Lord Wafflebum

So you can only use a specific set of spells that are in a particular grimoire? You'd think there would be the ability to "copy" them over. That's what I do at work with my lab notebooks, and as a chemist I would be considered a wizard in olden times... Also yes, the forums have been very hostile as of late. That's why I decided not to post on any other threads anymore.

Disclaimer: This thread is more for casual gamers that prefer PoE on Easy or Normal. This thread will be a safe place for those of us that don't want to get mixed up in the hostility of other threads, and simply want to discuss our thoughts/opinions of the new build. This thread is especially directed to those of us that don't post on/avoid other threads. So far I'm loving the new build. This is the first time I've been able to play through and consistently have fun. There are a few things that still aren't great, but based on this build I'm extremely optimistic I'm going to love the full release. This felt like playing Baldur's Gate, and that's why I backed this project in the first place. Looks like I'll be getting my money's worth! Pros: 1) Paladins. This is my favorite class in most fantasy games. The fact that I can play semi-passively with it is perfect. In reality I could play completely passively with this class if I chose to, but I'm a sucker for "Lay on Hands." 2) Combat. Wow, so much better. I really enjoyed combat in this version. I can make sense of what's going on most of the time. I'll get into my remaining confusion in a bit. The pace is right, the damage amounts make sense, and I can follow what's happening and intervene with commands as necessary. I don't need to pause if I don't want to, but I've been enjoying doing so to make better use of party abilities. It's really looking good. 3) Classes. Now that combat is making more sense I've been playing with abilities and skills a bunch. I made a Chanter to join my crew right out of the gate and learning the cool things each class can do has been a hoot. I'm looking forward to playing with the other classes, too! 4) Aesthetics. I've been able to get a lot further into the beta since combat management is easier, and I've loved seeing all the environments. This game is gorgeous. Cons: 1) Visibility. I am having a tough time seeing what's going on some of the time. I have a hard time seeing the beetles in the grass, and oh boy does it get crazy if anyone uses web. The circles around the characters help (reticles?), but mostly I rely on my party to auto-attack to victory if I can't really see what's going on. I'm not sure what the best way would be to address it other than web could use some transparency to it. 2) Forgetful Party. Normally I would consider this a quibble, but it happens during every encounter and becomes tedious. I don't know if it is an effect of the engagement system or what, but when I issue orders to my party during the beginning of combat they often forget what they're supposed to be doing like a second later. This may even be a bug, but I'm not sure. If it is an effect of engagement kicking in, it would be nice for manual direction to override auto-actions. Quibbles: 1) Pathfinding?: I'm sure this is still a work in progress and still probably the best it has been thus far, but my PC is an idiot when it comes to navigating. It's only my PC tho. The rest of my party goes where I want them to in a logical and intended fashion. My PC for some reason gets really stupid when it comes to going places and goes off in a direction from everyone else. It's like he's saying "Hey, I know a shortcut!" and no one follows him because they know he has no idea what he's doing. It's a really minor thing, and is the cause for some unintentional entertainment. 2) Grimoires. What's the deal with grimoires? I picked one up, but it's just a different color than the one my wizard already had. Is it supposed to give me more spells? If so how do I get them, or do I already have them? I realize this is still the beta and there hasn't been a chance for tutorials, but I hope that sort of thing makes it into the tutorial stuff they make for early on. 3) Engagement. My issues here I think are more likely due to my not understanding the game too well yet. I was fighting the ogre and my Pally took quite a beating. I tried a tactical retreat, but the ogre was not having any of that nonsense. Despite the more prevalent threat of my fighter, he chased down my Pally and cleaned his clock before addressing the fighter and rogue at his heels. It gave me the opportunity to whittle his health down a bit extra, but there should be a way (or more obvious way) for the esteemed Lord Wafflebum to flee. It's not a huge deal, as my Paladin's low health was mostly due to gross mismanagement on my part, but I like to think of my Paladin as being allergic to unconsciousness. Summary: I'm loving the new build. I honestly could be happy playing the full release in the state the game is currently in. The fact they're still a few months out makes me think I'm going to love the full release. I realize many are still upset about certain aspects of the game (combat especially), but I personally am happy with where the game is/ where it's going (please don't hate me Sensuki!). This is especially true for Easy difficulty as I have not, and likely will not, play on Normal or above before the next build is released.

