Lephys

That's an excellent point, but slightly skewed, since strength and skill are not mutually exclusive. In other words, that's great when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson tries to go up against a 120lb master swordsman, but what happens when a really strong swordsman goes up against a much-weaker swordsman? That's why strength has its own role in the system, and skill has its own role. No one's arguing that strength should take skill's job. ... Yeah, "all the time" that he isn't dead. "How he'll do" with the claymore wasn't meant to literally be "how will he handle a claymore?", but, how will he fare, wading into a battle like that, all things considered. That was his whole point I was countering: that your 1-million-Might Wizard isn't strong because he won't last long in melee combat with just really high Might.

The resting in IE games could've been handled better, but it wasn't intended for you to rest every single time you cast one spell (the design just failed to support this intention as well as it could have). I understand not liking to play magical people with such resource management going on, but that doesn't mean games built around that shouldn't exist, or should somehow allow you to completely circumvent the limitation.

Well, or you can have the same stats, but with differing secondary effects for each class. There are games that have done that. I realize it's more complex, but, still. I don't know if having actual different stats for each class is the way to go, since you start running into "why doesn't Class B have any measurable Strength or Dexterity?" etc. The type of stats we're dealing with in PoE are meant to measure the basic properties of your character. Then, the rest of the system's purpose is to decide how you use those properties. Oh, you're Dexterous? What do you do more dexterously? Oh, you fling spells more dexterously? Oh, you stab people in the lung while they don't yet see you, more dexterously? Etc. Strength doesn't grant a Wizard skill with conventional weapons. Nor does something like soul-power grant a Fighter magical spells and knowledge. It's the class system and ability design that does that. Which makes all these fallacial mutual-exclusions we see just plain silly. If you look at D&D stats, then at PoE stats, there are plenty of examples of how the rest of the game mechanics made stats dump stats, etc. In D&D, you didn't have any spell accuracy. So, the only reason to take Dex was if you wanted to use one of the 2 and 1/2 weapons a Wizard could actually use from a range, a bit better, OR to increase your AC so you wouldn't get hit (essentially, in PoE terms, it would've boosted your Deflection). That's it. Unless you were going to wade into battle, it didn't do much for you. Not only that, but you couldn't NOT-pump Intelligence, or you'd suffer later on (and early one, in terms of bonus spells) as a Wizard. PoE lets Dex actually be more useful to Wizards, in concept (faster action speed). And when it affected Accuracy, it affected spell accuracy, as well. So, boom. Are you a Fighter, or a Wizard? Doesn't matter. Accuracy is equally valuable. Doesn't mean you HAVE to pump it with either of those. Just means you can get equal use out of it, should you choose it. You can make a more accurate Fighter, or a less accurate Fighter. You can make a more Accurate Wizard, or a less Accurate Wizard. Annnnnywho... classes need to be more versatile, is the main thing. Just because your class design doesn't let Class X take advantage of stat A, that's not necessarily the stat's fault. If you can't find any way to allow that stat to be valuable to that class, then you should probably re-think your stat system. Here's another idea/example: Endurance. I realize that in PoE, this term is used to describe temporary Health, but in many other games, it's a stat. If there was an Endurance stat, it could affect abilities per-rest/encounter. So, you could have a Wizard who was really, really strong, and had high Endurance, so he could toss 10 Firebolts per rest instead of 3 or 4, but he wouldn't have high... Resolve, let's say (the most intuitive PoE stat for magical/soul power), so his spells would be weaker. He'd still be a Wizard, though. He'd just prefer to fight more on the frontlines while casting, instead of hanging back. OR, you could have a Wizard with lower Endurance, but really high Resolve. He'd have fewer spell castings per rest/encounter, but they'd be among the most powerful instances of those spells. It's not a perfect example, just an off-the-top-of-my-head one. But, a Fighter with high Endurance could get more Knockdowns/Shield Bashes/Leaps, etc. Whatever abilities you want a Fighter to have. To do that, he's got to give something up. You couldn't max out Endurance, Strength, and Constitution. Etc. That's basically how you should build a stat system, though. Take each stat you want, and try to justify both a high value and a low value with a build from each class. Again, a lot of it depends on the rigidity of your class system. If Rogues, for example, are purely designed to DPS the crap out of everything, then they're always going to need accuracy and damage, etc., and aren't going to get much use out of anything else.

