Gromnir

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.

which don't mean anything. seriously. define what qualities make for a spiritual successor? we sure as hell can't define what amounts to feel o' a spiritual successor. sorry. is arguing over nonsense. obsidian no doubt thought they were making easy on themselves by using inherent ambiguous terms, but somehow folks is doing the opposite and using vague to bludgeon the developers. like or don't like. have a serious argument over what does and doesn't qualify o' successor stuff is... silly. HA! Good Fun!

initial thread query is silly. get 100 ie game fans together and have them list what they thinks is essential to be making an ie game successor. raise your hand if you expect genuine uniformity from those 100 fans. *shrug* the fact that obsidian has slight difference o' opinion than Gromnir is probable a good thing. for example, we wouldn't have made a class-based system integral. recognizing that PoE couldn't be ad&d or iwd2 d20, we woulda' dumped classes to actual better achieve obsidian stated goal o' allowing greater player character development freedom and choice. people keep saying "spiritual successor to the ie games" as if that gots a meaning. it don't. as much as obsidian aimed to be recreating the feel o' ie games, there is no definitive list o' essentials 75% o' us could agree 'pon, and we were never offered anything but feel anyways. two point that should be obvious, but isn't: 1) is not d&d... couldn't be d&d, so much o' things some folks would think o' as essential to the feel o' the ie games is not possible in PoE... or at least, not practical. 2) anything a person thought were busted in the ie games is not gonna be something they believe is essential to replicating the feel of the ie games. duh. point two seems to be getting lost. we thought ranged combat were busted in bg, so when the iwd developers changed ranged combat, we didn't mind. other folks wailed that bis were destroying their essential character builds... ruining the ie games. as we noted earlier, we thinks the d&d class systems is broken-down and busted, particularly kits. so, guess what, we don't wouldn't miss classes and we don't miss kits. kits were busted, so they clear ain't essential to feel o' a game replicating the feel o' the ie games. people is having this insane debate over whether PoE replicates ie without recognizing you don't have any functional definition as to what is or ain'ty esential to an ie game, and you sure as hell can't define a feel. is PoE features you like. is stuff you dislike. is stuff you thinks will make PoE better. is stuff you think obsidian has done that is not making PoE a good game. whatever. quit using the ie successor feel crap as an excuse. man-up... or woman-up, as the case may be. HA! Good Fun! edit: added 1 word

we can see valid reasons for eliminating pre-buffing. am recalling more than a few dragon or lich battles in bg2 wherein the prebuffing took longer than the battles themselves. the thing is, the lack o' pre-buffing does add a level o' complexity and distraction that makes combat all the more chaotic. am having a difficult time keeping straight who and is not buffed or debuffed. 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. HA! Good Fun!

am not thinking we need discuss this much. we noted when crafting were first detailed that we didn't see a genuine point to plants if we already got animal viscera involved in recipe making. we observed that we didn't see a compelling reason to add hunting 'shrooms if all it were from a gameplay perspective were using tab or, lord forbid, pixel hunting. if finding PoE plants were a repetitive and mindless mechanic, we couldn't fathom a purpose. well, we got pixel hunting for plants. is this 'posed to be our motivation for map explorations? am admitting that this is a minor issue with all the other problems PoE current faces, but... why? HA! Good Fun!

am not having an issue with pacing, but combat feedback is a particular shortcoming in our estimation. we can assume that stuff such as DoT can be balanced rather easily in a patch as they weren't such a big deal previous to the recent patch. likewise, encounter abilities not resetting 'cause we never leave combat is also annoying but fixable... we hope. we can't see debuffs on foes. now, for some games this ain't a problem 'cause o' fewer mob attacks, differences in ai or (*groan*) pacing or whatever. regardless, keeping track o' foes in PoE presents seeming unique difficulties. is the Scrum mentality o' foes causing issues unique to this game? with all foes stacked on top of each other, how does we distinguish two beetles, spiders or guards that otherwise looks the same? perhaps the lack o' meaningful visual contrast is handicapping the ability to discriminate? dunno. what we do know is that either some single fixable issue or a gestalt o' issues is making it exceeding difficult to keep track of enemies such that we may not intelligently utilize debuffs. as a side issue to combat feedback, we will once again note that the combat log, complete extended, is effectively making so that we may only see one action by each party member at one time. given that we can't tell which foes is affected by debuffs, this makes the combat log a bit too brief for us to be getting genuine useful feedback. it would be extreme helpful to makes savable text versions o' combat logs. fight a single foe in bg2 such as a dragon and you not need help to follow debuffs layered 'pon it. in bg2 you could also buff your own party before combat, so one/many steps were removed to make actual combat less frenetic. per encounter PoE abilities for virtual all characters also tends to increase the number o' debuffs we have available. we got stuff such as grass and additional foes stacking or interfering such that even if there is subtle visual cues for debuffs, we ain't seeing what to look for in PoE. ... the thing is, we don't have a single fix for our debuff complaint. we can't think o' an obvious fix, and am doubting there is time to address complex or subtle fixes. discouraging. HA! Good Fun!

