Hiro Protagonist II

I can see that being abused. Clear the appropriate percentage or most of the percentage that doesn't have enemies and get the xp reward. Yes, Obsidian please implement this now!

Obsidian did listen and the majority of backers as per the polls wanted Quest Based xp only. Polls at the time confirmed this. There were of course others who proposed other systems. While I was one in the minority that wanted an IE experience with combat xp, the majority had agreed with Obsidian's decision. And Obsidian was happy. My play style has always been if combat is tedious, largely unrewarding and avoidable, I'll avoid it. Just like being waylaid by Kobolds in BG1. I always ran to the side of the screen and got out of there because I found the combat tedious, largely unrewarding and avoidable. You could get xp rewards and loot, but I never bothered. And I saw this with PoE. If combat is tedious, largely unrewarding and avoidable, then I'll avoid it. Others might not see it my way and enjoy the combat that's all ready there with enemies like some of the avoidable trash mobs. We're all different. But this is how I see it for me. Now we have some of those pro-quest xp people switching camps or coming up with different designs like objective based xp as well as quest based xp. Well, I note that the current system in the Beta isn't just quest based xp. There is some objective based xp in it as well. Like the objective to find the Ogre cave and entering that cave rewards you with xp. Just the mere action of entering a cave is an xp reward. And you can simply leave the cave and do something else. You're actually rewarded xp along your quest in small parts and not at the end of the quest. The same with the Cat and Mouse quest with the Orlan in the inn and Medreth's gang. You are rewarded with xp with letting the Orlan go and you don't have to go back to Medreth for the additional xp. Going halfway through completing objectives in a quest and not completing the entire quest does reward you with xp in this game which is the total opposite of what Obsidian promised with its Quest based xp system with rewarding at the end of the quest. And this is how I'll play PoE. I'll be avoiding trash mobs, taking the most optimal and easy routes for similar loot rewards and exactly the same xp reward, weighing up which is better with the pacifist or combat route, risks vs rewards, and largely abusing the xp system. Because I won't want to spend time going the tedious route when there's an easier alternative and the rewards are similar or the same. The only exception to the rule is if the reward (such as an uber item) is more than the easier route without that item and I really want that item. Again, risk vs reward. This IS roleplaying because my characters will be weighing up all these options. The system is what it is in PoE. Objective and Quest based xp. We'll just have to see how much of a success the game is with this system. For me, it's not the system I like, but then I'm in the minority with liking how the IE games handled it.

Yes, I have. I have not completed it, yet, but I have played it a bit. Not that this matters to your superiority complex, or anything, since now you'll simply say that, since you've played it more than I have, I somehow lack the privilege of commenting on game design concepts in general. And, from my personal experience, I start with like 1500cp, and I want my Wizard to use a Rapier. Well, the local weapon shop sells weapons for about 4000-5000cp (if not more). Thus, the very first combat I engaged in got me not only loot I could sell, but some stuff I could actually use in my current party. Is that concrete enough for you? Also, ("ABSTRACTION" ALERT, HIRO!) any of these things could be tweaked before release. Not only that, but, in the beta, we're not even starting at the beginning of the game. So, loot could be made more valuable, more frequent, etc. Foe locations could be changed up. Foe numbers could be changed up. Objective XP could be distributed more pervasively. There are all kinds of things that could occur for the final game to not end up exactly like the current beta build does, or for things like "I don't even need any loot at all" to not even end up being true. Also also, there doesn't seem to be a happy medium with combat rewards. If killing all the extraneous mobs in an area gave you, say, 900 more XP, then that would be pretty significant, and combat would be the way to go. Because XP ALWAYS helps you out until you're at level cap. "So just make it less" some people said. Okay, so if all those mobs gave you like 200XP, well then, you're basically back to "I don't really NEED that XP. I feel like I'm not really getting anything for my efforts." Just like the current sentiment with loot, as it becomes circumstantially unnecessary after a bit. So, where's the happy medium? Fighting everything is either THE way to go, or it's just another option. I think most people have agreed that the current system needs to be changed. There's no doubt about that. Its exact, current state isn't perfect. That's precisely why it's a beta. Basically, just because you feel the combat encounters aren't enticing enough doesn't mean the obvious conclusion is "TOSS IN INDIVIDUAL COMBAT XP ACROSS THE BOARD TO FIX IT!". There are numerous factors to adjust/options to take to fix what ails the current build. Ah Lephys. Such a precious snowflake. And I'm not asking what most people have agreed or what the feeling on the forums are. I'm asking what you think. So what game designs don't you like with the Beta. Or is it all everything is wonderful in Lephys land. You can do it, you can give criticism of the beta and tell us what you don't like with the design choices that have been made with the game. Note: Design choices, not bugs in the Beta.

