Matt516

Fun fact - there used to be a stat that adjusted Accuracy. For a very long time. It was DEX for a while, then PER for a while (after they put action speed on DEX). The problem they ran into was that you basically then had two stats that increased average DPS - MIG and ACC. And ACC actually outclassed MIG for increasing damage a good portion of the time - it depends on the relative value of ACC vs DEF as to whether one more point of ACC or MIG is better. Not to mention that ACC is incredibly powerful because it affects not only damage but duration of duration abilities (grazes have half duration, and crits had increased duration, not sure if this is still the case for crits). I get the impression they removed it to A) have MIG just be the "damage" stat and INT be the "duration" stat without having to deal with the complex interactions the two have with ACC, and B) have an easier time judging how much ACC any character can obtain at various points throughout the game (for balancing purposes), as well as put more emphasis on class starting ACC as important. TL;DR - Used to be like that but they changed it, probably because the ACC stat was waaaay too powerful and it's easier to balance the game this way. EDIT: Melee and Ranged Accuracy also used to be split up. Classes had separate starting values for each (though the ACC stat increased both equally). People hated this because it basically pigeonholed classes into whichever was higher - you couldn't try and build a bow Fighter or a sword Ranger without feeling like an idiot. Merging the two was a great change IMO. EDIT 2: Just realized you were talking about Physical/Spell Accuracy, not Melee/Ranged. Oops. Erm.... I guess they could do it that way. It wouldn't make a whole lot of difference though - you'd never ever boost DEX (in that system) on a wizard or RES (in that system) on a fighter. Or at least, it would be obnoxious to do so. Which would Monk abilities use, spells or physical? What about Barbarian shouts? Nah... IMO that system still breaks one of their fundamental design goals for the attribute system - "All attributes can be useful for all classes". Do I think what we have is perfect? Nope. But have they thought things through and done a pretty good job? I think so. It's miles better than D&D's attributes (if you judge it by Obsidian's design goals, which is the only reasonable way to judge it when you're talking about what decisions Obsidian should make).

I'd actually be quite ok with Resolve being repurposed for "soul attack" damage and Might granting "physical attack" damage - at least in theory. That change would play haywire with the attribute balance, though. Not to mention that we'd be right back to a "physical attackers pump MIG, magic attackers pump RES" situation. Might isn't perfect from a lore standpoint - but it works very well from a gameplay standpoint and is passable from a lore standpoint. Again, I like to think of Might as encompassing physical strength (since it obviously, in some sense, does - given what we see in the skill checks), but as magical spells being more powerful when cast by a person of great Might as well. Which, again, is not at all unheard of as a fantasy trope.

Well any IE game aoe damage spells hit your party as well, they're always a situational cast. I have three grimoires now for my wizard and switch between targeted use and a aoe-only grimoire, then I have a dibilitator and controller grimoire as well. Just as an FYI, the yellow part of the AoE doesn't hit allies. This part of the AoE is increased by INT.

Yup. The usage of flat integer DR (as opposed to % reduction) lends itself very naturally to this kind of imbalance, and it's not at ALL easy to fix.

I like that the game includes guns, and I don't think its unreasonable to have them be extremely strong openers, with the party then switching to more traditional weapons for the rest of the fight. This is exactly how early guns were used, after all - we're just not used to playing games set in the early gunpowder era so the tactic "feels" strange to us. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to a bit more of an accuracy penalty on guns to make the "alpha strike" strategy a bit more risky. Fairly easy way to tone them down in power a bit without taking away from the "YEAH!" feeling you get with a successful alpha strike. Heck, even something like "50% of grazes are converted to misses" would be a reasonable way of doing it. This problem is completely solvable without doing something silly like nerfing gun damage into oblivion.

This was endlessly discussed during the Beta, and I'm not surprised to see it pop up anew now that the game is out and everyone has their hands on the game. The crux of it is - if you come into PoE expecting a D&D stat system, you're going to be disappointed. Period. Obsidian set out with different design goals (some of which were to correct perceived weaknesses with the D&D system such as universal dump/pump stats for different classes) and a completely different setting. Their stats (particularly Might, which is usually the big bugbear in these discussions) are fundamentally different from D&D stats - intentionally so. Might works in the setting as the strength of a soul. If it still bothers you, feel free to conflate it somewhat with physical strength and use the philosophy that magical spells are more powerful when cast by a person of considerable physical strength - a very common idea in fantasy settings, btw (just not in D&D afaik). Now I won't deny that the stats could use some re-jiggering... back during the early Beta I put together a fairly extensive paper with Sensuki that made a number of suggestions to rebalance the attribute bonuses from stats. Some were adopted, many weren't. In any case, I'd agree that a few of the stats are a little weak at the moment - but they're still perfecting the system. So I guess what I'm trying to say is... you're not gonna get Might changed, it was made the way it is for both design and lore reasons. Different from D&D doesn't mean "worse", and "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate" doesn't mean "will use the D&D system". But I agree with you that they could certainly stand to balance the stats a little more - Constitution particularly is in a really bad place. Maybe if it granted natural DR of some kind? Now that would be interesting...

Huh. That's really weird. Hope they fix this.

Again, wanting words to be used to mean what the words actually mean is not "semantics", it's English. Well, actually it IS semantics (since that means "the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning"), but that doesn't make it a bad thing. You're using the word as if it's some sort of pejorative - I'm confused as to why wanting words to be used correctly is a bad thing.

I really enjoy the movement/command barks, but I find that there's too much voice acting in the dialogues. I prefer to read them at my own pace and with my own voices (a la Planescape: Torment). Also not too keen on some of the voice acting. Any way I could turn the dialogue voice work off while leaving the barks? Anyone made a mod to do something like this?

