Lephys

Which is precisely why the quantity range between "nothing" and "everything" was invented, and humans were bestowed with the cognitive ability to discern what portion of that "everything" to pick.

I believe certain AoE spells/abilities will be incapable of striking friendlies (they'll hit every available enemy target possible within a given area, rather than simply "striking" all the space in that area, and, consequently, any living entity occupying any of that space), is what he's saying. Regardless of toggleable options and/or difficulty settings. That being said, you still have a valid question for the spells that can strike friendlies (Fireball and such), which is "what kind of options will we have for friendly-fire, and how will these be presented?" Which I would also like to know.

^ No, I get it. It just... kind of assumes that an "I'll just focus on oodles of DMG" build automatically possesses the capability to nullify the need or benefit of any amount of Resolve or contingency plan. We're just really used to games that don't really make it a big deal at all, I think. They just offer a bunch of alternatives. "Do you want to just shrug off all that damage, because you're uber-tank man? OR do you want to be ultra-high DPS man, so you can just kill things before they hit you, and/or stunlock them? Etc." Not many games nowadays are built around actual dynamic combat factors, and tactical choices and consequences. Everything you do works equally well. "Oh no, a bunch of different enemies? Well, I do so much damage that, as long as I just focus fire and take this stuff down really quickly, I don't have to worry about my pathetic defenses! 8D!" In PoE, there'll be plenty of stuff. "Wait, a whole group of heavily-armored foes? Crap, now 3 out of my 4 damage-focused people are like 50% less effective, so 'just focus fire and kill them so quickly they don't get to hurt anyone much' is no longer a valid tactic!" In such a case, you'll have to adjust your tactics. You can still make use of your damage, but you'll have to find a way to either hinder the enemy from attacking you and your own, or overcome the damage threshold of enemies' armor. In other words, I don't think PoE will let you literally just deal damage, and have no other capabilities whatsoever. You can shift all your focus to damage, but then you just lessen your other core capabilities, not eliminate them. Thus, you have abilities such as "increase target's Accuracy by 10 for their next attack," etc. So, you have to use those with some modicum of tactical cleverness in order to overcome obstacles. One single focus and strategy will not cut it against some encounters/scenarios.

They just keep showing-and-telling with us, basically, and people just continue to arbitrarily assume they're somehow claiming to be more finished than they are. Rather than just saying "Here's what we've got so far." I'm sorry, but if a friend shows me his sketch book and says "check out this portrait I've been working on," I'm not going to say "OMG, YOU FORGOT TO DRAW IN HER OTHER EYE! ALSO, IT'S NOT EVEN COLORED!" I'd probably say "that's pretty cool. I guess you've still got a little ways to go there, what with that other eye not being there. Also, are you planning on coloring it? Because I think it would look quite nice if colored." That being said, it would probably be prudent of them to tack on some blatant "this is alpha footage" notice onto that trailer, because, yeah, random people seeing it aren't going to think it isn't just a "Hey, our game's coming out pretty soon, and here's some footage from it!" trailer. Unless... did the trailer actually have an "alpha footage" notice in it? I can't recall...

Maybe D&D-esque spells such as Obscuring Mist would be a lot more useful, then. Even if the AI is good and deems one of your characters a priority threat (based on the hostile creature doing the targeting), if you call up a bunch of fog around you and your party, they can't tell which of you is where, now. Maybe they accidentally fire off spells and arrows at the prepared Fighter with the Shield in Defensive mode. *shrug* Or, they just angrily charge into the fog/smoke, and you've already moved out, behind it, and laid traps in it, or are poised to pounce upon them when they come through it, etc.

