Gromnir

am not sure if we fully agree, but we do enjoy the current wl2 combat even if it is a bit... quirky. however, the wl2 combat we saw from their original beta were, to put it mildly, a mess. inxile made many changes to wl2, both minor and major, based 'pon player feedback. for better or worse, obsidian is not developing PoE with same reliance 'pon player feedback. is also not gonna take obsidian near a full extra year (gonna quibble over a month?) to get PoE out the door past the original release estimate. HA! Good Fun!

pps in the spirit of full disclosure, we did rare use prestige classes in our own pnp d20 campaigns, but they were never taken from splat book and they were all very limited by scope o' our own setting. we had, for example, an angakkuq prestige class for a particular campaign, but the angakkuq wouldn't function in typical d20 campaign. we did kinda an inuit inspired setting and a character could become a "shaman" that had some very specific abilities tied to the tornat (spirits) that were unique to our setting... it were not simple a quirky cleric neither as virtual any class could add angakkuq levels. the only reason we had a prestige class option(s) were 'cause our setting(s) had unique elements not present in ordinary d20. obsidian built their classes to fit their setting, so they wouldn't be having a use/need for prestige classes as did Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

am not much of a class fan, but we loathe kits and prestige classes. everything you get from d20 prestige classes coulda/shoulda been done with multi-classing and feats. unfortunately, prestige classes became a way for players to exploit loopholes and create functional super-powers. prestige classes were one o' the main flaws o' d20... although we get the appeal from a business perspective. wotc were in the business o' selling games. use chess as an opposing example. chess is a perfectly balanced game, but once you sell a board and pieces to a player, how are you gonna continue squeezing money from your junkie/fan o' chess? sure, maybe every few years the player upgrades his chess set, and maybe some folks is collectors, but chess is a finished and complete product. d&d needs be having room for expansion, and apparently you can't make enough money selling monster and adventure supplements... well maybe you can make enough money doing monster and adventure supplements, but the wotc folks discovered that the splat books with new feats and spells and prestige classes sold extreme well. what game Seller is gonna leave money on the table simply 'cause they not wanna threaten the balance o' the core game? not wotc. kits were even worse than prestige classes in our mind, 'cause such nonsense were typical ad&d front loading. sure, much as with prestige classes you were selling players on the possibility o' finding the kewlest super-powered kit, but kits were a first-level boogeyman which made 'em even more limited and limiting in our mind. and yes, not every kit or prestige class were over-powered, but that is what folks (the larger mass o' typical purchasers) actual wanted from 'em. 'course there will now be a dozen folks claiming that they were honorable and equitable role-players who cared not a bit 'bout kit or prestige class power, but Gromnir is gonna call BS. any other folks were here during iwd2 development? am gonna hold off sharing our iwd2 kits anecdote yet again til after some role-play purist tells us that there ain't nothing wrong with kits or the folks who want them. the obsidian folks know better. back on the current topic... but will attempt brevity. am gonna admit surprise at how much we like Most o' the PoE classes. exception: cleric/priest is once again a near essential heal-bot, which is annoying, but most classes have unique gameplay features that make 'em all compelling to play. mages, rogues and fighters is archetypal and arguably boring compared to other PoE classes, but not compared to ie game equivalents. wizards is, as is expected, defined by their spell selection, but they is not complete useless in combat, particular depending on how attribute points are allocated. still, a wizard is defined by spell selection. if you like wizard spells, you like wizard. the bb fighter is a functional mmo tank, and we ain't made our own fighter as yet to see what we may do to customize the class different. nevertheless, our 5th level fighter clear has far more options in combat than did any ie equivalent... and that includes an iwd2 fighter, which were the 7th or 8th improvement/incarnation o' the ie games. am not understanding criticisms that rogues is boring as they has considerable encounter abilities, and when we mix cipher with rogue escape, we get many extreme interesting results. oh, and as noted above in this thread, am thinking we might be playing paladin wrong because battles took literal 2x as long to finish with a paladin main as any other class we has played, and that is all but monk and fighter at this point. however, we ain't played paladin since the patch, so... am enjoying classes, and we don't like classes. is a good sign. that being said, we need more talent options to functional customize. at this point, Gromnir is already kinda getting into a rut with how we play certain classes. that is a not so good sign. HA! Good Fun! ps (edit) just so is clear, in theory we don't hate prestige classes or kits, but the way they has invariably been implemented and the kind o' kits that has been demanded is proof to us that they don't work in crpgs or pnp rpgs.

