morhilane

It has always been like that as far as I know. In my very first playthrough, I leveled up after killing the adventurer party guarding the drake egg (which was after cleaning the spider's cave). In fact, I didn't even realize there was no combat XP because of that.

I am in the group that believe that they succeeded in getting the "feels" of the old IE games. Although, has opposed to get exactly one game down closely matched, it's a mismatch of multiple games put together. It's a lot more BG1 and IWD than BG2 for example (first one in the series, more open world, no kits, lower levels, etc). Also, I didn't back PoE because I wanted a clone of one of the IE games. I just wanted a game in the same genre: party based isometric RtWP story-based game.

I like this suggestion. No idea how feasible it is though.

Repulsive seal + Pillar of Faith will crush any beetles problems (both are Priest's spells). And I said it in another thread, BB Rogue needs to be positioned to do sneak attack. It's my biggest damage dealer and I don't even use her abilities. I just flank something with her. PoE rogue reminds me of DAO rogue actually, just less annoying to position for flanking.

I know there's loot down there in that corner, in a wall of some ruins iirc. Can't remember what the loot was though. A pointless encounter in the corner of the map was enough for me to never go back down there again. The IE games were filled with pointless encounters, especially BG1. And those wolves are around my favorite spot to rest on the map, so I always dispatch them.

I think some of that is bugged. I had my BB Wizard run around the melee once, he ended up pretty much where he started to cast his spell in the end. It was somewhat funny though.

Combat can be tedious if: - you are attacking things with the wrong damage type (check the combat log) - you are suffering from the DT bug that can make mobs close to unkillable because their DT get buffed to insane numbers - you are suffering from the DT bug that make you lost DT and super easy to kill - you are not employing a good strategy for the group/encounter you are facing (aka learning curve of starting at level 5 with no prior knowledge)

Yep. That's part of what is lacking with the combat feedback. You need to check at the super fast combat log to know what is going on. The problem is that with the "overhead" tooltip it's already pretty crowded there.

The thing is, the combat system of PoE make it so the same encounter can be something that end in a few seconds or get drawn out depending on your party composition, spell usages and weapons/armor. If a battle is drawing out, check the combat log, I'm sure it's filled with "weapon ineffective" and craze damage messages.

As far as I know, most people read the description on the side before deciding what to pick or put points into. So I personally expect the majority to have no issues at all with Might current existence going by its description. In fact, the only people I see complaining about Might are people who can't get over the fact that it's not just an clone of the D&D strength stat. "Most people read the description on the side"... bold statement. I don't think that's the case. Of course, at some point people will understand the system, but I think in their first playthrough many people will pump certain attributes for the wrong reasons. I didn't talk about understanding the system. I'm talking about reading the description in the page to just know what the attribute is supposed to represent.

As far as I know, most people read the description on the side before deciding what to pick or put points into. So I personally expect the majority to have no issues at all with Might current existence going by its description. In fact, the only people I see complaining about Might are people who can't get over the fact that it's not just an clone of the D&D strength stat.

I'm not sure how you managed to do that in every battle. Take the encounter with the Spider Queen, for instance. There are a number of spiderlings that mob rush you as soon as combat starts. I'm not aware of a spell or ability that will CC all of them as well as the Queenie and her 3 or so underlings without your party getting swarmed. And if you're swarmed while trying to fight with ranged weapons, you're gonne get butt-raped by regular attacks as well as poison. Maybe there are some CC spells/abilities I've not realized fully? The Spider Queen would be the big ass spider in the cave right. That one died super fast. I was a bit underwhelmed when it happened, I was expecting a boss fight. I might have hit a bug or was super lucky, I don't know. I didn't get swarmed and binding web, rogue's crippling strike and the Priest's Halt were super effective.

I keep reading these threads about difficulty and I can't understand how the hell I could go through the demo without a single character downing (i.e. losing all their stamina) the first time around and back then I didn't know that much about the game compared to what I do now. My tactic was "CC everything, use ranged weapons" and it worked pretty well against everything...