I understand that there are many a technical reason for not going all out on this, and that I can't really judge whether or not they SHOULD make things more complex, etc, in practice, based on the resources at hand and the difficulty of doing so. I'm just saying that, ideally, there would be a lot to be gained by, at the very least having audibility and visibility separately represented. Honestly, I'd even be cool with no facings. With an enemy "seeing" me with his back turned (still just use circles, instead of cones). But, it would still be objectively more interesting stealth gameplay if they could figure out a way to have, say, a sentry with a tiny "vision" circle in a dark, cobblestoney courtyard, but still have a large audibility circle because your footsteps on the stone are louder/echo-y. In other words, if it's just "sound-o-vision," all mashed into one thing, then we miss out on all the factors that just affect either sound or visibility. The game will hardly be terrible if we just get generic "stealth" circles. I'm happy with that, and trust that they'll do it as well as they can, which is all we can ask, really. You wouldn't even need to do anything extra for scent and/or Skuldr's soul-sense. You just go "Oh, it's dark? But this thing's smelling you, so it still gets a huge circle anyway, as opposed to a tiny vision circle because of the darkness." Even though the thing's not "seeing" you, it would still represent that none of the typical factors apply to its particular detection radius. I mean, unless you implement wind direction and stuff, which starts just getting unnecessarily complicated for a game that isn't all about stealth. But, with separate vision/hearing representation, everything would have three circles: 1 for your ability to detect via hearing... 1 for your ability to detect via vision... And 1 to represent your ability-to-be-detected area. (We'll call it your Presence circle.) Everything would always have the same-sized detection (first two) circles, depending on their Perception (and factors of their creature-type, determining the difference between their hearing and vision circles -- for the things that hear better than they see, or vice versa). You would only adjust the THIRD circle for environmental/skill-related factors. It's really dark? Shrink down your Presence circle. Is it really bright outside? Your Presence Circle gets enlarged. Then, everything works as currently planned. If your presence circle overlaps either of their detection circles, they investigate and/or confront you. It's as simple as that. If your Stealth skill sucks, and/or the environment is noisy and/or well-lit, your Presence circle is larger, and you must stay that much farther away from the sentries to remain undetected. If your skill is amazing, and/or your environment is quiet and/or dark, your Presence circle is smaller, and you can get that much closer to patrolling things. You don't ever even need to see any Presence circles other than your own (your party's), because you can either detect a foe or you can't. If you can't detect it, you're not going to know how much closer you need to get to be able to do so, and if you CAN detect it, then you already know that, however large its Presence circle is, it's now overlapping your detection circle. Sure, it's 3 things for every enemy, but it doesn't use any facings or anything. And it adds 7,000,000% awesomeness to the specifics of stealth-pertinent situations. (I counted, o_o) Of course, without facings, you could never actually sneak up to anyone/anything. But *shrug*, again, I can live with that. And if we can't even do that, and we just stick with the current design, I can live with that, too. But, my hopes are something along the lines of the above bit.

I'll perpetuate this for just one more post, only to say that, though it was very simple and could've been so much more, I think the Mass Effect (2 and 3) ability upgrade tree system was an excellent example of the type of control over spells we could see, even IF there wasn't a full-blown spellcrafting system. You could increase the radius of area-effect abilities, OR just increase the damage, OR add an effect on-hit, OR decrease cool-down significantly, OR boost armor penetration, OR even add a radius to an otherwise single-target ability, etc. Again, it was all simpler than it could've been, but the idea behind it was pretty great. Things didn't just get all-around "better." They got improved, but you got to decide how (usually just a two-way mutually exclusive branch, at most. Mass Effect 3 at least gave you more than just the one branch, so you could at least stack choices to result in more different final variants, *shrug*)

Apparently the world map will be nothing BUT fast travel (a la Baldur's Gate). But, you can't just "fast travel" from wherever you are immediately standing, to wherever you want to go. You have to get to the edge of your immediate area/zone, then travel between overall areas on the map, via "fast travel".)