admitted, we did not read the whole thread. were our mistake to think that the topic were relevant to PoE. ... wait a sec... well, ignore our post as it not seem to be relevant to what inexile is doing with torment. HA! Good Fun!

bloody mess were a trait picked at 0 level. most traits had a benefit and a handicap. ideally, the trait pros and cons balanced themselves resulting in a net 0 gain. gifted, on the other hand, had a benefit that far exceeded the handicap and has become a wonderful example o' how not to design such stuff in crpgs... evar. fallout were not a particularly well-balanced game, but bloody mess isn't actual analogous to the present topic as it were a trait that had no benefit and no handicap... were just fun. HA! Goof Fun!

Everything is a challenge. Develop 11 balanced classes, lots of useful weapons, 6 attributes... challenging. Talents are no exception, but there's a great value in having 11 classes instead of 3, six attributes instead of two and 7 talents of your choice instead of 4. and as we noted earlier, having 11 classes made coming up with additional talents more difficult as many talents will necessarily be class specific. Gromnir is in favor o' more choice. however, am recognizing that going from one talent every three levels to one every two would be creating considerable more work. if obsidian could manage such a feat and keep such talents balanced, diverse and genuine useful, "we would be ecstatic." am not suggesting that obsidian should ignore pleas for more talents. however, we were responding to folks who thought increasing the rate o' talents were a forgone conclusion. we don't current see the rate o' talents being increased. is so much on obsidian plate at the moment and they know that increase talent rate increases balancing concerns... and they is planning on making this game a series. they can't simply consider what folks would want from PoE. what is best if you end up with twenty-four or thirty levels by game three? *shrug* we like more, but... HA! Good Fun!

ps if goal is to get players to explore every corner o' wilderness maps, we suggest a different route: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68164-a-different-view-on-the-whole-xp-controversy/?p=1502749 were more than a few suggestions from folks such as kgambit and cant for developing an actual exploration Quest. conversely, a tedious mechanic to promote exploration feels... cheap. HA! Good Fun!

OE will likely increase the rate at which we get talents. I'd bet... oh... 100$ on it. Yea..but like Josh was saying this is supposed to be the IWD/BG type of game so it isn't and probably shouldn't be realistic to have a complete character fully fleshed out in this game. I feel if we get talents too often it will become bloated towards the end and inevitably the talents in PE2 will be less interesting/useful(or flat out over the top). 9 or 10 feats from levels 1-20 should work IMO and then whatever they decide to do above 20 if it goes beyond that. Yeah I'd expect they end up going with 1 or 2 talents at lvl 1, then 1 every 2 levels from there. Sounds about right: 7 talents (player agency) and 14 abilities (class progression). I'd much rather have 7 moderately strong talents, so I can mix and match them, than 3 or 4 super strong ones. The BB talents are moderately strong, weaker than abilities. And it's not like they'll design talents so that they're useless for level 10 characters, but ultrapowerful on level 1 - 3 (i.e. most of them, I presume, will be available regardless of level). Also, as expected: "The issue has never been that we don't have ideas for Talents (we have a doc full of them)" -Josh coming up with ideas for talents is easy. deciding which ones is gonna be actual useful and desirable is hard. am not certain how many times we played fallout 2, but we will say with some confidence that we never used more than 1/3 o' the available perks... which is much like PoE talents. there were something close to 75 (am guessing... honest don't know the number) fo2 perks total, and we used a relative small fraction. hell, fallout (original) had a couple skills that only a complete idiot would choose. there is still people that have no idea what outdoorsman added to fallout. were no way for a New player to know that fo original outdoorsman and many fo2 perks were worthless. we made a joke earlier in this thread about a talent that would double the usefulness o' camping supplies. it would not surprise us if such a talent were on josh's doc. even so, is a talent that only one in a bazillion PoE players would choose. is a nice role-play talent, but is functional a waste o' space. for obsidian to develop a quality spread o' talents that is balanced, diverse and genuine useful is gonna be a challenge. am gonna be very impressed if we get a final list o' talents that we see 2/3 o' them being useful for any Gromnir build, real or imagined. HA! Good Fun! ps we did not accidentally bold "balanced." that were a Major problem for fo game perks as many were so much more useful than others that they effective became no-brainer choices. am knowing that balance is an ugly word around here, but is never about power when Gromnir uses. we will choose less powerful if we get equal use and fun from a weapon/ability/feat/talent/whatever. even so, balance is, and should be, a serious concern... and balance is hard.

