BrainMuncher

Well being too fragile is another thing entirely, I wasn't being pedantic with semantics, I just didn't realise that's what you were getting at. Looking at the wiki I see these HP numbers for the classes, in ascending order: Class: (Endurance per level, HP multiplier) Wizard: 10 x 3 Priest: 12 x 3 Cipher: 10 x 4 Chanter, Druid, Ranger, Rogue: 12 x 4 Fighter, Paladin: 14 x 5 Monk: 14 x 6 Barbarian: 16 x 6 So the Chanter, Druid, Ranger, and Rogue get 20% more HP than the Cipher, 33% more than Priest, and 60% more than wizard. Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Paladins obviously have a lot more than the others, Barbarians with twice as much as a Rogue, and three times that of a Wizard. It definitely look like the Wizard is the odd one out, with significantly less HP than most other classes. But Junta specifically says he's referring to all spellcasters, not just wizards. Which means the complaint would naturally extend to Chanters, Rangers and Rogues also, which most likely drop just as easily to a cannon barrage.

Well the reason the potential threat didn't become effective is because it got blasted in the face with a firearm barrage. A threat is exactly that, the threat of something that hasn't happened yet. Obviously it makes sense to remove whichever threat poses the greatest potential for harm first. This suggests that the OP regarded the spell caster as the greatest threat, and dealt with it first. Not really sure what you're getting at prodigy, either I missed your point or you missed mine.

XP in general in a game like this is dumb and only there because people would freak out and put put their dinner bowl on their head if you took it away. As we have seen. It's there in PnP because the people designing the rules have no control over the adventure themselves, it's a guideline to help DMs manage progression in a totally modular framework. I don't see why there needs to be XP at all in these entirely handcrafted adventures, just hand out level-ups at appropriate spots. Now everyone can play however the hell they want without running into any balance issues. They can: - stealth past everything - OCD murder everything without ever taking a quest - complete every quest - etc. Then no-one could complain about their playstyle being disadvantaged. Furthermore, design becomes easier as you don't have to account for a range of character levels. This means balance can be tighter meaning less cases of "too easy" or "too hard", and the devs saved a bunch of time tweaking meaningless numbers, so they can spend more time putting actual fun into the game.

The fact that the OP chooses to snipe the spell caster first with an opening volley suggests that the spell caster was already the most threatening enemy. Otherwise they would have sniped an other, more threatening enemy instead?

Genuine question here since I haven't played the beta: what are all these things I read about in the wiki that sound exactly like those spells you mention: Hold person: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Fetid_Caress & http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Mental_Binding Confusion: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Confusion & http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Bewildering_Spectacle & http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Tenuous_Grasp Horror: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Ryngrim's_Repulsive_Visage Charm/dominate: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Whisper_of_Treason & http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Puppet_Master etc. Are these spells non-functional or something?

People keep comparing magic in PoE to high-level BG2 as if it's somehow a valid comparison. The backer beta starts at level 5. A wizard at that point in an IE game will have a fireball or two and a few acid arrows per rest. The remainder of the time he's pew pewing with a sling or something and trying not to die. Unless the wiki is completely wrong, the spell lists look very similar. Spells have been renamed but most of them are there. Haste and slow are there. Fireball, acid arrow, scorcher are all there. There's a bunch of situational defensive buffs. There's a bunch of debuffs. I just can't see what you guys think is missing compared to the IE games, it's almost exactly the same setup in both. Unless you're telling me that you were running around in IE games having epic Minor Spell Deflection vs Spell Thrust battles with your level 6 mage, what is it exactly you think is missing from PoE magic?

Can't say I really agree with much of anything you're complaining about, except the text on the wood texture. Let me summarize what you said with some blatant misquotes: - Gaps between ambient dialogue too long - And it looks bad, and you don't like it - And the fading "needs" to be adjusted - Encounter design was bad and disappointing - No thought put into it - you didn't like the loot - you like the HUDs not being visible - but you don't like that you can't see the information the HUDs showed (seriously wtf?) - you say characters look washed out and murky - you say attribute system is bad, and worse than before - you say "I will try it" like you're doing someone a favour - not happy with character positioning after map travel - map is bad and annoying - NPCs need to stop whatever they are doing and turn and face you immediately, because you are grand poo-bah sensuki, how dare they talk to you with their back turned - you say "combat is meh" Maybe you're right about some of this, but I think you just like to complain a lot 'cause it makes you feel smart. The way you deliver it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So much pedantic complaining, an aloof tone of implied superiority. It's almost like you've spent a lot of time on codex.

