bob54386

My PC monk had the highest DPS in the party by about a factor of 4. Other characters were Eder(Full Tank), Aloth, Pellegrina wielding justice + retaliation plate armor, Durance, and hired blunderbuss rogue on a normal playthrough. I went greatsword monk for a little while, but the attack speed was really slow. Switching it back to fists I was hitting for 15-30 on a ridiculously fast attack speed. I was perma-interrupting some casters. I went for heavy armor for the first half the game until I had enough of a deflection and health pool that he wasn't losing much endurance in a fight. Switched to exceptional leather armor and then exceptional robe when available. Useful traits are: -swift strikes (upgrade to lighting strikes seemed like it was only doing 1% bonus dmg instead of 10%) -Turning Wheel (1 wound = 5% bonus burn dmg, up to a cap of +50%) -Vulnerable Attack (5DR melee dmg pierce at a slight attack speed penalty) -Two Weapon Style The bottom two helped immensely. Vulnerable attack would probably be the most helpful of the 4 in early game.

The player doesn't choose to be related to sarevok, to kill Irenicus' sister, or to be a bhaalspawn. Those are all equivalent to past life stories since they happen before the game's events. Sure, they happened in the same lifetime, but in terms of player agency there is no meaningful distinction. Also true of TNO in Torment - all backstory told through past lives that define a relationship with the final boss. (You also don't get much face time with TTO in Torment, either, come to think of it...) Not that I wouldn't have loved me some more Thaos, but I thought it was nice that for once the plot wasn't "bad guy wants to hunt down and kill the player because he's special." In fact in your early run ins with him, he seems to recognize you and maybe show mercy? That was my read, anyway. The real antagonist for most of the game is the player's own awakened soul. So it's more hero vs. self if anything. So.... why do we need to kill Thaos?

To Thaos we were just another peon. To Sarevok we were some mofuggin kin who just wrecked all his plans and needed to be murdered ASAP. To Irenicus we were some mofuggin bhaalspawn who killed his sister and had the last part of the soul he needs. It would've been nice if the final moments gave a little more thought to the life in progress and didn't dedicate the climax 100% to events that we had very little to do with. The present life was trivialized by the previous life's story. Interesting writing style as far as role playing goes, probably would've benefited from Thaos having a bigger presence / making it more personal.

You can expand it if you click on the line. Hovering the mouse over the sub-lines will also give you the roll info.

Wizards probably have a solid chance of soloing endgame. At lvl 8 grab confuse and let the monsters do all your work for you. In a full party normal playthrough, Aloth single handedly turned around a couple of fights I was stuck reloading with that one skill. Otherwise +1 to cipher for charm and buff/ debuff abilities. About to give a solo monk easy playthrough a try.

I think the health vs Endurance system is a lot more forgiving than the IE games. In Baldur's gate I'd usually reload if any of my companions got knocked out in a dungeon. In PoE, I couldn't always get the tanks to hold aggro, so plenty of folks got KO'd then stood back up after the fight. I cleared normal (completed all quests up to act 2, skipped most act 3 sidequests and Endless Paths) with tank monk PC, 1x hired rogue blunderbusser, 4x story npc. Found ~3 fights where I needed to reload repeatedly. Accuracy and deflection buffs / debuffs swing balance dramatically, but not many encounters had strong buffs/ debuffs going on. Not many encounters were attacking things other than deflection.

I'm sure AI's going to get a tune-up, the backer beta e-mail said the initial batch of AI instructions was inadequate and they're developing it further. Tactically, it's probably not worth talking about taunts until we get a wider variety of baddies than just melee critters. Monks are the only reason I would want to see a taunt in the game. They need someone attacking them to actually use abilities, and it would stink to have to attack them with party members. There are a probably a few options devs could pursue to get monks their wounds though -- a 'self inflicted wound' ability on a per encounter basis would probably make the most sense without dramatically changing things.

Where is the wound counter? I couldn't see any feedback telling me if or how many wounds my Monk had. Probably didn't know where to look, but appreciate any advice! Thanks Wound counter is under the character portrait

What's the health:stamina dmg taken ratio supposed to be for monks? I'm finding it's currently 1 health lost per 3 stamina lost. I was under the impression it was supposed to be 1:4.

Loading those attached saves actually introduced a few new bugs into my game; it was the first time I experienced the wizard's grimoire disappearing. Deleting all save files seems to have cleared up a bug where encounters weren't ending properly if I died really quickly.

After deleting my saves, I am unable to reproduce this easily. I suspect this is somehow tied into the general savegame issues. The first time it showed up was on my third character after the first couple characters had died.

I've always associated difficulty setting with bragging rights myself. I'd expect hard mode to force you to play particularly cautiously like that. I also agree that the trash mobs aren't terribly interesting to have to fight off. I'd float the idea that we should have an easy-medium hybrid difficulty where trash has easy spawnrates but meaningful fights have the 'normal' spawn. That would go with a normal-hard hybrid where again, trash mobs have normal spawns and meaningful encounters have the hard spawns. This kind of setup can't be accomplished with the current slider bar implementation since spawn sizes are determined on zoning.

