ZaZu

Well i've been doing this too, just using different companions, different MC and while trying to role-play this a bit, too. Like making an eeeevil party with Korgan, Viconia and Edwin, or by mixing them with some do-gooders and seeing if they would lash out at each other. Don't get me wrong, battles were great in BG2, but frankly, they were great in many other games, too. I think that so many parts of the game were balanced and enjoyable is what makes BG2 such a great game. So great, in fact, that different people can enjoy replaying it for different reasons. Probably i'm too harsh in my quest for what i see as pure role-playing experience. I'll just hope that there wouldn't be much dumb stuff in PoE

Thanks, but i think i'll just stick to Goat Simulator for that. I never imagined that fans of BG2, my favorite game of all time, would be like this. I feel like somebody's rule-34-ing Aerie before my eyes right now. Sorry, but i gotta go get my antidepressants

And just what in my post contradicts this?

Wow, i never even knew that. And i'm still playing BG2 from time to time, too, but i'd never even think of doing something like that. Mostly because, you know, there's a whole Icewind Dale franchise created exactly for this + there's ToEE, it's spiritual successor, + there's a million other games when you can just walk around in a fantasy world killing monsters. This is not what made BG2 so memorable to me. Now i know that apparently there are some people that are willing to turn a game with great story, great set of characters and great atmosphere into a hack'n'slash fest just because they love battle encounters and/or how AD&D combat system is represented there. Are these guys Obsidian's target audience now? If they are, then i wish i'd known that before backing PoE, because i had in my head that a game representing the "legacy of the Golden Age of computer role-playing" should be oriented towards, well, the whole role-playing part, instead of butt-kicking for goodness.

Sorry, i just can't take arguments from the guy that made Uncharted (why don't we just listen to some CoD or Dota 2 dev's comments about immersion? wouldn't it be mind-blowing?) seriously. His talk about attention may apply to action games and some jumpscaring horrors, i don't know, but it has nothing to do with RPGs, adventures or strategies. The guy believes that when people talk about immersion, they mean that a player should indeed feel like the virtual world is actually real, and like he's actually inside it. Hence the aimless comments about virtual reality, fourth wall and such. That reminds me of how some filmmakers think that if they do they movie in 3D, then it would be more immersive for the viewer. Guess what, it won't. That's why Avatar never worked for me, despite all the cinematography and the effects designed to grab me by the *attention bottleneck*. And as for the games, to me they are not virtual reality, more like simulated reality. In games you simulate different situations in different worlds, and immersion comes from how feasible that simulation feels. Okay, so why don't you play a sandbox game, then? Why choosing a narrative-based, story-driven one? And again, i'm not talking about freedom of choice, it's just that i prefer it when the *game is meant to be played in many different ways*, rather than *you have many different ways to play the game not the way it's meant to be". Uhm, i thought in BG2 you could only create one character. Maybe you're talking about IWD2 instead?

I'm not talking about every class having the same amount of abilities, i'm talking about the aforementioned abilities being more distinct for every class, more fun to use and presenting player with more options to build an interesting character. Only they don't act like mercenaries, more like robots. Again, there are multiple options on how to make it more logical without stripping the benefits from it. The thieves fortress in BG2 just wasn't rewarding enough once you've finished all the quests there, that's why it was tedious. You just had no reason to get back there as you could easily get more money from adventuring. Not that you needed much money anyway. Actually, i believe that immersion is one of the most important things in RPGs, but you're taking it to the extreme. You don't need tactile sensations to immerse yourself in a game. Just like you don't need them when you're reading a book. If an adventure book is badly written, has plotholes, makes no sense and is generally stupid, you'll have no fun reading it. Same goes with RPGs. You know, PST, for example, has a hell of a setting with lots of crazy stuff going on. And there's a lot of restrictions and some silly stuff, too. But still it's easy to immerse into it because there's some twisted logic behind everything that is happening there, and it's fun trying to figure out that logic. That's what computer role-playing is all about - you get a world that lives by its own rules, and you're trying to adapt to these rules. You're trying to act like a real character living in this world would act. And when there are no rules, or the rules make no sense, or the rules only exist until someone decides to break them - then there's no point in roleplaying either, the illusion just falls apart. It's like playing on a RP server in WoW - everyone is pretending to be orcs and elves, but there's no way you can forget that they're actually some real people with no life. And that's exactly why LARPGS are not for me - there's simply no illusion whatsoever and therefore, no immersion. Yeah, playing as a transgender with damaged vocal chords would be cool, if the world would acknowledge this somehow. And when there's no difference if you're a transgender that looks like Brian Boitano and talks like Elvis Presley, or an ordinary human female, then having that option is clearly pointless. Again it's not fun to be able to do something if the game doesn't have any content to support your actions. It's not fun to have options that don't lead anywhere. Every decision must have consequences - that's what's making a world - and a story - credible. Otherwise, it'll be like when some kids playing in the backyard are trying to pretend they're knights fighting a dragon, and then another kid comes along shouting "I'm shooting the dragon with my laser gun, pew pew!", ruining it for everybody. Rules and restrictions exist in games for a reason. Sometimes you just have to accept that there are no laser guns in a game, or transgender Nigerian Orlan princes for that matter.