I'm unsure why people are finding the battles hard on Easy. I mentioned in another thread yesterday my party composition and finding it relatively easy. Yes, I'm powergaming but the battles are very easy on Easy. I may have to start cranking up the difficulty on my next playthrough. Also, I gave a comparison to the pacifist and combat options with the Cat and Mouse quest. The Medreth fight was very easy. Admittedly it was on Easy. I ended up taking the pacifist route as both options give you the exact same xp rewards and the combat route gave you trash loot imo.

As I said before on the previous page, personally I don't see the incentive to get into combat in a rpg where one of its big selling points is tactical combat, where the rewards will be usually trash loot. If I can take the easy option and the rewards are very similar, then easy wins out. Unless that encounter has some uber item, I'll avoid combat and the risks that goes with combat. I might get into combat if the fight is a pushover, but if I'm facing multiple enemies, then I'll click 'easy option'. To me, when I weight it all up, it's just not worth wasting my time when I can click a couple of dialogue options and get the same xp reward and similar money. Yes, I missed out on loot but it was trash loot. Yes I could have sold all that loot but I already have enough money. In the end with the quest above, I took the pacifist route.

I decided to do a little experiment with one of the quests. The Pacifist and Combat route with my Chanter. *** Huge Spoilers. *** Pacifist route. Resolve of 14 required by your Player Character. My Chanter has 19 Resolve. Combat route. Funnily enough, I was rewarded the xp when the fight started, not after it finished and one of my characters could level up. Unless I really needed money, I'd most likely go the pacifist route. I don't have a problem with money going the pacifist route at the moment in my current playthrough and avoiding all the trash mobs and not selling vendor trash. I could have a lot more money, but I'd rather avoid the trash mobs and it feels more enjoyable due to not having to rest so much with this stamina/health design in this game. If the battle is easy like the Ogre, I'll just kill the ogre. If the battle is going to be a hard battle, possible death of one of my characters and the rewards are similar with trash loot, more than likely pacifist route for me. Easy wins out. Because the xp rewards are exactly the same for pacifist and combat scenarios, at least in this example. The only difference is loot which more than likely will end up as vendor trash to sell anyway. And it's going to be great for that solo run.

Well I've been playing the updated beta for a while, metagaming and avoiding as many trash mob encounters as possible and it's far more enjoyable. Knowing what skills to put in with my characters and did exactly what Rose did in the recent video with her avoiding most trash mob encounters and going the optimal route to the Ogre cave and I only had to rest once. I took the exact same route Rose did. I did buy a 6th character from the Inn right at the start which was an OP Cipher at level 1. My character is an OP Chanter. LOL. Not only did I level up the Cipher 3 times, but also levelled up the rest of the characters after just one quest. Knowing I didn't have to waste time on trash mobs with trash loot with no xp gain was good. Also, I used my Mighty Chanter to open the dungeon beneath Dyrford Crossing as I didn't want to go through the Ogre Cave passage ways, fighting spiders to get the Key. So an easy Might skill check wins out with this one. Of note, my Chanter, inn Cipher and BB Wizard aren't wearing any clothes. They just stay back and do their range attacks while my BB Fighter, BB Priest and BB Rogue are on the front line. Why no clothes? Because it affects Recovery Speed and no clothes means no penalties to Recovery Speed! Powergaming FTW!

[Description of the issue] Empty loot bags still appearing, even after loading a saved game [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] Looted a Widowmaker spider and lootbag still there. Saved game. Quit. Loaded saved game and empty loot bag still there. Below screen shot. [Expected behaviour] Empty loot bags should not be appearing. Also attached are save game and output log text file. e296d84fc0c3460fbf043ced1174ebf5 DyrfordCrossing 7673807.zip output_log.zip

I loaded my save game and now I can't reproduce it. Must have been one of those one in a million glitches and it's sorted it self out. Save game and output log text file is here anyway. But probably won't be able to reproduce it. e296d84fc0c3460fbf043ced1174ebf5 DyrfordVillage 7617449.zip output_log.zip

[Description of the issue] Enemies that shouldn't be teleporting are teleporting to get around barriers including your front line characters. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] I numbered what happened in this encounter. I had three front line characters block the enemy in preparation between the two rocks. 1. Enemy Spider sitting. 2. Wizard fired a spell at the Spider. 3. Spider rushed in and trying to attack my Wizard and ignoring the three characters blocking it. 4. Moved my Wizard back out of danger. 5. Spider teleported to my Wizard because it couldn't get around my three front line characters. LOL. Not sure if Widowmaker spiders can teleport but it was funny seeing a spider struggling to get over my three characters and then just appeared at my Wizard. [Expected behaviour] Enemies who can't teleport shouldn't be able to teleport to get to a character who hit them, despite other characters blocking their path.

