Gromnir

yeah, we agree that your math is good, but the ie games actual hurt you. folks can look at the ie games (with kill xp and trap xp and spell memorization xp, etc.) and observe that the end result o' over-leveling early were not avoided by your proposed scheme. Gromnir is on your side, but we would likely try and bury all the ie games as non-analogous as they is an obstacle rather than support for your scheme. HA! Good Fun!

it is funny that you bring it up, even in jest, 'cause matt's example o' bg shows us just how disruptive the bg style scheme actual were. Gromnir typical hit the bg level cap shortly after arriving in bg city. am not sure that using bg as an example helps matt, and it sure don't help with what should be the obsolete fixation gifted had/has with kill xp. your math is undeniable, but the above is simply wrong. in ps:t, thanks to respawns and kill xp, you could reach ridiculous levels before leaving sigil... could effective have 25s in all abilities before plane hopping. iwd and iwd 2 didn't have side quests, so those is not analogous to poe, yes? the available xp from side-quests in iwd and iwd2 were negligible. it were not the scheme that resulted in predictable xp growth in the iwd games. so, bg and bg2... *shrug* bg had a level cap that had most characters reaching 6 or 7. so, the fact that Gromnir reached level 7 soon after we first arrived in bg city (no doubt thanks to the abundance o' kill xp in the bg hinterlands) resulted in us being no more than ~three levels level'd above and beyond the critical path folks. we hit the level cap extreme early in bg, but the disparity in power were not as obvious simple 'cause total levels available were fixed and low. bg2? *chuckle* chapter 2 could see us much over-level'd in that game as well. hell, we could have end-game gear before going to spellhold and gear were more important than attributes in bg2. ad&d also were rather quaint in that while we could continue to gain levels, our effective power increases after level x diminished to near negligible quantities. unlike poe wherein we have opportunities to improve our character every level, that weren't the case with bg2. the effective difference 'tween a level 20 and level 30 character were not near a significant as the relative power increase from level 1 to 10. the ie games is not good examples for matt. the math may work in your favor, but the ie games ain't fertile soil in which to build this argument. two games is completely non-analogous (iwd & iwd2) and in three o' the ie games (bg, ps:t, bg2), we could either achieve extreme disparate levels depending on the amount o' side-questing we chose to undertake, or alternatively, we hit a level cap 1/2 to 2/3 o' the way through the game. actual, for all the "spiritual successor" mindless parrots out there, poe's experience issues should be a boon, no? bg had us hit the level cap at roughly the same point in the game as we did in poe, perhaps a bit earlier in bg as a matter o' fact. HA! Good Fun!

durance is an obvious joinable npc to try and max with mechanics, 'cause mechanics boosts his seal spell accuracy. however, durance must need dumps almost all available points into mechanics to become effective (he actually is a bit behind the curve initially) and regardless, we shouldn't need feel compelled to have durance as our mechanic. how many new players know o' the synergy 'tween seals and mechanics? how many folks playing poe for the first time would expect that if they wanna make aloth even plausible effective as a mechanic, they should do so as soon as the first level-up opportunity. ganrich notes that kana is already feeling a bit gimped as a mechanic in spite o' a class bonus. *shrug* the kinda meta-knowledge we would expect from players is not the kinda minutiae we is getting into with the joinable npcs and their potential to be a party mechanic. as an aside, we will again note that the boosted seal accuracy and mechanics synergy should be made more clear in the skill description. without beta experience, who would guess, eh? HA! Good Fun!

