Lephys

^ But Gromnir... why would it definitely be known with certainty that animancy tethering the soul to the body leads to monsterdom?

Holy carp... Why are people overcomplicating this so much, then arguing against the over-complication? Want a perfect example of this adaptive scouting system? At some point in the game, some faction or another sends assassins after you. Wouldn't it make PERFECT sense if they actually utilized intelligent thought when they sent assassins, instead of just sending Generic Strike Team Alpha after you? Yes, yes it would. There, now work your way down from that. From "Uh oh, you didn't know this innocent bystander watching you man-handle some bandits in-town was a courier for that same bandit group, so he went and reported on what he saw, and those bandits hire a couple extra mages, since you seem to have some trouble with mages," down to "no one spies on your or changes, because this situation isn't one of those situations." Like Junta said, it's functionally exactly like the reputation system. You don't just secretly save a bunch of baby seals on the beach, and when you go to the next town, everyone reveres you. People just respond accordingly when they do happen to know things. When they know things and when they don't is a completely different design decision that has nothing to do with whether or not they do something with the information they have. Also, the whole "You could just completely do one thing, in case anyone's reporting on you, then, when you reach the group that's been put together specifically with info about your party's combat prowess, do the opposite!" idea is pretttttty silly. I mean, yeah, you could occasionally have the opportunity to trick some dumb bandit into thinking he's gotten the best of you, and gotten all lucky to escape with his life. But, either way you look at it, you're making things really hard on yourself. "My Wizard'll just not use any spells at all, and ONLY use this weapon, with which he's barely trained! 8D! And I'll have my Monk not use any melee combat techniques, AT ALL! And my Priest WON'T HEAL OR SUPPORT ANYONE! No Paladin auras, Fighter... you fight with a piece of rope. All right, guys, let's DO THIS!" Yup... man, you sure pulled one over on that silly game. You'll easily get through combat encounters in the first place by not using any of your party's actual assets, whatsoever.

The official info page is a typo. It's "Moo'n" godlike. It's a bovine deity.

^ Just FWIW, random != dynamic. You can hand-craft dynamic content, instead of just having it pick a bunch of factors out of a hat, and end up with neither static nor random "crap." 8P

I'm not arguing against player customization, in general. I'm simply observing that there's got to be more consideration put into what to make customizable than "would someone possibly maybe want to skip this and/or do this differently?" The difference between you and me is that you expect the book producers to design the book so that those 100 pages are intentionally removable, so that you don't have to tear them out. I have no problem with you tearing them out. If you don't actually like the whole book, then don't read the whole book. IT's not the book's obligation to make sure it's inherently accommodating to your completely random subjective human desires.

It's literally more difficult to close all the distance on an enemy to attack with a melee weapon in a 2-second span than it is to simply stand where you are, 30-50 feet away and fire an arrow or bolt or bullet at that target... within the game mechanics. So, I don't understand what's so simulationy about that. It's just "Hey, the ease of execution of this one option for getting a start-of-battle Sneak Attack is different from the ease of execution of this other option. Maybe there's something else that's different, too, to make the decision less one-sided, and more worth considering." Valorian's mention of ranged weapons being less accurate is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. And now, on that, I'm just not sure how inaccurate firing something at a target that isn't yet reacting to your attack would be. If you're trained with that ranged weapon, that is. I can't remember; mechanically, does the Sneak Attack grant any Accuracy bonus (with any weapon, whether specific ones or not), or does it only grant a damage bonus? Ahh, I just double-checked the update, and it only grants bonus damage. So, *shrug*. I'm not necessarily saying there should be some different modifier that applies via Sneak Attack only to melee weapons. I'm simply wondering if, with all factors in play, there's a significant advantage for actually closing to melee range for a Sneak Attack, instead of just pew-pew-ing from a distance.

I was just following Apple Maps...