[Description of the issue] Characters not centred in their circles. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] Click to an area on the map. When they stop, characters won't be centred in their circles and some will be out of their circle entirely. Doesn't happen all the time. Just every now and then. [Expected behaviour] Characters should be centred in their circles

[Description of the issue] Being in Stealth with the circles activated also appears in the Character Level up screen. And anything else highlighted will appear as well, such as outlines of containers. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] Just press ALT. Click on a character or 'C'. Then click on 'level up'. The Circles and outlines of containers will now appear on the character's screen. In this example, the container to the right is outlined and comes through to the next screen in the Stealth description. The container outline is under the word 'enemies'. [Expected behaviour] Stealth circles and container outlines should not appear.

It is roleplaying man. You roleplay your characters however you want you to be. You can't dictate to others on how to roleplay their characters and what constitutes a hero. And you don't have to be a mercenary that hinges on payment. You might decide in the end the risk isn't worth it. Not everyone plays their heroes like Paladins. Also, Silent Winter asked about things like the combat and the argument with kill for loot which some people (those for quest xp only) are saying that should be enough, which is part of the discussion of the xp system and what it's like in the Beta. I gave my opinion and how I feel about parts of the Beta and part of that is if there's no xp, and the rewards are too little (vender loot trash) for the risks (characters health, possible deaths and time in resting) or if it's just mind numbingly time consuming, then I weigh all that up and in the end, I decide to avoid combat. I find random trash mob fights not enjoyable in this game. Just like the random encounters between maps in BG1 where you are waylaid by bandits such as Kobolds and I beeline to the edge of the map to get out of there. You could get xp for those waylaid encounters with Kobolds, but I never bothered. I'd rather spend time on better rewards than very little to no rewards. And that's one of the problems I see with this game. And with meta-knowledge with return playthroughs of the game, just as return playthroughs of the beta, I avoid combat which gives little to no rewards and that translates into avoiding half the areas on the maps (trash mobs with vendor loot trash) and concentrating on other areas where the rewards are much higher. eg. Quests with better loot items.

Fireball triggers but Blinding Web doesn't? Might be a bug with Blinding Web. Nerf bat incoming for Blinding Web?

You should read my post again. Silent Winter asked a question and I answered with how "I" feel. Noticed I never said 'most people' or saying 'what other people may feel'. It was 'my' experience with the game and it was clear I was talking about how 'I' felt. I'm not saying to Silent WInter that I need to be rewarded for every single action or even other people need to be rewarded for every single action. I even said you are rewarded for vendor trash loot with enemies like the lions, because the lion pelts ARE vendor trash loot in the Beta. So even with actions like engaging enemies, you ARE rewarded for those actions. For me the payoff isn't there to engage them. And that IS roleplaying. You can take the 'meh, I don't care about the bandits because the payoff isn't there' attitude as part of your character and that is what I'm doing with my characters. That is roleplaying in a roleplaying game. And if you want to bring in real life examples.. LMAO, there are many examples in real life where I think to myself, the rewards are so little for the effort to put in so I won't bother. Instead, how about answering Silent Winter's question and actually contribute something worthwhile on how you feel about the Beta and how you play it, if you enjoy it and what do you like and dislike.

