Gromnir

in the developer thread for barbarians and fighters, you were one of the only persons who observed that the the fighter seemed kinda like a vanilla tank. 'pon reflection, you were the lone person who made such an observation. josh explained the PoE fighter's role, and then there were much rejoicing... save for some folks who wanted to turn the thread into a balance debate. in any event, folks were recognizing, accepting and seeming pleased with the role o' the PoE fighter. what is truly amazing to us is we has seen some folks from this thread who posted in the developer update thread for fighters... and yet they act shocked that the PoE fighter does not play like a bg fighter. regardless, am agreeing that the PoE fighter is more interesting than their bg counterparts. the bb fighter is low maintenance, but we have numerous options in combat. given the role o' the PoE fighter, we don't understand the complaints... save that many folks is wanting the PoE fighter's role to be different. more than a few folks folks complaining o' boring want the PoE fighter to play like the bg fighter. HA! Good Fun!

Wrong again.. It's been stated about 1000 times why this argument is crap That's not a rebuttal. I could just as easily say that it's been stated about 2000 times why this argument is good. And neither of us would be correct, because the necessity of combat XP for game (and combat) enjoyment is a matter of PERSONAL PREFERENCE. Stop acting like your position is the only reasonable one. Combat XP is a good reward system for RPG gameplay. That doesn't mean it's the only good reward system. OE is doing something different - good for them! Let's help them succeed instead of bitching endlessly about one single feature as if the game will live or die based on its inclusion. am not certain if we agree that combat xp is a good reward system for PoE. we gotta consider the goals o' the games and the developers, no? stated goals is balance, providing diversity of character build options and simplicity. no doubt there is a way to make combat xp balanced and encourage, rather than discourage, build diversity, but doing so would take considerable effort. the effort spent on making combat xp could be spent elsewhere on any number o' different features and options. regardless, combat xp is not simple if you want balance and to encourage diversity o' character builds, sooooo... *shrug* in any event, folks is fighting over when they get their pie. the developers does reward you in PoE. they got a very good notion that X amount o' hours o' gameplay will yield Y numbers of leveling opportunities. the developers has stated that they wanted to slow leveling down compared to recent d&d crpgs, but regardless, they gots a very good notion o' how quickly people will level in theircrpg, and leveling and getting loot is the typical rewards in these games. is not that absence o' combat is failing at rewarding players, is simple that players in PoE, as it is currently designed, is getting larger and more predictable xp rewards. end result is gonna be the same whether combat were implemented or not. however, you is necessarily demanding an extra (and unnecessary) step from developers as they would need try and figure out how to provide xp totals for gameplay that would result in their current rate o' leveling. why? why make a system more complex? why make more difficult and time consuming when end result for player will be the same? elegance and simplicity is not necessary in an xp mechanic. nevertheless, particular given the limited resources available to the developers at this time, and recognizing that this same issue was beat to death two years ago, why on earth would you subvert simplicity and elegance for combat xp? 'cause folks want their pie... now? you get no argument that combat xp can work in a crpg, but given the stated goals of the developers, and the limited development time remaining, we will once again observe that if combat xp were to be implemented in PoE, the time to do so woulda' been two years ago. nietzsche would weep. this poor horse has been beaten past recognition. HA! Good Fun!

and you is getting rewarded in the current system, but some kids is demanding their pie now! they don't wanna wait. they want it NOW. they need to see that xp counter tick up at this very moment, or it don't count... or somesuch. *chuckle* and if you honestly get ego-stroked from beating a game that is meant to be beatable by any kid aged 13 or older (am being a bit conservative on the age thing), then perhaps you look at games different from us... which is fine. we like obsidian story telling, and we looks at the combat as moderate fun puzzles, but we never genuine bought into the ego stroking aspect... though we know it is a selling point, particularly for bioware games. one reason folks had a problem with ps:t and iwd is that some folks couldn't identify with tno or their iwd party. that has never been an issue for Gromnir, so perhaps we is simple wired different. that being said, while we recognize that crpg developers is frequently selling the ego-stroke, the notion that some kids can't wait a few minutes to get their pie strikes us as bordering on the insane. HA! Good Fun!

