Gromnir

and as Gromnir pointed out some time ago, if you wanna analogize to self buff, then you should accept reduced durations. casting time and durations is all part how such spells is balanced. the summoned weapons, with durations equivalent to other self buffs, will sudden become far less useful in the more challenging encounters of the game. HA! Good Fun!

kalbarri could appeal to shady. geographical it is as if somebody took the arizona desert and added nice ocean beaches to the scenery. however, am not recalling too many great restaurants. might need head down to perth to get a decent meal in wa. converse, san sebastián, spain is a coastal destination with fabulous food offerings... but it is an established resort town, with all the drawbacks o' touristy resort towns. will echo gd regarding kauai. is our typical annual hawaii destination. however, keep in mind we go to kauai to get away from everything but sand, surf, and sea turtles. HA! Good Fun! ps kalbarri gots a wildflower season similar to deserts of the american southwest... though, y'know, opposite ends o' the calendar year. can be a spectacular sight.

I'm struggling to understand why or how you extracted such an uncharitable reading from what I wrote, since I never said anything about experience amounts being relevant to boring/interesting. am not sure if you are being intentional obtuse to make some kinda point, so apologies if such were your goal. "No experience during side questing would make side questing boring." your words. the absence o' sufficient experience clear renders questing boring. is clear a claim that the measure o' experience affects "boring/interesting." regardless, arguing this point, you is reinforcing your initial mistake. the quests is no more or less interesting 'cause the xp reward for a late game quest resulted in 0xp or 1xp or 5xp. the quest itself is no less compelling for the absence o' xp, but this is all simple repetition bordering 'pon spam. if you genuine believe the xp reward can affect how boring is the quest, then am at an impasse. that said, we did already observe how failing to meet expectations would cause confusion and consternation and we already mentioned how for Gromnir solution to work, quest rewards would need be altered a bit as crpg players have developed expectations regarding the payoff o' questing. 1007 rewards alone would no doubt keep many sidequests vital with little need for change and as Gromnir can imagine alternatives to 1007 and experience (we mentioned stronghold prestige/security earlier) am suspecting the developers can do better. but again, am largely repeating self. why take xp out of the "toolbox"? *chuckle* answer is obvious... is the reason why folks is posting in this thread-- xp rewards from tangential and optional side-quests is causing xp bloat for completionists. the unbalanced xp a completionist will acquire compared to a critical path player is precise the problem being debated. as such, find ways to reduce completionist xp is a simple option for fixing the problem... if it is a problem. *shrug* relative overlevel results in a less than insignificant % of the game lacking challenge. possible more meaningful than the diminished challenge factor is our observation 'bout expectations. bis/obsidian developers, when making their d&d titles, mentioned how they were aiming for a rough level-per-hour kinda rate. am doubting developer goals for poe leveling differed much. the games is effective running a skinner box experiment and the rats is being conditioned with levels and 1007 as rewards. with an easily attainable level cap, sudden, midway through game, the rats is no longer getting the reward they expect. the poe rats is subjected to possible dozens of hours of conditioning, not to mention years o' previous conditioning from similar games. reward fail and developers end up with lots of unhappy rats. regardless, if cheese is making the rats sick, then obvious solution is to not use cheese to reward the rats. obsidian wants to keep the rats happy. with poe the obsidians genuine believed they had an xp scheme which would result in completionists reaching the level cap only near the extreme end of the game. fail. first step o' any real solution is to be certain obsidian understands how they could have been so wrong in spite o' their extreme confidence. btw, is a whole host o' pnp rpgs which do not provide individual quest rewards. even d&d, for much o' its existence, recommended dms to provide lump xp awards at the end of adventures. what has kept any number o' folks playing playing pnp rpgs for many years is not the xp grind. even so, am gonna observe how pnp and single-player crpgs is not the same. what works in pnp don't necessarily translate to crpg. need discover what works for crpgs. unfortunate, crpg xp bloat resulting from rewards for tangential and optional side quests doesn't work... or maybe it isn't the problem some suggest. regardless, the notion o' insufficiency o' xp rewards rendering quests boring is utter ridiculous. almost feel silly for responding a second time to such. HA! Good Fun!

