remiel005

I LOVE the ideas they are doing with class design. However, I think they've caused further divides between classes. Non-caster classes are now forced to pick between abilities they already had rather than making meaningful build choices while spell-casters have increased talents on top of all the spells they already had. If this is to be viable, then the non-caster classes need a much larger selection of abilities to choose from and the capacity to select more on level up (the BB characters are still designed with all their abilities). The talents could be sorted a little neater with some categorization. Showing talents that are currently locked out and giving their pre-requisites would be nice so we can make intentional character build decisions. /encounter vs /rest vs renewable resource classes have done nothing to come into balance. I am left still spamming /encounter abilities in order to use them up before battle is over. I love that the skill system was dissolved into talents. Now players have to make discerning choices for a simple skill system rather than point dumping. I think this would be a good route to go for a lot of role playing games - both video and pnp, when a highly complex system is not going to be implemented. Naked hearth orlan rogues with dual stilettos still do insane damage and never seem to pull aggro while they run around the battle field backstabbing everything to death in one or two hits.

I like grazes in two areas. One it allows ability usage to still be potentially viable on tougher enemies, just with shorter duration. It works out well for some spells since the game uses a defense system over a save system - so there is no 'half damage on save' built in otherwise.

I liked some of the changes I have seen so far. Nice not to have two dump stats and feel like I'm cheating some characters by taking negatives. While the game plays better over all, I've had some stability issues I wasn't encountering in the previous build. I'm not real impressed with the additional talent options or their frequency - this is being discussed in other threads, but I'd like to see class talents and general talents separated. General talents being gradual changes you can make to shift your character's focus and class talents less frequent but having a large impact on class abilities and function (doesn't help that there are no numerical values shown with the new talents). Went from hating rogues to building one that was insanely powerful. Orlan rogue with the crit bonus, maxed out perception and dexterity and did dual stilettos with no armor. Throw in a paladin adventurer with the hit-to-crit bonus to the aura and I was hitting with critical sneak attacks almost every time by just taking a few seconds to position - 20-50 damage less than a second apart - no one could match that and I cleared most of the encounters without using any other class' abilities. On the flip side I feel like the barbarian changes either nerfed the class pretty badly or they aren't shaping up as well as the others. Would still like to see significant changes in at least the fighter/wizard classes so they are reflective of more diverse builds. I discussed this further on the General Class Thread.

I don't know where the designers are going on this or what others have suggested, but here are a few ideas I had for health/stamina. Stamina doesn't automatically regenerate after combat. Instead there is a short-term rest (like a 5 minute breather) where stamina restores and /encounter abilities recharge. This would allow for better management of barbarians specifically, since they do increased damage at lower stamina. The stamina to health ratios also influence whether or not damage is applied to health. So most characters must take 4 damage or any multiple of(rounded down) converted to health damage. For a barbarian it would need to be damage by multiple of 8s. So a fighter grazed for 3 points of stamina would receive no wounds, more of a winding experience, but a crit for 43 points of damage would cause 10 health loss. Effects like poison, deep wounds or monk wounds could then tick more frequently at lower values and not significantly hurt adventuring day longevity, while still affecting the flow of combat. Allow healing spells to bring people back from being knocked unconscious. Healing in the game already seems slightly counter-intuitive with the system, don't see why healing classes can't have some specialty in combat.

