Shadenuat

It is not easy to pinpoint most powerful weapon in BG2 though, that was it's strength.

Why so much fake butthurt and so many lies? BG2 never "forced" you to find a character to use particular item, there was something for everyone. Not to mention examples are all wrong, like, Mazzy had STR-increasing buff and grandmastery in short bows. Plus since in PoE any character can use any weapon or armor and can specialize in whole sets of weapons, that problem would never exist.

Wat.

In beta you often find a lot of Fine or Exceptional weapons and armor that add +4 or +4/+4 attack, +2 DR, and then you find some sword in secret tomb that does same damage and has same bonuses as your Fine weapon, and the difference is only in description.

What's worse is that there is also random loot present in beta, and it works for magical items too. What's up with that. One of the most questionable design ideas in IWD series was that ability to find +2 sword of haste for +1 attack per round from some random loot that made 90% named magical weapons completely obsolete.

Have you tried playing one in P:E? I have. He's not overpowered. He casts half as slow as a "glass cannon" and despite pumping RES, occasionally gets Interrupted. Overall difficulty was not affected much at all. I think you played it wrong. Buffed up tankomage gets to 90+ accuracy (best fighter has around 40) and with arcane veil and plate armor is more tanky than any tank. Level 1 close combat spells are also overpowered, the burning-hands like is level 1 and does more damage than 3d level Fireball.

Turn-based Pillars of Eternity.

Since many ppl here probably played here IWD2 they are probably get confused as hell, lol. One thing to note - with new resolutions and monitors, even on old monitor like mine IWD2 icons are too small now. Their size should get doubled and some other design tweaks used to make them easy to comprehend. I wonder if it's possible to scale them a bit in options depending on what player likes... Their location is p. good however, looks like a compromise between IE game and NWN2 quick spellbook.

As for now the efficient play is a slow mo + pause after every action, at least when there are more than 3 weak enemies around. You can click to death lonely enemies. I feel that while IE games were more about choosing right set of actions, PoE for now is more about rotating right skills. And since many of them are infinite (per-encounter), it makes sense to always use stuff like fighter's Knockdown. DA:O had player-customisable scripts for that.

I agree with much that has been said. As an IE fan I felt alienated by game at many points, which is not a good sign for an IE successor. The visuals are wonderful, yet the music leaves to be desired. Combat seem to have much familiar about it, however kinesthetics, excuse me for hip term, the overall flow of combat is nothing like IE. Too many effects don't affect anything, and feedback from everything, be it hits, spells, sounds is lacking. I also don't understand what is happening under the hood. The percentages, the unintuitive stats, all that. I'd say most of it can be fixed by polishing the game and listening to feedback, and it probably would be a cool game, but some things (boring leveling, uninteresting stat system, lack of skills, lack of utility spells and abilities, the XP problem that made a split in community) are the faults of core design itself. One thing that I found to be a well planned evolution of IE is the DR and overall armor mechanics. Probably weapons having a few inherent unique properties too. I would expand on that however, special abilities for particular weapons won't be bad. I've seen character use something like bayonet when hitting enemy with gun in melee; I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but if that option actually exists, it should be highlighted. That's actually a cool ability. I never doubted Obsidian's writing team and their ability to create good dialogue and C&C and it shows, I really want to meet plot companions now.

