Matt516

Just throwing in my $0.02 that the currently existing exploit of "let's let this guy fall so he'll not lose any more health" needs to be fixed. Wounds when knocked unconscious, extra health loss, enemies attacking downed characters... Something needs to be done there.

Applies to melee weapons as well at the moment.Hopefully will be rebalanced at some point. Just a reminder that if you want, you can try out different weapon damage ranges against different values of DT, MIG, Accuracy, Deflection etc to get the expected DPS using the DPS calculation spreadsheet I've made available. A link to the latest spreadsheet is at the end of the pdf posted on the first page of the "attribute redesign" thread. I'll be uploading a new one after the next patch that takes any changes into account as well as minimum damage vs DT.

Because within the game world's logic, it makes sense to rob a chest because there might be something valuable in it, while it makes no sense to unlock a door or untrap a trap that's already behind you. I don't like incentives that nudge you towards doing things that make no sense within the game world's logic. That's pretty much my personal criterion as well for "degenerative gameplay" (what I would call bad mechanic design) - where the in-game incentives do not reflect in-world incentives in some way. Which is why I'm totally cool with bestiary XP, but not with lockpicking and trap XP. As I've mentioned before, those two lead to a situation where a "properly played" party runs around compulsively unlocking everything even if there is no realistic reason to do so. TL;DR: Yay Bestiary XP, Boo Trap/Lock XP.

No weapon/item DLC. That stuff is exploitative ****, ruins balance, breaks immersion. Just no. Expansion pack with new story and missions are wonderful.

How does increasing the range solve the "hitting party members with your enormous AoE" problem?

What's illogical about Might being representative of strength and magic drawing power from physical strength? Yea that certainly *would* come from you Matt wouldn't it. What else can one expect from a guy with Alex Louise Armstrong as his avatar. After all Might is passed down through the Armstrong line for generations . Exactly. The original "muscle wizard". * * * *

What's illogical about Might being representative of strength and magic drawing power from physical strength?

Agreed. Hopefully PoE designers will hear you and finally stop making random non sentient mobs with no soul have high Might just so they can do high damage! I mean, there's no reason it can't boost all damage and make sense to be high for large mobs. We tend to assume it's the Might of your soul; maybe Might is like Strength but in PoE the power of your magic is tied to the power of your body? That wouldn't exactly be a revolutionary idea, plenty of fantasy settings do it that way (just not D&D). Just saying... I'm not entirely sure what your criticism was with that comment haha, but it it was a dig at the supposedly inconsistent mechanics/lore of the Might attribute, it's not like that's an unsolvable issue.

Eh, I mean... "Soul Attributes" seems a bit clunky. IMO it would be better to just have some sort of paragraph right before the Attribute selection screen (or on it) that gives a bit of lore background on what Attributes actually are in PoE's world.

Sent ya a PM.

Are you getting really long load times on that? I like the changes, but it takes about 20 seconds to load for me. Yeah, the load times are heinous and the controls occasionally bug out when jacking into the matrix or area transitioning. Save often! Having a huge amount of fun with the campaign though! Much better than DMS, though I liked that one as well despite its issues.

I mean, no one's denying that Statistics are voodoo black magic. Calculus is much better.

If the number of pages rises above 30 the anti-spirals come and destroy the forum.

*ombat experience-cay. Eh, I was kind of hoping for a more combat centered game than Torment, tbh. More BG-ish. New Torment I'm expecting to be more like old Torment. That's just me though. The writing and questing in the BB is already better than that in most of BG/IWD from what I've seen and heard, so if the combat is also great we may be looking at a best of both worlds BG/IWD vs PS:T scenario. Which I'd be totally cool with.

I think the difference is that now there is an actual in-game reason / justification for doing so. It kind of makes sense instead of just being a arbitrary game mechanical award. Plus, if it's designed properly you should eventually get all the bestiary stuff for everything given a "reasonable" playstyle. Example inter-character conversation: BOB: "I sure am glad we made it past those goblins and got the MacGuffin! I feel like I learned a lot from that experience." LEEROY: "I kind of wish we hadn't snuck past them though.. I was really hoping to learn about goblin combat styles.." BOB: "I guess we could go back and fight them. On the other hand, the village has been dealing with goblin attacks for a while so if you could stand to wait I'm sure you'll learn plenty about goblin combat styles eventually." LEEROY: "Nope, wanna learn now! LEEEROOOOY...." *voice fades away* SALLY: "Dammit, Leeroy..."

Also, Josh, FWIW, I'd vote yes on exploration and bestiary XP, no on lock and trap XP. Always seemed strange that the entire party got more experience when my Rogue did something cool. Those last two also promote running around compulsively unlocking and disarming everything in sight even if it makes no damn sense to do so. xD

Well at least I have Dragonfall Director's Cut.

Josh - sounds like a swell plan. Objective XP of various sorts would plug the void left by Combat XP quite nicely.

The demographics argument might have merit. But your original argument (stated multiple times) was that the sample SIZE was too small - what with statements like "0.5% doesn't represent the backers" etc, not to mention your dismissive assessment of the "statistics" (AKA MATH) skills of anyone who disagrees with you. That was what I was debunking. The sample size isn't too small in the least. Demographics? Who knows? But statistically, these poll results are very meaningful. 377 is almost the perfect sample size for a 95% confidence +/- 5% result, actually. As for demographics... You claim that the forumites aren't representative of the backers. Could be. Could also not be. There's no compelling evidence either way. Should OE just throw out all the feedback and polls from these forums because of that possibility? Of course not. It's like I said - this is the only sample they've got. I've proven that it's large enough. The question of whether or not it's representative enough is one that neither of us can answer with certainty. I would argue that those who don't care enough to engage on the forum probably wouldn't care either way. But that's an unfounded and hypothetical argument - as is yours that our little forum cabal doesn't represent the backers at large.

