[Update #58: Crafting with Tim Cain!]

@Varana Fixed

 

 

most enchantments are only available on pre-made items, so self-enchanted stuff doesn't challenge or surpass the best found equipment.

 

It's true that there are some cool unique equipment abilities that can't be enchanted onto equipment by the player. In most cases, though, my best gear ended up being stuff I enchanted myself because the universally allowed enchantments are very good and fill up the maximum allowed enchantments neatly, while sometime the unique abilities keep the item from ever being fully enchanted (12/12) and it ends up being less powerful because of that or simply because the un-enchantable ability isn't as good as one of the abilities you can enchant. I did exaggerate though, there are certainly some things that can't be enchanted by the player.

[Update #58: Crafting with Tim Cain!]

I am definitely not a fan of the proposed crafting system, and have been put off by the crafting systems in games such as NWN2 for a few reasons:

 

-Being able, as an adventurer, to craft any possible weapon makes little sense to me.

-Crafting seems to diminish looting and buying when you can make any weapon of any power through the annoyance of collecting every scrap of material you find.

-I have never found this process fun.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed crafting as it was done in the BG games, it was simple and made a lot of sense. Find all the pieces, and have an actual master craftsman put them together for a fee. This maintains the looting and buying systems and gives a greater sense of accomplishment when you are able to get the pieces and craft an epic, unique weapon of some sort.

 

What to spend money on:

-I don't really have anything against consumables, and they're a good money sink that make sense to me

-The availability of unique, epic equipment for sale in stores can be understadably off-putting for some, but there could be ways of buying such items apart from in generic stores: special merchants that you run into while travelling or potentially an NPC that you run into that is impoverished to the point of having to sell off a powerful family heirloom, and you have only the one chance to buy it, retired adventurers that you come across that may be willing to sell some item from their former adventuring days if the right price is offered and the right words said. I don't have a problem with some of these epic and expensive items being in Adventurers' Mart type stores, but there are plenty of ways to put them elsewhere that make sense, give the player the opportunity to spend money, and don't make the player feel as if they can buy every possible piece of equipment in the game from a single merchant.

-BG2 style crafting of unique items which are expensive to create, it makes sense to have to pay a small fortune to have a legendary piece of equipment recreated for you, especially if there are only a handful (or less) of people capable of doing it.

-Potentially some occasional bribery options to make certain jobs go easier; or a monetary gift to impress or bend the will of a faction leader whose coffers are getting light.

 

Just quoting myself to repeat my thoughts, they have not changed.

 

 

So ... what the hell happened here? What is in the game is totally different (for the worse) from what was described in this update.

 

Any chance the original idea to be implemented in future updates? It would be very interesting and would add much value to the game.

 

EDIT: Crafting and enchanting (both of which will be from this point forward collectively referred to as variations of 'craft' - craft, crafting, crafted, craftable, craftastic, etc.) will be discussed in this post.

 

 

Seems like the slippery slope of accessibility and modernization to me:

 

In BG2, you have only unique items craftable by actual blacksmiths after collecting the pieces. From there it seems to go something like this:

 

Let's make a bunch of awesome items craftable.

Let's just make pretty much all items craftable.

Let's just let all players craft basically anything, even items that challenge or surpass the best epic equipment you can find in the game.

 

Okay, but the player still needs to find recipes throughout the world, improve their crafting skill, and can only craft at a forge, so it won't be universally achievable without any effort or anything.

 

You know what, let's just let any player craft anywhere, forget forges, hearths, and labs.

Yeah, let's forget about the crafting skill too.

Why not drop recipes as well, now every player can craft anything anytime!

 

Great, now we have a crafting system which doesn't make much sense, is boring because all associated challenge has been removed, and that also serves to undermine equipment progression and unique magic equipment. If you can't tell, I don't like the crafting system much. The worst part is that these seemingly forced stretch goals that resulted in bland and/or shallow systems are now going to affect the whole franchise, because Obsidian likely believes that rolling back or removing a system such as the stronghold, crafting, etc. would look like admitting failure.

