Captain Shrek

There is nothing and never was anything wrong about sub optimal builds. Same holds for min maxed overpowered builds. Finding out optimal builds, theory crafting and munchkining NWN2 was totally the real fun aspect of "mechanics". Earlier IE games were too restrictive in that sense. But they skill had multi and dual classing which allowed a small measure of variability. I just want to make clear right here, that this is not a justification of broken design; i.e. inherently bad or inherently OP classes/feats etc. It is a justification of a distribution of builds that can go from bad when build badly (wizards as tanks) and builds built well (wizards that are spell focused). Every single classed build should lie in the centre of it.

That was my feeling too. Somehow I can't grasp how the interrupt system works. If I can pump that I am sure the barbarians would be amazing tanks by the virtue of disrupting enemy actions. Yeah. Builds was my favorite part of NWN2. I am sorry that it is gone. I also lament the simplistic spell system, the amazement of D&D casting is no longer there somehow .

Well, I see your points Indira, but I agree with Shevek. The game is pretty much "doable" with his builds without much micro. And that is GREAT! What you are asking for is what Josh was initially proposing, with the flexible builds. I think that was never a very reasonable view. You CAN build wizards that can melee and can take damage, but that makes the game too much micro and you lose a lot of time simply pausing to get things right. I just felt that battle fainting was a bit too gamey for my taste (as it was in NWN and NWN2 and DA games) but I think we can all pass that as a quirk. @Shevek. Nicely done. That was one of the better uses of tanks I have seen in a while. What would you say about a barbarian build focused not on damage but rather on AOE + interrupt? Would that be even better as a tank than a Fighter? You could then use the fighter to keep the enemy bosses down.

It definitely could have been made more interesting. It's not like the current spell list is totally original. The D&D roots are right at the back of it. Considering the spell list for D&D, there is no dearth of inspiration.

You misunderstood. The argument was if clerics were healers first buffers second.

Oh. Nothing's controversial. That's like saying Mages are healers. I would say that you just have a very unique opinion, that is all.

My overall verdict is: Slowdown movement and animation speed. Remove some of the superfluous mechanics. And bingo! The game is good to go. I think it is playable right now as it is. But requires some annoying micro which is really not tactical, unless you build a party on Shevek's suggestions.

Not even close. Debuff and Buff is a totally different thing compared to healing. Compare Chanter to priest in this game for example.

Then that is where we differ and I can live with that .

yeah. Too true. But there is "good" streamlining and "bad" streamlining. PoE removing skills = bad streamlining. PoE removing mechanics that is anyway passive and superficial == Good streamlining. That is why quoted the word. I feel that this nice concept has been forever and ever tainted by Bathesda and Bioware who used it to cut active content instead of building on unimplemented mechanical elements.

Shevek man, I am not denying that the current system works. In fact, I recently realized that if they did not change anything at this point, I would be okay with the game. It is easy for me and I feel that I understand the mechanics enough to take down anything without much hassle. Right now, all I am saying, is that there are elements there which to appear really not playing any role in the game beyond interacting with each other. Removing them would only make the game more "streamline" in the good sense of the word. Would it be necessary? Maybe not. Would it improve the game? I think it will. How hard would that be? I have no real idea, but as I see it, this just boils down to switching off some flags. Healing is already in the game. It just needs to be called as such.

But this is my exact point. Why have two health bars then? Making healing magic rarer would be easier and an elegant solution to the dilemma, I think. Right now, resting is made necessary due to seep in attrition from the mechanics. This as I see it creates a lot of dependencies. Ideally I would see it as: Damaged character -> Healing/Rest. No graze or DT necessary. No endurance necessary. Gameplay remains almost exactly as it is, except that economics of healing changes as it becomes, let's say a per rest or ever better a per resource ability. This also is true about potions abuse in games. One has to think why that happened in IE games in the first place. It had a broken "potions" economy. A simpler method would be to have these potions as extremely rare elixirs that are just too valuable to quashed often. This will not only make the game simpler (as in without unnecessary elements) but also more tactical.

yeah. Your builds do make sense. But just saying, I never even get one down on my playthroughs. In fact, I get minimum damage. But I admit that this is beside the point and only highlights the min-max mentality I employ while playing. I am also a bit miffed that you can lose all "endurance" and just fall unconscious, only to be awoken after the battle with no consequence. In an IE game, you would be dead. But that too is a personal qualification. My biggest problems are pacing. In the current build, it is almost impossible to see what is attacking what during the combat. I have a feeling that this is going to be a serious detriment for most players outside of the "hardcore" (I dislike the word, but I understand what it entails) audience in the forums. Also, I dislike a lot of unnecessary mechanical jumble thrown into the game ; such as the double health bar, grazes and DT, global cooldowns. At the same time, I am at a loss to understand several gameplay choices such as not introducing healing, while making resting so obviously overpowered. This, by the way, also makes "endurance" healing weird. As I see it there are coupled superfluous mechanisms: 1) Graze is superfluous coupled to DT 2) Endurance is superfluous coupled to "no healing." 3) Super mobility of enemies is a result of bad AI

It's not just pausing. I have to use actives all the time to keep the mobs busy and stop them from using their full potential. Also, auto attacks whittle them down too slow. I have to use all the Rogue abilities against enemies like the beetles (which are trash mobs btw).

