Gromnir

am suspecting the damage from 2 attacks with the 2h will be greater than 2 attacks with 2 medium weapons. however, please realize this is a mechanic for a game with magical weapons. each equipable slot allows for additional magical buffing. a theoretical general accuracy improvement conferred by a weapon could conceivable stack with a 2-weapon load out. 2 weapons that each grant a stat buff. 2 weapons that... etc. regardless o' damages, dual wield has almost always become a better approach at high levels as magic weapons allowed stacking o' benefits. a mechanic that recognizes the inherent superiority o' 2 equipable slots in a game world with magic equipment sounds like a good idea. gonna need to see if 2h actual gets enough of an advantage to make it worth the obvious penalty o' having one less equipable slot. HA! Good Fun!

But Gromnir I want to ask you something, you have alluded in the past that Obama is weak because he hasn't used military intervention is several conflicts around the world, like Syria . Do you think how he is dealing with the Ukraine crisis makes him weak? Should he do something different? a bit of a misrepresentation. syria is actual a good example. the impact o' a limited but forceful US response 2-3 years ago would have resulted in 2014 syria and isis situation being very different. similarly, ignoring putin predation and excess for many years has made the ukranian situation what it is. sanctions today is gonna eventual be effective in hurting russia. well, guess what, sanctions woulda' been effective before today. ask us what could obama do different today is myopic. HA! Good Fun! Okay, so you agree the sanctions are the best strategy? no. nevertheless, it may be the only plausible strategy given the current mess and recogninzing the lack o' influence obama has. HA! Good Fun!

But Gromnir I want to ask you something, you have alluded in the past that Obama is weak because he hasn't used military intervention is several conflicts around the world, like Syria . Do you think how he is dealing with the Ukraine crisis makes him weak? Should he do something different? a bit of a misrepresentation. syria is actual a good example. the impact o' a limited but forceful US response 2-3 years ago would have resulted in 2014 syria and isis situation being very different. similarly, ignoring putin predation and excess for many years has made the ukranian situation what it is. sanctions today is gonna eventual be effective in hurting russia. well, guess what, sanctions woulda' been effective before today. ask us what could obama do different today is myopic. HA! Good Fun!

Nope. Grinding has become a moot issue after those interesting posts above. The remaining one is this: Should the game reward the player for combat? Wouldn't it be important to define what would be a valid "reward" for combat here as well? Because a reward could be in form of loot, it could be in the form of XP, it could be in the form of satisfaction over you're prowess with the combat system, but not all of those will be seen as rewarding by every group. good questions. oh, and the developers has access to tester behavior including considerable QA, so they can see if folks is finding combat rewarding based on their actual behavior. "Grinding has become a moot issue after those interesting posts above. " well, is nice that indira believes that to be the case, but we has already seen that mootness is not particular discouraging to indira or many others. like it or not, the developers continue to believe that balance, and an xp system they see as encouraging diversity o' play style, and simplicity is desirable/essential attributes in an xp mechanic. coming up with an alternative mechanic that includes the aforementioned elements in the time remaining... yadda yadda yadda. am thinking moot might not mean what indira is suggesting it means, otherwise we sees some inexplicable behavior. HA! Good Fun!

Its just not that kind of game; a bit unfair IMO to criticize the game for something it never tried to do, or even pretended to have (in the same way that its unfair to criticize BG for not having PST's story). from our pov, actual story elements o' iwd were stronger than BG. as noted elsewhere, not only were bg2 released after iwd, but iwd were designed as kinda a low risk, quick development that were s'posed to sate bg fans before bg2 release. actual, a major goal were to get iwd out the door and on shelves with some meaningful time previous to diablo 2, and that didn't happen. what iwd were being marketed as, and sold as, were a limited and far more "linear" dungeon crawl than bg. truth-to-tell, we found iwd to be superior to bg in virtual all respects, and we missed the... companionship (HA!) o' the bg1 premade and joinable party members not at all. iwd looked better. it sounded better. iwd had better combats and more compelling locales. yeah, some level design did become a bit tedious in places, but as 'tween bg and iwd, we have very little difficulty identifying the superior game: iwd. the fact that iwd were so impressive is all the more amazing given the extreme limited and handicapped development iwd faced, but as a purchaser, we ultimate don't care 'bout obstacles. iwd were not a better game than bg 'cause developers were frequent rookies working with a wonky engine o' bioware's design. iwd were not better 'cause it had an abbreviated development cycle. iwd were a better game than bg, period. iwd did more right than did bg, regardless o' obstacles. that being said, we note once more that an obvious and superior enhancement o' iwd would be to give it iwd2 mechanics. oh well, yet another great opportunity wasted. HA! Good Fun!