1) I meant Health. Granted, I should've said "health", but I ended up with "hitpoints." 8P 2) I've somehow completely missed this. I could've sworn they said there'd be some at-will (always available) abilities, some per-encounter abilities, and some per-rest abilities. Thus, my point was that the active replenishment of abilities (not unlike actively repairing damaged equipment) does exist in the game. Not that all abilities utilize it. 3) *buzzer*. The deep stash (inaccessible unless at rest points part of your inventory/non-immediately-usable inventory) is "unlimited" (I think Josh said it won't necessarily be "unlimited," but its limitations will be plentily large. Vague, I know...). Anywho, swappable-weapons/usable items and all that jazz will not be unlimited. 4) Touche. Can't really say either way, without knowing, I suppose. 5) I believe things will happen to it that you must go "out of your way" (unless you just happened to be heading back there anyway -- similar to having to go rest just 'cause you're low on health or spells, or travel back to town just because your weapons are worn out, etc.) to deal with, or suffer some undisclosed consequences. Still vague, but *shrug* Also, I was being half silly, and just making the simple point that some people don't seem to realize: Managing a finite resource, in and of itself, is not the enemy, and the game has plenty of that in it without durability. That's all. And lastly, I'm hardly telling anyone they can't dislike things such as durability/resource management, but "it's bad because (insert worst-case-scenario example here)!" is about as useful as it is frequent with any of the "hated" ideas (such as durability). They could implement ANYTHING in a horrible, unbearable manner. Just as they could implement even ideas, the core of which you don't really like, in an actually-pretty-awesome manner. People just don't even want to give things a valid chance sometimes. It's a bit of the "I've been lied to by like 30 people now, so I'm just going to deduce that all people are liars and I cannot trust anyone" syndrome. I hate to see people so up-in-arms about aspects of a game they'd like to enjoy (and that they thought they'd enjoy when they backed it, based on the core ideas of the game), LARGELY (if not only) because they are simply focused on all the negative possibilities and refuse to believe positive ones even exist, just because "they don't see them happening." Ideally, the only people who feel like they're going to hate the game (or really suffer in the enjoyment department) are the ones who didn't back it. Not a bunch of people who did, and just keep thinking of arbitrarily negative possibilities.

Because! NOTHING else in the game is going to require maintenance! ... Except hitpoints... and spells/abilities... and ammunition... and inventory space... and the stronghold... So, I mean, it'd be absolutely CRAZY to add in the aspect of diminishing resources, in ANY form, to an otherwise diminishing-resources-less game! Right?

Yeah, it doesn't HAVE to be click-and-drag, but, I was just thinking of something that still maintains mouse-wheel zoom functionality, in case you had zoomed in some, and needed to zoom out to see better to plan your AoE target. *shrug*. And the only reason I'm not a fan of the click, adjust size, then click again to set size is that it's mildly more clunky if you want to fire off an adjusted-size AoE spell on-the-fly/real-time, rather than pausing. Of course, options could always be available. And yeah, gotta say I'm not a fan of the "your bonus area only hits allies" thing. It just seems like a compromise between two things that achieves neither. If my allies aren't going to get hit, I'd rather it be because of the type of spell I use (not a radial explosion, but rather a "targets-every-enemy-within-this-area"-type spell, for example), or because they've been warded against it first (by whomever), or because of something they're doing, defensively/evasively. If we're to be able to hit only enemies, then I'd want it to be because of tactical capability (the ability to cleverly remove my allies from harm and/or not-strike them) and not because I have a supreme amount of control over my spells, but still want to use one big explosion/effect instead of a bunch of little ones. If I'm a Wizard, and I possess the ability to make a big frost nova, but have it completely dodge my allies, then why wouldn't I just use that level of magic control to make a bunch of smaller frost novas on all of the enemies I want to strike, or just fire ice missiles at them or something?

Indeedibly. I believe it's slowly approaching 700. Someone mentioned we should get 888 members. Then balance would be restored to the universe,