the way you make plant aspect o' crafting neat (i.e. free o' disorder) is to get rid o' plants as ingredients. plants is an unnecessary bit o' bloat with an awkward and tedious mechanic. more is not always better. this is one such case. disable plant pixel hunting and remove plants from recipes. alternatively, at least let us use tab. is freaking annoying to pixel hunt. plants is an unnecessary addition with a horribly unimaginative and uninteresting mechanic. at least let us tab and reduce the tedium. HA! Good Fun!

No I don't though I'm sure inXile wants to spin it that way. I was there on PS:T forums back when the game was being developed so I know what I'm talking about. Black Isle obtained IE license when the engine wasn't even finished. And then they heavily modified it for PS:T until it was exactly what they wanted. Feargus said to use it, they didn't plan to use it originally. You can check out Matt Chat videos with Feargus as guest to get the full story we observed the old ps:t boards as well... which doesn't matter. bis reason for using infinity engine don't matter. is ps:t an infinity engine game? yes? is infinity engine games real-time with pause? yes? and most important, did obsidian specifically state in their kickstarter that they would use real-time with pause for combat? yes? if this were an issue, it were an issue before obsidian made their kickstarter pitch. doesn't matter how or why ps:t ended up as an ie game 'cause ps:t, for the actual relative small number o' people that played it, were an ie game with rtwp. and again, one o' the few specific claims made by obsidian in the kickstarter were that combat would be rtwp. perhaps some thinks PoE would be better as a tb game. *shrug* is an intriguing hypothetical. after you folks save mr. schrödinger's cat, you can work on the PoE tb question. HA! Good Fun!

this the "spirit" or "spiritual successor" stuff is mostly nonsense. however, one o' the few kickstarter claims obsidian made were... well, we might as well quote. "Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment. "Combat uses a tactical real-time with pause system - positioning your party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the keys to success. The world map is dotted with unique locations and wilderness ripe for exploration and questing. You’ll create your own character and collect companions along the way – taking him or her not just through this story, but, with your continued support, through future adventures. You will engage in dialogues that are deep, and offer many choices to determine the fate of you and your party. …and you'll experience a story that explores mature themes and presents you with complex, difficult choices to shape how your story plays out." we underlined and bolded for emphasis. am wishing folks would quit all the "spirit" hokum-- doesn't mean anything. one o' the few features that obsidian were clear about in their kickstarter were the bit above about real-time with pause. HA! Good Fun!

OE will likely increase the rate at which we get talents. I'd bet... oh... 100$ on it. am not wanting to be a wet blanket, but that would represent a considerable amount o' work. at level 12 you would have 6 talents if obsidian switched to one talent every two levels. hopefully most o' the talents will not be class specific, but many will be. you need add a considerable number o' talents at each tier to makes folks believe they is making meaningful choices-- nobody is gonna be happy with worthless talent choices that is just filler. we don't even have a particularly deep spread o' talents at the moment. ... we would be ecstatic if obsidian could add one talent every two levels, but at the moment, Gromnir would be quite satisfied if we could get genuine diversity and usefulness from the one per three scheme currently in place. HA! Good Fun!