Every crap trash mob cant be a quest because then you have created the situation that the non-kill XP crowd are whining about. Its degenerative gameplay, now Ill be FORCED to kill everything, me OCD!, immurshun, people will stealth past then go back and kill, etc... I don't see what was fixed by doing this.. Just add Combat XP then adjust quests to counter weight things out so that passive quest rewards give higher bonuses to offset the killing of NPC's, then make the NPC's disappear or worth nothing.. or, you could simply leave things the way they is and you don't need have go through what even indira were admitting is a taxing process o' balancing. h Oh well if Indira admitted it then I guess it's all over.. Fact of the matter is.. I don't care how taxing it is. It would be much less taxing if they did this **** a year ago. Making good games is taxing regardless.. if making good games was easy, everyone would do it. I'm a player and I don't care how hard or long it is for them to balance a game at the end of the day. I understand it will take time, that it's hard and that it might mean delays and future patches and a longer beta.. but at the end of the day, it's their job to do it.. and it's been done before. This argument doesn't hold water for me grommy. sure it holds water. game is being released this year. *shrug* what you want is a kinda childish bit o' ego stroking, but from a practical perspective, what you want is difficult to add to a game that is already on a rather aggressive, and seemingly fixed, release schedule. eventually, you become just another karzak demanding dw for bg2 thieves, or a kid cursing out his mom demanding pie. http://consumerist.com/2014/08/06/jerk-or-genius-burger-king-customers-buys-23-apple-pies-just-so-loudmouthed-kid-cant-get-one/ *shrug* but go for it. is your time and and dignity you is spending. HA! Good Fun! ps is people still trying to sell the notion that lack of kill xp makes combat pointless? *insert patronizing eye-roll here*

It's a lot like FT, but FT had better level design for the kind of game they were trying to make. W2 is all over the place, it doesn't know if it wants to be a dungeon crawler or an adventure game fo:t were a highly underrated, squad-based, tactical combat game... right up til you started fighting robots. if wasteland 2 combat and level design were near as engaging, we would be overjoyed. wasteland 2 is kinda a frankenstein amalgam, but it can still be fun. sadly, am thinking that the game will, from a combat perspective, have far less replay depth than we woulda' hoped. is too easy to see that there is correct builds for various kinda combat characters, and combat encounters is largely meh. correct builds diminishes replay value. the seemingly tacked-on role-play aspects will be where limited replay is realized, and while the rp is indeed limited, those rp aspects may be enough to get a couple replays... even if the combat is sooooo old skoole that it suffers from alzheimers that is bordering on dementia. HA! Good Fun!

Every crap trash mob cant be a quest because then you have created the situation that the non-kill XP crowd are whining about. Its degenerative gameplay, now Ill be FORCED to kill everything, me OCD!, immurshun, people will stealth past then go back and kill, etc... I don't see what was fixed by doing this.. Just add Combat XP then adjust quests to counter weight things out so that passive quest rewards give higher bonuses to offset the killing of NPC's, then make the NPC's disappear or worth nothing.. or, you could simply leave things the way they is and you don't need have go through what even indira were admitting is a taxing process o' balancing. have people complete larger objectives or quests or tasks or whatever the hell you want to call it so it don't result in childish bawling, and then give out nice and balanced xp awards that do not discriminate for or against combat... or against any other method o' completion. current method is elegant, balanced and extreme simple. add unnecessary complexity 'cause a handful o' kids need instant gratification from every bug killed or every lock opened is a silly-arsed approach. nevertheless, we see that obsidian is trying to throw folks a bone. give folks something illusory and maybe they will be satisfied. we will observe that such a approach has worked in the past. am guessing it were worth a shot. HA! Good Fun!

that's old skoole, baby! we got no idea if that feature is still in the game. we won't know til we manage to reach at least post level 30 material, and that is what makes wasteland 2 fun, right? regardless, the developers did raise rose's int to 10. did developers raise rose's brain wattage to make sure that surgeon skill would be fully expandable with the odd surgeon skill ceiling for intelligence? equally plausible is inxile raised intelligence of the med npc because you need a 10 int to fully develop the med skills to a meaningful level. maybe the developers, to alleviate boredom, had office hamster races to set joinable npc abilities and skills. hamster #10 won when the rodents were running for rose's intelligence? makes as much sense as some wasteland 2 choices. HA! Good Fun!

