Longknife

The balance needs to be that everything needs to hold purpose while not invalidating any potential builds. For example from a purely stat perspective there's complaints that backround and race mean very little. As a super simplistic example, these need more purpose, so perhaps giving a certain race +6 Might instead of +1 while removing 6 attributes from the allocated pool we all get would serve to give race bonuses more purpose. (and again, that was a super simplistic example) Are there going to be any stat-related skills/talents/traits/whatever? That helps to add some variety. Other than that they can merely tweak attribute values or the amount of attribute points. Also I'm amazed you all find this topic more important than the proper implementation of Muscle Wizard.

And it should involve sweetrolls and villianous rogues. Also goats.

Just for your information, this is exactly how my muscle wizard spends his downtime. I demand a muscular wizard villain in the final product of Pillars of Eternity as an Easter Egg. Oh, and his catchphrase should be "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!" He should scream it while doing his finishing move on his enemies: the Snapmare Neckbreaker Mighty muscle wizard villian flexes biceps, its super effective. I actually bothered to harass Josh Sawyer over this on his tumblr now and I'll be sorely disappointed if the game does not include at least one badass muscle wizard enemy, complete with custom wrestling animations and a wizard hat straight out of Disney's Fantasia. And flexing his biceps should apply an extra damage self-buff.

Radical Idea: Kill anything unique about the game and make a game we've already played before.

Just for your information, this is exactly how my muscle wizard spends his downtime. I demand a muscular wizard villain in the final product of Pillars of Eternity as an Easter Egg. Oh, and his catchphrase should be "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!" He should scream it while doing his finishing move on his enemies: the Snapmare Neckbreaker

Just for your information, this is exactly how my muscle wizard spends his downtime. I demand a muscular wizard villain in the final product of Pillars of Eternity as an Easter Egg.

See? The Beta's been out a couple days and people are already like "LOL OBSIDIAN U HAV NO IDEA WHAT U DOIN I BEEN PLAYIN RPGS FOR YEARS AND HAVE EXACTLY 0 DEGREES IN RPG PLAYOLOGY BECAUSE THAT DOES NOT EXIST AS A CONCEPT, SCOFF SCOFF SCOFF EXCUSE ME AS I TELL U HOW INFERIOR YOUR SYSTEM IS FROM MY COMFY ARMCHAIR" They're not dumb. They've done this before. MULTIPLE times. I get we're totally prone to seem bias towards stats we're familiar with and understand (the sheer amount of posts complaining Wizards get use from Might and defining the abstract word "Might" as instantly meaning ripped muscle tone with Wizards powerslamming beetles off the top of tables is a testament to that), but we're viewing a very limited Beta, we've no idea the scope of enemies we'll see within the game or what counter-measures will be needed when and ffs two years ago we all threw money at these guys in good faith they know what they're doing. Fast forward two years, you can actually play a human archer and not have it be undeniably inferior to an elven archer and people are flipping over their desks in a fit of rage and lighting kittens on fire because change is scary. We're Beta testers. If we care about the project let's run through the game and test this stuff out. Don't just say "I dun feel like putting Resolve on my -insert class here- therefore it's useless," go try it out. Just wanna voice that I love this suggestion. Might is offensive in nature, if it holds a defensive and support role aswell then yeah it gains importance. Just conveniently re-arrange those parts and hand them over to a lesser-used stat.

I think you're failing to highlight specific problems and naming the WHOLE system a failure rather than examining each part. What your list of complaints tells me is: -Might at least needs some balance review as the community currently believes it to be the best stat hands down. Mind you, we still have a limited view of the game, so keyword is "review." I'd be quick to question this one too as that Cipher thread showed min-Might vs. max-might rewarding ~15% extra damage. Useful but hardly essential, especially for classes that have high damage-per-hit and thus focus on killing things with singular blows, as that 15% is unlikely to show it's face or have a positive effect in the majority of fights. -Perception and Resolve need more significance -We might be receiving way too many stats to distribute as some classes can easily get away with neglecting two stats and practically maxing the other 4. However, I wouldn't consider this "a step backwards." This is an attempted step forwards. Past RPGs meant wizards max INT, Warriors max STR and archers max Dex. If this RPG meant all classes maxed Might, it'd make little difference as ultimately that old system meant each class just had a different damage stat to pump up and any attempt to try anything new just immediately got you killed. Here, switching out Might for constitution might be considered universally less efficient, but at least it's viable. Compare that to other games where a barbarian with intelligence was utter nonsense, making you question why you're even given the option of statting INT or given a choice is allocating stats at all since most classes relied on beefing up the stats "unique" to them. It's different names is what it was, not actually rewarding different effects. Just give them time. By all means, keep voicing complaints and ideas cause constructive criticism and brainstorming is always productive and welcome, but sometimes I read these comments and it just feels like the reaction is "NEW SYSTEM SCARY. ME NOT UNDERSTAND NEW SYSTEM. NEW BAD!!" Mind you not implying you or anyone is stupid, I just think we're being unreasonably bias towards systems we've seen a dozen times over.