 

I would absolutely love it if, instead of the stronghold we have now, they made PoE2 with the simple class strongholds that were in BG2. They weren't overly complicated and sometimes only had a couple of quests, but they were somewhat reactive in that they were (sort of) unique to your class, and they didn't seem like weird mini-games. I think the crafting system of PoE2 would be better off if it took some notes from BG2 as well, maybe using a BG2-like system, but with more plentiful, actual recipes that you find throughout the world for most stuff and then collecting pieces for the epic loot like in BG2. But I seriously doubt those things will happen.

[So why did you kill everybody at Raedric's Castle?]

I didn't. That place was difficult for my PC to make a decision about. He was clearly nuts and doing serious harm, but his priest made some good points about how he at least wanted the best and how the other guy would likely end up being a lot worse. I killed the undead in the basement, but I ended up leaving Raedric and his peeps alone and killing the other dude. Probably should have just killed them both.

[Prevent Dump Stats]

 

 

 

 

I think dump stats should exist to make character building exciting

 

I don't see what's so exciting about wasting points in dump stats once and then never doing so again once you realize they're dump stats. Dump stats are simply bad design.

 

 

 

Certain character have dump stats. Its normal. Its impossible to have every stat matter for everybody. PoE is a good example why this cant work

 

 

So you actually prefer to have a system like in the IE games where half of the stats essentially don't matter at all? Okay, that's fine (doesn't make any sense to me), but please drop the line about the possibility of making mistakes being exciting because of dump stats hmmm, should I dump WIS, INT, and CHA on my fighter and max the rest or not? Tough choice, really exciting.

 

 

And frankly, it's not any different here.  It's just a different set of stats being dumped.  And a sillier looking set of stats being dumped.

 

At least with the maxed STR, CON, DEX characters, the maxed and dumped stats made some rational sense.  But there are builds in PoE that make no rational sense are are only meta-gaming builds that I find extremely annoying, the prime example being the min STR, max DEFL fighter builds that are designed to completely abuse the game's AI by creating characters who are too weak to even carry the armor they're wearing, let alone the weight of their own bodies.

 

Honestly, I like how the old DnD stats were used better than the way the PoE stats are used.  That said, I think that the PoE stats might have more potential, if they were used in a more rational manner (as least IMO).

 

 

No, not even close. The only arguably meaningless stat in PoE is CON, and it is hugely more meaningful than the worthless dump stats in the IE games.

 

You can't get over your intuitive understanding of might and the fact that you think it should be the same as strength. Whatever, I really don't care that you wish that PoE might was the same as IE Strength, but there is no way the IE games had a better stat system than PoE. Also, does it make sense to you that someone with the charisma, intelligence, and wisdom of a squirrel seems to get by just fine in the world of Baldur's Gate and has no issue being likeable or communicating effectively? The ridiculous dump stats in the IE game made the system make no sense at all, regardless of how attached you are to separating weapon damage from spell damage.

[Prevent Dump Stats]

 

 

I think dump stats should exist to make character building exciting

 

I don't see what's so exciting about wasting points in dump stats once and then never doing so again once you realize they're dump stats. Dump stats are simply bad design.

 

 

 

Certain character have dump stats. Its normal. Its impossible to have every stat matter for everybody. PoE is a good example why this cant work

 

 

So you actually prefer to have a system like in the IE games where half of the stats essentially don't matter at all? Okay, that's fine (doesn't make any sense to me), but please drop the line about the possibility of making mistakes being exciting because of dump stats hmmm, should I dump WIS, INT, and CHA on my fighter and max the rest or not? Tough choice, really exciting.

[Prevent Dump Stats]

I think dump stats should exist to make character building exciting

 

I don't see what's so exciting about wasting points in dump stats once and then never doing so again once you realize they're dump stats. Dump stats are simply bad design.

[Motivation after the Level Cap]

OP, I personally didn't lose any motivation after reaching the level cap, and it didn't cause me to skip any content. My main problem was how trivially easy combat was starting in Act 3 because of it (and in the game in general), but I guess if I had simply done things in a different order that wouldn't have been the case, but then the fun pre - Act 3 challenge wouldn't have been there. I'll definitely be knocking the difficulty up to PoTD for my next playthrough, which will hopefully help out with the challenge aspect.