Proposed Fighter Changes I’m approaching this by making a fighter that is more of a classical build than a niche build defender type. My goal is to keep the defense options still there and as a key role to playing them effectively. The main motivation behind the change is that the AI re-design that has been discussed will make the fighter’s current play design even more boring and bland. This design still keeps the fighter relatively low maintenance but makes it so there is a point to have more than one in the party besides having a solid front line. All number values and names(especially) are adjustable – trying to prove a point in the design rather than making something I would expect to see in game. Level 1 Knockdown – functions very similar, allows for weapon range so reach weapons aren’t reduced in build viability Constant Recovery – functions as is Defend Modal - +10 deflection Assail Modal – x1.25 damage Level 2 Vigorous Defense – functions as is Inescapable Modal – +2 engagements Long-arm Modal – +0.5 reach By level 2 the fighter would be able to change combat roles in battle four different ways. Defend for 1v1 combat (maybe a heavy hitter like the ogre), Assail for when they aren’t the targets of attacks or need to dispatch things quickly, Inescapable for dealing with containing larger groups and Long-arm for when they are wounded( or maybe taking back seat to a monk). Level 3 Armored Grace – functions as is Weapon Specialization – functions as is Level 4 Disrupt Modal – +25% interrupt Versatile Defense Modal – +5 to Fort/Refl/Will Level 5 Unbending Advanced Modals – Allows for 2 simultaneous modals Weapons would serve a two-fold purpose with this design: 1) The different damage types would influence weapon type 2) Weapon speed would work better with some modals. Examples: A 5th level fighter wants to hit the enemy party’s chanter. The chanter has summoned several pets and is continuing to try to do so. The fighter equips two stilettos and uses the Long-arm and Disrupt modals to strike past the summoned creatures and hit the chanter. The chanter dies and the rest of the enemy party want revenge so they focus fire the fighter. The fighter switches to a sword and shield and the Defend and Versatile Defense modals to keep alive while the rest of the party does the damage. A 3rd level fighter is being attacked by a swarm of spiders. He has a pike equipped and uses the Inescapable modal to damage them with engagement attacks as they come in. After many of them are dispatched the rest close in so the fighter switches to double axe and the Assail modal to kill them as quickly as possible before they can affect the fighter with their deadly poison.

I think a way of dealing with repetitive and often non-strategic use of /encounter abilities is to have them all share a common pool. This would mean you earn /encounter universal uses when you level up, rather than for a specific ability. At a level 8 a fighter would have 3/encounter uses between knockdown and vigorous defense. The fighter can use knockdown 2 times and vigorous defense 1 time or any combination of the two (or any other /encounter abilities they earn).

