Lephys

It really is a bit redundant, though. It's basically like saying "this armor blocks ((10%) + X) of damage." I would think the percent would be the best way to go. You could even apply modifiers to it, based on weapon type, etc. "Mace? Oh, then cut the DR in half... so 5% instead of 10%", etc. Instead of having to set a hard DT for every single foe/armor. Or, I mean, if you're going to do that, I would at least tie DT to weapon type. It would just be a modifier. "You're hitting plate with a shortsword? -7 base damage." That would be my suggestion. Stick with flat DR on armor, so that it's a percentage. That still works as intended. Your weapon does 30 damage? -10% is 3 damage, so you're still doing 27. It does 10 damage? -10% is 9, so you're doing less damage. Then, instead of a DT value, have a similar value (maybe even a percentage?), as a modifier (positive or negative) pertaining to weapon-type/armor-type pairing.

Not at all a bad idea. I definitely think that, with only 12 levels, level-up needs to feel pretty significant in the "I'm developing my character's abilities in a way of my choosing" department. Honestly, I don't even think getting something every level is crazy at all (even, in your system, a Talent AND Feat every level). That's how Fallout 3 did it, and there were far more than just 12 levels in that. Now, obviously the things gained would have to be designed to be so numerous. You couldn't just take the ones currently designed for every few levels and suddenly pick one every level. But, I think the frequency works better with the whole "lower total levels = more significance per level" idea.

*Applause*! Thanks for your hard work, Team Eternity! Definitely going to try and play more of this build, even though I've recently been "promoted" to a two-for-one job deal at work (we're suddenly PC technicians AND mainframe operators, but all for the pay of just mainframe operators, 8P). The only remaining qualm I have with the stat system (or, just it's biggest remaining weakness) is, as Sensuki pointed out, that Perception range bonus. Everything else seems to provide at least some potential benefit for pretty much any class/playstyle, but range only applies to ranged attacks, obviously. Not sure what to do about that off the top of my head, though. Since Accuracy is a hard number, it might be better, though, to just have each point of Accuracy increase range by 1% or something. Thus, if you're more Accurate, you can attack effectively at a greater distance. It's not a perfect simulation, but... what STAT is going to increase your raw range with a crossbow anyway? None... so, I accept the abstraction of a range bonus, and just think of it as "effective range." But, yeah, I dunno... Accuracy already benefits both ranged and melee peeps, so maybe that's all Perception needs? But, it feels like the other stats are getting 2 significant effects, and Perception's only getting 1 and 1/2.

Yeah. He may be in the front, but I wouldn't say he fights in the typical "line" with the others. He's like a specialist. 8P

Yeah, in games like DA or Diablo, the stats basically serve no other purpose than to function as an advancement/combat-improvement system. But, in a ruleset like PoE, that actually revolves around story-character intertwinement, etc. they're measures of your characters distinctness in the world. If you start the game with 12 out of 18 Intellect, then that marks you as someone of pretty-decent Intellect, out of all the minds in the game world. If you simply go adventuring for a few weeks, and are able to gain 18 Intellect, how did running around slaying things allow you to go from having decent intelligence to INCREDIBLE intelligence? You're now a genius, out of everyone in the world.. Now, if you found a bracelet or circlet or something that boosted your Intellect by 1, that wouldn't be too crazy. But, if you just inherently become Mightier, or more Dexterous, or more Perceptive (your eyesight and senses just IMPROVED? You used to be blind, but now you have 20/5 vision! Amazing!), things start making absolutely no sense at all. There's nothing wrong with Diablo stats. However, there's something wrong with Diablo stats in a game like PoE. Just like there's nothing wrong with vinegar, but there's something wrong with vinegar in your milkshake.

How do you know how big dwarven heads should be? You got some fantasy dwarves hidden somewhere that we don't know about?

You keep (possibly inadvertently?) interchanging "mastered" with "specialized in." Just because someone is proficient (merely as opposed to unproficient) with several weapons does not mean they are masters of those weapons. It makes perfect sense that someone with weapons training would be trained with various weapons of a given theme. MAYBE not 6, but, still... That, and you could always have "master" level talents on top of this group proficiency system. So, I think you're onto something. I just don't think it's "having some amount of skill greater than zero, with a handful of different weapons, is crazy/weird/nonsensical."