Arguing over the number of encounters that would use that sort of dynamic encounter adjustment is a bit moot, since it's such an unknown. Clearly no one was suggesting it be EVERY encounter -- "Wolf Captain! I've come to report on the battle tactics of some humans walking through our forest! I saw them kill a squirrel!" -- and "0.1%" seems to be on the opposite extreme of the spectrum. Anywho, so long as its agreed there would be favorable conditions/factors in some quantity throughout the game to support such a thing, that's all that really matters. And yes, it probably won't get slapped into PoE, but it's enjoyable to imagine and brainstorm about, non?

A) I don't have to, because I'm simply arguing that balance doesn't necessarily = sameness. If I say "I saw a cat yesterday," and you doubt my claim, I'm not going to tell you to show me footage of yesterday, where I was, and show me there was no cat. You're going to tell me to produce some evidence that this cat was really there. Not to mention the fact that "hasn't happened yet" doesn't equal "is obviously impossible," or we'd not have ANY piece of technology we have now. B) It doesn't have to be perfectly implemented to be not-horribly implemented. I don't have to be a renowned surgeon for my dressing of your wound with a torn t-shirt to be blatantly more beneficial than a lack of any wound dressing. What is it with you and binary? I don't recall claiming you did. You did, however, acknowledge the disparity between mages and non-mages in some of the IE games, which you followed up with "big deal." Thus, what you advocate is the idea that the amount of disparity doesn't really matter at all. Which is the opposite of the very idea of balance, which is simply that the amount of disparity matters, not that there isn't any disparity. Ehhh, the problem wasn't me dying. It was my having to exhaust my mana 17 times just to slay like 5 enemies, even with the rest of my party beating on them all. Granted, I was playing on higher difficulty settings, which were PREPOSTEROUS in that game. I could not, for the life of me, beat that stupid first golem boss on Nightmare. I tried changing up my party composition several times, even bringing oodles of potions, etc. Couldn't even get the thing to half health. This was all on console, btw. I realize I should've gotten it on PC, but, alas... I didn't have a good enough PC at the time.

Amen, Gromnir! Yeah, balance isn't about perfection. Or rather, true perfect balance isn't actually what people think it is ("everything's EXACTLY on par with everything else!"). Balance is simply drawing boundaries such that the distance between things doesn't start negatively impacting stuff. It's not about bringing everything to the center. It's just constraining the playing field. You wouldn't want a soccer match with the two goals 5 feet apart, but you also wouldn't want one with one goal on the east coast and one goal on the west coast. You don't want to give people "equal" options (you can either spend this one, quantifiable "class point" on THIS class, to choose it, or you can spend it on this OTHER class), then have one of them be blatantly crappy the whole time. "Oh, you picked the Suckster: You get +1 to everything per level up. Meanwhile, this other class the Awesomenator, gets +7 to everything every level." That would be preposterous. You don't offer ranged weapons as a choice, with an attack speed of 100 seconds, or melee weapons, with an attack time of 1 second. It doesn't even matter if the ranged weapons deal 200 times the damage of the melee weapons. They're no longer feasible to use, thus, that's a moot choice. Same with mage stuff. Yeah, you could say the Mage in the referenced games is "balanced" by the fact that, while he's really powerful at higher levels, he kinda sucks early on. But, where's the interest in that? "Don't worry... we know this isn't fun at all early on, but LATER, we'll make up for it with lots of fun!"? Is making it to higher levels not always a goal in the game? "I actually only want to play half the game, then stop. So, hmmm... maybe I should go with a Fighter?"

Yeah, but there's more to it than that. If the same essence kind of flows through all things, then everything's more connected. Which is exactly why something like Arcane Veil is still connected to the physics of the world, instead of magically circumventing it. Wizards can create that barrier, but enough focused physical force (say that ten times fast, ) can break it. Unlike in other games, in which you have "This is a magic barrier, so it makes me immune to physical force." No, it just protects from it. It's magical in nature, but... so is the force powering pretty much everything else. *shrug*. I'm not saying "Souls!" is like, the easy button that makes everything fine. Just, the fact that "powers" in PoE are all interconnected by the workings of soul matter/essence/energy kind of grounds everything to the same foundation. So you don't have "I come from a race of anthropomorphic planets that uses energy not even found in your dimension!" running around. You don't have that "If you're not a Mage, you can't affect me/this!" factor. Sure, it might still be an advantage, but it's not alien to the workings of another class, mechanically.

