Katarack21

I would point to games like Skyrim, Fallout NV, Xcom 2, D:OS 2, Witcher 3 as evidence that the best RPGs are successful, in large part, because of their mod tools. ...I didn't even know you *could* mod Witcher 3, actually.

You can (A) select the spells you know, (B) select the Grimoire you want from the ones you've already collected, and ©, switch that Grimoire with others in combat if you need a different spell. So you certainly can "select your spell loadout", and you can do more than "only pick what's given to you", since the mix of Grimoires will cover all the spells in the game. It's really no different from the same problem in PoE 1. In that game, you picked your spells at level--and also were able to pick up whatever spells the developers had deigned to provide for you in the grimoires that dropped. The difference is that now you have to carry those grimoires around *forever* if you want those spells, whereas before you could learn them and get rid of the inventory clutter.

Oh, no, it's *great* at dealing damage. That's not a problem. But it deals damage via clicking two buttons (marked prey, wounding shot), setting your pet to attack, and just sitting there doing nothing. It's boring as hell, at least to me.

Yeah...you can import literally any digital picture into the game, from anywhere. I could have my portrait be a Geico logo if I really wanted. I don't think that really counts for anything.

That's accurate, but at the same time once modding tools are released, it's only a matter of time before other tools are designed and released which make integrating mods as easy as clicking a couple buttons.

That's a *really* good idea from the manufacturers standpoint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

Not all of us feel the same way. I already feel PoE2 is superior to the first one. Did you actually play Tyranny? PoE2 is not similar to it at all. The combat system is once again its own thing, just as POE1 was. I am not referring to the combat system being like Tyranny. I am referring to the rest of the game. Particularly travel, the layout and how encounters are made/found. Flags on the map representing encounters/areas of exploration with a picture of your flag/face moving about are EXACTLY like Tyranny and NOTHING like POE1. There is nothing wrong with this. But it is like Tyranny. I happened to prefer POE. IMO they did not need to change this as POE was A-OK. I don't now if you're aware of this, but Tyranny has random unflagged encounters that just *occur* on the map.

I'm curious. What are the mechanics of Soul Annihilation? It adds raw dmg to your attack, expending all your focus reserves. It can be used as often as you have focus, gaining dmg for each point of Focus. If you miss, however, all your focus is wasted. You also have a lower Max focus and less starting focus compared to the other Cypher builds. Even with these negatives, they will probably have to nerf the dmg on it. Having your focus about 70% filled adds over 100dmg at lvl 6. That is borderline OP to be honest. Yeah...I'll be sad when they do it, but you're probably right. My Barb/Cipher is consistently one-shotting things partway through combat lmao

I honestly believe you people are actually making this argument. Seriously, play on Story Mode or stop playing all together. I honestly believe you are completely misinterpreting what I'm saying. Playing on Story Mode will not make the deleterious effects of injuries go away. It will not solve the problem of injuries effects being to severe; it will merely make the game easier, and as I am not complaining about the games difficulty *that won't matter*. Except the effects of the injuries aren't too severe. You can easily keep going with one or two injuries on a character. Most encounters shouldn't do too much damage to your characters, and if someone's particularly fragile as a consequence of injury, you need to act accordingly. Move them to the rear, have them target weaker enemies, etc. But here's the big one, and stay with me here, you're supposed to rest when you get injured. The entire purpose of the system is to incentivize you to rest when you've taken an injury. Deciding whether to rest or keep going is supposed to be a decision where you have to weigh the risks. The injury system is behaving as it should. If you get injured, you should try to rest. If you can't or don't want to rest, you simply have to adjust your tactics accordingly. This is where stuff like challenge, and varied gameplay, and gameplay longevity, and all that other stuff comes from. 1) You and I have a disagreement about the severity of the injury mechanic. That's okay. We don't have to insult each other over that. 2) Yes, you're exactly right--the whole point of the injury system is to control when you rest. At -50% health, that is 2 injuries, there is no "weighing the risk" to consider. At -50% health, *everybody is fragile* and you *should rest*. EVERY TIME. There is no meaningful "weighing". There is no meaningful "choice". At -50% healht, rest. End of story. That's not a choice, that's a hard push to take a specific action. "Oh, I'm half dead? I should should rest just in case I have a bad roll and something outside my control happens." That sort of thing--because half-dead makes you fragile regardless of what your character class is, *especially* considering that two more injuries *makes you dead* regardless of your character class. There is no ability to "take more" or "be less fragile" with injuries. Four injuries and your dead, regardless of who you are, what your class is, or what your stats are. If you have two injuries, you're halfway to dead--you're fragile, period, because of the way injuries work. Everybody is equally vulnerable to injuries and everybody is equally fragile regarding injuries.

The most convincing explanation I've heard was that grazes were underpowered with weapons and overpowered with CC--a graze with a mace is nothing, a grace with Paralyze is, after all, style paralyzed but just shorter.

I honestly believe you people are actually making this argument. Seriously, play on Story Mode or stop playing all together. I honestly believe you are completely misinterpreting what I'm saying. Playing on Story Mode will not make the deleterious effects of injuries go away. It will not solve the problem of injuries effects being to severe; it will merely make the game easier, and as I am not complaining about the games difficulty *that won't matter*.

If you add on a class, it's not just a "name" on your sheet. A class is a *character concept* in and of itself. To me, if I'm playing a wizard/ranger I have to explain where that wizard came from--and that explanation is intrinsically going to create a character very, very different from the character that is a straight wizard who specializes in implements. Sure, it may have all the *gameplay* that I wanted, but it's not the *character* that I wanted.