again, that arguable cheat is only possible because of d&d cr, and we never had to "slog through 20 hardened fire trolls and get 0 xp," so am not certain if you is being hyperbolic or if you played a different iwd2 than Gromnir... or perhaps intentional or accidental availed yourself of other exploits earlier in the game. regardless, iwd2 problems you identify is related to d&d cr, which PoE doesn't have. HA! Good Fun!

as we noted, cr resulting in 0 xp from kills would be exacerbated by a smaller party, but for particular monsters it could happen in iwd2 as bis were clear more interested in developing challenging and fun encounters than they were in making certain that every bugbear kill resulted in an xp gain for a party. perhaps ironically, bis coulda' used quest xp to fill-in any potential shortfalls due to following d&d cr. that being said, am not certain what xp related exploits you refer to. there weren't a great deal of tangential material in iwd2-- you were kinda on rails as far as encounters were concerned. a game such as bg were far more subject to xp exploits. HA! Good Fun! edit: am seeing you responded 2x, but we responded to the embedded material from your first response. this may result in confusion.

the beta, at the time we played it, did not reveal what were an effective end-game basement level for medical skills. we were stuck in arizona, so an answer based on experience would not be enlightening. However, player feedback of the beta did note that the joinable med skills npc obtainable at the ag center did not have an intelligence that would allow med skills to be developed deep into the game. her int would be equivalent to a 4 in the release day version of wasteland 2. inxile boosted that character's intelligence to 10. since we is going old skoole, you may need to wait til a few players get deep in the game and post their impressions before you get a definitive answer. HA! Good Fun!

true. in point o' fact, unlike the imagined "spiritual successor" nonsense we have seen tossed 'bout recently, obsidian did makes the following claim on the kickstarter page for project eternity. "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." two years ago, folks happily paid obsidian to give'em iwd-style combat. complaining that combat is not fun is always a valid point, but anybody who complains that combat "will be like IWDs" were clear not paying attention when they handed over their euros or greenbacks or yen to obsidian. "All this reminds me of IWD2's issue with "0 xp for you if you are X levels above the mobs you are fighting"." am not likely to give bis/obsidian a break, but what you were complaining about were a d&d mechanic. bis attempted to design challenging and fun encounters, but due to d&d d20 cr, particular monsters might not result in xp for a party, particular a smaller party that had level'd quicker. cr is a mechanic for a pnp system with a living and breathing dm. it obviously were not ideal for a crpg, but bis were stuck with it. neverthless, am thinking they were more concerned with getting players to face challenging and fun encounters as 'posed to making sure that every critter death resulted in xp. after all, developers could always adjust Quest rewards to make certain that folks were getting xp. HA! Good Fun!

you can force a player to speak to a quest giver. PoE is gonna be a story-driven game, like it or not. there will be essential plot points and such quests can be given simultaneous with reaching one o' those initial plot points. regardless, in the event that the quest giver is missed, such quests can be added automatically to a quest log. these is not noteworthy hurdles. *shrug* if the only point is to prevent the developers from calling an award of xp a quest, then it strikes us as silly. if you can offer players multiple routes to achieve objectives in a crpg, how can that be a bad thing? therefore, if you expunge options just so folks feel better that they is getting combat or exploration specifically, well, that doesn't make any sense to us either. HA! Good Fun!

am agreeing that josh statements is consistent... save for trap/lock xp. even so, we can see a bestiary and exploration being handled far better via quests. if you got objective rewards that allow for multiple methods o' completion, then that kinda sounds like a quest, even if is only completed via a mechanical process. if you do not give multiple methods o' completion, then developers is cheating themselves o' increasing meaningful role-play and replay options. am not certain what would be the point o' having a quest with multiple options for completion and satisfaction, but necessarily having different nomenclature just to appease the folks who want different kinds o' xp from quest xp. seems rather... silly. HA! Good Fun!

honestly, we don't see an advantage of Not doing as a quest. in case it were missed, kgambit added ideas http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68164-a-different-view-on-the-whole-xp-controversy/?p=1502756 is more you can do with quest structure. more should be better if we is talking of choice in a crpg, yes? HA! Good Fun!

