[Are Paladins really that bad?]

I think if they added in NPC paladin's faith and conviction is affected by the parties reputation that would improve paladins considerably and improve role play.

 

Another change I'd like is the number of sacred flame strikes that you get needs to increase. Start with two, take a talent that increases the fire damage of it - get another use, take the bleak walker extra corrosive damage - get another use, add in a talent that gets you another use. This way if you wanted to focus on that ability you could and get to use it five times per encounter with the expenditure of four talents. Maybe give it an accuracy boost as well or make a talent that increases accuracy with the attack. Maybe even a talent that added AoE to the strike, not sure on this one.

 

I'd make the base size of the aura's bigger so that intellect does not need to be pumped in order to have a decent area. I'd let you have multiple auras up at the same time.

 

I'd change the marked enemy talent into 1/encounter instead of 3/rest

Why do all of the upgrades need to get offloaded onto the talents system? That just prevents you from getting any of the tallents that would let you make good use of your now upgraded flames. Why not put a few of them on the abilities side?

[Game Crashes When Entering Black Hound]

Description: The game crashes when I try to enter the Black Hound in.

Steps to reproduce: Attempt to enter the black hound in.

 

Uploads: Your uploader's 1mb cap is to small for the save files (or even a zip of all of the files with best compression) and won't accept .zip, .dmp, .log, or .ini files. Here's a google drive link to the zip instead: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0LEiSl05KJjRkhCWkZwQU00V1U/view?usp=sharing

[Are Paladins really that bad?]

 

 

My main issue with paladins is that NPCs get no benefit from their alignment in regards to defenses. This should certainly be seen as a bug. If this were fixed, you could make an argument for the boring frontline fighter with great defenses who doesn't do too much damage, but at least stays reliable and provides some moderate utility.

 

They would still be outclassed by every other class in the game, mostly because there are 6 people available in a party. It's a lot to ask of a character to be useful as a nonstellar all-arounder when you've got that many spots available for specialization.

 

Ideally I think paladins need access to low level priest spells as they get higher so that the character feels like it progresses.

Bah. Don't give them priest spells. Priests already do that and they do it better and, besides, casting priest spells would interfere with them doing paladin things. Give them more ways to charge them selves or their allies or bursts auras they can use to create instantaneous effects. New things that can fit their own niche, rather than clumsily trying to ape another class.

 

I suppose that's fair. All in all there's a lot of room for improvement with the class.

 

My only concern with that suggestion is that any added abilities will likely only show up as feats you have to choose at level up. Really the class needs to progress naturally while still being able to choose offensive or defensive feats as well, in my opinion.

 

This is true, but that's more of an implementation and system problem than a paladin problem. It feels like casters are a lot freer to advance their power than non-casters, largely because of which abilities become feats and what abilities are given for free or in their own progression.

[Are Paladins really that bad?]

My main issue with paladins is that NPCs get no benefit from their alignment in regards to defenses. This should certainly be seen as a bug. If this were fixed, you could make an argument for the boring frontline fighter with great defenses who doesn't do too much damage, but at least stays reliable and provides some moderate utility.

 

They would still be outclassed by every other class in the game, mostly because there are 6 people available in a party. It's a lot to ask of a character to be useful as a nonstellar all-arounder when you've got that many spots available for specialization.

 

Ideally I think paladins need access to low level priest spells as they get higher so that the character feels like it progresses.

Bah. Don't give them priest spells. Priests already do that and they do it better and, besides, casting priest spells would interfere with them doing paladin things. Give them more ways to charge them selves or their allies or bursts auras they can use to create instantaneous effects. New things that can fit their own niche, rather than clumsily trying to ape another class.

[Is it too late for a redesign of the encounter/daily system for spellcasters?]

 

 

If you make to much stuff from casters per battle instead of per rest, it starts to negate the advantage that melee dps has over caster classes.  My monk performs very well over the long haul because my wizards and druids can't break out all their biggest spells for every battle.  I already see arguments around here that melee dps is useless, and though i disagree wholeheartedly, the more per battle spells that casters have, the less useful melee dps becomes.

