Katarack21

Who said NWN 2 was balanced? I saw people talking about build diversity, which is only tangentially related to being balanced. You have *lots* of build options in NWN 2; those build options are not equal to each other, but that's a seperate thing...and whether that is a problem is up to how you feel. For some players, that's not a concern.

I've heard of it, but like AD&D 1st Edition I wasn't even alive when it was made. For what it's worth, my favorite campaign has been in Exalted, which is of course horribly, horribly broken as a system.

You can objectively show how many options a system has or how balanced it is. You can not objectively show whether a system is good, bad, or "an unmitigated disaster". That's an opinion.

Happy Thanksgiving in return!

You know it's a lot easier to have these long debates when I'm not sitting on my phone at my friends house helping clean for Thanksgiving. :-/

*sigh* perhaps you genuine believe the developers should make fundamental design decisions based on whim. am doubting you will find many who agree. HA! Good Fun! whim/(h)wim/ noun a sudden desire or change of mind, especially one that is unusual or unexplained. I never said based on "whim". I said arbitrary decisions based on what kind of game they intend to make is part of making games. Do you equate that with unexplained sudden changes of mind? Because that sounds like a terrible way to make games.

Ah yes but that's an appeal to feel, which is not rational, so you should be ashamed of yourself or something praytell, how should the developer judge competing feel arguments? we almost never see consensus on these boards. so why is one fan's feel more relevant than another's? we linked an interview with josh in which he described, 'mong other things, the difficulty in choosing 'tween competing emotional appeals. can review... or not. your choice. regardless, is some insights to be gleaned from how the developer sees the problem o' choosing 'tween emotional appeals and feel arguments. HA! Good Fun! At the most basic level it all comes down to feels. Within the system the math is objective, but everything about how that should work--whether injuries should be harsher or not, whether penetration should have a hard line or not, whether priest should have more options or not, all of it--comes down to subjective opinion. There is no hard and fast evidence-based objective rating of what makes a game good. It's all feels. The job of a game maker is, in part, to make arbitrary decisions revolving what kind of game they want to make.

Yes, sir, Mr. Thread Police, sir! Because I respect your authority and care about your decisions about what is and isn't engagement-focused enough.

Since engagement is now an ability, I think engagement makes a great "fighter ability". Much more so than, do example...two weapon fighting.

Bow in the beta *show* piercing and slash on their tab. And my combat log shows slash damage.

To make backgrounds matter during character creation. Otherwise the *only* purpose for backgrounds is RP and the experience of variable story elements.

and to kat21... you are simple repeating same empty argument. there is no question you can build a weapon-based druid in deadfire. is ridiculous to claim otherwise. the method o' achieving is multi-class. A druid with fighter levels is *not* the same as a druid with weapon capabilities. You like to talk about rationality, but your statement here is as *irrational* as it gets. As I've said before, a multi-class character inherently plays differently--with different stats *across the board* and a whole *suite* of fundamental capabilities that are very distinct from those of a single class character. A druid with fighter levels and a druid with some weapon talents *don't play the same* and are *not equivalent characters*. To say they are is irrational.

you continuing to gloss over how are able to create many more new builds in deadfire than you could create in poe. is not a different problem. you ain't making sense. to make a weapon-focused druid in poe, the character chose the appropriate (essential) general talents. there were no multiclassing in poe. poe2 achieves greater customization through multiclassing. can make a weapon-focused druid in both games, but the method to achieve must needs be different. No. I can *not* make a weapon-based druid in both games. I can make a druid with fighter levels. I can not make a pure druid character who has weapon skills, but *no other fighter qualifiers because they're still just a damn druid*. A druid/fighter and a druid with a few weapons talents are not the same character--they play differently because they *are* different. It's like the rogue. I can't make a rogue who plays *exactly* like a rogue but has the high-speed duel weapons of a PoE 1 rogue. I can make a fighter/rogue--but *that* rogue plays differently, even if I never take a single fighter talent other than two weapon fighting, because it has bonus deflection, endurance, and accuracy to reflect the fact that it's not just a rogue--it's been *trained as a fighter*. It will progress differently over time than a pure rogue. It's not the same character. A rogue/fighter isn't the same as a PoE rogue with two-weapon fighting. It doesn't play the same; the experience even outside of gameplay isn't the same.

There's plenty of evidence that builds or options that I, or others, might want to use can't be done, or require multiclassing to achieve. You don't think that's a legitimate criticism of the system but to claim otherwise is simply wrong. this is the kinda thing am talking 'bout. is a given you cannot replicate every poe build in deadfire. keep repeating the deadfire impossible builds tragedies is pointless. nobody is arguing with you on this point. is unreasonable 'cause you see such an axiomatic result as a problem w/o describing why is a problem beyond feels. not rational. even the folks complaining 'bout their inability to replicate specific poe builds in deadfire freely admit that deadfire is giving them more customization options in total. folks such as boeroer were concerned during development 'bout the balance problems inherent in multiclassing poe with so many distinct classes and talents and the current multi-class scheme allows for far more control o' such balance issues than would universal talents. etc. each additional posting o' impossible poe builds using deadfire is irrational. it proves nothing and nobody is arguing the point you believe such postings is making. am thinking you would admit how ridiculous it would be if every time a poe impossible build were submitted as evidence, the response were to post two deadfire builds which would be impossible in poe. The argument is that you can't replicate certain class builds in PoE 2. The rebuttal is that you have many more options over all thanks to multiclassing. That is true. You have more options overall thanks to multiclassing. The problem is not that. The problem is that *single-class builds are more limited*. You can duplicate many if not quite all of those builds--by *multiclassing*, which is where *all the options are*. You can *not* duplicate many of these builds *within the class that they were originally created in*. Mutliclassing and a plethora of options via multiclassing is an answer to a different problem. The *multiclass* options in this beta are amazing. The *single class* options are...less so.

