thelee

The only thing you need to concern yourself with - in battle - is pretty much just Endurance. Endurance is what matters within a battle, whereas Health is something you should concern yourself with from rest to rest. In essence, it's the difference between "tactics" and "strategy." Within one battle, you need tactics to manage how your characters are dealing with their Endurance. Across many battles, you need to make sure that health loss is being shared in a way s.t. you won't be out of camping supplies when you most need it. The only time you have to worry about Health and Endurance at the same time is if you've gone far enough without rest that you have a character who's been taking a lot of damage that they have less health remaining than endurance. And in that case, it's still not too bad because by default the character won't die the first time they hit 0 health, they'll just be knocked out and then maimed. Personally, I love the Health/Endurance system. It solves several interrelated tedium for many other similar games: 1) time spent doing nothing but healing. This was the worst thing about the original Baldur's Gate (since a lack of "Heal on Rest" meant you *had* to spam Cure Light Wounds all the time) and several other games (like having to sit down and eat food in World of Warcraft). You (generally) only need to worry about your characters' fighting capacity *in combat* since outside of combat they regenerate Endurance so quickly they'll be at full Endurance for the next fight. 2) Absolutely needing dedicated healers. Any game system that *requires* you to have a specific role reeks of a broken game system, IMO, and it's because of inertia and nostalgia that we tolerate so many games where you can swap out fighter/rogue/mage-types, but generally always need a priest-type. Now, intelligent "aggro" management will get you through any one batle, and the rapid out-of-combat endurance regeneration takes care of the rest. 3) Rest-spamming. You don't need to rest-spam anymore (and not only because it's impossble due to limited camping supplies), and you're encouraged--in a way not done so in most other RPGs--to intelligently manage your character's abilities and how much damage they're taking in combat because--while they'll almost always be at full endurance for any given fight, their health provides a long-term cap on their effectiveness. I.E. if you run every battle MMO-style and let BB-fighter take all the damage, you'll find you need to rest when most of your party still has most of their abilities left (and you'll be running down your campign supplies rapidly). On the other hand, if you're able to switch out who takes punishment (i.e. to another tank-like character or even your BB Priest or BB Rogue at times) and balance out the damage, you'll be able to go a lot futher betwen rests.

I glossed over a lot of this thread, but I do not understand the grazes=>attrition=>unfun argument. You people *do* realize that if grazes go away, it's not like all of a sudden those become full hits? So intead of A) graze, graze, graze, graze, graze, graze, graze, graze, graze, graze => maybe enemy dies you'll get B) miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss => enemy still hasn't died yet and given how critical hits work (they can be pushed off the d100 roll), without grazes you could potentially have stalemated fights. Essentially, getting rid of grazes would require a massive re-balancing and re-working of hte game. And I don't know about you, but B) is much more attrition-y than A). At least with A you get forward movement in any situation. Grazes also have the benefit that you can have partial spell application in a unified mechanic.

+1 to this

[Description of the issue] Enemies will attack each other even if far off-screen, which ends up keeping my party in combat and preventing resting/recovery/looting. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] Example: 1) Play backer beta 301 2) Fight some enemies 3) Eventually this will happen. [Expected behaviour] Surely enemies can restrain themself in such a way that I randomly am not kept in combat? In an extreme case I sat around about a few minutes while waiting for something to happen. [Files] Screenshots is attached (it's hard to tell, but there is a gigantic engagement arrow in the fog of war between a beetle and a skaen guy. Save game for another instance of this issue is linked: http://www.upload.ee/files/4279869/3a1ba403d66948668ecee9257cb9d8a3_DyrfordRuins_7701921.savegame.html

I think it's for "fun" as well as so that there are no "ties." Fallout 1/2 had no bleed-through, so you could easily end up in a stale-mate situation. I.E. I once had a martial arts character in FO2 and against aliens, it was always "no damage" " no damage" "no damage" back and forth. The only reason why I ever won those fights eventually is because I had the Better Criticals perk and occasionally I would get lucky and either get the "ignore all defenses" critical or the "instant death" critical hit. Those fights were not fun. Even if mathematically it would've been the same if those critical hits were instead spread out as marginal damage on every hit, at least viscerally you get the satisfaction of doing *something* each combat cycle, as opposed to essentially playing a slot machine. As for ties, with bleed-through every fight has an inevitable ending. And while it hurts the player (no armor is impregnable), it also means the player can move forward in any fight (as oppossed to "good luck if you brought SMGs in FO2 to a mid-to-late game fight!").

