Captain Shrek

It is hardly witch burning. If you actually ever played obsidian games, you'd automatically realize that their strong suit is Storytelling and not combat/game play design. I would have conceded to your point if there was SINGLE game where the combat was good. I am sorry to report, that there isn't. And I mean not just the design of the combat mechanics, I mean the encounters themselves which are practically very easy to get right even if you are working with a bad engine / some one else'e mechanics. Frankly, I am very surprised that they went for RTwP with Elves the first chance they got to go free for their own desires.

This is nice. The game was really too fast paced earlier. Thanks sensuki. Can you try out even slower a speed like 4m/s? Also does the combat -clustered ness get reduced by this? Feeling?

Which bothers me a lot too. I mean look at this: Rest-spamming, Save-scumming. The words basically accuse US, players for 'degenerative' gameplay. Well, I really ask is that is fair. The developer actually put all the features which cause this SOME times by SOME players. But they end up blaming us. Sounds like escapist attitude to me. Even worse, I do not understand why the developer has to care how I play the game. Maybe the only reason is the developers themselves are degenerative players and end up projecting it on us. I really can not sympathize with them...

Actually none of these reasons make the trash necessary. And it is dishonest to say that the trash mobs were restricted to the opening area. I am replaying IWD2 right now so I will come up with a good list later if that is necessary. But I feel I am unable to get my point through: These mobs add nothing to the game. The feel of the attack can be managed without such things. Just play Blackguards. See for yourself. The XP to level up is a pretty bad reason as well; the could have still given it through quest XP/Boss battle XP. Same goes for newcomer training. This was probably the most ridiculous reason for trash mobs. It would be much more instructive to have better encounters that are practically leading you through different kinds of ability uses instead of samey trash which actually made you insensitive to the game.

In IWD2 you could easily affort not to fight the goblins and you wouldn't even lose out on xp since you could just rest in a higher level area and kill like 1 of the monsters. There; all the xp the goblins give and more has been gained. Then why put the goblins there at all? Also, it is not completely true. You had to kill the goblins to level up in the first place, or rely on lucky rolls. degenerative gameplay. no?

I liked how you conveniently dropped out other examples. And yeah, IWD2 is pretty much a definition of trash mobs. No need to defend it. You are right to point out that it is the reason it was created; to be a diablo clone in IE with party. Frankly that is exactly how I would describe PoE combat right now. Except Diablo is a more honest game and plays better as it has no party. nothing convenient. look at time of the posting. we were writing and posting at the same time as your most recent reply. add lack o' observation skills to our grumpy old guy complaints. 'course you still actual haven't done as requested. HA! Good Fun! Maybe you should notice that I am talking about NWN and NWN2 ine earlier posts....

I liked how you conveniently dropped out other examples. And yeah, IWD2 is pretty much a definition of trash mobs. No need to defend it. You are right to point out that it is the reason it was created; to be a diablo clone in IE with party. Frankly that is exactly how I would describe PoE combat right now. Except Diablo is a more honest game and plays better as it has no party.

you didn't say... anything. zombies and orcs from nwn 2 don't "contribute to the game progression." provide a why and not simple a conclusion based on some vague feeling. you aren't explaining actual complaints and we ain't gonna do your work for you. btw, as a hint, we would be much more likely to use various bg encounters as examples as filler. HA! Good Fun! Actually I did. But as I final try I will oblige by explaining it in detail: In IWD2, the starting map, if you removed most goblins from the scenario, would you feel that the game is any different? There is still the secret cave where all you need to frame is a single tough representative fight. That precisely what a trash mob is. Fighting these goblins adds nothing to the core game, except making it boring to reach plot relevant areas where the real story fights occur. I'd respect the game more if it had a wasteland/darklands like world where your character skill would determine if you needed to fight those monsters. In NWN2 the same is true of Orc caves and the zombie infested crypts. Remove these encounters and the game is actually much more enjoyable. Contrast this with XCOM, where combat is really the core gameplay. Where it is enjoying combat that makes you play in the first place. As I see it, the current BB is just not that interesting to play as a combat oriented game. You can very well claim that this is subjective, but I doubt it. When you have to pause more often than real time the game, it is a badly designed implementation. To really enjoy it you have to have to have severe masochist tendencies. But I digress... In IWD/IWD2/NWN2/NWN you could NOT afford to NOT fight the trash mobs as they gave out XP. Losing that XP made you characters weaker later on. This is plain effing horrible design. It enforces a kind of gameplay that you can not enjoy even if you like the story. Right now, removing combat XP from the game has basically made it obvious that stealthing through the game is the optimal way to play it. There is nothing to gain really by fighting unless the developers force you to fight by hiding quest relevant items or even items that make you reasonably strong behind quest unrelated or number-bloated out monsters. For the latter example take the NWN2 orc cave. The orcs were quest relevant. But fighting through them was a chore to reach their boss. I am willing to force myself with the bad combat just to listen to the story. I just hope that the bad combat is not made ncessary. And this is all the while, when I consider myself a combat loving creature...