I would like to echo the sentiment of disliking the unlimited inventory system. I realize that is unlikely to change, but I just think of the super dungeon they're putting into the game. At the end of that dungeon I feel I should have to make a hard decision on what I'm going to lug out of that place. I shouldn't be able to packrat out every single door knob and trinket. If I do want to lug out every door knob and trinket in the mega dungeon, it should take me a very long time to do so.

I play fairly closely to you. I typically start off on Easy, then after I've become very comfortable with the system I'll do a third slow/completionist playthrough on Normal. I agree with your impressions tho. After what Josh Sawyer has been putting out lately I am very optimistic that Easy and Normal are going to feel similarly to our experiences with the BG series. From what he said will likely be coming out in the next build, I think we'll really begin to see the promise of this game come through.

Wow, so much hate for Bioware gamers. I like this. I took great joy in murdering Flaming Fist soldiers for their sweet gear. I killed them because I wanted to be like them and have their stuff. I know Sensuki said he doesn't like the limited money pool of the merchants, but it seems like that would be a good way to keep the economy balanced? As per most of my remarks, that is based solely off a feeling and absolutely no data. Also, I'm Commander Shepherd and this is my favorite thread on the Citadel.

We should have a mode where you can press a button and combat gets auto-won. **** them tactics. I'd be liar if I said I wouldn't use that.

@RoughOne A sentiment more than a few of us share, and I think OE is aware of it. And you've hit exactly on the problem with the beta as it has been explained to me: It's just not a good balance. I think Sensuki mentioned it's set somewhere like 1/3 into the game, well off the main path (mostly to avoid spoilers), equipped with starter level gear, and not even a learning curve. It's a learning cliff. It's nice to use it to play around with what they've made so far, but it's likely not representative of how the final product will play. @Yonjuro Ah, there it is. We have different perspectives on what casual gamers are. I consider the "Angry Birds Crowd" less casual gamers and more people who get bored while they poo. My definition of a casual gamer is someone who plays games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout, and Elder Scrolls on one of the easier difficulties because they want to enjoy the story over the combat. People that play Sims games. Folks that having a computer specifically for gaming, but want a light, enjoyable, and only mildly challenging experience. My real life job primarily involves being yelled at for 8-10 hours because old people who need to retire forget where they put things. I come home to play games to relax and immerse myself in a story; I don't want to get MORE agitated because I didn't utilize a specific mechanic to it's maximum and can't get past a certain point because of it. I want to enjoy and interact with the wonderful world OE dreamed up for us to mess around in. That is what I define as casual gaming. Just being able to play around with what folks have put out there for us.

No worries, my memory is just fine! Probably. Maybe. I don't know now. I'm pretty sure there was a difficulty slider, so we may not have had the same experience with the game. It took me until my third playthrough to realize a high armor class was bad. Admittedly, I did wonder why I had such a tough time with Sarevok the first couple times. I would ask that you don't assume that because folks like RoughOne and I are casual gamers that there is no way we could enjoy the old IE games. We're here for the story, the lore, and the view. It's the same reason I love Bioware games (although lately I've been a bit sour with them for reasons that don't need mentioning). Love me some interactive movies. That said, are you of the opinion that Easy difficulty should still disclude enjoyment for casual gamers? Is that offensive to you as it for some reason is for some on this forum? I'm not trying to be a ****; I legitimately want to know.

Lol, my ears are burning. 1) I'm looking forward to the day that Shevek and Sensuki become best friends. 2) @Namutree: I've seen no compelling argument for my alleged wrongness. Altho Sensuki more often than not has good arguments for his positions I still haven't seen an argument from him that suggests it's any worse than not ideal. I don't like how engagement works currently, but I also am nowhere near convinced it needs to be scrapped entirely. To be fair, there's a high likelihood I may have missed his breakdown of why it cannot function as intended. Besides, my only personal interest is how the game plays on Easy. Since Sensuki and Shevek stepped in and took care of making a beta tutorial for peeps like me, I can play the game without getting hulk-mad. How it plays on hard or PotD I doubt I will ever try it. Engagement mechanics very well may be glaringly bad. I've always stated that from my perspective engagment seems like it will be fine.

