archangel979

Infinity Engine combat feedback was not perfect, BGEE adding current action on portrait is a proof of that. Everything can be improved upon. PoE needs to have best possible tactical combat and UI, no matter if it improved IE one or something a bit different. As long as it feels like an upgraded IE, backers will be happy.

I agree with Indira, PoE should beat DAI in combat feedback and overall quality of tactical combat (as that is only kind of combat PoE has). When people turn on tactical cam in DAI they should say "Oh, I wish this worked like in PoE". This is because DAI will be beating PoE in graphics, voice overs, size of game, freedom of movement, action combat and it seems ever stronghold design/options. PoE can only really compete with story quality and tactical combat. Tactical combat in DAI is a secondary feature, made for a minority of their player base, it should not win over PoE in any way possible.

We would hope they also read topics like this one. Quests/story making sense is worth more than any mechanics changes. I would like people to take a nice comb and go through as many quests in beta and report possible problems and inconsistencies. I managed to find one within 15 minutes of watching someone's Lets play. Unfortunately I don't have access to beta to be able to check other quests.

Not true. If you want to experience everything you still need to kill all creatures and take their loot. Only you will not gain Xp for it.

Capturing the girl alive is part of main quest?! I doubt it, they are not going to implement only one option needing to be chosen so you can continue main quest. Additional quests were probably taken out that were connected with main quest. Like confronting the town about cultists, I could see that somehow connected with main quest.

The explanation about how recruits are somehow better does not work because everyone in that world uses same stat system and has similar bonuses. Actually it is implied that rangers are worse than an average soldier today as they didn't get a proper military training. But it still stands that Brute Force can be explained in more ways than the animation of it. People mostly complain because the animations does not fit a Strength 1, Brute Force 10 character.

Maybe it is, but logical quest options seem to be missing.

That sounds like it is reasonable as well.

Tsk, tsk. I knew it! Non-kill xp proponents are the ones who abuse systems and farm xp systematically. I have played BG dozens of times, even munchkin-ly, and I've never done that kind of thing. Are you subconsciously urging OE to have quest-xp only just because of your lacking self-control? Not really - just "answering" to those who say none of the IE games had "grinding" or degenerative gameplay (if one cares to call it such) - anyone who spent any time on BG forums (I started before ToTSC was released) knows very well that there were areas like this and that it was certainly not an insignificant number of forum goers that utilized them as such - especially among the crowd that was into the No reload challenge type games. I was on both sides of that sort of thing - playing no reload was (and is) a passion (loved the adrenaline rush in every battle) but also played oddball fairly gimped PCs and parties too. Nobody said IE games didn't have mechanics or bugs to abuse (people could finish BG1 in 15 minutes). BUT, the sirine cave didn't represent normal gameplay or any other dungeon/cave but that one. It was an exception, not the rule. Also I would not want it removed, it had its purpose in giving people that wanted to abuse it what they wanted. For the rest of us there was other stuff that we liked that someone else might like to have removed. I am all for implementing lots of stuff and as long it is not obvious let players decide what to use or abuse.

To avoid fighting a tough enemy at level 1. Especially important if you are playing Ironman. Or if you are trying to play in a way to kill as little as possible.

third option in this exact dialogue? Because any good character will just knock the girl unconscious (if you can snap her neck you can also just knock her out) and find a solution where nobody dies unless no other option is available. I understand they wanted to present players with a hard choice here but it was done badly.

The frog has patrol paterns. When it turns its back you can run in with one guy and grab the quest items and run away. Lots of places in the game let you avoid combat by watching enemy patrol patterns and avoiding their field of vision.

Replace "1 point to buy, 2 point for lvl 2 skill" with 1000 and 2000 and you got the DX system. Replace this with allowing picking with levels, you got PoE. It doesn't matter *how* the system allows you to spend your XP, it's all about how you GAIN XP. There are plenty of good ways to spend XP systems. Gaining XP systems however, there are a fairly limited amount of ways to do so. So in the end "it allows you to spend XP directly" isn't actually relevant since it's not about spendature, but gaining. And in that Vampire and Deus Ex are equal, even if they have a different spendature method. A gaining system that PoE could use (and benefit from) and what "Objective XP" would really be about (instead of "quest XP" or "level as you progress XP as in Elder Scrolls") No, it is not all about how you gain XP. With freedom players have in V:B one could use all xp to level non-combat skills or all combat skills. Devs don't know. They give you just bit of XP and increase challenge slightly. In PoE (and IE games) each level up gives some non-combat and some combat increases and it is known how much. Players can also survive much tougher challenges then those of similar level. Xp disbalance can be easily had and it will not break anything. Not to mention V:B was not a combat game. Combat was in most missions something to avoid as it was way more deadly then in IE games (also no raise dead). No reason to give kill xp for actions that are not recommended in that game. Also PnP Vampire games also don't give XP for separate actions but for goals accomplished. Those didn't have trash fights, but all fights were part of quests. V:B does not have random roaming through open maps and fighting lions/beetles/whatever . Closest was police that could intervene if you broke the masquerade by feeding on humans with witnesses around.

V:B didn't have trash fights. It also didn't have levels but you leveled directly with xp. It is much harder to balance such a game if you don't limit xp gain a lot.