[Motivation after the Level Cap]

I fail to understand why they would go so far as to control your XP gain so adamantly by removing combat XP only to let you break the system by providing an avenue for limitless XP (bounties). By doing this they literally took the best reason to control XP and threw it out the window. It's like they wrestled the gun out of the hands of the mad man, proclaiming themselves the decision maker, the boss, the controller of balance, only to shoot themselves in the foot the next minute.

 

Maybe you're just fundamentally misunderstanding the reasons for removing combat XP? I don't know why you think the goal was to meticulously control the level progression, which was always going to be impossible in a somewhat open game with lots of side areas. The primary reason for removing combat XP was to keep the "slaughter everything" approach from being the optimal approach, allowing for more roleplaying freedom.

 

 

Preventing premature capping should have been the number one reason for controlling XP gain.

 

Removing combat XP is not equal to "controlling XP gain." You can control XP gain with or without combat XP and with or without quest XP. it should probably also be noted that there is combat XP in the form of the bestiary, which was the concession they made to people who were upset about combat XP removal.

 

 

It should have been a simple system. For example, complete 80 - 100% of the quests in the game (depending on how hardcore they wanted to be, possibly determined by difficulty level) to maximize your level in the game. Bounties, perhaps, might only give XP once that threshold has been met as a means to level up straggling characters you didn't use as much. This would ensure a full, or near full, completion of the game's content before you hit that point where nothing matters. They already took the major step by eliminating combat experience so what the hell happened?

 

My guess would be that what happened is that their QA people completed considerably less content per playthrough than their actual players ended up completing. Also, it couldn't possibly be as simple as bringing the player to max level upon completing some specific percent of the quests in the game, because different quests reward different amounts of XP. That's like saying that the cap will be reached after you kill 80% of the monsters/creatures in the game, which would also be impossible because different creatures tend to give different XP amounts. I don't think that a good system is overly difficult, but it's not quite as simple as your idea there.

[Full Making of Documentary is Now Live!]

Good documentary, definitely worth the wait. I'm glad I was able to be a (very small) part of the process and more just generally glad that this game was made. It can be sort of disheartening spending too much time reading peoples' complaints about the game here, at the Codex, etc., but it's nice to realize how well this game has done. So, congratulations, you guys made a great game that lived up to the promises you made in your pitch. Also, the broader implications of a 2D, party-based, isometric RPG with a focus on story getting such a high level of critical acclaim are exciting as it further validates the importance of the subgenre, and will hopefully inspire other such titles. Looking forward to the expansions and PoE2

[Approximate date for end of overhaul patching]

 

 

I'm still waiting for 1.05 to come out on GOG!

If you haven't checked it out again, the patch is up on GOG now.

 

@ Jojobob, yes I get this feeling with many games. I hate learning the mechanics and creating builds and characters with a certain goal in mind only to have that completely borked due to rebalancing patches. I wish games were released with much more attention to 'balance' in the first place, and patching involved minor tweaks and bug fixes instead. Of course, if wishes were horses...

 

 

Sheesh, must've been minutes ago. I've been watching it like a hawk.

 

 

You probably shouldn't install the patch, Luckmann. They've balanced XP rewards by lowering the ridiculously high bounty rewards, and I know how much you detest balance.

[How much $$$ would you like to see spent on voice acting in the sequel?]

One other thing I didn't like was the bits of profanity in the game. It just seems out of place. This is a fantasy setting not the boys locker room.

 

People use profanity in the real world regularly. They have done so throughout human history. If the way that people talk is going to be rooted in reality (as it is), then your misguided belief that profanity only occurs in "the boys locker room" shouldn't deter them from including profanity in the game. If you really don't realize that most people use profanity regularly, then you are living a very sheltered life. Adventurers typically aren't posh nobles who don't want to get their hands - or mouths - dirty, so profanity makes a lot of sense. If the nobles in Brackenbury refrain from using profanity in public, that would make sense. Sailors, adventurers, and prostitutes forcefully restricted from using the sorts of words they are sure to use all the time? That just makes no sense.