I would. Honestly? I was a bit disappointed in the diversity. Avellone always states he hates elves and wanted to avoid cliches, but here we are with elves, dwarves and humans and it feel similar to any fantasy game ever. (Mind you this isn't a MASSIVE concern or complaint for me, it's just they didn't deliver in that regard) Was also disappointed to see the originality of one of the new races was basically that it was the Na'vi from Avatar. As it stands, the Godlike are the first truly unique race amongst the bunch, and it's refreshing to see something new, even if they are butt-ugly. My first character test drive was a Godlike for just that reason.

Drastic differences = Always better It encourages replay value and makes each character feel unique. Perhaps if every race had a passive sort of skill that gave them some sort of bonus towards a particular area of the game, for example let's say Elves perform all skills faster (cast spells fast or attack faster) whereas Dwarves get a respectable bonus to DT or the like. Just spitballing lame examples here, but I think differences in that kind of direction would be good.

New Godlike active racial - Unleash a swarm of bees from your head to damage nearby enemies. Does critical damage to Nicholas Cage enemy types.

No, people are hung up on the fact that wizards and every other class must max might before any other attribute. Counter-argument: How is the game "so much better" and diverse if instead of magic classes and physical classes sharing the same damage stat, both have their own exclusive damage stat and a Barbarian with INT or a Wizard with Might is absolutely non-viable and ridiculous? You would still be cranking up a damage stat, just two with different names depending on two different character types. Don't get me wrong I get where you're coming from and perhaps (stress on PERHAPS cause we've got a rather limited view of game balance atm) they should review the strength of Might to put it more in line with other stats, but it seems like making such a change would do very very little beyond making 1 of 6 stats worthless for certain classes, thus diminishing character diversity as people will minimize those stats and spend more in the remaining 5, resulting in more same-y characters. We also have to agree we're all ignorant to an extent. Mind you, by all means voice complaints and concerns in case we stumble upon legitimate ones, but lately I read these forums and can't help but feel people are constantly comparing this to other RPGs they're familiar with and drawing irrelevant conclusions based on previous knowledge of OTHER RPG systems while not focusing solely on this one. For example as someone in this thread just cited, Int increases the duration of this spell, and with extensive testing, it might show that Ciphers gain drastically better pay-off from INT than from Might, thus defeating your argument everyone stresses Might to an extent. It'd still be useful for sure, but potentially it's by no means priority for a Cipher. All I'm saying is let's not jump to conclusions. Beta's been out less than a week.

Did you know? *Missing String* Lost my **** at that loading screen. I'll donate another $100 just for them to keep that in as an easter egg.

BREAKING NEWS: Fantasy RPG names are F***ing bullsh** the developers made up while drunk. More at 11.

Look at my avatar. I'm not an old school isometric RPG gamer, I got here on the New Vegas boat. I'm fairly unfamiliar with this style (only played Fallouts). I initially didn't realize you could pause and still give commands, but suspected the slow would be used for that purpose. Tried it out, went from dying at the spider queen in seconds to killing it before it could even scratch me. In that sense I can get if someone has the impression of "surely I'm not supposed to use the pause/slow features for that and there's another way," but once that's clear then it's like wtf, combat is pretty solid imo.

Honestly, I'm the complete opposite from most of you. The more I play it, the more content I am. Most of the complaints that still hold true are ones that are mere....oddities, rather than flaws. For example someone posted a wonderful thread highlighting how the divided inventory serves no purpose as it stands now and is functionally the same as a united inventory for the party. Is this a flaw that gets in the way of gameplay? Not really. Does he have a point there's no purpose in including a feature that serves no purpose and holds no meaning? Absolutely, and he's right that it should either be given purpose or scrapped. But if the game were to ship tomorrow with the inventory as it is now, it'd do absolutely nothing to hinder the overall experience of the game. Most other complaints I'm seeing are things like "The Godlike need more appearance options" or "the Godlike look like a butt." Or "animations seem limited." While that may be dislikes for some people, the core functionality of the game isn't hindered by this kind of stuff. For me, I'm happy that I'm seeing a game with writing, with RPG mechanics and with a functioning combat system. It definitely was a little odd picking it up at first and yes I would say the combat rate might be a little off-putting for any "casual gamer" who picks up this game not knowing what to expect, but once you know how to manage it it works fine. As for bug issues, none of us can truly say if they can or cannot address all bugs before release. That's just something we need to cross our fingers on.

