PrimeJunta

Except that it was fairly easy to end up with a character/party that did not have the counter when encountering the situation, and no way to backtrack to get it. I believe that's Josh's main objection to the mechanic.

@Mrakvampire there's randomness and there's randomness. Insta-kill due to a single RNG event is not the same as hitting or missing in melee combat where winning requires landing a half-dozen good hits or so.

@Mrakvampire What else do you think should be copied exactly from D&D? P:E has different magical metaphysics than D&D. Dat soul power thing. A wizard is someone who produces magical effects with his soul power through the intermediary of his grimoire. There's nothing inherent to that which demands high intelligence. You may not like it, but that does not make it "nonsense" or "illogical."

And you can't make a fighter who casts fireballs. Your point?

Ah, but was it successful and well-received becuase of the XP system, or despite it?

I agree about the slow-food combat simulator aspect, by the way. It's a good analogy. I think P:E is shaping up nicely to capture that as a matter of fact. I do notice reflexively looking up to see how much XP I got after finishing a fight and then going "Oh... right." I can't say yet how the XP system feels overall because bugs have been eating my quests and I haven't really managed to get any XP. It does have an effect on how I play the game though -- I don't really mind sneaking past one of the beetle groups for example, to get to the ogre cave. We'll see how that ends up feeling on balance. Right now it's still a bit unfamiliar, as I do get that lawnmowing impulse. We will see if it abates and how it feels then.

Not every character ought to be optimized for max damage. You could also optimize for durability, buff/debuff strength/duration/AoE, and so on. That's what a lot of the classes are for. Second, not every class uses weapons equally effectively. Check out the base accuracy. Wizards are terrible at that. This is made up by the high accuracy bonus on most spells. Give one a bow and compare how he uses it compared to a ranger or even paladin, and the difference is fairly dramatic.

@IndiraLightfoot I had to like your post even though I disagree. It was just so beautifully written -- and I can hardly argue with "but I LIKE my rewards for killing sprees!"

You're right about the glass cannon thing. Still, both Health and Endurance are extremely important; dump one or both and you will feel it.

Nope, a muscle wizard would pump Might, Dex, and Con and could dump Int, and would wear heavy armor. He casts more slowly with smaller AoE's, but takes a lot of punishment and is able to make maximum use of those spells that originate from the caster without causing FF damage like back-row wizards. Many of the L1 and L2 spells are AoE that originates from the caster. Try it for spits and giggles. 'S fun.

That can't be. You're still bleeding off Health when getting hit. This tactic ought to whittle down your fighter's Health plenty quick. If it's not then something weird must be going on.

@Lioness I don't think rounds in the IE games were synced. They were all the same lengths, yes, but could start at different times. That's one of the things that made them feel so responsive -- characters reacted to commands immediately instead of in a few seconds.

That's kind of the point. If you don't feel that you're losing out by dumping a stat (or, conversely, don't feel like you want to pump every stat), then the stats are poorly balanced, ne?

@Infiltrate_SF I disagree. I think you should get your teeth kicked in if you fail to play your character to its strengths, whatever those are. If you make a muscle wizard and then play it like a glass cannon, you do deserve to lose, just like if you make a glass cannon wizard and put him in the front line. But saying that there's something inherently wrong about a muscle wizard is kind of a low-INT thing to say IMO.

Not possible. KOTOR basically only had swords -- single-bladed, double-bladed, and dual-wield. The enemies were either monstrous or humanoid. You only got the dueling field between two humanoids, so you only needed six animation series (single/single, single/double, single/dual, double/double, double/dual, and dual/dual) to get that feel. You could basically ignore monsters and just use the half of the animation sequence the human fighting it was using; it would be whiffier but nobody would notice. P:E has a huge selection of weapons of different types (small, medium, large, reach, with/without shield, dual-wielded), and at least four different size creatures that wield them (small, medium, large). That means they'd have to animate way, way, WAY more combinations. Add to that the fact that KOTOR's animation budget must have been MUCH higher than P:E's, and it ought to be obvious that this isn't happening. Same thing with the requests for special animations for different races etc. That's not really what this game is about.

PER and RES are currently dumpable, yes. I don't quite agree with the rest of your criticisms. Specifically, you feel that way because you want to play all your characters in a particular way. That's totally fine, but it doesn't mean other styles of character aren't viable. Consider CON. Yes, it is much more important for front-line characters than back-row glass cannons (duh!). Thing is, you can play against type (a lot of the time) and make a perfectly viable front-line wizard. There are a couple of classes which do really need high CON, specifically fighters and barbarians, because their features are so melee-focused. Consider INT. Thing is, all the classes have some duration- or AoE-based effects. Even fighters -- Knockdown. A high INT fighter can use that way more effectively than a low-INT one. So the current cookie-cutter feel comes from the dumpability of PER and RES IMO, which leaves enough points to haul up the others to the point where the differences are fairly small. Fix those and it'll work out fine.

