IndiraLightfoot

As for DS3: It had nothing on the other instalments, true, but I still disagree. It was pretty deplorable. And no, if anything, the pacing has gotten worse for me in combat with the new patch due to non-shuffling path finding, a DT with weird spikes, making fights a dragged out business, plus, like you said, no way to make informed decisions due to the contrived percentages intersecting like crazy. And I don't see that improvement in visual clarity, except for one thing, there is no dog-piling any more. Always something, I guess.

Aha! This must have been what happened to me in that 20-min fight I had with a couple of guards (the cultist went down fast enough), but those two, as well as my two fighters in the front, just kept slapping each other, and nothing happened, no damage, or rather, so little, that it took ages and ages for anything to change. It got so bad that I opted to break out of combat in the midst of it, and that resulted in more bugs, even weirder, this time.

Although NWN2 fitted my playstyle very well, and it was based on a system I adore, I can see your point about it having flaws. Another recent game by OE that rarely gets mentioned in this context is DS3. It's combat was hard, fast and frustrating, and unfortunately, for the most part not fun at all. Luckily, I found an exploit with my Anjali in constant fire form, so I basically blinked my way through that game on the hardest setting. It was not pretty, but parts of the story was, due to George Ziets' great writing. What I really fear is PoE meeting the same fate as DS3. It would really benefit going back to the IE roots in this regard, IMHO.

Heh! You're sure selling it in a nice way! Let's hope it's just me being frustrated over the newness of it all. After all, when I began playing the IE games, I was already a PnP D&Der for years, plus more years under my belt with the SSI games. It's well know that many people found BG1 extremely frustrating if they were new to the entire concept of THACOs, AC, etc. Obviously, any percentages could always run in the background, black box style too. I suggest, keep it only low integer based, it's a no-brainer, really. As for the IE games, using that MMO tactic only got you that far. More often than not, you had plenty of other ways of solving various encounters, so that's only true for a fraction of it. The options were considerably more diverse, even down to stuff upheaving both those roles: tanks and casters at the back. I enjoyed druids a lot, for instance, and using summons in tactical ways.

Great post, but there is already a thread about this like four topics below.

Sensuki: I'm looking forward to that thread. I was almost about to start one myself, but reading the Combat suggestions thread, I reckoned it was too general. Your more detailed approach sounds great at this point. It all comes down to fun, clarity and options.

Sensuki: That alone needs to be reworked, then. Right now. combat is a bit like getting gum in your hair. If you try to be delicate about it, it just gets worse, and it soon becomes an indissoluble mess. However, if you cut it (that's the only way), you have a solution.

Yea, just adding screenshot to better identify them and +1 the report. 2 in that image. This is on Hard difficulty for information since they might only show up then. PillarsOfEternity 2014-09-04 20-52-32-788.jpg Alright. This shows up at Easy difficulty as well.

Sensuki: Something like that would mean a huge step forward. And please drop the percentages, use small integers instead, like Hiro wrote. OE, you won't regret it! EDIT: Also, inspired by Stun's incredibly funny run-down of what recovery is for (because he delivered serious points in among the jokes), it is high time for OE and for us to ask ourselves the BIG QUESTION: Is combat fun this way? (MMO-ish tank pushed to the frontline, loadouts from the rear, rinse and repeat.) Are we enjoying it? Are we frustrated because it's all new? Or are we frustrated because it simply is not fun? I'm asking this, because this is a perfect opportunity to rectify combat and make it into something that most people intuitively enjoy and understand. Let's not waste it, peeps.

Agreed, slightly louder footsteps please! Another thing about footsteps, playing BG:EE atm, I can't help but noticing how well they have made the various sounds for different surfaces. When party members pass over flagstones, grass or dirtroads, you hear the difference immediately. That's just fab! Another thing is of course howls and sounds in the near distance, which always has a real bearing on what encounters to expect. It's like in COH2, where you can hear the vehicles coming before you see them, and that's a matter of life and death in that RTS.