Having played the original Beta (will play the latest version in a few hours), after my first playthrough and subsequent playthroughs, I wanted to avoid as much combat as possible. Trash mobs don't give me any incentive to engage them. And this is a little immersion breaking knowing there are enemies wandering around just outside of town and I just leave them there. Even in town, you're told bandits are wandering the area. eh, who cares? Is there a quest to round up all these bandits? No. Okay so no xp rewards to handle these bandits or other type of enemies. So I can't be bothered engaging them. And it's not like they attack the town anyway, because the game isn't designed like that. So those bandits or feral druids or whoever that the villagers talk about can stay on that imaginary road. Stun is right in that the Gorge map has something missing and feels pointless with it's encounters with the lions and feral druids. I avoid them at all costs because the rewards are vendor trash loot or lion pelts which is also vendor trash (in the beta). There is no quest, therefore no xp reward to engage them. And it's not worth the health of my characters to engage them because there is no cure light wound type spells to heal your health. I have to rest (like go back to the inn) to heal my party. I don't want to use my limited camping supplies as I usually save them for the dungeons. And I find I do need them for the dungeons. It's easy to avoid the druids because they are in the top half part of the map and there's no need to go to there. There's nothing there other than the druids walking around and some of the lions. I don't know the exact size of a BG1 map to a PoE map, but the PoE maps are small and half the map feels like a waste which makes the map even smaller. Imagine a BG1 map and cut it in half. That's what it feels like with the PoE maps. And I'm not talking pixels. How I would measure a map size is by the character. eg. If you have a human character and placed it on top of itself. The amount of figures placed on itself would be a lot in a BG1 map. If you did the same with a PoE map, it would be far less. So the travel time in getting from the top to the bottom of the map is less than in BG1. Maybe someone can measure the maps with how tall your characters are, I'm too lazy to do it. Granted a lot of BG1 maps didn't have a lot of stuff on them, but if I did come across something in my exploration, I was rewarded with more than just vendor trash loot. But in PoE, that's usually all I find which is why I avoid these encounters now.

Volourn, I was mocking the game design, how the bonus percentages don't mean a thing due to balance and the Pro-Quest forum posters of loot and/or crafting materials are reward enough. I agree with you.

Spider queen has spider silk iirc. You might get a 10% bonus on something like Boots made with silk padding when you craft in the final game. So your stealth might get a 10% boost. So if your stealth is 10, it's now 11. That's your reward. kthxbye.

Have you played the Beta Lephys? Your posts come across as your usual hypothetical abstract posts. Not any personal experience from playing the Beta. I've also noticed your absence from the Beta forum as well.

Throwing insults at other people doesn't help your argument and is just troll click bait. Refrain from throwing insults and your posts might be taken seriously. Not to mention pretending to be a moderator. last I checked, it wasn't up to Panteleimon to dictate what gets discussed on a developer's thread. I never told you what to discuss, thanks. I just saw your poor conduct and couldn't help myself. It's considered a social virtue where I come from. It's a social virtue where you come from to throw insults at people as well. hmm Okay. Before calling people out on what you consider poor conduct, perhaps looking at yourself and not throw insults as well. Where I come from, while asking someone to keep on topic may be okay, throwing personal insults at people is considered poor conduct. If you wanted this thread to stay on topic, then that's all you needed to say. Anyway, this has drifted too much off topic. Here's to the new patch. Hope it will fix a lot of issues and we can see an improved difference in gameplay.

Whether the patch does fix things or not, one thing is for certain. The forum will explode with new posts and threads over the next few days / week.

Throwing insults at other people doesn't help your argument and is just troll click bait. Refrain from throwing insults and your posts might be taken seriously.

That's been shown to be incorrect Ashen Rohk. You can have a Mage dumping Dex and Int to 3 and still take on lions one-on-one and kill them. You can dump Int to 3 on a priest and the AoE is still quite large for a spell like Consecrated Ground.

Since a lot of designs with PoE are being taken from systems like 4th ed, I suggested something to Josh a while back concerning healing and how we do it in our pnp session when we're low on healing. In 4th ed pnp, it's usually the damage dealing class like the Rogue and not the tank who usually gets targeted unless the tank can lock down those enemies. And the damage dealing classes like the Rogue have less healing than the tank. The way to keep wounded players in the game like the Rogue when you're low on healing is you can transfer healing from one player to another with a ritual called Comrade's Succor. This keeps wounded players in the game, back up to near or full health and eliminates the need for an extended rest. You could do something similar in PoE where you could transfer some health from one or more players to another with this type of ritual. The cost of the ritual would be a small amount of health but then you can redistribute the party's health from one or more players to any other player including the tank in your party. This is what I would like to see. The Mage casts the ritual, then I can select different characters and transfer a portion of one or more characters health to the Tank. Such as some health from the Rogue, Mage and Priest and get the Fighter back up to full health. At the moment, the current system of one party member tanking and taking the damage and the other 5 party members on full health and then all party members having to take an extended rest for that one party member seems out of whack to me. Otherwise if you want to continue, you then have to move your tank back and have other members of your party fill that tank role and take damage which goes against their roles.