Wizard Rework-up Premise for changes – wizards are currently built around a spectrum of damage spells with some utility built in for as-needed occurrences. As a whole, many of the utility spells are significantly under powered compared to their damage counterparts, other class abilities and the fact they are all /rest abilities. Even other /rest casters are provided with all of their spells by level, further trumping the wizards utilization of spells. These changes keep a large emphasis on the damage spells since this appeared to be their core development, but the spectrum has been broadened. /encounter abilities are sorted out from level one and made so that they are roughly based on power (some number arranging would need to be done, I’m sure). Wizards will still need some reliance on auto-attacking, but this allows them more longevity overall. My approach to damage is the greater the risk involved in the attack, the greater the reward. A spell geared for long range, especially long ranged aoe, should not equal close range (especially touch) in damage or additional effects. Also /encounter spells are designed at every level to meet a certain standard, whereas /rest ones are more fluid or rotate. Some alternatives I provide will bleed over into other class mechanics, but aren’t meant to overpower them (which is why de-buffs are limited <cipher> and group buffs/summons <chanter> are also). The self-buffs are geared in a variety of ways now, so that a wizard could deal higher damage through them, allowing for broader play styles. No idea how the different grimoires would fit into this build outside you can collect enemy ones to get spells, as you currently can. /encounter spells would still be selected on a group of 4 basis to keep them similar. Arcane Veil can still remain as is, but I would recommend be highly modifiable through talents, e.g. damages enemies who try to attack them, boosts all defenses. Essentially, if I had to ask myself ‘why would I actually cast this?’ I dropped it down to a /encounter ability or retooled it. Also, assume buffs only affect party members and everything else affects friend and foe unless otherwise noted (or a centered aoe, which exempts the caster). All spells not based on one currently in the game marked in red. I tried to make everything listed based on fit and as consistent labeling as possible. My minor/medium/heavy damage based on /encounter being weaker than /rest and scales by spell level Spell Level 1 2 /encounter abilities (+1 at character level 2 and 4) – one per encounter (+1 use at character level 5) 3 /rest abilities (+1 at character level 2, 3 and 5)– 2 spell slots (+1 at level 3, +1 at level 6) List of /encounter spells with rough stats Damage Spells /encounter Close-range damage: Sunless Grasp – Medium cast, medium frost damage, -5% speed for 10 seconds Mid-range damage: Lesser fan of flames – Medium cast, medium flame damage, smaller cone Long-range damage: Veil Thrust – Fast cast, minor damage, +50% interrupt Defense Spells /encounter Quick Defense: Wizard’s Double – Fast cast, self only, absorbs next HIT and disappears(remains on GRAZE/MISS, only absorbs half of CRIT) Quick Tactical: Fleet Foot – Fast cast, self only, 5 sec, x2 speed, +20 def engagement attacks Buff Spells /encounter Short Offensive Buff: Eldritch Aim – Fast cast, bonuses as is Summoned Weapon: Lesser Parasitic staff – Slow cast, as is but base 1min De-buff: Dazzling Lights – Medium cast, as is, but cone based List of /rest spells with rough stats Damage Spells /rest Close-range damage: Jolt Touch – Medium cast, heavy shock damage, stun 5 sec Mid-range damage: Fan of flames – Medium cast, heavy fire damage, large cone Long Range damage: Minor Missiles – Fast cast, medium crushing damage, 3 missiles, +10% interrupt Centered AoE damage: Ghost Blades – Fast cast, full circle around caster, heavy piercing damage Targetable AoE damage: Chill Fog – Slow cast, long range, mid-size aoe with speed de-buff and 10 sec duration Defense Spells /rest Long term self: Spirit Shield, Slow cast, lasts 1 game day +5 dt, +10 concentration Large area tactical: Dust cloud – Fast cast, aoe centered on caster, gives everyone in the area +50 deflect to engagement hits, lasts 5 seconds Buff Spells /rest Group offense buff: Battle Momentum – Fast cast, large aoe, +1% CRIT range after every successful HIT, 30 sec duration Group de-buff: Slicken – Fast cast, medium aoe, chance on knockdown ticks every 3 seconds, but knockdown only 2 secs (in attempt to mimic someone trying to navigate standing/falling on ice) Single de-buff: Atrophy – Slow cast, medium penalty to might/con/dex, 1 min duration Spell Level 2 2 /encounter abilities (+1 at character level 4 and 6) – one per encounter (+1 use at character level 8 ) 3 /rest abilities (+1 at character level 4, 5 and 6)– 2 spell slots (+1 at level 5, +1 at level 8 ) List of /encounter spells with rough stats Damage Spells /encounter Close-range damage: Corrosive siphon – Slow cast, medium corrosion damage and minor splash damage to enemies within 1m – caster heals stamina for half damage dealt Mid-range damage: Rolling flame – Slow cast, long range, medium damage, does less damage the further it is from the caster Long-range damage: Necrotic Lance – Fast cast, long range, medium damage in straight line between caster and target Defense Spells /encounter Quick Defense: Mirrored Image – as wizard’s double, but 3 duplicates Quick Tactical: Vitality – Fast cast, wizard’s stamina (current and max) x2 for 10 seconds Buff Spells /encounter Short Offensive: Phantom Strikes- Slow cast, ignores 5 dt of any enemies for 15 seconds Summoned Weapon: Lesser Repeating Hand Cannon – Slow cast, does 50% crush, 50% pierce(does damage like the strongest gun, but with fast speed), 1 min duration De-buff: Bewilder – Medium cast, medium range, 15 sec confusion on one target List of /rest spells with rough stats Damage Spells /rest Close-range damage: Wrathful Diffusion – Medium cast, strips enemy of one beneficial effect and does heavy raw damage Mid-range damage: Fire Ray – Medium cast, beam does minor fire damage between caster and target, lasts for 5 seconds, with damage applied again every second. Long Range damage: Blinding Flash – Fast cast, medium piercing damage with a chance to blind Centered AoE damage: Stench of death – Fast cast, miasmic aoe from caster, minor damage with effect of paralysis for 5 seconds and/or sickened for 30 seconds Targetable AoE damage: Bewildering Blast – Medium cast, long range, large aoe, does medium crushing damage with a chance to confuse enemies Defense Spells /rest Long term self: Elemental Bulwark – Slow cast, +5 dt to all elemental damage for game day Lang term individual party member: Impervious – Fast cast, +5 defense against all status effects for game day Buff Spells /rest Group offense buff: Merciless Gaze – Fast cast, medium range, large aoe, 10% HITs to CRITs, 1 min duration Group de-buff: Web – Fast cast, long range, medium aoe, everyone in area slowed, stuck effect chance ticks every 3 seconds, enemies receive -5 to fire dt while in area, 30 sec duration Aoe centered de-buff: Combustible Wounds – Fast cast, flame damage, damage based on % of remaining life, centered on caster Single de-buff: Dull mind – Slow cast, medium penalty to per/int/res, 1 min duration Spell Level 3 2 /encounter abilities (+1 at character level 6 and 8 )– one per encounter (+1 use at character level 7) 3 /rest abilities (+1 at character level 6, 7 and 9)– 2 spell slots (+1 at level 7, +1 at level 9) List of /encounter spells with rough stats Damage Spells /encounter Close-range damage: Exposing strike – Fast cast, minor damage, but target takes -5 penalty to all defenses for 30 seconds Mid-range damage: Repulsive visage – Medium cast, cone from caster minor damage and leaves targets frightened Long-range damage: Minor blight – Slow cast, random elemental damage ranged attack in place of regular attack for 30 seconds, lost when changing weapons +10 accuracy Defense Spells /encounter Quick Defense: Displace – Fast cast, 50% HITs to GRAZEs for 15 seconds Quick Tactical: Swap – Fast cast, caster and selected party member switch places Buff Spells /encounter Short Offensive: Alacrity – Fast cast, self-buff, 25% speed boost for 15 seconds Summoned Weapon: Parasitic staff – as the lesser version, but has a chance to heal stamina for everyone in the party De-buff: Slow – Fast cast, single target, 25% speed penalty for 15 seconds List of /rest spells with rough stats Damage Spells /rest Close-range damage: Draining Touch – Fast cast, applies a dot to target that heals the caster for the amount of damage dealt, 30 sec duration, ticks on 3 sec Mid-range damage: Lightning Bolt – Fast cast, medium range, medium shock damage, jumps up to 5 targets(based on space) doing less damage each time Long Range damage: Bounding Missile – As minor missiles, but 5 missiles at heavy damage Centered AoE damage: Arcane Dampening – As wrathful diffusion but medium aoe centered on caster Targetable AoE damage: Fireball – Medium cast, long range, large aoe, medium fire damage, 25% fire dot effect Defense Spells /rest Long term self: Hawks’ Eye – Slow cast, +10 accuracy (melee/range), lasts 1 game day Lang term tactical: Unstoppable – Fast cast, self-only, 50% chance not affected by engagements lasts 1 game day Buff Spells /rest Group offense buff: Haste – As alacrity, but medium range, large aoe Group de-buff: Noxious Blast – Fast cast, medium range, medium aoe, anyone in area becomes sick and stuck for 5 seconds, ticks every 3 seconds, lasts 30 seconds Aoe centered de-buff: Sloth Curse – As slow, but aoe centered on caster Related Talent Ideas +1 /encounter ability – by per spell level +1 /rest spell slot – by spell level Elemental specialist – by damage type Enduring Spells – all durations increased by 25% Extended Grimoire - 5 total slots for /encounter abilities Quick hands – Increase in cast speed for touch type spells Deadly focus – Single target damage increased Summoner’s Secrets – several talents that modify summoned weapons (double duration, summoned weapons upped in quality <fine, exceptional>, etc)

