Stun

Abilities? Like talents, and class specific powers (which classes?). Would they be per day or per encounter? And would they apply to firearms too, or just bows and x-bows? And if you enchant your launcher, would these abilities stack with it? I'm not sure I like that idea. Wouldn't it be easier to just give us arrows? Of course they'd have to rework the inventory, or give us quiver slots, or allow us to make stacks of 100+ of an arrow type so as to take into account that individual inventory space in this game is only 8 slots

Or 24. like in IWD2 (3 rows of 8.) That's my main gripe. 8 slots per character does not feel "tactical" so much as 'tacked on', as if they felt that they had to throw us a bone so we wouldn't complain too much about how deliberately different it feels from the IE games. But 8 slots per character is functionless. It simply doesn't add any tactical layer to the gameplay whatsoever.

Doesn't that sound just a wee bit...DULL?

^This. Normally I'd prefer that all non-magical launchers incur ammunition costs/upkeep, but because they designed a system where only 8 inventory slots per character are accessible except for when you're about to go to bed, then no. Lets keep them ammo free.

That's not the reason why they eliminated Kill XP. So why bring it up? This game has a level cap. Which means double-dipping, kill grinding, and any other type of XP mining will only ever work until it can't anymore. And then after that everything will be equal for everyone regardless of how they got to the cap.

Sorry. I didn't have a choice. I tried ignoring him, but when I looked down and realized he was well on his way to murdering my cleric, I had to finger-of-death the poor beast.

In fact, I find that the opposite phenomenon happens for me. When I play a certain way, or make a certain choice in gameplay, then later discover that a different playstyle/choice would have yielded more rewards/XP, My opinion of the game rises. This is what replayability is ALL about. But who are we kidding? This isn't about "personal". It's about the opposite of personal. These people want to make sure the rest of us are policed and controlled in our own single player game - these people want to rest easy knowing that that If they got 2000 XP for doing things their way, that no one else should be allowed to get 2001+ XP for doing things another way. YES, Gromnir, I Killed Drizzt and his party in BG2 for no reason but to get the XP for the kills (and to prevent him from stealing XP from me in Bodhi's dungeon later). And it was FUN. Do I care that the developers meant for me to let him live for 'story' or 'quest' reasons? NO, Not at all. Would I have cared if letting him live had actually resulted in a larger XP reward? NOPE. Is BG2 a lesser game because It lets you Kill stuff for XP? NO It ISN'T. It's a Better game for it.

That's not possible. You can't divide by zero. lol

^I could have *sworn* that they DID say we'd be able to move the panels around where we wished. But when I was called to task on that claim, I found myself not able to find any mention of such a thing.

And I didn't mean to imply that it was the only way to play the game either. I *Did* mean to imply that if you took away my ability to look under the hood, and make tactical and party build adjustments based on what I'm seeing in the combat log, that it would make me feel like I was playing a movie. I do agree that my stance might be one of the extremes mentioned in the Stormwind Fallacy. Yeah. So be it. 5 years of Witcher, Dragon Age and Elder scrolls games will do that to an Infinity engine game fan. I want my Combat logs. They constitute just as good a use of screen real estate as the gameworld scenery itself.

I would agree that Rogues need their sneak attacks beefed up, except that Sawyer said something interesting on the "lame items" thread that totally blew my mind and made me withdraw that notion. There are enchantments you can place on weapons that cause status effects like Daze and Stun on a hit. This means that if your Rogue is dual-wielding 2 weapons with those enchantments on them, you can achieve a situation where you are locking your foe into a perpetual Status + Sneak attack + Status + Sneak attack etc. affair that sounds rather over-powered to me. (and really fun! but that's a different point lol) Beefing up a rogue's sneak attack more than it already is would probably be build-breakingly powerful.

The real world also doesn't show damage numbers floating over the heads of people when you hit them. No one here is arguing that the combat log shouldn't be minimizable/hidable (it should. just like in the IE games) Just that it should never, EVER be removed. this is a Role playing GAME, it is not an auto-play movie.

Oh? That wasn't the tune you were singing just 2 pages ago when you spouted the obligatory, knee-jerk "YOUR A TROLL!" response to my very first post on this thread.

