Shadenuat

When encounters are balanced and don't bug out like infinite sneak attacks from Medreth, Fighter performs fine. Even too well, you can place the dwarf to tank 3 other characters and he like, would't care a **** almost for whole combat. Compared to a BB Wizard who seems to fall on the ground in 2 seconds when something reaches him (unless you Arcane Veil), he's good at soaking damage.

So what? Back row artillery always was lightly armored in IE too - like your mages, thieves and bards. I was more afraid that in PoE you'd be better running around with 6 tankomages all in full plate because difference in speed would be minimal. Having armor on does make a difference in PoE, although nobody stops you from also running dual wielding naked barbarian, which is kinda cool.

Using 2 people to tank 5-6 enemies is abusing system how? It's like a standard of any party building ever.

Will preserve my post from other thread for future generations.

I feel that mechanic works for what they intended to do but it's not a "yuss! spirit of the game preserved forever, people will clean dungeons like in D&D! degeneracy defeated", and it never will be in a game where there is no real time or resource management, where going into adventure is dangerous and you can't backtrack to tavern all the time. PoE makes you want to play through adventuring "the proper" way, holding on your biggest guns and evaluating situation instead of just resting after every battle, but it's more like a mindtrick than real technical achievement (a combination of having finite resource for resting and stamina management/regeneration). But expecting 1 char to gather all encounters and survive them through is a dumb thing to do. Try tanking ogre in IWD1 with just one fighter, see how well that goes. Isn't that what you always do when balancing a party. I know beetles are just rapist destroyers of the beta, but it's possible to reach the ogre and even deal with him without resting once. It requires some more micro than just sending BB Fighter into everything and auto attacking though. Using stealth and pulling adventuring mobs 1 by 1 helps for example. I generally only rested once per map in beta, when I was sure I reached a "boss". And I wasn't just being a **** saying use 2 tanks gitgut lol. Playthroughs that felt right to me had 2 tanks, either Barb+ or Paladin+BB Fighter.

Use 2 tanks.

In any of my playthroughs of the beta BB Wizard did 2-3 times more damage than any character in party only using Fireball&Fan of Flames.

I understand the desire to help but I think artists are somewhat of a tyrants and lead artist probably wouldn't want to deal with hundred pictures all made by different people.

Do remember that the amount of bullets&arrows in a stack in IE was small even by realistic standards. Before BG2 there were only 20 in a stack, then 40, although real combat archer would probably carry more. I'd start with slowing every ranged weapon down and stacks of 50. It's a lot, especially if you're not shooting from a horseback or something, but then you can go even between 50 and a 100. Carrying 2 stacks of 50 should be enough for even most combat heavy adventuring day or more. With that in mind people should concider that managing ammunition in games can often become a chore because of small stacks of it/bloated hp/redonkulous amount of mobs you need to kill. It's not the idea itself that is at fault. I was quite surprised when in beta roaming through dungeons I never found a stack of 40 +1 fire arrows. Yet I did find a bunch of unlimited Fine Arquebuses with 70 dmg per shot that are even more balance/immersion/worldbuilding breaking. At least make gunpowder a rare resource. That would bring some choice back to what you want to use as a ranged weapon.

Maybe they just skipped on implementing 20 ammunition types before balancing ranged combat speed, reloads and feels. Never know what is bug and what is a feature in beta. Still I'd prefer to have various types of ammunition. It actually can balance guns, if they will shoot slower and be more powerful and ammunition and gunpowder would be hard to come by.

The expectations for this one are just too high. Obsidian are partly to blame for that since they used supahtrueIE iwdcombatPstwritingBGworld to promote the game. It's still a 4 mln game, not a 40 one. I think it is expected that they just want to get the basics right first. That's why system is so streamlined imo. And inventory and UI is probably just a quick mishmash to make game presentable and playable. I remember Arcanum inventory when game was in beta, a few screenshots, it looked completely different than it was on release. Same goes for gameplay really. Still there are some things in core design that people don't like and pointed out, I think devs would change them eventually.

Special ammunition in IE was a resource you'd save up for special encounters. Like the op detonation arrows. Magical quivers aren't more special than just a weapon enchantment, even if they add a bit of flexibility (which also can be achieved with enchantment).

