Hiro Protagonist II

I have to admit after my first playthrough of the IE games, the main reason I picked a certain alignment was due to the loot. If there was an item that I wanted but was alignment bound, I would choose that alignment. Same with my Mage/Sorcerer and what familiar I wanted. Had nothing to do with the alignment, I just wanted that Ferret who had a 75% pick pockets skill on my solo playthrough.

Yes they did. Even in BG1, you could sneak into the Bandit Camp and finish that quest. You do raise a good point though. I too would like to know from the quest-xp side of the argument whether they feel the combat is fun by itself.

And that's a bad thing? That you can upgrade to better weapons instead of continuing to use your 'viable' butter knife against enemies near the end of the game? Please no, none of this making everything viable balancing philosophy. The beetles are like armored tanks. I thought they were too big but appears to be to scale going by the concept artwork. Very much not the same beetles from IWD. However, they still carry the concept of trash mobs imo. I know it's a betaTM but I would expect better loot from them in the final game with going up against an armoured tank. If they're still the same trash mobs in the final game, then I'll probably avoid them as much as I can. Crafting supplies might be a goal and I'll obviously come across some on the most optimal route on these maps and get some of their shells, but the incentive to go after more of them isn't there for me.

I'll be sure to put my Wizard on the front line to help with tanking and spreading the damage around. Thanks for the tip.

A new way of healing needs to be introduced instead of resting. That's what it boils down to. There's the 4th ed ritual comrade's succor which could be introduced into the lore of the game and there are various ways you could do that and I would be perfectly fine with that. There could be other things like herbalism that you could learn to make basic medicines that regained some hit points but not all points. Goodberrys with your druid from the BG games comes to mind that gave you some hit points back and I would perfectly fine with something like that. Anything that helps to restore health instead of camping/inn resting. And there have been many suggestions in the other thread to restore your health without resting. As it is, it's a failed design. It's a failed design in the Game World Lore sense, not necessarily the actual mechanics of the Stamina/Health of your party members. The problem needs to be addressed and new healing methods needs to be introduced into the game, instead fluffing over it and doing some 'tweaks'. Tweaking numbers on the Stamina/Health ratio is not enough. Tweaking may give you a couple more encounters, but the underlying problem is still there - your tank's health will get critically low while everyone else in your party will be reasonably healthy or on full health. This is not real life, this is a computer game. No need to go all realism. And currently, it doesn't make sense in a fantasy computer role playing game to rest when five out of six party members are on full health because there is no other way to heal that wounded party member. Other games have different ways to heal your party members, this game needs it too. Obsidian should take the interests of the game, the fun and the players and say, you know this didn't work as intended and we're changing it. Obsidian have announced and then changed things before (item durability). This is one of those things that needs to be changed.

I disagree PrimeJunta. While things like bugs getting squashed, animations, pathfinding, and other minor things might get better, a lot of the core design is still flawed. You can say things like 'there's a good game hidden in there somewhere' but seriously, anybody can say that with any game with major problems in its design. And you know what, there is a good game in there, but unless it gets a complete overhaul, we won't see it. And the constant line from people with, 'the systems fine, just needs a little tweaking'. LMAO. Do you seriously think a little tweaking is going to fix fundamental flawed core designs? This is not some thing where you tweak some numbers. And Sawyer isn't going to come out a couple of months before release and do a complete turn around and take penalties off armor, go against the lore and introduce healing to health and any other number of major flaws with the core designs. These are major problems that can't be fixed with tweaks. PoE has degenerate game play. It has rest spamming, it has save scumming, it has min/maxing and dump stats, the enemy A.I. is highly exploitable, it has objective quest xp that you can exploit without actually finishing the quests, it has ridiculous exploits including your characters running around as nudists because the combat is faster and easier. Everything Sawyer criticised with degenerate gameplay in the IE games like min/maxing, rest spamming, he's made worse in this game, by introducing a new system that encourages degenerate gameplay that is worse than in the IE games. Core fundamental problems that can't be fixed with a little 'tweaking'. The game needs to go back to the beginning and it's too late for that. All we're going to see are cosmetic changes but the flawed system will be there. No, there is no good game somewhere hidden in there waiting to burst out like a phoenix. It will be probably be an okay game on release after all the bug fixes but not a great game due to the poor design mechanics and philosophy behind that design. And it's a real shame, a missed opportunity to make something great.