Too many classes seem to be stuck inside one archetype without any options. Too many things, like ranged options, healing or summons seem to belong to only one particular class. That makes some classes less interesting than even BG2 kits, which is incredible concidering the point of the new system was to support multiple roles for classes. Take Ranger, for example. In BG2 he could be a summoner, a stealthy melee attacker or a master-archer. Yet in PoE he is just a master-archer with a summon that is forced upon you. Through BG series we've seen a berserkering melee ranger with many hitpoints but so-so defence, a dexterous archer and a mage-hunting lightly armored one who had access to powerful spell turning spells and buffs. In PoE first thing you get is a slowing arrow ability... so underwhelming. Let me choose what ability I take myself. Getting rekked because someone focused your wolf is also too big of a penalty, even if animal does some decent damage in melee. Some classes have innate customization mechanics in them, like Wizard. There is nothing more intersting that taking enemy's grimoire from his cold body and start mixing his and your own spells around. But that's just Wizard. The Druid is also dissapointing. Josh was talking about how he doesn't like that you instantly lose game while not taking Cleric in party... yet the closest class that often was used instead of cleric in IE has it's slots filled with DPS spells until level 3. Thus, in my experience, making Cleric almost invaluable for any party because of stacks and stacks of stamina regeneration spells. Other classes also have some of these issues. Fighters are stuck with hold-the-line abilities, many of which belong to a character screen than combat menu (why add stamina regeneration as an icon? hope it's just stock stuff). You can use them for something else, but there is no customization even of 3d edition D&D level, which was shallow, but it was something. At least Fighters there could excel at any weapon, making them very general purpose combatants. Barbarians seem a bit better, but share combat role with rogues now. It is possible that Barb in full plate, with activated Rage for 1.3 more speed, and his instant +200+ stamina "potion gulp" is a better tank with good damage than a Fighter, actually. Because of wacky nature of interrupts, stamina, combat speed and AI, his immunity to engagement is only useful rarely. Rogue is just a different flavour of DPS. It's a lot harder to get his 2-seconds damage buff than amazing, tactical and sharp D&D backstab. No more out of combat skills either. No placing traps. No finding traps. No weapon poisoning. No ability to see through illusions. No stealing items. Just spike damage. Where are the different and flavour rich archetypes? Again, I'd rather play Bounty Hunter or Assasin from BG2 than this. For Paladin, I have few things to say except that, again, even BG2 customization offered more interesting archetypes to play. I was also hoping for him to learn at least a small set of cleric spells to allow more flexible party composition. The Monk, for now, I don't really understand, but from what I've seen managing such a character in real time takes more from player than offering enough rewards. The Spellcasters, I think, are where most interesting mechanics and important abilities went. As I said, Wizard is flexible enough to survive without things like specialist transmuters/necromancers and so on. The lack of utility spells and summoning spells hurts though. Can we at least get Oracle to open some parts of the map? Players not knowing what are they going into was a discussed problem during development, yet there are no appropriate utility spells. Although with overpowered super-radar stealth... Priest seems like most balanced caster for now. His spells are all friendly and affect many characters, so instead of, like in IE, thinking on what to do with a Wizard in combat, I mostly was thinking about managing my Cleric. Combination of heals, single-target DPS, mass heals, mass debuffs, saving-spells works maybe even too well. Wizard has many spells that are harder to manage (some designer really likes ray-spells it seems, that hurt things between wizard and his target). But that's okay I guess. As a fan of Druids, as I said, I was dissapointed. They are just too focused on various cone damage spells, aoe spells, single target spells, dots and that, instead of presenting a choice from, maybe lacking compared to specialized casters, but more balanced list of spells. Some of druid spells are also a bit too powerful. Who's idea was to make Charm Animal a level 1 AoE? Poor beetles and lions... Ciphers I would only like if they would get whole Psionic Handbook dumped into them, including utility spells. The Focus isn't bad in itself but you end up spamming just a bunch of best overpowered spells. I never was a fan of Eldritch Blast>Eldritch Blast>Eldritch Blast. Chanters definitly got a lot of love. They are an interesting take on a passive spellcasters. They are also lore-friendly and can do something in combat except casting. Simple, but effective class with smart design concidering amount of management you usually do in RtWP combat. I hope Josh would change his mind on 1 talent/3 levels, unless there are ~20 levels in game, it won't be enough to make every class interesting to customize.

Please add ability to filter combat log of stuff like "fighter restores 1 stamina". It's cool that it's possible to see the details behind roll by just moving mouse over it however.

