Doppelschwert

This a thousand times. I'm just some hours into the game, but oh god is this stupid. I read on the internet that the level cap is 50, so I gave everyone so many skills as to being able to learn them all to max somewhere before the end of the level cap. The result is exactly the described behaviour: save scumming to the extreme as to be able to use the skills at all succesfully, even although I dropped some of the more useless skills from my initial selection already. That the success exp is denied on top of the benefit of the skill if you mess up is encouraging this even more. I've got a character that is just supposed to learn the dialogue skills - the fact that she is several exp behind all of the other characters is just the icing on the cake and very telling ot the overall game design. I'm really glad they separated non-combat and combat skills in PoE.

Hm, I was hoping to get a nice list about the new talents as soon as I get home. Looks like I have to look into the game myself now.

Could anyone be so kind to look up whether there are any new class specific talents? All I could see were some new general defensive talents, but I was only able to look at one class before I had to leave for work.

I meant the the digital version of the retail version, all three version I mentioned and their prices are from GoG, so all digital only.

I'm quite confused now that I redeemed my code. As Darth Trethon already said, you only get the game, not the retail version, but wtf is it about the difference in prices? In the store, we have Wasteland 2 Digital Deluxe for ~55€, the retail version for ~40€ and only the game from the PoE reward for... 15€ ? Mind me, I'm not complaining that my free copy isn't worth more, and I only care about the game anyway, but I'm confused as to which digital goods in the retail version are supposed to be worth 25€.

Thanks.

Made a post on the forums at GoG. http://www.gog.com/forum/wasteland_series/wasteland_2_keys_for_poe_backers

Yeah, that's what I understood. Regardless, you can never know if there is something to discover until you go there, so you basically have an incentive to scout the whole map anyway. And if there are enemies in your way you can't sneak around, then you'll have to dispatch them first.

Yeah, I agree. After all, if you want to make sure to not miss any discovery xp, you have to clear the baddies out of the way anyway.

Not sure if I like Joshs proposal this time. If you wanted to be on the safe side, you'd just kill everything as soon as you encounter it, just as Gifted already said - not particular because of sooner xp, but because you fear on missing out on this enemy type later in the game. On the other hand, if lore is still supposed to govern the speed of filling the bestiary, then lore would actually decrease the amount of enemies you are required to kill to max the bestiary bonus. This way, lore is directly coupled with the amount of fights you have to do for the bestiary, which is probably a bad thing. I feel like it would work if you give an alternative method to filling the bestiary, for example paying someone to fill it out, as gromnir proposed. Then it's basically up to the player how they want their incentive to be setup. If you feel like you're going to fight the baddies anyway, then you can ignore paying the price. If you don't want to bother about clearing the map, you can pay some money to get rid of the incentive to do that.

Yeah, I can feel you both. I wouldn't blame GoG though, as far as my experience goes they always tried to make up for their mistakes as soon as possible. I'd argue it's rather a problem of communication between GoG and inXile, as it was the case when D:OS did not launch properly (although there were also some strange decisions on GoGs part).

Thanks for the information, but I already checked that. As far as I'm concerned, my 'Oddity Collectors Edition' does not include a Wasteland 2 copy. I think it's a bit silly given that I got my Wasteland 2 key from PoE at the same money threshold, and that the digital versions of TToN cost much less and also include a wasteland 2 key. Loremaster costs around 80$ while the Oddity Collectors Edition costs around 135$ without shipping. Loremaster gives you Wasteland2 and beta access while the Oddity Collectors Edition gives you an artbook and the soundtrack and a map, besides being physical. I don't think it would have hurt them to include one wasteland 2 key. Then again, I won't up my pledge for TToN just for Wasteland 2 when I still get a key from PoE.

Yeah, but my point was about actually receiving my key for PoE as soon as it is on GoG. At the beginning of this week, I asked myself if I should start some new game or if I should wait for wasteland 2 on friday. I've chosen wasteland because I was convinced that I'd get my key on friday. It's not the end of the world, obviously, but it would've been nice to know things like that a bit in advance.

I'm confused, which edition are you talking about? You obviously don't have a key from PoE as they are not released yet, so is this some kind of version from the TToN kickstarter? In particular, how much bloody money do you have to throw at Inxile to have access to a wasteland key? Is buying the physical collectors edition not enough? I'm a bit sad that I can't play it this weekend. I've spent quite some money on both PoE and TToN, and I can't access wasteland from both sites. I do hope they'll release PoE on time on GoG, because my physical copy surely won't reach me at the release date.