I agree. Also, I'd like the option where I can list them in order of date/time played. It should be fairly easy to have some save game options by selecting date/time, areas, etc.

So D&D is simulationist where the stats are broken up? Anyway, I have no idea. For me, I don't really care if Plate should give you a penalty to stealth because you're clunking down a dungeon, and leather doesn't give you a penalty. I don't care if heavier armor should give you other penatlies for more AC than lighter armor or those cloth rags that you found on some villagers clothes line. There's no need to go to so much balancing just so those cloth rags can be a viable option. Once you start down that road... Anyway, the penalties are the problem. If you want me to have ranged characters wear armor, get rid of the penalties. Then I'll be the first in line to put some clothes on my characters. Even if there is an encounter where I might need armor, I'll just keep a set in my stash and get it before heading off to the encounter.

I first heard Josh Sawyer mention it, but yeah gamism is like fully sacrificing realism in favor of mechanical purposes. Simulationism tries to take realism into account when designing mechanics. Josh hates half-measured simulationism for some reason. I think the mid point between them works well in a lot of systems. They're all valid approaches it just depends whether the actual design is good or not. PE is more on the gamist side. Wat? PE is more on the gamist side? Okay I really don't understand the term.

I was thinking that could be it. At the moment, PoE feels more simulationist. eg. The heavier the armor, the more penalties you get. Nope, that design isn't fun. My Fighter in the heaviest armor at the moment is like the Michelin Man that I roll down while the enemies are beating on him. And like the Michelin Man, his recovery time is crap and probably can't hit anything. But at least he's well armored and can take a beating. And that design is just plain wrong when you compare to the earlier IE games where the best armor was awesome and you enjoyed having your fighters, paladins and anyone else who could wear it. It was fun and mainly it was a game to have fun. No penalties for your fighter or paladin wearing it.

I'm not sure what you mean by gamist approach? I don't really know what you mean by gamist other than a quick google search and the term isn't clear.

I still won't wear it. Just like I never wore Plate in IWD2 for my Wizard or Sorcerer. Sure I could, but a 35% spell failure rate? No thanks. Once you introduce penalties, I won't even look at it for my ranged characters. Having no penalties is a step in the right direction though. In fact, I'd rather get rid of penalties altogether and go back to the archetypes from the early IE games. But I know it won't happen.

You're right. I forgot, even a 3 gives a bonus. That's why the numbers are so high. FFS. I think I'm better just ignoring the mechanics and play the game. Trying to understand this will give me a stomach ache.

The HP number system I would say is more 4E inspired than anything else. No. HP in PoE has nothing to do with 4th ed. I have no idea what it's based on or why the numbers are so high. For example: Level 6 Rogue in PoE - 117 hps Level 6 Rogue in 4th ed - 58 hps Also defences: PoE Rogue - Level 6 Def - 30 Fort - 45 Ref - 72 Will - 45 4th ed Rogue - Level 6 (Min/Max with Op items in my character builder) AC - 22 Fort - 17 Ref - 23 Will - 17

