Gromnir

quest/task makes perfect sense, and it is simple and unbreakable. regardless o' how you accomplish a goal, no matter how creative or insanely stoopid is your approach, regardless o' whether you go sneaky, diplomatic, fighty or bug exploitative, you will get same xp award for accomplishing a goal. you want the gold-star-on-your-homework feeling from seeing 50 xp awarded for killing a kobold or spider? well, get over it. Gromnir concedes that it is indeed possible that there is a hypothetical perfect balancing formula whereby all players coulds get the right and just xp regardless o' play style, but it would be a complex system and would take considerable effort to implement. quest/task complete ignores the conundrum o' perfect balancing by functional ignoring the problem altogether... and if vol don't get his gold star, so much the better. quest is simple, elegant, and unbreakable... as long as it isn't bugged into absence such as in the PoE beta. HA! Good Fun!

we get impression we is interrupting, but there is no feedback in combat log and there is no graphic indicator that accompanies a successful interrupt, so we have no freaking idea if we is wasting effort or kicking proverbial butt. is a bit frustrating. HA! Good Fun! ps the bear companion does an inordinate amount o' damage

time is not running out. Gromnir has april 1 in the release date poll. yay Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

our ranger appears to achieve most o' his damage via his animal companion. as such, we has decided that our ranger will be interrupt focused. animal does damage, while our ranger sits back with a fast ranged weapon and concentrates on interrupt. that being said, we would like to have some kinda reliable feedback that shows whether or not interrupts is efficacious. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67748-ranger-hippies-with-pets-luvhate/?p=1490371 and seriously, we would like a way to see which foes is suffering debuffs. this is particular important for rangers using marked prey. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* need we have any further proof that combat xp sux than for vol to be in favor o' it? as has been stated hundreds o' times, this same fight has raged with largely the same developers since approx 2002 when black isle were working on bg3 and then fo3. black isle developers went over all the positives and negatives o' quest/task xp awards and soundly beat the ad hoc proponents into utter stoopid submission. we had thought that the ground had been made forever infertile with the blood spilled by the idiotic protests o' the ad hoc proponents, but it seems that at least some o' you is too stubborn to realize that you is well and fully vanquished. quest is simple, elegant and does not require Any balancing to be providing same reward to all players regardless o' play style. there is no balancing algorithm that can possibly compete with the simplicity o' completely avoiding the need to balance. HA! Good Fun!

actually, bg were ridiculous broken in favor o' ranged. iwd, at the minimum, made adjustments to grandmastery and ranged weapons. one o' the more ridiculous bg2 board battles were the fight to save ranged combat efficacy. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

leferd said: He helped flesh out some of the world lore and pantheon of gods during preproduction. well, that explains the following: "Loved the richness of the world and the hints I got about the story. " uh, yeah, well, am sure if you contributed to world richness you will see such in every painting hanging in the local inn, but so far we have gotten very little from which we can point to world depth. honestly, we wanted to kill sid halfway through his spiel. am kindia disagreeing with his impression o' the mouse-over of logs too. the logs themselves is o' so brief and seeming leaving information out that we feel like the mouse-over is telling us half of the relevant info. as stated elsewhere, we got 0 idea how interrupts figure in, and yet two abilities is focused 'pon creating and resisting interrupts. combat logs, in general, is very disappointing and we would wish for an option by which we could save more detailed text logs in a PoE file for later perusal. complete disagree regarding xp for combat. combat xp is an anachronism leftover from crpgs o' the past.... which is kinda ironic. hell, d&d pnp didn't actual award any xp during adventures-- were s'posed to be awarded after completion o' an adventure. clearly the old pnp approach wouldn't work in a crpg lasting tens o' hours and s'posed awarding 10 to a dozen levels, but combat kills xp is bad design and leading to difficulty in balancing. our problem with PoE xp awards is that they don't work. if you can't get combat xp and quest xp is a crap shoot even if you load from main screen, then something is serious freaking wrong. combat xp wouldbe better than no xp. unlike george, we got very good use from aoe Offensive spells, but we couldn't be slap-happy and stoopid 'bout using 'em. dunno, maybe george never played the d&d crpgs with friendly-fire active. am agreeing with george that inventory seems limited, but we haven't quite figured out stash yet and sometimes our inventory is bugged regardless... we actual have one or two less inventory slots and so gear disappears? we don't mind the micromanagement o' combat, and as we has noted elsewhere, starting at level five means we gets thrown into the deeper end o' the pool to try and start learning, but we will agree that bugginess o' combat is frustrating-- is frustrating to point that playing demo frequent feels like work rather than fun. that is bad for a game. in general, we think we agree and disagree with george in equal measure. is a good thing actually. is good to see different perspectives. HA! Good Fun!