Another factor that might matter is (at least on radially explosive effects) zones. Maybe the edge of the blast deals diminished damage, as compared to the center. Then it's a matter of intelligently using the specifics of that ability to your advantage to mitigate damage to friendlies. Of course, this is also why I'd like to see a lot more control of placement, rather than just "Lemme run my character away from this foe, wait 'til he follows, then stop, turn around, and get back on the other side of him, all the while getting thwacked in the back of the head, just so I can affect this enemy's position" stuff. I mean, the Rogue's Reversal ability is a prime example of how to allow for such things. It's the, essentially, prepared action that allows the Rogue to counter the next attack, roll 180-degrees around the target (behind them/to the other side of them, basically), and I think deliver an attack? The important thing is the movement. If you had a cluster of Rogues, each fighting an enemy, for example, they could all use that at the same time, and they'd suddenly all be OUTSIDE the rough ring of enemies, allowing someone else to blast the enemies with a precise enough radial AoE ability. Also, there could be simple defensive stances/abilities to use. If an explosion's going to occur near a Warrior, you'd think he could kind of "entrench" himself (crouch/kneel and put his shield into the ground, lean forward a bit to compensate for the coming blast, etc.) to at least lessen the effects of the blast on him. Instead of just standing there and continuing to fight, catching shrapnel and fiery blast and all and being dashed against the ground, etc. Or, if a hail of ice spikes is going to rain from the sky, and he knows about it, he could raise his shield above his head, as against an arrow barrage. *shrug* I realize I'm describing very specific, ehh, simulations, almost, of real-life maneuvers. I'm not trying to suggest we need to emulate any little nuanced thing one could possibly do in real life in a given situation, but rather, the types of capabilities we might could derive in-game abilities from that would make sense. Even abstraction needs a basis. 8P Also, though, I'd like to see a lot more creative shapes and functions for AoE spells, rather than just simply "a solid-shape area of effect and that's that." For example, a spell that places a ring of lightning, but leaves everything inside of it and outside of it untouched. You could easily clump your allies together, then cast that around them. Now, at the very least, it buys you time against the melee assailants if they hesitate to enter it, or fries the crap out of them if they DO enter it. As for INT's effect on that, it could make it a thicker band of lightning or something. And, things like chain lightning, or other such multi-target (but not really area) abilities, INT could affect the number of targets, distance the bolt (in the chain lightning example) will travel, etc. And finally, to clarify, I just want to re-iterate that I'm not against any AoE spells dodging friendlies. But, again, if it's an explosion, or "the floor becomes lava within this circle" or something, and not just "you're going to affect as many hostile targets as you can, but only so many within a certain area, as dictated by this circle," then it needs to affect the whole area and not magically dodge your allies.

Thanks. In terms of functionality/ease-of-use, I've just seen it in action in Black And White 2. When constructing fields and meadows, you just click and hold at the center, then drag out or in (up or down, I believe) to either expand the size of the field (radially), or shrink it. Then, when you let go, the field size is set and the field is constructed. Nevermind that fields aren't really "constructed." You're a deity in that game, for god's (see what I did there?) sake! But, yeah, you'd probably want to pause to adjust the radius/size, but not necessarily. And, even so, I can't really think of a way to be able to adjust something like that when using an ability that doesn't make it take just a bit longer to do.

I'm not trying to act like there's not that angle to it. I can't say with certainty on what all this affects, because, even if I knew how all this was coded, specifically, and was a master programmer, I still don't know the entire game's system of mechanics. As much as we know, it's still just snippets. I assure you I'm looking at it from that angle, too. But, when I look at it from that angle, it's really not even one more thing. It's just a distinction. The things are already there. Damage is still there. I'm not talking about dividing everything into two completely different damages. That's not necessary. You just split the modifier. There's bound to be talents (basically feats) that affect certain attacks, right? Like proficiencies and weapon talents in D&D? (the key word there being "like," not copying.). And/or combat skills. Right? So, if you have 50 Swordsmanship, you get some bonus to attacks made with a sword. Damage... accuracy, what-have-you. Only OTHER things will affect each OTHER type of attack, I'm sure. It's already been said that we can build our Wizards and such more battlemagey, just that they won't ever be AS effective as a Fighter or other such classes. But, surely, I can choose options that grant my Wizard bonuses to Sword attacks, or Mace attacks, or the effects of a certain type of armor, etc., right? If not, there wouldn't be much point in allowing all classes to use all equipment to their heart's content. "Well, you CAN use whatever you want, but you're definitely going to suck with it, really, really badly, LOLZ!" That would be silly. So, again, the distinction is already there for the different types of attacks. And there will most likely be SOME form of damage types, right? Are Fire Elementals not going to have any type of resistance or lessening effect to Fire spells and attacks? Are there not going to be any element-based creatures? *shrug*. Maybe not, I suppose. I can't say definitely... But, again, if so, then there are already distinctions. Just the proficiencies/weapon-skills alone already singles out a physical attack from a magic one. Did you cast a spell? Then you don't get +5 damage and accuracy from your awesome Sword skills. Did you swing your sword? Then that attack gets augmented. So, Might is the only thing in the system that's claiming it's too complex to distinguish between attack types. Defenses do it (Deflection, Fortitude, Willpower, Reflexes), talents/skills/proficiencies will most likely do it, damage types will probably do it, etc. But then, for some reason with stats, we can't do it. Even the stats that are there... INT affects AoE size. Not "all ability range, ever." Just one aspect. One type of ability. And, speaking of that, someone asked before, but, I don't think it's been answered yet: Will a Fighter who has a Whirlwind Strike attack (or something) get a boost to his AoE range from spinning with his weapon? I mean, I get that he's using soul powers to fight, but he's typically augmenting his body and weapon -- what's physically there already, rather than launching waves of energy out like a Wizard or traditional "caster," right? So, if his AoE attack was the length of his physical sword, does INT suddenly convert that ability to "magically extends the length of your blade with a blade tip made from soul energy"? And, if not, then, I guess only spells get AoE boosts? Anywho... The short of it is, nothing else in the mechanics is saying "we can't distinguish between what kind of attack this is." But then, the stat that affects damage is. I realize that stats have their own balancing issues, but it doesn't even take a new stat. Just a split effect between two existing ones. The whole soul-magic thing even helps you balance it more. Fighters will probably still be able to do a handful of "magical" things, even though their forte is mainly "physical" combat, so the magic-damage-affecting stat CAN still be useful to a Fighter who voluntarily specializes in as much magical stuff as he can. Just like a Wizard can still focus on physical weaponry and Strength, and get a bonus from Strength where applicable. Obviously it's more complex than just one stat affecting all damage, but, again, 4 defenses is more complex than 1 defense, and yet they're taking the time to represent all of that. That's really about the best comparison I can come up with. My feelings on "Might affects all damage" are the same as my feelings on "everyone just has 1 defense type" would be. Might affecting physical AND magical damage is as weird to me as Deflection affecting physical defense, defense against poison, defense against mind spells, AND quick-reaction-type defense. All just called "DEFLECTION!" That person tried to make you hallucinate, BUT YOU DEFLECTED IT, BECAUSE YOU HAVE SUCH GOOD DEFENSE!