[An old but endless discussion...the Backer Achievement]

I'm a backer and have the achievement, but don't think it should be done this way.

 

Developers should have a golden rule for all achievements being achievable by all players regardless.  No time limit, backer, pre-order, promotion crap involved there at all.  Still have a pet for the backers, and a cloak for the Obsidian Order sure, but if you create an achievement for obtaining all pets or cloaks, don't include the promo pet or cloak in the achievement completion. 

 

As far as I'm concerned the only line that shouldn't be crossed is exclusive anything which provides an in-game advantage of any sort. They crossed this line with Gaun's Pledge as far as I can tell, which does piss me off. Achievements, though? They don't provide an in-game advantage of any sort, they're not even technically in-game at all, so the only justification for not making an achievement exclusive is, again, a clear message to a company (from a loyal customer in this case) to the effect of it's wrong to appreciate loyal customers! I really do not get this. A Steam achievement that I'll never see (I use GOG) obviously doesn't matter much to me and since it's irrelevant I guess you could say that it's not much good for appreciation either. It's still recognition of loyal customers at least, and as long as it doesn't change anything in-game, then it has nothing to do with gaming and everything to do with good business practices.

[If Pillars of Eternity had romances]

I've been a vocal advocate on these boards for less, more realistic and impactful violence in games for years, and yes dating sims are for lonely, insane people.

 

Or maybe I was joking, perish the thought.

 

If you're killing people in the game, then it's still a killing sim, even if the killing is more rare and realistic.

 

If you were actually joking and you don't feel that way at all, and you weren't just saying how you felt in the form of a joke, then my response simply doesn't apply. Feel free to ignore it.

[If Pillars of Eternity had romances]

I'd romance my brains with an arquebus.

 

Well realistically I just wouldn't have backed the game financially as dating sims are not my desire at all, i'm married and sane.

 

Dating sims are for lonely, insane people?

 

and...

 

Murder sims are for romantically fulfilled, sane people like yourself?

 

Okay then. How's that superiority complex working out?

 

I really dislike romance in games btw, but the short-sightedness it takes to accuse others of loneliness and insanity for liking it while patting myself on the back as I kill people in a computer game is beyond me.

[Can't believe I'm saying this, POE combat is better than DAO.]

 

Why you have some sudden need to tell them that that their design decisions are incorrect is beyond me.

 

 

 

This is odd, as I was pointing out why I didn't understand someone else's criticism, not issuing any of my own.

 

I understand your points, and I certainly wouldn't question the need for fine-tuning game design, I guess I wouldn't call many of those things by the word "balance" (although I know that is how many of these design tweaks are defined in patches). 

 

Decided, as always, to turn to google. I think I get now what this word means in a single player context.

 

https://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/level-16-game-balance/

 

 

1. In single-player games, we use “balance” to describe whether the challenge level is appropriate to the audience;
2. In multi-player games where there is asymmetry (that is, where players do not start with exactly equal positions and resources), we use “balance” to describe whether one starting position is easier to win with than another.
3. Within a game, if there are multiple strategies or paths to victory that can be followed within the game, we use “balance” to describe whether following one strategy is better or worse than following another.
4. Within a system that has several similar game objects (such as cards in a trading-card game, weapons in a role-playing game, and so on), we use “balance” to describe the objects themselves, specifically whether different objects have the same cost/benefit ratio.

I can see how 1, 3, and 4 apply to PoE ... so now I concede my position. Honestly, not being a game designer, I really only thought it applied to 2.

 

 

Sorry if I came off a bit hostile, it's just that I've seen this argument that "balance doesn't belong in a single player game" declared so many times now. It was beginning to annoy me, because balance is used to design every single player game ever, and it has nothing to do with MMOs when talking about single player games. Thank you for looking up the definition, which made my point better than I did.

[Can't believe I'm saying this, POE combat is better than DAO.]

