curryinahurry

It's done similar to the interior court of a monastic fortress...the main differences being that there should be a forecourt of some dimension and then the more open courtyard (usually with an arcade). As an artistic interpretation of continental Late Gothic, it's fine. Usually when people think castles in fantasy, they are often thinking of the older style of castles from the 13th century and before.

Ah, Cheers

Are you referencing an actual developer statement? I don't recall anything being said about this either way.

I actually preferred ToTSC in many ways to the main BG game. The three self contained stories in the expansion were all far more engaging than the main campaign and each had it's own distinct air of creepiness and dread. Also, it gives the designers an opportunity to introduce more aspects of the world and region that could set up themes for the next full game.

^ People also tend to post more when they are unhappy. If you have nothing major to complain about, why bother posting minor quibbles? Not saying that is entirely the case, but I think if there was any real deal-breakers design wise, the Obsidian folks would be aware of it (them). This is just one of several forums that Obs folks follow. Also, one thing I think gets lost in the discussions in this forum is that beta is hyper-focused on mechanics in a fairly stripped-down setting. The full game, as we saw in Josh Sawyer's recent playthrough, is going to be much richer in it's elements. Many of these things, like crafting, the stronghold, quest items, etc. will have a significant effect on gameplay.

I said this in another thread; there were over 8,000 Beta keys handed out to backers, of those, there seem to be 30 to 40 backers who are extremely unhappy with the beta due to issues of gameplay & mechanics (as opposed to general playability). While I think there are many of us who are unhappy with one or more aspects of the game's design (myself included), I feel the overall sense is that PoE is shaping up to be a potentially great game. I think it's easy to lose perspective in the echo chamber that the Beta forum seems to have become.

The problem with using the word Damage + a second word that causes similar but different defense benefits should be pretty obvious. The simple solution would have been to rename one of the two values so that they are distinct in the players' minds. A term like Armor Rating or Armor Value helps to give the impression of difference from Damage Reduction. Then the designers just have to come up with some narrative to explain the differences. It's pretty much how 99.9% of advertising works.

^ The old damage threshold could be changed to Armor Rating and Damage Reduction could remain the same (as a % reduction term). The problem seems to be more with two terms starting with 'damage' rather than what they represent. If the reason the original DR was dropped was because of jargon vs. real complexity concerns...that's kind of silly.

Someone made a suggestion in another thread a while back that Percentile damage reduction be the norm and that Damage Threshold be applied only to Shields, helmets, and magical devices (or something like that). I liked that as the model, but Obsidian has decided to go in another direction. Personally, I think it creates way too many problems the way DR works in 392

No, not Might. Better to use some less useful stat. Possibly, I haven't spent that much time thinking about it. It should just make sense within the way attributes are designed.

@ Archangel Critical hits could be nerfed a few different ways; the simplest might be to make Critical damage a multiplier of Might. You could start with a base Critical multiplier of 1.2 and add/ subtract 2% per point of might so that a 1 strength character does 1.0 and a 20 strength character does 1.4. this would make Might more relevant an attribute as well.

As I stated earlier, the underlying design logic, is to use Melee attack resolution as the norm (a unified attack resolution). The swingyness of magical damage should thus be handled the same way it is for melee; by offering talents like Confident Aim. Mages could thus take a talent, a magical version of Confident Aim, that converts 20% of grazes to hits. There could also be elemental talents that ignore DR, or Empowered Spells that guarantee a higher level of minimum damage. These are just a few options...but it requires the inclusion of a lot more talents, and picking talents at almost every level-up (in addition to class abilities)

Yeah, you can't separate the two and expect to get coherent resolution. Let's leave it with, "I don't completely disagree with your conclusions", I would just like to find solutions that are more systemic and less localized.

Good Topic! I think differential damage multipliers/ crit multipliers based on weapon type might be the key. I'll try to write something more coherent about this tomorrow

Nah, you have to go back and look at why the design decisions were made in the first place. You've got causality out of order. Designers always work with some type of intent; it's never shooting arrows in the dark. That said, they are still adding/changing spell usage and per rest abilities. Hopefully they will find the right balance.

Spellcasting magic is in a much more subservient role to melee in PoE than it ever was in the IE games. It's funny, because I was always a spellhoarder in the IE games because of my PnP background, so the changes in PoE are fine with me, but I can certainly understand why so many complaints have been raised about the nerfing of Wizards etc.

True, but that's not going to change at this point. I think that normalizing percentage based damage means creating opportunities for builds to compensate for lack of base dps (via light weapons as an example) by creating some risk/reward opportunities that might allow for high damage output. Another way this can be augmented is by creating Talents that bolster light weapon builds.