That really just suggests that the melee types also need to be fixed.

 

 

Or, that they are both fine as is, kinda depends on how you look at it i guess.  I personally think that all melee abilities should be per encounter though.  And that wizard/druid spells should be balanced better vs each other.  But I am okay with the amount of per battle/rest spells that casters get atm.

 

The problem with that is there are a lot of other problems that you can point to for per rest mechanics.

1. Resting doesn't have a substantial in-game cost. It's purely an out of game frustration, meaning you're giving the player the option of trading enjoyment for power, which is never a good choice to offer.
2. It makes it hard, if not impossible, to balance encounters properly, because it creates an incredibly wide variance in how much power a player can bring to bear, beyond just differences in level and build. A player could spend none of a daily resource, an encounter's worth of power, or most of a day's worth of power on any given encounter. The final option will always easily overpower any encounter designed for the first two, but the first two might not be able to meet a challenge designed for the last and the same is true between the first two on their own.
3. It doesn't actually add tactical depth to the game. Tactics rely on information, but you can't know the difficulty or number of encounters you'll face before your next rest; so, at best, you are essentially gambling when determining how much power you spend.
4. Per rest abilities ask you to make decisions on the per-rest scale, but the game gives you know ability to act on that scale and, in fact, assigns no value to that scale beyond the recovery of those abilities.

That is four reasons to not have per-rest abilities irrespective of their relative balance to per encounter and at-will abilities.  However, I could also make  arguments about the lack of active abilities for melee and options for casters who have spent/don't want to use their spells being a bad choice, because it minimizes engagement.

[Is it too late for a redesign of the encounter/daily system for spellcasters?]

If you make to much stuff from casters per battle instead of per rest, it starts to negate the advantage that melee dps has over caster classes.  My monk performs very well over the long haul because my wizards and druids can't break out all their biggest spells for every battle.  I already see arguments around here that melee dps is useless, and though i disagree wholeheartedly, the more per battle spells that casters have, the less useful melee dps becomes.

That really just suggests that the melee types also need to be fixed.

[Paladins: Why the Suck and how to Un-suck them]

 

Have NPC Paladins' Faith and Conviction increase automatically across levels, like Monk unarmed bonuses. Maybe an extra point at 3-6-9-12, so that the ability would steadily increase in power, but not become as good as a faithfully roleplayed PC's F&C would become.

 

With respect to FoD, it's mostly okay the way it is. The ability is not meant to turn Paladins into DPS powerhouses, but instead feels closer in flavor to Smite Evil from D&D. That is, an ability which can be used a handful of times and only shines against certain enemy types. In this game, FoD shines  against critters with low Burn resist, of which there are many, including the nasty Shadow/Shade family. Sure any mook with 2 Lore using Fan of Flames scrolls kills those 100 times better, but that's a problem with other game systems, not FoD. One nice, subtle buff would be to give the current F&C Deflection bonus as an Accuracy bonus to FoD (or make that an extra perk of Intense Flames), to help those two precious swings per encounter hit their mark.

 

 

 

I'd still heavily contest that 2/encounter FoD's at level 12 is more than adequate. D&D Paladins get more smites as they level up (or via traits) for a reason, i.e. it allows the ability to scale along with the character.

I'd also argue that D&D paladins, like most other classes in D&D, were very poorly designed and shouldn't be imitated. Having a classes main ability to interact with combat be so severely limited is silly. Particularly if they have basically nothing else to do once it's gone.

[Are Paladins really that bad?]

the paladin has excellent buffs, debuffs and cleanses, but the paladin is not nearly as versatile as a priest.   the paladin is a strong addition to the poe class lineup, but its role is misunderstood.... and it can be boring.  the poe paladin is s'posed to play more like a 4e warlord or 3.5 marshal than an ie game paladin. 