am understanding that josh wants to throw folks a bone, but wouldn't it be better to use quests to achieve your goals? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68164-a-different-view-on-the-whole-xp-controversy/?p=1502749 whether it's exploration or a bestiary or even traps, we can see quests that would offer more options and ensure greater balance. *shrug* if the ultimate goal is to quiet the complainers, then we can see setting up various small objectives to give 'em a warm and fuzzy feeling, but you can accomplish the same thing with quests... but better. HA! Good Fun!

sadly/stoopidly, the equipment threshold is meaningful, particularly for front-line combatants. is ridiculous that a stat you might happily drop to 1 needs to be at 4 or 5 because of 1 piece of gear? HA! Good Fun!

were kinda surreal for a person who lives in nor cal and sees more raider and niners football than we might wish to observe the niners being the team that implodes in the second half as multiple opponent drives were extended due to costly personal foul calls. next game, harbaugh will direct his offense, without exception, to run on first and second down and then throw deep on 3rd. at that point we will be certain that an exorcist needs be called in to expel al davis' spectre from the niner's locker room. HA! Good Fun!

it's 4, I believe. 5 is for the other. poorer armor (the brown one) it was 4 in the beta. according to the boards, combat armor is now requiring 5 str. HA! Good Fun!

if we could actual hear? why would that be strange? we has been attracted to a few musicians After hearing them play. we woulda been unlikely to have thought singer X or guitar girl Y were hot, but after seeing them perform and hearing them, they became attractive to us. doesn't seem strange at all. probably a maturity thing. HA! Good Fun!

for any combat character, ranged or melee, you is gonna want at least 12 combat initiative. give your sniper at least 14 or 15 ci is likely a good idea. you cannot overvalue ci. am not kidding about ci. "high combat initiative is actual more valuable than it were in the beta, but is also harder to acquire high ci... folks new to wasteland 2 might not realize that ci doesn't simple determine order of attacks in a turn, but will also decide how many turns you effective get in a combat encounter-- high ci = more attack opportunities." strength is surprisingly less meaningful for melee characters than you would be likely to think based on previous similar games, but beyond awareness and coordination, speed is valuable. you still need str for crits damage, but you probably need prioritize ci and speed... you can get some ci value from speed, and you will be needing to move around the battlefield far more with a melee character and your heals than with a sniper. case in point: am a few hours in and am considering restarting. the stats for our joinable heals npc is fantastic, save for the fact that she has poor speed. with a 10 intelligence, we will be able to boost her med skills, computer science and maybe even give her an assault rifle, but her speed is just awful. if you need move around during fights, and heals and melee need to do much moving, you will want at least decent speed. maybe we get fifteen hours in before we decide poor speed is too big a hurdle? dunno. if we were to build a melee character, we might go with the min str to get combat armour, which is 5? 'course, we didn't build a melee for our initial 4 as there is a couple npc options that will suffice for that role, and we prefer guns. then again maybe there won't be a decent melee joinable npc-- much about the npcs has changed since beta. HA! Good Fun!

no doubt wals will not be able to understand your pov and questions. *shrug* regardless, having "dated" many very attractive women, we learned that there really is no correlation 'tween initial eye-test attractiveness and performance in bed and/or more meaningful attractiveness. we dated a ballerina/dancer for awhile. she were not classically beautiful, but having seen her perform, we thought she were exquisite. we has dated many attractive women, so perhaps we is less impressed traditional notions o' beauty. perhaps it is 'cause Gromnir were an athlete and we know that to be a national or world class dancer or swimmer is far more rare and admirable than is having perfect teeth and a nice rack. maybe we is just more mature than wals. regardless, when we see a dancer, diver, swimmer, runner or other athlete perform, we can see the beauty o' their skill and be impressed far more with their command o' their craft than whether or not they got b00bs that double as flotation devices. thankfully, beauty is subjective. how dull it would be if only wals' notions were appropriate, yes? HA! Good Fun!