I'm OK with combat speed as it is now; I don't want normal speed to be slowed. I want other people to have the option to slow it down without taking the speed I like away That's *exactly* how I feel. Although honestly, I often run around at and fight in fast mode--I like to set it to pause when finished with an ability or an enemy is killed and also pause a lot manually.

I feel the need to point out that the default cipher in the PoE1 character creator uses greatswords. It's basically the most standard cipher archetype. The lore talks about the original "mind hunters" using stilettos and hatchets, so that's why I said that. I admittedly didn't think of what the default classes have equipped.

Everybody should have access to all of these. From a design perspective removing that wide-open choice is one of the biggest changes from the first game, and there's no particular reason you shouldn't be able to make a dual-wielding paladin or a mace-and-shield barbarian if you wanted. Or, hell, a two-handed specialist cipher. It's just an arbitrary limitation that seems driven more by UI limitations than anything else. I wouldn't be against that--I'd rather fighters have *interesting talents* rather than these useful, but ultimately not-dazzling mundane utility talents. What I proposed is something of a compromise.

Why can't Paladins have Two handed or Barbarians have Two weapon style? How about Monks or Ciphers or .....? The game as designed now allows for all of that via multi-classing. Like it or hate it, that's the game we have. In this game choices and options come at a cost. Deciding whether or not some additional ability is worth the cost is up to you to decide. The system I suggested provides more choice and allows more options while maintaining uniqueness in the fighter class and keeping it withing some bounds of realism--ciphers with greatswords without multiclassing makes *much* less sense than a barbarian whose skilled with a large two-handed sword (have you never seen *that* archetype?). This is the time for feedback and suggestions on what we want this game to be. I fully expect other people to have other suggestions and other feedback, and to criticize mine.

Paladins should have access to weapon and shield. Barbarians should have access to two-handed. Rogues should have access to two-weapon. Fighters should have access to *all*.

I turn off permadeath in Pillars. Companions stories are important to me. If I fail and die, the game reloads; to me, if a companion permanently dies it ruins the game just as much. So I don't mind difficulty resulting in failed states, but I *don't* want permanent companion death in story-driven RPG.

And i would stick with the Fighters are the masters of martial combat mantra. Paladins have lots of useful abilities why do they need to take from Fighters without having to multi? I don't see why you can't just multi-class? This is the defining feature of this new game, embrace it as its not going away. I want to make the kind of Pure Rogue that I've been able to in every D&D inspired game since Icewind Dale 2 Hell, even BG2's Swashbuckler kit gave thief's three stars in two-weapon fighting. It was no sorcerer kensai, but it's a thief you can't make in Pillars 2.

Because the archetype I want is the rogue who attacks super fast with 2 weapons but is still a rogue. I don't want to multiclass and take all of Fighter (which I want 1 single passive out of) and lose out of a ton of Rogue abilities (as opposed to 1-2 if the talent was universal or I had some other way to get it) just for that. Although right now, if the system doesn't change I probably will make a Rogue/Devoted. That's exactly what I wanted, and exactly what I did. Turns out a devoted/streetfighter is a total badass. Great, sounds like the problem is solved!!!! As a bonus tip you could make a Monk/Rogue and use Swift Strikes to get increased attack speed. Not really. A devoted/streetfighter is a total badass, but it's not a duel-wielding high-attack-speed rogue. It's a fighter/rogue. I'm having fun playing my devoted/streetfighter, but it's *not the character I wanted to make*. It's just a decent substitute. A duel-wielding high-attack-speed rogue was totally doable in Pillars...but not in Pillars 2. In Pillars 2, the best you can do is a fighter/rogue to *simulate* that.

Oh for sure, I'm sure it's fantastic, but it will never have access to high level rogue abilities AND it will use a lot of fighter abilities because why not? It would be a waste not to. So yeah it's a totally badass character, and probably what I will make if they don't change things, but it's a different archetype both from my Pillars 1 rogue, and from the "super fast attack rogue" in general. Oh, agree 100%. A devoted streetfighter is lots of fun, but at the end of the day it's *approximating* the duel-wield rogue.

A solution would be just to dump that. Then there's no benefit to having more PEN than the AR. On the flipside to that there'd be no reason to have armor at all if you didn't have enough. To have a penalty for going naked you have the system that causes extra damage when over penetrated. Estocs have more penetration but do a lot less damage than a Great Sword, having a damage adder for the extra penetration is good, but having it be the only multiplicative damage adder is not. Change that to an additive +50% like a crit and see how that works. How is everyone doubling the AR so easily for these massive hits? Critical hits add a large penetration bonus. A devoted can get 13 penetration with stilettos, then combine that with all the crit chances available to a rogue.