Am I the only one who wants to see the PoE forums taken on like this... "beware the fury of a patient man." yes, at the moment we got some promancers and codexians making the PoE forums a bit chaotic... well, and Gromnir is helping. but wait til release of PoE. wait and be rewarded with true insanity. HA! Good Fun!

our iwd party were almost invariably a 4-man group as it resulted in faster leveling: a paladin, specialist mage (elf or human), gnome thief-illusionist, and half-elf ranger-cleric... typical with the cadaverous or skeletal undead racial enemy. the only problem with this group is that it were a bit over-powered once the mages developed a meaningful spell repertoire. the ranger-cleric were a smidgen less effective at turning undead in dragon's eye than a vanilla cleric would be, but the addition o' druid spells and the dual-wielding dervish o' destruction melee efficacy more than made up for the early limitation. dual-classing could provide a more powerful group, but we never had the patience to babysit effectively under-powered party members til they hit the dual-class sweet spot. our 4-man iwd group (and frequent bg2 group) were allowing us access to pretty much all the potential content in the game, while giving us an extremely capable group. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/28/russia-markets-idUSL5N0QY1H820140828 is additional bad news for russian economy. the ruble dropped another .5% v. the dollar on monday, and situation appears to only be getting worse with looming threat of increased european sanctions as russian troops move into the ukraine. the devaluing o' the ruble means that the cost o' buying foreign food will effectively increase, regardless o' where the russians find replacement sources o' basic foodstuffs. it is very difficult to explain the foreign food sanctions as they seem aimed at hurting russia. for humanitarian reasons, a number o' western nations have a policy against imposing sanctions on food and medical supplies, but the self imposed food sanctions by russia is, at best, a perplexing move from an economic perspective. HA! Good Fun!

I would say the people have seen the backer beta and changed their minds. Or maybe they're just sick of voting in every new poll that asks the same question over and over when the issue was supposedly settled two years ago. the terminology is inconsequential. the notion o' quest/task xp as described by sawyer and cain were described in the op o' the linked poll, and that description has remained constant since that time... since before that time actually. the implementation is also consistent with the description provided. HA! Good Fun!

more misrepresentations from folks. to let cant know, sawyer explained that indeed, the community did not see a need for a credit/wealth sink and removing weapon degradation were an insular feature easily removed. furthermore, after discussions internally, sawyer recognized that The Team agreed that weapon degradation were not a positive or necessary feature. quest xp is not insular. quest xp is direct related to promises regarding balance and play-style diversity. furthermore The Team is not in favor of removing quest xp. if obsidian, The Team, agreed that balance and play-style diversity were unnecessary and if we actual had a marked majority o' the community complaining, and if quest xp could be easily removed and replaced in the time remaining, then, maybe you would have similar situations. HA! Good Fun!

no comment on the lady with the glitter shoes, but am disturbed that somebody snuck into our house to take this photo... though our entryway floor tile is antiqued travertine and am not certain o' the tile in the picture above. doesn't look travertine actually. also, we don't have a random silly potted palm sitting on a table neither... but we suspect the burglar/photographers brought that with them. HA! Good Fun!