Probably being worked on now, but I want to highlight the need for more solid and striking spell effects. In IE games many things, including those, were abstract, almost RTS-like, that perhaps lied in the fact that Bio at first wanted an RTS-game. All AoEs had clear borders and worked in a very precise way. Although the best example of that is probably Temple of Elemental Evil which, why a TB game, had such precise borders for AoE effects that you could hit enemies as long as little thin border line touched them at least a bit. The other thing is that many spell effects feel... stock. Modern. 3D. Look at Planescape effects once again, that feel almost alive, they play out like classical animation. Check on vibrant magic missiles moving in random patterns and leaving sparks everywhere. Check on Grace's Call Lightning, that was so amazing, that developers then adopted that impressive blast for Icewind Dale games. Or Ravel's branch magic. Many spells not only were very pleasing to look at, but also were thought provoking because of lore that supported them. Make spells last on screen a bit longer, leave some additional effects like burning ground. I'd also bring back chanting and standard spell cast animations for everyone, because without those it's hard to know who casts what. In BG2 I can predict what is coming at me by just hearing spell chant and seeing what color little sphere is in mage's hands. Not everyone wants chants probably, but there must be some way to know about spells without slow mo+textsupport+pause after every spell. For now I was impressed with Arcane Veil, Beetle Shell, Circle of Protection, a few sunlight-based spells... that's kinda it. It also feels to me that some spell names are unnecessary complex. D&D has a mix of general purpose names (Haste, Slow, Magic Missile) and lore names (Bigbi's Fist, Melf's Meteors). But in PoE it seems that designer was working hard on making every spell consist of at least 3 words, with at least a word being uncommon. It is a bit too hard to remember and manage in your memory. It seemed like Chanters/Ciphers got that treatment in particular. Actually, while I'm at it, it feels like there is a lot of lore dumping on a player, and sometimes lore is not that relevant to plot or how player would act with that knowledge. An example I used on Codex was "Thayne". It is not an uncommon title for fantasy genre, recently used by all so popular Skyrim, as well as by dwarven lore in various settings and games; but PoE has a specific dialogue line just for it. I think dialogue might be kept for things that are important, like monster names or locations; general stuff can be left in the books you find around the world. Beta sometimes made me remember that "words made up by author/quality of writing" chart.

I doubt they would add more skills because of dialogue checks. From my small modding experience 6 stats+5 skills = 11 possible checks, which is already very lot, and Obsi also added Reputations; I've been struggling to make skills from D&D3 meaningful for every possible char in games like NWN. It is undeniable that 6 chars + 5 skills = you have everything, which sucks, but for now more is probably out of scope of the game and budget.

I guess it's a rhetorical question since I did not object to having those anywhere.

I'll be short since I already said too much on other forum about the issue, and other people said even more about nature of xp mechanics. I'd make a post from a non-mechanical perspective since talking about that as well as nature of roleplaying would take just too much effort and time again. Me and my buddy talked about the aforementioned Ogre issue. In his DM opinion, narrative is most important, and he would never give xp to players if they would just decide to randomly go and kill an ogre for XP. He had same issue with Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 2 when CHARNAME was searching for his sister and could collect required 20k gold in an hour, yet CHARNAME could travel to some forest and kill random orks for XP. I replied that he is thinking about it from a narrative perspective, and while narrative is important and it's a reason, say, PST gave so much XP for quests, it is not exactly how PoE is designed. As it seems to me PoE would be designed a bit like Baldur's Gate 1, with plot being open-like during midgame, but final locations probably would move narrative more. But I wouldn't know. Bud replied that BG1 structure was more supportive for doing things out of scope of general narrative. It is also not the whole of what is expected from and IE successor. He agreed on that part. Some people expect to explore fog of war while listening to a cool music and bathing in visuals. Some are happy for a proper literature dialogue window to return. And some people liked to chunk beholders on thousands of XP and see their characters grow. If I'd design IE successor I would not take away any of these joys, since I like all of them, including the chunking&growing part. So I voted for kill xp+quest xp that I think would allow a more open-like progression through the game, even if at a cost of narrative/balance.

