Ninjamestari

That's just bad quest/world/game design, you don't need to have scaling for this. The point is to not have too much optional XP available; if your character can only be +/- 1 the appropriate level for each important encounter, you'll only have a slightly easier or slightly harder time with it, and there really is no problem, and if there is, then the problem is too steep of a power curve per level. A +1 level should optimally be only a slight increase in the characters overall power, significant enough to notice, but it shouldn't turn a difficult fight into an easy one, that is too much. If you want an example of how NOT to do this, I recommend taking a look at the games of the Divinity series, where a single level can turn a fight from incredibly challenging to a simple cakewalk, which plays bonkers for the whole game experience difficulty-wise, and depending on how many side-quests you do those games can be either frustratingly difficult or ridiculously easy, and never really on the sweet spot. The key to a controlled difficulty curve in an RPG is not scaling, it's encounter design coupled with a slow power curve.

This encapsulates my thoughts on the matter rather nicely. I don't like the world arbitrarily changing because of how strong my character is just to accommodate my level. It doesn't really make sense and just knowing that level scaling is in there eats away at my immersion significantly. I like games that stay the same regardless of what the player does, if that leads to a few less challenging encounters then so be it. This whole goal of homogenous difficulty makes the game sound more like a brainless consumer-product than a piece of art. I want to play a piece of handcrafted art, not a calculated homogenous product for brainless consumption. I want to experience the different paths and paces depending on the mood I'm in while playing, I want to experience the extremely challenging fight that tells me "come back later when you're stronger" by butchering my party in seconds. If anyone has played the first two Gothic games, you'll know the type of game world design I like. One of the things is also that I like my character's power measure to be concrete, not just some vague abstract number that in the end doesn't mean anything because the world scales to your level. Mathematically speaking, a scaling world makes zero sense, doesn't fix any actual problems and instead introduces several new ones. Level scaling environments and monsters are one of the worst ideas to ever be introduced into cRPGs, and I've hated the concept from the moment I first heard of it.

Πες τα άνθρωπέ μου! This. Next level roleplay potency is about to be lost I disagree with this emphatically! Too much freedom is detrimental to the fantasy, AND the game. Absolute freedom also means an absolute lack of personality and individuality. For any identity, knowing what something is not is even more important than knowing what that something actually is. The distinction between the classes in PoE1 is incredibly weak due to this, they don't really feel that different; in other words, the classes of PoE lack personality precisely because they lack limitations. More choice and more freedom is not always a good thing, in fact, after a certain point it becomes a decidedly bad thing. You need limitations to give a form to things, and I'm extremely happy that the silliness of the steroid-wizard is going to be a thing of the past. The steroid wizard really wasn't "next level roleplay", instead, it was degeneration of roleplay.

Oh it's much simpler than that, I just want a mana bar ^^ EDIT: I do want it for a Cipher though, like I said, I like the Cipher fantasy.

I think in case of wizards it should be relatively easy to add in a couple of spells that summon very powerful temporary weaponry and/or defensive spells that utilize constitution. When it comes to magic users, there really aren't any limits to what can be achieved with spells. I still don't think that "all stats should be viable for all classes" should be a goal in an on itself; it's not a bad outcome if it comes naturally from the spells and abilities that fit the classes, but if not, one shouldn't start forcing down new abilities just to make stat x a viable build focus for a class y. What I'm saying is that in order to preserve the feeling of the fantasy, one needs to always begin the design process through a fantasy concept rather than a game-play concept, and once you've got the fantasy concept down and you're satisfied with it, you'll begin to figure out how to make the game mechanically represent it. All in all, i find that in the end, the integrity of the class fantasy is a lot more important than trying to achieve some arbitrarily defined vision of balance/equality. Also, bear in mind that restrictions do not always remove from the experience, they in fact can be a great source of identity for a class (Just like in D&D), which is something that I felt was really lacking in PoE1. When you create an identity for a class or a character, what they *cannot* do is just as important as what they *can* do. Just like any mythical creatures. Take Vampires for example; being unable to withstand exposure to sunlight is an integral part of the whole concept, and it adds a ton to the whole mythos. Similarily the mages inability to cast in armor in D&D is a significant identifying restriction, which makes any exceptions to the rule (Bards, Warlocks, Still Spell) equally significant if you build your character concept around that. The point is, there's no flavor to the strength based wizard if it's just another build, but if it's something unconventional that usually doesn't work, it suddenly becomes significant and special in a way. Overcoming limitations is much more satisfying than there being no limitations in the first place.