Crickets of Eternity. It could be a goofy spin off like how Far Cry: Blood Dragon was to Far Cry 3. I think they could pull it off. Plus now they already have pre made logo art, that's one thing off the to do list already.

I would have guessed that upper and lower case existed before printing, is that not true?

@MadScientist I think you will like PoE. Obsidian have designed it to resemble Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale etc. in terms of the feel and level of customization, while trying to remove a lot of the unnecessary or superfluous complexity. Almost all the things you mentioned regarding the game ruleset have been adressed to some extent, so far as I can tell. - Character stats are point-buy - Lots of dialogue choices, not just good or evil. - Much simpler leveling/character creation than NWN - Designed for computer game, not PNP - Semi-random equipment. Not as random as diablo, but not entirely static. - XP gain based on progress through the campaign and quests. No XP for combat, so no grinding. And no accidentally over-leveling by OCD killing every monster on every map. - Plenty of companion NPCs with individual personalities and dialogue. Option available to make your own companions if you prefer them not to have personality or want a specific character build - Limited level scaling, with high and low limits. Not everything has level scaling applied, there will be plenty of enemies with no scaling, or very small scaling range. - Graphics are 2.5D, should be pretty "timeless". Backgrounds are 2D, pre-rendered and touched up by hand. Characters 3D. I don't know anything about the crafting or AI, so can't tell you anything about that.

You have to allow for the effect of: a) Probably lower resolution than what you will be playing at b) Lossy video compression, which halves the chroma resolution (causing blocky colours), and can severely reduce sharpness. Also, subtle edges like leather armor brown on ground dirt brown are tricky because the encoder wants to just replace them both with generic brown to save bits. The encoder would rather spend its bit budget on obvious sharp edges like black on white, UI borders and text, etc., since its algorithm considers them as having greater psychovisual impact. It also won't help that the video is probably being encoded at least twice, once on Obsidian's end before upload, and again by twitch to send to you. Double the badness, and small, subtle details will be the first thing to be lost. Not saying that you're wrong. Just saying that this particular thing will look much worse over a stream.

So the only difference between the Champion and Royal that I can see is: Digital Chris Avellone novella Digital Collector's Book High Res Concept Art I can't see why anyone would be upset. If you don't think the extras are worth it, then get the Hero Edition. For comparison on GOG, PoE Champion Edition is US$6 cheaper than the Witcher 3 pre-order. Both come with a similar array of extras including a soundtrack. This isn't some first-time game from an unproven developer. Hell Obsidian's last game was Stick of Truth, which launched at $60, and that was just the base xbox version with no extras. http://camelcamelcamel.com/South-Park-Stick-Truth-Xbox-microsoft/product/B006IOAHTQ?context=browse PoE is a steal by comparison.

Watching the live stream, Josh is clicking on stash then take all a lot when looting monsters. Almost every time in fact. Might be worth making a 1-click option for that.

An "Auto-pause when character idle" would be great, if it doesn't already exist. In the IE games I always had auto pause on spell cast, and on target gone, to help minimize idle time.

Hopefully it makes enough in the short term for obsidian to self-fund a sequel, and a good chunk of profit on top of course. But the best thing about PE is the long term potential. A quality, lengthy game like this should have a considerably long tail of sales, as opposed to flashy graphics-driven titles, short games with little replayability etc. The 2D art should result in good performance even on old PCs, meaning more potential buyers. And since its visual appeal is not based on technology it should age well just like the IE games have. Since obsidian owns the entirety of PE, no one can screw them out of royalties this time.

Obviously you do care. So much that it's one of your 'personal hopes' that it will be impossible to solo the game. Seems a little weird to hope for something that has no effect on you (since you won't be trying it) but does have an effect on other players who get great enjoyment out of. For me, I play games to get enjoyment. I don't 'hope' for things to be impossible for other players when it doesn't affect how I play the game my way. It's their game, it's their way of playing. It's probably best not to tell other people what they think, especially when they have just specifically clarified their position. He didn't say he hoped it would be impossible, he said "next to impossible", which represents extreme difficulty. Extreme difficulty is exactly what people are looking for when attempting a solo play through. I don't want to speak for him, but the implication is that he does not want the difficulty of party play-throughs to be sacrificed in order to enable more approachable solo play, based on the assumption that the game is easier with more party members. This is one way in which it could indirectly affect him despite not playing solo himself.