I mean... again... I'm not disagreeing with you in philosophy. But words have meanings. DRM = Digital Rights Management. Something that limits your ability to copy or use a digital product (song, game, etc). It's not an all-encompassing term for everything that inconveniences consumers in getting to their games. And given your username, I felt that it was important that I point that out.

So by "DRM-free", you mean "purchasable and installable without an internet connection or any download client software installed". Ok. Just FYI, that's not what the phrase "DRM-free" means - though I do agree with you that it would be nice to be able to purchase games from brick-and-mortar stores that can be installed without an internet connection. I agree with you on that sentiment and I'm not arguing with you there. Just... do know that you're using words to mean things that they do not mean. DRM-free and purchasing/installing without an internet connection are two completely different things.

Easiest way is to log completely out of Steam, then try and start the game from the game's *.exe in its folder. If the game starts up without Steam popping up a login box, it's DRM-free. PoE, unfortunately, popped up a login box when I did this. Bastion, on the other hand, started right up (because it's DRM-free on Steam). Not sure if there's an easier way to check. If the "SteamworksNative.dll" file is in the game's folder, it's a good bet it's using Steamworks though. I'm not sure you know what "DRM" means. It doesn't mean you can resell a game, it means the game doesn't have any Digital Rights Management (DRM) built in that requires some sort of authentication, internet connection, passkey, physical CD, etc before you can play it. Games without Steamworks (or any other 3rd party DRM) can be booted up as long as the game files are on your hard drive - period. By your definition, GoG's games aren't DRM free either since you need to log into your GoG account to download a game you purchased from them. Non-DRM Steam games are the exact same way. Log in to download and install, then never log into Steam again (unless you want updates, in which case you have to log in again - as with GoG). You could even copy the files to a thumb drive and move them to another computer without Steam, and the game would still run just fine. So if you want to use your weird funky definition... sure. But by the definition most people use... no. You can't claim GoG is DRM-free and non-Steamworks Steam games aren't DRM-free, because they function identically. Purchase, download, install, then play whenever you want with no strings attached. That's not semantical trickery, that's the definitions of words and concepts. EDIT: Not that I'm against being able to resell games, mind. But not being able to do so is not DRM. In fact, in the age of digital distribution you'd pretty much need to have (actual) DRM in order to be able to resell games. Otherwise how would you transfer ownership?

Oh for the love of god. Chill. Out. It's a rude limerick in a game where you see dozens of corpses hanging from trees on your way to the inn. Grow a thicker skin.

I haven't noticed any issues with the durations. Try casting a duration spell on an enemy, then mousing over them. You should see a timer ticking down in real time on their little info box, if that helps convince you. If a spell grazes (instead of hitting), durations are halved, so keep that in mind. Grazes occur on an attack roll of 16-50 (I think).

They'll be making significant adjustments in the future as well - don't count on all the game mechanics staying set in stone.

http://www.giantbomb.com/conning/3015-4674/ For anyone like me who didn't know what that meant. As for the suggestion, I go either way. On the one hand, you could argue that the player should be able to do this intuitively i.e. "I'm just a fledgling adventurer, maybe I shouldn't try to kill two bears." On the other hand, this IS a CRPG with levels and such, which are a somewhat artificial way of describing progress. I don't see any particular reason why there couldn't be some kind of rough estimate of enemy dangerousness that you get - perhaps based on the lore skill. Certainly not their exact levels, though. That's gamey as hell.

Not sure if someone has pointed this out already, but you CAN drop items. It's a button literally on the bottom of the inventory screen. C'mon, dude. The rest of your complaints are design decisions. The first (stealth) they are planning to change, but party stealth was a design decision in the first place. None of those issues constitute anything being "unfinished". There are plenty of things to critique (a few of the gamebreaking bugs for one), but middling complaints like yours aren't really among them.

Just an FYI - Steam games do not have to have DRM. Steamworks DRM is available to devs/publishers, but not required for publishing on Steam. And many choose not to use Steam's DRM - plenty of Steam games can have the files copied anywhere and run without being logged into Steam at all (online OR offline mode). Just like GoG, you only have to log in to download/install the game, and can then do what you want with it afterwards. Partial list here: http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games Many Paradox games (PoE publisher) are DRM-free, actually. Mostly their grand strategy games. Unfortunately, I just tested PoE and it is NOT DRM-free. Don't know why the hell Obsidian decided to go this route since they're releasing on GoG as well anyway, but there it is. Maybe if we raise enough of a stink about it, they'll remove Steamworks from the Steam version and make it DRM-free as well. Seriously, Obsidian. Cut this crap.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall is fantastic, and very similar (but with turn-based combat). Don't bother with Shadowrun Returns unless you play Dragonfall and want more (Dragonfall is much better). Kickstarter sister Torment: Tides of Numenera is a sci-fi/fantasy setting, and is coming out later this year (maybe) as well.

Agreed, but this isn't technically a bug and the game is no longer in Beta, so you probably won't get much attention in this forum. Try the general discussion forum instead.

What are you basing this off of? "Most" people who play this game were fans of the IE games in some way or another, and they are used to 6-character parties. Even people who aren't IE people aren't necessarily biased towards large or small parties..... I'm sorry - your statement makes no sense and has no backing.

Exactly. That conversation was entirely anticlimactic because of that. Quite disappointed in Obsidian for letting a KS reward screw up the atmosphere and story (supposedly a major focus!) of their game like that. Not saying it's not a great game - it certainly seems to be so far. But the backer NPCs are an annoyance, and should have been implemented differently.

Either downloaded automatically through Steam or a patch file uploaded to GOG (that you then download and install). Can't see why they'd do it any other way.

Yeah, they really detract from the quality of the world IMO. I'm changing their names to generic names with the IE mod and ignoring them as far as conversation goes.

Gotcha. Thanks!