I think we're dealing with a psychological effect here at least partly. It just feels "wrong" that dumped stats still give bonuses, even if they're small. am suspecting that you are identifying the bulk o' the problem... at least insofar as recognizing the psychology o' feeling wrong. PoE is doing different than the ie games, or arcanum or fallout. for the codexians, that is not proper and is therefore wrong. PoE does not effective force melee combatants to choose physical stats and at least boost one such stat to max. by mid levels, a mage in most crpgs might as well not even bother to carry a weapon for all the good it does them. mages boots mental stats and get benefit o' powerful spells. melee combatants boost str or dex and must suffer penalties due to lower intelligence or weak will saves. PoE is not using ability scores to force players to follow largely predetermined paths. a mage will be able to use a weapon in PoE and still get use from it at 8th level. *gasp* as we can see from matt's numbers, the values o' placing points in dex, might or both is hardly inconsequential, but they is not end-game determinate either. is different, but different is not bad. different is not even a problem that needs be overcome with fixes. as we noted in another thread, am hopeful there is other avenues for players to customize and diversify, but the numbers don't suggests a genuine problem, unless the problem is simple recognizing that PoE is not doing as wotc or bis or troika has done in past games. HA! Good Fun!

because beefier abilities necessarily lead to a dual problem... but am just repeating self. first, it is not necessarily a positive that the defining characteristics o' your cipher or ranger be necessarily determined at first level. the more you beef up abilities, the the more important you make them in character development, the more essential they become to your character build. this is not a complex notion and is, we would suggest, undeniable. first level is already extreme important for character development, but in PoE 1st level is particularly focused on allocation o' ability points. beef up abilities necessarily makes 1st level choices increasing vital. giving disproportionate value to level 1 choices is bad for a number o' reasons... scroll up if you need a full repeat o' the tedious exploration o' the notion, but short list looks like this: subsequent leveling choices is diluted, you increase likelihood of dump stats, failure (too powerful, too weak or too boring) becomes fixed at the very start of the game, etc. and keep in mind, Gromnir is not getting his arse handed to him in PoE combats... am not needing more power per se. second, if you beef up abilities, to make talents and other customization options compelling and meaningful they need also be beefier. am recognizing that "balance" is a vile and dirty word in these parts, but as soon as you power up some aspect o' character development, you must necessarily increase other aspects or those subsequent choices will become meaningless. balance becomes much more difficult if you add steroids to your ability beef. is an oft repeated example we use, 'cause is indicative o' the lack o' trust we have in the community to be reasonable 'bout character development choices. early in iwd2 development, the game were still an ad&d game and kits were proposed. kits is a first level customization aspect and is potential very significant. josh offered a handful o' potential kits to the black isle boardies to gauge approval/disapproval. josh's kit suggestions was hated. am not thinking we is exaggerating by using "hate" descriptor. is one o' those few times Gromnir were genuine shocked by board reaction. as many is aware, josh and Gromnir do not always agree on game issues, but we thought his kit suggestions were, at worst, lacking personality. as a whole, they were balanced and well designed additions. you can't imagine how much the josh kits were targets o' board vitriol. ad&d, more than d20, had all significant character development choices occur at level 1, and kits could be offering a significant amount o' beef to characters. in response to board hate, josh develops alternative kit. am forgetting the name, but it mighta' been called the Juggernaut o' Death. the kit were so freaking overpowered it were comical. clearly josh were having a bit o' fun with the community. ... the community didn't get the joke. boardies loved the new kit. superlatives flowed like water o'er niagara falls. new kit were bestest kit ever and legion were the folks anticipating using it in their first play-through o' iwd2. fans is wacky when it comes to issues o' balance and power. fans, sadly, should not be trusted. fans will choose the God Power nine times outta ten even if is obvious game breaking and even if they claim they want balanced. fans says silly stuff like, "I don't see beefier abilities opposed to more and better talents at all. Why not have both?" you want juggernaut o' death, not balance.. you want juggernaut even if getting makes game too easy. less is frequent more. we has played some beta and we don't believe our characters feel weak, but the lack o' talents has made so we has less differentiation than we would like to see. ability scores already offer an element o' differentiation, but clear not enough to satisfy. makes sense that we should let obsidian use largely unseen talents to fix diversity problem before making wholesale changes to abilities. if talents ain't enough o' a fix, then sure, abilities can be tweaked, but for reasons above, bloat o' abilities is a bad place to start given they already afford noteworthy, if insufficient, diversity. HA! Good Fun!