Health would still be bound to CON. Endurance would be bound to RES. It would diminish CON obviously since Endurance would be moved away from it, but not this way.

I would call high Dex crucial. Landing hits is important, for just about everybody. For some classes, e.g. ciphers, I'd even say high Dex is more important than high Might, since landing hits is what charges up their... whatever it's called they charge up. As to high Int, same thing: I tried playing with a low-Int and high-Int barbarian, and the duration change to rage makes a huuuuge difference. The AoE effect of Int is IMO too big ATM; clerics and wizards at least get pretty massive AoE's even at moderate Int. Tuning that is going to be a simple matter.

The Interrupt mechanic feels obscure and, at this point, somewhat useless. What exactly do I interrupt? The enemy's attack? Only spellcasting? Something else? It feels like it's at most useful in particular situations, and for those situations you wouldn't necessarily need a high-Interrupt character, but only some per-encounter or per-rest high-Interrupt abilities; I also have a hunch such situations can be worked around with suitable counters, buffs, or debuffs. Either make it more useful or drop it altogether in favor of something else tied to abilities.

Mmh. Not quite, Dex, Con, and Int are extremely crucial too, Con more for melee classes perhaps, and Int less so for fighters with few duration-based or AOE effects. The problems are with Per and Res which really do end up as dumpable.

That's your problem right there. This isn't gaming. It's participating in game development as an early playtester. If you don't enjoy that, then stop doing it and take your drama/whining elsewhere. And yes, I will take your suggestion of not participating in this thread, or indeed interacting with you in general, unless and until you lose that entitled it's-all-about-me-and-my-precious-free-time attitude.

Not just yet, Answermancer. But it'll get there.

Marceror, give it a rest. If the beta is too buggy for you to test, then by all means stop testing it and wait for the next build. A lot of us are enjoying the process a lot, bugs and all, and Obsidian is getting a lot of useful feedback from us already. As to your silly car metaphor, a better analogy would be that you're building a racing car from scratch, and then let a friend take it around the track once knowing it's half-finished. Then ithe transmission breaks down halfway around and he has to walk back. If your friend was really touchy and entitled and is going to whine about how horrible it was that it broke down and he had to walk back, then letting him try it out was probably a bad idea. But if he's a race car enthusiast who maybe tinkers with them himself, he might still be thrilled with the experience and only looking forward to another try once you've finished rebuilding the transmission.

Not sure if this belongs here or in the General Suggestions thread, but it is combat-related so... Stealth. I've been trying to use the "standard" rogue tactic of stealthing the rogue to the enemy's flank, then marching forward with the rest of the party to engage, then hitting them in the back with the rogue. This doesn't really work because it appears that stealth is for the whole party: when combat starts, everybody un-stealths, and unless I've positioned my rogue very far, one of the enemy group breaks formation and attacks her. I.e. we really need individual stealth, and the related visual indications of who is stealthed -- just like in the IE games.

Overall: so far I love all the classes I've tried. They're really nicely designed, have genuine variety, play completely differently, and are all effective. The Chanter was especially cool and different (although OP with all those summons ATM, but I'm sure you'll fix that). Some specifics -- Ranger: The bear companion seems a bit OP. The DT means it takes very little damage compared to the others; it certainly felt a lot easier to play with a bear than a lion for example. Fighter: Needs an endurance/health damage ratio halfway between regular and barbarian. Since he's always in the front line getting pounded, he takes a lot of damage; he gets through individual fights fine but is usually the one who prompts camping because his health has run out. Don't overdo it though as knowing that the fighter will get whittled down motivates me to use the per-rest abilities other classes have. Cleric: I'm not sure if it's already in, but... consider a limited-duration buff that stops health damage. I dig the decision that only resting restores health, but it would be useful to have a way to help a low-health character stay in the fight a bit longer in a pinch. -- Awesome character by the way, easily the best 'support class' I've come across. Paladin: Brilliant. The different paladin order ethoi are interesting, but I'm not quite sure how to apply them as an individual adventurer. Would a Bleak Walker always kill that orlan upstairs for example? Would a Kind Thingamajig always help her escape? If the game is actually tracking this kind of thing, I would like more information about it somehow. Rogue: I like it, but needs an individual stealth system. I'll post a message about it in the Combat thread since it's combat-related.