Helm

I wrote combat is pointless, not that you will be able to avoid every combat situation. No idea how much combat you can skip or if you can beeline your way to the bottom of the dungeon to get the epic loot. All I know is that Sawyer doesn't want to actively punish a player for his prefered playstyle, which is to either be stealthy or murder everything, although the gameplay in the Beta does passivlely encourage the player to avoid combat. This game looks like an IE game, but it doesn't feel like one. I don't remember the IE games being stealth simulators where you should skip all of the pointless combat. The core activitiy in the IE games was combat, exploration and questing. The core activitiy in PoE is to to solve quests while using stealth to avoid combat. They play very differently. I'm not sure when Obsidian came to the conclusion that the mechanics in the IE games are total crap and need to be replaced. Mechanically PoE resembles Darklands more than any of IE games, which is not surprising considering the fact that Sawyer's favorite game is Darklands and that he hates Baldur's Gate.

So you generally have a problem with systemic XP (= combat XP, lockpick XP, etc.), but you think it is fine if it one of the main activities of the game, i.e. the journey is the ultimate goal. That is a pretty good description of Baldur's Gate and probably explains why you liked that game and also backed the spiritual successor. I seriously don't understand what your problem is, you keep on writing that you hate something that you don't actually hate. It is like you are defending a certain principle and don't really even know why yourself.

This. Most of your suggestions are fairly reasonable for the most part Sensuki but this pure nit picking. Every encounter doesn't need some long drawn out narrative excuse and to have tons of back story behind it. Why are the wolves there? Because making your home in an old ruin is a ton safer and more cozy for a wolf pack than the middle of a bunch of trees or a cave filled with killer spiders I imagine. Yeah, there is some loot there, but it was not good. Just some crafting materials or something. You might as well just skip it like practically every other encounter in this game. A trash mob is simply any hostile NPC that isn't a boss character. The Ogre or the spider queen wouldn't be a trash mobs, everything else is.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/314089 Yeah right. It sounds just like Infinity Engine game, only slightly improved by giving the player the possibility to use a special skills to resolve some encounters in different ways. More variety is always good. They did a good job on sugar coating the truth.

But you don't get any XP for exploring in PoE? In Baldur's Gate I would get XP for exploring the world, now I don't get anything if I don't first get the quest from a farmer or peasant. Even Skyrim rewarded the player for exploration, and that game is a very simple RPG. Sad. (BTW, there must be a lot of trolls around here, because I keep seeing you call them out.)

You're not very smart, but you're a pretty good troll. BTW I enjoy it when you like my posts, always good to feel your butthurt.

There is no exploration in this game, you must always do the bidding of villagers.

They should just remove all of the trash mobs from the game, I have no idea what's up with this mini-game of walking around pointless encounters.

Really?! Wow. I could've sworn item durability was removed. You still have to replenish your weapons and armor? Or, are you saying that illusionary equipment will be dropped by foes? Or both? *blink blink* o_o Helm's talking nonsense. Enemies do drop loot, sometimes very good loot. The two fights in Dyrford itself drop excellent armor and weapons including probably the best ranged weapon in the demo, so much so that if you go the pacifist route you're actively handicapping yourself for the rest of the beta, or at least until you get through to some rather nice found loot. Let me explain this to you too. Yes, they do drop items. You collect items and sell them for gold or you collect crafting materials. What do you need gold for? To buy camping supplies or craft. What do you need camping supplies or crafted items for? For combat. Duh. Not to mention that some of the best items can be found lying around in the world, there is even stuff in Dyford that can be found, even a gun IIRC. It is so blatantly obvious that combat is completely pointless in this game, because it is designed that way. Not to mention that you don't even need the absolute best equipment if you always avoid combat whenever possible (mostly because of the flawed and impotent stats system). There is no reason at all to take the high-risk path of killing anything in this game. The concept is not only fundamentally flawed (you build powerful warriors in a stealth game? Wut?) it also has absolutely nothing to do with an IE game. Nothing.

If you guys hate combat XP so much, then why did you back the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate that Obsidian promised us? Josh Sawyer has a huge problem with combat XP and he hates Baldur's Gate, he would have never backed this game (if he wasn't lead designer). So why did you back the spiritual successor of a game that you thought was fundamentally flawed, because it rewarded the player with combat XP? So you stopped rewarding players with combat XP but you are still rewarding them for overcoming challenges, like combat? What? Why are you against combat XP then? lol No, because it is just as ludicrous as quest only XP in this type of game. I disagree, Dragon Age: Origins feels much more like a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate than this Frankenstein of RPGs. Not to mention that it has a lot more depth.

Fukk You: Suck My Dikk: Josh Sawyer's Dream RPG Experience It fits real good actually. They should rename the game. lol

We wouldn't even be having this discussion if Obsidian would have been honest when they pitched the game. The gameplay of this game doesn't resemble Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale at all.

