archangel979

Who is talking about missing?! You don't want to waste spells on grazing as well, especially with a DT system that armors give.

No it is not. You always want them to hit. You don't care if damage over x battles will be greater but that you hit as often as possible. Also accuracy is always useful no matter if enemy has bad def or good def, but damage boost is better once your hit chance is greater. And over X battles you are going to fight enemies of different defenses. Also many abilities are CC abilities, not damage ones and Might is useless with them.

His graph has not taken into account 1/day abilities or X/encounter abilities. It is only true for at will attacks. Anything that has limited charges always does better with bigger chance to work.

What? These things have nothing to do with turn based.

The engagement mechanic can't work unless you leave the AI to be as thick as a brick like it is now. All they would need to do is walk around the fighter while he is already engaged by someone else and you are screwed since the fighter can't turn around and help. If you do, you can risk getting your fighter killed. If they made the disengagement attacks so weak that the fighter can get away, then what's stopping the enemy from simply walking past your front line as well? And if you are okey with leaving the AI to be this stupid then why do you need the engagement mechanic at all since they already flock to the first person they see and completely ignore the back line? As I said before, easy solution is to do this like in 4e D&D. Instead of giving critical hits as part of disengagement, let fighters mark targets (this would be done automatically like engagement works now) and those targets have a penalty to attack and fighter has a bonus to attack if they don't attack the person that marked them. So they can run back to back line but they won't do much and will be killed fast by a fighter coming after them (or hitting them while they are moving past him). Combine this with slower move speed and it will work good. Then like in 4e paladins can mark enemies that while those ignore the paladin they receive damage per second or 2 seconds. And give something to monks as well. Of course they need to fix AI so you cannot kite whole group with one guy while another puts bolts into them for free.

Sure they are. You just don't get to choose how many points to put into which attributes in real life, is all. No they are not. Intelligent and wise people earn 10x more then fast or strong ones. Compare top IT company owners or businessmen to top athletes.

Which means they failed and I am sorry to give them money. I don't care for next NWN much.

It's not how saving throws worked in 3.x ed. I also find it amusing that despite your constant pleas for simulationism, you prefer a system where saving throws are determined essentially randomly over a system where saving throws are derived logically from related stats (Int/Resolve for Will saves, Dex/Perception for Reflex saves and Str/Con for Fortitude saves). That was just one of the suggestion based on how Sawyer wants the game to work. And it was a fix for Accuracy for spells, not saves. You didn't need accuracy for spells in IE games. As you said, that is something 3e invented with spellcasters setting up their spells difficulty by combining Int bonus and level of spell. The system was like PoE but rolled differently, the target rolled his save vs spellcasters DC where in PoE spellcaster rolls his attack vs target DC. It is not a suggestion I would choose out of the ones I suggested in previous post. I would choose the "screw balance, give us flavor through simulationism". Attributes in real life are not balanced, and attributes in games should not be. Seek balance in other design elements. D&D also tried to balance stuff (although not very well), which is seen by low HP wizards, more XP needed to level, crappy Thaco and worst saves. Bards and Rogues level really fast to balance their weaker combat roles and lack of spells and they get access to abilities only they can use. Druids have weaker spells and level faster than wizards and clerics.

Change is so it does not effect critical hits because too many good bonuses are dependent on it. It is too useful as it is. Or Change it so different attributes give bonus to accuracy for different kind of attacks. Put melee accuracy with a stat that is less useful for melee characters and spell accuracy with a stat that is less useful for casters. Or accept that attribute balance means little in this system when accuracy is always going to be maxed. Why? Because limited access abilities depend on it too much that one time you use them. So maybe remove accuracy from attributes completely and just have it go up by level and when choosing talent/class ability. This is actually how spell saves worked in IE games. They were not influenced by attributes but only by class level and race. Then you could modify them during game with equipment or spells (and lower enemy saves with spells). That sounds like a system Sawyer wants. Better than what he has now. Or accept that the game is better if you take a more simulationist approach (frack balance and give us flavor) and just let us have high Int wizards and high Str warriors and high Dex Rangers.

And their system does not roll dice?! And in IE games you could take weapon group proficiencies and improve your critical chance just like in PoE. I am sorry but this explanation does not work. He would be right if there were abilities that granted you 100% critical hit in exchange for something else (like defense penalty for a while or move speed penalty). And I don't like it how they don't care about making attributes more powerful (which again makes no sense because he does not want to improve accuracy but wants to improve area of effect bonuses). Just lower base accuracy for all classes and give more bonus with Perception. Set it up so characters with about 15 perception have same total accuracy as before but those that will put less into it, they will feel it. Everyone is maxing perceptions anyways, no class is better with lower accuracy because if I understood right all physical and magical attacks use this common accuracy value (which is a big difference from older D&D rules and even in 5e each class uses a different main attribute to generate accuracy for different attack and spells). I really don't see how is there a choice currently in the game when accuracy beats all other stats and it is on one attribute. And by keeping it also affecting critical chances it just makes it worse and more important to max.