Lemme put it this way... Too much stat importance = Every class will be forced into the same build and feel the same Too little stat importance = Every class will feel the same regardless of where points are put. We all want a balance of course. I'm simply asking would you rather learn towards a more difficult system that does have some extent of punishment for poorly planned builds (higher stat weight) or a system allowing for experimentation but with less meaning and purpose behind character customization. I think you're focused on the idea that some stats will always be preferable to others, and that the only way to adjust the system is to adjust the magnitude of their effect. If every stat is useful, then every point is useful no matter how you spend it -- that's how you keep bad builds from popping up. From a good design standpoint, you need both. Enough stat importance /magnitude that different stats change your playstyle, and enough balance between stats that you get reasonable benefit from each. Anything else is just a flawed system that we can still avoid at this point in the development process. My vote is both. Edit -- on rereading, it sounds like you're asking what side you want them to err on if they can't implement the ideal system. In that case, my vote is enough stat importance that some classes at least get a variety of playstyles. Maybe it won't affect all of them.

Not sure what your point about INT is in Fallout, I usually slapped on a powerfist and started punching people in the nuts until they fell unconscious. Not sure what that says about me in hindsight. As far as POE goes, I'm reading the OP's description of the poll as 'Attribute system has such a small impact on the character, it's really just an arbitrary display of numbers with a trivial impact on play' vs 'Attribute system is meaningful to how a class participates in a party'. I'm not sure what OP means by variety if variety means all characters of a given class are equivalent independent of stats. With the current system, I feel like interrupt could only be useful if you build for it, and concentration will only be useful in the specific situation that you're attacked by enemies with high interrupt. If someone could point me to a guide on interrupts so that I can amend this statement if need be, I'd appreciate it. The other 4 stats on the other hand are ubiquitously useful. 'Ubiquitously useful' stats vs 'situationally useful against enemies and AI that aren't in the beta' stats is the main difficulty I think the current system is running into. Time bar refresh rate, skill usage counts, and deflection are the replacement stats I've heard mentioned that sound like they would be competitive.

Sounds like people have decided the beta is easy with a 5 man party. I was wondering how far folks have gotten with smaller party sizes -- killing off the chars you don't want or just making them hang out in the background. Bonus points for using a stat build that involves Resolve and Perception. I'll start with my own PR, although I'm pretty sure I can top it on my next try: 1 monk managed to drop 3 lions, no resting. Not all at once of course

FYI - unarmed counts as a melee weapon. It goes against conventions, so maybe the tooltip should be changed to say 'no ranged weapons'. As far as feedback goes, I can definitely see the abilities as being strong (1.4x attack speed? 10+ sec stuns? Halve negative effect duration? yes please). Wounds system needs improvement to effectively use abilities though. Current implementation makes monks take too much damage if they get CC'd / combat ends / you blink. Aggro management is currently an issue to make abilities available. Not sure if they need a taunt at low level to make sure a character's attacking them? Maybe we as players aren't effectively using the engagement system?

I think this helps with building a Tony Shaloub (get it? Sherlock Monk? heh. heh.) character from a Role-Playing perspective but I'm not sure it would add combat variety to a character which is what I'm personally after. I don't think Role Players lose much by moving 5 points from one stat to another so they can meet their theme - the power curve isn't that high, and a well designed system should mean average effectiveness stays constant. A homogenized system like this suggestion doesn't change the playstyle of your characters if you adjust the attributes-- there's that much less reason to play through a second time for a different experience. From tactical build design perspective, each attribute really needs to do something no other attribute does so that you can build a wizard to fill two different roles based almost exclusively on stats. As long as it's designed well, any stat distribution to meet the needs of a theme character should be comparably powerful to a tactically designed character, just with a less clearly defined niche in the party. I'm interested in making some interrupt builds myself, I think perception could actually be a decent stat as long as the effect is tuned right -- it sounds like it's basically CC built into your attributes. Between beta bugs and work I haven't been able to experiment with this as much as I'd like. I do agree with the suggestion here and in other threads to tie Resolve into DT and attack speed. Concentration is far too conditional of a stat to ever boost -- it's only useful IF you're the character taking aggro and IF the attacker has a decent interrupt chance.

What I don't want is to feel like any progression at all is a chore -- I want the interesting fights to be tough, I don't want every trash encounter to take a few mins spamming all my skills. There have certainly been times I quit playing games because progression just seems to take inordinately long. I think my happy setting would be: trash mobs with 'easy' spawn sizes, but encounters with XP /Quest Objectives / interesting stuff, tied to 'normal' spawn sizes. A similar setting in-between 'normal' and 'hard' would probably also be nice. I think this helps to minimize unavoidable 'fluff' combat that's arguably useless (re: XP debate). This cannot be achieved with the current slider difficulty since mob density is determined on zoning. You can't change it in the middle of an encounter. I did my first beta run on easy, and that felt like a reasonable pace to advance through the content. I've yet to go through a second time on normal+ with the 'naked ranged characters' strategy. I'd imagine with an effective strategy it is much quicker than my first couple of failed attempts.