There's a big difference in what sort of talent is in existence and what sort of talent is available to a company. You're right however, and I hope that people will come up with more efficient ways of finding talented voice actors and thus hopefully not only bring the expenses of VO down significantly, but also provide opportunities for talented people who might otherwise never get to utilize their gifts.

I think the whole "all builds are valid" mentality sounds more like small children playing make-believe with an overzealous nanny than adults playing a game with rules. I see no problem in the D&D approach what-so-ever; a fighter who is too weak to lift a sword is just as useless as a mage who is too stupid to cast a spell. There's no real benefits to the 'all builds are valid' goal, because the only way to achieve that goal is to make stats effectively meaningless, which in turn will completely butcher any fun one might have in figuring out how to get the most out of a character. The "all builds are valid" is equally retarded to the "only one build is valid", because ultimately the two are the same. "All builds are valid" actually means that "all builds are the same". A game shouldn't try to protect the player from making bad decisions, because when a game does that, the player is no longer playing the game, but the game is playing the player.

So, Durance? Oh yeah, man I love that guy. He's easily the most interesting party-NPC in PoE 1 :D

I agree with bonarbill here. You can't determine balance by watching arbitrary stuff like the number of exclusive abilities and such, you have to be able to observe the class in the complete metagame and the truly important part is whether or not the class will offer something unique that other classes do not. I like the idea that fighters don't really have anything special abut them, but that they learn a lot of fighting maneuvers and as such are extremely versatile in combat situations. I think giving the basic fighter some unique magical "soul"- ability kinda ruins the fantasy for me, the fantasy of a strong and disciplined person carrying on against all sorts of weird magics and otherworldly powers through sheer combat prowess with the "try casting spells with a sword in your throat" mentality.

Hey, stop trying to make my idea more interesting! I wanted it simple :D EDIT: what I mean is that not having a soul whip and as such a lessened ability to gain focus would be a drawback enough. That being said, I like the Cipher that uses HP idea, you could also give that cipher some sort of vampiric abilities to compensate for the health loss. Another thing that could make it work would be to keep the health cost steep, but have the spells increase in power. Oh, and 'another' way to do it would be to have both a Focus cost AND a HP cost in trade of just tremendously increased power. The point would be that every time you use an ability, it will cost you big time, but it will also be damn powerful. Balancing it might become a nightmare though.

I think it would be refreshing to see an NPC that, if you ask him enough questions, would just tell the Player party to go **** themselves

I have to disagree with you there. I find that passive numerical bonuses often add more to the flavor of characters than special activated abilities. Like CHA saves for Paladins in D&D for example, it's an innate difference rather than just a trick you've learned.

I like passive regeneration. Every single other class kit has some sort of "interesting" resource mechanism, but me, I like my mechanics simple. "Interesting" mechanics tend to be needlessly complicated and restricting without adding any real depth, while the simple eloquent solution is often the one that allows actually interesting decision making. Games these days try way too hard to be "interesting", and usually end up being the exact opposite. Deep and interesting is the result of simple, yet versatile mechanisms, not complicated. Just like complicated legislative systems break easily and serve more as a barrier to entry than anything else, and like overly complicated code usually generates an application that doesn't really work properly.

That's how the conduit would be different, obviously. Although that concept you bring forth is interesting and I'd definitely like to see a Cipher spell/ability that could be used to gain some emergency power; say an ability that allows you to drain your own soul in an emergency situation that drains HP instead of Focus, or simply provides Focus at the cost of HP.

I really like the Cipher fantasy and the flavor of the class, but I never really liked the soul-whip as a mechanic. What I'd like to see is a Cipher subclass that doesn't have soulwhip at all, but instead starts combat with full focus and slowly regenerates it over time passively by turning their own soul into a sort of conduit for power instead of relying on drawing power from the souls of others. This would, if nothing else, solve the problem of multiclassing a Cipher with a spellcaster that doesn't really do any physical attacks due to constantly casting spells.

I don't really like the removal of general talents, I think they ought to be in, but I also think that Class talents should use a completely separate pool of points to draw from, so that let's say a class would gain a general talent every even level and a class talent every odd level or so. The talents already existed separately, the only thing that would be needed was to divide them into their own proper pools. That being said, all the other changes I've heard of recently are pure love for me, so I don't really mind this one minor setback.

