Tartantyco

They're making it difficult for themselves by having Godlike and Orlans. You can't plausibly use a Godlike or Orlan portrait for any other race, like you might with Halfling/Dwarf/Gnome portraits.

Let me break this down for you. Discussion: PoE will be combat focused. Is combat XP necessary? Argument for: If there is no XP reward, people will avoid combat. Example: Compare with game that is combat focused, but has other approaches(Such as speedrunning) and has no XP. Question: How do people respond to not being rewarded for combat, and having lower risk options available to them? Answer: People still engage in combat, despite there being lower risk approaches. The reason why you don't use Mortal Kombat as an example is because it doesn't have relevance to the question. You can't talk your way out of a fight or just run past them to the next level. Mortal Kombat does have a quest. Fight your way to the top and defeat the boss. Regardless, does PoE need quests? It's a perfectly valid question. Are you prepared to argue that it doesn't?

Nope. There's nothing tactical about giving the players 8 inventory slots and then a bottomless, weightless stash. There's just a pointless extra step that doesn't need to be there. Convolution for convolution's sake isn't good design. You are aware that your access to the stash is restricted, and that it's not just another place to store stuff? Only stuff that you have in your inventory can actually be used then and there, meaning you have to decide what you want to have available to your characters in combat. ...not an RPG, nor a spiritual successor to the Infinity engine games. But you sure are the master of irrelevant example citing. We are not discussing genres, we are discussing how players respond to incentives. If you are unable to understand the validity of the example, that is your issue.

That's just a completely unreasonable argument. Anything will be limited by the definition of this argument, hence it completely negates itself, as no system can be created that isn't limiting by your definition. I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that. No, really, I think this is a reading comprehension and general language skills problem. That you cannot comprehend the argument does not invalidate it. Obviously, no system will allow all the choices some (not me personally), might wish it to. That's so obvious, it's really not worth stating. The issue is that this system does not allow choices that another system does (me, personally, I don't have a problem with that - it's the way the devs want it to be). The devs have said: 'no'. 'No you can't build a flawed character in PoE as you can in DnD'. 'No' means less choice - in comparison to systems, to which this system will be compared. For your reference : no nəʊ/ determiner: no not any. verb (used with object)to reject, refuse approval, or express disapproval of. ...While allowing far more functional character choices. Hence, variety is not limited. But I'm afraid you'll have to go on my troll list for actually typing out that idiotic reply to my post.

It's the extra step. Lets say you've got 3 things in your inventory. You then come upon a chest. The chest has 6 things in it. You hit the "loot all" button. Well, you won't be able to loot everything. First you have to move stuff to the stash to make room, then you can loot everything. Alternatively, you can click on a different party member and have them loot everything, assuming they don't also have 3 or more inventory slots filled. This is something I found myself constantly wrestling with in the beta. An extra row of inventory space per character would really help here. Oh no, it's an extra step! If your charaters' inventory in the Beta is full then you don't understand the meaning of 'tactical'. By the way, I thought you found fiddling around with your inventory to be a "HUGE" part of the gameplay in BG2. Looks like your wish was granted, stun. Combat being the game's central activity is not a reason. People shying away from combat, which nobody has yet demonstrated, is not a reason. I'll see if I can make it clearer then. Note, first of all, that I don't have a big issue with the XP awards being only for completing tasks or quests. Paramount to me is whether or not the game is fun to play (and so far I'm having fun with the beta despite its bugs and issues). Note second of all that I never said a reward was 'necessary' (interesting that a few posts later you complain about someone putting words into your mouth). What I mean is it seems very odd to me that the bulk of abilities/talents/spells you choose for your character are oriented towards being effective in combat/killing opponents. So you play through the game, building your character and choosing all these abilities to add to them which serves to make them more efficient killers. Level after level of abilities - acquired through leveling up that is only accomplished by gaining XPs - that are useful only for combat (many of which can't even be used except in combat). Yet you get no XP reward for being successful in combat. The game dishes out encounter after encounter where you end up having to fight (yes, you can avoid some, but judging from the beta, you're going to spend a whole lot of time in combat - and Zeits even stated it's the 'core activity of the game'). Yet you get no reward for investing all these abilities/talents/spells and for completing the 'core activity of the game'. To me, this just doesn't make a lot of sense. Why have the character talents/abilities/spells geared towards an activity that gives no XP reward to the player? Why have no XP reward for the 'core activity of the game'? XP is a reward, pedantry is not an argument. The whole "logic, makes no sense" nonsense argument has been dismissed in every single iteration of this discussion. You have many non-combat abilities that you also improve through leveling. As I have said earlier, getting better at lockpicking by stabbing beetles makes equally as little sense. Quake II is a game focused completely on combat. At no point are you ever rewarded for killing enemies. You are rewarded for progressing through the game and finding secrets. For some odd reason, gameplay has not devolved into pure speedrunning to complete the game. It's not a valid argument. The search for a reason for Kill-XP continues.