we did a fair amount o' surfing while we lived in berkeley and santa barbara and while we didn't have a fear o' the unknown or of giant cephalopods, sharks scarred us more than a little. had seen shark bite damage on a few surfers and on more than a few boards... 'cause sharks is seeming more likely to bite boards. stoopid sharks. see a flash o' silver in the water and it could be a trick o' light, a school o' fish or a shark. got the heart pumping. more than once something big grazed our leg while we were in the channel island waters and am not too proud to admit we leaked a little urine at such times. HA! Good Fun!

trump reflexive threatens litigation whenever somebody writes an unflattering book, but typically he caves 'fore situation can get too ugly for him. nevertheless, the hijinks which would ensue if lawyers got another chance to depose trump regarding so-called defamatory statements would, sadly, be the highlight o' at least a month o' our life. maybe two. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/trump-lies/?utm_term=.e9f71a0dd1a8 HA! Good Fun!

first shot is free, however, am gonna make a couple observations: 1) "No experience during side questing would made side questing boring," made us guffaw. thanks. we rarely get to use guffaw legit in a sentence. so, the magnitude o' the xp award controls and/or limits the interest level o' a quest? good to know. makes quest design much easier for the developers. let josh know "boring" can be balanced with a bit o' a push to the xp award for a quest. we did observe in our post that folks would be unlikely to champion the idea o' zeroed out xp for optional side quests (you missed?) however, the reason for such universal rejection would hardly be the result o' the transformative impact o' absent xp rewards 'pon the overreaching evocative, compelling, intriguing, captivating elements o' quest design. finish raedric's hold and all you get for troubles is a whole lotta 1007 and a digital slap on the back from companions... am predicting many folks would complain. would need alter rewards to be a successful change. however, the complaint would not be 'bout lack o' stimulating or engaging gameplay, but rather the failure to match expectations, yes? regardless, if you genuine see "boring" as linked to magnitude o' the quest xp rewards, then am suspecting we will be at a functional impasse. 2) preventing overleveling avoids the diminution of late game challenges due to player xp bloat kinda axiomatic, no? suggesting we miss the "central criticism" appears to be on shaky ground as our solutions specific address the problem o' a player being too powerful for encounters to be challenging based on perceived excessive. you appear to believe fixing the problem should take place through level scaling of enemies. fine. is a different approach and far more difficult to balance than is Gromnir's solution(s). there is also a rather poor track record for games which attempt level scaling beyond very limited ranges. nevertheless, the perceived problem is hardly altered by the means which one seeks to fix said problem. 3) overlevel is not a late game problem you, and others, mischaracterize the problem as a "late game enemies" issue. where player level (and not 1007 or other factors is the real problem) late game is actual not an issue with titles such as poe. 'cause o' the level cap, late game level disparity 'tween enemies and the player will be negligible/non-existent. late game challenges is designed with capped/near cap players. yes, developers often fail to make late game challenges appropriate, but such is rare a matter o' xp bloat as the player is forcibly prevented from being overleveled late. is some nebulous region 'tween mid and late wherein xp bloat is typical an issue. will let the other silliness slide other than to offer an additional chuckle at your seeming pointless recharacterization o' our obvious tongue-in-cheek progressive tax bit. sure, our notion o' limiting the problem of excessive subquest xp grants through a progressive numerical penalty were serious, but your desire to redefine were... funny. HA! Good Fun!

