Lasweetlife

http://steamdb.info/app/317120/history/ Apparently it's already up on steam.

This.

If the game is going to be good, it is going to be good without combat xp. If it's going to suck, all the combat xp in the world won't save it.

I have to double fist this idea. This would definitely add some spice to the class and make both the Ranger and his or her companion more interesting.

If anyone except Sawyer was in charge, we would be looking at a release date in December...2016. The way I look at it, the criticisms currently being made, given the nature of beta testing, are actually a good sign, in multiple ways. Given the huge scope of the game, I am actually happy that most of the criticisms I have had and heard are relatively concentrated and fixable. The relative absence of criticism of the quality of the art, writing, and "feel" (outside of combat), means those things are pretty much on point and is a testament to his project management and direction. When the game is shipped, we can all sit back and praise the art and writing to death. For the time being, the goal is to critique every piece that needs fixing so that when the game ships, it will be the best game possible. I'm 98.6758% sure that Sawyer knows that and doesn't take offense at the criticisms.

Cloaks and amulets share the same slot.

Paladin - High CON + whatever attribute ends up controlling deflection, with all the "tanking" talents (hold the line + whatever else gets added in the final game). Cipher - melee DPS Gish Barbarian - Very Barbariany Barbarian Priest/Druid - I want my healer to double as my Offensive AoE dude Chanter - with a huge ass gun Ranger - Just cause I want my party to have a lion as a pet/mascot.

We have a bunch of people saying "yeah, AoE increase doesn't really seem that valuable", mostly because the marginal increase can be a liability. Allowing you to scale it down solves the liability problem, but also means that in those circumstances, you get literally no benefit from it at all. I still really don't get why this is such a spot of resistance when making the margins safe doesn't remove friendly fire, it makes INT valuable all the time instead of sometimes being a liability, and it doesn't require adding a UI layer on top of the system just to regulate AoE sizes. The problem with having a two-layer circle with friendly fire on the inside and non-friendly-fire on the outside is that it is easily exploitable to totally remove friendly-fire completely, which is a major balancing issue, as it removes the risk-vs-reward from AoE spells: Imagine a situation where your frontline fighter is surrounded by a pack of enemies (which happens frequently). In the IE games, you had two options now: 1) you could throw a fireball directly on top of your frontline fighter, damaging all of the enemies, but hitting your fighter aswell (high risk vs. high reward) 2) you could throw a fireball at the far distance behind the frontline fighter, effectively only damaging enemies on this side of the character, but keeping your fighter safe. (low risk vs. low reward) This is a strategic decision that is heavily dependant on your playstyle. It also feels very balanced, as (with fireball being a very powerful spell) neither of the two choices is clearly the "better" or even "optimal" solution. In both situations, you can make use of your fireball spell, but it isn't a no-brainer choice and requires thinking ahead. Now, let's view the same situation with both scaling AoE and two-radius AoE: Scalable AoE: You still have the same two choices as in the IE games and need to decide strategically. However, the increased AoE size of the fireball still has the strategical advantage of being allowed to hit more enemies aswell. Two radius AoE: As the outer radius of your fireball has friendly fire disabled, you can always manage to throw in a fireball in a way that it damages all enemies surrounding your frontline fighter without damaging him. The two possible tactical options (sacrifice life of my fighter for massive AoE damage or do much less damage and keep my fighter up?) disappear completely, as now, there is a clear "best case" scenario that is low risk vs. high reward. In conclusion, scaling AoE via mousewheel is not only better from an RP perspective (and imho more intuitive), but also keeps an important balancing aspect of AoE damage spells intact: that I need to decide if its worth the risk of hitting a player character. A two-radius AoE removes that risk completely, sacrificing tactical fidelity in the game for a clear best-choice-scenario. Remember that flexibility is always a pro, especially in a game that has an ironman mode. Just because an adjustable AoE size might not be useful in 100% of the cases, it does not mean that the opportunity to scale freely is worthless in those situations. Flexibility opens up tactical opportunities. Wether you take advantage of them or not doesn't matter. Just having those options is worth it. A swiss army knife comes with all kind of tools you may or may not use at all. You might end up only using the knife most of the time. But eventually, you will come into a situation where you need the corkscrew. And then you are extremely happy that you have it. Either I don't understand what Josh Sawyer is talking about or you don't. Nothing about the risk/reward of the base AoE (in this example, a fireball) changes. The friendly-fire AoE of fireball will be the same size in an 18-int will be the same as a 3-int wizard. The tactical considerations are unchanged. My understanding of Sawyer's plan is to make it so that the 18-int wizard is not punished for investing in an attribute by making it more difficult for him to utilize fireball than a 3-Int wizard. Also, no offense intended, but I a lot of the reticence to this idea comes more from guttural nostalgia than from anything else.

Couldn't the same thing (maybe to a lesser degree) be said about constitution then?

I knew the kumbaya singing and level-headed discourse in this thread couldn't last.

