Lasweetlife

Yep. I think the sweet spot might be one talent every two levels.

Though I enjoy how unique each class is, I think it might be an interesting idea to have some of the class-specific abilities (possibly nerfed versions of these abilities) be able to be picked by other classes as talents. For example, a shorter-duration or fewer-use version of the barbarian's speed ability (whatever it is called) could be an interesting choice for any melee class. Or a limited versions of the rogue's escape ability or the fighter's constant stamina recovery could also prove interesting for other classes. I actually think the hold the line talent and weapon focus talents that are already in the game are effectively this: versions of the fighter's defense and weapon specialization abilities nerfed for use by other classes and I think they are great.

Argument ad combat-XP-ium.

Even if Obsidian don't add pre-made adventurers themselves, I think adding the basic functionality to save/load adventurers and add custom background narratives into the game could allow players themselves to save some of their favorite adventurers for use in future playthroughs and, even more excitingly, allow moders to create and share some unique and interesting adventurers.

From what Sawyer has said in the past, this is more or less what they're trying to do with the Talents system.

Creating these background stories would be the most time-consuming aspect of implementing this and even that would only take a couple of hours per adventurer.

Yeah, that's what I heard about IWD2, and that each dev had to beat the game with his party. You could definitely tell that each party was a labor of love and was built to be fun to play. I think the same effect could be achieved with the pre-made adventurers if the designers (especially the ones who did not get to make companions) were allowed to have fun with it.

There are currently 11 classes and, if I am not mistaken, there are expected to be 8 companions, meaning there will be three classes without companions. I understand that we can "hire" adventurers by creating our own companions, but I think it would be interesting if, when you went to hire companions, you would have the option of hiring from a pool of pre-made adventurers with thematically appropriate names, starting equipment, attributes, and unique (though not too involving) backgrounds. While Obsidian could make any number of these pseudo-companions, I think at minimum there should be three to cover the missing companion classes. My inspiration for this is the pre-made adventuring parties in the IWD series. Though there weren't much actual differences between playing the pre-made parties vis-a-vis your own party, the unique background information provided about these parties made all the difference role-playing-wise. Though there weren't any unique dialogues for them, the background information and names were enough to get me to fill the rest in in my head. Likewise, these pseudo-companions in PoE need not have any unique dialogues or voice-sets in order to be effective stand-ins. I realize you could do the same with an adventurer you create yourself, it would just that much more immersive if Obsidian gave us the option to select some pre-made adventurers. While I understand that the limited number of full companions was due to time-constraints, I would hope that the design and implementation of these pre-made adventurers would not take more than a few man-hours.

I think generally there should be talents that allow a character to compensate, to some degree, for the shortcomings of his or her class in regards to base melee and ranged accuracy, deflection bonus, health bonus, and movement speed. For example, if your character is a cipher, you could take a talent that would bump your melee accuracy from high to average or bump your deflection bonus from low to average. I think this would really add to the flexibility of each class.

No

I guess we're **** outta luck then, because there is no way Obsidian will pay for continued development out of their own pockets past Q1 2015. If even past December at all.

I think our general love for the IE games is making people nostalgic even for the aspects of them that were annoying as frack.

Great thing

I think people are missing out on the fact that, given the prevalence of hoods, hats, and helmets with bonuses, even in the beta, your party is going to be awash in headgear with various bonuses in PoE and the probability of any of your characters wearing a "base" helmet a few hours into the game will be very low, unless you are wearing it purely for aesthetic reasons.

Base helmets are decorative but, even in the beta, there are a few with mechanical bonuses.

I can live with level requirements for talents but I would be vehemently against attribute requirements. Given the fact that I allocate my attributes before I even start the game, it would infuriating to reach level 5 and realize that a new talent, which would otherwise be perfect for my character, has opened up but because of a somewhat arbitrary decision I made 20 hours ago, I can't choose it (This is different from class-gating of talents in that a class is a significant decision while whether my might is 10 or 11 is in fact largely arbitrary).

Theoretically, for the sake of [balance], wouldn't base hoods and hats also have to be given a bonus to compensate for base helmets getting a bonus? I actually don't think this would be a bad idea.

I find it ironic that the topics that are mainly ****posting and circular arguments have dozens of pages while this one that requires critical thought and may actually contribute positively to the game is relatively barren.

Wouldn't a solid UI limit the modularity of the UI? (or vice versa, wouldn't a modular UI limit the design of the solid UI?)

Looks cool as hell though

Agreed. No, it's not saved. There is a base level of focus (10 at first level and 35 at 5th level) that the focus reverts to after each encounter. So for example, if you build focus up to 70 in an encounter, it will revert to 35 after the encounter. Vice versa, if you deplete it to 0, it rises to 35 after the encounter. I definitely prefer this system to either alternative (i.e. Starting every encounter with 0 focus or transferring your full focus levels from encounter to encounter).

I actually really hope there's something like this in the final build... There's a talent in the Beta to reduce the negative effect of not following the Creed of your chosen Faith/Conviction on Priests and Paladins. I would rather like one that increases the effect. I think this would be even more interesting if it also had the effect of increasing the penalty for going against your cause/deity/order.

Armor Focus - basically like weapon focus but for armor. Adds +x DT for a group of similar armors. I would prefer if this was across a cross-section of armors (i.e. Padded armor + brigandine) rather than the DnD standard light, medium, heavy armor groupings.

Talents, from what I read in the gamepedia, are class neutral. I just put a class or classes for which would make more sense. But being talents, anyone can pick them.There is a mix; some are class-neutral while some (like Grimoire Slam) are class-specific.

@Wintersong: Great suggestions. Though I think some of these (blade dancer, keen senses, way of the wast etc) should not be class-restricted. I dream of building a naked, two-sword fighting Cipher of death and these talents would go a long way to helping me realize my dream