Frusciante

The same happens to me always. When I start a ranger it's fine. But when I load a ranger savefile the companion has duplicated itself. you can only control and attack with one the other one is just there visually (walking around but not attacking or anything)

I have played some more and for now I find it really too difficult to continue playing. Basically, in my opinion, one thing should be addressed as the number one priority: combat speed, combat speed, combat speed! I would say: - slow down run speed in combat by 30-40% at least. - bring back slowmotion mode - see if activation time for some specific spells/abilities and recovery time need to be lowered to give more opportunity to influence what happens on the battlefield, this is especially necessary for casters. It could be though that slowing the combat speed in general down already sufficiently makes casters more viable.

My impressions after playing for just one hour: ++ the world map, great idea and improves the feel of exploration ++ the integration of scripted interactions on the world map, adds a feeling of proper adventuring, consequences of scripted interactions (leading to encounters or not etc) seem stronger ++ multiclassing, makes thinking about character builds a lot of fun ++ dialogue UI and watercolor portraits; looks and feels good, non-intrusive and portraits add nice flavour + art is nice as always + personally I prefer the streamlining of health/endurance and per encounter abilities. This allows better tailoring of encounters. The tactical aspect of combat will likely improve at the expense of the strategic aspects of managing combat resources. It's personal preference what you prefer. + stealth system + dialogue reactivity and skill checks - removal of ''neutral'' (for all classes) talents. It makes character building a bit too streamlined, especially for single class characters. I'f you're playing a pure rogue or ranger, leveling up doest seem too interesting. - a bit heavy use of the fictional languages makes the dialogue sometimes feel unrealistic - world map can use some more work to make it feel more interesting, diverse (islands now look a bit the same) and alive - icons on world map (for scripted interactions and player character) are not very interesting or nice to look at -- some sounds play wat too often, especially in combat but also when sailing around. the slider for this doesn't seem to work. -- combat still seems a bit chaotic and it can still be hard to see what is going on, I guess this is something that cannot be prevented completely but nevertheless something that I think can be looked at again --- biggest thing I would hope is improved is the feel of combat. I can see animations are better and sounds are nice. but for me it's way too fast. I would prefer to have both the speed at normal reduced and to have a slowmotion option back. Enemies seem to move very fast so positioning your party is very difficult. Also since casting takes a long time, the fight can be half over before I've had the chance to cast 1-2 spells.

I just quit the beta to make a similar post. The combat at normal speeds feels very fast, a slow motion mode would be nice. But it also seems that characters move very fast in combat, distances to the back line are closed in 1-2 seconds.

Care to elaborate? Josh has added in a large amount of talents and restructured everything so they are more integrated into the level-up process. Because of this, you have to make choices about which class abilities you want and it allows you to build different play styles for the same class. Do you guys plan to change the level up UI? I find it pretty uninvolving or something. I really iked the NWN levelling up UI for example.

If you adjusted the bonus scale for D&D's attribute system to go from -1 at 3 and +1 at 20, you would get the same outcome you're talking about, though -- and that would be a balance issue, not a fundamental mechanical issue. It may be that Might grants too little of a bonus from point to point, it may be that wizards' spells simply do so much damage that a low bonus doesn't have a large impact on their viability, or it could be something else. Josh, one of the things that I think you aren't taking into account when dealing with PoE numbers in general (i.e. not shifting the numbers to negatives and positives and only making things positive, or large numbers, or decimals) is that these "complex" numbers are easy for the computer to crunch but become hard for the players to comprehend in terms of magnitude and implication. 1000% bonus damage? What does that mean for a player? 10x damage makes more sense. Same with other numbers. I really think you should look back at how you're implementing numbers and while considering that the computer can crunch those numbers for you, people have to actually make informed considerations with those numbers and keeping the numbers manageable will go a long way in usability. If people can't make calculations in a first-order model quickly, it's tough to truly understand that system. Ultimately, present the information in a way that most people could understand it. This is just a presentation issue. For me % changes mean much more then things like +1, +2, +3 etc. Also I'm not so sure if +22% is les clear then x1.22.

