Stun

How's the contrary preferable? I can give you about 10 reasons why the contrary is preferable. But this morning I only have time for one. Here goes. I don't like my single player combat rulesets to be mechanically, soullessly, and rigidly Balanced. That's why. I want to be able, after a few playthroughs, to discover a build that blows away the rest. Conversely, I want to be able, after a few more playthroughs, to discover a truly underpowered build and then challenge myself to beat the game with it. This will let me know that real Human *art* was behind the creation of this game, not some undeviating, soulless, 'Balanced. At. All. Costs.", mathematical formula. BG1, BG2, and Icewind Dale positively oozed of the former. And that's why they're still great to play 14+ years later. While crap games like Dungeon Siege 1, and Dragon Age 2 suffered from droves of the latter and thus aren't worth the box they came in.

Yeah, one on one. As in, a fight against a single opponent. But the issue was in the long run - Ie. against all encounters types, all day long, level after level...

^On the other side of the coin, it is my understanding that you can do something similar with the Wizard class. You can take a wizard, put heavy armor on him, equip him with a decent weapon and shield, and then tinker with his stats so that he becomes a competent, but maybe not optimal, melee character. At least I hope that's how it is. It's what I'm leaning towards as the first character I take through this game.

Here's what Josh has said about a fighter's survivability in relation to the other front liners: I interpret this to basically mean... perfect balance. In the long run, having lower health + higher defense will end up being exactly equal, survival-wise, to having higher health and lower defense. And this is exactly the type of automatic, unbreakable 'balance-no-matter-what' design philosophy that I dislike in RPGs. But never mind me.

Hopefully some will be magical too!

Well that's kinda the whole point, isn't it. You can't have total historical accuracy in an RPG because if you do, the sheer dreary *dullness* will overpower its main purpose: Which is to be a Role playing game; to be fun to play. And I think that's the main reason why having a game set in a feudal setting, and then taking the details of such a setting all the way to 100% - where you have to implement complete gender inequality in virtually all aspects of the game's systems, from the Story, to the quest lines, to the NPC interactions, to the visuals, and even to the player character generation screen choices... will end up being a very unappealing 'game' to even the fringe of the gaming masses.... even if it does end up being more 'interesting' than sitting in class and simply listening to the professor giving a standard lecture on the subject.

Name one.

In my opinion, the inclusion of a tool set would be a huge, huge pro. But I don't see the lack of one as all that big of a con. There was no tool set for the infinity engine games, remember? But that didn't stop modders from utterly going to town on them anyway. There are thousands upon thousands of mods for BG1 & 2. Big and small. There's also fan made Game editors like Gate Keeper, Dale Keeper, Shadow Keeper and Near Infinity. I'm not worried.

Well, it might help them in the long run. We don't know just how significant those defense bonuses actually are. The language in this update is vague. All we know is that they have the highest deflection scores of any class, they have a passive armor bonus ability, and inflicting critical damage on them will be 20% harder to do. This probably means they'll be taking less damage in melee than everyone else. And in those times when all of the above fails them, there's This: ^ this looks like the proverbial reset button. I like "second chance" stuff like this. Prevents the degenerate save scummer in me from reloading the game

I wish we could go back to discussing Romances. Wait, did I just say that?

You do realize that PoE is not taking place on earth, yes? And that the Reactionary attitudes you want are, in fact, going to be in the game but they will likely manifest themselves in logically and understandably different ways, since the societal facts on the ground are so fundamentally different? (Unlike earth, this world happens to have Orlans, and Dwarves, and Godlikes for society to deal with) Besides, Josh Sawyer did not say that the world state is Feudal without pointing out that it is also in a period of societal transition.

Why not? Didn't all of that exist? You really can't advocate an historically accurate feudal society and then just turn around and toss some of its realities out the window simply because you want to maintain gender equality for female PC's. RPGs with 100% historical accuracy don't sell worth a damn. So you'll never see a company like Obsidian making one. Besides, can you imagine how *dull* such a game would be?

