Ninjamestari

That's not what we're expecting, we're expecting the system to make some kind of damn sense and to be a bridge between the game-mechanics and fantasy/reality, instead of this grotesque MMOified mockery of D&D we have now.

So in other words: you don't want to play a game, you want to play make-believe. You can do that if you want, but don't expect others to take your views on character building seriously if that is your aim.

Well, most people are more familiar with the CRPG implementations of D&D, also like MortTheGobbo pointed out, a single player CRPG has no DM. This is why I made the example of how to tweak the sorceror, in PnP every single ability is as important as the dungeon master wants it to be, so while I wouldn't readily call that argument dishonest, it is at the very least misguided. This is why the benefits and roles of each statistic has to be worked into the mechanics of the game. The best way to do this is to first specify the stats that are used, and *then* figure out how they can affect the characters in different ways. Making MIG affect both spell and melee damage was an incredibly lazy decision, to the point that they had to cause the rift between the character traits and the reality from which we derive our understanding of them. This was a huge mistake, and like I said, an extremely lazy decision. Obviously, Might should represent physical strength and muscle mass, this is at the core of the issue. There are tons of ways to make physical strength useful to mages simply by adding additional strength checks into different combat scenarios. Might could also affect the characters ability to wear heavier armor to some degree, and otherwise carry heavier equipment. For example different armor types could have certain Might requirements that you need to meet in order to wear said armor without additional penalties. Right now armor penalties are something like 5% slower recovery time for every 1 DR, but it could be made into let's say 2% per 1 point of DR if you meet the Might requirement of the item, or every point of might beyond 10 could simply reduce the armor penalty by 3 percentage units. I'm not saying this is specifically what should be done, but I'm saying that there are options. Intelligence on the other hand I like to see as the "versatility stat", have intelligence affect the amount of skill points you get and it will be both intuitive and useful for all classes. Again, the point here is that there are a ton of rather simple options that are relatively easy to balance, and each stat should be very distinct in the way it affects the character, instead of how things are now when essentially there's 3 damage stats, 2 resilience stats and 2 utility stats. Accuracy being both damage and utility. This is why the D&D approach is superior, it is a natural approach with intimate ties to reality with truly distinct stats that are unique. In PoE every single stat is encroaching on each other's territory at least a little bit, and they feel like arbitrary game mechanics more than something that represents the kind of character I play.

I don't know, I really liked those Star Forge Robes at the end of the first KotOR, and I don't think that having them earlier would've improved the game any. I think *some* very late game items can be a good thing if done correctly.

You cannot allow mutliple different builds simply through a system, you need to hone the details for that, and the PoE stat system doesn't affect this at all. The problem with D&D stats is not with the stat 'system', it is with the way individual powers and abilities and classes function. For example, a sorceror doesn't need wisdom for anything, hardly any int (unless for some specific reasons) and absolutely no strength at all. Mostly they just need Charisma, Constitution and Dexterity being helpful. What if you made it so that Strength reduces spell-failure from armor, Intelligence increases the number of spells you can learn and gave the sorceror certain spells that are so powerful that you must pass difficult will saves just to cast them? Suddenly all attributes are useful and allow, a wide variety of builds are enabled with natural benefits to certain multiclass combos depending on which abilities you focus on and absolutely no violation of an instinctual understanding of how these character traits work has happened. My point is, trying to solve a complicated problem with a system is trying to take a shortcut where none exist; it will never lead to good results.

Care to elaborate a little? I mean, I haven't even played that far into the game yet and I probably never will, but I'm just curious on what makes the boss battle "now-pointless"? Did something happen to somehow turn it pointless or is there something inherently wrong with the battle itself?

Yeah, there are not many serious fanbois here, I kinda went on a rant there. Sorry about that. Still, many of the 'defendant' arguments revolve around pretending that the current system is something that it is not, min-maxing being a prime example. I can understand and respect the "I personally like this for these reasons" argument, and hell I even can agree with those occasionally, which is scary considering how detrimental the current system is to my personal enjoyment to the game, but these blatantly dishonest claims that the current system isn't just as much a min-max hell as AD&D in the infinity games was don't really deserve a single moment of consideration, nor do they deserve any respect.