I find the current system or an adaptation thereof to be great. Unlimited looting solves the tedium of town trips *just* for loot, or having to play loot tetris in certain other systems (Diablo 1-2, 3 to a certain extent). However, limited item accessibility (as of right now I am one of apparently only 3 people who prefers "only on rest") requires you to still be strategic about what loot to actually have available.

Personally, as someone who absolutely loved Fallout 2, I heartily welcome the re-introduction of DT/DR (in one cohesive system, unlike the ad-hoc random DR in F:NV) back into a game system. I hope this means we expect to see the equivalent of hollow-point and armor-piercing weapons (i.e. more than that one stiletto mod that gives it 5 DT penetrating), and potentially interesting non-standard armor (i.e. 0 DT but high DR, or high DT but no DR or negative DR to a specific damage type).

I'm getting a little confused about AoE targetting. Obeservation A) I swear that when I am targetting a hostile wizard spell (like that daze spell or fireball) with "AoE" (not Friend/Foe AoE), party members who are in the "outer" circle aren't affected. Observation B) But say when I'm targetting a friendly priest spell with "AoE" (not Friend/Foe AoE) (like the level 1 bonus DT spell), enemies who are in the "outer circle" are still being affected, when I would expect that only allies would be affected by the expanded radius, if Observation A is true. So, it could be that expanded radius from Intellect on generic AoE spells only affects enemies (and doesn't care about whether the intent of spell is beneficial or hamrful). It could also be the fact that party-friendly intellect-expanded AoE is just an illusion and what I'm actually seeing is some kind of radius rounding error where I *think* a party member is in the outer circle but actually isn't. Does anyone who has spent more time with the new backer beta have any insights to share? The changelist is huge, but doesn't in particular address this.

First off, let me just say I love this feature, really helps clear up things in combat. What happens though is that as I cast more spells and debuff the enemies, the engagement arrows start getting harder and harder to see (especially if the enemies are on fire, like that level 2 wizard spell that makes enemies take burn damage when hit). So if there was someway to make these arrows always really stand out that would be A+. That is all.

Just to chime in with some similar sentiments: 1. Stealth is worlds better. It is much more deterministic and strategic now. I actually use it now! 2. Combat feedback is much, much better. Now I know if my characters have their actions and spells queued up, and it's also more clear who is engaging who. Combat also just feels snappier, too. 3. I love love love seeing targets highlighted in AoE effects. I also love that abilities/spells now clearly have "Foe/Friend/Hazard" prefixes for their AoE and is it just me or are the AoE boosts from Intellect party-friendly? 4. Beetles now actually burrow and travel through the ground instead of teleporting around. Thank the maker!

OMG IT'S HERE!!!! AND THAT CHANGELIST IS POSITIVELY MAGNIFICENT!! *Hugs everyone working on PoE* EDIT: Also, I love the attribute rebalancing. Less so about the normalization to 10, since that seems to be a "trick" so that people don't think stats are disposable (i.e. mathematically, depending on how the game was balanced, a 3 is functionally the same before and after), but more about spreading more of the combat effectiveness throughout the stats (Intelligence providing deflection, for example).

I'm going to agree with Sensuki here. In addition, at least in my experience, the better I've come to understand the game, the longer I've been able to go between rests. The stamina/health/rest tension is working out to be a wonderful per-battle-tactics and per-rest-strategy tension/interplay. There are kinks to be worked out sure, but adding healing magic is definitely something I would think is self-defeating.

Are you sure you're not just seeing the more detailed view of the combat log event? I.E if I hover over a graze attack notification I get detailed information about the rolls and such.

My comment was not directed at the general idea of rolling but at the sentiment that because this is an SP game we should let anything fly.

Its because it ends up having to do with how the game is built/designed. Theoretically, the game could just give everyone an omni-weapon at the start that kills everyone and people who want an enjoyable game could just not use it. Except that's dumb. Game design is about making choices for the player. Game design is about constraining what the player can do, and then letting the player have fun within those constraints. Just because something doesn't affect another player (the "it's SP" reasonibg) does not make it a good basis for doing it anyway, because "not negatively affecting another player" does not form the basis for making a good game system. I don't recall the ability to roll attributes in the BG series or ToEE being anything remotely akin to an "omni-weapon... that kills everyone." Just saying. It's called metaphor.

Its because it ends up having to do with how the game is built/designed. Theoretically, the game could just give everyone an omni-weapon at the start that kills everyone and people who want an enjoyable game could just not use it. Except that's dumb. Game design is about making choices for the player. Game design is about constraining what the player can do, and then letting the player have fun within those constraints. Just because something doesn't affect another player (the "it's SP" reasonibg) does not make it a good basis for doing it anyway, because "not negatively affecting another player" does not form the basis for making a good game system.