You're using the buffs wrong. This isn't DnD where you pre-buff until you're a Christmas tree. Use buffs situationally, and pick the right one for the job. I think that if there is a wrong way to use the buffs than the class is broken - especially when it is the most limited of the current casting classes. I believe there could be optimum ways to do buffs, but by pigeon-holing every wizard into a generalist type is boring and inventive. Between pnp games and even ie games with multiclassing and some kits, you could take a lot of different approaches to spell selection and utilization. I'm not expecting to self buff myself every time with 10 spells and wade into battle. I would like to be able to cast 2 or 3 spells that could shape my wizards play style and wade into battle. From there cast 1 or 2 based on the flow of battle. This might look like the following: Wizard with a blunderbus - day long boost to accuracy, day long boost to armor(so I can not have additional speed penalties by wearing the heavy stuff. While in battle and need the advantage, cast a haste-type spell. When the AI is improved and I get swarmed, cast the character switch spell to pull in a secondary 'tank' class. Wizard with a summoned weapon - day long boost to armor, day long boost to health. Enter battle, summon the specified weapon. Engaged more enemies than intended, so I pump out a mirror image or an aoe spell cenetered on me. Wizard that acts like a glass-cannon - day long boost to might, day long boost to casting speed. Chain cast beam spells from angles and aoes until I get swarmed and get smoked if I don't use the veil power. Right now, if I select a PC wizard and an adventurer wizard and try to set them up with a spell list that is different from the BB wizard, they are either worthless or burn through their spells at a much higher rate to achieve a similar level of accomplishment in battle. The buff wizard I described takes the first several seconds of battle to buff, burning through the /rest spells that won't last until the end of the battle. The debuff wizard between all the aiming problems with aoes and targeting can hardly get a spell off that doesn't affect them AND is out done by other casting classes. What I am proposing would look something like this: The 1st level buff that increases accuracy by 50 and lasts 7.5 seconds would be a /encounter type buff. The 1st level spell that boosts DT by 10 and concentration by 20 would be toned down in numbers and the duration would be a game day and /rest. A similar armor spell could exist that might give higher numbers for a small duration window of 15 seconds and give the same numbers that would be /encounter. For offensive spells you could have minor and major versions. A minor fan of flames might have 1/2 the damage and 3/4 the range and be /encounter. You still select /encounter abilities like you currently do with wizard spells. So you would have 4 per spell level that is fixed during battle unless you want the cooldown to take effect. You still have to select your approach to combat with the character. The /rest abilities would be selected in a traditional manner that would make you select a spell slot earned through leveling - one spot is one spell and not a small list to select. This could be fine tuned to eliminate any ability to OP the game and could even be scaled down so that at low levels you still only have 1 or 2 /encounter spells per level available and have that grow to more significant numbers as you level. My overall issue with the core classes is that they are designed for a specific archetypal build. For the fighter it is being build to be a turtle. For the wizard it is to be a generalist - small spell availability, buffs geared to be for 'oh ****' moments, etc. I can see talents offering SOME ways of getting past this monotony, but the only true way to offer something interesting is to re-envision them. So instead of me just complaining about what I don't like, I want to offer some solutions - even if they aren't feasible. The interesting spells I was referring to were the blights and a summoned weapon. I think the summoned weapons could be flushed out to be their own thing for a melee/ranged wizards (who don't wanna just auto-attack with wands and such), but they would have to have effects unique in the game with the crafting system that is currently in place. There are also some defense spells that are listed as depleting after so many attacks, which I think could be interesting if consistent across the board.