he did not need to work very hard to find, "bizarre, explicit and controversial comments." in fact, we bet it would be impossible to enter a da:i forum other than news and announcements and perhaps multiplayer, and find a single page w/o at least one thread containing, "bizarre, explicit and controversial comments." a comment from a bsn poster reacting to the video that is honest 'bout the degree o' bsn bizaro http://forum.bioware.com/topic/512557-dragon-age-inquisition-bsn-in-a-nutshell/?p=17218164 HA! Good Fun! http://forum.bioware.com/topic/473296-this-is-absolutely-unacceptable/?p=15069600 I'm assuming this isn't you. Someone else actually took your handle in the new Bio forums? Haha I can only imagine the bewilderment when Gaider, Priestly, Woo, or some such sees one of these posts. that is not a post of ours. as to bruce, am thinking you misrecognize basic terminology. http://forum.bioware.com/forum/267-scuttlebutt/ that is a page. scroll down and notice at the bottom-- it gives a page number. there is approx 25 topics/threads we see per page given our resolution... each thread typical has between one and a bazillion additional pages. ... all o' which is pointless. am thinking the post we linked from bsn is honest. the guy claimed to have read 1/10th o' daily posts and he were believing a daily version o' such a ridicule/ridiculous video could be constructed. hyperbole? perhaps, but not by much. HA! Good Fun! ps is always amusing that we can rare get our moniker when signing up for a crpg message board or game because some other "gromnir" has already taken that name.

Personally this ban of foreign food no cause effect to me. I prefer fresh food (meat, fish, milk, fruits etc) - this is meant i buy food only from local manufacturers. But anyway China and South America fully replace European import on our food marked, if someone prefer foreign food instead. Sorry Europe, but your expectations about starving Russians is fantasy. We actually don't notice nor sanctions, nor war in Ukraine (except huge amount of Ukrainian refugees everywhere), just continue our pastoral life. I even disappointed because i do want falling of Ruble for some Euro speculations but EU and US performance too ****ty for it. Inflation is not higger than in peace time anyway. Meanwhile for European farmers this ban is quite painful ( their business is not too profitable even without sanctions ) and mainstream media just pacify them by such cool stories about suffered Russians. Yes my friend but the facts are you can only get certain types of food from places like Europe. For example Parma Ham, Parmesan and Gorgonzola cheese and certain wines. You cannot replace this with substitutes from places like China because the reason for example Gorgonzola cheese tastes like it does is because of the unique mold that cultivates in the area in Italy where this cheese comes from So Russia is now denying itself arguably the best food in the world the inability to get certain luxury goods will hurt various russian restaurateurs, but won't be a major source o' pain for russians. the thing is, and am certain we posted this earlier in the ukraine thread, the typical russian spends 35% o' his total income on food. that is a huge increase compared to most westerners who is in the 5%-7% range. whenever there is talk o' adding a small flat tax on stuff such as gasoline here in the USA, there is widespread, and justified, outcry from the liberals and the poor, because a flat tax on essential costs such as utilities and gasoline and food disproportional hurt poor folks who has less disposable income. is a similar issue the russians face with increase in food prices. even a small increase in food prices will have a significant impact on russians because the average russian spends such a large % o' their total income on food. one reason why the russians were getting food from europeans and not brazil or china is 'cause euro food were cheaper. this is economics 101. is not complex. the only noteworthy industry russia has is petroleum exports-- they ain't a modern service economy. well, they got weapon exports too, but is small change compared to petroleum. sanctions is gonna hurt russia 'cause their economy is not particular diverse-- it is very easy to hurt an economy that is dependent on a single export by using sanctions. at the same time that russia is getting hit with sanctions, they is self inflicting an increase in price o' food. but yeah, apple farmers in poland will be hurt by russian food sanctions as near 50% o' their crop goes to russia. 'course only .3% o' poland's total exports is apples. danish cheese makers and many lithuainian food producers could be hurt by across-the-board food sanctions, but most europeans will hardly notice the the impact o' russian food sanctions. some european folks will be hurt though, is no question 'bout it. but again, just as the russian economy were heading towards a recession, they get hit with sanctions and then self-impose food sanctions o' their own? perhaps putin is gonna use the sanctions as camouflage. without sanctions, recession would be blamed on putin. sanctions allows for a possible, if moronic condemnation o' the west for russian economic slowdown... but russians love a good conspiracy. is possible that putin will use pain o' economic suffering to drum up additional nationalistic furor? dunno. not much makes sense when you look at food sanctions rationally. HA! Good Fun!