Bows fire slower than melee weapons do, and you will also note if you read my post earlier in the thread replying to Josh that 1H fast and 1H normal weapons are also an inferior choice at the moment against any armor (except Stilettos and Maces) compared to 2H weapons. Ignorance is bliss I guess. What I am saying to you is that the DPS reduction you are inflicting on the enemy (0.5 seconds every interrupt) is not worth as much as the DPS you gain from a point in Might, a point in Dexterity or the extra duration length you get from buffs in Intellect. Your Bow and Bear ranger is one of the only use cases where Interrupts are kinda useful. Shadenuat also managed to have good results with his Dual Stiletto wielding Barbarian. I have to ask, does your Ranger also have a good Dexterity ? our ranger has excellent dexterity and perception as its main function is interrupting... maybe. am not certain if we is interrupting and what actions we can interrupt or how successful we is. regardless, you is looking at the wrong stat in the present case. you should be asking about resolve. the immediate question is if the relative longer reload time o' firearms is creating a greater window o' opportunity to be interrupted, and how being a Victim o' interrupts is affecting actual damage output o' bow users v. firearms users. our cipher damage with the hunting bow were considerably better than labadal's numbers, but the genuine question is the effective increase in attack frequency we is getting due faster reload time for bows... which o'course needs must take into account Resolve and resistance to interrupts. as has been noted elsewhere, the current ai is a bit wonky in the beta with the bb fighter being mobbed. such will, apparently, be less frequent in the regular game. our ranged combatants will be targeted more frequent. as we noted already, our firearms users is already more noticeable victims o' interrupts. if that factor will increase in the non beta portion o' the game, bow usefulness further increases... maybe... potentially, don't know. HA! Good Fun! ps am still believing the bear companion is busted. haven't played a ranger since the recent update, but the bear typical had an accuracy o' 77 and were doing damage in the 50-70 range. our ranger bow damage were an almost negligible factor in determining our effective dps

Not quite. Interrups are dependent on a number of factors. Firstly you have to score at least a graze to qualify for an interrupt. Interrupt rolls are reduced by 50% on a graze and increased by 50% on a crit, making Interrupts reliant on your Accuracy to be effective. A point in Dexterity will add between 0.5% and 1.5% to your Interrupts over a course of time, whereas a point in Perception will add 3%. However this percentage is relative to the Base Interrupt of the weapon or spell you are using, the Defense score of the enemy and their Concentration so it's really hard to quantify how useful Interrupts are but it's safe to say that a point in Perception is weaker than a point in any other attribute. all of which tells us very little about how interrupts are affecting actual combat. am aware o' the relative impact o' perception and dexterity on causing interrupts, but we cannot tell what actions is interrupted and how. *shrug* as we said, firearms have a longer reload time and appear to be getting interrupted more frequent. that is an important factor that is being overlooked. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking interrupts is a factor being overlooked... but we cannot tell. as we noted above, we have frequently seen our firearms users being interrupted. bow users is interrupted far less frequent... maybe-- we can't say for sure. if because o' interrupts we is getting significant more potential attacks with a bow than with a firearm, that is a big consideration. nevertheless, we don't know how to check such. is not transparent. the combat log gives many numbers, but the combat log is brief, and the numbers aren't attached to specific causes... can become very confusing. HA! Good Fun!

interrupts are missing for one thing. the combat logs is also extreme brief, so while we can see one attack by every combatant in a melee, that don't translate to useful combat feedback. as noted above, a single firearm blast is doing more damage than a single arrow hit, so we cannot compare overall combat efficacy o' bows v. guns without doing some quirky number crunching and extrapolating. we also can see deflection and accuracy numbers, but frequently those numbers... change. on one attack our accuracy may be 53. on another it will be 49. ok, we got the numbers, but the numbers don't tell us the why we need to make sense of combat. other numbers is similarly peculiar. give us all the numbers is nice, but we don't always have a cause to tie those numbers to. we can replay PoE later and give specific examples if that will help. the numbers ain't the problem... or they might be. honestly, we don't know if the numbers is problematic 'cause we typical is guessing 'bout the causes attached to numbers that do not meet our expectations.

