Jimmysdabestcop

The Skills basically have no bearing on the game play. Besides Endurance just so you don't have fatigue all the time. if you left everything elase at Zero the game would play exactly the same way. There would be very little difference. Skills are a great idea but they really need to be expanded on. They should be as important as abilities/talents since you get them when you level up. If they aren't that important why are they in the game?

I will take 2nd Edition D&D. It had staying power something like 7 years. 3rd edition wasn't that good it was revised to 3.5 Edition withing 3 years of release. 3.5 did a lot better then 3 and lasted half a decade. 4th edition I honestly never played but it did last as long as 2nd edition until 5th edition came out last year. Haven't played 5th Edition yet but I follow some communities that post about weekly game sessions. Looks real interesting. I think Beamdog might make a 5th edition game. They are making a 2nd edition prequel/sequel/insert for inbetween BG1 and BG2. 2nd Edition had Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Revaneloft and Dark Suns all pretty damn popular in its time.

This entire thread is like the exact opposite of the Ranger threads. The truth is Obisidian shouldn't have shoe horned any class into any specific combat role. Meaning this class is ranged and this class is melee. Even the casters should be able to do both. Now I'm not saying all the classes need to do the job equally as well. But every class should have some kind of talent/abiltity that pertains to both ranged and melee. Even some of the specific class abilities/talents are just combinations of generic talents all classes get. I mean if we have a fighter aka Warrior aka Soldier class shouldn't they at least have some type of ability for heavy ranged weaponry? It could easily make sense story universe wise that a Fighter is better at heavy weapons or a ranger better with bows or a rogue better at firearms etc. Obisidian can probably change this problem but having subclasses in a DLC. Or they could have avoided it by making a handful of classes really unique and really flexible insteads of adding a 11 classes with some only being good at 1 type of combat. A ranged fighter while possible is slightly lacking and it doesn't need to be Ranger status but it could be at least unique. A reason to actually have that character in your party beyond the reason of just wanting it in there to be different.

Fighter gets talents that increase weapon category damage by 45% Weapon Specialization on 5th level and I think you can take Mastery as early as 6th level. So a fighter should be getting pretty damn close to Rogue's Sneak Attack without any afflictions being needed. The only real question is can a Ranged Fighter get as many Critical Hits as a Rogue? A fighter has higher accuracy, elf gives another +5 accuracy and you can equip a +10 accuracy gauntlet on the fighter. +5 for marksman talent. An Elf Fighter can have +10 accuracy at range over a Melee fighter. Armored Grace makes fighter 16% faster then a Rogue at level 7. Hold Wall enhanced to superb and with lash would get speed mod. Curious to see what damage could be done with the Wendgär that has speed mod and +10% critical chance. Now I'm even curious about Ranged Fighter vs Ranged Ranger. Ranger will be able to reload faster and fire faster but single target damage still goes to the fighter. And even accuracy would go to the fighter.

A ranged fighter could basically be getting +45% damage on every attack while the rogues sneak attack is +50% but it needs a modifier. The fighters would not. True the rogue gets the bonus a lot earlier than the fighter. Would just need to test the fighter crit percent to see how often he can grit with his much higher accuracy then the rogue with his +20% crit chance.

I'm not sure if Obisidian just wanted a Pet becasue it fit with their idea of the Party NPC Companion or what the deal was. But I agree if the pet is going to be active all the time why not make it selectable at creation? This problem probably goes back to Kickstarter extended goals. I rather have 5 classes with a lot of flexibility to play them in completely different ways like kits in D&D then a Dozen Classes with a narrower vision of how to play them. Honestly think a Ranger fits in this exact problem. But there are even threads on people wanted Ranged Fighters. Barbarians and Monks same problem. So the underlying problem is class flexibility. A lot of people love the Ranger but a lot of people like to play them completely different.

Honestly ranged Rogue and Ranged Rangers aren't all that exciting ranged. Unless you are casting spells no class really has enough per encounter abilties Ranged to make it not 80% auto attack anyway. A Ranged Ranger you will be controlling the pet more then the Ranger basically. Most of the abilities that help Rogues and Rangers in ranged are all passive anyway. Since there are several other threads bashing the Ranger I wont repeat. But Obisidian should have just made the class an Archer class or some kind of Arcane Archer with Pet. Like Rangers in Divinity Original Sin. Almost as fun to play as the wizard classes because they have so many magical arrows for every occasion and every fight. And then like a handful of ranged abilities.

Lets throw this back to NES days. AAA publishers all want Zelda sales instead of Dragon Warrior sales. Even though Dragon Warrior had like 3-4 gaems in top 25 NES sales of all time. You can kind of relate Zelda to DA:I. You wouldn't classify Zelda as a cRPG or aRPG but more adventure with some rpg elements. Its the same thing with DA:I. Where as all of the IE games and even all of the Bioware games up to DAO would be cRPG with some action/adventure elements thrown in. Mostly real time combat as opposed to jRPG tactical or turn based combat. Jade Empire was probably the most action adventure title Bioware head until it went to EA and Jade still has more cRPG elements in it. Sure DAI has companions and quests and plot storylines and decisions. But so did adventure games like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Or any of the other LucasArts adventure games. Its just DAI presents itself in a medieval fantasy setting. And as others have stated a lot of this has to do with consoles. And even Japan being less of a market for non jRPG's especially with Xbox not really ever penetrating that market. And the AAA publishers are almost forced to abandon real cRPG's because they have to sell to mass market of console gamers. And games like Wasteland 2, PoE, Divintity Orginal Sin wont sell.