Have you ever seen a low-budget Kickstarter beta from a development studio usually working directly under a publisher with a giant budget? If not, what do you really have as a reference? High-dollar betas? Did you see the Wasteland 2 beta early on? "Everyone" was complaining about how bad it looked, and how incomplete it was, etc. And now, the same people are all "CROIKEY!" when they see the patches and improvements that were laid upon it. Arguing over semantics is kind of ridiculous. There's no specific amount of polish at which something's legitimately a beta. If it's after your alpha version, and you're testing it with a bunch of people and changing things like crazy, it's a beta test. Pretty much all the Kickstarters have been doing the production timeline a little differently from "usual" game timelines. That, and 80% of the betas you typically see are really just "hey, a bunch of people! Play this game early, for lots of publicity, and help us iron out a few bugs and stress test things! 8D!"

I'm quite the opposite. I mean, both are admittedly bad, but I'll take grace over clunk any day. An ice skating troupe may look silly, but at least it lets you mechanically get around easily, while droid-ish movement tends to come with some amount of robot-sequence responsiveness, etc.

I don't think the Fighter is "boring." I just think it might be a little more constrained than it needs to be. I think the Build-A-Fighter arena is a bit smaller than the other class's arenas, is all. It's a yummy dish that could possibly use a little spice, not a bland dish that needs spice. As I said earlier, my main "issue" (for lack of a better word) with the Fighter is that it doesn't really have anything unique to the class that feels distinct from the other classes (except the multiple-engagement Defender modal, which seems a bit lackluster compared to all the other class's unique capabilities/functions). - Every other class can alter their defense rating in some way (gear, buffs, etc.) - Other classes all (or at least most of them?) have the capability to cause a knockdown effect Etc. I think the Fighter could definitely benefit from a little bit of tweaking to give him not just a strong role, but a strong class function/core. And, similarly, I think Rogue's (while it at least exists) could be spruced up a bit, too, as "conditions? Well then... MORE DAMAGE!" is, admittedly, mildly stale in tactical terms. You have dozens of combinations of effects (afflictions) that can be in place, and only one effect that results from any of that (with a "second" effect that's basically a bolstered form of the same effect). It really comes down to the question "What can I do that other classes can't?" Obviously "more damage" isn't the answer, so what's left is simply the mechanism that generates the bonus damage -- Sneak Attack. No one else, as a function of their class, generates any bonus effect from the existence of afflictions on a given target. Annnywho, I just don't think this is a matter of "are we gonna fix these classes or are they going to remain horrendously broken?!". But, this is the beta, and feedback's kinda what you do in a beta. To improve where possible.

I don't agree that that's what it boils down to. See, if he just came in and said "This, this, and this make me dislike this game," then our response would just be "That's unfortunate, buddy," OR a bunch of useless subjective argument. But, when someone starts claiming that something is problematic, and describing reasons beyond "I simply don't like it, personally," that's when you can get objective about it. Really, you can be objective about it from the get-go. And people have been. You can say "Oh, that sucks that you hate these things, but, realistically, those things probably are not going to change, so you'll quite possibly wish to avoid playing this game so as to circumvent a bunch of disappointment." Anywho, if you think he's being ridiculous, then just stop responding. Or report him to mods, depending on the level of ridiculousness. But, people personally attacking the guy isn't really getting anyone anywhere. Personal attacks are no more productive than subjective arguments are. Just pointing that out, is all. We're all human, and we all get the urge to do it, but it accomplishes nothing in a forum environment.

This. That's not entirely true, especially since, in PoE, the modifiers they produce are percentages instead of hard numbers. In other rulesets (like D&D), your stat score might give you a +3 to damage rolls, for example. So, eventually, the value of 3 lessens, and more stat points are very useful. In PoE, it might give you, instead, 30% extra damage. Thus, if you gained stat points and pumped them into Might, in this instance, you'd start getting higher and higher percentages of bonus damage, on top of any other damage factors affecting your base damage (weapons, skills, abilities, possible base damage increases due to level, etc.) So, no, it's not inherently ridiculous or anything for stat points to be gained with character progression. But, it doesn't make much sense in the context of PoE's mechanics, and it's definitely not a necessity. The other reason stats will still matter later on is for all non-combat rolls/checks. Conversations, scripted events, skill checks, etc. Those are always pertinent. 18 Dexterity is always going to be just as significant at the end of the game, in that respect, as it was at the beginning of the game. That ties back into the idea of stats being sort of inherent measures of your character's attributes relative to all other people in the game world. By their very nature, they aren't really things that are meant to change very often/by a very large margin.