It doesn't.

I'm not fond of the idea of the ability to somehow generate a fiery explosion or frost nova that dodges all your friends. Why even make it an explosion/nova at that point, if you just want to hit things with fire/ice/what-have-you and only hit selective things? Now, game difficulty abstractly removing something like friendly fire from AOEs, I'm fine with, because it's not "your character can somehow control his spell to a meticulous degree," but rather "this is easier this way, and this is Easy difficulty." But, it's a bit contradictory to say "You can cast this spell designed to hit everything in a big circle/area, but also selectively make it not-hit very specific locations within that." That kind of contradicts the very design of area-targeting, as opposed to individual target targeting (even if it's multiple targets, targeting entities specifically at their locations). For the INT effect on AoE area size, the main thing is being able to control the size, if that's possible to do easily. INT giving a bonus to AoE size shouldn't really be an against-your-will bonus to the size. I mean, if you can make a 10-foot-radius fiery explosion, you can probably make a smaller one, right? If I can throw a rock 10 yards, then I can obviously just throw a little softer and toss it 5 yards, if I really want to. So, yeah, I'm not at all worried about the extra range somehow not hitting friendlies. The spell should either hit friendlies or not. The whole spell. But, I do think it makes sense and would be very useful to be able to, say, click and drag -- from a minimum size to a maximum size (difference between the base size and the INT bonus size) -- the actual area of the AoE spell in question. That would be really nice, and if there's some way to prevent an AoE spell from affecting your peers, then so be it. But, I don't think the two are related, except in that "I can control this to aim it more precisely" manner. It's one thing to hit 5 enemies in a cluster, but controllably contain the magical blast so that it stops before striking your 3 allies standing just outside the edge of the blast, and another to just somehow bend a big, radial blast around specific targets, then merge it back together behind them so that it strikes even foes further out. Again, if you only wanted to hit specific targets, why would you use a spell that uses magical energies to functionally replicate a grenade blast anyway? You wouldn't throw a grenade at your friends, expecting it to just miss them. You'd probably fire arrows just at the foes, etc.