The 'balancing' is probably what annoys me the most. And this started with IWD2. I honestly thought Obsidian wouldn't go back to IWD2 type balancing where if your Sorcerer wears different types of armor, then you could be hit up to things like 35% spell failure. I ended up wearing robes or nothing for my Wizards or Sorcerers because a) I wanted my spells to go off every time, and b) my mages were already at the back of the group and reasonably protected with a lot of the encounters in the game. We didn't see this with the BG games or IWD1. But then armor was restricted to different classes and I was okay with that. Armor gave bonuses, not % penalties. There's them damn percentages again. But with Josh, he wanted all armor to be viable to all classes and that meant giving pluses and penalties to 'balance' it all out. You can't have Plate being better because everyone will just upgrade to Plate so then penalties are added. So? In the previous IE games that's what I did and I enjoyed it and there were no penalties. It's just one of the many reasons why IWD2 is my least favourite of the IE games. And this design philosophy has carried over to PoE but even worse. And it's why ranged characters in PoE are better off not wearing any armor at all. It's just not fun when your mage or chanter or whatever class is on full health, at a safe distance from the battle but have a 20%, 35% or whatever percentage recovery time. Well, throw the armor away, go stark naked and lob those spells without penalty. Seriously, the strategy is so laughable that if I mentioned this to my pnp group. They would be like WTF? What sort of game is this? There's too many negatives, penalties and everything else to negate the positives on items, especially the armor, to try and balance everything out and make everything 'viable'. I also find the attribute system does my head in where every number from 3-18 is viable. Even a 3 gives bonuses. There are things that should give penalties that don't like attributes and there are other things that do give penalties like loot which I think shouldn't because it makes me not want to use that loot. And this is all in the name of balance. The system is horrible on paper and it's horrible in practice. When the system is a turd, no amount of tweaking is going to change that turd. It will still be a turd. So no, combat is not fun for me and I want to avoid it, and it's not just no kill xp. It's everything about combat. The MMO/4th ed type roles (tank, dps, leader, controller), to the different recovery times of each character (what's wrong with the 6 sec rounds in the IE games?), to everything else I've encountered with combat. And this is coming from a fan of 4th ed who has played 4th ed for years. It does not translate into PoE because there are core fundamental things from 4th ed that have been ignored while cherry picking some things from the combat, but ignoring other things from the 4th ed combat. You can't go cherry picking different things while ignoring other things from 4th ed combat and also cherry picking things from other game systems and then throw it all into a pot and out pops a rpg system for a computer role playing game, especially when halfway in development you still haven't decided on the attributes, skills and talents. It comes across as all fly by the seat of your pants design in an excel spreadsheet with tweaking a percentage here and there and saying, 'looks great'. And then there's the stamina/health problem which shortens the adventuring day to a couple or few encounters (depending on the encounters), unless you're exploiting the system (nudism, enemy A.I., fog of war, etc). Then you have to take an extended rest because your tank is nearly dead while the rest of your party is on full health. This doesn't happen in 4th ed combat because of one fundamental thing - healing your health. And you can press on and continue the session, and do more or avoid encounters, but you can still press on. We have a rule that we don't have an extended rest all session. Most of the time it works and it makes for strategic combat or sometimes we avoid combat through dialogue. With PoE, you can't when enemies already have red circles around them and blocking your path. You have to stop and rest for that one character if they are critically low on health. So yes, encounter and daily powers from 4th ed are good and provide that strategic combat, but it's useless if you're resting every couple/few encounters which you don't do in 4th ed pnp. You even have rituals that can spread the healing to your other characters. So while the world design of not having healing potions or healing spells might be 'cool' to some people, it doesn't translate to a crpg imo. The design is flawed. The Baldurs Gate games and IWD1 combat I found was fun. The items (armor, weapons) were great and there were no penalties. I didn't have to have naked Mages because an armor gave me a % spell failure or whatever. With PoE, things like the armor is uninspiring with all the negatives associated with it, and I want to avoid combat as much as possible when completing a quest because I don't find it fun to then to have to go back to the inn or camp and rest when I can't even heal one of my party members. Even simple FedEx quests like the Ogre require me to rest and that's not fun.

Why don't you move on Caladian? You seem quite obsessed with coming into threads to tell others to ignore him.