We really could do without the personal attacks to Malignacious himself. You can riposte his argument all day long without attacking him a single time. There's no reason to make fun of someone for simply liking game physics. That's not part of explaining, objectively, why this game is fine without them.

Well, it doesn't have to be at character creation. However, why save intra-class character distinction until halfway through the game, I always say... Just... Fighters fight, but, how they fight is kind of up in the air. So, it just seems like getting to tailor your Fighter to various weapons/fighting-styles is sort of the strength of Fighter unique-i-fication (which is totally a word).

You act as though there's nothing else in the game that allows you any control over your character's development, shy of him magically becoming more inherently dexterous/intelligent/resolved/perceptive/etc. What would be kind of lame is if you gained a stat point every single level, and by level 12, you had a score of at least 17 in every stat. Because, at that point, what's the point of stats? "I can succeed at 80% of the checks in the game, and can do anything quite well! 8D!"

The more I think on it, the more I really don't think the Bestiary XP thing is a good idea, because it doesn't seem to accomplish much, when you think about it. I mean, technically, it's a combat objective. But, it's so divorced from specifics that it might as well be "if you kill something, you get XP." I mean, which foes you kill and under what circumstances you kill them are not taken into account, really. Which, if you ask me, should be the two most important factors in determining XP rewards for anything, much less a subset of rewards (like combat). Between the combat that's unavoidably part of some other goal (you can't explore that corner without fighting X bandits... you can't rescue the prisoners without fighting X goblins, etc.), and the combat that would feasibly constitute some sort of combat-specific objective, there really wouldn't be much combat left over that was purely optional. And yet, the goal would be accomplished -- the act of killing would not systemically generate XP. Bestiary thresholds are functionally the same thing as "everything you kill gives you XP... until you hit the level cap." Still kind of encourages nondiscriminatory killing and is ultimately finite.

If we ignore people by default, then we'll never know the day they change their ways. Kinda like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, . I'd rather sit through infinite bad points than miss out on a good one simply because I assumed someone would never present one.

Oh definitely. That was very awesome of Hiro to give you a key. You can totally try it out now and share your thoughts from first-hand experience, . But, purely from a design standpoint, the concept of "objective"-only XP covers all bases consistently. It results in the game not inaccurately simulating in-the-moment character betterment stemming from the act of combat, then switching arbitrarily to abstract world-pertinent accomplishment-based quest rewards for everything else. "Oh, you unlocked a door that happened to have an important prisoner behind it? 1000XP! Oh, you just unlocked a door? 10XP!" The current system isn't really covering all the bases, but it's not simply because we need to reward XP for all kills everywhere. It's because it needs to cover more bases. It can do so by simply expanding upon the same approach it's already using -- designated objectives grant XP. When it works right, there's even already "you didn't get any quest for this yet, but you accomplished it, so you get XP!" in, so it's not as if that function would even be anything new for expanded combat-specific objectives throughout the land.

I'm pretty sure the new change is highly intuitive. If you take 10 damage, you lose 10 Stamina AND 10 Health. You'll just have more Health than stamina. If you run out of stamina, you are downed (you're not dead, but you can no longer operate well enough to fight, at the moment). If you run out of Health, you die (or are maimed or whatever, depending on whether or not you turn on the absolute death option). Pretty intuitive. Really, though, I've gotta say that they'd be neglectful if they didn't at least take advantage of the fact that each pool functions differently. Some stuff should only damage Health without damaging Stamina, and vice versa. I know there's nasty spider venom that skips your stamina and goes straight to health, but there should really be some instances in the game in which you take stamina damage but not health damage. Or at least different amounts. Just off the top of my head, maybe a graze results in 100% of the attack's stamina damage, but only 50% health damage? Maybe a critical deals more health damage than stamina damage. Maybe Fighters can get some defensive abilities that allow for only Stamina damage to occur (but, at the cost of taking MORE total numerical damage, so it's not just free damage mitigation -- 10 damage to stamina AND health would become 20 damage to stamina, etc.). Stuff like that. I get that it serves a function regardless, but I really think the strategic/tactical aspect of the differing Stamina (now called "Endurance," I suppose) and Health pools.