Saying "is not an explanation" does not happen to be a valid defense either. I tried. But against the might attribute of Grominr I failed my Int check. Good going...

Actually I did explain what filler combat is some pages ago. I thought it was unnecessary to do so again, but here it is: I guess a little lining out of what trash combat is, will help here: When you have to fight enemies that do not in any way contribute to the game progression, except by making it longer, the combat can be considered filler/trash. Case in point: 1) IWD 2 Golbins : Yeah, there is a goblin invasion going on. But jesus christ, do I have to fight every effing one of them?? 2) NWN2 : Zombies and Orcs. WHHHHYYYY?? 3) Dragon Age: Darkspawns. Sometimes these "mobs" do make sense, but that does not mean that they should be there for you to make sweet XP-love to. The game content ought to come from encounters that tell a story. Not from dungeon hacks from Diablo. Which makes the entire dungeon level in PoE a brilliant idea: Those who are masochist enough and really like the filler content can go there to extinguish that hunger for morbid gut wrenching. The rest can actually play the game. To make things absolutely clear, this is not, I repeat NOT equivalent to saying that there should be no combat in RPGs. That particular sentiment has a copyright. This is to point out that fattening up the game with beetles/turtles/wombats is not really helping.

"filler combat" is no different than grindy. you is simply tossing in a term that you believe has universal qualities, and am assuming that you feel that PoE combat encounters also have such qualities. explain your concerns, or don't. we can guess why you believe that some/much/all (?) PoE combat encounters in the beta were filler, but there is no reason for us to not only refute (if we cared to do so... hell, we might agree with you) but to also make your argument for you. people, explain what your actual concerns is. you folks is good at identifying problems, but you is extreme weak on the explanations. as for 789... *groan* the developers were very clear 'bout what they were doing with xp. is boardies, such as yourself, who got fixated on the labels and failed to realize you were arguing irrelevancies given what obsidain actual claimed they were doing with xp. HA! Good Fun! Actually filler combat is not so much as a "silly nomenclature" as your current mood dictates is the problem with the fanbase. I assume being a gigantic obsidian/bio fanboy you played NWN, IWDs and NWN2. Did it not bother you that the games needed to kill way too many people to achieve very little? Now to the main point: Why I think it will be a problem in this game. When a game is geared to give you Quest only XP, then basically all combat is filler combat as long as it is not the end boss. Funny isn't it? Why would I fight at all if there is no real motivation to fight? I would point out here, that if stealth is a viable option then fighting is definitely suboptimal. Boss-fighting will give you all your tactical challenge. This is of course besides the point that I believe that the game is too cluster-farked to be really enjoyable.

Gromnir. Would you concede that the real problem is encounter design and having filler combat? Or is that also another one of those unnecessary frivolities for you?

I guess a little lining out of what trash combat is, will help here: When you have to fight enemies that do not in any way contribute to the game progression, except by making it longer, the combat can be considered filler/trash. Case in point: 1) IWD 2 Golbins : Yeah, there is a goblin invasion going on. But jesus christ, do I have to fight every effing one of them?? 2) NWN2 : Zombies and Orcs. WHHHHYYYY?? 3) Dragon Age: Darkspawns. Sometimes these "mobs" do make sense, but that does not mean that they should be there for you to make sweet XP-love to. The game content ought to come from encounters that tell a story. Not from dungeon hacks from Diablo. Which makes the entire dungeon level in PoE a brilliant idea: Those who are masochist enough and really like the filler content can go there to extinguish that hunger for morbid gut wrenching. The rest can actually play the game. To make things absolutely clear, this is not, I repeat NOT equivalent to saying that there should be no combat in RPGs. That particular sentiment has a copyright. This is to point out that fattening up the game with beetles/turtles/wombats is not really helping.

RPG are indeed (almost) all about rewards, and especially about the balance between risk and reward. Otherwise, we would be playing a graphic adventure with combat interludes, with no need for xp, level progression or loot, since story and quests would be enough of a reward. Currently, trash mobs are only risk and no reward, therefore, from an RPG perspective, they are a paragon-level fail. More importantly, combat against them is as dull as Anomen's wit. Being saying this since ages.