That's why I'm thinking that giving differential Critical hit damage for weapons might be the solution. If nothing else changes (besides possibly, the endurance/health numbers), then we can look at light weapons either having a higher multiple for crit damage or, possibly, applying a Might bonus (let's say 5% per point) on top of the regular bonus. You would get something for a dagger wielded by a rogue with 15 strength like; 10-16 (not sure if that's right anymore) x 1.5 x 1.75 (base damage for crit multiplier being 1.5 which would be 1.0 at strength of 1). A straight crit differential multiplier would also be fine...and certainly less complicated, although it would make Might even less relevant.

Yeah, I have been thinking that the formula for hit points in general might also need to be increased; besides any adjustments to how damage is calculated. Many of the complaints about a whole panoply of issues (disengagement attacks, lethality of combat, etc.) might be lessened if there were simply more endurance/health points. The other option would likely involve a very complicated re-working of Damage threshold/damage reduction which I just don't see happening this late in the development process. BTW, I think Cirtical hits still should be looked at, because it might provide an opportunity for light weapons to have more value (as in light weapons do more crit damage, or some variation osfsuch a concept).

^ I'm wondering if that Deflection issue is related to how flanking works. I think that the way talents are being allocated now has to be tweaked a bit. Currently, talents that aided in offence like Confident Aim and Armored Grace are choice options for builds as opposed to the original method. At the end of my playthrough, my BB fighter had an accuracy of 46 compared to 83 for my DPS build. I did notice that by giving the BB fighter Confident Aim before the Skaen dungeon, he did quite a bit more damage (all of this was on Normal BTW).

I finally had a chance to play through 392; the first version I've played since 333 and the swingy damage seems to be the biggest item that stands out at the moment. I played through the beta 'critical path' (all the Dyrford quests in the beta ending with the Skaen temple) with a DPS fighter build ( Soldier focus). By the end of the Skaen Temple final combat, the party had killed 71 foes, of which the fighter had dispatched 39 and totaling over 5700 points of damage. By the time the party got to the temple, the DPS fighter, armed with the greatsword from Winifrith's shop, was routinely hitting for 65 damage every crit (which he was landing routinely having an accuracy of 83 with the greatsword). By contrast, the BB Fighter, who I built out for defender capacity, had dished out a paltry 1800 points by the end of the run. This gap between 2 melee oriented characters is too wide by my estimation and will only get worse once we start adding in magic items and crafting. I think one solution to this problem is to re-think the way critical hit damage is calculated. It might be worthwhile for someone to start a thread just to explore the swingy damage problem, and solutions that forum members might have.

When the class was first announced, a lot of posters asked if there would be a non-pet alternative to what was announced. When we found out that wasn't going to be an option, I pretty much decided to avoid the class entirely...just too gimmicky for my liking; to the point of belonging in a different type of game. I would suggest that posters keep lobbying for a melee alternative for the Ranger. When the initial discussion was had, there were some nice ideas for Ranger builds that would be proficient at different ranges with different weapons; a swiss army knife type build as was mentioned earlier in this thread.

Please do your best to get something out early next week. I would imagine that there are many backers like me, who use the holiday season as an opportunity to get caught up on the state of the game. Considering the number of changes made to the game per the recent Developer comments, this would be a great opportunity for backers to get a fairly clear picture of the game as it stands.

Nice summation, but I'll make one comment about the above point. Most people who post about the engagement mechanic are indeed those who have problems with it, but they are far from the majority of beta participants, backers, or forum members. There seem to be 20 or 30 die hard IE fans who want PoE to be an updated replica of the older games and bemoan any changes...that is a far cry from being the majority out of over 8000 backers who have beta access (not including those who purchased it separately). The fact is, most backers who have no problems with the engagement mechanic, or have adopted a wait and see approach, are unlikely to post about the issue...because it's not a problem for them. It's easy to forget, in the echo chamber that this particular forum has become, that the views of a vocal minority should be taken with a rather large grain of salt.

As much as it hurts my self-esteem, I think you're right, I'm gonna try on Easy. I just did the beetle fight at the shrine...and it was easily the toughest fight I've had on Normal in the various versions of the Beta thus far; I really enjoyed it, except my rogue decided to stroll into the middle of the beetle horde...I'm assuming that is a pathfinding issue. I think if you are having problems with that fight, you might cross the stream more to the west where the wolves are hanging out...that should be a pretty easy fight.