 

have said it before, but the biggest mistake obsidian made with a few o' the classes were nothing more than their naming conventions.  give very different poe classes the same names as ie classes were a mistake, and no matter how many times developers post stating that a poe paladin is not an ie paladin, some folks can't give up the ghost.

 

HA! Good Fun!

I'd argue that their biggest mistake was taking to much from D&D in general. The names are a bit problematic (though most of them are fairly archetypal even outside of D&D), but their are too many bad or half done mechanics as well. I'd point to per rest abilities and rests in general as the largest offenders.

[Stupid faction choice in Defiance Bay!]

 

From the Guide:

 

If you want to complete as many side quests as possible without choosing sides,

you can complete each of the three factions’ fi rst side quests before siding with

any one faction. So that means you can complete “Built to Last,” “Two Story

Job,” and “Rogue Knight.” However, you can complete only one of the following

side quests: “Winds of Steel,” “Changing of the Guard,” and “Bronze Beneath the

Lake.” Choosing one means you are siding with a particular faction.

 

A) You should not have to read the manual, which is not part of the game, to find in game information that should be available in game and could very easily be made available.

B) You shouldn't have to look for spoilers to figure out a quest locks you into a faction, regardless of if those spoilers come from a forum or the game's own manual.

[Petrify. Lol.]

Honestly, SoL spells like petrify are just a bad idea in general. I'd rather cry "Remove It" than nerf it.

[Understanding the stronghold]

I could even see a minimal degree of stat respeccing.  Perhaps by setting each pre-made to a certain set of values to which you have, let's say 6 more stat points to add amongst the 6 attributes.  This would all for a mild degree of adjustment without allowing for any extreme min-maxing.  You couldn't lower any of the base stats.  Only decide where to add the remaining 6 points.  Just an idea.

That's interesting. More generous than I'd normally be, but I can also see a lot of reasons to do it that way. 

 

Back to skill/ability/talent respeccing.  Here's another idea. This is going to date me quite a bit but the first DnD computer games, the gold box games required you to go to some sort of a training hall and pay gold to level up.  What if there was some training hall where you could pay some gold (and not an insignificant amount, perhaps 1000 gold?) and get a one time chance to respec an NPC.  One time, one fee for each NPC, not one time/one fee for all of them.  So, let's say that you don't like Durance's skills/talents/abilities.  You go to the Acme Training Hall, pay 1000 gold and you're allowed to completely respec Durance's skills, talents, and abilities.  ONCE.    Now having said that, if you wanted to allow it more than once per character (something that could be really abused, but what the heck), first time you pay 1k gold.  Second time, 5k gold.  Third time, 10k gold.  Fourth time, 20k gold.  And so on.  Basically, the first time would be affordable. , but each succeeding time would get increasingly painful to the coin purse.  I suppose that you could even allow PC's to be respecced because we all know that we can make a choice we later regret along the way when it comes to our skill/talent/ability choices.

I like that idea, it's basically what I suggested but I had the payment in quests while you have it in gold, but I'm not sure why the cost should increase with uses or why the uses should be limited to one time only. I suppose, theoretically, a player could respec their party so it's always tailor made for every major encounter, but that would cost a ton, even without increasing costs, for marginal benifits and I imagine it's a corner case. More likely, if a player respecs it's because they want to try something new, that might or might not work, or to correct a percived problem in their original build, which may or may not create new problems. I'd further argue that either of those two uses is liable to result in serial respecs, but those resecs aren't terribly different from the originall and should not be punished any more than the original.

[Paladins: Why the Suck and how to Un-suck them]

Is it a problem that Paladins can't tank as well as fighters, heal as well as priests, or deal damage like Rogues and Barbarian's?

 

I mean, if I could build a pally to out-dps my rogue, whose only capability is damage-dealing, I think there would be an entirely different balance issue at hand.

 

In my eyes, the value of a paladin is that while you may not tank as well as a fighter, you do it while providing party-wide buffs to damage or survivability, and while also healing a little on demand. Likewise for a DPS pally -- you may not out-damage a Rogue but you'll certainly off-tank more effectively and you'll be buffing the whole party and healing a bit, neither of which the Rogue can do.

