Seari

Good read. If most of the things you listed(esp. build diversity) is improved upon, this will be a glorious game, and a worthy successor to the IE games.

Chakra infused super muscle wizard reporting in! I think they should add a power charging mechanic edit: Maybe you could mash a button for charging a spell?

I wish they did that. But unfortunately in BG2 there's no damage modifier from stats for ranged weapons, except strength for slings and I think a throwing hammer. You only get thac0 from dex, nothing else.

My brain still can't comprehend why Might would affect fire arms, but I've long past given up on understanding it. I hope you're right about talents having that large of an effect on builds.

Yes indeed, BG forced you to play a wizard if you want all the INT dialog options, forced you to play cleric if you wanted to get all the wisdom dialog options and if you played a fighter it locked you out of all extra dialog options. You could find a charisma 18 ring very early in BG2 because that stat offered many extra dialog options and without that ring only sorcerers would actually see those options. I disagree, you weren't forced into anything, you had choices. Items allowed for a lot of variety, you could make a low dexterity fighter and pump points into charisma, intellect instead, later you would find an item that sets your dexterity to 18. I agree that the BG2 attribute system has a lot of flaws, but I still like it miles better than this.

On paper it would mean more build variety, but what we got here instead is low or even no build variety compared to BG2(kits, dual/multiclassing. attributes that actually mattered a lot, weapon focus and weapon style focus). I think people should stop defending this ****ty system, it needs an overhaul, in my opinion(which is just that - my opinion, and not fact).

I've posted multiple times that I dislike the interrupt mechanic affecting melee attacks, you should only be able to interrupt abilities/spells(maybe ranged attacks as well?). Interrupting melee attacks is confusing and unnecessary. Wouldn't mind it being removed completely, as long as there's some way to interrupt spellcasters.

Here you go buddy:

Agree with everything he said.

Unless the developers intended for attributes to have marginal impact. That would mean there are no bad builds indeed, only classes, with minor talents for flavor.

This isn't a useful comment. Why do you think it's a bad idea? (1) Do you want people to inadvertently build a bad character? (2) Do you think that it isn't possible? (3) Do you think it necessarily means that the attributes can't have a large enough dynamic range? (4) Some other reason? As it is, you're adding noise to the discussion. Most of the discussion revolves around something like point 3 (which remains to be seen). Point 1 is ridiculous. Point 2 is clearly not true. Maybe you have an actual 4th point that would add to the discussion. Do you or not? It is possible, just look at the attribute system that is now. No bad builds means minimum character customization, attributes have negligible effect, which makes race and culture pointless as well. Basically no bad builds means no builds. Well there's the cosmetic aspect of course. The attribute system is overly complicated while being bland( what's with the percentages). You can't even describe your character with the current attributes, because they're missing charisma and strength equivalent. If Might is strength then every caster has to be a muscleman or has to forfeit spell damage. Having damage, healing and spellpower on one attribute means that every character will max the same thing, every character will be able to move that boulder and it will make battlemages and cleric characters way stronger than the ones that focus on either melee or spells instead of on both. Not that any of this matters if the attributes aren't changed to be more impactful. A lot of spells are boring and confusing. Mirror image increases deflection instead of absorbing a number of hits. There's like a dozen spells that do the same thing, increase Deflection. Spells don't scale per level, which will make them useless at higher levels, also the reason why there are so many duplicates(wizard's duplicate, mirrored image, displaced image, minor missiles, bounding missiles). There are no immunities, the main thing I liked about BG2's combat system. Interrupt mechanic affects melee attacks from what I understand, confusing and unnecessary. I love ciphers and paladins! /end rant

No bad builds is such a ****ing stupid idea it's giving me a headache.

I'll up you one. I dislike Fallout 3.

One step farther from a complete disaster. I remain skeptical.

But how can my 18 Might 3 Int muscle wizard cast spells out of his spellbook, when his low intellect impairs his reading skills. Maybe his spellbook has step by step drawings of how to cast spells!

Will there be any weapons that can be crafted by finding pieces of them, like Crom Faeyr in BG2?

Thanks, I get it now! I was really confused before, I guess I shouldn't have doubted Sawyer after all. This is my 18 Might 3 Int Wizard. He doesn't actually know how to read, so he just throws his spellbook at enemies.

Is there a dislike function on these forums per chance?

I couldn't agree with you more.

Funny, because I'm playing it right now. edit: It may have many flaws, but it's still miles better than any rpg made today.

"...match...immersive depth of gameplay or dialogue"? Pretty much agree with you accept the excerpt above. BG2 was significantly lacking especially to many of the modern games in depth of gameplay and dialogue. Quest design was fairly linear and Choice and Consequence was very low. Dialogue didn't give the player much opportunity to role play and primarily serves to advance the plot -whose end result is ultimately a FedEx quest or hunt the bad guy. When speaking with said bad guy, dialogue is essentially content that'll lead to combat with rare exceptions of a diplomatic solution.

Ehm, it does actually mean that. If you can twist the cookie-cutter to make different shaped cookies and they still taste good, then you have eliminated cookie-cutter builds, by definition. And the result is a bland attribute system that is worse than the original. it might work on paper, but it sure as hell doesn't work in practice.

I agree, I have my doubts that it will ever be as good as BG2. Maybe if they rethink some the things for the sequel, but it will be hard with Sawyer's balance obsession sucking all the fun out though. Hopefully the game will at least be enjoyable.

This mentality that every class needs to have the same amount of abilities is what made the combat a cluster**** mess(besides the bugs). There is a reason why the warrior classes in the IE games had few abilities, you're controlling a party of 6 characters after all.

But then how does one play the fabled muscle wizard Very simple, really, I explained this in another thread, people are just confused by the names of the stats. Really for a muscle wizard you want Con, that's what really determines how strong your body is. Here's the solution, super elegant and intuitive I think: So you're saying being physically strong shouldn't affect the damage you do with the weapons you're swinging? Sounds confusing. Almost as confusing as every character having "soul power" which somehow affects the damage you do with weapons. Pumping soul power increases the damage of your spells/abilities, makes sense. The other part, not so much, unless every character in the PoE univerese uses telekinesis.