Kiel29

I think one way to create the sticky-ness and lack of kiting that Josh wants without making it completely broken might be to eliminate damage entirely from disengagement and have it ONLY interrupt. Make it a essentially stun-lock feature to by used by you and against you. It would still be abusable, but it wouldn't be so broken in player favor. I am not nearly methodical enough to test this though, so maybe I'm talking out my ass. Edit: Elaborating. This setup would enable tactical positioning that battles would need with the entrenchment that the dev team was looking for. Think of it as tripping the enemy, instead of getting a full invisible swing of a giant axe for free. If it is interrupt only, those videos sensuki posted play out how they would in a real scenario: as long as the wimpy shooter guy doesn't get caught by the melee, the fighter brutes can crowd their path and control the field like they have been so often described during development. Also, even with the only interrupt system, a limit should be in place to avoid abuse tactics.

I do really like the idea this seems to present: A mix between the old system and this new one. Distribute fewer skill points, but points I get to allocate, then flesh it out with talents that also add some points where appropriate. It really follows the idea of this new system with the freedom wanted by everyone. I do admit though it would be a much less transparent system, and maybe too obtuse.

This is an interesting system, but looking at the skill bonuses, it is too limited. A large majority add to athletics, but out of that whole list, a scant few add to stealth or mechanics. The mechanics especially, there is only 4 talents that add to it: gunner, two trap-related, and the +4. I hate saying there should be more variety, because holy hell is that list already daunting to scroll through each time, but it doesn't effect enough of the skills in a strong enough way.

After summoning skeletons with a chanter, when skeletons pick up items, the items disappear. If a skeleton is the closest character, it will assign it to pick up items. If selecting take all the skeleton takes it presumably into its own hidden inventory. If the item is selected and dragged to a regular NCP, the item properly appears in their inventory. Expected: The item doesn't disappear. Maybe into the chanter's inventory?

The main theme sounds very Rohan-esque from Lord of the Rings, which I really enjoy. Which is funny, because going back in recent years playing BG, the two themes especially BG1 sounded very much like the Battle of Helm's Deep music(despite LotR being later)

Although I do agree with all of the suggestions(turning them off, walking, individual suggestions) I'm hesitant to say the artwork itself should change much. Even following the updates and the forums, I had problems understanding exactly how stealth would work. Once I saw the circles in-game however, especially around the enemies, it was obvious and intuitive. If the art does change, don't deviate too much, you've got a great system now. An extra suggestion I'll throw out is to not show the perception circles on non hostile characters. This image just looks ridiculous just walking around in the inn

If you right click on the wizards spellbook in his inventory, it allows you to choose which spell for each level you would like. Hopefully for it will be explained for people in-game somewhere, I only knew this from obsessively reading every update along the way.

Diablo 3 also understood that if only one stat matters to a class, the game should just automate the stat placement for you because there isn't any point in allocating them differently.

On the topic of firearms, I'm conflicted. They are massively powerful, downing things super quick. But then given the lore, why shouldn't they be? The time frame is such that guns really were gonna just blow people away. I think a good balance might to be to make the reload time for guns take a little longer? Even just slowing down the animation they already have would be fine.

I think in some cases it was warranted, like Minsc having beserker abilities abilities despite being a ranger. It made sense given his lore. Other times, it seems like they were just handing out the weirdness. Interestingly, if you are counting how the devs set up characters as favoritism, then they hated Anomen too, he had fewer pips in weapons than he should have if he was built intelligently.

Sorry if this has been answered but I couldn't find it anywhere: Are we going to be able to export and import characters like we could in the old IE games?

This sounds bad. A guy that introduced perma death in PoE that has no way to raise the dead but load game complains about save or die spells in a game with save/load?! Really?! BTW, this forum code/UI is terrible. I cannot remove the upper empty quote without removing other stuff. The save/reload things are more insta-kill effects. A spell that could take someone from full health right to death-not because of overwhelming damage, just because- is cheap. Dying in PoE will hopefully take the other person just being better than you, not luckier on one single dice roll.

I feel like have not even scripts, but just the basic 'attack stuff you see' AI is going to make a huge difference. Once that is in, and people are used to the system, the combat will feel much less difficult. I'm worried that people saw Adam get wiped twice in the demos and got tainted from that. That was the first that most of us saw of the really gritty details of the combat, and because he wasn't careful, made even the trash mobs looks overwhelming. Getting used to the system and the auto-attack are huge.

Without any xp for exploration as the system is now it is not even like BG. I explored a lot in BG in order level up specifically; because I didn't find most of the quests interesting. A big part of the feel of exploring in BG is the sense progress you make while exploring. Now exploring isn't all that exciting knowing I get any xp for it; not to mention the now enhanced trash mobs will make it much deadlier. By adding objective xp they could fix this "if I'm not on a quest I make no progress while exploring" issue, but if they don't; poe is going to be a major disappointment. Coming from that perspective, that makes sense then. I always explored for its own sake, I like just finding whatever stuff was just out there. An argument could be made for finding loot and being more powerful, even just in the limited scope of the beta, but if XP is what you are looking for, I can see how you would be disappointed. I guess this whole argument comes down to what parts of the old games you felt were most intrinsic.