Someone should write Adam at his Twitter Account or something, that's probably more direct.

I'd like to know that as well. Would be nice to be able to start the game this weekend

Seeing that you are a silver backer, you probably have a beta key. If you don't plan to use it in order to avoid spoilers before release, it would probably appreciated if you'd give it to someone else that lacked the money but wanted to participate. Maybe make a thread or competition out of it. That way everyone benefits.

Sorry to let you down bruce, but the companions of the actual game are not part of the beta, so there is no way to judge this. There are four generic characters in the traditional classes, e.g. fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric but they don't have a personality, and you can hire additional characters at the tavern. So the party interaction in the beta is on the level of IWD. Most characters are probably part of the story / motivated by it, so they are not included as the beta is set up as spoiler free regarding the main narrative.

How would that even work? You make it sound like just a slider, where 1 intelligence gives you the middle point and every two additional points give you the possibility to deviate by one step in each direction? Sounds tedious to control without pausing the game every time. I don't particular like this idea. It's like removing the tactical decisions in positioning - certain spells are balanced around a risk/reward mechanism by placing them on the battlefield, as has already been argued in another thread. Also makes stuff hard to predict in the long run and seems abusable by the AI. Keeping the product of modifiers at 1 while allowing for greater deviance as your abilities grow is nice from a mathematical point of view in that it can balance stuff in terms of damage total somehow, but IMO it should be possible to increase both duration and area. Therefore I still prefer josh suggestion where you can raise both independently by sacrificing other attributes.

I don't know if at will powers are still a thing in PoE. In the level range of the beta, they are not available, but josh announced them some time before the beta in an interview / on the forums, can't remember.

I think that's a bit unfair, because I don't think it's just me in favor of my idea. At the moment it's me arguing about it against two people is all. I know PrimeJunta and IndiraLightFoot and a bunch of other people earlier in the thread also said they didn't like Josh's proposal as much. It's fine and welcomed that you are arguing, as it helps everyone a lot and I also appreciate the work you've put into this paper. Being a bit entitled refered only to the part where you suggest that you think we should vote on this stuff. You're biased with this and I can understand that perfectly well, but I still think it's joshs job to judge this stuff in the end, not ours. Otherwise, by that logic, everyone who puts enough effort into an argument should be given the choice to have his idea voted on, e.g. kill exp and romances and all the other stuff. I just think it's a slippery slope, that's all. Regardless, josh will read your pdf and discuss it internally. Your input will get into the game, so you should feel proud (as you deserve it) and let the devs decide for themselves, at least thats my opinion.

Regarding the DPS loss, that scales with the number of enemies attacking you, so I think that's not true in general. Just to make a point by using hyperbole, if you are attacked by 100 enemies with a small interrupt chance, you're not going to be acting anymore statistically. For the rest, I think that you're getting a bit entitled here. Your suggestions are going to be incorporated one way or another, I don't think there is a need for design by comitee.

These are fair points, although I think barbarians benefit from having a higher concentration, given that they should probably be surrounded by enemies and be hit a lot. Regarding the durations, that's true. I think that'd be better if there were more abilities with durations available to the classes currently lacking them in general, regardless of whether one uses joshs or your system. However, that could be managed with talents. Don't get me wrong, I like your system as well - I just think there is an even split of classes that are better off in your system and in joshs proposal.

You're right, if you want your ultimate buff machine now, you pay for it, but you are free to distribute your stats in a different way. Buffs are huge in the game, so I think your claim is more about your expectation regarding the availability of strong buffing. In the original build, buffs where cheap, now they are not. IMO, it's fine if it costs a lot to buff, so I think the change is a good idea. For example, the priest now has an actual choice if he wants to focus on healing or wants to focus on buffing, which both was a no brainer in the original build. I don't understand where you see choices going away, when in fact you have more choices to make with joshs system.

I agree, ganrich. In particular, I feel like the attributes that josh described can be balanced against each other simply by tuning the numbers. Duration too strong compared to AoE? Tone it down. Every class needs either AoE or Deflection, except maybe ranged rogue, but then you pay for it with decreased ranged accuracy you have to take care off. I think it's fine if the numbers are tweaked enough.