Urm... Ouch.... I guess that means I need to adjust my playstyle... Do anyone know why? Even Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 had healing, so I see no reason why not PoE should have it.. I believe the original intent was to remove "rest spam". The first version of resting was restricted to specific camp spots dotting the landscape but was later revised to allow resting anywhere (outside of combat and close by mooks) but uses a "Camping Supply" in the process (which are stupendously expensive in relation to everything else the innkeeper sells). For me, it seems way too difficult right now. Im in Dyrford ruins, fighting 1 archer of some kind near a bridge inside it, and even if I manually cast all spells and such, my whole party dies to it, even if im fully rested and my main character is a level 5. The others are still at their starting level. My faults im pretty sure, but still its nagging me; how can it possibly be? Its only one! And i got 5. And I die to many others too. Oh well, i guess thats something that will be tuned or fixed or I have to learn to live with it somewho - although I wonder how the difficulty level will be in "suicide" mode.. Did you check your combat log to know what is going on? If all your characters attacks result in "weapon ineffective" it's going to be a really slow fight (and this might be a known bug or you really should think to switch weapons against it).

Pillar of Faith (Cleric level 3 spell) is your friend. Just try to have all the beetles close to each others so they get knockdown.

They should add the feature that Lore gives you combat bonuses (offensive or defensive) against creatures in your "bestiaries".

So, ultimately, you can't hover over at the start of combat and have all the information available, even with a high Lore value? You can over at the start of combat, because combat start when you target something. The trick is that the level of information you have will depend on various factors. Like Elerond said, the current beta setup doesn't allow the player to maximize the benefit of Lore. In the real game you would have 5 levels worth of combat/encounters by that point. So you either takes notes for future playthrough/reload (which is what I've done in pretty much every games I played since the mid-90s) or go with the flow and adjust yourself in the middle of combat (which is what I've been doing in POE, less or more, so far). There is also the entire concept of learning a new game system. POE needs a manual, badly.

If you put your cursor on a mob while in combat there is a popup with information in it. It include health status, various D.T, saves value and even accuracy. The information gets populate over time. For example, if you use a fireball, the D.T. for burn will show up in it otherwise you won't see it.

Rogue exploit conditions and flanking to deal extra damage (aka sneak attack). Using them as archer is almost dumb, because the easiest condition to apply is flanked and prone. In other word, they make a great combo with a fighter. That is why, I find them best in melee, in the back of the enemies that my BB fighter is facing and knocking down. Also, change BB rogue weapons, the early fight in the demo has many resistance to slashing and piercing weapons.

Is the issue that they' need fewer HPs, or is the poison from the beetles taking your fighter out? Both really. The fights take too long and the enemies can dish out too much damage because they take too long to kill. Reducing their hp kills two birds with one stone. It's not that they have too much HPs because they don't have that much. Beetles have high DT against everything but crushing damage. Use the Priest's Pillar of Faith on them or any crushing weapons and they die fast.

You are missing recovery time and that the classes aren't fully balanced yet. Casting a spell in light armor has a 4.2 seconds recovery time before you can do something else, in heavy armor that is 6.0 seconds. Medium armor is probably around 5 seconds of recovery time. Two-handed weapon recovery time is between 1.4 seconds (light) and 2.0 seconds (heavy), so medium would be around 1.6 seconds. Your "battlemage" will cast a spell, than he will have to wait 5 seconds before he can swing his sword or cast another spell. In those 5 seconds, the pure melee character (no spell used) will have hit his enemy with his two-handed weapon around 3 times.

For me, this really depends on the class I'm using (playing on normal, which I considered the median of game balance). Druid, Chanter, Barbarian and Cipher have no problem bringing the party through 4-5 encounters at which point all my per rest abilities are exhausted (health is usually not that bad). I consider 4-5 encounters to be a nice "adventuring day". Paladin, Monk and Ranger usually "fall" at Medreth and wake up with half their health missing (that's always my first encounter). Either, I can't play them or they need a "boost". I play the Barbarian, Chanter and Druid in melee might I add, so it doesn't seem to really be a "melee" problem. Maybe I'm more cautious when I'm playing those...

Going by how the class were presented, the real "replacement" for a Priest is the Chanter, not the Druid. It's the other class that focus on buff and debuff and they have that heal-over-time always active in combat (Ancient Memories). Also, Paladin has "Lay on Hands" Fighters, Wizard, Barbarian and Monks have class feature to reduce damage taken. Druids have a couple of healing spells. Only the Rogue and Rangers seems to fall flat in term of self-healing.

There is a Priest's spell that cancel negative effects. It is an overtime AOE called Suppress Affliction (level 2). There is no reason to not use it against the beetles. It will cancel the poison effect in place and make it impossible to get poisoned has long has it's up...

A lot of the feedback received was generated because of bugs. For example, the pathfinding issues cause combat to become clustered.