I think the mistake here overall is trying to make the stat-system act the same for every single class. In D&D certain classes gain special benefits from certain stats, and it adds a ton of flavor and personality to each class. Thus what i'd suggest is that while strength should still determine the power of physical attacks, magical attacks would depend on the class/power source. Wizards could employ Intelligence, Paladins and Priests could use Resolve while a Cipher could use Perception. (Wizards effectively need to figure out more powerful structuring for their spells, Paladins and Priests rely on the strength of their convictions while Ciphers have a direct contact to the 'soul-energies' and thus benefit more from noticing the slight variations in the structure of the enemy soul in order to determine where to apply the 'pressure') Over all, I think the process of making the stats of an RPG should be first to determine the different attributes of the inhabitants of the world, and only after that begin to figure out how they might affect the game mechanically. The game mechanics are supposed to represent the 'reality' of the fantasy setting, not the other way around, and it seems like this whole Soul business kinda began with the idea of making universally homogenous stats and the rationalizations of how this worked from the fantasy side came only as an afterthought.

I agree that the partially voiced dialogue feels inconvenient for the player, BUT I still would rather have the current state of affairs than either no voice-over at all or simply less dialogue due to the expenses of voice acting. Even if only a part of the dialogue is voiced, it still gives that character a lot more personality, being able to hear the voice helps a ton in imagining a proper voice in the parts of dialogue that are not voiced, and gives a ton of extra flavor to all kinds of jokes that require you to know *how* the character says what he says. It brings an extra layer of depth, and I'd argue that the inconvenience is minor at worst, a small price to pay for what I consider to be a rather sizable benefit.

Finally. That and the AD&D style multiclassing that was announced recently are the two things I had hoped for most when it comes to this game. If they indeed stick to this change, I'll be a happy panda.

Whether or not you find the current system likable or acceptable is a subjective thing. The fact that a significant portion of the player-base finds the current system to be detracting is not, and the argument I make is that if a system X is acceptable to group A but not to group B, while a system Y is acceptable to both groups, then system Y is the superior choice. Also, I agree that a major overhaul isn't necessary, as the problem mostly boils down to the way Might works; people want their physical and mental strength to be separate, and that is the main issue most people have with the system. Other lesser issues arise, such as perception being a bit too important for everyone due to it governing accuracy and the stats being a bit MMOy are another issue, but both issues are fixable with minor tweaking. The discussion could even evolve to brainstorming about alternatives, which could be very interesting *and* useful for obsidian, if the topic didn't get attacked by hysterical fans who are threatened by the idea. There are people who want to have an honest discussion about this subject and so far an opportunity to do so has been denied, which is part of the reason this subject keeps coming up all the time. EDIT: just to clarify, what I think needs an overhaul is not the math of the stat-system, but the specifics of what they represent and such. Also, they're reworking the way classes work rather completely, with them getting rid of vancian casting and all, so redesigning the attribute-system wouldn't really add that much extra work. I'd wager in fact that they're already planning to change some details about the stat system.

Hah, someone should edit a wizard hat and a grimoire hanging from a chain for that guy.

I'm sure that the people at Obsidian are professional enough to focus on the arguments and not the tone. I don't see how people not taking me seriously is a bad thing in any way, then they can more easily either focus on what I say and should that inspire creative thought they can then contribute, and if not, they can ignore me and not derail the conversation. I trust in my words to justify themselves, and thus have no interest in trying to establish any sort of authority or personal credibility. The last thing I want is a bunch of mindless sycophants praising every word I say, those kind of people make me sick.

That's basically it. Glad we cleared that up. Now was there something you'd like to say regarding this discussion about the attribute system you so rudely interrupted or are we done? Fair enough. But you need to take into account that I didn't start half of these conversations. There are plenty of people who dislike the attribute system, but they've had to face with the same disingenuous arguments and other bull**** I've had to endure when speaking up, and thus many of them have been effectively bullied into silence or completely out of these forums. I'm completely serious when I say that these forums are a kind of an echo chamber when fans congregate to agree with eachother; this happens with gaming forums quite often so this isn't so surprising, but the kind of attitude some people here have towards differing viewpoints is downright disgusting. With lesser games I don't even bother to look at the forums, let alone create an account and post on them, for this very reason. And to emphasize again where I come from: I'm interested in ideas that could improve the game, that's why I naturally focus on the flaws. Sitting in a circle repeating a mantra of how good the game is isn't useful to anyone, not to us as players and not to Obsidian as the developer.

I never claimed that you said anything to me. I just don't like your tone. You didn't contribute to the discussion either. But at least you tried. So you just decided that now is a good time to act like an ****. That's rich.

And this is really funny, coming from you.