Heijoushin

I haven't played the beta but... I find the entire concept of rangers a little boring (sorry Lord of the Rings) I mean, they're basically woodsmen, right? In a world of swords and magic, I can't really see the appeal of role-playing something so mundane (to each his own of course). Can someone explain the appeal? PoE has guns, which is pretty rare in fantasy worlds. If you want a ranged class, it would have been nice to do something with that. Take a page out of Arcanum's book...

Interesting topic! I've thought the same thing myself. In theory, it all makes perfect sense. To sum it up: The designer wants you to get to know your compansions. One of the best ways to get to know someone is to talk about their past. Everyone has regrets. And if you're, say, an assassin in a fantasy world, your regrets will probably be bigger than most. Once they get over the past, they can focus more on the future. At the same time, the player gets an ego boast because people are confiding in him. So why does it sometimes feel so... Cheesy? This might depend on your life experience and personality, but I find people to be very closed most of the time. My colleagues barely ever talk about what they did on the weekend, let alone their deepest, darkest secrets. So when I see this situation... Party member: I've never talked to anyone about this before, but OMG you are so easy to talk to! Me: ... (silent protagonist) Party member: I knew I could count on you. Talking to you just makes me feel better. ... it just feels extremely false. JRPGs are also especially guilty of the above (since in most J-RPGs, your party members are cute, yet mysterious girls)

Can you still use all of the monks abilities while using a weapon?

Hoping for something higher? I'm pretty sure this was discussed somewhere else, but basically the leveling up pace is a little slower, like older D&D games.

Yeah, I pretty much like that last idea. Take away some spell casting and be more shape-shifting orientated. Priests and wizards can cast spells but shape-shifting is something unique to the druid. Well, as you say, too late now.

True. I remember giving my druid/fighter 18 str and being disgusted when his winter wolf shape shift reduced it down to 13 (or something like that). I don't really understand why it's hard to balance. Can't you just add a little to the druids physical stats? It's a real pity. I'm not a big druid fan but I would have considered rolling one if the shape-shifting was decent. It should be a cool "trump card" ability that can turn a battle around when you're out of spells and wounded. HA! Could have been Good Fun!

You said it bro. I want to lounge in my throne while my party members stand around. The pics look awesome! Great job!

I have mentioned before that if Romance was mandatory as part of the narrative in a RPG then there would be obviously less resistance to the concept and we would see a more realistic and mature interpretation of it in games, so I support the Japanese system of Romance But that idea was shot down horribly on these forums...very few people supported it Hmmmm... it's not so much that it's mandatory in J-RPGs, it's just that they choose your partner for you (or you can choose from a very small selection) and then carefully script all the interactions. So you can't hit on every single woman in the game world. You can only go for childhood friend A, mysterious girl B, or large-breasted classmate C. And you can't choose how the romance plays out, you can only watch the sub-plot unfold. And the sub-plots are often ridiculously stereotypical, but I think ridiculously stereotypical is better than unnatural and immersion breaking.

No, it's terrible (and I'm a huge fans of his first two books) Unless you have a fetish for feng shui... then Christmas just came early. Thanks for all the ideas guys. I'm looking into it!

This! What the goatman says! Instead of romance, can't we explore other human relationships? Relationships that are more suited to video games? What does a romantic relationship in a video game really reward you with? Some cute dialogue? A black screen that represents sex? An NPC that hangs out in your home? (I'm looking at you Skyrim) On the other hand, a rivalry could be interesting! Based on your actions and dialogue choices, you could be rewarded with a bonus boss battle (rival challenging you to a dual) or something. That would fit a lot more smoothly into a cRPG. The reason JRPGs are a lot better at romances are: they don't give the player much choice. The story is built in and you just go along with it. If you do it that way, then I think you can basically include an interesting romance story. Western RPGs try to give the player more choices and that's why they fail.

And how is the game for you? I tried it but it got boring real quick.. It is just what I wanted at this juncture. Nice short adventures with a bit of strategy and resource management. Every once in a while a character I have been building up awhile gets put in danger and that is a bit of a rush of adrenaline which is fun. Almost finished getting my last couple classes to level 6. Starting to get a little stale but after 50+ hours that is to be expected for a game of such small scope. Looking forward to the new classes and dungeons later. Thanks so much for mentioning Darkest Dungeons! I hadn't heard of it before I saw the name here. Tried it today and it's awesome! Don't know if it will keep me until the 26th, but it's a good start.

Hey chaps. You guys seem like you'd read a lot of fantasy. I'm looking for something to read at the moment. Can you recommend anything? My favourite fantasy titles are: The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence The Gentlemen Bastards by Scott Lynch The Blade Itself by Joe Ambercrombie Half a King by Joe Ambercrombie A Wise Man’s Fears by Patrick Rothfuss The Night Angel by Brent Weeks Red Knight by Miles Cameron So... anything like that. Extra points for anti-heroes!

Well... I don't think it's super necessary for everything to be perfectly balanced in the sense you're speaking of. But I think they could have made the background bonus' a lot more interesting. Instead of just boosting skills, they could have done all sorts of interesting things. Aristocrats could have gotten extra gold, mercenary's could have started with a nice weapon, hunter could get bonus to ranged weapons etc. etc.