 

Ultimately, you don't do one thing very well because the specialized classes (Fighter, Rogue, etc) have the specialist roles. Your role as a paladin is to do a little of everything.

 

Now, one concern here is that taking one or more such hybrids is inferior to making a party purely filled with specialists like 2 Fighters (tanks), 1 Wizard (CC), 1 Cipher (CC/DPS), 1 Rogue (DPS), 1 Priest (Buffs/Heals). How big is the gap, though? Balance is an ideal and I don't expect perfect balance; so long as things are reasonably close (for some subjective value of reasonable), I'd be satisfied.

But can they even fill that multi-role position? Will a buff/tank paladin beat a buff/tank chanter built for the same purpose? What niche can it fill that another class can't fill better?

 

What do you mean by not automatic? 0_o

NPC paladins don't ge the bonuses for having a disposition.

[Understanding the stronghold]

 

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though:

 

While I agree the Stronghold could be better, and I really hope it can be improved with mods, I think it's meant to be upgraded only while you're committed to exploring the Endless Dungeon all the way to the bottom and have no other use for your money because you've basically beaten the game already.

 

When you look at it under that light, most of it starts making more sense.

 

I could be wrong, because we can't know the minds of the developers unless they speak them.  But I think that's why the stronghold is the way it is... it's not really something you're supposed to invest in until you're in the endgame -- the Endless Dungeon.

 

But don't a number of it's features (the taxes, and to free material upgrades) only function while you have new quests to do?

[Paladins: Why the Suck and how to Un-suck them]

 

 

 

When you come down to it, flavor is a pretty bad consideration when it comes to class balance. Yes, you should have flavorful classes and, yes, you should play the class that you like the flavor of the most. However, that does not mean a class should sacrifice power for flavor, nor does it have to. A flavor full class is good and an effective, but boring, class is still boring, but an effective and flavorful class is the best. Paladins have some flavor, but they aren't very effective at what they do. They don't have a niche that they're best at filling and the way their powers work and advancement is handled means they can't be effective generalists in multiple niches either. This is important because, while players who are die hard paladin fans will play them regardless of their strength, players without strong feelings for paladins will have a hard time finding a reason to fit them into a line-up and even those die hard fans would, likely, have a better time playing with them if they filled a niche better or were better at being generalists.

 

 

You gave a reason why you would choose the class, but it had nothing to do with the actual mechanics of the class. You didn't tell us what features you like over other options and how they fill that roll better than the other options (or how they can sufficiently fill multiple rolls well enough to free up other spaces). All you told us is you like paladins and dislike homogeneity as concepts. In a discussion about the mechanics of a class, this is not useful information, nor is it valid reasoning.

 

I beg to differ.  I gave you my reason.  I like paladins from a role playing perspective.  This is a role playing game and choosing to like a particular class from a role playing perspective is a completely valid choice.  I also happen to like Rangers, and my first PC happens to be a Ranger.

 

My decision to like Paladins (and Rangers) has nothing to do with game mechanics.  I liked Paladins in BG1 and 2, and in IWD1 and 2.  And I still like Paladins ... for reasons that have nothing to do with game mechanics.  And IMO why I choose to like paladins is every bit as valid a reason for doing so as some game mechanics reason.  I prefer games like this for the role playing.  I'm not looking to create a party of min-maxed OP characters and have no intention of judging any class from that perspective.

 

It's a completely valid choice when deciding what to play. It has literally nothing to do with the balance or mechanics of a class. I keep seeing people bring up that this is a rpg as if that somehow negates the stats and abilities and all the other aspects of an RPG and only leaves you with the stories you tell.

 

If your decisions and opinions have nothing to do with mechanics, then might I kindly suggest that you should not be in a sub-forum dedicated to mechanics in a thread that discusses mechanics. Nothing that has been suggested in this thread, nor any of the criticisms that have been levied, touch on the flavor of the class. It would have the exact same flavor if flames became an at will ability, a modal, 3 times per rest or was completely replaced by something else.