You mean, moved to the stash. I'm not sure what the distinction would be here.

Really? You think 8 slots per character is enough? Those eight slots are meant entirely for short-term tactical use, such as potions, scrolls, and additional weaponry. All else goes into the stash. 8 slots is more than enough.

/end of discussion.

Portraits for Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Icewind Dale II are available in my signature.

Your opinion is irrelevant. Pillars of Eternity is, by definition, not a dungeon crawler. There is no discussion to be had on the subject. Claiming that PoE must have combat XP because "it's a dungeon crawler" is an invalid argument. If you have any other arguments as to why PoE should have combat XP, I am happy to hear them.

Whether any of the IE games were dungeon crawlers is completely irrelevant. Pillars of Eternity is not a dungeon crawler. A dungeon crawler is something specific. I have provided you the definition of dungeon crawler. The way you define dungeon crawler simply means everything is a dungeon crawler, making it a useless definition. Neither is Zeits here to answer the question of why combat needs to be rewarded, so his opinion on the matter is completely irrelevant to me.

It is not a dungeon crawler. Sure it is. No. Legend of Grimrock, for instance, is a dungeon crawler. Diablo is a dungeon crawler. Dark Souls is a dungeon crawler. A dungeon crawler requires a linear, or near-linear game progression, through a restricted game space(Often the eponymous dungeon), with a focus on fighting monsters and collecting treasure. In Pillars of Eternity, as in Baldur's Gate, you are free to deviate from the main story and explore areas disconnected from the story line, and can also follow multiple paths towards your objective. You explore a large and open world, and are free to engage in or ignore peripheral content such as optional quests. That is not a dungeon crawler.

It is not a dungeon crawler.

That's just a completely unreasonable argument. Anything will be limited by the definition of this argument, hence it completely negates itself, as no system can be created that isn't limiting by your definition. I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that.

Yes. So stop doing it. I never claimed that you have to explain it. I said that you (or anybody else) can't, because it is a logical impossibility. You made a demand that cannot be fulfilled. It's nice that you would like to fight for in-world reasons. Other people don't. Neither of you is right or wrong. Troll detected.

This is a discussion forum, not a posting-opinions-unchallanged forum. If you need to have a little cry because you're unable to support your opinions, go do that somewhere else.

Substantiate your claim.

I don't have to explain that. I haven't said anything of the kind. Putting someone else's words into my mouth is hardly a convincing argument. I believe that you should fight because it makes sense in the game world. If you're going down to the SW corner of Dyrford Crossing and killing the wolves because you want the XP that's not a game world reason. If you go down and kill them because you'd rather take that route instead of fighting with the beetles to get to the ogre cave, that's a game world reason. If you see a huge dragon and think to yourself "Dragons are known to have vast treasure", that's a game world reason. If you see a huge dragon and think I'll get tons of XP for that, that's not a game world reason. Probably because the discussion has already been had, he's not exactly here to defend himself, and I don't care because RTwP is going to be in the game regardless.

This is just nonsense. How do you get from "no bad builds" to "less variation"? The PoE attribute system as it is designed(Ignoring balancing right now) is meant to add variation by allowing you to create classes that focus on various sub-types. It sounds more like you're trying to squeeze as many clever-sounding words into your comment to distract from the fact that you actually don't have an argument. See this thread. For a choice to matter, something has to be forgone (see: opportunity cost). A character with maximized stats can only perform class functions marginally better than one with minimized attributes. This is what all the fuss over attributes are right now. In many cases, they are distinctions will little difference. This is exacerbated by several attributes having demonstrably poorer values for all classes, and that the usefulness of certain attributes are directly limited by the explicit role intended for certain classes. This sums up to a false choice. It's the illusion of choice. If you been less threatened by vocabulary, you might have gleaned that from my prior comment. That's just a matter of changing a few numbers. This is a beta. During the beta, balancing takes place. The current figures are not release candidate numbers. This is not an argument that substantiates your claim, it is simply evidence that you cannot do basic maths.

Why? Nobody has yet explained why a reward is necessary.

More nonsense detected. Substantiate your claims.

This is just nonsense. How do you get from "no bad builds" to "less variation"? The PoE attribute system as it is designed(Ignoring balancing right now) is meant to add variation by allowing you to create classes that focus on various sub-types. It sounds more like you're trying to squeeze as many clever-sounding words into your comment to distract from the fact that you actually don't have an argument.

Did you try thinking again?

I don't see how that follows, Caerdon. Whether or not something can be min/maxed depends entirely on the utility of the various attribute levels in the game, not the shape of the curve.

Anybody else play through all of Baldur's Gate with Hull's Sword?