I doubt that this is true. There is NO way that you can play passively in PoE. It's just not a solution. Even against trash. You are either very good at the game and have super human reflexes or are very lucky.

That it will turn out increasing might bonus from 2% to 3% changes nothing. I am wondering if the Devs are even reading the forums. The real damage iis coming from crits, which is 50% increase.

I'm sincerely asking this, but do you mean "I tried a RES & DEX Fighter and didn't like him, and I tried a PER & DEX Wizard and didn't like him?", or do you mean that you actually took a Fighter, maxed out 2 stats, played for a bit, recorded hard data on various different things, then repeated that process with any other stat-maxing build you could think of for a Fighter, then compared the results at the end? Because that's what I'm talking about. If I can ever get some free time NOT-at-work, I might give that a shot. And I'm also not talking about changing the build and trying to do the same thing, like just changing a Wizard build and trying to nuke with every single build. I'm more concerned with the capabilities of the class as a whole that may be boosted by any given stat. Just for what it's worth... I'm not claiming you've done these things that I'm simply noting don't really produce productive data. Of course I did not record *hard data*. That would be retarded. I just played and I checked how the fighters were holding up under these stats. You asked for that, I told you what I felt.

Take that bold step my friend and enter the gates of Despair. The developers could do with some love and they really care. But take heed; that path on which you mean to set thyself is filled with many strifes. So I give thee this token of friendship: Use F5+F9 in abundance for ye shall find that is free to do so, The game is damned hard to learn but amazingly rewarding. There are a lot of guides for newcomers and I must admit that reading a couple is how I became the champion of the arena. Good luck.

Agreed. When I kickstarted, I wasn't aware that Mr. Sawyer loves 4th Edition D&D (See: MMO tropes). I also wasn't aware he hated spell casting. I get a strong vibe that the game he wanted to create is Age of Decadence. I was gritting my teeth the entire kickstarter once they began rolling out classes beyond the "core four". To me, almost every mechanic and design problem is attributable to the class concepts. I still have hope that these concepts can be overcome, but the taste of MMO is impossible to ignore. I doubt Josh will like AoD. AoD is hard. And not hard as in clumsy. It requires dedicated builds to win and has no soft checks. There are failure states which can make your character completely feel useless forcing you to start over. Also, it is extremely judgemental. It will openly criticize you for making silly character assessments of enemy 'talkers'. And you know what? It is amazing fun. Probably, no, scratch that, the best game I ever played.

Guys. I have had a revelation. Just leave the game mechanics as it is. Just. LEAVE. IT. ALONE. Remove two HP bars maybe and remove graze ad DT. LEAVE. THE. REST. ALONE. You will not believe how much you will appreciate this one day in your dotage, as you lay thinking in your comfy armchair inside old people's home: "Captain Shrek said leave the combat mechanics alone and I listened. Now I know I did not fail in my life." At this point, combat is just exactly the hassle free simplified ENGAGEMENT that I expect from RTwP. I am willing to forgive all, yeah, even the global cooldowns and no healing magic and horrible stealth and ridiculously named attributes and the utter lack of skills for being able to peacefully exploring the story.

BTW. I tried out your no engagement mod. It quickly devolved into having to micro more than in the vanilla, as I had to rearrange every so often. Thankfully the AI is too dumb to take advantage of the lack of engagement and behaves stupidly as it refuses to follow up on DPS chars. So in short summary: The good: The combat with the mod feels more like IWD. Kudos for that. The bad: The AI is not made for this mod. Which means that only the PC benefits.

I see. You are not using the engagement right then. lol. Just trap everyone with Fighters and then watch as your wizards lower their attack speed down to nothing. Your play style also works I guess, but I would say that you would be pausing a lot. I never need to do that. And I hate that ****, if I have to do it too often.

Well, you must be wrong somewhere as the game is definitely more rewarding towards Per investment than a balance of Per and Might. Now this may be a perception effect, but as I said, Guts don't agree with you.

What? Are you sure you understand the rules correctly? In order for an AoE to even hit (even if it 'hit's the units in it) the Attack Roll has to score a hit. More Perception means more Critical Hits from AoE spells. Rolls verses each target in the AoE are independent of one another, it's not one attack roll like in D&D. You can miss, crit, hit and graze four different targets with one AoE. For non-damaging spells, Durations are more important - yes. Maybe we are talking about different things? I am talking about area control AoE like fogs, which are best kept in a place longer. Ofcourse they do more damage with more Per. but why bother? That's the job of the rogue anyway. The Wizard is there to keep enemies in constant checks.

Hmm. Maybe then the DT is the issue? Is that in the calculation? My memory is now hazy as to what was included in the stats. But I had made the argument about Per then, which seems to have justified itself perfectly well empirically. Maybe your theory crafting is incomplete somewhere.