Wait... if interrupt is still in, but it's no longer being affected by stats... what if it was simply the duration or extent of interrupts that was affected by a stat, and not the percentage chance of their occurence? Wouldn't that be a lot easier to work with? I mean, if interrupt is a thing, and it's affectable by anything, you'd think you'd want to allow it to be "build"able (either sacrifice interruptibility, or boost it, voluntarily, with choices to your character's build) in some capacity. It'd be strange to have this field of stat-influenced factors, with this weird Interrupt monolith standing in the middle, being the lone stranger. *shrug* (brief tangent alert): I accept that, as long as, in the world's lore, a physical action is always employing "magic" (soul power/what have you... more than just muscle contraction), and vice versa. The single-stat "problem" is more of an issue with technical distinction/ruleset reference in RPGs. For example, if something prevents you from using magic, but you're still able to move around and exert physical force with your muscles, then how are you doing that, and how do you measure your ability to do that as separate from your magic/soul power if not with two different attributes? Just for what it's worth.

The general idea is that your character's progression is tied to his accomplishments, as a character. That's why completing certain quest objectives that may only involve gathering information from conversations, then utilizing existing character skills, etc, to achieve something specific often grants XP, in the general form of "quests." You're awarded XP because you're accomplishing something pertinent to the playing of a character role in a world, despite the fact that your character learned absolutely nothing pertaining to any of the things that you get to improve upon level-up. So, the problem isn't "Oh no, combat can't = XP." The problem is simply that combat shouldn't always = XP, if for no other reason than that everything else doesn't always give you XP. At least have the game be consistent. If I'm going to get XP for every single instance of combat, then I want XP every single time I successfully get some random NPC to believe a lie. Why? I'm improving my deception skills, obviously. Even in a purely simulationist game, you don't gain generic level-up XP for combat success. You get improvements directly to your combat skills via the act of fighting, rather than the act of killing. I mean, if you didn't gain actual experience in combat until something died, what good would sparring be? That's the "problem" in other games: Everything that isn't combat doesn't reward you for the very act of doing it. But combat does. You killed something? XP! It's not even combat, as I pointed out, but killing. It's basically objective XP, except "make something not-alive anymore" is a global, persistent objective. Anywho... (We've been over all that already in oodles of threads) The current problem with quest-only XP is simply that it's too restricted. You still get XP for combat, even, just not often enough, or sometimes you miss out on it because of silly reasons (you didn't "get" the quest yet!, etc.). My initial thought was just that objectives would be designated, decently often, for combat encounters. The spider queen, for example. Maybe once discovered, you could gain an objective to take her down, based on the idea that, if left unchecked, spiders would breed like crazy in this location and cause danger to nearby civilization, etc. Basically, put more reasons for stuff's death to be useful in the game world, into the game, more often. That way, if you're a combative-type player, you don't "miss out." I think that's really the most significant question: "Does anyone miss out for having a certain playstyle?" "Miss out" here applying to the tackling of the same scenario/goal. For example, if killing the spider queen satisfies a combat-specific objective, and sneaking past her does not, then that doesn't mean the sneaker "misses out" for being a sneaky player, because sneaking isn't seeking to achieve the same objective. They're mutually-exclusive actions at that point. That, and not-fighting stuff is not the same thing as specifically sneaking past it. But, if there are reasons to do other things, then there should be reasons to fight. Not just "YOU GET XP!" I mean actual game-world reasons. Again, you don't get XP for completing conversations... you get XP for accomplishing certain things within certain conversations. For the others, you just get information, etc. This is hardly different from fighting something and only getting loot, or reputation/faction "score", etc., and not XP. With the new bestiary-threshold thing... I dunno. I think it's still too vague. For one thing, as others mentioned, why no XP from human(oid?)s? That, and I'm wondering how it works, exactly, because Josh made the example of the difference between having to kill 50% of all ogres, and 100% of all ogres. So, does this mean that if there are 100 ogres, you have to kill 50 ogres, total, (for example -- I realize the percentage could be different), so that you suddenly get a big chunk of XP for killing 50 ogres? If so, that should really be staggered. Using the same example parameters, you could instead have like "kill 5 Ogres" allow your character to increase his combat experience pertaining to ogre combat. Maybe you get 100XP. Then, if you kill 5 more, you get 50. Then the next 5 gets you 25, etc. until none. Either that, or just have it awarded with every ogre you kill, but decrease in value each time. *shrug*. To achieve what's being achieved, I think that'd work a lot better than just having "kill X things" objectives, regardless of whether or not they're tied to the bestiary. But, of course, none of that has anything to do with whether or not you're completing any kind of objectives of any kind (pertaining to the game world), so you still have the exact same scenario as standard kill XP on top of objective/quest XP. So, I don't know what that's accomplishing as separate from just adding in "every time something dies, you get XP." As I said, I really just think the best way to do it is to designate, with feasible game-world-pertinent objectives, what things are XP-worthy and what things aren't. Either that, or design your game to directly improve combat skills via successful combat. One last thing: as much as they always get bashed, quests/tasks such as "I really need some spider venom sacs to make some serum to treat these sick villagers" at least serve as pretty good reasons for combat XP. I mean, sure, you don't get XP for the act of killing the spiders, but through no other means than combat can you acquire the spider venom sacs. So, if you want that XP, you HAVE to kill the spiders. Yet, you don't just run around in the woods and think "Are there ANY spiders left in the entire world? If I miss any, I miss XP!" But, yeah, you can't sneakily pilfer venom sacs from spiders, nor can you sneak past spiders and end up with venom sacs, NOR can you diplomatically talk the spiders out of their venom sacs, etc. So, I dunno... I really think combat objectives is the way to go. Either removing a threat, or gathering resources someone needs, or getting to things that can only be gotten to if you get past foes, etc... I think that's the best way to reward combat, as just tossing in "you get XP when stuff dies" is just sort of spilling the sugar in the cake mix.

