Lephys

And who says money doesn't buy power. Seriously though. I kinda like the idea of material spell components, but I think they were a little extreme in PnP D&D. "Alas, we've been beset by a swathe of demons! I could cast a spell that would protect us all from harm, if only I had 20 demon toes! Hey, once we kill all these demons, I can then protect us from the harm that no longer exists!" I think that system works best when the utility spells require components, more often than not. And/or you can simply boost your spells with components. "Oh, we found the heart of a fire elemental. Now, I can use a shard of that to cast superior fire spells. My fireball can now split into three. Flame wall covers twice as much ground and burns longer, etc." That would be cool. But, having a grocery list just to be able to cast one simple spell wasn't much fun. That, or, your spells had several ingredients that were all ludicrously simple to come by, and you just bought like 100 of each thing every time you go to town, thus making the resource management almost a non-issue. Again, not against the concept, but I think DnD overdid it a bit. Of course, it was much better in a PnP environment than it would be in a cRPG environment.

Ohhhhh. Sorry. Yeah, I was just kinda saying that plenty of words that "aren't words" are actually perfectly good words. I probably should've worded that better. Also, though, I missed the part where he was specifically wondering about that being deemed legitimate by his spellchecker. Sorry abootz that. 8\ I beg to differ. The fact that they only allow checks against your PC's stats/skills in dialogues suggests that, at the very least, it's intended for you to have to play through the game as several different characters just to experience all the various dialogue options/quest brances, etc.

Better yet, a 2015 calendar with images of scantily clad PoE characters (take your pick of gender)! That's what any game needs.

I just mean that the purpose of words is communication. The conveyance of an idea. So, if "replayability" achieves this, and people readily understand that idea, then I say it's a real word. The dictionary may record real words, but I don't think it's what makes words real, is all.

I don't believe they've expressly stated it, but the system itself somewhat indirectly does so. If you need 18 Intellect, for example, to deduce some clever thought in a specific dialogue, and you gain, say... 1 stat point per level... if you started at 13 Intellect, then 5 levels later, gained 18 (from allocating those level-up points), then you've gone from a person who's incapable of deducing something so clever, to someone who is inherently capable of making such a deduction. Because of the way the stats function in this system, it's very strange for them to change more than a little bit. In Diablo, for example, your Dexterity doesn't ever affect any attempted roleplaying actions or anything. You don't balance better whilst walking across a bridge or anything like that. Instead, your Dexterity basically boosts the crap out of your damage-with-ranged-weapons modifier (as well as your accuracy modifier), which the system is designed around the constant/significant increase of. It's a system designed around constant progression. Not because constant progression makes any sense (especially not to such a magnitude), but because the system's not concerned with accurately representing the qualities inherent to an individual. The PoE system is, however. Thus, because it is, it makes far less sense for stats to increase with any great frequency (like per-level -- 12 times in an adventure). Gaining 5 Dexterity every level makes plenty of sense in the context of Diablo. It does not, however, in the context of PoE. What might fit with PoE, though, is for there to be a handful of specific opportunities to increase each stat by 1 point. That way, instead of gaining 5+ generic points that you could potentially put toward the same stat, you'd still actually have room for improving your various attributes, but each only a little, relative to the scale. *shrug*

Hahaha. I was thinking more along the lines of "congratulations, you snuck through the keep, dispatched the guards, and slew the guy who ran the place. we've 'taken' the keep, but you left all the horrible traps those guys set up, because you just skillfully avoided them. We can't really move a whole keep's worth of people back into this place to live with all those traps there. Not without an awful lot of casualties."