am uncertain about specific numbers or your chosen example, but yeah, am believing that individual talents should be of significant importance to character customization. am also in favor o' having talents be free o' class restrictions. if a druid or wizard can figure out some way to makes a firearms specialization work for his/her build, so much the better-- am wanting more options and more build viability, not less. prerequisites that channel classes into taking specific talents or talent trees is an approach we find antagonistic to diversity and customization. HA! Good Fun!

if what we got is all we get, then yeah, the ability distribution sux. nevertheless, Gromnir would prefer to look backwards and assume that ability scores is just one small aspect o' what is total character development. ability scores should not be so significant that other customization options pale by comparison. in point o' fact, we would rather that ability scores were less significant than subsequent level-up options. is not that current abilities is insignificant, 'cause they ain't. even so, keeping the abilities in current relative muted state compared to past d&d crpgs, fallout and arcanum, allows obsidian to use subsequent leveling customization to develop meaningful build diversity. but yeah, if current state is final state, then we need major changes. HA! Good Fun!

Neither does decimal point, spreadsheet balance. actually, we could benefit greatly from some spreadsheets explaining what is actual going on in combat. nevertheless, we don't recall asking for such. ironic perhaps, you is the guy asking for power, which is most easily measured with hard numbers. Gromnir is more interested in relative fun and feel o' usefulness. HA! Good Fun!

Well no, I wouldn't want to start with that assumption. For 2 reasons. 1) Beefing up the effects of the attributes would not only lead to powerful characters. It would also lead to severe penalties for people who decide to dump some of those stats in order to max out the others. 2) If we don't necessarily want more powerful characters then why are we asking for the talents to be beefed up? In any event, I mostly agree with the rest of your post, which is why I didn't bother addressing it. Something should indeed be done to make the talents stand out, be more interesting, more unique, more meaningful, and to give us a reason to look forward to that next level up. But I'm looking at the big picture. Right now the entire system... the stats, the spells, the talents and even item properties, feel very soulless and...BORING... If one needs a spreadsheet to determine the difference between someone who's 1st level and someone who's 8th level, we've got a friggin problem: Josh Sawyer has sacrificed fun to appease his lord Balance. THAT is the assumption I want to begin with, and then work from there to propose solutions. 1) your first point runs contrary to every crpg with ability points we can name... any d&d crpg, arcanum, fallout, etc. powerful abilities without dump stats is what PoE seems to be aiming for, and that becomes less likely if key character development is all happening at level one. 2) Gromnir were assuming you wanted the game to be more fun. bad on us we s'pose. power don't equal more fun. in point o' fact, power is one thing that leads to one o' the two most common complaints about all crpgs obsidian/black isle has ever developed: it was too easy. one would assume that players wants their characters to feel useful and that they wants to believe their character development choices had meaning, but heck, if power is all it takes, game development just got a whole helluva alot easier. HA! Good Fun!

Why are you presenting this as an Either/Or, when we could have both and the entire character customization process would only *benefit* from it? let's start with an assumption that people don't necessarily want more powerful characters but rather want more opportunity for unique and diverse builds, yes? increase power is ez as all it requires is some juggling o' numbers, yes? people want their character development choices to have meaning, and currently it appears that their ability point allocations has less meaning than previous ie games. is fair summation? it is very possible that obsidian will conclude that abilities Should be inflated. am not certain at this point what is the bestest route. as we has noted elsewhere, the mechanics o' the game is so obscured by buggy gameplay that it is difficult to see where things is wrong much less where gameplay may be improved. that being said, we would suggest starting by addressing post level one improvements. Gromnir would indeed like to see player's find build that makes 'em special (if not necessarily powerful) snowflakes. however, perhaps ironically, this becomes more difficult as you increase the relevance o' abilities. level one choices should not overshadow all decisions that follow. currently, the level one choices is highly focused on abilities: race, culture and ability point allocation. the aforementioned is all related to ability point allocations. the moment obsidian boosts abilities, post level one improvements such as talents will necessarily need be inflated as well if they is to be relative as important as the level one character development choices-- this is obvious, no? inflate the importance o' level one choices and we is back to a system where not only is the value o' subsequent leveling diminished, but level one will be the time when players decide what is the Best builds, and so we will get most ciphers looking same and most mages looking the same, and most rangers looking the same. ... as is our way we will indulge in questionable metaphor and request that obsidian attempts to improve diversity o' builds by working from the arse end o' character development issue. the more RELATIVE impact you impart to ability scores, by necessity you is making level one choices more significant. this is not a strength but a flaw. if players currently believe that there is a sameness to all builds 'cause o lack o' meaning in their ability point distributions, we would wish for obsidian to take the less obvious route to a solution to sameness and devote efforts to talents and other potential customization options first, post level one options. yes, this will make it more difficult to immediate see the variations between character builds 'cause at level one there will be a sameness due to diluted ability point powha, but in the long run we believe obsidian will provide themselves and players with more opportunities to meaningful diversity, and for meaningful leveling experiences. also, keep in mind that we don't have ie style multi-classing or dual-classing. these is post level 1 options for diversity that will not be available to us in PoE that was staples (if broken) in ie games. Gromnir is attempting to look at long range and see how best to achieve long view diversity and satisfactory leveling. for the reasons we has now beaten into a pulpy mess, boosting relative power o' ability scores would seem to work at cross purposes with our goals. HA! Good Fun! edit: freaking font size always goes wonky