disagree... and that is a good thing. cipher's, particular 'cause o' the resting mechanic in hard mode and a couple current weapon/focus "exploits," is a bit much. all the other classes? wizard, monks and paladins has all offered us considerable use and we do not currently see as behind the curve. we can make sword & board monk tanks that is not only effective, but interesting to play. the wound mechanic makes monks intriguing to Gromnir in the tank role 'cause we can actual do something with them. paladins is boring, but they is 'posed to be boring to Gromnir. we like to micromanage, and they don't require much micromanagement. even so, as a low-maintenance support class that is far less squishy than priests, we don't see them as weak... just boring. and wizards? wizards get a serious bad rap 'cause a few loud boardies suggested that wizards is gimped, particularly after 1.03. hogwash. we still have our wizard spam slicken and miasma of dull mindedness and those two spells alone would make the wizard a win in our book. be able to effective cripple an opponent's reflex or will saves with low-level spells? with three different prepared grimoires, we is ready for pretty much any and all opponents. the wizard can not only dish out extreme hurt, but with the correct spells and synergy with other classes, he/she can turn nightmare encounters into personally, we haven't played the ranger or barbarian much, but we see some folks claiming that barbarians is dps dynamos and that rangers is at least playable. ciphers is indeed too much, but in our admitted personal experience, the rest o' the classes is all balanced well enough.. with the opportunity for additional minor tweakage. oh, and keep in mind that balanced don't mean that the classes must be equal powerful, but they should be equal useful and equal fun. sure, as we noted above, the low-maintenance aspect o' a paladin makes 'em decidedly less fun for Gromnir, but that is actually one o' their selling points for many players. am actual surprising impressed with poe class balance, particularly in light o' the fact that we loathe classes in rpgs. ironically, the single biggest shortcoming we see regarding the classes is that the developers listened too much to fan feedback during the beta. the class roles were a bit better defined early in the beta. is our view that many o' the classes has been diminished through addition... but ours is not a popular pov. regardless, we think it is a good thing that we got so much disagreement regarding which classes is good and bad. if there were complete consensus, that would be bad. HA! Good Fun!

"Take that to the extreme," did you learn nothing from our earlier hyperbole criticism? you don't even try to make a point. seems reasonable to us that demand meta knowledge is ok if you make such knowledge accessible and transparent. the new player o' poe has no such means at his disposal. Gromnir had many dozens o' hours in the beta and we were still disappointed at how stealth were implemented in the release. we knew how stealth were working pre-release, but given developer equivocation, we didn't genuine know how it would be implemented day 1. "You claimed that companions were inferior mechanics monkeys. I don't need to prove that wrong with statistics, in that case all I need to do is present a case which falsifies. Companions do just fine as mechanics monkeys, even if they don't start by putting all their points in it. There's enough leeway." fine. you are wrong. our experience says that the companions make poor skill monkeys. they need put all available points into mechanics from the moment you acquire them and they is still gonna be initial behind the skill curve. not only that, it potential hampers the ability to take small quantities o' equal necessary skills such as the aforementioned athletics. so, has Gromnir proved you wrong by supplying our own anecdotal? utter nonsense. ... you are so not getting the point about anecdotal. point out that our early beta is also anecdotal should offer epiphany or realization at the very least. nothing? you can't keep having it both ways and look anything other than ridiculous. HA! Good Fun! edit: odd. our quote o' tig somehow had the quoted material embedded in the middle o' our reply text. weird. sorta fixed.

again, this is bad logic. use other games or meta knowledge is bad logic. and no, not every game effective forces you to max skills to be effective, so it is arguable not nearly as reasonable as you suggest. we could indulge in similar hyperbole and state that every crpg also allows us to build a stealthy character that can effectively disarm traps as well. a character that is either good at stealth or locks is aberrational in our experience. poe is different. hell. we got at least 2 athletics on all characters. other folks says they need a few points in stealth for all. does other crpgs also let us know that seal spells for priests count as traps in poe, so all priests who plan o' being offensive effective should boost mechanics? clear as day. and yes, pointing out that your anecdotal experience were less helpful than you seemed to believe were necessary. "I can't say without actually doing the numbers." HA! says the guy who tells how it is done in any crpg? indulge in hypocrisy much? is particular funny 'cause you admit that your anecdotal is nothing but anecdotal and then suggest that other pov ain't reasonable based on other crpg experience. ridiculous. the genesis poster were confused by the skills curve. tell us you think he were unreasonable? well, thanks. oh, and is particular funny 'cause with early beta releases, we could be effective with balanced mechanics and... whatever. in spite o' what any and all crpgs do, poe didn't. we didn't need max mechanics in early beta. HA! Good Fun!