Yeah, i get it. I just wanted to stress how important these will be to have in the full game. Stop being so defensive, it's not that i'm complaining about anything, you know. I'm just pointing out that these issues should be adressed in the full release. I'm not asking for rolling to be the only way to create a character. I'd like it to be added as a feature, exactly because i don't wan't to actually roll the dice when the game could do that for me. Maybe it could correlate with the game's difficulty setting, like in more hardcore modes you have to roll, and in more casual ones you can just distribute points as you like it, i don't know. This is great and all, but it doesn't change the fact that the Adventurer system doesn't make any logical sense in the game's world. Being able to buy customizable slaves from a local store is not fun because it ruins the immersion. Again, if people really want this feature so badly, it could be implemented in some other, more rational way. Like you can hire adventurers for a limited amount of time, or you should pay them regularly, or make them have their own limits and goals so that they don't just follow you to the end of the world. Or even better, make some Dr. Frankenstein in this world, who is able to create new life after you've provided him with some quest and materials, so he creates golems with different class abilities for you. The possibilities are quite endless here. The kind of fun you're talking about i can get in any sandbox game there is. In an old-school RPG like PoE i'd like the world, my character included, to make sense. And i like this world to be alive and react appropriately to my actions. Again, this is called "immersion". There's no point in doing or being something extraordinary, if the world isn't going to acknowledge this in any way. There are thousands of games that allow you the "freedom" to do stupid s**t and just the very few of them that actually try to create a believable world where freedom actually comes from being able to make a lot of different yet meaningful decisions. Uhm, no it doesn't?.. I'll have to double-check on this one. Well, maybe with some tweaks it would be more useful to me. Currently i find the thing just too grotesque and confusing to be helpful.

