Matt516

Combat is basically a bunch of waves that are all out of phase, and that change wavelengths frequently. The exact reason I've avoided trying to quantify the influence of Interrupt on dps, because it's hard and I get enough hard math in school. EDIT: Not that I'd personally like to see this changed. A single, unified round for all combatants (which I don't think the IE games actually had - someone with more knowledge than I should clarify here) would look really weird, and wouldn't work with RTwP. It's kind of confusing, but that's ok. That's the sacrifice you make when you build a Real-Time game. Unified round for all and your game is literally Turn-Based, even if the turns happen automatically (i.e. illusion of Real-Time).

At the same time how you respond to "dump" stats is entirely up to you as well... No one forced Matt to go 18/18/18/3/3/3 he chose to....and in regards to people who like to "role play" I doubt those people would indeed go with any 3's as their stats regardless of if the game allowed you to or not. You are right, and in fact most of the time I don't do that (I'm talking about my metagamed-to-hell MP party here) for precisely those RP reasons you were talking about. My point is that the fact that there does exist a "best" statline for a fighter and that I have to force myself not to roll it due to RP concerns is, in and of itself, a failure in design. Fighters (in 2e) use those 3 stats and don't need the others. Mages need 18 INT and don't benefit from any CON beyond a certain number (12, I think?). My point is that the 2e ruleset (the ruleset of the IE games) has some serious design issues, and the attribute design is one of them. There is very little actual choice involved from a mechanical standpoint. It's just "bad", "better", "best" where statlines are concerned for the most part. Sure, this doesn't break the game - but the game would be better if there was choice beyond "do I want the best stats for my fighter or do I want to not have the best stats for my fighter because RP reasons?". PoE's stat system attempts to solve this, which I'm 100% on board with even if I think there are problems with the current implementation. The concept of an attribute system in which I can set my attributes (i.e. the type of character) independently of my class, and then that class plays differently, but not any less viably, is a fascinating concept, and one that I personally have never seen in any RPG.

Glad to hear Monks aren't horrendously UP like they were in the IE games. xD Since you've played rather a lot with your unarmed Monk, maybe you can answer a question I have - a few of the Monk's abilities refer to melee weapons in the description. Can these be used when unarmed? I made a Monk briefly, but was pretty disappointed to see that (as it seemed to me, maybe I was wrong) my Monk wouldn't be able to use many of his abilities while unarmed.

Yeah I just rebound it. Kind of a nonissue IMO since WASD for scrolling is at best only marginally better than arrow keys and it takes like 5 seconds to rebind.

I think the issue isn't really with the lack of combat XP (which isn't coming back), but the lack of proper objective XP (which will probably happen as they clean the game up).

Oh so the teleporting beetles isn't a bug? That's terrifying.

The first bit - that's more a matter of personal preference. If you enjoyed having dump stats for certain classes, that's your prerogative - I got kind of tired of rolling 18 STR 18 DEX 18 CON 3 WIS 3 INT 3 CHA fighters, though. The more stats that are viable for a class, the more choice and more customization you have. That's a good thing IMO, but clearly YMMV. Just wanted to point out that having all stats matter to all classes is hardly a "fundamental, glaring, issue" as it's clearly something that some people like and some don't like. The second bit - it's semantics. If they wanted to adjust all the base values such that 10 was 0, below 10 was a penalty, and above 10 was a bonus, they could and it would be the same in the end. Doesn't really matter though other than the "feel" - and the "feel" of all stats giving boni very much helps with the "all stats are viable for all classes" design intent as it doesn't make the player feel bad for choosing to leave certain stats low. All in all, I can't tell you that you should like the design intent behind the new system, but I'm having trouble understanding why you don't like it. All it does it give more freedom and choice to the player. Healing scaling with MIG helps balance it against Accuracy, which also gives effective damage to everything (albiet in a more RNG based way). It makes MIG different - and kind of makes sense as well (if your damaging spells are more mighty, why wouldn't your healing spells also be more mighty? Might is Might, right?). Re: making casters one-dimensional - there are still numerous dimensions at play for casters. Accuracy, Aoe/Duration, and Might. That's 3 dimensions on which you can vary your stats to affect just your casting (Interrupt as well for a 4th dimension I guess, but that's kind of meh at the moment). EDIT: But yeah, from a mechanical standpoint MIG would be in danger of being UP if it didn't affect Healing. From a lore standpoint it kind of makes sense. Not really seeing the big problem here tbh. :3

Although this kind of semantics is mostly silly semantics IMO, it is a decent point. What they actually said (on the KS page) was: "Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration ofPlanescape: Torment. Combat uses a tactical real-time with pause system - positioning your party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the keys to success. The world map is dotted with unique locations and wilderness ripe for exploration and questing. You’ll create your own character and collect companions along the way – taking him or her not just through this story, but, with your continued support, through future adventures. You will engage in dialogues that are deep, and offer many choices to determine the fate of you and your party. …and you'll experience a story that explores mature themes and presents you with complex, difficult choices to shape how your story plays out. We are excited at this chance to create something new, yet reminiscent of those great games and we want you to be a part of it as well." Emphasis mine. Now like I said - that essentially boils down to "spiritual successor" IMO - Buuuuttt..... I think your point is worthwhile considering the small but vocal minority of people claiming that by not including X element (often combat XP but it could be anything) OE has somehow "betrayed" its backers or lied to everyone. They didn't technically promise a "spiritual successor", they promised something "new, yet reminiscent of those great games". So (although I honestly think the difference is academic) if you want to get super legalistic about it, those arguments really don't have a leg to stand on.