Plus it deals raw damage, does it not? Also, not to be a stickler, but to stave off confusion, is it not called "Arcane Assault"? Blast is the AoE effect from Implements (if you take the Wizard Talent).

Not if you're a Priest! 6_u

But he IS physically strong! Make a D&D Fighter with 18 Strength and 1 Constitution, and see how well he does with a Claymore on the frontline. Does that mean D&D Strength doesn't actually mean strength?! You can't keep using a double-standard. "Might doesn't mean physical strength because your Wizard would die really easily, even with his 18 Might. Athletics determines your ability to headbutt your way through a stone wall, not Might, u_u... but Athletics doesn't affect how much force you can generate when swinging a giant two-handed mace... unless you're attacking a wall! It makes perfect sense, dude!" Yeah! I mean, what if the game didn't let you make a Fighter? Couldn't you just make a Wizard, then pretend he couldn't actually cast a bunch of spells, and simply refrain from ever using them? That would be the same thing as choosing "Fighter" at character creation, right? I dunno, I guess it's just some weird RP thing. *shrug*

Nope. And I'm afraid you're missing the point. The one-and-only point. Might means you're more all the things that increase your damage. Might cannot measure one sub-aspect of strength without measuring the other. I've already pointed this out a dozen times. If you had two challenges before you: 1) A room in which your soul-power was suppressed, and you had to lift a big heavy thing to get through 2) A room in which you could only remove an obstacle using purely soul-energy (because no amount of physical/tangible power would affect the obstacle) to get through... ...then your Might score of 18 would have you succeed at both. The game, using only a single attribute called "Might" that covers both of those things, would be incapable of representing your being good at one but not the other. Do you understand? It's not that the game just doesn't tell you the difference. It doesn't even measure or distinguish the two, separate types of power in any way, shape, or fashion. The point wasn't that you needed a stat, and that you didn't have the option of using a tool. It was that, if you're going to break the wall down without a tool (which you have the option of trying, I'm pretty sure, and if you don't, you should, at least in SOME place in an entire game worth of scenarios), you have to be strong to do it. If it uses Athletics, then I get that as a purely gameplay "I want to represent all things evenly" decision, but it really should use Might. What's the point in measuring something called "Might" that determines your damage with a physical club that you can swing, but doesn't affect your ability to physically damage a structurally weak wall? I have to say, I feel like it's you who is overestimating the attributes. You're thinking one measurement does 17 different hings, when it really only does 1 thing. That's just how character attributes work. No matter how abstract or perfectly simulationist it is, that's an attribute's only purpose. If it doesn't measure an aspect of your character, it's not doing its job. And if the demands of the rest of the game are inadequately met by that one, overly-simple measurement, then you should've broken it into more distinct measurements. Look, other games that aren't at all ultra-simulating reality have something like "Attack" for physical attack. It could mean you're tiny but fierce, or a huge muscle-bound meathead. It's still vague, and it's not even trying to cover any and all kinds of force in the entire game world. When you set forth to make a fantasy world, and you decide "there will be magic, in addition to non-magical force -- a windmill turns because of the wind physically pushing on it, and not because of magical power", it's just silly to then measure anyone's prowess with both kinds. "This windmill is very powerful. It could crush a man's skull with ease. OBVIOUSLY IT WOULD BE A MIGHTY WIZARD!" I mean, let's just give everyone a stat called "Awesomeness," and determine everything else from that. "Oh, well, I mean, you could be awesome for any number of reasons. Want to convince this person to give you all his money? Awesomness check! SUCCESS! Want to throw this goat over that mountain in the distance, from here? AWESOMENESS CHECK! Yep, you can do it, but only because you have high-enough Awesomeness, u_u... But, I mean, it isn't your physical strength or anything, but it just determined your ability to throw a goat over a distant mountain. And it isn't like it's your Charisma or speaking ability, but it DID determine your ability to charm that one guy into giving you all his money, when he started out not even liking you in the first place. But it doesn't actually measure either of those things, u_u... It's totally legit!"