For what it's worth, I would love to see something beyond just a "start combat but I'm really close to you now and get the first attack, MUAHAHAHA!" option. It's hardly integral for the game to not be bad, but it'd be very nice to have a "*grab them from behind and put a knife blade to their throat* Make a sound and you'll drown in your own blood!" option, even if it doesn't initiate any complex dialogue with the majority of intelligent combatants. Some of them might even cry out anyway, so you'd only have a good reason to use it in specific circumstances. Maybe you take someone hostage to escape a sticky situation? No one's going to shoot arrows at someone holding a knife to the baron's neck, right? So you take him out to the edge of the wall, then let him go once you're out of bow range. Maybe they'll chase you down, but you didn't have to fight your way out, at least, etc. I'm even fine with it only being available in situations where it would be significant, even though that's abstract. I realize that Josh said that, even when you're detected, in the stealth mechanics, the detector will either initiate dialogue or attack. I just hope those are our options, as well, from the sneakee's perspective. But, you know... with some kind of incentive for the other person to not make a sound, rather than "Hi there! I've snuck up on you, but I'd rather talk, so I'm just going to start talking to you, even though you're just going to flinchingly call the rest of the guards in a fit of surprise and duty fulfillment! 8D!" And yeah, Jobby. Don't get me wrong. I mostly analyze things in isolation, just 'cause I can't help myself. I fully understand that it might be REALLY tricky, code-wise, to actually facilitate in-game. I'm not trying to demand it be done, but I just want to emphasize what I see to be the major benefits of actually representing these things in SOME way. What with the limited knowledge I have, there might even be a simpler/less-tricky way to implement these things, so I'm just trying to come up with what I can, in case it's useful. And, at the very least, as mere feedback, in case a lot of other backers feel the same way about it. *shrug*

Honestly, I would just prefer that the player have more tools to execute a get-my-allies-out-of-the-area-while-keeping-the-foes-inside-the-area-and-casting-the-AOE-spell-to-effect maneuver. The reason AOE friendly-fire is a problem in the first place is that, where your friends are is typically where the enemies are. In Dragon Age: Origins, my awesome Mage character could cast Earthquake, and it was the size of Texas. However, there was almost no way to move my players out of the gigantic circle without the enemies simply following. The best you could do (and this is so in MOST games) is play the "skirt the radius edge" game, where you try to meticulously have your allies lure all their attackers JUST to the edge of the spell's radius, so that you can hit the foes, but don't quite hit your allies. I don't know that I'd want any easy method of just casting anyway and not worrying about where my friends are (shielding them, for example), because the fact that I have to worry about that is kind of what's interesting there. But, like I said, the game needs to give you means' by which to actually execute feasible plans. Not always, or anything. Err... simply put, I'd rather have to worry about not-hitting them, but have some methods of accomplishing the not-hitting them part, than simply gain a means of eliminating the worry altogether. But maybe that' s just me.

I just think that's simplifying something that doesn't need simplifying. Not in a game like this. There are other games in which I don't mind it. Stuff like Torchlight or something, where the stats are less about a robust Role-playing system, and more just about balancing/representing gamey aspects, to put it simply. I'm not gonna play that, or Diablo, and go "OMG, INT SHOULDN'T DO THE SAME THING FOR DIFFERENT CLASSES!" But, in this game, it's about more than that. And I know there's all this comparison to IE games (they're the inspiration, after-all, for this project), and they used D&D, and we're all used to it, and it wasn't perfect, and we're trying to improve upon that without throwing out what was good and useful from it, but... I just don't think "One stat didn't boost all classes'/attack-types' damage aspect" is not the way to go. Like I said, you've already got plenty of things that affect damage, in the long run: DEX boosts Accuracy, which increases the probability of critical hits and the chance of scoring them, so, ANY class that takes max DEX is already going to do more damage, in general, than another character of the same class who dumps DEX. (I realize a different build could end up doing the same damage, in the long run, but I'm ONLY pointing out that adjusting DEX, on its own, already affects your damage output). Then you've got Perception, which gives additional armor penetration, correct? That affects damage. Then, even Intellect. A bigger AoE area means more enemies hit by damaging effects, means more damage than someone with smaller radii. And duration... things that hurt you, hurt you for longer. Things that stun you allow you to be easily stricken more, rather than dodged/avoided/maneuvered around, defended against as much. Just... after breaking down damage into so many different significant aspects, all spread out across stats (and even things that aren't stats -- talents/proficiencies, weapon type vs armor type, action speed, etc.), it feels REALLY strange to just decide that one stat's balanced effect on the system needs to be simply "+ damage." I mean, Dexterity boosts Accuracy, but then, there are STILL different attack/defense types. It would probably be easier to just have a rating called "Defense," and call it a day. But, we're not doing that, now are we? Nope. You're using some kind of mental attack? It's going against Willpower, then. Physical attack? It's going against Deflection. How is the concept of separating out the defenses into FOUR distinct defense types, each with their own factors and ratings, any different from separating out the type of power/force/energy you're using? I bet damage types are separated, too. Weapon types (piercing, blunt, etc.) versus armor types, element/energy types, etc. But then, separating something as simple as muscle strength and magical/non-physical "strength" is crossing a line? I'm not trying to be rude or hostile with that question. I'm just honestly asking. I really, truly believe that the important thing is to make all the stats potentially useful to a variety of particular builds. If that means making them do the same thing, then so be it. But I don't think them all doing the same thing is really the goal. If you're a Wizard, you just need a reason to care about Strength, even if you still decide against it. It's like in D&D. DEX didn't help you cast spells, but it helped your base AC, so you could avoid more attacks. If you just dumped DEX, as a Wizard, then good luck not getting hit. That's kind of my point. "All other areas of the game are supportive of specific distinction," to me, begs the question "then why not damage/power?" rather than "so why shouldn't damage/power be the one super-weird odd-man-out?"