The wizard class, I know has been discussed quite frequently, but I think there are plenty of points that could be noted. As a reference to my earlier post - I believe renewable resource classes and those that use /rest and /encounter abilities are highly out of sync. 1: Compared to other games the spells are very low in number, especially from what spell options you get when leveling up even higher. In the IE games wizards were only competing with clerics(who were heal/buff oriented with a few offensive/debuff flare spells) and druids(who were highly stylized casters) and allowed for a wide spectrum of utility in spell selection. In this game they are competing with the same classes that have all their spells per level available, a chain casting cipher fiend that has insanely long debuffs, a windless bard that has extremely customizable buffs/debuffs that when utilized give it simultaneous access to more powerful spells, and a handful of other class abilities that further augment the game from predecessors. 2: The duration of most buffs are highly limited and mostly restricted to battle. Try playing a buff based melee wizard and this will be incredibly obvious. Even if you select your spells based on duration, by the time you get a decent selection of buffs going for the one battle, you have a)expended about 5 of maybe 15 /rest spells b) expended the length of duration of several spells c) been less effective than just auto-attacking at range for splash damage and shooting missiles. 3: The buffs the wizard does receive are restricted to just them. This, paired to the previous problem, makes most of the buff spells a wasted strategy - which paired to the first issue makes the wizard very streamlined. 4: Almost all of their spells are aoe based. Right now aoe is highly discussed so I don't feel like I need to include that all here. 5: The damage output of wizard spells never appears that impressive to me. By BG 2, most wizards could do 6-60 damage with a fireball, which was even more significant considering the comparable HD of creatures and that weapons dealt usually between 1-8 damage plus modifiers(for a standard longsword). In pillars of eternity my fireballs usually deal maybe twice the damage of the other classes auto-attacking. 6: On the positive side there are a handful of spells unique to PoE. These, when the game is considerably more balanced, could be fun and useful. What I think would help the class from low levels, is for it to start out with the /encounter spells - instead of awarding them much later in the game(still didn't see them by level 8 ). Essentially, this would be creating two tiers of spells per level. The /encounter spells would have the short duration as they are now and the low damage. The /rest spells would be buffs that lasted for entire game days, devastating damage or powerful buffs/debuffs. The /encounter powers could then later be changed into quicker cast or chain cast. Something that I always hated about the IE games was that instead of intelligent caster enemies, they would just automatically start out with 5 buffs in battle so that they were harder to kill. The quick or chain cast of /encounter abilities could simulate this. This approach would require a change to how grimoires function. I really believe the concept of different grimoires for different situations is interesting but the cooldown combined with the current spell limitations would slow down an already slower class.

