Lephys

It's not even supposed to protect your weaker units. It's just supposed to produce a tradeoff for ignoring people who are prepared to slap you in the face. If you get something for free (jogging past a melee-er to freely attack the back line), then so does that melee-er who's currently devoting all his attention to you. Or, to put it simply, it's only supposed to stop people from freely ignoring melee combatants. You can already, no matter what, toss all manner of status effects at any given combatant while he happens to be jogging past a melee combatant. That isn't the point. You shouldn't have to burn all your CC and abilities just to handle what a simple conditional mechanic can already handle. What's overboard is the magical radius. If your melee guy is standing around picking his nose, or is otherwise incapacitated, then he shouldn't get a free attack/bonus/what-have-you when someone jogs past him. So, it should require an actual attack (which is already governed by weapon reach). And it shouldn't be animation-less, and the AoO shouldn't occur when you leave the magic radius. It should occur when your target decides to disengage. That could be as simple as "he just kept on running," (as per a force-move command) at which point the second you got to attack, that would immediately be followed by a free AoO. If he hadn't kept on running (or had a force-move command), he would've squared off against you when you made the first attack. At this point, he could move more slowly around you while facing you, and he wouldn't disengage until he force-moved away (basically turning his attention toward moving, and resuming movement at full-speed), or targeted someone else with an attack or ability. If someone disengages, then the system should say "well, I hope it was worth it," not "Ohhhh YOU CAN'T GET PAST THIS MELEE GUY!" That, and if you want to burn a stun/knockdown/incapacitating effect to run past him engagement free, then great. At that point, your backline or whoever can also opt to do the same to that person hurdling towards them unimpeded, giving your melee guy time to get back up and go after him, OR just charge the enemy back line unimpeded, etc. Engagement, if it worked correctly, doesn't handle the battle for you. Nor does it deny you the ability to tactically affect the scenario with your active ability choice. It's not like we're choosing between the ability to stun/slow/knockdown/"actively sticky" people, OR some giant, overarching thing that just makes everyone sticky all the time and prevents people from attacking backlines.

I agree that the spells could be a bit more interesting (or rather, that more interesting ones could be sprinkled in to season the spell pool we currently have to draw from), but, I'm sorry... hard counters are relatively lame (they're interesting, but at the bottom of the "most interesting combat mechanics" list), and puzzle-like battles are available in PoE's combat design. I'm sorry, but if I have to choose between using one Wizard spell to counter some big crazy effect, and using all party abilities at my disposal to collectively mitigate some huge/scary effect, I'm going to choose the latter every single time. If some combo maneuver effectively counters that spell or ability, then so be it. But it's infinitely more fun to actually orchestrate that combo, than to "figure out" how/when to cast the spell whose effect is "counter that other mean spell." That being said, I'm not talking about simple effects. "Oh no, your Deflection was reduced! I cast Boost Reflection, so I've countered that effect!", or "Oh no, you've been poisoned! I healed you of poison, thereby countering that effect!". I'm talking about more substantial things, like immunities, stacks of effects, "your whole party's effed if you don't counter this in the next 5 seconds" stuff, etc. Puzzle-like combat needs to be intuitive and tactical. If a boss launches out little fire elemental seeker bombs, you should have oodles of options for making that a less than optimally-effective attack (and, thereby, a waste of that boss's time), than just "Oh, cast the big AoE Banish, thereby completely negating that whole ability!". I'd rather have to shield certain people from fire, or Charm one to cause it to detonate some other ones, and/or spike my allies' defenses so that the little guys don't do much damage (compared to what they could have), etc. Anywho... I do think there could be some much more interesting spells and effects. The vast majority of them seem to simply affect various mechanical combat factors and values attached to one or more creatures/characters in combat, and that's it. Which, that's a lot of playroom, but it DOES kinda make regular attacks and abilities not much different from magic and spells and such. I just think they need to take the current craziest spells and abilities they have, and keep going from there. Maybe one that tethers you to another enemy of your choosing, such that any damage dealt to you deals 50% of that damage to the tethered foe. Oh, biggun wants to smash my Fighter, and I can't get to that mage on the back line? The harder you hit me, the more danger that Mage is gonna be in. It would be raw damage, too. Pre DT/DR damage. My armor blocks 10 damage? If the enemy mage ALSO has 10DT, then so be it. If not? Too bad. Or, some support spells that cause damage of a certain type ("elemental" damage -- not slashing, piercing, etc.) to restore Stamina and a small bit of Health. Or, even just something that produces a beneficial buff effect when a character is stricken by a certain damage type or negative effect, etc. "For every point of Deflection that's missing, gain a point of Accuracy." Even those are just pretty basic/tame ideas, and not that crazy. But, the point is, they DO something different than what some other attack or ability does. They still affect the same things -- accuracy, defense, damage, etc. -- but they WORK in an interesting fashion. Maybe we should just fire up another (as I think there's been one in the past) spell-idea thread? And post the types of spells and effects we believe the game is lacking? AND the types of spells/effects that we think are pretty interesting. For example, I think a great spell is the one (can't remember if it's Wizard or Druid) that essentially hurls a giant rock boulder at someone, but if you strike a wall with it instead of a person, it shatters into rock shrapnel and deals AoE piercing damage. That might be useful.