another one o' these? *groan* but there is either a disconnect or somesuch. you further pulling up old posts to support your position would be an amusing approach in the present case. am thinking it were perhaps a mistake to pm you. in the pm we were arguably more condescending and less fair as we assumed (in)action on your part that would lead to you repeated making claims that were unsupported or unsupportable, we suggested a different approach. in our board posts, we do not make assumptions or hinder you with failures you have not earned-- we take your posts as you write them. that very well could be, ironically, an inability to express yourself. it could also be transparency o' you promoting agenda rather than seeking truth. is it perhaps the case you have such an agenda and refuse to accept that you could be wrong? am not genuinely concerned. we don't make such assumptions, especially when actions is more significant. personally, we would suggest that your persona is more fraudulent than ours. Gromnir is consistent, but we has, on numerous occasions found common ground with developers. you, on the other hand... well, you is kinda a dog with a bone on some issues. is kinda funny that you remind us a bit o' karzak, the difference being that he didn't have the fake facade. now, am thinking it would benefit us all if you kept actual discussion of issues to the issues rather than having this become a little whimper fest where you or Gromnir discuss where we see flaws in the other's posting style. we noted that PoE, for instance, did have degenerating weapons and that feature were dropped, but you would rather discuss what you see as Gromnir personality faults? perhaps 'cause you cannot make valid arguments on issues. grow up. if you can't make an argument, don't. is no shame in being wrong. turning these into nothing more than a complaint that Gromnir is mean and unfair 'cause he exposed you and were not nice about it diminishes you, not Gromnir. again, replay o' bgee don't tell us much other than that you ain't really wedded to companions, not even new bgee companions. most randomn "oops" kinda crap sucks in a crpg, but is not the least bit random when such stuff as bg breakable weapons is an example. as others mentioned, bg weapons broke for a limited and explicable plot reason, which as a person replaying the game you is both aware of and is knowing how to minimize the potential handicap. you know the simple ways to circumvent the illusory problem right from the start. horrible example. current play through reveals nothing that you wish it to... but it does reveal some o' what you do not. now, you gonna grow up and stay on-topic, or no? HA! Good Fun! ps apologies for not responding timely as we were working on a bit o a deadline this weekend. we will attempt to chastise you with more immediacy in the future. whack puppy who piddled on the floor needs be contemporaneous with the poor behavior for the correction to be creating a genuine learning experience.

am not sure what proof you is offering. example: in another thread, you mentioned how much you loved the bg companions and how even though you played mp with a created party, you left open-slots to add bg companions. hell, bgee even has three new companions with full bg2 style quests and you still didn't leave open slots. am not sure what proof we can get from your anecdotal play o' bgee. heck, three possible companions have been available to you thus far and you has spurned them all. 'course now that we made this point we suspect somewhere along the way you will adopt a companion... that will show Gromnir, eh? *shrug* also, is kinda funny, but weapon degradation actual were planned as an initial feature. is not same as bg breaking (which as noted already were a bg plot point and complete irrelevant once you got magic weapons early in the game) nevertheless, josh thought it were a good credit sink. *shrug* fans didn't like the feature, and more important, it appears that the other PoE team members didn't like it neither. removing weapon degradation were, it seems, a very easy change as it were only affected by a single skill. HA! Good Fun! Heh! You missed the context by a mile. That playthrough of mine is all about them six characters I rolled up myself (I have played the game dozens of times, I don't need to hear from those companions yet again. It's my prerogative to play BG the way I want to. However, some quest-xp-only people seem hell-bent on policing how it should be played. Also, for this crowd, companions > carefully roleplayed party of six you rolled up yourself. Why is this? I don't know. they are slaves under the laudatory quotes on the box.) My proof is that I keep on playing even if my party nearly got wiped out or if a weapon broke. I didn't re-roll, instead I roll with the punches. That's my way to RP combat in that playthrough. Obviously, if they all die I need to reload. So far, it hasn't happened. we got context. we saw what you wrote before... want us to quote? even when doing mp style you left slots open 'cause you says you liked companion banter. you liked bg companions. clearly you didn't like'em that much. well, as usual, is best to ignore what people say and look instead at what they do. you didn't get wiped, so no issue there. is always easy to have backup weapons 'cause you has played the game previous and already know weapons will break and will be easy for you to get easily found magic versions... because you know where the magic versions is too. *shrug* regardless, just as developers is likely to put more stock in actual feedback by watching folks play, so does Gromnir. we hear what you says, but then we see what you do. is illuminating. thanks. HA! Good Fun!