Bread and butter is probably an exaggeration, but Obsidian is one of few companies catering to role-players, and for many role-players these things do matter. Bingo. There was some hyperbole in my statement, but there was some truth, as well. Obsidian caters to a little more of a dedicated role-playing crowd than than is typical of the modern audience; that's part of why many of their games are considered "niche". PoE in particular, being an isoliner RPG that owes much to games from 25 years ago, is an unusually niche game with an audience that skews a little older and a little more towards the old school. You may not understand, but to *me*, if my character sheet says wizard/ranger that's a completely *different* character. Somewhere in that characters background is a completely different story, a different path where they became a different thing entirely, certainly not a wizard who specializes in instruments but a wizard with *ranger* training instead.

The idea that there being no penalty for not getting knocked out is somehow unfair and that getting rid of health regen would somehow make it fair again. I understand all the steps in your logic, I just don't understand the whole.

Using your criteria, the ranger has only a single offensive ability: Wounded shot. Melee not having any shouldn't have people act as if ranged weapons had 10 and them 0. Yes. It's the reason I don't play a ranger; you get to shoot your Wounded Shot, set your pet to attack, and then auto attack and do not much. It's boring.

So, the injury system is not too brutal. Copy that. Yes, it is. It very much is, for the reasons I've outlines above...repeatedly.

I actually play on fast. Slow mode bugs the holy crap out of me for some reason.

Always hated recovery time. It sucks just sitting there watching my guy not doing anything.

I think the problem is that your argument seems to be based on you not being very good at the game, or even average. I've played through the Beta on Classic and Veteran without having any severe issues with injuries. I rested when I had to, and I got through it with only the food I had at the beginning and picked up along the way. If I had purchased food, it would have been a complete non-issue. I'm not min-maxing. I'm not playing very tactically. I'm playing it very straight-forward. Still it looks like I'll have to go to POTD for any real challenge. So when people are complaining about the injury system, I can't help but completely discard their opinions and arguments because I see no reason why they should be having any of these issues beyond their own lack of ability. I also rested when I had to, got through it with only the food at the beginning, successfully beat all the combat encounters, got past the traps in the temple, etc. I had to rest a few encounters when my tactics went bad, etc. Look, I didn't **** up my whole way through the game and I didn't claw my eyes out with frustration at how ****ty the whole thing was, either. You seem to have this idea that I'm bitching and whining because it's hard. I'm not. I'm not complaining because the games difficult. I'm complaining about the *effects of a gameplay mechanic*. I'm not complaining because I got knocked out to much, I'm complaining because the effects of injuries from the times I *did* get knocked out where too severe and I've outlined why I think so. Your conflating "complaining about getting knocked out" with "complaning about the effects of getting knocked out". Yeah, resting is allowed anywhere at any time. That doesn't mean there's no resource management. You replenish your health and your empower by resting--it's in fact the only way to do so. Endurance regenerates after battle, but health doesn't. Health is lot from injuries and replenished *only* by resting. The *resources* of health and empowerment can only be replenished by resting and eating food to heal injuries. "It's a compromise and a hand-holding tactic, if I had my way characters would die after reaching 0 health, like it should be." And this, I think, is the real factor--you just think anybody who doesn't like the IE style is a crappy, weak player who sucks. After all, where does this come from? "Then you'll complain that you have to rest after 3 knock-outs, if we assume you'd be willing to continue with 60% health. You'll still be knocked out constantly anyway. 10%? Why have injuries at all? They just force you to rest." I've stated repeatedly that I think injuries are to severe because at the strength they are they take away the meaningful choice of whether I must rest or whether I can press on, but here you insinuate I'd just get rid of injuries--and rest entirely! You aren't interested in debating the pros and cons of injuries and figuring out how the system might work best. You just want a system as close to the IE style as you can find, and like to mock anybody who disagrees with you.

If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it's a duck. You can build the same character in PoE, only difference is that he's not called a wizard anymore. What's the actual problem? Why does the regular wizard need to be the guy to pull it off? You even keep all the wizard related dialogue options. I'm not trying to mock you, that's a sincere question. Because it's *not the same character*. It's not a pale elf wizard. It's a wizard ranger. The kind of people who care about that distinction are the kind of people who are the bread and butter of companies like Obsidian.

Yes, you can. Click on the icon near the ship at the end of the pier in the starting village. In fact, one of your starting quests finishes on another island in the area.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Like...at all.

IE games were different games with different per-rest resource management systems. The per-rest resource management system in PoE 2 is injuries--injuries force you to rest at certain points and eat, and the amount of damage generated per injury factors into how often you then rest. I don't understand why your copping such a goddamn attitude, calling me a "demagogue" and accusing me "whining and bitching". This is a *beta discussion forum* where your *supposed* to put forward your feedback about what you feel works and why. If you don't want criticism about the beta, go somewhere else.

I'm not sure how the mechanics behind it all function. It destroys all your current focus and deals a primary attack+raw damage; right now my Soul Annihilation can do 25.8 raw damage according to the tab.

My problem isn't that "injuries matter", it's that they matter *to much*. I don't want to "shake off injuries and continue on like nothing happened", I want to make meaningful choices about how far I can go, and I can't--being 50% down on health is *to hard a push*. It doesn't create meaningful choice, it pushes hard towards "rest right now".