indira's recollections do not match Gromnir's. in more than one place we has noted how little variation bg combat offered. bg2 were much different. but once you could summon skeletons and lob fireballs, the challenge o' bg were effective dead. and interesting companions? bg? really? coran got more development than most. he even had something o' a bg2 board fan club led by a poster known as lanfear. bg coran were quite effective as a ranged combatant, but other than encouraging us to kill wyverns, he had one significant dialogue encounter that revealed that he were an unrepentant, deadbeat dad. coran were one o' the better developed companions. really, am not making this stuff up to make bg sound worse than it actual were. bg were the right game at the right time for many folks, but it is difficult to be effusive with praise for bg if one is honest about it. we played many cpgs with disturbing frequency. bg were not one o' those games. d&d fans hadn't had a decent game in years-- were more than a few "are d&d crpgs dead" articles written in print magazines and internet opines. we suspect that there were more than a few d&d fans that played diablo but were wanting something a bit more... substantial. bg gave folks what they wanted at the right time, but am not gonna hold up bg as some kinda benchmark for crpg goodness. *shudder* HA! Good Fun!

he did not need to work very hard to find, "bizarre, explicit and controversial comments." in fact, we bet it would be impossible to enter a da:i forum other than news and announcements and perhaps multiplayer, and find a single page w/o at least one thread containing, "bizarre, explicit and controversial comments." a comment from a bsn poster reacting to the video that is honest 'bout the degree o' bsn bizaro http://forum.bioware.com/topic/512557-dragon-age-inquisition-bsn-in-a-nutshell/?p=17218164 HA! Good Fun!

am understanding it would never happen, and clearly beamdog wouldn't be the folks to do it anyway, but the game that would genuine benefit from an enhanced edition is toee. troika had the beginnings of an excellent d&d, squad-based, tactical combat game. unfortunate, troika complete dropped the ball on execution. they chose mediocre source material and then treated the module as if they were thirteen-year-old dms who had never actual dm'd a d&d session. troika did almost nothing to flesh-out the source material save for adding a brothel and a gay pirate... and then troika got angry 'cause brothel were predictably removed. toee coulda' been a great game if the folks designing the role-play encounters were even the least bit competent. toee coulda' been a great game if it weren't so complete buggy. toee coulda' been a great game if troika had finished what they started and made a great d&d combat simulator... but they half-arsed it with questionable spell/feat implementations and poor AoO and reach weapons mechanics and similar such mistakes. it would not take a great deal o' effort to transform toee from a buggy mess with after-thought role-play elements into an excellent crpg... but it would take more than the simple community bug fixes we has seen. toee would be a fantastic candidate for an enhanced edition, as implausible/impossible as that kinda project would be. HA! Good Fun!