I wanted to post some of my experiences playing through the different classes. These are my impressions so they are entirely subjective and I understand that bugs/balance issues/talents will influence some of the things I say. I plan on posting as I work through the classes(except ones I know are in plans for overhaul). Some of the suggestions I make might be redundant based on other threads/posts, but some are worth repeating and others I haven't seen because I skim past most of the posts. To premise my experience this is how I play to test classes: Normal difficulty and I never rest - sort of a speed run(takes about an hour). Sell all the extra starter gear and buy grap hook/rope. Buy my adventurer. I do the murderer quest to start, killing both groups. I go to the crossing fighting the one wood beetle and the wolves then go straight to the egg. I kill all of them and collect the egg with the grap hook. - level up health restored. Go to the ogre cave, kill the middle spider group and the ogre. Return to town and turn in quests - level up health restored. Go back to the crossing and go the long way around to the statue. Fight all cultists between me and the easiest mechanics door and accept that they screwed the girl up and leave peacefully - go back the way I came in and turn in. The one I would like to mention currently is the fighter class. I feel like the pnp tradition of fighter is absent from the class in its current state - if anyone is familiar with the movie Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising, the thought process behind the turtle tank seems to be a guiding influence. Guardian or defender would be a more accurate title. In 8 levels you receive 2 offensive oriented abilities and the rest are defense. There are currently 2 modals(3 if you count the stam regen that you can't actually de-activate). The first is for personal defense and engagement and the second is a straight acc/def exchange that is shared with allies, but requires you literally stack the characters on top of one-another to benefit. I played a game with a fighter PC that used an estoc and medium armor, the BB fighter as equipped and an adventurer fighter in light armor and a quarter staff. I selected different talents/modals for each but they were ultimately very similar. The survivability was very close due to most of the damage coming from deep wound and poison ticks rather than direct hits. Spamming knockdown while the other three classes were set to ranged seemed to be the best strategy either by squaring each fighter up with an enemy and focus firing with my ranged or by surrounding solo enemies and taking turns knocking them down. Generally per encounter/renewable resource debuffs outshine direct damage abilities in every class I've played as. The only per rest abilities I used were wizard spells when I encountered the cultists bug where they only took marginal damage per hit. My biggest concern with the class currently is not the fact that it doesn't live up to the tradition, but that when the better AI is implemented that they will lose the only role they currently have, which is holding the front line. I foresee them taking a few engagement hits on most foes, then running around and giving classes that actually hit and do damage a flanking bonus. Knockdown has its own range and is not weapon based. This makes having a reach weapon fairly pointless for a fighter since it is their only activateable offensive ability. I think it would be beneficial to add engagement attacks on approach for reach weapons (if this does happen it is completely lost to me in the combat log), especially considering this would be the only incentive a fighter would have to use them with the current ability set. A fighter should feel unique based on every weapon/shield combination they have. It would be nice to have a weapon/shield set for the stupid AI creatures that attack the first thing that engages them, a pike for enemies like barbarians who will run for the back line by having massive engagement circles and maybe multiple engagement attacks, dual wield speed weapons for high interrupt, etc. This would allow them to be adaptive(and in someways traditional) and give a character a reason to have more than one in the party, not to mention make the class have some flavor beyond cardboard. I see modals, as they are, to differentiate them from barbarians. Right now modals 'sacrifice offense for defense' and barbarian abilities 'sacrifice defense for offense'. The biggest difference is that barbarians are built around carnage and per encounter/rest abilities that last a fraction of the battle. I think to keep the difference between fighters and barbarians still strong, eliminate the sacrificial portion of fighter modals; this would allow some offensive ones to be placed that could still keep them from trumping the barbarians and allow for a flare to fighters.