Nice cop-out. "Combat log is bad because 1999 and the info should be availabel otherwise." "How?" "Damned if I know, it's their job to figure out." That's exactly what he's saying. The fact of the matter is that a well designed combat log solves all the issues he brought up, and therefore, should be the centerpiece of the HUD. Of course this doesn't automatically mean that we should be happy with PoE's combat log as it is. Mainly because its current state is not ideal. I can list a ton of changes to make it better. Its repositioning to the front and center is only the start. Text should be color coded better in it. It should scroll slower. There should be a space between each line. It should name the item/spell/ability that is causing the damage or debilitating/buffing effect. etc.

Looks like you have no argument beside "its my personal oppinion". I design UI's for years. Its my job, I might know a little bit more about it than you do. WTF are you going on about? He's mass-bitch slapping you without even trying. There are 2 types of RPGs. The pretty cinematic ones you can sit back and watch with a bag of popcorn on your lap, and the Deep, interactive ones that require you to read, control, think analyze, and get your hands dirty with. PoE is that latter. The combat log is Vital in games like PoE where you've got a whole party of characters with scores of abilities each, and where stuff isn't limited to Hit vs. Miss, or Damage vs. less damage. Maybe YOU don't care about what's going on under the hood, But Me, I'm a total nerd. I don't just want to know whether my paralyse spell succeeded, I want to know what the enemy rolled to fail. I want to know what bonuses or penalties came into play, so that I can work in the future to increase my success with all my skills. etc. Not wanting a combat log means you don't really care about stuff like that. That's called being a casual by definition. So again. Go play your Dragon Age.

No. Now go play your Dragon age. You are the reason RPG developers have gone full derp minimalist on us. RPGs should be about reading.

No. Edit: F*ck no.

Replacing the Beetles (or the wolves, for that matter) with Bandits is a good idea IMO, and it would fit. If you listen to the people in the Dyrford village, some of them seem to be complaining of Brigands on the roads. But aside from the dragon egg hunting group, there are none to be found in the three maps of the beta.

No, I think I'll give him a like for his *meaningful*, design observations.

I'm imagining my Orlan rogue sneaking into the cave and pickpocketing the Ogre's head right off his body... Before the final patch, BG2 allowed you to do that. The genies in Trademeet want you to bring them Ihtafeer's head. When you find her, you can sneak into her hut and pick her pocket for it. ^there's your impossibly non-violent solution, right there!

It rewards your accomplishments because all those activites, killing monsters, lockpicking locks, and so forth are done so you can solve a quest. The only way to win this or any similar game is by solving quests. Except that here in the Beta, there's an entire map (the what's-it-called Gorge) filled with monsters, and lock picking, scripted events and a dungeon. But since there's no quest tied to that map, there's no XP to be had in it. Or because of it. Or in reference to it. none at all.

Or maybe because Watcher's Keep wasn't very well designed? It was a supermarket aisle of unconnected atmospheres. Bioware was trying to Out-wow the Durlag's tower wow factor, so they sat down and tried to come up with "awesome" stuff to put in a 5 level tower without any regard to whether or not all this awesome stuff would make sense, thematically. So in between Monster Manual 1's most awesome Demon Prince (Demogorgon!) and the DM Guide's most awesome Artifact (machine of Lum the Mad), they inserted 2 dragons, a demilich, a mindflayer base, a Githyanki campsite, a Chromatic Demon (whatever the hell that is), A Cambion Noble from Sigil, a level full of animated statues that had no story to them whatsoever, and then they tied it all together with an overarching narrative that by itself wasn't terribly interesting. Still, I had loads of fun doing watcher's keep. It certainly never got repetitive! But Durlag's tower was a far better dungeon experience for me.

The chess match!

Yep. And that's a perfect example. That fight is more fun than the Battle with Demogorgon just downstairs. Also the Holy Avenger fight in IWD2 with Bane's Six Chosen. You don't forget battles like that. You remember them forever

I ditto the boss-fights-be-gone suggestion. In just about any RPG I have ever played, an enemy party encounter has always been more fun than a boss battle. You've got a group of enemies in front of you that mirrors your own, has your skills, and fights you on even terms. What's not to like about such a design?