Karkarov

No, if you only follow the critical path I think they said you'd reach level 7-9 or thereabouts. You have to do side content to reach the max level (12). That's true, but they have also said you don't have to do EVERYTHING in the game to hit max level. Anyone who plays to 80-85% completion will likely hit max level.

Where does it place you when you actually own the pong system? You know... the console with the controllers attached that can literally only play three versions of pong?

I am twenty five years old. Not one day more. I swear. What do you mean that cant be Karkarov? You say I have made claims of playing BG 1 when still in highschool and I couldn't have been in highschool at a young enough age to be 25 now? Poppy*deleted expletive thanks to stupid teenagers*, I graduated from school when I was uh.... five.... yeah five.

Oh don't get me wrong I aimed the UI comment mostly at Sensuki harharharharharhar. I am very much so looking forward to DA:I and already have it preordered on everyone's favorite game service to hate, Origin. I agree with most of your points in the OP too. Just don't play DA:I with a controller.... they seriously screwed the pooch on the UI in controller mode for some reason. Instead of just reskinning specific things to show a button instead of key keyblind they actually change the entire hud dramatically and for the worse in almost all cases.

Good change to the poll. I will add though that if bestiary exp is in then lock pick/trap exp via Mechanics is NOT the only skill with EXP tied to it as Lore skill helps you fill out the bestiary.

See I agree with "most" of what you and Sensuki post. Unless it is UI related in which case lets get the swords, axes, and torches now. That being said I think the situation is blown out of proportion and the reason is it comes from always comparing finished products (or near finished in DA:I's case, specifically it releases in 24 days or so) and products with larger teams to Eternity as it stands now. Yes I concur we need better idle animations for example... but animations are typically not a high priority in a beta test or build, you can add them in at any time, polish them without adding them, and tell if they are going to work well without investing much play testing time. Which is why animation polish is always one of the last things to get "done" for most games. I feel like most of the things people are complaining about were already considered by Obsidian, most of them already have plans to be adjusted. But most of them are also small niggling little details that can be added in very close to release and are "polish" changes not mechanics or gameplay changes. Combat feedback is a big deal and it needs polish before release.... but do you actually need "great" combat feedback to test the combat? No, you don't. I think the focus at this point should be perfecting the EXP curve and getting it to be more about objectives (and adding more objectives) and tightening up many of the issues in combat. Like engagement being a little spotty, spell balance, maybe adjusting some classes abilities to be more interesting. Of course the biggest deal though in my opinion is still fixing the stat system, I don't like it as it currently stands and I feel like it went in the right direction but took a wrong turn in the last patch.

Yeah this is really annoying. It isn't that big a deal, you get used to it after a hour or so.

In all fairness you realize how easy it is to simply change the reward to be EXP for entering the room by whatever means, or getting the loot from the chest regardless of how you opened it, or even disabling the trap no matter how the disabling was done.

You should hear me when I start getting into playing dark souls. I start humming along to Ina Gada Divida.

I shared my own opinion, which is indeed biased You do realize that when you have a biased opinion and create a biased poll it also completely invalidates any results your poll has right? Personally, I don't care if it is in game or not. It isn't that big a deal to me as I think anyone who isn't an idiot will have at least one high mechanics character to begin with. I do agree with Matt's points from the previous page though. It seems counter to the basic XP philosophy of the game.

Personally I concur with Sensuki, weekly isn't really needed. I think a patch every two weeks would be a pretty solid rate though. Gives time for feedback, lets the posters see what there is to see, and gives time for the devs to disseminate all of that info and make some changes for the next patch that won't just be trivial or minor tweaks.

March 11th huh? Prophecy proclaiming the release date of the game? Or will the physical stuff just hit after the digital release? Only time will tell.

THAC0 and Armor Class from D&D 2nd Ed are some of the least "user friendly" mechanics ever invented. Also the BG2 UI is serviceable but hardly what I would call good. Eternity needs some changes to it's UI but nothing too earth shattering and frankly UI tweaks should be pretty low on the totem pole and can be wrapped up quickly near the end. Also other than Eternity's very obtuse stat system it really isn't worse off than 2nd Ed. So while Eternity is far from perfect and needs lots of work it isn't half as bad as many of you paint it to be. Meanwhile why is a thread about a game being rushed when we all know it was delayed even still active? Make a new thread peoples ;p

In all honesty the guy who wrote that was reaching really really really hard. I have played both Dragon Age 2 and Eternity plenty and there is very very little in the core mechanics I would call more than "slightly similar". Some of the design goals may be theoretically the same, but the execution is totally dissimilar.