No idea what they thought they'd accomplish with Stash. Just give characters very limited amount of quick slots (6 is probably too much, make it 2-3) and huge inventory or big inventories for everyone + stash. Make inventory locked during combat. That's it.

NWN was actually okay because it had dozen of hot bars for any combination avaible, from shift- to even tab- and F1-F12 buttons I think. You could drag things around, even from radial menu to hotbar I believe. It also used icons. Now ToEE UI... added many hours to what you did for sure. And no icons. The killer for me was spell memorisation - instead of making menu look like Fireball(2)/Haste, it made place for every slot possible... writing Fireball three times if you had it. Huh.

Ranged char and Archer in BG2 with 10 types of arrows to choose from was a cool char to play. A bit like Garrett from Thief.

I mostly think from world building perspective. I think it's fun when NPCs run around roads, that reinforces your feeling that something is happening between cities - trade or some other way of cooperation. At the same time, monsters lurking somewhere inside their lairs and being harder to get to makes you explore more, unlike when you are basically forced to go through some beetles, wolves and spiders to reach your destination (Ogre). Lorewise all these creatures might as well have a reason to be there. If you kill them and read Encyclopedia, you'll find out what an actual forgotten dirt**** place Aedyr (or Dyrwood, names just don't stick with me) is, and that beetles and all the angry fauna is a part of local charm. They grow different elements on their shells (wood&stone) and mimic the rocks and other stuff btw, maybe that's how they hunt near roads.

I think adding even more active abilities to the game, especially ones that require a lot of precision to activate and follow through, would make RtWP combat even more chaotic and a mess. Even AOOs for now seem like an unnecessary feature, since there is a good interrupt mechanic that allows punishing various actions in combat. I'd present players with more archetypes to choose from instead. Talents like turning all positive Paladin's abilities into damaging ones (negative auras, all that). Or something that would make all Priest buffs to target only Priest himself but with more power, to let you play combat-priest instead of a healing bot. Changing Ranger's companion into some sort of spirit instead buffing Ranger and party so you won't be forced into bow&arrow Ranger. For now I just don't like how they pigeonholed every class into one role, except those that have naturally flexible mechanics (Wizard).

I'd clear all the roads from trash mobs entirely, except bandits and other critters that can benefit from roaming the roads in meaningful way, like quest NPCs - runners, scouts, farmers, tax collectors, and so on.

I'm not sure it's that awful to pre-buff if you spend your spells slots on it. Takes away from your adventuring day and in PoE you have less slots, no more than 4/level for now (less at higher levels). I find a lot of stuff that was made to promote "spirit of the game" doesn't work really. Like stash, it's more annoying than tactical. Rest mechanic too, I am doing same things I did in IE, just spend a bit of money on it.

Just don't listen to immersion-crowd. For many of us solid UIs add immersion, not substract from it. We're used to it since old games and I personally don't need any help in make-believe that I'm actually not playing the game. I'm perfectly fine knowing I'm playing the game and having action being separated from UI. If anything it adds a lot of clarity to what's happening since framed view means no enemies hiding behind UI windows and all that.

They only get ~5 points bonus compared to other melee classes I believe. Paladin actually has same accuracy I think, and plays a bit more flexible. All classes can get weapon focus talent. Don't know about improved weapon focus if there is one.

Grand-masteries meant fighters in IE were better at using any weapon than any other class in the game. PoE Fighters don't get that so they're not really fighters is a sense of masters of weapons. That means that any time you don't use them in defensive role you're not playing class optimally, while in IE fighter with two-handed weapon, sword&board, composite bow, fire crossbow, dual wielder were all supported by class. Hell, even single-weapon was (in BG2). They also just don't do that much damage, really. Something with designers idea of making combat more controlled, with all the grazes and loads of stamina and HP.

Barbs seem to combine best of all worlds. They're tough with their stamina regain and unique ability to take less damage to their health directly, can work for DPS or rush with sprinting like rogues do.

Feels like you just need to remember hotkeys for Rest and Scouting and you're set for life, no middle bar needed. I'd prefer either combat log or character ability buttons at the center. That is where my attention is usually in combat (ability buttons for the most time). Maybe there will be an option to drag these three and change places eventually. The character creation is a throwback to IE games btw, that all had step by step generation. I like Fallout-like chargens where everything changes depending on what you choose and system is transparent, but it's good for newbs.

Middle bar in UI is so useless imo.