Less then 0.5% is not most of the backers. Those polls don't mean anything either way, I would just like people to stop using them in any kind of argument.It is a small sample size - that said, it's the only sample they've got. I was just pointing out that regardless of the sample size (could do the math to quantify exactly how representative we expect it to be, but there's really not much point because) the polling that HAS been done shows support for the planned system. Come one. You are a smart man. Don't push this. Anyone that does statistics will tell you that poll means 0. Zilch. Nothing. If it was 100% for combat XP, it would still mean nothing. If OE did a poll like what InXile did for Torment 2 that one would get closer to relevant. Nope nope nope nope nope. Couldn't be more incorrect. You want the statistics? Here you go. The two polls that have been conducted had sample sizes of 377 and 217, respectively. Here's a link to each (I apologize if it's a mobile link, I'm on mobile atm): http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67140-experience-point-system-in-the-beta-and-onwards/?fromsearch=1 http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68043-do-you-want-experience-from-combat/?fromsearch=1 Let's look at the first poll. It's got rather a lot of choices. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that we (somehow) bin them into "Yes kill xp" and "No kill xp". Don't worry about the specific split at the moment, what's important is that we now have a binary set of responses. With this binary set of responses "Yes" and "No", we can calculate the confidence interval of any poll with that sample size of 217. Using a population size of 75000 and the standard confidence level of 95%, we get that the confidence interval (AKA margin of error) is 6.6%. Now back to the poll. We can obviously count the bottom response as "Yes" for combat XP. The one above it is ambiguous, so I'll show it both ways. With only the bottom response counted as "Yes", we get nominal results of 26.3% saying "Yes" - apply the statistical results and we can say, with 95% confidence, that if you were to survey the entire population that 26.3 +/- 6.6 % would have said "Yes". With the bottom two counted as "Yes", the result is 44.6 +/- 6.6 %. More ambiguous, but certainly not meaningless. Now let's look at the second poll. Same math, sample size of 377 with population of 75000. Poll is already binary so that's great. After crunching the numbers we get a 95% confidence that 55.2 +/- 5.0 % of the population would say "Yes". So what we end up with is an ambiguous result - within the margins of error, neither poll really says definitely what the population as a whole thinks. Unless we count only the bottom choice from the first poll as a "Yes", in which case that is overwhelming. So in the end, your conclusion was kind of correct - the polls don't really tell us there's any strong preference in the population for one or the other. But your statement that the polls mean "zilch, nothing" and that "even if 100%" were for combat XP it would "mean nothing" are just so, so wrong.... They betray a failure to understand how sampling theory and polls work in general. You can get fairly reliable results with fairly small sample sizes. If these polls I cited were just a tiny bit more skewed to one direction or the other, they would indicate a preference. As is, they aren't meaningless by any stretch of the imagination. In contrast, they tell us that within our margins of error, the community is pretty much divided right down the middle. Sorry if I got a little heated. Please don't condescend to me on math, especially when I'm right. I get tetchy. Disagreement is fine. I'll happily disagree with someone on the math and whoever is right in the end is right. Statements like "c'mon, you're smarter than this" and "anyone who knows statistics would agree with me" aren't fine though. Especially when you're wrong. Can check my math here: http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

If I recall correctly.

While I understand the frustration of Cipher spells at the moment - The majority of the reason Whispers of Treason, and other unlimited range spells, are overpowered is because they put you beyond the aggro radius of mobs. I would honestly prefer Obsidian fix the Range vs Mob AI issue before they think about nerfing the core resources of any of the Classes. Yup. Hostile enemies should attack on sight. "Pullable" groups are incredibly immersion-breaking, and make me feel like I'm playing an MMO (not in a good way).

2 important differences Zitchiok: There's a difference between a multiplayer mode allowing you to bring in new characters at will, appearing out of the ether in a most lore-breaking way... and the singleplayer mode letting you just have tons of free companions as an in-game thing. It goes back to the removing exploits thing - exploits and cheats that require going outside of the game rules are fine to leave in a game, but a good designer should design a self contained system that is internally consistent. Or to put it another way, there should be a clear line between playing the game as it was intended to be played and "cheating". Not that there's anything wrong with cheating in a singleplayer game, but there should be a line. Also, the player created companions in the IE games were always lvl 1. So there's that.

Less then 0.5% is not most of the backers. Those polls don't mean anything either way, I would just like people to stop using them in any kind of argument. It is a small sample size - that said, it's the only sample they've got. I was just pointing out that regardless of the sample size (could do the math to quantify exactly how representative we expect it to be, but there's really not much point because) the polling that HAS been done shows support for the planned system.

Meh. Combat XP does not an engaging game make. I won't miss it as long as the gameplay is interesting and I feel like I'm being rewarded for exploring. And the polls have been split, for the record. An earlier one was overwhelmingly in favor of no combat XP. Then people kept making new polls, and the majority (myself included in that) fell mostly silent because we'd already said our piece and didn't really feel like there was much point in continuing to talk about it. Combat XP is gone. They're trying something different. That's not gonna change (I dearly hope). And most of the backers are supportive of this change.