Hey guys, I was just playing a game of Starcraft 2. My team was losing, and one of my teammates started raging at everyone. I can of course handle losing, but arguing with someone online really puts a bad taste in my mouth. I know that sounds naive. But when you're playing a game you love and you have to stop and trade insults with some troll, it spoils the experience for me. The point is... I don't really get multiplayer games. Gaming, to me, is about escapism. Getting away from the toxicity of noisy human beings. I dunno, maybe it's different if you have good buddies to game with. But the whole modern trend of games moving towards multiplayer (so companies can make big bucks of subscriptions) makes me sad. I'm so happy for games like PoE which are all about the single player. What do you think?

Yeah, that's true. I guess the problem with rogues is that they always sound so cool in concept (dirty-fighter! legendary assassin! man in the shadows!) but just end up being super fragile in practice. Multi-class and dual-class helped to boost them up but since there's none of that in PoE, its a good thing that rogues aren't essential.

Sorry, I didn't want to hit a sore point or anything. I was just trying to make a point that people always react to the appearance of others... but I wouldn't want to RP an unpleasant experience either. If its a world where weirdos are common, that's cool too. The thing is, people who play these games spend a lot of time in the character creation screen, right? So the more the game refers to our decisions, the better.

I'm currently playing Life is Strange by SquareEnix. Its interesting. Kind of a story-type game where you can rewind time to try different options to change the outcome. Its a clever design, cause many gamers like to reload to try different things anyway. Been a while since I played a game with no combat, but I'm enjoying it. Though I find it hard to sympathize with the characters for... cultural / age / personality reasons. You play an American teenage female photography student. Being a 27 year old non-american guy with zero interest in photography or anything arty, I find myself rolling my eyes at a lot of the dialogue. Also, she can rewind time but she doesn't think of abusing this power or using it for personal gain. Normally, this kind of thing wouldn't be an issue, but since the game is so story-based, I think how one relates to the characters is important.

As you say, if you want to boost a game in some way, then you usually need to sacrifice something else. The thing is, although Bloodlines is relatively linear, it didn't feel that way. It felt like you were making a lot of choices and those choices were effecting the game world. Unlike, say Skyrim, which really is huge, but it doesn't ever feel like you do anything unique (just my opinion). And that's the difference between good and bad design. With good design, things are still limited but the player experience is better. Now, there are no vampires in PoE, but Godlike are pretty damn weird. I would comment if I saw one on the street. Do you think all the NPCs will react to Godlikes? Or freaky fish guys (aumaua), I don't think they're that common. Have you ever been to a country where you are in the clear minority? In middle of nowhere kind of places, people will really stare at you. And ask questions. And that's just cause you're a foreigner with a different skin colour. NPCs in fantasy games should react more to strange races.

I agree fully with what you said. Bloodlines has lots of replayability due to the different clans. I noted that in Icewind Dale EE, because they added the half orc race, they included a few lines about it. If you talk to any villagers in Easthaven, they say something like "you're a result of the Orcish raids aren't you? Poor thing". It was a nice touch of detail but then... no one every comments for the rest of the game. I wish someone would make a kickstarter for a Bloodlines 2...

That's an odd thing to count. One in every town? Maybe two in the big cities?

Hehe, do you miss Icewind Dale? I'll admit, there is some nostalgia in snowy scenes!

I usually play wizards in RPGs, but since I haven't really heard good things about wizards on the these forums, I'm thinking about going monk instead. There are no monk companions (I think), so if I go monk and use the pre-made companions, I should get a pretty good idea of most of the classes on my first playthrough. Really looking forward to the stronghold part. I want to be like a boss character in a J-RPG. You know, sit on a throne in the deepest part of the stronghold, and then when intruders come, say something like "Hahaha, you've done well to get this far." Then change into my ultimate form...

*sigh* Thinking about work lately.... Hypothetical question for you guys: If there was a job, where the work was interesting and the pay good, but the colleagues were douchebags, would you continue to do it?

This is rather pointless since this is not real life. We have actual Gods interacting with the world, it seems to me we have viable moral authorities. So let me turn the question back around: who are we to consider ourselves above the Gods? I don't think they are viable moral authorities though. In fantasy games, even Gods are morally subjective and "flawed". Your statement sounds like you're thinking in terms of modern religion. Think more like Greek myths and legends kind of gods. You know, Zeus having sex with everything in sight and all that... And since one God has already "died" in this fantasy world (the Godhammar Bomb incident), humans are more than capable of challenging them! As others have said, the vast majority of people consider themselves to be "good" and are only interpreted as evil by other people who don't agree with their actions. So if you want an "evil" companion, what you really want is someone with a moral compass/culture eccentric enough to justify what we would consider "bad actions". I am actually thinking of Greek Myths and Hubris since the question was 'who are we to declare something moral or immoral?' Well that kind of gets turned around when there are divine beings doesn't it? And thinking that the divine Eothas was harmed by the Godhammer Bomb is nonsense. This is simply testing the faith of his people. HERETICS WILL BE DELT WITH HARSHLY. I am not so sure the vast majority of people consider themselves to be righteous. Many people consider themselves to be bad people. Self-loathing is a pretty common trait, particularly as you accumulate regrets over the course of your life. I disagree there. Self-loathing is common, in the sense that we believe we are lacking in some way (as such looks or personality traits etc.) and everyone makes bad decisions but I think most people still believe in their own moral compass. If questioned about some of our actions, we would usually get defensive and say something like "I made the best decision under the circumstances!" or "It didn't turn out well but I only did what a decent person would do!" We blame things on other people and circumstances.

I also don't get it. He seems kind of contradictory as well. Like, as the God of Light, you'd think he's the Big Good Guy, right? But he started the Saint's War so... he's a kind of a douche?