Reminder to Gromnir: Playing RPGs to cast spells and kill trolls is ego-stroking. Doesn't get more stoked-ego'd than being a universe saving super hero with sol power. Yeah, gaming is all about feeling big and tall. It is about rewards.

Bandage for cancer.

If this is not going to happen then the game will be worse than BGs. It will be like IWDs but less clear and more pausy. In IWD2 I absolutely hated fighting off horrible hordes of pointless monsters to get from any one point of map to other. I hope it will be better than that for PoE.

I don't like trash mobs either, and I am not advocating combat xp at all costs (although in the end it would probably be the least harmful solution). But I do think that the problem concerning the fact that the non-quest combat is pointless and demotivating (and stealth is the only option that makes sense right now) needs to be solved, one way or another. Deus Ex was awesome, but what kind of compelling story can you reasonably tie to a pride of lions in the wilderness or to a bunch of beetles? Frapillo80 and Indira lightfoot. The point is you * can * design stories around these encounters. That would however be true only if the beetles and lions are really rare. Take for example the beetles. How often does one see giant beetles/crystal spiders? The party gets a quest that some traveler saw them and is being labelled mad. On the flip side he also swears that the beetle shell was made of pure gold. Now you have a dilemma: should you enter a deep dark cave just on the promise of fabled gold? Also, what makes beetles grow to that size and plated with gold in the first place? So when the party *does* decide to take on that challenge, it needs to prepare for the encounter. This is where the lore skill kicks in. Lets say that one of the participants has Lore: Animals. He uses that to tell the guy with Lore: Plants which poisons are fatal to beetles. You coat your weapons with that and the battle is significantly easy. Else, the beetles hand your butt back to you in pieces. When you investigate the cave, it turns out that the beetles have been feeding over a herb that is being fed by the local source of water contaminated by soul energy. Following the trail of this stream, you reach a hidden place where you discover some fantastic aspect of the world lore. Thus the beetles were a unique encounter and you can't get more Deusexy in spirit than that. This makes several different kinds of sense over the current "wolf cave" scenario: The combat is hard if you do not have the right skills. The combat is lucrative for a thematic reason. The combat is rewarding for lore/story reasons. A combat heavy game needs to have these things to NOT try and become a party based diablo which POE is threatening to become.

I am still not convinced by the idea that combat reward needs to be something in the form of XP or loot. It should really be "story". Deus Ex did this really well. Also, I *hate* trash mobs. rewarding me with loot/XP to fight them is lame. Just get rid of them! Why do I need to fight damn beetles or wolves or cultist? The battles should feel unique and tactical instead of being generic skyrim "Here's a wolf cave and for inexplicable reason they have been hoarding magic rings" feeling. This was one thing wrong with IE games earlier, especially IWDs and needs to go.

I have no idea why players are masochistic enough to play absolutely artificial difficulty on completely fabricated odds that they self impose. I for one prefer to just abuse the resting mechanics than punish myself for "playing non-degeneratively".

So can someone explain to me why knockdown is per encounter? Or is the explanation same as "Stamina healing is not healing"?

I say that make it cost gold/rare resource instead of making it per rest. And fix gold economy.

For me personally the entire debate is pointless. I am playing a single player game ffs. I do not need to be punished for doing cool stuff. The difficulty does not need to come from how many times I can use a banal thing like knockdown. That is a pretty strange thing in itself btw. The Difficulty should come from how smart the AI is and how the encounters are arranged. This per day stuff is just going to trivialize the game anyway. Why wouldn't you just fast run to the nearest town and get your most powerful ability back anyway? I am happy they decided to go with resource management for resting but that is not going to help beyond a point... As I see it, the best option is to give us flashy stuff to do. Give wizard uber nukes just make them cost resources like gems or XP. Well why not? That way the player can decide how he wants to play and use them for fun. The rest of the abilities also need to be flashy but always usable. The difficulty will come from the map design and the enemy behavior.

Good luck with the HP/Stamina tied to class then. Do ho ho No. Not at all. There are similar reasons why they are equivalent. In fact NWN2 had more abilities for melee classes and used more often than here, but never used because: 1) RTwP cluster****; who would bother if I could use wizard instakill instead, like in PoE! What a surprise! 2) Fighters were boring as their abilities were passive, like in PoE!

FIghters could do TRIP, Knockdown and Power attack in NWN2. just saying. That did not help. At all. I wonder why... :D