Sensuki is right. Oh and I meant armor, not weapons. 50% recovery time doesn't mean anything to me. If however I put some Plate mail in my Fighters inventory and I click on the description and the maths was already worked out by the game and it gave a result of +1 second recovery time, then that's easy to understand. If I then put that same armor in my Priest's inventory and click on the inventory and it worked out the maths with my Priest's abilities and it gave +2 seconds recovery time result, then that's easy to understand. At the moment, I have to work our the maths and I don't want to. I want the information given to me so I can make a quick decision between if this mail or plate is better or worse. I want to get on playing with the game. And some of the percentages may turn out to be similar in that 20% Leather and 35% chain mail recovery time for different armor are the same for one of my characters. Both might work out to be 1 second recovery time and 40% tips me over to 2 seconds with plate. Or something like that. Something simple where I can click on an item and it tells me in simple terms how long will recovery take in seconds, not percentages. It's another reason why the nude strategy is so good, I don't need to work this out. But even the weapons I don't understand with plus melee damage on ranged weapons and plus ranged damage on melee weapons. That doesn't make any sense to me. There's just a lot of miscellaneous stuff I don't understand with items in this game.

I'm with you on this Indira. I find the PoE system to be a huge WTF. I have no idea of the stats, some of the things like DT, the percentages... oh the percentages. There's so many percentages. Percentages on weapons, percentages on this, percentages on that. eg. If there's a 50% percentage on a weapon for something, I have no idea what that 50% means and how meaningful it is or even how it's worked out and what's it's based on. The percentages look really huge, in a 'wow I get 50% extra damage' but that might translate into something like +2 damage when you're already dealing 20 damage. I really wish they went with a system where it was like a +2 weapon with +1 poison damage. Like it was in the IE game. I can understand that.

^Yep, totally agree with Sensuki. Melee characters aren't that great in armor. Ranged nudists all the way, or at least most of your party as ranged nudists. Just send your tank in as the sacrificial lamb while your ranged nudists mop up. And don't forget to take your armor off your other melee characters like the Rogue while your Fighter is tanking.

Yep. As long as there is a penalty, you're gimping yourself.

lulz. Try it out. Combat is faster and easier.

We don't know what it will be like in the final game. If there is a quest hub like Athkatla in BG2, there may be a good amount of xp to get by farming quests. As others often say, This is just a BetaTM. And going by the Beta, Obsidian has changed their design by going with an Objective / Quest based system by spreading out the xp more along the quest route and not the proposed Quest only system with xp at the end of the quest. So it looks like Obsidian did notice problems early on and did change it. I think doing optimal map and quest routes and avoiding things like trash mobs might give you more frequency with xp rewards. I know my current play style is rewarding me more frequently.

I agree with the nude strategy. I've been playing with quite a lot of nudists in my playthroughs as well. There's really no point in armor for ranged characters as well as melee characters like the Rogue when you have a tank taking all the hits. As long as the tank is doing their job and the other characters don't get hit, armor is mostly useless for me.

You're also ignoring a core fundamental with rewarding xp for players who choose the combat option and ignoring players who choose the non-combat option. It comes across as double dipping for combat players and non-combat players get the shaft. Which is something a lot of players are against with kill xp including yourself. Example: a quest has two possible ways to solve it. 1. The combat player solves the quest, gets the quest reward but also gets the cyclopedia reward for killing everything in the dungeon. In fact, the combat player might have killed various monsters during their kill spree and received two or three cyclopedia pages. 2. The player who avoided combat and solved the quest, only gets the quest reward and that's it. Not very balanced at all. It encourages combat style play. eg. kill sprees. And players will go the combat route to get those Cyclopedia pages and kill xp rewards and we can't have that.

You're substituting combat xp which people argue can be abused with other systems that can be abused? The Cyclopedia? Lure one beetle and kill it with a party of 6. Then lure another beetle and kill it. etc. The same with other enemies. Lure one enemy, kill it. Lure the same enemy on its own and kill it. That page is now complete and you're rewarded with xp by luring one enemy out at a time. And with awarding Crafting with xp, that can be abused as well. The way I see it, the more you go from the current system in PoE and introduce other suggestions like the Cyclopedia or crafting while ignoring the xp systems that were in the IE games like combat xp, the more players will find ways to abuse that system. And Obsidian probably knows this.