What's hilarious is that it never clicks with anyone. Someone will inevitably come back with "I'm not even going to respond to that. Footsteps granting XP is preposterous. Locks and traps can threaten you," etc. But, what they don't realize is, there's nothing different about awarding the XP specifically for picking a lock that's just lying on the ground, or disarming a trap you can already get around, only makes sense if you're simulating the actual method of people's brains gaining experience, directly through performing actions. In which case, footsteps would actually be pretty feasible. You could gain experience walking on rocky/uneven ground, or through marshes, etc. Conditioning, if you will. The action improves your character, just like the others do, in a simulation. That's the only value they have, at that point. Disarming a trap that you don't even need to disarm to get past is basically just studying the trap. And, as I've said 80 times before, if that's what your XP system does, then awesome. But if the XP you gain from disarming a trap allows you to boost your Athletics, then you might as well throw the act of running, itself, into the pool, and let that, in turn, allow you to level-up and improve your Mechanics. It's all about the core of the XP system. WHY is it giving you XP? Because you performed an action and it wants to simulate the improvement to your character as a result? Or because you accomplished something as dictated by the story/situation/characters/game world?

Ahhhhhh. I sees. Thanks.

"Evil Canary Lair" system? Do the evil canaries drive the player toward the next plot point? (Sorry... in all seriousness, what is an ECL system?)

Still, I think you get some credit. You've been a very big part of at least articulately/objectively emphasizing several a suggestion. 8P I just simultaneously encourage people to realize that Team Obsidian aren't just sitting around, picking their noses until someone suggests thought might be necessary on something. It's not an auction, and they think the game's finished, and are going to release it today unless someone else chimes in.

While I appreciate the sense of humor, it would actually be less stuff to argue about. If we're here discussing 30 different things, and they're only considering a possible 15 things, it'd be nice to have a "Here's what it's actually prudent to argue about" list. 8P

Lol! It grants you a completely insignificant amount of XP, which is such a good reason to put it in the game. It couldn't possibly ever affect your game in any meaningful way, whatsoever, *pompous laughter... monocle adjust* All the more reason to allow every footstep to grant us .00001XP. If it doesn't, I'm going to be mad. But... it's not like I actually want to be able to feasibly gain any XP via footsteps. I just don't want every footstep to feel like an unrewarded chore.

I voted "No," but I feel explanation is in order: It's not that I wish for XP to never accompany the act of unlocking a lock or disarming a trap. I simply believe the XP should only be present when further criteria are met. You just unlocked a lock that lets reinforcements into the keep, or you just disarmed a bunch of traps that mean people can actually use this hallway again, instead of having to send someone with amazing reflexes down it every time they want to get something. For that matter, you should really sometimes get XP for ARMING traps. Otherwise, I'm sorry... but if the sheer act of disarming a trap or picking a lock gets us XP, then I demand that knowing something because of lore, or doing anything athletic, or the sheer act of not-being-detected via Stealth, or operating any mechanical contraption whatsoever all grant XP as well. If the criteria for warranting an XP reward amounts to "did you use a skill?", then I say anything we can possibly do that uses a skill, no matter how frivolous, should award XP.