I agree. I'm not saying there's not a threshold across which things get ridiculous. But, "overly complex" loses a of its worry when you're dealing with complexity you're only ever going to really deal with 1 time (character creation). After that, everything's just going to work as it should, and you're going to make decisions to influence things on top of that. It's like a D&D character sheet. When you first sit down with one, it's a TON of info. But, when you're done, you just go "Oh, a Dex check? *looks at Dex Modifier box* +3? Okay, so *rolls d20*... 15, +3, 18. How'd I do?" You're not like "WHOA, wait a minute! What are all the things in the whole universe that Dex affects again? Lemme get out my calculator and do some Calculus..." So, yeah, I'd much rather the for-the-most-part permanent stuff that's decided up-front be where the complexity is, and for complexity to not be shied away from there. I think the benefit of "avoiding" complexity there isn't very high, compared to the cost (stuff like we can't make Wizards who aren't effective with clubs, or Fighters who aren't effective with wands -- especially in all the RP/scripted interaction/dialogue applications.) Also, I keep reading more and more responses on this topic, and I still can't help but feel people don't realize that the goal isn't to make sure a stat isn't dumpable at all, but that it isn't the obvious/superior choice (to dump OR pump it) for any given class. For example, the separation of physical and non-physical power is not an automatic "dump stat for Wizards, pump stat for Fighters" scenario. Honestly, if any given stat is THE one stat you always want to have on a given class, you're designing your classes incorrectly. You shouldn't have to max out Strength to make an effective Fighter. There's no reason not to have a finesse-y Fighter build, who either fights from a range mainly, or deals more damage through tactical effectiveness and accuracy than through straight-up smash-force. That's not an impossibility to code, and it's existed in games before. So, if a Fighter has enough different feasible ways to fight, then various stats can all be quite useful. ALSO, A Fighter/Paladin/what-have-you shouldn't be the ONLY classes designed specifically for tanking. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a Wizard tank. What would you tank with? Magic. Honestly, you should be able to have a Wizard hold the front line (basically, all your magic would be focused on cool, interesting Wizardly ways of mitigating damage, taking hits, and holding enemies' attention and/or preventing their movement), and have him backed up by several Fighters and such. It's the same as the "a Wizard can't wear heavy armor and use swords" convention. We change that, but it's still infeasible to us that magic does NOT equal "you have to deal lots of damage, usually from afar and to many targets at once, and for that reason you must be soft and squishy." That's the kind of thing that contributes 7,000% more to the dumpability/pumpability of certain stats. A Fighter should be a Fighter because he's a Fighter, not because he has the most Health, or does the most damage. A Wizard should be a Wizard because he's a friggin' Wizard, not because he only performs very specific applications of magic for some reason. It's freaking MAGIC, and we're like "Oh, you could never possibly specialize in fulfilling the same role as a Fighter could fill." The second you say "Wizard tank," people just think "Oh man, but if a Wizard's wearing full plate and wielding a sword and shield, how is he any different from a Fighter?" Well, he's not. But if he's causing people's weapons to glow red-hot when they strike his magical barrier, and magnetizing people's weapons to their allies' armor, and delivering melee-range offensive spells to them, he's a LOT different. So, yeah, stats just measure your character. They don't care what class your character is. If you're strong, you're strong. If you're accurate, you're accurate. If you're fast, you're fast. If you're durable, you're durable. Smart... etc. It's up the rest of the game mechanics to actually make good use of those measurements. So, there were plenty of things the PoE stat system approach got away from, in a good way, from previous renditions. But then, there are things it did that have nothing to do with actually preventing dump stats, etc. A lot of the "problems" that arose with the various PoE stat system iterations/proposals stemmed more from a lack of flexibility in the class/role design than from the stats. As I've said before, ESPECIALLY in PoE, you don't even really have a huge physical/magical potency divide, since everyone's got "magical" souls, essentially. So you have the PERFECT excuse to let everyone have at least one build spectrum: Physical versus magical. Pretty much any class could have abilities facilitated by soul magic, or abilities facilitated by sheer class training and physical prowess. (Note: I like the system for what it is, and am not trying to say it sucks. I've just been hoping for a much better/different stat system in an RPG for a really long time).