OK...but if we're now trying to make sure that every stat is clearly beneficial both to characters who are on the "line of fire" and to those who aren't, what about CON? Is that useful enough to those who aren't getting hit very often? I think that if the targeting AI was improved, this would be less of an issue; since enemies, especially ranged and caster enemies, would know to target your casters and ranged enemies and make a low-con caster more vulnerable than they are in the current beta.

After a couple of battles the current system made sense to me and I've grown to like it. I don't think this suggestion is any more intuitive, though, just like the current system, I could grow to like it if it were implemented. LSS, I think all that needs to be done in the full game is to have the current system very clearly explained in the tutorial (even if it has to be in an immersion-breaking manner).

As much as I love the elegance of the symmetry in Sensuki and Matt's attribute system (seriously, a lot), I can definitely see an argument for swapping deflection and duration in regards to INT and RES, as suggested by Josh. In the S&M system, I can see myself dumping resolve for a purely back-row wizard while dumping INT for a fighter who is built to eschew usage of active abilities. However, by swapping deflection and duration, it becomes difficult to dump either stat for either build, while not loosing much systematically (well, except for the elegant symmetry). So, as of now, I think I prefer Josh's minor tweak to the system, though that might change after I ruminate on it some more.

Actually no. The risk is faaaaar more likely that it will be OP than UP. Generally, in CRPGs, any attribute that increases the number of actions one can take (i.e. action speed), unless carefully balanced, is a no-brainier to pump.

When you need to make an explanation like that to players as why you went for some confusing decision instead of an obvious one it feels like not efficient design to me. Already have journalists saying that +2 Might on Amaumas makes them most powerful warriors, isn't that enough. Some ummutable law of soul-physics lmao I was just trying to be snarky. JES gave a much simpler explanation along the same logical lines.

We have a bunch of people saying "yeah, AoE increase doesn't really seem that valuable", mostly because the marginal increase can be a liability. Allowing you to scale it down solves the liability problem, but also means that in those circumstances, you get literally no benefit from it at all. I still really don't get why this is such a spot of resistance when making the margins safe doesn't remove friendly fire, it makes INT valuable all the time instead of sometimes being a liability, and it doesn't require adding a UI layer on top of the system just to regulate AoE sizes. I think the only real reason for the resistance (assuming this would be balanced properly) is the RP perspective. I'm personally more of a mechanics focused person myself, so I can look past it - but many people won't like a system like this unless there's some plausible game-world explanation for it.Your high-intellect-soul not only allows you to increase the size of your AoEs, it also allows you to shape them is such a way as to protect your allies beyond the natural limits of the spell. However, the natural limits of a spell (the base AoE size) is based on some immutable law of soul-physics and no amount of soul-intellect can shape the spell within that zone. Viola. Edit: Ninja'd x2

We have a bunch of people saying "yeah, AoE increase doesn't really seem that valuable", mostly because the marginal increase can be a liability. Allowing you to scale it down solves the liability problem, but also means that in those circumstances, you get literally no benefit from it at all. I still really don't get why this is such a spot of resistance when making the margins safe doesn't remove friendly fire, it makes INT valuable all the time instead of sometimes being a liability, and it doesn't require adding a UI layer on top of the system just to regulate AoE sizes. Same here. I really don't understand why this is an issue. Having the additional AoE be free from friendly fire makes it valuable without making it a liability. I also don't see why we can't have both a scalable AoE and any increase above the base AoE size being friendly-fire-free.

I concur with Matt516 on these two points: A) As is, I think the might and constitution stats are quite good and should not be changed (i.e. Healing should not be decoupled from might and endurance should not be decoupled from concentration) and B) I don't think having deflection (or any other defensive stat) assigned to an attribute is an issue.

Even if any such "penalties" were illusionary?

Josh himself put out the call for ideas to help solve the issue with perception and resolve and Sensuki and Matt516 have answered. From reading the doc it sounds like it would definitely allow for some interesting choices in character creation and gameplay. I would definitely love to get a chance to test of these proposed mechanics in PoE. @Sensuki and @Matt516, given the respect the two of you have earned in these forums, I think you should put your names in the thread name, just to give it that extra bit of gravitas.

Yeah, the frequency of talents definitely needs to be increased.

Interesting ideas. Should be posted in this thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68002-talents-what-would-be-wanted-and-what-is-needed

As a follow up to Wanderon's idea, I think that it would be interesting if PoE saved a character state of every PC we create at every level-up and them allow them to be picked as hired adventurers of the appropriate level in future play-throughs. For example, I create PC A and play the entire game with him/her, with the game saving a character state at every level up. Then I play the game with PC B and go to The Dracogen inn and decide to hire a level 3 adventurer. In addition to having the option to create a new level 3 adventurer or picking one of OE's pre-made adventurers, I would also have the option of picking PC A at his level 3 character state as an adventurer for PC B. Just a thought.

@Pray I really like Leap Strike and Trained Hands, though I don't believe they should be class-gated. @Falendor I do agree that characters should be getting talents/abilities every level, even if they are minor bonuses. This helps character progression feel more granular.

Where do I donate to the "Fly Sensuki to Irvine, CA" Kickstarter?