IndiraLightfoot

Alright, I'm back. I have digested this, and I am calmer. Do I still think this is an un wise and strange design decision? Yes. Why? Even worse, this is yet a clear hint at the entire rest/health/stamina-mechanic being flawed (there are already plenty of threads on these issues). Instead of fixing it - making it good and intuitive - (perhaps even add some more straightforward healing in-combat and in-between combat, tried recipes in a gazillion CRPG predecessors, I don't know) - Josh prefers to keep the mechanic and adapt the entire game experience. This is wag the dog in its truest meaning! This is the case with BG1 and BG2, as well as NWN1 and NWN2, they had varying difficulties in cities and elsewhere. Good CRPG design has varying difficulty and pacing as staple commodities. Sprinkled into this are complete surprises as well, spikes in difficulty, strange pacing through puzzles or riddles or complex traps, and so forth. I didn't jump the gun. This is worrisome. I really hope this will be changed, and that it's the last time, problems with mechanics are patched up through adapting the entire game to its flaws. In essence, this means that the RPG part of the game, including story, companion interactions, will suffer too. Our lasting memories of these PoE cities will be: Combat in them were difficult throughout. Wildernesses become easy/medium passages between islands of difficulty (dungeons, with a clear-cut boss in them). In earlier threads, over a year ago and more, spent some time pushing for as varied and unpredictable encounter design as possible, because this makes combat fun. I do recall proponents for balance and all, which is fine to a degree, but here, I reckon, we see a new kind of balance. System balance > mechanics > variety > gameplay

I think you are overreacting. Fact is, in towns you are most likely to meet enemy NPC parties, which are typically among the most formidable classes of fights in low level D&D-style combat. Not on the systemic level, I'm not. I'll have to digest this, but I'm already certain that you have a major flaw in your CRPG, if that's the reason you make all city encounters much harder. Like archangel979 just said - there should be lore, inherent logic and story reasons behind stuff like this, and not "the resting system + health/stamina is dented, so let's turn cities, towns, oases, camping sites, caravan sites, into gauntlets of horrors."

I agree 100%. And perhaps you're right about Josh & Co veering away from the IE games a bit abruptly, bold decisions which may get too much for all of those who banked on it being a "IE spiritual successor". I wouldn't mind seeing a well made game resembling the D&D 4th ed, but for some reason I'm not sure this is the right game for that. EDIT: PJ and others, I'm not a proponent for PoE being an IE game clone. The "stuff for free" I discuss are systemic, but there are plenty of systems in those games that they should merrily just chuck in the bin, and they have done so too.

Ouch! That's bordering on the bizarre, Infinitron. JESawyer "In those cases, combat will likely be tuned for a "full-bore" party. It's easier to make strategic adaptations if you fail a fight and can immediately change the party's loadout, but such fights will have a heavier emphasis on efficiency and tactical precision." This is really bad news for diversity, surprises and exploration in general. PoE will become weird in this way. Leader in your party: "We're in a town now. Beware, all enemies here are better than dragons in caves 3,000 feet up Ominous Mountain or the lich lord in Untergang Crypt. See, that thug by that barrel there. He has wrestled a frost giant to his knees with a secret finger grip." A CRPG of this kind shouldn't ever has to resort to that kind of predictability just in order to save a flawed resting health/stamina system. I'm actually speechless right now. I'll have to get back on this.

That "unfairness" is something Josh, Feargus, Adler and the rest were aware of from the start. As soon as they launched the KS, and basing it fully on being "a spiritual successor of the IE games", they brought it on themselves. I reckon, that ambition was a perfect one, and I don't think they regret it for one minute. But like Josh said in that RPGCodex interview with Sensuki, regarding combat complexity in PoE vs the IE games, this will take time. It's precisely like you say: so much ground work, so much tradition and systems to build upon in BG2 or BG:EE, but here they are building a lot from scratch. Personally, I think they have over-complicated things here. OE could have had so much stuff for free, stuff that they are very familiar with, but ambition may have gotten the better of them. Only time will tell.