If you adjusted the bonus scale for D&D's attribute system to go from -1 at 3 and +1 at 20, you would get the same outcome you're talking about, though -- and that would be a balance issue, not a fundamental mechanical issue. It may be that Might grants too little of a bonus from point to point, it may be that wizards' spells simply do so much damage that a low bonus doesn't have a large impact on their viability, or it could be something else. And that's the reason why they didn't. The point is that this is a balance problem and not an inherent flaw in the core mechanics. I think what he is saying that they will tweak the impact of the attributes until they do have the desired impact.

might 1 (mt) n. 1. The power, force, or influence held by a person or group. 2. Physical strength. 3. Strength or ability to do something. See Synonyms at strength. See Regional Note at powerful. [Middle English, from Old English meaht, miht; see magh- in Indo-European roots.] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/might Might does not necessarily refer to physical strength. In the context of PoE it might refer to the power of your soul or whatever. The term muscle wizard is thus a bit besides the point.

Do you realise that this is a beta and that they removed all story content including the real companions? Same goes for the combat, There is still lots of bugs and missing features. I'm sure it will improve in the coming months.

Why would it need to have something to do with Baldur's Gate? They're making an IE like game in a new (Renaissance) setting. It's not intended to have a setting/world that is exactly similar to BG. The idea was to have a slightly different (fresh) take on a fantasy world. So they ended up with colonialism, renaissance, slavery, souls, early firearms etc.

I think the character models are the biggest problem. In the sense that this is the hardest to fix. Most of the other things like selection circles, targeting feedback and pathfinding is relatively easy to fix.

Please read my post on the previous page. Obsidian is already working on this.

This is a known issue. I read somewhere that a developper is specifically looking into this.

