limaxophobiacq

Save up screen space. Yes that the most important thing. Some guys here seem to really forget that you dont play "UI the game" you use the UI as a crutch to help you with mechanics you cant deal with in any more elegant way. Personaly I would make it possible to switch out all parts of the guy. Hide the menu behind a tab that you can expand and make the ugly combat log transparent. All that talk about the omg important combat log makes people forget that their shouldnt be a combat log in the first place. Everything should be readable without the combat log. I OTOH would like pretty much the exact opposite, especially on the transparent combat log. I hate 'floaty' transparent UI elements, the solidity of the IE UI was wonderfull and something I very much want back in this game.

Completely new start.

Spot on as far as I'm concerned. Chanter/Paladin/Cipher/Barbarian are definitely the classes I'm the most excited about. Edit: On the armour front have to say that using anything heavy enough to be close to the full plate in armour penalty (the -45% to -40% armours) feels like a bit of a waste and you either want no armour if you're in the back, lighter armour (-20% to -35%) if you're in melee but still want faster actions, or full plate if you're going to tank, with the medium-heavy armours not really having a niche.

I approve this even as someone who didn't use the combat log in IE games. Playing on a 27 inch 1440p monitor the distance down to the abilities on the left when managing a fight at the center of the screen is not really ideal (and it would be terrible on a 21:9 monitor) and having portraits and abilities in the middle would be much better. The decision to have the least used part of the interface (and the part not used 'under stress' in battle) at the center like it is now I don't really understand.

This is a minor nitpick but holstering spears at the hip with the point down like a sword as characters currently do just doesn't look right, and having them on the back like the rifles when you've got another weapon set selected would look a lot better.

Started a new game and see screenshot. BB rogue has no armour and the whole group standing there next to you when you start is also 'nude'.

I'm curious why we can't just select any shade we want for clothing/hair/skin etc.? Sure it might look silly if someone makes their PC purple-skinned and green-haired but that's on them no? Personally I just want the ability to set a slightly more natural and less Leeloo-Dallas shade for red hair.

On certain classes having not so much to do in combat beside an ability or mode to use/activate; wasn't it always intentional to have some classes like fighter be 'low maintenance' so you dont have to micro-manage all six party members at all times?

Hunting enemies running scared halfway across the map was never any fun when it happened in IE, no enemies running away please it's too annoying.

I continue to be torn between Wood Elf Chanter and Godlike Paladin. Chants are more unique and interesting than the auras but on the other hand I like my character to be up in front in the thick of the battle. Quite likely I'll make a the chanter my main and then make a paladin at the adventurers hall.

Or perhaps that you cannot find them naturally, because they're what you end up with when you upgrade other weapons to max. Upprading would generally just mean higher numbers that regular weapons, which isn't really all that interesting. Carsomyr was amazing for the insane magic resistance and dispel-on-hit, Flail of Ages for the slow effect, Celestial Fury for the stun, and Staff of the Magi for too many effects to count.

That's a question in a vacuum. I would assume that if they significantly boosted the Weapon damage bonuses from might, that they would also boost the spell-based bonuses from intellect, the accuracy/critical bonuses from Dex etc., thus every class build can find a way to battle on equal terms with a Might-build, thus maintaining balance without insulting us with these placebo stats as they currently are which don't really do much to any build. Still not a fan. People are underestimating the difference 30% makes. Jack that up to 60% and jack everything else up accordingly and you now have characters who are completely and utterly defined around their stats. I think the bonuses (boni?) could probably stand to be a little larger. But not much. 60% difference in damage from Might 3 to Might 18 would have seemed rather minimal to me to be honest before I saw that it doesn't even do that in project eternity. If you leave an attribute at it's minimum value I'd have assumed your character would be pretty much hopeless at whatever that attribute governs, if you max it out your character should be incredible at it. Giving attributes twice the effect they have right now still isn't that, but it at least means characters with average vs extreme values are differentiated, rather than only extremely high value vs. extremely low values actually being noticable.

