Breckmoney

I think that's a premature assumption; focus gain right now isn't really balanced at all; for that matter, most cipher powers aren't balanced at all (Whisper of Treason takes six seconds to cast for ten seconds of effect, and misses half the time now with no grazing!). I'd suggest actually playing a pure cipher right now -- given the miss rates it can take an extraordinarily long time to gain focus. I don't think I've cast Domination yet, I've never gotten up to 30 focus in a fight, it takes too long. Fighters are always going to have the stances and the other fighter abilities; they don't need every weapon skill. More importantly though it's just a roleplaying thing. People want to be able to say "My paladin is skilled in guns" or "my barbarian is good with two-handers." Yeah, the weapon proficiencies do that to an extent but it's a matter of being able to personalize your build beyond just clicking the "multi class into fighter" checkbox. For a lot of people, multiclassing is just an option they're not interested in, for personal or narrative or roleplay reasons. Yeah all sorts of balance is jacked right now. I've played a pure Cipher and can indeed be rough going if you get a miss streak. The graze gauntlets help quite a bit. My point is that when the game is "finished" they will be balanced around the abilities and items available to them regardless of what those are. If they can't get access to Two-Weapon Style then they'll be balanced assuming that and there won't really be a difference. Like do people want them to add in the generic talents and then rebalance everything? Then you just take an additional talent that isn't very interesting and your character winds up in the same spot.

I don't understand why people feel compelled to do so, though. Barbarians and rogues and paladins are balanced around not having access to additional weapon expertise. This doesn't mean they are worse than their Pillars 1 version because they can't get it, other things changed as well, they're just different. Pure Ciphers don't need additional weapon training - their focus gain in this game is balanced different than the first.

They're just a different set of modals. You can still use paladin auras, fighter stances etc.

I think that the actual answer is that right now classes are purposefully more specialized. It's not something that's being given up because multiclassing exists, it's just a design decision. Fighters don't have damaging abilities really, they're just the masters of auto attacking, whereas rogues are built less around autoattacks than the first game and more around ability usage.

I think people might think differently of rest spamming if food was fully implemented. Like if you had 10 high dollar rare meals that added something like 2 Pen, 10 accuracy and 1 regen/second, I dunno. Good stuff. Certainly I would feel pressured to put off resting as long as possible.

The current system should in theory allow for more special grimoires too, right? Like with powerful unique spells in them. If you can't just scribe them all then you can make very powerful spells since you can't just have all of them at once.

Priests healing injuries doesn't make sense in a world where their spells regenerate all the time. I think it would be more likely to appear on an item which apparently do still carry per-rest abilities like these Bounding Boots.

That's a good argument though I would say food bonuses would have to go if this was to be any decent incentive. I think keeping foods but making decent bonuses from foods more rare, and thus the bonuses themselves more valuable, is a better option. We already know that's going to be the case. The food in the game currently is pretty common fare. Large meals with lots of bonuses will be rare but just aren't in the game yet.

There's no reason to make resting limited. People who don't like having to rest will either do the thing that's annoying to get around it - like treking back to town every few fights to resupply - or just get annoyed and stop playing the game. Having unlimited resting with incentives for people who enjoy playing the resource management game seems like a better system in every way. Food just needs to be balanced to the point where the bonuses are tantalizing and it isn't now because food crafting isn't in the game yet.

Think it's GiveItem now.

Go here, click on the Backer Portal and follow the steps.

Why would that make sense? If you don't like it, don't use it. I think the idea was that slow mode was supposed to be the default and you could speed it up if you wanted to. Which would be cool. It's just not slow enough as is. It is quite slow actually. The issue is more that "classic" has way too many mobs. Try on the lower difficulty, it has few mobs and the combat is less crazy. Hmmm I don't really think that's the problem. Classic and Veteran I can play at pretty safely, I think. It's not that it's overly hard as I would like the initial engagement to commence a little more slowly. Action speed seems mostly fine I just think that everything moves too quickly.

Why would that make sense? If you don't like it, don't use it. I think the idea was that slow mode was supposed to be the default and you could speed it up if you wanted to. Which would be cool. It's just not slow enough as is.

They aren't balanced against each other, though. Unless I'm just misunderstanding you. You are misunderstanding me. Going back to the first PoE, one of the initial design goals was to make every stat equally important. They didn't succeed in this in PoE (and they will not succeed in this in PoE 2, because, given the kind of game it is, combat challenges will naturally be more numerous), but more importantly than that, given the whole of the game, they wanted to make it more balanced. But they didn't succeed. I can't imagine what the corrresponding benefit of a metaphysics 10 score would be compared to mechanics 10. Given the nature of the game, given the amount of skill checks they put into it, there is a very clear path of optimal skillpoint investment, and it is not announced on the initial character creator screens. I guess I just don't understand why you're comparing mechanics and metaphysics. They don't compete for the same resource. Unless you just mean that passive knowledge skills have an overall lower impact on the game than active skills?