I must confess I don't get what "balance" issues are in a Single Player-RPG. An MMO, or MP game, needs balance, so that PvP combat isn't unfair/improperly matched. I understand that. 

 

However, "balance" complaints in a SP-RPG seem to amount to "one class is more powerful than another," which in a SP-RPG where some may lack power, but make it up in support or secondary skills (etc.) .... doesn't seem to really be something that matters. 

 

Pathfinding and AI are legitimate complaints. Some day, somebody will make a game where either enemies or NPCs actually figure out that after 30 seconds of trying to walk through one of their own team, they actually could go a different way. I hope it arrives.

 

But I don't get the balance one. I really don't understand what it means to say a SP-RPG is 'imbalanced'.

 

I must confess that I tire of seeing this proposition that "balance doesn't belong in a single player game." You might as well say that game design doesn't belong in a single player game. Post-release balance patches are just continued design as they see whether things are working as intended or not once the game has been released. Why you have some sudden need to tell them that that their design decisions are incorrect is beyond me.

 

Balance isn't a bad word. Do you think they just rolled some dice to determine racial bonuses, experience progression, or damage dealt by weapons? No, they designed these things, planned them out, and :gasp: balanced classes, items, and everything else against one another to make sure that the game would be fun and consistent. This is true of every single player game, it's not some oddity of PoE and I really am lost as to how people don't understand this.

[Can't believe I'm saying this, POE combat is better than DAO.]

@Hassat Hunter

Not going to try to quote your whole message.  I'll just comment this way. Over the years I've played and still play a good variety of cRPGs. It's my favorite genre besides sports games. DA, ES and NWN have as much if not more depth than any of the IE games or PoE. The stories are just as good. So is the roleplaying. Just because some of those games can also be played on a console doesn't make them any less of an RPG. Some of your comments make it seem as though you're actually trying to justify your purchase of PoE. You don't have to do that. It's not matter of who's right or wrong. It's what's right for you and me. You like PoE and I'm not trying to change your mind.

 

For me I just can't go back to playing a top down, isometric cRPG after playing games that went way past that in what they were able to achieve. You many think some of them look ugly but they look just fine to me.  PoE is what games looked and played like 15 years ago. After 15 years, ES, DA and NWN are what cRPGs look like today. I think today's cRPGs are better than what we had 15 years ago. Time and nostalgia plays a lot of tricks on people. The good old days weren't always so good. The one thing that made the IE games so popular back then was that there wasn't a whole lot of cRPGs to choose from. Before that it was the GoldBox games. BG wasn't that great a game. BG2 was pretty great though. IWD was pretty much just a hack n slash. PT had a good story. Today's cRPGs have all of that and more.

 

I'm trying to get through playing PoE after reinstalling it. So far I made it to Gilded Vale and got to level 3. Took the wizard at the inn and created a couple of NPCs. Now I'm heading into the temple. But it's hard. I'm not intentionally trying to dislike the game. I spent money on it and the Prima guide so I want to get my money's worth out of it. It's just so hard going back to something like this and to me the story is kind of boring so far. Hopefully it picks up. I also don't like is not having any real control over my party in combat without pausing. I think the game needs some type of system where I can give the AI a lisf of tactical commands to follow. Much like DA or even BG. Even the DA:I system would be better than nothing.

 

Your main problem is that you keep implying that isometric or top-down RPGs are inherently worse than first person or third person over-the shoulder stuff. That's like, your opinion, man. And it's not shared by many people that backed this game. Isometric isn't a technology limitation and it has nothing to do with nostalgia, it's just a preference. There were plenty of RPGs and tons of first-person RPGs in the days of BG. Anyway, I can't stand first person or even third person over the shoulder RPGs. It's got nothing to do with nostalgia and it certainly isn't outdated technology. It's okay that you don't like these sorts of games, but implying that isometric perspective is 1) outdated, 2) inherently worse than first person perspective, or 3) only preferred because of nostalgia is simply incorrect. One of the main reasons that people backed this game is because they haven't found a lot of games to enjoy since the IE games. I don't like TES games or DA games or Witcher games (since the Witcher 2 disallowed isometric perspective). I'm really enjoying these Kickstarted isometric RPGs.