 

 

And I would kindly point out that the subforum is doesn't include the word "mechanics" anywhere.

 

 

 

No, but it does include Builds, Strategies, and Unity Engine, all of which have much more to do with mechanics than fluff. It also does not change the fact that this thread is solely about mechanics.

[Understanding the stronghold]

 

 

 

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though:

 

1. Bandits take nearly as much as I earn through taxes even though I have much higher security than prestige. How are the bandits so effective if I have sky-high security? This means that I'll earn something like 50 copper. Camping just once is more expensive than this, and what's worse is that when I subtract the cost of hirelings, I'm losing quite a bit of money.

 

2. It seems that hirelings are paid per day, but taxes are earned per turn. This means that you can never generate infinite wealth, but you can LOSE infinite wealth. Is that really true?

 

I do like the stronghold, don't get me wrong, but so far all it does is cost me money. A lot of money. I understand that you can get resting bonuses, sure, but for the thousands I spend upgrading the stronghold, I'm sure I could have gotten a full game's worth of resting bonuses from inns.

 

What am I missing here?

 

PS: If it had generated taxes per day, it would have made sense. Sure some nutty people could have gained infinite wealth, but does that really matter?

the keep poses a ridiculous difficult balancing problem for the developers.  in a game with abundant copper/gold, making the keep produce copious amounts o' wealth for the player would be inimical to their overall design philosophies.  sure, the player wants something for their investment in the keep, but rewarding with gold is bad.  the keep could be an effective gold sink, but so far, players appear less than enthusiastic with the results.   a gold sink is not a popular feature in single-player crpgs.  get a largely cosmetic or illusory benefit from a huge currency investment works in an mmo 'cause conspicuous consumption is an exploitable social failing.  what is the point o' such stuff in a single-player game, eh?  

 

likewise, the keep should not be providing enormous amounts o' additional xp, but it does via the bounties.

 

am realizing that it sounds a bit silly, but the keep, ideally, should reward you with nothing, and make you happy with your nothingness.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

It could also reward you with intangibles or things that change your power orthogonally. Here are a few possible ideas off the top of my head:

 

• Being able to directly access the resting option from the travel screen and the travel screen from anywhere in the keep. Possibly ditto for the merchants. This would allow you to skip loading screens, which doesn't effect AFFECT in game power in the slightest but would be an incredibly nice feature.
• Being able to leave a companion at a structure for a number of quests and respec them (possibly to varying degrees, depending on how long you leave them). This wouldn't change a hypothetical player's power, since they could have theoretically made any of those choices to start with, but it could let them correct early game mistakes or make the game more pleasant. It could also make it easier to try out new builds.
• Move enchantments from one weapon to another or strip enchantments from a weapon and salvage their components. This would let you experiment with enchantments more and put interesting enchantments on weapons you're more likely to use, but it doesn't actually give you anything new.
• Have the merchants take custom orders for a slight markup (I want a weapon with these enchantments and get me these ingredients while you're at it). This could, potentially increase a player's power, but at least they'd be paying to get the things.
• Training room where you can spawn monsters (who would drop no loot and grant no XP) to fight against and test new strategies.

 

 

Some interesting ideas here. 

 

Not sure I like idea of changing the enchantment on an item beyond merely upgrading it.  OTOH, the idea of custom orders is interesting.

 

Don't particularly like the idea of being able to respec pre-made NPC's either.  They should be made reasonably well in the first place.  To me, this smacks of powergaming which I'm honestly not a fan of.  Hell, in a game like this, if I had my druthers, I'd set some hard caps below which a character's stats could not go.  Extreme min-maxing of stats in IWD2 always bothered me, because the idea of having a character running around with the intelligence of a ferret or a toad just seemed wrong to me, and still does.  But if the devs are going to provide a mega-hard game mode, then I suppose that role playing concerns sort of fly out the window and the idea of "realistic" stats with it.