The spell was useful in the role it had. That much I can agree upon. Later I used Flaming Arrow if I wanted to deal real damage, MM was just for when you don't have anything better. Melf's Meteors were also better at later levels. And vs enemy spellcasters it was better to cast Breach and let you melee handle it or vs enemy groups cast Horror, Slow or Confusion. Oh and I recently did much more damage with Agranazars Scorcher due to managing to line up enemies and dealing damage to 4-5 of them.

MM was not OP but other spells were weaker. Direct damage spells were always considered subpar in D&D (both PnP and cRPGs) and CC spells ruled the day. But it is unfair to directly compare MM to Acid Arrow or Fireball. MM function is to maximise damage vs one target in one round. Fireball works best vs multiple targets, if you are casting it on one guy, you are doing it wrong. Acid Arrow purpose is to keep doing damage each round and frack up spellcasting. In PnP damage done by Acid Arrow interrupts spellcasting no matter if a spell is being cast at same moment damage ticks or not. They fracked up implementation of Acid Arrow in IE games, although it can still be useful when enemy spellcasters cast some of those spells with long casting time. MM is also stopped by Shield spell which is a common low level spell used by enemy casters.

How about increased accuracy gives a bonus vs DT instead of higher critical chances? Then give an accuracy bonus to smaller faster weapons. Then you can make fast and high accuracy characters that have low damage weapons but can still go through higher DT because instead of crazy criticals they ignore parts of DT fairly often. Vs enemies with bad armor they don't do extra as they would not in RL (big sword does more damage than a small dagger vs unarmored target). It also simulates nicely how in movies those with fast weapons find holes in armor (which is represented by increased accuracy). To go into more detail, +1 accuracy over defense does not give more +1% critical chance but +1% to ignore half DT of target. So you get 5% crit chance and rest of accuracy increase goes into hit + chance to ignore half DT value.

Yes, they should copy D&D4e ideas on holding enemy at bay with melee characters, it is well suited for cRPG games (and reason why it didn't work as well in PnP).

As I play IWDEE it makes me sad each time I remember PoE will not have cool spellcasting like IE games My Bard and Sorcerer don't own all fights but are dependable when it counts. And having two of your party being Held while a horde of undead are charging you makes your heart race. You know those two will not come back from being Held before end of fight unless you got spells to save them and you try your best to keep them alive (and it is useful to have a paladin that is immune to Hold to tank for them :D).

I agree with you. There are good modern AAA games. You just have to put up with really streamlined mechanics. Modern games try to appeal to bigger audiences and avoid allowing players to screw themselves by poor planning, as well as trying not to overwhelm them with different systems. Unfortunately for those of us who like complicated mechanics and options, this leaves a vacuum. However, if one looks carefully, one can find a lot of decent indie games, provided one is willing to put up with poor graphics and no voice acting. Unfortunately PoE seems to be one of these games. At least we got WL2 and I also expect TToN to be better than PoE. You think WL2 and T:ToN have more complex mechanics than PoE? T:ToN is only going to have 3 stats and will prioritize storytelling over mechanics, and WL2's character building is a no-brainer if you've ever played a turn-based RPG before. PoE's design is much more interesting and ambitious. No dump stats also means dropping any stat will hurt your character, no way to insta-win dialogue by simply raising dialogue skills, etc. WL2 currently has better combat system. Badly made RTwP is lots worse than average turn based (what WL2 currently has). T:ToN is hard to know how it will turn out in the end but Numenera rules system gives you lots of options, especially as you go up in tiers. And they said they plan to add more options and active skills to character building options that were mostly passive bonuses in PnP Numenera. And best thing about Numenera is that those options don't have any limits other that your attribute pool used to activate them. Having 3 attributes or 6 means nothing, it is how you use them in the system overall. In Numenera those 3 attributes are part of the whole system and as such play a much bigger role than in PoE. You're moving the goalposts now. The discussion was about complexity of character building. If you're championing WL2 in that regard, I'm gonna assume you've never played many RPG's before (if any), considering the game lacks things like traits, perks, aimed shots and a lot of the stats are useless and none of the stats have any effect on skills. No I wasn't. I was commenting forgottenlor post that talked about mechanics of the game in general and that means more than character building options. You are just taking things out of context in a way that you like. And my first RPG was BG1 and Fallout 1. After that I at least tried any rpg of note. But if you just want to talk about character building options, WL2 is weaker than I would have liked. But since it is not a single protagonist story, and as a group you have more overall options than Fallout 1/2. More similar to IE games in that regard but much less options (in IE games each party member by itself didn't have complex character building options but as a group you had hundred different options).