 

For those of you who love AAA mainstream games, great, what exactly is the problem? Those games exist and are made all the time. Why are you here trying to convince some devs catering to different preferences than yours that they should change their game to suit the countless 1st person RPGs out there or trying to convince fans of isometric games that their preferences are based on nostalgia or something?

[Sawyer on vacation?]

 

Huh? I'm not sure that you understood what I was getting at. I'm not a power gamer.

 

"Oh I'm definitely a "completionist," whether there's loot or XP to be had or not. I didn't leave a single stone unturned after reaching the cap in PoE, and the lack of additional XP didn't make it more boring for me at all."

 

Sorry, you're a bit above just being a completionist.

 

Oh, okay. But, I think power gamer is someone who squeezes every possible advantage out of the game such as optimized min-maxing, etc. I don't really explore everything so that I can get more powerful (if I did that, then I would have just stopped exploring after hitting the level cap).

 

 

Yeah, I understand the argument, and that it's syntactically consistent. What I'm saying is that a random player will not either play all the additional side-quests, or otherwise no optional side-quests at all. So while your argument is logical as it is presented, the presumption that only completionists will play side-quests is obviously not correct.

 

I know that not only completionists will do side quests. I was talking specifically about people that didn't do them, not saying that nobody did them except for completionists.

 

 

In other words, if you really, really have to rake the entire game for xp, and feel that the game is pointless when you hit the level-cap more than one fight before the last boss - then that's your personal problem.

 

 

I don't really try to rake the game for XP, but rather content. I definitely don't feel the game is pointless after you hit the cap... I just thought I saw a problem with the rate of progression and I wanted to propose a potential solution.

 

 

 Because there's no way to tweak for this without making the payoff too small for players who pick some side-quests once in a while. In addition, you eventually make the side-quests too difficult to complete for people who don't overlevel. And therefore remove the purpose of side-quests in the town-areas: "I'm not entirely comfortable with my questing party or the background lore yet, so I'll look a bit around, and try to figure it out before I travel to the next major quest".

 

Okay, I guess the side quests would be more difficult for people who find the game more challenging, especially if they started rewarding less XP. That's a valid criticism.

 

 

And blowing that part of the game up shouldn't be worth it to placate a specific concern like this. But luckily for you, Obsidian has a great track-record of doing exactly these kinds of tweaks for fans, so you may yet be fortunate - at the cost of everyone else (who paid the bill for the game, and don't scream their heads off about their entitlement on the internet all day like complete fools with too much time on their hands).

 

I don't get this at all. Are you saying that you paid the bill for the game and I did not? Are you saying that I'm screaming my head off about entitlement? Not really sure where you're getting that from.

 

 

I mean, try to imagine how you'd program an algorithm that does what you're asking for here. We're going to put in a scale for xp for side-quests that drops off around... 1/4th of the way? Because then we're going to assume that if you've completed the sidequests up to that point, you're likely going to end up doing everything. So at a specific amount of quests completed, we're flagging "completionist" in the character card, and dropping off the subsequent rewards - in expectation that the "needed" amount of xp for this player to get to max level is lower than for other characters. And so achieving supreme perfection for the level-cap timing towards the end of the game, no matter what else it might affect.

 

And you'd have to do that for no other reason than that these specific players /feel/ that hitting the level cap at a particular point is more significant than actually completing quests, getting the optimal gear, and so on. And you're also going to have to balance for the fact that these "completionists" will only ever have a party made up of the original character party, and will never switch out or make new characters along the way.

 

I don't see what would be so difficult about slowing down XP progression after a certain level or simply toning down the XP rewards in side quests (it seems the former would be less offensive to you). I certainly never wanted to suggest that Obsidian should tailor the game or XP progression to people who do all the content like me. I took the fact that I do more than most into consideration in everything I said.