So, Malignacious... what you're saying is, "I know it's incomplete, but I just can't believe how not complete it is!"? Pretty much everything you're judging it on is technical stuff, and not core mechanics or design. Even though it's clearly incomplete. I mean, if you just want to say "Man, I wish it weren't so incomplete, and this early beta build were a lot more fun to play!", why not just say that? Do you go try to drive across a not-quite-finished bridge, and complain to the construction crew about how bumpy it is? How bumpy it is before it's complete has nothing to do with how bumpy it will be when it's finished.

We do not currently have "style" specializations, but it's something we'd like to do if there's time. If so, it would be implemented as a Talent that a variety of characters could take. Shields don't inherently have special abilities beyond boosting the wielder's Deflection and slowing their overall weapon attack rate. I would encourage anyone looking for such 'styles' to keep on Obsidian to implement talents like; 'sword &shield', 'ranged' 'twohanded/reach' & 'two weapon'. Also to encourage talents that are specifically tied to the styles. With the mere implementation of 8 talents, the fighter class would become much more varied and interesting. That's a good point. Heck, maybe what sets the Fighter apart as a class is simply the functional equivalent of multiple class-specific talents selected at character creation, in the form of these "styles." Or, to put it another way, the Fighter doesn't necessarily need to have built-in/persistent arrays of options for combat style at his disposal, just to be a flexible class. If you got to sort of tweak your Fighter at creation, to more offensive, or more defensive, or more CC-ish, etc., he could remain pretty passive/modal/low-maintenance, but you'd still get to tailor him a bit so that he wouldn't be restricted to only one type of Fighter (defensive, currently).

I recall Josh saying that we might gain attribute points at some point in character progression, but that, if so, it would still be very infrequently. None of that "every 2 levels you get another point" stuff or anything.

Yes, really. Ever since Titan Quest, they've made games a much more enjoyable experience. Yeah, really enhances the whole RPG aspect of things. I mean, I can't tell you how many times while playing PnP D&D my DM was all "... the goblin's corpse goes sailing awkwardly through the air like a drunken ballerina, one arm helicoptering, the other seemingly adhered to the goblin's lifeless head. His legs both bend the wrong direction at the knee, while simultaneously bending sideways. You notice a strange clipping effect at his joints where his limb models are breaking from the rest of the model a bit." And I'm just like "WOW! That's amazing! All I did was stab him with a dagger!"