Bumping for QA visibility.

Theoretically that would be an issue that could be balanced by simple tuning of the DoT magnitude and duration. Also, depending on the duration and if it stacks (especially if it stacks), a fast weapon wouldn't necessarily be better against a single enemy - though your point about applying it to multiple enemies still stands.

Yeah, all power uses need to trigger combat. Once they get that in place we will be gtg. Or simply fix it so enemies have the same view distance we do. My understanding is enemy view distance is based on the old fog of war view distance from before the backer beta was released. This is the main issue IMO. Being able to see "packs" of enemies and consciously choose to "pull" them bit by bit is extremely "MMO-ish", and not in a good way. If you can see an always-hostile enemy, they should be able to see (and subsequently immediately attack) you. Obviously stealth is an exception - but as I understand it stealth really needs to be fixed (Mutonizer has a more detailed post on this in the bug forum) at the moment as it currently does some extremely unintuitive and weird things.

Thanks for the tip! It should still be an option in the options menu though.

Great post, and I'd love to see more of this kind of thing. Specific power balance and such is an area we backers can be very helpful. Unfortunately, I have nothing to add atm as I haven't played beyond Dyrford, and have done very little combat thus far. Good post, though!

Agreed, except I'd say it is mandatory (for a PC game in 2014). I've no beef with the fact that it isn't implemented yet (as this is a Beta), but if it isn't implemented by release (no time for some reason? I have no idea if this is an easy or hard thing to implement) it should be one of the first priorities to patch it in.

Someone with a Tumblr account should mention the 2 or 3 best solutions from this thread to Jsaw on Tumblr, see what he says. Sensuki?

I actually really like that. It would be super easy to implement, not nearly as punitive as enemies attacking downed characters, and hearkens back to the "incapacitated" and "bleeding out" mechanics of 3e (which I personally really like). Great idea, Infinitron.

Except there is no coming back later going on. This is a BETA. The game is unfinished. The rules are quite literally still being written. Our purpose in being a part of this Beta (other than reporting bugs of course) is to let Josh and others know how best to write those rules, both through our gameplay and our feedback.

It is, but clicking a party member when you have the sword icon active will just select them instead of instigating bloody infighting. I want infighting, dammit!

Hmm. Good to know. There used to be the ability to click the "sword" icon in the UI and then click a character as well. That's what got removed, I suppose. Still kind of an odd removal.

I'm Matt516 and I approve this message.

A little randomness is fun. EDIT: Flat # for damage would make the damage log read something like: (Bob's base damage is 15, Barry's DT is 5) Bob hit Barry for 10 damage Bob missed Barry Bob hit Barry for 10 damage Bob grazed Barry for 2.5 damage Bob critted Barry for 17.5 damage Not quite as interesting as having a random damage range. Other reason is that a random damage range allows for a situation in which DT usually blocks almost all the damage of an attack, but not always. With only ACC affecting the damage, it'd be a much more binary system when DT was close to weapon damage.

Now you've got it! I realize your post was tongue in cheek, but I honestly do think that to some extent, this is exactly how their narrative world works. Not as ridiculous as DBZ, obviously, but a similar idea. The strength of your soul determines how effective you are at hurting and helping. It's unorthodox, to be sure - but it's a perfectly reasonable way to do things in their narrative world. I think a lot of people are just coming in expecting a Forgotten Realms-esque setting, when this really isn't one.

I like it. I like it a lot.

Yeah, they need to fix the teleporting enemies bug. Makes proper positional play kind of pointless.

That was part of my motivation for making this post - to try and provide a clear definition. The definition I propose is "a game mechanic that incentivizes (what would be in the game world) absurd behavior by making said absurd behavior the optimal strategy". True. Which is why we need a clear definition. Granted, there's some subjectivity still, but that's just the nature of design. There is no objectively "best" design for anything - that's what makes it different from analysis. When using the definition I propose for DG (my abbreviation is even shorter, which kind of leads me to assume you didn't read my post as you would've simply used said already established abbreviation - forgive me if I'm wrong. ), it does help identify the cause of the issue - namely, mechanic design that incentivizes absurd behavior. So by my definition, DG (at least the kind worth talking about) is the fault of the designer. Sure, some players will find a way to cheese anything - but that doesn't forgive mechanic design with mechanics that are absolutely begging to be exploited. If you read my OP, I think I made that fairly clear (and I apologize if I didn't). I mean, if you choose to take it in an insulting way I apologize for offending you - but I hardly think it's childish or silly. Terms exist to let us concisely express complex ideas - if the term is clearly defined and used properly, the way it "sounds" is hardly relevant. As for calling your way of playing a game DG, I again am led to believe you didn't read my post, because I didn't call any particular way of playing out as DG. Instead, I called certain (IMO badly designed) mechanics out for promoting DG. Which is why we need a clear definition so it can be used properly. In general, I'm getting the impression that you just don't like the term. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean it can't be a useful term to use when discussing game design - design of this game in particular, since the term was coined by this game's lead designer (AFAIK).