actually, the skills curve were a surprise even to many beta folks. is no way to know, before playing poe, that you do not have enough skill points to effective max more than one skill per character. why would it be unreasonable to think that you could be endgame effective with 2 skills? sure, after playing the beta we learned very quick that the game were skewed towards encouraging us to max at least a few o' the skills (+11) on different characters, but with absolute no knowledge o' the system or the game, that isn't a logical assumption to be making. regarding skills, am glad we played the beta. HA! Good Fun! This is a good point, and likely I was biased by having played the beta. Having said that though, it's pretty standard to have to pump a skill sky-high in most RPGs to be able to cope with any high level/end game situations that require that skill. And these locks/traps that require 11 mechanics: are they game-stoppers if you don't have your skill that high or is there another way around them? If the former, then that's pretty bad game design. If the latter, then I don't think it's a huge issue. huge issue? perhaps not. however, the genesis poster is nevertheless correct that the game does a poor job o' communicating many aspects o' rules mechanics-- skills is one such example. is now considerable time post release and we still can't tell you how, or if, interrupting blows talent does anything. and tig's anecdotal experience is no more relevant than is that o' the genesis poster. HA! Good Fun!

actually, the skills curve were a surprise even to many beta folks. is no way to know, before playing poe, that you do not have enough skill points to effective max more than one skill per character. why would it be unreasonable to think that you could be endgame effective with 2 skills? sure, after playing the beta we learned very quick that the game were skewed towards encouraging us to max at least a few o' the skills (+11) on different characters, but with absolute no knowledge o' the system or the game, that isn't a logical assumption to be making. regarding skills, am glad we played the beta. HA! Good Fun! But from the early game, you start to encounter a steadily increasing scale of locks and traps, which teaches you that you should increase mechanics at least every two levels for your mechanics character, right? yeah, so by level 4 or 5 you should realize that you need ~max skills. great. unfortunately, you may already have borked yourself outta that being a possibility...level 4 or 5 is too late to reach that realization. is one o' the reasons why it makes sense to make a pc with mechanics, 'cause even at level 3, the starting companions ain't ideal mechanics monkeys. HA! Good Fun!

stealth is admittedly broken at the moment. the developers has said that stealth ain't working the way it were envisioned. unfortunately, we got much equivocation regarding when we would see a fix. release? patch? expansion? obviously not release. so, patch or expansion? bets? HA! Good Fun!

actually, the skills curve were a surprise even to many beta folks. is no way to know, before playing poe, that you do not have enough skill points to effective max more than one skill per character. why would it be unreasonable to think that you could be endgame effective with 2 skills? sure, after playing the beta we learned very quick that the game were skewed towards encouraging us to max at least a few o' the skills (+11) on different characters, but with absolute no knowledge o' the system or the game, that isn't a logical assumption to be making. regarding skills, am glad we played the beta. HA! Good Fun!

the funny thing is, while we were planning to go the adventurer weapons focus route on our rouge build so that we would get the estoc and poleaxe, actual gameplay were making it clear to us that the way we were playing our party, giving our rogue a pike were typical the actual best weapon. reach weapons, for Gromnir, were outweighing the dr bypass o' the estoc. is particularly useful to have a reach weapon in those all too frequent doorway battles. have a weapon that does incredible damage is useless if you is too far away to hit enemies with it. dunno, other than morningstars, we see the 2h weapons as balanced enough. sure, we don't doubt that somebody will come up with a spreadsheet that shows that over the course o' an entire game, X weapon is clearly the best, but at the moment, we see balance o' usefulness for all 2h weapons, which is a good thing. on the other hand, ranged weapons... *shrug* proviso: we were only at level 6 before we gave up on the rogue until the reckless assault bug gets fixed. HA! Good Fun!

too often a complaint becomes a whine when you disagree with what the poster wants. *shrug* that too is mighty subjective. HA! Good Fun!