the real issue is not what people believe it to be, but will get back to that in a bit. regardless, if overleveling is a real problem, then solutions is easy enough. no xp for side quests solves. a functional progressive "tax" for side quest would be more complicated, but would also solve. sure, the developers would need make certain there were still rewards for doing optional side-quests (e.g. 1007, stronghold security/renown bonuses, achievements-which-are-the-2010-equivalent-of-pog-collecting, etc.) but if overlevel is a problem, then alexander can sever the gordian knot with one stroke. the more optional xp rewarding side-quests a developer includes in a game will necessarily lead to a gap 'tween the xp achievable by critical path players and completionists. obvious solution is to nix xp rewards outside the crit path. completionists will still be completionists w/o the xp rewards just so long as is other meaningful rewards for completing optional tasks. socialists belong in dante's sixth level o' hell, no? am a little fuzzy on our dante at the moment, but while a progressive tax may be objective evil, such a scheme could be utilized to reduce the over level problem. have a player's optional side-quest xp totals tracked (should be easy enough based on how josh described the capacity for developers to track xp in poe) and at certain thresholds, subsequent xp rewards would be taxed. 10%. 20%. 30%. more optional xp you accumulate, the more xp you need to keep pace. won't be a perfect solution, 'cause progressive taxes never work as advertised anyway, but it would reduce a portion o' the bloat which is resulting from non critical path xp rewards. 'course the real xp problem is not what anybody in this thread is talking 'bout. the real problem is the mystery behind obsidian's poe xp confusion. Before the release o' poe, particular evidenced during the debates regarding per kill xp v. task/quest/whatever, the obsidians revealed their complete confidence 'bout relative leveling rates for poe. the developers had access to tools which made it easy and clear to be seeing possible xp rewards and to alter such rewards w/o much fuss. when exploration and token per kill xp were added to poe later in development, josh shrugged off any sorta balancing concerns as baseless given how easy it were to maintain a kinda xp homeostasis with poe developer tools. pre white march, obsidians were certain they had a handle on xp rewards for poe and they were extreme confident a completionist would need be near exhausting all possible tasks to be achieving the level-cap. now admitted the bounties threw the obsidian math outta wack, but even when the bountie rewards were corrected soonish after release, the over-leveling issue remained. developers were wrong-- they didn't understand xp and their predictions were much off-target. ... again, the "solutions" is easy and obvious, but is likely less than appealing. am suspecting critical path only is a solution few will champion. 'course there is a question as to whether the problem needs be solved as the xp bloat issue only affects hardcore completionists and we are, by-and-large, a negligible minority-- will leave that debate for another thread. however, the real problem is the obsidians and their capacity to correct xp bloat. we never did hear an explanation as to why their extreme confident prognostications 'bout xp were so flawed, so for all we know, the fog which obscures obsidian vision regarding xp rewards remains. gonna be difficult to fix an xp problem (short o' Gromnir's proposed crit path solution) if the developers have no idea why they got xp so wrong in poe. if the developers have not experienced some kinda epiphany regarding the accuracy o' their predictions o' poe xp rewards for completionists, then am suspecting most changes the obsidians seek to implement will be of limited efficacy. is tough to fix a problem when you do not understand the problem. HA! Good Fun! ps the ie game purists should be happy 'bout xp bloat. for all the unwanted improvements forced 'pon them in obsidian's "spiritual successor," the developers managed to flub the xp bloat issue near as bad as did bioware with bg/totsc.

aside: the ship naming convention problem is not. is not a problem and am not sure why josh is making it so. doesn't matter what pronouns or articles russians use for ships. similar, doesn't matter if folks germans use fatherland as 'posed to motherland. is no germans or russians in deadfire. duh. solution is simple to establish via lore/dialogue/whatever the gender o' eora (or at the very least, deadfire archipelago) ships. problem solved. HA! Good Fun!

has been a few (more than a few) years since our last half triathlon, but am gonna recommend at least some open water training for the swim, as inconvenient as it may be. pool laps is a much different challenge than open water, particular open water and surrounded by dozens o' other swimmers creating waves and impeding progress. make sure you do a significant portion o' your swim training in open water or you may be shocked on race day. good luck. HA! Good Fun!