Elerond: True. Apparently, it's BG:EE I'm talking about, and playing right now. It's also one of the most obvious games PoE will need to compare itself to. Adler said as much after the KS and when Beamdog released it.

In BG, the battle music alone is a reliable cue. In the PoE BB, this is not the case, unfortunately, so I agree with Mr PJ!

At level 5, a Baldur's Gate thief has gotten three weapon proficiencies (2 at lvl 1, 1 at level 4) Thief's progressed level-wise faster, so it was level 6 when a fighter's mid level 5. It has its backstab ability progressed three times by then, but its use require flanking, backstabbing or enemies prone, IIRC, or coup-de-grace situations. To be fair, though, the thief comes in different versions right from the get go. There is the classic thief just mentioned, plus you had the bounty hunter, the swash buckler, the shadow dancer (BG:EE), and the assassin. They all feel quite a bit different in combat. In addition, it's more common than not, to have your have thief multi-classed by level 5 (or rather 6, due to the fast xp gain), provided you meet the requirements for dual-classing. So, playing a thief in combat in BG:EE (which I play now, as a swashbuckler, is definitely more varied, than the handful options we get right now in PoE BB for the lvl 5 rogue. At level 5, a Baldur's Gate fighter, already had specialized a lot with a weapon and this could be a ranged fighter or a tank fighter , or a fighter not caring that much about AC, shields, defending, and just going all-in for damage in various ways. The fighter had already spent 5 proficiency points at level 5! Yet again, the class kits can't simply be disregarded. For fighters, you had Berserker, Kensai, Wizard Slayer, and Dwarven Defender (BG:EE). They are rather unique in combat too. Fighters are equally common to multi-class with, once again, as long as the dual class requirements are met. This means that the fighter, with its class kits, weapon proficiency choices plus weapon variety (ranged, melee...), is doubtlessly more varied than in the PoE BB. EDIT: Attributes carry much more weight in BG vis-a-vis the PoE BB, so a dex+str specialized ranged fighter plays differently than a str+con 2h specialist fighter. For lower level thieves, such attribute differences have an even higher impact in combat, whereas in PoE, most of the attributes mean next to nothing, unfortunately.

Heh, quite often, I even kept going if party members died. As far as possible, I wanted to "roleplay" the challenges that came with such calamities.

I disagree. 4th edition is the worst system for any videogame with party. I'll mention but one game in this context: Daggerdale.

I forgot to mention that limiting ammo would limit any naked ranged characters at the back galore. It would be useful to limit those somehow. Hmm.

PrimeJunta: Heh! You went one step further and prioritized your broad strokes! Nice. As for the stuff you disagree with the most, I do take comfort in that I won't loose any sleep if the limited ammo won't be in (I do really like that mechanic, but i'ts not a prio), and the same goes for non-combat talents. But 2 and 3, I really like those changes that I proposed, and I've already grown tired of the health/stamina split after almost 15 hours of this beta. Imagine, what I'll think of it after 150 hours!

Nice work, Sarex! This is a thread where we get to play Feargus for a minute or two. Then we call in Josh to our office and let him have it.

Wrong. Compare this with the D:OS alpha and beta, which occurred during a few months, and 90% of the kind just mentioned were indeed changed. Add to that, they had reached much further into their reiterations than OE has done. Also, there's a strong possibility of PoE getting postponed in order to make it a great game instead of something more forgettable.

What we're dealing with here is no less than reanimating Jimmy Hoffa.

Mutonizer, Headbomb and Ink Blot alone deserve their own threads of unabated praise!