^ It doesn't actually require new ones, since the models DO walk in "cutscenes," and NPCs walk around. 8P So it's even less trouble than making all new ones. But, yes, I would assume walking animations are amongst the easier-to-make animations, in the spectrum of all possible animations.

It would be rather nice if there were some pauses in. Even just a few seconds or so. Or, however they want to calculate it. .1 seconds per word? *shrug*. Just some simple formula that works out well enough. So that, when there's 5 words of description, you get a very short pause, as opposed to a longer pause when there are 3 sentences of description.

There's more than one reason for balance. Judge the actual tweaks being made all you'd like, but the whole "this isn't a multiplayer game, SO WHY BALANCE?!" stupified response is a bit silly. It's not about how others are playing. It's about what one option offers versus another option, both of which are available to any given player. If only one human existed in the world, there could still be imbalance in a video game. And yes, it often gets taken overboard, but that's just cause to not take it overboard. Not pretend the sheer concept is preposterous. If one class did 1 dmg at LvL 9, and another did 1,000 dmg at LvL 9, wouldn't that be imbalanced? Yes? Okay, then clearly balance is a thing.

In all fairness... it's been a week and you haven't gotten anything, so you're assuming it's going to take at least another four weeks? I'm not sure how you figure that. The more time that passes, the more likely it is that you're going to receive your stuff sooner. I get that they could've handled communication better. But, "You haven't heard from me yet" doesn't mean "we're somehow still working on even getting just your stuff in stock so that we can ship it to you!".

If they could boost the "decision-making" process of the AI a bit, that would help things a lot. Especially with higher difficulties. More enemies + actual "intelligent" decisions to deal with = ouch.

Partially would be nice. Especially L1 spells. If you got 1 per encounter, and 2 per rest or something. Basically, if you'd already used up your per-encounter "ammo" for a given encounter, and you cast another spell, it would just up your per-rest "ammo." I think that would be nice. Then, every so many levels, you get another per-encounter L1 spell. And maybe a L2 spell. Up until you reach the point at which those spell tiers (1 and 2) are currently ENTIRELY per-encounter. It's a bit odd that, you hit a certain level, and suddenly you can cast 70 of this spell per-rest, instead of 7. A more gradual slope with that shift would be nice.

Know what you call Mario when he's in full plate? DR MARIO! 6_u Because they're already so enchanting! 6_u

Submit a ticket to Obsidian support. They should be able to do something about your cat.