I agree that the combat in the beta needs work (and, from what they have posted here and elsewhere, the developers agree). However, PoE is aimed at fans of the Infinity Engine games. Does that describe you? I'm asking because I wouldn't classify them as casual games at all. That said, I think you'll find that the combat gets a lot easier once you get used to it. I also found that it seemed much too fast at the beginning, due, in part to some issues with the UI, but it seems a lot more manageable now after I've gotten used to it. I disagree. Baldur's Gate was a very much a casual fantasy set game during its time. While maybe not the most intuitive game, I was able to play the game fairly easily with almost zero understanding of how the actual mechanics of the game worked.

Fear not RoughOne, I truly believe it will get better for us. The beta from what Josh Sawyer has alluded to will not represent the difficulty we'll face when we play the full release. The learning curve will be far less steep. After spending some time with Shevek and Sensuki's tutorials (which they made for people like us, bless their hearts) I can actually play the game without being constantly and mercilessly slaughtered. Also, for the next beta version it sounds like the tweaks to make combat more reasonable will be put in place. I'd say wait until the next beta build and try again. I'm optimistic that it'll be more how we need it to be. Maybe not perfect, but I from what Josh Sawyer has said in other threads it sounds like they're on the right track.

If Dark Souls if your ideal gameplay type we have very little in common in what we enjoy in games. I'll repeat to you what I've said to others. How does aiming the Easy level difficulty of the game affect you whatsoever? If you're into Dark Souls I'll bet you'll play on the hardest difficulty or darn close. I very seriously doubt you would consider playing on Easy difficulty. Why then are you for marginalizing casual gamers? Why do you feel we should not be allowed to enjoy the game when it does not affect your gameplay style?

I saw in a different thread (I forget which one) Josh said that during their play week they had some newbs they played through the beginning and they didn't have a hard time picking the game up. He also said they were going to make sure they do a better job with feedback and tutorial mechanisms. I'm convinced enough now the full release will be enjoyable for us leisurely players.

Thanks for this. I love the insight as to how you guys work.

I don't think the beta was necessarily intended for casual gamers. I think this is more meant to test the complexity and general systems for those that will dive deep into the game. Easy can always be made easier by a plethora of ways. Not to say they don't want casual gamers feedback at this time...it's just that again...making a balanced *harder* game seems to be the priority in this because as I said earlier...they can always tone it down on lower difficulties quite easily. As you said, I also think that casual gamers will find the experience much less jarring once you play the beginning/tutorial areas. However...easy in this game still may end up being more difficult than what you'd expect compared to easy on games that are released nowadays. Think Nintendo/Sega level of "easy", not Xbox level. Agreed that it can be made easier with what I assume is relative ease, but I felt that my feelings on difficulty from a more casual gaming perspective was important. I want this game to be a commercial success for OE so that we see more of it in the years to come, and getting feedback from a casual gaming perspective might help them to make the game more accessible to folks like me. Of course I don't want the tactical spirit of the game to be diluted just to appease the masses as this clearly is not a game meant for the CoD-frenzied masses, but still enjoyable for those of us that grew up with the BG and IWD series. If you read these forums it would be easy to fall under the impression that everyone that played the original IE games are game mechanics purists. That's simply not the case, and I felt my thoughts toward the game were for a decent sized group of people that typically aren't terribly active on the forums. The summation of my argument essentially was that I thought it was absurd on Easy difficulty I get brutally annihilated by my first out-of-town unavoidable encounter. After this thread I feel more comfortable that the game won't actually have this level of difficulty due to the beta having us under-equipped and a steep learning curve. I am just hoping right now the devs understand that those of us not particularly interested in the nitty gritty of the underlying mechanics are given a little leeway on our builds and the tutorials do a sufficient job of helping us get used to this game before we're thrown in the deep end. That's essentially the culmination of this thread. I know it's a lot to read otherwise.

If you backed the game (either during the KS or as a slacker-backer) I believe you can still add-on beta access in your pledge management. However, if you did not back the game I believe you're out of luck. I'm pretty sure they're only taking pre-orders for the game now. Unless someone wants to correct me?