Excuse me for this long post but I will now post my detailed impressions from playing the Beta for about 6 hours. I will start with the easy part: The graphics and art are absolutely amazing. I have been craving for a gorgeous 2d world to explore for a long time and I’m glad that I can finally do this again. There is lots of detail, great atmosphere and a great feeling of exploration. The music is great in my opinion, fits the overall atmosphere nicely. Reminds me of both BG2 at times and morrowind which is a very good thing. Sound still has a lot of bugs so hard to judge for now. At least is seems promising. The tone and quality of the dialogue so far is excellent. Since I like the world of PoE and the story will be very personal (as opposed to an epic you’re the chosen one story) I think this bodes well for the final game. Also nice are the many skills/attribute checks, the reputation/faction system and the scripted interactions. So far this is pretty boring because I think most people will agree with me so far. So here I would just like to reflect on the art, dialogue, story concept and scripted interactions. It has been far too long since I have played a game with these qualities. There have been a lot of people here acting like PoE has no redeeming qualities at all at this point which is something I strongly disagree with. Now on to combat. In general while reading the comments I feel that people dont like the combat for one or more of the following reasons: A) They hate RTWP IE like combat B) They are misguided/uninformed by the many bugs and missing features in combat C) They honestly just happen to have a very specific taste that makes them hate some of the deliberate choices made by OE. D) Some things are just not working out very well at this point To judge PoE’s combat I will take BG2 combat as the standard of comparison. Let’s assume that this is actual good and enjoyable combat because we need to compare PoE to a fair standard (as opposed to some theoretical perfect game). I believe PoE still has the potential to (greatly) improve on BG2’s combat. The main improvements in my opinion are: 1. Melee engagement: this forum used to be full of people complaining about the lack of control your fighters had in IE to keep your enemies from reaching your backline. Having a system in place to keep enemies pinned down greatly increases the usefulness of positioning and tactics. One thing this system does need however is good enemy AI and encounter design. You need enemies trying to reach your backline anyway. For example using teleportation or abilities like wild sprint. 2. Per encounter abilities: if it was up to me there would only be per encounter abilities in this game. Per rest abilities generate startegical considerations. Limited per encounter abilities generate tactical considerations. In moment to moment gameplay tactical considerations are much more interesting then strategic ones in an IE like game (I can elaborate on this if anyone is interested). 3. Resting + health + stamina: I like the interplay between resting and health. Basically you cannot rest after each encounter so you need to manage your long term resource: health. In combat encounters you thus need always be on your best because otherwise you will get into trouble later on in the dungeon/area. Also I like that you dont have to load your priest full of healing spells anymore to survive an encounter. 4. Stealth system: is much more clear and useful. Is great and fun to set up ambushes with your rogue and then teleport to safety. 5. No rounds: my rogue can now teleport away instantly without having to wait untill he finishes his previous round. This is better suited for RTWP combat. Now on to what is getting in the way of enjoyable combat at the moment: 1. No auto-attack (this is a bug, will be fixed) 2. Selection circles overlapping (main reason for cluster****, is a bug, will be fixed) 3. No targeting feedback (confirmed that this will be implemented, will greatly improve clarity) 4. Responsiveness (party members dont activate abilities etc, is a bug, will be fixed) 5. No hit animations (will likeley be added later, some blood spatter etc would benn ice when hitting the enemy) 6. Bugged sound effects (makes the combat sometimes feel unconnected, is bug so will be fixed) 7. Low quality of animations (is a big potential negative that will probably not be fixed entirely) 8. No melee engagement UI (will be added later) 9. Movement speed too fast in combat (makes positioning feel less important, needs tob e tweaked slightly, unsure if this will happen) 10. Spell effects sometimes obstructing vision (hopefully they will tweak this a bit but not certain) 11. Balance (typical beta issue, OP blunderbusses etc, not worth discussing) If they can fix all of these 11 points I am confident that PoE’s combat will be on par with that of the IE games. I’m no oracle so no idea if it will actually be better. So far I havent talked at all about the attributes, feats and character progression. This is because from what I have played in the beta, the end result of character progression in this game is a party composition and abilities/spell composition that is very similar to that of the IE games. In other words it doesnt for me directly affect the fun of combat. It does however affect ofcourse the fun of character building and progression. There is significant possibilites for improvement but I am pretty certain that it will never be nearly as good as in DnD 3.5 for example. I like NWN’s system the best honestly. Some things I expect: 1. Many more feats will be added which improve customization options 2. Attribute system will be slightly changed to accomodate the huge butthurt 3. Attributes will remain much less relevant then in the IE games which is very unfortunate Random remarks about no combat XP: - People saying xp is needed because combat is bad: this is bull**** MMO addict logic. Improve combat or go home. - By definition incentive/reward for combat will be lower. Trade-off is that other options (stealth, conversation, puzzle etc) are now equally rewarding. This is a matter of preferences, no absolute good or bad. Conclusion: PoE still promises to be a very good but not perfect crpg. It has great 2d art, music and dialogue so far. Good innovations like the health system, rest system, scripted interactions, faction/reputation system are great additions to the IE formula. I believe combat will be at least on par with the IE games. Major flaw compared to IE games will be character building/progression.

First of all I think you are completely right Sensuki, I think most people agree with your video. But I think these features have just not been implemented yet, see this post by Kaz: ''We have temporary UI in place to indicate who is engaging who, but it quickly adds a lot of visual clutter so we have it disabled in the beta build. The first step would be to get visual feedback for targeting in the game. (highlighting the current target of the character you have selected or are hovering over)'' http://pedevtracker.azurewebsites.net/Post/View/29666 Second about selection circles overlapping, I believe this is a bug so it's not intended to be this way. Look at the list of known issues and then the first point: ''Pathfinding - We are in the middle of revising the pathfinding system. In the Backer Beta at launch, you may see issues with characters jittering, getting stuck, getting "bottlenecked" between other characters, and overlapping their selection circles with other characters in combat.'' So targeting feedback WILL be implemented, selection circles will not overlap in the final version and (not mentioned in this post but still relevant) the auto-attack bug will be fixed. I believe that fixing these three issues will be relatively easy and will greatly improve the feel of the combat. Two other points I would like to mention is the engagement feedback and responsiveness of characters especially when activating abilities. These are also important points that need to be addressed and I have good faith that they will be. All in all I still believe that the combat in PoE will be at least on par with the IE games based on what I have seen so far. Especially melee engagement, the new sneak system, the separation of health and stamina and the removal of rounds are very good improvements in my book. Please note that I'm not talking about character progression, attributes etc. That is a different problem.