I think having a bit more control over ability queuing would help a lot. MAYBE some AI scripts. The biggest problem I've had is with making sure everyone's not standing around for precious seconds, and/or catching my BB Wizard before he auto-attacks again to get him to actually cast a spell, or the BB fighter to use a knockdown instead of swinging again, etc. I'm sure slowing things down will help a bit, but you've still got asynchronous ability timings. Also, though, I'm not yet used to all the abilities, and typical enemies' defenses and whatnot. I'm sure familiarity helps with things a great deal.

I would honestly rather just see diminishing XP returns from a given creature's death. You could still have the bestiary in, with some kind of unlocks and/or bonuses, related to Lore, perhaps. But, I don't like the "kill 10 of these, and then gain a batch of XP!" As Hiro and others pointed out, it REALLY causes the interested player to say "What if I don't see another 5 of these?," and kill every single one of them they see until they reach the XP reward. Then, not really worry about them ever again, if possible. If you got 50XP for the first one you kill, then 45, then 40, etc., you could get rewarded for sheer combat (which is going on with bestiary XP anyway), while still not having an incentive to kill every wolf or creature X in the entire game. It's even a direct relationship: The more of something you fight and kill, the less incentive you have to keep on fighting/killing them. It's like the bestiary XP design in that, if there are 100 wolves in the game, you don't have an incentive to kill all 100 of them, but it's different in that you actually get battle experience in-the-moment (when you slay something). And, the further you go, the less worried you are about missing out on XP. Because 10 XP isn't as worthwhile as 50.

I bet they haven't tuned those numbers yet. But, passive/permanent Deflection bonuses (armor, talents, etc.) should probably not be able to get you very high, while active/temporary bonuses can much more easily get you to "ludicrous" levels of Deflection without really being too ridiculous (especially with modals and the like detrimenting your offensive capabilities as a trade-off). I'd really prefer to see this stuff fine-tuned to where the biggest passive gap between a naked Wizard's Deflection and a decked-out Fighter's Deflection is maybe 30 points or so, with each point of Accuracy making a pretty big difference. You don't really want to get to where one character has 20 Accuracy and/or 20 Deflection, and another, without any buffs or modals, just waltzes around with 70+ Deflection and/or Accuracy. Because, as has been pointed out by others, you end up with those Max-guy-vs-Min-guy scenarios, in which the numbers are just ridiculous. "50% chance to crit?! REALLY?!" Now, if an enemy creature, especially something like a dragon, has ludicrous numbers, that's different. But, you shouldn't run into a party of 5 guys, 3 of whom have 80 Accuracy and/or 80 Deflection , and you have 2 people with 70 Accuracy. It needs to all revolve around an average, with a 10-point difference mattering a good deal. Maybe for the purposes of PoE's design, D&D's 5%-per-point to-hit system was a little too much. But, at least when you got +1 to that or AC, it felt significant.

Some people consider it worth it. If you were the only one they had to consider the desires of, I think the game would be in a lot of trouble already, . Really, though, if you don't need that money at the time, then you get to save a bit. It's not like you pay more later on, when you get the game. Once you've pre-ordered (pre-"purchased," I guess, technically), you're done. Honestly, if I could buy everything a month before I needed it, for a discount, I'd totally do it. Then, when a year down the road, I'd saved $500 on things I was gonna buy anyway, I'd be content with that. I don't think everyone should just feel the same way, because I realize not everyone can easily go without a game's worth of money for several months.

Stick pins into the video card to forcibly cause it to display the images you want, Also, Fallout's map was made out of green lines? I mean, I know it was a bland desert setting, but I distinctly recall there being fog of war across a fairly detailed (for the graphics of the time... maybe Voodoo-level graphics, ) landscape image on Fallout's world map. Are you referring to Fallout 3/NV, perchance?

Don't have anything against robes, really, but I do hate the extent to which Wizards tend to get restricted to robes. There are other types of non-heavy armor (even cloth stuff) than just "robes." A lot of it often looks much more interesting, too.