am not a fan o' the bg music. monotonous. if we were at a random coffee shop in anywhere USA and had to choose between a copy o' kristen stewart poetry or the bg soundtrack to prop up a wobbly table leg, we would be hard pressed to decide which were the most expendable media. HA! Good Fun!

Oh, it's getting through, I just disagree that it's a balancing nightmare. Improvements at levels 2+ should most definitively be very significant and have a deeper impact on your character than +x% to Will save and such. I think we're way past the stage from IE games where your level up screen would consist only of your newly gained HPs and the OK button. A single-player RPG shouldn't concern itself so much with balance, it should primarily concern itself with challenge and fun. you make sound as if balancing is somehow different from fun. do you honestly believe that the developers is balancing for some abstract notion 'o fairness? agree or disagree, but balancing is done 'cause developers believe a more balanced game is more fun. have only a handful o' right choices for ability spreads or talent choices is making game less fun if you choose wrong. accidentally choose too hard options or too easy and game ain't fun. even worse, choose options that is simple less useful and game is less fun. balance is not about power per se, but if player chooses wrong and gets less fun, that is bad. according to both bioware, obsidan, and other game developers, the two most common complaints regarding any and all games: it was too easy it was too hard choose wrong ability spread at level one and find out you got un-fun character 'cause level one were disproportionate important? that is not only bad balance but it is not fun and it is... stoopid. lessen possibility o' choosing wrong promotes fun rather than diminishes. disagree if you wish, 'cause many will, but balance is done to make game more fun... fun for more folks. is a serious irrational perspective to be thinking that pursuit o' balance in a crpg is done for reasons other than promoting fun. 'course that is besides the point. having successive levels be relative more important axiomatically should be making leveling beyond first level more interesting. HA! Good Fun!

you do have meaningful differentiation at level one, just not near as much as in previous incarnations o' ie games. and again, 'cause this isn't getting through for some reason, the more extreme you make the differentiation at level one, the greater you gotta make the improvements at level 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. for those improvements to have similar impact as the level one choices.... which is a balancing nightmare. HA! Good Fun!

am disagreeing completely here... particular with pathfinder. much as d20 were a monumental improvement over ad&d, pathfinder were at least a minor improvement over 3.5. the thing is that just as d20 couldn't survive its own weight as each new splat book made the game increasingly less balanced and internal incoherent, pathfinder has followed a similar path. is a bit like attempting to improve chess. you can't improve chess by simply adding new pieces or adding dimensions to the board. 'course once you sell a chess board and pieces to a person, you can't make additional money off o' those purchasers. wotc and paizo is in the business o' selling games. once they sold folks on core books and released errata, what were they to do? as for d&d 5th or next or whatever it is now, we played through the dragonspear castle stuff and even the murder in baldur's gate release and anybody familiar with d20 is gonna have a very shallow learning curve. let's not pretend 5th edition is a reinventing o' the wheel rather than a retool o' d20. HA! Good Fun!

which of course send us right back to the issue where the important character development choices is all gonna be taking place at level 1... and that is something Gromnir believes is a bad thing. not all people agree, but honestly, it would be refreshing to have abilities and still have post level 1 choices be near as meaningful. furthermore, there will inevitably be a difference 'tween how much sting one character build feels for tanking an ability compared to another. with very little imagination, folks will be able to minimize any sting by choosing the right weapon. power, and spell combinations. the more abilities, talents, spells, weapons and other customization options you create in a game, the greater you create a near certainty that there will be a way to avoid your envisioned sting. based on previous ie games, fallout, arcanum and other crpgs, people got an expectation 'bout the impact o' abilities on gameplay. there is some value in meeting expectations, but we would actual prefer if obsidian takes a rational rather than emotional approach, at least for now. we would rather see less difference 'tween two level one ciphers, regardless o' stat distribution, compared to two level five ciphers. starting ability distribution is NOT unimportant in its current state, but we would rather see character development further bolstered during leveling rather than by a marked inflation o' ability importance. HA! Good Fun!