The 2nd party thing is purely hypothetical at this point, most likely you'd have half your party checking out one room and the other half checking out another room on the same map. Shared inventory in this case saves you from doing something dumb like walking a character halfway across the map to get the relevant item to the relevant character. Might not work for the people people who want realism, but it gets them a minute of their life back to convince themselves the characters really did wander over. Also, it would be great if the stash button / quest inventory button used that newfound freespace in headbomb's mockup to display their items. The current inventory is fighting way too hard with layering of tooltips and extra inventory screens. Best to get all inventory on the same layer.

One of the UI things that IE did was change the character selection circles based on what the character was doing. That would be an incredibly useful level of feedback here that would be one approach to solving a lot of complaints Party member's selection circle is only a circle if they're standing there idle Mouse over a party member's portrait and their circle starts glowing on the screen Mouse over a party member's portrait or selection circle and their target's circle will also start to glow A 'clover' instead of a circle implied actions. Character is walking to this point, character is casting a spell at this character, character is attacking this target. Not in IE, but it would be nice to get some indicator circle feedback over what targets an AOE is actually going to hit. This helps make it more obvious when a character has successfully been told to do what was intended.

I saw this as well and made a bug report about it, although I was getting 152 as my cap for an 18 constitution character. If you can remember any more specifics that are different from mine, maybe you could follow up? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66993-max-health-independent-of-character-class/ I'm thinking character creation is pointing towards the health progression formula of the first character I made.

A few things here. First off, my post is not one born of "impatience." I'm plenty patient, in fact I'm the one suggesting that OE take "more" time with the game if needed. So "impatience" was the wrong argument to hit me with. As for entitlement, I hear this word bandied about a lot on these forums, with an unnecessarily negative connotation associated with it. Yes, I am fully entitled to share my opinions, even if they happen not to be of the 100% praise category. So yes, I appreciate you acknowledging my entitlement, even if you mistakenly think there's a problem with it. Further if I was raising concerns 3 - 4 months from now, that would be way too late. That's when the game is set to be released, and at that point those concerns would be release day realities. Far, far better to raise one's concerns early, in my humble opinion. The other thing that this forum is going to have to deal with, is that the world is filled with cynical people. I'm one of them, and in my personal life I have turned this into an advantage, so I don't see it necessarily as a flaw. It's the folks who "assume it's all under control" that I have a hard time understanding. When it's something that I care about, as I care deeply about this game, that's not good enough for me. And further, why should I assume it's all under control? Why should I assume that Obsidian will have things all wrapped up in 4 months? They might, but frankly, any voice other than their's on this topic means little to me. For my way of thinking, for the way my brain works, there is legitimate reason for concern only 4 months away from release. And further, they opted to release the beta in a barely playable state. This is a discernible behavior that I am reacting to, and it indicates that they might they do so with the final release too. I don't want that. Why should I be dismissive of that? At the end of the day, I want only what the rest of you want. I want PoE to be the rousing success that many of us have waited 15 years for, and have overly bloated expectations of. I guess I just happen to express myself differently than many of you. I expect to be held accountable for my actions in my real life, and I don't have a problem holding others accountable. So be prepared for some honesty from me in the weeks/months to come! What bothers me with your post is that it's currently just blind doubts and nagging with no real direction or takeaways. It's not as constructive as you seem to think. In an action movie, it'd be the post that the naggy useless girlfriend makes before needing to get bailed out. I don't mean that as a personal attack, I mean it as a challenge to make something useful out of this thread. You haven't even mentioned what gamebreaking bugs you found; hopefully you've at least put them in the bugs forum. This leaves no direction for what developers should do to get you to a point where you leave meaningful feedback. The only thing it accomplishes is cutting off their balls with some nagging doubts. Obsidian's 4 month timeline is limited by their budget. Whatever state it's in at the time is what you're going to get. You can be sure they're going to do everything they can to meet their Kickstarter promises on the budget they have available -- it's a business obligation for them at this point. The classes and combat are grey areas as far as deliverables go since it's so subjective to design calls and player taste. They're asking for feedback on the subjective stuff, not the deliverables they've promised to you. So let's dig into specifics as far as the content is actually present in the beta. This is the needed feedback to steer PoE towards a product you want to play in 4 months. What game breaking bugs have stopped you from playing? Have you reported them in the requested format, hopefully flagging that it's hindering your ability to provide feedback until it's resolved? If you really care about the game coming out right, have you persevered to play some of the classes you were interested in? Have you made posts somewhere about what feels awesome and what needs to change?

This. All of my builds are the same from wizard to Barbarian with the current system. Moving bonuses around based on class just means that all wizards will be built the same and all barbs will be built the same. Given how all the bonuses just scale linearly, I think my vote for an easy fix would be to remove the 18 point cap, or raise it up to 25. At that point you really need to start thinking how healthy, accurate, strong, wide AoE + duration length you really want your character to be.

Going to bump this once during the daytime when I think it's a little more likely to get an answer.

Has anyone gotten enchants working? From the update feedback request, it sounds like they should be in-game. I'm not seeing any recipes available on character or available to purchase.