The thing is... as it stands, there's hardly any point in having individual character inventories AND a stash. You might as well just have a stash, and character quick slots, and that's it. I don't foresee people going beyond their quick slots or "hot-swappable" weapon sets in the midst of combat very often at all. So, in the context of the existing system, it seems like having a limited number of individual character inventory slots is more detrimental to the system than it is useful or helpful. If you didn't have that, you'd just have an inventory area ("stash," although it wouldn't really need that name to distinguish it from any other inventory zone, at that point), and people's equipped/quickslotted items. I'm not against that, even though I favor the some-modicum-of-simulation approach. I realize some people aren't uber serious about it, but I don't understand why some people really do want to burn simulation at the stake. The majority of what separates an RPG from other games is simulation. As Silent Winter said, it doesn't have to be extreme and perfectly accurate. But, almost everything in the game is based loosely on how something actually functions in the real world. "Does this ability have a lot of force? Then how about it knocks you back/down? Is something harder to hit while moving? Maybe there's an accuracy/to-hit penalty when your target is moving. Is something harder to hit far away? Accuracy penalty on additional range. Is a dagger as long as a greatsword? Nope, so the greatswords gets more reach coded in." etc. I just wish people wouldn't act like it's insane to even mention the mere thought of simulating something, *gasp*. Anywho, personally, I liked the whole "you have a stash, but you can't access it except in certain places" idea. And, honestly, because of the existence of the stronghold, I think that would be the best place to restrict stash access to. Also, I'm sure someone's done this already in some game I don't know about, but what if you had size AND weight be an issue, but you just measured them both like weight? Maybe one halberd costs 40 space points (queue sci-fi sound effects, heh), and you only have 70 on a given character. So, you can't carry 2 halberds, even if 2 halberds only uses up half your weight allowance. Then, you could even have different packs/add-ons with bonuses like "allows the carrying of 1 pole-arm or large weapon, free of space cost." Stuff like that. *shrug* Not that I think PoE will switch to that. Just an idea for hypothetical land.

^ I do hope that it's only optional in the sense that you either decide to manage it or don't. I hate when something's SO optional that it doesn't matter at all what you do with it. "I'm going to manage the stronghold, but then I'm not going to take care of it or fend off attacks at all, yet NO CONSEQUENCES OCCUR! 8D!" I don't see the point in the "Do it" option if it doesn't affect anything. Now, the "just don't even choose to own/manage it" option might not really affect much (other than that you simply miss out on the things you could've done), but, once you've chosen to interact with it, it should matter. Also, BLnoT, your signature is splendid! ^_^

Not the whole time, no.

Bold underline emphasis. And this is where the whole point comes down to. If you use those spells/abilities earlier in the encounter because it's not immediately clear that you should save them for later for a hypothetical retreat, then you could open yourself up to problems later in the encounter as you have very limited or probably no way of retreating for a character. I'm pretty sure limited information sort of goes hand in hand with the idea of tactics. "Sir, the enemy!" "Alright, men! Go ahead and use the Definitely-Going-To-Win formation, because I know that nothing dynamic is going to occur on the battlefield that would render this pre-battle decision folly!"

Without a doubt, moving shouldn't be a trap choice. I can go hunt down quotes to be absolutely sure, but I'm fairly certain the initial presentation of engagement gave the idea that "disengagement" entailed more than mere movement. It was all "if you move outside of an engagement circle, you get hit." If the circle's ALWAYS going to be so small that you can't even move anywhere without taking a hit, then what's the point in even having circles and ranges? Might as well just forego all that code and have "if you move, you get AoO'd." I'm in favor of the idea of engagement, but it definitely needs to be changed from the way it's currently implemented.

Someone didn't watch enough Xena.

Yeah, but, like I said, with a video game, it becomes quite difficult to convey everything that entails the similarity in just one or two words. And, of course, it's not very easy to say exactly when something goes from being "like" something to being "unlike" something. I mean, you probably wouldn't say that a gerbil is like a human. It's not that there aren't similarities, but there aren't enough for you to explicitly reference the similarity, whole-to-whole. Annnnnnywho. Much as I enjoy this, we should probably get back on topic,

Okay, sorry. I actually got that point, I jut mistakenly thought there was more to it than that. So it's a crutch for Bioware, but isn't inherently a crutch just because it's romance? Again, because this is all text, I'm going to clarify that I'm just genuinely asking, here. Fair enough. I'm actually getting the game, partially because I just want something else to play on my PS4, and partially because I'm a bit more optimistic than you are (which, hey, no one's required to be optimistic, and especially not after DA2, heh). But, yeah, I also don't expect it to be the greatest game ever. Just, to put it simply, if I an enjoy the actual act of playing it for a few hours at a time, I can call a game "bad" for plenty of other things and still enjoy it. Heck, I don't even think Borderlands is that great of a game, but it's fun as crap to play with a friend. It's just pure "what we're doing is fun right now," and not "Man, this is the PINNACLE of game design and narrative excellence!"