I do think they need to work on aoe size. If you include in the range/fog of war/zoom/non targetable areas than targeting an aoe can be painful and less effective. An example of this: I was attempting to cast a druid spell(I believe the swarm spell) on the group of bandits attempting to get the egg. This druid has a maxed out intelligence so the aoe was massive. The cliff wall was not target able as a location to cast the spell so I had to constantly shift the aoe around to hit the most enemies without hitting my party. I had to settle for an aoe that only hit the caster and two-handed sword bandit. In the end if the druid had an intelligence of 5 I probably could have landed the aoe at the base of the cliff and hit all the enemies while sparing my people. An increase in duration should always be advantageous in standard battle, but an increased aoe size is highly situational. I don't know how viable it is, but I really think for it to be good to be able to toggle the aoe size from the spell base up to what your characters intelligence allows. Range CAN be a factor in this, but other things influence targeting aoes.

Still some bugs to work through that hamper gameplay and feedback more than I would like. However, this is an overall more satisfying experience. I am actually able to consistently receive experience which is nice to see how classes progress. I played on normal for a complete run through. I had a barbarian and a chanter adventurer among the BB core group. The 2nd level heal over time of the priest combined with the negative effects suppressor was able to hold off multiple stacks of poison on my characters. I encountered two problems which made combat worse, but still manageable - DT seems to grow on enemies. During multiple encounters with humanoid targets people would only take 1 damage or a fraction of damage from every attack with the exception of some spells. Multiple enemies teleported across the screen on me - the spiders were really bad about this. Certain damage over time effects such as deep wounds would continue damaging health after a character was knocked out - I would be ok with this if healing spells would continue to work on characters when they are knocked out. Still plenty of progress to be made, but I'm beginning to feel a level of the IE experience.

Is there enough of a conflict that they can just create an option when creating a new game where you get kill xp and maybe 10% of the normal quest xp? I'm highly neutral on the topic - no combat xp feeling unrewarding based on the current display of creature drops in beta being my biggest argument for. Ultimately when everyone is sitting a the final quest within a few levels of each other(if not capped) and very similar items it really doesn't matter to me how I got there. Not sure how practical a combat xp option would be sitting next to the trial by iron, but I'm looking forward to this debate being put to rest with the least amount of unhappy people around when it comes time to back a second game.