Possibly related: before this happened I comploeted the farmer's quick and clicked on a piglet and got a "Placeholder bark text. This is a programming error" message. No idea what caused it, but attached is both a screenshot and the saved game that has the problem (I reloaded a couple times and always happens). Loading my other quicksave after I had done the above has the same problem, but loading other games before hadn does not have te problem. Attached is screenshot. Save game here: http://www.upload.ee/files/4260970/1e3f19eb9b7944d2869094536a74a854_DyrfordVillage_7630413.savegame.html

Don't have many details - was going from the inn back to town after completing Blood Legacy. Loading crashed, got dialogue box that just told me to send the crash report to the developer. 2014-09-14_085104.zip

Worst was the original Icewind Dale (IWD2 didn't have this problem because it had a pseudo-point buy). Imagine doing that dice roll dance *six* times before you could start playing the game. Literally most of the time I ever feel like playing IWD again, I give up after trying to roll the 3rd or 4th character. IWD would've had a lot more replayability if I were just given a flat, say, 85 points to distribute. I couldn't remember if IWD 1 had rolling, as it's been a while since I last played it. But okay, so that means 3/5 of the IE legacy had it. The worst part of the game was rolling characters? Wow. I have always enjoyed this part of the process. Even if my first several hours ends up being character creation, I enjoy that as part of the process. For a game like IWD2 and ToEE I will usually add to that process by writing a biography for each of my characters and an overall background for the party. That for me can be just as fun as the game itself. A 6 person party? I literally might spend days mulling over how I want to create my party, changing, iterating, until I'm totally happy. The rolling of attributes just adds to the experience for me. Hell, it might take me an entire week from the point that I start until I'm actually ready to begin my adventure. Is none of this ringing true with any other of the supposed IE fans around here? I enjoy planning my characters. I do *not* enjoy waiting 30+ minutes per character to get essential stats so I can fulfill my planned-for characters. And the more combat-heavy IWD and IWD2 games *really* punished you if you didn't have sensible stat distribution (whereas BG was fairly forgiving and BG2 basically inundated you with stat-setting items so you could eventually get away with crummy stats; oh yeah and in Planescape: Torment as long as you put everything into wisdom you were set).

UI help is a very vague, slippery term. Would you argue that seeing your characters actually attack is "UI help?" After all, you have the combat log, so that should be information enough. With the combat overlay enabled you already have indications of your character actions - attack, spell casting, reloading, waiting. I don't see how adding "idle" to the mix is bad. EDIT - sorry, i now realize you were responding to a specific suggestion from primehydra, not somethin about adding to the Combat HUD.

[Description of the issue] Under circumstances I do not fully understand, the health bar does not actually reflect what a character's health actually is. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] In this case, 1. A character of mine got hit by a beetle poison. 2. After it wore off, the character's health was very low. The health bar was still near full. 3. After a bit, the health bar changed to reflect the health. [Expected behaviour] 2. The health bar should be an up-to-date representation of the character's health. See picture for explanation of the discrepancy. [Other remarks / Comments] The Auto-Pause for low health still worked. [Files]

I completely agree with this suggestion. It doesn't help that currently your character's "action" circle is blank while waiting for their next action or when completely idle. A simple "zzz" kind-of symbol for when the character has no action queued would work wonders for easing my micromanagement and would differentiate from characters who are just waiting to do their next auto-attack. (An auto-pause would not be great because sometimes I deliberately want some of my characters to do nothing, e.g. currently I keep my priest waiting around so they can do suppress affliction the moment someone gets hit with that damned-bugged Deep Wounds debuff.)

Worst was the original Icewind Dale (IWD2 didn't have this problem because it had a pseudo-point buy). Imagine doing that dice roll dance *six* times before you could start playing the game. Literally most of the time I ever feel like playing IWD again, I give up after trying to roll the 3rd or 4th character. IWD would've had a lot more replayability if I were just given a flat, say, 85 points to distribute.

Maybe this explains why some people find the combat log hard to read? [Description of the issue] Sometimes entries in the combat log are duplicated, and it's unclear why. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] 1. In this particular example, I went up to one of the *Missing String* cultist archers with my druid. 2. Cast Sunbeam on it. 3. Observe two entries for its damage (one before and after the debuff entry). [Expected behaviour] 3. Should only see one entry. [Files] This attached screenshot should hopefully explain what I'm seeing. The damage numbers show up twice. At first I thought that meant I was doing twice as much damage, but the red numbers that actually appear above the enemy suggest not.

Mine come back somewhat randomly, but it's almost always some kind of spell or combat cue that triggers it.