Im not sure that we have a clear picture of how it works yet. I believe PrimeJunta has posted receiving 1500XP upon entering the Ogre cave but in my buggy experience, I never earned a single XP point (that I noticed) and couldn't even turn in the quests. Im hoping beta v2 is more stable so I can get a better picture of what the hell is actually going on. yes, am suspecting that the beta is giving a less than clear picture of how game actually plays. we noted in the rose & jorge video, they had a build number a bit higher than ours, and no doubt the QA folks ain't just getting a small piece o' the game to test. am aware that there is more than a few nightmare scenarios that quest xp will discourage combat play or... well, am not genuine clear on what the negatives o' quest xp is other than the absence o' satisfaction o' reward immediacy, but regardless, we got no idea how quest xp is actual affecting gameplay o' PoE QA and other observable testers. before deciding on appropriate solutions, one might wanna check and see if there is an actual problem that needs fixing. we saw the disgruntled described as "thousands." we even saw a hypothetical "15,000" provided as a kinda plausible number o' folks angered by quest xp. ... does QA behavior bear out such notions o' disgruntled players? has folks actual been observed to alter their behavior? how does one guestimate not only the number o' disgruntled, but the number o' folks that would be bothered enough for the issue to be at all relevant to purchase o' subsequent PoE titles? am aware that many people is angered by the idea o' quest/task xp, but has anybody attempted to get feedback regarding how QA has evaluated quest/task xp? what % o' players has altered behavior away from combat, if any? dunno, seems like we have very little to base conclusions 'pon given the relevant feedback we has seen posted thus far. regardless, a per kill xp system sounds like a wonderful idea for a player mod. past experience suggests that a removal o' the experience cap will be developed by the community with some considerable alacrity. if a per-kill system is genuine easy to develop, then why not leave such a thing to the community? if balance is Not a concern, then the community modders is likely the best resource for making such a change as the community modders won't have the feedback to do detailed balancing anyway. at this point, am thinking questions o' the right people should be asked first before declaring that the community needs or even wants this. in the event there is a need as expressed by significant number o' people with meaningful experience playing the game, the modding community would strike us as the most reasonable creator o' such a fix. after all, am expecting that with obsidian seeming committed to a 2014 release, getting all current planned features into the game, and making sure the game itself is stable enough to avoid a nerd rebellion, will be a herculean task in and of itself. HA! Good Fun! edit... obsidian is committed to 2014 release, not 2015. sheesh.

+1 PS:T combat was certainly good enough for a game that could be completed in a non-violent way. But trolls can't find anything substantial to criticize so they just try to nitpick. What they fail to realize is that PS:T, being widely recognized as (at the very least) one of the top contenders for #1 CRPG of all times, hardly needs to be validated by their personal approval. Yeah, the game combat it's nearly identical to the other AD&D games, so I didn't think it was worse than the other IE games. However, I'll admit the encounter design isn't as good. You don't get to fight any of the cool adventering parties like in BG1. ... so... you are distinguishing combat encounter design from your rating/grading o' combat quality? ... you is gonna need explain that to us. HA! Good Fun!

No. Just no. PS:T was 200% of pure perfection as it was. And this is one of the reasons why I won't even touch a "remake" if it's ever made. It's just won't be the same thing. When you're developing a remake the temptation to "improve" something is just too great. Unfortunately, in the case of PS:T remake "improving" anything means insta-ruining the whole thing. I jumped out of my lolocopter. PST is easily the weakest IE game in terms of combat. PST is only fun if you're playing a High Wisdom character, which is counter-intuitive to available classes to TNO. Claiming that PST is "200% of pure perfection" is deluded, and I say this as someone who loves the game. ps:t is... weird. it were intended to be weird, but it went weird different than simply "unusual." we loved ps:t-- is our favorite crpg. However, when somebody inevitably claims that ps:t were a complete pile o' steamy p00p, we have a hard time disagreeing. claims that ps:t sucked: combat sucked-- yeah, combat were pretty gawdawful. we can detail why combat were bad, but probable only vol and chris avellone actual thought ps:t combat were good. dear lord, is it possible that vol is a chris avellone doppelganger? tno-- we had a few friends, some female, that wanted to know why in a modern (modern for 1999) crpg they had to play as a male zombie. no choice o' sex or appearance or hair color. paperdoll were unaffected by gear change save for anime over-sized weapons. wisdom for the win-- wth? you cannot choose to play a cleric. you start the game as a fighter. there is no magical defense adjustment for high wisdom. who in their right mind would pump points into wisdom in a ie game wherein you weren't playing a cleric? well, the answer is as follows: anybody playing ps:t. not only did you get upwards o' +33% experience point bonus simple by maxing wisdom, but many quests were unlocked by wisdom. is not hyperbole to suggest that you played 1/3 less o' game by keeping wisdom less than 14. bugs/memory leak-- if you didn't play in winter 1999, you might not know how buggy the game were. sooo many broken quests, and for many, you could not play game for more than an hour at a time w/o the dreaded memory leak forcing a complete restart. philosophy for dummies-- hey, we like depth o' character, but a large number o' characters in ps:t were like those horrible college campus undergrads who hang out at coffee shops and wanna discuss sarte or nietzsche but clearly have no f'ing clue what they is talking 'bout. middle-class, socialist brats that we just wanted to punch in the face. "existential your way out of a broken f'ing nose you pretentious little sh!te." shoulda' been a dialogue option for every freaking ps:t dialogue. etc. again, we actual liked ps:t more than any crpg we has played before or since, but it sucked. in many ways it were a horrible game with broken mechanics and immature and pretentious writing. anybody that wanna argue that ps:t were an awful game gets no fight from Gromnir... 'cept the recognition that we liked ps:t a great deal. HA! Good Fun!

