Silverbarr

I must admit to being slightly disappointed in OE not having any devs comment on the topics or give updates as much as other Kickstarter developers have. But alas, maybe it's just a busy and hectic time trying to implement the numerous changes. Still, it would be nice to feel a bit more interactivity since the games I've seen succeed utilised the fan-base to really improve the games.

Ha, the rewards are so lacklustre it makes me feel nauseous when I see what's in the bag

Not sure if it's been said yet, but what about a bounty board offering quest experience for creatures slain in the wild, etc. It would be a do-able, and worthwhile resolution to not gaining XP from combat surely?

I'm actually getting quite frustrated, really love the theory behind the Cipher class and have been trying to play one in the BB. He gets into melee and if he ends up with any aggro ends up annihilated! For a class that seems to be melee-orientated with an emphasis on mentalist abilities it's incredibly disappointing. Any casters or ranged characters that I want to initiate combat with - like in many encounters of IE games, end up having the enemy bee-line (in some cases teleporting directly onto them) and being annihilated. The recovery system feels slow and sluggish, the health/stamina system just doesn't make the game play any better and in fact feels detrimental. Abilities having random colours associated with them unlike abilities/spells in the IE games which definitely felt clearer in whether they were beneficial (aka buffs, etc.) or damaging. With too many AoE abilities/spells which affect everyone, these abilities should be powerful if they affect everyone and not your everyday common abilities and spells. Now I'm a true lover of IE games, and have played them multiple times but I'm sadly finding this BB to be increasingly frustrating in in a lot of cases just not as fun as the potential should allow.

So, to summarise in a basic fashion. Being able to kite is not a legit strategy, but being able to play more effectively with naked characters is?

Wish I knew how you came to that, as I'm having a hell of a time on just normal =/

On normal, one word accounts for my experience: Frustration. The improvements are great, but combat has some major issues. Many recounted before in this thread and numerous others: Beetle speed, recovery times, number of enemies in certain encounters, etc. Was really impressed to see the patch and the number of fixes, but playing on any difficulty other than easy appears to be un-fun and incredibly frustrating.

Even on normal the BB is ridiculous, managed to get to the Queen Spider and now I've permanently lost 2 characters.... Yup, completely gone, and can't even afford 2 adventurers to replace them. Balance is insane, the spiders seem to consistently miss my Paladin main character, but every other character is getting completely annihilated before they are able to utilise their abilities. In fact the Priest is incredibly frustrating as he doesn't even seem to perform the abilities when needed due to the recovery time, and the stamina healing is pointless as the damage from 10+ spiders is impossible to deal with. Strangely the beetles are a whole other issue where even killing small groups is a huge frustration. Glad to see the patch resolve a number of issues I was having, but I can only see myself playing the BB on Easy mode, otherwise it's not fun at all and just completely full of frustration.

Thanks OE, looking forward to trying out this BB patch and seeing how the improvements feel.

Everything the OP wrote was writen a bazillion times in all those kill-xp threads. Probably true, but at least it is surmised fairly accurately for people to read instead of a mess of argumentative comments from the same group of folk

Good representation of what is occurring, I don't see an issue with this thread at all. In fact Mayama, you're post is probably the most useless in here so far.

I'll do a write up later, but been playing quite a bit the past couple of nights and I must admit the game is growing on me massively. The combat is becoming more similar to what I remember IE being 'like'. Still far too many bugs - which is an issue with creating this 'demo' rip of the full game. But, definitely starting to feel more and more like I was hoping. Just need a few more days to check it out - luckily the weekend is here!

Right, because clicking the diplomacy dialogue option is tough business. Boy howdie fellers if you thought dem dere lock pickins was easy just wait till they gotsta click option #3 for their EXP that'll learn em. Ha, this made me giggle good point actually.

Sadly, it isn't as much fun. I don't understand what was so incorrect with the IE games? They worked perfectly in my opinion, and I played every possible way through the series multiple times - and to be fair, I don't chase the tail when it comes to someone else getting something I don't get. Hell, the world would suck if everything would have to be completely equal. By your logic there should be no way to fail a quest, or choose different options as it may lead to differences down the line. It's not my job to come up with a solution, but seeing as previous RPG systems which continually thrive due to offering what most people here seem to want, seems common sense to use a known and revered system.

I disagree fundementally with the need to do this. Why must different playstyles reward the same amount of experience? Who cares? the developers do. many players do. those who wish for more replay-ability do. nevertheless, if that is your pov, we understand the impasse. you do not see inherent value in players choosing different approaches but getting same/similar xp value. the developers disagree wholeheartedly with you and thus they have chosen a method that guarantees equal xp to all players regardless o' how they solve a quest. why should kill ogre get xp, but trick ogre get nothing? why should a character who specializes in unlocking every chest get loot AND more xp than a person who don't have a dedicated lockpicker? etc. you don't have a problem with the disparity. thus ends common ground and we will make no headway. thankfully, obsidian sees value in balance xp awards. lump sums is how old pnp did it. you is still being rewarded for killing stuff by getting your xp award, but you feel slighted 'cause sneaky and diplomats is getting same lump sum? why? so, given that obsidian is making game and has stated innumerable times they don't want fail builds or superior builds that gain excess xp, answer the challenge: "we pose this challenge every time this Stoopid debate reappears and we never get an answer: "provide an alternative system that is as simple and straightforward to implement as task/quest only xp that will will guarantee that regardless of an individual purchaser's style o' gameplay, they will get as much xp as a fighty, diplomatic, sneaky or whatever else kinda player." HA! Good Fun! @Azrael Ultima I think I found your strawmen. In case you're having trouble connecting the dots Gromnir, see all those highlighted words, no one but you is saying that. I do realize that by acting like someone is it makes it much easier for you to argue against what they are actually saying. But no one but you is saying that people who what kill xp feel cheated that sneaky and diplomatic characters would get the same amount. No one but you is saying that skill use in dialogue shouldn't be rewarded by xp. There are just many of us who would also like to be rewarded with xp for participating in the most frequent component of the game. Combat. fine, then balance it. if you don't want sneaky and diplomats cheated, answer our challenge. still no takers HA! Good Fun! Your fallacy is that you think you are being cheated for playing the game a particular way. No one is cheating you Gromnir. You can play the game however you want. If you want to be sneaky then be sneaky. If you want to be diplomatic then be diplomatic. If you want to kill everything that lives, then be a mass murderer. If you want to be all of those things as much as possible and don't care if your character is role-playing or being consitent. Then do that too. You can be free to choose however you want to play the game in an enjoyable way as long as each particular way of playing it is rewarded enough to make the playstyle fun. The playstyles don't need to be equal at all. As long as skills checks are rewarded and good xp is given both for the murder solution and the sneaky/diplomatic solution the everything is fine. If a player wants to horribly abuse the xp system by metagaming, well then that's their choice. As a designer I would be happy that I can give that playstyle, which I have trouble relating to, an enjoyable way to play the game. If case you should say that it is impossible to satisfy all these playstyles without being game breaking, I will simply point you in the direction of BG/BG2. In that game some amount of combat was necessary, but if you chose to solve a quest in a diplomatic or sneaky way nothing required you to go back and kill everything just to have enough xp to move forward. You could choose to if you wanted to. I want to play a game with choice. That to me is much more important than balance. That was how the IE games worked and what initally intrigued me so much about Pillars of Eternity. Unfortunatly, many of the systems, if not significantly altered, simply do not support that principal. This is unfortunate as it was stated the game was to be a spiritual successor to the IE games. This post sums up how I feel, seems like a major amount of people also.