They aren't balanced against each other, though. Unless I'm just misunderstanding you.

Analyse of NWN1 and 2 Recall of facts : NWN Feats (Equivalence of Talents in POE) = Class feats + Racial Feats + GENERAL feats + CONDITIONNAL feats (Constitution 21+ etc) Level of liberty = 90 % ------------ POE2 beta Talents = Class talents. Level of liberty = 20 % (Chose a class and it is all) I don't think that's a sensible way of looking at it. The number of categories from which you personalize your character doesn't mean anything. You could have the exact same character in both systems. It's all just a defined number of decisions you make when building a character - who cares where they come from or what they're called?

As it stands I think the beta is pretty tough. There are a few classes that seem pretty busted that can run over things, but presumably those will be pared back. Shifter in particular seems hilariously broken.

If you want class specific, there is abilities. If the devs WANT an additionnal 15 % for x reasons. CREATE a new abilitie ! During 45 seconds, the fighter gain +15 % in two handed. End. It is clear and simple!^^ but keeping more options is worth more than a differentiation that does not make sense. I asked the question again, why, the barbarian could not have this talent ? When over talent is duplicate for several classes. (Will reflex etc especially) I guess I don't get why it doesn't make sense. A paladin as a class is balanced in part around doing a certain amount of damage. If you just give him a talent that can make you do 20% more damage then you need to curtail his other abilities a bit or make enemies a bit beefier. Instead the abilities specific to a Paladin should come together to make up his offensive abilities and he should get talents that reflect that it's a different class, even if they do the exact same thing. Like instead of Two-Weapon Style you get to modify Faith and Devotion to increase your damage by a certain % with certain conditions, whatever. They're both just ways that increase your auto attack damage themed differently.

I am not saying I want generic stat boosters for every class. I would rather see Melee talents specialized for a ranger for example or even their ranged only active and passives allow for melee. The real thing people are looking for is at least a little flexibility within a single class which just simply doesnt exist. Your choices for diversity are either in even split with multiclassing (which sacrifices your top tier class abilities) or single class with no flexibility at all outside of 4 classes. I think its a valid criticism that why should a player have to suffer the sacrifice of multiclassing to quite literally have access to a single Talent that logically should be generic? Like sword and shield styleor two handed style, why arent these just general proficiencies (which makes more sense) instead of class specific talents?I haven't seen anyone arguing that classes shouldn't be fleshed out further. Some more than others, but everyone could use more options. I just think that giving everyone some generic number-increasing talents is pretty uninteresting. They make sense on a fighter - he's a very uninteresting guy. Almost everything on the class is about making his back and forth trading power in combat virtually unmatched. It's his thing. I just want Paladins to have a different thing that works towards the same ideal. Two-handed Style doesn't do anything unique that the Paladin would be losing, it just makes the numbers go up. So why not have a more thematic way of making numbers go up? I realize this is a lot to ask of game designers and if they put in a pool of generic abilities I'd be perfectly fine with that. I'd just rather it be this way instead.

FWIW, fighter/stalker is a lot of fun and seems pretty powerful. Rangers obviously needs a few more abilities to be more self-sufficient, but stalker seems like a perfectly viable multiclass taking just the pet buff talents and Mark.

@DigitalCrack I mean his last paragraph was about exactly the stuff you're talking about. And I agree with him that so long as the game is balanced around everyone not having a certain talent then there's no actual gameplay difference. People may still want it as a flavor kind of thing I suppose but I'd rather they just craft more specialized class abilities instead.

Yeah, same thing here . . .why email me with the 'here it is for you now!' when I didn't qualify for the beta? A bit disappointing, I bought the same deal you did tarasis. It wasn't real clear at the time in the text that I would not be able to play the beta, or of course I'd have added more . . . You can still buy the beta as a $20 add-on if it sounds worthwhile.

For spells I think I might rather see certain spells that aren't super powerful but have incredibly high accuracy bonuses. Something to get the debuff snowball started but that is also a trade off because it takes up a spell slot and cast for something that won't ever be very powerful on its own.

I think it's pretty clear that there will be a number of balance passes on spells and Cipher powers. Like if you look at the spells that seem to have more attention paid to them already they are quite powerful - like healing. It casts almost instantly and restores a good amount of health but has a pretty long recovery. That seems like a spell that's more properly balanced.

There are also relatively cheap gauntlets in the starting town for sale/theft that grant grazes.