The IE games, BG2 in particular, had certain items that were just incredibly powerfull in the right hands, far beyond anything else you could find or buy in that category: Carsomyr, Crom Feyer, The Staff of the Magi, the Flail of Ages and Celestial Fury. Weapons that defined the way the character wielding them played with unique abilties going a great deal beyond just doing damage. Balanced? Not very perhaps but exciting when you got your hands on them and memorable to this day, and in ToB they at least made an attempt to make 1 such superweapon available for all weapon proficiencies (which I think if they were included in PoE or a sequel they should try again, or do it like in Heart of WInter when you forged that weapon out of the ice and it let you choose what kind of weapon it is Edit: actually the later is probably preferable), though Carsomyr still might still have had no real equal. Do you think these kinds of unique and incredibly powerfull weapons should have a place in PoE. Or do you think as a game supposed to be more low-level like BG1 they should wait with it for an expansion or sequel (I'm personally inclined to this)? Or do you think having such powerfull items is too big a blow to game-balance to ever include?

People complained in the other poll that the choices weren't mutually exclusive, or about an option to leave it as is, that's why I made this one.

Currently, compared to IE games and D&D, the values of your Attributes (Might, Dex, Con, Int, Per, Res) in Pillars of Eternity just generally matter a lot less. F.ex. the difference in total health (or Fatigue) between a character with Con 10 or Con 20 in PoE is about the same as the difference between Con 10 and Con 12 in DnD 3.0/3.5. Might 10 to Might 20 gives only a +16,7% damage increase, about equivalent to the difference between STR 10 and STR 12 in D&D. Intended to have clearer choices than the other one (http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67747-more-meaningful-attributes-vs-more-viable-variation/).

As Stun said, it's not about wanting to increase the effect of Might, but to increase the effect of all attributes. Compare Constitution in DnD (2e & 3e) and PoE: In DnD the difference between 10 Con and 20 is +5 Hp/level, almost doubling HP for fighters (5.5 hp/level average) and nearly trippling it for wizards (2.5 hp/level average). In PoE the difference between a 10 and a 20 in Con is the difference between +20% and or +40% Stamina/Health, at most a fifth of the difference it makes in DnD. The difference between Con 10 and Con 20 in PoE is the same as the difference between Con 10 and Con 12 in DnD 3e/3.5e. This seems true for all stats, they've basically limited attributes to values between 8 and 12 and then made that scale pointlessly granular.

With the P:E approach on the other hand, there really are different viable stat distributions for different character concepts. The thing is that the different stat distributions don't really matter because the effect of Attributes is so very tiny. Of course all stat distributions will be viable if there is no big difference between having a 10 and a 20 in an Attribute. But that's not building a balanced attribute system, that's basically not having an attribute system. Except it's not different, because the difference between dumping RES and CON at the expense of INT and boosting INT at expense of RES and CON is negligable. I like the muscle wizard, and the genius barbarian, but I want them to actually be noticably different than a 'regular' wizard or barbarian due to their different attribute allocation. One True Way to allocate attributes for classes (like DnD wizard & barbarian) = bad Different attribute allocations don't matter (current Pillars of Eternity) = also bad Different stat allocations being equally usefull but different = good

Is that correct though? That would be an awfully complicated way of applying the bonus. Any reason it wouldn't just be the much simpler 1.30 * base damage ---> 1.32 * base damage? (for 15 MIG to 16 MIG) EDIT: I might understand what you're saying - you're calculating the percentage damage increase an additional point of MIG gives you from your previous MIG-adjusted damage. Fair enough. But the same thing would apply to the increases in damage from DEX/Accuracy (I'm pretty sure) so I don't think it makes a difference. The values I've calculated for Accuracy dps increase are relative to base, as is the 2% value for MIG. So MIG is still 2X the damage increase of DEX at the 5-45 point disparity mark and 1.33X the damage increase of DEX at the <5 point disparity mark. It's quite possible I've missunderstood how the increased average DPS from higher Dex would scale proportionally.