Gorsuch wasn't an accomplishment. He was going to get approved by the senate, no matter what. Additionally, he certainly just picked whoever he was told to pick. The tax bill's value is more than a little debated, and additionally it wasn't his work in any way. Also it was an accomplishment in the same way that the Night of the Long Knives was an accomplishment: it achieved its goals but it wasn't something to be commended in any way. The undiscriminated regulatory roll back is a catastrophe in some ways, scattershot and insane in others. I guess I can give you the pipeline. Also, generally speaking, no one cares about the campaign promises he has kept beyond his hardcore base. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/ gorsuch was a mcconnell success and curiously a trump+obama failure. mcconnell gambled big... congrats to him. was not a popular move at the time to fight the lame duck appointment o' a new justice by obama. were not a universal popular move for mitch even amongst republicans particular as a republican president to replace obama seemed unlikely at the time. spend political clout on a pointless endeavour? why? big win for mitch. as to failure o' trump+obama, were only a few years ago when the aforementioned mitch mcconnell prophesied doom following democrat killing o' senate filibuster for all presidential appointments save for The Court. “i say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you’ll regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.” led by obama, the democrats forged the very weapon which would be used to make the gorsuch appointment possible. and trump's failure as a President capable o' building consensus and making deals, which continues to be a problem for him, became apparent early as his mishandling o' Senators considering the gorsuch appointment were almost comical. there should never have been a need to go nuclear if trump had been able to broker deals with Senators. instead he bullied and threatened democrats and republicans alike as if those Senators were the underpaid illegals he likes to use to build his hotels. oh, and the American people lose too. am actual pleased with the gorsuch appointment, but the need to go nuclear were regrettable. even the republican senators who voted to change the senate rules so gorsuch could be approved almost universal lamented the need for what many recognized as a diminution and dilution o' the Senate as a whole. wisdom were sacrificed for expediency. mcconnell doesn't get the credit he deserves. converse, trump is receiving credit for simple picking a name from a list. worst, obama is avoiding the stink o' the colossal dump he took on the Senate only a few years removed. is all topsy-turvy and bass-ackwards.... which is kinda typical for US politics. HA! Good Fun!

the thing we don't understand 'bout the removal o' paladin order malus is the underlying problem which obsidian sought to fix by removing the malus. paladins, before the most recent beta build, were one o' the more versatile and vital classes in the game. is not as if the malus erasure were needed to address a surfeit o' power or flexibility. if the issue were the role-play appropriateness o' a given malus, then solution would be to change the particular malus to something more appropriate, yes? given the state o' the paladin at beta release, the blunt malus fix makes little sense to us. what were the problem the fix addressed? HA! Good Fun!

am feeling little sympathy for the min-max/munchkins who sudden find themselves needing actual make use o' all attributes... as were intended from the start o' poe development. the wailing 'cause o' the curbing o' obvious dump stats is not genuine worth developer concern. pine over the absence o' a busted quality o' the poe attribute system? *chuckle* nevertheless, we can see some value in an enhanced concentration quality attached to resolve. perhaps penetration? were something josh mentioned w/o providing any details. suggestion: 1) revert strength/resolve to might/resolve, with spell and weapon damage being affected by might. 2) return penetration to it's initial beta release form 3) allow a penetration bonus for concentration, modified by resolve. penetration were only an issue at release o' the initial beta 'cause there were such limited options for increasing penetration. a few weapons, spells, and abilities became essential 'cause o' penetration. however, if there were a way for any player to enhance penetration via an increase in resolve, then one could hardly complain o' a dearth o' penetration options. you want to wield a greatsword and be able to do damage with it 'gainst a foe with any kinda armour more significant than a moth-eaten christmas sweater, then you better invest in resolve. such a change would make penetration vital and would allow the player to make a meaningful character generation/development choice regarding penetration. the main drawback we see from such a scheme is it would likely require a complete retool o' armour/penetration numbers. if a player were needing two or three points o' resolve to see a single point o' increased penetration, then there is gonna be stoopid thresholds for resolve usefulness. such thresholds is antithetical to poe attribute goals. HA! Good Fun! ps our favorite crpg romance were ravel's hopeless love for the tno, but the concept o' crpg romance has become so twisted and perverted in the intervening years that such a story don't even get consideration when game romance is debated. the romance well has become irretrievably poisoned and as such am disappointed obsidian is taking the romance plunge with deadfire. is nothing new to say on the issue. as far as we can tell, the same reasons for obsidian avoiding romance in poe remain in deadfire. even so, while tangential and optional romance mini-games is inherent limited, they is undeniably popular. gender bias? the gender bias o' the romances is a ridiculous minor issue compared to the basic limitations o' any such optional romances. regardless, as we has observed ad nauseum, the optional nature o' such romances, while effective dooming 'em, makes 'em a minor concern for Gromnir. would rather see the romance resources spent elsewhere, but am not gonna ignore the popularity o' such piffle. am understanding why a developer feels compelled to create another broken crpg romance. we will be genuine shocked if we see any new perspective or insights on the crpg romance topic. fatigue.