Sure, but, if the outcome isn't significant, what's the point? In a cRPG, either that person has some important item on them that contributes to your situation, or they just have what amounts to "free stuff" that you could acquire anywhere else. In a PnP game, the outcome of getting caught can have all kinds of impacts on things. But, in a cRPG, you've got a "here's what happens when you get caught" programmed in. They just don't have the time or resources to put in 37 different potentialities for your pickpocket attempt, for any given person who should be pickpocketable if you're a Thief. I'm not saying the desire to or idea of pickpocketing from random strangers is preposterous. I'm just saying that, tossing "Okay, you can pickpocket from random peeps" into a cRPG doesn't really accomplish much but the implementation of a lottery skill. It's best if you can only pickpocket in select situations. Then, make sure those are rather plentiful and varied. Maybe sometimes, there's a good opportunity to snatch someone's coinpurse, so the game let's you make a check vs. your Stealth (in PoE's case) skill, etc. But not just "click on Pickpocket, then click on random NPC walking around." True. IF there was pickpocketing in, I would like to see a penalty that goes beyond just "this is so negligible you don't care," or "this is so bad you're just going to reload." Of course, I dunno if there's really anything you can do about the ability to reload, so I wouldn't worry about that, particularly. Still... It's just a little strange for a whole skill to basically just give you a bunch of dice rolls for extra money/loot. I think it needs to go beyond that. Also, I realize you wouldn't have to be able to pickpocket literally everyone. But, that's kind of what was brought up here, initially, so that's what I've been commenting against, specifically. If you can't pickpocket everyone, then, by default, you're allowed to pickpocket only certain people (however many). In which case, the situations immediately gain the potential to be much more guided, and less sandboxy/generic. Side note: I think one thing that would be interesting is if pickpocketing actually led to quests/altered quests. What I mean is, before you even get to Quest X, you find someone who seems like maybe they've got something valuable, or or acting shady, etc. So you decide that, out of curiosity, you're going to see what they've got on them. So you do it, and you find some jewel. Later on you find out that that jewel is quite significant, and not just some random treasure. And the fact that you have it now, and/or the fact that it was taken in the first place, alters the situation you're in when you learn about that and must deal with (if you choose to) the narrative surrounding the jewel and others' interests in it. That would support the actual, significant roleplay of a Thief type. As opposed to "well, every single NPC you see is a potential free loot container, and that's about it..." And yes, computers should definitely explode when you try to save scum. Hahaha...

It would be nice, methinks (where applicable) if they'd take the feedback for a week or so after a new patch, then present us with a developer-created poll, in the backer beta forums, so that they could gather more useful feedback specifically on options/changes they're currently considering. Since it would be posted AFTER they take in a bunch of feedback from us, anything they hadn't already thought of but liked as an option would be included. *shrug* It just feels really inefficient (even though I get that it's not pointless, and is, indeed, helping them) for us to all just play the beta build, then spew out a bunch of feedback. It'd be nice, at least, to know (after we've voiced our initial feedback and suggestions) what's actually on the table, and what isn't.

To be fair, pretend instead of killable things that the game was just filled with 7,000 treasure chests. Then, asking people "Yeah, you COULD open all the treasure chests, but you don't need to. Why would you see a treasure chest, and think 'Hmmm, I should get what's inside that'?" Sure, when you go play the "it would be crazy to want to run around fighting all the things you can fight" card, it seems crazy. But, that doesn't change the fact that the incentive is there. Why wouldn't you pick all the locks, if they all gave XP, even if you didn't need to pick them? Heck, why do all the quests? If you can reach level cap without doing everything, and plenty of people have gone through a game without doing all the quests, without any problems... is it crazy to do all the quests? Furthermore, why are all those things do-able, and why do they all come with rewards, by design, if the intention is for you to not do them all? What, the game expects people who like combat to get to optionally partake in much more combat, but whoa! NEVER more than like 80% of all the combat in the game! That's just crazy! Obviously, if you kill THESE wolves over here in the Eastern forest, you're supposed to dodge THOSE wolves over in the Western forest. Because you don't NEED to kill all the wolves in the game, and you're supposed to make a spreadsheet detailing exactly how many of everything in the game world you need to fight, before deciding how you like to play, or whether or not, the moment you encounter some group of hostiles, you should want their XP or not. Battle budgets, guys! Battle budgets! That was a bit uncalled for.. . I never implied anything of the sort. He asked why the poll said a thing. I answered his question by saying it said a thing because that's what people think. Then he responded to arguments and statements I never made and I responded by voicing my confusion about that. And now I'm voicing my confusion about your post. Math hasn't even been mentioned so I don't know where that's coming from. Have I said something else that offended you? For what it's worth, I believed him to be joking/being silly. But maybe he wasn't. *shrug*