You mean I can pause the game and still manage/assign skills with the pause screen up? Kk thanks.

Can also confirm. Perhaps related, I had a glitch where the squad priest from one save file was permanently shown in the character menu the moment I loaded another file. AKA, I'd select a character and then click to open the character menu to see their stats, but the character shown was permanently stuck to show the same BB Priest from the other file.

I got this same glitch. It was the squad priest that was moving unbearably slow and if I removed her from the group, they all moved faster. Upon a reload this was fixed, but yeah it also occured after going to the inn second floor, specifically when I chose to fight the girl there.

I actually have a very detailed opinion on this subject matter that I usually keep to myself cause both sides of the argument are usually so busy screaming and I don't want to get involved. But I have a couple points: 1) The Average Feminist I cannot for the life of me name a female friend of mine who doesn't refer to herself as a feminist. Typically all they mean is that they deserve equal rights, equal pay and equal opportunities in society, which is the most reasonable stance in the world. I don't think anyone has an issue with this stance. 2) What the average Feminist doesn't understand The above in group one is perfectly fine. However, unfortunately I know many female friends (again calling themselves all feminists) who take offense to people saying they don't like feminists. For them, they naively assume this person doesn't want women earning equal wages or the like, which is not the case at all. This is where a divide begins and where this more or less simple subject begins to become complex. This brings me to my next point about the very group giving feminists a bad name.... 3) When Feminism becomes a problem Anita Sarkeesian. Naming her because she's someone you're likely all familiar with. I don't care about her alleged scams or lies because all of that is irrelevant to her ideology or her cause. Why are women like this a problem? In this sense, feminism isn't just a belief women deserve equal rights and treatment, it becomes an ideology. It hits a point where Anita and other extreme feminists see the world as right and wrong, where something is either done fairly or done incorrectly. My prime example and why I think feminists like Anita are ridiculous dreamers and ideologists incapable of objectively recognizing the world around them: take for example when she said "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is a sexist song because it implies all women are promiscuous cheaters. No you stupid idiot, it's about a dad dressing up as Santa to fool his kid and make him think he met Santa, but then he goofs and kisses his wife while the kid is looking, and the kid being dumb and believing in Santa rationalizes that mom kissed Santa rather than Santa is dad. It's supposed to be a song about how adorably stupid kids are. But Anita labels this song as sexist. There's three problems with this: 1) By that logic, the song would be equally sexist if it were "I saw daddy kissing Santa claus." 2) St. Nicholas was infact a man. It's a very warped way of thinking to suggest we as a society should re-write history to make the gender diversity seem more even. 3) Ultimately, the type of feminism Anita is supporting is one that wishes to govern art. Number three is the biggest issue to me and the reason feminism in this form is so undeniably stupid, so undeniably impossible and so undeniably delusional. You see, sometimes the rant is "how come X protagonist isn't female?" Probably because the creator was male and relates to male characters better. It's as simple as that. Art is a form of expression, after all, so no one can dictate what's good art and what's bad art. There's no such thing as bad art (well there is. Just go check out Twilight or Sonic fanfics and you'll see what I mean, but that's besides the point). There can be art you don't prefer, but that's how art works. The point is that SOMEONE relates to it and gives it meaning. If a story is about a more male-orientated issue and you don't relate to it, no you won't like it, but no that's not a crime against humanity that someone wished to express themselves in a way relevant to their gender. In that same light, you are free to produce art that relates back to being a woman. But if we were to take Anita's advice on "how to make it better" that she so often provides for various songs, stories and video games, we'd literally be ripping out a small portion of the creator's expression to do so. Likewise, her dream of a perfect equality within art, where 50% of protagonists are male and 50% are female, is exactly that: a dream. It's unfortunate, but we have 2000 years+ of art created pre-dominantly by males because cultures back then were indeed sexist. That some woman never got a chance to write her fantastic and brilliant work of art novel that she COULD'VE written had society back then been less sexist? That is truly a travesty. However, Don Quixote is still a work of brilliance. Just because you want equality in society and just because unfair tendencies led one brilliant work of art to not come to light doesn't mean we should actively burn another to be fair. The only way to have a perfectly equal world