Eder: ... Aloth: ... Eder: ... Aloth: ... Dragon: ... FIGHT! Why does that conjure up the melody of the Mortal Kombat theme for me? xD

With their improved pathfinding, I'd think something like this would be quite possible. One thing I'd like to see, is more environmental play in encounters. In fact, that would be at the top of my list for PoE3 improvements. Expand on how the environment plays into combat. You mean like in Original Sin?

If they act like mindless fanbois and think like mindless fanbois, they must be mindless fanbois. They are the bane of every forum and every single game-company. The worst mistakes happen when devs start listening to the echo-chamber of these fanbois, as then they will completely lose sight of reality. Every retarded change in the name of 'balance', every stupid design choice aimed at securing equality of outcome regardless of player choice, every single NPC designed to placate SJWs is the result of a game-developer listening to their fanbois. Take the current predicament of Bioware as an example. Fanbois are a cancer, they are people who aren't genuinely interested in the ideals or products they're 'supporting', fanbois are zealous parasites, trying to attach themselves to what they on some level perceive as a powerful unified group, and any open institution that doesn't recognize them for what they are will suffer because of them. Fanbois are the gaming culture variants of fundamentalists, these are the very same kind of people who poison religious groups, start holy wars and are overall responsible for most of the crap in society.

This issue keeps coming up, and it's always the same **** (whom I shall not name) that aim to shoot it down. While there are those who genuinely like the system among the defenders, the fact is that most people outside regular forum-goers find this current system to be detracting from the game. I hope Obsidian has the wisdom to recognize the situation and fix the stat system, but I don't know how much faith I can have in them since they didn't have the wisdom to recognize how bad of an idea the current system was in the first place. When people seek to re-invent the wheel, they usually end up just making a retarded pseudo-wheel that is inferior to a proper wheel in every way.

I like fishface. They could at least add an NPC that calls Aumaua fishface.

That depends on spell interrupt mechanisms; perhaps concentration checks could also be made to suffer a stacking temporary short term penalty every time a roll is made, so that if you're swarmed you really won't be able to get any spells out. Also, if flanking penalties were cumulative instead of just a boolean switch, swarms of low level monsters could be made into a relevant threat even at higher levels.

Yeah, no one is arguing that Might doesn't work the way it is intended, people are arguing that the intention is wrong in the first place. People don't want a world where physical and mental prowess are bound to the same stat. This has been explained quite a few times already, and it's quite dishonest to keep ignoring it.

You could easily make an argument that with physical fitness comes spiritual balance or some such. A lot of people do in fact. [citation needed] You do realize that this attitude of yours reflects quite badly on these forums, and by extension Obsidian as a company. If you want people to lose hope that their views and preferences will ever be met with anything besides people like you throwing **** into their face, then please continue sabotaging the image of Obsidian.

Heh, fixed it for you. Really mature. Thanks for showing everyone, again, the kind of behavior that can be expected from your side of the argument.

Obviously. I think if it went another way around to what you're suggesting, it might even work. Have might just be regular strength, add wits or willpower or somesuch to represent mental power that increase spell damage, and then have a talent that allows you to "channel your soul's energy into your physical attacks" that would let you use the wits stat instead of might to determine damage rolls, kinda like the feat that allows you to use dexterity instead of strength for melee attack rolls in D&D. You could then have a special "chi strength" - talent available to monks and monk-multiclass options that would allow you to 'channel the energy of your body into your spells'. Those would be acceptable enough to me I think. The real problem I think is with the spellcasters. The fantasy of being a wizard is tightly tied to being a scholar, and there's no being a scholar if you're so stupid you get negative effects from intelligence. This sort of freedom takes away from the game more than it adds. If I'd do the stat-makeover I'd go with something like this: Might: Represents physical strength and muscle mass. Increases the damage for melee weapons and bows (stretching a heavy bow requires quite a bit of strength) Dexterity: Represents speed, agility and coordination. Reduces recovery time. Constitution: Represents health and toughness, Increases hitpoints. Wits: Represents the ability to think on your feet and improvise (or something). Increases the effectiveness of spells and abilities. Intelligence: Represents knowledge the ability to learn, increases skill points (and could unlock certain talents) Resolve: Represents Willpower, increases the pool of resources you can draw upon to perform special abilities (more stuff per-encounter) For certain characters, there could be talents that allow you to use one stat in place of another to preserve that whole 'soul' theme without completely sacrificing the physical identity of the character. EDIT: as for why I'd go with Intelligence increasing skill points, I like the idea of having a stat (namely intelligence) make your character more versatile, as that is the true strength of intelligence in the real life as well. The ability to learn anything quickly leads to incredible versatility when it comes to skills, and an intelligent person can more easily come up with alternating approaches to a given problem than a less intelligent person. I think having it affect durations and AoE is way less interesting. You could instead add a skill that increases your AoE and another to increase Duration.