I actually agree about DA2. However, you didn't quite answer my question accurately. I asked for an example that demonstrates how balance mandates that. You just pointed out how it's possible to use balance to a horrible degree. I'm still wondering how a lack of preposterous disparity = everything's the same. Either we eat raw meat, or we eat burnt meat, because heat is bad! Why can't we just eat reasonably cooked meat? Dragon Age 2 did a TON of stuff horribly. AND, it really wasn't even that balanced. I played as a Mage, and basically went with the most glass-cannon build I could, and I could hardly kill 3 things in a 3-minute fight, while my NPC Warrior was over there mowing crap down. That's a bit beside the point, though...

Ehhh, I'm not sure on the exact specifics of that, actually. But, I didn't mean to say that all individual abilities are powered by soul-power. And I'm aware that that might've been what my words meant. In which case, my apologies. I'm fairly certain all classes are soul-powered. Meaning, no, every sword-swing isn't necessarily a use of soul "magic," but the Fighter is capable of doing things that go beyond mere physical conditioning and training, as opposed to Fighters in traditional fantasy RPG lore, who are basically just in-really-good-shape, well-trained equipment specialists. Via the souls thing, everyone's got some kind of "magical" aspect to them, even if some rely on it a lot more, and others a lot less.

I don't understand what evidence supports this conclusion. Unless you expect to literally be incapable of completing the game because of one party makeup, versus another, what exactly makes it "the same" any more than any replay is going to be similar to another? I bet you going through the game with 6 Fighters is going to result in startlingly different, ehh, what term to use here... replay footage... than a party of 6 Druids. Just for example. If how you fight the exact same encounter to achieve victory isn't enough difference for you, then I don't understand what needs to be different. That, and I don't see how imbalance brings anything to that same table. Could you provide me of an example of how having decently balanced classes mandates that replays will end up feeling "samey"? I'm honestly asking. From my just-a-single-human imperfect perspective, I'm not seeing any basis for that conclusion.

Last name "Flav"?

^ I'm not sure, but I think different species of shark have varying amounts of teeth. So, maybe that's it? Or it could've just been a purely stylistic/aesthetic choice... the number of teeth in both portraits, that is. OR it could just be that one portrait was done, then the design of the Aumaua was subtly changed, then the second portrait was done (with more/fewer teeth). Let's ask Mr. Owl! Don't bring candy, though... he'll steal it and eat it. >8(

^ PoE makes that a non-issue with all class "powers" stemming from souls. No longer is the Fighter supposed to be mundane, while the magic-user is special. Granted, in various circumstances, you will still have drastically different effects. A Wizard will take out a certain group of enemies quite quickly and easily, in a very "powerful" fashion, while the Fighter would've had difficulty, and vice-versa. But, yeah... in various lores (like D&D), there's very much a reason for the arcane to prevail over the mundane. However, from the nature of game design, it's not very prudent to designate your player options as mundane or spectacular. It's no fun to suck early on AS a mage, just like it's no fun to suck later on because you aren't a mage. This whole "balance" thing is just everyone always overjumping the meaning. "Balanced" does not mean "No difference at all." It just means that, whatever margin of variation you're allowing for revolves around the same base slope. The very nature of a leveling system (and tiered spell/equipment systems and such) is the idea of comparing things to one another. What's the point in having Level 9 spells as opposed to Level 1 spells if you're going to slap Ray of Frost into the Level 9 category and just shrug and say "Yeah, it's unbalanced... who cares?!"? Obviously, the very nature of the label "Level 9" suggests that the goal is for those spells to be, in some way, better/more potent than the previous 8 levels of spells. But then, it's totally fine for a level 10 Wizard to be 17 times more amazing than a Level 11 Fighter. That's just silly. I want to encounter a Level 1 enemy in the world that's the toughest enemy in the universe.