^This is the clearest you've been this topic, Gromnir, and I do read what you write. You know that I don't agree with OE on this quest-xp-equals-diversity-of-playstyle, on contraire, but I respect them for believing in their design vision. And like Josh has said on numerous occasions: Faced with a game design he made that's not working as intended, he would change it. I hope that policy applies in this case too. There will be plenty of possible solutions available then. P.S. As for addressing my gender on this forum, "he" would be more IRL-correct, but my avatar's named after my favourite and often recurring D&D character, and that's a she. "he" it is. keep in mind that we have said, "given the impossibility o' replacing the existing xp mechanic with a different xp mechanic that achieves obsidian's espoused goals (i.e. encouraging diversity of play style, balance, simplicity) in the time remaining before the release of PoE," with only the most minute and insignificant variations many times. we can repost each iteration if you wish. am thinking that if you is being fair, you will agree that on this point we have not been unclear. at this point in development, producing an xp mechanic that achieves obsidians's espoused goals AND would also include kill xp is simply not possible. we also recognized that you do not believe that obsidian's goals is justified. we were not unclear on this point and we can also repost quotes on this point if you so desire. *shrug* is a fundamental difference o' opinion as to what goals should be pursued. nevertheless, as we has been explaining ad nauseum to zan, neither you, nor anybody else, has ever suggested that in the time remaining, obsidian could produce an alternative xp mechanic that included per kill xp, that achieved their espoused goals o' balance, diversity o' gameplay styles and simplicity. there simple is no argument on this point. zan chose obfuscation and denials rather than a simple admission that your proposed exp mechanic were, from obsidian’s pov AND their stated goals, not a viable replacement. again,we think it is complete fair to argue whether obsidian goals is valid, but zan were holding you up as an example for something you never actual claimed could be achieved. bad on him. hopefully you aren't actual defending him, 'cause if so, bad on you too. HA! Good Fun!

if the technology used to to drive rovers (am not believing we have seen a dune buggy on mars) were the same and compatible with scripting game ai, you would indeed have a very powerful point. PoE is new game with new code which, although Gromnir is no expert on such things, suggests to us that one could not simple plug-in infinity engine ai improvements into PoE. in fact, technology, as it becomes more complex, almost necessarily becomes more buggy... not to be confused with your hypothetical dune buggy. the more complex the system is, the more things can go wrong... is another o' those axioms. thus we necessarily add a level o' complexity to ai that were not there 15 years ago. am expecting many tools the developers has at their disposal nowadays is better and more efficient, but it is our understanding that building games is also more complex today than it were 15 years ago. am not certain how the balance works in favor or against developers. am aware that developer staffs is necessarily much larger today. even so, on this issue, we is not speaking with any expertise. am admitted only slightly more aware o' increased scripting difficulties or streamlining since 2000 than we is regarding genetic modifications to achieve drought resistant corn. HA! Good Fun!