And to clarify, mana *is* a spellpoint system mechanically. The only difference is that instead of simple abstraction of spellpoints, mana is tied to the fantasy as an universal magical energy.

Because people don't want mental and physical prowess to be tied to the same stat due to the disconnect it causes with reality. I think it has been said in different ways for quite a few times already in this thread alone. Might indeed works as designed, but people don't like the design in the first place so that point is moot.

Depends on how you build around the system. If you limit the amount of extra mana you get from levelups to reasonable levels, you don't need to have different tiers of spells at all. There are other ways to work around that issue as well. Also, the standard rotation is the result of poor spell/encounter design, not the mana system. If the encounters are versatile enough and enemies sufficiently unpredictable and different from eachother, standard rotations simply won't be viable, or at the very least won't be very effective. Also, there's no reason to have mana behave differently with different classes; take D&D wizard vs sorceror for example: a wizard might have limited mana but virtually infinite spell selection, while a sorceror could have a very limited spell selection but naturally recharging mana. Mana system is incredibly versatile and there are no limits to how it can be used. It's simply a matter of tailoring the system to the specific goal you have in mind for your game.

I think in PoE's case it's more about fitting in the context than simply personal preference. The PoE game world aims for the more plausible, gritty and real, which is why the god-like stand out like a sore thumb. In a more fairy-tale world, the god-like could fit in just fine.

One way to balance between armor and deflection would be, as 1varangian pointed out, to introduce a deflection penalty to armor, but in addition rework how deflection as a defense works. Consider that you're being attacked, and need to dodge and parry blows that are made against you. The faster you get attacked, the more difficult it becomes to retain your balance and keep deflecting the blows. This could be simulated with a character getting a stacking deflection penalty every time he or she gets attacked, and have that penalty cleared if he or she gets sufficient breathing room to recover, ie isn't being targeted by attacks for X amount of time (this could be influenced by dexterity). With this sort of system, the heavy armor would be superior against weaker opponents with faster attacks, and multiple opponents obviously, but high deflection and mobility would be superior against single foes wielding a slow big-ass sword. You could then build your defense around being swift and agile or being heavily armored, allowing for both styles to shine while making them distinct enough for the choice to be meaningful. EDIT: another thing this approach achieves would be that when making a character, you wouldn't have to focus on BOTH, which would give you a lot more room in designing your characters, and it would make it easier for every character to have some way of being able to stand their ground, freeing up a lot of room for different party compositions that don't necessarily have to include a highly specialized front-liner.

The vancian spellcasting generates way too many 'duplicate' spells that essentially do the same thing in general. And sorry abut this, I really can't help myself, I just have to point out again how all those problems could be solved instantly with a properly adjusted mana-system. I feel like mana gets a lot of hate just because it became the standard at one point, and people are too worried about being seen as 'unoriginal' instead of simply focusing on function.

Sounds like you're going to make chores great again ^^ Good luck with that, and I'd love to hear what you come up with. Feel free to PM any ideas you might have to me, I'd love to have a discussion regarding the subject. I'm always interested in new ideas.

I hope its both; presets so that people can get quickly into the game without thinking too much about it and then the ability to tweak them for the people who like that sort of thing. I like to play on PotD, so I'll probably end up just disabling party tactics altogether and control all manually, but if they are going to add tactical party scripts, then I see absolutely no reason for them to *not* add the ability to customize them.