Every class has something unique they bring to the table. Chanters, outside of their phrase/chant/invocation mechanics... buff, debuff, and summon. Their purpose, in my estimation, is to augment the party and reduce the need for other classes to spend resources. They focus on reducing damage dealt to your party, increase damage put out by your party, some CC, and some AoE damage. Their damage from spells is abysmal compared to druids, wizards, and Ciphers (Soul Ignition LOL). Their CCs are reliant on having 3+ Chant Counters which don't come quickly... so other classes can pull down CC better because they can do it whenever they like depending on resources. Their having more summons is a way to assist this. I am not saying that Druids and Wizards shouldn't have summons, but that those summons shouldn't be better than the Chanters. Summons and Buff/Debuffs are the best things Chanters bring to the table. If Druids and Wizards get anywhere close to the Chanter than the Chanter has a chance of getting a 2nd class citizen card for everything in the game (like Bards in the IE and NWN games). we don't want druids to have summons... 'least not at the moment. our druid were able to lay down some serious hurt with near over-the-top offensive spells. HA! Good Fun!

summons has always been problematic in these games. the summoned critter not only acts as a near impenetrable shield (even if only for a short time) but it may potential do damage as well. the PoE ranger companion actual balances this quite well by making the ranger's animal friend a voodoo doll that transmits damaged suffered directly to the ranger. we has played a chanter but only through the meredith battle, and am admitting it has some nifty gameplay aspects. in general, we is very pleased at just how unique all the classes feel... although we have no urge to play a monk. in our consciousness, monks spend their day in prayer and simple labor, perhaps manually copying books or making cheese and beer. sidetracked. in any event, am impressed by the uniqueness o' the classes. HA! Good Fun!

well, well, long time no see. HA! Good Fun! Ha! Indeed. I've posted a couple times here and there, but life has kept me busy. I suspect (and hope) PoE will bring lure me back to the forums, but I'm an old man now, so I suspect there will be a lot more discussion of lawncare and the good ol' days. we have a crew o' gardeners for Gromnir properties. extent o' our lawn care input is calling armondo s________ and asking him to fix sprinklers at ___________ or perhaps trim back photinias at _____________. ... that does remind us that the photinias is growing up above our gutters at the terreno property. in any event, wb and please keep lawn care insights to a minimum as we will be left without any valuable insights... not that our other insights is particularly noteworthy. HA! Good Fun!

"The talent system describes character growth, no? So, for there to be character growth, there has to be a decent baseline which differentiates characters to begin with. " anybody wanna help samm identify the logic fallacy (fallacies) he is making? there is differentiation in current PoE builds using might v. intellect or whatever. samm got a subjective feeling that there ain't enough differentiation. to be fair, is a subjective feeling many boardies share. Gromnir, on the other hand, sees no great need for differentiation to be extreme at level one. we would rather the differentiation become more pronounced at later levels as 'posed to being centered around level one choices. where differentiation centers on level 1 choices, it is near inevitable that we will see more uniformity o' builds. furthermore, the act o' leveling is far less meaningful if level 1 choices is disproportionate valued. as for 4e playtest, it were also a "years" kinda thing, but am admitting that we do not have hard numbers o' 4e play testers. we recall articles using vague identifiers such as "extensive" and similar. as you noted, rpga were also involved in 4e testing. 5e, on the other hand, is laughable in its own rights as it would appear that their actual playtest were observing pathfinder success. gosh, doesn't take a genius to see that wotc largely rolled d&d back to 3.5 for their starting point for 5.0. that is not a playtest so much as a capitulation and an admission o' fail. HA! Good Fun! edit: samm's quote disappeared from our posting. strange. we were forced to re-submit.

well, well, long time no see. HA! Good Fun!

"be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." --sun tzu Gromnir is one o' those hateful late 80s quasi-yuppie a-holes that memorized sun-zu as if it were some kinda playbook for office politics domination. HA! Good Fun!