 

Back to pre-made NPCs.  A different way to deal with them could go something like this.  As long as the # of pre-mades was small, what could be done is provide the character's scripted background, dialogs, and so forth.  And have their class and race and so forth be fixed, but let the player select the NPC's distribution of stat points, skill points, and other abilities and talents.  This would let the player customize the NPCs to be more to his liking.  Having said that, this could seem like a lot of work for people who are really new to this sort of game.  And I suppose that for that sort of person, you could also include traditional pre-mades as well.

 

 

A training room sounds pretty cool.  It'd be great to be able to test out strats for fighting mobs of ogres or vithracks, for example. OTOH, I'm not entirely sure how one would justify what amounts to a fantasy world "holodeck", except possibly through magics though I suppose that that's rather obvious.

 

 

The first item sounds good, but I could see some people complaining about it breaking the immersion of moving around your stronghold. (Heck there was some poster complaining about the upgraded loot picking up feature of PoE, for crying out loud.  Somebody actually wants to have to go pick up every single freakin' item that gets dropped after a battle?  Wow.)

 

 

Still, good stuff.

 

Keep in mind that the respecs could be limited to talents only and even for the premade companions you'll be picking some talents that you might make mistakes on. Also keep in mind that there are completely custom NPCs available as well. I'm also not sure why replacing talents with ones you're more likely to use is automatically power gaming. I can understand why doing something like dropping stats to 3 would be power gaming, but how is "Kana, I hate that story. Stop telling it. Go spend a week in the library studying something else." power gaming or immersion breaking?

[PER CLASS FORUMS PLEASE!]

 

 

I found its classes to be fairly standard and their uses to be almost textbook.

so... show me the classic old textbook from all the previous games that feature a cipher.

 

oh, that's right... IT'S  A NEW CLASS.

 

gees.

 

*rips hair out*

 

egads, the comments are inane here.

 

It's.. a psion or soulknife. Like.. what?

 

Come to think of it, isn't one of the NPCs that shows up at your keep actually called a psion?

[Paladins: Why the Suck and how to Un-suck them]

 

When you come down to it, flavor is a pretty bad consideration when it comes to class balance. Yes, you should have flavorful classes and, yes, you should play the class that you like the flavor of the most. However, that does not mean a class should sacrifice power for flavor, nor does it have to. A flavor full class is good and an effective, but boring, class is still boring, but an effective and flavorful class is the best. Paladins have some flavor, but they aren't very effective at what they do. They don't have a niche that they're best at filling and the way their powers work and advancement is handled means they can't be effective generalists in multiple niches either. This is important because, while players who are die hard paladin fans will play them regardless of their strength, players without strong feelings for paladins will have a hard time finding a reason to fit them into a line-up and even those die hard fans would, likely, have a better time playing with them if they filled a niche better or were better at being generalists.

 

 

You gave a reason why you would choose the class, but it had nothing to do with the actual mechanics of the class. You didn't tell us what features you like over other options and how they fill that roll better than the other options (or how they can sufficiently fill multiple rolls well enough to free up other spaces). All you told us is you like paladins and dislike homogeneity as concepts. In a discussion about the mechanics of a class, this is not useful information, nor is it valid reasoning.

 

I beg to differ.  I gave you my reason.  I like paladins from a role playing perspective.  This is a role playing game and choosing to like a particular class from a role playing perspective is a completely valid choice.  I also happen to like Rangers, and my first PC happens to be a Ranger.

 

My decision to like Paladins (and Rangers) has nothing to do with game mechanics.  I liked Paladins in BG1 and 2, and in IWD1 and 2.  And I still like Paladins ... for reasons that have nothing to do with game mechanics.  And IMO why I choose to like paladins is every bit as valid a reason for doing so as some game mechanics reason.  I prefer games like this for the role playing.  I'm not looking to create a party of min-maxed OP characters and have no intention of judging any class from that perspective.

 

It's a completely valid choice when deciding what to play. It has literally nothing to do with the balance or mechanics of a class. I keep seeing people bring up that this is a rpg as if that somehow negates the stats and abilities and all the other aspects of an RPG and only leaves you with the stories you tell.