BG share the same combat of IWD so if he despise (and he plainly admit it that he would save basicaly nothing from BG2) he despise both BG and IWD. And for being completly honest at the moment i do not give a flaming **** about what Sawyer prefer. They had my money because they put baldur's gate,icewind dale and torment in their objective as goal to reach. And what i discover? that the guy who created the game dosen't give a **** about two of the said title. OH ****ING JOY But they didn't quote the games as their goal. They wanted the feel of them, in a modern age. And those are very different. If they wanted to make those games, they could have been the ones that made the Enhanced Editions, but they weren't. They made a Kickstarter for a new game, that is LIKE those old games, specifically in the ways mentioned. Playing hours and hours in the beta, the new sense of exploration is like BG, it is not the same. But it feels like it, and looking around in nooks and crannies, wondering what is over here, over there, is fun(subjectively). Sometimes you get stuff, sometimes you don't. That is what the exploration felt like(to me).

I do think there needs to be some evolution in the system, and that seems to be(?) what is grating against some of the people in this discussion. The proponents for the PoE combat are a little too harsh on the IE system, but it is an old system. To compare, Diablo 1 and D3 play very very differently, and about the same amount of time has passed(1996-2012, 1998-2014). The problem is that the genre of isometric party-based cRPG has not seen any gradual change. It has seen almost no games in the intervening years, where Diablo had a slower change. This sudden change, an all-in-one update to the IE style gameplay is rough, but the other option is playing on a system that feels like it is 20 years old. The IE games, their mechanics specifically, are still good, for all their, uh, quirks. But to propose a game that still plays the same way and is in no way trying to be something not the Forgotten Realms is just stale, to a lot of people. Edit: as for the developer hating the games, I think that is a bit too harsh. Having watched all Sawyer's videos and blogs on the topic, it is more accurate to say he feels closer to what I said in this post: They're nice, but it is time to update the genre.

I think here is our fundamental disagreement: it feels like an IE game to me, where it doesn't to you. The combat mechanics are more involved-which some people like and others don't, but the party set-up in general, the dialogue, the environments; these latter all feel incredible and just like IE.

The culture coming after the attributes is a bother, but the aesthetic of attributes in the middle I like. I've just gotten used to selecting what culture I want, then clicking back and doing the attributes.

You call them crazy fun mage battles, I call them colorful, but broken messes. It took the overpowered HLAs took make fighters interesting even a little bit. The balance I'm looking for in PoE that BG didn't have is that if I don't want to take a mage, I don't have to. In BG series, high level magic could do a fighter's job better than a fighter.

This right here I think is gonna be what people are worried about. BG2 gave awesome gear for warriors, some overpowered even*cough*carsomyr*cough* What PoE looks like it is trying to do is keep the scaling the same, but make fighters' abilities what strengthen them, and not the loots

Well, if it is the same description, how do you justify a highly charismatic but weak willed character in RP terms for D&D. I say RP terms, as opposed to mechanics, so will, not will saves- as affected by wisdom.

Resolve has part of charisma description. Something about influencing people. Yeah and you go way to far in protecting obvious RP flaws of this new system. "Resolve reflects a character's internal drive, determination, and the emotional intensity they can project to others. It can be useful in for mental intimidation, leadership, and convincing performances. In combat..." This is what it says on character creation. It doesn't evoke charisma to me, that strikes more as a combination of strength of will, and acting ability. Someone lazy and/or bad at deception and keeping a straight face, but is incredibly likable and friendly and nice fits that. Highly magnetic personality, but ultimately transient and unfocused. ::Edit to add quotes, jeez this thread moves::

I can understand the stretching it takes for the wizard, and I know in this conversation I am the weird one for, back in the day, always stretching the limits of mental RPing in CRPGs. Might will also make your character, mechanically, stronger at hitting a sword, but if I am picturing a feeble old spellcaster in my head, I'm just not going to give him a sword. So high Might(strength of spells), Intelligence(very learned), and Resolve(lots of gumption), and low Dex(arthritis), Per(glaucoma), and Con(old and feeble) is how I would stat an old, but powerful wizard. The bard would be easy, because charisma is explicitly not part of the stats, but the dialogue in this game is extensive and incredible. Dialogue as charismatically as you want, and stat super low Resolve.

You are talking about meta-gaming, but whole idea of Might stat for example is meta-game-based. Cause again, I can ingame descripe physically weak but powerfull wizard in old classic RPG system, but can't in this new one. Taking meta out of the equation and just looking at the RPing side then, sure you can. Explicitly because Might does not use the word strength, Might can mean what you want. The might of his soul can translate into several things. Spellpower might, because his soul is 'mightier' than others. He can physically(soul-ly?) do more because of that. It isn't the same, but it isn't worse for RP.

The starter promise was to make a game that feels like playing the old games. The system is different, but sitting down it feels like years ago, playing those games, through for the first, second, or third time. What it doesn't feel like is playing BG2 last year, two character run, one of which being a purposely gimped bard. And I hope it never does feel that way. The changes to the attributes aren't inherently necessary to bring IE games to the modern age, but they, at least for now, get rid of all the cheese and meta-gaming that-for good and for bad- currently comes with playing those games. A few attribute tweaks may be in order(the biggest-PER and RES were acknowledged before the beta even came out), but the system they have now succeeds in the goal of the style of those games, while coming up with a new mechanic.