Namutree, I have to agree that the question is flawed. You are treating it as a binary decision, and treating quest quality as absolute. Deciding whether or not to cut quest content in the context you describe would almost certainly based on judgement of quality relative to the other quests. I'm not a game developer but here is one (overly simplified) way I imagine it might be done: In the above image, A, B, and C are quests that have been assessed for quality and given a rating. The red line is an arbitrary threshold, quest to the left are cut, quests to the right make it in. What I sense you are really asking with this thread is "where would you place the red line?". Personally I would place it as far to the left as possible without making the game too long. Which is another way of saying as far to the right as possible without making the game too short. If you approximated the length of quests, you could simply start from the right and move the line left until you'd reached the desired length of your game. Now, that process I just pulled out of my arse might not be anything close to what actually happens, but my point is that you original question is oversimplified to the point where it is impossible to give a meaningful answer. Whether you prioritise game length over quality or vice versa can depend on a number of outside factors. If your game is too short you might allow some questionable stuff, the opposite is also true but likely much less common. You might have too many druid quests and not enough paladin quests, and end up cutting a pretty great druid quest in favour of a mediocre paladin quest to even out the distribution. And so on.

I believe what they are trying to say is that the game is designed for party play, but they're not going to stop you from trying to play with only one character if that's what floats your boat. It will probably be very difficult though. Same as BG, IWD etc.

I think one aspect of "controlled" level scaling has been overlooked in this thread. Some people seem to have implied that level scaling within a range is somehow better than full blown oblivion scaling, but I contend it is actually worse. Even in a limited form where encounters scale within a range, level scaling does the opposite of what it is intended to do, which is provide an appropriate challenge. Without level scaling, if the player becomes over-levelled from side questing, they will be getting less xp from kills because of fighting lower level monsters. So while things will be easier for a time, it will even out in the long run compared to a player that skips the side-quests. Level scaling interferes with this natural moderation of xp gain. The over-levelled player finds that the encounters are scaled up, and there is now more available gross xp on the table. So instead of gaining less xp than normal, they continue to gain at the same rate because of higher level or simply more numerous monsters, or possibly even gain xp at an accelerated rate if the devs weren't very careful with the scaling implementation. The player continues to stay above the level for which the encounters were designed, and will continue to race further and further ahead with every optional thing they do. Even though the encounters are scaled up, they were designed for a lower level party, so they are still inherently easier. Now imagine the player that skips the side quests. They are under-levelled for an encounter, which not only makes it inherently difficult, but the encounter is scaled down slightly. So they gain less xp and loot than they would have if it were not scaled. As with the last example, but opposite, the player is prevented from "catching up" to the expected level that the encounters were designed for, and they will get further and further behind as they are using more potions and whatnot to get through the more difficult encounters. Even if loot is not deliberately scaled, simply placing additional creatures or higher level creatures will affect the amount and/or quality of loot, assuming that those monster's corpses can be looted. It might only be rusty swords and trinkets, which would be meaningless to the over-levelled guy, but the under-levelled guy might be scrounging for every last scrap to buy more potions and get sorely needed gear, since they have been getting less loot overall and skipped some optional areas. So you can see that inappropriate use of level scaling can undermine itself. Giving a more appropriate short-term challenge while making things worse in the long term. I say this is worse than oblivion style scaling because oblivion was (sadly) actually designed to be the way it is, it therefore successfully achieved its design goals, whether you like them or not. The same can't be said for a system that does the opposite of what it is intended to do. I won't go into how level scaling negatively impacts exploration, since exploration is my favourite thing and when I think about such things I start hissing, foaming at the mouth, and clawing at my eyes.

There's no way the pathfinding will match the utter wretchedness of that in the IE. I think it's actually impossible.

Imagine an early planning session. "This all looks great guys but we need to make some cuts. This plan is about 500k over budget, so, what can we leave out?" Now imagine what those things are that were cut in the imaginary planning meeting. Those things are what were funded by the $4M stretch goal. Although it probably wouldn't happen all at once like that. I imagine someone sitting down "ok we have this much to spend on voice acting, how should we make best use of that?". Then they end up deciding to voice 20 selected characters, whereas with less money they may have had enough for only 15, or whatever. Just little bits shaved off here and there that add up to a lot when combined.

Welcome. It's also the first and only game I've ever backed or pre-ordered (I really wonder why people pre-order digital products - are they afraid steam will run out of copies or something?). After looking at the project I saw zero risk, and 100% chance of something awesome.

