Silent Winter

^AFAIK, the xp is divided among your party, so yes per party member. You'd get 1000xp for the quest. Each character gets their share (1000/6 or 1000/5 etc)

^You mean you just passed by the farmers whose feet were stuck in the mud, twice, and didn't rescue them? How heartless (plus you missed 25xp) It'd be good if there were some schedules - even just like TOEE where they'd go in their house but still be awake (and sometimes ask you to come back at a better time)

OP makes some good points - and I definitely agree that talens/whatever should shape the build more at level-ups - each level-up should be more exciting than clicking 'ok' and finding you're x% more capable of saving-throw. I would still change the attributes' effects some - making the lowest AOE area smaller than now and making the largest a little smaller too - though that's not really changing the balance but just because the largest area seems a little too large to me at the moment. (Or make it adjustable but that probably won't happen).

The pieces are the classes themselves. The game gives you every "piece" for the "chessboard", you can't "forget" a class that's right there in the character creator. What you can do is play badly with the pieces you are given, just like in chess when that queen is all but useless in the hands of a rookie. The fault with the analogy lies in you being unable to differentiate that queen (or any other piece) from any other of its kind - there are no stats. You are given ALL of the pieces to play with. Then gameplay begins, then you can play poorly. In an rpg like PoE, you choose a piece and then differentiate it based on stats and starting gear/whatever. Additional changes come at level-up too. Lets just stick to comparing it with other rpgs. This is kind of the point - in BG, you could start a new game, play for hours and then be unable to continue with your low-con/dex fighter because you figured "why would they let me choose intelligence+wisdom if it were useless?' and 'why should intelligence be useless for a fighter?' (strength could be compensated with items I suppose). Straight classes aren't bad (and neither are those in PoE) - it's the attribute choices that were bad (and that's what we're discussing) Sure: RTFM - and personally I enjoy reading it - but saying "This is a good build, do it. That is a bad build, don't do it." is more limiting than saying "That build isn't bad, but you'll have to learn to play it differently from this other build" So your low-con fighter isn't going to hold the line much in PoE - from the sounds of things so far, that is a bad build, so perhaps they need to add a fighter talent for ranged weapons to compensate the accuracy somewhat. The attributes need adjusting but the system sounds fine to me. Edit: Or they could just accept that there are some bad builds if you really try - like the low con, low dex fighter - but keep the general philosophy of starting stats just equals different playstyle emphasis.

^Crowd-funding was extended through the weekend (til Monday morning California time) so you'll get whatever you pledged for. Edit: So yes, there shouldn't be any delay with sending you the goods once they're out (Winter 2014 is the current release date)

But there's more xp available in the game than necessary to reach the cap - Josh said before that critical path plus some optional side-content would be enough to get to level 12. So if you miss out on some xp here, you could make it up there. Also - needn't be equal xp distribution for each step - talking to an obvious npc to get some info might net you 25xp whereas finding a hidden passage might get you 50 (for a very basic example) with a bigger reward at the end for the actual resolution.

^we do, but until a dev pops in with a 'yay' or 'nay' , there's not much to add to the discussion. Splittable parties are a good idea. Nobody disagreeing = thread not active.

If there's no way to avoid any of the mobs then yes, there's not much point talking about multiple solutions. I was under the impression that some of them would be unavoidable fights but others would be solvable by other means. I agree it needs looking at (suggestions in another thread that at least some of the wild animals shouldn't be auto-hostile, like the bears in BG). The xp-system also needs looking at. I'd still be happy with 'objective xp' , including for exploration discoveries of significance (which necessitates the dealing with of hostiles among other stuff)

Sure, most players don't go on a squirrel-hunting spree just because they technically give a few xp. I was talking more about (and assumed he was talking more about) the actual enemy encounters. For me the argument is less about hunting down every last xvart and more about 'as you come across a threat - what to do?' Is combat the no-brainer choice or is there a more significant consideration of resources+threat+time+fun/whatever?

I thought they used a d100? Not practical for tabletop gaming maybe but easily implemented for crpg.

Ok let's try this again. Combat =/= walking. I mean quests are also unavoidable and I didn't see you compare them to walking. apparently quests are avoidable in the beta - hence some serious lack of xp This is why they need to fix it with something (like spreading it around with more objective xp) Ok so what is the problem there? You kill monsters whenever you come across them, you are rewarded with xp, they are monsters they will attack you anyways. Not really following what you are trying to say here. I think he's trying to say that if you have a choice between 'kill the creatures' or 'find another way' , you won't think twice if there's kill-xp involved - just kill them since 'why not?'- Whereas if there's no kill-xp, you kill them if there is no choice but consider other options if they're available: a) kill-em anyway because fun / drops b) sneak because I invested points in sneak c) talk because fun d) rage-quit because I'm in a bad mood e) get some coffee and stay up til 4am thinking of how to optimally bash the beetles. f) ????? Personally, I'd take each situation on its merits and decide for RP reasons. So long as I can get enough xp to hit the level-cap by doing only mandatory combat (including mandatory combat in optional sidequests), then I don't really mind if it's combat-xp + quest-xp or a more overreaching objective-xp system (I just prefer the idea of the latter for reasons stated many times).