Hi there. I'm gonna say i've had a great time playing backer beta so far. And i'm looking forward to the full game, which i'm sure will be great! However, i believe there are many issues that should be adressed for a good game to become even better. I'll try to present my vision of it in a somewhat constructive way while sticking to the high priority feedback list that was in the kickstarter update. I apologize in advance as i'm probably going to repeat things that were already said on this forum, but sadly i just don't have enough energy to look through all the topics here. So, here goes... Character creation Attributes and skills So far i just don't think that attributes have enough impact on how it feels to play the charater. Apart from the extra dialogue options there's not much reason to care about them at all. Even in IE-age games there was quite the difference between a wizard with 16 INT and one with 18, and i believe this should actually be improved in PoE. It's really hard to get a grasp of the health/stamina thing since it's never actually explained to player. Also, i'm not sure i like this whole concept at all. Currently it just looks like complicating things without proper reason - do we really need a second health bar? Most rpgs are doing fine with just one. Absence of a "roll" feature during character creation just makes attributes feel even more lifeless and mechanical. You end up just distributing points, making a generic "average adventurer" with some equally average abilities. That's not fun. Only 5 skills and no perks, really? After ToEE and NWN2 it just feels incredibly shallow, there should be a lot more options here or else every character of the same class will just feel, well, the same. Classes It surely feels like PoE is following IE games quite closely here, and unfortunarely that means that caster classes (priest, wizard, druid etc) are just far more entertaining than fighter classes (fighter, barbarian, rogue, paladin). They were dull in BG and IW, and they're still incredibly dull in PoE. There should be much more options for these guys, more unique skills and perks for them to become an interesting choice for your main character. You know, it's not much fun just being able to knockdown someone, while the guy next to you can breathe fire and shoot lightnings from his eyes. Speaking of the options and unique abilities, every class so far just badly needs a LOT more of these! Like take paladins for example: being able to choose an order for your guy is great, but it just doesn't feel like there's any difference between them! All you get is this generic numerical bonus corresponding to whether you're not upholding the moral code of your order or something. This isn't enough! A unique set of spells, for example, would work much better. And what about poor rogues? In IE games they were just walking lockpicking/trap disarming tools. Here, they aren't even like that, they're just fighters with a "Blink" spell. Seriously, i'd rather have fewer classes, but have them really feeling unique and fun to play, than having soulless fighters and rogues to choose from. D&D games somehow addressed this with prestige classes and such, but still most fun came from certain character's unique abilities (Planescape: Torment being the prime example of this). Speaking of unique characters: do we really need the Adventurer system? Not only can't i imagine why would anyone prefer a generic custom adventurer to a real character with a backstory and personality, the system just doesn't make sense as it is! You're basically paying a ridiculously low sum of money for a voiceless slave who then just follows your every order. I didn't like this in recent Divinity game and i sure can't see a single reason for it to exist in PoE. It's better to have an option to create a golem or something, or to buy an actual slave to do your bidding while getting some quests and backstory along with this. Races So we have your totally ordinary humans, dwarves, elves, halflings (Orlans) and half-orcs (Aumaua). And then there's one "extreme" race (Godlike). Feels balanced enough, if not too creative. I feel the races should have more bonuses/penalties to make them more interesting to play. Also it would be nice for them have to some racial skills and abilities too. Like if the Aumaua are an aquatic race, why does nothing about their abilities suggest so? Why not give them at least some water-related stuff? Actually, Aumaua design is by far the one i dislike the most. First, they look like a mix between the Na'vi from Avatar and the Qunari from Dragon Age. Second, again, their racial bonuses (+2 Might and improved defense or speed) have nothing to do with them being an aquatic race! I mean, they're obviously just half-orcs with funny faces! And finally, why would a race whose civilisations are "based on naval dominance" be like that? Naval civs are made of traders and colonists, not of 2m-tall powerhouses! Unless they behave like vikings or something, they should be a slender, delicate race, worshipping the gods of Sea, using some kind of water-related magic and such. Sorry, but otherwise they're just blue orcs with ships. The Godlike, being an "extreme" race, are actually, well, not at all extreme. Of all the races in this game it's them who should feel unique and absolutely not alike to everyone else! Remember Ignus from PST? That's how a fire godlike should be! Not like a totally ordinary human with some funny head. Playing as a Godlike should be a totally different experience, they should have their own perks, their own spells, some critical bonuses and penalties for being nature's abominations. Otherwise there's no point in having them playable at all. Other Player's options regarding class, background, culture and such should be limited according to other choices that player has made. You know, like they were in BG where it was impossible to make a paladin that's not Lawful Good. I mean, freedom of choice is a great thing, but being able to make pointless decisions has nothing to do with it. I call this "useless freedom". It's like in the ungodly lore-murdering NWN2 when you could play as a drow (a freaking drow living in a human swamp village!), and it's never even adressed properly in the entire game, making that option entirely nonsensical. In PoE you have a similar option of, for example, being a Wild Orlan barbarian, who is actually an aristocrat from Aedyr. Or a Death Godlike priest from Old Vailia (aren't people there, uhm, used to KILL ANY CHILD with such appearance?) who uses his spare time to work as an artist. This would be most unusual in this world, and if you're not going to make NPCs react to this appropriately (and it's impossible to do so for every stupid option there is), that just wouldn't make any sense! This is the kind of stuff that makes games like Skyrim (with tons of stupidity just constantly happening around you, even when you're not trying to do anything stupid) or Divinity: Original Sin (where you can kill half of the town and nobody will notice, and much more stupid and game-breaking decisions are available) fail miserably in terms of immersion. Sometimes limits are actually a good thing to have! And choices that make no sense just shouldn't be available to the player, period. You get even more of this useless freedom when it comes to character appearance. Just explain to me: why do you give a player an option to adjust his character's looks while not giving him an appropriate portrait to go with? Why do you let player to choose a male portrait and voice for a female character and vice-versa? Is it "just for lulz"? Well it doesn't look like fun to me for certain. The portrait system in IE games somewhat worked fine because all the character models just looked pretty much the same and you never really payed any attention to Minsc's model having hair, for example. Here, you can tweak character appearance to your liking, but it still would be pointless because you don't get a portrait for him. I say just make a variety of portraits and make a preset model for each. Or add a "Custom Appearance" option where you could add a custom portrait (good luck finding one of those for an Aumaua or a Godlike), choose a custom head/hair/figure and such. Otherwise the whole thing makes as much sense as the "Big Heads" graphics. Combat So far combat feels quite chaotic and is rather confusing even with constant use of auto-pause. The Infinity Engine had a lot less detail, and yet then it's been much easier to tell what's going on on the screen, than here. There should be more visuals indicating what a character's doing and what condition is he in. Spellcasters are my main concern. In IE games, each spell had its casting time, casting sound and casting animation, so you could always tell when someone is casting something and sometimes even predict what it is. Here it looks like a character is just standing for a while and then SUDDENLY he throws a fireball. Sometimes i don't even notice enemy spells because of that, or forget about what my character was supposed to cast. Combat controls feel unresponsive. In IE games when you give an order to someone, even during the pause, you immediately get a response from him, both visually and in sound. In PoE you never can tell whether the guy is going to do what you've told him or not. Many times did i tell a wizard to cast some spell before switching to another character, just to find a minute later that he never did it. There should be some other way of presenting combat information about enemies. The box that pops up when you hover your cursor over an enemy is overburdened and should really only tell you his health and status effects. For everything else i suggest an "inspect" button or something like that. Exploration I have mixed thoughts about the Scouting system. At the very least it needs some kind of a distinct animation, walking instead of running =\= stealth. Cloaks and amulets occupy the same slot. Really, guys? It's impossible for people in this world to wear an amulet and a cloak at the same time? Crafting feels pretty much like in NWN2, which means it's useless and not worth the effort. For a crafting system to exist in a game, it should be either absolutely necessary for survival or extremely rewarding (i.e. things that you can craft should be better than those that you can loot). Otherwise, it's just another pointless mechanic that 99% of players will never use. Focusing on enchanting instead of crafting might be a better option - especially if there will be not only numerical enchants, but unique too (like enchanting your sword to apply a certain status effect on your enemy). Why bother yourself implementing a Time/Calendar system if it doesn't affect the game in any way except for graphics? Shops working 24/7, people just standing around at night - this just looks even more stupid when there's a big clock around, telling you what time it is. This was acceptable back in 1998, not 16 years later! Dialogue system should be thoroughly explained to player, as currently there's no way to tell what do all these "Clever-Minor" things mean. Other than that, conversations are great and quest system works just fine. User Interface The spells/abilities icons are somewhat too small and look too much alike, it's really hard to find a spell you need (especially when you're a priest). Inventory interface elements are way too small. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with stuff like character sheet, journal and inventory to be full-screen, like in IE games, but with bigger icons and buttons so i don't have to strain my eyes all the time. Or there may be 2 options, like "small icons" and "big icons". Combat log is somewhat confusing and you can't customize what it's showing to you (like filter out spells cast or damage dealt, or to filter your allies or your enemies). It's hard to find what you need there. it takes way too much effort to choose a specific character instead of the whole party. Resting/camping interface should be revamped with an ability to specify exactly how many hours do you want to spend resting. Similarly, there should be an option to rent a room in an inn for more than 8 hours. Well, that's about it for now. I tried to be as benevolent as possible and i sure hope my ranting would help to improve the game at least a tiny bit. Have a great day and a great life!