magic ammo were an issue with d&d and the ie games http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68032-no-arrows-good-thing-or-bad/?p=1497056 'course, we don't have such ammo in PoE, so that ain't an issue. honestly, the combat logs is so brief that we cannot tell what the relative damage outputs are. we use bows for interrupting, and we don't know when/if/how interrupting is working. guns throw up very obvious large damages that are startling big compared to bows, but over the course o' a long battle does the numbers even out? am suspecting it is more difficult to interrupt a bow user, and we know our gun users have been interrupted during long reloads. this is another case in which the brevity o' the combat logs make it difficult to be certain about relative combat efficacy. oh, and seriously, we need some better notion o' how interrupts work and is defended against... and we would like to be able to recognize when a successful interrupt occurs. HA! Good Fun! ps inability to recognize when we successful interrupt is an example o' our biggest current complaint with combat. we like that PoE combat is multi-layered and complex, but at the same time, we frequent feel a bit lost as to what is actual happening. we use buffs and abilities mainly 'cause the descriptions o' such abilities sounds impressive, but we often have little notion as to whether or not such abilities are efficacious or how efficacious. is also difficult to tell which friends or foes is affected by buffs and debuffs. we see some numbers that don't necessarily make obvious sense in the combat logs. is buffs and debuffs adjusting numbers? possibly, but we can rare tell which beetle, spider or guard is affected by a buff or debuff. there is much happening in PoE combat... is good that PoE is complex. heck, if this were a turn-based game, with turn-based mechanics, am certain that we could easily make sense o' it all. 'course tb would probable make combat soul-numbing slow at times too. in any event, PoE is not tb, and so it is frequent very difficult to figure out wth is happening given the brevity o' combat logs and seeming lack o' transparency with certain mechanics.

*insert eye-roll here* we gave indira benefit o' the doubt that there functional isn't a difference 'tween actual promises and spiritual successor nonsense, but trying to use as a bolstering of the initial flawed argument is bold... amusing, but bold. HA! Good Fun!

to be fair, indira never actual claimed obsidian promised "spiritual successor." he took kickstarter promises and extrapolated that phrase. after a few pages, folks adopted indira language. *shrug* "Obsidian Entertainment and our legendary game designers Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer are excited to bring you a new role-playing game for the PC. Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment. "Project Eternity aims to recapture the magic, imagination, depth, and nostalgia of classic RPG's that we enjoyed making - and playing. At Obsidian, we have the people responsible for many of those classic games and we want to bring those games back… and that’s why we’re here - we need your help to make it a reality!" from a practical pov, is there a difference between imagining promises based on the above as 'posed to spiritual successor? as we noted elsewhere, the more vague obsidian made their promises, ironically, the more they opened themselves up to criticism from those who ain't seeking to be fair. can PoE possibly pay homage to the ie games if it doesn't include __________ ? HA! Good Fun!

1) objective v. quest is complete irrelevant relating to the question of the thread: both/either/whatever exclude kill xp. 2) objective v. quest is a semantics issue. honestly. were not an issue two years ago and isn't today. 3) yes, you get incremental xp for taking various significant steps in achieving quests-- this is confirmed. HA! Good Fun!

the one observation we will add is that in one o' the mattchat videos, feargus observed that resources were already being allocated to the PoE expansion. feargus also expressed certitude that PoE would release in 2014. am guessing based on comments about the south park game, that interview were done more than a month ago... though am admittedly not certain exactly how long ago the actual interview took place. seriously expecting feature changes that would require significant resource costs strikes us as a bit narcissistic. if one could get many thousands o' people to protest overwhelming against a specific feature, then perhaps a change might be implemented, but even that don't seem too likely. that being said, folks can be lobbying for expansion changes, whether they is explicitly asking for them or not. now, keep in mind that many boardy observations about game features that don't match what developers has seen from their own testers and QA feedback will be viewed with developer skepticism. is fans who is prognosticating doom based on inclusion or exclusion o' particular features and no doubt the developers who is getting feedback direct from folks playing is listening to the wannabee Oracles at Delphi with more amusement than concern. at the same time, perhaps some boardy will indeed make an interesting observation or come up with a unique solution that had not yet been considered and dismissed by the obsidians months or years ago. the boards is a valuable bit o' cheap advertising for obsidian, but am thinking most fans have a disproportionate sense o' the worth o' the boards to the developers. the reality that the boards, from the developer pov, is mostly noise does not eliminate the possibility that a poster will offer constructive feedback or devise an elegant solution. yeah, anything said here is unlikely to result in changes to PoE, but it is possible that changes to the expansion, which is apparently already being developed, could be implemented. folks might be screaming for PoE changes that is impossible, but that doesn't make expansion changes out of the question... even if the stuff likely to get changes is not meshing with what many current boardies believe is required changes to make PoE a true spiritual successor with the right feel. HA! Good Fun!