 

 

Simple! It's done in a real hurry, with magic, and I can't possibly think of any other parts of the game that could do with that attention at all! Off the top of my head, really, couldn't name... 100 other specific examples. Not at all. So I say, screw the game for all other people - random casual players as well as the more experienced and less methodical gamers - than the super-completionists, to placate a very, very insistent claim someone makes on the internet.

 

Because what could possibly go wrong with just "doing what fans want"? Really, you would clearly have to be a genius, or a huge pessimist(!) of some sort to see any problems with implementing this suggestion.

 

That being said, though - I apologize for being so crass. But this kind of thing is what we've been seeing around here for almost a year now. Before Obsidian has someone actually collect this invaluable feedback "from fans", and have someone implement it in the game, believing that it will hardly affect anything at all. So the practical joke at my expense, in several different meanings of the term, is wearing a bit thin.

 

I never said anything about disregarding other peoples' playstyles, and I never suggested that my idea was perfect or that Obsidian would be foolish not to listen to me. I was just trying to suggest a potential solution to a potential problem.

[Sawyer on vacation?]

Inexperienced players rely on overlevelling content to beat it. Removing that option really impacts their game play.

 

Okay, that makes sense. Maybe a compromise is in order then? Maybe doing 3/4 of all optional content will allow you to reach the max level?

 

 

More to the point, the whole experience issue is generic to open world games. If Chapter 2 isn't scaled to character level and runs from 4 to 9 you'll always be able to either get frustrated or to trivialize things.

 

That's not really relevant as I'm speaking in broad strokes. If I had to do everything to hit the cap before Act III, then complaining about hitting the cap before Act III would have been pointless. Like I said, though, I still had over half of the endless paths to do, had at least four bounties left, and had all of Act III ahead when my full party hit the cap. Does this not seem like a bit of an imbalance to you?

[Sawyer on vacation?]

 

 

I still think that the best way to solve the XP issue for everyone is to drastically reduce the XP rewards of optional content only to the point that hitting the level cap requires doing most of the content in the game. 

 

How would that affect a non-completionist, then? Would they pick and choose a side-quest that might come along, that seems connected to the story. And then find that they need to advance the story a bit more to be able to clear the next sidequest? Do you think that's a remote possibility?

 

See, here's the thing in a nutshell: you're suggesting tweaks exclusively from a power-gamer perspective. And whoever keeps implementing these things is making the game unplayable for everyone else.

 

 

Huh? I'm not sure that you understood what I was getting at. I'm not a power gamer.

 

My whole goal was to keep people who do most of the content from hitting the level cap before Act III without affecting the progression for those that don't do side content. There's a clear problem with progression, and not just for completionists, when I hit the level cap with a full party before Act III and before being halfway done with the endless paths... So my suggestions are to fix the overly rapid XP progression gained through side content without impacting those who don't do much side content. If the main path XP rewards remain the same, then for example Prime-Mover wouldn't be any more under-leveled because he's just doing the main quest stuff mostly, while the people who do most of the side stuff won't get shoved up to the level cap so soon.

[An old but endless discussion...the Backer Achievement]

@whoever authored that Steam discussion:

 

1. You have got to be joking. I really can't believe you could be upset about not getting one achievement.

 

2. Entitlement.

 

This whiny, bitchy attitude is what punishes companies for having customer loyalty programs and allows and even encourages them to treat their customers with as little appreciation as possible. Why do the backers get a special achievement? Why do the five-year customers get a discount that I don't get? I'm not supporting your company if you don't take away the things that they have that I don't have!! And there are always more potential customers than current customers, so companies gladly discontinue any such appreciation programs and feel vindicated in doing so because of you ridiculous whiners. Guess what, supporting a company or their project before they've fully proven themselves or continuing to support them throughout the years is deserving of special appreciation. Your whining doesn't entitle you to jack ****.

[Sawyer on vacation?]

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case for many of the IE veterans around (especially BG2). Those games with their high lvl-cap, their epic loot and combat xp has indoctrinated many people to a fairly completionist playstyle. I however never got that urge on my first playthrough of POE though. Perhaps because people in the forums were already vocal with regard to the fact that the game was very magnanimous in terms of dishing xp. But I am proof that sticking mainly to the main quest does not result in an overabundance of xp, and even though I stuck to the main story, I never felt like I went out of my way to acquire avoid getting xp.