Ugh....I love pointless system convolution as much as the next Grognard, but I'm betting this game's health and stamina system is going to take me to the cleaners.

Aah, but that's the thing. In PoE's system Stamina does not = Fatigue. You do not incur stamina loss from casting a fireball or activating your Barbarian charge, for example. Instead, you lose stamina when you get whacked in combat. When someone hits you with something. And when your stamina bar drops to zero, you fall to the ground.... maimed. That means that the stamina bar is literally just a second health bar. Thus I'm still trying to figure out why it's needed. Or why it's even called a stamina bar, when it could more accurately be called: "The-Flesh-Wound-Bar" or "The-Blood-Loss-Bar" or "Immediate-Combat-Trauma-Incurred-Bar".

The lack of combat xp means that there's a different xp system in the game, which SW feels is better, therefore he includes it on his pro list. The lack of romance means - in Bruce's book, mind - that there is... no romance. It's not like there's a different romance "system" implemented to replace the "classic" way. Wait, that's not a completely accurate comparison. RPG Romances are never a "system" in and of themselves. They're part of a system. Specifically, they're either an aspect of the game's greater narrative structure, or they're part of the Party inter-action system, or they're a result of the dialogue/influence system that is in place already. But regardless, I, personally, don't see what the problem is with anyone who cites the absence of Romances as a "pro" and I don't quite understand why we're coming down so hard on those who do. Is it off-topic or something? The thread starter didn't define the criteria so specifically in his Op. He just told us to list things we're excited about. Well? I can totally see someone being excited that we're finally getting a party-based RPG that is romance-free. That's a rare thing these days.

^Yes. A few months ago (Or about the time they gave us the first Class Update), My heart sank when I sat there and watched Josh Sawyer assigning MMO terminology to the classes. Ie. Heavy Hitters (DPS), Front liners (tanks) etc. My first thought was total Buyer's (Backer's?) remorse. I funded a spiritual successor to the IE games, not a WoW clone, damn it! But then later he turned around and announced that the game will not be balanced in such a way as to *require* a full party. In fact, he assured us that Soloing will be viable...as it was in the IE games. So I stopped worrying. I suspect that "Heavy Hitters", "Party Leaders", "Mob Rulers" and "Front Liners" are simply general descriptors they came up with to give the public an idea of what each class is particularly good at. But I doubt these Archetypes will be so rigid as to completely prevent a player from breaking the mold outright....such as making an effective Mage front liner. Or a Barbarian mob ruler etc. And even if that's not the case, if the game can be soloed, then satisfying those roles can't be all that vital to success anyway. And that's fine by me! That's how the IE games handled things. Don't need a Tank to beat BG2. Or a Mob Ruler, or a DPS'er, or even a Healer. You just need intelligent strategy and the tools that the game gives you while you're playing it.

What an odd comment. Are you under the impression that people who happen to dislike the excessive pseudo-drama and constrictive baggage associated with video game romances wouldn't see any of the thousands of other types of companion interactions as much better and preferred by default? And that they wouldn't beg Obsidian to spend their writing budget on *those* types instead of Romances? It's a safe bet that Obsidian's companion writers have, in fact, replaced romance with something that has the potential to be a much better fit in a party based RPG that happens to contain lots of combat and deep, storied companions: How about Competition? Or *group* camaraderie? Or friendship that's been built from spending the countless hours traveling, fighting, bleeding and celebrating together? Romance is not the pinnacle of interpersonal relationships. It's just one of the many different types out there..

I agree with this. In fact, I'm the ultimate RPG tinkerer. I typically try to break every video game I play. Therefore, I'm going to "stress test" PoE's system on maybe my second playthrough. I'm going to min-max as much as I can. My Barbarian will put all his points into Resolve. He'll wield a scepter. We'll see if It's *really* impossible to create a bad build.

