Racker

I've always found romances in video games to be cheesy. Press 'A' to kisth

Well it's more of a side-mission, unlike the Keep in NWN2 (underrated game imo, btw) which figured prominently in the main storyline. Still, I kept expecting something to happen with it, especially after finishing the dungeons below it, but it never really went anywhere.

I haven't played on hard but when I fought him, I had Aloth cast Dragon's Gaze on him; paralyzed him and he went down like a bag of potatoes. I used the same spell on a certain other really mean bad guy and he, too, died within a few seconds (though I used a Gaze trap instead of the spell on him). That spell may be OP.

I wouldn't mind something like that on the hard/extra hard settings (mainly because I don't play on those settings). Personally, I wouldn't like any sort of time limit because I like to get as much out of a game on one or two playthroughs, which means spending time derping around doing sidequests when I'm supposed to be going after the main villian. I'm willing to deal with the unrealistic nature of that setup.

I think it would be better if NPC Paladins and priests had preset dispositions. Perhaps they simply should have been more sensitive to player decisions than other companions, but I guess it's too late to do anything about that now.

I chose to make a Paladin for RP purposes, knowing about their reputation on the forums and such. I figured that on the easy and normal modes that I'd be playing on, the companion party members make a fine party on their own even without the PC so I might as well go with one that I'd enjoy the conversing side of. I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun I have in combat with him though. He makes a decent secondary tank after Eder and his heals have helped me through more than one sticky situation. I also geared him towards fighting undead for RP reasons, with anti-vessel weapons and talents. Since vessels are fairly common and powerful bad guys in PoE, that helps a lot too.

I would include enemies like the beetles and spiders as animals, and they are a pain. Also, almost all hunters have an animal companion. Rangers themselves are like hunters. What do hunters do? They associate with nature, usually have tracking skills, and kill with projectiles like a bow or firearm. Often with an animal with them. Sounds like a Ranger to me. I like this idea, especially since Josh seems to want to get away from the Tolkien/DnD stereotype of a ranger and make them more like a ranged-weapon specific class. Hell, I'd be up for it if they wanted to rename the class 'Hunters' and give them various breeds of canine as a pet rather than bears and such (of course that's out of the question), and perhaps even give the choice of firearm specific skills.

It doesn't. That's the point. It was kickstarted and crowdfunded for it to not cather to everyone and their mom but to have a fixed target audience. If Obsidian dumbed the game down just for the sake of cathering to more people, broader audience, like is so popular now with big brands, then it would be the last time they saw my money. Exactly. Isn't that what we're trying to get away from here, having to cater to a broader base of players ? I don't get it. Is this the Obsidian boards or the Bioware boards here ? I thought part of the goal was to rekindle interest in IE style RPGs in general. Anyway, if having an easier difficulty setting is that much of an issue to most backers, than they can do without it, I suppose. But I believe the game will fail because of it.

Well, I'm a bit on the basic side when it comes to combat myself (I prefer it to be easier), but I think it's worth mentioning that for PoE to succeed it has to be accessible to a broader base of players than truly hardcore IE fans who have already bought it for the most part. In that sense I think BG-esque easy trash mobs with more intricate special encounters would be better, with the option of cranking difficulty up to what we're seeing here in the beta if one prefers it.

I think the issue is that camping is limited, so you eventually have to return to town after a certain amount of rests, right?

The game is much easier on the eyes now, with the characters and mobs much easier to see. It's quite pretty now, imo. Combat seems a bit crisper, but that may just be me getting used to it at this point. It still seems too hard, with what seem like yard-trash fights taking a long time to get through and leaving my guys with very low health. But, I'm a sissy when it comes to RPG combat.

'Might' is kind of strange, not sure if I just have to get used to it. I think it's jarring to not have any indication of a character's physical strength. Using 'might' to describe how powerful a melee character is makes sense if you assume the entire party is supernaturally powerful (this would, after all, explain why your fighters can keep swinging through hordes of ogres, spiders and goblins all day without dropping. And take multiple hits from those enemies without being mortally wounded). From that perspective it does make sense to measure a fighter's ability via 'soul power' rather than physical strength. Also, while this may make it seem like a wizard could swing a sword as well as a fighter, don't PoE fighters rely more on abilities than they did in IE games? Wizards may have the 'might' to swing a sword, but lack the abilities and skills needed to utilize it properly.

I kind of like the idea of making avoiding combat as viable as engaging in it; that opens the door for a more open ended experience, since you can make stealth/diplomat type parties that could be as viable as a combat-oriented party. But it seems like the best way to accomplish that would be to award exp for both combat and non-combat; exp for defeating enemies, and exp for clearing an area stealthily as well.