In the words of Sparkur: ”The readers at Candlekeep will never let us in ever again, and good riddance! After one last look at the sea and those dreadful cliffs, we’re heading inland, perhaps to Beregost. Except for a wolf, it’s all been a quiet walk so far. Two darts from our elven sorcerers and a fantastic bolt from Anarcon, straight in between the eyes, made short work of him. Unfortunately, his pelt was tarnished and worthless.” ”When I said it was quite, I spoke too soon. We had been walking in circles and was almost back at the site where Indira and Gorion was ambushed, when a black bear stepped into our grove and growled. I hate them fleabags, so I used my trusted bolt of lightning yet again, and this time to great effect. Furia finished it off with a magic missile. It was still 10 feet away. Still, yet another animal with a ruined fur. By the way, good thing we happened to return to the place where Gorion fell. He had useful items on himself, a pathetic note – even the enemies left behind a few nice things. Finally, Indira has got some armour and a decent bow. It was a good spot to rest at as well. The chances of those enemies returning there so swiftly is nil.” ”We started to head south, when another wolf flashed his teeth, so we fired bolts and darts at him. No real luck this time, as Poker would soon find out. He took his beloved axe and smashed it hard on the thick-headed wolf, and wouldn’t you know it? It broke. He was shocked, so he took to pounding the beast’s head into pulp, while Indira broke its neck with a huge swing from the longsword in her left hand. We tried to settle Poker afterwards, but he was inconsolable. He loved that axe. Damn those hard-skulled wolves, now we have a crying dwarf at our hands. Sweet misery! Furia and I took care of the next wolf before Poker would slaughter the thing with his bare hands.” ”Accidentally, this meant that we saved a messenger in distress. He was to herald the news of caravan raiders northeast of Beregost. A quarter of an hour later, we met with two daft fellows, Xzar and Montaron. They wanted us to accompany them to investigate the iron shortage in the south. We dismissed them, of course. If we are going to do that we wouldn’t want them around. We’re not into sharing. Hot on their heels, a plump man named Kolssed, which I accidentally called ’Kolossal’ instead, said he was helpful. We told him of our ambush last night, but he had only advice to give in return. ’Thanks for nothing,’ we said and left him to his own devices. As if this wasn’t enough, at dusk an old man came walking down the road between us and Friendly Arm Inn, which I insisted on visiting despite Indira protesting wildly. We questioned his intentions when he started to put his nose where it doesn’t belong. All these run-ins seem like anything but co-incidences.” ”In the dead of night, we were passing through the woods north of Lion’s Way when three disgusting beast assaulted us. They were awfully fast. Furia’s sleep spell came in handy, as did Tulippa’s darts. When we investigated them; I saw they were gibberlings, but very hard to recognize as such, since they were disease-ridden. Two hours later, a ranger called Aoln, warned us of more wolves and gibberlings in these parts, and my golly, was he right?!” Day 3, 4 Mirtul 1368, in the words of Sparkur: ”We travelled north to Friendly Arm Inn, just to replenish our darts and bolts, get some ale and food in our bellies, and most importantly, find a new axe for our dear whimpering Poker. Perhaps this rain will calm him down. I was wrong. The darn rain made us miss the gate and the entire inn. We ended up north of it and ran into a huge hobgoblin, which I fried with a well-aimed bolt. He had some useful things on him, though. Armour and weapons for everyone! Moreover, in this thunderstorm, Poker took the opportunity to bury the remains of his axe in a small bog, singing for it before it was laid to rest like a votive offering placed under water for some sea goddess.” ”The inn guards reminded us of the rules, which we pretended to accept." "Straight afterwards, Indira snuck into a farmer’s house and swept it clean, right under the nose of the farmer himself. The commoners spoke of an army by Nashkel. Another man, Tarnesh, approached us, addressing us as ”friends”, at which we replied that we were not." "And then, in front of all the guards he began to attack us. He made illusionary duplicates of himself, and then he made Anarcon and most guards panic. Tulippa resisted that spell, and Indira chopped his head off. It was not a pretty sight, but it had to be done. The guards even thanked us afterwards. So much for their rules. When their lives were at stake, the rules apparently could be broken. We found a bounty notice on his body. Once again, Indira was the target. She said that this is becoming flattering.”

Yes I agree, we're definitely looking into it. Sort of relates to what I said above. I would also prefer if the big huge epic music would only trigger when its meaningful to do so. For example, if your party is overpowered compared to an encounter, then the music shouldnt feel epic. Great to hear that! It would make a pretty big difference, since encounters are pretty recurrent, at least in the beta, so for anybody opting to fight the baddies, battle music will perhaps be the music that's on the most. I'm really looking forward to the full game later on, coz then we will get to enjoy the full scope of music and sound effects.