*Nod nod*. Unless you're going to go really in-depth in simulating that whole bit, you pretty much have to settle for generalized stat representations. So, really, in general, one isn't going to become cleverer, or more capable of solving math problems, etc. One isn't really going to become more resilient. For example, If I walk barefoot on a concrete driveway, it hurts my feet. My friend can do the same, and he doesn't even care. It's been the same ever since we were both kids. He's just always had no problem with it, and I've always had a problem with it. Now, if I were to go become a Navy SEAL, I'd probably learn how to endure some stuff a lot better. But that wouldn't really be changing my inherent "Constitution." Besides... it'd be really, really boring if the game just said "Don't worry... after a year of adventuring, you'll all be just as able to endure the elements as that one guy who is inherently really good at enduring the elements!" So, I think that's reason enough not to attempt too much simulation there. That's the main pro of this type of system: maintaining strengths and weaknesses of different characters. Sure, you might gain a point of Strength, or a point of Intelligence here and there, but you don't just get better stats for getting better, on a regular/frequent basis. When you do that, it still doesn't make much sense because it still isn't really being simulated. Again, in Diablo, you might start with 20 Dexterity, and you end the game with 150 Dexterity. And it works, mechanically, but it certainly isn't simulating anything even remotely accurately. You just got almost EIGHT-times your beginning Dexterity? And you were already supposed to be a capable warrior? o_O?!

You've got the right spelling - but Oxford dictionary says it's not a word - must be one of those made-up terms that gamers use but the rest of the population don't. (Others use 'replay value' as a phrase). The Oxford dictionary didn't say anything was a word, until some human decided they were words and put them into a dictionary.

^ Agreed. I'm not trying to give Sensuki no credit. I'm just trying to give both him (and other suggestors like him) AND Team Obsidian credit, simultaneously. I've just noticed this sentiment crop up pretty much every time they make a change to the game. Like the only reason behind any of their decisions to change anything is "someone on the forums said to." Again, not trying to call someone out directly in this thread for that exact sentiment. It's just related, so decided to comment on it, and encourage the notion that the team's probably considering and re-considering things on a daily basis, with or without us, and our suggestions and input are simply useful in conjunction with their own efforts.

WHATTa'ya gonna pick?! *POP*... NPC pockets! 8D

Tuberculosis is pretty horrible. I don't think anyone likes it.

^ I suppose. 8P

Not to say that they aren't listening, but, I think it would be a mistake to assume they aren't considering any of these things already, on their own. They're not just assuming everything's absolutely 100% brilliant and perfect, until someone comes along and says "Hey, maybe change this like this, for example." Then they just go "ORDER: RECEIVED. EXECUTING." But, yeah, it is good to know they're taking our feedback into consideration.

That's fantastic for like, the first 2 times. When you just run around pickpocketing everyone in the entire game, because there's not much reason not-to, and you get caught and sent to court for the 10th time, it's not as exciting. Most likely, you're either going to stop trying to pickpocket people, or you're going to start reloading every time it fails. Which, again, why wouldn't you, since nothing's stopping you? I mean, what's the point of being able to pickpocket everyone if you can't feasibly do that? "Oh, you'll actually just lose all your money and go to jail if you get caught, and you always have a chance of getting caught." So the game's like "Hey, you can just pickpocket everyone! But also, here's a deterrent against such behavior, u_u". So... I dunno. It's kind of weird no matter what you do. And, in the long run, it's great to take money and random valuables off of people, but how is that any different from simply looting money and junk items, except now with a skill attached to it? If it doesn't really bring anything significant to the table , what's the point? And if it does, then what's the point in being allowed to do all the non-significant stuff? *shrug*. I think we've had enough games that treat systems so simplistically by now that we'd be past that, and want a fleshed out system, if there was one. The "just take things from everyone" system is essentially just making people loot containers, when you think about it. It's simulating something for no other reason than to simulate it.

I am rather surprised that they seem to only be using a forum to collect bug reports. I don't know how extensive it is to set up a bug-reporting system in the actual beta program itself, but I would think that would work a lot better, automatically categorizing and sorting the bug reports before they even get to the team, AND making it that much more convenient to snap a screenie, type a report, and attach and send, then continue playing. *Shrug*