 

Oh I'm definitely a "completionist," whether there's loot or XP to be had or not. I didn't leave a single stone unturned after reaching the cap in PoE, and the lack of additional XP didn't make it more boring for me at all. I tend to agree with Luckmann in part that content is meant to be played, so hitting the level cap with so much undone is a but odd and it further trivializes encounter difficulty for the remainder of the game. That being said, I get that some will skip a lot of content. My first reaction is "then they'll be underleveled," but that isn't really helpful.

 

I still think that the best way to solve the XP issue for everyone is to drastically reduce the XP rewards of optional content only to the point that hitting the level cap requires doing most of the content in the game. This doesn't affect people like you at all,  because the XP gains from main story content remains the same. That, or to drastically slow down level progression starting at the level one can reach after completing all main story content only. This would have essentially the same result and still wouldn't affect those who don't do everything, the only real difference being that people could reach whatever level that is (8-9) more quickly than in the former idea.

 

There's some really easy ways to solve it, though, but so far they haven't shown any interest in doing so (much like fixing the Attribute bonuses, which they also know are lopsided).

 

Aren't some XP changes coming in 1.05 to address the issue? Or are they only lowering bounty XP rewards?

[The reason why a lot of va isn't voiced?]

You know, there are only a few things that most of us could agree on as being clear contributors to the regression of the quality of CRPGs, at least for those of us who still do love the IE games and haven't found many games that we love since. One of those things is expanding VA. We know for a fact that doing this is expensive and consistently leads to limiting the written words in the games. To say that I would be disappointed to see Obsidian take this franchise down that road would be a pretty big understatement. Make the world bigger, make the story better, add more and better content and please don't tell me that you're going to actually limit content because you want to add more VA for unknown reasons.

 

Seeing BAdler mention that they hope and plan to expand the VA for the sequel is pretty disheartening. There's no question on this: expanding the VA budget reduces the amount of written words - that's quests, character interactions, etc. You can't add VA money without 1) taking that money from being used somewhere else in the budget, and 2) encouraging an attitude of limiting the amount of writing to accommodate a more fully voiced experience.

[Sawyer on vacation?]

 

"didn't go to the depts of Od Nua because it felt gay,"

 

HOMOPHOBE TRIGGER ALERT! SJWS UNITE!

 

 

\": just went back and checked again. I was at lvl 9, not 8."

 

Admitted liar. Cannot be trusted in any defense of the game now.

 

 

"Lastly, because this just sounds wierd: In what way does the existence of an exemption prove a rule?"

 

You've never heard the expression 'exception that proves the rule'? L0L

Yeah, but it sounds stupid, or more modestly: I can't make sense of it. And even if we accepted that notion, who's to say that you're not the exception here? Who knows whether the average player reaches lvl 12? Clearly I'm proof of concept here, but two people's experiences is hardly enough to establish a pattern. So you now need to actually produce an argument or evidence to support your claim.

 

 

For what it's worth, my whole party hit level 12 before doing any Act III quests (but Act III had started, I loaded the Twin Elms map and then left immediately), before doing level 8 of the endless paths, and with ~4 bounties left to do.

[What's the point of looking into NPC souls?]

Oh, so if you haven't gotten the edition for backers of the game, then those NPC's do not exist or simply cannot be talked to or just carry generic name, like Noble?

 

ARRRR you suggesting that you think you might be playing a version for backers?

 

There is no different version for backers, but those gold-labeled NPCs all have stories written by Obsidian based on ideas submitted by backers. You don't need to talk to any of them if you don't want to, none of them have quests or anything.

 

 

Off-topic, but how do I add money to treasury? I found the Treasury box and it can store items, but I cannot figure out how to put money there!

 

You can't add money to the treasury, it's only a place from which you can get items that you earned through stronghold quests. There's no point in storing items there, your stash can hold infinite items.