@nipsen Well said. I've deviated from my initial post somewhat to admit I was confusing game difficulty with general unfamiliarity. I truly believe it was a misstep on OE's part to not give us whatever initial tutorial level in in the actual game. I know they were trying to avoid spoilers, but typically beginnings of the game are not rife with spoilers. Based on the feedback I've read from my fellow casual gamers I'm not confident the beta actually tells us anything about how much we'll enjoy the normal progression of the game. I truly want to be able to give feedback from someone who doesn't care enough about the mechanics to study spreadsheets and game code and write borderline thesis papers, but I feel the OE hasn't given me what I need to speak intelligently about game flow impressions. The only thing I CAN be confident on is that the lore and story laid out so far is fantastic (not that I expected anything less than OE; if nothing else they're expert storytellers) and I really like the Paladin class. Oh, and the game is very aesthetically pleasing to me. I know they have folks that peruse these forums, so all I can hope is that they've read my piece and take me concerns into consideration. I think we forget sometimes these guys are pros, and likely realize when our perceptions of the game are skewed.

Need? No, probably not. I still want it though- not that I can have it...

Thanks! Good to know.

I, too, would love that. AI scripts were the only thing that made Dragon Age Origins playable for me. However, I don't know. If they're in the beta I have not found them, but one of the forum full-timers will likely know if they are supposed to be in the pipeline or not. My guess would be no, because I believe PoE is feature locked.

Sweet. I think we'd all love to hear what you guys learned from your play week!

As I found out the difficulty of Easy is actually ok; it's the amount of party management that makes it difficult if you are not playing a with a party that has primarily passive combat abilities. I'm not thrilled with the way engagement currently works, but I assume with some tweaking it can be made to work better. I'm by no means a programmer so I can't be sure, but it doesn't seem so bad it can't be made to function more effectively.

And you're not alone. What this thread was originally about was the difficulty or management of combat on Easy difficulty. The conversation unfortunately devolved into an argument about combat mechanics. It was illuminating for awhile to get a basic idea of pros/cons from different perspectives, but it has mostly become silly at this point. From what I've been able to gather it's become a matter of play preference. Overall the general consensus is that combat needs some balancing out, and the systems in place will work more smoothly once said balancing is done. I have no idea personally, but I'm going to hope that's the case. If Sensuki is correct and engagement needs to be scrapped entirely to achieve a better combat flow then I worry about the game having enough QA time before release. So, I say let's all just hope Shevek is right, balance is king, and we have plenty of time to help polish the game before full release.

@Cpt Shrek I fully understand you disbelief. I was ready to call BS on Shevek, but I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Check out his newb guide video and how he built the party. I've played around with it a bit to make it more to my liking, but it is fully possible to play passively. I play a bit more semi-passively because I like to play around with skills, but at least on normal it isn't too tough. It truly is a matter of the mechanics of the game not being obvious. I've since changed my opinion from my original post that combat isn't tough, but I do think the rules are vague, difficult to understand, and not terribly fun. This thread apparently devolved into an argument about preference on engagement. I'm at a point where I'm indifferent. Normally I'm one of the first to jump on Sensuki's bandwagon, but this time I honestly think it could work out either way. I feel as though the engagement system suffers due to a lack of play time from the devs as it currently stands. Things that sound good on paper don't always work out well in practice. Sensuki I feel is correct in that engagement is far from an ideal mechanic, but I don't think there's enough evidence that it cannot be worked on along with some AI tweaking to make it function ok. Shevek I think is also on point, where from my new ability to survive combat there is a very real possibility that balance is to blame for many of the shortcomings, but I also haven't seen a compelling argument for that, either. What's going to matter most I think is what the devs feel after their playthrough week. They know the systems better than anyone and after they spend time to actually feel how they work in practice is when we will the most positive tweaks to combat functionality. So, my guess is that next patch we'll see some changes to the feel of combat and be able to go from there. I think we can all agree that it is highly unlikely that they'll do their playthroughs and say, "Yep, this is perfect. Let's keep combat as-is for the full release."

@Shevek: I hope you're right. Although I suspect there's a good chance since it feels like the beta is suffering from a woeful lack of balance, although I have no data to actually back that up. @Whomever, probably Sensuki or Shevek: I've noticed the discussion of engagement now in a few threads. Any chance one of you guys could explain what it is and why it's bad (or not)? Also, feel free to explain it like you're talking to a child. It actually helps being talked down to a little when it comes to this game's mechanics. I think I've seen Sensuki mention that it seems to be a major contributing factor to the combat tedium.