I think I'm seeing a pattern here. I get the feeling that some of you really don't like that it's actually impossible, or very difficult, to gimp your character at chargen by picking the 'wrong' attributes. And, conversely, that it's impossible, or very difficult, to make your character objectively much more powerful by picking the 'right' ones. Is this in the ballpark? If so, then yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be changed as it goes against Josh's prime directive of "no trash choices." And yes, that is always going to make minmaxers unhappy. I just want attributes to have a noticable effect, if the effects of attributes are balanced proportionally, it shouldn't matter in the current system if the values of all those effects were doubled, it would just mean different characters are actually more different. Currently Might 10 to Might 20 is a measly 17% increase in damage and Int 10 to Int 20 is only a 33% increase in AoE/Duration; so an Int 20 Might 10 wizard and a Might 20 Int 10 wizard play pretty much exactly the same with an almost negligable difference. Letting the Int wizard have truly huge AoEs and really long durations but hurt on the damage side while the Might wizard is the opposite would offer more diversity. Yes someone who maxed Int and then only used single target instant damage spells would be hurt but he already is, only less so, and really understanding that if you have a high score in the Attribute that affects abilities that do X but a low one in the Attribute that affects abilities that do Y you should look for abilities that do X and avoid ones that do Y isn't too much to expect.

Is that correct though? That would be an awfully complicated way of applying the bonus. Any reason it wouldn't just be the much simpler 1.30 * base damage ---> 1.32 * base damage? (for 15 MIG to 16 MIG) Yes that's what it is, but it's only a +1,54% increase from your current damage. Say for simplicities sake you have a weapon with a base damage of 50. With 15 MIG you're doing 65 damage per hit, with 16 you'd get 66. Not actually a +2% increase in damage, but an increase in 2% of the base damage. The increase you'd get in average DPS from increasing Dex on the other hand would as far as I understand it actually be in relation to your actual damage and not base damage.

Something to take into account is that the actuall bonus damage increase of raising Might by 1 point isn't actually 2% of your current damage, but 2% of base damage, so if you're at Might 15 rasing to 16 its only a (132/130=1,0154) 1,54% actual damage increase. So it's possible the current balance between Dex and Might is actually fine. (Though I still think all attributes could stant to have a lot more impact). This is obviously true for all stats except Dex and gets more noticable the higher stats get; the higher your stat, the less another +1 matters (20 int to 21 only gives +2,5% actual increase in area/duration). Personally I don't think this is very good design given how it disincentivizes exceptional Attributes.

Well... DEX affects Reflex save instead of Fort save. Aaaand..... the % increases in dps I've calculated also apply to spell/ability duration increases/decreases on graze/crit, which aren't affected by MIG at all as far as I know. So for scripted interactions that take DEX, characters who want high reflexes, and characters who rely on critting with duration spells for extra duration, DEX would be better. It does seem a bit weak, still. Sounds like they could reduce the Might bonus to 1.5% or lower and that might help a bit with it seeming overpowered. I'd much rather they increased it to 3%, had Dex give +2 Accuracy, and doubled the effects of the rest of the Attributes as well so you actually felt a difference. If they want to avoid fractional percentages which it seems like they do doubling would also let them balance it a bit more granularly.

1. Chanter 2. Chanter 3. Paladin 4. Paladin This stacks all the buffs from chants and auras. 5. Priest For heals. 6. Cipher for single target damage, or another Chanter or Paladin if the first four dont already manage to have all good chants and auras up between them.

Attributes definitely don't feel very impactfull right now, and personally I'd like them to be a bit more so. One problem that I'm not sure the devs have considered is that currently the more you raise an attribute the less every point you raise it by matters. F.ex. Intellect where this is most pronounced because it has the largest percentile modifier for what it affects; +1 to intellect increases the AoE and duration with 5 percentile points, so going from 3 to 5 int your AoE and duration increases by (125/115=1,087) 8,7%, but increasing it from 18 to 20 only increases them by 5,3% (200/190=1,053). If every +1 to Int actually increased AoE and duration by 5% rather than by 5 percentage points it would feel a lot more meaningfull to actually have a high Int.

With the exception of Perception I don't have any problem with what the stats affect, and that's probably at least partially to do with the interrupt system not being well communicated to the player at all. Int giving increased AoE on barbarians carnage abilty or duration on knockdowns might seem a bit strange but it's at least very clear what it does and I figure it can be thought off as part of being a cunning warrior somehow, and having an incentive to make a smart barbarian is IMO pretty great. Resolve feels reasonably in what if affects but again being tied to the interrupt system brings it down. Edit: And yes, obviously all attribute effects are pretty minor unless you're comparing the upper and lower extremes, with the possible exception of Int for abilities that have both an AoE & a duration and so benefit doubly from Intellect.