would be if art forms were 50-50 aswell. Art imitates life imitates art; art has dramatic influence on a culture. For all art forms to be equal for men and women, we have 2000 years of bias towards men to make up for. The only way to remedy that would either be to actively burn brilliant works like Don Quixote or actively censor and govern art created today, forcing people to utilize female protagonists and female-centric stories. Two wrongs do not make a right, and sure enough we'd be limiting and gimping expression of today by doing so. Recovering from the faults of bygone generations is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE without commiting more travesties. In that sense, this perfect world that Anita and some other more extreme feminists dream of is just that: a dream. And what do they do? Sit on their asses and complain. Ironically, this IS a situation where criticism is "unwelcome." It's always welcome, but what I mean is, if you don't like that -insert famous work of art here- has a male focus or a male protagonist or whatever.....then make a ****ing work of art yourself. No seriously, it's that simple. I mean, I myself am disabled, and let's pretend for a moment that I have a beef with how few one-legged protagonists there are in media forms. (and in a way I do. I swear to god if I encounter one more weeaboo fangirl who reacts to my disability with "OMG JUST LIKE EDWARD ELRICK KAWAIII DESU ONII-CHAN!!! ^_^" as if the vapid little **** has no life outside of her anime, I'mma strangle someone; another one-legged protagonist might kill that little reaction I keep hearing) If I governed or basically coerced another author/developer/writer/painter to include a one-legged character solely on the grounds of equality, there's no way in HELL he'd be able to depict it as properly as I could. In that sense it's just an awkward mess, with the author losing sight of the purpose of his work (perhaps he wants to write about corrupt capitalism and a selfish modern-day culture, where such a disability issue is largely irrelevant and only ditracts from the main message) in the midst of all the political correctness messages he feels pressured into including, all of which he cannot even personally relate to. It would be much better if I wrote the damned story about the disabled guy myself. Same exact rule applies to Anita and other feminists. If you don't like the inequality in novels, movies, video games or what-have-you.....go make one. Seriously wtf, go make one and you can make it as gender equal as you like. That's the beauty of art. But she doesn't. She sits there and whines and moans at others for not sharing her same political stances, all with a tone that suggests the world would be a better place if art were somehow governed, regulated, or expected to meet a quota. Imagine if Stephenie Meyer went to release Twilight (not that that's a great work of art) and then was alerted that unfortunately we as a human race have not met this year's male quota or gay male quota, and therefore Bella must become Bob. You can see how that might upset her as the creator. So the bottom line is that no, the world was not always equal, and art reflects that. But art is beautiful. We can always ALWAYS learn from art, so censoring or governing or altering art is absolutely 100% out of the question. I'd personally never agree to that. There is not a way to please Anita without doing this however, as many of the writers/directors/developers surely have the gut reaction to create male characters/protagonists/male-centric storylines solely on the grounds that they - as men - naturally understand and empathize with such stories better and express them more naturally. Complaining about any of that is tantamount to complaining about free speech. And while I 100% respect her rants and criticisms as her own form of free speech, I can't help but feel like she and other feminists like her are ABSOLUTELY wasting their time, as they could be more effective towards the very cause they believe in if they'd simply take part in producing books/movies/games of their own with their own ideas and emotions writing them. And again, that's where the basic message of "I want equality" gets lost with men, because I feel as though women should understand that yeah, it's kinda freaky and stays in a dude's memory longer when we encounter an Anita Sarkeesian who goes on a rant about how we're terribly sexist for liking a story where 80% of characters are male. Mind you, men should ALSO understand and realize that many women who claim "I am a feminist" simply mean they believe women deserve equal rights. Overall, I just hope a day comes where....even now equal rights for women is not even really a debate in modern society (stress on MODERN society) and it's really more there's still that 5-10% that's sexist, but is entirely drowned out by society, government and businesses. (with businesses sadly being the minority, as inequality with pay being the #1 example of inequality between genders) When that day comes, the feminist label will not even be considered neccesary by the average woman, and then the average man and woman will understand each other better as there'll be no "what do you mean you hate feminism" discussion, and the remaining feminist movement will be the extremists, who I have no doubt will garner little support.