the amusing thing is that some o' the folks who are complaining is aware we have been doing this for fifteen years and that the bioware developers actual put the Gromnir character into one o' their games. what possible motivation could a handful o' schmucks on the PoE boards come up with that 1) we hasn't already heard many times-- is cute they all think they is unique and clever and 2) they genuine believe is likely to alter a fifteen year pattern ? anywho. alignment were kinda a funny quirk o' d&d. PoE cannot use d&d. therefore, is no reason to use alignment. proviso: if this were an elric of melnibone game, then alignment (although not d&d alignment) would be appropriate. anybody know who has digital elric rights? HA! Good Fun!

reputation is subjective. alignment is objective. is not an either/or scenario. both reputation and alignment may exist simultaneously. however, is a bit unwieldy to do both. even so, is not mutual exclusive. if developers says that people in the community think you are a jerk or dishonest 'cause you lied to the inn keeper when you told him that his stable were on fire, it is kinda tough to argue that the developers is wrong. developers is handling the behind the scenes stuff such as gossip and innuendo. you may think that perhaps the degree o' your reputation for dishonesty or jerkiness is excessive, but is just a subjective quality anyways. admittedly, is also gonna be a question o' how far your reputation extends, and as such, most games with reputation actual has differentiation based on factions. your reputation in a small burg might not have any impact on your reputation in the kingdom of Eld many thousands of leagues away. nevertheless, reputation is always subjective. alignment is different. alignment is objective. is lying a matter o' pushing you towards chaos or towards evil? is there situations where a lie could push your alignment towards good or lawfulness? get 10 people to discuss what law, chaos, good and evil in d&d alignment actual means and you will not get uniformity. you will get angry folks who think you is full o' crap 'cause you gave the character 1 chaos point for lying to the innkeeper even when the lie were part of an elaborate scheme to return the rightful count to power. but wait, the count were secretly one o' those horrible animancers using captured children as undead experiments, and while technically he might be the rightful count, he had murdered the previous count which arguably made him ineligible to be the new count anyways... though he were never tried for the crime o' murder, so... nevertheless, while the murderous count was in power he had instituted a very progressive public works program as well as some much needed tax reforms that boosted the economy. he also made universal healthcare available in his county. was lying to the innkeeper an inherently chaotic act? was helping the count lawful? was knowledge o' the counts misdeeds making your help evil but lawful? what if you honest believed the count when he claimed he had turned over a new leaf and were not going to torture kids no more for the sake o' animancy? would it make a difference to your good v evil slider if you believed the count's claims o' good intentions? what if count actual committed more atrocities after you aided him? would that change evil v. good slider? alignment is... a mess. is complete unnecessary as long as you do not have spells, gods and/or items that track good v. evil anyways. HA! Good Fun!

yeah, we have mentioned multiple times in multiple threads that we got a particular problem with the lack o' transparency o' PoE combat. we would like changes to combat log, but more important, we frequent have no way to discern which foes is affected by debuffs, which prevents us from intelligently layering additional debuffs. these is only a couple issues, but am thinking that an obsidian fix would be much time/resource consuming. now maybe not everybody sees our big problems as being problems. is possible that obsidian don't see our stated concerns as genuine problems. the thing is, we is discouraged that any discussion is largely pointless as there simple ain't time to make any major or meaningful changes. bugs are squishy? sure, but there is loads o' them... more than we expected at this late date. quashing all those annoying little bugs will take considerable time and efforts, and obsidian doesn't have an abundance o' time and man-hours. the beta gives us time to provide feedback to obsidian so they can quash bugs, but not much else. is disappointing. optimization and solidification is not likely to happen til after release. but perhaps we is complete wrong... just don't seem like it. HA! Good Fun!