Yeah, you could, but it would be . . . suboptimal, *insert eyeroll here* in any event, the current notions o' optimal is handicapped by a significant contributing factor which will, thankful, remain unknown for numerous months. the actualities o' gear will alter these analyses such that seeming advantages/disadvantages will be washed away or even inverted. in any event, it will be foolish to build an entire party to utilize a single optimal weapon 'cause o' gear availability, so as long as useful and fun options to optimal is available, is a developer success. also, any number o' builds is gonna be skewed towards an alpha strike weapon, such as assassins. etc. can't view such comparisons in a vacuum, eh? 'course some folks measure fun with the optimal yardstick, but is not much one can do 'bout such folks. will always be an optimal with number-based mechanics... even if five o' ten folks disagree 'bout what is actual optimal. get considerable disagreement 'bout optimal is best possible outcome, but as long as is not an enormous gulf 'tween optimal and the rest o' the field, call it a developer win. HA! Good Fun!

'ccording to josh, this is a tooltip bug as 'posed to a mechanics bug. should be getting proper dex bonus even if tooltip shows reversed. HA! Good Fun!

fixed. HA! Good Fun!

Very unlikely. Most people who do play the expansion will want to do so with their existing characters, and are not likely to be happy to see new options they can't take. Extra classes and subclasses are great for the sort of people who discuss the game on these forums, but we are very much the minority of players. Well, Throne of Bhaal added the Wild Mage to BG2. But generally, it makes more sense to use your expansions to make content many players will experience rather than add more niche content. funny story, but wild mage were a one-developer crusade. the zots (zots were bioware nomenclature for fungible man-hours... though tob were pre zots, so...) for wild-mage were not part o' the tob development plan. even so, one developer, using personal time, created the wild mage. were similar to dave using personal time to eventual create and release the ascension mod. more than a few bio developers were having certain unfulfilled expectations 'bout working on a bg3, or they felt bad 'bout cuts required to get bg2 out the door. many o' the bio developers were also a bit younger at the time and perhaps idealism were part o' the equation. regardless, tob were not a sequel but it weren't an ordinary expansion either. HA! Good Fun!

the holy roller changed the rules. HA! Good Fun!

agreed. obsidian made clear from the start o' poe development they were not intending to preclude min-max. however, when a dump is the clear obvious way to spend points, then there is a problem. am believing the change to might/resolve were warranted, but unfortunately the change is producing a peculiar uniformity 'mongst Gromnir casters. any pure caster in our deadfire parties is beginning to develop odd similarities, and such homogenization is gonna get worse with the new build. our dedicated casters all have tower shields and a wand, and with new beta build, it simple makes sense to sacrifice strength for constitution. we don't particular want basement fort saves, but we do not need suffer such a handicap as long as we raise constitution equal to our diminution o' strength. a universal fatigue mechanic tied to constitution woulda made con vital, but poe/deadfire don't have such. as a result, even tanks do not need much constitution, but casters will have excess. will be odd to see muscle wizards replaced by unflagging iron wizards with deep constitution wells and basement strength, but as josh did point out, the status quo for casters will have changed very little as a result o' the stat update. casters is gonna continue to have a dump stat, but most other classes/builds gots renewed appreciation for resolve. is a net gain overall, but our casters just got a bit weirder. HA! Good Fun!

clear oversight HA! Good Fun!