Well, what were you expecting from a game where the core activity is combat? Not to mention that Baldur's Gate had diplomatic/peaceful solutions to quests, and you don't have to kill everything just because you get XP for doing so, so that isn't a problem anyway. Do you play flight simulators and whine that you have to fly a plane too or what? Go play a stealth game or pacifist: the pacification if it bothers you. PoE is a role-play game that allows sneaky and diplomatic. give xp awards for individual kills, and individual lockpicks and individual whatever inevitably leads to an ideal approach for maximizing xp by making the right gameplay and character development choices. quest only xp avoids the need to devise a fair an balanced calculus. quest is simple and guaranteed to result in every player getting exact same XP rewards for completing quests regardless o' how they chose to complete the quest. you don't wanna play a role-play game that offers choices? then go play an rts game. HA! Good Fun! We used to have the choice to either engage in combat or not. We used to have the choice to be diplomatic or not. PoE is a stealth simulator that doesn't resemble the IE games at all, it is just a boring stealth simulator where the core activity is avoiding combat while doing the bidding of villagers for XP. You don't want a roleplaying game that offers choices and hate combat? Then go play Pacifist: The Pacification or a stealth simulator. HA! Good Fun! (<- god, that is so retarded)

Ahh, so that is where that quote came from. lol

You don't get any loot in this game from combat, it is an illusion. All of the resources you get from combat are spent to replenish your combat resources. The core activity of the IE games is combat, that is why it is rewarded with XP. I'd expect the same from the spiritual successor.

Bullsh*t, You're stating an opinion as fact. I want XP for completing quests equally as much as I want XP for killing things. Take either of them away from me, And I will respond to the omission the SAME. Incidently, there would be nothing stopping the devs from increasing quest completion rewards for those who completed those quests non-violently, thus equaling out the discrepancy you claim will occur for the violent route. And it's not up Gromnir to decide whether or not a thread discussion is "too old" to be discussed. I don't see a moderator tag next to your name, so stop pretending you're one. asking for both kill and quest xp utterly defeats the Point o' quest only. duh. HA! Good Fun! Yeah, and quest only xp utterly defeats the point o' combat. duh. HA! No Fun!

You're right, I don't want to kill everything. But I don't want combat to be a pointless chore either. And happily it won't. Yes it will be. Combat in this game is a pointless high-risk chore that you are better off skipping.

Well, what were you expecting from a game where the core activity is combat? Not to mention that Baldur's Gate had diplomatic/peaceful solutions to quests, and you don't have to kill everything just because you get XP for doing so, so that isn't a problem anyway. Do you play flight simulators and whine that you have to fly a plane too or what? Go play a stealth game or pacifist: the pacification if it bothers you.

You're right, I don't want to kill everything. But I don't want combat to be a pointless chore either.

Sure, why not, since the core activity of the game is combat.

No, that makes sense in the game world because it's a quest you receive in the game world. In the end, the developers have to put in XP somewhere if they want to have an XP-based leveling system in the game. Quest-XP is the place where it has the least unintended consequences, because quests are pretty much the base concept of a roleplaying game. Ok, cool. So can we have a quest to murder everything and reward it with a bunch of XP? It's a quest, so it must be ok.

It doesn't positively promote it. Certain behaviors will necessarily be promoted through the mechanical function of the game. That is entirely different from the developers putting something into the game specifically to promote it. To make it perfectly clear, the game does passively promote certain playstyles. Yeah, the game actively encourages the player to finish quests and passivly encourages the player to avoid combat. We already know that. But thanks for once again admitting that the game encourages the player to avoid combat. Okay. I guess that means that questing for XP is also an irrational game world decision. Lets "fix" up the game some more and remove quest XP too.

I know. I was responding to your post... which was claiming that individual XP value rewards will never happen. (like picking a lock and getting XP for it.) That is not what I said in my post. Why is it so hard for you not to misrepresent the comments of others? What I specifically said, and as you may confirm by actually reading my discussion with Helm, is this: Obsidian implementing a system where you directly improve your lockpicking skills solely through the act of lockpicking will not happen. Sawyer created an XP system where always avoiding combat and never picking locks makes you a powerful warrior and a master lockpicker. That's what happened.

There are two differences here: First of all, it's not a system that positively promotes a playstyle. Secondly, you are now avoiding combat because it makes sense in the game world. So, the game doesn't promote a specific playstyle, yet it encourages the player to avoid combat because it makes sense in this world? What? Anyway, thank you for admitting that game encourages the player to avoid combat.

So you're saying that improving your lockpick skill by talking to an ogre is ok, but improving your lockpick skill by stabbing a beetle isn't? Why? Is the former less abstract than the latter or something? I'm saying that you're trying to argue for logic where there is none to be found. Neither is more "ok" than the other, but XP must be rewarded in some manner. Kill XP has been decided against because it promotes one playstyle over another and incentivizes certain behavior, not because this XP solution is more or less logical than that XP solution. Ahhh, so you admit that it ok to improve lockpick skill with combat XP or quest XP because both concepts are equally abstract? Good. Anyway, not rewarding combat with XP also promotes one playstyle over another, which is to avoid combat. I didn't back a stealth simulator, I backed a spiritual successor the IE games. So, how does one become a more potent combatant if they never engage in combat? How do I become a masterful warrior by skipping all of the combat in the game and always choosing the peaceful solution to quests?