HA! am gonna take that as a joke... is only good one you has made thus far. is ironic off-topic however. you need to be aware o' off-topic... and apparently hypocrisy. given the impossibility o' replacing the existing xp mechanic with a different xp mechanic that achieves obsidian's espoused goals (i.e. encouraging diversity of play style, balance, simplicity) in the time remaining before the release of PoE, this topic is moot. HA! Good Fun!

again, if such a belief makes you feel better 'bout yourself, who is we to deny your little fantasy. Gromnir is just a simple board poster and clear not as clever as you, but, "better a witty fool than a foolish wit." so, which category do you thinks you belong to, the fool or wit? now, on-topic... is still moot. HA! Good Fun! I don't think your stupid Gromnir (as I said it's diabolical). Quite the contrary. I do think you have a nasty streak which you are dumping all over this forum. oh, more talk 'bout Gromnir instead o' topics? what did we note about that earlier? *snort* in spite o' your confusion you seem quite aware o' material for which you should take offense, no? and please review. what we had no patience for is when posters purposeful misrepresent. claim to not understand Gromnir? fine, but you have no such excuse for josh comments, cain comments or indira comments. pretend as if what indira were suggesting were same as obsidian claims o' need/goals for an experience mechanic were conversely mendacious or cretinous (denotative, not connotative.) so, much as with this topic itself, we have a functional choice o' two diametric opposed options. we seem harsh to you? gosh. am tending to agree that we is harsh, but only with the willful obtuse or mendacious. indira statements and josh position were not confusing, even if Gromnirs posts elude you. no excuses. HA! Good Fun! I've never misunderstood Josh or Cain, I misunderstand you. I don't agree with their stated goal or need for perfect balance. Indira stated a combat Xp system could be implemented in time. You said not a balanced one and he agreed but that wasn't an issue for him and it isn't one for me. I already admitted to that. I've never read you anywhere saying Combat Xp could be balanced until a page ago at least I don't think so because again you intentionally play the fool (which you clearly are not) and yes your post can be hard to read and understand perfectly. I thought balance was your whole problem with it. Maybe you said it can be balance before somewhere but I've only been on these forum for 2 weeks. I skim a lot of the post because some are very long or a chore to read. I don't think I'm alone in that, and this is just a forum, I'm not trying to master every topic, just enjoy a game. You jump off topic, disguising your insults and condescension with a calculated court jester bit, then at the very end after you spent all that time patronizing someone tell them to stay on topic. Sheesh. I've never been warned by a moderator so I assume they don't take issue with me. I don't know that you really read what I say either. I've said multiple times I'm not married to Combat Xp and am only here to discuss why I prefer it over quest only. I've agreed that the problem I've noticed with the progression of the Quest only Xp at the moment is pacing and that the wilderness will, after I've completed this game once, serve little function for me, which is sad because it's a beautiful game. Really why trudge out everywhere again using up resources once I know where the important stuff is? One thing I enjoyed about the IE games was the fact that if I didn't stay on point all the time I still could progress if I decided to just do some Dungeon romping. To me having Quest only XP is actually going to shrink how much I do everytime I replay the game, if I do replay it. Doesn't mean I won't like the game. am gonna ignore most o' this 'cause it is for the most part clear obfuscation or flat out mendacity. for instance, cain and sawyer has never asked for "perfect balance," but you keep repeating and knocking the stuffing outta that strawman. as we noted, even indira admitted that to do a balanced mechanic would be requiring considerable effort. you quoted indira responding to such a query. to therefore then act confused is fraudulent... or worse. however, main point is this: "You jump off topic, disguising your insults and condescension with a calculated court jester bit, then at the very end after you spent all that time patronizing someone tell them to stay on topic. Sheesh. I've never been warned by a moderator so I assume they don't take issue with me." Gromnir is the one staying on-topic In Spite o' you and others trying to make the thread about Gromnir and his posting style. You is jester in question, though you, like stun, don't seem to get the obvious. if you weren't dragging off-topic and making the thread about Gromnir, we sure as hell wouldn't be making it an issue. duh. clearly if our posting style were a problem from bis/obsdiain pov, we would not have been able to maintain the style for over ten years. 'course am doubting that sinks in either. leave topic about exp and you won't hear Gromnir bring up Gromnir once. if we get off-topic, is 'cause you can't accept that simple fact. 'course if you do insist on making us a star in this thread, we will indulge your peculiar needs and fixations. am flexible. oh, and fact that we can continue this ridiculous debate about Gromnir is clear proof that you is understanding us, or you simple would desist, left befuddled and confused but silent. HA! Good Fun! complete aside: we is referring to indira as he/she 'cause zan keeps calling indira a he. indira strikes us as a female name. the fact that the name is feminine does not require that indira actually be be female, but we made the assumption that indira were belonging to the fairer sex. if our assumption is incorrect, we will accept correction and apologize for the continued he/she bit. whichever gender is appropriate is the one we will use forthwith, though truth-to-tell, indira's gender is not particular important to us, we simply wish to avoid being rude when using pronouns to disagree with her... or him.