See, the whole "you can rest whenever, but you might get attacked by monsters, oh nooooo!" thing just rubs me the wrong way. The game's saying "by all means, rest. But also, I'm going to discourage you from resting." I'd much rather have a more straight-forward limitation, than just two things clashing with each other. It's the same reason I hate "You can carry all this weight, but then you'll move like a snail" systems. Imagine if, in a PnP session, your DM actually just made you, the players, wait twice as long for everything to occur because one of your characters was encumbered. I think there are intelligent/clever ways to limit things that make sense and aren't overly one-sided (pure limitation for limitation's sake, or limitation for simulation's sake). Something akin to checkpoints would be best, I think, if you're going to limit resting in the first place. You can also use the relative-time-passage approach, and have each combat you get through equate to some certain amount of time (15 minutes, for example) in regard to "how long has it actually been, if this were a book recounting all our character's adventures, since we last rested?". Then, instead of "you make camp and sleep in the middle of this dungeon for 8 hours and you're all healed up), you could just allow for hour-long rests in dangerous places, etc. But, you could only rest like that every so often. Nothing crazy. Not "Oh, you hafta fight the next million enemies first." But, just not "you're always full-health, but you have to manually rest whenever you choose to actually achieve that, even though nothing's stopping you." Another approach is to simply have your immediate health be your non-permanent wounds, and to allow for the occurrence of permanent wounds in combat, based on things you can actually affect (like how much damage you take at once, or what kind of attacks you're being hit with versus what kind of defense you have, etc.). Then, have wounds simply lower your maximum Health. You could even just have an understood "auto-rest" after each fight -- just "instead of immediately hauling butt down the corridor after that 15-minute battle, we actually bind wounds and such and catch our breath before moving on." So, your Health would always automatically recover by a certain percentage after each fight, but, again, based on your wounds you'd accrued, your maximum health at any given point could be lower than your base maximum. Then, you could have different ways of curing/treating certain wounds to make them heal faster, or have spells that remove wounds of certain kinds, etc. Now it's a little more interesting, but it still basically just means that you can't run around all willy-nilly, taking JUST few enough hits for everyone to not-die, every single battle, as you make your way through an area. At the same time, you're never forced or encouraged to just fully retreat to a tavern just to heal up. Then, of course, you've got time as a factor, etc. If resting of any sort takes time, and time-sensitive things are going on in the game world ("Look! The mad king's escaping with his daughter! We have to fight our way to him NOW!"), then there's an actual choice. Of course, again, a lot of those types of things are always "If you take 10 minutes, everything's fine. If you take 10 minutes and 1 second, OH NO EVERYONE'S DOOMED!". I understand that you can only code so many outcomes to a situation, because time and resource restraints, but... some kind of more gradual range of outcomes is preferrable. I mean, even 3 outcomes instead of just 2 is infinitely more appealing.

By definition, he'd have to LOVE the map to be a fanboy. The simple fact that he acknowledged any amount of fault in the map's quality negates the very idea of fanboy-ery.

I don't know, but that'd be pretty awesome, actually.

One would argue that those "niche" situations are the very meat and potatoes of this type of game narrative. Just because you haven't used any of them doesn't make them insignificant or pointless. Also, you can choose to not-display those in the game options. It will only display the ones for which the requirements are met.

My time to post is actually severely disproportionate to my time to play, . I get about 3 hours of free time per night, if I'm lucky. And that's to get home, eat food, play stuff, take care of kitties, shower, get ready for bed, etc. . But I work at a computer for about 10-11 hours a day. So... Needless to say, I probably post more than any human needs to, heh. I just like the interaction of forums. For curiosity's sake, I've only gotten to put about 5 hours into PoE. I say "gotten to"... I could've probably played about 8 or so by now, but I'm kind of waiting until some things get patched to play more, mainly 'cause I've got like 70-bajillion other games to play at the moment. My girlfriend just gave me a $50 Steam card for my birthday today. EVEN MOAR GAMES! Haha. Phew!

You don't seem to understand that your stats are metrics/measurements of your character's innate, existent capabilities. If the game just never even addressed any feats of specifically physical or specifically soul-powered kinetic force, that wouldn't change the fact that your Might stat makes you physically strong AND non-physically strong at the exact same time. Not only that, but there are dialogue options and checks in the game that DO involve Might, and DO specifically reference the ability to knock a wall down, or perform other physical feats. But, it's not in your hands. That's the nature of a stat system. Maybe your person with high Perception is just really really good at hearing, but is actually blind. No, because they don't suffer any kind of accuracy penalty, ever. See how that works? I understand what you're saying. I really do. But that's beside the point. That's a completely different point. No one's saying "my game is ruined because the game's constantly telling me that my guy has huge muscles." The stat mechanics are telling me that my high-Might character has strength that cannot be accurately referenced by anything in the game, because nothing actually determines how much of which kind of strength you have. Thus, if you come upon a giant statue that's crushing someone's leg, and it asks if you can lift it with your hands, and you have 18 Might, YOU CAN! And if you come upon a giant magical barrier, and the only way to get past it is with the utmost soul-strength, YOU CAN! Because 18 Might! The stat is incapable of allowing you to be physically weak and soulfully strong, or vice versa. Because that's how stats work. They measure your character. And that stat is measuring two things at the same time. It's quite simple, really. In D&D, I could have a Wizard with 17 Strength, or a Wizard with 7 Strength. That was actually significant. My Wizard with 7 Strength could fail to be able to do things that other people could do, while still being a potent magical person. This goes beyond just dealing damage with a physical weapon or unarmed blow. And the same goes for magical strength. It's significant, in an RPG, to be able to have a Warrior who's 7 feet tall and able to juggle cows, but cannot, for the life of him, magically (or in this case, soul-ishly?) produce much force or energy. That's missing from PoE. It's kinda sad. I'm not saying "OMG, MIGHT RUINED THE GAME!" It didn't. But, I'm mindblown by the people who keep saying "Nuh-huh, your might score doesn't mean you're good or bad at BOTH things, even though it's inherently measuring both of them at the same time with one, single stat value!", because that's simply nonsense. The fact that we are allowed to pretend our character is weak in one way and strong in another by avoiding anything in the game directly referencing our specific physical/soul-based strength is not the same thing as what our character is or isn't based upon the mechanics of character stats.