^for me, it depends what's there. Even in BG I might not explore an area that's just mobs anymore - but I will if there's something more interesting there (yes, it's metagaming for my PC to not bother with that map but bother with this one, but I don't care, I've played it enough times to overlook a map if I want to). But lighthouse and caves? Mad cleric and his 'family'? That's still fun to 'stumble onto' (side-point, I think I've only ever once gotten to hear of the mad-cleric quest before running across him).

I will now be disappointed if such an item is not craftable in-game. It should also require the gathering of coffee-beans but then provide a bonus to alertness and pleasant-mood. Will go well with the chocolate-biscuits - can you craft them in the beta?

That's actually a good point - the vast majority of gamers would have to read the description to find out just what it means - no confusion Lets rename them all anyway: Thunder=might Chaos=res Havoc=per Flow=dex Bane=con Petal=int .... no, on 2nd thoughts, lets not.

But then we're either just renaming things or moving them around without much of a mechanical difference. Might = power for fighter, Int = power for mage ?, Psyche = power for Cipher - would make it more intuitive but so does reading the manual. Or am I misunderstanding you? Plus: In the present system, you can have different builds of Cipher. If I understand you correctly (entirely possible I've got the wrong end of a different stick), you're suggesting that Ciphers need to be built a certain way. So we're back to D&D.

Slightly on-topic question about rangers and their animal companions: Do the ranger's attributes affect their animal companion? (stamina/attack-power/etc?) Or are the animals a fixed entity? Stamina pools are shared, yes? (Health pool too?) So wouldn't the ranger need CON too, even in the back-row if their companion is going melee?

To me it just sounds like doubling up the work, which I'd rather see spent on bug-fixing at this stage. (dual xp-systems also means dual xp-bug potential). It's not a bad idea, it's just more work. It's possible modders will mod-in an xp-objective for each enemy and reduce quest-xp accordingly - I'd leave it to that.

Agree with Answermancer's post except that: isn't such a big deal - you'd choose between being a good healer or a good damage-dealer or try to get both and be lacking in AOE / duration / stamina. It's not necessary for all characters to be good damage dealers and although it's fine to want to be both, it's not necessarily balanced to let them be both if they're also getting everything else. I don't mind might governing both, but it'd be ok to shift it to resolve too - a) That looks like a pretty significant increase in AOE to me (albeit for a large increase in stats) - you'd catch a lot more enemies in it since they're not likely to clump together for your fireball. b) non-spell-casting classes like the barbarian use AOE too and INT increases duration of abilities for lots of classes.

Don't rogues get to do their high-damage (not sneak attack but like that) strikes while the status effects are on the enemy (hobbled, prone, etc) - so isn't inflicting a long-term hobble supposed to be good for the rogue?

Managed to watch half of Ashtonw's druid playthrough - but then my internet connection bugged out (it's sometimes fast for a while but then drops to a few kb/s so streaming becomes promblematic). Still - got a good idea and looks like I'll have fun playing a druid so thanks for that

I think the votes are more against a change to kill-xp than a vote to keep it exactly as is - - the middle votes are all 'change it' and the last one is 'give me kill-xp' basically - either way, votes against the system outweigh votes for, it's just that the single vote looks like the biggest vote is 'for' compare the poll in the other thread on xp-mechanics and there's a clear vote against 'quest-xp only' but preferring 'objective-xp' which would still allow freedom of play/route/whatever

to be fair, 'retrieve Hull's sword' is a training level mission designed to teach the player 'do things for people and you get xp' - I'm trying to think of a later Fed-ex example that didn't at least require exploration to find if not combat. Maybe the 'get me a corpse' quest? But I think you ran into crawlers there. Dragon (or other dangerous beast) I'd call a mini-boss if not a boss - so should get some xp for that. Still not convinced it's needed for every beetle but I do hope Obs take a good look at the xp system and add / rearrange it for truly objective based (including (mini-)boss enemies and exploration and not solely 'we made a quest for that'

^I will do a single ironman path of the damned game on my 2nd play - get killed by the first mob and then never touch it again (Just, y'know, to get the figurative 'I played path of the iron-damned t-shirt' )

^asbestos night-cap

I found this useful in places like Baldur's ship on werewolf island - sending an invisible character up first to scout and maybe disarm traps, or to draw the enemy down into an ambush. Anywhere with an area that was very small and it would be hard to maneuvre the party for best defense once the battle started. (also BG had a nasty habit of putting your mage in the front-lines when you went through a door like that.