 

If your decisions and opinions have nothing to do with mechanics, then might I kindly suggest that you should not be in a sub-forum dedicated to mechanics in a thread that discusses mechanics. Nothing that has been suggested in this thread, nor any of the criticisms that have been levied, touch on the flavor of the class. It would have the exact same flavor if flames became an at will ability, a modal, 3 times per rest or was completely replaced by something else.

[Understanding the stronghold]

 

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though:

 

1. Bandits take nearly as much as I earn through taxes even though I have much higher security than prestige. How are the bandits so effective if I have sky-high security? This means that I'll earn something like 50 copper. Camping just once is more expensive than this, and what's worse is that when I subtract the cost of hirelings, I'm losing quite a bit of money.

 

2. It seems that hirelings are paid per day, but taxes are earned per turn. This means that you can never generate infinite wealth, but you can LOSE infinite wealth. Is that really true?

 

I do like the stronghold, don't get me wrong, but so far all it does is cost me money. A lot of money. I understand that you can get resting bonuses, sure, but for the thousands I spend upgrading the stronghold, I'm sure I could have gotten a full game's worth of resting bonuses from inns.

 

What am I missing here?

 

PS: If it had generated taxes per day, it would have made sense. Sure some nutty people could have gained infinite wealth, but does that really matter?

the keep poses a ridiculous difficult balancing problem for the developers.  in a game with abundant copper/gold, making the keep produce copious amounts o' wealth for the player would be inimical to their overall design philosophies.  sure, the player wants something for their investment in the keep, but rewarding with gold is bad.  the keep could be an effective gold sink, but so far, players appear less than enthusiastic with the results.   a gold sink is not a popular feature in single-player crpgs.  get a largely cosmetic or illusory benefit from a huge currency investment works in an mmo 'cause conspicuous consumption is an exploitable social failing.  what is the point o' such stuff in a single-player game, eh?  

 

likewise, the keep should not be providing enormous amounts o' additional xp, but it does via the bounties.

 

am realizing that it sounds a bit silly, but the keep, ideally, should reward you with nothing, and make you happy with your nothingness.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

It could also reward you with intangibles or things that change your power orthogonally. Here are a few possible ideas off the top of my head:

 

• Being able to directly access the resting option from the travel screen and the travel screen from anywhere in the keep. Possibly ditto for the merchants. This would allow you to skip loading screens, which doesn't effect in game power in the slightest but would be an incredibly nice feature.
• Being able to leave a companion at a structure for a number of quests and respec them (possibly to varying degrees, depending on how long you leave them). This wouldn't change a hypothetical player's power, since they could have theoretically made any of those choices to start with, but it could let them correct early game mistakes or make the game more pleasant. It could also make it easier to try out new builds.
• Move enchantments from one weapon to another or strip enchantments from a weapon and salvage their components. This would let you experiment with enchantments more and put interesting enchantments on weapons you're more likely to use, but it doesn't actually give you anything new.
• Have the merchants take custom orders for a slight markup (I want a weapon with these enchantments and get me these ingredients while you're at it). This could, potentially increase a player's power, but at least they'd be paying to get the things.
• Training room where you can spawn monsters (who would drop no loot and grant no XP) to fight against and test new strategies.

[PER CLASS FORUMS PLEASE!]

 

 

I found its classes to be fairly standard and their uses to be almost textbook.

so... show me the classic old textbook from all the previous games that feature a cipher.

 

oh, that's right... IT'S  A NEW CLASS.

 

gees.

 

*rips hair out*

 

egads, the comments are inane here.

 

 

 

The class itself might be new, but the mechanic of "Build up points during combat to unleash special attacks" is not. It also fits into the archetypal rolls fairly well. It's a blaster with AoE and CC ability. It's also only 1 of 11 classes. Chanter is also technically new, but it's just a different take on the passive aura buff concept or a reskined bard, depending on how you look at it.