which don't mean anything. seriously. define what qualities make for a spiritual successor? Simple. You extract the spirit from the original game using Animancy, then +1 it, and then put it into the body of a new game... isn't that how the developer's update regarding animancy informed us that those horrific undead monsters were created? or were that how magic item were made... or both? we should probable reread animancy stuff. undead were binding spirit to corpse, yes? actual bind spirit to game probable only results in a game we wish were dead rather than undead. regardless, PoE uses % rather than d20, so we give +5%... unless that violates the spiritual successorship o' the game. is all very confusing... and silly... and pointless. HA! Good Fun!

what you are stating is self-evident and should be beyond the possibility of contesting. and yet... *shrug* bg wilderness is actual another great example similar to bg ranged weapons excess. the bg2 boards were extreme vocal regarding the loathing o' bg1 wilderness maps. More durlag's, Less random wilderness. hell, even vol will chime in and admit that the bg2 boards were ugly and angry against bg1 wilderness being in bg2. nevertheless, many folks see a return o' such maps as essential. it strikes us as slight amusing that obsidian should use such vague and ambiguous descriptors and still find themselves being accused o' developer malfeasance and/or failure to live up to promises. predictable? sure, but is funny in a sad kinda way. leave vague actual makes it possible for any beloved feature to be essential. how do you argue against the essential nature o' feature X if is only essential 'cause o' subjective feel? HA! Good Fun!

Sorry but no, I won't stop doing that. that's fine... we didn't expect you to. doesn't change how ridiculous it is to argue over what does and doesn't qualify as features essential to replicating the feel o' an spiritual ie successor. HA! Good Fun!

" half of what is occurring in battles is functional a "mystary." am knowing that the obsidians think the "mystary" bit is funny, but is Gromnir's opinion that squad-based, tactical combat should be a bit more transparent. " ok, we stated what we think is a problem. we gave specific example o' enemy buffs to as further illustration o' what we intend. ... even so, we don't see an ez fix. bugs is relative speaking, ez fixes once identified. how do we fix the lack o' transparency for even one issue such as enemy buffs? is there a fix? then again, perhaps is a gestalt thing. as we noted earlier, bg2 didn't have similar transparency, but it didn't have same functional complexity due to PoE adding o' multiple new mechanics. we would be quite happy if obsidian did come up with a solution, but we cannot offer anything constructive. as such we is cynical that fixing what appears to be a design issue would be largely beyond the capacity to fix before 2014 ends. 'course, some solutions is gordian knot kinda things. folks not wanna admit that quest/task/objective xp is one such solution, but it is. nevertheless, perhaps the transparency issue is one such case that the solution is so simple and Gromnir still ain't seeing it "Turn-based combat." am suspecting that this is too obvious o' a solution. we prefer tb, but from the start this game were being sold as real-time with pause. the minutiae folks is railing 'bout as violating the spiritual successorship o' PoE to the ie games would be as nothing compared to the rage tb would inspire from some folks... though we thinks we would be amused by how many peoples would be on inexplicably opposite polarities regarding tb v. other essential ie qualities. HA! Good Fun! edit: had to edit out our cant quote... board software didn't like something about what cant said, but just assume we is directly responding to cant's post.