This is a great idea! Remember those spells from IE games, when you summon some demon or a genie, and he can give you advice about what to do next? That was awesome! Also: familiars! Familiars that you can talk to! Familiars that can affect your quests, or even have their own quests! Damn. Playing as a mage would be so much fun with all of this.

BG2 had a lot of options here (running a thieves guild for a thief character, a theater for a bard, a castle for a paladin etc.). Would be really nice to see something like that in PE.

Actually, lack of time management mechanics is one of my main issues with modern RPGs. It just doesn't feel right when travelling to some desolated place at the end of the world is exactly the same as switching between two districts in a city (see: NWN2). And yeah, there must be time-sensitive quests! If some guy asks you to save his daughter from the bandits, or else they will kill her, you gotta be sure, that they will freaking do it if you decide to go travelling for a couple of months instead of helping her. It would be even greater if these time restrictions could create some real problems for the player. For example: you're currently on an urgent misson, you go to some location, and then - there's this guy with a kidnapped daughter, who asks for your help. So you realize that helping the guy could put your mission under threat, and then you have to choose your course of action. Now that's a kind of dilemma a real adventurer would face. While in most of games you can literally help *everybody*, just because they don't care about *when* you're gonna do it. With all that said, the "countdown" thing on the main quest is not a good decision, as it hurts exploring and limits your general experience of the game. Although i can't say i'd want it to be like in The Elder Scrolls, where you can forget about the storyline forever, right after the character creation.