I am not sure if there is a topic about quests but maybe this one can do. I just watched on youtube the quest where you confront cultists and you only get two choices: let the girl go or kill her. That is not right. Where is knock her out option?! Then take her unconcious back to Lord and decide there what to do with her.

U called me a 14percenter, twice . But forget about it , I don't want to derail the discussion. That is not namecalling, that is a fact. 14 percent of Steam users gave WL2 negative score. So you can be a 14 percenter or 86 percenter. Why is this number important? Because by Steam forums you would thing it is the other way around including people that scream that "everyone" things WL2 is bad. So 14 percenters need to be put into their place with facts.

Encounter Challenge Level. What 3.0e D&D had with enemies giving less and less xp based on their level compared to player level (but you didn't compare each level of monster, but looked at the whole group to determine its encounter level)

Name calling? Where?

It could be deeper, InXile is not against patching in more options. Most skills are non-combat ones (and some of those can be used in combat like Animal Whisperer or Computer use), and there are often opportunities to use them. Often it is to open different loot containers but you can use them to finish quests in different ways or access additional info or help people. You cannot finish the game without combat like in Fallout, but many quests have ways to do them without killing everything that moves (including a Frog you run into early).

My feelings exactly! Can you elaborate on that mates ? FO1&2 are among my most favourite rpgs of all time, and if you re saying W2 is so worthy I may as well try it out. I can try. Although there are no targeted body shots like in F1 and F2, due to game being party based the combat as a whole is more fun and more complex than in Fallout. It has similar feeling of freedom of movement and letting you chose the outcome of events. Since you are part of a organization and not a lone figure, the freedom is a bit less than in Fallout. Overland map travel is like in Fallout although there is no really special random encounters. This is one of the parts that are worse. There is no low intelligence dialogue and there are no traits and perks(although they said they would like to have some and implemented a trinket system instead). Everything else is similar to Fallout or better. Besides there being no low intelligence dialogue it also has no real dialogue options in general, it's more like the npcs you can talk to in game are information vendors. And the combat isn't better because you can't shoot a guy in the **** and you can't shoot a guy in the eye. I really love the concept of wasteland 2 but the execution is pretty horrible really, I'm surprised it has gotten such high ratings in reviews. That's good news for PoE though I bet it will also get good reviews just for it's concept, but I'm hoping of course the execution will be better in PoE's case. We got a 14percenter here. Or course it is a real dialogue. You cannot blame the game that Ranger NPCs like to tell their Ranger recruit their history. The raiders you talk to don't have huge conversations. And it is not like you are forced to read it all or ask all the questions. If you are not interested in reading or don't care about the backstory you can not ask about it. Just because the game does not have dialogue trees like you are used to, it does not mean dialogue is bad. Combat is better because you got a full squad to control and fight with vs one guy you control in Fallout. Same like IE games had better combat than NWN1 for same reason. The team based combat is way more complex then choosing which part of body to shoot. It got high ratings because not everyone is a 14percenter.

Combat Xper's aren't true fans of PoE.. they are true fans of IE.. The rest of your post is correct. No, they aren't true fans of IE. Hated dealing with the combat in IE but absolutely loved the stories... that is the true fan of IE. the roleplay... not the rollplay. Only PST fits you description. You might be a true fan of PST, but if you didn't like combat in IE games, you are not a true fan of most IE games.

Explain the different options before you do the poll.

My feelings exactly! Can you elaborate on that mates ? FO1&2 are among my most favourite rpgs of all time, and if you re saying W2 is so worthy I may as well try it out. I can try. Although there are no targeted body shots like in F1 and F2, due to game being party based the combat as a whole is more fun and more complex than in Fallout. It has similar feeling of freedom of movement and letting you chose the outcome of events. Since you are part of a organization and not a lone figure, the freedom is a bit less than in Fallout. Overland map travel is like in Fallout although there is no really special random encounters. This is one of the parts that are worse. There is no low intelligence dialogue and there are no traits and perks(although they said they would like to have some and implemented a trinket system instead). Everything else is similar to Fallout or better.

Yea, I was just planning to ask if general visibility of characters is going to be fixed. I been playing Grim Dawn lately and although it uses similar isometric view and combat is real time, I have 0 problems seeing my character and enemy ones.

Just to make sure people understand my stance. I don't ask that combat XP must be in the game. I would prefer if all combat, no matter how small (expect random encounters during traveling) is part of some story or quest. I don't really enjoy trash combat against meaningless and uninteresting enemies. 10201303030 pack of Hobgoblin Elite in BG was not exciting, but finding a sudden pack of 3 Ogrillion was (especially since someone mentioned them). Enemies with name and story (no matter how small) was fun to find and run into. There should be some XP around this encounter (be it discovery, or some minor quest you can turn into, or as a special challenge). But if they cannot fill the game with meaningful encounters, I would rather get kill xp from all the boring trash mobs then not. In Pen&Paper you don't go around finding random creatures in small numbers and murdering them all. Even if it looks like that, GM will make a bigger story around it to make it more interesting. As a computer roleplaying game, it should also not have random murdering situations. All the wolves and beetles standing around waiting to be murdered is not good gameplay. Yea, I know it is a lot to ask from developers but it is how it should be. Not Dragon Age lets kill 43434343 same packs of enemies or Diablo 34343434 packs of same kind of skeletons.