That is impossible to know and if it makes a big difference it is a huge problem for OE if they expect useful feedback on combat balance and feel.

I agree with this topic. Combat both needs to be slowed down and damage per hit needs to be lowered. If armor needs to be changed to do that, then do it. Criticals only depending on base roll is how it worked in IE games and it worked well. I also agree with parts of Sensuki's attribute section, especially the part about making attribute bonus/penalty greater. Shield changes idea is good. I would rather not see any AoE influenced by attributes and I don't really have an opinion about range of abilities based on attributes. Interrupt is for me needlessly complicated mechanic. Let it just be a an extra effect of some spells/special attacks/weapons.

I agree with you. There are good modern AAA games. You just have to put up with really streamlined mechanics. Modern games try to appeal to bigger audiences and avoid allowing players to screw themselves by poor planning, as well as trying not to overwhelm them with different systems. Unfortunately for those of us who like complicated mechanics and options, this leaves a vacuum. However, if one looks carefully, one can find a lot of decent indie games, provided one is willing to put up with poor graphics and no voice acting. Unfortunately PoE seems to be one of these games. At least we got WL2 and I also expect TToN to be better than PoE. You think WL2 and T:ToN have more complex mechanics than PoE? T:ToN is only going to have 3 stats and will prioritize storytelling over mechanics, and WL2's character building is a no-brainer if you've ever played a turn-based RPG before. PoE's design is much more interesting and ambitious. No dump stats also means dropping any stat will hurt your character, no way to insta-win dialogue by simply raising dialogue skills, etc. WL2 currently has better combat system. Badly made RTwP is lots worse than average turn based (what WL2 currently has). T:ToN is hard to know how it will turn out in the end but Numenera rules system gives you lots of options, especially as you go up in tiers. And they said they plan to add more options and active skills to character building options that were mostly passive bonuses in PnP Numenera. And best thing about Numenera is that those options don't have any limits other that your attribute pool used to activate them. Having 3 attributes or 6 means nothing, it is how you use them in the system overall. In Numenera those 3 attributes are part of the whole system and as such play a much bigger role than in PoE.

Inxile only let backers play 1st half of WL2 and second half was full of bugs as a result. PoE could be even worse :D

You should for study sake. Too see how its UI was improved so you can see how that would work for PoE as well. Actions on portraits work extremely well once you get used to it. It makes reading combat much easier and faster.

I am just playing IWD:EE and I don't really watch character animations to see who is doing what. I just watch icon on portraits to see if people are doing anything or idling. I don't even care much for selection circles changing shape to show me who they are attacking as I know who I clicked on to attack and I know the game is not going to cancel that order. Also the game being slow enough helps and camera is good. No crazy FX also makes a huge difference.

What we need for PoE is something like this. I know IE UI purists like Sensuki are going to object heavily but this game has best RTwP UI and options I have seen ever. Also the game is slower and it makes the whole gameplay more fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CukqYYMyCqU#t=25 Don't judge this as a Jagged Alliance game, I am only trying to show off UI and their Plan and Go system which was brilliant and best part of the game. And that you could synchronize all your team actions (or pick for each action if it will be before another character's action, at same time or after) was brilliant and is needed for a game with no global timer or rounds system.

Considering it will be using Numenera, I don't see how it would work as RTwP. Hard to take a completely new system designed for TB and turn it into RTwP. If TToN was still using IE engine, I would agree with you.

Almost all implementations of TB do limit player's micromanagement choices because combat sequence during every turn is governed by initiative. This is particularly bad for party based games with cross-class combos - you may have to fine tune every character's stats towards a specific initiative value. And if initiative is (partially) random it's even worse. In sci-fi games TB combat also tends to favor camping - basically taking a favorable pre-fight position and abusing choke points. Which brings us to the boring part. Sniping from cover and relying on "ambush" mechanics (if available) is hardly exciting. In fantasy games TB encourages CC spam and substituting summons for tanks. This sounds like your only TB fantasy experience is Divinity Original Sin. Go play ToEE or already mentioned Knight of the Chalice. And as far as CC spam, you just described all IE games. CC spam was trademark of most spell battles. Battles where you didn't need to use CC spells, they were super easy anyways. Expeditions: Conquistador battles were always designed to overpower the player if you went out to fight directly. The "problem" (it wasn't a problem to me, I liked the challenge and didn't care what I had to do to beat it) was in design, not its turn based system.