Speak for yourself mate! Really good jazz soundtrack on an FRPG would be awesome. we were speaking for our self. that were the point. HA! Good Fun!

gonna disagree with the genesis post. we don't like jazz. is not that we hate jazz, but other than the following, we has never much enjoyed jazz. if poe had a jazz soundtrack, we would like it less. subjective? hell yeah. when mike saas and the biowarians released teasers o' the bg2 portraits, there were more than a few complaints. is gonna sound offensive to some, but initial bg2 minsc looked to us as if he had down's syndrome, and we loathed the color palette with all the pastels. many folks complained about the prospective bg2 portraits and the reasons for disliking the images o' keldorn or imoen were all very subjective. so, what did bioware do? bioware changed the portraits in minor and major ways. personally, we still hated the portraits after saas made changes, but the community as a whole were approving. particularly as this game is a kickstarter, purchaser should offer up their criticisms, no matter how subjective. there were no chance for Gromnir to be objective and rational before making our purchase. we looked at obsidian's goals and we considered their history and then we offered obsidian money sight unseen. vote rational with our dollars or euros or yen were not possible. most o' the beta criticisms we saw were feel nonsense. ui should be more wood-grain, or were it less? perhaps it were more a color complaint? we frequent heard that classes should be more like bg iterations. we needed kill xp. when asked why such stuff were needed in poe, the poster would hurt themselves attempting to make something other than a complete subjective gut-level appeal. if we were a developer, we would scream in frustration but at the same time, those subjective considerations is as important to our enjoyment o' a game as is the objective. too much text? not for Gromnir, but we recall that criticism from ps:t. well guess what, after all the folks complained 'bout ps:t wall-o'-text ps:t dialogues, black isle changed. black isle, and even other developers, would use ps:t as a kinda a "Here, There Be Dragons," edge o' the map for dialog tediousness. developers would reassure potential purchasers that while their game would have impressive plot and character development, it wouldn't have as much dialog as ps:t. so, add a decade o' time for reflection and obsidian boasts that poe would go back to ps:t style dialogue and there were much rejoicing from the die hards. the thing is, what if folks don't like ps:t wall-o'-text more now than they did in 1999? yeah, folks has no cause to act surprised that dialogues is longer than in typical crpgs o' the 21st century, but if you don't like poe dialogues, you should freaking complain. complain now so that obsidian's next game won't add subjective stuff that you don't like. complain about subjective is not a bad thing, but don't pretend such complaints is objective and don't be surprised if developers have no response. Gromnir likes chicago-style pizza. other folks prefer ny. when it becomes time to order a pizza, am gonna voice our preference. why is game features a different scenario? HA! Good Fun!

so the only way to get any wael dialogue is to defy wael and return the scroll? odd. oh well. thanks. HA! Good Fun!

that is why we bring up the issue. we saw dialog options for the other faiths while playing poe, but none for wael when dealing directly with folks in the hall of revealed mysteries? struck us as odd. we weren't expecting much, but we did believe that there would be... something. HA! Good Fun!

the kill xp proponents got a token concession with the bestiary. *shrug* the obsidian folks were able to observe tester behavior before release and they will no doubt have considerable feedback post release o' poe regarding how players actual behaved in the game. is no need to belabour a point that were obvious to the obsidian folks all along. and yet... the kill-xp proponents were so darn ardent in advocating for per-kill xp grants that there is no way they is now gonna admit that the absence o' poe kill xp (please don't keep saying that the bestiary is what you folks were asking for) has been as significant as a mouse fart in a hurricane. is funny. is a dead issue. it were a dead issue before it became an issue. make 'em squeal a bit more at this point is gauche. HA! Good Fun!

