IndiraLightfoot

Sensuki: Did your rogue just crit for 244 in damage?

That's incredibly funny when you close your eyes and imagine that sweet scene!

Great post, gkathellar! And I especially like this part: I am one of those who really like this feature, including the reloads that come with it. Plain and simple, I enjoy that combat format, both RPG-wise and gameplay-wise.

Sensuki: Super-duper stupid question perhaps, but does your excellent report cover to hit chance, also factoring in the action speed times + animations, when calculating DPS? I mean, a bit like some number crunchers do for games like D3?

Besides... Who want to read 2.7, 1.3, 4.4 in damage from graze all the time?

swordofthewish: Very fun videos to watch. Thx for posting them. Don't worry about the quality, the important thing is that you got your point across. I love when your Orlan in underwear hit that Norglar fellow for 57 with a crit. I can imagine the BB 301 will see plenty of swift Orlan rogues now out on killing sprees.

swordofthesith: True. At least we know that Josh has said that they will keep on working to improve the AI (Adam), and that he has a basic plan for plenty of enemies targeting low-armour flashers behind the frontline.

This needs to be obviated as soon as possible. Have you ever seen a game where characters have to be half-naked to be effective? It looks horribly silly, and it removes a huge aspect of the game - customization. It's but a chimera, or should I say, "butt a chimera". Compare this to magic-users in low-level BG1 for instance. Those robes aren't exactly protective, are they? I can easily undress a wizard there, and it will still be as useful. I 'm playing BG:EE right now (as well as WL2) - and in both these games, I can run around butt-naked with certain character builds and use them for various ranged tasks. This has always been possible. In the BB PoE, you had certain benefits for not wearing armour, though. In the finished and full-feature PoE, you will have much more varied encounters, and enemies will also target low-armour player characters, and this won't be a problem any more.

swordofthesith: Pick a druid, shapechange into a bear (but not in enclosed spaces), and rip everything apart.

Thanks, DCParry! This made me think of a cipher that uses a sling that he shoots non-boiled eggs with.

You of all people should know how hard it is to tell if a slight shift in movement speed has occurred or not! I didn't know that - so it's only combat actions that you take that are sped up? Still, important enough for me and for increased DPS.

Sensuki & Matt516: Perhaps there is an in-game aspect of speed (a big thanks for getting that one onto DEX in PoE, btw. I really like it!) that you're missing - and it's something that's much harder to factor in mathematically. What am I on about? Well the movement speed increase makes my killing machine reach its targets faster - it's an uneven effect, thanks to pathfinding issues and the uniqueness of each encounter - but once again, I borrowed my thoughts from ARPGs - speed equals higher DPS (and higher survivability and general control). It's no co-incidence that I had two speedy monks become my first hardcore characters in D3 - a knee-wobbling challenge I undertook, encouraged by no less than Hiro Protagonist! Small world!!

Karkarov: While I really like those portraits in PoE, I think I like that art style even better. It's a tad more realistic, and I reckon it fits the POE overall art direction in the areas we've seen so far.

I wonder to what extent Josh will go to squash OP builds. Will he keep balancing the game as soon as a new OP loophole is discovered until everything is balance - a vast equilibrium void patrolled by some never-sleeping DPS blood hounds of his?

This is somewhat embarrassing: D3 Collector's Edition, spring 2012. I had no idea it would be my last purchase of a physical game copy ever.

Medreth is a he! I always thought it was a sheila. No wonder I often misspell his name as Merdeth and Merdith, like in, you know, Meredith.

Overall, I'd say it will get better! For some reason, after 20-25 hours and after getting tougher and more fun fights, at least on Ranger difficulty, the game really takes off.

For this patch, I switched glasses, from my BG1-glasses to my D3-glasses, as it were. I focussed entirely on DPS, and for that I apparently needed accuracy and speed and high damage overall, so Perception and Dex and Might, plus a few abilities all raising damage, and a high damage weapon. Done! And it really worked this time. What we have here is perhaps a RTwP ARPG as far as the combat goes, heh. EDIT: Matt516: I don't know the math in much detail, but you do need both. *Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, slaughter, mayhem, kill, kill, kill...*

My feelings exactly!

prodigydancer: Your post deserved a nice like, since you brought up something that I do appreciate a lot and that is indeed almost always missing in CRPGs. Perhaps our enjoying of this more empty-ish exploration is an acquired taste, but I am pining for something like BG1 again in this respect, and if DA:I does bring that to the table - great!

Swordofthesith: I broke it the same way as you, only earlier, hehe! And indeed, welcome to the fun world of tinkering the system in your favour - one wonderful aspect of character creation, aside from all the great RPG possibilities.

Yeah. It looks like a spooky mask. That wolf will get scared ****less! Otherwise, it looks like an interesting new take on the platformer genre.

Tsk-tsk. Who needs resting.

Courtesy of gkathellar: Half of my combat problems would probably be solved by adding a "recovery completed" auto-pause! Great idea. Cheers, mate!

First Malignacious, and now nipsen - two floor-clearing posts in like 24H. I borrowed this from TheisEjsing: