kanisatha

Well, personally, I think that if it were me I would want to go do something else before getting into a PoE3 since I would be pretty burned out with Pillars at this point. And yes, they will continue to work on patches and DLCs for PoE2, obviously, but Project Indiana, Tyranny and Pathfinder all have their own teams so the PoE2 team will definitely transition to a new game, I think.

Now that PoE2 has a release date, is it too early to begin speculating about what comes next for the Sawyer team within Obsidian? Since the Cain-Boyarsky team is very likely working in the post-apocalyptic genre for their new IP, I wonder if Sawyer has been given the green light on his desire to do a historic RPG. There are not that many quality RPGs in the historic genre out there, and I for one would very much welcome a game with neither magic nor advanced technology.

Nothing's more aggravating than trying to unlock that super-powerful dagger. I don't bother even picking it up anymore. Just not worth the ridiculous hassle. Seems useful only if you're a dagger-wielding solo player.

Yep, this is exactly what I feared would end up happening. This way they can still make it look like the fighter talent tree has lots of options. As you say, why indeed would I want to take these abilities from my fighter talent pool? So they will remain in the fighter talent pool to falsely inflate that pool and the fighter class gets screwed. How typical.

You are right. But it goes further than that. From the many threads in which this topic has come up it is quite clear that for many in these forums there is an implicit anti-fighter bias. It's been said even in this thread that fighters being a boring class is not a bad thing. Well, going all the way back to the PoE1 Kickstarter, Josh was very clear that a goal of PoE would be to ensure all classes were roughly equally viable as PC classes, and for me at least, being "viable" means being interesting and fun to play. The image that I have in my head of my watcher is a fighter with a few levels of ranger mixed in, and I expect my character conception to be just as interesting and fun to play as any other character conception in PoE2. I don't at all think I am being unreasonable having this expectation.

Same - Eder was a staple in my party. But I'd never make my Watcher a Fighter, and I don't spend much time on my Fighters in combat. This isn't necessarily bad... it means I can focus more on making my Rogue and Wizard do cool stuff! Fighters don't do cool stuff currently. They are reliable and low maintenance. But this is exactly the problem, at least for me. I want my watcher to be a fighter, and I want him to do cool stuff just like the wizard or the rogue or the monk or any other class. Why shouldn't I be able to have that? I hate playing spell caster or rogue classes, and I shouldn't have to do so in order to be able to do "cool stuff."

As someone who considers the fighter class to be the most interesting class of all and the class I like playing the most, and yes that's with Eder always in my party as well, I was very unhappy with the relative inferiority of the class in PoE1 and really excited about what had been done to the class in PoE2. Now, with the proposed new changes, I'm getting concerned again that the fighter class (along with ranger and maybe even barbarian) will once more become the screwed-over class. However, I'm all for taking the weapon style passives and making them general talents and then replacing those abilities with new fighter-exclusive abilities that make those weapon style abilities look laughably pathetic by comparison. It would be hilarious to hear the sure-to-follow complaining about how wrong it is that those new abilities are fighter-exclusive and how those need to also be made general abilities available to all classes because - you know - otherwise people couldn't make a real paladin ... or something.

This is SO awesome! Thanks for testing this. I really hope when all is said and done, that a party of no casters except possibly a healer can kick ass in PoE2, including taking down every boss and overcoming every challenge in the game, because then that's all I would ever want to use in my games.

I always play fighters (or something closely related) because for me they are the most interesting by far. And I utterly reject the notion that fighters should not be equivalent to wizards in power. For me, the only truly satisfying way to take down enemies, especially bosses including powerful spell-casters and even dragons, is to put cold steel to their face and without resorting to any spells.

Yes, the nature of the enemy doesn't matter to me, only that whomever it is I should be able to take down through brute force without having to resort to spells. And the truth is that BG2 did not make this possible. A party without a powerful wizard would get its ass handed to it against the really powerful wizards in that game unless the player was highly experienced and did a near-perfect job of buffing and debuffing.

But why the special consideration for spell casting? I find spell casting to be a tedious chore, and that's exactly why BG2 is not so awesome for me, compared with BG1 which I love. Seems rather unfair to have content that one group of players will love and others will hate. If there's going to be spell duels/battles, then maybe there should also be similar content where only martial combat will work and all spell casting/usage is somehow blocked.

Unfortunately I didn't take the beta access (don't have much free time). Just wondering, are there any fighter, barbarian or ranger builds (without multi-class) possible that are really powerful? And by really powerful I mean equivalent to the power builds in other classes.

A point of clarification: nowhere in my big post a couple of pages ago did I even mention the word "talent." The purpose of that post was to try and move our debate (and it has been an awesome debate so far) away from just narrowly discussing talents to what I consider to be the underlying real issue: that warrior classes cannot fill the roles of caster classes in the same way that caster classes can fill the roles of warrior classes. My take is that Sawyer was trying to fix this, but I can accept that taking away general talents may not be the best approach to fixing this problem (though I still personally believe losing general talents was not that big of a deal). So, I'm very much interested in your thoughts on how the warrior classes can be fixed so that they can effectively fill caster roles in parties, going beyond just changing up a few talents. Tell me how a party with no spellcasters can do just fine in PoE2?

Exactly! By the way those "talents" I called for have never been very powerful in the first place. It's just nice to put some flavor onto your melee single class wizard (specialized on summoned weapons), your defensive druid - whatever. I'm totally all in when it comes to more and better abilites for the martial classes instead of making weak stuff like Two Handed Style their "own thing". How I praised Charge when it came out because it was/is a nice, interesting and also powerful ability for a fighter. Not Two Handed Style or Weapon and Shield Style - pah! Yeah and I don't want to multiclass into fighter just because I want the weapon style to expand my play style. You mean the weapon style bonus, because the weapon style itself was very much available to you.

I disagree the reason casters were so much better was because they each had a combination of area cc, damage, and buff that out classed most of the martial classes abilities to do the same and could be cast at greater rates later in the game. It had near nothing to do with caster ability to be build like a warrior. Those abilities just allowed you to change the traditional role a caster is suppose to occupy enough to make for interesting builds. Let's say for argument that you're correct. It still means, by your very own words, that the caster classes were built to be able to do everything whereas the warrior classes were not. So my point still stands. I think a lot of us disagree because your point was "new people searched for powerful classes and the answer was casters because of flexibility to do what martial classes do," and that rings false to us. As in, yes the answer was casters, but not because of flexibility. A new player searching for powerful classes is looking for a class that is powerful out of the box (with easy to use, powerful spells), not looking to build mages who are good at melee (which is a niche thing that takes knowledge of the systems to pull off, not something a new player would have any interest in doing). That's not true. I was deliberately abstract in my post in not specifying the exact things identifiable with warrior classes vice caster classes. My point was that the caster classes could take on the roles/functions of warrior classes in a party, however those roles/functions may be defined, but the reverse was not possible. Or put another way, one could have a party of entirely casters and successfully win all battles whereas a party of entirely warriors could not do so (at least not for someone like me where I've admitted I am not a hardcore player).

Items have no bearing on this discussion. They're largely available for everyone. And pulling the old "you lack knowledge and experience" card is beneath you, Boeroer. I always respected you and thought you to be better than that.

Agreed, but let's keep in mind that the feedback they're receiving is not representative because the testers are self-selected and not randomly distributed. This is my fundamental issue. For PoE1, if you do a search of these very forums for an answer to the generic question of "What are the 'best'/'most powerful' classes to play as," you will get a very solid consensus on these classes: wizard, priest, druid, cipher (which I will group as "caster" classes). The answer to the same generic question in reverse equally generates a solid consensus on these classes: fighter, barbarian, ranger, rogue (which I will group as "warrior" classes). So why is it so much better to play one of the caster classes over one of the warrior classes? The answer is very obvious. The caster classes can all be built to do a lot of what the warrior classes can do but not vice versa. In other words, the casters can make for pretty good warriors, but the warriors can never be pretty good casters. This is very clearly an unfair imbalance in favor of the caster classes which was taken for granted by many on these forums because this thread clearly shows that the hardcore forumites clearly favor the caster classes over the warrior classes. But it seems that Josh Sawyer, bless his heart, recognized this unfair imbalance in PoE1 and tried to remedy things in PoE2 by making it not possible for caster classes to be good warriors in the same way that the warrior classes cannot be good casters. If you wanted to be somewhat good in both, you needed to multiclass, which is the whole point of adding in the new multiclassing system. This was exactly the right and proper approach to take, and I strongly commend Sawyer's initial impulse. But of course all the caster class favoring forumites couldn't bear to see their cherished caster classes not having warrior abilities in the exact same way that the warriors don't have caster abilities. So now we go back to how things were in PoE1, where the caster classes get to be pretty good warriors (without having to multiclass), but the warrior classes cannot be pretty good casters (unless they multiclass). I hope someday Sawyer gets to make his historical RPG, so that there can be no spellcasting and no caster classes and only warrior classes in the game, and those of us who favor warrior classes can finally have our day. I disagree the reason casters were so much better was because they each had a combination of area cc, damage, and buff that out classed most of the martial classes abilities to do the same and could be cast at greater rates later in the game. It had near nothing to do with caster ability to be build like a warrior. Those abilities just allowed you to change the traditional role a caster is suppose to occupy enough to make for interesting builds. Let's say for argument that you're correct. It still means, by your very own words, that the caster classes were built to be able to do everything whereas the warrior classes were not. So my point still stands.

Agreed, but let's keep in mind that the feedback they're receiving is not representative because the testers are self-selected and not randomly distributed. This is my fundamental issue. For PoE1, if you do a search of these very forums for an answer to the generic question of "What are the 'best'/'most powerful' classes to play as," you will get a very solid consensus on these classes: wizard, priest, druid, cipher (which I will group as "caster" classes). The answer to the same generic question in reverse equally generates a solid consensus on these classes: fighter, barbarian, ranger, rogue (which I will group as "warrior" classes). So why is it so much better to play one of the caster classes over one of the warrior classes? The answer is very obvious. The caster classes can all be built to do a lot of what the warrior classes can do but not vice versa. In other words, the casters can make for pretty good warriors, but the warriors can never be pretty good casters. This is very clearly an unfair imbalance in favor of the caster classes which was taken for granted by many on these forums because this thread clearly shows that the hardcore forumites clearly favor the caster classes over the warrior classes. But it seems that Josh Sawyer, bless his heart, recognized this unfair imbalance in PoE1 and tried to remedy things in PoE2 by making it not possible for caster classes to be good warriors in the same way that the warrior classes cannot be good casters. If you wanted to be somewhat good in both, you needed to multiclass, which is the whole point of adding in the new multiclassing system. This was exactly the right and proper approach to take, and I strongly commend Sawyer's initial impulse. But of course all the caster class favoring forumites couldn't bear to see their cherished caster classes not having warrior abilities in the exact same way that the warriors don't have caster abilities. So now we go back to how things were in PoE1, where the caster classes get to be pretty good warriors (without having to multiclass), but the warrior classes cannot be pretty good casters (unless they multiclass). I hope someday Sawyer gets to make his historical RPG, so that there can be no spellcasting and no caster classes and only warrior classes in the game, and those of us who favor warrior classes can finally have our day.

Agreed. But also, in that general talents pool/tree, there need to be talents drawn from classes other than the martial classes, for example spellcasting equivalent talents. If the wizard can now take a sword & board general talent, the fighter should be able to take a healing/buffing general talent.

Those are made-up numbers. I was just using a made-up example to illustrate my point. But, thinking on this further, ultimately it matters not one bit to me what happens in others' games. Only what happens in my own games matters to me. Thus, if in the process of taking what in my opinion are fighter talents and making them available to other classes, they compensate fairly by taking spellcasting abilities and make them available to fighters and other melee classes, that would actually be pretty awesome for me. If the melee classes can also cast some heals, buffs and debuffs, then I won't need to drag along any spellcasters in my party, and that would be ideal. I only love the melee classes and can't stand the stupid weenie spellcasters, but in PoE1 it was just not possible to get through the game without having casters in my party (as the non-hardcore casual gamer that I am). If PoE2 will allow me to run an all-melee party and still beat the game and do most of the side quests and do all of this without having to be a hardcore player, I would be VERY ok with that.

If you're so convinced that Fighters need to be masters of all fighting, why not give them 1 passive that gives the effect of all 4? Now that would make a Fighter a master of weapons, able to use any fighting style effectively due to their mastery. But a rogue training with 2 weapons is too much? Or a Paladin with a sword and shield? Or a barbarian with a two-hander? They just have to be rank amateurs? Please. Well firstly, nothing I've said is mutually exclusive with what you're saying. I can get behind what you're saying. But it's your definition of "amateur" that perplexes me. Here's a simple example: 1) Fighters get +5 deflection w/ a sword & shield class talent. Paladins don't get the talent so no bonus. 2) Fighters get +8 deflection w/ a sword & shield class talent. Paladins get a +3 deflection w/ a sword & shield cross-class talent. For you it seems condition 1 above represents the paladin being "untrained" or an "amateur." For me both conditions are exactly the same and I don't see condition 1 representing being an amateur. But if condition 2 makes you feel better about the non-amateur status of paladins, I can live with that.

Sure. I guess to be annoying I'll answer your question with another question: "why should Fighters get the ability to be more skillful at dual wielding when previously (in PoE) it was universal?" You're asking why Fighters are losing something but to me the question is why every other class lost it in the first place. As for why Wizards get to cast spells that Fighters don't: the same reason Fighters get stances, and knockdown and all their other abilities. Well, but here you are merely asking me to comment on whether or not PoE1 had everything perfectly right. And of course for me, the answer is definitely not, because I always felt the fighter class got screwed exactly because everything they did other classes could also do, and for the most part about as well. So my unhappiness is exactly because it seemed like finally the fighter class was being given some well-deserved respect in PoE2, but now that maybe going away. And all this comes from the fact that over my almost thirty years of playing D&D-style RPGs the pure fighter is my all-time most favorite class-type of all. I just wish at least one stinking cRPG would give them their due <sigh>.

Perhaps I'm just tired, but aren't there more choices and more possibilities if you're allowed to create the character just the way you feel like as opposed to picking between a few "classes" and rigid talent trees? Certainly. But the way I see it, choices should be about consequences, and the truest consequences are ones that close off some options because of other options you chose. Being able to take a little of everything may give you the widest range of choices, but if nothing is ever closed off as a result of your choices then the choices are not truly meaningful imho.

It could be, and maybe it even will be. Who knows what Obsidian will decide between now and the end of the beta. Why I don't think it should be boils down to the fact it wasn't in Pillars and that the Fighter does have plenty of abilities that other classes can't get access to. Also it's not clear to me that if only one class were to get these abilities why it should be the Fighter and not the Rogue. In the original class descriptions shock troops were described as being Rogues whereas Fighters were described as being unified by their focus on endurance and melee defence. Sorry, maybe it wasn't clear that I was just using fighter versus wizard as only an example to make my points. All of this can absolutely apply to some other classes as well, especially the other melee classes such as barbarian and rogue.

I for one would have loved a classless system in Deadfire and PoE1, just like Josh and his RPG version of Pillars of Eternity. Alas... Sorry, but I would've hated that. Arguments were made earlier in this thread about all of this being about choice. Well, in my view having distinct classes is very much about choice. It is what makes character building choices meaningful, because once you make a choice ("I pick the fighter class") you are locked out of casting wizard spells ("I didn't pick the wizard class"). So, your choices matter and have consequences in the game. A classless system essentially is about giving players the appearance and feeling of being empowered with choices, but where at the end of the day those choices don't have much value because everything ends up being the same.