I'm so confused now... I humbly request an official visual aid. Of course, I will calmly wait until the official Stealth Mechanics bi-weekly update. 8P I'm still unclear on how our circles and enemy circles interact. I would think it'd be easiest to just have the character avatar touching/crossing the circle be the trigger. And why shouldn't certain enemies be "trying to" sneak up on us? (Not talking about super-elaborate AI that is launching covert operations on you from across the map or anything). Then, based on YOUR perception, you can't detect stealthy enemies unless they cross into YOUR circle/cone/whatever. Except... Ohhhh, I think I get it. You'd have no way of applying the Stealth Skill bonus without shrinking the opponent's perception circle. So, if you have one character with 1 Stealth, and another with 50, the one with 50 is going to have a "presence" circle that's much bigger than themselves, so that, even though they're still 10 meters outside the enemy's perception circle, they're still being detected. While the 50 Stealth character will have a much smaller "presence" circle, thus allowing them to sneak even closer to the same enemy with the same-sized perception circle. Still, though, I would very much think that being able to be detected farther away than closer up would only apply to audibility. At least in terms of skill. The not-being-seen aspect is all about camouflage, and movement timing (while the enemy's facing away, sticking to shadows, etc.). You can't just will yourself to be less visible than someone else. You're either within a foe's sight range and distinct from your environment, or your aren't. Sound, though... You could be louder than someone else. All I can say is, I hope that both visibility AND audibility are distinctly represented, however it is done. I'm hardly demanding it, but would very much appreciate directional cones for vision, and radii for sound. It doesn't have to be perfectly simulated or anything, but, it just makes a lot more sense. Factors. If you're sneaking on moss or soft dirt, you're going to be a lot quieter than if you're sneaking on cobblestone, no matter your skill. But, you're going to be JUST as easily seen if you're out in the open. And if it's pitch black, then even if you're heard, if the enemy can't SEE you, then all they're going to do is investigate. And everyone's sight range would just be adjusted according to general light level (again, doesn't have to be perfect, like some amount of adjustment per virtual lumen or something). *shrug*. I know that's a lot, doing sound and visuals separately. That's at least 2 visually-represented-to-the-player areas for each and every character/entity on the screen, when you're in Scouting mode. But... I dunno. If something could be worked out, I think that would be a lot better. Also, what about the old "throw a pebble or small object at that wall over there so as to lure the sentry into an investigation where I'm not" trick? I'd LOVE to see strategic use of that. Maybe not even tied to the Stealth skill? Maybe a Throwing skill? Plus, some enemies would be too smart to fall for that.

I'm very fond of the idea of critical hits bestowing effects. Kind of lends variety to criticals, instead of just an all-encompassing "you hit them really, really damagey-like!". However, with how healing and all that works in PoE, I'd recommend temporary things, like "You got a critical hit, so now the target is going to suffer bleed damage for 3 seconds," or "the target also got knocked down/stunned." I'm even open to a stat affecting that, along with other factors, such as weapon-type, etc. Nothing super complex. Just... a crossbow bolt probably wouldn't produce a stun, as much as a more blunt-force trauma would. I'd like that dynamic, though. Extra effects from crits, versus sheer extra damage from crits. But, permanent effects and the flexibility of critical chance with different builds (via DEX/Accuracy) tend to conflict a little bit. Anyone with low defenses who happened to encounter a high-DEX enemy would have to not only contend with the critical-hit damage, but also some permanent effect for every critical hit. There are only so many individual factors you can have working towards your necessity to stop what you're doing and retreat to the nearest rest spot just to progress forward, and, unlike in other games, we've already got finite, non-replenishable (except via resting) Health. Just my thoughts. (Again, love the idea of critical effects, though, just not their permanence, at lest for this game.)