[Paladins: Why the Suck and how to Un-suck them]

When you come down to it, flavor is a pretty bad consideration when it comes to class balance. Yes, you should have flavorful classes and, yes, you should play the class that you like the flavor of the most. However, that does not mean a class should sacrifice power for flavor, nor does it have to. A flavor full class is good and an effective, but boring, class is still boring, but an effective and flavorful class is the best. Paladins have some flavor, but they aren't very effective at what they do. They don't have a niche that they're best at filling and the way their powers work and advancement is handled means they can't be effective generalists in multiple niches either. This is important because, while players who are die hard paladin fans will play them regardless of their strength, players without strong feelings for paladins will have a hard time finding a reason to fit them into a line-up and even those die hard fans would, likely, have a better time playing with them if they filled a niche better or were better at being generalists.

 

 

You gave a reason why you would choose the class, but it had nothing to do with the actual mechanics of the class. You didn't tell us what features you like over other options and how they fill that roll better than the other options (or how they can sufficiently fill multiple rolls well enough to free up other spaces). All you told us is you like paladins and dislike homogeneity as concepts. In a discussion about the mechanics of a class, this is not useful information, nor is it valid reasoning.

[PER CLASS FORUMS PLEASE!]

 

11 is too Many? Marvel heroes as more than that as an example.. it's pretty standard to have separate sub categories for the main classes. Not sure how that would be an issue.

 

I mean it's too many re: how game forum structure has been done here for ages. The 4 forum format has been standard forever. PoE is a somewhat different beast and some differences/more fora have been added when needed, but it's unlikely the need (traffic or purpose) for 11 chr. build discussion fora is going to be enough to warrant changing that drastically.

PoE is a special case of course (beta forums, patch-beta subforum) and of course ultimate decisions are above my paygrade, as Cant likes to say. I just find it doubtful.

What makes PoE so unique in this regard? I found its classes to be fairly standard and their uses to be almost textbook.

[PER CLASS FORUMS PLEASE!]

How about a pinned index or a sub for mega/index threads?

[Paladins: Why the Suck and how to Un-suck them]

Have you looked at paladin as a ranged damage dealer/support? If he's on the back lines, the other ranged types can benefit from his aura and his flames would benefit from the higher per shot damage of a gun. His high defence also means that, if something breaks through your front line, he can act as a backup tank for your squishies until your actual tank arrives.

 

 

 

So...Paladin's are the bard class of POE. Interesting, I thought that was the Chanter.

Actually, bards in 3.5 can be pretty good.

 

  

Why should Paladins be as good at tanking as Fighters?  If they were, then why would anyone bother playing Fighters?  Every class needs a niche.

 

Furthermore, enough with the drama queen routine.  Just because something isn't perfect does NOT mean that it sucks for crying out loud!!!

What is the paladin's niche and how does he excel at it compared to other classes? Also, why is any critism or suggestion for change drama? I would consider your exhortation to be much more dramatic, though probably not rising to the level of actual drama.

[PER CLASS FORUMS PLEASE!]

I think a whole forum for each class might be a bit overkill. Some pinned threads for general questions might be a good idea. The best solution would be a more robust tag and filter system with some pregenerated tags and an auto complete feature; so people actually wind up with standardized tags rather than barb, barbarian, and Barbarian being three seperate categories. That way you could just filter the forum for all Barbarian threads or all Barbarian + weapon threads, effectively creating a subforum for any topic you're interested in.

[Durance way too advanced so early in the game]

Well, not every manual can nor should be on Wing Commander Price of Freedom levels of greatness, but complaining about the game were one just could have read the manual is lazy. No offense intended.

Normally, manuals don't have anywhere near that level of detail, so it's pretty reasonable for people to not go out of their way to read it without being told in advance. It's also a pretty bad way to convey information, as a primary source, espesially given all of the ways they could have included that information in play.

 

Edit: After a quick read through, the manual is also kind-of useless for these sorts of things. It gives you a brief description of the spells, yes, but it doesn't give you any of the specifics you'd need to actually employ them.