Ok so I just did some combat and I both agree and disagree with some of the criticisms voiced. For those not in the beta: Basically imagine that you've got a party of five and each of those five has skills with various effects. Slow a target, knock it down, paralyze it, deal extra damage, heal, etc etc. However, combat is not turn-based, but rather it's real time and each unit basically gets one of those little cooldown bars to show how long they need to wait between attacks. Unless I'm missing something, actually using any skill beyond a basic attack means you need some slight menu navigation. AKA you click the character's face, you open their skill bar, select the one you want and then select the target you want. The amount of time it takes to do this basically consume a good "turn" (how long it takes for the average character to do a basic attack) meaning you're hardly capable of using all the skills you have. In short, you have maybe 12 skills total belonging to your party, but in any given fight you'll utilize 3 tops. In that sense it sort of feels a little defeating to have so many skills when the basic speed and flow of the game drastically downplays how frequently they'll be used. The combat works, it's just a little disappointing to get all these various CC skills for my wizard and find myself spamming his singular attack spell solely on the grounds I don't have time for anything else. And mind you this is the beta and this is first impressions, so I could be COMPLETELY wrong and there could be ways to use skills more frequently and I'm just not seeing it. (maybe someone will chime in here) As I said though, in that sense: yes, it is a tad bit disappointing to have 5 characters with ~3 skills each, but in any given fight you're only accessing 1-2 characters and ~3-4 skills. Basic hotkeys or a slight slowdown to combat speed could remedy this entirely, though of course if combat is balanced around this then that might make things too easy. As for people complaining they can't tell when a character is being hit, when they're attacking or when a character is down....lol u blind? On that note though, the UI is currently a tad unclear to me. My character's all have a green bar and when attacked a red hue builds up over their avatar image. I assume the green bar is stamina and the red hue represents health and they sure did act as though this was the case, I only bring this up because it seems like everyone regenerates to full health after a battle (no red hue) but when I checked my character stats, it showed my character had some health damage and was NOT at full. Odd. And a more minor complaint: the feedback from combat in the chat window is basically worthless. In a fight with 6+ units taking and dealing damage, the chat box moves so fast you're not gonna be able to see everyone's damage and how much a skill is doing. I cast a spell, check for it's damage and it quickly gets washed away by a platorea of "BB Rogue hit for 8" messages. Not much they can do to remedy this except provide little filters for it, which again MAY already exist. (again, this is first impressions)

Who needs a helmet when you have an entire colonies of bees nesting on top of your head?

Only just played an hour, first impressions: -Impressed by the character customization. Kinda amazed people are saying it's not enough. If they mean appearance-wise then ok, but stat-wise there was plenty to toy with. Only thing the character customization didn't ask me is if I was a practicing Christian or if I vote Democrat or Republican. Other than that it asked culture, social type, race, sub-race, skills, attributes...dunno what more people could want. -The Na'vi are a race. Lolwtf cmon Obsidian you're better than that. Laughed my ass off when I saw that -Looks awesome. Music sounds similar/comparable to Morrowind music. -Controls are pretty straightforward; anyone who's played a game like this knows the controls already -Dialog and quests are straightforward and easy to get into. Speech checks are shown similar to New Vegas; if you meet a stat requirement it looks normal, if you don't it shows a failure with the requirement needed -I'm either a really pro beta tester or a really bad one. Depends on if finding issues is bad. Said "WUT DIS BUTTON DO" and clicked the little + sign on my character's avatar, opened up a passive skill menu right as I hit the transition loading screen to a new cell, BAM! Infinite loading screen. GG me. Overall...you know that phase of any new RPG where you don't know jack about the lore, so anytime an NPC says "You need to go to Drylüükharn" you're reaction is "oh **** off with this made up names bull****?" Yap, definitely in that phase. Regardless, I successfully completed a quest and navigated through just fine, so there's no issues with interface or interactions or dialog or the like, just for the moment I have no clue what's going on in the world. There was a bard in a tavern that wanted to dump her life story and collection of Twilight fanfiction into my lap and I found myself speeding through it without reading before looking for a way to light her on fire. Not an issue that'll exist once we HAVE the game and a grasp of the lore, just something for the moment that kinda dampens my fun factor of it all; still fun, just not nearly as fun when I'm a newb to the game world. Not saying that as a complaint, just saying it's unfortunately kinda difficult for me to gauge how much I'd be into the game when the lore is currently all Greek to me. Eating some delishus ice cweam then I'mma go play some more and try out this combat people have been freaking out over.

I think my copy is in German and I'm having difficulty switching it to English. Just because I'm German doesn't mean I don't agree my language is butt-ugly.

You do not have the Backer badge either. Have you completed the Pledge Management process? This is a hella late reply cause I'm good at only popping in periodically, but I just did that thingie. And look, I have a badge now. My life now has meaning.