so, until the reckless assault bug gets fixed on our rogue, we decided to play a priest o' wael character. the thing is, nobody in the hall of revealed mysteries, or anywhere else for that matter, has responded to our choice o' deities... which strikes us as odd. have had multiple objectives relating to wael and yet no wael dialogue options? perhaps the obsidians simply dropped the ball with priests o' wael and didn't add any priest specific dialogues for his/her priests, but that strikes us as unlikely. anybody else with a priest o' wael get denomination-specific dialogues? curious. HA! Good Fun!

hardly. looking just at very early game encounters, we storm that keep and coulda' avoided +80% o' the combat. eothas dungeon had considerable rooms that we coulda simple avoided. gonna call bs on this one. HA! Good Fun!

it's a review... by a game journalist. ... a random guy in an airport tells us that there is a new pizza place in town and it is awful. we happen to like the pizza joint in question. we tolerantly nod and smile as the self-proclaimed gourmand slanders the pizza we happily consumed within the last week. we then go on with the rest o' our life and forget the encounter until just now as we recount it to you. the review from gamespot is a random guy stating his opinion 'bout a game. by definition, his opinion can't be wrong and the only reason we would care about the gamespot review is if we had read previous reviews by the author and found that his opinions and Gromnir's gaming preferences were in tune. review o' a game we already has purchased and is playing for ourself is meaningless. we find the whole notion o' railing about game journalism or game journalists to be ridiculously quixotic. HA! Good Fun!

... that has always been the criticism o' using fists. you cannot enchant fists with all the secondary and tertiary effects possible with other weapons. we all know that fists is great weapons compared to vanilla iterations o' other weapons, but you won't be using vanilla, or even chocolate. am appreciating the effort, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSRiLX-Qggk *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

if you wanna play a tank barbarian... actually, we got nothing. ain't seen a decent poe tank barbarian build. HA! Good Fun!

'course you are right, which is why d&d 3e were so much better before they changed the front-loaded ranger, fixed harm and addressed the various attack-of-opportunity exploits. ... wait, we got that bass ackwards. d&d 3e were a better game after the obvious exploits were removed. sure, as each new splat book were added to 3e, it were impossible to keep up with all the potential exploits, but that doesn't change the fact that fixing the exploits and adding balance improved d&d. poe won't have all the prestige class nonsense and there won't be a monetary motivation to keep churning out poorly balanced and ill-considered supplements as most crpgs take far longer to develop than does pnp supplements. the obsidian developers will, over the course o' the next few months, have the opportunity to fix a goodly number o' the obviously broken mechanics/features... they will have a chance to make poe better. will a few exploits always remain? is almost a rl example o' the zeno motion paradox. if each patch fixes half remaining exploits, you never reach a point where all exploits is addressed, eh? *shrug* is gonna be bugs that never get fixed neither, but it sure as heck don't make sense to stop fixing bugs anymore than it makes sense to ignore broken mechanics and features. is a new system, and like any good crpg or rpg system, there will be flaws. so, fix the gosh darn flaws and make the game better. HA! Good Fun!

agreed. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67775-no-portrait-for-ocean-folk/?p=1491397 HA! Good Fun! ps am doing the easter bit for the rest o' the day, but our best holiday wishes to all on this occasion. also, there is a missing link to a scene from the duelists in our post. don't recall the exact image we used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOcxnQRUhMM

reckless assault were s'posed fixed in 1.03. unfortunately, their fix weren't retroactive. if you already had the stacked reckless assault modifiers, you retained them post patch. no reason to do so as this is a Known issue. developers have responded in similar threads and folks have offered such saves. unfortunately, the problem persists. HA! Good Fun!