Did David Gaider write any of the romances in BG2? I know Luke Kristjansen was the main writer of the Jaheira romance. He wrote Anomen and Viconia

I don't care. I know what I'm aiming for. Let's see now, take the number of classes times one thorough playthrough... Ah! 782 hours, give or take 53 minutes, 40 seconds and 12 nanoseconds. Hey! That's exactly how I measure game play length too! Also if you multiply that total by the square root of the number of available races, you get...er... lets see 2376 hours, 4 minutes and 18 seconds. Looks like I'll have to hibernate all winter.

I've been giving this some thought because I, too, see a couple of the romances in BG2 as juvenile. It's kinda hard to explain. For one thing It could just be crap writing that comes across as immature. Aerie's romance, for example, is classic teen Emo plugged into the forgotten realms setting. There's really no other way to describe it. Her romance forces the Player character to play the role of a high school guidance councilor. And Anomen's Romance? Anomen is not a man. He's an insecure Boy. The type of insecure boy that tugs at the typical teen age girl's heart strings, and her belief that she has the power to... CHANGE HER BOYFRIEND and make him Better! Fittingly, the game lets her succeed. I suppose that's quite an appealing love story...if you're a 16 year old girl. The other two Romances (Jaheira's and Viconia's) are not juvenile at all IMO. I'd even go so far as to say that Jaheira's romance is mature and complex enough to be completely misunderstood by your average adult male. And Viconia's romance is....College dorm room stuff. It's her telling you stories about murder and revenge and all the wild sex she had growing up. Unfortunately though, the underlying flaw in every single one of the BG2 romances is that mature or not, they're simply mediocre writing on display. As much as people praise David Gaider as some industry Poet Laureate, he's nothing of the sort. All his material is cringingly cliché. I don't think I've ever read a single unique idea from him.

Well, it did officially receive a Teen rating from the ESRB. But I'm not sure that means anything. There most definitely WAS plenty of mature content in BG2. (or did we forget that Imoen was Tortured?) In any case, the comparison to friggin Scooby-Doo cartoons is ridiculous. I also can't get myself to watch any of the TV shows I used to love as a kid. But I sure as hell still get tons and tons of pleasure Replaying BG2!

You forgot Jaheira... And Anomen. <----there's your catastrophic writing failure right there. Anomen is probably the most formidable argument that can ever be made against the inclusion of romances in video games.

Is that really true? I remember in DA2 I told Anders I just wanted to be friends and I don't remember any issues, he may have sulked ...but he was still in my party and played an active role in combat. I don't think he asked again, so in 50 hours of gameplay I didn't consider a 3 minute dialogue with him as intrusive or a game flaw....what am I missing? For the most part it's not true at all. However in DA:O it's very easy to trigger a romance with Leliana after doing her companion quest with fairly innocuous dialogue choices. /end off topic And in BG2 (especially Bruce's example with Viconia!), it simply can't be avoided if you're playing a Male Human or Male Half Orc. Viconia WILL flirt with you, and you don't have many options when she does. You are allowed to either to show interest (the flirting continues) or to let her down in the most unfriendly way imaginable. (seriously, the dialogue choices they give you are stuff like "You're talking again, Viconia, please stop" Or "Take your meanderings somewhere else, Bitch!") And consequently her response is suitably unfriendly. The end result, especially in a game like BG2 where you don't get to initiate dialogue and patch things up via exposition, is.... well, they remain in your party but they never talk to you again. In the meantime, If you were role playing a friendly sort, you were forced to Break personality. Why? Romances.

To be fair, in Bioware games, a romance doesn't have to be forced upon you to be overly intrusive and thus constitute a game flaw. How many times have we all played those games and simply been nice to our squadmates/party members, because we don't wish to be total douchebags.... only to have one of those party members 'misinterpret' the situation, start flirting with you, and the next thing you know, you're stuck in a Rut: You either have to Let them down (ie. be a douchebag), or go along with it (oh hey, you're now in a Romance that you didn't want)