... ok, perhaps a couple more and one of the 1966 marvel cartoons the hulk, thor and ironman intros were kinda fun too. sadly, am actual recalling when such were still on broadcast tv. HA! Good Fun!

rockford files theme would make our top 5. along with rockford we would add mash and barney miller, though mash were a movie before tv, so might be a cheat to include. so to complete top 5, in no particular order... oh, and henry mancini deserves special recognition, though the linked pink panther is a blurred line inclusion as were original a movie theme... and peter gunn were before even Gromnir's time. HA! Good Fun! ps edited out rockford theme to reduce clutter.

probable a good idea. the paladins obvious aren't underpowered. neither are the druids, barbarians, chanters, etc. the nalpazca is kinda underwhelming, and a few o' the wizard specialists, while clear not underpowered, suffer from extreme paucity o' choices at a few levels-- as with the priests, the specialist wizards need an adjustment or two. the rest? additional complaints is o' the munchkin variety. so, hardly a lot. oh, and you are correct in observing how a lot of the subclasses have balancing issues. is far too many subclasses which render the base class irrelevant. bass ackwards. HA! Good Fun! I disagree that nalpazca is underwhelming, nalpazca is perfect for a defensive monk focusing more on control than doing damage. It works perfect with arcane veil + dance of death. It’s a ideal subclass for monk/wizard. fair enough. so scratch the nalpazca from the list o' subclasses needing tlc. a lot just became a wee bit smaller. HA! Good Fun!

probable a good idea. the paladins obvious aren't underpowered. neither are the druids, barbarians, chanters, etc. the nalpazca is kinda underwhelming, and a few o' the wizard specialists, while clear not underpowered, suffer from extreme paucity o' choices at a few levels-- as with the priests, the specialist wizards need an adjustment or two. the rest? additional complaints is o' the munchkin variety. so, hardly a lot. oh, and you are correct in observing how a lot of the subclasses have balancing issues. is far too many subclasses which render the base class irrelevant. bass ackwards. HA! Good Fun! ps the following should also be axiomatic, but am betting it isn't: do not use subclasses to compare the relative efficacy/desirability o' subclasses. shattered pillar and helwalker is extreme useful subclass options which likely need nerfing. is little reason to choose vanilla monk save for a few multiclass options. as such, don't use helwalker and shattered pillar (and paladin subclasses) as some kinda benchmark.

aside: am gonna recommend against leveling beyond 6. the scaling feature is revealing the dumbness o' math. most maps in the beta is significant easier with an 8th or 9th level party even with scaling active. HA! Good Fun!

lot lät/Submit pronouninformal 1. a large number or amount; a great deal. "there are a lot of actors in the cast" synonyms: a large amount, a fair amount, a good/great deal, a great quantity, quantities, an abundance, a wealth, a profusion, plenty, a mass; More and "to simple make paladins more (unnecessarily) powerful to account for lack o' a generalist option ignores the real issues." so, once again h. alloy fails to read and suffers curious myopia and/or inversion. not see where is disagreement? *chuckle* yes, the paladin lacks a subclass. already observed such difference as can see from quoted material. such is no reason to give'em more relative power, particular when paladins already are having current significant value as both a single class and multiclass option. also, "alot" is an indicator o' much, more, many. so, a couple subclasses which has limited value? ascendant can be useful but need take advantage o' a few small weapon and multi-class exploits. am personal not a fan o' extra weapon sets, but now that you cannot get the extra set for free with a racial choice, am suspecting a number o' build monkeys will find a way to squeeze juice out of 'em... not to mention the additional proficiency point will no doubt be even more valuable in the upcoming build. regardless, either being hyperbolic or misleading when suggesting a lot... which is nevertheless beside the point as the paladin subclasses is not suffering such a handicap. HA! Good Fun!