All depends on what difficulty you are playing. And what play style you are using. In my current party I never use buffs. Rarely use heals. I focus mostly on crowd control disables. Priest spells that prone or disable. Plus cipher or wizard or druid spells that disable. Or mass confusion/domination. There are so many blind, paralyze, prone, petrification, sickness, diseased, its kind of crazy. Especially when the Prone Seal second level priest spell becomes per encounter based. 10 mechanics its amazing. Now I don't need buffs because I am disabling and a lot of disable automatically increase accuracy and or damage. And since the enemy is disabled I dont really need heals all that often. Most of the time I need heals is because I'm not paying attention to everyone and its my own fault. But yeah you can just as easily focus on buffs/debuffs and healing. Several different ways to play. None right or wrong. All personal preference.

A Ranged Fighter Thoughts............ I wonder if you stick a fighter in clothes would he still get the -16% recovery from Armored Grace? Sounds like he should. That plus the generic reloading talent. Being an elf, plus marksman talent. soldier talent. Maybe Interrupting Blows. Maxed Might&Dex&Per&Res dump Int and Con. Int would only be needed for Discplined Barrage and its only 1 per encounter not worth it. Even dumping Con Fighter will have more con then any ranged squishy. That would be +15 accuracy to the fighters already high accuracy. Possible 36% speed increase (armored grace and reloading talent). Would interrupt amazingly. If the speed mods for weapons work in 1.05 you could add leash and superb to Hold Wall Arbalest in the first town that would increase speed by another 20%. Plus weapon specialization and mastery for added damage. Could get away with clothes cause of maxed Per&Res and fighters high deflection. Wouldn't have to worry about him in the back and if something gets through switch to melee like pike/great sword. The Fighters ranged accuracy would actually be +10 higher then his melee accuracy from being an elf and marksman. So fighter should actually crit more in ranged combat then melee. The Fighter should then have the highest possible damage of any class in range not counting the Rogue Sneak Attack. Probably will crit about as much as the ranger from ranged. So 40% faster relaod and 16% faster recovery time. Now I am really curious about trying one out.

The Monk is a good idea for your PC. Once you do all the companion quests in your playthrough no reason to bring them on your 2nd playthrough I feel. I would go IceWind Dale style and create an entire party. Monk, Fighter, Cipher, Priest with whatever other 2 slots you like. Maybe Barbarian and a Wizard.

Without knowing anything. I will say generally their seal/traps spells are the best especially when you boost your priests mechanics.

I'm fine with the enchanting system. It is simple. I feel you can go 2 ways simple or complex. And anything that is in the middle will feel awkard. Go simple or basically go big. I really thought the crafting system in Divinty Original Sin was cool. Even though their equipment adapted to player level and that concept isn't in PoE. the stuff you could make or enchant was cool. Need a helmet use a knife on a pumpkin. Instant Pumpkin Helmet. Or a hammer on a cooking pot. And a pot helmet. But any changes would mean you would have to add a ton of materials to find or buy. But a complex system would be a cool DLC or for PoE 2. Crafting and Enhancing could be seperate skills. Then you should be able to craft anything or enhance anything based upon skill and materials and slots. The thing the current system has going for it is that you can find stuff in the start of game and make it really good. Eder armor can go to superb plus at least 1 more enhancement. That armor is good the entire game and when the player gets better so does the armor. Same thing with Paladin shield or Hold Wall now that speed mods work.

Honestly you would expect D&D to have better classes its like 4 decades old! We do use the IE games as comparision and its probably unfair truthfully. I think Obisidian either should have had opposing talents for each class. That would help individualize them. If they didn't feel like doing that then just a couple extra talents so that any class could have some actives and passives in both melee and ranged. Or just have made all the class specific abilities and talents work in both range and melee. A lot of the complaints with the Ranger are from people wanting them to be 1st or 2nd line melee fighters. Which is totally justified. Its the opposite problem that Barbarians and Monks have since they cant do ranged at all really. But they are so good at melee no one will complain that they cant have a Ranged Monk or Ranged Barbarian. You could probably range a fighter since he gets some damage bonus abilities/talents. I can tell you in BG2 I have dual wielded Minsc, 2 handed him, and strictly ranged him. All about equal. Ranged you could just walk around with insane magical ammo the entire game. I do think they could have ranged Monks. Given them some kind of special chai/kai ranged focus like abilitiy. Even Barbarians could have had some kind of throwing weapon. Maybe magical throwing spear. Or even a blunderbuss could probably fit a barbarian.

DA2 and DA 3 aren't in the same category as PoE. PoE is in the same category as Wasteland 2 and Divinty Original Sin. Even though those games have tactical combat. DA2 and DA:I are basically action/adventure games with "rpg lite" elements throw in. Those games aren't even aRPG's like say Torchwood 2. Torchwood 2 compared to DA:I in the aRPG category and Torchwood 2 smokes DAI. Its like saying Assassins Creed games are RPG's, Just because you can pick skills or level equipment up an rpg does not it make. Its the same thing with MAss Effect 2/3 all the real cRPG elements were stripped out. The Only reason Dragon Age Origin was spared was because it was in development for like 5 years before EA bought Bioware. Those games are like fast food.