curryinahurry

For people like me who are looking for the ability to build Fighters in different weapons style specialties: We do not currently have "style" specializations, but it's something we'd like to do if there's time. If so, it would be implemented as a Talent that a variety of characters could take. Shields don't inherently have special abilities beyond boosting the wielder's Deflection and slowing their overall weapon attack rate. I would encourage anyone looking for such 'styles' to keep on Obsidian to implement talents like; 'sword &shield', 'ranged' 'twohanded/reach' & 'two weapon'. Also to encourage talents that are specifically tied to the styles. With the mere implementation of 8 talents, the fighter class would become much more varied and interesting. BTW, after playing through with the BB Rogue to 8th level, it has grown on me quite a bit. Blinding shot and hobble (correct name?) are both great in combat when used in the right combo (knockdown + hobble vs Sevis and he was down for 20s) I would like to see rogues with talents that encourage more crowd control and inflicting disabilities vs straight damage.

Sorry, a little behind on the thread, but wouldnt it be awesome to have like a hand-drawn map that shows the areas youve explored? (like the bestiary for monsters encountered?) This would be separate from the actual map, just like a bonus thing. Also, with the bestiary - I think there should be some options - sounds like a cool thing, and Im find with it and the exploration being like a quest (as long as its unmissable?). But give some options like studying the monsters and stuff. I mean, this brings the low risk thing vs high risk combat, but maybe have it where 50% is combat and 50% is studying, because both give different kinds of information? This encourages different playstyles throughout the game so you dont feel you need to kill stuff all the time. Or maybe have it so combat fills the bestiary quicker, and the studying takes longer and more samples? To reflect the added information from combat (and the higher risk) vs studying the behavior of creatures (which would take a while IRL + reflects the lower risk)? I dont know what the best answer is... Theres a lot of directions this project seems to be able to go in. I mean, I like that theyre doing their own thing, but at the same time, as others have mentioned, the game has A LOT of combat heavy features. So combat either needs to be REALLY FUN or needs incentives. Personally I think the best situation would be to encourage both styles, combat and stealth, exploration and quest, and do as much as possible to keep it balanced so no one can complain. But that takes A LOT of work and time. So I dont know how this will work it. I guess leave it up to the devs and have faith in them. Regarding combat as being fun, there are a couple of things worth pointing out with regards to the BB and combat being not very fun at the moment (for some) beyond the whole, "combat is a buggy mess". These are that the character & party in the Beta are significantly underpowered due to lack of magical equipment and crafting, and that there is no implemented AI, so every fight turns into a scrum. Personally I have been enjoying combat in the Beta (and not finding nearly as difficult as many seem to be complaining), even with all the obvious flaws. I hope that talents flesh out classes a bit more, but the kernel of a good system is there...and much better than the IE games. Also, just to be clear about my position on the whole XP thing; I am 100% against Kill/Combat XP, but I am in favor of augmenting the quest system to reward exploration...that was really the point behind my post. Currently the game has a pretty clear design logic about rewarding XP; if that logic can be extended into rewarding greater exploration and increasing player agency (like in your creature research example), I'm all for it. What I don't want is a series of ad hoc tack-ons like lockpicking and the current bestiary xp solution. One thing I am surprised hasn't made it into the game is the kind of robust rumour/ jobs system associated with taverns from Darklands. Considering Josh Sawyer is such a fan of that game, I thought we might have something like that as a way to uncover quests and encourage exploration. The whole Spider Queen encounter could easily have been handled with such a rumour system.

I have to say that the Bestiary XP idea is...goofy. It seems like a really silly tacked-on mechanic to give out little gold stars to players. That said and out of the way, implementing exploration xp (and even the silly bestiary xp giveaway) could be done in a very simple mechanic similar to KGambit's cartographer's quest. At the beginning of the game, the PC could encounter a Volo type character that is looking for adventurers to compile a guide to the Eastern Reach for his readers back in Aedyr complete with maps, locations, adventures, etc.. Once the quest is accepted (unless you kill him for his gold), every scripted sequence yields an XP reward. Obsidian could also add XP for fully exploring maps, towns, villages, quests and even the bestiary. Towards the end of the game, or in an epilogue, the player could meet back up with the quest giver and get a compiled version in the form of a book to go into his/ her journal or inventory. Actually, it would be nice if there was some mechanism for exporting this as a PDF or as an document online to a STEAM account...not sure how hard that would be to implement

^ It could be simple as knockdown triggering a disengagement attack by the fighter performing the knockdown, no special affliction necessary. Right now, knockdown only interrupts attacks and is beneficial if you have another character nearby that can attack in the small window that the creature is prone.

^ Actually, what they've said is that they want fighters to be low maintenance, that's very different from 'simple'. The design goal for fighters is for thet class to be durable, dependable, and not subject to micro-management. Within those parameters, Obsidian could still introduce a ton of talents like trip, cleave, improved critical, etc. that could be offensive boni/moves based on conditional requirements. Personally,in addition to general offensive talents like the above, I think fighters should have an additional tier of weapon focus around combat styles; Ranged, 2-weapon, Sword & Shield, and 2-Hand. There could be certain modal talents (both offensive and defensive) using these styles as prerequisites. From these, Obsidian could layer more specific talents, and include a couple of style-specific, click-to-activate ones like shield bash(S&S), whirlwind attack(2w), Sweep(2H), and Called Shot(Ranged) for those of us who want more micro management.

Happened to me after loading a save at the Dracogen Inn. Was fine before I exited as I checked. BTW, you can't level up when the character UI is messed up like this.