Can't say I've seen it before in UNITY. Must be new for 4. Even so, it only seems to talk about fixed real-time lightning sources, not variable like the day-night transition PoE will have. Just cause it's 2D doesn't mean it's automatically 'cheap' or 'inferior' to 3D games. Or, you know, less expensive. lol, not new in 4. Every 3D engine since the late 90s has had dynamic real time lighting. Usually just vertex lighting with no shadows at first, then a slow move towards per-pixel with shadows as hardware performance improved.

I've come to the conclusion over time that the best system of leveling is to have no leveling at all. With unchanging HP numbers characters could learn talents that increase tactical depth rather than increasing raw damage output. This, among other things: - eliminates HP bloat - eliminates the need for tier upon tier of better equipment - eliminates any difficulties of scaling to high levels - abilities, equipment, and monsters never become obsolete - eliminates problems of early levels being disproportionately unforgiving due to low HP - campaigns can be extended almost infinitely without becoming ridiculous - content can be added retroactively to the beginning or middle of a campaign (eg. mods) without skewing the balance of later sections - much easier to create, open, non-linear worlds - a low experience character is still useful in a high-experience party, instead of missing 95% of the time and failing every skill check - a high-experience character in a low-experience party doesn't break the game - static, predictable HP numbers means better overall balance - a god will still be godly no matter how many goblins you defeat - increases in power can be more directly linked with the game world, rather than arbitrarily spaced level ups triggered on random kills. For instance, finding a tome somewhere and learning a new spell from it, as opposed to just suddenly becoming better at magic after killing a wolf I would never suggest to remove leveling from PoE, it just... would never be accepted. But i do think that certain types of RPG-like games will (very slowly) move in this direction over time. Ironically, the rest of the world will probably continue moving in the opposite direction, with leveling pervading everything. Especially with the increasing prevalence of free-to-play* games, coupled with the corporate gaming psychology machine having folded the concept of leveling into the cynical "addiction reward loop".

Balance in general becomes more imperative as complexity increases. Low complexity Imagine a child playing with blocks. If they are big chunky blocks, and he's only stacking them three blocks high, then they don't need to be perfectly squared to remain stable. They can afford to be a little trapezoidal without causing the stack to fall down. High complexity Now imagine many smaller blocks being stacked quite high (jenga?). Each one of the blocks needs needs a pretty tight tolerance or it will be impossible to balance them on top of one another and the stack will fall down. If all you have is three classes with minimal customisation (eg. diablo 1), and party size of one, then balance isn't so much of a concern. All you have to do is make sure that the game is suitably challenging for three known quantities. You can predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy what the player will be capable of at any given point in the game. When you start talking about 10+ highly customisable classes and a big party, it becomes extremely difficult (practically, impossible) to test every possible combination of classes and builds that could make up a party. It's much more difficult to predict what the player will be capable of. Therefore extra care must be taken to ensure that all of the building blocks that make up the game are nicely balanced. Otherwise you can end up skills and abilities that are basically mandatory, or entirely worthless. This defeats the purpose of having high complexity in the first place, which is to provide variety and options. If half of the abilities in the game are worthless then they may as well not be in the game, as the only purpose they serve at that point is to punish the player for trusting that the developer would make them useful. The idea is to reduce the standard deviation between the most useful and the least useful things, so that the player's overall competence can be predicted to a reasonable extent. If possible competence of the player can range all the way from cowardly fumbler all the way to angel of death, how do you design encounters? If you make them appropriately challenging for the angel of death, then they will be prohibitively difficult for anything less than the angel of death, and you've just invalidated 90% of the options and complexity in your game. If you make it appropriate for the fumbler, then it will be laughably easy for everyone else, and you've invalidated all of the tactics and special abilities you built into the game, because basic attacks are sufficient. If you put the difficulty right in the middle there will still be many players for which it is either too difficult or too easy, only those whose competence falls in the middle of the range will have a good experience. There's always going to be some variation between the best and worst approach to any situation. It shouldn't be the goal to entirely eliminate that variation, making everything equally useful in all situations, as this also negates the point of complexity and options. But it should be the goal to keep that variation in check, and also to present a variety of challenges that is equal to the variety of options available to the player. If all the encounters (both combat and non-combat) are similar, then there will be a "best" way to approach them. But with sufficient variety, what is best in one case won't be best in the next.