't get it. Let me try to sum up your argument, at least with respect to the stats: Characters with the lowest possible stat values are too effective; and/or Characters with the highest possible stat values are not effective enough; and/or The difference in effectiveness between the lowest and highest stat values is not large enough. Now, I'll admit that you may very well be right. Maybe stats below 10 should subtract effectiveness. Maybe stats above 10 should be more effective. Maybe both. What you are failing to grasp is that this is a beta. Things like stat values can change. In fact, changing them is trivial. If stats are not impactful enough, it's a simple matter to make them more so, assuming you can convince the devs to do so. The only thing he does is whining that the game is broken because some stats need a number tweak. Guys I found a bug where the loading screen tip just says "Missing String" instead of providing a tip. This game is fundamentally flawed and completely broken in design. It's never gonna work and you all are delusional ass kissing trolls if you believe it's possible to fix this pathetic mess of a game.

Ok, I'm gonna try one more time to explain this to you with a simple analogy. Let's pretend Fallout New Vegas just released, and you're saying the game is "fundamentally flawed in design" because the Brush Gun deals 140 damage a shot and fires as fast as a 9mm pistol, and therefore you have no motivation to use any weapon but the Brush Gun which boasts the best stats in every category. While that is undeniably an issue, the amount of work that would be required to fix this imbalance (there's that word again!) is so simple that you don't even need to wait for the developers to fix it. You can open the GECK, find the Brush Gun data file, then go to the damage and firing speed stats and tone them down. Spoiler alert: the Brush Gun once fired faster than it does today, but Obsidian released a balance patch to slow it's firing speed down. It didn't take months of coding, tireless work and a complete rehaul and redesign of the game. It took them changing a 2.4 to a 1.2 in the coding. Literally five minutes of work. Nothing you have named spells absolute doom for the game. What you've named is something for Obsidian to consider and possibly open up their game and switch some little number values around. It's imbalance. Imbalance that can either be fixed easily enough thanks to the beta, or even IF it somehow made it to the game, it can still be fixed at any given time via a very small patch or even your own personal balance mod you make (which would be easy enough a 7 year old could do it). To claim the game is fundamentally flawed is absolute nonsense. If you truly believe that though, kindly walk out the door as there's truly no reason for you to be here if it's impossible for this game to be saved now, is there? You're completely hopeless. You choose a class and a trait and and spend completely meaningless attribute points.

Ok, I'm gonna try one more time to explain this to you with a simple analogy. Let's pretend Fallout New Vegas just released, and you're saying the game is "fundamentally flawed in design" because the Brush Gun deals 140 damage a shot and fires as fast as a 9mm pistol, and therefore you have no motivation to use any weapon but the Brush Gun which boasts the best stats in every category. While that is undeniably an issue, the amount of work that would be required to fix this imbalance (there's that word again!) is so simple that you don't even need to wait for the developers to fix it. You can open the GECK, find the Brush Gun data file, then go to the damage and firing speed stats and tone them down. Spoiler alert: the Brush Gun once fired faster than it does today, but Obsidian released a balance patch to slow it's firing speed down. It didn't take months of coding, tireless work and a complete rehaul and redesign of the game. It took them changing a 2.4 to a 1.2 in the coding. Literally five minutes of work. Nothing you have named spells absolute doom for the game. What you've named is something for Obsidian to consider and possibly open up their game and switch some little number values around. It's imbalance. Imbalance that can either be fixed easily enough thanks to the beta, or even IF it somehow made it to the game, it can still be fixed at any given time via a very small patch or even your own personal balance mod you make (which would be easy enough a 7 year old could do it). To claim the game is fundamentally flawed is absolute nonsense. If you truly believe that though, kindly walk out the door as there's truly no reason for you to be here if it's impossible for this game to be saved now, is there?

I take it you're the infamous muscle wizard everyone's been talking about, focusing more on his sweet abs than his mental intellect. Pleasure to finally meet you, good sir.

Care to elaborate? Sure. So why would you care about your attributes again. It seems that currently you can assign points in whatever way you want, because it will only have a minor effect on your character build. This needs to be fixed. The game is broken. You blatantly just played into my entire argument. The EXACT issue you just cited is one of stat weight. It's a simple adjustment of stat values and is by NO means a "fundamental design flaw." A fundamental design flaw would imply the basic system as a whole is completely dysfunctional. What you're pointing out is imbalance, where some stats need improvement and some stats need nerfing. Even if you're of the opinion EVERY stat needs a dramatic change, it's still simple imbalance that can be edited in a matter of minutes.

No no, his combat taunts include "Do u even lift?" and "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!" Also he attacks with his muscles, flexing his biceps gives him a damage buff, and the only real magic he'd use is to teleport to you so he can commence beating your face in faster. He also needs his own unique animation set complete with wrestling move finishers. I got this all planned out for Obsidian.

I have a better list.

Care to elaborate? You yourself posted a photo ranting about how small the influence of INT is on AOE size. That's by no means a "fundamental design issue," that's something that can be fixed by adjusting the int-to-range values. FFS all they have to do is adjust some numbers in a code string, it doesn't even require a new code.

In this sense: Someone made the claim Might is a ~30% increase in damage with min vs. max. For some people that might be considered too little, for others it's fine. Another guy posted a screenshot of what effect INT had on AOE range with min vs. max, and the difference was admittedly pretty negligible. If we crank up the differences and give Might - for example - x1 damage vs. x2 damage, then suddenly the stat begins to feel absolutely vital for damage-dealing classes that sit in the back. Likewise if we make INT's effect on AOE range incredibly noticeable, then AOE capable classes like Barbarians are going to want it. Suddenly we begin to scoff at the idea of a tanky wizard or a stupid barbarian (ironically). But if we were to tone them down instead, then we hit a point where nothing seems to matter. Where you can roll any stat combo and the character will feel more or less the same because the difference between max Might or minimum is nothing but ~10% extra damage. Here people can be whatever they want, but ultimately it's an illusion of variety as the only key difference would be the class choice. I'm not saying it HAS to be a binary choice and the above poster is absolutely correct it's more complex than that; I've suggested INT (and someone else suggested resolve instead) influence casts per rest/encounter. Tacking on extra dimensions to stats is a good way to give them more meaning without actually ramping their numbers up. I'm merely saying there is a degree of binary choice to that question in particular: If I ask you now if you want the stats to carry more weight than they do now (AKA Might maxed = 50% more damage instead of 30%) then that can have an effect on the viability of different builds. My question was more about, which would you rather see the game strive for as it's main concern? Polishing it up and making both possible? Entirely possible, but if time restraints got in the way or the balance proved more difficult, which of the two would you prefer to salvage?