Well, in D&D, for example, it didn't make much since the "other" way: there WAS no spell accuracy. They basically always hit. They didn't always affect the target, but they never missed. That's a bit strange, don't you think? You're making a fiery projectile, then hurling it at your foes. It's actually traveling from point A to point B, based on where you willingly made it go, but you don't have to aim it? You just mentally wish for it to strike a foe, and it strikes that foe? Why can't D&D Wizards just jedi-mind-bend arrows and bolts fired from bows/crossbows to always hit? 8P PoE's system at least works better, if you ask me. Now, the values within it might need some work, but the concept of "you actually have to aim your spells" is too legit to quit.

We already do. Look around the forum. The mods are having to close and merge threads left-and-right that involve complaints about "problems" with the game. Some of them achieve 17 pages in a single day. Yet, this one has basically consisted of yourself and others (myself included) arguing back and forth about the importance of walking, while the vast majority of people on both "sides" of the argument (I don't even think this is an issue worthy of sides, really) are basically saying "Yeah, it wouldn't be un-nice if walking were in there, but it's not really stopping us from playing the game or anything." So, you seem to be in the minority regarding the quality of your gameplay experience being near-ruined solely by the fact that your party never moves in a walking fashion anywhere. And just for the record, "You're in the minority" is merely a statistical observation. It in no way means "Haha, you lose and I win," or "your opinion is wrong." An opinion can only be wrong when it contests fact, and yours does not do that. You are perfectly entitled to your opinion. I am sincerely sorry that the lack of walking is affecting your game so poorly. But, it is not reasonable for Obsidian to "hop right on that" when it's not really affecting anyone else to enough of a degree to jump on the forums and stress its necessary priority. Lastly, just as a reminder, I am not affiliated with anyone else in this forum. So, just because I happen to be sharing a point or "side" with someone else who's posted in here, do not assume that our attitudes or points are the same. (That's why I hate when an argument turns into "sides"). Some people might have told you in a rude fashion that walking isn't a big deal, or even attacked your personal opinion of the importance of walking. I, however, have done neither, nor do I wish to. Your opinion is your own, and it is not wrong, and I am sorry that these things are priority-based, and that this isn't a higher-priority issue, because it means that you have to put up with it until it is changed. In an ideal world, we'd all get our priority stuff fixed immediately, and/or would simply never have to put up with it in the first place.

No. Logic/reality does. I can measure a tall person, and measure a short person, and give you their heights, but I didn't make their relationship what it is. The "short" person could be relatively tall to an even shorter person, but that doesn't make him "a tall person," because the average height of humans is what determines that. With this game, the impact walking would have on the average player's gameplay experience is what determines the bigness of a deal being able to walk is. I'm just pointing that out to you. I'm not telling you what is and isn't a big deal to you, but that's not what Obsidian has to go off of for prioritizing their addendums to the game. Otherwise, as I said, how on earthwould they order things? WHOSE big deal would get priority over someone else's? If I were never born, the information I'm relaying to you would be the same. My brain did not invent it.