I'm not inclined to do developers job for them (aka write MEH IDEAL SYSTEM), but I agree with OP in spirit: first thing I'do is split ranged capability between stats. Doesn't matter how, either absolutely (no damage for gunpowder weapons from Might, except when using bayonet), or partly (Might improves all damage, but twice so for melee, while dexterity improves all accuracy, but twice less than Perception for ranged). The one size fits all actually works against creating multiple builds, because you are playing combat centered game, all classes do only combat, and all can dish out some good damage, yet system has stat that improves your damage for everything. As for Resolve, I would make it second defensive stat after CON. Saving throws, defence, healing recieved, healing done - everything will do. That would allow to specialize and create, say, tough fighter with high saving throws, but low damage; or a non-muscled up healer. Perception could also help with spell damage, since it's usually ranged damage. All and all stats should affect multiple, sometimes cross-class abilities, that would make character building a lot more flexible.

If anything, even if not changing the numbers, it should be done for a sake of better presentation. As for now every character starts with a huge pool of points and stats of a squirrel. Showing players a "medium" and allowing to dump some numbers to a "handicapped" character would serve as sort of a guideline of building characters. Maybe different classes can even start with points distributed a little, 1-4 points, as makes sense to their class (with option to get those points back ofc).

UI part could work like just scrolling your mouse wheel while AoE is on screen.

Random name generator that conciders race/culture would be good for PoE, at least as a guideline.

One thing that should be changed about stash ASAP is adding ability to use it while in any safe location - be it a tavern or a city. There is an option like that in a shop but that's not enough. You have to do all the dancing like hiring new guy in tavern, then going into rest window again, entering stash, taking **** from stash, putting his stuff in stash, and so on. Actually, I'm not sure the game will suffer if Stash would only be not avaible during combat and that's it. Strange mechanic really, I'm not sure why is it in, since 60 slots and stackable consumables is enough to get through without any Stash. Heck, IE quick slots were more tactical I think as an idea than what PoE has now.

Is it really necessary to promote that derp of a mechanic that is already in the core of the game even further

I am a Bear.

Bears do surprising amount of damage in beta, including 40+ crits. They're not great at holding the line though, and ranger getting maimed or even dead (what happens on Hard+Expert if your animal dies, anyone tested?) is too big of a penalty. Also, you'd be good to run musketeer-rangers, but 6 chars with guns as they are now can kill anything without any bears. Just judging by the beta my top pics are: - Fighter or Barb for holding the line, - Dual wielding Barb for DPS - Cleric. I see no replacement for cleric atm, at least on high difficulties, he is the only caster who is able to rotate heals and AoE heals well - Druid. Charm Animal is a non-combat AoE level 1 spell. Nuff said. Throw it on beetles, see them kill themselves. Trivialize half the combat in beta. The spell selection is very unimaginative though, ton of DPS, heal only on level 3 (yet another point goes to Cleric, in IE games druids and clerics were somewhat interchangeable... thanks Josh). Blight summon is slow and buggy, give me animal summons ffs, I'm a druid or what. - Wizard. The grimoire mechanic is nice and flexible, you can learn ton of spells by just spending money, and his spells are fairly decent. - Chanter. Multiple simultaneous flamingweapons skeletons. Not interested in: - Rogue. He has zero unique non-combat abilities and his builds are more boring than BG2 kits. Backstab is not as cool. Barb seems to do same stuff but has inborn Super Healing Potion as ability. Granted Rogue can do some dps but anyone can dish out some, and he has no utility except that. Thanks Josh. - Ranger. The life link is eh, bows suck, and you can give a gun to any other char, so I don't see a reason to carry a ranged non-caster specialist. - Paladin. Fighter with some buffs or whatever. Not saying he's bad but I prefer classes to excel at something particular. - Monk. Not about my general dislike of monks, but they seem to ask too much but bring too little (hight maintenance, not enough interesting talents). - Cipher. They're not weak, but their spell selection is a bit like of a Warlock, meaning you end up spamming just a few spells. It's not what I expect from a spellcaster (I expect whole Psionic Book dumped into class including ****ton of non-combat abilities, detections, ESP, utility spells, mind read, that sort of stuff).

I think the glorious epic beetles have like, 15 DR, while full plate armor has 12. I destroyed them while dual wielding stilettos, for example, while checking logs (stiletto-wielder did dmg-10 while others dmg-15).