Any public incident involving the cops in the US is going to get futzed fifteen ways from sunday. I think this was a mistake, but wouldn't this be down to a dispatcher error, rather than the cops themselves? to answer question, no. and the cops weren't mistaken either. dispatcher gets multiple calls that a crime is being committed. not sending a patrol car would be appropriate response? cops show up and and investigate crime so is not a random stop and identify situation. woman acts alternatively nutty and is unresponsive. dispatcher got wrong? how? cops didn't get wrong either, least not this time. the folks who got wrong were the actress-who-acted-like-an-actress at the time the incident first occurred. after the fact it were her and her boyfriend who got it wrong when they used social media to stir up a poop storm for no reason other than the fact that no-name actress went loopy. all the local and national pundits who were crying foul without any supporting facts also got wrong, 'cause now it is fashionable to assume that cops did wrong before getting any facts. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/21/civil-rights-leaders-demand-django-unchained-actre/ am not certain where lingering confusion is. HA! Good Fun! ps is just another reason why Gromnir don't date actress anymore.

*sigh* well, reading skills aside, you is right that the women we mentioned in our last couple posts aren't considered physical attractive... which were kinda the point. duh. HA! Good Fun!

we noted earlier that we don't pay much attention to game journalists, or reviews... and use metacritic as a guideline is just silly. is possible you might be offended, but only an idiot would rely on metacritic to make a game purchase. the way most o' us use critics, if we do such a thing, is we find a critic who appears to have tastes similar to ourselves and then we rely on their judgement. is similar to how we use this board as a kinda game review source. we think mc is an okie dokie guy, but he likes fighting, in tunnels. if mc gives 5 stars or 9/10 to a game, that ain't gonna convince us that we would like such a game. if mc lauds a game 'cause it it is thankfully abstaining from tedious dialog and unnecessary story elements and instead is nothing but 40 hours of fighting in tunnels, am unlikely to be convinced that we will give the game a similar 9/10 rating. sure, we like fighting too, so his comments about combat will resonate, but we know enough to largely ignore his comments about story or writing. is not 'cause mc doesn't know what good is... because good is different for mc than it is for Gromnir. guess what, mc ain't any different than the typical professional game journalist. those clowns got identifiable preferences as well. you find a critic you is sympatico with, yes? you don't honestly use meatcritic to be making game purchases, do you? that is just... silly. the thing is, reviews from various sources helped convince Gromnir NOT to purchase me3 at release. there were so much negative feedback about that game that regardless o' metacritic, we were forewarned about me3 quite effective. da2? well, we don't understand the "convoluted" criticism, but the rest is fair. even so, we followed da2 enough to know far in advance that the game were being rushed and that the developers were making some shortcuts. between a few news drops and our own sources, Gromnir were knowing that da2 development were facing an uphill battle. that being said, it actual turned out better than we expected in spite of all its flaws and all the handicaps the developers were facing... but again, the point is that we were Not surprised or shocked. and let's be honest, if you actual believed that you got burned by metacritic for da2, then why did you continue reliance for future games? that is just... wacky. dunno. obviously Gromnir is the wrong example to be using if you wanna make a stand against the evils o' gaming journalism. am wondering how a person could follow game developments for more than a couple o' years and not share Gromnir's dismissive opinion o' gaming journalism. *gasp*, gaming journalists are biased and unreliable? welcome to 1994... no, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2012, 2014, etc. regardless, am understanding how somebody naive could get burned by metacritic... once, maybe. honestly. metacritic is a horrible measure for an INDIVIDUAL to use to make a game purchase. you wanna find a game that the mythical Average Gamer will enjoy? which one o' us is the Average Gamer? we use game criticism the same way we use movie and food critics. we find feedback from folks who seems to have similar tastes as does Gromnir. in the absence o' such a wonderful and enlightened personage being available, we looks for patterns amongst folks with known similar and dissimilar tastes to be making an educated decision, but we sure as heck don't rely on metacritic. and if ganrich didn't rely on metacritic but instead relied on previously trustworthy reviewers and still got screwed, then say so, but use metacritic to bolster is confusing us. HA! Good Fun!

am just glad we didn't use dorthea lange, toni morrison or flannery o'connor as examples o' females who did something beautiful without being particular attractive themsleves... poor wals mighta had a stroke. HA! Good Fun!