I couldn't resist, since I feel some issues are bigger than just tweaking numbers, attributes, or combat action speed and recovery. It's very easy to lose sight of the macro level in the midst of all this microing, as it were. So, please, be my guest, list things you really think must be in the game to fix it in its current BB state. Precision is not needed here. It's much more important that you list things that matter, things that would affect gameplay in a big way, that would give you that feel, vibe or immersion you deem necessary in a spiritual successor of the IE games. Here goes nothing: -Attributes should matter a lot. Each unit increased should have weight and meaning in combat and in the game world/setting -Keep health, drop stamina, and make those maimed states prolific and more varied and effective -Karkarov has written some fine posts on armour, check them out. I want them employed -I'd rather have BG:EE with quick loot as our inventory in PoE than the current inventory system -The stash, kill it with fire. One year ago, I was accepting its existence. This is no longer true. -Have limited ammunition, stacks of arrows, bolts, darts, bullets, what not -Stealth should be individual, and then reworked in accordance with mutonizer's thread on it under BB bug forum. -BG:EE has some fantastic rest screens. I'd love to see that in PoE as well. -Remove, or at least hide all percentages, decimal numbers or fractions. I want low and clean numbers in combat for everything: armour, to hit, deflection, resistances, you name it. -Small-increment xp. I don't care how you do it, but the replayability of the game would benefit immensely from it -I'll trade crafting for better and more varied encounter design any day. -Larger outdoor maps, please! Let them sprawl, lower the encounter density at times. -Let there be some talent or some improvement at every level up, this to increase build diversity -Let classes start already at level 1 with like three distinct choices. I don't like this one class, one build, philosophy. For instance: ranged ranger, two-weapon ranger, and ranger with no animal companion. -Lower the intensity of most spell effects, including sounds. You'll thank me for this later. -Remove the recovery pips above the player characters, and make the UI and the abilities, including the combat log, be placed in the centre, compare this to Sensuki's suggestions on an improved UI. Another alternative, would be going full-on BG:EE UI, with borders on the left and right side of the screen, and keep looting and combat log in the middle. -Rethink the constant damaging going on in combat, this no matter of how well you play, you'll be sanded down in health by 40%, slowly but surely. Yuk! I want to see a system where landing a hit is a thing in itself. No more grazes. Either you hit or you miss. Keep crits if you wish, but vary damage in a way that is exciting enough - a little RNG in this very respect would help strengthening replayability and general RPG-fun. -Give us more non-combat "talents". Make sure that the BB's "either you have Perception or Intellect maxed out, else you won't have no convo tree fun" is diversified a lot more. I could go on, but it's probably best I'll stop here...for now.

Great write-up, Matt!! The part that I quote above are very important stuff that you have quite fine solutions for. I really like the 1) and 2). As for degenerative gameplay or flawed incentive structure, like with any old academic term, it's will get used and abused differently depending on who's regurgitating it. Like you say, the important thing is to enhance gameplay. As a game dev, you really should cut out stuff that aren't making any sense at all at a "fun gameplay"-level. However, whether something makes sense, can be exploited, etc, those things shouldn't matter much at all. "Fun, rewarding and varied gameplay" trumps everything.

Sensuki: Dudebro style, that's hilarious! Really funny. I get this Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure vibe, but with more swearing.

Yea that's been my reasoning as well and I basically just jumped on the train couple weeks ago. That's really something I immediately realized was a "no go" so I just let it drop. Wusses.

I have the utmost respect for and appreciation of Sensuki's efforts. They are almost always spot on and in-depth. His post counts when a new patch gets released is astronomical. He should get paid by OE, and we should obligate Obsidian to consider all of his suggestions by decree. A huge ta, Sensuki! Excellent work!!

Sorry. I'm a huge fan of player skill, but I'm also a big fan of dice rolls and PnP. In fact, it's very entertaining in a CRPG as well. I'm not that fond of totally reliable outcomes, I want uncertainties, crits, and critical misses, fumbles, mixed with damage results varied through dice rolls, that's how dorky I am.

This normalized damage output of the game and slight variations in how fast the same encounters take certainly show that this way of balancing doesn't help one bit. I'd very much prefer a system that your party could come out of those beetles almost scathe free in one playthrough, and almost get wiped out the next, and this based on the skill of the player, and also on our very own RNG gods, to an extent.

It sounds nice and all, but why didn't Josh come here and announce this? The backer beta forums, it doesn't make sense. I still think armour needs a rather big reworking, even if the AI and the encounters would be better.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! *Wiping tears from me eyes* Sorry, please, do carry on...