I think he just literally meant that he didn't want to suffer sheerly from disagreeing. I don't think he was talking about somehow forcibly denying them their ability to go do as they please. DA:O was a pretty good example of this. Did you be nice to someone? Morrigan would've liked to have not been nice to them, and solely for that reason, YOU CAN 10 DISLIKE POINTS FROM MORRIGAN! Sten wants to kill everything, and you say "ehh, we COULD do that, and then we'd be thrown in prison and wouldn't make any progress on the more important things at hand." Boom... Sten dislikes you now. Which says something about both significant reactions to petty disagreements AND overly simplified "like points" systems, I suppose. Another culprit of this was the TellTale Walking Dead Season 1 game. Don't get me wrong... I love that game, overall. But, there were a lot of things that were significant enough to warrant a notification in the upper left portion of the screen, according to the game code, but that were really quite meaningless, in practice. You basically had a meeting about people being frightened and having their own ideas about what course of action would make them feel better, and you're they're all "Hey, I think we should do this really specific thing, just 'cause that's what I'd bet my money on, and for no other reason!" And someone says "That's not really super reasonable. Maybe we should find a better reason to do THAT specific of a thing, first." Then, it kicks it to you, and you can say something like "She's got a point. We need to come up with a plan based on the info we have." And that first person's all "I HATE YOU NOW! YOU'RE RUINING MY LIFE!", like a hormonal teenager. The game even kinda calls itself out on these moments. There's a character that's pretty much with you for most (if not all, depending on your choices) of the game. And, towards the end, he actually reflects back on things, and basically says "Hmm... you know, we may have disagreed on stuff, but those were kind of just petty squabbles. Whenever action was actually necessary, you proved you had my back and my interests in mind, even while I was being petty about you criticizing my baseless plans that didn't even have anything to do with the situation at-hand at the time." I just hate when someone's like "I want to eat cake, 24/7!", and you're all "we don't have enough money to do that, unfortunately. Also, I don't like cake, but you're still welcome to cake." And the character is suddenly going to pitch a fit about that. You MUST like cake as much as they do, or they hate you, and if you don't say that everything they want to do, for any reason, is an excellent idea and should be done, they also hate you.

This is splendid! It's little stuff like that that many games just sort of deem inconsequential. Every time I see something like this get addressed, it makes me happy. @Hiro: There's no need to worry about it. Really. I made an odd point, and clearly it's one of those things my brain thinks of, but other normal, non-defective brains are not going to grasp because the only obvious points to be made seem to be the ones all around mine. I'm not trying to argue as to the viability of low-INT builds, etc., and I'm not about to start doing so. Seriously, no worries, it's my fault for being incapable of clearly conveying my thoughts, and I'll just let it go.

I dunno... How can it SEEM like INT is going to be useless for a given build if you don't know? I'm just going to say this: A "muscle Wizard" is just a Wizard who focuses on damage. Guess what does damage? AoE-and-duration-based spells, as well. Correct. Being able to focus on Might, as a Wizard, in no way means that you can feasibly use no AoE or duration-based abilities. The key word there being "feasibly." You do with that fact what you please. Do most of the spells also lack any form of duration? Riddle me that. Here's the disconnect: You're arguing about what we'll be able to focus on in our builds. All I'm pointing out is that it's less likely you'll be able to build a character that gets NO benefit from INT than it is you'll only be able to build, at best, a character who gets a lot less benefit from INT. If you disagree, then awesome. If you think it's a stupid point and don't really care, and just want to hear something official on it, then still awesome. I'm simply making a postulation. I'm not saying "we probably can't focus on things other than AoE and duration-based abilities." But, there's a difference between focusing on something, and not even looking/seeing anything else. Well, that's splendid. But it's not that way. Believe it or don't. I'm just putting it out there.