Yeah, I mean... your progression is never going to go backwards. So, technically, the wizard's progression IS parabolic. It just only represents half the parabola. 8P For the record, yes I'm a math nublet. I learned this all just fine a while back, but I haven't used it in quite a while. That's why I didn't realize the above earlier, and supposed that "exponential" would more accurately describe Wizard growth, but then turned around and pointed out that term's inaccuracy.

I believe its use here refers to the notion that, if graphed, the capability-progression of the mage would produce a blatantly curved line instead of a generally sloped straight line. I could be wrong, though. Edit: For what it's worth, I believe the more accurate term for the meaning they're looking for is simply "exponential." Although, I guess if you went with that, then a Level 2 Mage would have to be better than a Level 2 anything else. So, I guess the term's attempting to signify that the mage's progression slowly gains exponentiality? *shrug*

*shrug*. Personally, I'm more inclined to evaluate the design at-hand, than arbitrarily associate negativity with the fact that it's different from a traditional design. "Whoa... we were just dragging sleds through the dirt roads. WHO PUT THESE ROUND ROLLING THINGS ON THE BOTTOM OF MY WAGON?!"

^ No no, it's a house blueprint featuring not one, but FOUR attics.

you really believe that? well, ok. I was talking about animancers. Osvir was talking about animancers granting themselves their own imperfect immortality so as to extend their lives so that they can perfect it before they die. It seems like you read that out-of-context, and thought I just meant "literally any person who was threatened by death would accept undeath." I could be mistaken, though, in which case, I apologize.

Oh yeah, Osvir. Sorry, I was totally agreeing with you. I emphasized my joke too much and I guess it didn't come through that I was in agreement with just "true. BUT..." Sorry about that. Yeah, longer-if-not-eternal life (while still in possession of all your faculties) at the cost of "I've gotta eat some Soylent Green"? I don't think 20-year-old animancers would jump on that. But, anyone who was older, or afflicted with any kind of life-shortening disease would totally jump on that ride.

I don't know how else to put this, Gnostic: You don't read a book, but tear 100 pages out of the middle of it just because you wanted it to be shorter, and still go around telling everyone you love that book. No, you love parts of that book. It's great when a game gives you options for your experience of the game, but it is not obligated to make sure that the actual contents of the game are tailored specifically to you. If you think sneaking is boring, the game already has a way for you to "skip" that. It's called combat. And actually, instead of skipping it, you get to skip the sneaking part without actually skipping content. You can already skip oodles of stuff: Dialogue, sneaking, optional combat, the stronghold management, etc. The game has 0 need to allow you to simply speed up the whole game just to skip things. At best, it's a completely arbitrary middleman. As others already pointed out, if you think it takes too long to run to the edge of the map to use fast traveling (to different map locations), then you shouldn't be advocating a game speed dial. You should be advocating the ability to fast travel from wherever you're standing, instead of having to move to the edge of the map. Faster game speed lets you spend less time running to the edge of the map. A "leave area" option allows you to spend NO time doing so. Boom. I'm not arguing anything is a disadvantage (you might mean something specifically different by your use of that word than I'm thinking, and if so, I apologize). I'm simply pointing out how unnecessary it is. If "this is too slow" or "I don't feel like doing this" is all it takes to warrant a feature like a game speed adjuster, then what wouldn't be warranted? That's what I want to know. According to your line of reasoning, we should have a "no enemies!" toggle, for people who hate enemies. Or maybe a "no story!" option, for people who hate stories. A "text-based" option for people who hate graphics! 8D

^ That said, I wonder if there's any advantage to landing a melee sneak attack instead of a ranged one. I mean, at melee range, on an unsuspecting person, you have a lot more angle/location opportunities for placing the dagger or what-have-you. Not that ranged attacks against someone not defending against them would be piddly, by any means. Just... it's possible that, mechanically, the melee attack would have some advantage. *shrug*