Honestly it seems like the main problem most people have with the health/stamina system is just the frequency in which it forces you to rest, which is something fixable simply by increasing the amount of health characters have (among other potential solutions, like Sensuki's). Personally, upon further reflection I've decided that the system is interesting but should be something that you bump up against rarely, not after a handful of encounters with trash mobs. Preferably, usually only having to rest after large battles or encounters with heavy hitting boss mobs. So while fighting through hordes of field rats or whatever would rarely scratch your fighter's health, getting walloped by a giant ogre would take a chunk out of his health and make a rest a good idea. Poisons and diseases could also become a larger threat than the mere DoT/status effect that they've classically been in RPG games, if they chip away at your usually-not-effected health pool instead of your stamina. It would make areas infested with spiders or undead much more challenging.

Heh, you would think that a warrior who sustains a fractured bone in combat would be more or less knocked out. Even if you assume your party is the best of the best, a fighter with a freshly broken arm or leg would be barely able to move, let alone fight goblins and ogres. I guess you can only make a game like PoE so realistic before it starts bumping up against actual reality in ways that make it unfun; the reality of the situation is that a party of five or six people would never be able to fight their way through a dungeon of hundreds of enemies. So there comes a point where game mechanics have to give up realism in exchange for a fun gameplay experience. So the question is; does the health/stamina system, in it's current form, make the game more or less fun? In my opinion, it doesn't add much to the old HP system and adds 'chores' to the game, which I don't like. Just my opinion though.

Nice looking. As I've stated elsewhere, the lack of contrast between the characters and the backgrounds are a big problem for me; I'm colorblind and honestly can't see anything when my party is fighting in the grass. That, combined with the bad pathing and weird timing of actions makes the combat quite unfun for me. Hopefully that can all be straightened out because I like world and the character system so far. Long load times are also an issue, and quite a bit of bugginess and general instability. But it feels nice to have some IE-type fun back after such a long wait.

Perhaps magic, like fireballs and such, exert a physical force on the caster. So they need a high physical strength to keep from being thrown around by their magic, and the stronger they are the more powerful magic they can control. A good wizard would need both the 'spiritual' essence to summon magic and the physical ability to control it. Thus, the most powerful wizards look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It would be a rare individual, indeed. But there aren't that many powerful sorcerers running around either. This would also explain the need to physically rest between sets of spellcasting.

I agree on what is generally said about the visual problems with PoE, so I decided to take this image and adjust one character to meet the requirements for visibility as well as substance. I only used methods that could be easily implemented in the engine and won't need a lot of work. This is the original character: Rather flat and hardly visible. Add to that some contrast and brightness increase: Already providing more substance. Now add a backdrop, which is basically just a blurred silhouette of the character: Coming along nicely. And for good measure, add a base shadow to the floor, separating the character a bit more from the floor: And for better comparison, a gif switching between the original and the improved visuals: And finally, to add context, the entire image with the updated character: Maybe I'll find the time to do this for all chars in the image to see how it'll look. Let me know what you think. P.S.: This was just a quick shot at it so the floor shadow is a bit dark. Forgot to dial it back... Problem is that you now have the scooby-doo effect again. Well, maybe, but lacking some other way to blend characters into the background without giving everyone eyestrain, gameplay trumps graphical design. I've only played a little bit of the beta because combat honestly gives me a headache. In fact I probably won't play it anymore until they update it so combat is more readable. Though I'm colorblind so the effect may be worse for me than most people.

Are there any ideas yet about keeping doors from being the pathfinding nightmares that they were in most IE games (and NWN2), without breaking their use as a bottleneck in battles?

One of the first fantasy games I ever played was the original Everquest, where I played a Shadowknight; basically an evil Paladin. Where a Paladin would have heals and cures, a Shadowknight would have death and disease spells. I've always wanted to see an IE type game that had an actual Death Knight class instead of having to cobble one together out of a Fighter and a Necromancer-school wizard. That said, I voted Ranger. I like the idea of them (particularly archery based Rangers) but they usually felt kind of gimped in DnD PC games that I played.

Heh, it's funny...I never played Dark Alliance, but I clearly remember all the reviews saying 'The game isn't that great...but the water effects are killer!'

In a good game, in my opinion, minions should become easier to kill as you level up, while boss mobs and other special encounters should become more difficult. I think that it takes a combination of good level design and encounter scaling to achieving this to a workable degree in most games. Perhaps in conjunction with an encounter-changing difficulty slider.

Why are you so sure about that? P:E will use the Unity engine which is capable of allowing environmental interaction.

I think a 'fooded cave' level would be really cool. Especially if there were traps you could detect, where if you trip them they blow out a wall and drown you in a torrent of water. Gonna have to make a save vs trench-foot too, hah.

So, am I right in thinking that the removal of 'missing' is mainly to alleviate the 'swish' fests that early levels in many IE games were like? I mean, obviously it's difficult to critique any new system since we haven't seen it in action, but...it seems like kind of a drastic change. Wouldn't it be easier and less controversial to just adjust the hit/miss ratios at early levels and with magic systems?