Ultimately my vision is that PoE is a "gamist" game so I err on the side of solutions that produce what I see as better gameplay even if they don't fit perfectly from a simulationist perspective. Although I like your latest adjustments, adding deflection, etc., from a 'Gamist" perspective, I think the OP's suggestions work better as they are more clear and create distinct categories for attributes instead of mixng/matching which I guarantee will lead to continued confusion

^ Absolutely...I think Obsidian would be doing itself a big favor adopting these proposed changes; from both a character management/development standpoint for us players and also being able to efficiently describe the system and stay on message marketing-wise for them.

@ Sensuki & Matt516 Really nice work guys. I like the changes and particularly like adding deflection to Resolve. The nice thing about the solution at a glance is that it creates 3 categories of attributes now; Offensive (Might & Perception), Defensive (Resolve & Constitution) & Augmentation (Intellect & Dexterity). Having attributes re-arranged like this makes the system more understandable at a glance which is really necessary as people seem to be struggling with how attributes function and impact character building.

Sometimes this can be solved by choosing the character by number shortcut (2 = BBfighter for example). But even if you get the correct character, sometimes the hireling becomes unresponsive.

Wow, great stuff and very helpful...thanks for putting in the work!

^ Had the same bug and tried both solutions and still no go...just gonna wait for the new patch at this point because I can't finish any of the quests.

Did a search and didn't find any other exact matches to this bug so starting a new topic: The bug is one that has happened primarily to my PC but also a few times to other characters; Starting a combat with a ranged weapon (Arquebus), firing a volley and then switching to melee weapons, the character can no longer be selected by clicking on character or portrait. The character can only be selected by number button, but even in that circumstance, it will not execute any commands. After combat ends, the character remains rooted to the spot and a reload is required to get it moving again. I suspect that this has something to do with the character continuing their ranged weapon re-load and fire animation after being switched to melee, but initially the character would eventually transition over to the proper attack animation and continue to be use-able in combat. The last few encounters I've tried (Dragon Egg and Wurms), this problem has surfaced.

@ Danathion Background profession will have an impact on dialog. The backgrounds (and other aspects of this game) are likely influenced by Darklands at a guess, as Josh Sawyer has been heavily influenced by that game. In Darklands (no sure if you've played it) character creation, on could take a series of professions over successive 4(?) year intervals. Each career choice had an impact on skills. While age isn't a factor in this game, thus the multiple career backgrounds are extraneous, the idea of backgrounds and culture having an effect on both skills and attributes is logical. Considering that both attributes and skills are fairly fine grained in PoE, I think an additional point here or there shouldn't effect the game a great deal.

^ Good point, and I stand corrected about word usage, Crystal Eaters do, in fact, turn petrify their prey by momentarily turning them (the skin? Whole body?) to stone according to the creature description...very odd and that coupled with poison is a bit much.

Absolutely...there should be bonus (and possibly negatives) for culture and profession.

Ugh...let me see if any other quests work out first. Thanks for the info

Just tried to complete this quest... Got the head using 'take all', but no journal update. Went back to farmer, and no option to turn in head.

^ I think paralyzed is the more appropriate word. I also noticed the petrified effect (bad word) but only by scrolling over status effects...they are way too small at even 13xx resolution. Those Crystal Eater Spiders need to be balanced (AoE, Petrification, & Massive criticals!)...they were much tougher than the Spider Queen

My fighter got poisoned on the second run-through but it didn't wipe him out, and I could see the attack and damage in the combat log. The first time, he was standing one moment and the next dead w no health. That character had 152 points and was at full health, so the attack would have had to do more than 608 points of damage, or possibly been applied multiple times. Either way, it feels like a bug.

^ this happened to me first time into cave...I figured it was poison or somesuch thing, but I couldn't find anything in the combat log that gave an indication of amount of damage poison was doing over time. All damage in POE is at the 4:1 ratio and there are no insta-kills so this is indeed puzzling. Also, of the 2 Crystal Eaters in the area, did anyone notice the one to the eas has some AoE attack that does a crap load of damage if you happen to be in the area? Not sure why one has that attack and the otner doesn't.

I haven't seen this particular bug posted so if I missed it, feel free to merge this with other attack and damaged related bugs of a similar type. The Bug: I created a fighter from the Living Lands for my first play through, because I liked the idea of dual wielding spears! So after my little jaunt through Dyrwood, I head off to track down the Ogre and fight some beetles along the way. In the first encounter with the beetles, I am looking at the combat log and notice that my character's name doesn't come up for attacks. I look up at the stone beetle, and sure enough, it hasn't taken any damage! Also, I notice that my character seems to only be attacking with one hand...his left. So, I decide to head south from the first set of encounters with only my fighter to the lone wood beetle near the river and see if that makes any difference. Well, after 4 attacks with no entries into the combat log (and no damage done), I switch to bare knuckles. It's at this point where 3 hits suddenly register in the combat log for piercing damage. After that all it takes is a solo right cross and the beetle is out for the count. Later when we fight the stone beetles further east, I replicate the results.

I had this same problem and had to bump down my screen resolution (from 1600x to 1440x) to exit the shop and have the outdoor screen load. I'm playing on a non-gaming laptop at the moment, so with the current state of game optimization I can understand this issue. If others are having this same problem but are playing with reasonably powerful rigs, I think PJ's suggestion is the sensible course.

Tried that...will try again, thanks

It seems that the biggest issue with combat right now is feedback. I agree with Sensuki's OP, but it's really difficult to even evaluate combat because it's such a mess between poor feedback, muddy graphics, and a less than stellar UI / combat log. That said, I think you need to get familiar with the mechanics a bit before getting too frustrated with combat. I've been following the game pretty closely, and on normal difficulty, have taken taken virtually no damage (Medreth, beetles, wolves, spiders). I think a lot of that is understanding design intent going into the beta. One note about feedback and game log...If there is an option to maximize the size of the combat log, I wish someone would tell me how to do it. Right now, it's ridiculous.