It is important for a developer to try and do more than just ape what has come before. You have to have vision and be willing to shake things up a little to make a real impact these days regardless of the genre you are making a game for. That said, there are some basic core tenets you should not screw with and do everything you can to avoid rocking the boat. Not because they are super duper important, but because they need to be things players can just understand and roll with. EXP systems is one of those. People can bitch all they want about kill EXP, they still understand how Eternity's EXP system works, they still understand how to earn EXP, they still know how to game the system. I don't think they should be messing with those particular fundamentals, unless the core of the game itself was going to be different. However it isn't, try as people might to claim it is something else, Eternity is still a Infinity engine style game just with some different rules.

I don't know, I expect they will release one in a week or so, I just hope they seriously considering shifting the stats around again. Before they were weird but made some level of sense. Now they are down right counter intuitive and many are so small or situational it is hard to validate taking any of them over just more perception, might, or int.

Pretty much. The main quest will scale (for the completionists so they can get to the end game and not have it be the last fight in Skyrim) but side areas outside the main quest will not scale in any way.

I will try to throw you a bone on some of these... 1: Spell effects. Spells still have to hit just like everything else so a spell can graze, some armors and enemies even have DR (damage reduction) versus some spell types. So yes it is very possible for a spell on one cast to be bad ass, then cast it again and it does almost nothing. It is also possible for a spell that is on paper the better damage dealer do less damage than a spell that looks weaker on paper due to resistances etc. 2: Yes this happens sometimes. Make sure your caster is not in melee or getting hit so they aren't be interrupted. You also want to be sure not to try inputting multiple commands on one character as I find this sort of screws things up. Recovery times can be very very long in this game depending on the action and gear in use so getting that one cast off can be very time consuming. 3: Just look at the combat log, even if it says what it does on paper in real use it will be different again depending on your roll to hit, the enemies defenses, etc etc. 4: All attributes are good for all classes on some level. If you want to do more damage all classes take might. If you want to "act" faster all classes would take Dex. Etc etc. It is far less about "what is good for my class" in Eternity than it is "what is good for the type of character I am making". 5: Different spells may have different recovery times, recovery times don't charge while moving, different armors also have different speed reductions. So even if one mage has massive dex, if they are also wearing chainmail while the other mage is wearing padded, the guy in padded will probably go first. 6: Like I said, different spells, different abilities, dex bonus, armor penalty, did you move, blah blah. 7: Are you sure you leveled yourself up all the way? 8: Yes many parts of the stat system is counter intuitive. This game only resembles D&D on paper, the mechanics are completely different. I would suggest just doing a ton of forum reading.

No he is saying they see some peoples points and want to put things in game to make the exp gain more consistent and less "I turned in a quest BOOOM EXP!!!" while also giving something to the people who do go out of their way to participate in lots and lots of combat that might be optional. AKA: Bestiary EXP. It isn't a "half measure" or some banal attempt at appeasement. It is their way of addressing the exp economy in game to be a little more balanced and fair to the player. Also what the heck does Skyrim have to do with Objective EXP? There is no EXP for completing objectives in skyrim (unless you mod it in), but if you go kill 5001 bandits with a long sword I bet you got a boatload of advancement on your armor/weapon skills.

What if Leonardo drew Mona Lisa as a man? It would explain the smile.

I think we are good with what we have exp wise, don't see the need for any changes at this point. Also the games are so different from each other character wise I am not sure trying to cross systems over would work in the first place.

Precisely. I have played the game and combat in the lower camera sucks, like really bad. I agree having it higher would have been nice, but saying it "sucks" is a bit of a over statement.

Not concerned. This is just two maps and one town. It isn't indicative of what the entire game will be, and I seriously doubt there won't be much larger maps out there. We need to remember that the BB is based on the very first maps and content created to do the vertical slice, the first stuff is not going to be anywhere near the best stuff. That said are the encounters a little dense, yes. Too dense? Not sure I would say that but maybe a little. Does there need to be more encounter wise than what was there in BG1, yes.

I don't know, I figured any money Paradox gave them was already in the mix. I just don't want to find out the expansion fund got slashed and burned to extend dev time.

I'm not really arguing against that, per se, but DnD itself has wolves, worgs, and dire wolves. I do think that sometimes it can come across as a little bit of WoW naming if you have three categories of each monster or the like. However, as long as it's not glaring, I don't think it's necessarily bad. Elder Lion kind of sounds like someone running a town hall meeting rural Massachusetts to me, though. Are you saying the Elder Lion's now wear wigs and beat people with little gavels? If so this needs to stay in game, sorry.