I'd like to start off by thanking Sensuki for all the time and effort he has put into quality feedback for this game. I think it is passion like that driving next generations of classic games. I'll reference the video as much as possible and apologize now if some of the points I'm bringing up are obvious to others or already discussed in other threads. The first thing I'd like to address is weapon/spell speeds and how they affect interrupt. In the IE games each spell and weapon was assigned a number which represented how quickly an item would go in a given round. For example, this allowed me to utilize quick spells such as magic missile to interrupt other casters. I feel like some of the interrupt mechanics would be fixed if they allowed the duration of the interrupt reset to directly correspond with the speed of the weapon. A bow/dagger causing an immediate cycle of the animation where as a greatsword/blunderbus would cause a 2 second delay or such. I think also assigning specific numbers would help instead of listing average as a speed - which is what every weapon I've found in the game has said. I also think the flow of combat speeds and rounds was more intuitive for players. I love the idea of folding deflection into the attributes, specifically under dexterity. I think combining accuracy with interruption in perception might balance out the mathematical weaknesses of both dex and perception. I feel like a lot of classes right now when not set up defensively cannot take any hits. In IE games some classes took hits better than the others based on progression, but I don't recall there being as big a disparity outside of the first few levels. I could see recovery time being an option but only if I had any idea on how the pacing is intended in combat(goes back to weapon/spell speeds for me/no round system). I'm still very lost on what resolve could both reasonably function as in combat and provide a level of balance... maybe player buffs/enemy debuff strengths? I think it is interesting that you referenced Dragon Age at one point. I think that even though it is a different engine, in a lot of ways it is a spiritual successor to the same games. My biggest thing is I feel like the spatial reasoning of enemies in combat was MUCH better. They would move into spaces that would be reasonable to fight in similar to what a lot of pnp games have done with a grid system. I was really hoping the cluster f*** feel of IE games would be fixed in this game with clever use of enemy AI and improved mechanics, but so far beta hasn't shown me this. I very much agree with you on the core classes: The current fighter, both BB and any I have made, is limited to ability sets that make them melee damage takers. Using the current party make-up I have not been able to use the BB fighter any other way without significant resource cost to the rest of the party if not tpk. You're right when you say that IE games let you have the survivability class of the fighter with the different weapon choices of placement. Giving a fighter boots of speed and a dagger could rock a caster with just auto-attack and not feel boring while the sword and shield fighter could use the environment to bottleneck enemies better than what the engagement system offers. I've done some other builds with the wizard that I think could be good. But I run into a lot of targeting issues or the aoe/current state of combat issues. I think a melee wizard would be awesome, but they run into the same issue of most of their spells being combat based. By the time I set up the vampiric staff and defense buffs the battle is almost over. Not to mention these are per/rest abilities that last a minute real time. Many of the defense spells in the IE games lasted entire dungeons real time. The priests I not only think are dull but I think way under-powered. In IE games they added to the survivability of entire dungeon delves and exploration as well as resurrection options. Now they can do heals on a quickly regenerating resource. This makes most of their spells only helpful in combat and even then, trumped by individual class abilities. A barbarian has a HoT that is per/encounter and heals as much as the third level priest ability. A paladin's lay on hands also has a HoT effect that makes it, in many ways, better than priest heals. Their wards can be very nice offensive spells since you can pre-set them where your fighter will be and they don't have friendly fire(unlike the wizard spells). The rogue I would say is lost without the non-combat advantageous of previous games. You felt the lack of a thief in all the other games every time you missed out on a chest or got blasted over and over by traps. They weren't a huge combat staple unless you could buff them correctly but could be decent wherever you put them. Again, it is a class where auto attack wasn't a bad thing. I've straight up not used the rogue in PE battles and not noticed a real difference in damage output. This is another area where I feel like giving the numerical values would help players a lot in knowing how to fully utilize the class. Just saying any status ailment allows a rogue to do more damage isn't very helpful. I was wondering if you could elaborate on your monk experience some. When I played as a monk I found myself just auto-attacking if I was using the BB fighter correctly. This meant all of those wound abilities were lost. You also mentioned playing the cipher a lot, but vague on details. I found the cipher abilities all over the place. Some of the damage dealing abilities are worthless while some of the others do insane amounts of damage. The name eludes me, but the single target 'soul burn' third level ability comes to mind. It did 40 damage a second for 15 seconds - or there about. They just seem to have very few abilities and only a few you use over and over out of what you can select. I understand if you don't mention the classes much since they have stated many of the numeric values, talents, etc are in flux. I was just wondering your opinion on what you've played. Something you didn't mention, that I've wondered what other people of thought about is involving the scout mode. Does it bug anyone else that the enemies perception is circle-based and not cone-based from point of view.

The only reason I don't like this system is because battles consume resources and nothing in the beta suggests that monsters will give out run or exciting items will counter balance the resource expenditure. While this lends to the stealthy people or those who don't want to battle everything on the map to optimize leveling, this actually punishes the people who want their gaming experience to be battle based. So I feel like instead of rewarding people for fighting system it is a make people pay(in gaming resources/player time for town runs to rest) if they want to fight everything system. I can see two things fixing this: one being quests people can to by submitting resources - /10 beetle shells or something like that or or two being a really in depth item creation and maintenance system. Right now MOST things hardly pay out enough cp for you to reset your abilities and health, however, some things drop items worth several of your resources. So if people are going to want to power game(which is what not giving xp out is to avoid, from my understanding) people are going to say "skip that lion, skip that lion, fight that lion so I can get to the feral druids". I don't feel like every play style is possible to reward equally, so this game should stick to its roots and just give experience. In paper and pencil games GMs can give out xp for creative use of player skills and abilities or even give out partial xp rewards to navigating monsters, which I don't see being possible to implement in a video game.