Fiebras: I actually reported the very same bug for the last build, so sadly, this means it's still in, and it's a pretty frustrating one at that. In another thread, my BB rogue got immortal in another way. She was killed health/stamina 22 times, when she finally succumbed at the hands of two guards. The rogue has a hard time letting go of Eora and enter the world beyond.

~This times a million! To put it harshly, I just want this myriad of percentages to go away. It's not possible to take in and take stock of. Like you capture here in a few sentences, all those percentages intersect, and at a point that you'd need a huge 4D graph for, in order to understand what's working well or nor, what's blocking decently or not, what's resisting a bit or not. In a big way, I feel a need to urge Josh to simplify this, to think about the player reading the feedback, the player who mouses over the info, but who currently has a snowball's chance in hell of grasping what's a good decision or not. Oh, it's not like you and I are new to CRPGs and ARPGs either. *Sigh!* EDIT: I must clarify that it's not the percentages per se that are confusing. One by one, what they do is pretty straightforward. It's when you interweave them it all goes perplexing and esoteric. Add to this, other party members affecting the same percentages, for instance paladin auras or the priest casts interdiction, and also add to this similar spells and abilities from enemies, and you have a miserable situation.

Fiebras, I did! I had one. And then I just forgot about it. I didn't even know they showed up there, since in my last playthrough, I didn't find any. Thanks. This "bug" is solved.

This idea seems pretty interesting. I like it. One drawback, though, some "munchkins" would then just go hunting for new and exotic baddies all the time, to level up faster. Mind you, I have no problem with that at all. It would certainly reward exploration, and doing so, will mean taking bigger risks, surely you'll get in a world of trouble for doing it. Sounds fun!

Oh, so it's a bug, then. When I click it, you see that it works like the rest of the ability buttons, you see a UI click animation when clicking it, and you hear the button click, but rest of it, is just null and void.

Justin: May I add a request? And this is for battle music. We only have one battle tune in the beta, so that's all I got to go on. My main gripe is that it's pretty much full on all the time. It's a bit like that funny scene in Cable Guy, when Jim Carrey sings out the battle music when he's fighting his tormented "friend". What I'd like to see for battle music (especially since combat tends to drag on at times, in boss fights, definitely) is some slightly lower tempo and shifts in melody, oh, and also, less forte, please. This would make the battle music enhance the melee experience, instead of telling us all the time "This is urgent, it's now or never, else we end up dead."

I must admit that I was pretty "non-stat" when playing, I just played it like in D&D, like I'm doing now in BG:EE. In a weird way, you could say that I roleplayed combat, unlike when I play D3, where I pay attention to the stats all the time, where DPS is king, and you need a right mix of resistances, armour solved in one way or the other (even dodging). Here, I hardly get the system. DT, that's like armour class, yea? Damage threshold? Some of the fights that were the worst for me had guards in the ruins with DT over a hundred or just below, but that I noticed at the end, realizing, heck, armour is back with a vengeance in this game. I need to L2P, apparently.

No wonder some of my fights took several minutes. I had two fighter tanks, a cipher that mixed melee with a few cipher abilities, and those BB guys. The only one that really used a ranged weapon at times was my BB fighter and his arbalest, and I had the rogue try out a bow the last half an hour, down in the ruins. I played the game wrong. I should have played it like beach volleyball instead, the net being replaced with a tinman.

Put a penalty on switching weapons that is greater then the recovery time. Or at least depending on which weapon types that are switched.

Josh: You're correct about the 2nd/3rd ed, and it's also nice to prevent that backing-off-and-win-by-a-thousand-needle-stings-tactic. Cheesy and boring. Unfortunately, this new system makes it near impossible to at least semi-kite or outright retreat from fights, and weird bugs are introduced because of it. Some sort of "retreat" option like in D:OS would be pretty fitting, no?

PJ: Nice to hear that you got lucky with the loot down there. I sure wasn't. While it all feels like a game now, the combat isn't really there yet. Sooner or later, you'll run into draaaaaged out fights, where all your resources/abilities are used up (and so are the enemies), and then the "unfun" begins, hehe. At least, when a battle goes on for RL minutes, the Cipher regains her abilities, which is pretty useful.

Could this be related to that bug with your in-hand/off-hand equipment playing tags with you in certain circumstances as well?

MC: Oh, I was pretty sure that promancers have a "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"-policy on that. So, in-game, romancing, means anything goes, all stereotypes are fair game, and all feverish clicking is backed up with a carte blanche for objectifications of all kind. In short, show us the darn pic.