toee COMBAT, when not bugged into unplayability were exceptional... although it did suffer some balance issues limited to toee and not d20. example: Reach Weapons for Everyone! the game, as a crpg and as a whole, were brilliant (sarcasm) as we were charged good money so we could beta an unfinished and stanky pile o' sweaty gym clothes and old cheese. HA! Good Fun!

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67291-more-like-bg2-please/?p=1492281 relevant comments... at least immediate relevant. start reposted --the last thing we want is d&d attributes. am thinking we mentioned elsewhere, multiple times, that ad&d made character development choices beyond first level largely inconsequential. once abilities, class, and *groan* kit were chosen, it were largely game-over for character development. each class had a prime attribute or two, and drop rest attributes to 3 were making perfect sense... unless you really wanted your monk to abuse the keldorn armour bug. for a fighter, we needed as much strength as possible, and dex and con were good too. a sorcerer didn't need a damned thing, so unless you wanted to abuse limited wish spell, you could turn a sorcerer into a high con pack mule if you really wished to. etc. if we gave an equal number of points to 5 people playing a fighter character (am aware that with asinine rolling this wouldn't be possible) and told all 5 to build the most efficacious fighter they could with those points, we would end up with 5 largely identical fighters. stoopid. d&d class system with obvious dump stats were stoopid. d&d with only meaningful choices at level 1 were stoopid. thac0 and dual-class/multi-class, and the fact that by 12th level it didn't matter what stats you had anyways 'cause magic items determined your efficacy were all freaking stoopid. ok, so we discussed more than attributes, with this point, but d&d attributes were stoopid. -- bg2 benefited from being the... 5th ie game? yeah, fifth. bring up such stuff as diversity an number o' monster foes ignores the fact that black isle and bioware had worked for years to end up with the diversity and depth o' content you eventual saw in bg2. expecting a similar catalog o' monsters and spells n' such would be unrealistic and unfair. compare to bg1 instead wherein we fought the same hobgoblin, gnoll, and kobold ambushes innumerable times, and wherein ogre mages were stand-ins for demons. -- from a tactical perspective, it also took 5 games to get to bg2 refinement. bg1 had us use 1 tactic for any and all combats. priest would summon as many skeletons as possible. when we saw enemies, our mage and priest/druid would then cast aoe such as web or entangle. depending on our mood, we would then have mage lob in a fireball and kill or cripple everything while the rest o' our party reduced any combined foe to kibble via ranged weapons. the skeletons would act as meat(less) shields for anything that got past grease, web, entangle. heck, if we were feeling particular impatient, we would add haste to our archers who probable had arrows o' piercing. spam monster summons, webs and fireballs while maintaining steady rain o' missiles. spells such as confusion or hold person/monster were overkill, but if we had 'em, why not use 'em? it were serious moronic the way we could approach every combat exactly the same way. but again, it took 5 games to get to bg2 sophistication. end reposted there is some revisionism that exists regarding the ie games. tactical sophistication o' bg? HA! bg2 levels o' diversity, challenge and sophistication took many years and multiple iterations. furthermore, the ie version o' the ad&d rules had its own peculiarities and limitations. we find PoE rules mechanics far superior to anything we saw in the ie games (though we had fewer complaints about iwd2.) ad&d were a pnp rules set that the biowarians (mal)adjusted to work in a crpg environment, and the results were quite enjoyable... fantastic even given what they had to work with. nevertheless, the basic combat mechanics o' PoE strike us as being far superior to what we got in bg, and tactical sophistication is also a major improvement over all early ie games. HA! Good Fun!