I thought Gromnir was closer to Thanos. We need a chart for this. another Gromnir thread? in any event, we got no actual superpowers, and if death has a personification, we feel no urge to date it/her... not even if she were more like neil gaiman's death, hmmm. Gromnir's role? Kurtz from Heart of Darkness, or perhaps Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now? regardless, am having concerns about the 2014 release. the recent patch, while certainly an improvement, leaves us with new concerns without anything close to even half eradication o' our worries previous to the patch release. o' particular concern, as far as bugs go, is the startling frequency o' per-encounter abilities failing to reset after a combat ends... and reload does not solve this issue. we will be a bit more patient, but we hope that obsidian is not doing as so many developers/publishers has done in recent years and contemplated the release o' an unfinished product that will needs be considerable solidified and optimized after going gold. oh, sure, the game may be released in december, but will it be resembling a finished product before january or february of 2015 when the inevitable post release patches are finally made available? dunno. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure what proof you is offering. example: in another thread, you mentioned how much you loved the bg companions and how even though you played mp with a created party, you left open-slots to add bg companions. hell, bgee even has three new companions with full bg2 style quests and you still didn't leave open slots. am not sure what proof we can get from your anecdotal play o' bgee. heck, three possible companions have been available to you thus far and you has spurned them all. 'course now that we made this point we suspect somewhere along the way you will adopt a companion... that will show Gromnir, eh? *shrug* also, is kinda funny, but weapon degradation actual were planned as an initial feature. is not same as bg breaking (which as noted already were a bg plot point and complete irrelevant once you got magic weapons early in the game) nevertheless, josh thought it were a good credit sink. *shrug* fans didn't like the feature, and more important, it appears that the other PoE team members didn't like it neither. removing weapon degradation were, it seems, a very easy change as it were only affected by a single skill. HA! Good Fun!

it should also be obvious that given that PoE could not be an ad&d or d&d d20 game, many so-called ie feature would be off-limits to the obsidian developers. the fact that obsidian would need to develop a complete original rule system precluded the possibility of many features being identical. as much as ps:t was a different game than iwd, you had basic mechanical similarities due to using a variation o' the infinity engine. even where iwd2 complete changed things with d20 mechanics, it was still a d&d game and the d&d nomenclature that was part of bg1 was still present in iwd2. as part o' the initial kickstarter, we knew that obsidian was needing to start from scratch with its rule mechanics. sure, PoE would be an isometric 2d game with squad-based fantasy combat, but as soon as we knew that PoE could not be d&d and that a new rule system would be developed, any reasonable and rational person would be recognizing that many significant differences between the ie games and PoE would be necessary. hell, we lobbied for a classless rule system, but we assume that idea were rejected out-of-hand as it would be too different from the ie games. oh, and the infinity engine is a +15 year old dog that gots more than a few fleas. as much as some folks loved the ie games, any developer attempting to recreate the "feel" o' the ie games would likely attempt to make improvements... as well as use a healthy k9 advantix II application to prevent the old ie cooties from infecting PoE-- thank goodness. HA! Good Fun! ps "sure, PoE would be an isometric 2d game with squad-based fantasy combat," funny aside: in our first PoE beta combat, we immediate attempted to rotate the camera. we Knew that PoE were 2d isometric, but even so, we still attempted to rotate camera.

lack of appropriate and/or useful combat feedback has been our (Gromnir's) most frequent complaint thus far. the combat log itself is extreme brief and the numbers, while useful, often do not make a great deal o' sense if we cannot tell who is affected by buffs and debuffs. we has played a mmo or two where we could save combat log to a text file. such a feature would be a great help as we could see more than, perhaps, a single action by each party member. is likely too late to add such a feature, but is possible fodder for the expansion which is seeming already in development. more significant is the lack o' an ability to identify which foes is suffering debuffs. we has pointed this out numerous times and even made specific reference to the ranger's marked prey ability. marked prey is a powerful per-encounter ranger ability, but there is no simple way for us to observe which freaking wood beetle or spider were tagged with marked prey. even when we scroll over each wood beetle, we frequent get very little useful info feedback. we have many buffs and debuffs in this game, but am struck by how the lack o' useful feedbacks makes such abilities far less appealing to us. the effective layering of debuffs is an important tactical concern in many squad-based tactical combat games. PoE often makes such layering a matter o' guesswork rather than strategy. is bad design, from our pov. HA! Good Fun!