Alright, so you aren't going to answer my questions. Well, that's sad... 8( The definitiveness of the phrase "that's how it's done" aside, that's not the same point I was making. I said there's no reference for how magic should function. Not "there's nothing to reference to support my own opinion of what a good magic system is." I mean, if those 5 games are something to point to as a reference for magic, then what did the developers of those games reference before those games were made? D&D? Okay, what about before D&D was created? Exactly. Also, you're making everything very difficult by arbitrarily grouping SO many individual criteria together into these giant points, and attributing them to anything anyone says about the individual parts. I didn't say it's perfectly perfect that spells function along the same attack resolution as non-magic things. But I do understand the mechanical abstraction at play, there, and the fact that difference can easily be achieved through factors like different defenses being targeted (functions much the same way as saves in D&D), numbers being tweaked for spells, etc. There's nothing inherent to the mathematical relationship of Attack Resolution that prevents spells and swords from not working in identical manners. But, what I DID say was that there's nothing stupid or wrong about the idea of spells having accuracy. I mean, for that matter, if they don't have accuracy, why would you even need line of sight to cast anything? I should just imagine you, and if you're not too far away, the spell should cast and strike you.

I was being sarcastic, to illustrate that "Because it's magic!" provides absolutely no basis for why magic should not be aimed. Keep in mind that that works for the "shouldness" of it being aimed, too. There's just no restriction either way. It's a completely fictional thing based on nothing. So there's nothing to really point to and say "See, this is how it should function!" ... Did you really think I was seriously trying to argue realism... for magic? Surely not. You didn't answer my question, really. But, rolling with this response, at what point would it start actually mattering? 300 spells? 100 spells? 10 spells? Under what circumstances do completely relativity-neutral "changes" become improvements/worsenings? Again, that doesn't answer my question. I'd very much like it if you'd be so kind as to answer my exact questions. I don't know why you're so afraid of somehow being entrapped or something. The fact that you perceive no relative betterment from such a wide array of changes intrigues me, and I'm simply curious as to what criteria constitute any degree of relative betterment or worsening in your mind. We're both looking at the same things, so understanding the differences in how we perceive these things should aid our ability to discuss them. Already, I can pretty much tell you that our given meanings of the word "flawed" are different. And I understand that, which is why I'm not about to twist your arm until you use the word "flawed" to describe anything. I get that you're saying the system was fine the way it was.

So, you're saying that we should use "need," instead? /jest I get ya. Well... yes and no. It can. But the word, itself, doesn't mean it. In context, pretty much anything can mean anything. If I point at your shoes, and say "I like your ziuwthaushet," then context implies I'm referring to your shoes in some regard. But, anywho, my point was just that "like," by itself, does not inherently suggest exact similarity. It only means some degree of similarity. You have to use context, and/or other specifics in order to mean exact similarity. If someone tells you that something is like something else, and you decide that it was too different for your taste, you can't get mad at them or claim that their usage of the word "like" was incorrect. At that point, you should've demanded more information on specifically what will be identical, and what will not.

Indeed! Are not development teams omnipotent?! o_O

Yeah, I'd hate to have a Fighter main, and get to some giant, magical contraption that's releasing power, and just have a Might check that's all "Hey, congratz! You dominated this force with your Might, even though you have NO idea how magical power works! 8D!" It's really just accuracy, at this point. Representational accuracy. Not... not like chance-to-hit-combat-factor Accuracy. 8P

It may be in the manual, but there's certain stuff I seem to remember not being very clear, so definitely read a little about the mechanics. Things of note were the scouting (clicking on foes on-screen, within a certain range I think, before engaging them in combat), the AOE range on a given spell, etc.). There are a lot of little goodies in that game. And FUN WITH RIDDLE CHESTS!

Obviously, in real life, magic isn't aimed. So making it thus in the game would make much more sense. u_u So uniformity isn't any better or any worse than non-uniformity? The spell wouldn't be better able to compete with those other spells due to the example change? The misnomer I get. But, here's what I don't get... Are you saying that yes, it would be worse, but not for the reason I'm implying? (What reason is that? Sincere question)

There's a difference between gutting something, and just starting with something else, entirely, in the first place.

I don't understand. You don't think it would improve it at all, but you'd specifically make Minor Sequencer store an additional spell? Why would you do it, then? Just for the hell of it? And if something like that wouldn't be an improvement, then what even constitutes the opposite of an improvement? If it only stored 1 spell, instead of 2, would that be worse?